The Lost American

Chapter Three

Farewell parties were usually the best. There was a purpose to them, a positive reason for going beyond the customary excuse of escaping from one set of four walls to another set of four walls. There was the official ceremony for Ingram, at the embassy on Morisa Toreza, but the bigger gathering was at the man’s own apartment, in the official diplomatic compound off Kutuzovsky Prospekt. It wasn’t limited to the British but included all Ingram’s friends from the other embassies as well, and this was the one Ingram assured Brinkman he would find the most useful. Ingram was a small, rotund man given to quick, fussy movements; he wore spectacles which Brinkman considered wrongly designed, with large round frames which made the man look like an owl, an owl in an unfamiliar hurry. Towards Brinkman the attitude was clearly that of mentor to pupil; Brinkman resented the patronising attitude but gave no indication of doing so.

Brinkman, who was taking over the Ingram apartment, arrived late from his temporary accommodation at the embassy, looking proprietorially around the smoke-filled, noisy rooms and hoping there wouldn’t be too much damage or too many stains to get repaired, afterwards. He knew – miserably – the smell of smoke would last for days. A temporary bar was set up along a wall directly adjacent to the kitchen, and Ingram stood beside it, urging people to take fresh drinks, eye-flickering around in happy contentment at being the object of so much attention. His wife bustled back and forth from the kitchen, ferrying food to a separate table near the window. Lucinda, remembered Brinkman, from their brief embassy encounter. Taller than her husband and not so obviously excited as he was by all the fuss; short, practical hairstyle and flat-heeled, practical shoes and a practical day dress instead of the cocktail creations all about her. Brinkman identified Lucinda Ingram as the sort of woman whom, at another time in another place, the natives would have instinctively addressed as ‘Mem-sahib’.

It was she who saw Brinkman first, standing just inside the door. She smiled and beckoned through the crush for him to come further in. As he started forward he saw her speak to her husband on the way to the kitchen on another food mission and at once Ingram looked in his direction.

‘Come in, come in,’ urged Ingram, thrusting through the crowd to meet him. The departing intelligence man cupped Brinkman’s arm with his hand and propelled him towards the drinks and Brinkman wished he hadn’t because he didn’t like that sort of physical contact. Brinkman chose scotch, frowning as the other man gushed an overly large measure into a tumbler and gave it to him without ice or water. Brinkman took it but didn’t drink.

‘Quite a crowd,’ he said.

‘More to come yet,’ said Ingram. ‘More to come. Lucky to have made a lot of friends.’

‘Certainly looks like it.’

Briefly the owl settled on a perch. ‘Important that some of them become your friends, too,’ said Ingram.

‘Who, for instance?’ said Brinkman, obediently.

‘Australians are useful, although not for the obvious reason. Get a lot of playback from Canberra on what’s happening in Peking…’ Ingram smiled, a man about to impart a secret. ‘No reason to consider yourself limited by the boundaries of the country you happen to be in, is there?’

‘None at all,’ agreed Brinkman. He decided that as irritating as Ingram might be, he wasn’t a fool.

‘Canada is important, too. By the same token. Ottowa was the first to recognise Mao, way back. So there’s a lot of playback through here: analysis requests on how something or other that appears to be emerging in Peking will be viewed in Moscow. It’s a worthwhile tennis game to watch.’

With China the subject Brinkman thought ping-pong would have been a more appropriate metaphor. He said, ‘Anyone else?’

‘French are pretty good but they’re an awkward bunch of bastards, all give and no take,’ judged Ingram. ‘Always a one-sided affair, dealing with them.’

Only if you let it be so, thought Brinkman. ‘Sounds typically French,’ he said.

‘And there’s the ace,’ said Ingram.

Brinkman followed Ingram’s look. The object of it was on the far side of the room, actually leaning against the wall, a tall, loose-limbed man. He wore an open-necked plaid shirt and jeans and appeared to be feeling the heat, from the flush of his face: the fair hair was already disordered, falling forward over his face.

‘Name’s Blair,’ said Ingram, from his side. ‘Eddie Blair. Been the CIA Resident here for a couple of years. Hell of a guy.’

Brinkman looked back curiously to Ingram at the open admiration. ‘In what way?’

‘Every way,’ said Ingram. ‘Straight as a die, first of all. He’ll help, if he can, but if it interferes with anything he’s doing or he can’t, because of orders from above, then he’ll say so, straight out. There isn’t a member of the Politburo he can’t quote chapter and verse about, going back as far as their grandfathers and his political judgment is superb.’

