Skydancer (10 page)

She had just been watching the BBC nine o'clock news with its report on the Prime Minister's statement to Parliament, in which he had insisted there was no evidence yet of any loss of vital secrets following the discovery of the document on Parliament Hill two days earlier. The opposition parties had howled derisively, believing themselves on the scent of a security scandal as had helped unseat the current Prime Minister's predecessor.

Mary's day at the Ministry had been long and painful. Wherever she went in the rectangular labyrinth, she imagined once-friendly eyes staring after her with curiosity and suspicion. No one referred directly to what they had all read in the paper that morning, not wanting her to think they were putting blame on her. But Mary felt accused by their very silence.

The music reverberating round the apartment began to work its usual therapy. Mary felt herself start to unwind.

Suddenly the rapping of the door knocker startled her. From the small sofa she stared fearfully at the door, as if trying to peer through it and see who was there.

It was probably that nosey old bat who lived at the front of the house, Mary thought. Come to complain about the loudness of the music, no doubt. Mary turned down the volume before peeping through the spyhole in the door. But it was not her neighbour; it was John Black. She opened the door on the security-chain.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you, Ms Maclean,' he smiled through the narrow gap.

To her the way he used the term ‘Ms' always sounded offensive, as if he was mocking her unmarried status.

‘I wonder if you would let me in. I have some important new questions to put to you.'

It was more of a demand than a request, and she slipped the chain from its runner and opened the door fully.

‘I don't know what more I can tell you, Mr Black,' she began uneasily, leading him in. ‘Nothing that's relevant anyway.'

The investigator settled his heavy frame into an armchair and smiled in a manner calculated to be reassuring but which managed instead to be both patronising and belittling. His eyes focused on hers with disconcerting steadiness.

‘Do you mind if I call you Mary? It's so much easier, and I'd prefer our conversation to be informal.' He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

Mary shrugged in reply. She did not consider she had any choice in the matter.

‘My first name is John, but you can call me whatever you want,' he continued with a self-deprecating smile. ‘Yes. You said
relevant.
That's a very
relative
word, don't you think?' He chuckled at his own attempt at word play.

‘I mean, what
you
as an ordinary citizen consider relevant, and what
I
do, as an investigator into a crime which in wartime would be a capital offence, those are of course two completely different things, don't you think so, Mary?' He stopped, with his eyebrows raised again, as if insisting on a reply.

‘I, er . . . I'm sure you're right,' she replied,
determined not to be seduced into an informality which could lead to her dropping her guard. The man was spinning a web in her path, the threads of which she needed to keep in focus.

‘I mean, let's just take an example,' he continued, looking theatrically round the room and then settling his eyes on the glass still clasped in her right hand. ‘Well, for example, I happen to notice that you have a half-consumed glass of red wine in your right hand. Now . . .'

‘Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like . . .' Mary cut in, but he dismissed her offer with a wave of an arm.

‘No, thank you. But take that glass, for example. Now you would say, I feel sure, that it has no relevance to my inquiries at all.'

He leaned forward in his chair, like a school-teacher trying to ensure that his class was following his argument.

‘But I have to ask myself, how often does she have a glass of wine? How many glasses a day? What else does she drink? Whisky? Gin?' He paused for a second in his rapid flow.

‘Vodka perhaps? And when she drinks, does she start to talk about things to strangers? Secret things, personal things. Does she expose those little skeletons in the cupboard, which when she's sober she keeps firmly locked away? Give away secret documents even?'

‘That's preposterous!' she burst out in indignation.

‘Of course, it is. Of course, it's preposterous,' Black replied softly, sitting back in the armchair and clasping his hands over his broad stomach. He smiled at her almost benignly. ‘But I have to ask these questions. I have to think of outrageous motives for people who are caught up on the fringes of espionage, and see if they just happen to fit. It's not a part of my job that I enjoy,
Mary, and that's why I've come round here tonight to ask for your help. Would you like a cigarette?'

