The Tamarind Seed (24 page)

And unlike most Intelligence projects which took weeks, often months, to put into operation, this would be over in a matter of days. That meant the margin for error was reduced to the minimum. The longer the time, the more people involved, the more danger of a leak, of somebody on the other side getting a hint. He remembered the unfortunate defector who had approached the Embassy at Ankara with a proposition. Britain had delayed and hesitated, until the buck was eventually passed to the head of Anglo-Soviet Affairs at the F.O. The post was occupied by Philby, and the Russian was never seen again. He had taken the initiative, referring back for confirmation but he intended to proceed without waiting for an answer.

Once he had Sverdlov on board a plane, the most difficult hurdle would have been jumped. After that it would be the Special Branch's job to keep him alive. Loder didn't mind once they were in England. But until then Sverdlov's life was not worth a penn'orth of cat's pee. The vulgarism came into his mind quite naturally. The K.G.B. would use any method to prevent Sverdlov escaping to the West; one hint that he was trying to desert and he would be murdered. A car crash, a faked suicide, a cyanide ‘heart attack'. But he knew this better than anyone. He could take care of himself. Loder lay in the steam and sloshed the hot water over his stomach. He felt exhilarated; a moment like this made all the tedious dead ends of his job worth while. Failures, unresolved problems, unanswered questions. They were all there in his official file. But nothing would count beside the one tremendous coup of his career. The safe delivery of Feodor Sverdlov into British custody in the United Kingdom.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Fergus Stephenson went to a dinner at the Brazilian Embassy with his wife; they drove together in their private Rolls, Margaret glittering like minor royalty in the back seat at his side, wearing a white dress with a handsome Victorian necklace. She looked very impressive in evening dress, the formality unsexed her; there was no suggestion of the angry fires that smouldered under the polished upper class appearance, bright and superior as her own diamonds. She had not spoken to him since the morning she threw back the lighter. He hadn't tried to seek her out. He worked as usual and concentrated on his duties with the discipline which mad been instilled into him from infancy. He accepted the period of mental anguish, knowing that it was a price she had decided to exact, sensing also that a precipitate move on his part might tip the balance of her judgement against him. If indeed it had not already come down in that direction, and the silence was merely an additional sadism she had chosen to inflict upon him. He smoked excessively; it was the only indication that he was under strain. When he offered one to Margaret she shook her head.

‘Not for me; and for God's sake be careful, you've dropped ash on my skirt!'

‘I'm sorry,' Stephenson said. The car was full of her strong scent; it was a true reflection of her personality, powerful and decisive. She had often remarked that the delicate flowery scents were useless to her; they were absorbed and disappeared. He would have liked to open the window; he hated the smell.

‘Tonight should be interesting,' his wife remarked suddenly. ‘I hear the Brazilian Minister is on the point of resigning.'

‘Yes,' Stephenson said. ‘That's what the rumour is. It may not be true of course.'

‘I should have thought you found that sort of thing very interesting.' She had glanced out of the window as she spoke. ‘Don't you pick up all the scraps of gossip, just in case they might be useful to your friends?'

‘No.' His voice was patient. He knew it was coming at last and he felt nothing. Nothing at all.

‘So you only interest yourself in the top grade, I suppose?'

‘That's right.'

‘What exactly would happen to you if it went wrong?'

‘The same as the others. Unless I got out first.'

The glass partition was up between them and the chauffeur. Even so he leaned forward to make sure there was no gap.

‘I can't imagine you living in a dreadful little flat in Moscow,' his wife said. ‘But it would be better than Pentonville I suppose.'

‘May I ask which you have decided would be most suitable?'

She turned and looked at him. To his astonishment her face was contorted with emotion.

‘I've decided what's most suitable for
me.
By God, Fergus, I've been tempted to give you what you bloody well deserve. I've spent the last two days going round and round, trying to make up my mind. Well I've made it up now: you've ruined my life in one way. You were a queer when you married me; I'll never forget the day you told me about your love affair when you were up at Cambridge—I'll never forget what I felt as long as I live!

