A Perfect Spy (40 page)

“I'll get Mummy,” she said before he could speak, and turned sharply so that he could watch her skirt swing. “Mummy. It's a man. For you,” she said and, sweeping past him down the steps, set off for her decent school.

“Hullo, Belinda,” Brotherhood said. “It's me.”

Coming out of the kitchen, Belinda paused at the foot of the stairs, drew a breath and yelled up them at a closed door. “Paul! Come down at once, please. Jack Brotherhood is here. I assume he wants something.”

Which more or less was what he knew she'd shout—though not quite so loud—because Belinda had always reacted badly first and put it right rather sweetly later.

 

They sat in a pine drawing-room on low basketwork chairs that creaked like swings when you moved. A gigantic lampshade of white paper rocked crookedly above them. Belinda had made coffee in hand-thrown mugs and sweetened it with natural sugar. Her Bach still played defiantly in the kitchen. She was dark-eyed and angry about something in her childhood—at fifty her face was still set ready for another quarrel with her mother. She had greying hair bound in a sensible bun and wore a necklace of what looked like nutmeg. When she walked, she waded through her kaftan as if she hated it. When she sat, she spread her knees and scraped at the knuckles of one hand. Yet her beauty clung to her like an identity she was trying to deny and her plainness kept slipping like a bad disguise.

“They've already been here in case you don't know, Jack,” she said. “At ten at night as a matter of fact. They were waiting for us on the doorstep when we got back from the cottage.”

“Who's they?”

“Nigel. Lorimer. Two more I didn't know. All men, of course.”

“What did they say they were here for?” Brotherhood asked, but Paul stopped him.

You could never be angry with Paul. He smiled so wisely through his pipe smoke even when he was being rude. “What is this actually, Jack?” he said, taking his pipe from his mouth and lowering it until it became a hand microphone. “Interrogations about interrogations? You people have no constitutional position, you know, Jack. You're only a chartered body even under this government, I'm afraid.”

“You probably don't know it, but Paul has written extensively on the rise and rise of the para-military services under the Tories,” Belinda said in a voice that struggled to be harsh. “You'd know if you'd bother to read
The Guardian,
but you don't. They gave him a whole page for the last one.”

“So screw you actually, Jack,” said Paul just as pleasantly.

Brotherhood smiled. Paul smiled. An old English sheepdog wandered in and settled at Brotherhood's feet.

“Do you want to smoke, by the way?” said Paul, ever sensitive to people's needs. “I'm afraid Belinda draws the line at fags but I can offer you a nifty little brown one if you're pushed.”

Brotherhood pulled out a packet of his foul cigarettes and lit one. “Screw you too, Paul,” he said equably.

Paul had peaked early in life. Twenty years ago he had written promising plays for fringe theatres. He wrote them still. He was tall but reassuringly unathletic. Twice, to Brotherhood's knowledge, he had applied to join the Firm. Each time he had been turned down flat, even without Brotherhood's intervention.

“They came here because they were vetting Magnus for a top appointment, if you want to know,” Belinda said all in one breath. “They were in a hurry because they wanted to promote him immediately so that he could get on with the job.”

“Nigel?” Brotherhood echoed with an incredulous laugh. “Nigel and Lorimer plus two other men? Doing their own vetting at ten o'clock at night? You've got half the brass of secret Whitehall on your doorstep there, Bel. Not a vetting team of old crocks on half pay.”

“It's a senior appointment so he has to be vetted by senior people,” Belinda retorted, blushing scarlet.

“Did Nigel tell you that?”

“Yes, he did!” said Belinda.

“Did you believe it?”

But Paul had decided it was time to show his mettle. “Actually, fuck off will you, Jack?” he said. “Get out of the house. Now. Darling, don't answer him. It's all too theatrical and stupid for words. Come on, Jack. Out. You're welcome for a drink any time, as long as you phone first. But not for this nonsense. Sorry. Out.”

He had opened the door and was flapping his big soft hand as if scooping water but neither Brotherhood nor the sheepdog stirred.

“Magnus has jumped ship,” Brotherhood explained to Belinda, while Paul put on his I-can-be-violent glower. “Nigel and Lorimer sold you a load of cock. Magnus has bolted and gone into hiding while they cook up a case against him as the big traitor of the Western world. I'm his boss so I'm not quite as enthusiastic as they are. I think he's strayed but not lost and I'd like to get to him first and talk to him.” Addressing Paul, he didn't even bother to turn his head. He just lifted it far enough to make the difference. “They've put a muzzle on your editor for the time being, same as everybody else, Paul. But if Nigel has his way, in a few days' time your colleagues will be plastering Belinda's previous marriage all over their nasty little columns and taking your picture every time you go to the launderette. So you'd better start thinking about how to get your act together. In the meantime, fetch us some more coffee and leave us in peace for an hour.”

 

Alone, Belinda was much stronger than when protected by her mate. Her face, though dazed, had relaxed. Her gaze had fixed itself steadfastly on a spot a few feet from her eyes, as if to suggest that although she might not see as far as others, her faith in what she saw burned twice as bright. They sat at a round table in the window bay and the Venetian blind sliced the Social Democratic Party into strips.

“His father's dead,” Brotherhood said.

“I know. I read. Nigel told me. He asked me how it might have affected Magnus. I suppose that was a trick.”

Brotherhood took a moment to answer this. “Not entirely,” he said. “No. Not a complete trick, Belinda. I think they're reasoning that it could have turned his head a little.”

“Magnus always wanted me to save him from Rick. I did my best. I tried to explain that to Nigel.”

“How save him, Belinda?”

“Hide him. Answer the phone for him. Say he was abroad when he wasn't. I sometimes think that's why Magnus joined the Firm. As a hiding place. Just as he married me because he was scared to risk it with Jemima.”

