The Persian Price (33 page)

‘What is it? Are you in pain, dear? I'll get you something …'

She couldn't explain the indefinable, the sense of grief which had no explanation. She took the analgesics and held onto the nurse's hand. Under their influence she fell asleep again. She didn't know and never would that it was the precise moment when she woke that Peters died a hundred miles away.

In the autumn Logan gave a press conference in the VIP lounge at London airport. He had flown in from Tehran and a crowd of press photographers, television cameras and a special BBC reporter were waiting for him. He sat in the lounge with a glass of whisky and soda and read out a short statement. It was the last thing James Kelly did for him before he resigned. He drafted the statement. It was brief and anticipated most of the questions. Imperial Oil had signed an agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company to develop the massive field at Imshan. He had no comment to make on the reactions of the United Arab Republic to the suggestion that the price formula would lead to lower oil prices.

‘Did you see the Shah, Mr Field?'

Logan glanced towards the questioner.

‘I saw His Imperial Majesty yesterday,' he said. ‘I had a long audience with him.'

‘Would you describe him as a friend to the West, sir?'

Logan shook his head.

‘I would describe him as dedicated to the interests of his own people,' he said.

James had told him to say something like that. He waited, enjoying himself. Publicity of this kind didn't frighten him; he looked fresh and good humoured, a man returning from a triumphant conclusion with the right amount of modesty and authority. One of the reporters was writing that down. Logan was concentrating on the television interviewer. He was a widely travelled man with experience in Middle Eastern affairs. Logan explained the implications of Imshan and touched on the attempt to blackmail him into abandoning it. He repeated his answer to the questions which had been asked both publicly and in private so many times.

‘It was an impossible choice. I couldn't sacrifice my wife, but I couldn't put personal feelings before my responsibility to the economic survival of our Western society. Thank God the problem was solved for me.'

It was an answer that pleased everyone. The interview with television was concluded and Logan stood up. He wanted to get to the City in time for a meeting with his directors. It was a woman reporter who edged up to him. He paused politely.

‘Your wife is living in Ireland, Mr Field. Is it true that you have separated?'

He changed colour; his face flushed red and he half turned away from her.

‘I have no comment to make on my private affairs.'

The reporter raised her voice as he began to push his way to the door.

‘Will you be seeing your wife, Mr Field?'

He didn't answer. He thrust his way through the exit door and hurried away to be taken through to where his company car was waiting. The conference had ended upon a painfully sour note.

The library at Meath House was a shabby room. Generations of dogs had scuffed and worn the leather sofa; there were stains on the chairs where Fitzgeralds had lounged in muddied hunting clothes; and the big mahogany bracket clock was incapable of keeping accurate time. The room was walled with books, many of them unread and untouched for years. It was supposed that there were valuable first editions among them but it didn't occur to anyone in the family to think of selling them when money was short. It was a room that Eileen associated with big fires and smoke and the smell of leather and whisky; a place where her father loved to stand warming his back and talking with a glass in his hand.

She had arranged flowers in two massive Waterford vases, just as her mother used to do, and she had come there after playing with Lucy in the garden. The child was very changed. She had lost her subdued passivity. She laughed and shouted and her grandfather and Bridget spoiled her. There were animals instead of fluffy toys. A spaniel puppy which slept in her nursery, the same room which Eileen had used until she married Logan, and an ancient pony which she was learning to sit on in a basket saddle. She was a free and happy child, overindulged perhaps but growing visibly. It made Eileen contented to watch her; their love for each other was very close. When she was still convalescing and unable to do more than sit in the garden if it was warm and the rain held off, she had found complete absorption in her child. By the time Logan came over to see her, she was well enough not to be disturbed. She greeted him calmly and with courtesy as if he were a stranger calling on a visit. He had not suggested anything about Lucy's future because he had hoped to persuade her to talk about their own. Eileen had told him quite without rancour that there was nothing to discuss. It was two months since he had arrived at Meath and gone away the next morning, sped on by her father who hadn't attempted to be friendly. She had read about him in the newspapers and felt no personal interest. Her detachment from him and her past life was so complete she felt neither curiosity, resentment nor regret. It was all part of the life lived by another person. A person with her face and her name, but who had never really existed as she existed now. She spent a lot of time now that she was strong walking round the countryside; there was an air about her of expectancy which no one at Meath understood. It was Bridget, greeting James Kelly that autumn afternoon, who put it into words.

‘How is Mrs Field?'

He had written, asking to come and see her. To his surprise she telephoned inviting him to stay. They hadn't talked on the telephone. He had seen her twice in the hospital and found that she didn't want to talk about anything. There was a closed secrecy about her which disturbed him.

