Part 16 (1/2)
”This weekend?”
”I need to talk to him. It's a personal matter.”
”Couldn't you have rung?” she enquired, eyes even more startled than before.
”I'm afraid not.” I fell back on the Official Secrets Act. ”It wouldn't have been prudent secure,” I explained, with innuendo. ”Not on the telephone. We're not allowed to.”
”Wfc”
”The people who've been working for Lord Brinkley.”
We ascended to a long drawing room with high red walls and gilt mirrors and the smell of Aunt Imelda's Willowbrook: potpourri and honey.
”I'll put you in here,” she announced, showing me a smaller room that was a replica of the first. ”He should be home by now. Can I fix you a drink? You are good. Then read his newspaper or something.”
Left alone, I made a discreet optical reconnaissance of my surroundings. One antique bombe desk, locked. Photographs of Etonian sons and Central African leaders. A resplendent Marechal Mobutu in uniform: Pour Jacques, man amifidele, 1980. The door opened. Lady Kitty strode to a sideboard and extracted a frosted silver c.o.c.ktail shaker and one gla.s.s.
”That common little secretary of his,” she complained, mimicking a proletarian accent: '”Jack's in a meeting, Kitty.” G.o.d, I hate them. What's the point of being a peer if everybody calls you Jack? You can't tell them or they take you to a tribunal.” She arranged herself carefully on the arm of a sofa and crossed her legs. ”I told her it's a crisis. Is it?”
”Not if we can catch it in time,” I replied consolingly.
”Oh we shall. Brinkley's frightfully good at all that. Catch anything any time. Who's Maxie?”
There are occasions in a part-time secret agent's life when only the lie direct will suffice.
”I've never heard of Maxie.”
”Of course you have, or you wouldn't be putting on that silly frown. Well, I've got my s.h.i.+rt riding on him, whether you've heard of him or not.” She plucked meditatively at the bosom of her designer blouse. ”Such as it is, poor thing. Are you married, Bruno?”
Go for another forthright denial? Or remain as close to the truth as security permits?
”I am indeed' to Hannah, not Penelope.
”And have you simply oodles of marvelous babies?”
”I'm afraid not yet' apart from Noah.
”But you will. In the fullness of time. You're trying day and night. Does the wife work?”
”She certainly does.”
”Hard?”
”Very.”
”Poor her. Did she manage to come with you this weekend, while you were devilling for Brinkley?”
”We weren't really having that sort of weekend,” I replied, forcing away images of Hannah seated naked beside me in the boiler room.
”Was Philip there?”
”Philip?”
”Yes, Philip. Don't be arch.”
”I'm afraid I don't know a Philip.”
”Of course you do. He's your Mr. Big. Brinkley eats out of his hand.”
Which is precisely Brinkley's problem, I thought, grateful to have my expectations confirmed.
”And Philip never leaves telephone messages. None of you do. ”Just say Philip rang,” as if there was only one Philip in the whole world. Mow tell me you don't know him.”
”I've already said I don't.”
”You have and you're blus.h.i.+ng, which is sweet. He probably made a pa.s.s at you. Brinkley calls him the African Queen. What languages do you interpret?”
”I'm afraid that's something I'm not allowed to say.”
Her gaze had settled on the shoulder-bag that I had placed beside me on the floor.
”What are you toting in there, anyway? Brinkley says we're to search everybody who comes into the house. He's got a battery of CCTVs over the front door and brings his women through the back so that he doesn't catch himself napping.”
”Just my tape recorder,” I said, and held it up to show her.
”What for?”
”In case you haven't got one.”
' We're in here, darling!”
She had heard her husband before I had. Bounding to her feet she whisked her gla.s.s and the shaker into the sideboard, slammed it shut, squirted something into her mouth from an inhaler in her blouse pocket and, like a guilty schoolgirl, attained the door to the large drawing room in two wide strides.
”His name's Bruno,” she declaimed gaily to the approaching footsteps. ”He knows Maxie and Philip and pretends he doesn't, he's married to a hard-working woman and wants babies but not yet, and he's got a tape recorder in case we haven't.”
My moment of truth was at hand. Lady Kitty had vanished, her husband stood before me, attired in a sharp double-breasted navy pinstripe suit, wasted in the latest thirties fas.h.i.+on. Not a hundred yards away, Hannah was waiting for the summons. I had pre-typed the number of her cellphone into my own. In a matter of minutes, if all went to plan, I would be presenting Jack Brinkley with the evidence that, contrary to whatever he might think, he was about to undo all the good work he had done for Africa over the years. He looked first at me, then carefully round the room, then at me again.
”This yours?” He was holding my business card by one corner as if it was sopping wet.
”Yes, sir.”
”You're Mr. Who exactly?”
”Sinclair, sir. But only officially. Sinclair was my alias for the weekend. You'll know me better by my real name, Bruno Salvador. We've corresponded.”
I had decided not to mention his Christmas cards because they weren't personalised, but I knew he'd remember my letter of support to him, and clearly he did, because his head lifted and, being a tall man, he did what judges on the bench do: peered down at me over the top of his horn-rimmed spectacles to see what he'd got.
”Well then, let's get rid of that thing first, shall we, Salvador?” he suggested and, having taken my recorder from me and made sure there was no tape in it, gave it back to me, which I remember was the nearest we got to a handshake.