“Right on time.”
Janet gasped in surprise, half turning. Illogically Janet had expected the man to come from outside the old part, towards her, but he had emerged from the inside, through the gate. He wore a loose qumbaz, a robe going right down to the ground and so voluminous it was impossible to tell if he were a thin or fat man, and around his head and concealing his lower face was wrapped a red and white Bedouin kaffeyeh. He’d spoken English, and Janet could not detect the sort of intonation she would have expected from an Arab. “What is it you have?” Janet demanded.
“That the money?”
“Yes.”
“Let me have it.”
“I want what you have first.”
“Let me see it.”
Janet parted the wrapping as Baxeter had shown her, determinedly closing it after a few moments. “Now you.”
From beneath his robe the man brought an envelope, holding up but away from her. “Here!” he said.
“All I can see is an envelope.”
Still keeping it away, the man reached inside, half pulling out what appeared to be some sheets of paper and a glossy print. “It’s all here.”
Janet felt the jump of excitement deep in her stomach. “What’s the photograph of?”
“The house.”
“What house?”
“Where he is, in Beirut.”
The excitement grew, flowing through her. Trying to control it she said: “What else?”
“The address, where to go here. Where you’ll get the address in Beirut.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing it this way,” she protested.
“No tricks, remember,” said the man. “If you’ve involved the police—if I’m jumped upon—then I won’t telephone the house where I’m sending you, to say everything is all right. If they don’t get a call within five minutes, they’re going to leave. The same if the money is phony, when I’ve a chance to look at it closer. Cautious, eh?”
“Very,” Janet agreed. It seemed a reasonable explanation for what the man was doing.
“Give me the money,” the man demanded.
“The envelope,” Janet insisted.
He offered it, tentatively, and Janet matched his movement, holding out the package, but to receive it he had to give her the envelope, freeing both his hands. He grabbed at it, turning as he did so, scurrying back into the walled city.
Janet was moving fast, too. She ran back across Egypt Avenue, careless of the cars this time, and darted inside the Volkswagen.
“Let me see!” He tugged the material from inside the envelope, spreading it out on his lap, nodding but not looking at Janet as she recounted the conversation. He studied the map and the directions more than the photograph. “It’s right around the other side of the citadel,” he said. “In the Palouriotissa district …” He handed the map across to her and said: “I’ll drive, you map read.”
Janet held everything up close in front of her face, trying to work out where they were going, as Baxeter turned the car, reached the junction, and began skirting the walls along Stasinos Avenue. “It says it’s a two-story house,” she read. “Number 11, in the cul-de-sac off Mareotis.”
“I know Mareotis,” said Baxeter.
“I think this really is something!” said Janet. “I’ve got a feeling about it!”
Traffic clogged ahead of them. Baxeter pumped the horn and said: “Come on! Come on!”
It took almost thirty minutes to complete the loop and come up to King George Square, from which Mareotis fed off. Baxeter slowed now, traveling the entire length until he reached Kapotas, where he said: “Damn!” and jerked the car around, to retrace their route.
“There!” pointed Janet, head close to her map again.
It was a narrow, rutted spur of an alley, without any proper lighting. Baxeter had to stop the car and get out to calculate the consecutive numbering. Back inside the car he edged slowly forward, counting off the houses as he did so.
“… Seven … nine …” His voice trailed off and he stopped the car, not saying anything.
“It’s a mistake: it’s got to be a mistake!” Janet said, gazing at the completely empty lot where number eleven would have had to be. “We’ve miscounted. Let’s do it again.”
Baxeter got out of the car to check the numbering on both sides and then knocked at the entrance to nine. In the light behind the occupant, a fat, sag-busted woman, Janet was able to see a lot of gesturing although she could not hear what was said. There was a slowness about Baxeter’s return to the car.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really sorry.”
“Tell me!”
“There isn’t a number eleven: there never has been.” He switched on the interior light, looking closely at the photograph. He said: “I don’t even think this is Beirut. The background looks far more like Cyprus than Beirut.”
Janet broke down.
The weeping this time was different from the way she had cried in Beirut. This time there was a mix of emotions, of regret and of disappointment and of frustration. She felt Baxeter’s arm around her and she allowed herself to be pulled into his shoulder and she sobbed against him, letting it happen. There was some relief in weeping.
“Why!” she said, her voice unsteady. “Why does it always have to be like this!”
“Easy,” he said. “We always had our doubts, didn’t we?”
“I wanted so much for it to be right this time!”
“Something could still come up.”
Janet pulled away from him but only slightly. She said: “Your money’s gone.”
“You know that’s protected.”
“I still feel responsible.”
“Don’t be silly.”
22
Baxeter insisted upon going alone to the police to report the incident and freeze the money and Janet was grateful. Baxeter dropped her off at the hotel on his way, reminding her of the postponed interview the following day and Janet assured him she would not forget.
