He made himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the desk, pulling towards him the log of the night shift. The only thing of interest was the notification at 23.15 the previous evening of an unscheduled private plane coming in from Moscow, due to land at 10.20 this morning. Some bigwig coming for something or other, he thought. Can’t be a delegation, or we would have been notified sooner. He looked at his watch: 8.30. He picked up the phone and dialled traffic control. ‘Any lowdown on this Moscow arrival?’ he asked.
‘It’s an ambulance flight. Notified last night. Expected to arrive at 10.12. We’ll be landing them at the charter terminal. Crew of four, plus doctor and two nurses. Picking up and leaving straight away. Don’t think anyone’s intending to go landside but Immigration will know.’
Leplan finished his coffee and strolled over to the Immigration hall, weaving his way through a hubbub of excited children. All was quiet in in the office behind the desks.
‘It’s a diplomatic flight,’ said the duty immigration officer. ‘One of their guys has had an accident and is being repatriated for urgent medical attention. They didn’t give us a name and we have no powers to ask, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s authorised by their Ambassador. A stretcher case, they said, so we’ve agreed the ambulance can drive airside to load the stretcher on. No one’s landing and they’re going straight off.’
‘God help them, whoever they are,’ said Leplan. ‘They’d get much better medical attention here. Maybe it’s a fatality. I think I’ll go over and watch proceedings. Might have a word with the ambulance crew. I assume they’re locals?’
The immigration officer nodded. ‘See you there,’ he said.
At quarter to ten Leplan and the immigration officer watched as an ambulance was cleared through the barrier of the charter terminal. A dark-suited man got down from the front passenger seat and showed a document to the guard, and the ambulance was waved in. Leplan didn’t recognise him from where he stood, but he knew the camera at the guard post would have taken a good shot of his face. Exactly on time a small plane landed and parked. The ambulance drove up to the door, and a stretcher on which was strapped an inert figure wrapped in a blanket was quickly loaded on board by the ambulance attendants, supervised by the dark-suited man. Within fifteen minutes the plane was taxiing for take-off.
Hmm. That was a pretty smooth operation, thought Leplan as he waved the ambulance to a halt by the barrier. I wonder what it was all about.
It was not until Liz sat down in the café in the Place du Bourg-de-Four that it struck her how strange it was that Sorsky had chosen this as a meeting place. Until now their meetings had taken place on park benches with a clear view of the surroundings and she had received the impression that he had taken extensive precautions against surveillance. But this café was in a crowded little square, where it would be impossible to spot surveillance. She wondered why he had changed his operating methods. Did he have some reason to think there was no longer a risk?
She selected a table inside, by the wall at the back, so she would at least see everyone who came in. But the disadvantage was that she could see nothing of what was going on outside. The café was almost empty; it was too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. She ordered coffee, unfolded her newspaper and kept her eye on the door.
Sorsky was late again. She glanced at her watch for the fourth time. It was 11.45, three-quarters of an hour past the time he’d given her. How long should she wait? No longer than an hour, she decided.
At five to twelve she rang Russell White.
‘It’s no show,’ she said. He would recognise her number.
‘No show?’
‘Yes. Have you heard anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘OK. I’m coming back.’
‘All right. See you shortly.’
Chapter 21
Liz dropped her bag on the floor, closed the door and leaned back against it. Home, she thought. Through the open door of the sitting room she could see the sun shining in through the sash windows on to the carpet. She’d bought this place a couple of years ago with the proceeds of the sale of her basement flat in the same large Victorian house and a mortgage she could only just afford. She’d loved the basement flat too when she’d bought it – the first property she had ever owned – though it was rather shabby and dark, and for several years she’d had neither the time nor the money to improve it. But when she’d returned from a posting to Northern Ireland, this ground-floor flat had been on the market. She’d viewed it first out of curiosity, with no idea that she might be able to afford it, but the estate agent had surprised her with his estimate of what she might get for the basement, and her mother, who had never liked the basement flat, had encouraged her to go for it, and suddenly to her great surprise she had found herself the owner.
She still had too little time to look after the flat properly, and she hadn’t yet got round to employing a cleaner to replace her old one, who had retired to the South Coast; after several days away the dust lay in a thin layer on the surfaces and last weekend’s newspapers were still in the heap on the floor where she’d left them. But it was Saturday and she’d soon have the place tidied up.
As she dusted and vacuumed, she smiled at the contrast between her humdrum cleaning and what she’d been doing twenty-four hours earlier. After waiting fruitlessly for an hour in the little café in the Place du Bourg-de-Four, she had spent the afternoon at the Embassy with Russell White. As soon as he’d learned that Sorsky hadn’t shown up, he’d put a surveillance team on to the Russian Trade Offices and another man at the Russian Embassy to try and get a sighting of Sorsky. Each hour they phoned in to report; each hour they repeated that there was no sign of the man. Then White got one of his colleagues, who had grown up in Normandy and spoke French with a regional accent, to ring the Russian Trade Delegation and ask for Sorsky. The receptionist had said that he wasn’t in the office, and no, she didn’t know when he would next be there.
