Younger (30 page)

She sighed. “I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately. I think I looked at myself through your eyes and saw someone unlovable. Your career was taking off, and what was I? A nobody, a failed actress who was never going to make it. Actress? I was a cocktail waitress with a headshot, and I was sure you saw that when you looked at me. I’d grown to dislike you, but maybe it was me I didn’t like. I was unfair to you.”

“Maybe not,” he said after a moment. Now it was his turn to sigh. “I did look at you and see a waitress. Not that I didn’t think you were a good actress—you’ve proven that you still are—but I knew you’d never make it, that you lacked the hunger. Me, I saw as a scrappy working-class boy prepared to claw his way to success.” He snorted. “I was so fucking full of myself. I thought I deserved more than a trust-fund tray carrier. The truth is, Anna,” he said, looking directly into her eyes, “that I didn’t really grasp the concept of other people until my son was born.”

“For what it’s worth, I was a tray carrier
without
a trust fund—I’d made that up. Maybe that’s why I had a soft spot for Pierre. We both liked living in our fantasies.” She laughed bitterly. When David didn’t respond, she quickly said, “Anyhow, my long overdue apologies for leaving the way I did. Hungry? I’m thinking grilled vegetable pizza and a green salad. You?”

“
Pizza quattro stagioni
for me,” he said so quickly that she was certain he, too, was eager to escape relationship talk.

They ate at the coffee table. “Hard to beat Roman pizza,” David noted. “That’s the bright side of this, I guess. And we won’t be here much longer. Just two more days if Marina takes whatever bait they’re tossing out.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Come on, Anna, don’t be so negative. These guys know what they’re doing.”

“Know what they’re doing?” Her voice rose. “They could have gotten me—excuse me,
us
—killed. They’ve lied right and left. I don’t believe they thought for a minute I was anything but a pawn of Pierre’s. I just happened to fit in nicely with their plans. They let me continue to think I’d been chosen by Barton because I was the best person to do it; they didn’t see me as someone who was in danger because I was also someone they could monitor through Rob. They didn’t even try to help me when I was running for my life, David! Compared to them, Pierre Barton was thoughtful and honest. Did you even understand that stuff about Rob? They actually set me up with a young guy who pretended he was attracted to me, who hit on me. You think that shouts ‘trustworthy’?” She took a big swig of wine. “Give me a break, will you? Do you still think I’m just a dumb waitress?”

His look was searing. “Excuse me, I’m going to get some more wine. You might want to give some thought to how ‘trustworthy’ it is to ask your ex-lover all sorts of intimate questions about how he feels about the woman he loved, when all the time the woman was you. And now you’re telling
me
to give
you
a break.”

She jumped up as he headed toward the bar area. “Don’t you walk away from me, David Wainwright!”

He stopped and turned to face her, his face stony. “We both know which one of us walks away.” He turned and kept walking.

She was hot on his heels. “Why do you always have to act so damned superior?”

“What’s superior? Trying to chill you out is acting superior? You wanted me to come to Italy, I came. You wanted to turn yourself in, I came with you. These people are trying to save your life now, and you act like they’re the enemy.”

“And you act like I entrapped you somehow by being a sympathetic listener. Okay,” she said when he rolled his eyes, “I wanted to hear how you felt about me back then. I wanted to know if you’d ever loved me. Is that so terrible?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is that such a betrayal? Caring about you for more than twenty fucking years, is that such a crime?”

His back was to her as he reached for a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. Then he abruptly put it back and turned to face her, shaking his head. His expression relaxed. “Of course it’s not a crime. Damn it, Anna, how can you still make me so mad? After all this time?”

And before she knew it, his arms were drawing her close, his lips were on hers, and all those years, like the bottle of wine, were forgotten.

“You know,” he said later as they lay naked on his bed, “when you came crashing into me on the street that day, I felt such joy when I thought you were—well,
you
. And devastation when I realized you couldn’t be. It was as if I’d been missing you all these years, even when I hadn’t been thinking of you. Does that make any sense?”

