‘Or is it Ruth?’ demanded the woman, openly expressing her fear.
Blair was at his desk, turning out from his pockets things he didn’t need on the journey. He stopped, turning to her, face creased with puzzlement. ‘What?’
‘I said is it Ruth? Is that why you’re hurrying back?’
Idiotic though her fears were Blair realised he should have taken more care with the story. Despite his hurry he walked calmly back to her and put both hands on her shoulders, looking directly at her. ‘That is stupid and you know it,’ he said, quietly, refusing to let it develop into an argument. ‘I told you how things were between Ruth and me. I told you about the guy she’s with and how I liked him. And if you look at it sensibly you’d realise that if I were going back to try and make up my first marriage to Ruth – which I’m definitely not – that I wouldn’t do it like this, with panicked, last-minute flights. I’ve never lied to you and I’ve never cheated on you. We’ve had a row and it’s gone on for a long time – too long – but if I’d thought our problems were as big as you seem to think they are then I would have talked them through with you. I didn’t run away from anything before, when I fell in love with you, and I wouldn’t run away now.’
Her colour deepened and her lip trembled. ‘What is it with Paul?’ she said.
‘I won’t know, until I get back.’ From her distress it was obvious she still wasn’t completely sure. ‘It won’t be as long this time as it was before,’ he said.
‘How can you be sure, if you don’t know what the problem is?’
He was being careless, in his concern for her. ‘I just don’t think it will be,’ he said. He owed her more, Blair thought: just something more. He felt out for her shoulders again. ‘I know it’s been difficult for you darling,’ he said. ‘More difficult than I thought it was. But everything is going to work out OK, you see. It isn’t going to work out as bad as you were frightened it would.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. Her lip had stopped trembling now and the colour was going.
‘You won’t, not yet. Trust me.’
‘When?’
‘Just trust me.’
‘You mean we won’t be staying in Moscow after all!’ The hope was obvious, in her face.
‘It’s vital that I catch a plane and I’m already late,’ said Blair, knowing he’d let the conversation go on too long already. ‘Just believe me. Everything is going to work out fine.’
Blair ran to pack, using it as an excuse to break away from her, conscious of her standing in the door, watching him. Thank God she didn’t try to continue the discussion.
‘I love you,’ he said, brushing her cheek with a kiss on the way to the door.
‘I love you, too,’ she said.
Brinkman knew he loved Ann. Just as he knew that the embassy jealousy had been love and not covetousness. But despite the feeling, the readiness now to jump whenever she telephoned, he would still have avoided going to the apartment if she hadn’t disclosed Blair’s flight to Washington. Not that he would achieve anything by remaining at the embassy. For eight hours he’d bent over his desk, searching through the material that had been sent at his request from London, trying to find a clue and reluctantly coming to the conclusion that no clue existed. Maxwell had been very thorough, conceded Brinkman. Not only had he sent the London file but all the material that had been available from Orlov’s period in New York. It still didn’t amount to much. Maybe a hundred sheets which by now he knew by heart and twenty photographs of Orlov at the United Nations, mostly standard glass-in-hand reception stuff but some of him in the chamber, taking part in debates.
So he’d failed and Blair was succeeding even further, thought Brinkman, as he entered the apartment block. Why the sudden Washington recall, for the second time in just over a month? This wasn’t a competition any more, he decided: he was practically out of the race.
He was immediately aware of Ann’s reserve as he entered the apartment, a holding back when he went to kiss her. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know there’s something. Another row?’
‘Not really.’
‘What then?’
‘He said he loved me,’ she said distantly. ‘He hasn’t said that for a long time but he said it tonight, as he left.’
‘Oh,’ said Brinkman, emptily. Blair was winning in everything, he thought, ignoring the illogicality of it. ‘What happened?’
Ann shrugged, as if she had difficulty in recalling. ‘Everything was so rushed,’ she said. ‘He called from the embassy to say he had to go back on the night plane, threw some things into a bag and dashed off.’
‘But stopped long enough to say that he loved you.’
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’
‘ I love you,’ said Brinkman. It was the first admission, the commitment he’d held back from giving.
‘Don’t,’ she said again, desperately.
‘I told you once before we couldn’t ignore it,’ said Brinkman.
‘You weren’t talking about love then.’
‘I am now. Why don’t you?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Ostriches in the sand,’ he said, another reminder.
‘I’m so confused,’ said Ann. ‘Completely confused.’
‘Do you love me?’ demanded Brinkman, determined she should make the commitment now.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you love me?’ he insisted.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘What about Eddie?’
‘That’s it!’ she said, pleadingly. ‘I love him, too.’
‘You can’t love two people at the same time.’
‘Who says?’ she asked, a demand of her own. ‘Where are the rules that everyone obeys that say you can’t love two people?’
‘You’re going to have to make a choice.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened.’
Should he tell her what he’d already concluded, that Orlov was Blair’s source and that Blair would stay in Moscow until hell froze over? He wasn’t so certain of that, not any more. There was definitely a link but he wasn’t sure he’d interpreted it correctly. ‘Why’s Eddie gone back, so unexpectedly?’
‘He said it was something to do with Paul.’
‘There wasn’t this panic last time.’
‘No,’ she said heavily. ‘I know.’
Conscious of the tone, Brinkman said, ‘What do you think it is?’
‘I told him I thought it was Ruth.’
‘What about Ruth?’ he said, momentarily not understanding.
‘Wouldn’t the affair with Paul have brought them together again?’
‘There still wouldn’t have been this panic’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Not much,’ said Ann. ‘Burst in, like I told you. Emptied his pockets on the desk…’ She gestured over his shoulder. ‘Packed a case and went off to the airport.’
‘But he told you he loved you?’
‘There was a kind of a row,’ Ann confessed. ‘When I said I thought he was going back to see Ruth he said I was stupid and that everything was going to work out. That things wouldn’t be as bad as I thought they were going to be.’
Brinkman tried to curb any reaction and knew he succeeded because Ann appeared in some sort of reverie. ‘What did he mean by that? That things wouldn’t be as bad as you thought they were going to be?’
‘He wouldn’t say. I even asked if it meant he wouldn’t have to stay here in Moscow but he wouldn’t say.’
Brinkman risked looking over his shoulder. The desk top was still jumbled, which was unusual in an apartment as reasonably kept as this. He stood, with accustomed familiarity in her home and said, ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Not really.’
Neither did Brinkman but the drinks tray was next to the desk. He made the pretence of examining the selection, lifting and putting down bottles, looking back to see if she were paying any particular attention, which she wasn’t. He poured scotch but put the glass back not on the tray but alongside on the desk, jostling what lay there. He turned back to her, his body screening her from what he was doing, spreading what Blair had left further, so that it would only take one look. ‘You sure?’ he said.