(4)
Charlie had seen advertised in the
She smelt fresh and expensive and when he kissed her, just inside the doorway of the Cadogan Square flat, he could feel she was still warm from her bath. It was nice of her to go to all the trouble, thought Charlie.
‘I’ve bought some wine,’ he announced.
She accepted the bag from him and extracted the bottle.
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Spanish burgundy.’
‘They didn’t have Aloxe Corton,’ he said. They had, but it had been priced at ?4.
‘What?’ she said, moving further into the flat.
It wasn’t important, decided Charlie. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
Janet was using him, he decided, as he entered the antique-adorned living-room behind her, watching her body beneath the silk. She had a lovely ass.
Had she been born in a council house instead of on a country estate and attended a state school instead of Roedean, Janet would have been a slag, Charlie decided. She had an amorality sometimes found in the rich that made her sexually promiscuous, experimental and constantly avaricious. Rich enough – first from an aunt’s, then a cousin’s inheritance – to do nothing, Janet worked for ?4,000 a year as Cuthbertson’s private secretary and never had any money. To get it, she had even whored, in a dilettante, friends-only way – ‘making a hobby pay for itself’ – and enjoyed boasting about it, imagining Charlie would be impressed or excited by it. Charlie felt she was exactly his sort of woman. And in addition, very useful. And she really was very good at her hobby between those silk sheets that always slipped off the bed, so that his bum got cold.
Quite unoffended, Charlie knew he was another experiment, like working for Sir Henry Cuthbertson, who was her godfather, and drinking warm bitter, which she had done for the first time on their initial date in the dive bar of the Red Lion, near Old Scotland Yard, and declared it, politely, to be lovely. Charlie was ‘other people’, a person to be studied like she had examined dissected frogs at her Zurich finishing school after leaving Sussex.
‘Like the duchess screwing the dustman,’ he reflected, aloud, stretching his feet towards the electric fire. They were still damp, he saw, watching the steam rise.
She reappeared from the kitchen, corkscrew in hand. She was a tall girl, hair looped long to her shoulders, bordering a face that needed only a little accent around the deep brown, languorous eyes and an outline for the lips that were inclined to pout.
‘What about a duchess?’ she queried.
‘You look like one,’ said Charlie, easily.
Who was using whom? he wondered, smiling up at her. Poor Janet.
He pulled the wine, filling the glasses she offered.
‘Love or what you will,’ he toasted.
She drank, swallowing heavily.
‘Very nice,’ she said bravely.
They had bred good manners in Switzerland, thought Charlie. He smiled, imagining Berenkov’s reaction to the wine. It was bloody awful.
‘For a man who has been demoted, you’re remarkably unconcerned,’ said Janet, sitting opposite. She wasn’t wearing a bra, he realised.
‘I told you, they’ve made a balls,’ he said. Rough talk would fit the image she wanted, he decided. He refilled his glass, ignoring her: it was unfair to expect her to drink it.
‘How?’
‘Completely misread the interview,’ he reported. ‘They have determined to get rid of me, certainly. But it won’t work this time.’
‘Cuthbertson won’t apologise,’ predicted Janet.
The fact that she was his god-daughter was incredibly useful, reflected Charlie: no one in the department knew the man like she did.
‘He’ll have to.’
She shook her head.
‘I know Sir Henry. He’s a bastard.’
‘So am I,’ responded Charlie. ‘Funny thing is, nobody has realised it. It’ll be the ruin of them.’
She smiled at the boast. It was a normal reaction, she supposed. His pride must be badly bruised: he’d once been the most important operative in the department.
‘I’ve cooked a meal, so we can eat here,’ she announced, wanting to move him away from the afternoon.
And not run the risk of being seen by any of your friends, thought Charlie. She would be very embarrassed by him, he knew. He was very happy with the proposal: there was no outing they would mutually enjoy and whatever they tried would have cost money and he didn’t have any. And she would never think of paying.
‘What happened after I left?’ asked Charlie, spreading the salmon mousse on the toast.
The girl sighed. The preoccupation was to be expected, she thought, but it made him boring.
‘They went potty,’ said Janet. ‘Wilberforce was sent to retrieve the report to the Minister, but it had already gone. So Sir Henry dictated a contradicting amendment, then scrapped it because it seemed ridiculous. When I left, he was making arrangements to dine the Minister at Lockets to explain everything.’
‘And who got the blame?’ queried Charlie.
‘Wilberforce,’ answered Janet. ‘Poor man. Uncle treats him almost like a court jester.’
‘Masochist,’ identified Charlie. ‘Gets a sexual thrill out of being tongue-lashed.’
She believed him, realised Charlie, seeing the interested look on her face. To correct the misunderstanding seemed too much bother.
He cut into the
‘This is good,’ he complimented.
‘Margaux,’ explained Janet, patiently. ‘Daddy takes the production of the vineyard. This is ’62.’
Charlie nodded, as if he’d recognised the vintage.
‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’
‘They thought it important at school.’
‘What have Snare and Harrison been told to do?’ he probed, insistently. She obviously hadn’t understood the wording of the Official Secrets Act she had promised to obey seven months earlier.
‘Interrogate Berenkov again.’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Charlie, putting aside his knife and fork. ‘That’s a tape I’d love to hear.’
She pushed away her plate, fingering the stem of her wine glass.
‘I’m very fond of you, Charlie,’ she announced, suddenly.
At least she didn’t make any pretence of love, he thought. He hoped she wasn’t moving to end the affair; he wasn’t ready for it to end yet. He gazed across the table, admiring her. Certainly not yet.
He waited, apprehensively.
‘What are you going to do? They’re determined to get you out,’ she said.
Charlie stopped eating, appetite gone.
‘I know,’ he said, completely serious. ‘And it frightens me to death. They won’t let me go, because they want me under observation. Or stay, because they detest me. So I’m faced with working for the next fifteen years as a poxy clerk.’
‘You couldn’t stand that, Charlie.’
‘I’ve got no bloody choice, have I? I’ve devoted my life to the service. I love it. There’s not another sodding thing I could do, even if they’d let me.’
He
It had been wonderful before Cuthbertson and the army mafia had arrived, when his ability had been properly recognised.
