Birdcage

by Victor Canning

  Kerslake closed the diary, saying, “I don’t think I want to read any more.”

  “I don’t blame you. He could twist her round his little finger once she’d kept her mouth shut about Polidor. You know . . . sometimes I can’t believe it. I’ve looked at Sarah and—you may find this hard to believe—been glad that she became a nun. If she’d been left free with that lot God knows what might have happened to her. The man is a bloody vulture. He’ll deserve all he’s going to get. Only one thing worries me—that’s if there’s going to be a lot of publicity when it all comes out. After all, it’s Sarah’s mother. Jesus, I feel quite sick about it. I don’t want anything to muck up our relationship.”

  “I’m sure she will understand. Let’s face it, you only did what was clearly your duty.” Kerslake opened his briefcase and slipped the diary into it. “We can only hand it now over to the right people and they will do the rest. They may be able to keep your name out of it.”

  “That suits me. I just want to have it from me and forget it all. It’s your baby now.”

  “Quite so.” Keeping the briefcase on his knees Kerslake pulled on his left-hand glove slowly and then slipped his right hand into his coat pocket. What had to be done was as evil as anything which Bellmaster had ever done, no matter the official cover which Birdcage gave to its own. He was no better, not anywhere near as good, as the man who had come by night and slaughtered his father’s fancy pigeons. Bellmaster had clearly relished every twist and turn and dark device which he used to further his ambitions and greed. He envied him that peace of mind . . . or was it a mild madness, a detached semigodlike conviction of the right to claim a different and justifiable set of ethics? He felt the metal of his weapon begin to warm against the palm of his hand, and distantly, it seemed, heard Farley saying, “. . . if this hotel thing in Shropshire comes through. And I don’t see why it won’t—well, it would be handy if your firm could take charge of all the legal details.”

  “We’d be very glad to.”

  Hand in his pocket he heard, without really comprehending, Farley talking on. “Be a marvellous place for bringing up kids, too. . . . Have to watch the river, of course, until they can swim. I remember some fool of a man with a small toddler down at Mombasa once—took his eyes off him while he had a nap and——”

  * * * *

  At three o’clock a Bellmaster tap print-out from the communications room was brought to Quint. Normally there were only two a day. One in the morning and the last at five-thirty. Any report in the interim meant that it was urgent and could merit immediate attention.

  Alone he read it through. It read like a stage play excerpt, stripped of all directions or indications of mood or movements, but the lines of dialogue carried the name of the character speaking. He read fast, his eyes jumping ahead, taking in what was coming as the present word-images flowed into his consciousness.

  BRANTON: . . . Fact, I undid it. Ever heard of a book called Dialogues of the Soul and Body . . .by some Saint or other?

  BELLMASTER: No, I haven’t. . . .

  Quint read on and as he did so he reached out and lifted his telephone mouthpiece from its rest and above the words in his mind caught the faint purring of the waiting instrument.

  BELLMASTER: Any man can be bought.

  BRANTON: Not this one, my lord.

  He read on seeing the two men and the Russell Flint painting on the wall which carried the bugging device that—so much had they wanted Bellmaster—was manned twenty-four hours a day.

  BELLMASTER: Look, Branton—and I don’t care what it costs me—but we’ve got to get together on this. There’s just got to be a way of arranging this with Farley.

  BRANTON: There’s only one way, my lord. Farley would never do anything for you. He’s not that kind. But I can . . .

  His eyes jumped to the end of the speech, to read: (Sound of shot. Smallish calibre. Considerable pause. Then—) Sic transit your gloria bloody mundi.

  Quint pulled the telephone to him and began to dial Geddy’s office number in Cheltenham. It was five minutes past three. At half past three Kerslake was meeting Farley near Painswick. Say twenty minutes for their talk—that made ten minutes to four the deadline. That meant fifty-five minutes to put Geddy in the picture and get him moving off to Painswick. Probably have to walk some way to his car . . . Christ, it was going to be tight! Cheltenham to Painswick—how far? He knew the area well. Eight . . . ten miles? Could be done. But Geddy was no racing driver. And Kerslake with Farley? Perhaps additional grace there if, as he suspected, Kerslake would be slow to come to the point. Not sure about Kerslake. He had a cynical bet with Warboys (they always did with a new man. Fiver each in the kitty) that Kerslake would never make it. Something Devonshire dumpling soft in him he fancied. Let’s hope so. Though, God knows, you could never tell. Well, if he could not stop it then they would have to drop the heavy fire curtain on the final scene. That would let Branton off the hook. Once he had made this call he would get someone round there to take over and start the cover-up. Suicide? No trouble. Geddy, Geddy, come on. News has just come over the radio that Lord Bellmaster has committed suicide. Heard it on the car radio and as I happened to be in Stroud . . . Geddy would have no trouble with that one—I thought I’d come up and tell you. No point in besmirching the man now that he is dead. Better just to destroy the diary. And Geddy could take charge of it and send it on. Could be other stuff in it. . .

