A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [133]
‘There are positive elements to be drawn from this,’ he says, standing up. He wants to stretch himself out with a little theorizing.
‘And what are those?’ I ask.
‘The Americans know nothing about this. Everything in that respect is going very well and that’s in large part down to your efforts. I’m very pleased, on the whole, with the way things have gone.’
On the whole.
‘Good,’ I say. ‘I’m glad.’
We are facing one another now, both on our feet, the conversation coming to its natural end. I have a deep need to be away from this place.
‘I should be getting back to work.’
‘Of course,’ he says, clapping his hands against thin hips. ‘No point in upsetting the firm.’
I turn towards the door and as I do so, Lithiby puts his arm around my waist to guide me out. The physical contact is sickening. A card hooked on the door handle reads: Please Do Not Disturb. Just as I am reaching for it, he says:
‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Alec?’
We are a pace away from being outside, yet it feels as if I will never leave. There must be something that Lithiby knows, something that I have omitted to tell him. But I cannot think what that might be.
‘I’m not following you,’ I say.
He withdraws his hand from my waist and rests it on the bone of my left wrist. It becomes clear.
‘Oh, you mean the watch? The Rolex?’ I hold it up and give it a slow shake. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘Katharine was seen buying a Rolex in Bond Street by one of our people. I noticed today that you are wearing a Rolex. I merely put two and two together.’
‘They gave it to me as a gesture of goodwill. Of thanks. For the North Basin data.’
‘Did they?’ he says, opening the door with a dry smile. ‘Well done, Alec. That’s a good sign. Well done.’
Sinclair, I see, is already waiting outside in the corridor. He nods complacently at me as we come out. He’s heard everything.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I tell Lithiby.
‘Yes,’ he says, already turning to go back inside. It is as if the vivid glare of indoor light in the passage has startled him.
‘Chris,’ he says, just as an acknowledgement of Sinclair, nothing more.
The single syllable trails off as the door closes and there is silence now, not a sound from anywhere. Just Sinclair and I standing alone together in the corridor.
Eventually he says:
‘All set?’
30
Limbo
And what now?
It appears that I am expected to go about my business as normal, to conduct my everyday life with the same blank regard for routine that I have shown for the past eighteen months. I receive no instruction from Lithiby, no hint or tip about Cohen. I can measure his disappointment in the silence that follows our meeting.
Six days go by. I wait by the phone, sleep only with the help of pills, drink from twilight till two a.m. Self-discipline erodes. At work I am somnambulant, incapable of clear and sustained thought. Tanya enquires if I am ill - you look tired, she says, you look sick, Alec - and I leave every afternoon at four, eager for the simple shelter of home.
What has happened is this: I have grown bored of secrecy. I have developed a compelling urge to confess. I want now to be rid of all half-truths and deceptions, of all the necessary lies of my life. I have been doing this for so long now that I cannot recall when the deceiving began; when it became necessary, in the name of a higher cause, to be something other than the person I once was.
Did I let this happen willingly, or was I lured into a trap set by Hawkes? I have never been able properly to answer that question. Late ‘95 and ‘96 is a blur of heartbreak and bruised ego. SIS rejected me - but in the next instant, just a day later, I was presented by Hawkes with a plan. At the time it seemed a lifeline thrown by kinder fates, a glimpse at last of something promising. And I grasped at it with no thought to consequence, no concept of its dependence on total secrecy, and with nothing but a young man’s blind greed for acclaim.
That, of course, is how they operate: they appeal to your innocence, to your secret and grandiose