The Tamarind Seed (4 page)

So Rachel sent him a cable, with her family's approval, and took flight for Washington.

And it worked. Now, carrying the baby, beginning to meet people in Washington and make a few tentative friends, Rachel sailed through his bad moods, and tolerated his weekly absences in New York with gentle complaisance. She had learned her lesson. He was a difficult man. Selfish, irritable, distant; but she loved him and in a few months she would have the baby to look after.

He couldn't have provoked a quarrel with her if he'd deliberately set out to do so. And of course she knew nothing about Judith Farrow.

‘Sorry I kept you, darling.' She turned to him in the car and squeezed his arm. ‘Doesn't everything look pretty in the snow?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Very pretty.'

‘Mrs. Stephenson's asked me to lunch next Tuesday,' his wife said.

He had been surprised and pleased by the way the people liked Rachel. Even the stickiest of the Embassy wives, including the Minister's wife, Mrs. Fergus Stephenson, accepted her and pronounced her charming until he felt he ought to take a closer look at her himself. The trouble was he kept thinking of Judith; every time he saw Judith, his wife seemed more insipid by comparison, as superficial and fluffy as the frightful pekinese he had made her get rid of after they were married.

‘You must be very nice to her,' he said. ‘Stephenson's tipped for the Paris Embassy. He's a brilliant chap.'

‘Don't worry,' she said. ‘I won't put my foot in it. Don't forget, I was brought up in the senior wife tradition. Here we are, and it's five to seven. That's all right, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' Richard said. ‘But just drop your coat and don't start powdering your nose!'

The French Embassy was housed in a large elegant building on Kalorama Road; Richard and his wife passed the reception line, shaking hands with the Ambassador and his handsome wife, and then merged in the throng of people in the main reception room. They had hardly moved through the first thin crust of the crowd, before the British Ambassador was announced. Richard made his way to a group of people Rachel didn't know by sight. A huge Dutchman, one of the First Secretaries at his Embassy, heaved into sight, his pendulous chins bouncing against his collar, as he shook his massive head from side to side.

‘Ah, Group Captain, I was looking for you earlier. I want to introduce my new military attaché to you. He's a fine fellow—you'll be friends. Come along, he's over there, standing near the West German Ambassador.'

As they moved through the groups of people he spoke over his shoulder.

‘By the way,' he said, ‘I can't see Sverdlov here. Have you seen him?'

‘No. I don't think so.' Instinctively Paterson stiffened. He avoided all the Russians and Eastern bloc people. Nobody would ever be able to dig up some acquaintanceship and point their finger at him.

‘Does it matter that he isn't here?'

The Dutchman shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘No. I just noticed because where General Golitsyn goes, there one finds Colonel Sverdlov. Like the Heavenly Twins—perhaps that's not a very apt description of them! Ah, there is Jack Loder over there.'

‘I'd like to meet your attaché,' Richard Paterson said. ‘Come along, darling.' He caught Rachel by the arm. He had no wish to talk to Jack Loder or to inflict him upon his wife. In Paterson's view that type of man should never be allowed to rise above the rank of chief filing clerk in a top grade Embassy.

Loder had been in Washington for a year. He had arrived the previous February, in freezing weather, to take up an appointment at Liaison with Plans. His former post had been in Delhi, where he was listed as commercial adviser to the trade commissioner; before that he had spent six months working on a cultural exchange programme with the Embassy in Bonn. In all his jobs the other members of the staff had avoided him.

Nobody liked spies; Loder had discovered that very early in his career. Like policemen they were only at ease in each other's company.

Unpopularity didn't worry Loder; he loved his work and you couldn't have both. He was not a prepossessing man to look at; he was short and wiry, with a roughly assembled face, and the poor teeth associated with a working class background. He was unfortunate in having ginger hair, his lumpy features sprinkled with freckles, puffy pink lids cushioned his sandy eyes. He looked as if he drank heavily. In fact he was a teetotaller. In Delhi, after his wife left him, he had begun to drink to an extent that qualified for alcoholism, though nobody ever suspected or could say they'd seen him drunk. For months he was never sober. He hadn't minded too much about his wife leaving; they had drifted apart after the war; like so many marriages undertaken in a hurry, the foundations were shallow, and when she went he didn't miss her. But he missed their children. He had a son of twelve and a girl of ten, and he had begun to enjoy them, with a sense of rare companionship.

