"Spy Sinker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deighton Len)

9

London. April 1983.

For Bret Rensselaer that long long ago dinner in Berlin was a hiccup in the lengthy preparation that Fiona Samson had undergone for her task. Looking back, it was just a chance for him to provide some of the comfort and reassurance that become necessary to agents when traumatic indecision attacks them. It had been, he told the D-G, in one of the reviews Bret liked to provide, an inevitable stage in the briefing and preparation period of any long-term agent placement. 'It was a role change for her. Some would call it the "schizothymic period", for we had to inflict upon a normal personality the task of becoming two separate ones.'

The D-G was about to challenge both the terminology and the scientific basis of what sounded like a distorted over-simplification, but just in time he remembered a previous discussion in which Bret – who had been psychoanalysed – buried him under a barrage of psychological doctrine which had included extensive notes, statistics and references to 'the fundamentally important work of James and Lange'. So the D-G nodded.

Bret reminded him that in this case the agent was a woman, a highly intelligent woman with young children. Thus the attack had been more acute than usual. On the other hand, these factors which made her vulnerable to doubts and worries were the same elements which would make her less suspect when she went to bat for them. Fiona Samson was a stable personality, and Bret's subtle conditioning had reinforced her behaviour, so that by the time she was 'put into play' Bret was confident that the 'transference' would be complete. Since that awful champagne throwing scene an emotional dependence upon Bret, and thus upon the decisions made in London Central, had provided her with the necessary motivation and internal strength of mind.

'You know far more about these things than I do,' declared the D-G with a genial conviction that did not reflect his true feeling. 'But my understanding was that in a scientific context "transference" sometimes means the unconscious shifting of hatred, rather than love and respect.'

'Entirely true!' said Bret. Jolted, not for the first time, by the old man's sharpness, he recovered quickly enough to add, 'And that's an aspect of the work that I have already taken into account.'

'Well, I'm sure you have everything under control,' said the D-G, looking at his watch.

'I do, Director. Depend upon it.'

Bret Rensselaer was not basing these conclusions upon his personal experiences with field agents; he'd had little personal contact with those strange animals in the course of his career (although of course the day-to-day decisions he'd made had had an effect upon the whole service). The Director-General was well aware of Bret's purely administrative background. He'd chosen him largely because he had no taint of Operations on him – and no one had guessed that a dedicated desk man like Bret could function as a case officer – and thus Fiona's role of double agent would be more secure.

But Bret Rensselaer, and Fiona Samson, were not the only ones coping with the problems of the role change. For if Fiona had never been an agent before, and Bret had never been a case officer, it was also true that the D-G had never before faced the harrowing experience of sending into enemy territory someone he knew as well as he knew Fiona Samson. However it was too late now to change his mind. The D-G allowed himself to be comforted by Bret's optimistic reassurances because he could think of no possible course of action if he became anxious.

If that long ago dinner at Kessler's was remembered by Bret as no more than a temporary failure of Fiona's resolution, it was burned into her memory as a program is burned into a micro-chip. She remembered that horrifying evening in every last humiliating detail. The condescension with which Bret Rensselaer had treated her desire to pull out of the operation, the insolent way he had so smoothly blackmailed her into continuing. The contempt he'd shown for her when she'd thrown the champagne: humouring her as one might the infant daughter of a respected friend. And, most shaming of all, the way in which she had done exactly what he told her to do. For, like so many humiliations, hers was measured by the success of the opposing party: and Bret's dominance by the end of that dinner had been absolute.

From that dire confrontation onwards, she had never again expressed any desire to withdraw from the task ahead. After those first few agonizing weeks during which she desperately hoped that Bret Rensselaer would leave the Department, be transferred or suffer a fatal accident, no idea of being released from her contract entered her head. It was inevitable.

Like most women – and here Fiona evidenced women customs and immigration officers, women police officers and secretaries in her own office – she was more conscientious and painstaking than her male peers. Her detached contempt for Bret, and other men like him, was best demonstrated by doing her job with more care and skill than he did his. She would become this damned 'superspy' they wanted her to be. She would show them how well it could be done.

