by Brian Martin
When I eventually reached the Journal and made my way to my space protected by my filing cabinets and bookcases, I was told by Lorel that I had a message to ring a Seville number. It was Roxanne’s. I felt a surge of anticipatory pleasure, and rang immediately. Roxanne was not there: I told a woman I took to be a maid, who spoke a poor but comprehensible English, that if Roxanne was to return shortly, I would telephone in two hours’ time.
That I did, and to my undisguised pleasure she announced that she would be flying into London in three days’ time.
‘Terrific. I simply can’t wait,’ I exclaimed.
‘You sound very pleased with yourself,’ she said. ‘I might not fancy you any more. So you’d better wait and see. On the other hand, make sure you are fit and that you’ve slept well. We might not do too much sleeping.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be ready for you. Will you ring me on my mobile when you are free?’
‘Of course. Raoul is going to be busy, and I’ll bet he’s also got his own entertainment lined up – some gorgeous blonde or some athletic young man.’
I just hoped that nothing would crop up to make me disappear to Estonia before she arrived. I kept my fingers crossed.
Everything on the Baltic front remained quiet. There was no emergency that meant my taking off at short notice. And so, the day of Roxanne’s arrival came. I had anticipated it like a small child waiting for a special treat. Once or twice, in rational moments, I had dispelled the crazy experience of looking forward so much to her presence. I had thought of Lena and gone over in my mind our night together at the Cosmos. Who would I rather have? Was it Lena or Roxanne? Both possessed great allure. Both excited me. Lena, though, was unreachable. Roxanne was on her way: she was the immediate reality.
On the day she was due to land at Heathrow my mobile became part of my brain, a necessary extension, a nerve centre to be stimulated remotely, at a distance, first by Roxanne’s fingers, then by her voice. It was an integral part of me.
Around 4.30, she called. They had landed, been taken by car to the Connaught in Carlos Place. When could I meet her? Raoul was leaving then to go to a meeting with advisers and a foreign client. He had told her that he would be tied up all evening. She made some joke about that – he would no doubt be visiting some Soho basement – and said that, obviously, it left the evening clear for us to be together. I could not believe our luck.
She knew I lived in a little house behind Olympia, but I did not want her to see me so close to home. My personal domestic circumstances might have ruined her illusions about me, if she had constructed any. I was not sure that she had because I knew her imagination to be limited. As I have said, her intellectual activity was on the surface of things. It did not go deep. Nonetheless, I thought it best to keep her away from Olympia.
‘Shall I call on you? If you are convinced that your husband is going to be out of the way, then we might as well enjoy ourselves in comfort.’
‘What have you got in mind then, you lecherous devil?’
‘Exactly. Much the same, I’m sure, as you have. Let’s not talk about it, but wait and find out.’
She at once came back at me, and it was something I liked about her. From the very start of our relationship she had most often taken the initiative. She held nothing back and had few inhibitions.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s often more enjoyable to talk ourselves into what we’re going to do. We can create an expectancy that will add to our pleasure.’
She was quite right, of course, but I was still working. I had some copy to finish before I could meet her.
‘You’re right,’ I responded. ‘The trouble is that I must just quickly finish what I’m doing here. Then I can come round and see you.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll finish you off.’ So, I thought, that was something to look forward to.
Carlos Place and the Connaught give an impression of space and opulence. It is the way the road curves and the hotel is not set face on as in an ordinary street. The hotel itself is elegant and grand. The commissionaire touched his hat, greeted me cheerily as if I were a regular client, and held the door open. I went in and asked one of the receptionists to give Roxanne’s room a call. After a brief, murmured conversation, I was told to go up to Raoul’s suite. As expected, he was not there. He had left for his rendezvous. Roxanne was looking as beautiful and as enticing as ever. She never staled. The large sitting room was still filled with the rather pungent, almost acrid parfum pour homme, that Raoul used; but within seconds I detected through the miasma Roxanne’s Chanel. She stepped towards me. I kissed her on her cheeks then on her lips. She embraced me and held me firmly for some time. We both sighed and relaxed. Our physical contact was a release of tension that we both had been craving a long time.