The distance between them made it worse; they were in England, there was no contact except occasional, inarticulate children's letters. He had never appreciated the pain of loneliness before. When the border incidents between India and China blew up into an international crisis, with a Chinese invasion seeming imminent, he suddenly pulled himself up. He had stopped drinking and got on with his job. He had never touched anything alcoholic since, not even beer. He disliked wine; where he came from, it was considered a sissy drink, like port.

In the last months in Delhi he had done outstanding Intelligence work. His Ambassador, although a ferocious snob, had recommended him so highly that he was given the top Washington job. From the social side he found it a very dull city, as provincial as only a place can be which is restricted to one section of society, however important. Diplomats mixed with diplomats; if anything bored Loder more than the Foreign Office party circuit, it was the circus which revolved around the White House and the Senate. Also he found the Americans completely alien. He had left his Midlands University with First Class honours, but in spite of this intellectual quality, he was a narrow-minded man, with a streak of suspicious insularity in his nature. He didn't understand Americans and he was not prepared to try. He merely did his job with the flair and efficiency that had always overcome his personal disadvantages.

About this time, Loder detached himself from the company of a dull commercial counsellor from Austria, who was trying desperately hard to discuss the possibility of an Anglo-Viennese trade fair. He moved on abruptly, leaving the Austrian looking red faced, and stared round for someone to talk to; he loathed receptions of all kinds, but he was meticulous in his attendance. He liked to test straws in the wind, and something prickled along the skin round his collar, like a nervous itch. He recognised the sensation. Other men had hunches; Loder's neck irritated when there was something not quite right. A brilliant assembly; he mocked, saying the words to himself, imitating a slightly high pitched upper class English voice. Most distinguished; the ladies of the diplomatic at their most elegant, the French Ambassador his charming self, and Madame, as always, the most outstanding. And so she bloody well ought to be; what her clothes cost he couldn't imagine. He stopped a waiter, and took a glass of fresh orange juice. Then he saw Richard Paterson, and on a mischievous impulse moved towards him. His wife was with him. She was the kind of woman Loder abhorred. Fair, silly, Daddy's an Air Marshal kind of bitch, with one of those dental drill voices, and tiny tits. As soon as she came out she got a bun in the oven and told the whole Embassy about it. He saw Paterson's expression change as he approached, and a very slight grin twitched round his mouth. Loder knew all about the weekly trips to New York. It was his business to keep an eye on everyone.

‘Good evening,' he said. ‘Crowded, isn't it?'

‘Yes, terribly.' Rachel Paterson edged nearer her husband. She had met this rather dreadful man several times. He looked coarse and they way he stared at her made her uncomfortable. She couldn't imagine what such a person was doing in the Foreign Office, but then so many things were different now. People came into jobs from all over the place. That ugly, middle English accent was becoming quite commonplace. She left Richard to talk to him.

‘How was Van Ryker?' Loder asked. ‘I saw you talking to him.'

‘In good form,' Richard Paterson answered.

There was a pause and the Group Captain's chilly attitude was very obvious.

Then Paterson's wife opened her mouth; she had noticed the hiatus and felt she ought to say something. ‘He was looking for somebody, wasn't he, darling—some Russian …'

‘Oh?' Loder waited.

‘Sverdlov,' Paterson said. ‘He hadn't seen him here. I told him I hadn't either.'

‘Oh,' Loder said again. ‘Now you mention it, neither have I!' He put a stubby finger under his collar and scratched. His neck was giving him hell. ‘Excuse me.' He walked away from them.

The man he was looking for was standing in a small group, talking to a middle-aged Senator's wife. Loder tapped him on the back.

‘Commander Buckley?'

The American turned, looked pleased to see Loder, and started introductions. Loder interrupted, speaking quietly. It didn't occur to him that he was being rude. ‘I'd like a word with you. Come and get a drink.'