Fiona's meetings with Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes continued as before, except that Bret made sure that the little titbits she was able to throw to him, and the responses to his requests for specific information, were better than the Spielmaterial he'd been given before. Pryce-Hughes was pleased. Reacting to a broad hint from him Fiona asked for more money: not much more but enough to assert her worth. Moscow responded promptly and generously and this pleased Bret, and pleased Pryce-Hughes too. And yet, as month after month became a year, and time went on and on, she began to hope that the Department's long-term plan to place her in the enemy camp would be abandoned. Bret continued with their regular briefing sessions, and her duties were arranged to that purpose. Her use of the computers was strictly denned and she never handled very sensitive papers. But the D-G appeared to have forgotten about her, and forgotten about Bret Rensselaer too. Once or twice she came near to asking the D-G outright, but decided to let things continue. Bernard said the D-G was becoming eccentric to the point of disability but Bernard always inclined to overstatement.

Typically it was her younger sister, Tessa, who made the whole thing erupt again. 'Darling, Fi! You are always there when I need you.'

'You have such good champagne,' said Fiona, in an effort to reduce the tension that was evident in her sister's face, and in the way she constantly twisted the rings on her fingers.

'It's my diet: caviar, champagne and oysters. You can't get fat on it.'

'No. Only poor,' said Fiona.

'That's more or less what Daddy said. He disapproves.' As if in contravention Tessa picked up her glass, looked at the bubbles and then drank some champagne.

Tessa had always shown a constitutional spirit that bent towards trouble. The relationship between Fiona and her younger sister provided a typical example of sibling rivalry – it was a psychological phenomenon to which Bret referred many times during their sessions together. Their father, a single-minded man, had his favourite motto ('What I want are results not excuses') embroidered on a cushion displayed on the visitor's chair in his office. He believed that any form of forgiveness was likely to undermine his daughters' strength and his own.

Tessa had discovered how undemanding and convenient it was to play the established role of younger child, and let Fiona fulfil, or sometimes fail to fulfil, her father's expectations. Tessa was always the one of whom little was expected. Fiona went to Oxford and read Modern Greats; Tessa stayed at home and read Harold Robbins. Temperamental, imaginative and affectionate, Tessa could turn anything into a joke: it was her way of avoiding matters that were demanding. Her own boundless generosity made her vulnerable to a world in which people were so cold, loveless and judgemental. In such a world did it matter too much if she indulged in so many frivolous little love affairs? She always went back to her husband and gave him her prodigious love. And what if, one casual night in bed with this silly drunken lover, he should confide to her that he was spying for the Russians? It was probably only a joke.

'Describe him again,' said Fiona.

'You know him,' said Tessa. 'At least he knows all about you.'

'Miles Brent?'

'Giles Trent, darling. Giles Trent.'

'If you'd stop eating those damned nuts I might be able to understand what you are saying,' she said irritably. 'Yes, Giles Trent. Of course I remember him.'

'Handsome brute: tall, handsome, grey wavy hair.'

'But he's as old as Methuselah, Tessa. I always thought he was queer.'

'Oh, no. Not queer,' said Tessa and giggled. She'd had a lot of champagne.

Fiona sighed. She was sitting in Tessa Kosinski's elaborately furnished apartment in Hampstead, London's leafy northwestern suburb, watching the blood-red sun drip gore into the ruddy clouds. When, long ago, London's wealthy merchants and minor aristocracy went to take the waters at regal and fashionable Bath, the less wealthy sipped their spa water in this hilly region that was now the habitat of successful advertising men and rich publishers.

Tessa's husband was in property and motor cars and a diversity of other precarious enterprises. But George Kosinski had an unfailing talent for commercial success. When George bought an ailing company it immediately recovered its strength. Should he wager a little money on unwanted stock his investment flourished. Even when he obliged a local antique dealer by taking off his hands a painting that no one else wanted, the picture – dull, dark and allegorical – was spotted by one of George's guests as the work of a pupil of Ingres. Although many nonentities can be so described, Ingres' pupils included the men who taught Seurat and Degas. This, the coarse canvas and the use of white paint so typical of the Ingres technique, was what persuaded the trustees of an American museum to offer George a remarkable price for it. He shipped it the next day. George loved to do business.

'And you told Daddy all this: Trent saying he was a Russian spy and soon?'

'Daddy said I was just to forget it.' Idly Tessa picked up a glossy magazine from the table in front of her. It fell open at a pageful of wide-eyed people cavorting at some social function of the sort that the Kosinskis frequently attended.