He pulled a packet from his pocket, flipped back the lid and held it out towards her.

She shook her head, allowing a flicker of distaste to cross her face. ‘I don't, thank you,' she answered crisply.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?'

‘Well . . . I,' she hesitated.

‘You do mind. I can see that. And of course you're absolutely right. It's a filthy habit.' He put the packet carefully back in his pocket.

‘But have I made my point? Have you understood how you can help me?'

Mary was confused. The man had not been specific. She had understood the drift of his argument, but what exactly did he want to know? Most crucial of all, what did he know already? Did he know about her relationship with Peter Joyce?

‘You'll have to forgive me . . .' she ventured timidly. ‘Sometimes I'm a little obtuse. I'm really not entirely sure what I can tell you that would be of any help.'

The faint smile disappeared from his flabby lips, and his eyes grew cold and expressionless. He stared at her for a few moments before continuing.

‘I want to know some personal details, Mary. We've already talked in the office, haven't we, but, as I'm sure you will remember, the only ground we covered there was on things like office procedure, routines, access to documents, and so on. Well, to be frank, that didn't clarify anything very much, so I want to learn a little bit more about your personal life, just so that I can put my suspicious old mind at rest and cross you off my list of people who need investigating.'

‘Yes, well, of course, that sounds perfectly reasonable,' Mary replied uneasily.

He smiled briefly, as a reward for her answer, then waited for her to continue.

She looked back at him anxiously, hoping that he would ask her questions and so reveal his hand. He did not however.

‘Well, there's not a lot to say,' she began uncomfortably. ‘I er . . . I lead a pretty quiet sort of life. I er . . . live here alone, as you can see, but I have lots of good friends whom I see from time to time.'

She stopped and shrugged her shoulders as if there was no more to be said. Black looked at her icily.

‘How much do you drink?' The question was hardly audible.

‘What?'

‘One bottle of wine a day? Two?'

‘Oh, nothing like . . .'

‘Whisky? Gin?'

‘Well, yes. From time to . . .'

‘How much? Two glasses a day? Half a bottle?'

‘Now, look here . . .'

‘Ever had treatment for it? Alcoholism?'

‘No!'

‘Are you sure? I can easily check.'

She shook her head in disbelief, but found herself putting down the wine glass she had been holding.

‘Go to pubs, do you?'

‘Sometimes, but . . .'

‘On your own? Sitting in a corner hoping someone will come up and talk to you and buy you a drink?'

‘No! I . . .'

‘Is that how you get your men? Pick them up in the pubs, do you? Tell them they can come home with you if they bring a bottle of scotch?'

‘For God's sake! You can't just come round . . .'

‘Don't you like men then?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Lesbian, are you? A student of Sappho?'

Mary found herself trembling uncontrollably. She was dumbfounded, and felt that at any minute she would be sick. Through the mist of tears clouding her eyes she could no longer clearly see the monster of a man who was taunting her. Part of her wanted to get up and run away, escape from her own home, but the rest of her felt incapable of movement, like a rabbit mesmerised by a stoat.

She was aware that Black had stood up from his chair and was now wandering round the room. She heard the click of a cigarette-lighter behind her, and then smelled the Virginia tobacco smoke that swirled around her head.

‘Interesting books you've got, Mary.'

The man's voice was softer now, less aggressive.

‘You've done a bit of travelling in your time, judging by the number of guide-books on the shelf here. France, Spain, Morocco. Oh, and here's the Soviet Union.'

Mary was breathing deeply, trying to steady her racing heartbeat and to bring herself back in control of her voice. She knew the interrogation had a long way to go.

‘You have been to Russia, have you?' Black asked pointedly.

‘Yes, I went to Moscow and Leningrad in 1984. It was a holiday organised by a civil-service travel club. We looked at museums and art galleries.'

