The Doll’s House (5 page)

The man had finished dressing. He smoothed his hair and cleared his throat before he spoke to the woman lying on the bed.

‘How about tomorrow? I've got a business lunch, but I'm free for two hours in the afternoon. Please?'

She was very beautiful. She reminded him of a magnificent animal; a lioness, he thought, staring down at the naked body, arms stretched up behind her mane of thick blonde hair. She smiled up at him, and slowly raised herself off the bed. She wanted him to plead, to beg. She knew how much he liked that.

‘Just two hours,' he wheedled. ‘I'll bring you something very nice. Something special.'

He came close and caught her hands.

‘Don't make me kneel,' he whispered. ‘Don't make me crawl, darling.'

Suddenly she dug her nails into his hands. He gave a cry of pain and let go. That was part of the game. He looked down and saw that she'd drawn blood. ‘You bitch!' he mumbled.

She had turned away from him slipping on pantihose and a silk shift, sliding her feet into high-heeled shoes.

‘I can't see you tomorrow, Gustav, I'm going away for a few days.'

She sat down at the dressing-table and began brushing her hair. She watched him through the mirror. She hated him, but then she hated them all. The masochists like this one who wanted to be bullied and humiliated before they could get potent, the other type who liked to be rough, the mummy's boys who had breast fetishes and paid to sit on her lap and fondle and talk baby-talk. Even the straight ones who wanted good sex and tried to please her. But they paid. They paid big money for Monika. And Monika paid out big money for protection. Not to a pimp. There wasn't a pimp born who could have run her, and the idea made her laugh. Another kind of protection. From the hit and run driver, the professional waiting round the corner with a knife. More and more money and no guarantee that it would be enough in the end. The client was sucking at his palms.

‘I'm bleeding,' he reproached her. ‘Why did you do that?'

‘Because you bore me,' she said not turning round.

‘Don't say that,' he pleaded, enjoying himself. ‘I only want to please you. Let me come tomorrow … please.'

She stood up. She was very tall. She towered over him.

‘My money,' she reminded him. ‘You owe me Gustav. You're not coming again till you pay me.'

‘I've got it here,' he fumbled in his coat pocket, took out an envelope. ‘Cash, darling. Count it.'

‘I can't be bothered,' she shrugged and threw the envelope down unopened. ‘You wouldn't cheat me. I'd never see you again if it was one franc short. You know that.'

He adjusted his tie, buttoned his jacket again.

‘Are you really going away?'

‘I told you.'

He was jealous; he knew she had other clients but he didn't like to think of sharing her with anyone. He'd been coming to see her for over a year.

‘Are you going alone?'

She draped a heavy gold necklace round her neck and fitted earrings into her ears. She looked at herself in the mirror.

‘I'm going to visit my mother in Grasse,' she said. ‘Now goodbye, Gustav darling. Your time is up.'

She opened the front door and stood waiting. He paused for a moment.

‘Two days. That's Thursday then. I'll telephone. I saw a nice brooch in Boucheron's window.'

‘I don't want a brooch. Think of something else. Surprise me.'

She smiled down at him.

‘I will,' he promised, and hurried out. She saw him get into the elevator and then shut the door.

There was another man coming in an hour. He always took her out to dinner first. And she insisted on a top restaurant. The Tour d'Argent, Maxims, sometimes the Grill Room at the Ritz. She had to be seen, to be on display. And to look exactly what she was: one of the most expensive
poules de luxe
in Paris. The grovelling Gustav, whose name dominated the biggest fashion store in the Rue St Honore, was a noted bully and tyrant to his staff and his family. Tonight she would dine with an even richer businessman, pretend to listen while he talked about his business and himself, and then go home and bear with his equally boring sexual activities.

At ten o'clock the next morning she would be on the flight to Geneva. The note had enclosed an airline ticket and the name of a hotel.

It wasn't the few sentences with the magical promise of money that had persuaded her to use that ticket and go.

There had been no signature. Just one word. ‘Freedom.' That was why she was catching the flight.

