A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [103]
Emerging from the underground station into a humid September evening, I walk slowly, always clutching the briefcase tight in my right hand. Sweat has warmed on the handle, making it clammy to the touch. The contents feel almost radioactive, as if they will somehow burn through the leather casing: this thought in itself strikes me as absurd, and yet I cannot shake it off. I want to stop and open the briefcase to check that the documents are still inside. Dog-walkers and lone queers pass me as I walk through Hammersmith Cemetery, and each one appears to steal a glance at the case, as if aware of its contents. Their faces seem full of bored, suspicious loathing, and this only deepens my sense of isolation. I was warned that the first drop would be like this, but the chaos of it has completely bewildered me.
*
Approaching the door of Saul’s apartment building at seven fifteen, I turn around in the street to check for evidence of a tail. There is an old lady loitering near a fenced-off expanse of grass, but otherwise the road is completely deserted. I look closely at the cars parked up and down the length of Queen’s Club Gardens, but all of them appear to be unoccupied. Now there is not solely the probability of American and British surveillance, which I had anticipated, but the added problem of Cohen. It is as if I am expecting him to appear around the next corner at any given moment.
Saul buzzes me in without saying hello and I climb the four flights of stairs to his flat. This is a slow business: my mind has been scrambled by the afternoon’s events and my body feels tired and cumbersome. Yet the hopefulness and optimism contained in his smile as he opens the front door momentarily lifts me: I had forgotten just how much I rely on him for a sense of being liked. He plants his arm across my back and gives it a slap.
Katharine and Fortner have come up behind me on the stairs. They are so close by that Saul asks if we have come together. How could I not have seen them after staring so long down Queen’s Club Gardens? They must have been parked a long way from the building, watched from a distance as I entered, and then followed me up. As soon as I see them, my stomach tightens with nerves.
‘Hi, sweetie,’ Katharine says, kissing me on the cheek. She has put on weight, just in the space of a few days. Her face looks puffy up close, suddenly middle-aged. ‘You OK?’
‘Fine thanks,’ I say. ‘Fine.’
Both of them look unnervingly focused. Fortner’s complexion is almost grey against the faded white of his shirt, but there is a look of intense concentration in his fixed, still eyes. In his left hand he is holding a single bottle of wine wrapped in thin crepe paper, and in his right he has a tanned leather briefcase which I have not seen before. He will be using this to carry my documents away.
Katharine surges forward to plant a kiss on Saul’s cheek and she compliments him on his clothes. He is wearing a cream shirt and a trim pair of dark moleskins, with what looks to be a new pair of trainers. Saul has always had the money to buy decent clothes. He and Fortner shake hands as we shuffle around, dispensing our jackets and coats in the hall.
With Saul’s back turned I set my briefcase down next to an old umbrella stand and look to Fortner for approval. He nods quickly, letting me know that he has registered where it is. I look back at Saul to check that he has not seen this exchange taking place between us, but he is still speaking to Katharine, unaware. It occurs to me that I have not properly considered the implications of allowing a handover to take place here. The consequences, should Saul ever find out, would be enough to end our friendship, and yet I barely feel a jolt of betrayal. I have to concentrate so hard nowadays on every aspect of my relationship with Andromeda that there’s no time to consider anything as mundane as friendship.
‘Everything all right?’ Fortner says to me, not bothering to lower the pitch of his voice.
‘Absolutely.