by Jessica Mann
During the day the traffic up to the dam was heavy, and at the top car park coaches edged around each other like rivals. Tamara watched the passengers in her bus walk off to the great curved wall of the dam, and turned to walk down the mountain. Her relief map showed several routes, and she followed the splashes of coloured paint which marked the way nearest to the only chalet anywhere near the rock chapel. As soon as she was close enough to see wires and aerials, she knew she had come the right way.
The wind had been diminishing all afternoon, and when Tamara rounded the corner of the mountain itself, she could hear her own breath, and stop the incessant pushing back of wisps of hair under her cap. When she seemed to be only a few feet above the chalet, she left the marked path and edged her way through the trees until she could see down towards it from their shelter. She paused in a patch of grass, an idyllic picnic spot, and she hoped a good vantage point. She put her notebook, pencil and pocket clinometer on a boulder, prominently to hand, and stretched her tape across the clearing. Even more quickly than she had anticipated, she was joined in the grassy clearing by two men and an alsatian dog. She looked up at the men, giving them the full benefit of the blue gaze.
‘Bonjour messieurs,’ she said.
‘Que faites vous là?’ His accent was so atrocious that Tamara nearly giggled. Nerves. She quickened her speech, almost gabbling, watching the baffled expression on their faces.
‘I’m surveying the likely spots for settlement from the fourth century, it is for my thesis, it is a fascinating subject, I must take my measurements, you see, I write them into my notebook – here, you look, and you, monsieur, why don’t you help me, will you hold the tape for me?’ She pressed the end of the hundred metre tape into one of the men’s hands.
‘I don’t understand French very well,’ he said. ‘Can you speak more slowly?’
Even more rapidly she said, ‘Of course it may be that the traces of human habitation are from a much earlier period, only excavation will tell – les fouilles, you understand, messieurs? – perhaps you will come and take part – you live nearby perhaps?’ She moved from side to side of the clearing, measuring out and writing down the distances between unconnected outcrops of rock. After watching her solemnly, but not, it seemed, suspiciously, for a while, they lumbered away. Soon she saw them disappearing around the outbuildings of the chalet, and heard the dog bark, and then subside into low growls at the back of its throat. Sounds travelled very clearly from down there. She must make sure that she carried on audibly measuring. Murmuring figures aloud, she undid the Sopwith case, and drew out Placidus Reichenbach’s rifle. For the moment, she laid it down under a couple of pine branches, ready to hand in case of need, but not visible. Archaeologists were always having tea breaks. She sat down, and ate some of the chocolate. It might be a long afternoon.
Curious, she thought, that she had not the slightest doubt as to how to interpret the conversation she had overheard down in the hotel. She played it over in her memory again. It was important, as she had been told all her life, to be on her guard against impulse; she must not leap to conclusions; she must think before she spoke, she must ponder before she acted – a litany of admonitions which she had learnt to repeat over the years, but which could not change her essential character. In Tamara’s case, second thoughts usually turned out to be exactly the same as the first ones.
Those men, those Russian speakers, had been talking about Aidan Britton. They had come to make sure that their investment of twenty-five years would not be wasted at the very moment before coming to its real profitability.
Was it conceivable that he had been unsuspected all these years? Could Aidan Britton have been recruited as an undergraduate, to spy, and never been the subject of rumour, of investigation? But he must have been routinely investigated, many times. Or perhaps they could not look into the secrets of elected members? Perhaps with elected members who were ostensibly right wing, it did not seem necessary?
Tamara wondered how many other contemporaries of Aidan Britton had received whatever inducements were offered to such men, without reaching a position to be of use to their paymasters? Presumably, if many were recruited, of whom only one became useful, it would be regarded as worthwhile.
Perhaps he had been suspected and cleared for lack of evidence? For the Russian had implied that this hitch was the first to be tackled by Britton and his unidentified collaborator without help, and that was why they had not sorted it out sooner. Probably Aidan Britton would not wish even them to know that he had once performed an abortion with his own hands and killed his victim. Or could he have forgotten doing it, over the years, until Phoebe reminded him, here, and died for it?
