Billion-Dollar Brain (26 page)

‘I’m here to tell you that if your wife decided to leave the country nothing would be done to impede her.’

‘Very kind,’ said Pike huffily. He stroked his uniform in quick nervous movements.

‘Don’t let’s be confused about this. We know that last week she took another—I might add a final—batch of stolen virus to Helsinki. She returned to England yesterday. Although she thought she was doing it for the Americans those eggs were due to be delivered to the Russians. Luckily they didn’t get there.’

‘Russians,’ said Pike scornfully. ‘They’ve told me some stories in here but that’s the best one yet. I am an American agent. I work for a secret American organization called Facts for Freedom.’

‘It’s about time you moved into the past tense,’ I said. ‘And it’s about time that you got it into your thick pill-pushing head that stealing from a highly secret government establishment is a very serious criminal charge no matter if she was going to boil the eggs for three minutes and eat them with thin bread and butter.’

‘Threats is it?’ said Pike. He undid his pocket button as though he was getting a notebook then he fastened it up again. ‘I’ll have the whole lot of you in the Old Bailey. They tell me that psychiatric prisoners are not allowed to petition the Home Secretary or the Minister of Defence but I’m going to take this matter to the House, the House of Lords if necessary.’ The words came smooth and fluent as though he had said them to himself many times—although without believing them.

‘You are not taking anything anywhere, Pike. If I let you walk out of here now to…well to anywhere, to the BMA, or to your MP or your mother, you’ll spin your story about joining the Army by accident and then being held by Military Intelligence in a lunatic asylum. Do you expect anyone to believe that? They’ll say you are a nut, Pike, and so will the Army psychiatrist that they send along to examine you. You would feel your arms slipping into a backward overcoat before you
knew what was happening to you. Then you would begin to struggle and shout and yell about your innocence and sanity and everyone would be even more convinced that you’re a nut.’

Pike said, ‘No psychiatrist would lend himself to such a thing.’

I said, ‘You’re naïve, Pike. Perhaps that’s been your trouble all along. That Army psychiatrist will uphold the diagnosis of his colleagues. You were a doctor, Pike; you know what doctors always do: they agree with their colleagues. Haven’t you ever covered up for someone’s faulty diagnosis by agreeing? Well, that’s what this psychiatrist would do; especially after reading your dossier.’ I tapped it. ‘It says here that while masquerading as a doctor you prejudiced the lives of fourteen persons.’

‘It’s all a tissue of lies,’ Pike said desperately. ‘You know that. My God, it’s diabolical. A man came here three days ago and insisted that I had once been an artillery officer in Kuwait. Last week they said I was an abortionist. They’re trying to send me insane. You know what’s true.’

‘I only know what’s in your file,’ I said. ‘You played amateur wonder-boy spy games. Men get hurt doing that. Most of them are far more interesting than you. Now let’s get down to business. Where would you like your wife to go?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘Just as you like, but when your wife goes into custody they will probably make your child a ward of the court; he’ll end up in an orphanage.
Your wife will get at least seven years.’ I put all the documents back into my case and locked it.

Pike stared at me. I could hardly recognize the man I had met in the King’s Cross consultingroom. The hair that had been sleek and steely was now limp as cotton and streaked with grey. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull and his protests were not accompanied by any muscular activity. He was like a man dubbing a sound track on an action film and unable to make it convincing. He ran a finger round the neck of his uniform blouse and waved his chin about. I offered him a cigarette and while I lit it for him our eyes met. Neither of us could muster the slightest glint of kindness.

‘Yes, well. We have relations in Milan. She could go there.’

I said, ‘Here’s some paper, write her a letter suggesting she goes to Milan. Don’t date it. Make it a very strong suggestion because if she doesn’t go within a couple of days I won’t be able to prevent her arrest.’

‘A different department,’ said Pike sarcastically.

‘A different department,’ I agreed, and I let him have pen and paper and when he had finished writing I let him have a cup of tea with two cubes of sugar.

Jean was typing out our file on the Midwinter organization. She stopped. ‘What a lovely name, the Loving Trail. Why is it called that?’

‘A man named Oliver Loving drove cattle from the pasture of Texas to the rail-head at Cheyenne.’

‘It’s a lovely name, Loving Trail,’ Jean said. ‘I suppose that’s what they were all on. General Midwinter loving America strongly although not very cleverly.’

‘The understatement of the year.’

‘And Mrs Newbegin. I know you hated her but I’m sure that it was a distorted sort of love that drove her on to soft-soap Midwinter and pressure Harvey into being a big success.’

‘Stealing. Is that your idea of success?’

‘I’m trying to understand them.’

