by Alan Judd
For a few moments she continued to stare, unmoving, then she lowered her eyelids and put her cup on the table. ‘How do you know?’
‘I discovered it when some late traces came through. They included his birth certificate.’
She was still looking down at her cup, her finger hooked through the handle. ‘How long have you known?’
‘A few weeks,’ he lied.
She looked at him again. ‘Are you sure it’s him? Are you absolutely sure?’
‘The tracing threw up his adoption papers along with his birth certificate.’
‘You knew when we last met?’
‘Yes. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you. Or how. I wanted to tell you.’ There was a pause. He feared her silence. ‘His adoptive parents were half Irish, half English and he was brought up in Scotland, as you know. A happy upbringing, apparently.’
‘Does he know who we are?’
Charles shook his head. ‘I don’t think he’s ever tried to find out. Doesn’t seem interested.’
‘When exactly did you discover this?’ Her tone was colder, almost official.
‘A while ago.’
Her eyes continued to rest on his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t know how you would take it. I’ve been thinking about it all the time.’
‘It’s hard to believe, you know. I’m not sure I can. It’s such a huge coincidence. Huge.’
‘Coincidences happen. This one has.’
She gazed at him for a few seconds more, then a change came over her features like a subtle change of light. She looked decided, resolved. She pushed back her hair and bent to pick up her handbag. ‘Well, there’s a thing.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. She sat clutching the bag on her lap. ‘You really haven’t told him?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘Not unless you want me to.’
She frowned. ‘Is it possible that he knew all along, that he sought me out? My name is on his birth certificate.’
‘Only your maiden name. He’s never given any hint that he knows.’
She stood. ‘I must go. Thank you for breakfast.’
She left without a glance. He watched until she had disappeared among the Fleet Street commuters. Truth-telling was a fine thing, especially when it made you feel better. But telling it not because it was the truth, telling it in order not to tell another truth, that was not so fine. He wanted to blame the office, to slough off his guilt that way, but it wouldn’t do. He felt he had let her down a second time. And the third, the destruction of her husband’s career, was still to come.
13
Except that the expected destruction didn’t happen, or not fully, not then. A fortnight passed during which Charles heard nothing from Matthew Abrahams and assumed that the confrontation was still to take place. He saw Nigel once hurrying across Whitehall into the Ministry of Defence, and glimpsed him again at reception, but they didn’t speak.
One afternoon Matthew rang and suggested a drink in his office after six. He drank little himself but, like most senior officers, kept drinks in his desk drawer; throughout the old MI6, conversations after six were invariably fuelled by alcohol.
‘Whisky?’ asked Matthew.
‘Red wine.’
Matthew smiled. ‘This is really more a whisky talk.’
‘Whisky, please.’
Matthew nodded and sat. ‘The treachery of Nigel Measures is proven. He’s been spying for the French throughout these last negotiations, in fact for rather longer than that. He volunteered his services to them for what in the Cold War we called ideological reasons. Or idealistic, like your friend Gladiator. He takes no money save his travel expenses, which are paid in cash. He believes in a united Europe, wants to do all he can to bring it about, is convinced that HMG is holding the entire European project back. He has given them everything, all our position papers, fall-back options, red and not-so-red lines, the lot. And now it’s finished. He’s being posted to Washington.’
‘Has he confessed?’
‘No.’
‘He’s going to be sacked?’
‘Not sacked. Rewarded for a job well done, as his immediate superiors and the outside world will see it.’
‘The French – are they continuing with him?’
‘They’d love to, they’re very keen; they value his advice, they told him. They’d like a long-term relationship. But it’s all ended in tears.’ Matthew smiled and picked up his whisky. ‘He said he couldn’t do that, because it would be spying, and he didn’t want to be seen as a spy. They said: but that’s just what you are; what do you think you’ve been doing? He didn’t like that. Broke off contact with them. End of the affair. Have you seen him?’
‘Not to speak to. But he rang this morning, which is unusual. He wants lunch tomorrow.’
‘Good. Don’t probe. Just listen to what he has to say, take his temperature and report back.’ Matthew held up his hand. ‘I know what you’re thinking – why is he being rewarded, and how do I know all this?’ He got up from his desk, went to his safe and returned with a folder from which he took a photograph. ‘Have you seen this before?’
It was the photograph of Nigel shaking hands with Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission.
‘Yes, in Nigel’s house. It’s on his mantelpiece.’
‘It still is. This is a copy. The original was taken at a secret meeting in Delors’s Paris office, arranged at Measures’s request by his French case officers. That’s probably when he began spying for them. Measures may take no money but of vanity there is no end, as the Preacher tells us.’ He put the photo back in the folder. ‘And if I say that espionage in Europe is not entirely a one-way street, you’ll understand why I can’t say more.’
So they – we – had a source, a source who trumped Nigel. A source who had to be protected. ‘Human source or technical?’
Matthew shook his head.
‘So he goes to Washington and gets away with it, scot-free?’
