by Len Deighton
Fiona was useless with children but she didn’t want to be barren either. She wanted to tick motherhood off the list. She worried about them always, and wanted them to be clever at school, and most of all she looked forward to sharing their lives with them when they grew up. But it was now that they needed her so much. Perhaps it was not too late. Perhaps she should walk out of London Central and apply herself to the children as she had applied herself to her studies and her work.
Never a day went past but she told herself that she should go to Bret and tell him she had changed her mind. But each time she spoke to him – long before she could bring the conversation to the point she wanted – he persuaded her that her first duty was to her country and the Department. Even the Director-General had spoken with unusual gravity about this scheme to get her into position as a field agent, a field agent of prime importance. It would, of course, show that women could bring off an intelligence coup as well as any man. That, more than anything else, had helped her keep going when her spirits were low.
Since the beginning of the year her tiffs and differences with Bernard had multiplied. It wasn’t all Bernard’s fault, things had been difficult for him too. Operation ‘Reisezug’ had been something of a disaster: three of their own people killed, or so the rumour said. Max Busby was carrying a lot of the material in his memory and Max never came back. Bernard didn’t talk about it but anyone who knew him could see how shaken he was.
Bernard was now officially ‘rested’ from field work and, in what might have been an effort to comfort her, Bret Rensselaer had let slip the fact that the Department had decided that Bernard should spend the rest of his life behind a desk. Not the German Desk. Dicky Cruyer – a vain and shallow man – had got the German Desk. Bernard was in line for it and would have done it with more skill and intelligence, but Dicky had the administrative experience as well as the personality and background that the Department favoured for top jobs. Bernard said that all Dicky had was the right old school tie, but Bernard could be a bit touchy about such things. She’d wondered if Bret decided against Bernard’s promotion because of her assignment, but Bret insisted that it was a decision made at the top.
She was sure that her painful domestic life could be transformed if Bret would let her confide in her husband. As it was she couldn’t always account for her movements. It had been bad enough when she’d only had to have the odd meeting with Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes. Now there were countless covert briefings by Bret and a lot of studying to do. And the studying was of material that she mustn’t let Bernard catch sight of. Bernard was smart and quick. She wouldn’t have to make many mistakes for him to guess what was happening, and the D-G had taken it upon himself to tell her that if Bernard discovered what was planned the whole thing was off.
Poor Bernard; poor Billy; poor Sally. She sat on the bench at Waterloo and thought about them all. She felt drained and ill. Crying released the tension within her but it did nothing to alleviate the pain. She cried some more in the constrained, unobtrusive and dignified way she’d learned to cry at boarding school, and stared across the concourse where people were hurrying for their commuter trains or saying their farewells. She told herself that their troubles might be worse than hers but that did nothing to help: in fact it made her feel even more dejected.
The weather did nothing to cheer her. It was one of those miserably cold and rainy days that so often punctuate an English summer. Everyone was bundled into coats and scarves and the cold damp air contributed to Fiona’s chilly gloom. Trains arrived; trains departed. A young woman wanted to know the time, and an elderly couple walked past arguing vociferously. Pigeons and sparrows came gliding down from the girders of the roof, encouraged by a bearded man on a bench nearby who threw crumbs to them. She sat there watching the birds for what seemed a long time.
‘Pardon me, madam.’ Fiona looked up to see two men: a uniformed railway policeman and a man in civilian clothes. ‘You were talking to a young woman a few minutes back?’ It was the policeman who spoke.
At first she thought they were going to tell her to move on, or arrest her for soliciting, or make some other sort of fuss, but then she realized that the man in civilian clothes was not a policeman. ‘Yes?’
‘In a dark blue coat, with a red silk scarf? Dark hair. Pretty girl.’ It was the man in the camel-hair coat speaking. He’d taken his hat off in a courteous gesture that surprised her, and she noticed the way he gripped it in his suntanned hand. He seemed nervous.