'Daddy can be very stupid at times,' said Fiona with unmistakable contempt. Tessa looked at her with great respect. Fiona really meant it: while Tessa – who also called her father stupid, and worse, from time to time – had never completely shed the bonds of childhood.

'Perhaps Giles was just making a joke,' said Tessa, who now felt guilty at the concern her elder sister was showing.

'You said it wasn't a joke,' snapped Fiona.

'Yes,' said Tessa.

'Yes or no?'

Tessa looked at her, surprised by the emotions she had stirred up. 'It wasn't a joke. I told you: I went all through it with him… about the Russian and so on.'

'Exactly,' said Fiona. 'How could it have been a joke?'

'What will happen to him?' Tessa tossed the magazine on to a pile of other such periodicals.

'I can't say.' Fiona's mind processed and reprocessed the complications this would bring into her life. She looked at her younger sister, sitting there on the – yellow silk sofa, in an emerald-green Givenchy sheath dress that Fiona – although the same size – could never have got away with, and wondered whether to tell her that she might be in physical danger. If Trent told his Soviet contact about this perilous indiscretion it was possible that Moscow would have her killed. She opened her mouth as she tried to think of some way to put it but, when Tessa looked at her expectantly, only said, 'It's a gorgeous dress.'

Tessa smiled. 'You were always so different to me, Fi/

'Not very different.'

'The Chanel type.'

'Whatever does that mean?'

Teasingly Tessa said, 'Tailleur, with a jacket lined to match the blouse, chain belt and gardenia; everyone knows what a Chanel type looks like.'

'What else?' Sometimes Tessa's manner could be trying.

'I knew you would end up doing something important… something in a man's world,' said Tessa very quietly as she waited for her sister to pronounce on what might happen next. When Fiona made no reply, Tessa added, 'I didn't ask Giles what he did: he just came out with it.'

'Yes. He works in the Department,' said Fiona.

'I'm sorry about all this, Fi, darling. Perhaps I shouldn't have troubled you with it.'

'You did right to tell me.'

'Sometimes he can be so adorable,' said Tessa.

'Why did you ever get married?' said Fiona.

'For the same reason as you, I suppose. It was a way of making Daddy angry.'

'Making Daddy what?' said Fiona.

'Don't pretend you didn't know that marrying your pigheaded tough-guy would make Daddy throw a fit.'

'I thought you liked Bernard,' said Fiona amiably. 'You kept telling me to marry him.'

'I adore him, you know I do. One day I'll run off with him.'

'And was marrying George your way of persecuting Daddy?'

She didn't answer for a moment. 'George is such a lovely man… a saint.' And then, realizing that it wasn't the accolade a husband would most wish for, added, 'Only a saint would put up with me.'

'Perhaps George needs the opportunity to forgive.'

Tessa gave no heed to that idea. 'I thought a second-hand car dealer would lead an exciting life. It's silly I know, but in the films they are always in the underworld with gangsters and their molls,' she grinned.

'Really, Tess!' Delivered wearily it was an admonition.

'It's rather gruelling, darling, living with a man who gets upset when ladies use naughty words, and who gets up at six o'clock to make sure he doesn't miss Mass. Sometimes I think he would like to see me slaving in the kitchen all day, the way his mother did.'

'You're a complete fool, Tessa.'

'I know. It's all my fault.' She got to her feet suddenly and excitedly said, 'I know! Why don't we go and have dinner at Annabel's?' She stroked her beautiful dress. 'Just the two of us.'

'Sit down, Tessa. Sit down and calm down. I don't want to go to Annabel's. I want to think.'

'Or I've got a home-made chicken stew in the freezer; I'll put it in the oven while we go on talking.'

'No, no. I'll have to eat something with Bernard.'

Tessa dropped back into the sofa, grabbed her glass and drank some champagne. 'You're lucky not to live in Hampstead: it's full of eggheads. My bloody cleaning woman phoned up and said she couldn't come today: she has a conference with her script editor! Script editor; Jesus Christ! Do have some more booze, Fi. I hate drinking alone.'

'No thanks, Tess. And I think you've had enough for one night.'

Tessa put the glass down and didn't refill it. Being in her sister's bad books made her feel wretched. Fiona was the only one she had, after George her husband, and she couldn't go to George with all her troubles. Most of her troubles came from these silly little love affairs she was always becoming caught up in: she couldn't expect George to help her with those.

'Can I use your phone?' said Fiona.

Tessa made an extravagant gesture with both hands. 'Use the one in the bedroom if you want privacy.'

