3

At the Convent, Sir Lawrence’s ADC was massively aloof. He conveyed to Wavery the Governor’s profound regret he could not after all make the lunch arranged a fortnight before. Something requiring his immediate attention had unexpectedly cropped up.

Wavery, who had been bracing himself for this lunch, said: “Could I speak to Lady Tredwell?”

He was led through a courtyard planted with bog primulas into a pale green room in the middle of which stood a round table. On it were two packs of playing cards and a history of the Royal Fleet Air Arm without its dust jacket. After a while he heard the hard stab of heels on the tiles. Edwina Tredwell appeared. She accepted his hand.

“Thomas, how nice to see you,” she said glacially. “I’m so sorry about lunch. Lawrence’s golfing, as you know.”

“I didn’t, as a matter of fact.”

“I thought he left a message.”

Wavery understood her remoteness. For three weeks since the announcement she would have had to endure her husband’s contempt for the Foreign Office. Wavery and he had never got on. “They’ve sent him here to annoy me. He divorces my sister and they send him here – when they had the whole world to choose from.”

“Darling, it can’t possibly have been intended personally.”

“Edwina, you have no idea of that miraculous organisation. I disliked him from our very first meeting. I knew from the start he would treat Penny like that.”

“His message must have come after I left,” said Wavery.

“I could offer you a sandwich,” said Lady Tredwell tentatively.

“As a matter of fact, Weena, I’ve come about something else.”

“Penny?”

“No, not Penny.”

“I was sorry to hear about that. Both of us were.”

“That is kind of you. But actually it’s not about Penny.”

She said, “We’d better sit down.”

They took up positions in a pair of high-backed orange chairs. She crossed her legs and stretched out her hands one above the other on her left knee. “Well?”

“I’ve had a slight mishap,” began Wavery and he described the irrational, furry mad thing which had swiped his identity. “There were some chocolates for you,” he added.

“Oh, Tom!” Lady Tredwell’s voice was a whisper. Her behaviour had altered. “Then it’s the same one.”

“Sorry, Weena. What are you talking about?”

“I know it is. It must be.” And she explained.

It had happened two hours before, when she went to clear the breakfast tray. She recalled the crystal tentacles tinkling overhead and how she had murmured, “What a breeze.” She was thinking that when the British took Gibraltar they brought their weather with them. She bent to pick up the tray and she screamed. Sitting among the breakfast crumbs on their unmade bed and bleeding into the eiderdown was a large Barbary macaque.

“It made off with Lawrence’s cigarette case. That’s what distresses me.”

“Can Lawrence not do anything?”

“He’s unreachable. I’ve been trying to contact him all morning, but he was so determined to miss you.”