by Daniel Kemp
With that complication on my mind I entered The Fleet Street Barber, just as one client was being shown the back of his head by a slightly built young man holding a rounded mirror on a narrow wooden handle. I was disappointed. I thought the barber to be too young for any useful information and was about to turn on my heals and leave, when an elderly man in his late sixties, who had been reading a magazine at the end of the row of wall-mounted orange empty chairs, jumped up, ushering me to enter. The place was well beyond its prime, making no attempt to appear anything but adequate and utilitarian. Brightly fluorescence lit, smelling of Old Spice and heated hair dryers with well-worn orange linoleum. A pile of mixed coloured swept hair lay beneath a broom to the side of the door, by a plastic bag-lined red metal bin.
“Hello there! I'm looking for Maurice. Could that be you?” I asked, as the bell-jangling door closed behind me.
“That's me, young sir! Maurice by name, haircutter extraordinaire by expert nature. Where others see a number one with a taper to the back, I see a creation waiting to hatch. Take a seat and let the world pass by. What's to be your pleasure this wonderful day? A shave perhaps!” I didn't think I was that scruffy but as I was forced to look in no other direction than the mirror in front, I could see I was mistaken!
“Yes, that seems a good place for the tidy-up to start!” I replied.
His magazine was flamboyantly tossed to the seat simultaneously with the dramatic opening of a black gown for my arms, with so much extravagant theatrical aplomb that I wondered if he had been on the list at that gathering in Eton Square, but I doubted Maudlin would have known him. However, as I'd seldom been right in so many things lately there was an enormous opening for a shock.
“I was somewhat surprised to see you open on a Saturday afternoon. This part of town must be dreadfully quiet at the weekends, surely?” making light conversation, I offered.
“Not a wrong assumption at all, if you didn't know the local clientele. I'm luckily surrounded by private investment banks who open at otherwise unwelcome hours to regular bankers. They're mostly staffed by young, very rich, hard-working people who have little time for the subtleties of life like a haircut. They do, however, have a huge desire to party when time permits. If I'm not mistaken that is precisely what this young man beside us is going to do later tonight with his superb new hairstyle provided by my skilled colleague.” He opened the palm of his left hand towards the chair beside me and the chap being brushed down before departing. He simply ignored our conversation, paid and left!
“Besides, what other mischief would an old villain like me do on a Saturday afternoon? Perhaps you're now thinking that I'm only interested in listening to money-making opportunities told under the hypnotising effect of my dazzling scissors. Not so, sir! Not so. I owe my adoring public my unfaltering allegiance. Now, what will it be apart from a shave? A trim, or a whole new personality, young sir?”
“Afraid I'm a bit too old for the full outwards appearance change. Best to stick to just a trim and a shave, I think. I'll tell you why I looked you up. You were once mentioned by my great-grandfather, and as I was nearby I thought I'd call in and samples the wares, as it were.”
“Now, that makes me feel really old. Your great-grandfather, you say! And there I was having a good day! Who exactly was your relative?”
“Lord Maudlin Paterson, of Harrogate, Yorkshire.”
“Well, that is peculiar as I've never ventured further north than Barnet, and that was only for the fair. Joke there, sorry. Barnet fair, rhyming cockney slang for hair. But no, can't say I know the gentleman. Still with us, is he? I only ask as you're so young to be a lord,” with the familiar unctuousness of the hairdressing trade, he asked.
“Passed away a good few years ago now, the old chap! Just like a similar friend of yours; Percy Crow! I believe you knew him well, didn't you?”
“You do come full of questions, sir. A Queen's lord still asking about Pingo after all this time. Now that would make him smile.” Thus began the process of dissemination of a one-time friend in more ways than just the cutting of a single strand of hair.
