A Perfect Spy

“She was a close friend of mine at school.” She scowled. “Too close.” The scowl softened and became melancholy. “Poor Rick. I only ever saw him once. That was at our wedding. He turned up uninvited in the middle of the reception. I never saw Magnus look happier. Otherwise he was just a voice on the telephone. He had a nice voice.”

“Magnus have any other hiding places in those days?”

“You mean women, don’t you? You can say it if you want. I don’t mind any more.”

“Just somewhere he might have hidden. That’s all. Little cottage somewhere. An old buddy. Where would he go, Belinda? Who’d have him?”

Her hands, now that she had unlocked them, were elegant and expressive. “He’d have gone anywhere. He was a new man every day. He’d come home one person, I’d try to match him. In the morning he’d be someone else. Do you think he did it, Jack?”

“Do you?”

“You always answer one question with another. I’d forgotten. Magnus had the same trick.” He waited. “You could try Sef,” she said. “Sef was always loyal.”

“Sef?”

“Kenneth Sefton Boyd. Jemima’s brother. ‘Sef’s too rich for my blood,’ Magnus used to say. That meant they were equals.”

“Could Magnus have gone to him?”

“If it was bad enough.”

“Could he have gone to Jemima?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I understand she’s gone off men these days,” she said and blushed again. “She’s not predictable. She never was.”

“Ever heard of anyone called Wentworth?”

She shook her head, still thinking of something different. “Since my time,” she said.

“Poppy?”

“My time ended with Mary. If there’s a Poppy, that’s Mary’s bad luck.”

“When did you last hear from him, Belinda?”

“That’s what Nigel asked me.”

“What did you say to Nigel?”

“I said there was no reason to hear from him after we divorced. We’d been married six years. There were no children. It was a mistake. Why relive it?”

“Was that the truth?”

“No. I lied.”

“What were you concealing?”

“He rang. Magnus did.”

“When?”

“Monday night. Paul was out, thank God.” She paused, listening for the sound of Paul’s typewriter, which was tapping reassuringly from upstairs. “He sounded strange. I thought he was drunk. It was late.”

“What time?”

“It must have been around eleven. Lucy was still doing her homework. I won’t let her work after eleven as a rule but she was doing a French mock O-level. He was in a phone box.”

“Cash?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t say. He just said, ‘Rick’s dead. I wish we’d had a child.’”

“That all?”

“He said he’d always hated himself for marrying me. Now he was reconciled. He understood himself. And he loved me for trying so hard. Thanks.”

“That all?”

“‘ Thanks. Thanks for everything. And please forgive the bad parts.’ Then he rang off.”

“Did you tell Nigel this?”

“Why do you keep asking me that? I didn’t think it was Nigel’s business. I didn’t want to say he was being drunk and sentimental on the phone late at night just at the time when they were considering him for promotion. Serves him right for deceiving me.”

“What else did Nigel ask you?”

“Just character stuff. Had I ever had any reason to suppose Magnus might have had Communist sympathies. I said Oxford. Nigel said they knew about that. I said I didn’t think university politics meant much anyway. Nigel agreed. Had he ever been erratic in any way? Unstable — alcoholic — depressive? I said no again. I didn’t reckon one drunken phone call constituted drunkenness, but if it did I wasn’t going to tell four of Magnus’s colleagues about it. I felt protective of him.”

“They ought to have known you better, Belinda,” said Brotherhood. “Would you have given him the job yourself, by the way?”

“What job? You said there wasn’t one.” She was being sharp with him, belatedly suspecting him too of duplicity.

“I meant suppose there had been a job. A high-level, responsible job. Would you give it to him?”

She smiled. Very prettily. “I did, didn’t I? I married him.”

“You’re wiser now. Would you give it to him today?”

She was biting her forefinger, frowning angrily. She could change moods in moments. Brotherhood waited but nothing came so he asked her another question: “Did they ask you about his time in Graz, by any chance?”

“Graz? You mean his army time? Good heavens, they didn’t go back that far.”

Brotherhood shook his head as if to say he would never be equal to the wicked ways of the world. “Graz is where they’re trying to say it all started,” he said. “They’ve got some grand theory he fell among thieves while he was doing his National Service there. What do you make of that?”

“They’re absurd,” she said.

“Why are you so sure?”

“He was happy there. When he came back to England he was a new man. ‘I’m complete,’ he kept saying. ‘I’ve done it, Bel. I’ve got my other half together.’ He was proud he’d done such good work.”

“Did he describe the work?”

“He couldn’t. It was too secret and too dangerous. He just said I would be proud of him if I knew.”

“Did he tell you the name of any of the operations he was mixed up in?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you the names of any of his Joes?”

“Don’t be absurd. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Did he mention his C.O.?”