Tango

by Alan Judd

  ‘Don’t worry, you haven’t been with the Firm five minutes. You need experience.’ Box sounded as if he were encouraging a child. ‘Look, you’ve been in the same place for a long time. Better move about a bit. Looks more natural. Walk slowly and I’ll keep pace. Talk as we go.’

  William turned to his right. ‘The trouble is, I’m not very likely to run into him again. I don’t think he goes very often to the market and neither do I. Well, not that often, anyway.’

  Box’s reply was inaudible. William stopped. ‘Which way are you going?’

  ‘I’ll come to you.’ There was more rustling and movement. ‘Okay.’

  William began walking again. ‘I’m not sure how I can meet him – I mean, I can’t exactly call on him.’

  ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Not with all those guards and generals and Cubans and whatever.’

  ‘Cubans? Were there any with him?’

  ‘No, but there was a chap who’d been trained in Cuba. I met him. His name is Manuel Herrera.’

  ‘Now we’re on to something.’

  William stopped. ‘I’m at the corner now. Shall I go on or turn round?’

  ‘Go on.’

  William turned the corner. There was a crash in the bushes and a grunt. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Wire.’

  ‘Shall I turn back?’

  ‘I’ll catch up.’

  William went on. Presently he heard a movement beside him. ‘All right now?’

  ‘What?’ The voice sounded strained.

  ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’

  The bushes parted and a stocky middle-aged man in shirt and tie stepped out. He looked red-faced and awkward, his grey hair was ruffled and there was a biro in his shirt pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said William. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘I thought you were.’ They shook hands. The man introduced himself as Peter White. ‘I’m the ambassador here.’

  ‘I’m William Wooding.’

  William almost shook hands again but stopped himself in time. ‘I’ve just been in the embassy with . . . with some of your—’

  ‘With them?’

  Something in the ambassador’s tone made William relax. ‘Yes, with them, but it wasn’t them I came to see. I came to see a Mr Box from London. He’s in the bushes, too, but farther down.’

  ‘Ah, the funny hush-hush business.’ The ambassador had a plain, honest, troubled face. ‘Not in there with him, are they?’

  ‘No, they’re in the embassy.’

  ‘Ah.’ The ambassador’s features cleared. ‘I was out for a stroll round the gardens. Popped in the bushes to make myself comfortable.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  ‘Helps to get out of the office now and again.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, better get back. Pop in if you’re visiting. Door’s always open.’

  They shook hands again and the ambassador walked briskly towards the embassy, adjusting his tie.

  William went back along the bushes. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘The ambassador. I think he was relieving himself.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the bushes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Farther up. It’s all right.’

  There was a pause. ‘We must meet to discuss modalities.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Plans. Can I contact you at home?’

  ‘Yes, or at work.’

  ‘Who should I say I am?’

  ‘Well – you’re who you are, aren’t you?’

  ‘We use other names. I’ll have to explain all that. I’ll be Harry. We can say we met in a bar. Who will you be?’

  ‘Myself, I suppose. Since you’re ringing me.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  On his way out William paused by the tree in which the parrot was sitting. He raised his hand and waited while the parrot, shifting its weight, slowly raised its claw.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Who is Harry?’ Sally asked.

  William paused in the ironing. ‘Who?’

  ‘Harry. That’s twice he’s rung. He won’t leave a message.’

  ‘He’s rung again?’

  ‘The phone was ringing when I got in from work. Who is he?’

  ‘Chap I met in a bar.’

  The telephone rang once more. She answered it and fortunately it was for her. He tried to think of some less obviously evasive explanation. When she came back into the kitchen she stretched from tip to toe, pointing as she used to do when she went to ballet classes.

  ‘He’s a chap who might be buying some books,’ William said. ‘South American studies, that sort of thing.’ He couldn’t remember having lied to her before. Though this should hardly have counted as one, it was a deceit and he felt it.

  ‘What?’ Sally looked blank. ‘Oh, Harry, yes.’ She put on the kettle. They usually had tea before going to bed. She looked at his shirts. ‘You’re miles better than Angelica or me, you really are.’

  Angelica, the maid, was on holiday. ‘She’s improving under tuition.’

  ‘She’s being courted, I think. She wants to learn.’

  He didn’t ask who had telephoned because any display of curiosity might bounce back. ‘Good news about the job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm.’ She warmed the pot.

  ‘That chap – the American vice-president or whatever – wasn’t as bad as you thought, then?’

  ‘No, he was quite nice. He’s no fool, though.’

  ‘Clearly.’ He smiled but she didn’t notice. ‘What’s his name again – Heffner?’

  ‘Hueffer, Max Hueffer. But I’m going to have to work hard with these advanced specialist groups. I shall be directly under him. He could be a mean master.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? You said you wanted to be stretched.’

  When he had finished the ironing he took his tea into the sitting room and joined her on the sofa. They sipped in silence. He wanted to read but didn’t in case this was one of the times she wanted to talk. His eye wandered surreptitiously to the closed book on the arm of the sofa, less than a foot from his lap.