Liz had cancelled her flight reservation and rung her mother to explain she wouldn’t be home in time for lunch the next day. She’d spent a sleepless night in the hotel, kept awake by the uncertainty of the situation. Could Sorsky have had a change of heart? It was always a possibility, especially if he had found out nothing further and felt that he’d already done all he could to alert the West to the threat to Clarity.
Then again – and this was what really worried Liz – he might have been caught going through his colleague’s files. But caught by whom? After all, he’d said the man was away from Geneva. Perhaps the secretary had found him rifling the filing cabinets, but would she really have turned her former lover in – since it was she who had alerted him in the first place to his colleague’s odd behaviour?
It was a mystery, and no clearer to Liz when the morning came. Russell White had arranged at short notice to play tennis with a friend (Terry Castle, his usual partner was on holiday), but when he rang Liz at 10.30 it was only to say there was no sign of Sorsky at the club. ‘I’ll go again tomorrow, just in case,’ he’d said. ‘Though it’s always been a weekday when we’ve met before. Did you want to stay and wait for that?’
Liz decided. ‘No. It doesn’t sound likely that he’ll show up on a Sunday. I think the best thing is for me to return to London. I’ll come back right away if you hear from him.’
Now, the cleaning finished to her satisfaction, Liz took a leisurely hot bath while Mozart played on Radio 3 in the sitting room. After she’d dressed she took an inventory of the refrigerator: one-week-old carton of milk, two eggs past their best-before date, a half-full bottle of Australian Chardonnay that she knew had been opened ten days ago, and a head of Iceberg lettuce, brown and wilted. Even by her standards this was grim, so she went to the corner shop on Highgate Road to stock up, and when she got back the message light on the phone was blinking. It was her mother, still up in town. Liz rang back straight away.
‘Hello, dear,’ said Susan. ‘So you got home at last.’
‘I
’m so sorry about lunch, Mum. I thought you’d have gone back to Bowerbridge by now.’
‘Actually, I’m just about to leave. Edward’s staying up – he’s arranged to see Cathy and Teddy tomorrow in Brighton. I can’t say he’s looking forward to it – she was perfectly awful to him on the phone when he suggested it. But he’s worried about these French friends of hers. When Edward talked to little Teddy, he said one of them – he called him René – wasn’t very nice.’
‘To Teddy?’
‘No, to Cathy. Teddy said they were arguing.’
‘Oh, dear. Is Edward there now? Let me have a word with him.’
While her mother went to get Edward, Liz thought about this French visitor. Could they really be threatening Cathy, or had Teddy just imagined things?
‘Hello, Liz. Glad you’re back. Everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine with me. But I gather it’s not so fine with Cathy.’
‘No. I’m going down to see her tomorrow. I’m rather dreading it, to tell you the truth.’
‘Would you like some company?’
‘Do you mean you’d like to come? You must have better things to do on a Sunday, especially when you’ve been away.’ But his voice had lifted.
‘I don’t actually. I’d love to come, if you’d like me to?’
‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure, I certainly won’t say no.’
‘I’m absolutely sure,’ said Liz, hearing the relief in Edward’s voice.
She rang Martin next. There was no answer, so she left a brief message on his answering machine, letting him know she was back, then made herself a supper of pasta sprinkled with Parmesan, and went to bed. As she snuggled down in her large comfortable bed, she felt she could sleep for ever. She was halfway there when the phone rang on the bedside table.
‘Please say I didn’t wake you up.’ It was Martin.
She said, ‘Even if you had it’s nice to hear your voice. What have you been up to?’
‘I took Danielle to dinner. You know students; they seem to live on dry crusts and a lettuce leaf. So I took her to La Rouge Chemise.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Liz, with a groan. Martin had taken Liz there on her birthday – it had been a grande bouffe with six courses, none of them small.
‘Danielle says she won’t have to eat again for a week. But how did your trip go?’
‘It had some interesting developments,’ she said.
‘Well, you’d better come over and tell me about them.’
‘I will.’
‘You sound tired, Liz. I hope you’re going to take it easy tomorrow.’
‘Actually, I’m going with Edward to see his daughter in Brighton.’
‘Okay. I haven’t forgotten about that, by the way. I’ve put a call in and am waiting to hear.’
‘Thank you,’ said Liz, realising this meant he had rung Isobel Florian, his counterpart in the DCRI. She tried but failed to suppress a yawn.
‘I heard that,’ said Martin.
‘Sorry.’
He laughed gently. ‘You can’t fool me. Even if I’m not there to see if you can keep your eyes open. Those beautiful big eyes.’
‘Flatterer.’
‘I’m French, so what do you expect? But now it’s time you closed them.’
