‘BUCHAN, naturally. The Office accused me of being niggardly in my praise of the latest material. You too, by inference, were similarly accused. “Praise?” I said. “You can have all the praise you want. Andrew Osnard is a charming fellow, conscientious to a fault, and the BUCHAN operation has provided us with enlightenment and food for thought. We admire it. We support it. It enlivens our little community. But we do not presume to award it a place in the grand scheme of things. That is for your analysts and our masters.” ‘
‘And they were content with that?’
‘They devoured it. Andy is a very nice fellow, as I told them. Goes down a treat with the girls. Asset to the Embassy.’ He broke off, leaving a note of question, and resumed on a lower key. ‘All right, maybe he doesn’t quite play to eight. Maybe he cheats a bit here and there. Who doesn’t? My point is, it’s absolutely nothing to do with you or me or anyone else in this Embassy, with the possible exception of young Andy, that the BUCHAN stuff is the most frightful tosh.’
Stormont’s reputation for composure in crisis was deserved. He sat painfully still for a while – the bench was teak and he had a bit of a back, particularly in damp weather. He considered the line of sterile ships, the Bridge of the Americas, the Old City and its ugly modern sister across the bay. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. And he wondered whether, for reasons not yet revealed, he was witnessing the end of his career, or beginning a new one of which the outlines were unclear to him.
Maltby by contrast was basking in a kind of confessional ease. He was leaning right back, his long, goatish head propped against an iron pillar of the bandstand, and his tone was magnanimity itself.
‘Now I don’t know,’ he was saying, ‘and you don’t know, which one of them makes it up. Is it BUCHAN? Is it Mrs BUCHAN? Is it the subsources, whoever they are – Abraxas, Domingo, the woman Sabina or that disgusting journalist one sees around the place, Teddy Somebody? Or is it Andrew himself, bless him, and all else is vanity? He’s young. They could be fooling him. On the other hand, he’s quick-witted and he’s a rogue. No he’s not. He’s rotten through and through. He’s a major shit.’
‘I thought you liked him.’
‘Oh, I do, I do, enormously. And I don’t hold the cheating against him one bit. A lot of chaps cheat, but it’s usually the bad players like me. I mean, I’ve known chaps apologise. I’ve practically apologised myself a couple of times.’ He bestowed a shameful grin on a pair of big yellow butterflies who had decided to join the conversation. ‘But Andy’s a winner, you see. And winners who cheat are shits. How does he get on with Paddy?’
‘Paddy adores him.’
‘Oh my Lord, not too much, I hope? He’s shagging Fran, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Rubbish,’ Stormont replied hotly. ‘They barely talk to each other.’
‘That’s because they’re shagging in secret. They’ve been at it for months. Seems to have turned her head completely.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’
‘My dear chap, I can’t take my eyes off her, you must have noticed. I watch her every move. I’ve followed her. I don’t think she spotted me. But then of course we prowlers rather hope they do. She left her flat and went to Osnard’s. Didn’t come out. Next morning, seven o’clock, I faked an urgent telegram and phoned her flat. No answer. You can’t get it clearer than that.’
‘And you haven’t said anything to Osnard?’
‘Whatever for? Fran’s an angel, he’s a shit, I’m a lecher. What would we possibly achieve?’
The bandstand started to crack and rattle with the next downpour, and they had to wait a few minutes for the sun.
‘So what do you intend to do?’ Stormont said gruffly, fending off all the questions he refused to ask himself.
‘Do, did you say, Nigel?’ It was Maltby as Stormont remembered him: arid, pedantic and aloof. ‘Whatever about?’