by Jan Needle
He was looking lost, feeling exhausted. Jane decided something.
‘Uncle Edward’s still here,’ she said. ‘He still has his rooms in college. I’m having dinner with him tomorrow night, do you want to come? He knows much more than I do about the Hess thing, but then you know that, don’t you, it’s why you’re here, you bastard.’
‘Would he have me, though? I mean, I don’t know him from Adam. It would be terrific.’
She said, drily, ‘He likes a foursome. He’ll probably call you Arthur, it amuses him.’
‘Oh. Is Arthur..?’
‘Arthur went twice. Other men have been more frequently, but Edward disliked the name more particularly than most, so he tends to call everybody Arthur. He’s a typical academic historian in many ways. He lives a pose, he’s quite Establishment. He’s highly unlikely to tell you anything you don’t already know.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘Of course I like him! I adore him. And he’s not like all the others really, not underneath. He poses, but he’s not got their pomposity. He’s not jealous of what he knows, he doesn’t insist that everything he says is Holy Writ. If he likes you he might surprise both of us, it’s possible. And there’s even a chance your job might swing it, all spies together and all that, although I severely doubt it. Listen, tell me. Why do you want to know?’
Bill, fatuously, looked at his wristwatch. ‘Christ,’ mocked Jane. ‘Is that the time! Must rush!’ He reddened faintly.
‘No,’ he lied. ‘I was thinking of my belly. How about dinner tonight? A deux?’
‘I have a date already, thank you. And intimate dinners are not on the agenda, OK? Be here for sevenish tomorrow and we’ll have a drink before we go. And Bill. I’ll want some answers. So will Edward. He won’t like it if you waste his time. You’ll be an Arthur to the end.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. I have stopped lying. Started stopping.’
‘You’re a bloody marvel.’
Back at Colin’s, before they raced out to the pub, Bill rang home. Liz answered, and her voice was brisker than it had been the night before. She sounded vexed.
‘Bill, where are you? They’ve sent men round. Colonel A’s been on. Furious.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘What you said. In the North somewhere, undercover, you’d be in touch.’
His heart lifted. Affection, unexpected, for her.
‘Good work.’
‘Oh yes? That’s what you think. He put the phone down. An hour later the men arrived. Bill, what are you up to?’
‘Nothing to worry about. It’ll only take a day or two more. How’s my boy? Can I speak to him?’
‘He’s at Tim Foster’s. Chess. Bill, they asked about him, too. They said they might come back.’
‘What!’
The lift in his heart turned to a plummet. No reason for it, he told himself. That was stupid, insane. His breath had become jerky.
His wife repeated it. The men had asked about Johnnie. What school he went to, the times he finished. Wiley swallowed. He said nothing.
‘Bill?’
He cleared his brain. They were probably men who knew him. Being pleasant. Softening the blow of turning up because he’d disappeared. He licked his lips.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Nothing to worry about. Look, I’ll see you in a day or two. They won’t come back, they know it’s not to do with you. How are you feeling, you sound better?’
‘Not so bad. I only took one pill today. I’ve run out, I almost panicked. But I’ll last out till morning. You’re not here upsetting me, are you? I’ll see the MO in the morning.’
The MO, the Army doctor, who smoothed the pathways with his pills. Smoothed the pathways for the Army, not his patients. His first duty was to the Army, it was in his oath, the Army was his moral arbiter, not Hippocrates. Bill felt the old arguments, the old pleas, rising in his mind, but he held back on them. Time later to sort her out, to save her, when he was out of it, the mess was finished.
‘OK. You do what you think’s best. Give a kiss to Johnnie for me, right? And don’t worry. They won’t come back.’
After that, with Colin hopping impatiently in the plush cream passageway, he rang Veronica’s number. He might get David, but so be it.
There was no reply.
Eleven
In the morning, he drove into London with Colin. They were both hung over, so conversation was no problem, which was a blessing. Nice fellow that he was, Colin Smart held little interest and few mysteries for Wiley. He wondered, as he had done often in the past, what Susan had seen in him. After breakfast he had asked for a lift, as he had business in London and did not fancy taking the BMW. He would find his own way back, probably take a kip before his date with Jane.