Chapter 22
In theory they had a choice of cars, but though Liz’s Audi saloon had served her well, she had to admit that in old age the car had slowed down: its engine coughed when she drove at more than 70 miles per hour, the brakes squeaked like mice if she applied them hard, and all in all the knacker’s yard beckoned. So when Edward arrived at her flat in a sparkling new Golf with leather seats, Liz climbed in without a backward glance at the Audi. When she remarked on the splendour of the new car, Edward laughed and said, ‘The one good thing about being as old as I am is that if you buy a sporty little car like this, no one can accuse you of having a mid-life crisis.’
Cathy Treglown lived a mile along the coast from Brighton Pier, in the ground-floor flat of a Victorian house that had seen better days. When she answered the door, Liz felt Cathy could use some refurbishment too. Edward had said she was only in her late twenties, but her skin was red and coarsened, her figure was shapeless and her eyes looked tired. All that, along with her unkempt hair and the stained T-shirt and ragged jeans she wore, made her look middle-aged.
She seemed resigned rather than happy to see her father, and though she was civil to Liz, she wasn’t friendly. Only the arrival of Teddy lightened the atmosphere. He rushed into the room, and jumped straight into Edward’s arms, shouting, ‘Grandpa! You’re here.’
The sitting room ran the length of the house and had been freshly painted.
‘What a lovely room,’ said Liz.
‘The landlord redecorated after the previous family moved out. It meant he could put the rent up,’ Cathy said sourly.
An awkward silence followed which Edward finally broke. ‘I’ll go and make some coffee. Come on, Teddy. You can show me where things are.’
When he had left the room, Cathy said nothing so to break the silence Liz asked, ‘Did you like living in France?’
‘I stayed ten years so I must have.’
‘But you’ve come back now.’
Cathy shrugged. ‘I’m starting to think it might have been a mistake. Anyway, let’s not talk about me. Edward says you live in London. What do you do there?’
‘I’m a civil servant,’ Liz said, expecting the usual glazed look of disinterest.
But Cathy said, ‘Doing what exactly?’
‘I work in Human Resources.’ This was usually enough to stop further questions.
‘Do you mind working for the government?’
‘No. In my more idealistic moments, I like to think I’m working for the people.’
‘As if.’ Cathy seemed about to launch into a lengthy tirade about Liz’s employer, when Edward appeared with a tray. As he passed round the mugs he said, ‘Teddy’s gone out into the garden with his football.’
‘You spoil him, Dad,’ said Cathy. ‘That bike you gave him must have cost a fortune.’ But though the words were ungracious, for the first time her voice softened, and it was suddenly obvious to Liz how much she loved her little boy.
Edward said, ‘It’s the least I can do. The whole point of grandparents is spoiling their grandchildren.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the parents who have to do the hard bit – the grandparents can shower the children with presents and love, then you lot have to make them eat their supper and go to bed at the right time.’
‘At least you admit I’ve got the sharp end,’ said Cathy, her sour mood returning. There was a gracelessness about her which seemed almost artificial – as if she were deliberately suppressing a nicer character behind the sulky façade.
Fearing how his daughter must seem to Liz, Edward was looking embarrassed. He said with a forced cheerfulness, ‘So, any news on the house?’
‘It’s on hold. I told you that, Dad.’
He nodded. ‘Well, just tell me if I can help in any way.’ He smiled, and Liz found herself feeling immensely sorry for him. The strong, confident man she knew was faltering here, walking on eggshells because he was all too aware that his daughter held all the cards – one argument too many and she’d be back in France, at the mercy of her anarchist friends, and taking Teddy with her.
Liz, thinking it would be best to leave them alone for a bit, said, ‘I’m going to join Teddy in the garden – I rather fancy a game of football. Is that OK?’
‘Be my guest,’ Cathy replied.
Liz went into the hall and, on the way to the garden, stopped in the loo. Stuck to the inside of the door was a large poster of Che Guevara, the classic one with fist clenched and a vivid red beret perched jauntily on the side of his head. Was it a joke? Surely no one of Cathy’s age in their right mind could still think of the man as a hero. But below the poster was a framed quotation from Ibsen:
The State is the curse of the individual . . . The State must
go! That will be a revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the State, set up in its place spontaneous action . . . and you will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth possessing.
As Liz came out and turned towards the door to the garden, she saw a large appointments diary on the hall table beside the telephone. It seemed oddly out of place in this ramshackle flat – a symbol of the middle-class life Cathy had so vehemently rejected.
Liz looked at the diary’s open pages, which covered the rest of the month. There were a few entries: a doctor’s appointment for Teddy the following week, a parents’ day, a dentist’s appointment the week after, and most interestingly a brief entry for the previous week: René L.& Antoine 2.30.
Was this the René who’d been round to the flat before – the man Teddy said had been nasty? Probably. But who was Antoine? René’s enforcer? Liz hoped not, but she made a mental note to ring Martin as soon as she got home.
Chapter 23
‘Good morning, Elizabeth,’ said a familiar voice on the phone. ‘You’re an early bird today.’
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