The Long Room

by Francesca Kay

  He does not say, because he does not have to, that walls have ears, or may do, even in the Institute, in spite of all the measures that are taken to sweep them clean. It’s a mantra of Security’s, constantly repeated, emblazoned on posters on noticeboards everywhere.

  Now Rollo waves the report sheet in Stephen’s face. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he says. A chilly wave of fear ripples all through Stephen but he keeps his head.

  ‘What doesn’t make sense?’

  ‘Well, in the first place, how did the wife know he wasn’t going to turn up at the theatre? Did he ring her at home?’

  Stephen pauses to consider. Buckingham could easily obtain a log of telephone calls; he cannot take the risk.

  ‘No,’ he answers truthfully. ‘But there is a possibility that he called his friend John Cummins. The wife was home only very briefly after work; it takes a long time to get to Greenwich. Anyway we don’t know that she did know, before the play began.’

  ‘But if that were the case how would he know when to meet for dinner? Or where to go?’

  ‘Yes, he must have telephoned Cummins. From a call-box. Or he could have guessed the time the play would end and waited for the others outside the theatre.’

  ‘And there was no explanation at all of why he missed the play?’

  ‘Only the reason that you have there. That “unforseen emergency”. Was there one on Tuesday evening? I thought that you’d be bound to know.’

  Rollo ignores this hint. ‘So, basically you are saying that for the second time this week the subject went AWOL for several hours and we can’t account for a single one?’

  ‘In essence that is right.’

  ‘But how come? How come we only ever hear about it afterwards, that he isn’t where you told me he would be?’

  ‘Look here,’ says Stephen, mustering injured pride. ‘This is not an Alpha investigation. There’s a time-lag of at least a day. As you very well know. That is why you have to deploy the trackers.’

  ‘But I don’t have the trackers. Or only on occasion. Not often enough. Beside, as it’s obviously out of the question to let the whole team of trackers into the know on a case as sensitive as this one, there are restrictions. Ergo, there are only two trackers on the special list. And two people can’t possibly track a suspect for twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. That is why we are relying on you. You are supposed to give us warning of his movements in advance.’

  ‘I do! Whenever I can. It’s not my fault if he keeps changing his plans at the eleventh hour.’

  ‘It’s absurd. We can’t pin enough on him for Category Alpha and yet without a Category A we’ll never get enough to nail him.’

  ‘I could track him if you like. I mean, on an informal basis.’

  Rollo laughs outright. ‘You could track him? You?’

  ‘I did rather well on my training course, you know.’

  ‘No doubt. Of course you did. But this calls for specialists. You must be forgetting how delicate this is. I mean you wouldn’t ask a tracker to do double-duty as a listener, would you? What’s he doing now, I mean last night?’

  ‘Actually it’s the night before. Wednesday. I haven’t got round to yesterday – a personal emergency cropped up. He’s having supper quietly at home with his wife and another male. Forename Michael, surname unknown.’ Instinct warns him not to say that he can identify this man himself. It’s important to keep any hint of a personal connection away from Rollo.

  Rollo looks alert. ‘No more particulars? No clues? Does he have a Spanish accent?’

  ‘He sounds quite English to me. I think he’s an old friend of PHOENIX’s; he certainly knows the wife. But I’m only halfway through the evening; you stopped me in the middle; that’s the tape there on the machine.’

  ‘May I have a listen?’

  Stephen rewinds the tape back to the conversation over dinner and passes the headphones to Rollo who, having refused a seat, has been standing over him all this time. Rollo stretches the wires to his ears and listens attentively for a few minutes. Then he pulls the headphones off. ‘What a lot of crap these people talk,’ he says. ‘All that balls-aching poppycock about death. What sort of girl is she? Heidegger, for crying out loud!’ He flourishes yesterday’s report and in the process crumples it. ‘And that’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. That play. It’s not about the root causes of treacherous conduct. It’s about homosexuality at Eton. And I don’t think it’s sold out. I’m going to see it myself, on Monday, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Have a good weekend,’ says Stephen. Rollo, foregoing a reciprocal exchange of courtesies, turns as if to leave but is struck by a sudden afterthought. ‘I don’t think I’m going to get the extension that we talked about on Wednesday,’ he says. ‘We’ve had that case conference. Sub-director Six already thinks that we are on a hiding to nothing. We’re going to look like real charlies if we keep our sights on this one when the issue’s somewhere else. Because of Christmas, the date of the review board’s not yet fixed.’