Chapter Five: New Haven
Three days later, on the Tuesday morning, I was ushered through the military section of Stewart International Airport, near Newburgh, New York from the otherwise empty United States Air Force jet as soon as the flight from London touched down. The heat hit me hard as I walked across the blistering tarmac. I hated flying but had succeeded in managing to smoke, which had eased my aversion somewhat when I had requested an audience with Katherine. Jimmy Mercer was waiting inside an air-conditioned red Pontiac saloon.
“Hot enough for you, Harry? Got anything yet? You would tell me if you did, wouldn't you? I sincerely hope you wouldn't keep your best friend in the dark.”
“Hardly anything! That's why I'm here, Jimmy. We need Katherine to open the door wider. Does she know I'm coming?”
“Officially, no, but I guess she knows you will one day.”
“You haven't hinted that I was on my way?”
“Don't do hints, Harry. The only thing that little Miss Russia knows is that if she behaves herself and tells all that she knows, she may be granted a new identity and be invited to become the all American star she wishes to be. You don't figure in that scenario, Harry. The game you two have going is outside my remit. We have, at the moment, only a peripheral interest, strictly in case it affects our shores.” He was as immaculately dressed as before, with no sign of the oppressive heat having an effect, whereas I was uncomfortable as hell.
“How's she getting on in that, Jimmy?”
“Nope, you still have it the wrong way round! I ask the questions, you tell me the answers. You don't need to know anything about the investigations we are undertaking, but I need to know everything about Percy with the beak. You have got that, haven't you, Harry?” As he sat slightly forward his head tilted towards me with that question.
“I understand you perfectly well, old chap, however, as this is my investigation I will conduct it my way, with no outside interference. Have you got that, old boy?” I laughed, but meant every word.
“Within reason and within certain parameters, which I will set if restrictions are necessary,” he returned the smile.
I nodded in agreement, but just how long that harmony would last was questionable. It was then that I told him most of what I had discovered, which amounted to next to nothing.
“Back in England, when we met, Jimmy, you said that you had not spoken to Katherine for days before the mention of Crow's name. How was her attitude when you had last seen her? I don't need a rundown on your line of trade questioning, just her state of mind, and did it change after the disclosure?”
“She was calm before and after. No perceptible change. What are you getting at, Harry? You got a lead?” Just as car had started off, so had Jimmy's suspicions.
“Not getting at anything, it's just that you've had her for, what is now, eighteen months, I was wondering why she chose that moment to bring it up?”
“Time is immaterial, Harry. We let her run free for a while. Played her along in some of the European Union meetings at Brussels and Frankfurt as well as various delegations around the world. Real debrief started in earnest about five months back. There's an open chance of using her again. We have possibilities in several theatres, none of which I'm telling you.”
“Really? You aren't concerned with her Russian affiliation?”
“We manage it, but that's out of bounds for you, Lord Harry.”
* * *
The opening remark I made in Vancouver about other people at the gathering being ugly in Katherine's beautiful presence was now so aptly applicable to the apartment in which she was housed. It was at the top of a seven-storeyed tenement block, that had not seen a lick of paint since its construction in the late 1800s when grime must have been the standard matt finish in this part of New Haven, Connecticut. Mercer nodded in recognition to the one burly man standing at the foot of five stairs leading to t
he entrance, then together we climbed the stark, dreary, uncovered staircase. The place was silent apart from our footsteps without a sight nor sound of another human being. A more slightly built agent with a cigar butt dangling from his mouth met us on the top floor. He unlocked room seventy-three.
There was nothing in the room to lift the squalid atmosphere of oppression. Four hard, white, foldaway plastic chairs stood in the centre around a matching white plastic round table on which was an overflowing glass ashtray. In one corner of the dismal room, on top of an upturned grey metal bin, was a battered television set with an attached aerial pointing in diametrically opposed directions looking like some alien creature with tentacles. In the opposite corner stood a lamp which matched the ceiling one; both were unshaded. A well-worn rug, of a reddish colour, covered half of the bare wooded floor. Those few things, along with a contemporary wire mesh waste bin, were the only pieces of furniture that detracted from the dinginess, that the aphid tone of green painted walls only emphasised. A transient place whose lack of permanency would have been ideal in Katherine's previous persona, but I could not imagine the slightest degree of squalor featuring in any period of her personal life.
