London Match (43 page)

'Didn't you tell Dicky or anyone? That was silly, Bernard. Was that about the children?'

'Yes, it was. No, I didn't tell Dicky or anyone.'

'I didn't tell Dicky about seeing my sister either,' said Tessa.

'I was thinking about that, Tessa. You realize that this has a bearing on your relationship with Dicky?'

'Because I didn't tell him?'

'I don't want to discuss with you what Dicky does for a living, but surely you see that having an affair with you could lead to very bad trouble for him.'

'Because of Fiona?'

'Someone who wanted to make trouble could connect Fiona to Dicky via the affair he's having with you.'

'But equally they could connect Fiona with Dicky via the fact that you work for him.'

'But I'm not regularly seeing Fiona.'

'Neither am I, not regularly.'

'That might be difficult to prove. And it might be that just one meeting with Fiona would be enough to make Dicky's bosses uneasy.'

'My sister went to Russia. That doesn't make me a spy. And it doesn't make everyone I know a suspect.'

'Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does. And in any case, Dicky can't be lumped together with all the other people you know . . . not in this context anyway. Dicky's contacts have to be specially scrutinized.'

'I suppose you're right.'

'I am.'

'So what should I do?'

'I'd hate to see you mixed up in some damned espionage scandal, Tessa. I know you're an innocent, but many innocents get tangled up in these things.'

'You want me to stop seeing Dicky?'

'You should make a clean break without delay.'

'Write him a letter?'

'Absolutely not,' I said. Why did women always feel the need to write letters when ending an affair?

'I can't just stop. I'm having dinner with him the day after tomorrow.'

'You're sure Dicky doesn't know you saw Fiona?'

'I certainly didn't tell him,' said Tessa. She was strident, as if she resented the advice I was giving her — and I suppose she did. 'I told no one, no one at all. But if I just stop seeing him now, perhaps he'll guess there's something more to it.'

'Have dinner with him and tell him it's all over.'

'You don't think he'll ask me about Fiona?'

'I don't think so, but if he brings up the subject, you just say you haven't seen her since she left England and went to Berlin.'

'You've got me worried now, Bernard.'

'It will be all right, Tess.'

'Suppose they know?'

'Deny seeing her. If the worst comes to the worst, you could say you reported it to me and I told you to tell no one. You say you took that instruction literally.'

'Wouldn't that get you into trouble?'

'We'll sort that one out when and if it conies. But I'll only help you if you're really serious about stopping this idiotic affair with Dicky.'

'I am serious, Bernard. I truly am.'

'There's a lot of trouble in the Department right now. There's a lot of suspicion being directed at everyone. It's a bad time to step out of line.'

'For Dicky?'

'For anyone.'

'I suppose they still think you had something to do with Fiona going away?'

'They say they don't, but I believe they do.'

'She said she'd made a lot of trouble for you.'

'Fiona?' I said.

'She said she was sorry about that.'

'She was the one who ran.'

'She said she had to do it.'

'The children never mention her. It worries me sometimes.'

'They're happy children. The nanny is a good girl. You give them a lot of love, Bernard. That's all children really need. It's what we needed from Daddy, but he preferred to give us money. His tune was too precious.'

'I'm always away or working late or some damned thing.'

'I didn't mean that, Bernard. I didn't mean that love can be measured in man-hours. You don't clock in for love. The children know you love them. They know you work only in order to look after them; they understand.'

'I hope they do.'

'But what will you do about them? Will you let Fiona take them?'

‘I damned if I know, Tessa,' I said, and that was the truth. 'But you must stop seeing Dicky.'

The newly formed committee that took charge of the Stinnes debriefing lost no time in asserting its importance and demonstrating its energies. For some of the newcomers the committee provided an example of Whitehall's new spirit of intradepartmental cooperation, but those of us with longer memories recognized it as just one more battlefield upon which the Home Office and the Foreign Office could engage forces and try to settle old scores.

The good news was that both Bret Rensselaer and Morgan spent most of each day in Northumberland Avenue, where the committee had its premises. There was a lot for them to do. Like all such well-organized bureaucratic endeavours, it was established regardless of expense. The committee was provided with a staff of six people — for whom heated and carpeted office space was also provided — and all the paraphernalia of administration was installed: desks, typewriters, filing cabinets, and a woman who came in very early to clean and dust, another woman who came in to make tea, and a man to sweep the floor and lock up at night.

'Bret will build himself a nice little empire over there,' said Dicky. 'He's been looking for something to occupy himself with ever since his Economics Intelligence Committee folded.' It was an expression of Dicky's hopes rather than his carefully considered prophecy. Dicky didn't mind if Bret became monarch of all he surveyed over there as long as he didn't come elbowing his way into Dicky's little realm. I looked at him before answering. There had still been no official mention that Bret's loyalty was in question so I played along with what Dicky said. But I was beginning to wonder if I was being deliberately excluded from the Department's suspicions.

