The couple remained at the table and Janet’s mother accepted brandy, which she rarely did.
“It’s madness,” she protested.
“I know,” he agreed.
“She could get hurt.”
“Yes.”
“So you must stop her! Forbid her to go!”
“That wouldn’t work. Not a direct confrontation.”
“There must be something you can do!”
“I hope so,” said Janets father.
12
J anet had forgotten the Mediterranean heat of the near Middle East, just as, she was soon to realize, she had forgotten much else about an area in which she was supposed to be an expert. The heat engulfed her like oven breath as soon as she disembarked at Larnaca, dry and quite unlike the damp mugginess of summer Washington: by the time she reclaimed her luggage she was sweatingly wet. There was no air conditioning in the Mercedes taxi, so she traveled with the rear window fully down, for whatever breeze she could get. Against the dashboard the driver had a picture of a man in an elaborate frame made even more ornate by a bouquet of dyed straws and dried flowers in a small vase, making it into some sort of shrine, and Janet realized she had not carried a photograph of John with her. She wasn’t sorry. She didn’t need a reminder. Or a shrine: definitely not a shrine. The route inland from the airport, into Nicosia, took her near Larnaca marina and the harbor beyond and there were signs, faded and unrepaired, advertising ferries to Beirut. She strained to see the direction they indicated but the ochre and white buildings were jammed too close together, blocking her view.
The boundary of the town was quite abrupt, huddled-together houses giving way to rolling, dun-colored scrubland. They began passing mules and donkeys almost completely obscured by their loads, cloth-wrapped bundles on legs, and the roadside was dotted with stick-framed lean-to shelters against the sun from which tiny children yelled and waved for them to stop to buy oranges or lemons or melons or carved souvenirs. Orienting herself, Janet looked south. The Troodos Mountains were too far away from her to make out but she imagined a rise in the scrubland, where it climbed towards them. The British had made their listening facilities on the island available in the hope of hearing some telephone or radio communication about John, she remembered from conversation with Willsher. Troodos was the highest point of the island and she supposed that was where the technology would be sited. Would anything have been heard? She doubted the CIA man would have told her, if it had.
The pale blue berets of the United Nations peacekeeping force were Janet’s first physical reminder of the haphazard partition of the island after the Turkish invasion of 1974, and as they entered Nicosia she passed another indication, the Turkish-held enclave wired off and controlled by guard posts.
“Gangsters,” said the driver, as they skirted the Turkish pocket.
Janet did not reply; she had gangsters of her own to worry about. She chose the Churchill Hotel, on Achaeans Street, not for its four-star luxury but because it was a place where telephones would be guaranteed to work. They did. She was connected without any delay to her father in England, to give him her address and room number and to assure him she was all right. He asked if she had contacted the British embassy yet and Janet said he’d been her first call, because that was the promise she’d made. He told her to be careful, which Janet expected, and she assured him she would be.
William Partington had served under her father in the same position as the unhelpful McDermott, although in Amman, not Cairo. He was not available when Janet called but a secretary promised he would be returning after lunch. Janet used the time to deposit her father’s bank draft for?30,000 at a branch of Barclays International within walking distance of the hotel, although by the time she reached the bank she was bathed in perspiration again. The size of the transfer intimidated the counter clerk, who insisted upon her being greeted by an assistant manager. Janet patiently endured the ritual, arranging for the money to be held on deposit and maintained in a sterling account. The man presented her with a business card and asked that she deal personally with him and Janet agreed that she would.
She reached Partington on the second call. The attache remembered her father at once and said he was delighted to hear from her, and why didn’t she come for supper with him and his wife the following evening? Janet said she wanted a more formal meeting, although dinner would be fine later. There was a pause from the other end of the line and Partington said he was not particularly busy and would she like to come to the embassy that afternoon. Janet said she would, very much.
Janet showered and changed and managed to get an air-conditioned taxi to Alexander Pallis Street. She identified herself to the reception clerk, and at once Partington hurried from the rear of the building.
Partington was a contrast to her father’s acquaintance McDermott, just as tall but a bluff, bulging man, face reddened beneath the tan by the blood pressure of good living, a crumpled lightweight suit strained by the effort of containing him all. He shook her hand and said welcome and, still holding it, led her into the back of the building where at once, gratefully, Janet felt the chill of better air conditioning than in the outer vestibule.
“You in a spot of bother?” demanded the man.
“Something like that,” agreed Janet, offering the man the letter of introduction from her father.
Partington read the letter carefully, tapping a fingernail against his teeth as he did so: from the movement of his head, Janet realized the man was going through it twice.
At last Partington looked up, subdued now, and said: “I see.”
“Please!” said Janet at once. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Everyone does.”
“Then I won’t.” He gestured to the paper he had placed before him on the desk. “Your father asks me to help, in any way I can. Which of course I would if I could. But I don’t see how. We’re no way involved. We can’t be.”
Remembering her reflection about the Troodos Mountains on her way into Nicosia that morning Janet said: “I know that you’re making British listening facilities here available to the CIA.”
Partington sucked in his breath, shaking his head as he did so. “Not my province, Mrs. Stone. That’s an intelligence matter, quite separate. I wouldn’t know anything about that: wouldn’t want to know.”
Janet felt the familiar rise of exasperation and tried to curb it. She said: “This close to the Lebanon there must be links, between the British presence there and you, here?”
“Some,” Partington agreed, doubtfully.
“Before I left London I went to Lambeth Palace,” Janet said. She hesitated, deciding upon an exaggeration, and went on: “I talked there with a member of the Archbishop’s staff, about negotiations to free the Britons being held. Your people in Beirut must know of them, hear things about other hostages.”
Partington moved his head again. “Something else about which I have no knowledge: you must believe me, Mrs. Stone. If there are any contacts, any negotiations, they’d be restricted to the smallest group of people. They’d have to be, wouldn’t they?”
Janet sighed, wishing she could confront the logic. She said: “What about here, in Cyprus?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“There’s been a mass exodus from Beirut to this island,” said Janet. “There must be a lot of information, passing back and forth. People I could talk to.”
Partington leaned forward across the desk, his face serious. “There has been a mass exodus,” he agreed. “I’ve heard areas of Nicosia and Larnaca likened to Berlin, in 1945, and it’s a pretty good description. I mean there are people here in Cyprus doing what people always do, in a war situation. Profiting by it. We don’t get involved and neither should you. It’s crooked and it’s dangerous and it won’t do anything to help your fiance.”