‘All men,’ Maria said.
He smiled.
‘And this.’
He held up a sketch of Quincy, eyes dancing, hair swinging wide and a wicked smile. ‘It gets her.’
Maria said Flemyng must have dropped it at her hotel after Hoffman’s party.
‘Has he drawn you?’ Abel asked.
‘Not yet, as far as I know.’
They were sitting together on the sofa, and Maria had laid out the sheets in what she believed to be date order, putting the sketch to one side. They were just as she had seen them first, when she extracted them from the pocket hidden in the case of Quincy’s Smith-Corona. Some were typed, some handwritten, and they were a mixture of notes and well-formed paragraphs. There were skeleton stories that had little interest for Maria, but there were cryptic jumbles of names she had been studying. And Quincy’s thoughts, jotted down on the run. Abel held one sheet in his hand.
‘WF at Hoffman’s party. Knows something.’
There was a scribbled date before the typed entry, the Saturday morning after the party on the night before.
‘I left Hoffman’s apartment with her,’ Maria said.
‘And what did she say about Will?’ he said, not asking why they’d been together.
‘That he was attractive at first meeting, and interesting. That was her style. But there was more. Friends of hers knew him, she said. If you’re right about her game, that message isn’t about Will and her, but someone else.’
‘I am right,’ Abel said.
Maria said she had no doubt about it, but assumed he had a question.
‘I do. Who?’ he asked. ‘When we looked at the list from the cemetery, you told me about a source of Will’s. The one who pointed you towards Père Lachaise. We talked about Quincy, and I told you everything I know. All the twists. It’s time for the same from you.’
So Maria introduced Kristof to him for the first time, and painted a picture.
Beginning with his appearance, she told Abel that he sometimes looked young and sometimes much older. She’d noticed his signet ring, the way he dressed, his liking for a black hat, his courtesy. ‘Remember, though, I’ve only met him twice.’ She described his visit to Flemyng’s apartment on the night of Quincy’s death, and their talk before he returned from the embassy. ‘He’s scared, of course. Same as the rest of them.’
Abel said, ‘How long have he and Will known each other?’
‘I asked him. He said they’d spoken a few times.’
‘Is Will running him?’ Abel asked. ‘You described him as a source.’
‘I’d say not. I’d guess the contact is recent. He talked to me about his unhappiness, and I think he’s a guy who doesn’t know his own mind. Offered me nothing, I should say. Just wanted to talk, because he knew Quincy was dead.’
‘But he sent you to the cemetery,’ said Abel.
‘He did, and he didn’t mention what he knew about the dead letter box until Will was there,’ said Maria. ‘It was for us both and we were like schoolkids when we went there. But I’ll say this about Will. He seemed a little scared of Kristof, even in his own home.’
Abel got up. ‘Well, we got the list. Great.’ He poured himself water, and took a glass back for Maria and sat down. ‘Do you know why?’
He spent a minute or two patrolling the room, with Maria silent, to try to answer his own question.
‘What do you think of these names? A Godsend?’
Maria said they couldn’t know. ‘What if…’
‘Exactly,’ Abel said.
‘… it’s a trick to screw us. Get us to start our own little witch hunt.’
Abel said, ‘Our biggest fear. Did you make any arrangements with him?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I got a number. Will didn’t know. I wanted to ask about Quincy and his friends.’
Abel said, ‘I need to know something else. Did he mention me?’
‘By name?’ Maria said, showing her surprise.
‘Or by reference to Will. A brother, maybe. Anything.’
‘Not a word,’ she said. ‘At the apartment, neither to me, nor to Will when he came home. Why?’
Abel said that he’d swum in waters that Kristof may have known, and it was important that he knew if a connection had been made. ‘You said you saw him twice. The second time?’
‘I went to see him on my own. Will’s still unaware.’
Abel was erect and alert, a sprinter in the blocks. ‘When? What did he want?’
‘Friday. He said the reason they killed Quincy was because she knew too much. About his people. Must have charmed one of them.’ Smiling, she said, ‘She was good at that.’
Abel said it was the old story. Zak Annan had recruited Quincy to help, and she didn’t see why she shouldn’t play around in the same way with the other side. Had no discipline. Deep down, a reporter who wanted excitement, and that was all.
‘They couldn’t trust her any more than we could,’ he said. ‘Her own woman. Admirable, but fatal.’
Maria said, ‘I’ve been through these papers a dozen times. Meetings all over the place. Bolder. Abbott – I’m fascinated by him, you should know. A plan to lunch with Freddy Craven – she doesn’t say contact was made, though. Including the one, for all we know, who finished her off. Thoughts about Prague – people we can get the boys on to. All the stuff with our boy Zak. I think she half loved him, you know.
‘Kristof. They met. He told us that. She was more fascinated by him than I expected. Wanted more of him. On the story she boasted about to Will, though, not a dicky bird. Zilch.’
‘Quite true,’ said Abel. ‘You must have expected so much from the papers. She was careful.’
Maria watched him get up and walk to her window.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said over his shoulder, standing with his back to her. ‘I know exactly what she was getting ready to write. It would have been a catastrophe.’
*
Craven’s doctor worked from a basement flat in a scruffy Georgian terrace south of the river. He had more spacious quarters than seemed likely from the street, and there was a steady flow of people, mostly old, who had trusted him for a long time, and who spread the word to friends. But he kept that list short, explaining to some prospective patients that there was only so much he could manage alone, and they might do better elsewhere. He had one secretary who sat upstairs, in a cheery room of her own with a view to the street and travel posters on the walls. Craven knew her from the days when she had arrived in the office typing pool, and he had helped her arrange a speedy escape to the twelfth floor and even more sensitive duties, before Dr O’Casey’s summons had come three years ago. His secretary had gone to the country with her dogs, and he needed a new girl who knew the ropes. Marjorie was transferred, and she managed the daily passage of old friends to his rooms below her simple office, making sure that many personal files were taken by messenger at the end of every week to the safe in her former lair where they could lie untouched until there was a panic, or a death.
Craven was a welcome visitor. They took tea together. ‘I saw Sam Malachy the other day,’ Craven said. ‘In fine shape.’ Marjorie reported on one of his boys who’d come through from Washington, to get the all-clear for Saigon, and she let Craven know of all the talk below stairs in the office, not far away. ‘And you?’
‘I’ve been padding some corridors today. You know me.’
The buzzer rang on her desk. ‘Down you go. Mind the stair.’
‘Declan.’
‘My dear Freddy. How are you bearing up?’ He was in loose tweed trousers and blue striped shirt, his tie rolled up on the bookcase behind, and his jacket on the floor. His stethoscope was dangling over the lampshade on his desk, and he waved it at Craven like a gardening hose.
‘Weary, weary,’ Craven said. ‘But that’s no surprise.’
‘I’m going to get you up on that couch if it kills me,’ said O’Casey. He helped Craven to loosen his shirt and heave himself up with a wobbly
step on the footstool. When he lay down, the doctor gave him time to get his breath. Craven’s public face gave way to the picture of a tired old man, as if an air bag had emptied. ‘I’ve been pushed a lot in recent days,’ he said.
‘Quiet yourself,’ O’Casey said. ‘I’ll judge.’
He listened to the old man’s chest.
‘Don’t talk for a little bit, if you don’t mind.’ He felt for a pulse, blew up the rubber ring on his arm, then found a spatula to press on his tongue, and took a flashlight from his desk. He peered into Craven’s eyes. Rubbing the blotch on his neck – Craven was reminded of Flemyng and his scar – he then spent some minutes examining patches on his face and his chest, tapping on his ribcage. Taking his stethoscope up again, he spent some time listening. Then he rolled Craven over and lifted his shirt to examine his back, felt his pulse again.
‘Waterworks?’
‘Fine,’ Craven said.
‘Well, that’s something.’
He put away his implements. ‘Pain?’ he said as he turned back, patting his chest.
‘None. I’m grateful,’ Craven said.
‘Let’s get you dressed.’
