The Company of Saints (34 page)

Davina didn't come down till her mother and Colin were sitting outside. Mrs Graham took the opportunity when they were alone to say, ‘Colin dear, I'm worried about Davina. She doesn't look at all herself. Is she working too hard?'

‘She has been under a lot of stress lately,' he said. ‘But being here will do her the world of good. It's sweet of you to have us. And don't forget I'm very domesticated, and I really would like to make myself useful. So give me some jobs to do, won't you?'

She smiled and patted him on the arm. ‘Thank you, Colin. You are very kind. I'm quite well set up, you know. Financially too. Fergus left me everything, including the house. With something to Charlie, of course.'

She lowered her voice. ‘I was rather surprised. You know how much he adored Charlie. I expected to have a life interest and the rest to go to her.'

‘Well, I'm glad he didn't do it that way,' Colin answered. ‘He didn't mention Davina?'

‘No, I'm afraid not,' her mother said sadly. ‘And she was so good about it. She never asked to see the will or even mentioned it. I shall put that right, of course. But don't say anything to her about it.'

‘I won't,' he said. ‘Here she is. What can I get you, darling? White wine?'

‘That would be lovely.' She stretched out in the garden chair, resting her head against the cushions. It was very hot, but then the south side of the house had always been a sun trap. Nothing changed here, even though her father was dead. The old house and its magnificent garden breathed a life independent of the people in it. They died or moved but it remained, as the centuries ran on.

She half listened to her mother – Colin was talking to her, all she had to do was say a word now and then. They got on so well. She thought back to their first meeting, and remembered thinking what an abrupt, chip-on-the-shoulder type he was. Her father and mother had liked him from the moment they were introduced. When he seemed to have only a few months to live, they had taken him in and cared for him as if he had been their own son. That was another thing her father never forgave her for: refusing to marry Colin and settle down. She didn't want to think of her father. It was easy for outsiders to say that people grew up and came to terms with the sorrows of childhood. Her only brother was killed after the war and there were the two girls left. Beautiful, winning Charlotte Graham, and the shy, reserved Davina, always in her sister's shadow. Awkward, prickly and uncommunicative. No wonder he gravitated to the bright star that did him so much credit. He called his younger child by the nickname she used for herself when she was too young to pronounce her own name properly. Charlie. But he never saw her as anything but vulnerable and feminine. He hadn't loved Davina, and whatever she did, he preferred what her sister represented. The clinging sex symbol – every man's little-girl ideal, who had to be protected and adored.

Davina sat up. She hadn't appealed to Ivan Sasanov. The memories were suddenly crowding back. She no longer heard the voices of her mother and Colin. Ivan had come to Marchwood with her. She had been in love with him, and accepted that, as soon as he saw Charlie, that would be the end of it. His words came back to her too. Spoken in her bedroom upstairs after they had made love for the first time.

‘I don't find her attractive. I want a woman who can give. She only takes.'

Lomax hadn't been interested in her either. To be fair, she hadn't tried very hard. Just gone through the motions of flirtation which were as natural to her as breathing. And also she was happily married. And Davina had destroyed that marriage. It was the first time Charlie had been really hurt or known what it meant to suffer.

Davina saw the little boy trotting towards them across the lawns, holding the nanny's hand. Charlie had her child. Davina's had never had the chance to live.

‘Fergie?' her mother called out. ‘Come to Granny, darling. Come and say hello to your Aunt Davina.'

He was an enchanting little boy. Last time she had seen him was after her father's funeral. She took him on her knee and he wound his arms round her neck and kissed her. She felt her face flush. It wouldn't take much to make her cry if she didn't stop this morbid reflection on the past. She glanced up and saw Colin looking at her. ‘Here, Fergie,' she said defiantly, throwing the unspoken challenge back at him, ‘go to Granny now.' For a reason she didn't understand, Lomax grinned.

It was a lovely afternoon. She went for a walk, then settled into the swingseat Lomax had brought out and erected, and dozed till teatime. She still wore a scarf to hide the bruises. Her voice was back to normal, and the last check-up had said she was fit and there would be no lasting ill effects.

