‘Where are you going?’ she demanded. And when he didn’t answer, ‘What are you doing? Andrew, I do not understand how you can get up, and dress, and walk out on me, and leave me here with no clothes and no place to go and no provision for my -‘
She dried up.
‘Well, sorry about that, ol’ girl. Bit abrupt. Got to break camp, afraid. Both of us. Time to go home.’
‘Home where?’
‘Bethania for you. Merrie England for me. Rule one o’ the house. Joe topped in the field, case officer gets out in his socks. Don’t pass Go, don’t collect two hundred quid. Hurry home to Mummy, shortest route.’
He was tying his tie in the mirror. Chin up, spirits revived. And for a passing moment and no longer, Louisa thought she sensed a stoicism about him, an acceptance of defeat that in a poor light could have passed for nobility.
‘Say goodbye to Harry for me, will you? Great artist. My successor will be in touch. Or not.’ Still in his shirt-tails he pulled open a drawer and chucked a tracksuit at her. ‘Better have this for the cab. When you get home, burn it, then break up the ash. And keep your head down for a few weeks. Chaps back home are getting out the war drums.’
Hatry the great press baron was at luncheon when the news came through. He was sitting at his usual table at the Connaught, eating kidneys and bacon and drinking house claret and refining his views on the new Russia, which were to the effect that the more the bastards tore themselves apart, the more Hatry was pleased.
And his audience by a happy accident was Geoff Cavendish, and the bringer of the news was none other than young Johnson, Osnard’s replacement in Luxmore’s office, who twenty minutes earlier had fished the crucial British Embassy signal – penned by Ambassador Maltby himself – from the pile of papers that had accumulated in Luxmore’s in-tray during his dramatic dash to Panama. Johnson, as an ambitious intelligence officer, naturally made a point of sifting through Luxmore’s in-tray whenever a suitable opportunity allowed.
And the wonderful thing was, Johnson had no one to consult about the signal but himself. Not only was the entire top floor out to lunch, but with Luxmore on his way home there was no one in the building who was BUCHAN-cleared apart from Johnson. Spurred by excitement and aspiration, he at once telephoned Cavendish’s office to be told that Cavendish was lunching with Hatry. He telephoned Hatty’s office to be told that Hatry was lunching at the Connaught. Risking all, he slapped a pre-emptive requisition on the only car and driver available. For this act of hubris, as for others, Johnson was later called to account.
‘I’m Scottie Luxmore’s assistant, sir,’ he told Cavendish breathlessly, selecting the more sympathetic of the two faces peering up at him from their table in the bay. ‘I’ve a rather important message for you from Panama, I’m afraid, sir, and I don’t think it will keep. I didn’t feel I should read it to you over the telephone.’
‘Sit down,’ Hatry ordered. And to the waiter: ‘Chair.’
So Johnson sat down and, having done so, was about to hand Cavendish the full decoded text of Maltby’s signal when Hatry snatched it from his hand and wrenched it open, so vigorously that other diners turned to stare and guess. Hatry read the signal cursorily and passed it to Cavendish. Cavendish read it, and so probably did at least one waiter, because by now there was a rush on to set a third place for Johnson and make him look more like an ordinary lunch guest and less like a perspiring young runner in a sports coat and grey flannels – attire that the Grill Room manager did not view with any favour, but it was a Friday after all and Johnson had been looking forward to a weekend in Gloucestershire with his mother.
‘That’s the one we want, isn’t it?’ Hatry asked Caven-dish, through half-masticated kidney. ‘We can go.’
‘That’s it,’ Cavendish confirmed with quiet relish. ‘That’s our peg.’
‘What about passing the word to Van?’ said Hatry, wiping a piece of bread round his plate.