He rang headquarters more in hope than expectation, but was put straight through. The pause was only long enough for the switchboard to announce his name.
‘Well,’ said Silversmith. ‘Well, well. Where are you, Bill? We’ve got to talk. This is getting serious.’
‘I’m in London. I’ll meet you, but you’ll have to come alone. No messing.’
He was standing in a phone cowl in Euston Station, where he had waited for ten minutes to get a phone. It was noisy and specific.
‘Sounds like a station,’ said Silversmith. ‘Euston’s nearest. Shall I send a car for you?’
‘I said no messing. No games. I’ve been hearing things from home. Things I don’t like.’
‘Fair enough. You can trust me, Bill. No silly stuff. Can I bring Peter-Joe? He’s in the office.’
‘On your own. You know the Museum? The pub? Meet me there in half an hour.’
‘It’s very crowded, Bill.’
Wiley hung up.
‘Precisely,’ he said.
The pub, indeed, was heaving, a mixture of passing trade, and office workers, and tourists. Wiley perched himself at the corner of a table full of Japanese, not asking them, because he figured they would soon be leaving. Their glasses were well down, and they would be too busy taking pictures to bother with more Western drinks. His timing was lucky. As the table cleared and he slipped along the side facing the door, Silversmith limped in. Not limped, exactly, Wiley thought: more hove himself along. It was effortful, but his face betrayed no effort. He saw Bill, smiled widely, noted his full glass, bought himself a pint of bitter. In the meantime, Wiley fended off takers. Their side of the table was kept clear.
‘Now then,’ said Silversmith, craning himself into his seat. He glanced at the couple opposite. Students or the like, young, chattering, self-absorbed. ‘What’s it all about, Bill? What’s been going on? You’re beginning to get up people’s noses.’
The steely eyes were calm, the grey-fringed face quite friendly. Wiley wondered where this man was in the hierarchy of the outfit, and guessed at very high.
‘It gets up my nose,’ he replied. ‘I spoke to Liz last night. My wife. She says the lads came round. Asked questions. Put on the frighteners. Asked about my little boy. It’s got to stop, Terry. That sort of thing’s not on. We’re not in fucking Russia.’
Silversmith smiled.
‘You’re sounding paranoid,’ he said. ‘What would you expect us to do in the circumstances? I ask you to do a job with me, and you disappear. Of course we sent men round. For all we know you might have been up a lamp-post. Under the bed gibbering, hiding in the airing cupboard. Stranger things have happened, haven’t they?’
‘I left a message. I can read your sub-text, Silversmith. I’m warning you.’
‘You left a pack of lies. You’re hardly in a position, I’d have thought, to issue warnings. And as for sub-text, you’re sounding like a prat. This is a business, not a drama school. You’re paid to do a job.’
The couple opposite paused for a second, as if the words ‘sub-text’ and ‘drama’ had flicked a trigger in their heads. Their lips came together and parted, they re-entered their private world. Both men were aware that they had roused attention.
Wiley said quietly: ‘I’m sorting something out. I told you, and I told Boswell. Both of you said go ahead, both of you said the final choice was mine. Fucking hell, what is this deal? I’ll probably come back and do it, I just need time to get my thoughts together. You know what the sub-text is, don’t try to kid me that you don’t. We’re talking Holroyd. We’re talking little threats, psychology. “Stranger things have happened,” my arse! “Under the bed gibbering.” Who do you think you’re kidding?’
Silversmith wiped his lips.
‘I’m surprised you believe that Holroyd claptrap,’ he said mildly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he was put away because he needed it. Stress. It had got to him. But true or false, I’ll tell you this. We won’t pull any stunt like that on you. The trouble is, you’ve put us on the spot. It was all voluntary, I told you and I don’t lie. Boswell, too. But it’s getting less so by the minute, son. You must know why?’
‘Tell me.’
