The Defector (27 page)

“Good evening Frau Jaeger. That’s a new white moustache you’re wearing.” She began to giggle. He was in his dressing-gown when she came out.

“What were you laughing about?”

“Oh, nothing. Just something ridiculous. That wine has gone right to my head. I’m going to have a hangover tomorrow morning.”

“Never mind,” he said.

“It’ll help you to look like an East German.” He pulled the bedclothes down for her.

“Get in then. Kiss goodnight?” When he tried to open her mouth she pushed him away.

“No, Peter. I’m sorry.” He didn’t argue or persist. He let her go at once.

“Pity,” he said gently.

“Pity that Russian got there first. I’m getting rather fond of you, you know. Sleep well.” He switched out the light. She felt herself drifting into sleep. Her dreams were fragmented, trouble-filled. She woke, heart beating too fast, gripped by anxiety from a nightmare she couldn’t remember. East Berlin. Then Russia. The day spent with Peter Harrington had been a flight from reality, pretending to be tourists, treating themselves, like truants sneaking a day out of school. The new day was very real indeed, and lying awake in the darkness, with two more hours before daybreak, Davina Graham began to be afraid. Jeremy Spencer-Barr was in the bug-proofed room outside the Head of Chancery’s office. Elizabeth Cole’s superior officer was with him.

“We’ve arranged a new rendezvous for the Daughter’s contact,” he said.

“It’s the biggest bookshop in Moscow, on Red Square. He goes there once a fortnight to collect the books he’s ordered. His next trip is on Thursday. He’s been following this line independently of meeting Lizzie Cole. It doesn’t do to start new habits around here. You go to the same bookshop at three o’clock sharp on Thurs day and order a copy of Crime and Punishment in the English translation. Say you want to translate it back into Russian. Your contact will be by the counter and he’ll recognize you when he hears the book mentioned. They don’t have a copy in stock, because we’ve checked. He will suggest you apply to the University for a loan of one of their copies. That tells you who he is. He’ll wander off and you’ll start looking through the shelves. When you’re both out of sight, he’ll make his report. All clear?”

“Perfectly clear, thank you. ” Jeremy said.

“How do I get to Red Square? Public transport? “

“No, you walk,” was the answer.

“Start taking walks round the city, starting today. Visit the Kremlin Museum. It’s worth seeing anyway. Wander round to Red Square and sightsee Lenin’s tomb, the Tsar Bell, St. Basil’s Church. You’ve got a secretary, take her with you. Let her show you round. You’ll be watched, naturally, so pretend to be interested, even if you’re not. ” Spencer-Barr looked surprised.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

“I think Moscow’s a fascinating place.” He seemed unaware of the condescension in his tone. The older man gave him a sharp look.

“Then why don’t you go into Lenin’s tomb,” he said.

“It’ll only take four hours in the queue.” He saw the young man smile, as if he’d said something amusing. He formed an instant dislike of him.

“I don’t think I need to go that far. ” Jeremy said.

“I’ll go to the bookshop on Thursday; three o’clock by the foreign translations section. Do I know what this contact looks like?”

“I’ve never seen him,” was the answer.

“But he’s our only contact with the Daughter. He’s a university lecturer, a young don in our parlance. Member of a group of dissidents, an oflshoot of the Helsinki group monitoring human rights violations. All those poor devils are either dead or locked away. These people are anonymous;

they don’t speak out because there’s no shred of tolerance for them and they’d just be arrested. So they work underground, collaborating with the Western embassies, principally ours and the Americans’, supplying information about arrests and acts of illegal oppression. Sometimes more than that. You can appreciate that their actions place them in more danger even than people like Scherensky and Belezky, If they’re caught, they’ll be accused of spying. And that means the firing squad. “

“Well, they are spying, aren’t they?” Spencer-Barr said.

“Passing information to us and the Americans. What exactly is this man’s relationship to the Daughter? Is she sympathetic to the dissident movement?”

“Sympathetic to her mother, who’s in the Lubyanka,” he said.

“And scared stiff she’ll end up there herself. That was Lizzie’s last report from Daniel. That’s his code name, as you know. In the Lion’s Den; in more ways than one. All our dissident informants have the code names of the Prophets. This one seemed particularly apt when we chose it. That’s the name he’ll use to you.”

“Thank you very much,” Jeremy said formally.