  ‘What did the embassy want?’ she asked.

  ‘They wanted me to talk about business here to some chap out from London.’

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘They seemed to think I know about it.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ He would talk to Box about this subterfuge. It was as awkward as it was unnecessary.

  She reached across him and picked up the book, Jeffrey Archer’s First Among Equals. ‘Any good?’

  ‘Makes you want to turn the pages.’

  She tossed the book back on to the coffee table and got up. ‘I’m going to bed. Good-night.’

  Ricardo was unusually early the next morning. The seriousness of the situation at the factory had impressed him. ‘They’re all back today but not for long and they are doing nothing. We have to get rid of the two union men. They intimidate the others and Miguel is too frightened to manage. He does nothing except what they tell him.’

  ‘Why is he so frightened?’

  ‘Because the union will beat him up and the police will do nothing.’

  William stared through the latest clean window-pane. The orange man still stood alongside his barrow, muffled and solitary. ‘I’ll go out to the factory myself.’

  ‘What can you do? You can do nothing. You do not have authority.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Miguel. It might be possible to work out something. Then at least we can report to London.’

  Ricardo gestured impatiently. ‘London, what can London do? You must plant something on them and get rid of them, I told you. It is now the only way.’

  Ricardo’s face was intelligent and fine-featured. He smiled with treacherous charm. ‘You are a reasonable man, William, very English, very nice. It is because of men like you that your country has always been popular here. W
ithout you we would not have become a country. But because you are reasonable you are also blind. You cannot see that others are not reasonable. Because you have no nastiness you do not see it in others. But you must fight them with their own weapons or they will win.’

  ‘We must also try to do what is right.’

  ‘It does not work any more.’ Ricardo had been half-sitting, half-lying on his desk. He slid gracefully off it. ‘Chau, William.’

  ‘Chau.’

  That was probably Ricardo’s appearance for the day. He might come back in the afternoon if he ran out of people to see. More likely, he would find a girl. William looked once more at the quarterly returns, at the list of questions London had sent, at the incomprehensible local tax demand. This was the sort of thing that Ricardo was supposed to help with. Perhaps he had been too reasonable with Ricardo, reasonable to the point of weakness, but it was easier in the end to do things himself. At least they got done.

  The factory was a worry, though. It produced paper products mainly for the wholesale trade but a small amount was retailed through the shop. Because trade was slack they had wholesale stocks for four to six weeks but if the trouble were prolonged they would be out of business. There was enough competition to see to that. Neither the mill nor the shop would survive without the factory; it was the engine that kept the operation afloat, in so far as anything did, yet in London they seemed to think that the shop was the main thing. Indeed, the job had been sold to William on that basis and he had been trying since his first weeks to correct London’s view. But they would not accept it, any more than they accepted that although he was formally responsible for the factory he had authority neither in it nor over it. He had responsibility without power, the worst of all worlds.

  The idea of planting things on trouble-makers stuck in his throat. It was not the sort of thing one should do, even if it were done. One might pay them off, perhaps – bribe them to go – but wrongful arrest was another matter. Catching them doing something illegal would be best of all. That was what he would talk to Miguel about. It was important to try to be reasonable even if no one else did. Perhaps particularly important then. After all, the world was fundamentally reasonable. No matter how badly people behaved they tried to justify themselves, to make themselves seem reasonable; and no matter how far and wide the aberrations, everyone in the end had to adjust. It was a condition of existence.

  The orange-seller had a customer, a man as short as himself but wearing a flat hat rather than a beret. They were negotiating over an orange. It was a protracted business involving argument, shaking heads, gesticulations and a prolonged searching of pockets. The seller appeared to be insisting on the sale of more than one orange, indicating that he had no change, while the buyer appeared willing to spend the rest of the morning searching his pockets rather than pay for more than he needed. Eventually a coin fell from the buyer’s pocket and rolled under the barrow. He followed it on his hands and knees and it was then that William recognised Box.

  He tapped on the window and tried vainly to open it. He was very keen to talk. Apart from the calls to the flat there had been one to the office taken – a rare event – by Ricardo, who had then asked who ‘Mr Harry’ was. William had told the same lie he had told Sally. Repetition had not made it sound any more convincing.

  The window came open as Box turned away clutching his orange. William was about to call to him but stopped. Box wouldn’t like it. He closed the window and hurried down through the shop.

  The orange man was rearranging his stack, though it was hard to see why, and Box was walking quickly towards the square at the top of the hill. William hurried after him, regretting yet again that morning the absence of the lopsided Dodge. Box had turned the corner into the square before William, breathless, caught up with him.

  Box spoke without turning his face. ‘Drop back a few paces. Don’t want to be more obvious than we have to be.’

  William dropped back. He supposed this sort of thing was one of the necessary irritations of spying.

  ‘Hoped you’d spot me and come out, but didn’t mean to make you hurry,’ Box continued loudly. ‘Important we weren’t seen together by that spy.’

  ‘Which spy?’