‘She just asked me the time. She caught the train for Southampton,’ said Fiona. A train announcement, resonant and unintelligible, interrupted her and she waited for it to finish. ‘At least, that’s what she said she was going to do.’
‘She had a big green plastic bag with a shoulder strap,’ said the man.
It was, she decided, a question. ‘She had a bag,’ said Fiona. ‘I didn’t notice anything about it.’
‘Are you all right, madam?’ said the policeman. He’d noticed her reddened, tear-filled eyes.
‘I’m quite all right,’ she said firmly. She looked at her watch and got to her feet to show that she was about to leave.
The policeman nodded. He wanted to believe her; he wasn’t looking for more trouble. ‘It’s the gentleman’s daughter,’ explained the policeman.
‘My name’s Lindner. Adam Lindner. Yeah, she’s only sixteen,’ said the man. ‘She ran away from home. She looks older.’ He had a soft transatlantic accent that she couldn’t place.
‘We’ll phone Southampton,’ said the policeman briskly. ‘They’ll pick her up when the train gets there.’
‘Was there anyone with her?’ asked the father authoritatively.
Fiona looked at him. He was tall and athletic; in his late thirties perhaps. His moustache was full but carefully trimmed. He had doleful eyebrows and a somewhat squashed nose in a weather-beaten face. He was handsome in a seemingly uncontrived way, like the tough-guy film-stars whose photos she’d pinned above her bed at school. His clothes were expensive and too perfect, the style that foreigners selected when they wanted to look English: a magnificent camel-hair overcoat, a paisley-patterned tie, its knot supported by a gold pin through the shirt collar, and the shiny Oxford shoes. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there was a man with her.’
‘A black man?’
‘Perhaps. I didn’t notice. Yes, I believe so.’
‘It makes it easier from our point of view,’ said the policeman.
A gust of wind lifted discarded newspapers and other litter so that it moved enough to scare the birds. Conversation faltered as English conversations do when minds turn to the delicate and devious rituals of leave-taking.
‘We have your phone number, Mr Lindner,’ said the policeman. ‘As soon as we hear from Southampton the desk sergeant will phone.’ It ended there. The policeman had other work to do.
‘If that’s all?’ said Fiona, moving away. ‘I have to get a taxi.’
‘I’m going to Maida Vale,’ the man said to Fiona. ‘Can I drop you off anywhere?’ She still couldn’t recognize the accent. She decided he was a merchant seaman, or oil worker, paid off after a long contract and enjoying a spending spree.
‘It’s all right,’ she said.
‘No, please. It’s pouring with rain again and I would appreciate company.’
Both men were looking at her quizzically. She resented the way that men expected women to explain themselves, as if they were second-class citizens. But she invented an explanation. ‘I was seeing someone off. I live in Marylebone. I’ll get a cab.’
‘Marylebone: I go right through it.’ And then, ‘Thank you, constable, you’ve been most helpful.’
‘Children do funny things,’ said the policeman as he took his leave. ‘It will be all right. You’ll see.’
‘It was bad luck,’ said the man. ‘Another fifteen minutes and we would have stopped her.’ Fiona walked towards the cab rank and he fell into step alongside her. ‘Will you look at that rain! You’d better ride with me.�
�� There were about fifty people standing in line for taxis and no taxis in sight.
‘Very well. Thank you.’
They walked to his car, talking about the treacherous English weather. His manner now was ultra-considerate and his voice was different in some way she could not define. She smiled at him. He opened the door for her and helped her into the seat. It was a Jaguar XJS convertible: grey, shiny and very new. ‘I suppose Mrs Lindner is worried,’ said Fiona. As the engine started with a throaty roar the stereo played a bar or two of a Strauss waltz before he switched it off, twisted his neck and carefully backed out of the parking place.
‘There is no Mrs Lindner,’ he said while craning to see behind the car. ‘I was divorced five years back. And anyway this girl is not my daughter: she’s my niece.’