“I’ve got all that firmly fixed. I’ll start my tour of the city straight away. Does my secretary have any idea that I’m more than Michael Barker’s replacement?”

“None at all. So play it dead serious with her. She’s quite a nice girl, so it shouldn’t be too much of a bore.” Jeremy Spencer-Barr gave him a direct look from his humourless blue eyes.

“Nothing about my work will ever be a bore to me,” he said. The older man had been in the Intelligence Service since his army days. He had developed a natural cynicism about enthusiastic youths. He also had a shrewd instinct for the rare species of man who crops up in the secret world at odd intervals. He committed his thoughts to tape, when he was alone. These in turn would be typed and filed for dispatch to London. Ambitious, sharp, over-confident. He gave his opinion of the new recruit. And then he added the last words, which his Chief and Humphrey Grant would understand. “Would undertake any assignment’. That meant that the polished young gentleman was the type who could be told to kill and wouldn’t hesitate. He switched off the tape and took it back to his desk and locked it away. Jeremy Spencer-Barr set off for his tour of Moscow with an excited Embassy secretary who thought him terribly goodlooking and felt guiltily pleased about Michael Barker’s heart attack.

“Oh, it’s bliss to be home,” Charley said. She stretched her arms above her head, and turned her beautiful face up to the warm afternoon sunshine. Her father and mother smiled happily at each other. She was a delightful companion to them, always cheerful and full of amusing anecdotes about her life in London. Just to look at her lifted their spirits. She was one of those rare women who always looked glamorous;

she was as lovely without make-up, in shirt and trousers, as she was when dressed for a party.

“The garden is looking marvelous,” she said to her mother.

“There’s always such a lovely smell round this terrace.”

“That’s the Lilium Regale,” Mrs. Graham said.

“They don’t last very long but they have a heavenly scent. Be careful of the sun, darling, it gets very hot here. You don’t want to burn.”

“I don’t want to get freckly,” Charley answered.

“That’s the pest of red hair, you get covered in freckles like a brown egg. Don’t worry, I put on some cream first. I should go back to London with a lovely light tan. Not that I feel like going back.”

“Why don’t you stay then?” Captain Graham suggested.

“You could spend a few days relaxing here. It’d do you good, Charley. I think you lead too hectic a life up in London on your own. “

“It hasn’t been that hectic,” she admitted.

“I’ve been going out a lot, but there’s nobody interesting around.” She opened her eyes and sat up.

“In fact, the one man who takes me out regularly spends a lot of the time asking me questions about Davina.”

“Really?” Her father was surprised.

“Who is he and why should he take you out to ask about her?”

“That’s what’s been bothering me,” Charley said.

“He’s called Jeremy Spencer-Barr. He works in the Defence Ministry and he says he’s met Davina once or twice. I didn’t take any notice at first, I thought it was a bit boring, but he kept on. Every time we went out. You remember that Pole she brought down well, he was asking questions about him, too.”

“What sort of questions?” her mother asked.

“About their relationship,” Charley answered.

“I was rather silly to mention it in the first place, in fact I played it up a bit. Actually it was the first time I met him, at the cocktail party after I left here that weekend. Then he took me out to dinner, and he asked a lot of questions about Davy, and the Pole. I got rather fed up with it. I thought at the time, Lord, what’s so interesting about them? Then he said something that worried me afterwards. He said,” She got a job I wanted. If they’d known she was having an affair she wouldn’t have got it. That sort of thing doesn’t go down well. ” I was quite worried in case he was going to get her into trouble because of something I’d said. I didn’t expect to hear from him again because he was going to America; I didn’t like him very much actually. Then he rang up out of the blue and said his plans had changed.

“Next time I saw him,” Charley went on, ‘he started the questions again. Just slipped in here and there. Had I seen Davy lately hadn’t she mentioned the Pole before bringing him that weekend couldn’t I remember his name or what he did at the Embassy? It seemed so odd; I suppose I noticed it because he wasn’t the least interested in me. I felt he was taking me out so he could find out about Davina and this man. ” Her father frowned.

“It certainly sounds like it,” he admitted.

“What was this job he talked about I don’t understand that at all. What is his position? After all, Davina’s a personal assistant; he can’t have wanted that! ” Charley paused; both parents were looking at her anxiously.

“There’s something else,” she said.

“Probably ridiculous.”

“What was it, Charley,” her mother prompted.

“Tell us.”

