How to Betray Your Country by James Wolff (pocket ebook reader txt) 📗

Youssef tucked in his shirt and raised his head. There were tears in his eyes. “This is not fair,” he said. “This should be fair. I have to… I need…” He looked at August. “I did you a favour, I was kind to you when you needed my help. And in return…” He turned to Beatrice. “He is a mess, his clothes are dirty, he drinks at lunchtime. Why does he get a job?”

“He’s got a reference from the British government. One of the best I’ve ever seen. Have you got one of those?”

August stepped into a corner and threw up into a plant pot. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was fairly sure Beatrice had never read his reference. It said things like “August has demonstrated imagination, diligence and a painstaking attention to detail in his work for the department” and “August is well liked by his peers because of his sympathetic and generous manner.” As he had become bored, run out of things to say and begun to doubt he even wanted the job, he wrote things like “A keen golfer, August can often be found among his many friends in the local clubhouse, where his name adorns numerous trophies” and “In his free time, August routinely takes to the wilds of Scandinavia on a dog sled in search of the Northern Lights.” He sat in his flat beneath the sugary glow of an energy-efficient light bulb, wrapped in an old dressing gown, wondering if that’s what he was too, energy-efficient, rather than listless or lifeless or pallid or dull or any of the other things he felt. “Dynamic and high-impact,” he wrote, “August is a rising star, destined to do great things in the service of his country. V. sorry to see him go.”

Once the door had closed Beatrice turned to August.

“What on earth does he mean?” she asked. “You don’t drink at lunchtime, do you?”

14

August had been there for fifteen minutes when he heard the front door open. By that point he had lost count of all the reasons the house was unsuitable. That it was on the Black Sea coast an hour’s drive from the office, that it was in need of serious repair, that it didn’t have a phone line, that anything brought in would have to negotiate an overgrown driveway that swung down off the main road through a melee of pines, a set of crumbling stone steps and a front door that was clearly too narrow for the larger pieces of equipment needed to set up a media studio. There wasn’t another house in sight. Beatrice would hate it. She had made it clear that her internal mood board, when it came to the hive, was dominated by images of clean desks, crisp shirts, earnest young men huddled around computers, and a swarm of bees to signify the buzz of round-the-clock industry.

But the truth was that August had decided to sign the contract as soon as he had seen it. There was something that appealed to him about the house’s dirty wooden exterior, lopsided over four narrow floors with alcoves and balconies and inexplicable rooms like a face swollen after a beating, the sunlight from the water splashing off windowpanes where shutter louvres had gone missing. He had half an idea to move in while it was being refurbished, to swim every morning in waters that in time would wash up on the shores of Odessa and Sebastopol. At least the house was exorbitantly expensive because of its proximity to the sea – it had that in its favour. Beatrice had been clear that the worst crime of all would be to come back with something under budget. And it did have a kitchen and two bathrooms and enough space to accommodate everyone. August could tick those things off his list. It also had a fridge in the top bedroom, an infestation of mice, three broken windows and any number of loose floorboards that depressed like organ pedals to sound an off-key melody of groans, squeals and sighs.

Two floors below him the front door clicked shut.

Turning to the window, August saw the property agent smoking a cigarette in his car, the radio tuned to a distant music station. He went downstairs. Lawrence was leaning against the far wall with his right hand in the trouser pocket of a tailored, dark-grey woollen suit. His wavy fair hair was combed back and he wore his school tie and a pair of expensive-looking round spectacles that gave his thin, handsome face an owlish expression.

“Beatrice said you wanted to see me,” he said in a soft voice that still held traces of an Irish childhood. “Something about ‘a night on the town’. No doubt it’s her idea, not yours, since I imagine you’d rather be hung, drawn and quartered than spend five minutes in a bar with me, but I can see why it might be tricky to explain that to her.” He appeared relaxed but spoke a little too quickly for the look of insouciance he was trying to convey, as though rushing to the end of a monologue before he forgot the words. “Between you and me, August, did you know she’s applied for our office twice and been turned down both times? No wonder, if this is the general quality of her subterfuge. My guess is she’s worried about her contract coming up for renewal and has asked you to find out what HMG is thinking over a few G & Ts. Am I right? It must annoy someone with your experience and ability no end having to answer to a halfwit like her.”

Adopt an apologetic tone, be generous with flattery, share a secret, establish a common enemy. All done smoothly enough, thought August. He especially liked the reference to “our” office. It couldn’t have been easy to think up a way to open the conversation, given their history. He took a step forward into the room and for the first