The Envoy Read online

  ‘Before the Russians deploy TU-95s and R7s?’

  ‘You scare me, Jennie, you shouldn’t know these things.’

  ‘Everyone should know them, Kit.’

  They continued to walk along the shingle beach. Jennifer had got one fact wrong: the Tupolev 95 was just coming into service. It was the first Soviet long-range bomber capable of striking the United States. But the Pentagon was more worried about the development of the R7, a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile that would be impossible to shoot down. Consequently, there were crazies, like General Curtis LeMay, who were agitating for a pre-emptive strike while the US was still immune to Soviet retaliation. If the Russians knew that was about to happen, the US air-bases in East Anglia would be their first target. England would be obliterated in a nuclear holocaust.

  Jennifer seemed to read her cousin’s thoughts. ‘How many British dead, Kit?’

  ‘Forty million – and Europe too, the people, the paintings, the music, the vines of Burgundy, the olive groves, all those lovely languages and mellow buildings. The whole fucking lot turned into a radioactive ash heap.’ He turned to his cousin, but she was walking away. ‘Jennie?’

  ‘I need some fish for tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You get wonderful fresh fish here. Look, there’s a boat landing – it’s Billy and his uncle.’

  The beach boats were clinker-built oak and broad beamed. None had cabins or shelter of any kind; they were open to rain, wind and salt spray. They weren’t elegant: they were designed for battling North Sea waves after being dragged down a shingle beach and launched into cold angry surf. According to the season, they long-lined, trawled, laid lobster pots or set herring nets.

  Jennifer checked her purse. ‘I’ve got enough. Let’s see what they’ve got.’

  As the boat ground on to the shingle, a man in a greasy smock ran forward with a cable and threaded a hook through a ring low down on the bow. Meanwhile someone started a donkey engine and the cable went taut. As the boat was winched up the beach, other men ran forward and placed boards black with axle grease under the bows to help her slide over the shingle.

  ‘They’re marvellous,’ said Jennifer, ‘I love them. They’re like a ballet troupe. When there’s a heavy sea running, they have to be awfully quick. If they get knocked sideways by a big wave, they can capsize. That boy, Billy Whiting, is a wonderful singer. He’s been in the chorus for two Benjamin Britten operas – and even had a solo. He’s got a wonderful temperament. I’d love to have a son like him.’

  ‘Jennifer, you’re crying. What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s you, Kit, and all the others too. You and your bombs, you and your fucking bombs.’

  ‘Jennie, please …’

  ‘Don’t touch me. I’m all right. Let’s see what they’ve caught.’

  Chapter Three

  The meal began with Suffolk slip sole à la meunière and went on to spring lamb with minted new potatoes and garden peas. Kit supplied the wine, vintage claret ‘re-looted’ from the cellar of a Reichsmarschall by the 101st Airborne, and a bottle of’33 champagne fine cognac from the embassy. Jennifer went to bed early: she felt tired and dizzy. After dinner, Brian and Kit took their brandies into the garden. Kit turned and looked at the house. The thatched roof and chimneys were black silhouettes dimly sketched against the night sky. ‘Beautiful place – very oldie England.’

  ‘It’s not old at all. It’s fake Tudor, built about 1900. It used to be a gatehouse. The lord of the manor wanted to show off and pretend the workers were picturesque as well as servile. But fortunately Jennifer loves it.’

  ‘How did you end up living here?’

  ‘The Ministry requisitioned it – and a lot of other houses – during the war. This cottage and a few others were kept on to billet staff working on the island.’

  Kit looked around: there was nothing but blackness. Thick forest enclosed the garden on every side. ‘It certainly is … quiet.’

  ‘At first, I was a little concerned – I feared that Jennie might find it too lonely here. I even suggested we find a place in the village, but she assured me that she loves seclusion.’ Brian paused. ‘Could this place remind her of home, of Rideout’s Landing?’

  ‘The farm was isolated, but being on a river it seemed …’ Kit didn’t finish the sentence. He sensed that Brian wanted to know more about his wife’s background, but it wasn’t a past that he wanted to share. Brian had Jennifer’s body, why did he want the other stuff too. ‘In any case,’ said Kit, ‘there were always lots of people around.’

