The Envoy (33 page)

‘Spooky.’

‘Not as spooky as the Russians.’

Kit looked closely at Jennifer. Her pupils were dilated and her lower lip was quivering. ‘What about the Russians?’ he said.

‘In the old days …’

Jennifer’s voice sounded so creepy – like a voice over for a
horror
film – that Kit began to smile. But when he looked into her eyes, he realised that she wasn’t joking – that she was close to madness. He reached out and put a hand over hers; her flesh felt clammy and feverish.

‘In the old days,’ she repeated, ‘the Russians believed that swallows were dead children coming back to visit their parents.’ Jennifer’s eyes were shining with tears. Her arm swept an arc at the swallow-woven sky. ‘Which one, Kit, which one is he?’

Kit knelt down beside her chair and put his arms around his cousin. He felt her lips gently kissing the back of his neck.

‘Poor Kit,’ she said, ‘poor Kit. No one ever looks after you. What can I do for you – to make you happy.’

Kit stood up, trembling and unsteady. The garden around him seemed to be spinning out of control.

‘Kit,’ she said.

He never knew who moved first. He remembered only how their hungry mouths touched and everything else dissolved into a blur.

Promises were made, but not with words. As they lay together in bed, Kit knew – they both knew – that nothing else
mattered
. Everything that he had ever wanted lay alive and
breathing
within his arms. His career was an irrelevance. The worlds of diplomacy and espionage were already fading into
half-remembered
pantomimes. The missing Russian H-bomb could damn well stay missing; US Foreign Policy was a gangster racket best left to other gangsters; Allen and Foster Dulles were a pair of talking pigs’ bladders on sticks – and the Brits could shift for themselves. Kit’s only concern was planning an escape route and finding some place they could live. Where? It had to be
somewhere
beyond the reach of the KGB, the CIA and the British Secret Service. Kit closed his eyes and imagined a map of the world scrolling past. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. Aside from Tito’s Yugoslavia and Mao’s China, there was only Albania. And how safe would any of those places be? It would be bad enough, if he was alone – but how could he expect Jennifer to live the gilded prison life of a Western defector cut off forever from family and friends?

Jennifer seemed to read his thoughts. She curled closer to him and kissed his shoulder. ‘What do we do now?’ she said.

‘I don’t know. My life isn’t my own – yet.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It means I can’t just run away – go AWOL. There are too many knives out to get me – and if we’re together you’ll get hurt too.’

‘I think, Kit, you have done some very bad things.’

‘You don’t know how bad.’

‘Why can’t we just drive to Dover and get on a ferry?’

‘We wouldn’t get past the first customs check. Have you ever seen my passport? It’s a big black diplomatic one – it stands out like a thumb with gangrene. We’d need to get false papers – but all the forgers I know would sell us on to a higher bidder.’

Jennifer laughed. ‘It’s so awful, it’s almost funny.’

Kit looked at his cousin. She was so beautiful, so perfect: too good for him. ‘It’s not going to work,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Us.’

She held him tight and buried her face into his neck. Suddenly her tongue was working down his body. She wanted him ready to make love again. Kit tried not to think of the Virgin of Managua. As Jennifer drew him into her she said, ‘Do you believe me now, do you believe me now?’

Afterwards they fell asleep. When Kit woke the sky had
darkened
. Suddenly he sat up, then gently kissed Jennifer into waking.‘When,’ he said, ‘does Brian get home?’

‘We’ve got another two hours.’

‘I hate the thought of your being with him.’

‘But what, poor Kit, can we do?’

‘There’s some things I need to clear up, and then I’m going to resign from the service. And then, Jennie – just to be safe – we’re going to have to live outside the United States.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t want you to know – it’s luggage that you best not carry.’ But did it matter? Kit remembered the news photos of Ethel Rosenberg. She had only been indicted to put pressure on her husband to name names. She knew nothing, but they killed her too. ‘Jennifer.’

‘Yes.’

‘We can’t go on. It’s got to end here.’

She embraced him and wrapped her legs around him. ‘I’m a leech, Kit, you can’t shake me off. I’ve loved you from the
beginning
– and I’m not going to stop loving you now.’

‘Listen, Jennie, it’s worse than you think. So bad, I’m going to have to research extradition treaties.’

‘You have been naughty.’

‘And if I don’t finish the job I’m on now, it could be a lot worse.’

‘How much worse?’

‘I could be indicted for treason and, unless my lawyer is a whiz kid, found guilty and executed. Are you sure you want to be with me?’

