House of the Hanged, page 27
‘Maybe.’
‘How much was in that envelope?’
‘Enough to give him a fighting chance.’
‘Well, I don’t trust him.’
‘You don’t trust anybody, Leonard.’
‘And it’s served me well up till now.’
Tom found himself seizing Leonard by the lapels of his jacket and pinning him against the rough stone wall. ‘What do you know about people like him, people like me?’ he snarled. ‘We’re the ones who do your bidding. And even then you can’t bring yourselves to speak the words, to actually say it . . . nothing to trouble your consciences. You sit at your desks and you pull the strings and the puppets dance. What do you really know about people like us?’
He grabbed Leonard’s wrist and slapped another envelope into his palm.
‘This is for Prior Guillaume,’ he said. ‘You can tell him it’s from an old sentimentalist.’
To his credit, Leonard handled the situation impeccably, even when Prior Guillaume at first rejected the money.
‘Thank you, but we have everything we need.’
‘And a few things you don’t need,’ countered Leonard, glancing heavenwards.
A corner of the chapel roof had been rigged with tarpaulin to stop the rain coming in.
* * *
Tom had held back a single cigarette from the packet he’d left with Pyotr, and the moment Prior Guillaume closed the main gates behind them, he lit it. He then went and recovered Pyotr’s handgun from the car and secreted the weapon under the rock between the two cypresses, as promised.
Leonard came and joined him in the tight patch of shade thrown by the trees.
‘You have to disappear.’
‘I know.’
‘I’d already arranged for a couple of our chaps to come down from Paris and keep a discreet eye on you. They’ll be here tomorrow, but I’m not sure you should wait.’
‘You mean, leave right now?’
‘Stay out of sight until tomorrow. Then they’ll see you safely off.’
‘What, and miss the party?’
Leonard smiled weakly. ‘It’s just a party.’
But it wasn’t; it was an opportunity to rub shoulders one last time with a host of people he had come to care for. It was a chance to close off this chapter of his life.
Chapter Nineteen
They owed much of their victory to Yevgeny’s fancy new Citroën, which Walter had been allowed to borrow on the strict condition that he didn’t beat Yevgeny’s winning time of last year.
The car was low, fast and very agile, and if Walter had been less of a gentleman they could easily have smashed the record. Instead, they had tootled back from the pharmacy in Le Lavandou, the final stop on their circuit. It had been clear from the pharmacist’s expression that they weren’t the first people that day to turn up in search of three male contraceptives, which suggested that the other teams had opted to head west first.
Lucy and Walter had instead made straight for Cavalaire, where, with great initiative (and with an ashtray stolen from the bar in his pocket) Walter had asked the concierge at the Hôtel des Bains where they might be able to hire a whalebone corset for a fancy-dress party. Like concierges the world over, the man had discreetly palmed the proffered banknote, made a couple of telephone calls, and twenty minutes later they had been driving away from the house of a retired staymaker with a turn-of-the-century white silk overbust corset bouncing around on the rear seat of the Citroën. It was a propitious start, two out of the six items in under an hour, and they had never looked back.
Tom and Leonard, on the other hand, had hardly got going before the suspension on Tom’s car gave out again. They were the last ones home, limping back from Collobrières with a postcard of Place Victor Hugo and a horseshoe.
‘It was the most perfectly wretched afternoon,’ said Leonard. ‘Make mine a very large vermouth-citron, will you, Barnaby.’
Mother was on sparkling form after her time alone with Klaus, who, she was now convinced, was a genius of the first order. ‘And so very funny with it. Surely we can find someone to publish him in English.’
She spoke as if Klaus wasn’t there, and kept on and on about it until Tom finally confessed, ‘I’ve already sent a copy of The Gardener to Bob Howard at Jonathan Cape.’
‘Thank you,’ said Klaus, surprised, and clearly touched.
‘I didn’t want to say, in case nothing came of it.’
This was accompanied by a quick glance at Mother.
‘Jonathan Cape? I would have thought Chatto & Windus was a far better house for him. They did such a fine job with Proust.’
It was pure Mother.
When it came to the presentation of the trophy, Walter insisted that Lucy keep the cup.
‘I couldn’t have done it without my map-reader,’ he announced, somewhat self-importantly.
Lucy handed the cup straight back. ‘And I couldn’t have done it without my chauffeur.’
‘Bravo,’ called Ilse.
Walter looked suitably contrite. But it was Tom’s quiet smile that gave Lucy the greatest satisfaction.
With the party looming, they lingered on the terrace just long enough to drain the magnum of vintage Champagne which had also gone to the victors. Uncharacteristically, Mother opted to walk back to the house with her while Leonard drove the car round.
Lucy knew what this meant.
Sure enough, as the pathway dropped down through the trees towards the cove Mother asked, ‘Have you always been that abrasive with young men?’
‘You’re so predictable.’
‘How tiresome for you, but someone has to say it.’
‘Really? No one else seems to feel the need to.’
‘I’m your mother, and I’m telling you – behaviour like that isn’t going to do you any favours when it comes to finding a husband.’
