The bill was waved under his nose. It must have been prepared and ready. Without checking it, he scrawled his signature on the docket and took back the card. He waved the owner away, gestured for him to retreat and give them space.
'What did I do?'
There was at Thames House, and it would be the same at the bank, a culture against honesty. No advancement ever came from telling it as it was. He was hemmed in at work, and it would be the same in the future, by men and women who weighed their words for fear of giving offence. It had been the same at home, and the same at university. He had drunk nothing but carbonated water, he was utterly sober. For the first time in his life, Geoff Markham thought the moment had come for sheer honesty, the whole truth.
He spoke quietly, 'You were a second-rate salesman. You were a grubby little creature on the make. You were into illegality, fraudulently writing out false export declarations for Customs and Excise. You were greedy, so avaricious for the commissions you were getting that the chasing of the money became more important to you than that your wife was screwing on the side and your marriage was gone-' Perry swung a wayward fist at him and missed the target, Markham's chin, but hit the bottle's neck and toppled it.
'You were on a fast ride and going nowhere, but the greed held you and you wouldn't back off. To hell with the wife opening her legs, the money kept rolling in, and then, one day, comes the morning after, the dawn hangover, and there's a call from a lady and most persuasively she's asking for a meeting. You thought you were in control until you sat down with Penny Flowers. Do you remember her, Frank? I hope you do, because where you are now is down to her. You dangled from her little finger…'
In the background romantic piano music played serenely. The wine stained a path across the tablecloth from the toppled bottle.
'She was asking you for a little bit of help and if you didn't care to do so, she was offering you a big bit of a prison sentence, like seven years and, of course, you chose to help. When you walked away from that first meeting with Penny Flowers you'd have thought you could handle it, without breaking sweat, and you were wrong. She's a tough bitch, but you know that now. You don't get clear of Penny Flowers's claws. It starts easily enough, always does. It's the classic way, Mr. Perry, of agent handling. Did she tell you that she liked you, that you were really important? She would have regarded you as cheap dross, because that's the way all controllers regard all agents.'
The wine stain reached the edge of the table and the first drip fell into Meryl's lap.
'At first, it would have been sketch-maps of the plant, then character profiles of the prime personalities. After that, it's documents, later it's photographs with a supplied camera. Cheap dross you may be, but not an idiot. You understand now that you're into espionage, and you know the penalty in Iran for espionage. The sweat's started. The sweat becomes colder each time you fly there, and you're looking over your shoulder because it only takes one mistake to alert the security there. Each night in your hotel room, you'd have wondered whether you'd made that mistake. But you couldn't shake clear of Penny Flowers, and there was always one more trip back, always one more question she wanted answered…'
Frank Perry stared into Geoff Markham's face, and in his eyes was the fear, as if he lived it again.
'You told Penny Flowers, just happened to mention it, that they'd changed the schedule for your next meeting, brought it forward a week she'd not have looked that interested, it's a handler's skill never to seem interested in what an agent says but she'd have probed deeper, done it in easy conversation. If you'd understood the way a handler works, the few extra questions, and always the studied indifference, then the alarm bells would have rung. Just before you flew to Iran that last time you would have known it was the danger time. A debriefing the night before you travelled, not just Penny Flowers but hard-faced bastards telling you what was wanted. It was about a party, yes, a celebration dinner for heads of section?'
Frank Perry, grim, sobering, nodded.
'You would have gone back the last time, to all those people who welcomed you. I doubt you slept on any of those nights because you'd have been going over every question you'd asked where was the party, who was going, when was the bus leaving? and wondering if the mistake had been made. They were the heads of section for the chemical-warfare programme, and the designers of the warhead. They were the big people in the big picture, and you were just a bloody ant by comparison. Your only importance was that you had access… They'd have hanged you, not so that your neck broke but so that you strangled and kicked the air.. . I couldn't have done it myself, Mr. Perry, I wouldn't have had the courage. I would have crumpled with the fear. I sincerely admire what you did. I don't mean to embarrass you, but I haven't ever met anyone of such raw bravery… Do you still want to know?'
Frank Perry mouthed his answer ~ softly that Markham couldn't hear it.
'The Jews do the dirty work for us. They understand about survival better than we do. They won't, again, go naked into the sheds and have cyanide crystals drop on them. They are, in modern jargon, proactive. The Israelis wouldn't have needed much persuasion because those warheads could fall on them. A squad was put on shore after being ferried across the Gulf. They landed up the coast from Bandar Abbas. They intercepted the bus on its way to the restaurant. A piece of charity fell off Penny Flowers's desk, probably the only time it has. What happened to the bus was an accident, you understand me. It created confusion and bought you time to build a new life before the Iranians realized the enormity of the crime and at whose door it lay…'
The music played on. Markham felt so sorry for the man.
'The bus was stopped, then burned. It was made to look, before a detailed examination produced the truth, like an accident. There were no survivors. The director, the engineers, the scientists, all died in the fire.'
Frank Perry jerked the weight of his body up, his lips gibbering, but he could not speak.
'You wanted to know. It is why the Iranians will hunt you, track you, try to kill you, and all those with you. There'll be files on you that are stacked high enough to eat lunch off. They will never forget you. What you did was buy time. I'd like to say that the time was well used, that the programme was seriously delayed. I can't – I don't know. I don't know whether the time you bought with your courage, Frank, was well used or was frittered..' but I recognize your bravery because it humbles me.'
Meryl was crying quietly. Markham pulled back the table and let Perry stagger to his feet. The rain had started outside and the street glistened. He took Perry's arm gently and steadied him through the door and across the pavement. Davies held Meryl close to him. Her dress, from the spilled wine, was stained red like a wound. Markham thought it was what Perry was owed, and he was glad he'd done it.
He climbed the stairs slowly.
It had been a distressing evening for Simon Blackmore. Two months earlier, a surveyor had checked Rose Cottage, and described the damp as minimal. Late that evening, without an appointment, a man who described himself as a builder and decorator had prised his way into the cottage. He called himself Vince, and explained that he always dropped by on new people moving into the village. He'd walked around and pointed out at least half a dozen places where the wallpaper peeled and the plaster work was stained, tut ting and frowning at the cost and his schedule. But the work needed doing, must be done. He'd spoken of Mrs. Wilson's rheumatism and laid the blame for it on the damp. He'd settled immovably at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee. They were both so tired, exhausted from the unpacking of boxes, but they had listened with courtesy as he'd talked of the village, his lifetime home, and his central place in it. And he'd told them, as if it were a kindness to them, that they should keep away from the green at the far end of the village because there were armed police there, guarding a family that no one in their right mind wanted to know… 'But they've got the message, there's no one'll speak to them, they'll be bloody frozen out of here.' It had been an age before he'd finished his coffee, insisted that he would send in an estimate for necessary work, and left.
Simon went up the stairs and into their bedroom, where Luisa was undressing. They hadn't yet unpacked the shades for the ceiling bulbs. The garish, harsh light fell on his wife and highlighted the old burn marks on her breasts and stomach before the nightdress covered them.
The train hammered on the track, jerking and rolling.
Andy Chalmers lay on his side on the bunk bed, on the clean white sheets and the blankets. He had not undressed. His dogs, alert, were curled against his body and gave him warmth. Behind him, distanced, were the birds and their eyries on the crag cliffs, and the bog heather uplands where the deer grazed, and the mount am
