The Avenue of the Dead (47 page)

‘It was supposed to be a don who did the recruiting,' Lomax said. ‘I'll bet he was still there in Kidson's time.… Listen, darling, I know you don't want to hear all this, but you've got to. Let me ask you one question, and then I'll shut up. If you thought Kidson was guilty, what would you do?'

Davina lit a cigarette. She didn't want to remember her husband, Ivan Sasanov, or the night he was assassinated. She wanted to answer Lomax honestly and objectively. If she thought of Sasanov and of others who had suffered, then she had to balance it with Charlie's happiness and the baby Fergus. None of which was right. If she had to make a decision, it had to be influenced by nothing but her professional allegiance and her patriotism. ‘If it is John,' she said at last, ‘I'd do exactly the same as for Humphrey or James White. I'd turn him in.'

‘That's what I thought,' Colin said gently. ‘And you'd be right. Whoever this joker is, he hasn't shown any qualms about you. Now, sweetheart, seeing as you're tired and worried, I'm going to make a few suggestions. Say nothing to Grant about the files. I'll give him his key back and say we're working on them. I won't sound hopeful. And let me talk to Harrington next time you go. Put your feet up and listen. I've got an idea.'

‘Why on earth do you want to meet Tony Walden, James?'

The brigadier saw the frown on his wife's face and said pleasantly, ‘Because he's a very interesting man, my dear. Born in Poland, did you know that?'

‘No,' Mary White said. ‘All I know about him is what I read in that nasty gossip column in the
Mail
. He sounds the last sort of person you'd have anything in common with!'

‘You mustn't take any notice of all that business about yachts and whizz-kids buzzing around in a private plane. That just sells newspapers. I know it's a bore for you to spend an extra day in London, darling, but I promise you it'll be quite amusing.'

She looked at him and said sharply, ‘James, you're up to your tricks again. I've been married to you for thirty years, and I know perfectly well that it won't be amusing and I shan't enjoy it, but you want to meet this man, and that's why we're going. And if I have to cope with Mrs Walden, you'll have to pay for a new dinner dress!'

‘I'll be only too delighted,' he said, and laughed. ‘You're quite right of course, Mary. It is business, in a way. I can put the dress down to expenses!'

She laughed too. They had a very close relationship, and in spite of her unpretentious, domesticated life in their Kent house, she was sharply intelligent and very well informed. She had been exceptionally pretty as a girl, but James White would never have married a fool. His associates would have been amazed at how much he confided in her about his work.

‘What is your interest in Walden then?' she asked him.

James White locked his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out towards the fire. The late April evenings were still cold. ‘You know Davina Graham is working for him?'

‘How should I know? You didn't mention it. What a funny job for her. I can't see her selling things.'

‘Nor can I,' her husband remarked. ‘I can't see her in that kind of world at all. Publishing, perhaps; or one of the quieter professions. She's the last type of woman to enjoy a life of hustle and bustle and high living. I don't see her on the famous yacht, do you?'

‘No, I don't,' his wife said. ‘Not that I ever knew her well. A very reserved girl, even as a child, wasn't she? Now if it were Charlie!' They both smiled at the idea. They had known Captain Graham and his family for many years; it was an intermittent friendship, interrupted by service postings, but easy to resume however long the intervals. And it was James White who had seen the potential in the clever, introverted Davina Graham and asked her to work for him.

‘Yes, Charlie would have fitted in beautifully,' he agreed. ‘Amazing how she's settled down to married life with John. Personally I gave it about six months before she bolted with someone else. I will never, ever, understand your sex, my dear.'

‘I should hope not,' his wife said. ‘If you're dragging me up to London to meet Walden, I suppose you won't tell me the real reason?'

‘I'm not sure what it is, yet,' he answered. ‘There are several things I'm curious about at the moment, and the connection between Davina and a man like Tony Walden is one of them.'

‘And what about the others? Anything I may know?'

‘I have never kept secrets from you, my dear. Only state secrets. And there's nothing secret about my retirement.'