‘I think we should have a bottle of champagne,’ she said. ‘We must celebrate our reunion.’ She picked up the phone and ordered some vintage Cristal: it would go on Raoul’s account, I assumed, no questions asked. Within a few minutes, we were toasting each other’s health and fortune.
As I have said, before anything else our relationship was based on physical desire and compatibility. It was not long before she said we should make love. She did not want to lose any opportunity or to waste time. I was sitting in a chair at a small table. She came across to me, took my glass from my hand, took my jacket from me, kissed me insistently and raised me from the chair. Her hands went to my waist and downwards: whatever defences I thought I might have against the invasion of her touch immediately dissolved. From defence I went immediately on to relentless attack. Within minutes we were on the huge bed in the adjoining room, fulfilling the purpose of our conjunction.
That was the way the evening started. Intermittently, that was how it went on. We talked to each other of how, when we were separated, we both dreamed of what we were able to do then uninhibited. I wondered about Raoul but she calmed me. She knew him well and said that, as we made love, he would be busy being teased into action by some sensual black-laced mademoiselle in a high class, expensive brothel in Mayfair, or he would be enjoying the attentions of a handsome youth who would flatter him and perform for him feats that he could no longer do himself. That was her husband. She had no illusions. He did not mind her seeing me provided that we did not make a public spectacle of ourselves. He did not even mind if we were seen dining together, but, for his reputation, things could go no farther than that.
We did dine out that evening. We went to a tiny Italian restaurant in Jermyn Street. It was good and unpretentious. As it happened, there was a person I knew in the restaurant, a member of the royal household, who lived in a grace and favour apartment in St James’s Palace. He and his wife had taken the short walk for an easy dinner. I nodded to him as we went in and I could see in his look a curiosity and an envy to do with the elegant, beautiful woman who was with me. I met him rarely. The need for explanation was negligible.
Afterwards we strolled through Mayfair. I idly wondered if we would bump into Raoul coming out of one of those clean, trim houses that you would never know were centres for the trade of love. Would he choose to recognise us, stand and chat, or would he look straight through me, climb into his waiting limousine and sweep off. I was never to know. We saw no sign of him. On nights such as that, Roxanne said, he would not return until one or two in the morning. Yet it was not helpful. Back at the Connaught, I was nervous that he would show up. I felt that I had to escape before eleven o’clock. It was safer that way: I did not want to meet him in those circumstances. We spent a final hour satisfying ourselves in physical and emotional ways. Then I explained to Roxanne that I could no longer stay. I was beginning to live in real life one of my anxiety dreams. At any moment I felt that Raoul would arrive, it would be disaster for me, and the end of our relationship. I had to leave before the crisis occurred. It was a deeply based conviction that I could not stop or deny.
She let me go, reluctantly, but she understood. She had enjoyed herself. Fortu
nately I was able to provide her with contentment and pleasure. I had no confidence in my own sexual abilities but she seemed to find them agreeable. I marvelled at myself and remembered what an amateur in those matters I reckoned I was as a novice teenager. It remained a mystery to me how an awkward, inexpert teenager and later university student, could a few years later on captivate such a glamorous woman as Roxanne.
It was difficult to leave Roxanne but I knew I must. We lingered and touched each other. I loved her hands: I loved the shape and feel of her fingers. Eventually we kissed, I stroked her cheeks, and she pushed me gently away. We agreed to meet the next day. The champagne, the good food, the sex, made me walk with exhilaration and light-heartedness up into Berkeley Square where I hailed a taxi. Back in my Olympia house I felt cramped and confined, but I recognised it as reality.
