by John Gardner
‘When der Fuhrer says we is der master race,
Then we
Heil! (Pharp)
Heil! (Pharp)
Right in der Fuhrer’s face.’
After each ‘Heil’ a relishing rude raspberry parping out of the loudspeaker. Lynne’s little face looked set and frozen. Petronella was bewildered, anxious. The record ground on.
‘That’s what I think of him and his wretched memory and his accursed ideas,’ shouted Klara from the desk. ‘That’s all I think of him.’
‘Well, if not Neo-Nazi then certainly subversive super-women,’ Boysie shouted back.
The record half-echoed:
‘Are we not der supermen? Aryan pure supermen? Are we not der supermen? Super-duper-duper-men.’
Boysie recalled Angela.
‘You should know. Your people have been trying to put me out of business for the last two years. Girl after girl you’ve infiltrated and not one of them’s lasted more than a fortnight.’ The voice rising like a shrike on the wing. ‘And what are you here for, Boysie? Heavy stuff? A blaster to crush us? Are you people so frightened of the best women’s training centre in Europe?’
The record finished: the old round gramophone head swinging backwards and forwards with a regular clicking noise. Boysie felt marked regrets at not having jacked in the job years ago. Lynne spoke.
‘And what are you going to do with us now Fraulein Schicklgruber?’
Boysie closed his eyes and winced, expecting the riding crop to whisk across the girl’s shoulders. But Klara was in full control.
‘I have no doubts about you, my pet,’ she said, firm and ugly, straight at Lynne. ‘If I had my way you’d be mutton at the bottom of the lake now. Just like the last idiot child you sent.’
Petronella rocked her head to and fro.
‘However,’ continued Klara, ‘after that episode I have been instructed to refer everything to those whom I assist.’ She turned towards Boysie. ‘Neither am I completely certain about your comrade Oakes, or your friend Petronella. So I must wait for orders.’ She leaned forward, balancing the weighted end of the whip, pointing at Lynne. ‘You already have some insight into the fact that another branch of our service is using our premises for an experiment.’
‘Amber Nine.’ Lynne. Unemotional.
‘For want of a better name.’ Klara moved her thumb up and down. The end of the whip rose and fell. ‘Because of this we are incommunicado.’
‘Radio silence,’ said Boysie trying to he helpful. Pleased with himself at remembering one of his Department’s code sequences. Klara looked at him suspiciously. ‘Until tomorrow night.’ She finished. Leaning back over the desk she picked up the telephone and spoke rapidly.
‘Send Angela and her group up here at once.’ Returning the instrument to its cradle. ‘So, my dears, until tomorrow night I must keep you close mew’d up—as the English poet has it. The only problem is, who will sleep with who? Or should it be whom?’ A pleasant grin, her eyes sweeping the three faces. Then, decisively: ‘Let’s have some more of Mr Spike Jones and his City Slickers.’
The record was somewhat sick. A little number entitled My Old Flame, in which a gentleman giving a splendid impression of Peter Lore bewails the fact he cannot remember his old flame’s name (‘I’ll have to look through my collection of human heads’). No one else has ever been the same (‘They won’t even let me strangle them’). Klara was laughing fit to split her girdle.
‘Life with Klara,’ thought Boysie wearily, ‘was just one chuckle after another.’
*
The Chief’s Silver Shadow turned into the Mall. The rain had stopped just before midnight, leaving the road a wide grey mirror streaked with irregular splurges of yellow from the street lamps. The Chief of the Department of Special Security had been in many tight corners during his tempestuous life. If it was not for the Official Secrets Act he might have written a remarkable autobiography. In one of his more egotistical moments he had even drafted a first chapter and title—From the High Seas to High Places. The chapter began: ‘I was born a child of fortune ...’
Now, the Chief tried to look reality steadily in the eyes. It was bad enough in the Navy, but the responsibilities of Security were beginning to take their toll on his leather mind and body. At this particular moment, surrounded by all the smooth luxury of a Rolls Royce, he felt undeniably dodgy. It was difficult to recall a time when he had felt so dodgy. Perhaps during the Russian convoys. Or maybe that night at the Savoy when his wife telephoned and the soubrette (previously fourth on the bill at Collins Music Hall) had answered. ‘Charmin’ girl,’ thought the Chief. ‘Delightful way of ...’ He pulled his reluctant mind back to matters in hand. It was late, and the Director of Supreme Control had been more than acid over the telephone.