His words roused her out of her reverie. She had been luxuriating in his arms, her body weak yet fulfilled in a way it hadn’t been in many years. Her self-imposed exile from sex had ended and the lovemaking itself had been extraordinary and—not only that—proof positive that not only was David still an amazing lover but also that making love was really like riding a bicycle. You didn’t forget how to do it.
Oh, not at all
.

She propped herself up on her elbow to look him in the eye. “Of course it does. After that day when you came back to BarPharm and waited for me, I kept telling myself I couldn’t keep seeing you, but I was like an addict. That’s why I let you talk about Anna. I couldn’t stop wanting to hear that longing in your voice, making me feel that you’d really cared and that I’d been wrong. I wanted to be wrong.”

“It’s already difficult to think of you as having been Tanya. It’s as if she were some other person I met in London and now she’s just, I don’t know,
gone
.”

“She
is
gone. I liked a lot about being her, but now I’m glad she’s gone. Did you know I thought you preferred her to Anna?”

“Are you serious? I’m not into women closer to my son’s age than mine. Ever. My attraction to Tanya was always to the Anna in her. What about you? You liked looking young again? You look fantastic now.”

“I looked the same with my clothes off then as I do now, you know. I mean, my body’s younger looking than it was six months ago because I’ve worked out so much, but still, I had my original body all along, which is probably all that kept Tanya from trying to seduce you. And I couldn’t have done that. It’s one thing when the carpets don’t match the drapes, but when the upper story’s been renovated while the foundation’s crumbling . . .”

“Mmmm. Lovely house, though. Let’s see if the door—”

His hand stopped sliding up her thigh as the phone rang. He reached for the receiver and Anna sat up, the spell broken.

“Right . . . right . . . okay. Do you want to speak to her?” He handed her the phone, mouthing the word
Barnes
.

She spoke briefly, then hung up. “My cell phone got a text back from Marina. She’s arriving in Rome Saturday morning.”

“Game on, eh?” David’s expression was solemn.

Feeling suddenly cold, Anna reached for her clothes and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to put on my nightgown so we can watch the news. We should catch up with the outside world, shouldn’t we?”

“Everything all right?”

She nodded. “Everything’s fine. Really. Just pissed off at the spooks barging into the bedroom.”

“Hey,” he said gently, “tomorrow’s another day, and we’re going to be here together all day long.”

“And have I got plans for you, David Wainwright.” She grabbed her pillow and threw it at his head.

He caught it, grinning. Then he said seriously, “I do still love you, you know.”

“I love you, too, David. I always have.”

He reached for his trousers. “Let’s uncork that wine then. I think we have something to celebrate.”

Chapter 23

“What exactly did Barnes say? If you can tell me that,” David said a while later, as he and Anna sprawled on the sofa, not really concentrating on Sky News.

“Of course I can tell you. I doubt even they would expect me to ask their permission. Marina texted back that she’s flying to Rome Saturday morning, so Barnes—as me—set up a meeting for three in the afternoon. She said she’s bringing a fresh supply of
YOU
NGER and that I absolutely mustn’t even touch the
YOU
NGER I have left, because the lab needs it to be sure which formula I’ve been using. Total BS.”

“So she thinks you have the dregs and are desperate to get more,” David noted. “Desperate people are easier to fool, aren’t they?”

“Hey, I was, wasn’t I? Barton hooked me effortlessly.”

“Con artists bank on other people’s insecurities,” David remarked. “Komarov knew that about Pierre. And Pierre helped your age work against your judgment.”

Before the meeting had broken up that afternoon, Anna had finally pressured “the guys downstairs” into showing her the text Marina had received:

Using YOUNGER only every 3 days. Down to only a teaspoon of each product! PLEASE, can you bring more to me in Rome? Sorry I’ve let you down, but I thought I saw Kelm following me and was scared. ASAP, PLEASE. Anna.

She told David, then remarked, “I guess if you didn’t know I knew what was going on, it would seem legit.”

“Obviously, they told us the truth,” he replied. “Marina needs those residues or
YOU
NGER is out of her grasp, and Russia’s, forever.”