  ‘Chap with the oranges.’

  ‘Is he a spy?’

  ‘Of course he is. He’s spying on you. That’s why he sets up there. No other earthly reason. No trade. No change. Has he been there long?’

  ‘No – well – I’m not sure. A couple of weeks, I suppose.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  There were more stalls and barrows in the square but business was desultory. They walked rapidly between customers, children and the battered lorries and shooting-brakes belonging to the traders. Old-fashioned upright bicycles – Raleighs, BSAs, Triumphs – leaned against the plane trees. Box spoke crisply without turning his head. Presumably he relied on the locals having no English or on sheer speed making it difficult to overhear. He was now in an hotel, he explained, which meant that they would be able to devise a satisfactory contact procedure – with fall-back, of course. He would brief William on the name he was using etc. in due course. Meanwhile, had William got anywhere with the president?

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’d better discuss how you can. Are you free for lunch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. That’s something.’

  William was further irritated. ‘Are you sure you should risk being seen with me?’ He didn’t catch the reply and had to ask for a repeat. People were staring after them.

  ‘You have to take some chances in this game,’ Box repeated, more loudly than before. ‘Which way for lunch?’

  ‘Right at the next corner.’

  When they left the square Box slowed up and indicated that they could walk side by side. William headed for the covered market. The thought put him in better humour.

  ‘Tell me, why did you buy just one orange? It seemed to cause a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I wanted to spend long enough with him so that I’d know him again. Also, I’m only allowed one on expenses.’

  ‘One orange?’

  ‘Two if you’d been there . . . or more. They’re quite generous if you’re entertaining professional contacts. It’s only with us they’re mean. This is all post-privatisation, of course. Where are we going?’

  When William told him Box shook his head. ‘Sorry, won’t do. Too public, too crowded, you’re too well-known there now. Wrong kind of risk. Unjustified.’

  ‘But we might meet the president.’

  ‘Worse still. He’ll suspect a plot.’

  ‘Does he know you, then?’

  ‘Of course not. No one here knows me, that’s why I was sent. But his cronies would do their damnedest to find out – be round the hotel in no time, checking everything.’

  They headed instead for Gustav’s, a German restaurant William had heard about but never used. The entrance was a small black door at the end of an alleyway. There was no sign outside.

  Box stopped. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Gustav’s, known locally as the Nazi restaurant.’

  ‘Nazis?’

  ‘Not really. One or two, maybe. They must be pretty old now, mustn’t they?’

  ‘Runs in families.’

  ‘But at least we won’t bump into the president or any of his left-wing cronies. Opposite ends of the political spectrum.’

  ‘The spectrum is circular. The two ends meet on the other side. Totalitarians always have more in common with each other than with the rest of us.’ Behind his gold-rimmed glasses Box’s eyes were unblinking and expressionless.

  ‘Well, there’s nowhere else I’m not known,’ William lied.

  They went in. The furnishings and decorations looked a mixture of Bierkeller and alpine hut. There were racks of German wines, bottles of German beer, German newspapers on the counter and, on the walls, German regimental insignia and pictures of German warships. The background music sounded like a German drink
ing-song. The few customers looked native.

  The waiter spoke Spanish. ‘Para dos, señor?’

  ‘Gracias.’

  ‘No.’ Box pointed to a table for four. ‘That one.’

  The waiter appealed to William. ‘Pero para dos personas, señor?’

  ‘Sí, for two people.’

  ‘No.’ Box stood by the other table. ‘Johnny’s coming. That makes three. So we’ll need a table for four.’

  ‘Johnny?’

  ‘Coming later.’ Box explained to the waiter in halting Spanish that a friend was coming. The waiter glanced again at William, shrugged and showed them to a table for four.

  The other customers watched.

  William had not seen Box’s smile before. It was a fleeting parting of the lips, slightly disconcerting. ‘Better table separation,’ Box explained. ‘Makes it harder for observers to overhear. Useful chap, Johnny.’

  ‘What happens when he doesn’t turn up?’

  ‘We go on saying he’s late. Typical of him. Useful but unreliable, as the actress said.’ He laughed, a sharp bark. The other customers looked up again. The waiter’s head reappeared round the kitchen door.

  They ordered wild boar and wine. Box repeated what he had previously said about the country subsiding beneath Soviet dominion. William presumed he didn’t realise he was repeating himself and listened with the appearance of polite attention while his mind wandered. He wanted to know why he had been chosen. It was true that there weren’t many other British businessmen in the city. What few British commercial operations remained after years of complacency were generally serviced by managers travelling down from Rio for a few days. They never seemed to be the same people for more than two visits. Predecessors had always just been sacked or sent for drying out or found to be transvestite or discovered with their fingers in the till. Rio seemed to have that effect on the British. William supposed that he, by comparison, was on the spot, stable, patriotic and as yet unsacked. Also, he knew Carlos. But how did they know that?

  Box finished his peroration and looked suddenly self-conscious. ‘I expect you think I’m seeing Reds under every bed.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I don’t know.’