  Brian sipped his brandy, then said almost apologetically. ‘Jennie doesn’t often talk about her family. It’s as if she’s cut off her past by changing countries and nationalities.’ The Englishman paused; he wasn’t used to probing the feelings of others. ‘I suppose it might have something to do with her brothers.’

  ‘She’ll never get over it.’ Kit stopped and listened. ‘What’s that noise? Stray dogs?’

  ‘Muntjac deer. They bark – especially when they’re mating.’

  ‘You’ve got your own deer park. You must feel like an Elizabethan grandee.’

  ‘Hardly. The muntjac are a foreign species – like the North American grey squirrel. The Victorian toffs who introduced these animals were too vain and too stupid to understand how much damage they would do to the native fauna. The grey squirrels raid birds’ nests and have driven out our native reds.’

  Kit smiled at the image of American squirrels chasing British ‘reds’ and almost made a McCarthyite wisecrack. But he bit his tongue for he sensed that Brian neither liked nor trusted him – and that drink made him aggressive. Kit steered the conversation to the calmer waters of flattery. ‘You seem very knowledgeable about natural history.’

  ‘When I was a boy I used to love walking on the moors, places like Blackstone Edge that you’ve probably never heard of. Much of the flora was very primitive, such as club-mosses and ferns, the sort of species you would have found hundreds of millions of years ago when life was just beginning. I found it exciting to learn about them and imagine that I was a time traveller.’

  ‘What about Orford Ness?’ said Kit, thinking of Brian’s nuclear workplace. ‘It looks pretty desolate from this side of the river.’

  ‘That shingle spit may look desolate, but it’s full of marvels.’ Brian gave a rare smile, ‘The real secrets are plants like the yellow horned poppy with blossoms the size of soup plates – big golden banners waving against all that cold wind and salt spray. And sea pea too, exquisite little mauve flowers clinging on with deep strong roots. Places like Orford Ness and the northern moors are the real England – not the suffocating pampered gardens on the stately homes circuit.’

  Kit began to realise there was more to Brian than the gruff North Country scientist. But it didn’t make Kit like him; it only made him more jealous. ‘Are there animals too?’

  Brian smiled again, ‘Just the MoD security police and their attack dogs. Frightening chaps – all the locals are terrified of them. There’s also a huge colony of hares. They must have swum over and, without lurchers and shotguns to harry them, they’ve multiplied like mad. The security fellows sometimes use the hares for marksmanship practice. I’m not sure I approve, but they always give us one for the pot. I’ve developed quite a taste for saddle of hare. Jennifer, as you know, is a dab hand with game – not squeamish at all, almost like an Englishwoman.’

  ‘She used to go hunting and fishing too. We even used to eat those grey squirrels. Get Jennie to cook you a pair.’

  ‘A brace,’ said Brian, ‘in England we never say a pair of game or game birds – we say a brace.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Jennie tells me that your fathers were classmates at West Point. That’s the American Sandhurst, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly, it’s a four-year course and you get a degree as well as a commission. In any case, our dads – both being Maryland boys – became friends.’

  ‘And
Jennie’s father married your father’s sister.’

  ‘Younger sister, Aunt Janet.’ Kit wondered how much longer the interrogation was going to last. He wanted to know if Jennie had told her husband about Tombstone Frank, a shared ancestor who had made a living digging up bodies from Greenmount Cemetery and selling them to Johns Hopkins Medical School. Frank later improved the freshness of his cadavers by preying on drunken sailors. Kit feared that the psycho gene had been passed on, but not the entrepreneurial one.

  ‘And,’ Brian was still probing for something, ‘you were all brought up as brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Sort of, our house was seven miles away – half an hour’s bike ride or an hour by boat.’

  ‘Sounds idyllic – I wonder why Jennifer never wants to go back.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Kit, ‘she’s afraid of ghosts.’ Suddenly, there was a rustling sound from the hedge next to the road – and then a long blood-curdling shriek with hisses. ‘Bon appétit,’ said Kit raising his glass. ‘That must have been an owl.’

