Secret Kingdom (25 page)

She heard the church clock strike. Midnight already? She counted the chimes. No, eleven. She’d been here for over an hour and still hadn’t finished what she was writing. Suddenly, there was a
commotion in the street, below her window. Any distraction was welcome. She looked out. Two men, both drunk, were arguing about something, fists flying but not connecting. They parted, shouting insults at each other.

She went back to her desk once more.

Martineau waited in the interrogation room. It was hot and airless and he could feel sweat dripping down his spine. No fan. No windows. Artificial light. Strip neon suspended from the ceiling. No sense of day or night, though he knew it was afternoon outside. Destroy the natural rhythms of the body, remove any awareness of the separation of night from day, and you loosen the disciplines of the mind. It was all so blatant and so threatening. No attempt at any concealment because there was no need to hide anything. Rooms like this were part of the mechanism of control. The authorities wanted their existence to be known, the absolute nature of their power to be beyond dispute.

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. If he spent long in here, he’d suffocate or go mad or both. Fifteen minutes passed before the door opened and a small, shabby figure was ushered in.

‘Hello, I’m Bobby Martineau,’ he said. ‘From the embassy.’

‘Thank you for coming,’ Leman said.

They sat down on either side of a small table, their guard standing, watchful, by the door. Martineau tried to ignore the heat and his melting body.

Leman was pale, but whether that was prison pallor or his natural complexion he couldn’t be sure. He was smaller than Martineau had imagined, and he was aware at once of a strong sense of self-containment.
Leman had reserves, inner strengths, resources he could call on in adversity to which his slight frame was no guide. There was a calm awareness about him, a watchfulness. Nothing escaped the attention of his dark eyes. He was thinking all the time. He would make a formidable opponent.

Martineau began by asking him about the conditions of his imprisonment. Was he being fed properly? Given the opportunity for regular exercise?

‘They aren’t leaving me to rot, if that’s what you’re asking. I suppose I must still have some value to them.’

The unasked question was, what happens when they’ve drained me of everything they need? Martineau hurried on.

Had he been threatened? Bullied? Beaten up?

‘No, no one’s laid a finger on me. Is that what I am to expect?’

Had he been interrogated?

‘I’ve been asked questions. I wouldn’t say I’ve been interrogated. Not in the sense I think you mean.’

‘Have you told them anything?’

Leman shook his head. ‘I’m developing a technique for avoiding answers.’

‘Is there anything for them to learn?’

‘What do you think?’

The man didn’t trust anyone easily, that much was obvious. His manner was wary, he was cautious, no talker, watching you, weighing you up. Not altogether likeable, Martineau judged. But the good thing was, the fight hadn’t gone out of him. The debilitating effect of his incarceration was visible on his face but it hadn’t spread to his soul, at least not yet.

‘We’re doing our best to get you out of here.’

‘I didn’t believe Randall when he said that and I don’t believe you now. I would prefer you to tell me the truth.’

The gaze was certain, demanding, impossible to escape the message. The man was a realist. No point in trying to fool him.

‘The truth is,’ Martineau said, ‘you’re a gift to the communists, a Westerner at loose in their country at a time when they’re looking for ways to distract international attention from what’s going on here. You’ve provided them with the cover they need and now they’re going to play it for all it’s worth. There’s going to be some fun and games and they won’t be over quickly.’

Leman thought about replying but said nothing.

‘I can’t be optimistic about the future. I’d like to be but it wouldn’t be fair.

Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘A last request, you mean?’

No smile, but he was encouraged by the gallows humour.

‘Anything you’d like me to do?’ Martineau repeated.

Leman was silent, thinking, his chin in his hands. ‘Yes. I want to give you a letter but they won’t let me hand it over to you.’

‘Give it to me verbally.’

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say.’ Leman smiled. ‘It’s a short message. For someone called Anna Livesey. She lives in London, 14 Moore Street, SW3. Please say,’ and then he hesitated. ‘Please say, some things are not what they seem.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all, yes.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

Hart pressed the buzzer and a voice asked: ‘Who is it?’