Oakham enjoyed flying. He had no nerves, his imagination was untroubled by what might happen at thirty thousand feet and five hundred miles an hour if anything went wrong. He'd flown in everything, from twin seaters bouncing like toys in turbulence to the heavy military aircraft that spewed you out on the end of a parachute. Concorde had been the best. A trip to the States on a job where time was the prime factor and he'd been allowed to travel in style for a change. One of his best operatives had been so scared of flying that he vomited before getting on a plane. He'd disappeared in Amsterdam, of all the bloody places to get killed. He'd been a good man too. Amsterdam was as dangerous as it was dirty, full of human refuse and the rats that fed on them. Geneva was beautiful. He loved Switzerland, he loved the cleanness, the mountains, the majestic lakes. He'd done a lot of business in Switzerland when he was assigned the desk job.

He took a taxi to the Hotel d'Angleterre. It was smart but not over-expensive, a place patronized by the better-paid business executives. He registered under another name; it matched the passport he carried. He hadn't handed everything back when he gave in his keys … He went up to the third floor and looked round the room.

‘This is very nice,' he said to the boy who'd brought up his luggage, and gave him a good tip. It was comfortable, it had a pleasant outlook. He tried out the bed. Excellent.

Jan was due in that afternoon. Oakham unpacked, had a hot shower and went down to lunch. He was spending money, but it was his own money this time. No tight-arsed Civil Servant looking at every item on his expenses, querying this and that. He was going to have money to spend. Money to burn if he felt like making a bonfire out of it. He wasn't going to fail because he had never failed in his profession, except once. He didn't mean to think of Judith. She floated into his mind before he could stop her. The blonde hair swinging like silk round her shoulders, the blue of a summer sky in her eyes as she looked at him and laughed. They'd laughed such a lot together. He thrust her away, back to the graveyard of old memories.

At four o'clock Jan came up to his room. Harry let him in.

The Pole said, ‘We're in business.'

He grinned at Oakham; he looked excited. ‘Big business. I got Rilke to come with me.'

‘Well done,' Oakham said in admiration. ‘That's our ace. Well done.'

‘The others will be here tomorrow morning. I said we'd meet at eleven o'clock. I said to ask for the D.H. Co. representative. Which is me.'

‘I've booked a small private room for the conference. Lunch served privately. The hotel have provided a screen and a video. It all looks very businesslike. Have a drink, Jan, old fellow. Scotch? I'll get something special sent up. How about a bloody good twelve-year-old malt, eh?'

‘Fine by me,' the Pole said. Oakham was moving round the room, ordering the drinks, smiling at him. He was always restless when he was keyed up. Jan had seen him like it before an operation. Like a big cat scenting an unsuspecting kill.

‘Water … No, plain water and no ice,' Harry was saying into the phone. He turned and grinned at Jan.

‘Don't want to spoil the flavour, do we – nothing like a good malt. Now, tell me about Rilke! How the hell did you persuade him to come
with
you?'

‘I told him you wanted to talk to him first, before the others. I laid it on, Harry. How important he was, how senior. You know what a vain swine he is. He couldn't resist it. He expected to meet you tonight. He didn't like it when I said it was tomorrow, early morning. He's booked into the Alexandre. I said I'd take him out to dinner and we'd go to some club afterwards.'

‘He'll want boys,' Harry remarked. ‘Don't let him get too shagged out. He's got to have a clear head tomorrow.'

Jan grimaced. ‘Don't worry, I'll look after the little swine.'

Oakham said easily, ‘Some of our gays were bloody good. Forget the prejudice. Give him a good time and don't stint on the money. I want him sweet and greedy when we meet up.'

When the Scotch arrived he filled their glasses and they raised them in a toast.

‘Here's to the future.'

Georg Werner kissed his twin sons good night. He was a loving and dutiful father and a good husband. His wife, Erna, watched from the doorway. They were good boys, she thought, and they loved their papa coming to read to them and settle them down for the night.

He closed the door and they went downstairs together.

‘How long will you be gone?' she asked.

‘I'm not sure,' he answered. ‘Two days, maybe less. Depends on how the meeting goes. I'll telephone you.'

She smiled at him.

‘They haven't sent you anywhere for some time now. The break will do you good. You get so bored being stuck in the Ministry.'

