The Persian Price (3 page)

‘Good,' the Syrian said. ‘You've done well.'

The voice at the other end sank lower.

‘The Colonel was here.'

‘Don't worry, he would be. Why should he notice you? Be brave, my brother. Forget the Colonel.' He hung up.

‘Well?' Peters was on his feet.

‘He got close enough to hear that Field has no immediate plans to return to England for the moment. Also he's brought his wife with him. That's good. It'll make it easier still. But she's going back earlier, so we can't waste time. And he was very frightened because Ardalan was there.'

‘I'm not surprised,' Peters said. ‘Anyone with sense is frightened of Ardalan. I heard you reassuring him. I don't suppose he did anything to draw attention to himself?' He asked the question calmly.

The Syrian looked at him for a moment before he answered.

‘If he did,' he said, ‘the one thing he knows as a connection with us is this telephone number.'

‘Get him out of Tehran tomorrow. It's safer. Ardalan can smell fear at fifty yards.'

‘I shall see to it,' the Syrian said. ‘So the date is set.'

‘We go the day after tomorrow,' Madeleine answered. She got up and began collecting the dirty coffee cups. ‘Paris and then London. We split up in Paris and arrive in England separately.'

‘From there we will make the final preparations,' Peters said. ‘Resnais will join Madeleine in Paris and they'll come in together.'

‘Good luck then,' the Syrian said. He came and shook hands with Peters and the girl. He gave them a little bow as he stopped by the door. Then he quietly raised his fist in the clenched salute and went out.

Madeleine took the cups out to the kitchen; she was not a domesticated girl. At home in Beirut there were a dozen servants in her parents' house. She had reacted violently from a luxury she considered sinful and degenerate. At first she had worn shabby clothes and prided herself on being unkempt; even before she broke with her family at twenty, she had delighted in flouting her German mother's insistence upon neatness. But now that she had fallen in love with Peters, she indulged in pretty clothes and paid attention to her looks. She wanted to please Peters with all the passion of her quasi-Oriental upbringing, but above all she wanted him to say he loved her. She was too realistic to expect him to mean it. She left the dirty cups in the kitchen and followed him into the bedroom. He was stripped to his trousers and the sight of the muscled body aroused her. She came and stood close, pressing herself sensually against him, her arms twisted round his waist, stroking him with her hands.

She started murmuring to him in French; she found English a coarse, unromantic language, as bad as German. He put his arms around her. Later she said to him over and over before she drifted into a satisfied sleep that he was wonderful and she adored him.

Peters didn't answer. She was a ferocious woman and he admired her dedication. But he didn't love her and he wished she wouldn't indulge in sentimentality. There was no room for emotional entanglements or for any other commitment outside their common cause. This didn't exclude sex, or even living with a woman, but it was more important to him that they worked together than that they went to bed. He moved away from her and immediately he had forgotten she was there. His mind was alert and concentrating on the details of the plan ahead.

This had been formulated at the conference held in Munich in May. It was easy for the members of the Central Committee to meet in Germany rather than attract attention by asking its European members to travel to Damascus, where Israeli intelligence would have been alerted. There was a large work force of Arabs in the Federal Republic and it was simple for the Palestinian members to travel in as casual labour, while people like Peters arrived as tourists. The meeting had been held in the house of a German dental surgeon in a working-class district. Non-European patients came and went without causing comment. They had held their conference during his surgery hours. Peters had been a member of the commando group of the Palestine Liberation Forces for the last two years. He had travelled to Egypt from Central America under the auspices of the Marxist cell with whom he had been operating in that area. He had been invited to Munich as a special observer. He had left the city with the Committee's mandate to carry out the most vital mission against the forces of Western capitalism since Nasser closed the Suez Canal.

James Kelly lived in a beautiful nineteenth-century house in Shemiran, a select suburb on the lower slopes of the Elburz mountains which lie behind Tehran. It was built of pink stone, domed and turreted, with exquisite stonework tracery, and set in a large, secluded garden. He had rented it when he first came to Tehran, appalled at the prospect of living in one of the hideous modern houses which the newly rich Iranians were putting up in the city. The house was ramshackle and in poor repair, but there was no limit on the company's funds and he had transformed it into its former beauty.