Fiona went into the bedroom. Upon the big four-poster bed, an antique lace bedspread was spread over a dark red cover to show it off. The bedside table held a smart new phone and an assortment of expensive perfumes, pill bottles and paperback books. An aspirin bottle had been left open and tablets were scattered about. Fiona picked up the phone but hesitated before dialling.

Despite Bret Rensselaer's sanguine theories, Fiona Samson was not a person who readily turned to other people – male or female – for advice or instruction. She was self-sufficient, and self-critical too, in a way that an eldest child so often can be. But now she felt the need of a second opinion. She looked at her watch. Having carefully rehearsed the story in her mind, she dialled Bret's number. His phone rang for a long time but there was no reply. She tried again: it was always possible that she had misdialled, but again the ringing was unanswered. This frustration put her off balance, and it was then that she was suddenly struck with the idea of phoning Uncle Silas.

Silas Gaunt's career was little short of a legend in the unwritten story of the Department. Uncle Silas could not be compared to other men: he was virtually unique. Every now and again, the British establishment decorously embraces a rogue, if not to say a rogue elephant, a man who breaks every rule and delights in doing so. One who recognizes no master and few equals. Gaunt's career was marked by controversy, and he began his time as Berlin Resident by having a vociferous argument with the Director-General. It was an indication of both his diplomacy and his ruthlessness when he emerged with no enemies in high places.

Gaunt, a distant relative of Fiona's mother, was the man who had so energetically protected Brian Samson, and then his son Bernard, against well-placed people who believed that the senior ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service were the exclusive province of a certain sort of upper-class Englishman quite unlike Samson and his son. The Samsons survived: the opposition didn't reckon on Gaunt's ingenuity, devious games, or rage. But when Gaunt finally retired, the collective sighs of relief were heard throughout the service. Gaunt, however, was not out of the game. The Director-General knew and respected him, and his regard could be measured by the way that Sir Henry handled the Fiona Samson operation. Only Bret Rensselaer, who'd come to him with the idea, Silas Gaunt and himself were party to the secret.

Now, on impulse, Fiona dialled the number of the Whitelands farm in the Cotswolds. Finding it was Silas himself who answered, Fiona didn't hesitate nor waste time with pleasantries; she didn't even give her name. Relying upon him to recognize her voice, she said, 'Silas. I must see you. I must. It's urgent.'

There was a long silence. 'Where are you? Can you talk?'

'At my sister's flat. No, I can't.'

'Next weekend soon enough?'

'Perfect,' she said.

Another long silence. 'Leave it to me, darling. Bernard will be invited, plus you and the children.'

'Thank you, Silas.'

'Think nothing of it. It's a pleasure.'

She replaced the phone. When she looked down to see what was crunching underfoot she found she'd crushed aspirins and other pills into the gold-coloured carpet. She looked at the mess; she worried about Tessa. To what extent had she made her sister into the sort of woman she'd become? Fiona had always been the 'eldest son', with effortless top marks and a relationship with her father that Tessa never knew.

Despite being her father's favourite she was never taken into his confidence, for he kept his financial affairs secret: to the extent of employing several different accountants and lawyers so that no one would know the full picture of his investments and interests. But Fiona was taken to his office to meet the staff and there seemed to be a tacit agreement that eventually Fiona would replace her father.

It never happened of course. Fiona went to University, and flourished. She enjoyed being in a man's world and while there she was recruited into the most masculine preserve of all: that mystic and exclusive British brotherhood that enjoys a duality of name and profoundly secret purpose. The obsessional secrecy that her father had maintained prepared her for the Secret Intelligence Service, but nothing her father showed her of his business world could compete with it.

And when, within this brotherhood, she found a man unlike any other she had ever met, she wanted him, and got him. Bernard Samson had grown up in this secret world of physical hardship and brutality. A kill or be killed world. Many of her father's friends had seen service in the war – some had been decorated as heroes – but Bernard Samson was fundamentally different to any of them: for his war was a dark, dirty, private war. Here at last was a man her father could not fathom, and heartily detested. But if, as Chandler said, 'down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid… Complete man, common man and yet an unusual man,' then Bernard Samson was such a man. The day she first saw him she knew that it would be unendurable to lose him to another.

Fiona married. Tessa, neglected and insecure, floated away; a victim of Fiona's career-making and her father's indifference. Poor Tessa, what might she have been if Fiona had guarded her and advised her and given to her according to her need?

