Patriots

by Kevin Doherty

Knight shook his head. ‘I’ll miss the old boy – my first branch officer, brought me into the service.’ He took the car forward to the traffic lights. ‘Twenty years is a long time. So yes, I have my loyalty to him. But his going isn’t my reason.’

  ‘Gaunt then?’ she said gently. Horace Gaunt was to succeed Sir Marcus; and Eva knew Knight’s views on him.

  ‘No, not because of Gaunt either. It’s simpler than that. It’s just all the things I’ve always told you – I’m tired of my dirty job, period. Makes no difference who’s on top.’

  It was the end of the conversation. They were out of time. His calculations had been good. It wouldn’t be her style to raise the matter again; she would just watch to see if he meant it.

  Turnham Green was where he always dropped her. They would make their separate ways into town from there, he by car, she by tube. Arriving separately, keeping up the pretence. But today he U-turned and faced the car the other way.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not going in this morning.’ He dropped his hands from the steering wheel and shrugged. ‘I don’t feel like it. So sod it, I’m going home.’ His travel bag lay in the rear seat, his standard kit when he spent the night with her, and he hooked a thumb at it. ‘This director of counter-espionage is going home to do his laundry. Want to come with me? Maybe on second thoughts the laundry can wait.’

  She was out of the car at once. ‘You’re crazy, Edmund, barking crazy.’

  Then the door slammed and she was walking briskly into the station. Drawing interested glances, he noted; and no wonder.

  He watched for a break in the traffic and pulled off. Crazy? No, he wasn’t crazy. Just finished.

  He put his foot down and headed for Berkshire.

  *

  The house was a Victorian pile in an acre of garden that never got as much attention as it deserved. Eva said the place was far too large for him but he knew that she was wrong. He filled all the rooms somehow: books, old sticks of odd furniture that couldn’t be called antique, pictures. Distractions, all of them. He needed distractions.

  The answerphone in the study contained no messages, the accumulated mail was junk and bills. He tossed the daily newspapers onto the table and changed into fresh clothes. The ten o’clock pips were sounding on the kitchen radio when he called Curzon Street and told them not to expect him until late morning. He offered no reason and hung up before being asked.

  Half an hour later he drove into Guildford and parked at the top of the High Street. It was only a short walk from there to the bank by the Guildhall; when he arrived he went straight upstairs to the Securities section.

  ‘My safety deposit box, please.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. What name?’

  ‘Gough.’

  The clerk compared his signature with the specimen on his file card, collected the visit fee from him and delivered him to a small room with a table, two chairs and a telephone. Shortly afterwards he returned with the familiar steel box.

  ‘Ring through when you want it put back, Mr Gough.’

  Knight turned the snib in the door before unlocking the deposit box. It was one which he’d supplied himself; the bank didn’t provide boxes, only the individual vaults. The benefit was that he held its only key.

  The contents were precisely as he had left them. Paper foreign currencies were sorted into envelopes according to country of origin; coinage was bagged in plastic sachets. There were several passports and batches of other official-looking documents, also banded together in orderly groups. At the bottom was a single folded sheet of paper with a list of names and numbers. He took this out and picked up the telephone.

  ‘Gough here. An international line, please. Cash charge.’

  He spent the next thirty minutes calling several of the numbers on the list, speaking in French and German. He talked through a different story tailored to each and made careful notes as he went along.

  It took until the fourth call before he had what he wanted. The Paris-based precious metals trading agency was eminent in its field and very reputable. The secretary of Henri Vialle, the agency’s proprietor and managing director, was courteous and helpful.

  ‘He is occupied at present, Monsieur. Perhaps I can be of assistance?’

  ‘My consultancy firm has been retained by the South African Chamber of Mines to arrange an international precious metals symposium; only leading dealers such as Monsieur Vialle will be invited to attend. It will be addressed by futures exchange officials from the London Metal Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange. It will be held in Vienna in the spring of next year. I plan to call on leading traders in the next few weeks to seek their guidance on the symposium’s theme. This will not require more than an hour of their time. All I need to know today are the occasions over the next few weeks when I might see Monsieur Vialle. He is, of course, a very busy man. No doubt his diary becomes very full. That is why I thought a telephone call would be wise.’

