by Len Deighton
‘I’ll have a proper drink,’ she announced while sloshing the Hungarian wine down the sink. ‘Scotch for you?’
‘No thanks. I’ll stick to the wine.’
‘I hate wine. I get too much of it where I work. The French have never heard of any other kind of drink. Wine turns to acid in my stomach.’ She slid back into her position on the sofa.
‘It does that with some people,’ I said.
She poured a small measure of Scotch over the ice-cubes, and kept pouring while first they crackled, and then floated. ‘Damn you, Bernard,’ she said. ‘I need help.’
What fuelled her, I wondered. Where did all this energy come from? ‘I don’t know where Jim is,’ I told her. ‘He looked very ill when I last saw him.’
‘Someone is determined I shouldn’t contact him,’ she said resentfully.
‘Why? Where is he?’
‘Are you listening to me, Bernard, damn you? That’s what I’m asking you.’
I was on the point of denying that I knew anything about Jim, or where the Department might have squirrelled him away. And that was the truth. But I was curious to discover what Cindy was after. ‘I might be able to get a message to him,’ I said, without troubling to think where I would start.
‘Don’t be such a monster, Bernard. This is urgent. There are other people looking for him. They come to me and ask for him, and get nasty when I say I don’t know.’
‘What sort of people?’
‘Pushy Americans from Geneva. Heavies.’ She pushed her nose with a fingertip, bending it to show me what sort of plug-uglies they were. ‘I can’t get them off my back. They say they are acting with authority. I suppose Jim was a partner with them in whatever it is they do. They hinted they have money for him but they want a box file of business papers they say belongs to them. One of them is a lawyer. He says he has a power of attorney.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I said I didn’t know what they were talking about.’
‘CIA people?’
‘I wondered about that at first.’ She sipped her whisky. ‘No, I don’t think so …’ She pulled a face. ‘Maybe.’
‘What papers are they talking about? You split up with Jim years ago.’
‘This was recent. He phoned me in my office. Right out of the blue and dumped this box file on me. Secret material, he said it was. I was in Brussels. He was on his way to Washington. What could I do? Very secret, he said. He made it sound as if the safety of the free world depended upon me. He said he’d collect it the next time he came to Europe.’ She made it into Yurrup; a sarcastic reference to the way Jim had acquired a slight American accent since living over there. ‘He never came back for it. I tried all the phone numbers I had for him, but I couldn’t get through to him. Then I put the box in store, with some furniture my mother left me. And I forgot about it. Until last month, when I got my things out of store; storage and insurance and all that stuff was costing me a fortune. Last week, when I heard that he’d come to Berlin, and that darling old Bernard was with him on the train …’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Never mind who told me that. Just make sure Jim calls my secretary, and arranges to collect his bloody box file from me. Or says it’s okay to let his playmates have it. In writing. I must have his okay in writing. It’s in the safe in my office – that’s the only place I could think of – and I need the space. And it weighs a ton.’
‘When was this? When exactly did Jim bring it to you?’
‘A few months back. When was it now?… I haven’t got my diary with me. Back when there was all that awful trouble in Berlin; yes, last summer. When your sister-in-law got killed in Berlin.’
‘Jim is sick, Cindy. Very sick.’
‘For richer or poorer; in sickness or in health; yes, that’s how I married him. But Jim had other ideas, so I was given the elbow. Jim doesn’t give me money, Bernard, not a penny. I earn my own living, and it’s not easy. Frankly, I don’t care how sick he is, I don’t want to be involved.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Otherwise I’ll just throw the bloody box into the burn bag. Or give it to our security people. Perhaps that’s what I should have done at the beginning. I should not have agreed to take it in the first place. The men, his pals, said Jim knew where to find them. They have an office in Geneva. Jim used to work there with them. That’s what they said. You can bet it’s some kind of deal; you know how keen on money Jim can be. But I’m not going to hand it over to them. If it is secret material I could go to prison.’
