Illegal Action

23

“Of course Jerry will take you home,” announced Brunovsky, as the party collected their coats at the end of the evening. “Where do you live?”

Liz had foreseen this problem and had insisted Brian Ackers authorise full operational backup, including a cover flat.

“Battersea,” she said airily.

“Good. He can take us to Eaton Square and then drop you off.”

The cover flat, in a mansion block just across Battersea Bridge, was something of an optical illusion. Though its exterior was comparatively smart, inside it was a typical MI5 safe house. Fondly known by the operational officers as “civilisation’s dead ends,” these houses were meant primarily for meetings with recruited sources, possibly for an operational officer to stay the odd night, when, like Liz tonight, they needed a cover address, but certainly not for entertaining visitors. The furnishings were sparse and usually ill-matched and had invariably seen better days in more elevated official surroundings.

Liz threw her coat on a chair, turned on the electric fire and sat down on a sagging sofa covered in faded chintz. At least this place has a view, she thought. The sitting-room window faced the Thames and through it, she could see the traffic on the Embankment on the other side. The glow of the street lights made the low line of eighteenth-century buildings on Cheyne Walk look like dolls’ houses.

She reflected on the events of the evening. Sceptical ever since Brian Ackers had given her this assignment, she was becoming increasingly convinced she was on a wild goose chase. It seemed like a training exercise to Liz rather than anything real, made more artificial by the surreal quality of the world she had now entered.

She was not unfamiliar with the rich—her father had worked for the owner of a country estate after all, and in Wiltshire where she’d grown up there were plenty of City moguls-turned-landowners. But she had never come across such conspicuous consumption. It wasn’t that Brunovsky boasted about it. It was just that he took for granted a style of life—chauffeured limousines, private jets, expensive restaurants, a Belgravia mansion and a country estate—which most people only encountered between the covers of a glossy magazine.

It wasn’t as if he’d been brought up to it. His wealth had been acquired suddenly and unexpectedly, by sharp practice in the economic confusion following the end of the Cold War. Another strange thing about Brunovsky, reflected Liz, was the sense of security he exuded. Was it real or was it just a cover? Because in fact he was far from secure, if Victor Adler’s information was correct. None of the oligarchs were.

Liz got up and, after a search in the kitchen cupboards, unearthed a packet of cocoa that was just in date, so she heated some milk on the old electric stove, then sat down again with her mug. It could be interesting, she supposed, to spend time with a man who literally could buy anything he desired, but she couldn’t say her heart was in it.

I could use some company, she thought, suddenly feeling very alone. Used to living by herself, she rarely felt lonely; loneliness was something she’d feared for her mother, not herself. But her mother didn’t seem to be lonely or indeed alone any more. That weekend when she’d visited London, she had astonished Liz by not coming back to the flat after the theatre on the Saturday. There had been a late-night phone call from some post-theatre restaurant, and a slightly giggled explanation to the effect that Liz should not stay up since “Edward” would be putting her up for the night. Liz had resisted the temptation to ask if Edward had a spare room. Who on earth was Edward anyway?

Oh well, she thought now, sipping her cocoa, it’s her business. Of course her mother should have a boyfriend if she wanted to. It was just—well, just that the idea took some getting used to. Her world had suddenly been turned upside down. Accustomed to looking after her mother, Liz found her sudden independence unsettling. She felt like a parent whose teenage child finally flies the nest.

She shook her head to get rid of the disturbing comparison and stood up, pausing for a moment to look out of the window at the north bank of the river. That is my turf, she thought, feeling rootless on this side of the Thames. Funny how London divided itself this way. She wondered if this was always true of cities with rivers running through their centre. Parisians thought of themselves as Right and Left Bank people; did the inhabitants of other major cities think that way too? What about Moscow, or St. Petersburg, she wondered, thinking briefly of Dimitri. Probably, though she doubted she’d ever get to know any other city well enough to find out. Foreign postings were not a common part of MI5 life, and she couldn’t see any other reason why she might live abroad.

Unless she met somebody, she supposed. Again she thought of Dimitri, wondering if he’d ring as he’d promised when they’d said goodbye in Cambridge. She hoped so, though she couldn’t see how any relationship with him had a future. He was going back to St. Petersburg at the end of this term, and she couldn’t envisage herself following him there. In any case he thought she was Jane Falconer, an art student. She smiled at the thought of being swept off her feet, impetuously resigning her job, explaining everything to Dimitri and going to live in Russia. What would her colleagues make of that? She tried to imagine herself wearing a beaver hat and muff during the icy winters, studying the language, learning to cook blinis and borscht, but she could not sustain the picture. It was not going to happen.

Her thoughts moved on, and she found herself wishing Charles were back. She wouldn’t have been seeing him very often as he wasn’t her boss any more—lunch in the canteen once in a while, maybe a chat in the lift when they coincided in the morning, the odd glimpse down a corridor. But it would be enough just to know he was there. Even if she wasn’t working for him, his presence in the office would somehow give her solid ground. As things were, she felt very much on her own in this curious operation.

She had no confidence in Brian Ackers and from past experience she wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Geoffrey Fane had involved her in some Byzantine scheme of his own. She wondered what Charles would think of it all. Not much, she guessed, and she imagined his expressionless gaze resting on her as she told him what she was doing. “Exactly what are we hoping to get out of this, Liz?” he would have said. “What’s the risk and what’s the likely gain?” I wish I could answer either question, she thought.

Bedtime, she said to herself, before I get even more maudlin. She detested self-pity, it was the one character trait she could be harsh about in other people. So she was ashamed to have indulged in it now. I chose this, she told herself. There’s no one to blame but me.

She turned off the sitting-room lights and put her mug by the tiny kitchen’s sink. Moving through to the small room in the back, with its single rather rickety bed, she flicked the light switch by the door. In the middle of the room, the ceiling bulb flared then popped. I’ll change it tomorrow, she thought wearily, and got undressed in the dark.