Alec Milius Spy Series Books 1 and 2: A Spy By Nature, The Spanish Game. Charles Cumming

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СКАЧАТЬ and light canvas shoes. The pair of them look as if they have just stepped off a ketch in St. Lucia. They see me now, and Katharine waves enthusiastically, starting to walk in my direction. Fortner lumbers just behind her, his creased pale suit stirring in the breeze.

      ‘Sorry. Am I late?’

      ‘Not at all,’ she says. ‘We only just got here ourselves.’

      She kisses me. Moisturizer.

      ‘Good to see ya, Milius,’ says Fortner, giving me a butch, pumping handshake and a wry old smile. But he looks tired underneath the joviality, far off and jet-lagged. Perhaps he came here directly from Heathrow.

      ‘I like your suit,’ I tell him, though I don’t.

      ‘Had it for years. Made in Hong Kong by a guy named Fat.’

      We start walking towards The Ritz.

      ‘So it was great that you could make it tonight.’

      ‘I was glad you rang.’

      ‘Saul not with you?’

      ‘He couldn’t come in the end. Sends his apologies. Had to go off at the last minute to shoot an advert.’

      I never asked Saul to come along. I don’t know where he is or what he’s up to.

      ‘That’s too bad. Maybe next time.’ Katharine moves some loose hairs out of her face. ‘Hope you won’t be bored.’

      ‘Not at all. I’m happy it being just the three of us.’

      ‘You gotta girlfriend, Milius?’

      I don’t mind it too much that Fortner has decided to call me that. It suggests a kind of intimacy.

      ‘Not at the moment. Too busy. I used to have one but we broke up.’

      This is quietly registered by both of them, another fact about me. We continue along the street, the silence lengthening.

      ‘So where are we heading?’ I ask, trying to break it, trying to stop any sense that we might have nothing to say to one another. I must keep talking to them. I must earn their trust.

      ‘Good question,’ says Fortner, loudly clapping his hands. It is as if I have woken him up from a nap. ‘Kathy and I have been going to this place for years. We thought we’d show it to you. It’s a small Italian restaurant that’s been owned by the same Florentine family for decades. Maître d’ goes by the name of Tucci.’

      ‘Sounds great.’

      Katharine’s attention has been distracted. There are hampers, golf bags, and elegant skirts on display in the windows of Fortnum & Mason and she has stopped to look at them. I am watching her when Fortner puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘I like this part of town.’ He’s decided to play the avuncular card right away. ‘It’s so…anachronistic, so Merchant Ivory, you know? Round here, an English gentleman can still get his toast done on one side, have an ivory handle attached to his favourite shooting stick, get a barber to file his nails down and rub his neck with cologne. You got your bespoke shirts, your customized suits. Look at all this stuff.’

      ‘You like that, honey?’ Katharine asks, pointing at a smart two-piece ladies’ outfit in a window.

      ‘Not a whole lot,’ Fortner replies, his mood abruptly fractious. ‘Why, you wanna get it?’

      ‘No. Just askin’.’

      ‘Well, I’m hungry,’ he says. ‘Let’s go eat.’

      The restaurant has an outside staircase flaked with dried moss leading down to a basement. Fortner, walking ahead of us, clumps down the steps and through the heavy entrance door. He doesn’t bother holding it open for Katharine. He just wants to get inside and start eating. Katharine and I are left on the threshold and I hold the door open for her, letting her glide past me with a whisper of thanks that is almost conspiratorial.

      The restaurant is only half full. There’s a small clearing immediately inside the entrance, where we are met by a paunchy, hair-oiled Italian in late middle-age. Fortner already has his arm wrapped around him, with a big, fulfilled smile all over his face.

      ‘Here they come now,’ he is saying as we come through the door, his voice hearty and full of good cheer. ‘Tucci, let me introduce you to a young friend of ours, Mr Alec Milius. Very smart guy in the oil business.’

      ‘Nice to meet you, sir,’ says Tucci, shaking my hand, but he hasn’t even looked at me. His eyes have been fixed on Katharine since she walked in.

      ‘And your beautiful wife, Mrs. Grice,’ he says. ‘How are you, my dear?’

      Katharine bends to meet Tucci’s puckered kiss, offering him a smooth, pale cheek. She doesn’t bother explaining that Grice isn’t her surname.

      ‘You look as beautiful as ever, madam.’

      ‘Oh, you’re incorrigible, Tucci. So charming.’

      The slimy old bastard leads us downstairs into a dark basement where we are shown to a small table covered in a faded red cloth and cutlery. The decor is very seventies, but it isn’t consciously retro. Cheap wood carvings line the walls and there are candles in old wicker flasks on shelves. Hardened wax clings to their sides like jewellery.

      Fortner shuffles onto a sofa attached to the wall and Tucci pins the table up against his legs. I take the chair to Fortner’s right and Katharine sits opposite me. Three of us in a booth. Rather than have one of his dumb-looking Sicilian studs do it, Tucci then goes back upstairs and brings down three menus and a wine list, thereby giving himself as much time as possible with Katharine. All of his premeal small talk is addressed to her. That’s a lovely dress, Mrs. Grice. Have you been on holiday? You look so well. By contrast, Fortner and I are treated with something approaching contempt. Eventually, Fortner loses his cool and tells Tucci to bring us some drinks.

      ‘Right away, Mr Fortner. Right away. I have a nice bottle of Chianti you try. And some Pellegrino, perhaps?’

      ‘Whatever. That’d be great.’

      Fortner takes off his jacket to eat, tossing it in a crumpled heap onto the sofa beside him. Then he undoes the top three buttons of his shirt and inserts a napkin, mafia-style, below his neck. His chest hair is clearly visible, tight black curls like cigarette burns.

      In the early part of the meal we do not talk about any aspect of the oil business. I am not tapped for information, for tips and gossip, nor do Katharine and Fortner discuss ongoing projects at Andromeda. I have ordered veal, but it is tough and bland. Both Americans are having the same thing–plump breasts of chicken in what appears to be a mushroom cream sauce; it looks a lot better than mine. We share out French beans and potato croquettes and get through the first bottle of red wine within half an hour.

      We get along fine, better even than I had expected. Everything is easy and enjoyable. The generation gap between us, as was proved by the trip to the NFT, is no hindrance at all. Although Fortner’s age is in some ways accentuated by the vigour of his younger bride, he has that certain playfulness about him that largely offsets his age.

      Still, I cannot work out why Katharine СКАЧАТЬ