'Are you all right?' Tessa called from the next room.

I'm coming, Tessa. It will all be all right. I promise you, I'll sort it out.'

Tessa came to her. 'I knew you would, Fi.' She threw her arms round Fiona's neck and kissed her. 'Dearest, darling, wonderful Fi, I knew you would.'

Such displays of affection embarrassed Fiona, but she stood stiff and still and put up with it.

Had the invitation to see Silas come in other circumstances, Fiona Samson would have enjoyed every minute of the weekend she spent with her husband and children at Whitelands, the farming estate to which Silas Gaunt had retired. His six hundred acres of the Cotswolds provided superlative walks and breath-taking views across the mighty limestone plateau that borders the shining River Severn.

But in this context everything was fraught with worries and dangers. Dicky Cruyer, the enterprising German Desk Controller, and his arty wife Daphne were there. Bret Rensselaer had brought a young blonde girl. Diffident in the company of so many strangers, she clung tight to him; so tight in fact that they'd arranged to have the only two bedrooms with a connecting door. Fiona guessed that Bret had requested those two rooms when she asked Silas if she could have the two children next to her, and Silas had replied that there were other needs greater than hers, and laughed.

Silas was a pirate, or at least he looked the part. A huge pot-bellied ruffian with a jowly face surmounted by a huge forehead and bald head. His baggy clothes were of high quality but he preferred old garments – as he preferred old wine and old friends – and displayed the faded patches and neat darns that were the work of his faithful housekeeper Mrs Porter, as an old warrior his medals.

The house itself was made of local stone, a lovely tan colour, and the furnishings – like the family portraits obscured behind murky coach varnish and the superb early eighteenth-century dresser – were in appropriate style. Silas Gaunt liked the dining room, especially when it was crowded, as it was this Saturday lunchtime. Gaunt stood at the head of the lovely Georgian mahogany table, carving an impressive beef sirloin for his professional cronies: the Samsons, Tessa, the Cruyers, Bret Rensselaer, and dominating them by the force of his personality.

Fiona Samson watched it all with a feeling of detachment. Even when her son Billy spilled gravy down his shirt, she only smiled contentedly, as if it was an incident depicted in an old home movie.

She watched the Cruyers with interest. Fiona had been at Oxford at the same time as Dicky. She remembered seeing him being cheered to victory at the debating society, and his making a pass at her that day when he was celebrating his cricket blue. One of the brightest of the bright boys at Balliol, he'd got the German Desk for which Bernard had been shortlisted and there was talk that he'd get the Europe job when the time came. Now she wondered if Silas Gaunt was going to propose that he was made a party to her secret. She hoped not: already enough people knew, and if Dicky was to be told while Bernard was kept in ignorance she would find it intolerable. Dicky noticed her looking at him and smiled at her in that shy manner that he'd found so effective with the Oxford girls.

She looked too at Tessa. Her husband George Kosinski was away. It was typical of Silas, and his luck and intuition, to guess that Tessa was connected with the phone call and to go to the trouble of inviting her in case he needed to know more.

When, after lunch, Silas took the men into the billiards room with a trayful of cigars and brandy, Fiona took Billy and Sally upstairs to do their homework.

'In leap year, Mummy, do ladies ask men to marry them?' said Sally.

'I don't think so,' said Fiona.

'My teacher said they do,' said Sally, and Fiona realized she had walked into the sort of trap Sally was fond of setting for her.

'Then teacher is no doubt right,' she said.

'It was Miss Jenkins,' said Sally. 'Daddy said she is a fool.'

'Perhaps you misheard Daddy.'

'I was there,' said Billy, joining in the conversation. 'He actually said that Miss Jenkins was a bloody fool. It was when she told him not to leave our car in the headmaster's car space.'

'It was a Saturday,' said Sally in defence of her father.

'That's quite enough,' said Fiona sharply. 'Let's start the maths homework.'

There was a knock and then Tessa looked round the door. 'Yes?' said Fiona.

'I wondered if the children would like to go to the stables.'

'They must do their homework.'

'There's a foal: born last week… just for hah⁰ an hour, Fi.'

'They have a test on Monday,' said Fiona.

