wear to the opening: a white silk blouse and slimline midnight-blue cigarette pants with strappy high-heeled sandals. The look was simple, elegant, respectably attractive. She had put the clothes on, chosen a necklace and some bangles, and satisfied herself that the whole outfit worked. Now she looked at herself in the mirror once more, almost in disbelief that Carver had called and that somehow she had agreed to see him again. Why had she done that? Why couldn’t she just let go of the past and say no?
If she’d not had that argument with Azarov they’d have gone to the party together, and she would have had the perfect reason to turn Carver down. As it was, her so-called lover was still sulking in the Ritz, doubtless surrounded by hungry young women who’d be only too willing to take his mind off his troubles at home. So was that all she was doing now: getting her own back?
She found herself wanting to change her clothes completely. Alix told herself that she would not be dressing for Carver. She was not trying, still less hoping, to seduce him. She wanted it to be perfectly clear that she was a successful, independent woman who could do — in fact had done — very well without him. But she also wanted to look marvellous.
She went through several options before settling on a simple tobacco-coloured silk dress. The apparent modesty of its length was offset by a perfect cut that subtly showed off every inch of her body, caressing the curves of her breasts and hips. She tied the halter neck that held the dress in place, and let the loose ends of the bow fall, brushing against her naked back.
Now she examined herself in the mirror. Objectively, she knew she was in amazing shape: her scales and her dress size did not lie. But that did not make her any less critical of the flaws she could see in every part of her body. As she straightened her back to pull in her already flat stomach she wondered what Carver would see when he looked at her. Would she still be, to him, the beautiful young woman he’d once loved, or would the evidence of all those passing years, so obvious to her own eyes, destroy any illusions he might still have?
She imagined Carver standing next to her. Even in her heels she would still be an inch or two shorter than him. She lifted her chin as if looking up at him and was relieved to see how her jawline was tightened. For a second she stared herself in the eye, and as she did a memory came to her of her first day in Carver’s apartment. It had been a refuge for them, a haven after a night of violence and danger. He had looked at her with a frown of concentration on his face and said, ‘Your eyes. There’s something just a tiny bit uneven about them.’ The words had stung her like a whip. In an instant she had become that ugly duckling again, the butt of so many cruel taunts about her crazy cross-eyes. Even now she could feel the shock of having her deepest, most private insecurity so forensically stripped bare.
Carver had seen her pain at once, sensed her vulnerability, and apologized profusely. ‘You have amazing eyes. They’re beautiful, kind of hypnotic. I can’t stop looking at them, and now I know why.’ She had forgiven him. After all, his mistake had been the result of looking past the glossy surface of her and seeing the real woman within — and how often had she wished men would do that?
She’d been wearing Carver’s old grey T-shirt, sitting curled up like a cat in one of his huge armchairs, its leather scuffed and softened by age, basking in the warmth of the sun that streamed through the window. She had felt so comfortable there; so right, and yet so surprised that she had somehow allowed herself to lower all her professional defences.
And then she recalled the feel of him as they had made love, and the memory was so intense that she cursed herself for letting it into her mind. As she picked up her handbag and made her way towards the front door she told herself once again that she was not doing any of this for Samuel Carver. She was doing it for herself. Yes, that was it.
28
Whitehall
The Prime Ministerwanted a spectacular, and once the word got out to the highest reaches of the civil service that there was going to be an event that would provide massive publicity and a jolly day out, the biggest problem for the hard-pressed administrative officials at the Cabinet Office became the need to limit numbers. By early evening a plan was coming together. Support staff, press officers and media would be packed on to coaches at six in the morning, ready to set off on a magical mystery tour to a destination that, for security reasons, none of them would be given in advance. They would be followed by a flotilla of TV outside broadcast vans and trucks. But by far the fastest, most reliable way of getting VIPs from London to the chosen location would be by helicopter. That meant using 32 (Royal) Squadron, based at RAF Northolt in West London, which had two of its three Augusta Westland AW109E Power Elite choppers available, each of which could seat six passengers. There were, therefore, twelve VIP seats available… and at least ten times that number of people who were absolutely convinced they deserved them.
29
Cork Street, Mayfair, London W1
Alix looked around the gallery at the socialites and art-lovers crammed together to celebrate the art of a totalitarian system that would have shot them all in the blink of an eye. It was, she thought, becoming harder with every year to tell the Russians apart from the rest, as wealth and consumption became entitlements to be taken for granted, rather than novelties to be wallowed in as greedily and flagrantly as possible. She wondered how many of them, like her, were former members of the KGB. Plenty, in all probability: the Committee for State Security’s grip on the upper reaches of the new capitalist Russia was almost as tight as it had been in the old Soviet system. She made her way into the crush of bodies, through an invisible cloud of competing scents and aftershaves, searching for Samuel Carver.
And then she saw him, standing no more than ten metres away. He was looking at an image of a young woman in a red-spotted blouse standing in front of a silhouetted factory, brandishing a gun in her raised right fist. The slogan on the poster, in bold Cyrillic script, read, ‘Women workers, take up your rifles!’ Carver was regarding it with a wry smile on his face: she had a feeling he wouldn’t feel too threatened by anything that girl was likely to do. Alix ran her eyes down her former lover’s body, appraising him. He was still as lean and taut as ever, but the lines on his face were a little deeper, and there was the hint of grey at his temples. These signs of age merely served to make him look more attractive, and she cursed the unfairness of the differing ways time affected men and women. She took a couple of steps towards him, and he must have sensed her approach because he turned and greeted her with a broad, boyish smile that made her heart leap. Damn him!
‘Would you like me to translate?’ she asked, sounding cooler than she felt.
‘Sure, go ahead,’ he said, his eyes fixed on hers.
She pretended to look at the image with exaggerated concentration, using the time to pull herself together before she answered, ‘So… what it says is: what am I doing here?’
‘Appreciating your country’s great history…’
‘It’s not so great.’ Alix ran her eyes around the other posters on the walls, with their repetitive images of Lenin — one arm always extended towards his people: soldiers, workers and noble, sturdy communist women. ‘Everything in this room is a lie.’
Carver’s expression lost its amusement. ‘Everything?’
Alix shrugged. ‘I don’t know, you tell me. What am I doing here?’
‘Like I said, business…’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes,’ Carver said, adding to the number of lies. ‘I need to know about a woman who currently goes by the name of Magda Sternberg. We think she used to have another identity.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Me, Grantham… MI6.’
‘Ha! You’re working for Grantham now?’
