The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (12 page)

I realised that they must know of my links to Willy and the British Security Services. Naturally they did not like that. Their aim was, no doubt, to suborn me. At least, Myrex would give me a bear hug, an embrace from which it would be impossible to escape. That way, even if I went on with my intelligence work, they could know what I was doing. I wished, at that point, I could have talked to Mark. I needed consultation and advice; but it was not possible. Of course, in a sense, Arne was right. To write a book, say on the emergence of the Baltic states into democratic Europe, would have satisfied my altruistic ambitions for writing. He was a tempting devil.

Our conversation continued. Arne showed no surprise that I did not waver, that I gave no ground, and that I appeared determined to work as I had been doing for so long. He did not become exasperated or hasten the meal to its end. He remained calm, and changed the subject to the state of the British economy. What was it like for entrepreneurs? From the evidence he could see in Newcastle, they were doing well. Were there special tax concessions that helped them? Why was there not the same encouragement, for example, in Germany? We discussed various theories and analysed the health of the EC. What would happen to Britain and the euro? At the same time, as we talked, I was conscious of his acute scepticism of my view of journalism. He did not believe in my position. It was clear that he could not conceive that I could be sincere. To hold to that faith, anyone would have to be naïve. That was his belief. It did not worry him. I had the conviction that he was confident that I would come round to his view in the fullness of time: there was no need for great hurry. There was something dangerous about the man, and it was the first time that it really struck me. He was like a cobra, holding me in his sight, patient, venomous, waiting for the right moment to strike. There was no rush for him.

We finished the evening with a fine malt whisky, a sixteen-year-old Lagavulin. He had asked me what I recommended and fortunately the restaurant kept that whisky. When we parted, he repeated his offer to me in the form of advice.

‘If I were you, I should think seriously about what Myrex can give you. It would be to your great advantage. You would find your way of life infinitely preferable to the way you lead it now.’ He spoke as if he knew the intimate details of my private life, and, who knows, perhaps he did. For some reason, an image of the winking West Indian in my Olympia pub crossed my mind. Had he a Myrex connection? Maybe it was that knowledge that gave Arne an advantage over me. I thanked him but maintained my position.

‘Well, we must stay in touch,’ he said. ‘If you change your mind, just contact me. In any case, we should meet from time to time. On the personal level, I enjoy your company. I enjoy talking to you.’

I thought that confession strange. I tried to work out what part of his strategy it belonged to, but failed. It occurred to me that he was genuine in the admission that he liked meeting me. It was an aspect of the man. Nevertheless, I still retained a strong feeling that what affected him personally in terms of friendship would always be secondary to his Myrex loyalty. He was like a spy whose allegiance to his country was paramount. Family and friends took second place. So, although I did not trust the man, I thanked him for the evening, told him how much I had enjoyed myself, and promised that I would stay in touch. He gave me a mobile telephone number by which I could always reach him. He stressed that it was very much restricted and that I should pass it on to no one. Again, I thanked him, this time for his confidence. He meant me to feel a privileged person.

We walked back across the Millennium Bridge to his hotel. The Malmaison was brightly lit, and an elegant woman escorted by a tall Chinese-looking man was just going in. The height of the man was unusual for a Chinese and I drew the conclusion that he must have been brought up on the West Coast of America where, after two or three generations, the diet makes immigrant Japanese and Chinese taller than their native countrymen. Sure enough, when I heard him speak, it was with a marked American accent. I said goodnight to Arne, we shook hands, and I walked away towards the city centre and my own hotel.

At around 7.30 the following morning, the phone by my bedside rang. I woke disoriented. The splendid malt of the night before had made me sleep deeply. I recovered myself, and reached out to take the call. Naturally I wondered who could be calling me in the hotel, especially at that early hour. Arne immediately came to mind. He knew where I was: I even had the feeling that he always knew where I was.