‘Maybe that's why I've been able to take this new thing calmly. Nothing could be as bad for me as that night, with you snivelling and confessing about being buggered. I could have got over most things, but not that. Never that. Now, after twenty-odd years, with the children grown up and our life settled on a certain course, after all the years of living in frightful places, moving from dreadful little postings to better and better until we're in line for a grade one Embassy—now you have to tell me you're doing something which could destroy it all.

‘I could ruin you, Fergus, and don't for one moment think I wouldn't like to do it! I'd like to see you go to jail for the rest of your life. If we had the death penalty for what you're doing, I'd be happy to see you hanged. That's what I feel about
you
personally. But I'm tied to you; if you go down I go with you, and I'm damned if I'm going to let that happen.'

She opened her bag and took out a handkerchief; her eyes were dry but she patted her lips in a gesture of pure nerves.

‘I've worked for my reward,' she said. ‘I've spent my life helping your career because I wanted to get to the top. I want that Embassy; I want it for myself, not for you. And I'm going to see that I get it.'

‘I see.' He still felt nothing; it was as if his whole system had been anaesthetised. ‘Then you've decided not to say anything about it. Thank you, Margaret.'

‘Don't you dare thank me!' Her face was suddenly close to him and he felt her breath. It was as if she might attack him and tear him with her teeth. It was a subconscious fear of which he had never been aware in literal terms before.

‘Don't you dare say that! Don't you understand? I'd crucify you if it didn't mean the same for me! I'm doing this for myself, to protect my interests. And the children. You always said I wasn't maternal; well I am as far as that kind of filthy disgrace is concerned! Nobody's going to know, and from this day on, you're going to stop doing it, you hear? You're giving up. Otherwise you'll get caught. I caught you out, and that shows you're getting careless. I want your promise, Fergus. I want your word of honour that you'll not do any more of it.'

‘I can't do that,' Stephenson said. ‘I can't give that promise. I can only promise I'll try.'

‘You try,' his wife said. ‘And you'd better succeed. We're here now. Isn't that the Patersons driving up?'

‘Yes,' Stephenson said. He was still numb, but there was a growing weary ache in his limbs. ‘Is she still one of your protégés?'

‘I like her,' Margaret said. ‘He's such a cold-blooded swine; I think she needs someone to stand by her. I know I would have liked someone to stand by me.'

‘You never needed anyone,' he said. ‘You were born strong.'

‘I've needed to be,' she said. ‘And now I am. I'm as tough as nails. You did that for me at least.'

When the chauffeur opened the door she got out, her long spirts lifted in one hand; together she and Fergus walked up the short flight of steps into the imposing Embassy building, shaded by tall dogwood trees, discreetly floodlit. They looked so imposing they could have been extras in a Hollywood movie.

Rachel Paterson did her best to sustain a conversation with a Brazilian gentleman on her left. It wasn't easy because she found her attention constantly wandering in Richard's direction; she answered the pleasant questions about her length of stay in Washington, when her baby was expected and other trivia, with a vacant smile and some vague answers. But she watched Richard across the table. He was talking to a beautiful South American girl, married to one of the Chilean air attachés. She was laughing, showing dazzling teeth, her big black eyes flashing up at him, one slender hand touching her left breast, which Rachel thought indecently exposed. She had begun to feel jealous by degrees. When he came back from that trip to Washington she was calm and apparently quiescent in the explanation he had given her. But she lay awake thinking and bursting into fits of crying, worrying about the woman who had telephoned. He had sworn there was nothing in the friendship. He had said they never even kissed. But now Rachel watched him as she had never done before; she watched him with other women, and she saw him in an entirely different light. He was smiling down at his companion; he looked amused and animated, the woman was displaying herself before a genuinely appreciative male audience. Rachel tried to eat the food, but she felt as if her stomach had swollen until it was impossible to swallow solids. She reached out for her wine glass and took refuge in that, forcing herself to concentrate on her companions on either side, not to see her husband flirting with that half-naked nigger down the table … Normally abstemious, Rachel let the butler fill her glass again and again through the dinner. She followed her hostess upstairs in the wake of the senior diplomats' wives, feeling as if she were walking through a slight mist. In the enormous boudoir, decorated in a riot of Rio de Janeiro French furniture and gilded mirrors, Rachel sank down on a satin chair, and fumbled in her handbag. She felt unsteady emotionally, as if she might disgrace herself by crying in front of the other women.

