The Folks at Fifty-Eight (29 page)

“Are you becoming ever so slightly devious in your old age, Gerald?”

“Maybe ever so slightly.”

“So why did you want me to talk to Marcus?”

Hammond talked a little about Catherine Schmidt and said he needed to find her again. He said Marcus Allum should know where she was.

When Emma asked if Catherine was the blonde in the photograph, Hammond smiled, suddenly enjoying her obvious jealousy and the unfamiliar reversal of roles.

“Oh no. . . Catherine’s younger, and much prettier.”

She met his smile with her own. She pretended not to care, but he could see that his enthusiastic description of Catherine Schmidt had temporarily thrown her.

“Then she must be something special. So what makes you think Marcus would know anything about her? And what makes you think he’d tell me if he did?”

“Because there’s not a great deal that goes on in the State Department that he doesn’t know about. And because the two of you have always been as thick as thieves.”

She laughed at that and warned him to be careful. Alan Carlisle was a powerful man, with powerful friends.

She said there had to be a payphone somewhere in the lobby. Assuming she could find him, she’d talk to Marcus Allum. Hammond explained that he needed to talk privately with Allum, without the usual secretaries and department gossips listening at the door.

“What about, or don’t I need to know?”

“The photograph. Thought I’d let him deal with it. Either that or burn it.”

Emma went to make the call. She returned a few minutes later with a broad smile on her face. Allum had claimed not to know anything at first, but she’d pressed him into talking.

She said Allum thought the girl was somewhere in New York City, but he didn’t know where. He said there was a man who might know, but if he ever found out that Hammond had told anyone, it would be the last favour Allum would ever do for either of them.

Emma passed him a scrap of paper torn from her diary. Hammond read the name.

“Conrad Zalesie. Now I wonder why I keep hearing that name.”

“Marcus said you should phone first. He said Zalesie’s not a man to welcome uninvited guests. He said you’d know what that meant. What does that mean, Gerald?”

“It means he’s dangerous.”

Hammond asked about the meeting with Allum. She said Allum would be up in New York all week. They could meet in Daniel Chambers’ ‘special room’. She asked where that was.

“I’ve never been there, but I’m told it’s at the Council on Foreign Relations.”

“Marcus said you should get there tomorrow, around three. Now, tell me about the girl. Tell me why you’re so determined to find her.”

Hammond shrugged.

“I gave her my word.”

“Come on, Hammond, quid pro quo. How old is she? Did you sleep with her? Are you in love with her?”

Hammond stared moodily into his glass as he recalled the beautiful and capricious Catherine Schmidt.

“I’m not sure how old she is. She’s claims to be almost twenty, but I think she’s more likely around eighteen, maybe even younger. And yes, we slept together, but I’m not in love with her, or I don’t think so. I just feel responsible.”

“Why?”

Hammond shrugged. It was a question he had recently asked himself.

“I don’t know. After all, I did save her. Trouble is she’s not much more than a child, and I’m not sure if the people I saved her from are any worse than the people I delivered her to.”

“And then there’s the added complication that you screwed her.” She instantly apologized. “I’m sorry, Gerald, I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve been getting very bitchy lately.”

Hammond viewed the novelty of his estranged wife’s obvious jealousy, before relaxing the frown into a smile and confessing.

“Actually, she screwed me. More than once, if I’m boasting. Does that bother you?”

“Of course not. Well, maybe it does, but I have no right to let it, not after everything I’ve put you through. You deserve some happiness, too.”

Hammond was more philosophical.

“Maybe. . . All I do know is that I have to keep my word to her, for my own self-respect as much as anything. As for the rest? Perhaps when I’ve found her I’ll know. I’ll have to see.”

She leaned closer and was suddenly serious.

“Apart from the little you’ve just told me, I don’t know anything about this girl, Gerald, but I do know she’s young, and that will always be the problem.”

“I don’t follow.”