‘Hugh.’

‘Come in. First floor.’ The door clicked open and Hart went in. Christine Martineau was waiting for him on the landing. She offered her hand and he shook it.

‘How nice to see you.’

She led the way into the apartment. The first time he had been here he had not noticed it. Now he was struck by its Englishness, pictures of the English countryside on the walls, English furniture, photographs of family groups, even copies of
The Tatler
and
The Field.
How unlike Martineau it all seemed. No untidiness, nothing out of place. Spotless and organized. Nothing to suggest his presence in her life.

‘Would you like a glass of sherry?’

She had laid a small table in the window, looking out over the garden. He saw there were only two places.

‘It’s a mess, don’t look at it. I try to do my best but I can’t do it all on my own. The trouble is, Hungarians aren’t gardeners,’ she
said. ‘There are so many things I can’t get here, and they seem reluctant to send out seeds and weedkiller in the diplomatic bag.’

Christine Martineau had sent him a note after Archie Randall’s birthday party, thanking Hart for ‘saving’ her when her husband was called away. She made him sound like a doctor. It was followed a few days later by a second note. Would he like to come and have lunch? She hoped he wouldn’t be too busy. He’d agreed, imagining Martineau would be there but it was obvious the moment he arrived that he wasn’t and nor was he expected.

‘I should warn you, I’m trying out my Hungarian cooking. I hope you won’t mind being a guinea pig,’ she said, placing a bowl of cold cherry soup in front of him. ‘Now, tell me all about yourself, how you joined the diplomatic.’

He demurred, claiming there was nothing to say, that he’d fallen into the job by accident. ‘Most people do,’ she commented. This was his first overseas posting, he was learning the ropes, how helpful Bobby was, it must be quite a burden to have a raw recruit on your hands especially at a time when so much was going on.

‘That’s it, really. Nothing very interesting, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t you feel sorry for them, these poor people?’ Christine said. ‘Their terrible oppressed lives and all the awful lies they have to pretend are truth when they know they’re not. It must be like living in a permanent nightmare from which you know you can never wake up. When you’re out here, stuck in the middle of a communist society as we are, you see how loathsome it all is, what a tragic waste of lives and energies. People at home don’t have any idea of the unrelenting greyness of it all, how life-sapping the trivial betrayals of daily life can prove to be, how life-denying and hateful Marxism is. Bobby’s always saying how impossible it is to get anyone in London to understand what living under communism is really like. What I hate most is the loss of identity. You always have to do what you’re told because some authority always knows better than you do. Imagine that. You can only be true to yourself inside your mind, and that may not last for long because they’ve got ways of controlling what you think.’

She gave him veal in a paprika sauce, beautifully cooked, and ‘vegetables from the market. The one delight here is that you can get almost any vegetable or fruit you want, all home-grown, and so cheap too.’

Why had she asked him? What did she want? Not to talk about Bobby, clearly. She had mentioned Martineau once, and then neutrally, and had never steered the conversation back to him after that, though he had given her the opportunity to do so.

‘Shall we take our coffee outside?’

He got up and saw at once a framed black and white photograph of a striking young woman. She was smiling at the camera, laughing, obviously happy. Was it their daughter, perhaps? Martineau had never mentioned children.

‘Don’t you recognize me?’ Christine said. ‘Have I changed so much?’

They sat in deckchairs in the garden. He hadn’t noticed her before. She was the wife of a senior colleague, taking pity on him because he was new and he’d done her a good turn. Now, in the afternoon sunlight, he saw that she was an elegant woman, well groomed, that was the expression he was looking for, not a hair out of place, her nails polished, a crisp, ironed dress, carefully chosen jewellery – an amethyst ring, a gold bracelet, a twin row of pearls around her neck with an elegant clip. Almost beautiful, in an icy, controlled, conventional way. For all that coolness, she communicated a sense of anxiety to him.