Another stupid episode, Janet thought, lying unsleeping in her darkened room. Which she’d suspected before she’d started. But she’d had no choice but to go through with the charade, so it was even more stupid to spend time on recriminations. Oddly, one of her biggest regrets was breaking down and crying like that in front of Baxeter, showing herself up. He’d been very understanding: kind and gentle and understanding. She did not think it was any professional cynicism: she was sure it was genuine. She was glad he’d been with her. There’d been some apprehension, particularly when she stood by the Paphos Gate, but the knowledge of his being so close at hand—of protection being only yards away—had made everything much easier. He really was …
Janet stopped the drift, determinedly, and then demanded the reason from herself. There was nothing wrong, nothing at which to feel ashamed, in reflecting on a man who was kind and considerate and had actually gone to a great deal of inconvenience—the sort of inconvenience he would be undergoing now, at the police station—on her behalf. She was not indulging in any schoolgirl romantic fantasy: that would have been absurd, unthinkable. She was merely looking back over the events of the day that she’d shared with someone. The word shared stayed with her. That’s what she’d done: shared something. Not been alone. After all that had happened, the near-disasters and the humiliations, it had been nice for a few brief hours not to be alone any more. Just as she hadn’t been alone after John Sheridan came into her life. Janet frowned at the comparison. Not the same, she thought: not the same at all. It would be quite wrong for her to combine—to confuse—the two.
The following morning Janet telephoned the British embassy, but without any of the anger she was now sorry at having directed at her father. In contrast, she was chillingly cool. She told Partington at once that she was aware of his role in what had happened to her, talking down his weakly-begun protest by telling him that her father as well as Hart had confirmed it. As she mentioned the American, she remembered the still-unreturned clothes. D
eciding now against any more contact with the CIA man, Janet demanded—rather than requested—that the embassy help return them to the woman in Beirut. Partington, flustered, promised that he would, of course, take care of it.
“I couldn’t have known how it would turn out,” said the diplomat. “Not what they intended to happen to you in Beirut.”
“Robbery but not rape, eh?”
“Your father said the money didn’t matter: that without it you wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
“I don’t want to talk about it any more,” said Janet. It was difficult for her to accept but she really did feel bored by it now.
“I really am very sorry.”
“That’s what people seem perpetually to be, very sorry.”
“Apart from returning the clothes, is there anything else I can do?”
“No,” Janet said, careless of the rudeness.
“You will call me again, if I can help, won’t you?”
“No,” Janet said again. “If I thought I needed any sort of help I don’t think I would come to you, Mr. Partington.”
Janet was ready, waiting, for Baxeter’s arrival, and picked up the telephone on the first ring when he called from the downstairs house phone. They met in the lounge overlooking the swimming pool again, although he did not at once turn on the tape recorder. Janet asked about his meeting with Zarpas, and Baxeter said he had not seen him. A subordinate officer had promised to put a stop on the money and circulate all banks, credit exchanges, and hotels. As an additional precaution, Baxeter had told his own bank to duplicate the warning through all its branches. He agreed with her that he supposed there would be a prosecution if whoever had the money attempted to pass it, but he assured Janet the policeman who had taken his statement had not talked of needing one from her.
“What about your magazine?”
“They cleared it before I started, so they knew the risks,” Baxeter said, casually. “There’s no problem.”
“I still wish it had been my money.”
“It’s over, finished,” said Baxeter, even more dismissively.
Janet found the resumed interview difficult, and could not at first understand why. It was because she did not think of him as a stranger any more, she decided finally. At the first encounter, their roles had been clearly defined, interviewer to interviewee, but now it didn’t seem like that any more. Baxeter appeared to find a similar problem, posing his questions over-solicitously, frequently apologizing in advance for what he was going to ask and several times abandoning a query in mid-sentence, saying that it didn’t matter and twice that it was too personal. It was late afternoon before Baxeter turned the recorder off.
“You must know more about me now than I do about myself,” said Janet, trying to lighten the mood.
“You don’t mind?”
“Not if it helps John.”
“No,” he agreed, looking directly at her. “Not if it helps John.”
Janet looked away. “Sure you’ve got all you want?”
“Not quite,” he said. “There are still the photographs.”
“Of course,” Janet agreed at once. “Who’ll take them?”
“I will.”
“You do both?” questioned Janet, not expecting that he did.
“They get good value out of me,” smiled the man.
“When?”
Baxeter looked beyond her, to the grounds outside. “The light’s gone now,” he said. “Are you free tomorrow sometime?”
It would fill in part of another empty day, Janet thought: which is all it would be, just occupying part of a day. She said: “Sure. What time?”
“Your convenience,” he said.
“We really are being most polite to each other, aren’t we?”
He was looking directly at her again but did not immediately reply. “Yes,” he said. “Very polite.”
“What time is the light best?”
“Mid-day, usually.”
“Why not make it mid-day then?”
“Could we make it a little earlier?” he asked. “I thought we might drive somewhere for better backgrounds. The Troodos Mountains, perhaps?”