‘My, how very Jane Austen. I had no idea you were so set on marrying me off.’
‘You facetious little beast!’
‘Well, you know what they say: the apple never falls far from the tree.’
Mother stopped dead, her eyes ablaze. ‘How dare you!’
‘No, Mother, how dare you! I refuse to be dragged into a fight with you.’
Lucy walked on, only to find her arm seized in a vice-like grip which spun her around.
‘Don’t you turn your back on me, young lady!’
Lucy wrenched her arm free. ‘I’m not going to let you ruin my evening! Not when it might be Tom’s last!’
Tom had asked her not to say anything, but she blurted it out instinctually, in self-defence, knowing that it would throw Mother off balance.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘He’s going away,’ said Lucy.
‘Since when?’
‘Since this morning. At least, that’s what he told me. He wouldn’t say where or why.’
Mother recovered quickly.
‘Oh . . .’ she said, with an insinuating smirk, ‘so that’s why Lucy’s so on edge.’
Chapter Twenty
Yevgeny and Fanya liked to bill their summer party as a low-key affair, but nothing was left to chance. The caterers were shipped in from Cannes, the band from St Tropez, and the harpist (along with her instrument) from Paris. Every year a small army of workmen stood by with a truckload of marquees, should the weather turn suddenly and a summer downpour threaten to spoil the al fresco festivities.
Most remarkably, the ratio of serving staff (always young and beautiful) to guests was as low as you could ever hope to find. This meant that your glass was never allowed to fall empty and there was never any need to queue for food. You simply had to sit yourself down at one of the many candlelit tables scattered through the trees around the terrace and within moments you would be pounced upon by some discreetly uniformed waiter or waitress who would reel off the available dishes, take your order and then disappear into the darkness. If eight of you happened to sit down together, your food would always arrive at the same time.
This year, the chefs toiling away behind the scenes had outdone themselves: consommé madrilène, pâté de canard de Périgord, langoustes, soles cardinales, poularde en cocotte, salads, cheeses, tarte au citron, and roasted quinces with verjus and vanilla. Served up without ceremony beneath a cloudless Mediterranean night sky, it was a flawless feast, and the perfect send-off for Tom. The irony that it happened to be provided by two people quite possibly bent on his destruction wasn’t lost on him.
Yevgeny and Fanya were rarely to be seen together at their party. They circulated independently of each other through the eclectic mix of guests, oiling the wheels. Yevgeny tended to gravitate towards the wealthier types, many of whom were clients, and Tom knew for a fact that he used the event as a showcase for his wares, shipping in works of art from the gallery in Paris and scattering them about the house as though they were part of his private collection. Last year, Tom had witnessed Yevgeny hook and reel in a Norwegian countess with an exquisite Bonnard painting of a nude in a bathtub which Tom had helped him hang on the drawing-room wall just the day before. No doubt the profits from that one transaction had covered the cost of the party many times over.
Tom found himself feeling a strange camaraderie towards his hosts as he watched them go about their business, even a sort of sadness on their behalf. He knew that all this would soon be lost to them, whereas they were still living in sweet ignorance. The moment they were exposed, unmasked as Soviet agents, their world would undergo the most shocking upheaval, and he wondered how they would cope without their freedom and the trappings of their highlife.
Leonard had made this point to him earlier, in response to some embittered comment by Tom about the Russian couple. They had been driving back from Collobrières, and had briefly stopped at the Col du Rayol to admire the view together one last time.
‘Don’t take it personally, Tom. They’re not so very different to you and me. They’re only doing their job. I mean, it’s not even as if we’re at war with the Soviets. It’s a game, and everyone’s playing it.’
‘How very magnanimous of you.’
‘All we know is that they were asked to provide a photo of you. It’s quite possible they never knew why.’
Tom had managed to carry this charitable thought with him into the evening, although on his arrival it hadn’t stopped him wondering if, among the many guests already gathered, there might be a couple of characters who had turned up that morning on the train from Paris with murder in their hearts. Armed with a dry Martini, he had immediately gone in search of Walter, eager to get the business over with early so that he could concentrate on enjoying himself and saying the farewells that only he knew were farewells.
They had strolled off together to a stone bench at the far end of the garden, and in the warm radiance of the sinking sun Tom had filled Walter in on the events of that afternoon, leaving out any mention of Pyotr and the visit to the monastery but putting a convincing case for Leonard’s innocence, or rather, the true nature of his involvement with Yevgeny. Walter’s reaction had been one of relief tinged with scepticism.
‘You believe him?’
‘I do.’
‘Christ, I really stuck my neck out on this one with the boys back home.’
‘Don’t feel too bad. We used to say that intelligence reports couldn’t be taken at more than twenty per cent of truth. But you two really need to talk.’
And they had done just that. A short while later Tom had spotted Leonard and Walter seated alone at a table, speaking in confidential tones.