The cooking area, in this 'open-plan' austere room, was as spartan as the poorest mouse's larder in the poorest church could ever have been, but at least it was tidy. A bright blue kettle with a single pink cup was beside what once was a shiny stainless steel sink that now resembled the dull battleship grey colour of a naval ship, but apart from that there was nothing on display. The bars at the only two windows I could see, with the unwashed and grubby curtains hanging listlessly, only highlighted how beggarly her situation was. Facially she was more stunning than I remembered. The bedroom door was open and she was seated at the end of her single bed. She rose immediately on my entrance. Selfishly I believed that the sheer negligee she wore over a skimpy bra and briefs was for my benefit, but then I remembered Mercer's words of her not knowing of my coming and put it down to the scorching heat.
“You've done well for yourself I see, Katherine,” sarcastically I said as she approached, and the smell of dry decaying concrete was replaced by the smell of cumin and lavender of her perfume. A cheap one, vastly different from what I remembered she had worn in Moscow.
“They move me from one place to another, Harry. Today I'm the poor girl in this game, tomorrow maybe the rich girl again.” She kissed me lightly on the cheek, holding my shoulders as she did.
“Tomorrow perhaps somewhere opulent with a maid and in-house agency cook. Usually they are piss poor at cooking, at least here they fetch me takeaways.” She tried to laugh but it went no further than a smile. I held her waist, but felt awkward.
“Then they play beggar man, give us what we ask for and all this will be yours. You will be looked after, your Highness. It changes, as does the weather.” She drew away, pausing to light a cigarette.
“The following week I'll be the thief, hidden away in some roadhouse motel. 'You stole our secrets and gave them to your wicked motherland. We want recompense, or we cut off your thieving hands, you bitch!' It's boring, Harry. I've even learned the rules to American football!” Two puffs, then the cigarette was extinguished.
I don't know why but I felt like an idiot, more timid and shy than I had experienced in my earliest, stumbling days around beautiful women. My ears were burning in embarrassment. I sat before I fell over, inviting Katherine to follow suit. With a shake of her head she declined, instead opening a refrigerator that I hadn't seen, bringing two bottles of water to the table. I hoped she thought that the blush on my face was caused by the heat. If she had noticed she never mentioned it.
“Paulo hated the Americans with a vengeance, Harry, you know that as well as I do. He would say they had only two approaches to this life, one: where if you had oil they loved you. Showered you with gifts of fabricated devotion and false promises, then, when they had you, out came the truth. Taking all your treasure away carried in the arms of US Marines and bankers in suits. Two: if you were amongst the majority of this world in being poor, they'd wave as they passed by in their shiny brash cars throwing candy bars from the windows wrapped in leaflets offering dental care. They'd offer you money so you afford it, throw in a couple of free gold crowns, then sell your body tissue to a slaver for experimental use. Dreams and lies, Harry, that's their trade. Their government and all their agencies are a scam. They play one gigantic deception after another on allies and foes alike, even on their own people. Business is the driver in the back seat and the devil lives in the dollar.” Another cigarette with another pause, this time for the drinking water.
“Good to see you by the way, Lord Harry. I thought they might tell you of my little secret. I hope you have brought some class to the party. I could do with it.” She leant down and kissed me squarely on the lips holding my head in her soft hands, then sat with her back to a window next to me, facing the door. Mercer looked on, unmoved, before taking a third chair.
“They pretend to trust me as well for a time. Then they take the trust away, despatching me back to the role of a whore from Red Square. I don't know what they want from me, and I'm not sure they do either.”
She was thirty-nine now, still beautifully proportioned with long blonde flowing hair, statuesque, dignified and imposing. Electric blue wide eyes, skin like unglazed porcelain, and although slightly heavier than I remembered, had a figure that could never be ignored by any red-blooded male. I now had a second woman in my cluttered life who hated Americans, albeit for different reasons.