‘I see.’
Down the ramp and through the cars and buses he went with no hesitation: he didn’t drive like a man unaccustomed to London traffic. ‘Yeah, well I didn’t want to say it was my niece; the cops would immediately think it was some bimbo I was shacked up with.’
‘Would they?’
‘Sure they would. Cops think like that. And anyway I am a Canadian and I’m here without a work permit.’ He bit his lip. ‘I can’t get tangled up with cops.’
‘Did you give them a false name?’
He looked round at her and grinned admiringly. ‘Yeah. As a matter of fact I did.’
She nodded.
‘Oh boy! Now you are going to turn out to be a cop from the Immigration Department. That would be just my sort of lousy luck.’
‘Would it?’
‘Yeah. It would.’ A pause. ‘You’re not a cop. I mean, you’re not going to turn me in, are you?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You’re damn right, I’m serious. I was working in Sydney, Australia, and the hall porter turned me in. Two heavies from Immigration were waiting in my suite when I got back that night. They’d gone through my mail and even cut the lining out of my suits. Those Aussies are rough. Mind you, in Uruguay in the old days it was worse. They’d shake you down for everything you had.’
‘It sounds as if you make a study of illegal immigration.’ She smiled.
‘Hey that’s better! I thought maybe you’d given up smiling for Lent. Immigration? Yeah well my cousin buys and sells airplanes. Now and again I take time off to deliver one of them. Then maybe I get tempted to take on a few local charters to make a little extra dough.’
‘Is that what you are doing in London?’
‘Airplanes? No, that’s just my playtime. I learned to fly in the air force, and kept it up. In real life I’m a psychiatrist.’
‘This niece of yours…was she another invention?’ asked Fiona.
‘Now, I’m not completely off my trolley. She is the daughter of my cousin Greg and I was supposed to be looking after her in London. I guess I will have to phone Winnipeg and tell Greg she’s jumped ship.’
‘Will he be angry?’
‘Sure he’ll be angry but he won’t be surprised. He knows she can be a pretty wild little girl.’
‘How come you…?’
‘Greg was in the air force with me and he owns a big slice of the airplane brokerage outfit.’
‘I see.’
‘Because I’m a psychiatrist, he thinks that I can straighten her out. Her local quack’s treatment was just to keep doping her with amitriptyline and junk like that.’
‘But you can’t straighten her out either?’
‘Girls who…’ The flippant answer he was about to give died on his lips. ‘You really want to know? It could be she has a schizophrenic reaction to puberty, but it will need someone with a whole lot more specialized experience to diagnose that one.’
‘Does her father know you think that?’
‘I don’t know what made me tell you…No, it’s too early to tell Greg. It’s a heavy one to lay on parents. I want to talk to someone about her. I was trying to arrange for a specialist to look at her without letting her catch on to it.’ He stole another glance at Fiona. ‘Now it’s my turn to guess about you. I’ll bet you are a student of philosophy. Am I right, Miss…?’ he said with a big grin.
‘Mrs Samson. I am married and I have two children.’
‘No fooling? That can’t be true! Two children: they must be very young. My real name is Harry Kennedy. Good to know you, Mrs Samson. Yeah, the girl will maybe come out okay. I’ve seen cases like this before. No call to worry her folks. It’s not drugs. At least I hope to God it’s not drugs. She doesn’t get along very well at school. She is not the academic sort of kid. She likes parties and music and dancing: she’s always been like that from the time when she was tiny. She doesn’t like reading. Me, I couldn’t live without books.’
‘Me too.’
‘You weren’t seeing anyone off, were you?’ he said suddenly without looking away from the road.
‘No.’
‘Why were you at the station then?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I am being very nosy. But it was my good fortune that Patsy spoke with you. I couldn’t help wondering about you.’
‘I wanted to think.’
‘Sad thoughts?’
‘Everything is relative. I have a good life: no complaints.’
‘You need a drink.’