‘You’re getting away from us. People feel it. People don’t like that. This op is big, important, gigantic. Decided by the highest in the realm. It’s not pleasant, but it’s necessary, and it’s delicate. You’re a subtle man, a foil to our Peter-Joe, God bless him. You’re one of us, as they see it. Not top-drawer, not a chinless wonder, but good solid grammar school stock, intelligent, a brick. No one’s going to do a Holroyd on you, but you’ve got to mend your ways.’
Wiley had finished his drink. He needed a piss, quite badly. The supreme irrelevance of bodily functions. The need attacked his concentration, blunted it.
‘So it’s no longer voluntary, but if I refuse you pull no stunts on me? No trips to the funny farm with my sleeves tied round my back?’
‘Absolutely not. See sense. You’re a good operator, a star. We want you in. We don’t want to lose contact again. Time’s getting short.’
‘Hm. Will I be followed? Out of here?’
‘Nah. Don’t disappear, Bill. Please. Your wife and kid, too, remember? They need you. We’ll be leaving soon. For Germany.’
‘I said I spoke to Liz. She sounded fine.’
The Widowmaker drank his last two mouthfuls. He placed the glass on the table-top.
‘I’m very glad to hear it. If she wasn’t, for instance, think of the boy. What would happen to him? Are you coming? To the office?’
A pause. What would happen to the boy?
‘No. Things to do. Later maybe. I’ll be in touch.
The lean, strong face remained impassive. Silversmith ground to his feet, holding the table and his chair-back for support. The students glanced at him, curious for a moment.
‘I’m going for a pee,’ said Bill.
When he returned, two Americans sat at the table with the students. Silversmith had gone.
Edward Carrington – the oldest fellow in his college if not the most distinguished – enjoyed the trappings of a feudal lord. His rooms were extensive, the furnishings of another era, and his reputation distinctly odd. He answered the door to Jane and Bill in person, and to Bill it had an air of theatricality, an ‘entrance’ in reverse. He did not look at him, but ravished his niece with his eyes, through half-glasses, holding both her hands in both of his. When he had gazed, he moved in to kiss, soundly, on both cheeks. Then he smiled at Bill, and nodded.
‘You must be Arthur. No! That’s bad of me. Jane?’
‘This is Bill, Uncle. An old friend. You must be especially nice to him because he’s come a long way just to see you. He’s in the secret services.’
It was nicely timed, Bill thought, but fielded consummately. A small smile flickered on the strong, thin face. The academic, sprucely dressed, adjusted the blue wool scarf that dangled incongruously at his lapels.
‘But surely not?’ he said. ‘If he was, after all, you would not know? Isn’t that the rule, young man?’
The eyes above the half-moon lenses were only slightly paler than the scarf, and despite a certain ageing, very keen. There was speculation in them, knowledge. Bill had no doubts: this man had been in the business at some time. Before he could reply, however, Edward’s wife appeared.
‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘Jane. How nice to see you!’
Had Wiley not been warned, he would have been thrown, perhaps. Erica Carrington was very old and frail, much frailer than her husband. She was stooped, tiny, and walked with a stick. She spoke indistinctly, slowly, her accent impossible to place by class or region. Jane had told him it was arthritic, a condition of the jaw. Following them into the sitting room, matching his pace to theirs, he was laughing inwardly. Jane had been right, he’d learn nothing here, it was a social situation as crazy as a regimental dinner. He’d be an Arthur all his life.
Maybe he would have been. For, like the men Bill had suffered at those awful dinners, Edward seemed at first prepared to play the games he could not stand, or understand. The patrician and the pleb, the master and the man, the Oxford fellow and the boy from grammar school. Bill challenged him not from courage, but from a sudden gloom. If it was to be a waste of time, entirely, he would blow it fast, and leave disgracefully. The game was no longer worth the candle.
It started with the sherry, which was poured, to Bill’s astonishment, by servants. It was a very rare pale fino – Edward told him so – and he circumspectly agreed that it was excellent. So far so good. Jane was watching him, and grinned encouragement. Was it her joke? A small revenge? Erica, despite the difficulty she had in articulating certain words, was kind and charming. He tried to look relaxed, not to search too hard for small talk. He caught Edward watching him, and there was something behind his eyes.