  ‘Monsieur, your symposium sounds invaluable, but I do not think Monsieur Vialle would wish me to commit to such a meeting without knowing more. In writing, naturally.’

  ‘And naturally, Mademoiselle, I plan to write. In the meantime, if it is easier for you, perhaps you could tell me the days when Monsieur Vialle could definitely not see me? That would help me to plan my visits to other dealers.’

  Protective secretaries were usually more willing to release information that way around. When Knight hung up five minutes later he had a list of Vialle’s least cancellable commitments for the next month, including where in his schedule several of them fell on consecutive days.

  Now he selected two of the currency envelopes, two of the bags of loose change, and a passport and plastic wallet containing some folded-over papers. He relocked the box and used the telephone to announce that he was through. He settled with the clerk for the calls and left, as quietly and inconspicuously as he had arrived.

  On the pavement outside he checked his watch. The visit had taken three-quarters of an hour. The rain was blowing in bad-tempered squalls and the prospect of Curzon Street was as unattractive as ever. Late morning, he’d told them. Well, very late morning. What the hell.

  Back to Berkshire. But not to the house.

  *

  By noon he was there. He slammed on the brakes for the cattle grid and pulled the car in to the side of the drive just after the entrance pillars. At last the rain was clearing; above him was the sort of featureless sky he’d associated since childhood with rooks and hooded crows: ‘riding shotgun’ on the humans, as his father had liked to describe them. He wound down the window and listened. A caw echoed from one of the tall birches and made him smile.

  He locked the car and set off. This bottom field usually had a few horses in it. The nuns rented ground and stabling to some of the local families who could afford ponies for their daughters but not the land to keep them on. This morning the field was empty, suggesting that riding lessons were in progress somewhere.

  He vaulted the wire into the next field, where he was greeted by a dozen cows who came over to investigate; they lost interest when they realised he wasn’t old Jod who looked after them.

  Then over another stretch of wire and the land dropped away towards the spinney. Up on his right, hidden by the crest of the rising ground, stood the convent and the school. Although they weren’t his destination, he glanced their way automatically and saw the small figure that was just then coming over the brow.

  He stopped and watched as the shape drew nearer and resolved itself into an elderly, bespectacled nun. She hadn’t seen him yet; all her attention was on the open breviary she was holding. Her lips moved as she intoned the prayers. He waited until she was within speaking range.

  ‘Sister.’ He said it very quietly so as not to alarm her. ‘Marie-Thérèse?’

  She brought the breviary down and tilted her head forward to peer at him over the top of her spectacles. ‘Good gracious!’ she said eventually. ‘It’s Mr Knight, isn
’t it? What a nice surprise. Shall we walk together? If you don’t mind my snail’s pace, that is.’

  They moved on towards the spinney side by side. He noticed that her toecaps glittered with droplets of rainwater from the wet grass; his own were the same.

  ‘What brings you today, Mr Knight? Are you visiting us properly at last?’

  He shook his head. ‘More selfish than that. I felt like a stroll. Am I presumptuous to enter your grounds?’

  ‘Hardly. We don’t see enough of you.’

  ‘Time, Sister. Never enough.’

  She chuckled. ‘At my age, what don’t I know about time? We can save it, Mr Knight, but it still runs out on us.’

  There was an old birch tree on the edge of the spinney. They stood beneath it, she puffing a little, and gazed across the fields. Here and there a church spire rose above clumps of trees. Grey roof slates marked the older parts of the village, red tiles the newer developments.

  ‘Your money’s always welcome, Mr Knight. An orphanage needs plenty. The children can’t eat prayer, whatever the good book says. But there’s not much company for a child in a five-pound note. We could do with your company more.’