Humphrey asked for help from the Moscow Embassy, and they were waiting impatiently for more than the usual rather pained acknowledgement of their request for information. Davina had added a note of her own to the Ambassador, stressing that this could provide vital information needed to break an organization known as the Company of Saints. In the meantime, Russia was without an elected leader. Zerkhov's deputy stayed on as caretaker. He was an old man in his late seventies, a puppet who had done what Zerkhov wanted; someone who would be glad to step down and retire from public life. It was a time of hiatus, and ideal for Davina to take the rest she needed. Only for a few days, a long weekend at the most, she insisted to Lomax. She couldn't be out of the office when the new leader of Russia was elected. It seemed certain now that Mishkoyan would be chosen. And that meant that a new and even more ruthless phase would begin in the intelligence war between East and West.

Twenty-four people were arrested in the Semenov Institute of Psychiatric Medicine. Eight officers in the External Affairs section and three in the Internal Security division of the KGB were taken in to the Lubyanka for questioning. And in Moscow and Leningrad a number of men and women were removed from their offices and homes and sent to the main prison hospital outside Moscow. It was done with speed and without attracting attention. The disciples of Ma-Nang were gathered in, and Borisov reckoned that Russia was safe at last.

He was curious to know exactly how they had recruited his bodyguard Alexei. He himself had called him a killing machine. And innocently given him the opportunity to murder Nikolaev by sending him to Poland. The Company of Saints. It was typical of the sinister cast of the founder's mind. A sick, cruel mind, poisoned in its contempt for the values that even Borisov considered essential to a civilized world. He would hold the trial in private, as soon as the election was over and the political situation stabilized. There would be no public exposure, no leak to the outside world. Borisov was a student of Roman history. He knew what penalty to impose. The destroyer would be forced to destroy himself.

But there was one serious problem that had to be resolved. Thinking about it angered Borisov more than anything else he had discovered. And it had to be rectified, or there would be terrible repercussions. He had an idea that appealed to him. A very unorthodox idea, but it wouldn't be possible to implement it later. Also a chance to satisfy an old curiosity. For a long time now, he had wondered what Davina Graham was really like.

‘It's unheard of,' Humphrey exclaimed. ‘You can't possibly agree to it.'

‘I agree,' Tim Johnson said. ‘The Foreign Secretary may not be our favourite man at times, but I think he's right about this.'

‘Just because it's never been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't at least be considered,' Davina retorted. ‘Look, I know what's getting to both of you. What happened at Welton isn't going to hem me in for the rest of my life. If they wanted to have a go at me again, they could do it any time. On my way here, in my flat – anywhere. I'm not going to give up on this. As for Hilton, he's so anti-Soviet he's practically paranoid. I've made up my mind. But I'll leave the final decision to the Prime Minister. If Number 10 says no, then I can't argue. If they give me discretion, which I think they will, then I'm going to Stockholm to meet him. I shall try to get an appointment this afternoon. Now let's get on with the dull routine, shall we?'

When they had left her office she didn't get down to work at once. It was an extraordinary proposal. Unprecedented, as Humphrey had pointed out. An invitation, passed through the British Embassy in Moscow and relayed direct to the SIS, for Miss Graham to meet Igor Borisov in Stockholm. To discuss matters of mutual concern to their countries and their own organizations. He had offered full guarantees for her safety and asked for the same for himself.

‘There is no way,' Davina maintained, ‘short of a direct order from the Prime Minister, that I can refuse to go. And besides,' this was to Colin Lomax, ‘I want to. I want to meet Igor Borisov face to face. And I think he feels the same about me. For the same reason.'

‘And what is your reason?' Colin demanded. ‘What possible good can it do you to compromise yourself with our NATO allies to make personal contact with the head of the KGB, a man who could even be the boss of the whole Soviet world in two days' time!'

‘He had Sasanov killed,' Davina said. ‘I've fought him in the dark for five years. Now I want to see him, just as I see you. Don't try and stop me, Colin, because you can't. You can come with me, but that's as far as I'll go.'

