The Persian Price (7 page)

Eileen went upstairs to the top floor. There was a little white painted gate, secured by a safety latch. Its purpose was to keep Lucy from toddling to the stairs and falling down them, but it always seemed to Eileen as if it were meant to keep her out.

She opened the nursery door and went in. It was a pink and white room, overdecorated and clinically neat. Toys were ranged along one wall, repeating the colour scheme; pink and white fairies danced in friezes round the room. The nanny was sitting down, sewing. When she saw Eileen she got up, smiling and distant, as if she were welcoming a visitor.

‘Oh, good evening, Mrs Field. Did you have a good journey – we weren't expecting you back so soon.'

‘No, it seemed pointless to stay on. I could have been there for ages. Where's Lucy?'

‘She's asleep,' the nanny said.

Eileen walked to the night nursery door and opened it. She didn't look at the older woman or say anything. She went inside.

‘Please, Mrs Field,' she heard the voice behind her. ‘Don't wake the child. Surely in the morning …'

‘She's not asleep,' Eileen said. ‘Close the door please, Nanny.'

She switched on the light and the little girl sitting up in the pink and white bed held out her arms.

Eileen was in her room unpacking when there was a knock on the door.

‘Madam! There you are now, I'm sorry I was out!'

Bridget Hagan's family had worked at Meath for generations. Her father was Eileen's groom when she was a child. She was a sturdy, cheerful girl of twenty-six, and she had worked for Eileen for five years.

‘You're looking tired,' she said. ‘Did you have a horrible journey? Let me do that, Madam; I'll put everything away.'

‘It was tiring, Biddy. And I don't like flying anyway. Today's your day off, isn't it?'

‘Sure and there's the Prince of Wales waiting to take me out tonight! I can go off any time. Shall I get some tea for you?'

‘No thanks. Biddy, I'm going to need your help. I'm giving Nanny notice tomorrow morning.'

Bridget's face cracked into a huge smile.

‘Thank God for that! Wait till Mario and Marianna hear about it! The old hag – won't she be mad?'

‘Biddy, will you help me look after Lucy? I'm not going to get anyone like her again. I want the baby to myself.'

‘High time too, Madam,' the girl agreed. ‘What about Mr Field – what'll he say?'

Eileen hesitated.

‘He's very busy in Iran at the moment. I haven't bothered him about it.'

‘Don't you worry,' Bridget said. ‘I'll do everything I can for Lucy. I've always wanted to get me hands on her and the old gorgon wouldn't even let me in the nursery!' She smiled at Eileen and started unpacking and hanging up her clothes.

She didn't feel hungry, but Bridget fussed over her, bringing a tray into the library. It was a small, comfortable room, with an air of casual elegance that costs so much money to achieve. There were photographs of herself and Lucy and a big portrait study of Logan, which was often reproduced in newspapers. Seven years of marriage to a man who had become a stranger. He had another woman now, a woman who could share his passion for business and stand on equal terms with him. Eileen had never been his equal or his partner; she had come low on his list of priorities and accepted it; she wasn't sure how high even Lucy rated when it came to Imperial Oil. He could never have said, like James, ‘If you need me, I'll come back.'

It would have been easy to cable, to call the lover in the wings onto the stage. Easy to follow the habit of seven years and leave the initiative to a man. But this time she wasn't going to do it.

Nothing shamed her more than the realization of what she had allowed Logan to do with their child. The fussy, elderly mother-substitute with her rigid routine, the spotless nursery and the regimented toys. The deliberate exclusion of the mother from real contact with her child.

All that was over. James had said she had guts and she was glad to find that he was right. The guts to face life on her own and to fight Logan for the custody of Lucy.

She finished her coffee and went upstairs to the second-floor bedroom. Logan insisted on a king-size bed. He had given her a magnificent Poussin landscape two years before. She wondered whether he had given Janet Armstrong pictures or jewellery. More likely share options. She would appreciate them more. She got into bed and within minutes she fell asleep. It was just eleven o'clock.

In a cheap Indian restaurant, less than a mile away off Victoria Street, Madeleine, Resnais and Peters sat round a table, planning the kidnapping of Lucy Field.