“Where will you go when all this is finished, Katherine?” A stupid question, I knew, but I had nothing else with which to open our conversation.
“The only place there is to go, Harry. A long way from here! I just hope they know where the finishing line is.” Sadly she replied, pulling another cigarette from her packet. This time I offered a light, as I too lit one.
“You're still smoking those Dunhill then, H, expensive aren't they?” I hadn't noticed her brand, being more occupied in the rest of her.
“I've come to speak about your secret, Katherine, so I'll cut through the crap and get straight to it. What were you and Paulo speaking of when Percy Crow's name cropped up?”
“Straight into it, no flattery this time, eh, Harry? No I missed you? Would have called you after our second meeting in Moscow but all telephone lines had been cut off from England, as we were expecting a flying saucer to land on Buckingham Palace? Just how inconvenient can Martians be? Or were the aliens more curvy ones from Venus? I wish you had called, Harry. I told Alexi of you. Told him we had slept together, but never had the need to tell father. He guessed. Would have been very strange had he not. He never disapproved, if that's what you're thinking. Where has your charm gone, H? Haven't used it all up on another woman, have you? Did you marry, or has this distant Russia relative a chance of your heart?” This time there was a smile. But her father was good at deceit, how good was she?
“Is he still in your phone book, Paulo, I mean? Don't know an Alexi.”
“You know of him though, Harry. He was the American double that I thought I'd fallen in love with then subsequently ended up working for. It was he who gave up your two English travellers out of the European Union. A few Russian pharmaceutical companies got very rich because of them, as did Paulo. As for Paulo I have had no contact since that car explosion thing in Switzerland. I never bought it, did you? He was too careful to go out that way. Maybe he's here in America. Had a change of heart and working for this lot now! Perhaps he secretly wants to run me. Who knows! Paulo was always his own man from the day he was born. He never altered his outlook for anyone that I'm aware off. Save number one and bugger the rest, his family crest!”
“What was the evening about when you met him and he mentioned Percy Crow, Katherine?”
“It wasn't an evening, Harry, we were at lunch in Odessa.”
“A long way for you to go just for a chinwag over lunch with Daddy, wasn't it?”
“Y
ou're being as harsh as Jimmy's crew. Would you like to pull my fingernails out, Harry? They could do with a good manicure.” A deep sigh with her lighting one of my cigarettes before she continued.
“He was there on some Politburo mission he was leading. I was working for CNN, covering a government sponsored meeting discussing the growing anger towards continued Russian separation in the Ukraine.”
“Who organised the meeting, Katherine, you or Paulo?”
“He did, Harry. We had spoken a couple times beforehand on the phone.”
“Was it you who telephoned him on this occasion?”
“No! He phoned me.”
“Okay, got it. Paulo phones you and asks what you're doing for the next few days and suggests a cosy lunch in Odessa. Says he there's on business. That about right?”
“No, again! You are scoring badly today, Harry.”
Jimmy Mercer had been sitting silently, arms crossed, at the table. He broke that silence as I was thinking of any hidden innuendo to Katherine's remark.
“Would you like a pen and paper to keep the score, Harry?” Mercer derisively asked. Smiling contemptuously, I ignored him. Katherine could clearly see my agitation, picking up the conversation without a break.
“It was I who suggested Odessa, Harry. Said I would there on the Monday of the following week. That's when he said that he too would be there. So let's meet for lunch, he said.”
“Did you meet in his hotel, surrounded by Russian delegates, or somewhere private?” I'd refused Jimmy's offer, and he had abandoned his taunting interruption.
“He sent a car for me. Met him at the harbour, at a fish restaurant. Can't recall the name, but he said he knew it well. Recommended the grilled filleted sturgeon on the menu. I've never been a lover of fish, but I do recall that this fish was good.”
