Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

18

Sir Alistair Wilson entered the embassy through the main entrance off the Via Settembre, identified himself at the reception area and signed in. Walsingham appeared within minutes, hurrying across the marble vestibule. He was heavier jowled than he appeared in the personnel photographs, with the beginning of a paunch corseted by the waistcoat of a brown-checked suit.

‘Sir Alistair Wilson?’ said Walsingham tentatively.

Wilson extended his hand. Walsingham’s response was wet-palmed.

‘I’ve told the ambassador you were coming,’ he said eagerly.

‘Thank you,’ said Wilson. The security officer appeared more nervous than Wilson would have expected.

‘He said to let him know if you wanted to see him.’ Walsingham hesitated and added, ‘Actually he was surprised you hadn’t approached him.’

‘Is there an office we can go to?’ said Wilson.

The abruptness seemed to unsettle Walsingham even further. He hesitated and then said, ‘Certainly.’

Wilson walked in silence along the echoing corridor, conscious of the occasional look of curiosity from people they passed. It had clearly been a minor palace in the past and Wilson admired the gracious marble and panelling. Walsingham’s office was on the second floor, at the rear of the building, overlooking the Via Cernaia. Wilson noted the soldierly tidiness about everything.

‘I was in the middle of preparing the report when I heard you were coming,’ said Walsingham.

‘About what?’

‘The robbery, of course. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

The man was very much on edge. Wilson didn’t think Walsingham would have made a good interrogator: which was probably why he’d been passed over twice for promotion. ‘No,’ he said.

‘I thought Mr Jackson was supervising the Summit arrangements?’

‘He is.’

Walsingham smiled feebly. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘Did you know your wife was a member of the Communist party in Australia?’ said Wilson sharply.

Walsingham made an indeterminate sound, somewhere between a laugh and a grunt of disbelief. ‘Of course I knew.’

‘It’s not on the antecedent records. Or in the personnel file.’

‘It was when she was at school, for God’s sake! Imagined herself in love with some student and joined because he did, to be in the same place. The membership ended when the romance did. She thought they were a lot of bloody fools, rushing about with banners protesting about the Vietnam war.’

‘It wasn’t recorded.’

‘Because neither of us thought anything about it. I belonged to the Scouts but I didn’t record that.’

‘You were an officer cadet, too. You put that down.’

‘Because it was relevant to my going into the army and not directly joining the diplomatic service.’

‘Who decided to leave it out, you or she?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Try.’

Walsingham’s hand was at his face, as if the skin irritated. ‘I really can’t remember. It was not a conscious decision, something we discussed.’

‘But it was,’ said Wilson. ‘She told you about it in the first place.’

‘Not about belonging to some daft organization. It was one of those honesty things; admitting all the previous romances, so we would start married life without any secrets. It was the student she told me about: the party membership was incidental. Didn’t you do that sort of thing with your wife?’

‘No,’ said Wilson coldly.

‘Surely you haven’t come all the way from London to ask me about something as unimportant as that!’ said Walsingham. The nervousness had melted into outrage.

‘Perhaps it isn’t unimportant.’

‘Ask my wife.’

‘Why don’t we?’

Walsingham’s fifth-floor apartment was situated near the river, in an old building without a lift. The staircase spiralled around the walls, creating an open central tunnel down which it was possible to look from the top to the bottom. They climbed in hostile silence. Walsingham had asked to telephone, but Wilson forbade it, not wanting to permit the woman any preparation.

‘Here we are.’ There was the sound of a radio playing inside the apartment.

Taking immediate control, Wilson pushed Walsingham aside and knocked. Jill Walsingham was a plump, sagging woman. Flesh bulged beneath her jeans and she wasn’t wearing a bra: the T-shirt strained with the effort. She had a roller crimped on either side of her head, so that she appeared to be wearing some odd sort of hat, and her face was clear of make-up. There was a brief frown of surprise. Then she smiled and said, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Walsingham.

She stood back to let them enter. It was a large apartment, with a view of the Tiber from an outside balcony. The drapes were velvet and reached the floor, which was thickly carpeted. The furniture was heavy but the room was big enough to allow it; Wilson noted that the couch and chairs were antique. The oil paintings either side of the fireplace were School of Tintoretto and the mantlepiece clock was eighteenth century. French, guessed Wilson. He thought the apartment was remarkably tasteful for a woman who looked like Jill Walsingham did at eleven thirty in the morning, and then guessed it was furnished. She crossed to a sideboard and turned off the radio. It was intrusive in the surroundings, an elaborate machine of dials and level meters and extension speakers.

They stood uncertainly in the centre of the room. Wilson said, ‘I’d like to see you alone please, Mrs Walsingham.’

The woman looked to her husband. ‘What’s this about?’

‘He’s the director.’

‘Alone please,’ repeated Wilson.