The Commander excused himself with grace; he was a retired Navy man with a reputation for charm. Women of all ages liked him; his staff described him as the most inconsiderate bastard who had ever held the senior CIA post in Washington and hated him to a man.

They drifted out of hearing; Buckley picked up a glass of champagne from a moving waiter.

‘What's on your mind, Jack?'

That was another American habit that Loder resented. From the first handshake it was Christian names. He made a point of using the Commander's full title.

‘Sverdlov's missing. He was not at the Belgians last Tuesday either. The Dutch are making enquiries about him. What's up? Where the hell is he?'

The Commander looked bland. ‘I was going to call you at your office tomorrow,' he said. ‘He's left the States. On vacation, we assume.'

‘Well.' Loder's face had reddened, it accentuated his ugliness when he was angry. ‘Well, if we had a bit of information from you now and again, we might be able to assume something for ourselves. I just picked this up tonight. Sverdlov's their top man. You people keep them all under surveillance—why wasn't I informed before, Commander? This is bloody irregular.'

‘I'm sorry.' The American was soothing. He didn't want a row with this prickly little s.o.b. Also Loder was within his rights to complain. When a Soviet of Sverdlov's importance left the United States, all heads of Nato intelligence were entitled to know. The Commander had delayed on purpose; he had the professional's objection to passing on information for nothing, even to allies. ‘But it looks like a vacation, nothing more. He's gone to the Caribbean. To Barbados.'

‘You're joking!' Loder's surprise was genuine. They never go anywhere except home, for their holidays. He must be up to something.'

‘Probably setting up a rocket base,' Buckley made a joke.

‘Balls,' Loder said. ‘You don't think he's been recalled—the Caribbean could be just a blind. There's that old goat Golitsyn standing round; you don't suppose he's been given the job?'

‘Unlikely.' Commander Buckley glanced towards the group of Russians, with the General standing in the middle of it, and then back to Loder. ‘Too old. If Sverdlov's pulling out, then his replacement is already here.'

‘And we don't know who the hell it is—Christ, that's going to be awkward.'

‘Like I said, I think there's nothing major in it. He's gone off on a vacation, maybe to meet someone, we don't know. But the Barbadian Government are keeping tabs on him, they're not happy about him being there at all, but there wasn't much they could do about it. My guess is he'll be back.'

‘Let's hope so,' Loder said sourly. ‘Better the devil you know. I'd appreciate your keeping me informed, right up to date?'

‘Of course,' the Commander prepared to move away. ‘Will do, Jack. I'll call you the moment we get anything, and you'll do the same for me?'

‘Anything comes to us, I'll let you have it.' Loder didn't wait to be dismissed, he moved first, shouldering his way through the crowd, making towards the door. Sverdlov had left the States and holed up in a Caribbean island. It was so extraordinary, so completely untypical. He had been in America for three years; it had taken the combined Western intelligence services eighteen months to identify him as the head of the KGB in the Soviet Embassy to Washington. He was a brilliant operator; he kept to himself as all the senior officers did; the Martini circuit and the casual pick-up was left to the more junior Embassy officials, masquerading as trade or service attachés. Soviet officers in Sverdlov's position never travelled to places like Barbados and sunned themselves without a purpose. It would keep Loder awake all that night wondering exactly what the hell that purpose might turn out to be.

By the end of the week, Loder attended an Intelligence conference called by Commander Buckley. It was an informal gathering, with the Nato powers represented, and they met in Buckley's office in Georgetown. He worked where he lived, in one of the attractive old houses in the exclusive residential area of the city. He operated under the title of Principal Adviser to the Naval Pensions and Veterans Board. He had in fact a large complex of offices on Pennslyvania Avenue, with any number of resources at his command. He preferred to hold intimate meetings in his own house. The Dutch, represented by Van Ryker, the French, the Belgians, and others bound in uneasy alliance against the Eastern bloc, sat round the Commander's polished table, smoking and helping themselves to drinks and what Loder described contemptuously as cocktail scraps. The object of the meeting was to impart the latest information upon the activities of Colonel Feodor Sverdlov.