Uncommon Enemy (18 page)

‘That was a pick-up,’ said Martin.

‘He spends a lot of time in Brussels; has official business here, too.’

‘With the DST? On a Sunday morning? In one of their operational cars? That was a pick-up if ever I saw one, the sort we’ve been practising. Only not a well-chosen place. Three out of
ten, you’d have given me for that one.’

Charles nodded. ‘Can’t think what he could be up to.’

Martin sipped his coffee. ‘Obvious, isn’t it? He’s talking to the French. And not just passing the time of day.’

E
verything connected with the arms hide was recorded in the main file, but Charles’s report of the sighting of Nigel Measures, written for
Matthew Abrahams, was in the secret annex now held by Nigel himself.

Matthew had listened to Charles’s first oral report without expression, his eyes focussing unrelentingly through his heavy-rimmed spectacles. He said nothing for a while after Charles had
finished.

‘You are sure, absolutely sure, that it was him?’ he asked eventually. ‘Despite bowed head, hunched shoulders, intervening rain and glimpsing him for only a few
seconds?’

‘Absolutely sure. And so was Gladiator.’

One of the three phones on Matthew’s desk, the grey one, rang. He waited for it to stop after the conventional three rings. ‘Tell me again. And tell me more about the café,
the junction, the rue d’Astorg and why you chose it.’

Charles had chosen it because it was close to the Champs Elysees, a part of Paris that any foreigner might visit, but off the main routes, slightly withdrawn; not a tourist magnet, but just busy
enough for anyone to have wandered into.

Matthew sighed, put his hands in his pockets and leant back in his chair. ‘If this is what it appears you would expect the DGSE – their foreign service – to handle it, not the
DST security people. But, who knows, perhaps they swap cars when they’re short, or perhaps it’s different if the case began on French soil. No matter. There are indications – no
more than that – of something going on into which this would fit rather neatly. I shall say no more now and you mustn’t mention it to anyone. Write up what you saw and give it to me for
the annex. Don’t dictate it, a handwritten note will do. Or perhaps not, with your handwriting. Give it to Sonia for typing. Then we must consider how we – you – can find out
more.’

Charles was still reluctant to accept the evidence of his eyes. ‘But would the French really risk spying on us while liaising so closely? I mean, we have a lot going on with them, they
have a lot to lose.’

Matthew shrugged. ‘Would we spy on them?’

‘I don’t know. It would depend.’

‘Precisely. If it were easy, relatively risk-free and the rewards were high – say, the French fall-back positions in the current negotiations – would it be surprising if the
prime minister permitted us to accept an offer of service?’

‘It wouldn’t be risk-free. And we’d never get political clearance to recruit a French official, especially not during the negotiations.’

‘But if he offered his services? We’d at least get clearance to hear what he had to say, if not from the Foreign Office, then from Downing Street.’

‘You think that’s what Nigel’s doing?’

‘I think we need to find out.’

The result was that Charles saw more of Nigel and Sarah. His job by then was to help assess British and allied intelligence reports on the Soviet bloc. The majority were foreign liaison reports,
mostly American, but a significant number from the Old Commonwealth and from Europe. He was frequently at meetings in the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office and it was easy to contrive reasons to
call on the Western European Department, where Nigel worked.

He did so two days after his conversation with Matthew, deliberately passing Nigel’s open door while visiting someone along the corridor. Nigel looked up. Charles waved and paused.

‘Spying on us now, Charles?’

‘Trying, but it’s hard to find anyone in. You’re all always in meetings in this place. In fact, I was in Brussels the weekend before last and called your office on the
off-chance you were there, but they said you’d gone home.’

Nigel grinned. ‘Spying in Brussels, too? We can’t have that. No, I came back first thing Sunday morning. We’d worked all Saturday and half the night. Gave me most of Sunday at
home and the chance to catch up a bit. You busy?’

‘When I can find anyone.’ He raised his hand and turned to go. ‘Sorry, late for a meeting.’

‘Must have lunch sometime.’

‘I’ll ring.’