  ‘Well done. It’s a barn owl. We studied them when we developed radar. The barn owl has asymmetrical ear openings – the opening in one ear is higher than in the other ear. This means they can hunt in conditions too dark even for their wonderful eyes. They pinpoint their prey by the difference in decibels. They know they’re getting closer when the volume in each ear begins to even out. On the way to Orford in the morning, just as the sun is rising, I often see them hunting in the hedgerows. A glorious sight.’

  Kit didn’t know what to say. He knew that Brian was competing – but he wasn’t sure why.

  Brian coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘about earlier on.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have made those remarks about the USA not coming into the war until it was half over. Americans must be fed up with hearing that old chestnut.’

  It had, thought Kit, been pretty damn insensitive. He should have seen the blood drain out of Jennifer’s face. Kit tossed back the last of his brandy. ‘In France, they say the same thing about les résistants de la dernière heure.’

  Brian was silent in the dark shadow. Kit realised that he hadn’t understood a single word – now he was competing too. He remembered how Brian had frowned whenever he or Jennifer had swapped a French phrase or quote.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind another drink,’ said Kit.

  ‘The bottle’s in the house.’

  ‘By the way, Brian, your point about the war loans was a fair one. It doesn’t seem fair that we make Britain pay up, while we shovel millions of pounds of Marshall Plan aid into Germany.’

  ‘In the end it could destroy British manufacturing.’

  Kit smiled. ‘But it could have been a lot worse.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If Roosevelt hadn’t tricked the Japs into attacking Pearl Harbour, we might not have come into the war at all – and then we would have made even more money out of it. We could have made war loans to both sides.’

  Brian grunted a laugh. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Jennifer warned me about you. She said you liked to play the professional cynic, the devil’s advocate.’

  ‘Did she?’ What, thought Kit, was the game now? Something like: Despite your kinship and shared past, Jennifer is closer to me than she ever was to you.

  ‘But she is very fond of you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The men turned to walk back towards the house. The light from a kitchen window began to cast shadows over their faces. Kit looked at Brian in profile and tried to analyse what attracted Jennifer to him. He was handsome in an English rough tweed sort of way: tall, raw-boned, strong jaw and big hands. In fact, Brian bore a striking resemblance to Group Captain Townsend – the RAF officer whom Princess Margaret had been forced to ditch. Brian’s hair was also curly and black, except – the light from the window struck at an angle and revealed something hidden in normal light – for the grey roots. Kit was mildly abashed: this blunt no-nonsense Englishman dyed his hair.

  When they entered the kitchen, Kit saw that the washing-up was done and everything put away. Jennie hadn’t been tired after all. Kit wished he hadn’t come.

  ‘Sleep well, I’m off to bed.’ Brian was smiling again. ‘Make yourself at home – and help yourself to the brandy. It’s your brandy anyway.’

  ‘It’s not a war loan – it’s a gift, a genuine gift.’ Kit knew that his voice sounded brittle.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Kit watched Brian’s back disappear into the darkness of the inner corridor. A second later, there was a faint loom of light as a door opened – then the door shut and the light was gone. He thought he heard Jennifer’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Kit blotted out what was going to happen next. He hoped that he could find the brandy bottle; he hoped it would help him sleep.

  The daffodils were coming out around the Roosevelt Memorial in Grosvenor Square. It was a bitterly cold March morning. Kit checked his watch: twenty past seven, too early for most people on his pay grade. He liked to arrive before the others so he could check the pigeonholes and in-trays of his colleagues while they were still bleary-eyed over breakfast coffee and the international edition of The Herald Tribune. He didn’t like to be left out of any loop and always wanted to be au fait with other people’s agendas. Nor was he above the odd act of petty malice. If some other FSO, Foreign Service Officer – especially the commercial attaché – had been giving him a hard time, Kit would ransack the offending officer’s pigeonhole for something marked ‘urgent’ and dispose of it in the burn bag or shredder. The best thing wasn’t hearing that the officer had been told off, but watching him spend hours afterwards emptying his trays and drawers trying to find the missing document. Kit always asked what was wrong and offered to help.

  He felt his breast pocket to check his ID. The outer embassy doors were locked until nine. The doormen were always ‘locally sourced’ Brits – indigenous personnel – because it cost too much to fly over Americans for such low-paid jobs. Most of the doormen were middle-aged ‘gorblimey’ types who wore blazers with British regimental badges as a sort of tribal defiance. They took their jobs very seriously and always scrutinised Kit’s ID as if it were an expert KGB forgery. The US Marine guards, on the other hand, who controlled access to inner sanctums, secure comm rooms and archive vaults, always called him ‘sir’ and waved him through. If the marines were ‘covered’, wearing their anchor-and-globe white peaked caps, they clicked heels and gave him snappy salutes. Kit liked the deference and thought that if, say he retired to a palacio in Mexico, he would keep dress-uniformed marines as servants and grooms: ‘Saddle the horses, Corporal Cracker, Doña Jennifer and I are riding to Mass and then on to the village to distribute dinner scraps to the poor.’ ‘Of course not, Cracker, not all the poor – only the deserving ones.’ But this was a grey London dawn and the marines weren’t there to tend his horses. Dream on, chico, dream on.

  Kit spent the first part of the morning being the POLCOUNS, Counselor for Political Affairs. It wasn’t just ‘diplomatic cover’. The post was a real job and his pay reflected the extra responsibility. If the officer was up to it, holding a genuine post as a senior diplomat as well as being CIA Chief of Station was extremely useful: you knew what both hands were doing and why. Kit supposed that, after the Ambassador and the DCM, he ranked third in the embassy hierarchy. And yet he kept a very low public profile: his photo never appeared in the press and he was never interviewed. If the BBC or a journalist wanted to talk to someone from POLCOUNS, Kit always sent his deputy. Nor did he attend Royal garden parties, Ascot or Henley. He only turned up at functions that were for working diplomats and policy makers. The sort of cosy events where everyone knew everyone else and what they were up to. In general, Kit preferred the shadows because that’s where you could get things done and influence policy.

  A lot of Kit’s day-to-day work was dealing with documents that had been summarised for him by his junior staff. K
it underlined key sections and exclamation-pointed the margins next to anything that needed following up. Anything stupid or useless was crossed out or scribbled over with DRIVEL, DROSS or CACA COMPLETA. But he always made clear and perceptive notes on the wide margins that he demanded. Kit enjoyed the work – especially when his margin comments turned into memos and the memos finally wormed their way into US foreign policy. It was creative – like directing an epic film or designing a town.

  At half past ten Kit had an appointment with the DCI, Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Welsh Dulles and his brother, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State. Both men were his bosses – and, arguably, two of the most powerful men in the world. Who was more powerful? Khrushchev? Nehru? Mao? Certainly not Eisenhower – he only did what the Dulleses told him to do. Kit knocked on the big oak-panelled door of the Ambassador’s office and waited. He knew the Ambassador wouldn’t be there. He was meeting captains of industry in Birmingham. The commercial attaché had drafted a speech for him and the Ambassador had surreptitiously come to Kit asking him to ‘translate it into English’. Kit knocked again louder and John Foster bellowed, ‘Come in.’

  The brothers were sitting at a big oak table, American oak, an antique bequeathed from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. There were no aides, no secretaries, no briefing folders – just a jug of ice water and glasses. No nonsense. At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, you sink into plump armchairs while the Foreign Secretary fills your cup from an Echinus Demotter tea service and offers Fortnum and Mason shortbread from a Georgian silver salver. But this was the US foreign policy machine: hard polished oak and ice water.

  ‘Good morning, Secretary Dulles,’ Kit hesitated as he considered protocol, then turned to the CIA brother and said, ‘Good morning, Allen.’

  Neither man rose for a handshake. Kit hadn’t expected them to: handshakes and bear hugs were for public occasions, like airport arrivals, when the cameras were clicking. Allen spoke first, ‘Nice to see you, Kit.’