“Andrew must be pretty sure Komarov is hacking into Marina’s phone, my phone, everybody’s phone, and will be on her heels,” Anna said. “Oh, God, I’ll be a sitting duck.”

David looked very worried but then, for her sake, she thought, he tried for humor. “Showdown at the O.K. Corral, lady.”

“What a terrible American accent! And you clearly were never a cowboy movie fan: the title started with
Gunfight
. Which we are
not
going to be having.”

“I grew up on ever-so-polite British espionage films, where spies said things like, ‘Ever so sorry I must tie you up, Sir Roderick.
’”
He reached for her. “But I can tell you about that tomorrow.”

“Today, darling. It’s almost one in the morning.”

“Say that again.”

“It’s almost one—”

“No, not that.”

“Today, darling?”

“Just ‘darling’ will do.” He stood up, pulling her to her feet. “Your bed or mine?”

“Oh, mine. We don’t want those snoops discovering only one bed’s being slept in, do we?”

The next morning over breakfast, Anna found
YOU
NGER and the ill-fated Pierre Barton nagging at her thoughts.

“Poor Pierre,” she said suddenly. “You know, I never think of him anymore without the word
poor
in front of his name? I know he wanted things for the wrong reasons, I know he lied and that people died as a result, but I still sympathize with him. I still
like
him. He had every break in the world, yet he couldn’t stop wanting to be something he wasn’t.”

“Which was?”

“That’s what’s so sad. He wanted to be a success like his father. But his father
wasn’t
a success, not a real one. That’s what makes him a tragic figure.”

“Too lightweight for true tragedy, if you ask me. Ambition made him stupid, just as it made his wife greedy.” He stretched. “And there will be tragedy ahead for me if I don’t start going over that script I need to storyboard. Since we’re stuck here waiting, I should get to work.”

Back in her room, Anna sat at the writing desk and started going over her notes on the computer yet again. Everything was at her fingertips, yet the solution was evading her. What was she missing? If only she had more faith in Barnes and Etherington! But she feared she couldn’t rely on anyone else.

When she and David broke for lunch, they were both distracted and hardly spoke, lost in their own thoughts. One of the thoughts nibbling at Anna’s brain was the question of David. Were they still in love or had they just played out the drama of their reunion as romantically as possible? Did she want to be with someone who lived in another country, who had a son? And why should she take it for granted he wanted her? Could his thoughts be much the same as hers, uncertain? She pushed them away and ate with a haste springing more from her wish to be alone again than from hunger. She should worry more about keeping her life than about with whom she’d be spending it.

When she was back in her room afterward, feeling cranky, she decided a nap might reboot her brain. It was quiet outside, so she opened the shutters to let in some crisp October air and sunlight; then, when she lay on the bed, she hissed as that light shone straight into her eyes.

Irritably, she went into the bathroom to rifle through her toiletries bag. She had a sleep mask somewhere, but where was the damned thing? The last time she remembered wearing it was on the train from Paris. She hoped she hadn’t left it in her couchette.

She dragged her backpack out from the armoire, and,
eureka
, there it was, in an inside pocket. She felt something else there, too, something bulky, and pulled it out. It was the sheaf of photocopies she’d gotten from Nelson Dwyer, the CCTV photos from the minutes surrounding Olga’s doing a header under that incoming Underground train. She’d completely forgotten about them. Even if they did show Kelm was there, that was something they all suspected anyhow, so they hadn’t seemed important.

Still, since she was wide awake now, she figured she might as well look through them again. The sleep mask dangling from her wrist, she plumped up the pillows on the bed and settled back.
Same old
,
same old,
she thought wearily. Here was Olga coming onto the platform; now she was rushing to the front; here were two guys in dark caps who may or may not have been together or following her; now Olga was gone and the guys weren’t together anymore, as one was over there looking off to the left and one was over here, looking—

She gasped, then leaned forward into the light for a closer look. A magnifying glass would have helped, but she’d just have to trust her eyesight and her instincts.

Then she put the sheaf of papers aside.