Jim Prettyman had always been one for the big numbers. Starting with codes and ciphers, then Special Ops and secret funding. I’d never been officially notified that Jim still worked for the Department, but everything pointed that way. ‘Better you hold on to the box file, Cindy,’ I said. ‘It may have some continuing importance – some bearing on work Jim does for the Department from time to time.’
She narrowed her eyes and said: ‘I wondered how long it would take for you to get round to that.’ She upended her whisky, looked at her watch and slipped her shoes on. It seemed as if she had decided to leave. ‘I should never have let him dump that box on me, the bastard.’
‘He knew you were a soft touch, Cindy,’ I said.
She didn’t smile. ‘Phone for a cab, will you, Bernard. I’ve got a mountain of work that’s got to be ready for my policy meeting in the morning.’
I phoned and I watched her as she put on her raincoat and looked at herself in the big mirror behind the bar. So Prettyman had left a box file with her just after that night I pulled Fiona out of the DDR. I knew what she meant by a box file. It was a government-issue steel safety box with combination lock. If it had been a normal office box file she would have been describing its contents to me, not its weight.
If the Swede was to be believed, Prettyman was due to fly out with him that night. But Cindy went instead. Did she fly? Was she in it with the Swede? Never mind all the crap about a bicycle. By my calculation there would have been room for at least two passengers. I suspected that the two seats were for Prettyman and Thurkettle. Or for Mr and Mrs Prettyman. How did the box file fit into the story? And what was likely to be in it; a clean shirt, toothbrush and razor? Used currency notes? Or chopped-up pieces of Thurkettle? Jim’s Diner’s Club accounts? Or gold sovereigns? The trouble was that Cindy was not renowned as a selfless witness. This yarn might just be her complicated way of locating Jim to put the arm on him for alimony.
Cindy, her coat, her hat and her hair arranged to her satisfaction, the touch of orange lipstick applied, and her lips pressed together for a moment, turned from the mirror to say: ‘I saw your blonde bombshell in London. She was looking lovely, I must say. I chatted with her. She worries about you; she wanted to know if I thought you were happy.’
‘Gloria? You saw her? What did you tell her?’
‘How would I know if you were happy? I told her I never see you nowadays. She must be the only little girl in the world who hasn’t discovered that you fell in love with yourself a long time ago, and will never be unfaithful.’ She produced a smile to soften this judgement. ‘The poor child is crazy about you, Bernard. So I take it that your little fling is still going smoothly?’
‘I’m with Fiona,’ I said.
‘You men!’ She looked in the mirror again and flicked her hair with her fingertips. ‘I saw Fiona too: in Rome; the big security bash. Chanel suit: Hermès bag. What a woman. Lovely children, desirable husband and gold Visa card. What more could any girl ask for? She had a Commissioner on either arm but she spared a chummy word or two for little me. What a success she is, Bernard. What is it like … to have two amazing women desperately, foolishly in love with you?’ When I didn’t respond Cindy turned to look at me and said: ‘Tell me honestly. I would like to know.’
‘Give over, Cindy.’
‘It’s that shy modesty that gets them, Bernard. That and the dimples. Or is it the challenge? The challenge of trying to wring
affection from the most selfish egoistical loner in the world?’
‘Are you going back to Brussels now?’ I asked.
She smiled. I’d been unable to keep from my voice the heartfelt hope that she was speeding directly to the airport and leaving town for ever. ‘No, Bernard. I’m staying with Werner and Zena in their gorgeous new home. I’ll be in town for a few days.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said. I’d forgotten that she knew Werner from our times in London together. Cindy was a loyal and conscientious friend to people far and wide. Or a calculating networker who could rally a thousand people to any cause she cared to name, according to whether you heard it from Cindy or Jim.
‘And did I say male chauvinist pig?’
‘Good luck, Cindy,’ I said as she swept out of the bar, her arm upraised in a regal farewell.
I sighed. The blonde doctor had taken off her white coat to reveal black lacy underwear. Her muscular colleague was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Cindy was right: Scotch whisky was better than Hungarian wine.