They sat across the desk, and O’Casey said, ‘You know that it’s been downhill for a while now. And that hasn’t changed. The stuff, whatever it was, that they took out a couple of years ago – well, some of it is still there I’m sure, eating away. You know that. I’m surprised there’s no pain yet. But there’s something else.’
Craven smiled. ‘I was expecting this.’
‘Why?’ O’Casey said.
‘Because there’s a tiredness I haven’t known before.’
‘I’m not surprised. More ticker trouble, old boy.’
‘Don’t hold back,’ Craven said.
‘A wee heart thingummy. I think you’ve had one, without knowing.’
‘When do you think?’ Craven said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t say. Days, not weeks.’
‘Declan, tell me everything.’
‘I’m never definite about anything. Part of the job. But it tells me that you’re weakening, that’s all. A harbinger, maybe.’
‘You’re sending me to a hospital?’
O’Casey shook his head.
‘No point, you mean?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ said the doctor.
Craven smiled. ‘If anything happens in Paris, I’ll get them to call for you. I know they’ll do that for me.’
‘Of course I’ll come. But don’t worry. I won’t be packing my bags tonight.’
‘A last word,’ said Craven. ‘Don’t tell them. Please.’
‘I won’t. Let’s get you out of here.’ He rang for Marjorie.
Five minutes later he was on his way. There was time for some supper before the night train to Brussels. He told the driver to take him straight to the White Tower in Percy Street, which meant that he missed Flemyng’s phone call to his club.
THIRTY-ONE
Flemyng tried again later. The night porter told the story he’d already been given. There had been no sign of Mr Craven since mid-afternoon, when he picked up the things he had left at breakfast time, having gone for a walk in the park with another gentleman, not a member. His room had been reserved for one night only, and he had said nothing about where he might be found. Of course, if he returned they would find him a bed. He was always welcome.
‘Don’t worry,’ Flemyng said. ‘I shall probably be able to track him down.’
Sitting with the curtains drawn shut and his reading light on, he went through his conversation with Kristof, worrying at it like a dog with a bone. Conscious that events in the streets were stoking his sense of crisis, and trying to resist, he persuaded himself that if he promised to be true to Freddy Craven on his return, there was no shame in looking at the diary. Didn’t he have the key, from the old man’s hand? It was in his box of special objects that he had taken from the bureau and sat on his knee. He fingered the carved Celtic knot on the lid like a talisman.
He had confessed to Craven after looking at the diary ten days before, and the old man had laughed. He said it was the kind of thing he’d done himself, more than once. So where was the harm? Another confession would be required, but there would be a result to change the game with Kristof. No one would lose, and the danger of exposure – the threat to Abel – would be gone. Craven wouldn’t want him to do anything else.
Surely.
Kristof’s churning emotions told him that he was capable of anything. The Flemyngs were both in danger.
Half an hour, and a long, slow whisky later, he was persuaded.
He rang Janet, at home. ‘I’m sorry to ring you late in the evening,’ he said, surprised to see the clock at nearly eleven. ‘Two things. I may have to drop by the office. Is Sandy working late?’ She reassured him. He was out of town.
‘That’s fine. I’ll let myself in.’
Janet said she would come if necessary, but he said no.
Then he said, ‘Freddy’s away, I know. Have you made any arrangements for him tonight? He’s not at his club.’
He listened to her answer. ‘Brussels? Thank you.’
His mind was made up. Putting on a hat and coat against the rain that had returned, he took Craven’s keys from the box, strung them on the same ring as his embassy set, and walked to the corner to find a taxi.
There was a police cordon across rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, and he had to speak to a guard outside the Élysée to reach the embassy, a hundred yards away. For the first time in his experience he had to show identity papers in the street. At the gate, two Royal Engineers were at George’s post. They knew him, and in less than five minutes he was turning on the lights in Freddy Craven’s office, having closed the curtains first. Anyone could see a glow from the courtyard, but he didn’t want the place to look like a lighthouse.
Where was Craven on his train? Looking at his watch, he reckoned that he would be approaching Dover and the ferry. A rough crossing wouldn’t bother the old sailor, but manoeuvring the train off the ship, and the parting of the carriages to send some to Brussels and the rest to Paris, was always a noisy, bumpy business and he had never been able to sleep through it. He looked around the office, so familiar to him. Freddy Craven was there with him, he persuaded himself. He would approve.