  It’s like being shown the scaffold and told you’ll have to mount it unless you can magic up some proof to save yourself. Stephen had believed he’d bought a stay of execution but Rollo has kicked away the stool beneath his feet; it seems that the seeds of doubt he has been sowing have not taken root. He desperately needs help. He is praying for it while he finds the place where he stopped the tape when Rollo interrupted him and, when he does, he hears Helen saying that the next few days are busy and they must be sure their diaries match. She is making him a gift; it as is though she wants to let him to know where she will be. She’s giving him her present. Tomorrow evening they’ll be at home; of course they will – Stephen saw her going there; it’s Brideshead. On Friday the school term ends but she has to be back the next day for the children’s carol service, which begins at ten o’clock in the morning. Yes, apparently it’s always on a Saturday for the sake of all the mummies and daddies who can’t take time off work. No, he doesn’t have to come. There’s George and Gina’s party on Friday night. Yes, she has remembered that he has a work commitment then and will get to the party late. She’ll make her own way there, or maybe she’ll go with Allegra, who has been invited too. Don’t forget you said you’d meet me after the carol service; you said we’d go to Harvey Nicks, we still have to do your brother and your father, for whom it is impossible to find a present, and you did say you would come with me: what do you give the man who has everything he wants? I loathe shopping, Jamie is in the middle of saying, when midnight comes and the recording stops.

  Stephen whispers his heartfelt thanks to Helen. In some mysterious sense she knows that he is there. Spirits are connected in unearthly ways that no mortal can explain: it’s only unimaginative literalists who think communication needs a physical link, as a telephone needs wires. Who knows how souls reach out through eternities of time and space?

  He considers chasing after Rollo to inform him that PHOENIX has made a mysterious arrangement for tonight. But what’s the point? At this short notice, Rollo won’t be able to rustle up the trackers, will he? He remembers the look on Rollo’s face when he offered to tail PHOENIX by himself and at once is quite sure of the next step he should take.

  *

  He opens the door onto noise and heat, in such abrupt and unexpected contrast to the darkness of the street that he reels back and has to take a deep breath before threading his way in through the crowd. It hadn’t occurred to him that this pub would be so busy, but it should have done: it’s ten past six on the last Friday before Christmas Eve; men are jostling each other to get to the bar and spilling beer from overflowing glasses held at shoulder-height. There’s something feverish about the hubbub; it’s a night of possible misrule. Scanning faces through the swirling smoke, like someone looking for a friend, Stephen can’t immediately see anyone who stands out, but perhaps it’s early yet. There’s no one obviously alone or in a clandestine couple. It’s a long shot, he’s aware of that, but it could pay off. There are
four pubs in the vicinity of the Institute and PHOENIX might conceivably be in one.

  Stephen had decided to begin with the pub that is furthest from the Institute and has long been on the proscribed list. Like a hunter – no, more like a naturalist – he must think himself into the mentality of his quarry. And like an expert naturalist, he has made a careful study not only of his subject’s mind but also of his habits; his quest is based on more than random guesswork. PHOENIX is indolent: when he is at home he sprawls around while his exploited wife cooks and cleans and irons his expensive cotton shirts. Why would he go haring round the wilds of outer London, the back of beyond, when he could make an assignation on his doorstep, without effort? PHOENIX is cocksure; rules don’t apply to him. PHOENIX is possessive. He won’t abandon his beautiful wife to the company of other men for long; he’ll want to claim her at the party as soon as he possibly can. And most crucially, PHOENIX is professional. If he’s seeing someone whom he shouldn’t be seeing – a representative of an unfriendly government, for instance – he will do so in an environment in which both he and that hostile operative can feel safe. Operatives are mortally afraid of being caught red-handed in breach of protocols, and consequently being expelled. Who can blame them? No one in his right mind would run the risk of forfeiting a cushy post in London for a desk job in a dismal bunker in Berlin. Or Budapest. Or Bucharest. Wherever. With no escaping from it. Once he’s been identified and his cover blown, he’s done for. So there’s no point whatsoever in inviting one to meet you in the middle of Clapham Common at the dead of night. Or the toilets at Victoria station. Meetings must be held in places where, if challenged, the official can explain his presence. Theatres. Restaurants. Pubs like this. Which is why this and many other pubs are out of bounds to staff of the Institute. Because they are opposition haunts. Logically it follows that PHOENIX will have a use for them as well.

