‘Age,’ she said, ‘is a state of mind. Herman Hesse said somewhere that, in reality, youth and age exist only among ordinary people. All more talented and exceptional people are sometimes young and sometimes old, just as they are sometimes happy and sometimes sad.’
‘Such wisdom,’ he said. ‘Where does it all come from?’
‘I went to the Sorbonne and then Oxford,’ she said. ‘A women’s college, St Hugh’s. Not a man in sight and thank God for it. Now I’m a journalist. Freelance. Magazine work mainly.’
Behind them the trio started to play A Foggy Day in London Town. ‘I was a stranger in your city.’ He started to sing the intro softly in English.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Paris is my city, but Fred Astaire had it right in the movie when he sang that song. Everyone should walk along the Thames Embankment at least once, preferably after midnight.’
He smiled slowly and held her hands. ‘An excellent idea. But first, we eat. You look like a girl with an appetite. A little more champagne and then, who knows?’
It was raining hard and fog crouched at the end of the streets. The trenchcoat he had found for her was soaked, as was the scarf she had bound around her hair. Montera was still in uniform, his magnificence anonymous under a heavy officer’s greatcoat. He wore a peaked cap.
They had walked for several miles in the pouring rain followed by his official car, patient chauffeur at the wheel. She wore a pair of flat shoes he had borrowed for her from one of the maids at the Embassy.
Birdcage Walk, the Palace, St James’s Park. Montera had never enjoyed himself so much in the company of another human being.
‘Sure you haven’t had enough?’ he asked, as they moved down towards Westminster Bridge.
‘Not yet. I promised you something special, remember?’
‘Ah, I was forgetting.’
They came to the bridge and she turned on to the Embankment. ‘Well, this is it. The most romantic place in town. In that old movie, Fred Astaire would have held my arm and sung to me as we strolled with the car following us, crawling along the kerb.’
‘Ah, but the traffic situation has changed since that, as you can see,’ he told her. ‘Too many cars parked at the kerb already.’
Above them, Big Ben chimed the first stroke of midnight. ‘The witching hour,’ she said. ‘Have you enjoyed your guided tour?’
He lit a cigarette and leaned on the parapet. ‘Oh, yes, I like London. A wonderful town.’
‘But the English not so much?’
It was there again, that extraordinary perception. He shrugged. ‘They’re all right. I trained with the RAF at Cranwell and they were good – the best. The trouble is that to them we’re all dagos, we South Americans, so if the dago is a good flyer, it’s because they’ve done a good job on him.’
‘That’s shit,’ she said, coldly angry. ‘They don’t owe you a thing. You’re a great pilot. The best.’
‘Am I?’ he said curiously. ‘And how would you know that?’
The rain increased into a solid drenching downpour and he turned and whistled to the car. ‘I’d better get you home.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It would seem appropriate,’ and she took his hand and they ran together towards the car.
The Pissaro on the wall of the sitting room of the flat in Kensington Palace Gardens was beautiful. Montera, standing before it, a brandy in his hand, examined it closely.
Gabrielle came out of the bedroom, brushing her hair. She wore an old bathrobe, a man’s obviously, several sizes too big for her.
Montera said, ‘Do my eyes deceive me or is the Pissaro an original?’
‘My father, I’m afraid, is disgustingly wealthy,’ she said. ‘Electronics, armaments, things like that. His headquarters are in Marseilles and he tends to indulge me.’
He took in the robe and said gravely. ‘It was too much to expect that a girl like you could have reached the ripe old age of twenty-seven without complication. You are married, I think? I was wrong.’
‘Divorced,’ she said.
‘Ah, I see.’
‘And you?’
‘My wife died four years ago. Leukaemia. I was always rather difficult to please so my mother arranged things. She’s like that. She was the daughter of a family friend.’
‘A suitable match for a Montera?’
‘Exactly. I have a ten-year-old daughter named Linda who lives contentedly with her grandmother. I am not a good father. Too impatient.’
‘I can’t believe that.’
And then he was close and she was in his arms and his lips brushed her face. ‘I love you. Don’t ask me how, but it’s true. I’ve never known anyone like you.’
He kissed her and for a moment she responded; then she pushed him away and there was something strangely like fear in her eyes.
‘Please, Raul, no. Not now.’
He took her hands gently and nodded. ‘Of course. I understand. I do, believe me. May I call you in the morning?’
‘Yes, please do.’
He released her, picked up his greatcoat, went to the door and opened it. He turned and smiled, an inimitable, wry smile of such charm that she ran across the room and put her hands on his shoulders.
‘You’re so damned nice to me. I’m not used to that. Not from men. Give me time.’
‘All you need.’ He smiled again. ‘You made me feel so gentle. I amazed myself.’
The door closed softly behind him, she leaned against it, filled with a delight that she had never known in her life before.
Outside, Montera got into the back of the Embassy car, the driver drove away. A moment later Tony Villiers stepped out of a nearby doorway. He lit a cigarette and watched the car go, then turned to look up at the windows of the flat. As he did so, the lights were turned out. He stood there for a moment longer, then walked away.
Brigadier Charles Ferguson was sitting in bed, propped against pillows, working his way through a mass of papers, when the red phone rang, the line that connected him directly with his office at the Directorate-General of the Security Service in the large, anonymous white and red brick building in the West End of London not far from the Hilton Hotel.
‘Ferguson here.’
Harry Fox said, ‘Coded message from the CIA in Washington, sir. They seem to think that the Argentinians will hit the Falklands within the next few days.’
‘Do they indeed? What does the Foreign Office have to say?’
‘They think it’s a load of cobblers, sir.’
‘They would, wouldn’t they? Any word from Gabrielle?’
‘Not yet.’
‘An interesting point, Harry. Raul Montera is one of the few pilots in the Argentine Air Force with genuine combat experience. If they were going to start anything, you’d think they’d recall him.’
‘Even cleverer to leave him in London, sir.’
‘That’s true. Anyway, I’ll see you in the morning. If we haven’t heard from Gabrielle by noon I’ll phone her.’
He put down the receiver, picked up a file and went back to work.
When