When had he and Tanya first met? Certainly not during my university days. Or in the years afterwards when we’d seen one another clandestinely. Perhaps they’d met at the hospital. And now she was inviting him to her home. To help me, no doubt.
A few months after Tanya’s return the four of us finally met up at a restaurant. Tanya was wearing her hair in an unfamiliar pageboy bob, while Geoff had shed two stone and was dressed in chinos and a button-down shirt so that he looked five years younger. Unsurprisingly they were both Americanised, though lightly so.
The atmosphere was friendly enough on the surface, but with an undertone of tension, much of it emanating from Lyneth. She was scrupulously polite but cool in her responses to Tanya’s queries about Sara, whom Lyneth had insisted on bringing and who remained asleep in her buggy throughout. Geoff was his usual jovial self, which eased matters. Some of the talk inevitably focused on their wedding preparations, and Geoff startled me by asking me to be his best man. I hedged, feeling like a churl.
When we were leaving I managed to get a moment alone with Tanya in the car park. You know I’m still in love with you, don’t you? I blurted. She just laughed and told me to be careful to get Lyneth and Sara home safely.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to attend the wedding, let alone be Geoff’s best man. I contrived circumstances that gave me a get-out clause: I was in Normandy with a film crew, doing location work for a feature about William the Conqueror. I pretended that it had been arranged months in advance, whereas I had actually pressed for the slot only after I knew the date of the wedding.
Afterwards Tanya sent us a card to say: Sorry you couldn’t make it. On the front was the Klimt print “The Kiss”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Rhys turned the Mercedes into a military parking space on the western side of Aldwych. As they were getting out, a couple of security police materialised, both of them women. Rhys was ready with his ID card, which Owain knew would have Special Access status, allowing him to leave the vehicle almost anywhere he wished. Owain was embarrassed by his brother’s ostentation as he attempted banter with the women, joking that he would pay them a retainer if they kept an eye on the vehicle while he was away.
The car, a compact two-seater Kobold imported from Germany, was a twenty-year-old sports model that was no longer in production.Titanium alloy bodywork, leather upholstery, tinted windows—a symbol of conspicuous consumption.
They walked along the Strand, where illuminated restaurants, hotels and bars existed like garish expressions of a world immune to war. The streets were busy with well-heeled people, the privileged and the opportunists who always thrived, no matter how bad conditions were. Restaurant windows gave glimpses of senior commanders entertaining glamorous young women, Priority Provision stores sat snug behind metal shutters, and discreet doorways gave access to exclusive clubs where all sorts of pleasures were available. The Ritz, closed after a salmonella outbreak, was in darkness, but a Future Youth clinic occupied its forecourt, its neon signs urging passers-by to donate eggs and sperm towards the nation’s heritage. On this street, with official sanction, the blackout did not receive even a token observance.
What was he doing here? He had no alternative, he knew. If Rhys had information that might be of use to him, it was essential he extracted it.
His brother led him up the spiral stairs of a restaurant called the Viceroy on the corner of Trafalgar Square. The ground floor of the place was packed with diners, but an upstairs room held only a handful of people. Rhys was greeted without fuss by a maître d’hôel who knew him, and they were promptly led to a table at a window overlooking the square.
Their overcoats were taken, Owain surrendering his self-consciously, hating this enforced participation in his brother’s world, with its snobbery, exclusiveness and indifference to the sufferings of the majority. It was like being in enemy territory.
As if sensing his distaste, Rhys said, “I wouldn’t want you to think I make a habit of eating at these sort of places. I thought it might be a little treat. Uncle says you’ve had a difficult time.”
A bottle of wine appeared, in a silver cooler. The waiter was an elderly man. Before Owain could say anything his brother requested water for him. They were in a little alcove, out of earshot of everyone else. Rhys poured himself a large glass of wine. It was a golden-green.
“You said you knew something,” Owain remarked, unable to keep his impatience in check. “About the explosion.”
His brother nodded sagely. “More in the nature of a discharge than an explosion.”
“What does that mean?”
Rhys took a mouthful of wine. The waiter shuffled back to the table with a dark blue bottle. Water that sparkled as it was poured into his glass. Not what he’d wanted. But he wasn’t going to risk any distraction by insisting on a jug and tumbler.
Rhys waited until the man had hobbled away.
“What do you remember about the Minsk operation?” he asked.
Owain tried to keep his face free from any expressione a surprise. He didn’t want to give his brother the satisfaction.
“You know the one I mean,” Rhys said confidently. “You were the only one to come out of it alive, isn’t that so?”
All his brother’s usual awkwardness was gone. He was only ever self-effacing in their uncle’s company, always playing the dutiful, compliant nephew. Owain had a dawning sensation of the ground having shifted between them. He’d made a tactical mistake in letting his brother dictate the terms of their evening. Here, on his own territory, Rhys was suddenly confident, in full command of the situation.
“Did Uncle tell you?” Owain asked.
Rhys shook his head superciliously, though not necessarily in denial. “It’s my business to know these things. We monitor communications at ASPIC, remember? Among other things.”
Now the menu arrived. The efficiency of the service was beginning to anger Owain. He could do nothing but wait as his brother went through a little ritual of asking for more information about some ok the courses on offer. Owain ordered what was listed as Game Saucission with Creamed Potatoes, pointing to the item but ostentatiously asking for “Sausage and Mash”.
“You’re not going to have a starter?” Rhys enquired.
“Soup,” Owain said. “Whatever’s available.”
He told himself that he had to remain calm, patient. Rhys wasn’t exactly toying with him but was plainly enjoying the power he temporarily held by the promise of disclosure. Had they been anywhere else, Owain would have had him up against a wall by now, wringing his neck until he squawked.
“So,” Rhys said when the waiter had departed again, “what were we saying?”
He was refilling his glass. Owain’s resolve vanished as swiftly as he had made it. He leaned across the table and grabbed Rhys’s wrist, squeezing.
“Do you think I’m going to make frivolous dinner table conversation with you about a mission in which four men were killed and I got this?” He jabbed a finger at his pockmarked face. “Do you, Rhys? Do you?”
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll slit your fucking throat if I have to, brother or not, unless you start telling me what you know.”
Owain spoke in a fierce whisper. No one at the other tables was paying them the slightest bit of attention. The violence of his words, which matched the strength of his feelings, shocked me. Even so I couldn’t discern whether he seriously meant the threat. I considered and dismissed the idea of trying to intervene. Something important was brewing here.