When it came to the meal, Tom orchestrated things so that he was sandwiched between Beatriz and Margot. He rarely went more than a few days without seeing them, often dropping in at their farmhouse unannounced whenever he passed by Cap Nègre, but the quick fall of recent events had kept him from their company. As he sat there, enveloped in the warmth of their motherly attentions, he tried to imagine life without them: no more winter walks through the hills with Beatriz and Margot nobly encased in matching tweeds, no more impromptu dinners eaten off laps in front of their roaring fire, no more pots thrown on Beatriz’s wheel in the shed, no more duets with Margot at the old harmonium while Beatriz pumped the bellows . . .
A hand settled on Tom’s knee beneath the table. ‘What is it, Tomás?’ asked Beatriz, leaning close. ‘You look sad.’
‘I think you mean drunk,’ countered Margot from his right, in her distinctive Belgian accent.
‘No, he grins like an idiot when he’s drunk.’
‘You’re right, he does. So what can it be?’
‘Are you having problems with your little friend?’
Hélène was always referred to as his ‘petite amie’.
‘You must tell us if you are.’
‘We’d be more than happy to go and have a word with her.’
‘Maybe he is drunk – he’s grinning like an idiot now.’
It was the thought of Hélène answering her front door to find two leathery sexagenarian lesbians scowling on the threshold.
If there hadn’t been others within earshot, Tom might have said more – he wanted to, and maybe one day he would get that opportunity – but he contented himself for now with brushing aside their concerns and broadening out the conversation to include Benoît, Chantal and a lively old boy who talked in cannonades and turned out to be a conductor. There was little chance of involving Barnaby and Ilse; they were far too engrossed in each other to even register their dining companions.
Coffee and friandises rounded off the meal, and the moment the band piped up he took his glass of Château d’Yquem and strolled off for a solitary smoke, planting himself on the squat stone wall at the edge of the terrace. The moon was low in the night sky but he could just make out Villa Martel on the far side of the bay, crouched above the cove like a toad over a pond.
Could he ever bring himself to sell the place? It seemed inconceivable. But if forced to, how could he arrange it without leaving a trail for Zakharov to follow? Just how difficult was it to trace the movement of money, even to some distant corner of the globe? And if he asked Benoît to supervise the transaction, would he be endangering his friend’s life? Considerations such as these would be ruling his life for the foreseeable future, and he might as well accept that fact now. There was nothing to be gained from pretending otherwise.
Despite the dire turn his life had taken in the past few days, looking down on his property, his tiny slice of the French coast, he was still overwhelmed with a sense of his extraordinary good fortune.
He raised his glass to Great Aunt Constance, whose generosity had enabled him to patch up the tattered shroud of his life. His efforts might have suffered a serious setback, but thanks to her he was still in a position to give Zakharov a good run for his money.
‘Are you ignoring me?’
It was Venetia in her dazzling dress of white satin slashed with blue. The band was playing ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and he hadn’t heard her creep up on him.
‘Like the plague,’ Tom smiled up at her.
‘Where were you just now?’
‘Oh, you know, lost in the long ago.’
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Only if you bring some distant memory to the table.’ She sat herself down beside him on the wall. ‘Warwick Square, the summer of 1919. Do you remember?’
‘What do you think?’
She took her cigarettes from her clutch bag and lit one. ‘We were so young.’
‘You mean, we aren’t any longer?’ he joked.
‘Some of us carry on as if we still were. Others are more realistic.’
Tom felt his sinews stiffening for battle. He hoped he was wrong. If she came at him now, he was liable to give her both barrels.
‘Lucy tells me you’re leaving us.’
That surprised him. He had asked Lucy to keep it to herself.
‘Is it true?’ Venetia went on.
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
He had a story prepared to explain his sudden departure, one he had hatched with Leonard earlier. It wasn’t required.
‘Were you going to tell me?’ asked Venetia.
‘Of course.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’
‘Meaning . . .?’
‘Does it have to mean anything?’
‘It usually does.’
Venetia drew on her cigarette, exhaling slowly before speaking. ‘I don’t know, Tom . . . you’re more of a son to my husband than my own boys are, and more of a father to my daughter than my husband is. I suppose I’m wondering where I fit in.’
He knew what he should say, but he couldn’t bring himself to shower her with the words of comfort she sought.
‘Anywhere you want to fit, Venetia, which seems to be nowhere right now.’
She skewered him with a long look. ‘I wouldn’t take that from anyone else.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘No you’re not. And you shouldn’t be. It means you don’t get to me in the way that others do.’
‘I’m not trying to get to you,’ he sighed. ‘I’m concerned for you.’
‘My, how very pompous of you. Something about splinters and planks springs to mind.’
Venetia had settled on her course. There was only one direction they were headed in, and it wasn’t a place he wished to go.
‘I think we should end this conversation now.’
‘Why, afraid of a few home truths, are we?’
‘I’m going to join the party,’ he said as evenly as he could, rising to leave.
‘Just be sure to leave my daughter alone.’
‘Excuse me?’ he said sharply, turning back.
‘Don’t think I didn’t see you the other day down at the cove, holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes like long-lost lovers. It’s not dignified, and it’s certainly no way for a man your age to be carrying on with a young girl.’
He was tempted to point out that there was less of an age gap between Lucy and him than Leonard and her, but she would only have taken it as proof of his intentions towards Lucy.
