Our Kind of Traitor

head office was in Moscow. It had representatives in Toronto, Rome, Berne, Karachi, Frankfurt, Budapest, Prague, Tel Aviv and Nicosia. None, however, in Antigua. And no brass-plate bank. Or none mentioned.

‘Arena Multi Global prides itself on confidentiality and entreprenurial [with an ‘e’ missing] flare [misspelled] at all levels. It offers top-class oportunities [with one ‘p’] and private banking facilities’ [spelled correctly]. Note: this web page is currently under reconstruction. Further information available on application to Moscow office.’

Ted was an American bachelor who sold futures for Morgan Stanley. From her desk in Chambers she rang Ted:

‘Gail, sweetheart.’

‘An outfit calling itself the Arena Multi Global Trading Conglomerate. Can you dig up the dirt on them for me?’

Dirt? Ted could dig dirt like nobody else. Ten minutes later he was back.

‘Those Russki friends of yours.’

‘Russki?’

‘They’re like me. Hot as hell and rich as figgy pudding.’

‘How rich is rich?’

‘Anybody’s guess, but looks mega. Fifty-something subsidiaries, all with great trading records. You into money-laundering, Gail?’

‘How did you know?’

‘These Russki mothers pass the money around between them so fast nobody knows who owns it for how long. That’s all I got for you but I paid blood. Will you love me for ever?’

‘I’ll think about it, Ted.’

Her next step was Ernie, the Chambers’ resourceful, sixty-something clerk. She waited till lunchtime when the coast was clearest.

‘Ernie. A favour. Rumour has it that there’s a disgraceful chat site you visit when you want to check out the companies of our highly reputable clients. I’m deeply shocked and I need you to consult it for me.’

Thirty minutes on, and Ernie had presented her with an edited printout of disgraceful exchanges on the subject of the Arena Multi Global Trading Conglomerate.Any asshole got an idea who runs this junk shop? The guys change MDs like socks. P. BROSNANRead, mark, learn and inwardly digest the wise words of Maynard Keynes: Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. Asshole yourself. R. CROWWhat the f***’s happened to MG’s website. It’s curdled. B. PITTMG’s website is down but not out. B-s rises to the surface. Assholes all beware. M. MUNROEBut I’m really really curious. These guys come on at me like they have the hots, then they leave me panting and unfulfilled. P.B.Hey guys, listen to this! I just heard MGTC opened an office in Toronto. R.C.Office? You’re shitting me! It’s a f***ing Russian nightclub, man. Pole dancers, Stolly and bortsch. M.M.Hey, asshole, me again. Is the office they opened in Toronto the same one they closed in Equatorial Guinea? If so, run for cover man. Run now. R.C.Arena Multi f***ing Global has absolutely zero hits on Google. I repeat zero. The whole outfit is so uber-amateurish I get palpitations. P.B.Do you by any chance believe in the afterlife? If not, start believing now. You are treading on the Biggest Bananaskinski in the laundering arena. Official. M.M.They were just so enthusiastic about me. Now this. P.B.Stay away. Stay far, far away. R.C.

* * *

She is in Antigua, wafted there by another tumbler of Rioja from the kitchen.

She’s listening to the pianist in the mauve bow tie crooning Simon and Garfunkel to an elderly American couple in ducks pirouetting all alone on the dance deck.

She’s fending off the glances of beautiful waiters who have nothing to do but undress her with their eyes. She is overhearing the seventy-year-old Texan widow-woman of a thousand facelifts telling Ambrose to bring her red wine as long as it isn’t French.

She’s standing on the tennis court, demurely shaking hands for the first time with a bald fighting bull who calls himself Dima. She’s remembering his reproachful brown eyes and rock jaw and the rigid, Erich von Stroheim backward lean of his upper body.

She’s in the Bloomsbury basement, one moment Perry’s life companion, the next his surplus baggage, not wanted on voyage. She’s sitting with three people who, thanks to our document and whatever else Perry has managed to bubble to them in the meantime, know a whole lot she doesn’t.

She’s sitting alone in the drawing room of her desirable residence in Primrose Hill at half past midnight with Samson v. Samson on her lap and an empty wineglass beside her.

Springing to her feet – whoops – she climbs the spiral staircase to her bedroom, makes the bed, follows the trail of Perry’s dirty clothes across the floor to the bathroom and stuffs them into the laundry basket. Five days since he made love to me. Will we establish a record?

She returns downstairs, one step at a time, one hand for the boat. She’s back at the window, staring into the street, praying for her man to come home in a black cab with the last two numbers 73. She’s riding buttock to buttock under the midnight stars with Perry in the bumpy people carrier with blackened windows as Baby Face, the short-haired blond bodyguard with the linked gold bracelet, drives them to their hotel at the end of the birthday revels at Three Chimneys.

‘You had good night, Gail?’

This is your driver speaking. Until now, Baby Face hasn’t let on that he speaks English. When Perry challenged him outside the tennis court, he didn’t speak a word of it. So why’s he letting on now? she wonders, alert as never in her life.

‘Fabulous night, thank you,’ she declares in her father’s voice, filling in for Perry, who appears to have gone deaf. ‘Simply wonderful. I’m so happy for those magnificent boys.’

‘My name is Niki, OK?’

‘OK. Great. Hello, Niki,’ says Gail. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Perm, Russia. Nice place. Perry, please? You had good night too?’

Gail is about to jab Perry with her elbow when he comes to life by himself. ‘Great, thanks, Niki. Fantastic food. Really nice people. Super. Best evening of our holiday so far.’

Not bad for a beginner, thinks Gail.

‘What time you arrive Three Chimneys?’ Niki asks.

‘We nearly didn’t arrive at all, Niki,’ Gail exclaims, giggling to cover for Perry’s hesitation. ‘Did we, Perry? We took the Nature Path and had to hack our way through the undergrowth! Where did you learn your wonderful English, Niki?’

‘Boston, Massachusetts. You got knife?’

‘Knife?’

‘To cut undergrowth, you got to have big knife.’

Those dead eyes in the mirror, what have they seen? What are they seeing now?

‘I wish we had, Niki,’ Gail cries, still in her father’s skin. ‘I’m afraid we English don’t carry knives.’ What gibberish am I talking? Never mind. Talk it. ‘Well, some of us do, to be truthful, but not people like us. We’re the wrong social class. You’ve heard about our class system? Well, in England you only carry a knife if you’re lower-middle or below!’ And more hoots of laughter to see them round the roundabout and into the drive to the front entrance.

Dazed, they pick their way like strangers between the lighted hibiscus to their cabin. Perry closes the door behind them, locks it, but doesn’t switch the light on. They stand facing each other across the bed in the darkness. For an age, there’s no soundtrack. Which should not imply that Perry hasn’t made up his mind what he’s about to say:

‘I need paper to write on. So do you.’ His I’m-in-charge-here voice, normally reserved, she assumes, for errant undergraduates who have failed to turn in their weekly essay.

He draws the blinds. He switches on the inadequate reading light on my side of the bed, leaving the rest of the room in darkness.

He yanks open the drawer of my bedside locker and fishes out a yellow legal pad: