Stella Rimington - Rip Tide

She sighed. ‘OK. Where does he want to meet?’

‘The Athenaeum. Twelve-thirty.’

‘The Athenaeum? I thought his club was the Travellers.’

‘It is. But he’s just joined the Athenaeum as well and he’s doing most of his lunching there at present.’

‘How grand,’ said Liz sardonically. Fane’s secretary laughed and rang off.

The following morning Liz dressed with more care than usual for a working day, since she wasn’t going to be outfaced by Geoffrey Fane with his two smart clubs. The idea was to look charming and demure.

There had been a time, several years ago, when Liz had been afflicted by wardrobe chaos. In those days, not long after she’d acquired her first flat in the basement, she’d found it impossible to keep both her domestic life and her busy working life in order. On a morning like this she might well have found all suitable garments either stuck in a non-functioning washing machine or waiting in a pile to go to the cleaner’s.

But, along with her rather larger apartment, she had inherited a helpful lady, who not only cleaned the flat but also took her clothes to the cleaner’s and managed the washing machine. So today when she opened her wardrobe she actually had a choice. It was a lovely sunny day and after a moment’s thought she selected a pretty silk skirt, a pink linen jacket and a pair of kitten-heeled shoes that she’d bought for a friend’s wedding.

That should do, she decided, hoping to lull Geoffrey Fane, so that when she revealed that she knew about the agent he’d put into UCSO without telling her, he’d be caught completely off guard. She was looking forward to seeing his face then.

Not even the prospect of Fane could dampen Liz’s spirits this morning. Martin was coming to London for the long Bank Holiday weekend. He had an early-afternoon meeting, coincidentally with MI6, but they planned to meet up later in a Pimlico wine bar near the headquarters of both Services. Then home to Liz’s flat. If the weather stayed fine on Saturday, they might drive down to Wiltshire where Liz’s mother still lived in the gatehouse of the former estate where Liz’s father had been estate manager and where Liz had grown up.

By mid-morning the sky was overcast but the cloud looked unthreatening. Liz decided to walk to the Athenaeum. The deckchairs in St James’s Park were occupied by optimistic lunch-hour sunbathers, waiting for the cloud to clear. She crossed the Mall and climbed the long flight of stairs, her light skirt fluttering in the sharp breeze that had sprung up, and emerged on to Waterloo Place, where the Athenaeum Club stood four-square and confident, a pristine white stucco Georgian building with classical columns and a blue and white frieze set high up along its façade.

As she climbed the steps to the entrance, Liz realised with some annoyance that she felt nervous. She was not an habituée of the Pall Mall clubs, which she found dauntingly grand, and this one seemed grander than most. As she pushed open the tall semi-glazed door, Liz combed her hair into some sort of order with her fingers. Inside, was a tall pillared hall leading to a magnificent double staircase. Moonlike, high on the wall, a large round clock dominated the space below. Classical statues loomed to right and left of her.

Inside, a green-suited, brass-buttoned porter looked at Liz with polite enquiry. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked for Geoffrey Fane. The porter nodded and indicated a familiar figure rising from a leather bench to greet her. Somewhere in a room to the right there was a deep masculine hum of conversation – some kind of a bar presumably. But to Liz’s relief Fane pointed a long finger in the opposite direction and said, ‘Shall we go straight in?’

‘Please,’ she said. Lunch would be long enough spent in his company without wasting further time on a drink beforehand.

She followed Fane’s tall lean figure, smart in a dark pin-stripe suit, into the almost empty dining room; most people were evidently still in the bar. The head waiter seated them at a small, highly polished darkwood table, beside one of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over a balustrade on to a garden. The room seemed enormous and oddly bare. No pictures hung on its high cream-coloured walls and the only decoration came from the huge pendant ceiling lights.

Liz said, ‘I didn’t know this was one of your clubs.’

Fane looked flattered. ‘I’ve only just become a member,’ he said, with a trace of satisfaction. ‘You’re one of my first guests.’

She watched as he wrote down their choice of food with a pencil on a little pad and handed it to the waitress. She’d seen this routine before when she’d lunched with her mother and her friend Edward at his military club further along Pall Mall. It had struck her as odd then; some sort of hangover from the past, she supposed.

‘Well, Elizabeth,’ said Fane, leaning back comfortably, ‘how goes it? Have you managed to find out anything more about this Khan chap?’

‘A bit. I went to Birmingham and saw his parents. They seemed astonished to learn where their son had been. The father was a traditional head of the household. He didn’t let his wife get a word in, and he certainly didn’t approve of female authority figures – namely me. At first he claimed that the last time they’d heard from Amir, he was in Pakistan. But then one of Amir’s sisters showed up: before he could stop her, she said they’d had a postcard from Amir recently – from Athens.’

‘Athens?’ Fane’s fork stopped in mid-air on its way to his mouth. ‘What on earth was he doing there?’ There was a studied nonchalance to his tone.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me that, Geoffrey.’

‘Me?’ Fane’s eyes opened wide in a show of innocence.

‘Yes. I gather you’ve just lost an agent there.’

He put down his knife and fork. ‘You seem to hear the Service’s news almost before I do.’

‘When it concerns my business, I do,’ Liz said crisply. ‘I gather the agent was working in UCSO. I hope you’re not going to tell me it had nothing to do with the Amir Khan investigation.’

‘Of course not, Elizabeth. I was going to tell you this week in fact, only news of this death…’ He faltered expertly. ‘It rather knocked me for six.’

‘I don’t know why you didn’t tell me before you put her in. You were the one who suggested there might be a link between UCSO and Amir Khan; you were the one who said, and I quote, “We’ll need to liaise closely.”’ Liz’s voice was rising in anger but the neighbouring tables were unoccupied and no one could overhear their conversation.

Fane’s jaw clenched, his face flushed. For a moment Liz thought he would lose his temper. Then, as she watched, he got a grip of himself and his face returned to its usual pallor. ‘Reproof accepted, Elizabeth,’ he said stonily.

This was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to offer, so Liz sighed pointedly and said, ‘Why was this woman planted in UCSO?’

Fane jumped at the question like a lifeline. ‘When I saw you last, I mentioned Blakey had been in touch – he’s the USCO director in London, you remember. He was concerned someone in the organisation was leaking information about their shipments. I offered to help and had a word with Bruno.’

He added tartly, ‘I imagine with your intelligence network you already know that he’s become Head of Station in Athens.’

Liz nodded. ‘So are you saying this was all Bruno’s doing?’

‘Well, not exactly.’ Fane paused; Liz could see he was caught between a desire to be seen as in charge and a wish to avoid assuming any blame for the disaster. ‘I decided to put someone in, but the selection was left to Bruno. He chose a young woman, half-Greek, with an English mother. Possibly not the wisest selection as it’s turned out.’