“A word from the wise, my love. Youth may have more than its share of beauty and sensuality, but all that fades in weeks at best and hours at worst. When that early rush fades, we rarely find anything to take its place: no wisdom, no compassion, no understanding, and none of the patience to enjoy all those silences we sometimes need to share.”

“Is that what all those silences were? I just thought you weren’t speaking to me.” She didn’t smile back at him. He abandoned the flippancy. “That’s all a little deep for you, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps there’s more depth to me than you realized, Mr Hammond.”

“And so what are you saying, about the girl?”

“I’m saying that is the way it has to be, my love. Youth was always intended to be adored by youth. The rest of us must use their bodies and move on. Anything else is simply too cruel to contemplate.”

“Philosophy and melancholy from you. . . Am I hearing this?”

“Philosophy and melancholy, no. Bitter experience, perhaps, and the tiniest hint of jealousy.”

She suddenly looked sad, and he felt so sorry for her. He wondered why. When he had found out about her infidelity, it had broken his heart. He thought he would never recover, never love again, and yet he had somehow survived, perhaps even become stronger for it.

He glanced around the bar and saw so many jealous faces looking back, envying her, wanting her, envying him, wanting to be him. He thought to himself that life was such a strange and complex experience. So many times, the people who seemed to have everything in their lives were the very people who actually had nothing of any value. Here she was, Emma Radcliffe-Hammond, darling of Washington’s socialite world, rich and beautiful and sexy and vivacious. And yet, underneath it all, she was just sad and lonely and empty.

The obeisance of others was her only energy source. Without it she was unable to function, and, for some inexplicable reason, he was no longer able to provide it.

Hammond hadn’t realised that about her, or himself; not until now.

“Gerald. I’m still here, you know.”

She had interrupted his abstraction. He cleared his thoughts and took her hand in his as they shared an unexpected moment of intimacy.

“You know, Emma, you’ll always have a home wherever my home is.”

“You’re the sweetest man, Gerald, and I love you dearly. Maybe one day. . .”

She pulled her hand away, and the moment was gone.

“Now let’s think of somewhere outrageously expensive for you to take me to dinner.”

Within the limestone confines of Number Fifty-Eight, East Sixty-Eighth Street, Daniel Chambers’ ‘special room’ was one of the best-kept secrets in America. Superbly appointed, with soft leather furniture, deep-pile carpet, and ornate panelling, the room exuded luxury. However, the room had also been soundproofed, a feature of far greater comfort to certain clandestine individuals than the luxurious furnishings upon which they rested deceitful frames.

Hammond saw Marcus Allum waiting at the door. Allum ushered him into the room, closed both doors, and sat him down at a long polished mahogany table. A man sat at the far end. As Allum began to speak, the man held out a hand to stem the introduction.

“I remember, Marcus. This is the man who pulled that idiot Carpenter out of Rouen. Welcome, Mr Hammond. My name is Daniel Chambers. Would you care for coffee?”

He gestured to a silver coffee pot set out on a table at the side. Hammond shook his head.

“Thank you, no.”

“And so, what can we do for you today?”

Despite the affable façade, it was clear that Daniel Chambers was not a man to suffer fools. Hammond began tentatively.

“It’s about Alan Carlisle and a meeting he had in Frankfurt with a man called Paslov.”

“Go on.”

“I think Paslov tried to blackmail him, but I don’t know why.”

“And what makes you think that?”

Hammond passed the photograph to Allum, who studied it before passing it to Chambers.

“The woman in the centre is Carlisle’s wife Angela. I don’t know the blonde, but the other woman’s name is Pearson, Sarah Pearson. Paslov gave that photograph to Carlisle when they met in Frankfurt last week.”

Chambers considered the photograph with obvious distaste, and then framed another question.

“Why was Carlisle meeting Paslov?”

A nervous-looking Marcus Allum interrupted.

“I sanctioned it, Daniel. Paslov said he wanted to defect. He offered to name names on the Manhattan Project. I’m sorry, but we didn’t tell anybody, not even senior department members. You know how Beria works, and how disinformation can spiral out of control. I didn’t believe it, but you know what Alan’s like on that subject. Of course, it came to nothing.”