For five years Colonel Ali Ardalan had been the head of the Iranian Secret Police – Sazemane Attalat Va Amniyate Keshvar – the dreaded
SAVAK.
He had begun his military career in Army Intelligence, where he distinguished himself against the Kurdish tribesmen who were fighting a guerilla war for self-rule on the Iraqi border. His father had been in the same regiment as the Shah's father, the army sergeant who had deposed the last Qajar emperor and taken possession of the Peacock Throne. Ardalan belonged to one of what were known as the thousand families, the old Persian aristocracy; it had taken a generation before they felt comfortable serving the upstart Reza family. Ali had no such reservations. He admired the Shah for his courage, his fervent nationalism and his ability to weld the people together in personal loyalty to him.

The Colonel had spent some months in England on a course at the Military Academy; he had liked Sandhurst and admired the English. He was an open-minded man, keenly intelligent and ready to learn anything which he felt could be used to Iran's advantage. He was a soldier and a patriot. He believed that the safety of his country and the personal safety of the Shah were above all other considerations. Since his appointment as head of
SAVAK
he had perfected a system of espionage and counter-terrorism which was the admiration of similar services throughout the East. His enemies described him as a monster of cruelty and repression; his torture chambers were places from which few suspects came out alive.

He knew everything about everyone in public life; his shadow fell upon Ministers and civil servants, on the armed forces, the diplomatic service, the universities. The intellectuals and the moderates shuddered when the name Ardalan was mentioned. He was a close friend and adviser of the Shah and the only man who could have access to him at any time, night or day. He was married, with a second wife and three young children. They lived together in a large, well-guarded house on the outskirts of Tehran. In private life, he was a quiet man, modest in his personal needs. He had gathered together all the available information about Logan Field; this was a routine precaution before anyone was allowed an audience with the Shah and Ardalan insisted upon it, regardless of who was involved. He knew that Field's wife had gone back to England, because all European-owned houses were under supervision and James's houseboy was in police pay. He also knew that Field was having trouble with the Minister Khorvan. The Colonel did not trust either of them. The Englishman was trying to exploit Iran's huge natural oil resources and the Minister was indulging his left-wing tendencies by impeding the negotiations. Ardalan knew all about the demand for a refinery because the Shah himself had told him. It would be interesting to see if Imperial Oil could be bullied into agreement. The Shah had no objection to Khorvan imposing the harshest terms on any European company. Ardalan had none either, so long as the motive behind the manoeuvre was purely in the interests of Iran and the Shah. He was not sure that this applied to Khorvan, but he knew the Shah too well to say so at that moment. If the Minister succeeded, the Shah would be pleased. If he failed and the negotiations broke down, then it would be proper to question his motives. Ardalan didn't trust the Minister and he didn't like him personally. He was having him very closely watched, but he hadn't told the Shah this either.

The Colonel was on his way to his office at Niavaran. He drove in a bullet-proof army car and they never used the same route in succession or left at the same time. On that morning he instructed his driver to take a way through one of the poorer districts of the city by way of diversion. From there they could proceed to his office. Since no one knew which way he was travelling, the Colonel felt himself safe from ambush. It was not a prospect that worried him, although he took precautions. He was a brave man and unafraid of violent death. They were driving through a narrow back street when their way was barred by a small crowd. A police motorcycle was parked against the wall. The driver jammed his hand on the horn and the people began to scatter. The Colonel was in civilian clothes; he wore English suits and white shirts with a discreet tie. He leaned forward and told the driver to slow down. He always said that nine-tenths of an intelligence officer's equipment was a talent for doing jigsaw puzzles, and the tenth part was instinct. Instinct made him curious, and his curiosity made him stop the car to find out what had happened.

His driver called through the window to the crowd. A moment later the cycle policeman came up. The Colonel opened his window and asked what had happened.

‘A man has been murdered,' the policeman reported. ‘His body is inside the house.'

‘Ah,' said the Colonel. Tehran had a low murder rate; crimes of violence were rare, though the incidence of burglary was high. The Colonel opened the door and got out. He said one word to the policeman, ‘
SAVAK
', and the man cringed.