‘Like you said, a hell of a guy,’ said Brinkman.

‘It doesn’t end there,’ said Ingram, enjoying the lecture. ‘Technology is the name of the game: that’s what the Russians want, to catch up with us. But with America most of all. And technically Blair’s got a mind like a computer. He actually understands all of it. Do you know what the joke is?’

‘What?’ said Brinkman, politely.

‘That Washington doesn’t bother to send in the electronic people any more, to sweep the embassy and the apartment for bugs. Because Eddie Blair knows more about it and can do it better than any of them.’

Brinkman looked idly about him. There were a hundred places where listening devices could be concealed: there always were. The jabber of this crowd would nullify anything tonight.

‘Blair’s the man to watch’, said Ingram.

Brinkman wondered if the Russians were doing just that. ‘I’ll remember,’ he said.

‘Why not meet him now?’

‘Why not?’ agreed Brinkman. Before leaving the drinks table he put as much water as possible into his scotch and sipped it. Still not enough, he thought. Ingram had already opened the introduction by the time Brinkman got across the room and the American was smiling towards him, invitingly.

‘Hi,’ said Blair. ‘Welcome to fun city.’

The handshake was strong but not artificially so. ‘This usual?’ asked Brinkman, gesturing back into the room.

‘Better than usual,’ said Blair. As Ingram, his mission completed, eased back towards the bar, Blair added, ‘How you settling in?’

‘Not at all, at the moment,’ admitted Brinkman. ‘Living out of a suitcase at the embassy and going everywhere with a map in my hand.’

Blair smiled at the self-deprecation, as he was supposed to. ‘Takes time,’ he said. ‘Actually didn’t like the place in the first few months. Thought I’d made a mistake in accepting the posting.’

‘And now?’ said Brinkman.

‘Moscow’s a good place to be,’ said the American. ‘It’s always got the attention of a lot of important people.’

An ambitious cowboy: very rare, thought Brinkman. He said, ‘Hope I don’t fail them.’

Blair smiled again, at the practised modesty. ‘Takes time, like I said. It’s a difficult place to get the feel of and put a handle on.’ The American paused and then said, ‘Difficult for the wives, too. Not enough for them to do, really.’

‘Won’t be a problem for me,’ said Brinkman. ‘I’m not married.’

Appearing reminded, Blair looked around the room and said, ‘You must meet Ann.’

He waved and Brinkman turned to see a slim, dark-haired woman coming towards them, smiling uncertainly. She’d taken the trouble with her clothes which her husband hadn’t, the turquoise dress designed to show both the slimness of her waist and the fullness of her breasts. She wore no other jewellery but a single strand gold necklace and only a minimum of make-up. She was much younger than Blair, Brinkman realised at once. As the American made the introductions he put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and Brinkman wondered if the gesture were one of possession or comfort. He isolated the accent as soon as she spoke.

‘English?’ he said.

‘As roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,’ confirmed Blair.

‘Berkhamsted, actually,’ said Ann.

Brinkman saw she had small even teeth and the apparent habit of catching her lower lip between them, like a guilty child frightened of being caught out in some mistake.

‘Long way from home,’ said Brinkman.

He thought he detected a momentary pause from the woman. She said, ‘We all are.’ The smile this time was more open than before. ‘It’ll be good to have a new face among us,’ she said. Why was she being like the rest? Ann thought, angry at herself. The answer came at once. Why not? She was like everyone else.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ said Brinkman. But not to parties like these, where the biggest ambition seemed to be who could get to the bottom of a whisky glass quickest, he thought. His own glass was sail practically full.

‘You must come and eat with us one night,’ said Ann. ‘It’ll be good to be able to talk to someone so recently from home.’

‘I’d like that,’ accepted Brinkman. London thought Ingram good and Ingram eulogised Blair: until he found his own roads to follow the American was obviously the person to travel with.

The arrival of the British ambassador, making his duty visit, was the signal for the presentations, which broke up Brinkman’s contact with the Blairs. There were short speeches, carefully guarded of course, praising Ingram as a colleague and friend whose companionship would be sadly missed and Ingram’s blinking grew more rapid with the praise. Lucinda stood alongside, the expression on her face making it quite clear that she considered it all justified. The ambassador presented the decanter set, with matching glasses, and Ingram assured those who had contributed towards it that he would always treasure it as a reminder of happy times in Moscow, which he was going to miss both as a city and as a place where he’d made many wonderful friends, people whom he and his wife sincerely hoped would remain in contact. There was the predictable attempt at a joke which fell flat and the predictable ribald shout from someone in the crowd and Brinkman wondered why these sorts of things were always inevitably so embarrassing. The presentation broke up, like they normally did, in the uncertainty of people not knowing what to do. Brinkman smiled up at the ambassador’s approach.

