The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (16 page)

What was difficult for me was that Arne had charm. He made me feel privileged by being offered such patronage. Without overtly doing so, he managed to flatter me. It was an artful seduction. I had been singled out. This sort of proposal was not made to anyone. It was very special. The fact that Arne was himself an attractive person, tall, fair-haired, handsome, elegant, cultivated, precise in speech, added a dimension of personal magnetism to the equation. I instinctively felt that I did not want to offend him. Perhaps I should accept the Myrex offer just for his personal sake.

Fortunately my experience warned me against an easy acceptance. I knew I had to assess details and weigh implications in the balance of my judgement. I decided that I should try to keep my present role going. If I joined Myrex, I became a bought man. My independence evaporated. So long as my relationship with Roxanne preserved me, I preferred to maintain my present position. Yet, it struck me, there was no obvious harm in playing Arne along. I resolved to keep him guessing. I knew I had to be careful. Arne was no fool, and my prevarication could only last for a short time. I absolutely knew that. My Security Service training had taught me that. So I reversed the flattery.

‘It’s very kind of you. I must say I’m overwhelmed by the offer, and thanks very much. I have to think about it. It would mean a complete change for me.’

‘Of course, you must certainly do that,’ Arne responded. ‘There is no particular hurry. You can take your time; although that might change. Suddenly they might decide they do not want you and the offer would disappear.’ Then he said something that both mystified and chilled me. ‘Or they might decide that they have to have you, and exert some pressures that you will find impossible to resist.’

I swallowed hard at that remark and hoped that it did not show.

‘How do you mean, irresistible pressures? I don’t see myself ever without options.’

‘Yes, I think I put it badly. It is just that I know they would be able to make, as is said, an offer that is hard to refuse, if they are determined to engage you.’

I did not think that he had put it badly. Indeed, he had made himself perfectly clear. If I failed eventually to accept the offer, they would somehow make it impossible for me to refuse. It was as simple as that. For some reason or other that I did not understand, Raoul and his colleagues wanted me with them, neutralised, out of the swim. I had to be on their side. It occurred to me that in the end they might change their minds. They might not want me to give up the work I was doing. They might want me to continue my security work and therefore become their placeman inside the Service. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. For the moment, I determined to keep my balance, not to swing their way.

‘Well, it would be interesting to see what that is, but for the moment I’ll stay as I am and go on thinking about my future. I’ll come to a decision. Don’t worry. Then I’ll tell you immediately.’

‘Of course. As I say, for now, there is no rush.’

After dinner we retired for coffee to a large reception room in which was a grand piano, and we were treated to a forty-minute recital of Schubert lieder by a rising star of Bologna’s operatic society who modelled himself on Bryn Terfel. By the end of the evening I relaxed, comfortable, warmed by the good wine. In a mood of glowing satisfaction, I returned to my hotel. Paul accompanied me. We talked about music and nineteenth-century poetry. At my hotel we shook hands and I thanked him for his attentive guardianship of me that day. I told him how much I enjoyed his company. He took the compliment graciously, clearly appreciated it, but blushed slightly at the same time. He smiled at me, turned, looked back, waved, and then walked away in the direction from where we had come. I went into the hotel.

Many thoughts were racing in my mind and I did not fancy going straight to my room. I entered the bar and decided to have a whisky to settle me for the night. There seated on tall bar stools were Milly and her friend, who was no longer, of course, wearing her Peruvian hat. Milly smiled, greeted me and told me to pull up a seat. I remember thinking that the encounter was a bonus for my day. What more could I have hoped for than a goodnight drink with two beautiful girls?

I ordered my whisky and asked them if they would like a drink. Milly said she would love another shot of Tequila. Her friend, whom she introduced by name as Bianca, declined: she had only recently started a fresh glass.

‘So, what have you two been doing all day? Are you here sightseeing? Or are you on business?’ I asked.

‘Well, in a sense, it’s both of those things,’ Bianca said. ‘We’re both in the fashion business – buyers, and we’re here to look at what is happening at the Bologna Fashion Show that begins tomorrow.’

She paused momentarily, and Milly added, ‘There should be some good stuff. The Chanel label is rumoured to have some surprises. We thought we would get here a day or two early and do the tourist thing as well. Neither of us has been here before.’