‘Show me the body,' he said. The inside of the house was dark. He heard the sound of a high, female wail of grief. In a little room at the back the policeman stopped and opened the door. Ardalan recognized the slaughterhouse smell. There was blood all over the floor and he stopped carefully to avoid staining his shoes. The dead man lay on his back; he wore only a greasy shirt, and a woman crouched in the corner. Ardalan told her to be quiet and the crying stopped. He bent over the body. Above the terribly gashed throat, the face was unmarked, the eyes open. The Colonel looked for a full minute at the dead man.

‘His name?'

‘Habib Ebrahimi, sir.'

‘What have you discovered?'

The policeman stammered, ‘Nothing yet, sir. The woman is his wife. She couldn't tell us much. Nobody knows who did this.'

‘The woman is afraid,' Ardalan said. ‘This is not the place to ask her questions. Send for a car. They are to bring her to Niavaran. I will talk to her. For the moment touch nothing. My men will come down and search the house. Are there any signs of robbery?'

‘No, sir. He and his wife lived in this room. There are families in the other rooms. Nobody heard anything and nothing has been taken.'

‘Send the woman to me,' the Colonel said. ‘And tell her she has nothing to fear. I am sorry for what has happened and I want to give her money. Tell her that.'

He went out into the street and the crowd gave way for him. The policeman opened the door of the car for him and saluted. The Colonel sat back, told the driver to go on, and sniffed at his pocket handkerchief. He used a strong cologne and it drove the smell of sticky blood away as he breathed into the handkerchief.

The one-tenth instinct had not failed him. Nor would the other nine. A man called Habib Ebrahimi had been butchered in a mean little room in a poor quarter. The name was of no significance to the Colonel, but he had instantly recognized the face. It was the waiter who had served him at the oil company's reception for Minister Khorvan. The same waiter he had seen hovering round the Minister and Logan Field. It was not coincidence. He knew that. It was a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Half an hour later he was sitting in his office, talking very patiently and gently to Habib Ebrahimi's wife.

Peters had hired a Ford Cortina from a car-hire firm at Victoria. He drove to Eaton Square a little after nine that morning. Madeleine looked rested and she was smartly dressed in a dark blue suit, with a coloured scarf over her hair.

‘They ought to come out soon,' she said. ‘I don't think it's very warm; I wouldn't take a child walking in this wind.'

Peters looked at her and for a moment he smiled.

‘You're not English,' he said. ‘They believe in fresh air.'

Time passed; a delivery van from an exclusive grocers came to the door and a box of goods was taken down the area steps to the entrance below.

Peters saw it was ten past ten on his watch. A traffic warden was patrolling the street, checking the cars. Peters's hand grabbed Madeleine's knee. His fingers bit into her leg so hard that it gave no pleasure.

‘Look!'

The door of Logan Field's house was open. A man wearing a white jacket backed down the short steps, carrying the top half of a pram. Holding the handle and taking the minimum of weight was a middle-aged woman in a brown coat and hat. The pram was gently set down on the pavement; the manservant went back into the house. The woman went round and straightened the covers. A small girl, wearing a pink beret and coat sat upright, a cover over her legs. She was holding a white teddy bear.

‘That's her,' Peters said quietly.

Madeleine didn't answer. She saw the woman, the pram and the little girl.

He went round and got into the driver's seat. The pram was moving down the street towards them in the direction of Belgrave Place. Peters started the engine and sped past them. At the top of the road he turned and followed them, driving carefully now.

‘We'll follow,' he said. ‘I guess they'll go to the Park. Then you can start the operation.'

The nanny moved at a brisk pace. It relieved her feelings to walk quickly, steering the pram. She crossed the busy road to the rear of Buckingham Palace and headed for St James's Park. It was her favourite walk. That morning the crowds of tourists irritated her, gawping at the scarlet uniformed sentries, staring mindlessly at the Palace windows, although the Royal Standard was not flying and any fool knew the Queen was not in residence. The child was very sensitive to her moods; she knew when to ask questions and when it would provoke an angry command to keep quiet. There was a little plastic bag full of crumbs in the bottom of the pram. For twenty years the nanny had been bringing other women's children to the lake in St James's Park and showing them how to feed the birds.