She laughed. ‘Perhaps I do,’ she said.
He drove right through Marylebone. The traffic was light. She should have said something, made him take her directly home, but she said nothing. She watched the traffic and the rain, the grim-faced drivers and the endless crowds of drenched people. He pulled into the parking lot behind a well-kept block of flats in Maida Vale. ‘Come up and have a drink,’ he said.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said and didn’t move.
‘There is no need to be afraid. Like I told you, my name is Harry Kennedy. I have an allergic reaction to work permits but other than that I am quite harmless. I work in the psychiatric department of the St Basil Clinic in Fulham. Eventually they will get me a work permit and I will live happily ever after.’
‘Or perhaps move on to pastures new?’
‘Could be.’
‘And you really are a psychiatrist?’
‘It’s not something I’d invent, is it?’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s the ultimate deterrent to all social relationships. Look at the effect it’s already having on you.’
‘One drink.’
‘And then home to husband and children,’ he promised.
‘Yes,’ she said, although the children were being looked after by a competent nanny and Bernard was in Berlin for a job that would take three days.
Kennedy’s flat was on the second floor. She followed him up the stairs. This block had been built in the nineteen thirties and, apart from a few chunks of granite chiselled from the façade by bomb fragments, it had survived the war intact.
‘I’m renting this place from a rich E.N.T. man at the clinic. He’s in New York at Bellevue until next April. If they renew his contract he’ll want to sell it.’ The apartment was big; in the Thirties architects knew the difference between a bedroom and a cupboard. He took her damp raincoat and hung it on a bentwood rack in the hall. Then he removed his own coat and tossed his hat on to a pile of unopened mail that had been placed alongside a bowl of artificial flowers on the hallstand. ‘I keep meaning to forward all that mail to him but it’s mostly opportunities to purchase vacations and encyclopedias from the credit card companies.’
His three-piece suit – a chalk stripe, dark grey worsted – was cut in a boxy American style that made him look slimmer than he really was. On his waistcoat there was a gold watch-chain with some tiny gold ornament suspended from it.
He ushered her into the drawing room. It was spacious enough to take a baby grand piano, a couple of sofas and a coffee table without seeming cramped. ‘Come right in. Welcome to Disneyland. Take a seat. Gin, whisky, vodka, vermouth…a Martini? Name it.’ She looked around at
the furnishings. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep everything in sympathy with the art deco that had been in style when the block was built.
‘A Martini. Do you play the piano?’
He went into the kitchen and she heard him open the refrigerator. He returned with two frosted Martini glasses, chilled gin and chilled vermouth. Under his arm there was a box of snacks. He poured two drinks carefully. ‘I’m fresh out of olives,’ he said as he carried the drinks across to her. ‘The help eats them as fast as I buy them. She’s Spanish. Yeah, I play a little.’
‘A quick drink and then I must go.’
‘Have no fear. I will drive you home.’
‘It’s an attractive room.’ She took the glass by its stem and held it against her face, enjoying the feel of its icy coldness.
‘You like this art deco junk?’ He drank some of his Martini and then put the glass down, carefully placing it on a coaster. ‘The E.N.T. man inherited it. His parents were refugees from Vienna. Doctors. They got out early and brought their furniture with them. I had to take an oath about not leaving Coca-Cola glasses on the polished tables, and not smoking. He’s going to ship it to New York if he stays there.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘He’s a sentimental kind of guy. It’s okay I guess but I prefer something I can relate to. Have one of these.’ He indicated the snacks; tiny cheesy mouthfuls in a freshly opened red box bearing a picture of an antique steamship on the Rhine.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Would it help to talk about it?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘You’re a beautiful woman, Mrs Samson. Your husband is a lucky man.’ He said it artlessly and was not selfconscious: no Englishman she’d met could deliver such compliments without bluster and embarrassment.
‘I am lucky too,’ she said quietly. She wished he wouldn’t look at her: her hair was a mess and her eyes were red.