‘Why?’ she said defiantly. The Australian accent was pronounced.

‘I have some questions I’d like to ask you.’

‘What about?’

Wilson looked pointedly at Walsingham, waiting for him to leave the room.

‘Could we refuse?’ she said.

‘Of course.’

‘What would happen if we did?’

‘I’d suspend your husband from the embassy immediately and have you both taken back to London to answer the questions there.’

‘What questions?’

Walsingham broke the impasse. ‘I’m going to get myself a drink in the kitchen,’ he said.

His wife’s attitude softened almost immediately the door closed after him. ‘What’s he done?’ she said.

‘Has he done anything?’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ she protested. ‘When are you going to talk in a straight line?’

‘From May 1969 until August of the same year you were a member of the Australian Communist party,’ said Wilson.

She looked at him blank-faced.

‘You were a member of the Communist party.’

‘So what?’

‘So your husband is a member of an intelligence department and there’s no reference to your involvement on any records.’

‘Because it wasn’t a bloody involvement.’ Her voice was a mixture of exasperation and incredulity.

‘What was it then?’

‘I was living with this fellow who thought the world was going the wrong way and wanted to get it right; he even had a beard, like Jesus. I was writing out posters saying Nixon and Kissinger were warmongers and he was screwing the girl who printed the newsletter… In the cupboard where they kept the paper.’

‘So you stopped?’

‘Of course I stopped,’ she said. ‘Like I stopped believing that you catch a dose by sitting on dirty toilet seats.’

Wilson recognized the attempt to embarrass him was her way of fighting back. ‘So there was no reason why it shouldn’t have been listed on your husband’s records?’

‘No.’

‘Why wasn’t it?’

‘How the hell do I know?’

‘One of you does.’

She threw her arms out and her breasts wobbled, jelly-like. ‘Ask him.’

‘I did. He said he couldn’t remember whether it was you or he who decided not to mention it.’

‘We didn’t talk about it.’

‘I got the impression you did.’

‘I don’t remember it.’

‘But you gave a reason for its not being mentioned,’ said Wilson.

‘You’re twisting what I said.’

‘No, I’m not.’

Jill Walsingham walked over to one of the antique chairs bordering the fireplace. Her attitude altered when she spoke again, the anger evaporating. ‘Look,’ she said, inviting belief. ‘I suppose it must look bad, but it isn’t. I don’t know why Henry didn’t put it down but there’s nothing sinister in it. Honestly.’

‘Who was the man?’

‘What man?’

‘The one you joined the Communist party to be with.’

‘Ericson,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Stefan Ericson: his family were Swedish.’

‘Do you maintain contact with him?’

‘Of course not. I told you it was a schoolgirl thing that ended years ago.’

‘And the party let you go, just like that?’ Wilson snapped his fingers.

‘I was only a probationary member anyway. People other than Stefan came around a few times but I told them to push off. In the end they stopped bothering.’

Wilson started towards the door but she stopped him. ‘Sir Alistair.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry. For swearing and all that. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

Wilson paused at the kitchen door, jerking it aside abruptly. Walsingham sat at a table by the sink, too far away to have overheard the conversation. There was a glass and a whisky bottle on the table beside him and the director thought it was early to be drinking.

‘You can come back now,’ he said.

‘This is my home!’ said Walsingham indignantly.

‘And your job.’ Without waiting for a response, Wilson returned to the room in which he had left Jill Walsingham. She had not moved from the chair.

When Walsingham entered, Wilson said, ‘Your wife doesn’t remember any discussion about omitting to mention the Communist affiliation. She thinks it must have been your decision.’

‘It would have been something against me during annual review, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d hated being in the army and I’d hated working for my father in the City. But I loved security; I didn’t want to lose that as well.’

‘So you lied?’

‘I didn’t lie: I just didn’t include it on the yearly paper.’

‘A lie,’ insisted Wilson. ‘There’s a specific question, about association with anything you consider might be subversive.’

‘I didn’t think of it as a lie.’

‘Have you, at any time subsequent to 1969, been involved with anything you know or suspect might have been subversive?’ Wilson was icily formal.

‘No.’

‘What about you, Mrs Walsingham?’

She responded slowly, as if she had been thinking of something else. ‘Definitely not,’ she said at last.

‘This isn’t serious, is it?’ said Walsingham. ‘I mean it won’t affect the job or anything like that?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ said the director.

For several moments after Wilson left neither of them spoke. Then Walsingham drove his fist into the palm of his other hand and said, ‘Damn!’

‘We knew it might happen.’

‘Not after so long.’

‘He’ll get you, if he can.’

‘Don’t you think I hadn’t realized that already!’

‘There’s no need to fight with me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘We’ve got to start being careful,’ she said. ‘Make sure nothing happens they can trick us with.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘ Very careful,’ she said.