'The Stinnes debriefing can't last for ever,' I said.

'Bret will do his best,' said Dicky.

He was wearing a denim waistcoast. He had his arms folded and was pushing his hands out of sight as if he didn't want any flesh to show. It was a neurotic mannerism. Dicky had become very neurotic since the night he'd had dinner with Tessa, the dinner at which she
was supposed to tell him that they were through. I wondered exactly what had happened.

'I don't like it,' I said.

'You're not alone there,' said Dicky. 'Thank your lucky stars that you're not running backwards and forwards for Morgan and Bret and the rest of them. I got you out of that one, didn't I?' He was in my miserable little office, watching me work my way through all the trays that he'd failed to cope with during the previous two weeks. He sat on my table and fiddled with the tin lid of paper clips, and the souvenir mug filled with pencils and pens.

'And I'm grateful,' I said. 'But I mean I don't like what's happening over there.'

'What is happening?'

'They're taking evidence from everyone they can think of. There's even talk of the committee going to Berlin to talk to people who can't be brought here.'

'What's wrong with that?'

'They're supposed to be managing the Stinnes debriefing. It's not their business to go poking into everything that happened when we enrolled him.'

'On principle?' said Dicky. He was quick to catch on when it was something to do with office politics.

'Yes, on principle. We don't want Home Office people questioning and passing judgement on our foreign operations. That's our preserve — that's what we've been insisting upon all these years, isn't it?'

'An interdepartmental squabble, is that how you see it?' said Dicky. He unbent a paper clip to make a piece of wire, then he looked round at the cramped little office that I shared with my part-time secretary as if seeing the slums for the first time.

'They'll want to question me, perhaps they'll want to question you. Werner Volkmann is coming over here to give evidence. And his wife. Where's the end of it? We'll have those people crawling all over us before that committee finishes.'

'Zena? Did you authorize Zena Volkmann's trip to London?' He ran a fingernail up the corner of a bundle of papers, so that it made a noise.

'It will come out of committee funds,' I said. 'That's the first thing they got settled — where the money was to come from.'

'Departmental employees going before the committee will not have to answer any question they don't consider relevant.'

'Who said so?'

That's the form,' said Dicky. He threw the paper clip at my wastepaper basket but missed.

'With other departments, yes. But this committee is chaired by one of our own senior staff. How many witnesses will tell him to go to hell?'

'The D-G was obviously in a spot,' said Dicky. 'It's not what he would have done in the old days. He would have brazened it out and held on to Stinnes in the hope we'd get something good.'

'I blame Bret,' I said. I was fishing.

'What for?'

'He's let this bloody committee extend its powers too widely.'

'Why would he do that?' Dicky asked.

'I don't know.' There was still no hint that Bret was suspect.

'To make himself more important?' persisted Dicky.

'Perhaps.'

'The committee is stacked against him, Bernard. Bret will be outvoted if he tries to step out of line. You know who he's got facing him. He's got no friends around that table.'

'Not even Morgan?' I said.

It was not intended as a serious question, but Dicky answered it seriously. 'Morgan hates Bret. Sooner or later they'll get into a real confrontation. It was madness putting them together over there.'

'Especially with an audience to watch them wrangling,' I said.

'That's right,' said Dicky. He looked at me and chewed his fingernail. I tried to get on with some paperwork, but Dicky didn't budge. All of a sudden he said, 'It's all over.' I looked up. 'Me and your sister-in-law.
Finito!
'

What was I supposed to say — 'I'm sorry'? Had Tessa told him that I knew, or was he just guessing? I looked at him to see if he was serious or smiling. I wanted to react in the way he wanted me to react. But Dicky wasn't looking at me; he was looking into the distance, thinking perhaps of his final t
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te with Tessa.

'It had to end,' said Dicky. 'She was upset, of course, but I was determined. It was making Daphne unhappy. Women can be very selfish, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' I said.

'Tessa's had a thing about me for years,' said Dicky. 'You could see that, I'm sure.'

'I did wonder,' I admitted.

'I loved her,' said Dicky. This was all something he was determined to get off his chest and I was the only suitable audience for him. I settled back and let him continue. He didn't need encouraging. 'Once in a lifetime, perhaps, you find yourself in a trap from which there is no escape. One knows it's wrong, knows people will be hurt, knows there will be no happy ending. But one can't escape.'

'Is that how it happened with you and Tessa?' I said.

'For a month I couldn't get her out of my mind. She occupied my every thought. I got no work done.'

'When was that?' Dicky getting no work done was not enough to give me a reference to the date.

'Long ago,' said Dicky. His arms still folded, he hugged himself. 'Did Daphne tell you?'

Careful now. The red-for-danger light was glowing inside my head. 'Daphne? Your Daphne?' He nodded. 'Tell me what?'

'About Tessa, of course.'

'They're friends,' I said.

'I mean did she mention that I was having an affair?'

'With Tessa?'