‘The house has been divided into three flats. We’re the middle one, but the other two are empty at the moment, so it’s just us,’ she said. ‘I expect we’ll have neighbours before long.’

‘Don’t you get lonely?’ he asked.

She was taken aback by the suddenness of the question.

‘Should I?’

‘Being out here,’ he said, not knowing why he’d asked the question.

‘I’ve got plenty to do in the garden. I see my friends, Rachel Randall and I were at school together, we’ve known each other all our lives. It’s nice having her here. But that isn’t the answer to the question you’re asking, is it?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. What he didn’t say was, what am I doing here? Why did you ask me? What is all this about?

‘Why do I put up with it? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’ He caught the edge of bitterness in her laugh. ‘What’s in it for me?’

‘Isn’t that why you asked me here?’

‘I asked you to lunch to say thank you for being so patient the other night. I felt I’d behaved rather badly.’ She lit a cigarette and pushed her hair back with her hand. ‘I suppose the question I should ask you is how much do you know?’

‘Assume I know nothing. It’s probably true anyway.’

‘I’m sure you can’t be interested.’ She was retreating from him now, but he knew she didn’t mean it.

‘I want to understand,’ he said evasively. ‘Does that help?’

She smiled. ‘It makes it easier.’

Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of a siren, a police car or an ambulance racing through the streets. He felt secure in this overgrown garden, alone with this coldly beautiful woman. The world and its troubles were miles away.

She took her time to answer. She gazed out over the garden. When she spoke, she didn’t look at him.

‘Bobby’s a lot of fun, he’s always been popular, you must have seen that. People like him, they don’t want to lose him. Every time he’s been in trouble they’ve pushed the lifeboat out and rescued him. Good old Bobby, they say as they haul him to safety once more. At least, that’s what used to happen. His cronies are getting thin on the ground now, they’re retiring or dying. They aren’t there any more to come to his aid. I don’t think he realizes how isolated he’s become. Poor old Bobby. Time catches up with all of us, doesn’t it?’

There was a slight breeze which lifted the hem of her dress, revealing the lace edge of a silk slip. She held her skirt down with her hand.

‘Have you met the latest one?’ she asked.

‘Latest what?’

‘You’re not going to get away with it that easily,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Bobby has a girl here, in Budapest. A Hungarian. We both know that, don’t we?’

This was dangerous territory. Not where he wanted to be at all.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said carefully.

‘Don’t sound so surprised.’ Christine laughed. Was she mocking him? Why did he feel so uncomfortable? ‘I’m married to him. If anyone knows, I ought to, don’t you think? There’s no point in pretending.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Shall I tell you what I’ve found out? She’s in her mid-thirties. Works as an interpreter. She has a daughter, lives near the university. Medium height, dark hair, good-looking in a strong way. Athletic, too. I think she went to the Olympic Games in London. Her name is Eva Balassi.’

She leaned over him as she refilled his coffee cup and he saw her bosom swelling the fabric of her dress. He smelled her scent, roses and something else he couldn’t make out.

‘Why do you put up with it?’ he asked, meaning why don’t you put your foot down? It can’t be a life, living like this.

‘Do I have a choice? Life with Bobby, knowing what Bobby gets up to, or life on your own? I don’t call that any choice. Do you?’

‘Then you let him get away with it.’

‘Oh, dear. That sounds like a judgement to me.’ She smiled sorrowfully at him. ‘It’s all my fault. I’m pushing him towards these girls.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She moved neared to him. ‘I’m not fooling myself. I know what goes on. I know there’s talk at the embassy. How can Christine live with herself? Rachel wants me to leave Bobby. Over the years a lot of people have told me to leave Bobby. The answer is, I hope I put up with it with some shred of dignity. What do you think an unfaithful husband tells the world about the wife he escapes from? That she’s a cold-hearted bitch?’