‘Chief of Special Security?’ The unmistakable gravelled, gruff voice through the earpiece—the instrument clutched for on the verge of sleep.
‘Yes.’ The Chief was not fully awake.
‘DSC. I’m calling an immediate conference—all Chiefs of Departments.’
The Chief looked at his watch. ‘At this time of ...?’
‘Immediate.’ The line went dead, as though the DSC had exploded in a little shower of irritability.
A sudden conference of Chiefs of Departments was as extraordinary as a Beatles concert in the Wigmore Hall. There were, of course, the biannual get-togethers in Dorset; and Departmental heads expected to be called upon from time to time. But a crash meeting like this was unnerving: boding shake-ups, Royal Commissions, talk of mismanagement of duties—public funds even. It was all very disturbing, and could only mean one thing. Somewhere, someone had blundered horribly; and the Chief knew that events during the previous day pointed to a rapid rise in clanger-dropping—some of it heading nastily near home. Really, he mused, this should not come as a surprise. Her Majesty’s Security Service—like all military and government departments—was an unwieldly and disseminated organisation. Countless tightening projects failed to undermine the staunch conservative attitudes existing in the executive of what is now Britain’s front-line weapon in the cold war. To begin with, there is the major headache of an establishment administered partly by Service personnel and partly by members of the Civil Service, Home and Foreign Offices.
A dozen central departments—including MI5, MI6, Special Branch, Management and Support Intelligence and Special Security—had expanded over the years. Throwing off minor shoots. Creating new branches. For the Director of Supreme Control (the Chief often thought) the job of co-ordinating the whole complex must be a nightmare. That was probably why Special Security was seldom worried by directives from the Top. While the surface remained reasonably unruffled the DSC preferred to stay in his ivory tower. Most people kept their jobs that way. Yet, when you looked at it objectively, it was obvious. Department over-lapped department; the terms of reference of one branch fell right across those of another; the red tape of section A was constantly ravelled with the blue tape of section B. As a Chief of Department it was usually better to ignore these things: leave them to the underlings. But sometimes ...? Was the DSC’s sudden night call the harbinger of a complete breakdown? The start of a ruthless weeding out? The Chief thought sadly about some of the things concerning his own department. Particularly the way his Second-in-Command managed to cut corners and get rid of security risks by employing a liquidating agent. If the truth about that one got out it would be curtains—velvet with gold fringes. The name Penton kept coming into the Chief’s mind.
The Rolls slid to a silent halt. Already five other Silver Shadows were parked outside the building. McBronstien, the chauffeur, opened the door, and the Chief of the Department of Special Security stepped out, heading for trouble.
*
‘Bum,’ said Boysie dangerously, as the cell door thumped and the key clunked in the lock. Klara’s office was situated in the underground warren off the small gymnasium in which Boysie had fought his first, and last, quarterstaff battle. They wer
e marched stiffly (the straps had played havoc with Boysie’s circulation) back to the cells by Angela and six Seniors—the blonde Ingrid trying to look menacing with Boysie’s Sauer & Sohn. Lynne, silent and thin-lipped, was pushed into the lock-up already containing the injured Helmuson (or was it Holmusen?) girl. ‘She’ll be all right,’ said Klara looking at the flayed back with indifference. ‘I’ve examined her and she’ll live. For the time being anyway.’
Boysie and Petronella were waved into the other cell. It was at this point that Boysie, with some feeling, said ‘Bum.’
‘Bum,’ echoed Petronella in key with Boysie’s sentiments. ‘Arse.’
‘Arse.’
‘Sh...’
‘Oh, shshsh, Boysie.’ Petronella came close, put a hand over his mouth and stepped away. ‘That woman. My god, when I get my hands on that woman.’ Quivering, motivated not by the earlier tears, but by stark rage. ‘I’ll screw the pants off her when I get her.’
‘Good for you.’ Boysie waking up to the fact of Petronella’s womanhood. He had been struck by her physical charms before the whole wretched catastrophe erupted. Yet, subconsciously, he had decided that she was not really his type. All that crying. As though reading his thoughts, Petronella spoke.