Quietly, as if he might be disturbed despite the locked door, he sat in the old man’s chair and opened the bottom drawer. The second key opened the deep box inside and he saw the diaries for a second time.
He had promised himself at home that he would resist the temptation to work backwards from the latest entry. That was respectful. He would only do what was necessary for the good of the station.
Bolstered by his reasoning, but conscious of his nerves and a desire to work quickly, he lifted out a bundle of cloth-covered black books, each small enough to slip into a coat pocket. There were four from Vienna, and he had to repeat in his head all the promises he’d made to himself not to read the stories in which he played a part. What was said about the night he got his scar? What had Freddy Craven told London? The answers would be inside. But moving in a deliberate way, he placed the books back in their box. Forbidden fruit. It gave him a feeling of relief, and some pride, that prepared him for the next step.
There were three diaries marked Berlin.
He took them in turn.
He switched on Craven’s desk lamp and turned off the office lights. Going to the window, he pulled the curtain back. There was a patter of rain on the glass, and looking into the courtyard outside the residence he saw the light catching the water on the stone. The only lamp lit was in the gatehouse, and over the wall he saw the glow from the police cars parked across the street further down. It was well past midnight, and there was no sound.
Sliding Craven’s tobacco tin and pipe to the side of his desk, beside his paperweight and a pewter mug full of pencils, he laid the Berlin books in front of him. His first surprise was Craven’s style. The contemporary entries which he had se
en ten days before were cryptic. The crude code – more like a set of abbreviations – was easily broken, and he had known that Craven left it in a state where any of his colleagues could easily interpret what was there.
But years before, Flemyng could see, it had been different. A storyteller was at work.
He was moved as he read Craven’s flowing hand, with its long loops, and enjoyed his descriptions. He saw immediately that sensitive names were either disguised or omitted. He was writing around events. Flicking across the first twenty pages, he could see nothing that could be an operation codename, and no colleague was identified directly. The discipline was meticulous. But the old man was weaving a story and, like a schoolboy under the bedclothes, he took it slowly, to enjoy every chapter. Craven threaded the narrative with references to favourite writers, and poems, giving the diary the flavour of a commonplace book.
Craven’s time in his lair in the old Olympic Stadium was written up as an adventure. BRIXMIS they called the mission – a troupe of soldiers, engineers and full-time spies that were hard to tell apart, with rights to cross the city in the name of liaison with the East Germans, and, more to the point, their Soviet opposite numbers. In turn, the other side had the same fishing permit in the west. It was a strange, gentlemanly business. Everyone knew there was plane-spotting and tank-spotting going on, and Craven had mapmakers collating the observations and photographs that came back every day to work out how the land lay beyond East Berlin. But the arrangement was held to be above skulduggery. It had been approved, negotiated.
Craven briefed those who were going into the eastern sector, and for the rest of his time he trained up those who were to spy on the Russians who came west, under the same disposition, to play the game the other way round.
He enjoyed the absurdity.
They had to rescue drunks from beer halls in Potsdam, find a camera that someone had left in a brothel, apologize for boys who had bent the rules and, once, pick up one of the official cars with its painted identification numbers that had crashed where it shouldn’t have been. But there was always a Russian who could be shamed in turn. There were moments of strange co-operation. They once provided a lorryload of medicines that weren’t available in the east, concluding that they were required for the wife of someone powerful, probably a Russian. In gratitude, a helpful report came back with the record of a conversation at the opera by one of the old spies marooned in Moscow: he had let slip a name. And Craven’s account of the Queen’s birthday celebration in the Somerset Arms, their purpose-built pub in the mission grounds, was a comic masterpiece. All the invited Russians had come in uniform, and the toasts went on into the night. It was arranged that they could stay in one of the barracks, under a guard that Craven said was so light that it couldn’t deal with a case of bed-wetting, quite probable after the party, let alone a breakout by a phalanx of Russians determined to find secrets.
Paris Spring Page 28