  A magpie swooped down to earth and tiptoed through the coarse grass. In the village a clock chimed the half hour.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, Sister. No promises.’

  ‘That’s the best way.’

  After a while she shivered and made to go back up. He walked her as far as the top of the hill and followed the driveway that would lead him back down to the car. At the little chapel the notice of services by the door told him that First Mass had been served as Eva and he were breakfasting. Second as he was dropping her at the station. Father Dominic was hearing confessions now, Father Hugh would hear them from three this afternoon. Evensong was at six.

  He stepped inside. The fragrance of candlewax and incense filled his nostrils, then the flat musk of holy water as he crossed himself. Bowed backs and headscarves indicated Father Dominic’s confessional.

  He was turning the clock back too abruptly; a dizziness came over him and he had to reach out to steady himself against one of the pews. Its wood was smooth, almost oily to his touch, exactly as he knew it would be.

  He heard the echo of his heels against the floor tiles as he walked up the aisle. He genuflected by a pew and knelt in it. At the front of the chapel an old woman rose from the candle she had lit. He looked up as she walked slowly down the aisle and past him. Her gaze was cast down and she was drawing her coat tight in readiness for outside. He heard the rustle of a curtain on a rail and watched as a young woman stepped from the confessional and made her way to the front. She caught him gazing and blushed, making him look away quickly. The others who were waiting decided by nods who was next, and a gnarled man with a walking stick limped behind the curtain.

  What did they have to confess? Jealousies? Something that the checkout girl missed?

  He didn’t bother to genuflect as he left the pew. He didn’t notice whether the rooks were still arguing as he hurried down the drive. The cattle grid rattled like a Sten gun as he revved the car hard over it and turned directly for London.

  *

  But there were other voices arguing behind those of the rooks and the crows. Voices from another rainstorm, years before. They ran through his mind all through the day, fading in and out like a weak signal on an ancient crystal set. Frightened voices from his childhood. His mother. His father.

  ‘I stood down.’ Rain streamed off his father’s windcheater onto the tack-room floor. He busied himself with stripping the wet garments off, a way of avoiding his wife’s eyes.

  ‘And?’ She had stopped rubbing the saddle when he came in, bringing a blast of rain through the door with him; now she put the cloth down. But she didn’t move towards him.

  ‘And nothing. I stood down, the meeting’s over, that’s all there is to it. It’s over.’

  ‘It can’t be over. There are the charges still.’

  ‘There’ll be no charges. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’ll have to be a by-election. Our friend says he’s prepared to stand. D’you like that? “Prepared to”. As if he’s doing everybody a big favour, as if it isn’t just what he’s always wanted. I’ve given it to him on a plate. The selection committee will adopt him, of course. So naturally there’ll be no charges.’

  ‘I still don’t understand.’

  ‘How would it look in the papers? Me resigning, him pressing fraud charges. What would that say for all of us? D’you think Central Office would like it?’

  ‘No.’ Relief appeared in her eyes as she absorbed the logic of this.

  ‘He’s in clover. He’s wanted me out for years. Been trying to talk the committee into making me stand aside ever since he joined. Now he’s got what he wanted, and for what? A few thousand. Less than it would cost to buy the damned seat if he could still do that. Loose change to him. Everything to us.’

  ‘We’ll have to move.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Everybody knows. How can we look anybody in the eye? We’re finished here.’

  ‘We’re finished anywhere. What am I supposed to do with the business? This is no time to sell.’

  ‘Please – we have to go. They’ll trample us down.’

  ‘Then we’ll learn to put up with it. There’s no point running.’

  So they didn’t run. They stayed put in misery instead.

  *

  Glitter and gilt, the Dorchester’s Penthouse suite. Red-coated waiters with silver trays, pushing through the hubbub. Knight with a headache and starting to drink too much. Staying away from Eva and she from him. A piano in the corner, playing too loud. The glass doors to the fountain terrace closed against the night outside, making the cigarette smoke hang in the air like smog.

