The Avenue of the Dead (20 page)

‘If the CIA had taken her in,' Kidson remarked quietly, ‘they wouldn't be asking questions. You parried very well, saying she'd left on a trip to New York. He'll believe that, for the moment anyway. I think you've got to admit that your friends the Russians have stepped in to stop her talking to us. I think you know that, don't you?'

‘They're not my friends!' Fleming roused himself and shouted. Kidson shrugged. ‘I keep telling you, I didn't give way to them! They dropped the whole attempt when I said I'd go to the CIA director himself. It's no use, is it? You don't think anyone ever resisted blackmail, do you? You think they caught me out and I just gave in and sold out my country and the President and tried to fix my wife's car to get her killed!'

‘You were embezzling her money,' Kidson pointed out. ‘And when the fire started, you said yourself you walked away and let it burn, knowing she was inside. Just because she'd discovered the fraud? A man who'd do that wouldn't stand up to blackmail from the KGB.'

Fleming surprised him then. He got up from the chair, put the glass down and visibly straightened. ‘I let her die. I didn't kill her. I didn't fix her car brakes, I just didn't risk my own life trying to get her out when the place was blazing like a torch. She'd found out about the money and she was making my life a living hell. I hated her and I was glad she was dead. You'd call me a murderer, wouldn't you?'

‘By default, if nothing more,' Kidson answered.

Fleming nodded. ‘All right. But I didn't betray anything to the Russians. They tried blackmail and they dropped out when they knew it wouldn't work. I may be every kind of a bastard in your book, but I'm not a traitor.'

He looked at John Kidson, and for the first time Kidson began to believe him.

‘I love this country,' he said. ‘I also think the President is a great man. I'd see Raffaella burn all over again and I wouldn't lose a night's sleep. But nothing would make me harm America.'

Kidson got up and mixed himself a drink. ‘This morning you said the diary was lies,' he said quietly. ‘Now you admit you had meetings at the Lincoln Memorial and went to the camera shop. Raffaella wasn't lying when she wrote that down. She said she saw you passing something to the man on the seat.'

‘She didn't,' Fleming answered. ‘That was a lie; seeing me at the Memorial was the truth. They were meeting me to put pressure on. The same thing at the camera shop, I told you, I didn't know who they were the first few times. I thought it was criminal – I thought maybe I could buy them off somehow. Then I found out it was the KGB and I told the guy to stuff himself. That was the end of it. The diary is full of distortions, full of lies mixed in with things that really happened. Raffaella was neurotic. Christ knows what was in her mind. But there's enough truth amongst the fantasy to hang me.' He went back to his chair and sat down. ‘She must have hated me as much as I hated her.'

‘Well, we have the diary now,' Kidson said. ‘We could destroy it, if we thought you were really innocent.'

Fleming raised his head. ‘You couldn't do that; you couldn't take the chance.'

‘I can do whatever I like,' Kidson replied. ‘I have authority from London to take any action I think fit. But I've got to have a full confession from you first.'

Davina and Lomax played the taped interview that followed that ultimatum. The little machine was no bigger than a pocket calculator but the voices of Fleming and John Kidson rang clearly through the apartment.

‘I met Liz in Mexico, you know. Before Raffaella died. She was the loveliest woman imaginable. All I could do was contrast her with my screaming bitch of a wife.'

Kidson's voice was casual. ‘Really. I didn't know you met while Raffaella was still alive. Tell me about it.'

‘We met at a recital in the Cortes Museum,' Edward Fleming's voice said. ‘Raffaella was crazy about the classical guitar and there was some Englishman giving a concert she wanted to go to.'

‘John Williams?' Kidson suggested. The tape registered a grunt.

‘I think so. I'm not musical and I didn't really take it in. I saw Elizabeth in the audience and I remember thinking, Jesus, what a gorgeous-looking girl. She seemed like a girl anyway, with all the Mexicans round her. I never realized how quickly they get old. That was one of my wife's obsessive fears. Losing her figure, getting wrinkles on her face. She drove me crazy talking about it. She spent a fortune on beauty treatments and massage.' There was a short, bitter laugh. ‘How was I to know Elizabeth would be the same?'

‘Did you meet at the concert?'

