by Len Deighton
‘Thank you, Frank,’ I said. I let my head loll back and closed my eyes. ‘VERDI seemed to think that the D-G was opposed to this scheme of Dicky’s.’
‘How did he get to hear of that?’ said Frank, continuing to work on the other cuff. He didn’t seem unduly alarmed at the leak, or even concerned.
‘I thought you might know.’
‘Werner Volkmann and VERDI have had meetings,’ said Frank.
‘Does Werner know the politics and arguments going on in London?’
‘Don’t sound so amazed,’ said Frank. ‘Werner’s new job is on the line. He must be interested in its chances of getting approval.’
‘Dicky will push it through,’ I said, just to see what Frank would say to that.
‘It’s Dicky’s chance of getting Operations permanently. That would be a major step up for him.’
‘Next stop Deputy?’
‘Let’s not go through the ceiling,’ said Frank. ‘Look, could you help with the final bit?’
Frank had got his second cuff-link through one side of the cuff but the other side was completely sealed and resisting all his efforts.
‘Lovely,’ said Frank when I completed the job for him. He tugged at his cuffs as he admired himself in the mirror. ‘It wouldn’t hurt you if Dicky became Deputy D-G. By that time Fiona would be ready to take over Operations and there would be a chance for you as German Stations.’
‘I’ve all but given up those sort of ambitions,’ I said. There was a time when Dicky and I were running neck and neck for any promotions that came along. Now I was being talked of as a possible subordinate to him. And even that was unlikely if I was to face the truth of it.
When Frank turned to me and slapped my arm in some sort of gesture of commiseration it didn’t cheer me up. I was hoping that he might provide me with a few encouraging lies. I got his jacket from the hanger and helped him into it.
‘I’m sorry to have burst in on you like this,’ I said.
He took a gold watch from his waistcoat to see the time. Frank was old-fashioned enough to believe that only waiters wore wrist-watches with evening suits. ‘They will hold the plane; it’s a priority seat. But you’d better be getting along.’ He was fixing his miniature medals to his jacket. It was a rather meagre display of gongs. The intelligence service is rather sparing with them. It was at that moment that I understood why Frank so coveted a knighthood. He wanted to go along to drink with his soldier pals, and have on his chest a bauble to compare with all the glittering hardware they’d accumulated in a lifetime of soldiering.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘I’m glad you came to see me, Bernard,’ said Frank as he buttoned his waistcoat and tugged it down. ‘But you have never asked me how I feel about the VERDI operation … Werner’s network and all that …’
‘How do you feel, Frank?’
‘I shall do everything I can to screw it up.’
‘Why?’
‘Why don’t we just say that I don’t want any secret network formed in my bailiwick, unless I’m the one setting it up.’
I looked at him. I knew it wasn’t the true reason. At least it wasn’t the only reason. Frank wasn’t the sort of man who strongly objected to others doing work for which he would be sure to receive a large measure of the credit. ‘No,’ I said.
‘I’ve sent a formal objection to the D-G.’
‘Was he pleased to hear that his wasn’t the only voice raised in protest?’
‘Yes. Every little helps,’ said Frank. ‘The fact is that I feel that this is the wrong time to mount a big operation that can only have a limited life. I’m too old to have another one of those blood-and-thunder confrontations, with tanks and guns sighting up across Checkpoint Charlie. And where will I find the field agents to handle it? Do you remember how many good people we lost last time?’
Yes, that sounded more like the real reason. Frank had settled down into a live-and-let-live routine that suited his lifestyle. Tackling the Soviets in any practical way would run the risk of Frank’s evenings being spoiled and his social life ravaged. ‘Yes, I remember, Frank,’ I said. ‘But I thought that was what we got paid for.’
‘That’s because you were a war baby,’ said Frank. ‘But some of us remember life without cold wars, hot wars and any wars at all. We even cherish the hope that such days might come round again.’