Hammond knew exactly why Allum was so worried, and so dismissive. If the possibility of one of his most senior staff being compromised wasn’t enough, it appeared he also had a Soviet mole somewhere among his staff.

“Paslov offered to give up two names. One in The Poplars, the other in the State Department.”

“And did he give these names to you; either of them?”

Hammond pretended not to see the glare from Allum.

“Not to me. He may have given them to Carlisle, but not when I was there.”

Marcus Allum continued to ridicule the possibility.

“It was all just smoke and mirrors, Daniel. Beria and Paslov up to their old tricks again: sowing seeds of disinformation, getting us chasing our own tails. They were using Alan’s preoccupation with the Manhattan Project to do it. I’m certain of it.”

Chambers frowned and returned his attention to Hammond.

“Did you believe him?”

“Paslov?” Chambers nodded. Hammond thought carefully before answering. “Yes, I did. Paslov knew my name and a lot more. He said I wasn’t the only one with friends in the State Department.”

“What did you take that to mean?”

“That he had a contact in the State Department, supplying him with confidential details.”

Marcus Allum restored the glare. Chambers nodded quietly.

“And how did you happen to come by this particular item?”

Chambers held the photograph aloft, gingerly pinching a corner extremity between forefinger and thumb as though afraid that any securer hold would somehow incriminate or taint him by association. Hammond answered truthfully.

“I stole it from Carlisle’s wallet, on the same evening that Paslov handed it to him. I saw the effect it had on Carlisle. I needed to know what it was all about.”

“How dickensianly artful of you. And what do you expect me to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Discover the truth, I suppose.”

Chambers gazed up at the ceiling.

“The only truth I can see, Mr Hammond, is that I am now holding a pornographic photograph; a dirty picture is, I believe, the modern idiom. However, the picture you paint is a far more pornographic one, is it not?”

Hammond kept his self-control. Recent revelations had concerned the sombre and pretentious Daniel Chambers more than he was willing to admit. Hammond could sense it.

“I’m not painting any picture for you, Mr Chambers. I handed you an unsavoury photograph and explained how I came by it. You paint your own dirty pictures.”

Chambers allowed the merest flicker of a smile.

“Bravo, Mr Hammond. Was there anything else?”

“The girl. I need to find her. I want you to tell me where she is.”

“Why?”

“Because I promised her that I would keep her safe from a man called Kube.”

“And whatever possessed you to make such a promise?”

“Human decency.”

Hammond had finally allowed the anger to show. Chambers seemed unimpressed.

“Now that is a pity. For a moment there, I thought I had miraculously found someone in the State Department with some small degree of intellect. How disappointing.” He noticed the anger on Allum’s face, and begrudgingly added, “Present company excepted, Marcus.”

Chambers returned his attention to Hammond, without studying Allum’s reaction. Had he done so, he would have seen the look of resentment graduate to outright hostility.

“The answer is no. You may not find her, or even look for her, not under any circumstance. Why the hell do you think we separated the two of you?

“You have made a not inauspicious start to your State Department career, Mr Hammond, but the watchword from here on in is cooperation not confrontation. For goodness sake, don’t ruin a promising career at such an early stage, not for something as trivial as this.”

Chambers stood up, and rounded the table, the meeting apparently over.

“I advise you to forget about all of this and go back to Washington. Put your feet up, take a well-earned rest and leave this with us. I assure you, we do appreciate your efforts.”

Arrogant dismissal didn’t sit well with Hammond, but he held the anger in check. He briefly clasped the outstretched hand and casually asked,

“And what if I choose not to do that, Mr Chambers? What if I choose to keep looking?”

Daniel Chambers ignored the question and gestured expansively.

“What do you think of our little building? A trifle bland, perhaps? I assure you that is not necessarily a disadvantage. However, what do you think of this room? Is it not exquisite?”

“This room’s pleasant enough; just a shame about the name.”

Chambers frowned. Then understanding dawned with a humourless smile.