  Knight helped himself to another drink and continued watching the group of three men in the furthest corner from him. The grey-haired patrician in the middle was Sir Marcus Cunningham. The smooth-faced civil servant to his left was the cabinet secretary. The third man – long and funereal, hollow cheeked: a man who matched his name – was Horace Gaunt.

  The prime minister hadn’t been able to come. Instead, Home Secretary William Clarke had made the appropriate speech, presented some inscribed glassware to Sir Marcus and then had chatted to him for a few minutes afterwards. Now Clarke was leaving, crossing the room in Knight’s direction towards the door, but having to stop every few yards to shake hands and exchange a word or two with people he recognised. He had a worn air about him that Knight hadn’t seen before, a greyness in the square face, yellow in the whites of his eyes, the wiry hair a touch thinner than it used to be. The new job was taking its toll. He drew level with Knight and smiled at him. They shook hands.

  ‘You look tired, Bill.’

  Clarke laughed. ‘You know how to cheer a man up.’

  ‘Should I lie?’

  Once, they’d been close friends. Shared a damp flat at university. Shared a girlfriend or two as well. Twenty years ago.

  Clarke shrugged at Knight’s question. ‘I’ve had easier jobs.’ Behind him his two Special Branch men tried to look inconspicuous. ‘How’s life treating you?’

  ‘I’ve had more honest jobs.’

  Clarke smiled ironically. ‘You chose it.’

  ‘And you chose politics.’

  They chatted for a few minutes – about Clarke’s wife, Marion, and the children, about how Sir Marcus would be missed, about the old days – then Clarke looked at his watch.

  ‘Division bell’s due in a few minutes. I’d better be off. We lost touch, Edmund.’

  ‘Everybody does.’

  ‘I’ll call you.’

  Knight nodded and Clarke hurried off, the detectives in tow.

  Knight’s glass was empty again. A waiter appeared and he grabbed another off the tray; it wasn’t intended for him but the man was too surprised to protest. Across the room Gaunt was watching him
. Like an owl waiting to swoop. Knight raised the glass in a silent toast and Gaunt turned his head away.

  *

  It was midnight when he left the hotel. Wondering if he was fit to drive. Suspecting he wasn’t.

  He paused by the reception desk to glance at the early editions of tomorrow’s papers. Snags in the arms talks, the oil price continuing to slide. OPEC in disarray, the Arab economies under threat.

  ‘There’s a first,’ he muttered.

  Wishing he was staying at Eva’s tonight. Too drunk to make it worthwhile. But wanting her to rub the edge off his loneliness. Block out the memories.

  *

  Back in the Penthouse suite the evening was winding up. Sir Marcus had gone. Women were leaving the room to fetch coats and wraps, the men were standing together in little knots.

  Horace Gaunt was deep in conversation with a curly-haired man in his early thirties: Dick Sumner, who headed Knight’s Soviet section. Gaunt seemed very intense, the hand that held his empty glass fingering his tie, his large eyes earnest. Sumner nodded occasionally at what his new Director General was saying but said little himself.

  On her way across the room, on her own way out, Eva saw them and watched for a moment: Gaunt enjoying his arrival at the top, Sumner mindful of his own career, respectful. She realised that she was staring and looked away. Too late; Gaunt had seen her. He patted Sumner’s arm, sending him on his way, and smiled over at her. It wasn’t a goodnight-are-you-off smile; it was a wait-there. Then he was by her side, his solemn eyes scanning her face. She found that she couldn’t look into them but it seemed to make no difference to him.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t catch you earlier – Sir Marcus and the Home Secretary and whatnot. Were you rushing off?’

  Now she was finding out how Sumner had felt, and shook her head. Respectfully.

  *

  The Jaguar rolled up quietly beside Knight in Shepherd Street, just as he was about to cut through the Market and back to Curzon Street, to retrieve his car. The Jaguar’s rear door swung open; he stood indecisively on the pavement, looking through the archway for a few moments, then walked back and slid in beside Sir Marcus.