‘You haven't the slightest intention of retiring,' his wife said firmly, ‘so don't talk nonsense.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not.' He smiled at the fire and stretched again. ‘But I hadn't realized until the other day how much John Kidson wants my job! Good Lord, it's past eleven – time for bed.'

‘He'd need it,' Mary White said, getting up and tidying the paper and collecting their coffee cups. ‘Charlie must be a pretty expensive wife to keep!'

‘I don't think that's the reason,' her husband said. ‘I think it's just naked ambition. And he's kept it hidden all these years. I'll put the lights out and lock up.' Methodically he locked the doors and checked that the locks were down on the windows.

It had taken some manoeuvring to arrange a meeting with Tony Walden. They had a mutual friend, a senior partner in one of the City's prestigious broking firms. James hinted and his friend set up a dinner party in London which was arranged round the Waldens. Mary was very good about that sort of thing, he thought affectionately. She loathed going to London and the kind of superficial, overmoneyed company round their host's table would be a genuine bore to her. He hoped she chose a really nice dinner dress. The remark about expenses had been a joke, but it was time she had something new.

They switched out their bedroom lights, but James White didn't sleep for a long time. He was not a person who indulged in memories unless they had a bearing on the present. He was the most unsentimental man alive, and he said it as a boast. His enemies, and some of his friends, insisted that he was also the most heartless and unscrupulous head of British Intelligence since its Elizabethan founder, Walsingham.

That night, lying awake in the darkness, Mary curled up peacefully beside him, James White deliberately looked back. A distinguished Army career had ended prematurely when he was at the Ministry of Defence and the approach was made to him to head SIS. He had taken over a demoralized mess, with a man suspected of Soviet sympathies slinking into retirement. White smiled a little, thinking of the morning he took over the office in the house in Queen Anne's Gate.

He could have risen to the rank of full general if he had stayed in the Army. The salary at SIS did not compare, nor did the pension. And he wasn't a rich man by any means. The speed of his acceptance surprised the people who had offered him the job. The Mandarins, as they were known, moved at a stately pace themselves; the Army relinquished him with regret, and a new life of secrecy and intrigue began for him at the age of forty-seven. He was well fitted for it, he said to himself; he had a natural bent for political trends and a knowledge far beyond that of the average Army officer of his rank. He spoke three languages fluently, and had passed out of staff college with the highest marks seen in twenty years. He was a very clever man with a peculiar twist to his personality; nobody, not even his wife, who was very dear to him, understood what the twist was. He had always found it difficult to understand it in himself, and he had tried to over the years. It had shaped his life.

He loved to deceive. He loved to baffle and bemuse and mislead his fellow human beings. He loved the world of lies as the alcoholic loves drink and the gambler needs to lose to be satisfied. He couldn't help himself. He had sometimes said that inside every man or woman there was a mainspring that kept them alive and directed their lives. Once that was broken, they soon died. His mainspring was a passion for deception. And when he retired, his mainspring would be broken. Or need it be? Until the moment of decision came, he could manipulate and mould the future through the weakness and ambition of the two men who hoped to succeed him. And then there was Davina Graham. Thinking of her, he gave a little sigh. Capture by the KGB, the death of Sasanov and a miscarriage – in spite of all these blows, her mainspring was unbroken. She had retired once before, and he had manoeuvred her into going back to work. Now she had retired again. Or so she said. She had given up her work to nurse her lover, who was dying. Only he hadn't died; he'd recovered from a remarkable operation and was very well indeed. And she was acting as personal assistant to a former Polish refugee who had turned himself into a ready-made Englishman at the head of a huge advertising empire.

Retired. James White didn't believe it. Somebody was using Davina as he had used her. And he intended to find out who it was. Instinctively he knew it would be connected to Tony Walden. On that final reflection, he fell asleep.

The night staff went off duty as the day staff came in. The security guard was hanging up his coat and preparing to go home when John Kidson approached him in his cubicle off the hall. He didn't know Kidson, and he hadn't been at what was known as the office more than three months, but he recognized what he privately called ‘management' when he saw one.