'Leave them with me, Fi. I'll see they do their homework. Go for that long walk to Ringstone, you are always saying you enjoy that.' Tessa was keen to be rid of her: she loved to be with the children and they seemed to respond to her. Tessa was a born rebel and they sensed it and were intrigued.

Fiona looked at them. 'Very well. Thirty minutes and then you must do your homework.' She turned. 'I'm relying on you, Tess.'

There was a happy chorus as they declared their intention to work hard under their aunt's direction. Sally came round and squeezed her mother's hand as if asserting her love. Billy wasted no time before getting into raincoat and scarf. As Tessa took the children off, Fiona heard Billy telling her, 'If the Russians restore the monarch, he will have to be a commie Tsar.' It was his favourite joke since Silas had laughed at it.

Tessa was right, Fiona needed a little time to herself. There was so much to think about. She found an old raincoat and a man's hat in the hall and, wearing the walking shoes she kept in the back of her beloved red Porsche, she slipped away. Alone, striding through the misty rain, she made for the summit of Ringstone Hill above Singlebury. It was about six miles and she walked with the brisk determination with which she did so many other things.

She knew the way, she had done it many times, sometimes with the family and sometimes just with Bernard. She was gratified by the sight of accustomed gates, streams and hedgerows, as familiar as the faces of old friends: varying sometimes with fresh patches of soft mud, a shiny new brass padlock, or the rusting frame of an abandoned bike. The boundary of Whitelands was marked by six fallen firs, casualties of the winter gales. Shallow-rooted trees, like their human counterparts, were always the first to go. She looked at one. From its rotting bark came primroses uncurling their canary heads. She counted their petals as she had when a child: five petals, six petals, some with eight petals. All different; like people. She'd grown up believing that four-petalled primroses were lucky: no four-petalled ones in sight today. It was Bernard who explained that four-petalled primroses were a necessity of cross-fertilization: she wished he'd not told her. She strode on and waded through a vast rippling lake of bluebells before starting to climb again. No surprises; just the expectation before each grand view.

The light changed constantly. The wet fields became ever more radiant under the drizzling dark grey sky and the bright yellow gorse left its scent on the air. She scrambled up to the bare hilltop – for the stone is a stone in name only – and stopped to catch her breath. She'd not been aware of the wind but now it sent the light rain to sting her face, and crooned gently through the wire fence. She turned slowly to survey the whole horizon. Her kingdom: three hundred and sixty degrees and not a person, nor even a house in sight, just the distant clamour of a rookery settling down for the night. To the north the sky was buttressed by black columns of heavy rain. The exertion of the climb had driven from her mind all thoughts of what disturbing conclusions tomorrow's dialogue with Silas Gaunt might bring. But now her mind raced forward again.

She was not an explorer nor an experimenter; Fiona's brain was at its best when evaluating material and planning its use. It was a capacity that provided her with an excellent chance to judge her own potential as a field agent. Secrecy she had in abundance, but she didn't have many of the qualities she saw in Bernard. She didn't have his street-wise skill at fast thinking and fast moving. Fiona could be mean, stubborn and cold-hearted, but these for her were long-term emotions: Bernard had that mysterious masculine ability to switch on cold-blooded hostility at a moment's notice and switch it off a split-second later. She pulled the hat down over her ears. The sky blackened and the rain was getting worse. She must get back in time to bathe and change for dinner. Saturday night dinners were dress-up affairs when you stayed with Uncle Silas. She would have to do something with her hair and borrow the iron to smooth her dress. Tessa and the other women would have been preparing themselves all afternoon. She looked at her watch and at the route back. Even the friendly rolling Cotswolds could become hostile when darkness fell.

'You looked very glamorous last night, my dear,' said Uncle Silas.

'Thank you, Silas. But to tell you the truth I can't keep up with the smart chatter these days.'

'And why should you want to? I like you when you are serious: it suits you.'

'Does it?'

'AH beautiful women look their best when sad. It's different for men. Handsome men can be a little merry but jolly women look like hockey captains. Could any man fall in love with a female comic?'

'You talk such rubbish, Silas.'

'Was it that dreadful architect's prattle that pissed you off?'

'No. It was a wonderful evening.'

'Swimming pools and kitchens; I don't think he can talk about anything else. I had to invite him though, he's the only blighter who knows how to repair my boiler.'