  It would help if Stephen knew where George and Gina’s party was, and when it would begin. As it is, the window of time is rather too wide, although there are reasonable parameters. Unless PHOENIX left work early, he would have been in the Institute until about five-thirty. And it could have been later, if he’s an operative or a strategist, for long working hours are a source of pride to them. And surely he’ll want to get to the party before nine o’clock? A maximum of three hours then: a long shot, yes, but worth a chance. Luck, in Stephen’s view, plays an underestimated part in life.

  The second pub on his round seems to have been taken over for a private function and is heaving with people wearing tinsel necklaces and paper crowns. No one could hear himself speak in there, let alone hold a surreptitious meeting. The third is less crowded but the few couples in the bar consist of men with women. In books and films, enemy agents are often glamorous and female but Stephen knows that this is seldom the case in real life.

  Nevertheless it is not impossible that PHOENIX is meeting a woman. Stephen had tentatively planted that idea in Rollo’s mind already, without believing it himself. Now he stops to wonder. Jamie Greenwood wouldn’t be the first adulterer to deceive his wife with lies about staying late at work.

  It certainly makes Stephen think. What is it that he really wants? Where is he trying to get to, what is he trying to do? Yesterday morning he had stood before a looking glass and pledged himself to follow this endeavour to its end. He had identified the first moves he must make and now he’s making them, but he had left the actual ending out of focus. He was afraid of dooming it by spelling it out precisely, even to himself. When he was a child he thought that imaginary things could come true if you wished for them hard enough, and he still believes in the potency of will. But now that he’s a man, he also knows that you cannot map your future out on the smallest of all scales because something unforeseen or omitted from the grid will trip you up. You are less at risk of disappointment if you leave your goals in outline instead of packing them with detail. His goal in this journey is union with the woman he loves, but he hasn’t tried to define it yet in the drearily practical terms that the outside world would understand: Helen to him is grail and mystic rose, the core of the flame, eternally companion of his soul. But this evening, standing in the doorway of a pub, he begins to see that he may have to plot the conclusion in advance, if it is to be the right one.

  Where has he got to now? Well, in all honesty he can’t convince himself that PHOENIX is having an affair, much as it would ease his way ahead. Although he’d be happy to believe the marriage was breaking down, he knows from what he hears on tape that PHOENIX is smugly and infuriatingly uxorious. Likewise he must admit there’s no real proof – as yet – that PHOENIX is the mole that Rollo Buckingham is seeking. But. But he’s too good to be true; there’s something disingenuous about him. And. And there must be very solid grounds for Buckingham’s suspicion for otherwise he would not have had the licence to investigate the man. The system works; those licences are not lightly won. And, this evening, it is an undeniable fact that PHOENIX has told his wife he’s working late. On a Friday evening? The last before Christmas Eve? Who makes a work appointment then, when they could be at a party?

  Treachery cuts far deeper than adultery: could even the most loving wife forgive a man who led a double life, deceiving her and betraying his country? Stephen is quite sure that Helen has no idea her husband’s playing false. When she is told, her whole world will be devastated. But he, Stephen, will be there beside her, to hold her hand, to explain to her, to support her through the trial and comfort her. PHOENIX will get Life. There used to be the death penalty for treason.

