her mind. However, Michael's face in that contorted rapture of log anguish still floated before her like a reel from a horror movie'.
'It doesn't matter, Mickey. It makes no difference to us or to anything.' 'Yes, it does, Bella,' he contradicted her, and then gently held her away from him so that he could study her face. What he saw there made him sadder. With an arm around her shoulders he led her back to her seat at the table in the breakfast-nook, and sat beside her on the banquette.
'Strange,' he said. 'In a way it's a relief that you know. I still hate the way you found out, but at last there is one person in the world with whom I can be my true self; somebody for whom I no longer have to lie and dissemble.' 'Why hide it, Mickey? This is nineteen sixty-nine. If that's the way you are, why not be open? Nobody cares any more.' Michael fished a packet of Camels out of his dressinggown pocket and lit one. For a moment, he studied the burning tip, and then he said: 'That might be true for others, but not for me.' He shook his head. 'Not for me.
Like it or not, I'm a Courtney. There are Nana and Pater, Garry and Sean, the family, the name.' She wanted to deny it, but then she saw that it was futile.
'Nana and Pater,' Michael repeated. 'It would destroy them. Don't think that I haven't considered it - coming out of the closet.' He grinned wryly.
'God, what an awful expression.' She squeezed his hand hard, beginning at last to have some faint understanding of her brother's predicament. She knew he was right. He could never let Nana and Pater know. For them it would be as bad - no, it would be worse than Tara. Tara had been a foreigner; Michael was Courtney blood.
They would not survive it. It would destroy part of them, and Michael was too kind, too unselfish, too loyal ever to let that happen. 'How long have you known - about your nature?' she asked quietly.
'Since prep school,' he answered frankly. 'Since those first pre-pubescent gropings and explorations in the log showers and the bog shop...'He broke off. 'I've tried to deny myself I've tried not to let it happen. Sometimes for months, a year even - but it's like a beast inside me, Bella, a ravaging beast over which I have no control.' She smiled softly, indulgently. 'As Nanny would say, it's the hot Courtney blood, Mickey. We all have it; none of us can control it very well, not Pater and Garry and Sean - nor you and V 'You don't mind talking about it?' he asked diffidently. 'I've kept it bottled up so long.' 'You talk as much as you like. I'm here to listen.' 'I've lived with it for fifteen years now and I suppose I'll have to live with it for another fifty. The strange thing -something that would make it even worse as far as the family is concerned - is that I am attracted by coloured men. That would aggravate my guilt and degradation in the eyes of Nana and Pater, in the eyes of our courts at home. God, the scandal if I were discovered and charged under that Immorality Act of our enlightened government!' He shuddered, and stubbed out the cigarette, and immediately lit another from the crumpled pack.
'I don't know why black men attract me so powerfully. I've thought about it a great deal. I suppose I'm like Tara, in a way. Perhaps it's a kind of racial guilt, a subconscious desire to appease and mollify their anger.' He chuckled sardonically. 'We've been screwing them for so long. Why not give them a chance to get their own back?' 'Don't!' Isabella said softly. 'Don't degrade and belittle yourself by talking like that, Mickey. You are a fine and decent person. We are, none of us, responsible for our instincts.' Isabella remembered Michael as the gentle shy boy, self-effacing but with boundless affection and concern for every being around him, yet always with that wistful air of sadness about him. She understood now the source of that sadness. She realized what spiritual agony he must have been suffering, that he still suffered. Her heart went out to him as it never had before. The last vestiges of her physical repugnance faded. She knew she would never again hate what she had seen taking place in the room upstairs. She would think only of the agonies which stiff lay in wait for this dear person, and her instincts became fiercer and more protective.
'My poor darling Mickey,' she whispered.
'Poor no longer,' he denied it. 'Not with your love and understanding.'
Two days later, while Michael was out on one of his interviews and Isabella's desk was a jumble of open books and scattered papers, the telephone rang. She reached for it distractedly and for a moment she did not recognize the husky voice, or understand the words.
'Ramsey? Is that you? Is something wrong? Where are you? Athens?' 'I'm at the flat..
