Pantheon

Chapter Twenty

London

Taylor was practised in this now. He could wake, remove himself from the bed and tiptoe to the bathroom without disturbing Anna. She slept deeply, especially when she had been so… active during the night.

Last night she had begged him to spend the morning with her: they could have breakfast together and then go out shopping. She wanted to buy him something, she had said. When he had asked what, she had dissolved into a girlish giggle — a trick he guessed she had developed back when she was a debutante, coming out at just eighteen years old. It probably worked wonders then, which was why she had kept it up. But the gesture seemed strange in a woman approaching — how old was she? He had never been rude enough to ask and had never tried to find out. Thirty-six? Thirty-eight? Over forty? Jeez, even his mother was barely forty-five.

Anna had been agitating to go shopping with him for a while. She had mentioned Piccadilly or St James’s. She probably had in mind one of those country sports shops, where they sold oilskin jackets, fly-fishing rods and sturdy umbrellas. She had some crazy idea about getting him invited as a fellow guest to a weekend house party of friends of theirs, Lord and Lady Somebody. She would have a quiet word with the hostess, discreetly requesting that the room she would nominally share with her MP husband be close to Taylor’s. ‘Darling, don’t you think it would be so much fun? I could come creeping along the corridor just after lights out and then slip into your room and jump into bed. I haven’t done that since boarding school!’

‘I thought your boarding school was all-girls,’ Taylor had said.

‘It was,’ she had replied, biting her lip naughtily, then breaking out into more of those giggles.

Or perhaps she would take him to Savile Row or Jermyn Street, to buy an expensive shirt or even a suit. She had already given him a pair of silver cufflinks, far too expensive to wear, especially at work. They were bound to raise suspicion.

He was not sure what to think of this urge of hers. He recognized it of course. Plenty of wealthy men liked to cover their mistresses in dollar bills, dressing them up in expensive couture they would never buy for their wives. It seemed a woman with a young lover could be just as stupid.

He kept a couple of pressed white shirts in readiness for such overnight stays on the shelf in the linen cupboard. He had asked Anna if it wasn’t taking a terrible risk: surely, if Murray spotted them there, he would connect the dots. She had dismissed his concerns so blithely he wondered again if the Conservative MP knew all about the affair already, whether indeed he sanctioned it. He put one of the shirts on, finished dressing and scribbled a note, which he left on the nightstand. Another time, my love. T.

Since it was not yet seven-thirty, he decided to walk to work. It wouldn’t take too long and it was a beautiful morning. He walked by the river, along the Chelsea Embankment, before heading north and into Hyde Park. That was the joy of London, these gorgeous oases of countryside dotted all through the city. He caught a glimpse of the Serpentine, vowed once more to swim there before the summer was through, then carried on until finally he emerged at Park Lane. Everyone said Park Lane and Mayfair were the swankiest parts of town, but these days they were looking distinctly rough at the edges. You only had to look up at the windows of some of the grand hotels and see the black paint to know you were in a country at war.

At last he reached Grosvenor Square. He could see the flag of his country fluttering through the trees. He checked his watch. He was early, though wartime meant everyone was working odd hours: some staying late in order to be in touch with Washington, others getting in before eight, so that they could be in step with Whitehall. He looked up at the marine on duty at the door, giving him the sharp nod he deemed the civilian equivalent of a salute. And so began another day’s work for Taylor Hastings at the London Embassy of the United States of America.