The Avenue of the Dead (3 page)

Davina kissed her lightly on the cheek. She wasn't a demonstrative person, and such tokens of affection were rare. ‘I woke early,' she said, ‘so I took myself off to watch the dawn. Here, I'll make the coffee for you. Why don't you have breakfast in bed sometimes, Mother? You're always running after other people.'

‘I enjoy it,' her mother said. ‘I'm good at gardening and I'm good at looking after people. I'm afraid it would sound pretty dreary to all those bustling ladies in Women's Lib. But it's my contribution and I like doing it. Oh, Davy, mind the toast, it's burning – I'll have to get a new toaster, that thing burns the minute you take your eyes off it.'

‘You've been saying that for the last two years,' Davina reminded her. ‘I'll get you one as a present. A going away present.'

Betty Graham turned round quickly. She was a woman who disliked secrets, and pretending that James White hadn't told them anything made her uncomfortable.

‘Going away? Do you mean you're going to take that job James talked about?'

Davina nodded. He wouldn't have told them the truth. Whatever the lie was, she would support it. And typically, it would put him, the old family friend, in a good light. ‘I thought about it,' she said. ‘And I felt I should pull myself together and get on with life. Ivan wouldn't want me to sit around battening on you and father any longer. You've been wonderful, seeing me through the last six months. I couldn't have survived without you. But I'm going to take this job and see how it works out.'

‘I'm so glad.' Betty Graham's smile was warm. ‘I've been so worried about you, Davy. I know how much you've suffered over all this, and I'm not very good at talking about things. Neither is your father. But we just hoped being here would help you. We do love you very much, you know.'

‘I know,' Davina said. ‘Now don't go on like that or I'll make an idiot of myself and start crying. You make some more toast and I'll call Father. I'll ring the brigadier this morning.'

Their conversation was brief.

‘I've thought it over,' Davina said. ‘I'd like to come and see you.'

‘Good.' His voice was brisk. ‘Come up this morning and I'll give you lunch.'

‘I don't want lunch,' Davina said.

‘I don't want you being seen near the Office,' he answered. ‘Rules Restaurant, one o'clock. I'll look forward to it. Goodbye.'

Elizabeth Fleming looked at herself in the mirror. The light was harsh from rows of bulbs surrounding the glass, like in a theatrical dressing room. They had been installed when she first came to Washington. In those days her face could bear the merciless illumination of six hundred and forty watts.

One pale hand, ornamented with long painted nails, smoothed the hair back from her face. ‘Oh God,' she said to her reflection. ‘You look like death warmed up.' On an impulse she stuck her tongue out; it was coated with the aftermath of drink and chain smoking the night before. She turned her back on herself with disgust. ‘You bloody fool,' she said to herself. ‘You got pissed again, didn't you? Eh? All the good resolutions gone down the drain. You look a hag, you know that?' There was no answer to the question. She was still a little drunk – it was a sure sign when she talked to herself out loud. In the bedroom next door her husband heard her, and glanced towards the locked bathroom.

She had been very drunk the night before. He had brought her home before the party ended and undressed her and put her to bed. She was fuddled and thought he was going to make love to her. He left her mouthing and reaching for him and slept in his dressing room.

She opened the bathroom door and stood there, draped with five hundred dollars' worth of silk chiffon negligée, and started to shake.

‘Eddie? I didn't know you were there – what time is it? I can't find my watch.'

‘It's nine-thirty. Your watch is on the dressing table.'

‘Why aren't you at the office? Aren't you going to be very late?' There was a shadow in her eyes, a hint of fear that was hidden by her forced smile.

‘It's Saturday,' Edward Fleming said. ‘I don't go to the office on weekends.'

‘Of course, how silly of me. I've lost a day, that's all. Lose a day, gain a friend, haven't you heard that, darling?'

‘No,' he said, ‘I can't say I have. Maybe it should be gain a lover.'

