A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [129]
Lithiby moves forward and back within the narrow confines of his chair. He looks to have been suddenly constricted by my question.
‘I don’t know if they did,’ he says, referring back to Cohen. ‘I’d have to check the report.’
‘He suspects that I may be handing secrets to Andromeda.’
‘Why would he think that?’ Lithiby asks, a rising note of surprise in his measured voice.
‘He came to my house last night, close to one o’clock. I was back from Cheyne Walk after dropping off the file. He said he’d seen me going into Atwater’s building.’
‘This man has been following you?’
‘No,’ I say, confidently. The lie just slips out because it has to. ‘But he may have been following the Americans. They’ve complained of an increase in surveillance.’
‘Yes,’ Lithiby says, dismissively. ‘I would ignore that if I were you. We looked into it. The Americans let you believe their flat was bugged to hurry you along. They wanted the survey of 5F371 and they wanted it quickly. That also explains why they were at Atwater’s office last night. We saw them leave ten minutes after you, presumably having taken possession of the file.’
‘So you don’t think Cohen has been following them?’
‘We’ve certainly never seen him.’ He coughs, once and hard, his lungs sounding old. ‘Which begs the question, what was he doing there?’
And that is the question I do not want to answer because it will reveal that I have kept things from them. I try to work around it.
‘Cohen said it was just coincidence. He’d been to a dinner party on a houseboat and just happened to be passing Atwater’s building.’
Lithiby shuffles, pinching the fabric of his suit trousers to loosen them away from his thigh.
‘So he comes out of his dinner party, sees you going into a building occupied by two employees of an American oil firm and from that deduces that you are an industrial spy?’
I admit: ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘I didn’t think it was. I imagine you have a little bit more to tell me.’
Lithiby’s attitude has already started to bend into a characteristic sarcasm. I say:
‘Maybe it would help if I told you exactly what happened yesterday.’
‘From that we could certainly put together a more complete overall picture.’
I steady myself, begin.
‘Caccia’s report landed on my desk at about three o’clock yesterday afternoon. I immediately telephoned the Americans to set up the meeting with Atwater.’
‘As you were instructed to do by Katharine,’ Lithiby says. The smug self-assurance of his voice has started to unnerve me. ‘Where did you telephone from?’
‘From the office.’
‘Why didn’t you use a secure line?’
Another mistake.
‘I didn’t think Cohen would recognize the dry-cleaner as code.’
Saying ‘dry-cleaner’ like this sounds ridiculous. Lithiby breathes contemptuously through his nose.
‘But he did recognize it. He suspected that something was up.’
‘Apparently. Yes.’
‘Had he been given any reason in the past to suspect that you were involved in something covert?’
‘He’s been acting strangely towards me for some time.’
I do not like admitting this: it was not mentioned in any of my monthly reports. Lithiby, who would be justified in becoming angry, looks away and appears to stare at a bedside lamp. He is weighing things up.
‘In what way “strangely”?’ he asks. Often he will latch on to individual words, inspecting them for hidden meanings, for ambiguity.
‘Cohen was suspicious of my friendship with Katharine and Fortner.’
‘Suspicious?’
He is still looking at the lamp, gazing.
‘He felt it was professionally inappropriate.’
‘I see,’ he says, his voice tightening slightly. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’
Lithiby closes off the question by turning back to look at me.
‘I didn’t think it was important.’
‘You didn’t think it was important.’
This drifts, an echo which makes me feel scolded and useless. His eyes are gradually narrowing with irritation.
‘And although you knew that Cohen was suspicious of your relationship with the Americans, you told us nothing about it and still made the call in his presence?’
I do