Restless

'Lord Mansfield will see you here,' the porter said, opening the door.

'How can you be sure I'm a lady?' I said.

'Beg pardon, Miss?'

'Oh, forget it.'

I pushed past him and went into the Ladies' Drawing Room. It was poky and cheaply furnished and smelt of carpet shampoo and polish – everything about its decor signalled disuse. There were chintz curtains and puce shades with saffron fringes on the wall sconces; a selection of unread 'ladies' magazines' – House amp; Garden, Woman's Journal, the Lady itself – was fanned out on the coffee table; a spider plant was dying of thirst on the mantelpiece above the unlaid fire.

The porter left and I moved the largest armchair over a few feet so that the solitary window was behind it; I wanted to be backlit, my face in shadow, so that the summer evening light would fall on Romer. I opened my briefcase and took out my clipboard and pen.

I waited fifteen minutes, twenty, twenty-five. Again I knew this was deliberate but I was glad of the wait because it made me confront the fact that, unusually for me, I was actually rather nervous about meeting this man – this man who had made love to my mother, who had recruited her, who had 'run' her, as the parlance went, and to whom she had declared her love, one chilly day in Manhattan in 1941. Eva Delectorskaya, I felt for perhaps the first time, was becoming real. But the longer Lucas Romer kept me waiting, the more he tried to intimidate me in this bastion of aged establishment masculinity, the more pissed off I became – and therefore the less insecure.

Eventually the porter opened the door: a figure loomed behind him.

'Miss Gilmartin, your lordship,' the porter said and melted away.

Romer slipped in, a smile on his lean, seamed face.

'So sorry to have kept you waiting,' he said, his voice gravelly and slightly hoarse as if his larynx were choked with polyps. 'Tiresome phone calls. Lucas Romer.' He extended his hand.

'Ruth Gilmartin,' I said, standing up, tall as he was, and gave him one of my firmest handshakes, trying not to stare, trying not to gawp, though I would have loved a good few minutes' scrutiny of him through a one-way mirror.

He was wearing a perfectly cut, single-breasted midnight-blue suit with a cream shirt and a dark maroon knitted tie. His smile was as white and immaculate as my mother had described, though there was now, in the recesses of his mouth, the gold gleam of expensive bridgework. He was bald, his longish oiled hair above his ears combed into two grey sleek wings. Though he was slim he was a little stooped but the handsome man he had been lingered in this 77-year-old like a ghostly memory: in certain lights it would have been hard to guess his age – he was, I suppose, still a good-looking older man. I sat down in my positioned armchair before he could claim it or wave me into any other seat. He chose to sit as far away from me as possible and asked if I wanted tea.

'I wouldn't mind an alcoholic drink,' I said, 'if such things are served in a Ladies' Drawing Room.'

'Oh, indeed,' he said. 'We're very broad-minded in Brydges'.' He reached for and pressed a wired bell push that sat on the edge of the coffee table and almost immediately a white-jacketed waiter was in the room with a silver tray under his arm.

'What will you have, Miss Martin?'

'Gilmartin.'

'Forgive me – an old man's imbecility – Miss Gilmartin. What is your pleasure?'

'A large whisky and soda please.'

'All whiskies are served large, here.' He turned to the waiter. 'A tomato juice for me, Boris. A touch of celery salt, no Worcestershire.' He turned back to me. 'We only have J amp;B or Bell 's as blends.'

'A Bell 's, in that case.' I had no idea what a J amp;B was.

'Yes, your lordship,' the waiter said and left.

'I must say I've been looking forward to this meeting,' Romer said with patent insincerity. 'At my age one feels wholly forgotten. Then all of a sudden a newspaper rings up wanting to interview one. A surprise, but gratifying, I suppose. The Observer, wasn't it?'

'The Telegraph.'

'Splendid. Who's your editor, by the way? Do you know Toby Litton-Fry?'

'No. I'm working with Robert York,' I said, quickly and calmly.

'Robert York… I'll ring Toby about him.' He smiled. 'I'd like to know who'll be correcting your copy.'

Our drinks arrived. Boris served them on paper coasters with a supplementary saucer of salted peanuts.

'You can take those away, Boris,' Romer said. 'Whisky and peanuts – no, no, no.' He chuckled. 'Will they ever learn?'

When Boris left the mood changed suddenly. I couldn't analyse precisely how, but Romer's false charm and suavity seemed to have quit the room with Boris and the peanuts. The smile was still there but the pretence was absent: the gaze was direct, curious, faintly hostile.

'I want to ask you a question, if you don't mind, Miss Gilmartin, before we begin our fascinating interview.'

'Fire away.'

'You mentioned something to my secretary about AAS Ltd.'

'Yes.'

'Where did you come across that name?'

'From an archive source.'

'I don't believe you.'

'I'm sorry you should think that,' I said, suddenly on my guard. His eyes were on me, very cold, fixed. I held his gaze and continued. 'You can have no idea what's become available to scholars and historians in the last few years since the whole Ultra secret came out. Enigma, Bletchley Park – the lid has been well and truly lifted: everybody wants to tell their story now. And a lot of the material is – what shall I say? – informal, personal.'

He thought about this.

'A printed source, you say?'

'Yes.'

'Have you seen it?'

'No, not personally.' I was playing for time now, suddenly a little more worried. Even though my mother had warned me that there would be particular curiosity about AAS Ltd. 'I was given the information by an Oxford don who is writing a history of the British Secret Service,' I said quickly.

'Is he really?' Romer sighed and his sigh said: what a complete and utter waste of time. 'What's this don's name?'

'Timothy Thoms.'

Romer slipped a small, leather-encased notepad from his jacket pocket and then a fountain pen and wrote the name down. I had to admire the bluff, the bravado.

'Dr T.C.L. Thoms. T,h,o,m,s. He's at All Souls,' I added.

'Good…' He wrote all this down and looked up. 'What exactly is this article about, that you're writing?'

'It's about the British Security Coordination. And what they were doing in America before Pearl Harbor.' This was what my mother had told me to say: a large catch-all subject.

'Why on earth would anyone be interested in all that? Why are you so intrigued by BSC?'

'I thought I was meant to be interviewing you, Lord Mansfield.'

'I just want to clarify a few things before we begin.'

The waiter knocked on the door and came in.

'Telephone, Lord Mansfield,' he said. 'Line one.'

Romer raised himself to his feet and walked a little stiffly to the telephone on the small writing-desk in the corner. He picked up the receiver.

'Yes?'

He listened to whatever was being said and I picked up my whisky, took a large sip, and took my chance to study him a little more closely. He stood in profile to me, the receiver in his left hand and I could see the glint of the signet ring on his little finger against the black bakelite. With the heel of his right hand he smoothed the wing of hair above his ear.

'No, I'm not concerned,' he said. 'Not remotely.' He hung up and stood for a moment looking at the telephone, thinking. The two wings of his hair met at the back of his head in a small turbulence of curls. It didn't look well groomed but of course it was. His shoes were brilliantly polished as if by an army batman. He turned back to me, his eyes widening for a moment, as if suddenly remembering I was in the room.

'So, Miss Gilmartin, you were telling me about your interest in BSC,' he said, sitting down again.