William Boyd - Restless

'Oh, heck, it can wait till Monday. Anyway, I want to take you out to Arlington.'

He dropped her back at her hotel before six. He told her to come by the office on Monday afternoon when he would have some news on Hopkins's state of health and if and when he were likely to be available for interview. They shook hands, Eva thanking him warmly for her 'great day', then she went to her hotel room and made the call to Romer.

Mason Harding tried to kiss her on Monday evening. After their meeting – 'Still no Harry, I'm afraid' – they had gone back to his bar and he had drunk too much. Coming out, it had been raining and they waited under a shop awning until the brisk shower passed over. As the rain abated, they dashed for his car. She thought it was a little strange that he combed his hair before starting the engine and driving her back to the London Hall. It was while they were making their farewells that he lunged at her and, averting her face just in time, she felt his lips on her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

'Mason! For God's sake.' She pushed him away.

He recoiled and sat glowering, staring at the steering wheel. 'I'm very attracted to you, Eve,' he said, in a strangely sulky voice, not looking at her, as if this were all the explanation she required.

'I'm sure your wife is very attracted to you, also.'

He sighed and his body sagged in mock fatigue as if this was a tired and over-familiar rebuke.

'We both know what this is about,' he said, turning finally. 'Let's not act like a couple of innocents. You're a beautiful woman. My personal situation has nothing to do with it.'

'I'll call you on Monday,' Eva said and opened the car door.

He grabbed her hand before she could step out and kissed it. She tugged but he wouldn't let it go.

'I've got to go out of town tomorrow,' he said. 'I've got to go to Baltimore for two days. Meet me there – at the Allegany Hotel, 6.00 p.m.'

She said nothing, shook her hand free and slipped out of the car.

'The Allegany Hotel,' he repeated. 'I can get you that Hopkins interview.'

'The gold is very bright and shiny,' Eva said. 'It almost seems to have heat coming off it.'

'Good,' Romer said. She could hear through the receiver the sound of people talking around him.

'Is everything all right?' she asked.

'I'm in the office.'

'They want me to make a sale at the Allegany Hotel, Baltimore, tomorrow, Tuesday, at 6.00 p.m.'

'Don't do or say anything. I'll come down and see you in the morning.'

Romer was in Washington by ten. She went down to the lobby when the front desk called up to her room to tell her he was there and she felt such a leaping and thudding in her heart as she looked around for him that she paused, surprised at herself, surprised that she was reacting this way.

He was sitting in a corner vestibule but, annoyingly, there was another man with him, whom he introduced simply as Bradley. Bradley was a small slim fellow, dark, with a grin that flickered on and off like a faulty light bulb.

When Romer saw her he stood and came to greet her. They shook hands and he led her over to another part of the lobby. When they sat down she reached surreptitiously for his hand.

'Lucas, darling-'

'Don't touch me.'

'Sorry. Who's Bradley?'

'Bradley's a photographer that works for us. Are you ready? I think we should go.'

They caught a train from Union Station. It was a terse almost wordless journey what with Bradley sitting opposite them. Every time Eva looked at him he flashed his short-lived grin at her, like a nervous tic. She preferred to look out of the window at the autumn leaves. She was grateful that the journey was a short one.

At Baltimore Station she told Romer pointedly that she felt like a coffee and a sandwich, so Romer asked Bradley to go ahead to the Allegany and wait for them. Finally, they were alone.

'What's happening?' she said when they sat down in a corner of the station cafeteria, half knowing what the answer would be. There was condensation on the window and with the heel of her hand she wiped a porthole of clarity to see a near-empty street, a few passers-by, a black man selling brilliant posies.

'We need a photograph of you and Harding entering the hotel and leaving the hotel the next morning.'

'I see…' She felt sick, suddenly nauseous, but decided to press on. 'Why?'

Romer sighed and looked round before taking hold of her hand under the table.

'People only betray their country for three reasons,' he said, quietly, seriously, cueing her next question.

'And what are they?'

'Money, blackmail and revenge.'

She thought about this, wondering if it were another Romer rule.

'Money, revenge – and blackmail.'

'You know what's going on, Eva. You know what it'll take to make Mr Harding suddenly become very helpful to us.'

She did, thinking of Mrs Harding with all the money and little Mason jun. and Farley.

'Did you plan all this?'

'No.'

She looked at him: liar, her eyes said.

'It's part of the job, Eva. You have no idea how this would change everything. We'd have someone in Hopkins's office, someone close to him.' He paused. 'Close to Hopkins means close to Roosevelt.'

She put a cigarette in her mouth – to confuse any passing lip-readers – and said, 'So I have to sleep with Mason Harding so that SIS can know what Roosevelt and Hopkins are up to.'

'You don't have to sleep with him. As long as we have the photographs – that's all the evidence we require. You can finesse it any way you like.'

She managed a dry little laugh, but it didn't convince her. '"Finesse" – nice word,' she said. 'I know: I could tell him I was having my period.'

He wasn't amused. 'You're being stupid, now. You're letting yourself down. This actually isn't about your feelings – this is why you joined us.' He sat back. 'But if you want to abort – just tell me.'

She said nothing. She was thinking about what lay ahead of her. She wondered if she were capable of doing what Romer required of her. She wondered also what he was feeling – he seemed so cold and matter-of-fact.

'How would you feel?' she asked him. 'If I did it.'

He said, immediately, flatly: 'We've got a job to do.'

She tried not to show the hurt that was growing in her. There were so many other things you could have said, she thought, that would have made it a little easier.

'You have to think of it as a job, Eva,' he continued, in a softer voice, as if he could read her mind. 'Keep your feelings out of it. You may have even more unpleasant things to do before this war is over.' He covered his mouth with his hand. 'I shouldn't be telling you this, but the pressures from London are huge, immense.' He went on. BSC had one solitary vital task: to persuade America it was in her interest to join the war in Europe. That was all, pure and simple – get America in. He reminded her that it was over three months since the first meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt. 'We've got our wonderful, much-heralded Atlantic Charter,' he said, 'and what's happened? Nothing. You've seen the press back at home. "Where are the Yanks?", "What's keeping the Yanks?" We have to get closer. We have to get inside the White House. You can help – simple as that.'

'But how do you feel about it?' It was the wrong question to ask again, she knew, and she saw his face change, but she wanted to be brutal, wanted him to confront the reality of what she was being asked to do. 'How do you feel about me and Mason Harding in bed together.'

'I just want us to win this war,' he said. 'My feelings are irrelevant.'

'All right,' she said, feeling ashamed and then feeling angry for feeling ashamed. 'I'll do what I can.'

She was waiting in the lobby at six when Mason arrived. He kissed her on the cheek and they registered at reception as Mr and Mrs Avery. She could sense his tension as they stood at the front desk – she felt that adultery was not run-of-the-mill in Mason Harding's life. As he signed the register she looked around; somewhere she knew Bradley was taking pictures; later someone would pay the clerk for a copy of the booking. They went up to their room and, once the bellhop had left, Mason kissed her with more passion, touched her breasts, thanked her, told her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. They dined in the hotel restaurant, early, and Mason spent most of the meal quietly but forcefully denigrating his wife and her family and their financial hold over him. This mood of petulance helped her, she found; it was boring, small-minded and selfish and it allowed her to step back from any vision of what was about to ensue. It made her colder. People betray their country for only three reasons, Romer had said. Mason Harding was about to take the first step along that narrow, winding road.