Bianca said, ‘What about you?’

‘Oh, I’m just a journalist, an observer at a business conference, a hack, writing it up.’ It did occur to me to describe myself differently, but I reckoned there was no chance that they would have any connection with Myrex people. The journo tag would not matter in that case, and, anyway, I knew from experience girls were always interested in journalists. It gave me a good start in relationships. Sure enough the bait worked.

Bianca said, ‘I love meeting journalists. You must lead such an exciting life. Does your editor send you off all over the place? You must travel a lot. Are you a news reporter? Which paper do you write for? Have you covered any important stories recently?’

And that was it. She asked so many questions that had to be answered. The answers led to further discussions, and we were there in the bar for the following couple of hours. They were great talkers, and both of them struck me as being very sexy. Both were beautiful. They took their dress cues from the models they saw. Both were slimly elegant. They were carefully made up, both of them perfectly, professionally presented. I sat there hardly believing that I was enjoying the privilege of talking to those lovely girls. As we sipped our powerful drinks, my whisky, their Tequilas, we grew more and more relaxed. Conversation moved to areas of love life. Milly asked me if I was married. I told her I was not but that I had an occasional girlfriend who lived abroad so that I did not see her very often. She responded by saying that I must have been frustrated and sex-starved. She said it jokingly but I could see that she almost certainly believed it. Milly admitted to not having a permanent relationship. Bianca said she had a boyfriend but she was going to finish with him. He had lost his fascination and worked long and late hours. She thought it time to move on.

The more I drank, the more sentimental I became. I started quoting poetry, Marvell’s
To His Coy Mistress
, ‘Had we but world enough, and time,/This coyness, Lady, were no crime.’ They loved the thought and the images. I entertained them. They responded. They became first, intimate in conversation, then in manner. They both started touching me, holding my hand, and once the gorgeous Bianca leaned towards me and kissed my cheek, so close to my mouth that our lips almost met, but not quite. I experienced that customary sexual thrill. My whole body tingled and tensed with anticipation. She was extremely seductive. It has to be admitted that the three of us were all slightly drunk. It was about midnight. The barman wanted to close up. We ordered a last drink each and told him that he could finish. We sat there by ourselves in close, amorous contact. I remember it as being particularly blissful through the haze of alcohol.

What happened then had never happened to me before. Bianca, particularly, had spent much of the time during our last drink, petting me and stroking me. She would rest her hand on the top of my thigh, then gently stroke me, moving her hand to the inside of my leg. It was difficult for me to keep control. Every so often, during a pause in our conversation, Milly would snuggle herself closer to me and kiss my cheek. Inevitably, when our drinks were finished, Milly said it would be ridiculous if we did not spend the night together. I agreed. In my misty, charitable frame of mind, I thought it would be inhospitable not to go along with what those girls wanted. So, I invited them back to my room.

It was large and comfortable, with a king-size bed. Myrex did not do things cheaply, or, perhaps, they anticipated that I might want to share my bed with a friend. I imagine that they did not envisage that I would share it with two. We had made our way to my room. Bianca had stopped at hers, vanished inside for a moment, and then re-emerged, freshly sprayed with perfume. We went into my room and the girls undressed to their bras and pants. They both looked stunning. Since they were in the fashion business, even their underwear was top drawer, expensive and chic. I found it difficult to believe what was taking place. Slightly tipsy, I tried to consider how the scene fitted into reality, my world, newspaper reporting, feeding information to Willy, and ordinary life back in my house behind Olympia, electricity, gas and phone bills. Nothing was in its proper place but in any case my considerations were irrelevant. The two girls started undressing me, and before long I was sitting on the edge of the bed in my rather shabby Calvin Kleins. There are few of us who can measure up to the famous models. I was no Marky Mark whose immense and handsome image straddled Times Square for many months on end. Nor was I Travis, the CK superstar and Australian sheep-shearer, who looked out over Bond Street showing off his flat stomach and white briefs to the consternation and delight of all the women and some of the men in London’s West End. I was not David Beckham. I sat between the girls, undoing their bras. Then, as I say, for the first time so far as I was concerned, and hitherto the last, we delighted each other in a sexual threesome. The extraordinary thing was that it all seemed quite natural, as it should have been. No holds were barred. Each one of us helped the others off with their pants, slowly and sexily. There is something about undressing your sexual partner that adds to the relish. That was the way it was. When I think back on that night, I am still astounded. As I say nothing like it has happened since. I wonder if I should count myself lucky that it did take place. I think I should: they were fascinatingly attractive girls, sexually accomplished, and, also, good to be with when not in bed.