Charles did not follow up immediately but instead rang Sarah the next morning at the law firm where she worked part time. Obeying her injunction to the letter, he had not contacted her since
their night in Dublin. It had not been easy, but she had been serious, and he wanted to show that he respected that. But he was pleased now to have reason to breach the injunction.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he began, ‘but I know you’ve seen a bit of Martin, and thought I ought to bring you up to date with what we’re doing with
him.’

She sounded cool. ‘I haven’t seen very much of him. He came to dinner a while ago. He seemed happy enough. He didn’t mention you or your office at all, and neither did
I.’

‘That’s good. But I think it would be useful if I let you know how things are going and where we’re going with him, in case he wants to confide in you again.’

‘Well, he hasn’t shown any sign of that. But, okay, if you think it’s important.’

‘At least it’s a meeting with a respectable reason. Half respectable.’

She laughed. ‘That’s true, I s’pose. Half true.’

They had sandwiches at a small round table in El Vino’s, at Blackfriars. She drank Perrier because she was busy that afternoon, forcing Charles to content himself with a single glass of
wine. He told her about Martin’s progress in his training and the kind of deployments he might expect, showing concern as to whether he was doing enough work to get his legal qualification,
and seeking her advice on that. After he had spun it out for long enough to seem like the main reason for their meeting, he asked about her own work.

‘I’d like a permanent full-time job with them,’ she said. ‘Not a partnership – I’m too old to start on that ladder – but the kind of assistant solicitor
job in which you can come and go a bit. Trouble is, I never know what we’re doing. Whether Nigel’s going to leave and go into politics here as he keeps threatening or whether
we’ll stay in the Foreign Office and have a posting, or whether he’ll run off to be an MEP in Brussels or what. Still, I suppose I’m no worse off than women who run careers with
children. At least I don’t have them to worry about.’

Did you – do you – want them? he wanted to ask. Are you trying, as the wretched phrase has it? As she sipped her Perrier, he noticed for the first time tiny lines around her mouth.
What is life like for you? he wanted to ask. Is it becoming – is it already – a disappointment?

‘So, things are sort of permanently up in the air?’ he said, intending it as a preliminary.

She shrugged dismissively. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. ‘You’re becoming bit of a boozer. You’ve finished your wine already.’

He had noticed recently that his wine glasses emptied themselves faster than other people’s. ‘Occupational hazard. I had to do a lot of wining and dining in my last job.’

‘You’re lucky it doesn’t show in your waistline. Unlike Nigel’s. He’s getting really rather fat. All those Brussels lunches. They say it’s the best cuisine in
Europe.’

‘Didn’t strike me when I saw him. In fact, I was in Brussels at the weekend and dropped in on his office – what I thought was his office – but couldn’t find
him.’

‘He was there, doubtless in meetings. He didn’t get back until late Sunday night.’

‘Meetings are bad for waistlines, too.’

She sighed. ‘The whole process seems endless. He’s been away every other weekend for months now. I’m beginning to wonder if he keeps a mistress there.’

‘Europe is his mistress, surely. Will you have a wine if I have another? It might perk you up.’

‘Send me to sleep, more like. Sorry to be such a bore.’

‘What if I promise to drink half yours?’

She nodded.

‘Tell me more about Martin,’ she said when he was back. ‘I know he works near here but I never run into him. Is he happy with the law? Will he stick it, d’you think? He
never seemed the sort to persevere with something that didn’t fire his imagination.’

It was obvious that she didn’t want to say any more about herself, so he talked about Martin until she had to go.

Matthew Abrahams had access to information on people within the bureaucracy from sources Charles could only guess at. He summoned Charles the following day.

‘Point one, it’s true that Measures was working in Brussels on the Saturday,’ Matthew said. ‘His colleagues thought he returned to London early on the Sunday morning, as
he told you; but he changed his flights, took a train to Paris and flew back from there on the Sunday night, getting home late, as his wife said. Point two’ – he glanced at his notes
which were as usual in Chinese characters – ‘it is not true that he has had to work in Brussels every other weekend for the past few months. He has worked some weekends – four out
of fourteen, counting this last. His wife may have exaggerated how often he was away, but if she hasn’t I suspect he was in Paris during the remaining weekends. We might learn something from
flight manifests. If we do, it would be careless of him, and them. Meanwhile, keep seeing her, if you can.’

