Free The Tamarind Seed by Evelyn Anthony Page B

anything.’
    â€˜Thank God for that,’ he said. ‘If you don’t tell me, I shall have no alternative but to go to Loder.’
    She was on her way to the door; she usually ended an argument by walking out while he was still speaking, but now she stopped and turned.
    â€˜If you go to Loder and start stirring up trouble,’ she said, ‘he’ll find out a few things about me you wouldn’t like him knowing. I suppose you’ve thought of that?’
    â€˜I am thinking of it,’ Stephenson said. He saw the silhoutte of her body outlined against the open door. Arrogant, voracious, merciless. It seemed to have a malignant life independent of the human personality inside it. He had always basically feared the female; there was something secret and alarming about the demands and passions of a woman. He used to think that he hated his wife’s body more than he hated his wife. It revolted him at that moment.
    She seldom bothered to torment him; she lived her private life, indulged herself in what she chose, and nobody knew. Even he didn’t have to know, unless he probed, as he had done that night. Much of her hatred for him had been spent. Also, she wanted him to get to a top Embassy at the end of his career.
    â€˜It’s exactly seven-thirty,’ she said. ‘Our guests will be arriving. I’m going down. You can go to that common little bloodhound if you want to; but just think it out first.’
    Stephenson stayed behind. He let her go downstairs, to greet their guests, a prominent American economist and his wife, the West German First Secretary, and a sprinkling of his own staff. If he told Loder about the leak, Margaret’s connection couldn’t be concealed. Stephenson started towards the door. Who was it? Usually somebody younger, but not too young. She didn’t go in for boys, thank God. Somebody in a position to know what the principal from S.I.S. was doing, day to day.
    Somebody in Loder’s section. The more he thought about it the worse it became if he did nothing. He had been brought into a special conference called by Jack Loder to report to the Ambassador.
    The information on Sverdlov had been coming through from the Barbadian Police. The Russian had made only one contact on the island, a woman, whom he had picked up at his hotel. Loder had read the details out to them. Information collected on her had been checked and double checked and her identity was established as Mrs. Judith Farrow, domiciled in New York, British citizen, working as personal assistant to Sam Nielson at UNO.
    That had started the flap. He found himself using Loder’s slang expression. The man was really inexcusable; he sometimes spouted Greek, which annoyed the Americans, or lapsed into the terminology of the wartime NAAFI. Sam Nielson was an international figure. His secretary picking up with Sverdlov was a top security matter. For that reason Buckley and the CIA were scenting blood. Loder’s policy, which he had explained to the Ambassador and Stephenson, was to persuade them to accept the story without making a few enquiries of their own. They didn’t know, and musn’t be told at this stage, that Mrs. Farrow was also the mistress of the British Air Attaché. That would bring the Embassy staff under American suspicion. For this reason alone, the indiscretion dropped to his wife about Richard Paterson’s affair with the girl could cause disaster if it was repeated. Stephenson turned back from the door and went into his study. He made a quick note in his diary. See Loder. He locked it in his desk and went on down to join his wife.
    The flight back to New York took four hours. Judith had booked on the Saturday morning plane; Sverdlov insisted on driving her to the airport. He had chosen a later flight; Judith suspected that he had done so to avoid travelling with her, but she made no comment. Perhaps he would be met at Kennedy International and saying