‘Friends of Raffaella's gave a supper party afterwards. Barbecue in the garden, swimming in the pool – the usual form. I was introduced to Liz. You know, I could feel my wife watching me. She had another obsession apart from her own looks, and that was other women. You know something funny – she was wrong up until then. I'd never thought of anyone else before, but Elizabeth was different. She had this lovely smile, and we talked about London and all the things I'd left behind when I came to the States. I remember Rafaella coming over and I could see I was going to have the grand opera played out when we got home.

‘She was rude to Elizabeth. I could have punched her right in the mouth. We went back to her house and the scene started. It went on most of the night, till I locked her out of the bedroom to get some sleep. Next day I sent Elizabeth some flowers and asked her to meet me for lunch. We arranged to drive to Mexico City. I told Raffaella it was business. She didn't argue; she got lazy when she went to Cuernevaca. She spent her time lying out in the garden. She didn't like going to Mexico City because the altitude made her tired. I had a wonderful day.'

‘Did you fall in love with her then?' Kidson's cool voice sounded slightly thin on the tape.

‘No, not till we'd met a few more times. She told me she was divorced, taking a trip to get over it. The husband sounded quite a bastard. She said he'd had an affair with a great friend of hers. That broke up the marriage.'

‘When did you first sleep with her?'

‘I didn't.'

In the shaded hotel room, Davina and Colin looked at each other. She put her finger to her lips. The tape wound on.

‘She wasn't cheap,' Fleming explained. ‘She wasn't the kind of woman you met and laid in a week or so. She meant more to me than that. I wanted her to come to New York. I didn't know what the hell was going to happen, but I didn't want to lose her.'

‘Your wife never suspected?'

‘No. I suggested staying longer than we'd planned. That pleased her. We extended the stay there for almost six weeks. Elizabeth didn't go on to New York either. Raffaella and I were to fly back at the end of the month. A week before, the house caught fire.'

There was a pause, and the click of a lighter snapping once or twice before it caught alight.

‘Did you start the fire, Fleming?'

There was another pause. ‘No.' The voice didn't hesitate. ‘No, I didn't. But I would have done if I'd had any guts. I just let it burn.'

‘How did it start? There must have been an insurance investigation – the police, fire department …'

‘It wasn't insured. She didn't think it was necessary. It was just a holiday house – nothing of value in it. The Mexican police and fire department thought it was caused by one of the maids knocking over an oil stove in the back. The servants cooked on their own stoves. They weren't allowed near the kitchen. My wife was no democrat so far as Mexicans were concerned. The oil tank caught and that was it. The place was full of beams. It went up like a torch.'

‘Where were you at the time?'

‘I told you – I'd been with Elizabeth. I'd told my wife some lie about going to Mexico City and the two of us had taken off in the car and toured round. I dropped her at her hotel and came home. I saw the fire from the garden. There were flames pouring out of the upstairs windows. Why do you keep asking this – over and over again? What do you care about it anyway – all you want to know is whether I worked for the Russians?'

‘He's got a point there,' Lomax muttered.

‘Ssh.' Davina shook her head at him. ‘I missed that. Damn –' She pressed the button and rewound. The last sentences were repeated and then Kidson answered Fleming's question.

‘That's right. But your wife's diary states that you did. You admit they were trying to blackmail you at the time she was following you in Washington. When exactly did you tell their contact to stuff himself? Before you went to Mexico or after Raffaella died?'

‘Before we went,' Fleming answered. ‘I went to the camera shop and this little bastard was sitting there. He asked me if I'd made up my mind to co-operate. Co-operate with whom? I wouldn't say anything till he answered that. He hedged and circled but I kept on. Who was he working for and what the hell did he mean by co-operation? Then he told me. He wanted a copy of the plan of the nuclear plant we were building in Wyoming. I said, you want me to show you classified information? That's right, he said. He came from the Bronx. The only people who'd have wanted to see that were the Russians. I said so. He just sat there; he didn't deny it. He said to me, “You've been stealing your wife's money. You only have to show me this one thing. That's all.”'

‘And you're theirs for life,' said Kidson.