‘What do you think he’s doing – passing documents?’

‘Possibly. Probably. But drafts and copies of drafts are two a penny in the Foreign Office and in Brussels – there’s no proper control – and anyway many of them are going
to be shown in negotiations. More important is the interpretation he can give them – this is a prime ministerial sticking point, that was put in at the last minute as a giveaway, this is only
there because Number Ten wants it but the Foreign Office doesn’t, and so on.’

‘So what do we do about it?’

Matthew’s gaze traversed the south London panorama beyond his window, settling on the two heavy naval guns outside the Imperial War Museum. ‘We accumulate evidence. What we have so
far is not evidence – a suspicious meeting, an example of his telling his wife one thing, his colleagues another. Perhaps there is a mistress after all. He wouldn’t be the first
diplomat to play away from home. But even if he admitted contact with French intelligence, that would not in itself constitute treachery. If we refer it to MI5 now, as we should any evidence of
espionage, we’d lose control; and they probably wouldn’t put resources into investigating it because they’ve too many other fish to fry. Besides, they wouldn’t want to upset
their close liaison with the French. Nor would Foreign Office Security Department want to create any waves. Spying revelations always mean trouble and scandal; everyone prefers a quiet life. In
this case we’re the only ones with an interest in doing something.’

‘You said there were other indications that something was going on, with which this fitted?’

Matthew nodded, without lifting his gaze from the 15-inch guns. ‘There is a context. It may provide useful corroboration of what Measures is up to, but may not be in itself useable.’
He looked back at Charles. ‘Meanwhile, the only way to accumulate evidence is for you to go on seeking it. Which means seeing more of him – and her. I can see it may not be comfortable
for you but the point is, he might say something – most spies develop a confessional urge at some point – or she might, even if she knows nothing about it. She’s already been
unwittingly helpful.’

Charles did feel uncomfortable. It was all too convenient, giving him reason to see Sarah and to plot against Nigel. He worried particularly about the latter. Nigel’s espionage merited
punishment – at least the punishment of exposure – but Charles’s personal connection could too easily make it look – even feel – as if he had a deeper agenda. It was
true that something made him feel that Nigel was fair game, almost. His relentless self-seeking, his calculated, energetic charm, his unhesitating use of others, the continuous engagement of a
colonising personality made him seem not an ordinarily vulnerable human being, but a beast of the jungle. In which case, Charles could not help asking, was he himself not another? His own readiness
to strike made him uneasy; he was not used to the idea of himself as that sort of person.

Over the next few months he had occasional lunches with Sarah, hoping to get her to talk about her marriage but unable to ask directly in case she suspected more personal motives. She made
oblique references to herself and Nigel, smilingly dismissive of husbands or marriage in general, and clearly preferred questioning Charles about his own life to discussing hers.

‘Don’t ever become one,’ she said once. ‘A husband, I mean. It wouldn’t suit you, you wouldn’t be you. And it would make it difficult for us to
meet.’

‘No prospect at present.’

‘No-one at all? I don’t believe you. There must be someone.’

‘Well, I’m not a hermit, I do see one or two—’

She held up her hand and looked away. ‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear.’

Whenever he learned from her that Nigel was to travel he told Matthew Abrahams, who checked with the Foreign Office. As before, Nigel’s official itinerary and that given to his wife did
not tally.

Charles also called more frequently on Nigel himself, and they drank once or twice in Whitehall pubs. He made a point of referring to his lunches with Sarah, but Nigel seemed uninterested.

‘The to-ing and fro-ing must be tiring,’ Charles said. ‘Even if it is only Brussels.’

Nigel shook his head. The glistening of his dark eyes made it hard to read them. ‘Exhausting but exhilarating. We’re getting there, you see; we’re approaching a real agreement
at last despite the damage that that Thatcher woman did.’

The way he said her name had lost none of its venom. Charles sometimes wondered whether it was partly a function of the word itself, particular movements of tongue and jaw being conducive to the
energy of hate. In Nigel’s mouth it was as if a terrier had learned to say ‘rat’ and, like a terrier, once started he would not let go, conscripting everything into an
anti-Thatcher tirade. Charles used it to bring him out.