“Oh, you probably don’t even remember. There was a Russian who disappeared over here last year. They found his body by Beachy Head. A couple of months ago or more.”

“I remember,” her mother said suddenly.

“It was on the news and there was a lot of fuss in the papers.”

“There was a photograph,” Charley said.

“A blown-up thing, very grainy, taken of this Russian when he arrived at Heathrow. Did you see it, mother?” Mrs. Graham shook her head.

“I don’t think so; I don’t remember it.”

“I expect you’ll think I’m absolutely mad, but I thought it looked like Davy’s Pole.”

“Good God,” Captain Graham exclaimed.

“I remember that picture, and I remember thinking the same thing. What a coincidence.” His wife got up.

“I keep the old newspapers,” she said quietly.

“I’ll see if I can find it.” She went inside the house.

“It’s nonsense, of course,” Captain Graham said after a pause, ‘but we might as well look together if your mother can find it. Here she is. Any luck, Betty? “

“Yes, it’s The Times, May 9th.” She spread the paper out on the garden table. The three of them looked at it.

“That’s the picture I saw,” he said. Charley stared down at it.

“It’s a better reproduction than the one in my paper. It does look like him, doesn’t it?” Captain Graham nodded; he was reading the caption and the news story.

“I think it’s turned cold,” his wife said.

“Let’s go inside. Bring that with you, dear. I’ll make some tea.” In the quiet drawing-room, golden in the late sunshine, Charley perched on the arm of her father’s chair. She slipped her arm round him.

“When did you last hear from Davy?”

“Not since that weekend. She wrote a nice letter to your mother. Nothing since. But that’s not unusual. She leads her own life. In fact we hadn’t been in touch for months till she suddenly rang up and invited herself down for the weekend. Betty hasn’t heard from her since the thank-you letter, or she’d have told me. I don’t understand this at all, Charley. Especially this fellow Spencer-whatever-it-is. I don’t understand this business about her getting a job, and why he wants to know about some Pole she brings down for the weekend. Look, darling, don’t worry about it. You haven’t done her any harm, I’m sure of that.

“

“I just hope not,” she said slowly.

“I hurt her badly enough once. It would be pretty awful if I did it again.

I know her career means a lot to her. And thanks to me, Daddy, it’s all she’s got.”

“You’re not to talk like that,” he protested.

“Davina’s had plenty of chances. You never meant to hurt anyone.”

“That’s quite true,” she said.

“It never occurred to me Davina wouldn’t find anyone else. I just took Richard off her, that’s all. I didn’t seem able to help it. And I never wanted to marry him either. You’re right, darling, it was a long time ago, but I don’t want to be the cause of any trouble to her now. And I don’t like Jeremy. He’s goodlooking, he’s charming in a way, very intelligent, and just not nice. That’s all. ” They sat together in silence for a while.

“Daddy you don’t think it’s possible…”

“What, Charley?”

“It couldn’t have been that other man, could it? The Russian. Seeing it just now, I was sure they were the same. She couldn’t be mixed up in something, could she? ” Her mother came in with a tray. She answered the question before her husband had time. Her handsome face was grave.

“There’s one way to make sure,” she said.

“Your father must go up and see James White. And he must tell him about this friend of yours, Charley, and his questions. So far as we know, Davina’s a perfectly ordinary personal secretary and that man she brought here was a perfectly ordinary Polish diplomat. But we have got to make sure, that’s all. Charley, pour out the tea, will you?”

“Yes, Mother.” She got up and took charge of the tea tray. Betty Graham settled in her chair opposite her husband’s. She seldom took the initiative; her husband had been the head of the house and the family, and she had contentedly deferred to him throughout their married life. But when she did assert herself the effect upon him and her children was very positive. She addressed herself to Charley again.

“James has been a friend for many years,” she said.

“Your father and I have always understood that he has a confidential job in the Ministry, although naturally we’ve never mentioned it. So far as we know, Davina is his secretary, and recently promoted to his personal assistant. If she’s got involved with anything beyond that, then I shall want to hear James’s explanation. But until we do, Charley dear, you must promise to say nothing to anyone about her, the man she brought down here, or even this person Jeremy. I’ve been studying that picture too. The more I look at it, the more it reminds me of her Polish friend. But the story said the body had been in the sea for several months. It was discovered only a few weeks after Davina and he had been to stay. So it couldn’t have been the same person. “Thank you, darling.” She took the cup of tea from Charley.