He laughed. It was some complicated joke that only he appreciated. He'd grown accustomed to his own company and remarks like this were solely for his own satisfaction. They were sitting in the 'music room', a tiny study where Silas Gaunt had installed his hi-fi and his collection of opera recordings. There was a log fire burning and Silas was smoking a large Havana cigar. He was dressed in a magnificent knitted cardigan. It had an intricate Fair Isle pattern and was coming unravelled faster than Mrs Porter could repair it, so that woollen threads trailed from his elbows and cuffs.

'Now tell me what's troubling you, Fiona.' From the next room there was the measured and intricate sound of a piano: it was Bret playing 'Night and Day'.

Fiona told Silas about Tessa's exchanges with Giles Trent, and when she had finished he went and looked out of the window. The gravel drive made a loop around the front lawn where three majestic elms framed the house. Tessa's racing-green Rolls-Royce was parked outside the window. 'I don't know how your sister manages that car,' he said. 'Does her husband know she uses it when he's away?'

'Don't be such a pig. Of course he does.'

He looked at her. Then it sounds as if we've got an orange file on our hands, Fiona.'

'Yes, it does.' An orange file meant an official inquiry.

'Giles Trent: the treacherous swine. Why do these people do it?' She didn't answer. 'What would you have done if Tessa had put this to you but without the special situation that you are in?'

Without hesitation Fiona said, 'I'd have taken it to Internal Security. The Command Rules spell it out.'

'Of course you would.' He scratched his head. 'Well we can't have the IS people in on this one, can we?' Another pause. 'You wouldn't have mentioned it to your husband first?'

'No.'

'You seem very sure of that, Fiona.'

'It would be the same for him, wouldn't it?'

'I'm not sure it would.'

'Uncle Silas! Why?'

He turned and looked at her. 'How can I put it to you… You and I belong to a social class obsessed by the notion of conduct. At our best public schools, we have always taught young men that "service" is the highest calling, and I'm proud that it should be so. Service to God, service to our sovereign, service to our country.'

'You're not saying that because Bernard wasn't at public school – '

He held up a hand to stop her. 'Hear me out, Fiona. We all respect your husband. Me more than anyone, you know that. I cherish him. He's the only one out there who knows what it's like to be in the firing line. I'm simply saying that Bernard's background, the boys he grew up with and his family, have another priority. For them – and who is to say they are in error? – loyalty to the family comes before everything. I really do mean before everything. I know, I've spent my life commanding men. If you don't understand that aspect of your husband's psyche you might get into a lot of trouble, my dear.'

'Working-class boys, you mean?'

'Yes. I'm not frightened to say working-class. I'm too old to care about taboos of that sort.'

'Are you saying that if Tessa had taken her problem to Bernard he would have hushed it up?'

'Why don't we put it to the test? Sit your husband down next week and have Tessa tell him her story.'

'And what do you think he'll do?'

'More to the point, what do you think he'll do?' said Silas.

'I can't see that any benefit could come of such speculation,' said Fiona. Silas laughed at the evasion, Fiona was irritated and said, 'You are the one making the allegations, Silas.'

'Now, now, Fiona. You know I'm doing nothing of the kind. Put it to Bernard, and he'll find some ingenious solution that will keep you and Tessa out of it.' He smiled artfully. The word ingenious implied Bernard's flagrant disregard, if not to say contempt, for the rule book, and that was something Silas shared with him.

'Bernard has a lot on his mind right now,' said Fiona.

'Make sure you ask him to keep Tessa out of it.' He found a loose thread, tugged it off and dropped it carefully into the fire.

'How?' said Fiona.

'I don't know how. Ask him.' He smoked his cigar. 'A far more important thing for the moment is that Giles Trent has obviously been used to monitor everything you've been telling them.' He blew smoke, making sure it went towards the fire. Whenever Mrs Porter smelled cigar smoke she nagged him: the doctor had told him not to smoke. 'You must have thought about that. Any worries there?'

'Nothing that I can think of.'

'No, I think not. We've kept you very very secret and given them only strictly kosher material. Whatever Trent has been reporting to them, his reports will have only increased your status with Moscow.'

'I hope so.'

'Cheer up, Fiona. Everything is going beautifully. This will suit our book. In fact I'll get permission for you to visit the Data Centre again. That should make your masters prick their ears, what?'

'Will you tell Bret about Tessa?' She didn't want to face Bret with it herself: it would become an interrogation.