‘Good morning – you're just going off, I see.'

‘Morning, sir. I'm signing out now.'

‘Yes, of course. I'm early this morning. You saw Miss Graham last night?' The inquiry was made in Kidson's most beguiling way; he was smiling and casual, asking rather an obvious question.

The security guard hesitated. ‘No, sir? There isn't a Miss Graham in the building. I know everybody's name. Which reminds me – can I see your ID card, sir, please?'

Kidson laughed. ‘Well done, you. Course you can.' He produced the little grey card with its photograph and signature. ‘You don't have to worry. I signed the book when I came in.' His eyes said kindly, ‘I'm not checking up on you, old chap. I know you're doing your job.'

‘Thank you, sir. Regarding your inquiry –'

‘Oh, Christ,' Kidson said to himself, ‘he'll ask about my vehicle next.' Aloud he said, ‘Yes, Miss Graham. Didn't she come in last night? About nine o'clock.'

‘A Miss Burgess came to see the duty officer.' The reply was stiff and much on the defensive. ‘She had a pass and she signed the book, sir. In and out.'

‘That's my mistake then,' Kidson said, and shrugged. ‘I thought Miss Graham was coming. Very blonde young lady.' He gave almost a wink. ‘Very nice looking indeed. You certainly wouldn't mistake her.'

‘I wouldn't mistake anyone who came in while I was on duty, sir.'

‘Oh, Jesus H. Christ,' Kidson murmured inwardly, using one of the odd American blasphemies he'd picked up in Washington. And then his faith in the stupidity of human nature was restored.

‘Miss Burgess was certainly not blonde; sir. Sort of browny ginger.'

‘Definitely a different girl,' Kidson said lightly. ‘I'll bet the duty officer was disappointed.'

‘I wouldn't know, sir. I'll be getting off home now. I'm ten minutes late and I'll miss my bus.'

The reply was stony and disapproving. Jokes like that were not made by senior officers or bloody management or whatever they were called in his new outfit. He wasn't familiar and he didn't like people who were.

Kidson said pleasantly, ‘Thank you. Good morning.'

It was easy to flip through the night book. There were the usual signatures. Security. Telephone and telex operator. Duty officer. And one almost illegible scrawl. She'd done a good job of disguising her own rather sharp handwriting. This was little more than a flat pen stroke with a line underneath it.

‘You bitch,' he said to himself. ‘You lying, devious bitch – what the hell are you up to?' And the answer was too simple. Angling for the brigadier's job. Going out on her own on some head hunt which would put her ahead of him and Humphrey. He had always liked Davina. Admired her professionalism and respected that steely integrity which was her trademark as an operative and as a person. But he had never thought of her as a woman, never connected her as bone and blood with his beautiful wife, and didn't want to see any resemblance. Two men had loved her, and Kidson couldn't for the life of him see why. But he realized how a man could hate her so that the bile of it burned his throat.

In his office he sorted his letters and memos, glanced briefly at the appointments book which his secretary had left ready and found he couldn't concentrate. Should he go and see Humphrey, alert him? He pushed his chair back and took a deep breath. Was he taking too much for granted because Charlie had seen her sister coming out of the little yard that led to nowhere? He had dismissed the signature as a forgery because he had made up his mind that no such person as Miss Burgess existed … and yet the name suddenly rang a bell. Of course, there had been a Miss Burgess who worked as a secretary and had left three or four years ago, he couldn't quite remember – he couldn't picture her in his mind either. Browny ginger was a non-description, a negative response to his suggestion that the woman was a blonde. The whole thing could just be the product of his own irritable suspicions. Just. He looked at his watch. He might catch the duty officer before he left. The security staff always arrived and went off earlier than the clerical.

‘Jim?'

‘Oh, morning, sir.'

‘Any dramas in the night?'

‘No, nice and peaceful. There'll never be a nuclear attack while I'm on duty.'

‘That's good to know. By the way, did you see Miss Burgess? She said she might come over last night.'

He saw the other man's head begin to shake, and his stomach lurched once. It was his particular alarm signal.