‘Aren't you feeling well?'

She looked up and found Margaret Stephenson standing beside her. There was only fifteen years' difference between them, but Rachel regarded the Minister's wife as a motherly figure.

‘No, not very well, Mrs. Stephenson. So silly of me. I'll be all right in a minute.'

‘There's a smaller bedroom through here,' Margaret said. ‘Come with me; you can lie down for a few minutes.'

Rachel followed her obediently. There was a small dressing room with a canopied bed, supported by gross little Spanish cupids, clutching chiffon drapes.

‘Put your feet up,' Margaret said. ‘I know how awful one feels at this stage. Don't worry about it, you'll be better in a minute.'

Rachel heaved herself up and lay flat. The alcohol made her head swim. A large tear gathered and spilled out, running down one cheek.

‘I'm not sick,' she said. ‘I'm just so miserable, that's all!'

The older woman sat on the edge of the bed beside her. She took out her own handkerchief. ‘Here, use this. Now I should sit up, Mrs. Paterson, that's right. What's the matter?'

‘Richard and me,' the words came with a rush. ‘I'm so unhappy. I don't know what to do. Oh, Mrs. Stephenson, I shouldn't talk to you about this—Richard would be so furious! I'm afraid I drank some wine at dinner. That's what brought it out. Please, let me stay here for a bit. I'll come down in a little while. I feel so awful! I shouldn't have said anything to you.'

‘Yes you should,' Margaret Stephenson answered. ‘I shan't mention it to anyone and I might be able to help you. Now listen, my dear, you come and have lunch with me tomorrow—no, damn, lunch I can't do, I'm going to some Senator's wife—come and have coffee tomorrow morning about ten-thirty. You can tell me all about it then. And don't worry, your husband won't know.'

She leaned over and squeezed the younger woman's hand. She felt closer to this stranger than to her own daughter. Had she analysed it, it was less an instinct to protect Rachel than an urge to fight her husband and all he represented. Paterson was the kind of challenge that Margaret resented most. In spite of her sexual dependence upon them, she hated men. She hated them in the person of her own husband who had subjected her to the crippling humiliation of his own incompetence, and destroyed her self confidence by confessing that he preferred his own sex when making love. She hated the men who became her lovers because their very existence proved her failure as a wife. She hated Richard Paterson because she knew that she had met a personality capable of matching up to hers. The immovable object had met the irresistible force, and for Margaret Stephenson this was intolerable. She felt as if the amiable, foolish wife, who so obviously admired and leaned on her, was in some way an extension of herself, a representative of the whole race of women, preyed upon and failed by, men.

‘You stay here,' she said. ‘I'll tell the Ambassadress you're not feeling very well, and one of the maids can take you downstairs in about twenty minutes. Your husband will be waiting to take you home. And don't worry. I'll expect you tomorrow at ten-thirty. Don't lie down again, my dear, it'll only make you feel more dizzy.' She actually pulled up a pillow to support Rachel's head. ‘There. Stay quietly like that until somebody comes for you. The Ambassadress will understand. She's had nine children, so she ought to.'

When she came downstairs Richard was waiting for her. In spite of her fear, he showed no sign of irritation at having to leave early. In the car on the way home he held her hand. She had decided to make an excuse and not go to see Margaret Stephenson the next morning, when he said casually that he had invited the Chilean attaché and his wife to dinner the following weekend. Rachel glanced at him in the dark; he was driving, concentrating ahead.

‘She's attractive, isn't she?'

‘Devastating,' he answered. ‘Most amusing too.'