  He heard the click of Geddy’s private telephone being lifted and his dry voice, saying, “Geddy here.”

  * * * *

  Farley was saying, “. . . and when it’s all fixed up you must come and be our guest.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. What’s in the river—salmon?”

  “Salmon and sea trout. It’s probably poached to hell at the moment. My aunt’s no fisherwoman . . .”

  Sitting listening to him, part of him touched by the enthusiasm Farley was showing, part of his mind thinking of his own boyhood river, the Taw, Kerslake knew that he could not do it. What did it matter if he didn’t? Only a comparatively few at Birdcage were ever selected for this kind of role and near half of them never made it. No blame came to them. Some just left, knowing that they could always be recalled, and some stayed on. There was plenty of other work. But if you wanted to get anywhere near the top you had to be blood-baptised. Quint’s phrase. The metal against his palm was now quite warm against the sweat of his skin. How much did he want to end up near the top? Quint would release him, he knew. They never blocked that. He let the weapon fall free from his hand and wiped his damp palm dry against the lining of the pocket.

  Farley said, “I’ve wasted a hell of a lot of time over the years. But now I’ve got something worth while to live for and I’m going really to get my head down.” He smiled. “Big brave words, eh? You were lucky to know you always wanted to be a solicitor and get a good partnership.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kerslake said. “I always knew what I wanted.” His hand closed round the metal of the weapon. The woman who had taken the dog for a walk had just come back and was coaxing it into the car. Unbidden, his secretary Joan came into his thoughts. When he returned by just looking at him she would know—yes or no. In a little while all the staff knew whether you had made it or not. Some of the girls preferred the ones who had.

  The woman with the dog drove off. Farley was still talking and the clock in the fascia board almost read ten minutes to four.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS NEARLY eight o’clock in the evening and the daylight still lingered. Quint stood at the window of Kerslake’s room. The evening sky had the colour of a dirty duck’s egg. Behind him he heard Kerslake light one of his very rare cigarettes. There had been no need to ask him the vital question. They had just looked at one another and he had seen what he had seen before in many young men’s eyes. The thing that could not be kept out but the thing which only men like himself could recognise. Kerslake had tapped the blue suede diary on the desk and said, “There it is.”


  “Good.” That had been his only word as he went to the window. But now, without turning, he said, “There may be stuff we can still use. I’ll get it vetted.” His eyes watched a pelican by the lake raise itself high and flap its great wings. Above the trees he saw the lights burning in the windows of the Foreign Office. Bellmaster’s death would not make too much stir there. They were used to death and disaster. Adventurers, cut-throats, the defence of the Empire. No empire now, but defence still needed and people to sacrifice themselves for the greatest good of the greatest number. Almost to himself but for the benefit of Kerslake, who had to be feeling in need of some comfort, however threadbare, he said, “We shan’t touch Branton. But, who knows, even at his age he might have future uses. You must listen to the tape some time. He was really enjoying himself. And he will more when they bring in a verdict of suicide. However, for all that in a way the final victory was Bellmaster’s. He escaped.” He turned to face Kerslake. “How do you feel?”

  “Bloody.”

  “One way or the other they all have after the first time. Rather different in your case, though. You’d still be waiting to learn the truth about yourself. I tried to get that fool Geddy to you in time, but he couldn’t make it. You could have come back not knowing what you know about yourself now. A little interregnum to keep final self-knowledge still in the future. Well, there’s no point in going too deeply into things tonight. You know now which side of the fence you stand. We’ll have a cosy chat about it tomorrow or some time. I suggest you take yourself off, find some good company . . . be content to let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  “I think I will.”

  “Good.”

  Moving by Kerslake, Quint touched him sympathetically on the shoulder and said, “The river still flows under the town bridge at Barnstaple. Whatever we do and whatever we are the sun rises and the sun sets over a world which God made and man has misshapen.”

  Quint gone, Kerslake sat on at his desk and knew that he was not the same man as the Kerslake who had last sat there. The Kerslake who sat now was crippled by self-discovery. The door opened and his secretary Joan came in. She closed the door gently and stood with her back to it looking at him, her face still. They looked at one another for a few moments and then he said, “Does it show?”

  She nodded. “Always for a time. No matter which way it has been.”

  “And which way has it been?”

  She moved to him and sat on the corner of his desk, the new familiarity unremarkable either to him or to her, he knew.

  “Your way.”

  “Are you happy or sorry?”

  “Neither. I leave my emotions at my flat each morning.”