‘Sorry if I’ve been a bit willowly, Boysie. I’m all right now.’ Boysie nodded. His forgiving smile. ‘I’ll say.’
‘It’s all been so odd. And Karen’s death. Well, it’s not like me to go under.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Sharp. A hand to her head. Fingers furrowing through the rich red waves. ‘Now, what the hell are we going to do about it? I don’t really understand what’s going on, but ...’
Boysie looked at Petronella, dishevelled but unequivocally gorgeous, leaning against the cell wall, her thighs hard against her dress, the breasts trying to force their way through the silk. He looked at the bed, then realised he was in no shape for acrobatics. It had been a hard, tough day. His head still felt cracked, he was getting mild double vision and there was an uncomfortable niggly pain under the left second rib. Incongruously, Boysie remembered his annual X-ray was just about due. At his age, he argued, you could not be too careful. He looked at the bed again.
‘You take the bed, Petronella, old love. I’ll be OK on the floor.’
She smiled, moved her hand to the back of the dress and downwards. There was the soft metallic tearing sound of a zip. The dress fell from her left shoulder. Then the right. Skin like vanilla ice cream. Boysie forced a wan grin.
‘There’s room for both of us, Boysie. Easily room for both.’
Fatigue washed over Boysie like a cold shower. He was also conscious that, in spite of Petronella’s charms, his essential virility felt as if it had been the victim of a heavy cocaine injection. He would never manage in this state.
‘Come on, Boysie, get undressed.’
‘No, really, you have the bed.’ Boysie, vainly proud of his normal prowess, faced humiliation.
Petronella laughed. A tinkle, as though at some private joke. ‘It’s all right, love. I only want someone to cling to. I need to feel someone close.’ Her dress slipped to the floor. Hope loomed in the shape of Mary Quant underwear, the black and white Lycra elastic panties which (Boysie knew to his chagrin) could be as manproof as armour plating.
Petronella giggled. ‘Sorry if I egged you on.’ Crossing to the bed. There was no getting away from it, she had splendid thighs —the full silken bit. ‘Naughty. Forgive me. But I’m not a man’s girl, Boysie. For me it’s jolly hockey sticks.’ Blatant. ‘Why do you think I was so upset about Karen? She was much more than a step-sister to me. Sorry. Come on. Come to bed, feller.’
Relief wandered gently through Boysie’s nervous system. He looked about him for the light switch. None. Shrugging, he stripped to his jockeys briefs and slid into the narrow bed beside Petronella.
‘There’ll be a way out,’ he said, trying to convince himself. ‘Tomorrow, there’ll be a way out.’
Petronella wrapped her arms round him and they both closed their eyes. Paradoxically, the sense of exhaustion flowed out of him—the old familiar urges tingling censorable messages to nerves, and from nerves to arteries.
‘A couple of hundred birds within easy reach.’ He sighed. ‘A couple of hundred pacey little pussycats, dollies, judies, sheilas, birds. And I have to get shacked up with a Les.’ Still pondering on the injustice of life, he dropped slowly, and insecurely, into a sleep etched with somewhat lurid dreams.
*
Mostyn cursed the telephone bell and switched on the light, glancing at his watch. Four-thirty in the morning. It was the red extension. His night line to the Chief.
‘Number Two?’
Mostyn was wide awake. The Chief’s voice had a humid pre-storm, cumulonimbus texture.
‘Number Two here.’
‘Ah. Sleepin’ at HQ. Guilty conscience?’
He knew it had been a bad decision to sleep at headquarters. The Chief was bound to make something out of it. The old boy picked up things like that. Worked on them.
‘What’s up, Chief?’
‘The balloon, little Mostyn. Been at a meetin’ with the DSC since one o’clock this bleedin’ mornin’.’
‘Oh I say, that’s a bit thick.’
‘More’n a bit thick. Almost bloody solidified.’ The Chief snarled—a deplorable sign. ‘Been trying to save our skins, Number Two.’
Mostyn took a deep breath. Essential to remain calm. ‘What seems to have happened?’