No one really enjoys being in hospital I suppose. But two days of check-ups gave me a chance to sort out my thoughts. They couldn’t get a bed for me in the London Clinic so I ended up in a small private hospital on the wrong side of Marylebone Road. It was an ugly little room, newly redecorated and smelling of paint. There was a small sink in one corner, and over it a mirror and a glass shelf holding a toothbrush glass and a comb. On one wall there was a light-box for examining X-ray photos and above that a TV set extended on a swivel arm. A large window gave a view across the crooked roofs of west London all the way to the elevated motorway.
My metal hospital bed was equipped with a personal radio, and plugs for intensive-care monitoring equipment that was not installed. On the wall beside the bed there was a phone and, on a hook beside that, a TV channel changer. All I had to do was sit there and watch TV, or work my way through a dozen or more assorted paperback books that were in the bedside cabinet behind the bedpans, and wait for my meals to arrive. It really wasn’t too bad.
I had lots of visitors. None of them asked me specifically what was wrong with me but I gathered that some sort of rumour had circulated about me being injured during a daring foray across the Wall. I encouraged this misunderstanding by giving only vague responses to well-wishers, and hinting about the Official Secrets Act when regretfully refusing to reply to direct questions.
Dicky sent his assistant – who actually proclaimed herself as ‘Jenni-with-an-i’ – to visit bearing a huge box of crystallized pineapple. Since there was no conceivable reason for Dicky to think I liked crystallized fruit in such abundance, I suspected that it was an unwanted present left over from the previous Christmas, especially since the sticky label, from which the price had been torn, had a robin on it. I gobbled some of it and shared it with the nurses, and the consensus was that it was delicious. It was particularly tasty when dipped into the brandy I picked up at the airport.
I don’t think Jenni-with-an-i had ever been inside a hospital before. She looked around with wide-eyed interest and asked me if I’d like her to read to me. I decided against it. There were flowers from Werner, two dozen tulips, and telephoned good wishes from Frank Harrington. There were get-well cards, including one, featuring a risque cartoon of an elderly doctor and young nurse in bed, which was delivered by motor-cycle messenger. It proved to be from Mabel, a girl in the office who did my typing rather than let me loose on her word processor.
There were no wishes – good or otherwise – from Silas Gaunt, the Deputy D-G or Sir Henry Clevemore. I believe this was a signal that all three had been informed that my excursion to the East had been entirely unauthorized, that I’d not informed Frank before going, and had made the Department look foolish by letting an old Russian peasant beat me about the head with an icon.
A young Chinese doctor from Hong Kong seemed to be in charge of my ‘complete check-up’. He arranged the head-scan and the ophthalmology examination, and dropped in frequently to discuss the prices of second-hand motor cars, and eat the glacé pineapple. He was not unsympathetic at all. He said that such bangs on the head should always be examined carefully, and gave me some yellow tablets that he said might clear up the head-cold that I think I must have caught in Berlin. He said they’d also clear up the nasal congestion, because that’s what they claimed in the commercials on TV. But I suppose he was paid to be sympathetic.
Fiona came to the hospital the night I checked in. She was waiting for me in reception when I got there. Frank had phoned her directly from Berlin and told her to make sure I followed his orders and got a complete check-up and didn’t just discharge myself next morning. She arr
ived looking calm and beautiful. As practical as ever, she brought with her an overnight bag containing my pyjamas and shaving things.
Fiona returned again on the second morning. She brought a bundle of work that Dicky wanted me to read and explain to him.
‘The children send their love. I told them I was going to see you but I didn’t say you were in hospital.’
‘I was thinking. I will have a day to spare after this. Would they like a visit to the theatre, a matinee? A musical. We could have dinner and get them back, not too late.’
‘We’ll have to have someone to help, when they come home to live with us,’ she said defensively. ‘I’m seeing people at the agency this afternoon.’
‘A nanny?’
‘They are too old for a nanny. But there will have to be someone who prepares a hot breakfast for them, and takes them to school in the morning. Someone will have to be there when they get back in the afternoon, and do their laundry, and make sure they do their homework.’
