Andromeda. There’s a lot of that going on in the Caspian Basin, a lot of cooperation. Companies get together and share the cost of exploration, drilling, whatever. That’s how I wanted it to go, but Hawkes and my controller at Five thought that that approach would be too obvious.”
The sensation of finally being able to break my silence has momentarily suppressed any immediate concern for Cohen. Two years of backed-up secrets, all pouring out in a scrambled rush. I feel loose and relieved to be free of them.
“So we came up with another plan. MI5 put someone inside Andromeda, a guy called Matthew Frears, who was on my recruitment program. He fed us background on their movements, leaked documents, and so on. I then invited Saul to an oil-industry party, and Matthew manufactured an introduction to the Americans, using Saul as cover. Saul didn’t know anything about it. Everything that happened after that was carefully planned. It took a lot of organization, a lot of hard work. I saw them regularly, made out that I didn’t have very much money. I even had speeches prepared, tracts of dialogue committed to memory.”
“How do you mean?” Kate asks. “Give me an example.”
It is not difficult to recall the bones of one of the monologues. I lean forward in the chair, and it is like being back in their apartment, weaving a tale for the CIA.
“I was predicted straight-A grades, but I got ill and took a string of Bs and Cs, so I didn’t get my chance to go to Oxbridge. That would have changed everything. I meet Oxbridge graduates, and none of them has qualities I don’t possess. And yet somehow they’ve found themselves in positions of influence. What do they have that I haven’t? Am I lazy? I didn’t waste my time at university. I’m not the sort of person who gets depressed. If I start feeling low, I tell myself it’s just irrational, and I pull myself out of it. I feel as if I have had such bad luck.”
Kate has a peculiar grin on her face as I continue. I am talking quickly now, giving the words no inflection.
“I want to be recognized as someone who stands apart. But even at school I was always following on the heels of one or two students who were more able than I was. Smarter, quicker witted, faster on the football pitch. They had an effortlessness about them that I never had. I always coveted that. I feel as though I have lived my life suspended between brilliance and mediocrity. Not ordinary, not exceptional. Do you ever feel like that?”
Kate interrupts me: “That’s not a prepared speech. That is you.”
I stare back at her, smarted.
“No, it’s not.”
She gives a sputtering, patronizing laugh, which effectively kills off any chance of arguing this out.
“Whatever,” I say, unconvincingly. “It doesn’t matter. Think what you like. The basic idea was that I showed them how unsettled I was, how depressed I had become after breaking up with you…”
At this Kate balks.
“You brought me into this?”
I stall. I had not intended to mention her role at all. Her voice quickens into anger.
“Fuck, Alec…”
“Relax. It was just cover. In all this time, I must have mentioned your name once to them. Nobody at SIS or Five knows anything about you. You didn’t even come up in the interviews.”
She appears to believe this, looking visibly calmer almost immediately. I keep on talking, to take her mind off the possibility that she was more acutely involved.
“It was just a way of getting the Americans to sympathize with me.”
“Okay.”
“That’s how I was taught to approach things. Show them something you’ve lost. That’s the first rule. A girlfriend, a job, a close relative. It doesn’t matter. Then you confide in them, you show them your weaknesses. Ultimately I gave Katharine and Fortner the impression that they understood me. The relationship between us became almost familial.”
“And all the time it was just a pretense…”
Kate has that look she gets when learning lines for a play, an intense concentration, close to bewilderment, furrowing her brow. It makes her look older.
“They were not the innocent party, Kate. They knew Abnex had a small team that was exploring a sector of the North Basin that nobody else had access to. They wanted to get their hands on data from that project. They cultivated the friendship with me to that end. That’s how it works. It’s grim, and it’s cynical, but it’s the way of things.”
She does not answer. Her half-eaten apple has turned brown.
“So, to cut a long story short, they offered me the chance to spy for them. They made me feel that it would be in everyone’s interest in the long run.”
“I just don’t know how you could do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend to be something that you’re not to people you care about.”
“Who said I cared about them?”
“Of course you do. You’re not capable of being that cold.”
She wants to believe that about me. She has always wanted to believe that people are essentially decent, that they adhere to certain standards of behavior.
“Kate, you’re an actress. When you go on stage or in front of a camera, what are you doing but pretending to be somebody else? It’s the same thing.”
“Oh, please,” she says, lifting her face up suddenly. “Don’t even attempt to make that comparison. I’m not fucking with people’s heads. I’m not living a twenty-four-hour lie. When I come home at night I’m Kate Allardyce, not Lady Macbeth.”
“I dunno, there were some nights we were together…”
“Alec, please. No jokes.”
I try a smile. Nothing from her. I had not expected a reaction like this. I had not prepared myself in any way for being criticized by her.
“I’m simply making the point that it’s an act. I had to become someone that I was not. I was paid to put up a pretense. Every time I go to their apartment, I have a particular strategy in mind, something I have to say or do to facilitate the operation.”
“Every time you go? Present tense? You’re still doing this? But I thought…”
The telephone rings on the counter nearest the sink. Both Kate and I start in our seats, eyes briefly meeting, but she is up quickly, answering it.
“Hello?”
When the person on the other end of the line speaks, she turns away from me so that I cannot see her face. It is a man. I can hear the low bass of his voice coming through the receiver.
“Hi. Listen, can I call you back?” she says, suddenly nervous and unsettled. “I’m just in the middle of something. No, I’m fine. I’ll ring you in an hour or so. Where will you be?”
He tells her. I look at Kate, standing there lithe and cool, and it’s hard to believe that we fucked each other what must have been a thousand times.
“Fine. Lots of love,” she tells him.
That’s what she used to say to me.
She hangs up.
“You should have taken the call.”
“Forget it,” she says, scratching the back of her neck.
Why didn’t she tell him I was here?
“Who was that?”
She hesitates, ignores the question.
“I’m still trying to get my head around all this. You said when you got here that someone’s been hurt. Who? One of the Americans? Is that it? Who is this person you work with who’s in trouble? You say he’s on your team. Which team?”
“Somebody at Abnex. He cottoned onto what I was doing.” After a brief pause, I add, “At least, I thought he did.”
I light another cigarette, though the stale tar funk of the last one, lying crumpled in the ashtray, still hangs