13
My expectation of more days like that was disappointed. I received an urgent call from Willy; would I drop into the St James’s office? Of course, I did drop in. My curiosity got the better of me. Willy said that the Service’s agent in Tallinn, a woman as it happened, was in Lithuania for a period on another mission. There was nobody in Tallinn who could substitute. If I were there I could perhaps find out what was going on. Somebody out there was getting heavy-handed. There had been a murder in the dockland district of the new town. The victim was known to have connections both to the Estonian government and to an American pharmaceutical company. He had been in discussions with Myrex over the past two months representing the interests of the US company. The Estonian government could not work out why he had been killed. They felt instinctively sure that it must have had something to do with the expanding role of foreign interests in their technological and computer resources. The murdered man had links with all the right people concerned. They wanted to know why he had become a target. Informally, through other countries’ agents, our intelligence services had been sounded out to see if we had any firm knowledge at best, or any ideas at worst. It was important for our national interests to see what we could discover. I wondered if Rovde’s bosses had been in touch. Since Myrex was apparently involved in the man’s business life, Willy thought it would be advantageous if I were to go back speedily to Tallinn and ferret around. I could use discreetly my Myrex contacts.
There was no trouble with the Journal. If my editor could sniff a story, and I gave him the scent, he would send me off immediately. I would have preferred to delay my departure for a few days, but Willy was eager for me to go quickly. For some reason there was political concern about Estonia in our government. Estonian affairs had been pushed up the urgency agenda.
It meant an end to my idyll with Roxanne. That was an awful disappointment. I rang her as soon as I could. I told her that the Journal was sending me off the next day. I could not argue about it; after all, it was my job. She understood.
‘I don’t know how long I’ll be in London,’ she said. ‘It could be that Raoul will want to be here some time. I just don’t know what his plans are. Anyway, let’s keep our fingers crossed that I’ll still be here when you get back.’
I told her that I had no real idea how long the assignment would take, although to myself I resolved that it should be brief.
‘Even if Raoul has to go to Paris, or Rome, or somewhere, he might let me stay on here for a day or two. He knows I think London swings; and he knows I’ll be safely entertained. I think he prefers to know what I get up to rather than be unsure. We’ll see.’
Naturally I hoped that would be the case. We agreed to meet in the evening. I was to go round to the Connaught again about seven, but later on in the day my mobile rang and Roxanne told me that Raoul wanted her to be with him at a dinner in a directors’ suite at a factory in Greenford. There was nothing she could do. So that was that for the time being. I told her I would stay in touch.
I thought about Tallinn and the dead American. Obviously I would start with Rovde. Anyone with US connections was likely to be known to Rovde and, in any case, he would be aware of the story on the street in Tallinn. I phoned him on his international mobile but there was no reply. I left a message to say that I would be in Tallinn the next day. What was Rovde doing? I imagined him seated at a desk in an office persevering with detailed, boring paperwork. Then again, I saw him in the English Café with Mo, daily the pair of them growing more and more intimate. It was difficult to picture Rovde as a gentle, intimate person: he was too big-boned, hefty, an American footballer. Still, I supposed he had his moments of tenderness. I hoped he would listen to my message.
Once again Lorel fixed my travel arrangements. That evening I spent with Mark. In the absence of Roxanne, I felt the need to confide, complain about my fortune, and gain comfort from someone who understood how I felt about the world. He cooked a meal – a simple but delicious prawn and mushroom risotto – in his house not far from the river. He showed me the draft of a poem that he thought was almost finished and which he had promised to submit to the London Review of Books. It had been inspired by some rare, red kites that he had watched one weekend hovering above beech trees on the Chiltern ridge. They had soared and swooped, deadly accurate, magnificent, dangerous, themselves endangered. I gave the poem, without hesitation, the imprimatur. He decided to send it off.
Mark understood how I felt about not seeing Roxanne that evening and tried his best to console me. He presented the philosophical case for accepting the fact that I would never achieve her on a permanent basis. With calmness and equanimity I should accept her absence and make the most of her when I was fortunate to be with her. He recommended a stoicism that was sensible but difficult to practise. At five to eleven, just as I was about to leave him, my phone rang. To my utter surprise and delight it was Roxanne.
‘Pel, it’s me. Where are you? What are you doing? Can you meet me?’
Naturally, I was thrilled and excited. ‘I’m at Mark’s place, just about to leave. Where are you?’
‘Raoul suddenly had to leave the after-dinner drinks. He was in a bad mood. Something had cropped up. He was whisked off by someone to meet one of his associates who had flown into Heathrow. It was urgent, but he was pretty annoyed. He has told the chauffeur to take me back to the Connaught. But I thought we could meet briefly. What do you think?’