‘Pel. I hope I haven’t woken you too early, but I’ve a busy day.’ It was Mark. I had given him my hotel number as a sort of precaution. It is always necessary to have cover for one’s advance. Military tactics are as important in intelligence as they are in infantry attacks. I swallowed a gulp of water from the glass on my table and said, ‘Good to hear you, Mark. I’m afraid I’m a little mentally impaired by some malt whisky I had last night. Never mind, I’ll get over it.’

‘You lucky beast,’ he retorted. ‘Is everything going well? What have you managed to find out? Has Arne enlightened you?’

‘I’ve not got very far. But Arne’s an interesting case. Myrex seem to want to buy me. They must be on to me. Arne has, in a sense, fired a first salvo, warning shots, I should think. He suggested I write a book. Myrex would keep me. What do you think of that?’

Mark was surprised, fascinated, and said he had been right to warn me to be careful. He asked what I was going to do next. I told him that I regarded myself as privileged because of my connection with Raoul through Roxanne.

‘I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have Roxanne as an insurance policy.’

‘Probably with the dead American in Tallinn docks, or at the bottom of the Thames,’ he responded. ‘It depends how much of a nuisance they think you are. I don’t like it though. Organised crime is thoroughly ruthless. Basically people like you and me don’t matter in the least. National governments tend to be more discriminating and bureaucratic in their eliminations.’

I knew he was right and I knew I was at great risk. In all probability, he was too.

‘Well, there we are. That’s the position I’m in. There’s nothing I can do about it. But this is interesting. On another level, I think Arne likes me. He likes talking to me. In a different world we could be good friends. I think he wants me to keep in touch just for conversational companionship. Odd, isn’t it?’

Mark, loyal as ever in his friendship, said, ‘No surprise there. Of course anyone in his right mind would want you as a friend. It’s useful though. It might compromise him and help you. We’ll see. Be careful.’

‘I learned nothing from him about what’s happening in Tallinn, nothing about the American. He gave nothing away. I only learned a little about him; but I suppose it was worth it.’

Mark’s schedule that day was awesome. He was meeting some German institutional investors in the morning at the offices of a merchant bank in the City, talking to an analyst at twelve in a champagne bar in Old Street, lunching at the Groucho, and then going on to the
Evening Standard
to talk to a journalist on the financial pages and to watch the pages being put to bed for the late edition. We agreed to meet at our pub on the riverside later in the evening. That gave me the second of two things that I could look forward to. The other was to find out if Roxanne was still at the Connaught.

I was back in London by midday. There was no point in staying in Newcastle any longer although I had taken a liking to the city. It was friendly, hospitable: in the short time I had been there, I had begun to feel at home. I drafted a short article on culture in the North East, wrote enthusiastically about the Baltic Centre, and finished reading that week’s
Economist
.

I first went to the
Journal
and finalised my draft and filed the copy. Then I phoned the Connaught. Sure enough Roxanne was still booked in, although she was out. The desk told me that she had left a message. The receptionist asked, ‘May I ask who is calling?’

I replied, ‘It’s Mr Pelham Rigby.’

‘Mrs Gimenez has left a message for you. She has been expecting you to call for the past two days. She says that this afternoon she is shopping. She’s going to Harvey Nichols and then to Harrods. She expects to be back here around five o’clock.’

‘Thank you. Tell her I’ll telephone about six.’ For a moment when I heard the name Mrs Gimenez, I wondered who she was, so rarely did I hear Raoul’s surname. So far as I was concerned, Roxanne was Roxanne: like Arne, she should have no other name. The reality was different. She was Mrs Gimenez, Raoul’s wife, and the Connaught would not allow me to forget it. I imagined her in those two chic shops. She would be in the cosmetics halls, sampling Laura Mercier make-up, trying out Jo Malone eye shadows, spending ages choosing Clinique moisturisers, and spraying herself with Chanel Number 5. Roxanne took care of herself. Raoul was careless of expense. Anything that enhanced her in his and the world’s eyes was advantageous investment. As I stood in the drab, workaday offices of the
Journal
, I thought how much I would have liked to be with her then. My mind visualised her snuggling against my arm, whispering that we should make a visit to the lingerie department. She would allow me to choose some sensational underwear for her, some particularly sexy bras and pants. We would have done just that. After which, she would have taken me back to the hotel so that I could enjoy seeing her in them. Then, of course, we would have spent the next hour or two in bed.