“Who's Jemima?” said Brotherhood, playing ignorant.

“She was a close friend of mine at school.” She scowled. “Too close.” The scowl softened and became melancholy. “Poor Rick. I only ever saw him once. That was at our wedding. He turned up uninvited in the middle of the reception. I never saw Magnus look happier. Otherwise he was just a voice on the telephone. He had a nice voice.”

“Magnus have any other hiding places in those days?”

“You mean women, don't you? You can say it if you want. I don't mind any more.”

“Just somewhere he might have hidden. That's all. Little cottage somewhere. An old buddy. Where would he go, Belinda? Who'd have him?”

Her hands, now that she had unlocked them, were elegant and expressive. “He'd have gone anywhere. He was a new man every day. He'd come home one person, I'd try to match him. In the morning he'd be someone else. Do you think he did it, Jack?”

“Do you?”

“You always answer one question with another. I'd forgotten. Magnus had the same trick.” He waited. “You could try Sef,” she said. “Sef was always loyal.”

“Sef?”

“Kenneth Sefton Boyd. Jemima's brother. ‘Sef's too rich for my blood,' Magnus used to say. That meant they were equals.”

“Could Magnus have gone to him?”

“If it was bad enough.”

“Could he have gone to Jemima?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I understand she's gone off men these days,” she said and blushed again. “She's not predictable. She never was.”

“Ever heard of anyone called Wentworth?”

She shook her head, still thinking of something different. “Since my time,” she said.

“Poppy?”

“My time ended with Mary. If there's a Poppy, that's Mary's bad luck.”

“When did you last hear from him, Belinda?”

“That's what Nigel asked me.”

“What did you say to Nigel?”

“I said there was no reason to hear from him after we divorced. We'd been married six years. There were no children. It was a mistake. Why relive it?”

“Was that the truth?”

“No. I lied.”

“What were you concealing?”

“He rang. Magnus did.”

“When?”

“Monday night. Paul was out, thank God.” She paused, listening for the sound of Paul's typewriter, which was tapping reassuringly from upstairs. “He sounded strange. I thought he was drunk. It was late.”

“What time?”

“It must have been around eleven. Lucy was still doing her homework. I won't let her work after eleven as a rule but she was doing a French mock O-level. He was in a phone box.”

“Cash?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“He didn't say. He just said, ‘Rick's dead. I wish we'd had a child.'”

“That all?”

“He said he'd always hated himself for marrying me. Now he was reconciled. He understood himself. And he loved me for trying so hard. Thanks.”

“That all?”

“‘ Thanks. Thanks for everything. And please forgive the bad parts.' Then he rang off.”

“Did you tell Nigel this?”

“Why do you keep asking me that? I didn't think it was Nigel's business. I didn't want to say he was being drunk and sentimental on the phone late at night just at the time when they were considering him for promotion. Serves him right for deceiving me.”

“What else did Nigel ask you?”

“Just character stuff. Had I ever had any reason to suppose Magnus might have had Communist sympathies. I said Oxford. Nigel said they knew about that. I said I didn't think university politics meant much anyway. Nigel agreed. Had he ever been erratic in any way? Unstable—alcoholic—depressive? I said no again. I didn't reckon one drunken phone call constituted drunkenness, but if it did I wasn't going to tell four of Magnus's colleagues about it. I felt protective of him.”

“They ought to have known you better, Belinda,” said Brotherhood. “Would you have given him the job yourself, by the way?”

“What job? You said there wasn't one.” She was being sharp with him, belatedly suspecting him too of duplicity.

“I meant suppose there had been a job. A high-level, responsible job. Would you give it to him?”

She smiled. Very prettily. “I did, didn't I? I married him.”

“You're wiser now. Would you give it to him today?”

She was biting her forefinger, frowning angrily. She could change moods in moments. Brotherhood waited but nothing came so he asked her another question: “Did they ask you about his time in Graz, by any chance?”

“Graz? You mean his army time? Good heavens, they didn't go back
that
far.”

Brotherhood shook his head as if to say he would never be equal to the wicked ways of the world. “Graz is where they're trying to say it all started,” he said. “They've got some grand theory he fell among thieves while he was doing his National Service there. What do you make of that?”

“They're absurd,” she said.

“Why are you so sure?”

“He was happy there. When he came back to England he was a new man. ‘I'm complete,' he kept saying. ‘I've done it, Bel. I've got my other half together.' He was proud he'd done such good work.”

“Did he describe the work?”

“He couldn't. It was too secret and too dangerous. He just said I would be proud of him if I knew.”

“Did he tell you the name of any of the operations he was mixed up in?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you the names of any of his Joes?”

“Don't be absurd. He wouldn't do that.”

“Did he mention his C.O.?”

“He said he was brilliant. Everyone was brilliant for Magnus when they were new.”

“If I said ‘Greensleeves' to you in a loud voice, would that ring any bells?”

“It would mean English traditional music.”

“Ever hear of a girl called Sabina?”

She shook her head. “He told me I was his first,” she said.

“Did you believe him?”

“It's hard to tell when it's the first for you too.”

With Belinda, he remembered, the quiet was always good. If her charges into the lists had something comic about them, there was always dignity to the calm between.

“So Nigel and his friends went away happy,” he suggested. “Did you?”

Her face against the window was in silhouette. He waited for it to lift or turn to him, but it didn't.

“Where would you look for him?” he said. “If you were me?”

Still she did not move or speak.

“Some place by the sea somewhere? He had these fantasies, you know. He chopped them up and gave a bit to each person. Did he ever give a version to you? Scotland? Canada? The migration of the reindeer? Some kind lady who'd take him in? I need to know, Belinda. I really do.”

“I won't talk to you any more, Jack. Paul's right. I don't have to.”