He put his arm round her as they went into their sitting room. It was a large, light room, well decorated with modern pictures and Italian furniture. His wife had taste. He was proud of how she looked and how she managed his home and the children. She was right. More so than she would ever know. He hadn't been sent abroad for a long time. He'd been given nothing important to do beyond his minimum brief. No chance to shine, no hint of promotion, and he was still in his forties. Everything had changed. He had wasted the best years of his life for nothing.

‘I'll get us a drink.' His wife went to the bottles ranged on an angular, black-glass table. ‘Why don't I come to the airport with you? Surely the car can drop me back?'

‘I'm not taking an official car,' Werner explained. He took a vodka on the rocks and sipped it. ‘It's a confidential meeting, I told you. I've ordered a taxi. Come and sit down and tell me what you've been doing.'

The twins had come out of school to go to the dentist. Albrecht had been brave, little Georg had cried. She'd had lunch with two women friends … He wasn't listening. He was glad of the vodka and finished it quickly. It helped settle his nerves. He could still pull back. It wasn't too late.

He hadn't been contacted for such a long time it shocked him when he got the message. Something had come up which he should consider for his own sake. The airline ticket, the address of the hotel, and the code word.

It wasn't Freedom, in his case.

Harry had gone into the small conference room early. He sat at the table. Everything was set up. A screen and video, notepads, pencils at each place, mineral water and cigarettes. A discreet bowl of fresh flowers on the side. Small but impressive. A professional scene set up for people who were supreme professionals.

Five of them. He'd picked very carefully. His Libyan banker had nodded as he named them, while his wife's awful nephews slobbered their ice creams.

Hermann Rilke. That was one to conjure with. Head of the East German Security for the past sixteen years. An expert in counter espionage and interrogation. His success rate among Allied and American agents had been awesome. His name inspired pure terror among his own population. Rilke was a committed Stalinist, the confidant of Honecker, a protégé of Adolph Gorst, his former chief.

A vicious man who enjoyed inflicting pain. Jan had called him a swine. He could imagine how Jan had hated entertaining him, indulging his perverted appetites. Jan was a good old-fashioned prude at heart.

Oakham thought of him with affection. Traces of the strict Catholic upbringing remained in him. It was a hellish religion. It never let go completely … He hadn't been affected by his family's mild Anglicanism. He didn't give a damn about Rilke's private life. Rilke's skill and availability were what interested him.

Vassily Zarubin. The brilliant young tactician, the KGB schoolmaster who set their recruits the final exams. He was in his late thirties but his heart was with the iron men of the Soviet past. His father had been a stalwart of the old tyrant, Brezhnev. He was retired and the son had taken his job and done it even better. He played chess at masters level for relaxation.

Georg Werner, good-looking, sociable, a charming post-war West German diplomat. He'd been a Communist sleeper in the West German Foreign Ministry for the last twenty years.

Then there was the Israeli, Daniel Ishbav. Oakham had hesitated about him.

He had worked for Mossad as a specialist in kidnapping. And then taken Syrian money to finance his love of women and gambling. He'd kept both sides going, betraying and counter-betraying to keep the balance till a captured Syrian agent led Mossad to look inside their own ranks. Daniel had got away before they reached him. For two years he had been hiding in Iraq; now Iraq wasn't safe any more and he had slipped into England via Turkey. His money was running out; Harry knew about him because London had been keeping an eye on him. They didn't want his specialist skills offered to an organization like the IRA.

And then, Oakham grinned to himself, the only lady in the happy band of international brothers. Monika Van Heflin. A handsome name for a very handsome lady indeed. The Venus Fly Trap was her nickname, and she enjoyed it so much, she went out and bought herself a plant. So legend said. The sixties had spawned some aberrations among the prosperous middle classes in Holland as well as Germany, Italy and Japan. The children of the affluent and respectable took to murder and subversion, cloaking themselves in a crazed Communism. The Red Brigade had recruited Monika at seventeen. She was a student in Amsterdam, the pretty blonde daughter of a fashionable psychiatrist. She had specialized in killing men after she had slept with them, Monika could bring death and terror to selected targets who were otherwise well protected.