‘Almost like a mother, you mean?’
For a moment I thought she would react angrily, but she smiled and said: ‘Like your mother, and like my mother. But things have changed nowadays, darling. You wouldn’t want me to stay at home all day, would you?’
‘No,’ I said. There was no need to remind me that her new job as Principal Assistant Europe would bring her a salary higher than mine, as well as guaranteeing her a permanent post and a good pension.
‘Suggest the theatre visit when they come home for the weekend. I’m sure they’d love it.’
‘Say I’m in here having a tooth fixed.’
‘Yes, I will.’ She gave me a smile. ‘When Billy was born, I had a fear that you might want to be a tough-guy father. I wouldn’t have blamed you. It was your right to earn their respect. But you’ve never portrayed yourself as a tough guy with them, Bernard. You’ve never told them stories of the work you do. They don’t know about the dangers you’ve faced, or of the times you got hurt.’
‘Idolizing your father is a tyranny from which few men emerge intact. The Department is full of examples.’
‘But not many fathers can resist playing the absurd roles their children make for them, Bernard.’ She looked at me as if she was about to cry. I wondered what she could see in my face.
‘Tough guys get lousy pension plans,’ I said.
She took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘Dicky wants to give us dinner on Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And we’ll see the children on Sunday.’
‘What’s Dicky up to now? He only invites people to dinner when he wants something.’
‘He’s awfully concerned about your crack on the head.’
‘He sent Jenni-with-an-i in with a box of crystallized pineapple.’
‘Did he? Where is it? I love it.’
‘That Chinese doctor has eaten most of it,’ I said. ‘I think the Portuguese cleaning lady must have finished it and taken the box away. She was very smitten with the box. The lid had three men of Pickwickian appearance singing outside a tavern. She was going to frame it, she said.’
‘I wish you would stop talking rubbish,’ said Fiona. ‘Dicky is trying to find a better office for you.’
‘I’m quite content to remain where I am.’
‘You can’t. They’re going to use that room for storing paper. There’s so much paper now – for the word processors and the copiers and so on – that they need more space.’
‘Frank doesn’t like the VERDI operation,’ I said, thinking it would surprise her.
‘Yes, I know. He’s put in an official objection.’
‘That’s what he told me. Why?’
‘The Deputy is resigning.’ She looked at me, waiting to see if I made the connection.
Even with an aching head I figured it out: ‘And Frank hopes that a lack of enthusiasm for VERDI could get him shifted from Berlin to London?’
‘Perhaps. And the only place to put him is the Deputy’s job.’
‘No. I don’t think that’s it,’ I said. ‘Frank isn’t that Byzantine, is he? He’d just go directly to Sir Henry and ask to fill the Deputy’s job.’
‘But Frank is too old,’ she said.
‘Yes, but don’t you see? Doing that, he would retire as Deputy. He’s dying for a K. He’s missed them time and time again. This could give him everything he wants: a K and a better pension. And Dicky could put into Berlin someone who will support the VERDI operation.’
‘And have an anti-VERDI Deputy in London? How would that suit Dicky?’
‘You’re right,’ I said. Fiona must have been talking it over with Dicky; she wasn’t usually so attuned to office politics.
‘Frank will have to play ball,’ said Fiona. ‘He’s filed his objection. Now he’ll have to just get on with it the way it’s been planned.’ It was the voice of London Central at its most inflexible.
‘Yes,’ I said. I wondered if she knew that Timmermann was dead. She must have been expecting him to report back to her. I decided it was more expedient to wait for her to bring it up.
‘Why did you go over and talk to VERDI? It’s not like you to be so foolhardy.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so.’
‘Why?’
‘I wanted to see if he’s still the same strong-arm man I knew twenty years ago.’
‘And is he?’ said Fiona.