‘She's fine now,' Bridget said, ‘but she's not herself, Mr Kelly. What she's been through left its mark on her. Everyone at Meath sees the change in her.'

James paused. They were outside the library door.

‘What kind of change?'

‘She lives inside of herself,' the Irish girl said. ‘It's as if she was waiting for something. Go in, sir. I'll bring the tea in a minute.'

He thought she looked very beautiful; she was thin, but there was brightness in her eyes and genuine pleasure in her smile as she came to meet him. He held both her hands for a moment and she didn't draw away.

‘Dear James,' Eileen said, ‘I'm so happy to see you. Come and sit down.'

They sat on the sofa side by side. She asked him questions about himself and he described his resignation from Imperial Oil. He had taken a job as a consultant to a firm of merchant bankers. His description of it made her laugh.

‘You don't really fit into big business, do you? Why didn't you go back into the Foreign Office?'

‘No future in it,' he said. ‘I've decided to become a nine-to-five bore like everyone else. When are you coming back to England?'

‘I don't know.' She turned away from him, pouring tea which he didn't want. ‘I'm quite happy here. Lucy loves it.'

‘What about Logan?'

‘He's busy with his oil-field, I suppose. You know as much about him as I do.'

James looked at her.

‘You're never going back to him?'

She smiled and shook her head.

‘No. That's all over and done with. I hope he marries Janet Armstrong. I told him I thought he'd treated her very badly.'

‘Funnily enough, I don't think she'd have him. She resigned too.'

‘He won't mind,' Eileen said. ‘Logan isn't the kind of man to be lonely without people. He's never really needed anyone. I read about Imshan in the papers. They called him the tycoon who saved the West. It sounded like a title for a cowboy movie.'

He put his hand out and touched hers.

‘You're looking very well,' he said. ‘Bridget said you'd changed. I was worried about it. But she's right. You're a different woman.'

‘I feel different,' Eileen said. ‘An awful lot happened to me in those three weeks. That's what Logan couldn't understand. He thought we could start all over again, living the same kind of life. Me playing hostess in that dreary house in Eaton Square. Lucy growing up in that artificial atmosphere. Him living for his business and me living for him.'

‘And now you're living for yourself,' James said quietly. ‘For the first time.'

‘Not altogether.' The secret look was there again, lurking round her mouth. ‘I've found myself as a human being; that's part of it. And I've freed Lucy. She's having a wonderful life here. Father adores her and everyone spoils her to death.'

‘I suppose,' James said, ‘you wouldn't tell me what really happened at the end?'

She said to him what she had said to the police and to Interpol.

‘I can't really remember. We were in the garage. There was an argument between the men and the woman. There was an explosion. I woke up in the hospital.'

‘You said they were Arabs,' James said. The man who brought you to the hospital was an American.'

‘So I was told. Have some more tea.'

‘I wish you'd trust me,' James said gently. ‘I wish you'd tell me the truth. They won't find him now. He's got clear away.'

She didn't answer. She stopped putting the tea cups in a pile on the tray and turned round to him. She sat very still and let him take her hand again.

‘I love you very much,' James said. ‘I came here to make sure you and Logan were finished and to remind you about what I said in Tehran. Tell me about him, darling. It may help us both.'

‘I can't,' Eileen said. ‘I know you fought to get me freed while Logan was hanging on to the oil-fields and trusting to luck that they wouldn't murder me. While he was excusing himself he was telling me how much I owed to you. And I'll say this much, because I do trust you. There was a man but I can't talk about it. All I can do now is sit here and wait.'

James went on holding her hand. The room was quiet, peaceful. Outside the pale Irish sunlight dappled the garden and made patterns on the faded carpet.

‘He may never come,' James said. ‘You realize that?'

There were tears in her eyes.

‘I know, but I have to hope. I have to give him time.'

‘All right.' He gave her his handkerchief and slipped his arm around her. ‘You wait for as long as you want to and, if you don't mind, I'll wait with you. If he doesn't come back, maybe you'll settle for second best.'

He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘Let's go and find your father. And I want to see Lucy.'

About the Author

Evelyn Anthony is the pen name of Evelyn Ward-Thomas, a female British author who began writing in 1949. She gained considerable success with her historical novels—two of which were selected for the American Literary Guild—before winning huge acclaim for her espionage thrillers. Her book,
The Occupying Power
, won the Yorkshire Post Fiction Prize, and her 1971 novel,
The Tamarind Seed
, was made into a film starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. Anthony's books have been translated into nineteen languages. She lives in Essex, England.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1975 by Anthony Enterprises, Ltd.

Cover design by Mimi Bark

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2466-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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