The car had brought Eileen and Logan back ahead of James. She got out and stood for a moment in the moonlight. It was a warm still night and the scent of the jasmine from the garden was very strong. In the sky above, an enormous moon hung like a great pearl. The twentieth-century city, with its ugly buildings, its Arab-traffic-logged avenues, and its modern hotels, might have been a thousand miles away; the house and its fragrant garden, with the delicate sound of the fountains which James had put in order, made sense of the magic that Westerners found in Persia. Now the ancient name was changed, the ancient rulers vanished. The son of an army sergeant sat upon the Peacock Throne, and the Persian aristocracy, weakened and effete, were overridden by the brash and ambitious middle class, gorged with wealth from the great mineral resources they controlled. It was an ugly contrast in the country whose poetry and marvellous decorative arts were among the wonders of the world.

‘I'm going in,' Logan said. He had waited for his wife, as she paused, and had seen her look upwards and around her. It was a magnificent night and he too was aware of the jasmine and the interplay of shadows in the garden. Not so long ago he would have taken her arm and suggested they walked for a while before going to bed. But not now.

‘I'm dead tired,' he said. And then he added quickly, ‘You must be too. It's been one hell of a long day.'

She followed him inside the house without saying anything. Eileen had stayed there twice before; the room was simply furnished but in excellent taste. James had hung some fine Gelim rugs on the walls and displayed a collection of rare Luristan bronzes and Nishapur pots in a wide niche above the bed. It was comfortable and in some ways spectacular, but she thought how masculine it was. She wondered why he had never married and, because she was tired and on edge with Logan, she suddenly said so.

‘I wonder why James is still a bachelor?'

Logan was undressing in the bathroom with the door open.

‘I've no idea. There's nothing wrong with him – we checked all that.'

‘How do you mean – checked?'

She couldn't undo her dress without his help; she unfastened the brooch and took off the earrings, holding them in her hand.

‘Checked in what way?'

‘We had him checked out,' Logan sounded irritated. ‘It's always done. Cuts out trouble later. You know I won't have homosexuals in positions of responsibility.'

‘My God,' Eileen said. She turned away and dropped the jewellery on the dressing table. ‘I think that's disgusting! I wonder what he'd say if he knew?'

‘I doubt if he'd be surprised. They've had enough trouble with pansies in the Foreign Office. You've got no right to criticize.' He slammed the bathroom door.

For months she had held herself in control; ignoring his bad moods, excusing outbursts when he was rude. He had changed towards her and she had begun to suspect why. She had tried hard not to be hurt, deluding herself that it was the result of overwork and strain. Seven years of marriage; the first four had been dogged by miscarriages and the birth of Lucy, which had changed everything.

She went and pulled the door open.

‘Don't you slam the door on me!' she said. He was already in his pyjamas. He looked first surprised and then he grew red.

‘Don't bloody well shout at me!' he said. He came out, pushing past her.

‘I'm not shouting,' Eileen said. ‘I just won't put up with your bad manners! I think it's disgusting to pry into people's private lives and I said so!'

He turned and looked at her. The last months had been a strain upon him too. His voice was lower, calmer, but it was more wounding than his rage.

‘I'll run my business as I think best,' he said. ‘What you think doesn't interest me. If all I had to do was live in a bloody broken down house in the Irish bogs and think about how to get money out of my son-in-law instead of doing a day's work, I might have time for your high principles. Unfortunately I haven't. So you can stuff them!'

‘I'll give you the three hundred pounds! I'll pay you back the damned money you gave him! Then you won't have to throw it in my face.'

She sat on the bed and began to cry. He had given her father three hundred pounds towards a repair bill for fencing round their land at Meath House. She had written her father an angry letter, reproaching him for sponging on Logan yet again, and been fobbed off by a telephone call full of apologies and charm. Her father despised Logan Field. He thought he was common and trumped up and that the life he lived was a waste of time. Logan did none of the things of which John Fitzgerald approved. He disliked horses and was bored by racing; he shot reasonably well but without much enjoyment. He was always travelling and chasing himself, and her family thought it was just as well he was so rich because everything else about him was ridiculous. They were not aware of the dynamic personality which had first attracted her. They merely considered him exhausting.