‘It’s been decided at a – let’s call it a political level – that maintaining good relations with the French is more important than showing we’ve caught them out. Especially as their source is not continuing, whereas ours is. Also, it’s useful to have a card up our sleeve if we get caught out. Tit for tat, we can say, a mark of the maturity of the relationship between ourselves and our ancient enemy. We can both swallow this sort of thing without retching. We get on well with them, we collaborate with them, but we’re neither of us naïve, we accept infidelities.’
Charles was surprised how frustrated he felt, now that Nigel wasn’t to be confronted with his betrayal. It made him want to tell Sarah rather than spare her.
Matthew topped up their glasses. ‘Of course you find it annoying. More than. Measures deserves to be punished. As I said, it’s a political decision. At a very high level. Meanwhile, Measures is not a happy bunny, which is some compensation. He suspects he’s being manoeuvred against. And the day may come when we are permitted to discomfort him directly. Meanwhile, be careful over lunch.’ He smiled again. ‘You and your lunches, Charles. You lunch for England.’
Charles shrugged. ‘I do my best.’
It was a self-service lunch on trays at the National Theatre, without wine. Nigel seemed hurried and preoccupied. Uncharacteristically, he chose salad. ‘Brussels lunches too much for you?’ asked Charles.
‘Leaving Brussels. Got a posting to Washington. Out of the blue.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I’d rather stay where I am, it’s more involving. In fact, I was thinking of leaving altogether at the end of this job for something in politics, as Sarah may have told you. Still, Washington’s a good posting. Dozens would die for it. With promotion, too. And Sarah’s keen. Says she’s had enough of London, doesn’t mind about her career. Hard to say no.’
‘Why should you want to? Ticks all your boxes, doesn’t it?’
‘Feels like a betrayal.’ Nigel, alwa
ys a rapid eater, shovelled lettuce into his mouth as if killing it. He looked across at a mime artist in the foyer, who was maintaining a pose before a small, equally motionless, audience. ‘I’ve been doing something I believe in, you see, really believe in. This new job’s just clever-dick chancery reporting on the Washington political scene. Interesting, but hardly something to stir one’s mortal soul. Anyway, it’s perfectly well covered by the serious press. It’s not going to change anything. If I accept it I’ll be deserting a cause I believe in to do a job I don’t believe in but which others would give their eye teeth for. So it feels to me like a betrayal. D’you see what I mean?’
‘It wouldn’t constitute betrayal in most people’s books.’
Nigel nodded vigorously. ‘That’s it, you see, that’s the point. What constitutes betrayal? Disloyalty, I guess; but what if you have conflicting loyalties? What then?’
Charles had sympathy for that. ‘You have to choose.’
‘Not that simple, though, is it? You may be loyal to an institution, but feel that it’s got something important wrong: something to which you have an equal or greater loyalty, and which in the long term is in the institution’s best interest, only it doesn’t see it. Then you’re either forced to do what you know to be wrong or to go against the institution.’
‘You can try to persuade it of its error. You don’t have to work against it or betray it.’
Nigel shook his head. ‘Doesn’t work. Institutions have a collective mind which it’s very hard for an individual to influence. They don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear.’
‘Then you ask for another posting.’ They were looking directly at each other now. ‘Or resign.’
‘How would that help what you believe in? You’d be out of it, powerless, without influence.’
Charles kept his eyes on Nigel’s. ‘Work for your cause in a different way. Get a well-padded job with the European Commission, if that’s what you believe in.’
‘Which you don’t, of course?’ Nigel raised his voice and sat back. ‘I doubt anyone’s ever accused you of Europhilia, Charles, as they have me. Or of listening to the arguments.’
‘I’m waiting to hear them.’
They continued staring at each other, until Nigel turned to look again at the mime artist, rocking back on the hind legs of his chair, hands in pockets. ‘Perhaps I’m not making myself clear. What I’m saying is, how far should the honest believer go in supporting what he honestly believes?’ He spoke without looking at Charles.
‘As far as honesty permits.’
The remark hung in the air. Nigel shook his head.
‘You think that’s not far enough?’ continued Charles. ‘You want to be dishonest?’
‘You’ve never had to make such choices, have you, Charles? You’ve always been clear about what you wanted and gone for it. Or clear about what you didn’t want, and left it, got yourself out of it.’ He looked back at Charles. ‘And, of course, betrayal’s your business, your profession. At least Sarah will be happier in Washington. That’s something.’
‘Has she long been unhappy here, or is this recent?’
Nigel ignored the question. ‘I may as well tell you there was some stupid business about me getting too close to the French, identifying with the other party’s position, going native, time I moved on, all that sort of nonsense. As if understanding those you’re trying to persuade and getting on with them is a hindrance to negotiating. Couldn’t expect Security Department to understand that. Probably politically driven, some snide ministerial aside, more xenophobic Eurosceptic lunacy. Typical of the office not to stand up to it. I told Sarah all about it. She’s furious. Thinks you must be involved.’
‘She said that?’
‘She did.’
Charles didn’t want to believe him. ‘Yet they’ve rewarded you. They can’t think you’ve done badly.’
‘Why shouldn’t they reward me? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? I’ve just told people what I think. I tell everybody what I think. Anyone who wants to hear. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’ His dark eyes were indignant.
Charles made no reply. They did not have coffee.
