to see the coloured border and the embroidered initials LP.
‘My marriage?’ I said. ‘Too hot-blooded?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps.’ I sipped my drink. It was a long time since I’d had one of these heavy bitter-tasting brews. I wiped the froth from my lips; it was good. ‘I thought I knew Fiona, but I suppose I didn’t know her well enough.’
‘She was so lovely. I know she loved you, Bernard.’
‘I think she did.’
‘She showed me that fantastic engagement ring and said, Bernie sold his Ferrari to buy that for me.’
‘It sounds like a line from afternoon television,’ I said, ‘but it was a very old battered Ferrari.’
‘She loved you, Bernard.’
‘People change, Cindy. You said that yourself.’
‘Did it affect the children much?’
‘Billy seemed to take it in his stride but Sally … She was all right until I took a girlfriend home. Lots of crying at night. But I think she’s adjusted now.’ I said it more because I wanted it to be true than because I believed it. I worried about the children, worried a lot, but that was none of Cindy’s business.
‘Gloria Kent, the one you work with?’
This Cindy knew everything. Well, the FO had always been Whitehall’s gossip exchange. ‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘It’s difficult for children,’ said Cindy. ‘I suppose I should be thankful that we didn’t have any.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. I drank some Guinness and sneaked a look at the time.
‘But on the other hand, if we’d had kids perhaps Jim wouldn’t have wanted to go so much. He wanted to prove himself, you see. Lately I’ve wondered if he blamed himself that we never were able to have children.’
‘Jim was talking about that time when the kitchen caught fire,’ I said.
‘Jim spilled the oil. He’s always been clumsy.’
‘Fiona didn’t do it?’
‘She took the blame,’ said Cindy with a sigh. ‘Jim could never admit to making a mistake. That was his nature.’
‘Yes, Fiona took the blame,’ I said. ‘She told me Jim did it but she really took the blame … the insurance … everything.’
‘Fiona was a remarkable woman, Bernard, you know that. Fiona had such self-confidence that blame never touched her. I admired her. I would have given almost anything to have been like Fiona, she was always so calm and poised.’
I didn’t respond. Cindy drank some of her tonic water and smoothed her dress and cleared her throat and then said, ‘The reason I wanted to talk to you, Bernard, is to see what the Department will do.’
‘What the Department will do?’ I said. I was puzzled.
‘Do about Jim,’ said Cindy. I could see her squeezing the handkerchief in repeated movements, like someone exercising their hands.
‘About Jim.’ I blew dust from my spectacle lenses and began to polish them. They’d picked up grease from the air and polishing just made them more smeary. The only way to get them clean was to wash them with kitchen detergent under the warm tap. The optician advised against this method but I went on doing it anyway. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Cindy.’
‘Will they pay me or this American woman, this so-called “wife”,’ she said angrily.
‘Pay you?’ I put my glasses on and looked at her.
‘Don’t be so difficult, Bernard. I must know. I must. Surely you can see that.’
‘Pay you what?’
Her face changed. ‘Holy Mary!’ she said in that way that only church-going Catholics say such things. ‘You don’t know!’ It was a lament. ‘Jim is dead. They killed him Friday night when he left the office after seeing you. They shot him. Six bullets.’
‘Last Friday.’
‘In the car park. It was dark. He didn’t stand a chance. There were two of them; waiting for him. No one told you?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t think me callous, Bernard. But I want to put in a claim for his pension before this other woman. What should I do?’
‘Is there a pension, Cindy? I would have thought all that would have been wound up when he left.’
‘Left? He’s never stopped working for the Department.’
‘You’re wrong about that, Cindy,’ I said.
She became excited. ‘Do you think I don’t know! By God, I saw …’ She stopped suddenly, as if she might be saying something I wasn’t entitled to know.
‘I was there in Washington asking him to come to London to give evidence. He wouldn’t come,’ I explained quietly.
‘That was the cover-up, Bernard,’ she said. She had her temper under control now but she was still angry. ‘They wanted him in London but it was going to be done as if he came under protest.’
‘It fooled me,’ I said.
‘Jim got into very deep water,’ she said. ‘Was it the money you had to talk to him about?’
I nodded.
‘Jim arranged all that,’ she said sadly. ‘Millions and millions of pounds in some secret foreign bank account. A lot of people were empowered to sign: Jim was one of them.’
‘You’re not saying that Jim was killed because of this, are you, Cindy?’
‘What was it then: robbery?’ she said scornfully.
‘Washington is a rough place,’ I told her.
‘Two men; six bullets?’ she said. ‘Damned funny thieves.’
‘Let me get you a proper drink, Cindy. I need time to think about all this.’
I was in Dicky Cruyer’s very comfortable office, sitting in his Eames chair and waiting for him to return from his meeting with the Deputy. He’d promised to be no more than ten minutes, but what the Deputy had to say to him took longer than that.
When Dicky arrived he made every effort to look his youthful carefree self, but I guessed that the Deputy had given him a severe wigging about the Bizet crisis. ‘All okay?’ I said.
For a moment he looked at me as if trying to remember who I was, and what I was doing there. He ran his fingers back through his curly hair. He was slim; and handsome in a little-boy way which he cultivated assiduously.
‘The Deputy has to be kept up to date,’ said Dicky, indicating a measured amount of condescension about the Deputy’s inexperience. As long as Sir Henry, the Director-General, had been coming in regularly, the Deputy, Sir Percy Babcock, had scarcely shown his face in the building. But since the old man’s attendance had become intermittent, the Deputy had taken command with all the zeal of the newly converted. The first major change he wrought was to tell Dicky to wear clothes more in keeping with his responsibilities. Dicky’s extensive wardrobe of faded designer jeans, trainers and tartan shirts, and the gold medallion that he wore at his neck, had not been seen recently. Now, in line with the rest of the male staff, he was wearing a suit every day. I found if difficult to adjust to this new sober Dicky.
‘You weren’t at Charles Billingsly’s farewell gathering last night,’ said Dicky. ‘Champagne … very stylish.’