“Of course.”
When Janet emerged from the hotel the following day she saw he’d had the Volkswagen cleaned, which made the rusting dent in the wing look worse than it had when the car had been dirty. It was clean inside, too, and between the two front seats there was a large carton of sweets and chocolate bars.
“Help yourself,” he offered.
“You really eat these all the time?”
“I’m getting better. Down to a pound a day.”
As they drove towards the mountains Baxeter maintained a constant chatter about the island, pointing out monasteries and medieval and Roman historical sites. He talked about the Crusaders and told the story of Aphrodite, whose temple, he said, was on the far side of the island. Janet listened politely, conscious of the effort he was making. He’d dug deeply into the sweet bag by the time they reached Troodos. The mountains were larger than Janet had expected them to be, mist-clouded at the summits and heavily cloaked in firs and pine. They stopped at a roadside tavern with an outside area ceilinged with vines and Janet shivered involuntarily. When he asked why she confessed that it had briefly reminded her of the sour-oiled cafe on the road to Dhekelia where she’d been taken to meet the Fettal family. Baxeter rose at once, saying they should go, but Janet insisted on staying, determined to exorcise the ghosts from her mind. She let him order the fish kebabs and he photographed her at the table and took more pictures after their lunch, Janet standing against the trellised vines and then against the verandah rail, gazing out over a deep and thickly wooded valley.
They climbed higher in the early afternoon and Janet suddenly saw the huge white globe, like a giant tennis ball, which Baxeter identified as one of the listening stations maintained by the British on the island. Janet actually opened her mouth, to speak of the eavesdropping cooperation that Willsher had told her about, but quickly shut it again. Throughout every interview she had given, and certainly during the two-day session with Baxeter, Janet had held back from disclosing anything of that conversation, determined to keep her side of the bargain with the CIA man. Did it matter any more? she wondered: that meeting in Washington seemed a very long time ago.
Baxeter took more photographs at another verandahed vantage spot, then came close beside her to point in the direction of Aphrodite’s temple. Janet was once more aware of his cologne. The continual sweet-eating seemed to have scented his breath, too.
“I think I’ve got all the photographs I need,” he said.
“Time to go then?”
“I guess so.”
As they made their way unhurriedly towards the Volkswagen, Janet said: “I’ve enjoyed the day.”
He held open the door for her to get into the vehicle and as he entered from his side Baxeter said: “I’ve enjoyed it too. Very much.” He twisted in his seat, so that he could look directly at her. He didn’t try to start the car.
“We’d better be going,” said Janet.
“I …” he started, then stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Baxeter started the car and ground the gears when he engaged them.
The road snaked downwards in a never-ending loop of hairpin bends and Janet began to feel vaguely nauseated from constantly turning back upon themselves. The silence lasted for a long time. To break it she said: “What happened to the car?”
“What car?”
“This one. The dent in the wing.”
“Don’t know: it happened in a car park. Have to get it fixed one day.”
It was not something she had ever discussed with him, but Janet was sure that John Sheridan would have repaired a damaged wing—or for that matter damage to anything else he owned—within an hour or two after he discovered it. She became instantly irritated with herself: linking them together in her mind again, she thought. She said: “Could you slow down a little? I’m
beginning to feel slightly carsick.”
“Do you want to stop?” he asked, solicitous again.
“No. Just go slower.”
Baxeter did, markedly, and said: “Have you been to Limassol?”
“No.”
“There are some good restaurants along the coast from there.”
“Really?”
There was another silence, and then he said: “Would you like to eat dinner …?” He hesitated. “Not immediately, I don’t mean. Later, when we’ve got off the mountain: you’ll only feel discomfort while we’re going around these bends.”
“I don’t feel sick any more,” Janet said. “But no. Thank you for asking but no.”
“Of course not,” he accepted at once.
“I don’t want to sound rude.”
“I understand.”
Janet wished she did. What would be wrong with having dinner on the way back to Nicosia? She said: “Maybe another …” and came to a halt herself, wishing she had not begun the sentence. “I’m feeling rather tired,” she finished, fatuously.
“I’m concerned,” he announced.
“What about?”
“Your getting mixed up in any more nonsense like that business at the Paphos Gate. And before.”
“I’m learning with experience,” said Janet, bitterly. What, exactly, was she learning, she wondered.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Without waiting for an answer he continued on. “Please let me give you my phone number. There’s an answering machine, so I get messages even if I’m not there. If you get any more approaches—anything at all—don’t try to handle it by yourself. Let me be involved …” He risked a glance at her across the car. “I don’t mean for a story: not primarily, anyway. Let me help you first and we’ll work out the rest later. I just don’t want you to be hurt.”
Janet could not find the words to describe how she felt but certainly her eyes were clouded and when she started to speak her voice was jagged. She said: “That’s very kind of you … generous … but what about your other commitments?”
Betrayals Page 24