  Stephen orders whisky, and drinks it leaning casually against the bar from where he can observe the room and overhear the tone, if not the words, of the many conversations that are going on around him. This pub has a less masculine air than the one in which he began the hunt. Of the four couples he can see, three are evidently lovers. One pair is openly kissing, between deep pulls on their cigarettes. None of the men has the confident, patrician look that Stephen expects of Greenwood, and no one looks especially furtive. Three of the couples, or more relevantly the male halves, are audible, when he strains to hear them. There is an empty place next to the fourth.

  Having bought another drink, Stephen wanders nonchalantly over to the unused stool and sits. The girl is pretty. As he watches, she leans closer to the man and whispers something; the man smiles at her and tenderly strokes a straying lock of hair back off her forehead. Such casual gestures of intimacy as this – they wrench at Stephen’s heart.

  A little while later the man stands up, about to go for refills. Halfway to the bar he turns and calls back to the girl: ‘Do you want ice this time?’ His accent is unmistakably Australian.

  Stephen finishes his second whisky while he considers what to do. It’s only half past seven. One more pub to go. Is this an utter waste of time, a wild goose chase? On the last Friday before Christmas Eve he should have other things to do. He could have had other things, he is not without friends, Damian asked this afternoon if he’d like to go and see a film. Stephen had fibbed and said he couldn’t because he had to meet his old friend Giles. Damian is impressed by that connection. So in effect he’s cooked his goose; it’s Friday night and he has nowhere else to go.

  The last pub then. Why not? It’s the one nearest the Institute, the one he ate his lunch in yesterday when he had his toothache. As it is the nearest, it is also the least likely place for Greenwood to choose. But in any case, what is there to lose?

  This pub, to his surprise, is almost empty. Perhaps by now the early evening drinkers have gone home. It’s an old-fashioned pub and feels like a place of calm. He can’t tell if the fittings are genuinely old or made to seem so, but either way they’re comfortable: high-backed settles, bentwood chairs, a gas fire, stools drawn up beside the bar. On one wall there’s a glass case of stuffed animals: a fox, one forepaw raised; in the waxen undergrowth a pair of cowering rabbits.

  Stephen’s thirsty now; whisky’s too acerbic. He asks for a pint of Guinness. He
likes its creaminess and that unliquid-seeming head, so white against the blackness and defined, as if there were two substances, both held together in a single glass. He likes the care the barman takes with pouring, and the time it takes to settle; the froth against the mouth.

  He chooses a stool at the far end of the bar. Opposite him, at a table near the door, three men and two women are in lively conversation. A couple, wearing overcoats, is sitting side-by-side on one of the settles; they are in late middle age and have the air of being married. There is another solitary man at a small round table, with a pint of beer and an unlit pipe resting in an ashtray. He is reading the Daily Telegraph and paying no attention to anyone around him. At the first sight of him Stephen’s hopes did rise but with a closer look he sees that the man is in his forties, much older then than Jamie Greenwood.

  Too bad. Now that he is here, he might as well enjoy his evening. It’s warm in here and cold outside. By now it’s well past eight. God only knows what PHOENIX is doing or where he is. Helen will be arriving at the party; he can see heads turning as she comes into the room, dressed in something silvery; it will be as if the darkness that was there before had been dispelled. O Helen, thou art fairer than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

  Strange that she should be a friend of Michael Bennet-Gilmour’s. Not that Bennet-Gilmour had been a friend of his; he was merely a man who shared his staircase for a year. Bennet-Gilmour probably wouldn’t remember Stephen, who would have been beneath his notice, although to give him his due, he had always been polite. Unlike some of the rowdier boys who treated the staircase, the college, the town, the world as if they owned them by ancestral right. To boys like those, boys like Stephen barely existed.

  And that was so unfair. When Stephen was at school, the demarcation lines had been blurrier and mutable: the pinched eleven-year-old with knock-knees and buck teeth could metamorphose into a star, as Giles Dix had done in their Upper Sixth year.