'Here in London?' 'Yes. Can you come quickly? I need you.' Isabella pushed the Mini through the lunch-hour traffic, and when she reached his flat went up the stairs two at a time and arrived on the landing flushed and breathless. She fumbled with the key and at last threw the door open.
'Ramsey!' There was no reply, and she ran through to the bedroom. His valise was open on the bed, and a crumpled shirt lay in the middle of the floor.
It was stained with blood - patches of old dried blood, almost mulberry black in colour, and also newer brighter blood.
'Ramsey! Oh God! Ramsey! Can you hear me?' She ran to the bathroom door. It was locked from inside. She stood back and kicked the lock with her heel. It was one of the judo kicks he had taught her, and the flimsy lock snapped and the door flew open.
Ramsey lay on the tiled floor beside the toilet. He must have grabbed at the shelf above the washbasin as he fell, and her cosmetics had cascaded down into the basin and III across the floor. He was naked from the waist up, but his chest was heavily strapped with bandages. She could tell at a glance that the bandages had been tied by a professional hand. Like his abandoned shirt, the white bandages were soaked'with concentric rings of blood, some dark and old, some fresh and wet.
She dropped on to her knees beside him, and turned his head. His skin was pale, almost opalescent, with a sheen of nauseous sweat upon it. She lifted his head into her lap. Then she snatched up the face-cloth that hung over the edge of the bath. She could just reach the cold-water tap from where she sat. She soaked the cloth and wiped his face and neck.
His eyelids quivered and opened, and he looked up at her.
'Ramsey.' His eyes focused. 'I keeled over,' he murmured.
'My darling, what happened to you? You've been badly hurt.' 'Help me to the bed,' he said.
Kneeling beside him, she propped him into a sitting position. She was almost as strong as a man, with arms and torso trained by riding and tennis. However, she knew that even she could not lift him unaided.
'Can you stand, if I steady you?' He grunted and made the effort, but halfway to his feet he winced and clutched at the blood-stained bandages as the pain knifed him.
'Take it easy,' she whispered, and for a minute he remained doubled over, then he straightened slowly.
'All right.' He gritted his teeth, and she led him through, taking most of his weight on her shoulder, and lowered him on to the bed.
'Did you come all the way from Athens in this condition?' she asked incredulously.
He nodded the lie. He had summoned Isabella to Athens to act as a courier.
The need had risen urgently and unexpectedly. There had been no other agent available immediately, and it was time for her to be blooded in the field. She was ripe for it. By now she had been conditioned to accept his orders without question, and it was an easy first assignment that he planned for her. She was the perfect innocent, an attractive and pregnant female who would instantly evoke sympathy. She was unmarked, unknown to any of the world's intelligence organizations, including Mossad. In the jargon of the trade, she was a virgin. In addition, she carried a South African passport, and Israel had cordial, indeed intimate, relations with that country.
The plan was for her to catch the flight from Athens to Tel Aviv, make the pick-up and leave by the same route. It would have been a day's work. The plan had foundered when she had not been able to make the flight to Athens.
The pick-up was crucial. It involved details of the co-operation between Israeli and South African scientists in the development of tactical nuclear weapons systems. Even though there was a high probability that he was marked by Mossad, Ramsey had been forced to make the pick-up in person.
He had disguised his appearance as best he was able, and of course he had gone unarmed. It was madness to attempt to carry a weapon through an Israeli security check. He had used his Mexican passport in an assumed name. However, they must have got on to him at Ben Gurion Airport and tailed him to the pick-up.
He had spotted the tail and taken emergency evading procedure, but they had cornered him. He had broken the neck of one Mossad agent and in return had taken this hit. Even severely wounded, he had made it to the PLO safe house in Tel Aviv. Within twelve hours they had smuggled him out on their pipeline to Syria.
However, London was his safe ground. Despite the risks and his injuries, he had too much in play to remain in Damascus. The local KGB head of station had escorted him on to the Aeroflot flight to London. He had made the call to Isabella as he staggered into the flat. Then he had just managed to reach the bathroom before he collapsed.
'I must call a doctor,' she said.
'No doctor!' Despite his weakness, his voice took on that cold sibilant tone which she was so conditioned to obey.
'What must I do?' she asked.
'Get me the telephone,' he ordered, and she hurried to bring the