“Tinker, tailor, murderer, spy,” she murmured. Should she tell anyone what she’d just discovered? Did they know? Or, since it was her life they were putting on the line, was the wisest course to keep what she’d found to herself? Was anyone else
not
playing with a stacked deck? She’d keep her own counsel, she decided, at least until she heard what the SIS men decided to share tomorrow. If they chose to keep secrets, she could do the same.

She knew something they didn’t. For the first time since she’d walked through the embassy’s front door, she felt in control again. And that felt good.

She didn’t tell David. When they compared notes of their day later on, she listened with unfeigned interest as he described how he went through a script with an eye toward blocking out the storyboards, but when he asked, “Come up with anything?” she shook her head. She did trust him, and him alone; still, for now it was her secret.

“How do these look?” It was late Friday afternoon when Andrew, having left the conference room, returned with a bag from which he withdrew three small jars, which he set on the conference table.

Anna recognized them at once. “My Boots containers!”

“A courier was flying in from London this morning anyhow, so we had him bring these from Boots. Verisimilitude, you know. We’ve left about a teaspoon of product in each container: cleaner, moisturizer, and night cream.”

“Could have fooled me. Now, can we go over tomorrow one more time—what’s going to happen in Piazza Navona and what I’m supposed to do?”

“Certainly. You’ll have these containers in a carrier small enough to fit in your shoulder bag. Marina will probably ask where you’ve been and if Kelm’s been in touch with you. No reason to lie—I suspect Komarov knows by now you went to Prague, and what he knows, she might know. Marina’s far from stupid. By now, if not before, she must have guessed how much blood he has on his hands and is probably steering clear of him, but one can’t be sure. Regarding Pierre, if she asks, tell the truth: he collapsed and you panicked.”

“And then?” she asked mildly, though she wanted to laugh out loud at how little these men understood Marina. As if she might take even the slightest interest in someone else’s life! For superspies, they didn’t have a clue about women.

“In case she doesn’t bring it up, ask if she’s brought the products and what the arrangement will be to get more. Remember, you’re desperate. We expect Komarov will be somewhere he can watch and wait for the handover so he can swoop in, snatch the products out of her hands, and take off, so we want you to get as much information out of Marina as you can before giving her anything.” Andrew shook his head. “Marina doesn’t need Komarov if she has the products, and vice versa. My educated guess is that they’re now busily trying to betray each other. It’s natural for Komarov to think he can get away with murder and the formula, as well.”

“He’ll be charged with the murders of the Rusakovs, Olga, and Pierre?” David asked the question she’d been about to pose.

Etherington had been silent. Now he spoke up. “In point of fact, no. The Russian couple? Well, spy versus spy, as you say. We’d have a hard time prosecuting even if we could prove it, so . . . no charges. The police will write it off as murder-suicide or a mob assassination. Olga, I fear, must remain among the anonymous dead. An arrest for the murder of a woman almost fifty years old when, as far as the police know, the body they have is that of someone decades younger would raise far too many questions. A bird in the hand being worth two in the bush, Grigoriy Komarov will be charged with just one murder: the poisoning of Pierre Barton.”

“Pierre was poisoned? Oh, God. How?” Though the news didn’t come as a surprise, Anna was shaken.

Barnes took over. “He ingested or was injected with a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin. Difficulty breathing, thirst, sweating, immobility—you said Barton barely moved the whole time you were talking—whilst symptoms of a heart attack, are also present in tetrodotoxin poisoning. The someone he told you had almost knocked him down? Obviously, that was Komarov. You might recall the classic case of the dissident Bulgarian murdered in London? The ferrule of an umbrella was fitted up as a hypodermic to shoot the poison ricin into his system. The assassin got away; who notices a man simply walking along swinging his umbrella? The intelligence consensus was, and remains, that the killer and invention were Soviet. KGB, to be exact.”

“Sorry,” Anna said with some urgency, “but I’m more concerned about what I’ll be doing than what was done by Soviet operatives years ago. Marina is now handing me the stuff she’s brought, her version of the fake
YOU
NGER. I then take the bag out of my purse and give it to her?”

“Yes—and make sure you tell her about switching to the Boots containers in London because you were afraid of someone catching up with you if you had to flee.”