The servants – as if it were the most natural thing imaginable – reappeared when they were seated round the oval table, to produce tiny mounds of hot poached salmon. Edward, however, served the wine, which he had on a double-decker trolley parked next to him, his ‘mobile cellar’. They started with a Macon, that he spoke of almost as an old and valued friend. He held his nose above the glass, he tasted, savoured, and watched Bill taste. He raised his eyebrows in enquiry.
‘Any comments? I have this from a man I’ve known for more than twenty years, he bottles it for himself and half a dozen intimates. The bouquet alone is worth a hundred pounds. Nicht wahr?’
Bill put his glass down.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have to risk offending you. To me it’s just a wine. Very pleasant, but just a glass of wine. We’re not necessarily gentlemen these days, in the service, you know. Times have changed.’
Erica Carrington made a noise that could have been a laugh. She had a severe face, somehow sad, with dusty, failing eyes. Now she smiled.
‘Bravo,’ she said. ‘But please don’t call him “sir”, Bill, we can’t have that. Edward’s not a gentleman, he just has lots of money that I like to spend. In college, certain things are expected of us.’
Jane said, ‘Aunt Erica likes to keep him in his place. He’s an awful old sod, aren’t you, love?’
In an officers’ mess, at a regimental dinner, this would have been disaster. But Edward Carrington only smiled. The challenge, apparently, had paid off.
‘At least I’m not a philistine,’ he said quietly, to Bill. ‘And it’s a damn good glass of wine whichever way you drink it.’ He paused, almost imperceptibly. ‘Why did you talk of “the service” like that, you seemed to be including me. What damned nonsense has my lovely niece been feeding you? I’m an historian. And a wine bore. That’s all.’
Bill had relaxed. He took a large mouthful of the wine. It was indeed delightful.
‘I just thought you were in the business. In fact I’d put money on it. A hunch.’
‘Tosh. Jane rang. She said you wanted something. Something to do with Rudolf Hess. She said you were a consultant. What are you? MI6?’
Bill checked the women, although he was not sure why. They were talking, heads together. Erica held a napkin close beneath her chin.
‘It’s hard to say who I’m with,’ he said. He wasn’t going to tell the
truth, either, but he would skate around it. ‘I started in the Army, like most of us. Volunteered for Intelligence, got taken up by the Regiment, SAS, then got run by SIS. Ireland changed a lot of things, some politicians got angry, tried smacking wrists, a lot of distinctions began to blur for one reason and another. I’ve been hired out, loaned to the cousins, done freelance stuff, you name it. I imagine it was all much simpler in your time? More straightforward?’
Edward filled his mouth with food. He chewed it, swallowed, replaced the food with wine. He appeared to be enjoying himself, the games were over. But he was still considering.
‘That’s a pretty obvious come-on line,’ he said at last. ‘But I’ll rise to it, what the hell? There are a number of us in this establishment you know, ex-spooks, and none of us ever mentions it, or talks about those times. Gentlemen, you see, it’s the tradition. But Erica’s right, I was never fully of the breed, I just had the wherewithal. I was recruited privately, someone liked the cut of my jib as they said in those days. It was Churchill’s crew who grabbed me, before the war, but they didn’t have much clout, it was fairly ludicrous. Being a linguist saved my bacon. Still dabble.’
The salmon was finished and the servants, two quiet men with black suits and stone faces, cleared away. Edward busied himself with a bottle, a red Bordeaux that was already open. The women had keyed back into the conversation, interested.
Aunt Erica said: ‘In those days, Bill, it was very amateurish. Not just the spies. The government as well. There was hardly a mister among them, you know. In the Cabinet. They were all sirs, or lords, or scions of mighty families. All incompetents and fools. They had sex problems, too. The public schools in this country have got a lot to answer for.’
‘My wife was something of an expert in her younger days,’ said Edward. ‘I went to public school as well, but I was lucky. Very minor and most unfashionable. By the time I left I knew damn well which way up I liked my partners.’