In the morning when I woke, Milly one side of me, Bianca the other, I was disoriented and felt awkward. I got up and made some coffee in the machine next to the basin in the bathroom. The two girls gradually woke up. Neither in their sobriety was disconcerted and both started chatting. They both, by the casualness of their behaviour, put me at my ease. It was as though what we had experienced was to be expected and commonplace. I marvelled at their composure and ability to make me feel comfortable. Eventually, after coffee, they dressed well enough to go to their own rooms, and although we had exchanged the addresses of our London work places, we have never met since. When I look back and remember that night, I sometimes wonder if I dreamt the whole episode.

That Tuesday and Wednesday of the three-day conference passed with my acquisition of a far greater knowledge of the European business world than I had ever possessed before. The delegates I met and spoke with enlarged both my view of trade and commerce, and my experience of the many different sorts of people who made the real economies of countries work. Those men and women were the practical operators of the marketplace, shrewd, careful, persistently conscientious to maximise profit which is at the heart of any country’s success. The profit motive is essential for personal ambition, and as a taxation source for the nation: a nation is wealthy according to its level of productivity. Amongst those men and women, Arne stood out, not just because of his tall physical stature, but because of his cultivated control of manner, his precise English, and his trace of aloofness. He continued to strike me as essentially a remote figure who, in the context of the conference, was consciously playing a conned role. Maybe I was wrong, but that was the way I felt. It was from the others that I learned about the frenetically competitive world of business.

Throughout those two days, Arne continued, from time to time, to tempt me with his offer of Myrex employment, although, as increasingly I came to see it, Myrex simply wanted to retain me. By the time I was travelling back to Milan and on board my flight back to Heathrow, I was convinced that Myrex intended to neutralise me. They intended to have me with them, not with anyone else. They needed to control me and hold me in a position of obligation. I grew more determined than ever to maintain my own position. I wondered what I should do next and decided to confide in Willy back in St James’s Square about what I should do. I did not want to become closely involved with the Myrex set-up on a day-to-day working level. I needed someone to confirm my strategy.

So that is what I did. As soon as I was back in London, I called in at the St James’s house. Willy was not there but I arranged to meet him that next day, Thursday. It proved an important meeting because it presented me with the direction I had to take in relation to Myrex. I arrived to talk with Willy mid-morning. We had been discussing the Bologna conference for about half an hour, when Willy’s internal phone rang. The girl, who was acting as his secretary, reported to him that the director was in the house and would like to see him. Willy told me that he would have to leave me briefly because the director had summoned him, but suggested that perhaps the director might like to join our discussion. I stressed the crazy position I had been left in by Arne and confessed that I was beginning to feel a little out of my depth. Willy thought that a chat with the director, if he agreed, would be a good idea and surely enough a few minutes he later arrived back in the room with the director.

At first the director thought it would be preferable to go along with Arne’s offer, work within the Myrex organisation as a mole, and be privy to all sorts of valuable information otherwise not available to us. Then, very quickly, he changed his mind. He thought I should resist Myrex’s embrace. Then we could see to what lengths they would be prepared to go in order to enforce their will. I immediately saw danger. Both the director and Willy recognised it. Arne and Myrex might lose patience. Then it would depend on how much they thought it necessary for me to be out of the way. The director considered it a certainty that they knew I was connected to Willy. Supposing they decided to eliminate me? The director said my back would be covered and if there were an emergency, I would be snatched away from their clutches. Of course, I knew the reality of that sort of promise. Too often I knew that such promises fail – the moment too late, the opportunity mistaken, and the result, a friend and colleague dead. But you had to take the risk. That was the nature of the work, investigative journalism, intelligence gathering: you knew it from the start. Who would cover me? The director said that it would be arranged; someone would be briefed to watch me. Our little meeting broke up after only twenty minutes. In the short term, my fate had been decided.