The presentation portrait of Frank Harrington will be exactly like this, if Gainsborough gets the chiaroscuro right. Frank had pushed his chair close to the window and was reading the Spectator. He looked up. In that moment, as his eyes met mine, Frank was his sincere, avuncular and gentlemanly self. His suit – that had doubtless come from the same tailor’s workroom as had the suits of his father and grandfather – was in every way perfect. The room was shadowy, with Frank’s bony features side-lit by Berlin’s grey winter sky. Hair brushed smoothly against that elongated head that is the distinguishing mark of the English among their Continental neighbours. The tall forehead and stubby military moustache made him unmistakably a gentleman.
‘I was trying to reach you,’ said Frank in a deceptively remote manner. ‘All morning,’ he added plaintively.
‘I was doing a job for Dicky. I still haven’t finished.’
‘I thought it must be something of that sort.’ Frank tapped at the glass window with his fingertip so that it made no audible sound. I followed his gaze. At the other end of the frosty white lawn, near the apple trees, Frank’s valet Tarrant was talking to one of the gardeners. They were standing outside the door of Tarrant’s workshop, their breath condensing on the cold air. There was a child with them; swaddled up in a white furry hat and coat. He was nursing one of Tarrant’s model locomotives.
Tarrant had slowly taken possession of the small brick building at the end of the garden. In my father’s time it housed the lawn-mower and other tools, and was a shelter where the gardeners could hide to smoke and eat their lunch. Now the garden tools were relegated to a wooden shed, there was only one gardener and his lunch was usually no more than a curry-wurst on a stick. The brick building had become Tarrant’s playroom. It was fitted with an elaborate workbench with a lathe, drills and power tools and everything needed for building and working on his extensive layout of scale model trains. Tarrant took his loco back from the child, and went back to his bench. He spent a lot of time there: he always referred to it as ‘the workshop’ and claimed to be doing household repairs. Frank called it ‘the gingerbread house’.
‘I am never quite sure who it is I work for,’ I said, becoming defensive when Frank didn’t even turn to look at me.
‘No one here is,’ said Frank. ‘Berlin’s always been like that. It was the same when your father was doing my job.’
‘I wish it could be settled,’ I said. It was bad enough to be running around town on one of Dicky’s fool’s errands without coming back to face Frank’s consequential icy mood.
‘Now is not a good time,’ said Frank, still staring out of the window. He meant of course that Dicky was not yet confirmed in his job, and reluctant to make decisions. While Frank was too old and too near retirement to be picking new fights with anyone in London. Meanwhile I would have to try and work for the uncoordinated wishes of both of them. ‘Where do flies go in the wintertime?’ said Frank. ‘Did you ever wonder about that? In my young days there was a song about it, a music-hall song.’
I didn’t know what to make of this quaint entomological digression. It might have been a rhetorical question. Frank was one of those exasperating people who reveal their true feelings only after wrapping them into protracted anecdotes and labyrinthine parables. ‘No,’ I said after a long silence.
‘They end up in these empty spaces between the double-glazing. Look, I’ll show you, there are dozens of them here. Dead.’ He tapped at the window again. He hadn’t been looking at Tarrant and the gardener; he’d been looking at dead flies. Frank was like one of those grand actors who, having devoted time and many performances to understand and assimilate a role, then claim title to it. It was playing the role of quintessential Englishman for a lifetime that enabled Frank Harrington to be convincingly himself. But now, like any great actor nearing the end of his career, his technique had nowhere to go but parody.
‘If it’s urgent I can put Dicky’s little job on hold,’ I offered.
‘How do the little blighters get in there? That’s what I can’t make out. Must be the devil of a way to go. Sheets of glass on each side of you, but no way of escape. No way in, and no way out.’
‘Do you want me to tell the housekeeping people? The windows all need cleaning up here. The snow dumps all the smoke of that filthy Braunkohl down on us.’