  He stood up and touched the side of her face with the back of his hand gently. “Perhaps we could go there and then you could tell me.”

  “I’d like that.” She took his hand and kissed its palm.

  He brushed her brow with his lips as she did it and then, with a dry laugh, said, “You’re going to think this a curious question. But can I take a bath there?”

  She stood up, but held on to his hand. “Of course, but I think you should know that you are not the first one feeling as you do who has asked me that question.”

  He smiled. “We are all subject to the same emotional and occupational hazards here.”

  * * * *

  Geddy sat in his study at the highly polished pedestal desk. His housekeeper had long retired to her room. Although he seldom drank after dinner he had now before him a silver tray on which rested a cut-glass decanter and glass. The wine— which he had carefully decanted after dinner—was a vintage Chdteau Margaux which, after the first few sips, he realised was rapidly going over from its prime; but even so, through his body it was slowly spreading its benison and soothing the last, faint agitations of his mind. Glass in hand, he leaned back and stared at the Taiwan horse. In the old days, he thought, his father could have ridden his old bay cob from Cheltenham to Painswick almost as quickly as he had in his car that afternoon. Roadworks,’ traffic, old bangers crawling up Fiddler’s Elbow and a great stream of impatient drivers behind baulked of any passing until the hilltop was reached.

  And then when he had turned off on to the road to the golf club house Kerslake’s car had come towards him. The road being narrow he had pulled over a little on to the grass verge. They had briefly stopped alongside one another and both had wound down their driving-seat windows. He had begun to speak, to explain why he had come, but Kerslake had cut him off fiercely, not demanding a reason for his presence, but ordering him to turn round and drive away. “Just do as I say.” And then he had driven off. Well. . . he sipped at the claret. . . even after all these years the old Birdcage discipline had held. Whichever way it had been up there it was either too late to remedy it or unwise to rouse Farley’s curiosity by his appearance. Geddy of Geddy, Parsons and Rank. . . So he had turned and driven away. And still he knew nothing, had heard nothing and would take no steps to find out. Bad news could wait and good would keep. In between the coming of either a man could pray—except that he had long lost belief in prayer, though very content to go through its outward form in church. Life would never run short of tomorrows to give man the answers they sought today. Either Kerslake had lost his nerve and Farley was alive, or—since it did not strike him that Kerslake was likely to fail his first elimination assignment—he was dead. Black and white. There was no Tweedledee-ing out of it. . . “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it aint. That’s logic.” Well. . . not far from Birdcage logic, anyway.

  He drank a little more wine, and stared at the photograph of himself as a boy in a boater on the mantelshelf. Boyhood, youth, and young manhood. And there it had stopped . . . Oh, dear, the claret was making him a little fuddled. See Naples and die, they said. How true. That’s exactly where he had died, all those years ago.

  * * * *

  It was ten o’clock. Branton had had four large whiskies since dinner. Not that he had eaten much. Drink was the answer even though you knew you were going to stay sober. The door opened and Dolly came in. She flopped into the chair opposite him, reached out her hand for his glass and drained it.

  “Easy, old girl.”

  “More.”

  He filled the glass from the bottle and stood up to fetch a clean glass for himself. Thank God for whisky. Did more than any parson could.

  He said, “How is she?”

  “How would you think? How would any girl be? She’s pole-axed with the injection the doctor gave her. But she’s going to wake sometime and see it’s daylight and that there’s no Richard left in the world. Nothing left but life and living without him. What in God’s name was it all about?”

  “Don’t ask me, old girl—or Him. God says nothing. Perhaps He thinks it’s wiser. We aren’t grown-up enough to understand. I’ve seen the best of chaps die. The good ’uns. While the bad ’uns walk through it. Unnatural selection, I call that. Time’s the answer. Life, or whatever it is, like an everflowing stream. She’ll get over it. In three or four years she’ll find some nice chap. Human memory is no rock. It wears smooth fast.” Dolly, tears in her eyes, looked up and moaned, “Oh, God, Jimmy—I’ve forgotten to lock up those bloody hens.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll do it. You cut on up to bed. And take a couple of pills.” He stood beside her and held a hand comfortingly to her cheek for a moment before he went out.

  As he walked down the drive to the chicken run he heard a vixen bark distantly. Young cubs about now, hungry bellies to be fed. The palest slip of the moon dying out of its last quarter showed briefly between clouds. Wrestling with the stiff catch on the wire-netting door to the fowl enclosure, he thought—I don’t know, and I’m damned certain nobody else does. Nobody in the whole bloody world or anywhere else.

  The vixen called again. The grass was wet from a sharp evening shower and the dampness soon soaked through his carpet slippers.

  r Canning, Birdcage