They caught the ten o'clock flight from Heathrow. Two of MacNeil's men from Special Branch travelled with them. They went tourist on her insistence. No VIP treatment, nothing to draw attention. Ordinary passengers on a scheduled flight to Stockholm. The meeting had been arranged on neutral ground. The headquarters of the Red Cross.

The flight took just over two hours. They were met by an embassy car – not an official car but the privately owned Simka of the assistant to the second secretary. ‘Welcome to Stockholm,' he said. He had been told he was escorting a group of officials from the British Red Cross. He thought they were unenthusiastic about the sights of the city that he pointed out. Glum and boring. He enjoyed his posting and liked Stockholm. The drinking laws were a nuisance but there were other compensations. Like the Swedish girls. Beautiful was an understatement. And he wasn't a drinking man as it happened.

‘Well,' he said, and he didn't hide his relief at getting rid of them, ‘here we are. I'll leave you at the entrance if you don't mind. Parking is such a problem at this time of day.'

Inside the building they were met by a member of the British Embassy staff. Trade councillor was his official position. He was in fact the head of ‘C' – and responsible for intelligence inside the Embassy. Davina introduced him to Colin Lomax and the two Special Branch officers. He summed up all three with a look. The lady had brought protection. So had her Russian counterpart. ‘They're in through here,' he said quietly. ‘Everything's been checked. If you'll follow me, Miss Graham.'

They had set aside a pleasant ground-floor room that overlooked a garden. There were three men inside – one sitting, two standing close. When she came in, the seated man got up. There had been a photograph of him on file, taken many years ago when he was attaché at a foreign embassy. She had studied it for some feature that would distinguish him from the other Soviet diplomat-spies, and found nothing. A round, unremarkable face with nondescript features. Nothing to fix in the memory.

He was taller than she had expected. Quite burly, as if his middle years were telling. Hair that had been fair and turning grey. Brown eyes, a wide mouth and a short nose. And wearing an overpadded Russian jacket and too wide trousers.

For a long, silent interval they looked at each other.

And this, Borisov said to himself, is the woman who has caused me so much trouble for so long. This is the adversary that wrecked my operation in Mexico. The woman who got promoted for exposing the most valuable traitor we had in place since Philby. I got promoted for killing her husband, the defector Sasanov. She is not my idea of beauty. But she must have been for him.

‘I am Igor Borisov,' he said. He had a deep voice and his English came easily.

‘And you know who I am,' she replied.

He nodded. ‘I am pleased you decided to come. I will send my companions away. It is better that we talk alone.'

‘I'll do the same,' she answered. She opened her bag and took out a cigarette. He lit it up for her with a heavy American lighter.

‘I have seen photographs of you,' he said. ‘But they are not like you.'

‘I've only seen one of you,' she remarked. ‘A very old one, when you were in Cairo. It's not like you either. General, I can't stay in Sweden more than a few hours. What is the purpose of our meeting?'

To her surprise he smiled slightly. ‘If I said curiosity about you, would you believe that?'

‘No. You wouldn't waste your time, or mine.'

‘But I have been curious to meet you,' he said. ‘Shall we sit down? People in our positions work against each other for years and never speak face to face.'

‘Perhaps it's just as well,' Davina answered. ‘We can't afford to see the other side as human beings.'

‘I agree with you. But I have had to see you in that way ever since the attempt to kill you. I have been very disturbed by it.'

Davina said coolly, ‘It disturbed me too. I had believed you were responsible for these people until it happened. Afterwards I wasn't sure.'

‘That's why I asked you to meet me,' he said. ‘I want to tell you that I had no knowledge of it, and I would never have allowed it to happen. The people concerned have been arrested and will be punished. What have you done with the girl – France was her code name, wasn't it?'

You
have
arrested them, Davina thought. And broken them if you know that.

‘She went mad,' she answered. ‘Completely lost her mind. Apparently she thought she was strangling her mother. You also know how it was arranged? About the bracelet?'