Rip Tide

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.’

‘Was her murder linked to her agent work in USCO?’

‘Unlikely, we think. She was just told to keep her eyes open and, as far as we know, hadn’t reported anything at all. No, it seems she was young and fancy-free. Perhaps something of a goer, as we used to say.’ Fane’s lips creased briefly into a smile until he noticed Liz didn’t smile back. ‘A good reason not to choose her, I’d have thought.’ He shrugged as if to imply it had had nothing to do with him, it was all very regrettable, but there you had it.