‘Sorry I haven’t had time to welcome you properly yet,’ said Sir Oliver Brace.

‘People seem to have been doing almost nothing else,’ said Brinkman. At the embassy gathering there had been the briefest of introductions: the formal interview was arranged for the following week.

‘Son of Sir Richard Brinkman, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Brinkman, feeling the stomach sink of dismay.

‘Harrow together,’ said the ambassador. ‘Damned fine bat. Still play cricket?’

‘Not any longer,’ said Brinkman.

It would have been easy enough for his father to find out; all he had to do was look at the diplomatic list. He supposed there would have been some contact, from the manner of Brace’s approach.

‘Everyone treating you all right?’ demanded the man. ‘No problems?’

‘Everyone has been extremely kind,’ said Brinkman.

In a veiled reference to Brinkman’s true function, the ambassador said, ‘Tricky place to be, sometimes, Moscow.’

‘I was fully briefed before I left London, sir,’ assured Brinkman. Dear God, don’t let this red-faced man with his clipped-speech mannerism adopt the role of surrogate father, thought Brinkman.

‘Any problems, you let me know. You understand?’

‘Of course sir,’ promised Brinkman. There had to have been contact; the Head of Chancery was the diplomat with whom intelligence officers customarily dealt, specifically to remove the ambassador from any difficulty if things went wrong. And that was the person with whom he would continue contact, determined Brinkman. Damn his busy-body, interfering father!

His duty done, the ambassador moved away towards the door and Brinkman looked casually about him, unsure how easy it would be to make his own escape; although it was Ingram’s party, the departing intelligence officer had made it extremely clear Brinkman shared in it, too, for the advantages it might have. Near where Lucinda’s food had been – and which was now a messy, destroyed table – a space had been cleared for dancing and a few couples were making desultory attempts to follow the music. Brinkman was undecided whether the excuse was to support each other, from the effects of the booze, or grope each other, furtively. There were obvious invitations from two women who caught his eye and smiled, hopefully, but Brinkman chose to misunderstand, smiling back but remaining where he was. The cigarette smoke, thicker now, stung his eyes and the long-held drink was warm when he sipped it, not needing a drink but just wanting something to do. He looked around for Blair and his English wife, but they appeared to have left. Because politeness demanded it he asked Lucinda Ingram to dance and because politeness demanded it, she accepted, appearing reluctant to follow his lead and pushing him around instead, like a busy shopper manoeuvring a trolley through a crowded supermarket. There was the formalised conversation about how glad he was to be in Moscow and how much she was looking forward to returning to London, which she hadn’t seen for a long time because before Moscow their posting had been Beirut and before that Lima. Lucinda promised that the apartment would be properly and thoroughly cleaned after the party and asked if he wanted to retain their maid and Brinkman thanked her and said yes, he did. They were both relieved when the dance finished. He walked with her to Ingram, who stood stiff-legged beside the drinks table, pink and smiling. Brinkman decided it wouldn’t be long before the owl fell out of the tree.

‘Thanks for the party. And for everything else,’ said Brinkman.

‘Remember what I said,’ encouraged Ingram. Despite the obvious intake he was still very clear-voiced.

‘I will.’

‘Stay close to Blair and you won’t go far wrong,’ insisted the other man, as if he feared Brinkman hadn’t understood their earlier conversation.

‘I will,’ promised Brinkman, emptily. ‘I will’

‘What do you think?’ asked Ann.

‘About what?’ Blair came from the bathroom wiping the toothpaste residue from his lips.

‘Our new arrival, Jeremy Brinkman?’

‘Seemed OK.’

‘Betty Harrison decided he was gorgeous: absolutely gorgeous.’

‘Betty Harrison’s got hot pants.’

‘Think Brinkman will fill them for her?’

‘Seemed a cautious guy,’ judged Blair. ‘Never touched his drink all night and spent a lot of it looking around, making assessments.’

‘Professional sod!’ accused Ann, lightly. She added, ‘Poor Betty Harrison if you’re right.’

‘I could be wrong,’ admitted Blair.

‘You rarely are,’ said Ann proudly.

‘There’s always the first time,’ said the Texan, switching off the light.

Ann lay hopefully in the darkness but she felt him turn away from her. ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

‘Goodnight.’