Free The Company of Saints by Evelyn Anthony Page A

‘Except for one thing. If Moscow dreamed this up, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. It’s so full of damned holes it doesn’t make sense. Unless it’s true. That’s what I don’t know. That’s what knocks your theory sideways.’
    â€˜Only if his story can be confirmed,’ Sir James said. ‘If it can’t, then the answer’s simple.’
    She said, ‘I haven’t any cigarettes – I’ve been trying to give them up. Could I have one of yours?’ He handed her the case; she took the fat Turkish cigarette and lit it. Sub Rosa – his trademark.
    â€˜How was it left between you?’
    â€˜I said I’d think of something. I wanted to believe him. And I had the Washington trip. I couldn’t think straight till that was over.’
    â€˜What a true professional you are, my dear girl,’ he said. ‘Just what I’d expect of you. So he’s in Australia, selling high-powered advertising and waiting for a word. He must be chewing his nails, don’t you think?’
    â€˜Not if he’s genuine,’ Davina said quietly.
    â€˜It’s rather a big “if”,’ the old man added.
    â€˜Tell me something.’ She asked the question abruptly. He knew that mannerism too. She was on the defensive when she appeared to attack. ‘Tell me, if you’d liked Tony, would you be quite so certain he was rotten?’
    â€˜It wouldn’t make the slightest difference,’ he declared. ‘I’ve never let my personal feelings affect my judgement. I’ve had people working for me that I couldn’t stand the sight of. But I trusted them. And in all my years as chief of the Service I never gave anyone the benefit of the doubt once that trust was gone. Nor should you. Now, I hear Mary calling – shall we have dinner and put it out of our minds until the morning?’ He opened the door for her; he had beautiful manners.
    Davina went ahead into the dining room. The Whites had simple taste in food and wine. The house was comfortable, conventional, with Lionel Edwards hunting prints, shabby sofas where dogs had slept, pieces of very good furniture almost disregarded in odd corners, and a portrait of Sir James White in army uniform, which Davina thought was crude and badly painted. There was nothing to suggest that the couple who had lived there for so many years were quite extraordinary people. They had been friends of the Grahams since Davina was a little child – an odd friendship between her straightforward father and the machiavellian head of the SIS. And over dinner, Mary White asked how the family were.
    â€˜I haven’t seen them for a long time,’ Davina said.
    â€˜They’re not still sulking over that wretched John, are they?’ Mary White exclaimed impatiently.
    â€˜Sulking is hardly the word for what they feel,’ Davina answered. She felt Sir James watching her. ‘They think I ruined my sister’s life. They won’t have anything to do with me.’
    â€˜How perfectly ridiculous,’ Mary snapped. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so unfair, have you, James? What did they expect – that you’d let a traitor get away with it because he was your brother-in-law?’
    â€˜People do bend the rules for their families, my dear,’ her husband objected, ‘even for brothers-in-law.’ He didn’t let Davina catch his eye when he said it.
    â€˜Besides, if I know Charlie, she’ll find someone else if she hasn’t already,’ his wife said. ‘If I get the chance, Davina, I shall say something to your mother.’
    Davina shook her head. ‘Don’t bother. It’s my father who’s taken against me. You know how he worships my sister. It wouldn’t do any good and it might make trouble between you.’
    â€˜It’s because he worships her that she’s made such a mess of her life and other