'Let's tell him now.' Having hidden his cigar in the fireplace he pressed a bellpush. Seeing the look of alarm on Fiona's face he said, 'Trust your Uncle Silas.' 'Night and Day' continued in the next room.

When Mrs Porter put her head round the door he said, 'Ask Mr Rensselaer if he can spare a moment. I think I heard him playing the piano.'

'Yes, sir. I'll tell him right away.'

When Bret came – eyebrows raised at seeing Fiona with Silas in what was obviously some kind of discourse – Silas said, 'It's good to hear the piano again, Bret. I keep it tuned but nowadays no one plays.' Bret nodded without replying. Silas said, 'Bret, we seem to be having another problem with our playmates.'

Bret looked from one to the other of them and got the idea instantly. 'This is getting to be a habit, Fiona,' he said. Bret was huffed that she'd taken her story to Silas Gaunt and didn't disguise his feelings.

'We are all targeted,' said Silas. 'They focus on London Central. It's natural that they should.'

'We are talking KGB?'

'Yes,' said Silas, tapping ash into the fire. 'This wretched Pryce-Hughes fellow has been rather indiscreet. He's let drop the word to Fiona that they have someone else working in London Central.'

'Jesus H. Christ!' said Bret.

'From the context Fiona inclines to the view that it's a fellow called Giles Trent.' Silas took a poker and stabbed at the burning log, which bled grey smoke. He carefully rolled it to the very back of the hearth.

'Training,' said Bret, after racking his brains to remember who Trent was.

'Yes. He was shunted off to the training school two years ago, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous.'

'Does anyone else know?' asked Bret.

'The three of us,' said Silas, still brandishing the poker. 'Fiona wasn't sure how to handle it. She was going directly to Internal Security. It was, of course, better that she brought it to me, off the record.'

Bret's hurt feelings were somewhat soothed by this explanation. 'We don't want Internal Security involved,' he said.

'No. Better like this,' said Silas. 'Off duty: off the record, all unofficial.'

'What next?' Bret asked.

'Leave it with me,' said Silas. 'I've worked out a way of doing it. No need for you to know, Bret. What the eye doesn't see… Are you all right, Bret?'

'This year my sinuses are playing merry hell with me.'

'It's that damned log fire, is it? Let me open the window a fraction.'

'If there's nothing else I'll just go out in the garden for a moment.'

'Of course, Bret, of course. Are you sure you'll be all right?'

Bret stumbled out of the room holding a handkerchief to his face. 'Poor Bret,' said Silas.

'I won't tell Bernard that I've spoken with you,' said Fiona, still unsure of exactly what was expected of her.

'That's right. Now stop worrying. Can you persuade Tessa to tell her story to your husband?'

'Probably.'

'Do that.'

'Suppose Bernard goes to Internal Security?'

'It's a risk we'll have to take,' said Silas. 'But I want you kept out of it. If push comes to shove, you'll just have to deny Tessa ever told you. I'll see you are protected.'

'That smoke is affecting me now,' said Fiona.

'Get back to the others, or they'll start thinking we have a love affair or something.'

'You won't want to talk to Tessa?'

'Stop playing the elder sister. If I want to talk to her I'll fix it.'

'She gets very nervous, Silas.'

'Go and walk about in the garden and get the smoke out of your eyes,' he said.

When she'd gone he sank down on to his favourite armchair and let out a groan. He leaned close to the fire and prodded it again. 'Why do these things happen to me?' he complained to the log. As if in response the smoking log burst into a flicker of flame.

If Fiona had seen him now she would have been less confident of Silas Gaunt's ability to make her troubles disappear. 'We'll have to put you into the bag neatly and quickly, Mr Giles Trent,' he muttered, and tried to visualize the reactions of Trent's controller when he found his man was uncovered. Would they try to pull him out and save him? Or would Moscow perceive another spy trial, in the very heart of London Central, as a triumph worth sacrificing a piece for? This might be one of those cases where both Moscow and London would agree that a favourable outcome was a permanently silent Trent. If it came to that, Silas had better make sure there was someone available to do the deed. He called to mind a tough old German war veteran who'd once worked as a barman at Lisl's hotel, and while there had done all sorts of nasty jobs for Silas. He went over to live in the East: perfect! Who'd link such a man with London Central? What was the fellow's name – oh yes, Rolf Mauser, a wonderful ruffian. Just the fellow for a job like this. He wouldn't contact him directly of course, it would be imperative to keep it at arm's length.