During the next year or two Charles heard occasionally of Nigel and Sarah in Washington, he as a rising star, she as an adroit and popular hostess, a particular favourite with visiting British and European politicians. Then came news of Nigel’s surprise resignation to stand for the European Parliament. He got in and they moved to Brussels, intending to divide their time between there and London. Charles heard later that Sarah had resumed working for her previous law firm in their Brussels office. He once sent a Christmas card, but never got one back.
After Martin’s Z training finished there was no reason for he and Charles to remain in touch. Charles was posted to Geneva and Martin, as soon as he had qualified as a lawyer, volunteered to be part of the Z section deployment against the Taliban regime and the growing al-Qaeda threat, before looking for a permanent job. At his last meeting with Charles he turned up carrying a copy of the Koran.
‘Required reading?’ asked Charles.
‘Just to show I’ve made an effort.’
‘Your Afghan tribesman won’t appreciate it. He’ll never have read it.’
‘By the time I’ve finished with him he’ll be a holy warrior. Unless I die of boredom first. It’s worse than the bloody Bible. No stories.’
Charles considered the cheerful young man before him, conscious of what he might have called parental concern, if he had had any right to such a claim. ‘Watch your step out there. Keep your nose clean.’ He would like to have told Sarah what was happening, but there was no chance of that, either. ‘Ask your Z people to let me know when you’re coming back. We can have a beer.’
‘Not much hope of one out there, from what I hear.’
They parted with handshakes and jocular restraint.
During the next two years in Geneva Charles worked mainly on resurgent Russians, part of the time with Sonia, Matthew’s former secretary, who had been promoted. Just after 9/11 he was asked to cover for Martin’s Islamabad case officer, who had been taken ill. The region was in ferment when he flew out to Pakistan. Martin had extended his Z section assignment and had still not begun to practise as a lawyer.
Going through the file again shortly before his arrest, Charles came across a photograph of Martin he had taken outside Peshawar during that trip. This was a bearded Martin in tribal dress posed against the rugged hills of the border country. Rock-strewn folds of hard, unforgiving land stretched into the blue distance, beyond which was war. It was a landscape of harsh beauty and Martin, tough, spare and relaxed, looked comfortably part of it. His task had been to train and supply arms to the anti-Taliban tribes and to gather any intelligence he could on UBL. He was not supposed to engage in combat, but Charles soon suspected he was doing just that. There was nothing on file about it and he doubted that Martin’s regular case officer ever realised.
‘You’re on your own,’ he remembered warning him. ‘If you’re caught over there no-one in London will acknowledge you.’
‘And if I’m killed I’m dead. I sort of guessed that.’ Martin grinned. ‘But I can imagine no other work. It’s not work, it’s life, it’s being more vividly alive. How’s your desk?’
‘Less exciting than this, but just as real. More so. Desks win in the end. It’s time you came back and got started. Or you’ll have to qualify all over again.’
‘Thanks, uncle. Give me five years to think about it.’
Peshawar was a Wild West town and they were drinking green tea on the veranda of the place where Martin was staying. It seemed to be part hotel, part trading post and part informal military headquarters.
‘Sarah’s in Brussels,’ Charles said. ‘Her husband left the Foreign Office for the European Parliament.’
‘Still spying for the French, is he?’
Charles shrugged.
‘Landed on his feet by the sound of it. She’ll enjoy it, any
way.’ Martin gazed at the hills beyond the town. ‘Long way from here, Brussels.’
‘You’ll have to come back one day. Unless they bury you here.’
‘Maybe. I’m going over tomorrow. Just a quick in and out to see one of my merry men. Come with me.’
‘That’s verboten. Very verboten.’
‘Of course, I was forgetting the desk. And the pension. Important considerations at your age.’
They crossed the border together the next day. Charles allowed Martin to assume he had been goaded into it, but in fact it was because he was reluctant to leave the vigorous, likeable and independent young man of whom he felt secretly proud.
They left early in the morning in Martin’s battered Toyota Landcruiser, bumping over tracks and non-tracks. It was not until some time after they had crossed it that Martin told him the border was behind them.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ said Charles.
‘The border’s pretty theoretical in this part of the world. Pretty confusing, too. Nobody knows who to trust any more. Farther in we travel in the dark, on foot.’
Charles had pictured sitting around a campfire and talking late, perhaps telling Martin of his origins, if it felt right. But the reality was a cold, fire-less and sleepless night in the hills, talking until dawn with one of Martin’s sub-agents. Or, rather, not talking in Charles’s case, since the other two conversed in a local language and Charles was confined to listening, nodding and smiling. The agent, a wiry, wizened man with white hair, treated him with dignified courtesy.
‘I told him you’re a famous English warrior,’ said Martin, ‘a great chief in England and that you’ve killed six Arabs with your bare hands. Most Afghans hate the Arab fighters.’
Charles tried not to show that he was shivering.
The following night, slipping gratefully into clean linen sheets in the head of station’s house in Islamabad, he felt for the first time that he must be growing old. Or, at least, that he was no longer young. Roughing it has ceased to be an adventure. In fact, he no longer sought adventure.