There was nothing I wanted more. I suggested I took a taxi and met her in Waterloo Place. She could send the chauffeur for a walk. That was what happened. When I arrived, the chauffeur diplomatically said he would walk in the Mall and smoke a cigarette or two: he needed the exercise. I sat next to Roxanne in the back seat of the Jaguar and as soon as the chauffeur was out of sight she put her hand high on my inside thigh and started caressing me. I turned and kissed her, unzipping the back of her dress. We were in semi-darkness. Waterloo Place was empty, just full of shadows and deep yellow light thrown at angles by the street lamps. The inside of the car was warm and comfortable: outside it was damp and chill.
We lost ourselves in that tryst. It was a better farewell than I had ever expected. She was quickly responsive to all my physical demands. For some twenty minutes we literally lived in each other’s arms.
The chauffeur discreetly reappeared out of the gloom at the top of the Duke of York’s Steps and at a few yards’ distance from the car, again discreetly, coughed, made sure that we knew he was there, and opened the driver’s door.
‘It’s OK, Hamilton. I think we should get back to the hotel,’ Roxanne said.
I hastily tidied my ruffled appearance, tucked my shirt into my trousers, grasped my jacket and started to get out of the car. Roxanne caught my hand and said they would drop me off; but I thought it best to break with her there for the time being.
‘I’ll take a taxi. Don’t worry. Otherwise it’s miles out of your way. There are always masses of taxis racing along Pall Mall. It’s best we part here.’
She kissed me and held me close to her. She was reluctant to go. I walked away and waved. The Jaguar slid out of Waterloo Place and immediately was lost in a surge of tra
ffic. I hailed a taxi and within twenty minutes was back in my house. There was no difficulty in sleeping: the long evening with Mark and the eventual surprise climax with Roxanne had tired me. I woke at seven and prepared myself for Tallinn.
This time I caught the Heathrow Flyer from Paddington and boarded a Finnair flight to Helsinki. There I took the hydrofoil to Tallinn. The journey was easy and without incident. I did notice on the hydrofoil the heavily set man in the Russian hat who had rudely pushed past me in the English Café. He registered with me because I saw him unscrew the cap of a hip flask and take a tot of whatever was inside. If he were a Russian, it would certainly have been vodka. He engaged my curiosity because he carried no baggage. He wore an old, heavy, camel hair coat. He had no newspaper, no document case, nothing. I wondered what he was doing. I could not imagine what his profession was. In the States he might have been a private detective. In the Baltic, that was unlikely.
In Tallinn he walked off into the dismal business district. He was not met by anyone: he was on his own, a loner. He did glance round once as I watched him and I fancied he knew I was looking at him. He pushed his hands down in the pockets of his coat, hunched his shoulders and walked into the distance. I took a cab to the Gloria.
In the cellar, I ordered a late lunch, wild boar, red cabbage and mashed potato. In Russian style, I drank vodka from a small earthenware jar with it. Afterwards, I felt well set up to face the unfamiliar world of Estonia, and I rang Rovde. He answered his mobile and suggested we met at the English Café later in the afternoon. That gave me an opportunity to take a sauna and do some solitary thinking. So, well fed and rested, I met Uri at five in the café.
He looked different. He was less monolithic, less physically intimidating. He had softened. The American footballer’s physique that had given him a powerful, almost threatening air, had transformed into an expansive, teddy-bear image. He looked positively welcoming, someone you could confide in, someone you could trust. I knew what it was. It was the effect of Mo on him. She had a civilising influence. I also knew that I should not be fooled, that I could not fully trust him. There was no possibility of me confiding in him. He worked for a different outfit: his allegiances were basically different from mine. He was not like Mark. With Rovde I had to be careful. Each of us knew that the practical limits of our friendship were determined by our peculiar kinds of work, his intelligence work, mine investigative journalism. Both required secrecy, evasion, and, above all, the practice of irony. Nevertheless, in most matters I could rely on Rovde. At least, I felt, we were allies fighting, for the most part, in the same struggle.