The Englishman had mentioned the propaganda effects of defection. Tamara shuddered as she imagined the news breaking, that the man poised to become Prime Minister, the man admired as a strong leader, as the heir to an honourable system, to an honoured name, had been betraying his country throughout his career. It would be the end of trust and faith. No man’s word could ever be credited again.
I would not wish that damage on any country, she thought. Britton’s defection would destabilise Britain.
A quotation memorised for ‘A’-level history, ten years before, came into her head. It was from Montaigne, and she had offered it to Ian on one of his conscience-searching days, not long after they first met:
‘The public good requires that men should betray and lie and murder.’
Funny, she thought; how funny. Until today, I would have argued strongly against that.
She pulled the rifle towards her, and lay on her stomach, watching the chalet and the approaches to it. Nothing had stirred since the men she had convinced of her harmlessness returned to it.
‘Qu’est-ce-qui-se passe? Vous êtes folle? Que faites vous là?’ A torrent of furious French rained over Tamara and the rifle barrel was seized by the speaker, a small man to whom anger lent dignity. She let go of the gun. Only then did he turn his attention to her. She had her finger to her lips, ‘Are you Placidus Reichenbach?’ she whispered. ‘Rosamund told me that you are often out on the mountain.’ Like a Red Indian, Tamara remembered, but could not remember the French expression. He nodded, still suspicious, though not, apparently, additionally angered by the realisation that the gun was his own. ‘I am a friend of Rosamund Sholto. She is a prisoner in the chalet. Don’t speak loudly.’
‘She came back?’ He started to re-load the gun, and now held it aggressively, standing behind a tree, and peering down towards the chalet. He was a short man, wearing jeans and a knitted sweater, but Tamara would not have liked to be his enemy. ‘Is Britton there too?’
‘I don’t think he has arrived yet, but he’s on his way.’
‘The wind is fallen. The helicopters will be landing again,’ he muttered.
‘Rosamund will be in danger once he gets here,’ Tamara said.
‘Yes, I think that is so. No –’ He shook his head, eyes still on the closed house. ‘Don’t tell me why. It is not necessary. But when he comes …’ For a moment he looked intently at Tamara. Then he handed her his rifle. ‘We must ensure that Rosamund is safe. You wait.’
‘But –’
‘I use the armoury of democracy. It is that which is threatened by such men as Britton.’ With a pat on the shoulder, perhaps encouragement, perhaps consolation, he left Tamara. At once he was invisible and inaudible, and none of his murmured words had drawn the guards upon them again. Tamara indulged a brief vision of Reichenbach flying or jumping down the steep slope, only to return with his military colleagues in battle array. What could he have gone to do? It was hard to believe that it would make much difference, whatever it was.
After he had been gone for a while she began to wonder whether she should trust him. The Swiss tended to accept legitimate authority. They did not recognise the equality of the sexes. They pandered to the whims of their rich foreign residents. Was it not the Swiss who sheltered deposed monarchs and protected the loot of fascist dictat
ors?
Would an obscure water engineer try to oppose the next Prime Minister of Great Britain? Would he kill, or be killed, in such a cause? In any cause?
Today, for the public good as Montaigne described it, one woman would assume the responsibility of betrayal, and lying, and murder.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Whisked by a strange man into a black limousine, Rosamund assumed that she was to be driven to Britton’s eyrie in the mountains by one of his henchmen. She was half way towards Geneva, before she fully believed that the car belonged to the British Ambassador, that the chauffeur, while more than a simple driver, was legitimately, not illicitly, a bodyguard; and that the youngish man beside her was not a Britton Boy, but Tamara’s friend, Ian Barnes.