‘Yes. He just has better suits and shirts. Strong-arm men like VERDI always find it difficult to adapt to a life of stealth. If Operation VERDI comes to grief, it will probably be because of VERDI’s loud mouth.’
‘Is that what you really think? That he’s unreliable?’
‘I just hope I’m not standing near him when he explodes,’ I said.
‘But he’s coming over to us? He’s genuine?’
‘I think he’s been on the payroll for years and years.’
‘How is that possible? On our payroll and we don’t know?’
‘His father was certainly on our payroll. I believe his money was paid into a bank account in Zurich; name of Madame Xavier. It’s possible that the Madame Xavier money still continues, but instead of paying the old man, it now gets paid to VERDI.’
‘But he didn’t say that?’
‘Not him. He just yells at me and wants me to tell the D-G what an eager beaver he is. He’s full of crap.’
‘On our payroll?’
‘I’d love to get into that bank account and see if Xavier’s payments are still being credited,’ I said. ‘Maybe not on our direct payroll. Some of our Berlin agents were turned over to the Americans, some to Bonn.’
‘I don’t think I understand.’
‘I suspect he’s on the payroll of someone else – the Americans, the French, or Bonn. Now he’s spotted a way of selling himself twice. He’s dangled the computer scheme in front of Dicky’s eyes, and Dicky’s taken the bait.’
‘You think we should break contact with him?’
‘If we could find evidence that VERDI has been on some Western payroll for years, we could make him dance to our tune.’
‘Blackmail him, you mean?’
‘Damned right. We could have him in the palm of our hand. I wish I knew how much the father knows; he obviously doesn’t know the full story.’
‘Is that why you went over there?’
‘I went to show the old man that we have evidence that could get him a death sentence. I was hoping that VERDI would get the message that he too could find himself behind the eight ball.’
‘And were you successful?’
‘Not in the way I planned. But yes, VERDI got it all right. He’s used to hints and half-truths.’
‘Well, let’s start at the very beginning,’ said Fiona. ‘Let’s assume that someone somewhere is still paying him. We should be able to trace the payments or the transfer. If we let an agent go elsewhere, there will be a record somewhere.’
‘And even if Dicky objects to a s
earch, you can find out,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure about that,’ she said hurriedly.
‘You’re Dicky’s attendant, assistant and hired hand, aren’t you?’
‘Why would Dicky object to the search?’
‘Everything is going Dicky’s way at present. If we find that VERDI is someone else’s agent – the Americans for instance – they will want a slice of him. Or even claim VERDI as their own and want us to back off.’
‘Dicky keeps a lot of cards very close to the chest. But if you’ve got something definite to start me off, I’ll try and dig it out without mentioning it to Dicky. There must be a record somewhere in Central Funding.’
‘Not Central Funding; they deal in millions. This is just one secret account. It will be well hidden, Fi. It’s not a small task.’
‘But you have no hard evidence to start me off?’
‘Only circumstantial evidence.’
‘You mean it’s just your hunch.’
‘It’s just my hunch,’ I admitted.
‘You have too many hunches,’ said Fiona. She looked at her watch. ‘I think you are due to have an X-ray,’ she said, and put on her coat.
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ I told her.
She leaned over the bed and gave me a kiss. ‘Of course you are, you’re wonderful. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be home tonight,’ I said.
‘Now, be good,’ she said. ‘You have the blood tests tomorrow. You’ll be finished by early afternoon.’ She was rummaging in the cupboard among my clothes. ‘I’ll take your suit and send it to the cleaners. I’ll bring jacket and slacks when I come to collect you.’
I knew that my relationship with Gloria Kent was over and finished with. I think Gloria knew it too. And I’d promised myself that it would not resume. Not now; not ever. Ours had never been a sensible relationship; Gloria was young enough to be my daughter. I was happily married to a wonderful successful wife.
So it was sensible and to be expected that no word, no flower nor greeting came from Gloria. I wasn’t disappointed. She was a sensible girl and I was relying upon her to accept the situation for the thing of the past that it clearly was.