‘Nothin’ seems. It has. Better come up. I’m in me office.’ There was a clink of bottle-neck against glass rim from the Chief’s end. ‘In the meantime, ever come across Strategic Intelligence?’
Mostyn set his thought processes in motion. ‘Vaguely. Small off-shoot of MI6 aren’t they? Boffins. Keep themselves to themselves.’
‘Ah. Keep them-bloody-selves to them-bloody-selves. That’s the fun of this game, laddie. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand’s doin’. Boffins. Bunch o’ queers. Long-haired-perverts. No doubt.’ A gulping noise like whisky being poured down a petrified throat. ‘Goin’ to need a damn good story, Mostyn. Be one hell of a probe over this one. Precious Strategic flamin’ Intelligence’ve embarked on a rotten great operation without tellin’ anybody. Right in the middle of one of our areas. Even got NATO assistance. And we knew nothin’!’
‘Someone’s head ...’
‘Will roll. Yes. You tamperin’ around with Wheater and Thirel. Askin’ all those questions. It’s brought lord knows what out into the open. Everyone’s been caught with their drawers at half mast.’ The Chief paused for a grim little chortle. ‘Specially Trainin’ Command. My God, they’ve got an almighty ‘orrible secret up their filthy, sweaty sleeves. Turn your hair grey. Talk about our problems. Wouldn’t like to be in those beetle-crushers Chief of Training Command wears.’
Mostyn shook his head. Three or four large bats had taken flight between his ears. The Chief was off again, skidding the conversation in another direction.
‘Let’s get this straight. You sent Oakes on an assignment?’
‘You know I did.’
‘All right. Just bein’ methodical. The Penton assignment?’
‘Yes.’
‘Back in the saddle. His old job.’
Gloomily. ‘Yes.’
‘You know where he is? Where “L” is?’
‘Ah.’ Ambiguous.
‘Well?’
‘Well, roughly. Roughly where he is.’
‘Not good enough, Number Two. Roughly is no good. I want to know where he is exactly. Map bloody reference. Latitude and longitude. Compass bearin’. Pinpoint. Radio fix. Whatd’y last hear?’
‘He was in the Locarno area and he’d gone out with a young woman ...’
‘Might’ve known.’
‘Called Whitching. Petronella Whitching. Step-sister of the Schport girl—one that was drowned.’
‘Womanisin’. Fornicatin’ all over mountainsides. That t
he way for people to behave? At it in chalets? Makin’ each other in ski-lifts?’
‘No, Chief.’
‘No. Had he met the Thirel woman? Actually met her?’
‘Yes.’
‘In the lurid flesh met her?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think it’s likely—even by the longest stretch—is it likely that he’s gone out to her blasted school.’
‘Hard to say.’ Evasive, sensing the danger.
‘On the cards?’
‘Definitely on the cards ...’
‘Why?’
‘She invited him. Out to the school she invited him. Told me. It’s in the sub-text of his telephone conversation.’
‘The one with you? When he mentioned Wheater and all that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You got the tape handy? Bring it up when you come. He’d been invited. Christ. And Martin?’
‘Won’t have arrived yet, sir.’
‘Better get up here at the smart run, Mostyn. Think I’ve pulled the blinkers over most people’s eyes. Got permission for you to go out and represent us because this bloody Strategic Intelligence is operatin’ in our area. Give you all the ‘orrible truth up here. There’ll be a Royal Commission on this one sure as eggs have little lions. God save our necks. Always said there was no liaison. Nobody knows what the hell anyone else is up to. Whole organisation operates like a blasted civil war. Prime Minister’s shouting blue, black and green murder. Says nobody ever tells him anything.’ Another clink. ‘Get up ‘ere. Too late to stop Strategic Intelligence, but this could be another U-2 scandal. Oh my merciful sainted aunt. Think I’ll go on leave once I’ve packed you off.’
In the Chief’s office—chill in the early hours—Mostyn listened to a tale of snowballing intrigue which cast long and dark shadows. He was particularly worried about his own job at Special Security. As the Chief talked, so Mostyn reacted with mounting anxiety. Right in the middle of things Training Com-mand and Strategic Intelligence were amalgamated in an historic conspiracy. Poised over the bubbling pot was ‘L’— Brian Ian (Boysie) Oakes.