Ian was quicker on the uptake than Rosamund had been. She convinced him that Tamara, missing Rosamund in Sierre, would have gone to their agreed rendezvous, the Reichenbachs’ house in St Jean. ‘She’ll think that they’ve got me at the chalet, when she doesn’t find me there,’ Rosamund said urgently. ‘And you know what she’s like.’
Ian Barnes did not reply directly; but within five minutes the car was speeding, with Barnes at the wheel in the chauffeur’s uniform, back along the valley road, and up into the mountains. He was abstracted; but Rosamund asked him how he, or his masters, had known she would be going to the bank in Sierre, and was dismayed by his answer.
‘If Gerald Greenfield has been telling everybody everything, then Aidan Britton knows too. You say he gave the Minister a copy of Phoebe’s letter? And I rang him myself, from Holland. Drive faster, if you can, Ian. I think Tamara may need us.’
*
Aidan Britton was not open to conviction that he was in danger. Twenty years of success had taught him that he was invincible. It was partly this self-confidence that made him attractive to a leader-hungry electorate. Unenlightened by Rosamund Sholto, the people would express their will to be ruled by Aidan Britton; once under control, they would remain so, willy-nilly.
The Prime Minister was sinking; Britton’s moment was nigh. He would deal with Rosamund and dispose of Stefan Czernin’s papers, and then return to triumph.
Aidan Britton flew to Geneva, and transferred then to his helicopter. On the road below him, Rosamund Sholto and Ian Barnes sped back in the same direction. And Tamara Hoyland waited; and waited.
Unlike Rosamund in this machine on her way to Phoebe’s funeral, Aidan Britton ignored the view. Years of inexperience of public transport had accustomed him to his own comforts. What power now provided, money had formerly acquired; and Aidan Britton had long since managed to forget where his first cash had come from.
A cash payment, no more; and at the time, a payment without any of what lawyers would call consideration. A capital investment for the future, they had said, and never yet required a dividend. Britton could have repaid the sum a hundred fold, but he never thought of trying to do so, and if he ever wondered whether a dun would follow him into Number Ten when he took possession, he did not doubt being able to get rid of him again. His lucky start had been nothing, after all, without his own ability. He was born to rule. Even without that initial injection of capital, he would have come to power.
But no return had been demanded, neither information nor influence, neither money nor obedience. Britton had long since concluded that the details of one small, speculative investment had been forgotten by Moscow’s overgrown bureaucracy. When he met Gerald Greenfield at formal functions, it was as senior politician and obscure civil servant. That channel of communication had silted up for lack of traffic. Only one person had ever suspected its existence, and she had bled to death in an undergraduate’s bedsitter.
Maria’s knowledge, cheated out of Gerald, had been the only danger, and though he had not killed her purposely, he was glad she died. What might she not have said? But even then, his mind had winced from its revengeful thoughts, for he had not enjoyed hurting her, when he aborted Gerald’s child, only hated the disgusting wetness, softness, smelliness of her female body. For I’m not a sadist, Aidan Britton thought. He had never wanted to hurt people, though easily accepted the necessity, at second hand. He would probably have fetched a doctor to her, if he had been the one to go back to that room after the morning examination. Gerald was a stronger character; he could accept chance’s gifts. Gerald needed to be strong, to face lifelong obscurity for a cause. Aidan was his own only cause.
*
Of the people converging on the chalet that afternoon, some did not even notice the unusual activity in the village of St Jean, and of those who noticed it, only a few understood.
Aidan Britton hardly glanced from the window of the car that waited to transport him from helicopter to chalet. He had spent many months of his life in this valley, but it might as well have been a Caribbean island or a villa in Greece for all the part he played in local affairs. He recognised no faces, noticed no alterations, but merely muttered, irritably, at the crowds impeding his progress. The village street was full of people walking in the direction of the mountain road; many were wearing traditional dress and some children were playing brass instruments. ‘Peasants,’ thought the Minister, and decided that he would put the chalet on the market once Rosamund was out of the way.