Anyway, that was my daydream against the background of those shabby offices surrounded by harassed hack journalists, frenziedly tapping away at computer keyboards, answering telephones, slopping paper cups of bad coffee on to desks and floors. With any luck Raoul would be out of the way for a few days and something similar to my imaginings could take place. In the meantime, stark reality was in the office, and furthermore it lay in the house in St James’s Square. I knew I had better call in on Willy and bring him up to date on Myrex in Estonia.

There was no fresh news from Tallinn, but that did not surprise me. After all, Mark and I were the major sources. We were the two who had been, so far as it were, the agents on the ground there. Any other information they might have picked up would have come from other friendly intelligence services or occasional local sources. For the time being, all was quiet. Naturally, Willy told me that I should do everything possible to cultivate Arne, and conceded that Myrex would know, by now, that I connected in some way, tenuous or otherwise, to the security service. I should be on my guard.

When I came out of the house, it was just after five o’clock. I went down into Pall Mall past the Army and Navy Club and walked the short distance to my club in Waterloo Place. There, in the bar, not yet serving drinks, I browsed again through the current
Economist
. An article written by the financial editor of the
Financial Times
discussed the huge potential for high tech industries in the Baltic states, and Hungary. It described the pool of untapped talent available at comparatively cheap rates and the way in which mainly British and American entrepreneurs were investing in small companies in those countries. One caution was made. Some big conglomerates with dubious connections to dirty money were becoming involved, not yet in a dominant way, but by taking control of small local companies and technical laboratories. He mentioned that in Estonia those interests were providing vehicles for easy access into Russia and a means of money laundering through the manipulated accounts of the small businesses. So, I thought, the heat is beginning to be turned up. Myrex would not like the publicity in spite of its protestations to legitimacy. The British and other European governments would not like the muddying of economic waters either. It was in the interests of the democratic governments that the rule of law was paramount in those countries ambitious for entry into the European Union. Myrex was going to have to play its cards carefully and was going to be even more assiduous in defending its investments in Estonia than hitherto. I anticipated difficult days ahead for all parties and a power struggle for dominance in those developing markets.

As the clock above the grand staircase struck six and the barman opened the bar, I went out of the double swing doors of the club and stood on its steps under the canopy supported by its imposing classical pillars. There in the open air I rang Roxanne.

While waiting, reading the
Economist
, I had experienced that old familiar nervous feeling that somehow, when I got through to her and spoke, things would have changed between us, our feelings would have cooled. She would have reassessed her position, Raoul would have decided that I was no longer to be tolerated, she had decided to go along with him completely and to cut me off, or she had just grown tired of me. It was thus in a state of nervous tension that I rang her, wondering whether I should leave the call for a quarter of an hour to put off the excruciating discovery that she had finished with me. There is no doubt that I suffered a form of exquisite, irrational torture both mental and physical. The moment I heard Roxanne’s voice, my anxieties vanished. I could tell immediately that she could not wait to see me. I forgot my fears. They belonged to the world of bad dreams and dissolved as she spoke.

Raoul had just told her that they were to leave the next day. They were going to Deauville. Raoul was meeting some business associates there and intended to play the gaming tables at one of the casinos. She was not particularly looking forward to it but there was no alternative for her, she had to go. That evening, Raoul was out to dinner. Someone had invited him to White’s. She would be on her own after 7.15. She suggested dinner and an evening together. Raoul would return around 10.30. I told her I would pick her up at the Connaught: she should think of where she would like to dine. I then rang Mark, explained that it had turned out to be Roxanne’s last night in London, and what I was doing. He suggested I called in at his house between 10.30 and 11, which I thought a good idea.