She took a few steps towards him. They were not quite steady. ‘Don't say things like that to me,' she said. ‘Please. I don't have a lover. You're the only one I want – last night I thought …'

‘You thought wrong,' her husband said. ‘I took your clothes off because I didn't want to leave you sleeping in them all night. You were too drunk to undress yourself. You're still drunk, Elizabeth. I'm going to play golf. Try and sober up by the time I come back.'

He was a big man, broad-shouldered, very trim and fit. His step was surprisingly quiet. He often came into a room and stood there without her having heard him. When he went out of the door she stood for a moment, one hand groping instinctively for something to hold onto. It dropped back to her side, and her fingers fastened on the filmy material and knotted it viciously. ‘You bastard,' she said. ‘I'll be sober all right. Don't you worry about that. Go and play your fucking golf … I don't care. I don't care about anything.' She collapsed on the bed among the crumpled pillows. Her head ached, and there was enough alcohol left in her blood to lull her back into a short sleep.

When she woke it was past eleven o'clock. She rang for her maid, who came up with a tray of coffee and toast. She was a dignified coloured woman and she had been in service to senior State Department officials since she was a girl. She wished Mrs Fleming good morning, settled the tray in front of her, and asked if she would like the morning papers brought up. There was no expression on her face or in her eyes, however hard Elizabeth tried to find one. Neither contempt nor curiosity. Never familiarity. She might work for whites, but she didn't intend to get friendly with them.

It was near lunch time when Elizabeth came downstairs. She wore a cream linen dress and her blonde hair was brushed back into a coil behind her ears. Her face was heavily made up, and the first impression was very effective. She had lunch by herself in the handsome green and white dining room where they entertained, and afterwards curled up like a cat on one of the sofas in the sitting room. She drank a cup of black coffee, smoked three cigarettes while she flipped through the pages of the
Washington Post
, without reading more than a headline or a word here and there, and then threw the paper on the floor. She looked at her watch. He must be playing after lunch. Golf, tennis, racquets; he had stopped jogging when some clever-dick doctor discovered that it was a strain on the heart. He looked so young and well kept. The All-American Male, hero of a hundred thousand macho ads for cigarettes and drink and fast cars and sex. He wouldn't be back till six. She had three hours. She reached for the telephone, pushed the button for an outside line, and dialled the British Embassy. Neil said she could always reach him there, day or night, if she needed him. She'd drunk lemonade at lunch and she was quite sober. Her hands were shaking, but that was normal now. And she was frightened, which was also normal.

Neil was at home watching afternoon sport on TV when the embassy switched the call through to him. The girl watching with him turned down the sound. She gazed at the silent movie effect on the screen while he talked. She had heard similar conversations before and she knew her man too well to be jealous.

‘Don't worry,' he was saying. ‘No, listen, it's quite all right, I'm not doing anything – I'll come round in the car and pick you up. We can come back here, or just drive round for a while. I'll be with you in about twenty minutes. And don't worry. Bye.'

He put the receiver back. ‘I'm sorry, darling,' he said. ‘Duty calls.'

‘How long will you be?'

‘A couple of hours. She's not in too bad a state, but I know that hysterical undertone. Listen, I'm sorry, but in case I have to bring her back here?'

‘I know.' His girl had a mischievous smile. ‘Can I keep out of the way while Mrs Fleming weeps on your shoulder, or whatever she does? I can, but you'd better call me when she's gone. And you'd better be specially nice to me to make up for having the afternoon screwed up!'

He came and kissed her. ‘I will, don't worry. I wish to God they'd give her to someone else to look after. It's getting on my nerves listening to the same old rubbish over and over again. If I was Fleming I'd shove her into a home!'

He picked up Elizabeth Fleming at three-thirty-seven exactly. Two separate surveillance reports noted the time of his arrival and her leaving in his car. One was filed in the KGB security section of the Soviet Embassy at 1125, 16th Street, and the second came through on the CIA computer at Langley.

‘I remember her only too well,' Davina said. Sir James White was sipping a brandy and he paused to look at her over the glass.

‘That sounds ominous. Didn't you like her?'

‘I loathed her.'

‘Oh. That's a pity. Why?'