*
Rosamund and Ian found the Reichenbachs’ house empty, but saw the car Tamara had been driving in the hotel’s forecourt. Ian Barnes was incredulous at the reception clerk’s story.
‘It’s absolute nonsense,’ he said. ‘How could she have gone doing fieldwork on the mountain? Archaeological evidence is impossible on terrain of that kind.’
‘It makes good cover,’ Rosamund said.
*
For a moment the Minister was nonplussed by the sight of an official limousine, flag unfurled, rolling to a halt on his gravel driveway; nor did he immediately recognise his sister-in-law, who he had expected to be awaiting him in the confinement of his house.
The chauffeur, peaked cap pulled down over his eyes, got out to hold the door for the passenger; Rosamund Sholto stepped out to greet the Minister. She had removed the cheek pads and the shoe lifts, but her hair was still brassy. She glanced around the circle of men who were moving towards her; their precision could have been politeness, or could have been menacing.
‘The Ambassador lent me his car and driver,’ she said clearly. ‘He is expecting me back for dinner.’ In a lower voice, she said to Aidan Britton, ‘I have invited the press. They are on their way.’
For a moment she found herself believing her own story, for another car was pulling off the mountain road onto the parking place. And somewhere in the background she could hear music, and singing, and the rumble of agricultural traffic.
‘Where are the papers?’ Aidan Britton said.
So he had not got Tamara and the papers that had been in her charge. Supposing herself to be lying, Rosamund said, ‘I told you that the press were coming. The papers have been copied and distributed.’
He would be thinking about D notices, and censorship, and personal relationships with Press Barons. Ian Barnes had forecast what his reactions would be. He would not be afraid of secret knowledge, for he would be sure he could suppress it, but the days were long since gone when an English ruler could keep out of the English papers all the scandal about him that was filling the front pages in America and Europe. Aidan Britton would not last on his pedestal as long as Edward VIII had managed to, by achieving secrecy in England. Aidan Britton had been in politics long enough to know that a secret shared was not a secret for long.
‘The story of Maria Czernin’s death will be enough to bring you down,’ Rosamund said.
*
It was not of Maria Czernin’s death that Gerald Greenfield and his Russian companion were thinking. Even the British, in one of their periodic fits of vicarious morality, would not lose a leader for that old tale. They – and Aidan Britton himself – knew that he was in danger only from a story which Rosamund in her naivety had not suspected; which Ian
Barnes’ master, in his cynicism, had thought would be effective, false or true. And even he, back in London, was only half sure that it was true.
The Minister saw the two men climb from their small car and stand waiting beside it, and it was they, not Rosamund, who represented nemesis. Gerald Greenfield, and a man with Mongolian cheekbones, perhaps the same man, perhaps a man like those he had contracted with in Hungary in 1956.
Russia? A dacha, and a decoration as a hero of the Soviet Union, and perhaps a little job to keep boredom at bay? Memoirs, bestsellers for different reasons, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and pilgrimages, in future years, of journalists coming to see the famous traitor in his sunset home? Snow, scorching summers, villas on the Black Sea?
No, no, and again no. It was not for that he had aspired, it was not that he would be reduced to accepting. Neither retirement nor revenge.
I can deal with the Press, he thought, if all Rosamund has told them is about a twenty-year-old mistake, a venial sin. I am the Press’s darling; Sholto’s heir. They say. What say they? Let them say.
*
In her vantage point Tamara Hoyland watched an incomprehensible delay. She had seen Rosamund delivered into the clutches of her enemy by official means, and cursed that chauffeur for his obedience. And then she saw the two men from the hotel garden.
*
Marching feet and metal banging on metal; tunes played by trumpet and stringed instruments. Tractors, trailers, cars and vans. The farmers were coming down the mountain at the end of summer, and on their way to greet them came the children and the citizens of St Jean. But their leaders had been diverted to more urgent tasks.