A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [112]
Smirks from Piers and Ben.
‘I’ll take that into consideration,’ he said, and walked back to his desk.
I ring the street bell of Katharine and Fortner’s building and the door buzzes almost instantaneously. They have been waiting for me.
When I get to their apartment, Fortner opens the door slowly and offers to take my coat. I pass him a bottle of wine which I bought in Shepherd’s Bush and extract the manila envelope from my inside pocket. He takes it quickly, with a magician’s sleight of hand. Simultaneously he is talking, asking about the weather, hanging up my coat, pointing out a scratch on the door.
‘Never noticed that before,’ he says, rubbing his thumb against it. ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Glass of wine?’
‘You got it.’
Katharine is in the kitchen, washing up after dinner. She has had her hair done and it makes her look older. The clock on the wall says ten to nine.
‘Hi, Alec. How you doin’, sweetie?’
‘Fine. Tired.’
‘Everybody is,’ she says. ‘I think it’s the change in temperature. Isn’t it cold suddenly?’
She comes over to kiss me, a warm dry lingering on my right cheek. Next door, Fortner starts up some classical music on the CD player, piping it through to the kitchen with a switch on the hi-fi. The orchestration is loud, talk-smothering.
‘Oh that’s nice, honey,’ Katharine says as Fortner comes into the kitchen.
‘Chopin,’ he says, with no attempt at an accent. ‘Let me get you that glass of wine.’
We have a signal, one of only four, that I use to enquire whether it is safe to talk. I simply put a straightened index finger to my lips, look at either one of them and wait for a nod. Katharine glances at Fortner and does so. It is safe.
‘I had a conversation with Harry Cohen at the office last week that I think you should know about.’
‘Cohen?’ Fortner says. ‘The one who’s always on your back?’
He knows exactly who he is.
‘That’s him.’
‘What did he say?’ Katharine asks, touching her neck gently with her hand.
‘He’s noticed that you’ve stopped calling me at the office. Brought it up out of nowhere.’
‘OK, so we’ll call a little more. I don’t think you should be unduly concerned. Did he say anything else?’
Fortner takes a sip from one of two glasses of wine he has poured near the stove. He hands me the other.
‘No, there was nothing else in particular. I just found it odd that he should have brought it up.’
‘Listen, Alec,’ he says quickly. ‘Far as I can make out this guy has been all over your job since you started. He feels threatened by you, just like they all do. Askin’ you questions about a couple of Americans who happen to be working for Andromeda is just his way of puttin’ the shit up you. You gotta ignore it. You’re doin’ a great job and nobody suspects a thing.’
I want to leave it at that, but Katharine comes a step closer towards me. She is half-biting her lip.
‘You all right?’ she asks. ‘You look almost feverish.’
I sit down on one of the kitchen chairs and light a cigarette. My hand is shaking.
‘No. I’m well. I’m just… I get nervous. I worry about being followed, you know?’
‘Natural reaction,’ says Fortner, still very matter-of-fact. ‘Be strange if you didn’t.’
They have bought a new picture, a Degas print in a wooden frame hanging to the right of the fridge. The one of the girl at ballet school, bending down to tie her shoes. Now, just briefly, I let things slip. My intense desire to talk to someone momentarily outweighs the wisdom of doing so with Fortner and Katharine.
‘It’s funny,’ I tell them, trying hard to sound as solid and as capable as I can. ‘I’m living with this constant fear that some journalist on the Sunday Times is going to call me up out of the blue and start asking questions. “Mr Milius?” he’ll say. “We’re running a story in tomorrow’s edition that names you as an industrial spy working for the Andromeda Corporation. Would you care to make a comment?”’
‘Alec, for Christ’s sake,’ Fortner says, putting his glass down on the counter so hard that I fear it might break. I cannot tell if