After a moment she felt him sit beside her.

‘I'm sorry, darling,' he said. His arm came round her shoulder and pulled her against him. ‘I'd no right to say that. I was a rude shit. I'm sorry.'

She couldn't answer immediately. Her emotions were confused; hurt and anger struggled against a feeling of deep despair. When she raised her head he was staring at the ground, his free hand clenching on his knee.

‘I'm sorry,' he said again, and she knew that he meant it.

It was not the moment for discussion, but she felt a lemming urge to hasten the process of disintegration.

‘What's the matter, Logan? What's happening to us?'

‘Nothing,' he said. His arm slipped away from her. ‘We're just over the top. We need a good night's sleep. You probably need a holiday.'

‘I've never had a holiday without you,' she said slowly. ‘I don't want one now.'

His head turned towards her and then away.

‘It might be a good idea. Give us both a chance to think things out.'

Eileen got up and searched for a cigarette in her bag. She found his lighter thrown on the bed.

‘I've known we were drifting away from each other for some time. I thought it was just a phase – but it isn't, is it? Please. Look at me. Tell me the truth. Is there someone else?'

He glanced up; his expression was unhappy. She knew by the set of his mouth that it would soon be resentful.

‘Leave it alone, for Christ's sake, Eileen. Don't start all this tonight.'

She started to cry again.

‘I can't. I can't live with the uncertainty. You didn't want me on this trip; you did everything to stop me coming. We haven't slept together for months. You're always too tired or you brush me aside. I know there's somebody else. There has to be!'

‘All right.' He got up and stood facing her. ‘All right, you want to force the issue. There
is
someone. I can't go on pretending either. Oh Christ!' He picked up the lighter and threw it across the room.

She didn't say anything. She had asked for the truth and he had told it. He was in love with another woman. Suspecting it was not the same as knowing it. The certainty was not a relief. It was like a wound. The extremity of pain was yet to come. At that moment, seeing her face, Logan Field didn't know who he hated most, himself or her. As long as he didn't have to hurt her, he could retain affection for her and even try to avoid a crisis. Nothing was decided, certainly in his own mind, so long as she didn't take the initiative. But she had made him admit that he didn't love her, and from that moment it became a fact.

‘Who is it?'

She had stopped crying; she sounded calm. He had never seen her look so bloodless, the dreadful colour accentuated by the blue dress. There was no going back now, and his distress was changing into anger. He was a man who welcomed decisions and hated any kind of vacuum, but this particular decision had been forced upon him. It was her fault and he was already blaming her so he could excuse himself. So long as she asked questions, she would get the answers.

‘Janet,' he said. ‘I want to marry her.'

Eileen said quietly, ‘I see. To have more children?'

‘Not necessarily.' Now he was retreating. This was a truth he couldn't face; the gnawing disappointment that after Lucy's birth, his wife could never have another child. One girl, one beautiful precious little girl, to inherit all that he had created … He couldn't admit that he wanted to remarry because he wanted a son to follow on. It sounded grandiose and ridiculous. But for three years he had been frustrated and guilty because it happened to be true. He saw Eileen put up a hand to the back of her dress.

‘Here,' he said, ‘I'll undo that for you.'

She stepped away from him.

‘No. No thank you.'

She put both hands to the neck and ripped the back apart. The dress slid down and she stepped out of it. She had a beautiful figure, narrow hipped – too narrow – with small breasts and the very pale skin that went with her colouring. He had desired her and loved her, and for the first four years, in spite of losing her pregnancies and being ill, they had known intense happiness. He had been so proud of her; proud of her charm and her good breeding, showing her off like a treasure. He had been tender, according to his moods; he had known that she loved him. And she had given him the child that he loved more than anything in the world … Sexual desire did not awaken, seeing her; conscience made him step towards her.