a green Rover, B registration. The driver’s name is Sam. If you’re worried, ask him to show you his card. If you’re still worried, phone the number on it. Think you’ll manage?’
‘Our friend’s all right, is he?’ said Landau, unable to resist asking, but Ned had rung off.
The doorbell pealed a couple of minutes afterwards. They had the car waiting round the corner, thought Landau as he floated downstairs in a dream. This is it. I’m in the hands of the professionals. The house was in smart Belgravia, one of a terrace recently restored. Its newly painted white front glistened wholesomely at him in the evening sun. A palace of excellence, a shrine to the secret powers that rule our lives. A polished-brass sign on the pillared doorway said FOREIGN LIAISON STAFF. The door was already opening as Landau climbed the steps. And as the uniformed janitor closed it behind him Landau saw a slender, straight-built man in his early forties advance towards him through the sunbeams, first the trim silhouette, then the no-nonsense handsome healthy features, then the handshake: discreet but loyal as a naval salute.
‘Well done, Niki. Come on in.’
Good voices do not always belong to good faces, but Ned’s did. As Landau followed him into the oval study, he felt he could say anything in the world to him, and Ned would still be on his side. Landau in fact saw a whole lot of things in Ned that he liked at once, which was Ned’s Pied Piper gift: the careful charm, the restrained good looks, the power of quiet leadership and the ‘Come on in.’ Landau also sniffed the polyglot in him, for he was one himself. He had only to drop a Russian name or phrase for Ned to reach out for it and smile, and match it with a phrase of his own. He was one of us, Harry. If you had a secret, this was the man to tell it to, not that flunkey in the Foreign Office.
But then Landau had not realised, until he began talking, how desperately he had been needing to confide. He opened his mouth, he was away. All he could do from then on was listen to himself in amazement, because he wasn’t just talking about Katya and the notebooks, and why he had accepted them, and how he had hidden them, but about his whole life till now, his confusions about being a Slav, his love of Russia despite everything, and his feeling of being suspended between two cultures. Yet Ned did not lead him or check him in any way. He was a born listener. He hardly stirred except to write himself neat notes on bits of card, and if he interrupted, it was only to clear up a rare point of detail – the moment at Sheremetyevo, for example, when Landau was waved through to the departure lounge without a glance.
‘Now did all your group receive that treatment or only you?’
‘The lot of us. One nod, we were through.’
‘You didn’t feel singled out in any way?’
‘What for?’
‘You didn’t have the impression you might be getting a different kind of treatment from other people? A better one, for instance?’
‘We went through like a bunch of sheep. A flock,’ Landau corrected himself. ‘We handed in our visas, that was it.’
‘Were other groups going through at the same rate, did you notice?’
‘The Russkies didn’t seem to be bothering at all. Maybe it was the summer Saturday. Maybe it was the glasnost . They pulled a few out to inspect and let the others through. I felt a fool, to be truthful. I didn’t need to have taken the precautions that I did.’
‘You were no sort of fool. You did marvellously,’ said Ned, without a hint of patronising while he wrote again. ‘And on the plane, who did you sit next to, remember?’
‘Spikey Morgan.’
‘Who else?’
‘No one. I had the window.’
‘Which seat was that?’
Landau knew the seat number off pat. It was the one he pre-booked whenever he could.
‘Did you talk much on the flight?’
‘Quite a lot, as a matter of fact.’
‘What about?’
‘Women, mainly. Spikey’s moved in with a pair
‘Our friend’s all right, is he?’ said Landau, unable to resist asking, but Ned had rung off.
The doorbell pealed a couple of minutes afterwards. They had the car waiting round the corner, thought Landau as he floated downstairs in a dream. This is it. I’m in the hands of the professionals. The house was in smart Belgravia, one of a terrace recently restored. Its newly painted white front glistened wholesomely at him in the evening sun. A palace of excellence, a shrine to the secret powers that rule our lives. A polished-brass sign on the pillared doorway said FOREIGN LIAISON STAFF. The door was already opening as Landau climbed the steps. And as the uniformed janitor closed it behind him Landau saw a slender, straight-built man in his early forties advance towards him through the sunbeams, first the trim silhouette, then the no-nonsense handsome healthy features, then the handshake: discreet but loyal as a naval salute.
‘Well done, Niki. Come on in.’
Good voices do not always belong to good faces, but Ned’s did. As Landau followed him into the oval study, he felt he could say anything in the world to him, and Ned would still be on his side. Landau in fact saw a whole lot of things in Ned that he liked at once, which was Ned’s Pied Piper gift: the careful charm, the restrained good looks, the power of quiet leadership and the ‘Come on in.’ Landau also sniffed the polyglot in him, for he was one himself. He had only to drop a Russian name or phrase for Ned to reach out for it and smile, and match it with a phrase of his own. He was one of us, Harry. If you had a secret, this was the man to tell it to, not that flunkey in the Foreign Office.
But then Landau had not realised, until he began talking, how desperately he had been needing to confide. He opened his mouth, he was away. All he could do from then on was listen to himself in amazement, because he wasn’t just talking about Katya and the notebooks, and why he had accepted them, and how he had hidden them, but about his whole life till now, his confusions about being a Slav, his love of Russia despite everything, and his feeling of being suspended between two cultures. Yet Ned did not lead him or check him in any way. He was a born listener. He hardly stirred except to write himself neat notes on bits of card, and if he interrupted, it was only to clear up a rare point of detail – the moment at Sheremetyevo, for example, when Landau was waved through to the departure lounge without a glance.
‘Now did all your group receive that treatment or only you?’
‘The lot of us. One nod, we were through.’
‘You didn’t feel singled out in any way?’
‘What for?’
‘You didn’t have the impression you might be getting a different kind of treatment from other people? A better one, for instance?’
‘We went through like a bunch of sheep. A flock,’ Landau corrected himself. ‘We handed in our visas, that was it.’
‘Were other groups going through at the same rate, did you notice?’
‘The Russkies didn’t seem to be bothering at all. Maybe it was the summer Saturday. Maybe it was the glasnost . They pulled a few out to inspect and let the others through. I felt a fool, to be truthful. I didn’t need to have taken the precautions that I did.’
‘You were no sort of fool. You did marvellously,’ said Ned, without a hint of patronising while he wrote again. ‘And on the plane, who did you sit next to, remember?’
‘Spikey Morgan.’
‘Who else?’
‘No one. I had the window.’
‘Which seat was that?’
Landau knew the seat number off pat. It was the one he pre-booked whenever he could.
‘Did you talk much on the flight?’
‘Quite a lot, as a matter of fact.’
‘What about?’
‘Women, mainly. Spikey’s moved in with a pair
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