I decided to walk up through Mayfair to the Connaught, and on the way I passed a big Boots chemist shop. Inspiration took hold. I went in, found the men’s fragrance counters, and decided to make myself more agreeable for Roxanne. Since she would almost certainly be wearing Chanel, I looked for the Chanel
Pour Monsieur
tester, and sprayed myself pretty lavishly. There are few concoctions of that sort I like. There are two from the Chanel selection, and Arne’s choice, Givenchy. I knew that by the time I had made the rest of my way to Roxanne, my Chanel fragrance would have faded in the fresh air and it would not fatally dominate her perfume. Still, I would have a residual Chanel scent about me that I knew she found attractive.

When I arrived, she was waiting in the hall. She rose from her armchair and stood ready for me to embrace her. I kissed her on both cheeks and then on the lips. She sighed and ran her hand down my back. She touched my cheek with the fingers of her other hand, stroked my neck, and pretended to adjust my tie. It was difficult for either of us to hold back physically. I just wanted to continue stroking her face, running my fingers through her hair: I wished she were naked so that I could touch the familiar shape of her breasts. I whispered what I desired into her ear, but she restrained me.

‘Where shall we go? Have you a good idea?’ she asked.

‘Excuse me, madam.’ The doorman approached us. ‘Your car is here.’

She had organised one of Raoul’s drivers to ferry us that evening. It was not the discreet Hamilton but a good-looking young Italian who ought to have been chauffeuring someone like Al Pacino.

‘Let’s go to Firehouse. It’s in the Cromwell Road. A young friend of Mark’s has recently opened it. The chef is superb, trying very hard to make his name. It was written up the other day in the
Illustrated London News
. It’s membership only, but the
Journal
’s taken out a subscription.’

And that was where we went. It was sufficiently early for the restaurant not to be crowded. We had good service and listened to the conversations of the young clientele. One table close to ours was made up of polo enthusiasts. On our other side, the daughter of some great, ancient aristocratic family – I could not make out which one, maybe the Westminsters or the Wemyses – held court: a bright, lively medley of well-spoken twenty-year-olds chattered away, laughed and joked with each other. It was just the right place for us. You could not be downcast or miserable: the young in that restaurant that evening would not allow it. Later that night we were to part yet again. I could not help thinking how unsatisfactory our relationship was. Yet in another respect, I knew that it was the succession of partings that made us long for each other and while we were with each other it made the time more precious.

At one point the young owner came round to the tables and wanted to know if everything was all right. We complimented and flattered him. I mentioned that I was a close friend of Mark: he asked me my name.

‘Pelham Rigby,’ I said.

‘Oh, Mark thinks the world of you. I’m so pleased to meet you. Whenever I meet him, he will always mention you. You are obviously very dear to him.’

‘As he is to me,’ I commented. ‘We must come here one evening soon.’

The young owner said, ‘I told Mark to stay away until we are well launched. We have only been open ten days.’

‘I’ll give you another week,’ I said, ‘but if this evening’s anything to go by, nobody has anything to worry about. Anyway, thanks, you’ve made our evening.’ I looked at Roxanne. She smiled in agreement.

The Italian driver took us swiftly back to the Connaught. We wasted no time. We knew we were constrained by Raoul’s imminent return. Roxanne quickly undressed and then began to undress me. We realised that it was to be our last moments of intimacy for some time. It made us both sad, Roxanne tearful. I had only seen her cry passionately once before and that was when she told me that her mother had died. She unsettled me deeply when she cried. I felt myself losing control of my emotions. My stability began to erode. A depression hovered over me. I did not like it. Yet there was nothing to be done. We were destined to leave each other. The occasion was sad. Why should we not make the tenderest love and be sad? That was dictated by the nature of our existences. So that was what we did.