‘What sort of a fool do you think I am?' Fleming sounded angry. ‘I've been in business and politics for twenty years. I know what the score is. I told him I'd go direct to General Hutchins and confess the whole thing. He didn't seem to give a damn. He just shrugged; he reminded me of Rod Steiger in
The Pawnbroker
. He said, think about it. I'll call you tomorrow. He never did call. I never heard from them again.'

‘Not a word?'

‘I told you, nothing. He knew I meant it.'

‘It's unlike them to give up so easily,' Kidson remarked. There was another pause. The lighter clicked and someone put ice in a glass which tinkled faintly in the background. ‘What about your wife? She doesn't sound the kind of woman who could keep her suspicions to herself. What did she say about those meetings at the Lincoln Memorial?'

‘She never mentioned them,' Fleming said flatly. ‘She talked about the money and said I'd robbed her – that was brought up in every row. She must have been keeping that diary to throw in my face at a really awkward moment. She knew the President would offer me a job if he was elected. I guess she was going to throw the switch on my career when it would hurt most!'

‘No wonder you fell in love with Elizabeth,' Kidson murmured. ‘But it does seem a little out of character for your wife to have kept this knowledge to herself. Let alone leaving that diary in a beauty parlour.'

‘They used to post parcels for her, collect goods and drop them by the apartment. She practically owned the place she spent so much money there. “Manuel
querido
, take good care of this, will you? I'll pick it up next time I'm in for a treatment …” I heard her say it dozens of times when I collected her. She knew it riled me; Manuel was a fag who put on a phoney accent. She used to speak Spanish to try and embarrass him. She knew he was a fake and it amused her.'

‘She sounds a very unattractive woman,' Kidson said.

‘Not at first. She was full of life, very Spanish-looking with big dark eyes. And rich. I needed the money to get started properly, but I was in love with her too. It was great to start with, just like Elizabeth. Only it took Raffaella longer to change.'

‘Perhaps you didn't give yourself a chance to know Elizabeth,' Kidson suggested. ‘You married very quickly after you came back from Mexico, didn't you?'

‘She was going back to England,' Fleming said. ‘I couldn't lose her, not then. We'd been separated for nearly two months. She stayed on in Mexico at a health farm in Tula. She wrote she wanted me to have time to think. I missed her like hell. When she came to New York, I was in San Francisco. I flew straight up and saw her. She talked about going back to England and I knew I couldn't let it happen. We got a special licence.'

‘You must have been relieved not to hear from your Bronx friend again.' Kidson changed the subject suddenly.

The tape registered Fleming's momentary loss of concentration. ‘Oh – oh yes, I was relieved all right. But not surprised. That guy knew he'd picked the wrong man. He knew I wouldn't give him anything and I'd go to the CIA if I had to. He dropped it. I was expecting one more try, in Mexico maybe, but nothing happened. After Raffaella died I inherited everything – she hadn't changed her will from the time we married. I paid the money back and covered the whole thing up. I was safe. They probably knew that too. I never understood how they found out about the money in the first place.'

‘Perhaps they heard about it through your wife. Maybe she told someone. A man like you, close to the Republican candidate, working on secret government projects, is bound to attract Soviet attention. On a minor scale of course. But someone somewhere picked up a hint and then they were on your tail. I think we've done enough for tonight. I think we'd better meet at the embassy tomorrow. I'll get Arthur Moore to ring your office and invite you to dinner, if he's not engaged. Otherwise we'll think of something. Does that suit you?'

‘What happens if I say no?' Fleming's voice was sarcastic.

‘Nothing at all,' came Kidson's answer. ‘You needn't see me again if you don't want to. But London is pressing for a look at that diary. I can't hold them off for too long.'

A single crude expletive followed from Fleming and then the tape ended. There was a second, smaller one. Lomax slotted it into place.

‘Davina,' Kidson now spoke to them. ‘You've listened in to this, and I expect you'll have some thinking to do. I've a few ideas of my own. But we'll discuss them when you get back. I want you and Lomax to find out everything you can about the fire that killed the first Mrs Fleming. And I want you, Davina, to concentrate on Mrs Fleming Number Two. Where she stayed, whether Fleming was telling the truth about meeting her secretly, how long she spent at this health farm place at Tula and when she went to New York.'