Berlin Game. Len Deighton
his business.’
‘Lucky man,’ I said. ‘Everyone else I know is going broke.’
‘Well, that’s where George is so clever,’ Tessa explained. ‘He got the dealerships for smaller, cheaper cars years ago when no one seemed to want them.’ She said it proudly. Even wives who quarrel with their husbands take pride in their achievements.
Fiona reached for the champagne. She wrapped it in a cloth and poured the rest of it into our glasses with the dexterity of a sommelier. She took care not to touch the bottle on the glass, and the cloth was crossed so as to leave the label still visible as she served. Such professional niceties came naturally to someone who’d grown up in a house with domestic servants. As she poured mine, she said, ‘Tess wants me to help her find a flat.’
‘And furnish it and do it up,’ said Tessa. ‘I’m no earthly good at anything like that. Look at the mess I made of the place I’m living in now. George never liked it there. Sometimes I think that was where our marriage began to go all wrong.’
‘But it’s a lovely house,’ said Fiona loyally. ‘It’s just too big for the two of you.’
‘It’s old and dark,’ said Tessa. ‘It’s a bit of a dump, really. I can understand why George hates it. He only agreed to buying it because he wanted to have an address in Hampstead. It was a step up from Islington. But he says we can afford Mayfair.’
‘And this new place,’ I inquired. ‘Is George going to like that?’
‘Give over!’ said Tessa, employing the jocular cockney accent that she thought particularly apt when talking to me. ‘I haven’t found a place yet – that’s what I want help with. I go and see places but I can never make up my mind on my own. I listen to what these sharp estate agents tell me and I believe it – that’s my trouble.’
Whatever kind of trouble Tessa had suffered in her life, it was not on account of her believing anything any man told her, but I did not contradict her. I nodded and finished my drink. It was almost time for dinner. The ever-cheerful Mrs Dias was an adequate cook but I wasn’t sure I could face another plate of her feijoada.
‘You wouldn’t mind, darling, would you?’ said Fiona.
‘Mind what?’ I said. ‘Oh, you helping Tessa find a flat. No, of course not.’
‘You’re a sweetie,’ Tessa told me, and to Fiona she said, ‘You’re lucky to have got your hands on Bernard before I saw him. I’ve always said he was a wonderful husband.’
I said nothing. Only Tessa could make being a wonderful husband sound like a carrier of pestilence.
Tessa leaned back on the sofa. She was wearing a smoky grey silk button-through dress that was shiny on the curves. One hand held her champagne and the other was toying with a real pearl necklace. Nervously she crossed and recrossed her legs and twisted the pearls tight against her white neck.
‘Tessa wants to tell you something,’ Fiona said.
‘Any more of that champagne, darling?’ I said.
‘Tessa’s Dom Pérignon is all finished,’ said Fiona. ‘You’ll have to have Sainsbury’s from the fridge.’
‘Sainsbury’s from the fridge sounds delicious,’ I said, passing my empty glass to her. ‘What do you want to ask me, Tessa?’
‘Do you know a man named Giles Trent?’ she said.
‘Works for the FO. Tall man, grey wavy hair, low voice, upper-crust accent. Older than me, and not nearly so handsome.’
‘Not exactly for the Foreign Office,’ said Tessa archly. ‘His office is in the FO, but he’s part of your organization.’
‘Did he tell you that?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Tessa.
‘He shouldn’t have,’ I said.
‘I know,’ said Tessa. ‘I was talking to Fiona about him, and she says that Giles Trent was working with your lot in Berlin back in 1978. She says he’s quite important.’
Fiona came in with the champagne and poured a glass for me. I said, ‘Well, if that’s what Fiona says …’
Fiona said, ‘Tessa is my sister, darling. She’s not going to go blurting out all your secrets to the Russians. Are you, Tess?’
‘Not until the right Russian comes my way. Even then … I mean, did you ever see those photos of Russian ladies?’ She held the pearl necklace in her mouth; it was a babyish gesture; she liked being a baby.
‘What about Giles Trent?’ I said.
Tessa toyed with the necklace again. ‘I got to know him last summer. I met him at a dinner party given by some people who live down the road from us. He had tickets for Covent Garden – Mozart. I forget the name of the opera, but everyone was saying how difficult it was to get tickets, and Giles could get them. Well, it was heavenly. I’m not awfully keen on opera but we had a box and a bottle of champagne in the interval.’
‘And you had an affair with him,’ I finished it for her.
‘He’s a handsome brute, Bernie. And George was away watching the Japanese making motorcars.’
‘Why not go with him?’ I said.
‘If you’d ever been on one of those trips that car manufacturers provide for the dealers, you wouldn’t ask. Wives are superfluous, darling. There are hot and cold running girls in every bedroom.’
Fiona poured champagne for herself and Tessa, and said, ‘Tess wants to tell you about Giles Trent. She doesn’t want your advice on her marriage.’ This admonition, like all such wifely admonitions, was delivered with a smile and a laugh.
‘So tell me about Giles Trent,’ I said.
‘You were joking just now, I know. But Giles is older than you, Bernie, quite a bit older. He’s a bachelor, very set in his ways. I thought he was queer at first. He’s so neat and tidy and fussy about what he wears and what he eats and all that. In the kitchen – he has a divine house off the King’s Road – all his chopping knives and saucepans are placed side by side, smallest on the left and biggest on the right. And it’s so perfect that I was frightened to boil an egg and slice a loaf in case I spilled crumbs on the spotless tiled floor or marked the chopping board.’
‘Tell me how you first discovered he wasn’t queer,’ I said.
‘I said he wouldn’t listen to me,’ Tessa complained to Fiona. ‘I said he’d just make sarcastic remarks all the time, and I was right.’
‘It’s serious, Bernard,’ said my wife. She only called me Bernard when things were serious.
‘You mean it’s wedding bells for Tessa and Giles?’
‘I mean Giles Trent is passing intelligence material to someone from the Russian Embassy.’
There was a long silence until finally I said, ‘Shit.’
‘Giles Trent has been in the service a long time,’ said Fiona.
‘Longer than I have,’ I said. ‘Giles Trent was lecturing at the training school by the time I got there.’
‘In Berlin he was in Signals at one time,’ said Fiona.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And he compiled that training report for interrogators. I don’t like the sound of that. Giles Trent, eh?’
‘Giles Trent doesn’t seem the type,’ said Fiona. All the ladies had a soft spot for the elegant and gentlemanly Giles Trent. He raised his hat to them and always had a clean shirt.
‘They never are the type,’ I said.
‘But no contacts with field agents,’ said Fiona.
‘Well, let’s be thankful for