She breathed a silent sigh of relief at having given the answer without a quaver in her voice. She heard Black chuckling to himself behind her. Another cloud of smoke swirled past her head. He is doing it deliberately, she thought to herself.

‘Interesting titles you've got here, though, Mary.
Marxism Today
must make good bedtime reading.
The Spread of Socialism in the 1980s
can't be a bad yarn either. Good heavens, we've got a whole shelf of such treats here.
The Long Road to Freedom, Socialist Progress,
they're all here.'

She heard him take first one book from the shelves and flip through its pages, then, with the occasional chuckle and a whistle through his teeth, he would replace it and take another.

‘I'm sure there's something you'd like to tell me about all this, isn't there, Mary?' he asked with amused resignation.

‘I've always been interested in political philosophy,' she answered flatly. ‘I read PPE at university. And I am a supporter of the Labour Party. I have been for many years. But that will be in your file on me already, I'm sure.'

She heard him breathing heavily. His lungs must be coated with tar, she thought to herself. She found herself praying that he would die from cancer.

He was standing at the end of the sofa now, looking straight down at her.

‘It's still the policy of the Labour Party to scrap British nuclear weapons, isn't it?' he asked innocently.

‘Yes. But not all members of the party support that policy,' she answered coldly, looking straight ahead. She reached for her glass, and swallowed the remains of her wine.

‘Good God!' he exclaimed in disgust. ‘It amazes me that we have any secrets left in this country. There you've been for the past God-knows-how-many years, sitting in the nuclear weapons department of the Ministry of Defence, with top-security clearance, and all the time you've been an alcoholic, lesbian, left-wing anti-nuclear activist!'

‘Look, you evil pig of a man!' Mary exploded in rage, rising to her feet so that he could not dominate her. ‘I've had quite enough of your vile insinuations and lies. I am not a left-wing anti-nuclear activist! I happen to believe in nuclear deterrence, and in Britain keeping the bomb. I couldn't possibly have done the work I do if I didn't believe that. Also, I am not an alcoholic, and above all I am not a lesbian!'

Her voice had risen to a penetrating crescendo, and she was trembling again. This time with anger at the faint expression of amusement discernible on John Black's face.

‘Oh,' he nodded amiably. ‘Oh well, you should have said that before. Would have saved a lot of trouble.'

With that he turned away from her and studied a watercolour on the wall. Sighing gently he moved on to examine some prints, and stopped by an antique walnut-veneered bureau, on top of which were two photo-frames. One contained a picture of an elderly couple in a country garden. They looked to him as if they could be her parents. Next to it was a more recent colour print of Mary with her arms round two young children.

‘Nice-looking kids,' he commented sincerely.

‘They're my brother's.'

‘Sort of substitute for not having any of your own, are they?'

Mary ignored the remark and bit her lip.

‘You've never been married, have you?' he persisted.

‘No,' she answered softly.

Suddenly there was a squeak from the hinges of the old bureau.

‘You can bloody well keep out of there!' she shouted furiously. ‘That's private!'

‘I know,' Black murmured without turning round.

‘You've got no right to look in there!' she screamed, striding across the room and grabbing him by the arm, to pull him away.

‘Rights?' he mocked, swinging round and brushing her hand from his arm. ‘Rights? This country's most precious nuclear secrets are being stolen by some self-interested sneak-thief, and you talk about rights!'

His outrage blazed from his eyes.

‘What is it you want? A warrant? I can whistle up a search warrant in half an hour, if that's what you want. But along with the warrant will come three of my heaviest-handed men who will not only search this place from top to bottom, they'll slit the very elastic out of your knickers to check that it hasn't got code-words written on it. Those are you rights, Miss Maclean!'

Mary knew that she could not stop her tears anymore. Her privacy was going to be violated, and there was nothing more she could do to prevent it happening. Turning back to the French windows, she pressed her head against the glass and hugged her arms tightly round her chest in an effort to hold herself together.