Davina said calmly, ‘Because she was the most conceited, empty-headed, self-centred girl in the whole school. We were not only in the same year but in the same house; we shared a dormitory for two terms and they were the most miserable time I spent at Highfields.'

‘She doesn't sound like a bully,' he remarked. ‘Why were you so affected by her?'

She hesitated, lit a cigarette. Then she frowned slightly. ‘She wasn't a bully. She was just too pretty and sweet for words and everyone adored her, from the headmistress down. If she came back with her hair cut short, everyone copied it. People copied her handwriting, even, trying to be like her. She never did a damned thing for herself if she could get somebody else to do it for her. And they always did.'

‘Except you,' he prompted gently.

‘Yes, except me. I knew she despised me because I was plain and a bookworm and rotten at games. She was only nice to me when she wanted something, and I knew it. I wouldn't pander to her, and consequently everyone said I was jealous and turned against me.'

‘Wasn't it partly true?'

‘Of course it was,' Davina said. ‘I wouldn't have liked Liz Carlton if she'd been a worthwhile person. I had my beautiful darling sister putting me in the shade at home, and Liz doing the same at school. I met her twice afterwards; once at a party in London, where she was a huge success, with the men dancing attendance on her. And once at Heathrow airport. I was meeting someone coming in from the States soon after I joined the Office. There she was in a bloody giant mink coat looking like Julie Christie, sweeping out of the VIP lounge. That must have been about eight years ago. She was quite friendly with my sister at one time. I can't imagine that she's in any kind of trouble. Not the kind that I could help, anyway.'

‘She has told our ambassador in Washington that she's in very great trouble,' James White answered. ‘She alarmed him considerably and he got in touch with us at once. I advised him to calm her down and put an embassy official in charge of her for the time being, till we could sort something out. I gather she drinks – that's a problem, of course.'

‘I'm surprised to hear it. She must have changed a lot.'

‘Apparently Fleming knows but has done nothing about it. Which is understandable in the circumstances. He was just about to be given a top job in the new administration, and he couldn't afford a divorce or a scandal at that time. That's how it appears, anyway.'

‘What did she say to the ambassador?' Davina asked. ‘What sort of trouble would be his concern, for heaven's sake?'

‘Our sort of trouble,' James White said quietly. ‘She arrived at the ambassador's residence in a near hysterical state, saying her husband had tried to murder her the night before. Naturally, the ambassador suggested the police. Her reply had a nasty ring of truth in it. Her husband is a powerful man, close to the President, with powerful friends. The police could be squared. And then came the punch line. The reason Fleming had tried to kill her was because she had discovered that he was passing information to the Russians.'

‘Trouble is hardly the word for it! My God!'

‘Exactly. So you see why the ambassador was so disturbed. Of course he was in a difficult position. There was this woman, ranting and raving about murder attempts and Russian spies, and claiming sanctuary in the embassy! He coped very well indeed. He persuaded her to go back home that evening and he got in touch with me immediately. You can see the implications, if she's telling the truth.'

‘It'd blow a hole in the new administration as big as Watergate!'

‘And we'd fall right into it,' he remarked. ‘Fleming is British born. Our enemies on Capitol Hill would make plenty of that connection. He's been publicly pro-British and he's regarded as a very good friend in a very high place. That's why we've got to be extremely careful not to jump to conclusions about Mrs Fleming and her allegations.'

‘Meaning you don't believe them?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I just hope that Elizabeth Fleming is proved to be lying or mistaken. But we have to find out. You are the person who can do it, my dear. You're the kind, sympathetic friend who grew up with her. If she's genuine, she'll clutch at you for support. If she's lying, we'll soon know.'

‘No, I'm sorry, Brigadier, that won't do. I don't believe in leopards changing spots. She hasn't the intelligence or the temperament to get mixed up in anything more subversive than a beauty secret!'

‘You don't have to be intelligent,' he countered. ‘A lot of stupid people are spies. A lot of frightened people, too. She's an alcoholic, she may have left herself open to blackmail. It wouldn't be the first time Moscow Centre used a woman to ruin a man's reputation. If I send you to Washington you've got to have an open mind.'