‘All the way.’

Kit lay back and thought about what he had to do. In order for him and Jennifer to be safe, he needed to satisfy both the Russians and the Americans – and keep one step ahead of the Brits. It was, he knew, almost impossible.

It was raining again. They both were sitting in the kitchen – the spy camera on the table between them.

‘I’ve been unfaithful to my husband – and now you want me to spy on him too.’

‘Yes.’

She turned the camera over in her hand and examined it closely. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the writing on the case, it’s in Cyrillic script – Russian.’ She looked up. ‘Kit,
who
are you working for? Tell me the truth.’

‘I’m not a double agent – I still work for Washington.’

‘But how did you get this?’

‘When I was in Bonn we took it off a German who tried to play a double game. Gerhard is now part of an autobahn bridge.’

At first, Jennifer held the camera as if it were a poison snake. Then she seemed to caress it with her eyes. Kit had seen it before, especially with guns, how repulsion turns into fascination. ‘And now you’ve passed it to me.’ She raised the camera to her face and sniffed it. ‘I think I can smell the sweat and fear of the man you murdered.’

‘It’s not murder.’

‘What is it then?’

‘A sanction, a termination, a warning to others.’

‘And that makes it all right.’

Kit looked away.

Jennifer stroked the camera with a finger. ‘How do I use this thing?’

‘It’s not difficult, but you have to set the shutter speed and distance manually. It’s best to take the photograph in normal daylight.’

‘You mean I have to go into the garden?’

‘Of course not, near a window would be good enough. If it’s a sunny day, set the speed at 200, otherwise 100. For copying
documents
, you need to set the focal length – that’s the other dial – to 0.2 m. And then hold the camera the same distance – about eight inches – above the stuff you’re photographing.’

‘How soon will all this be over?’

‘I wish I knew – weeks I hope, maybe months.’

‘Kit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could we have babies?’

‘Of course.’

‘But being first cousins – isn’t the blood line too close? It’s
illegal
in most states, except for Tennessee.’

‘We’ll have to say we’re “royal” – they get exemptions.’

Jennifer took his hand. ‘I should be worried, Kit, but I’m not – I’m really happy. Nothing matters anymore.’

‘There’s one more thing. When you’ve taken a full roll of film, put it in this.’ Kit took an object out of his pocket that was the size and shape of a fountain pen. ‘This is called a “dead drop spike”. You then stick it in the ground and I retrieve it by pulling up this loop – which looks like a grass cutting.’

‘Where should I put it?’

‘There’s a grave in Orford churchyard of a young woman called Louise Whiting.’

‘Billy’s sister?’

‘That’s right. Place it near the foot of the grave – and leave a chalk mark on the churchyard gate to show you’ve left something.’

‘Poor Louise, she was betrayed by an American airman – and now we’re using her too. We shouldn’t do that – she might put a curse on us.’

‘But when I pick up the film, I’m going to leave flowers – white chrysanthemums.’

For Kit, the following week in London was living hell. His first night back he lay awake all night thinking of Jennifer. The
jealousy
was worse than ever. It corroded every corner of his mind. He couldn’t bear to think of Jennifer still sharing a bed with Brian – and submitting to his bondage fantasies. He tried to understand why she did it, but that made his jealousy even worse.

The next day Kit sat at his desk and watched his in-tray
overflow
as he stared into space. At half past ten, he attended a
heads-of-section
meeting. The agenda was devoted to press and PR matters and was chaired by the press attaché. The new cultural attaché was present: a bear of a man with a Hollywood
background
. He was wearing a lightweight seersucker suit that looked woefully out of place in the wet London gloom.

When Kit got back to his office, he found a package on his desk with a diplomatic pouch receipt tag attached. Kit signed and dated the tag and put it in his out-tray. He opened the package and a book slid out:
Histoire d’O
by Pauline Réage. The
promised
farewell present from Jeffers Cauldwell. Kit opened the book and began to read: at first, it seemed to be S&M bondage
pornography
, except that it was much better written. The more Kit read the more he became inflamed with jealousy. He realised that it was a woman’s book, written by a woman as a love letter. Kit knew that Cauldwell had sent the book as a taunt: its purpose was to mentally maim. He wasn’t going to let the poison do its work. Kit got up and threw the book in the burn bag. He sat back down and opened the folder with the daily news briefing: Nasser had rejected the proposal for the Suez Canal to be managed by an international authority; plans had been unveiled to redevelop the Barbican bomb site. Kit closed the folder and retrieved the novel from the burn bag.