Frank ignored my suggestion. Perhaps he thought I was being sarcastic. Perhaps Frank’s little two-ways-in, but no-way-out, was intended to have some subtle meaning for me. ‘What exactly are you doing for Dicky?’ he asked.
‘One of the German scientists who defected last month has got them all going with talk about uranium mines.’
‘Uranium mines in Germany?’
‘About thirty k’s south of Chemnitz. Schlema it’s called.’
‘It’s true then? Uranium? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Tons of it. In the foothills of the Erz mountains. Ore mines. The “ore mountains” the Germans call them. There are ski resorts and lots of thermal springs too. I suppose the spa was a way of getting tourists there when the snow had gone.’
‘Uranium?’
‘There’s a mine there. It’s no big secret. Back in the days when it was a fashionable resort, it was called Oberschlema and it was advertised as a Radiumbad – das starkste Radiumbad der Welt – guaranteed to lower your high blood-pressure, ease your rheumatism and make you feel young again if you had enough money to stay there. And didn’t mind glowing in the dark.’
‘What’s Dicky’s angle?’ said Frank, in a voice that suggested that he didn’t much care. But I knew Frank better than that: he liked to know what London was doing on his patch.
‘There’s uranium there all right, and what they dig out all goes to the USSR. At least it used to go there.’ I shrugged. ‘It might be difficult to confirm what’s happening right now. We don’t have anyone reliable anywhere near there, as far as I can remember. I’m checking it now.’
Frank sighed. ‘Are our masters back to their brawling about whether the Russkies are still manufacturing atomic weapons? I thought all that was settled last year.’
‘That was a dispute about bombs; this is a dispute about artillery shells.’
Frank looked at me and nodded as if he was thinking of something else. ‘Keep London happy,’ he said vaguely. Ordnance was among the things he tried to keep away from. Frank got on well with the army, but he didn’t think that providing that sort of intelligence was our province. He called it ‘assessment’ and maintained the army should be able to deal with that without our help. They had their military attachés, and liaison officers sniffing around the Russian army all the time.
‘What was it you wanted, Frank?’ I said.
‘Wanted?’
‘You said you were trying to reach me.’
‘Oh, that. Yes, I was thinking about that business in London … that poor devil of a pilot who was killed. Your friend.’
I didn’t respond t
o the ‘your friend’ but I could detect some underlying disapproval in Frank’s voice.
‘The funeral was yesterday,’ said Frank. ‘We arranged it. No one claimed the body.’
‘So I heard.’
He went on: ‘You saw him immediately after it happened? You chatted with Squeaky?’
‘Chatted with him? Have you ever tried chatting with Squeaky?’
‘Ha!’ said Frank mirthlessly. ‘I know what you mean. He’s always been like that: abrasive. I mean have you been chatting with anyone at all?’
‘At the scene of crime?’ I said. Frank nodded. I said: ‘Is this something Dicky has been saying?’
‘He said you hung on there for a few minutes afterwards.’
‘I didn’t go striding out holding Dicky’s hand, if that’s what you mean. I know the doctor. I was intending to see him again in some other place in the hope he might be more forthcoming.’
‘But you didn’t see him again?’ Frank opened a brass and ivory marquetry box he kept on a shelf under the window-sill. From it he got his battered Dunhill pipe and his yellow oilskin tobacco pouch. He had reduced his smoking to three pipefuls of his special tobacco per day, and I was going to be on the receiving end of one of them if I didn’t get out of here soon.
‘No I didn’t,’ I said.
‘London Central has received an official request for us to clarify what we are doing with George Kosinski. Five want him. They are furious.’
‘Oh, Jesus! So that’s it.’
‘I told Dicky that it couldn’t have been you who let the cat out of the bag.’
‘The doctor is not a part of Five, he’s just the doctor. We use him too.’
‘Five’s official letter went to the D-G of course. So Dicky will have to go into the fire and flame, and explain things, so the D-G can cobble together some sort of servile grovelling explanation.’
‘Dicky is good at that sort of thing,’ I said.