‘Mrs Pike and Mrs Newbegin are exactly the same type. Tough, aggressive, hard-bitten, handling their husbands like a road manager with a new pop-singer. You work with these files all day,
you know that women like these almost never think in terms of politics. They are biologically motivated and biology being what it is, the female of the species will survive. Drop them into Peking and in six months either of those women will have a big house, nice clothes and a husband operated by remote control.’

‘What happened to Harvey Newbegin? Did his control blow a fuse?’

‘Harvey loved youth. Like a lot of people who covet other people’s youth he really wanted to be rid of his memories. Harvey wanted to start all over again; by marriage, by defection; he didn’t mind as long as he could have a new clean slate.’

‘I’d say that was his wife’s fault; he felt trapped.’

‘Everyone feels trapped; it’s our way of rationalizing our leaden lot in the face of our golden potential.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Jean. ‘I must renew your subscription to the
Reader’s Digest.
’

Very funny. I fixed fifteen paper clips into a neat chain but when I pulled it one, the third from the end, distorted and gave way.

‘Why did Harvey Newbegin defect?’ Jean asked. ‘I still don’t understand.’

‘He was an unstable man in a high-pressure world,’ I said. ‘There’s no nice glib explanation. He wasn’t a Communist spy, a revolutionary or a subversive Marxist. They never are. The day of the political philosopher is over. Men no longer betray their country for an ideal; they respond to
immediate problems. They do the things they do because they want a new car or they fear they’ll be fired or because they love a teenage girl or hate their wife, or just because they want to get away from it all. There was no sharp motive. There never is. I should have know that, just a ragged mess of opportunism, ambition and good intentions that go wrong. That’s the path to hell. Just build an inch of it every day and it can be a painless journey.’

‘What does your golden potential tell you about Signe; a sex-pot?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You know…young girls.’

‘No,’ Jean said woodenly. ‘You do.’

‘She’s a young girl who suddenly discovers she’s a beautiful woman. The sort of men who have been telling her not to make so much noise are suddenly waiting on her and listening to every word she says. Power. She gets a little drunk on it, it’s nothing out of character. Madly in love one day, out of love the next. A lovely little game, but Harvey took it seriously. But Harvey was an actor too, he relished it.’

‘I was looking at the medical report of Kaarna’s death,’ Jean said. ‘The Helsinki police said that it was a thin pointed instrument, the wound being delivered by a right-handed assailant from behind him with a downward striking action…’

‘I’m way ahead of you,’ I interrupted. ‘A hat-pin used by a left-handed girl who had her arms around him while both were lying on the bed would give the same sort of wound. A Russian
courier died from exactly the same type of wound five months before, so did several others. She was good at counting vertebrae.’

‘Cloth traces in the teeth?’ said Jean in a businesslike way.

‘We all have our funny little ways,’ I said.

‘My God,’ said Jean. ‘You mean she
was
the official killer for the Midwinter organization, just as Harvey Newbegin said.’

‘Seems like it,’ I said. ‘That’s why old man Midwinter asked me if she was emotionally entangled. He was still thinking of using her on Harvey.’

‘What will happen to her now?’

‘Dawlish is hoping that Signe Laine and Mrs Pike can be employed by us.’

‘Blackmail.’

‘A harsh word, but if we offer them a job they’ll be in a difficult position to refuse.’

So Ross at the War Office had found a way to hold Dr Felix Pike in custody without the publicity of a public trial, but even Ross couldn’t pretend that Mrs Pike had joined the army and gone crazy. We had a tacit agreement with Ross that he would leave Mrs Pike to us. We wanted to keep her under observation with a view to recruiting her.

Ross wouldn’t break his agreement, but he knew other ways of sabotaging us. Early Friday afternoon we heard that Special Branch had become interested in Mrs Pike. We all knew it was Ross’s sly hand, the artful little sod.

‘The artful little sod,’ I said.

Jean snapped the file closed and produced a large manilla envelope. Inside it there were two airline tickets and a bundle of American currency. ‘Dawlish wants you to put Mrs Pike on an aeroplane.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Special Branch are going along there with a warrant this evening, so you’ll have to use the letter from Pike after all. You should have an hour to turn her round if you hurry.’

‘I hate these bloody jobs.’

‘I know you do.’

‘You are very sympathetic, I must say.’

‘I don’t get paid to be sympathetic,’ Jean said. ‘I don’t see why you must always be so holy about the sort of jobs you do. It’s quite straightforward: get Mrs Pike on the plane before she gets arrested. I should have thought you liked playing good Samaritan.’

I took the tickets and stuffed them in my pocket. ‘Well you can come too,’ I said. ‘Then you’ll see how bloody enjoyable it is.’

Jean shrugged and gave the driver Pike’s address. Friday night in week-end-cottage land. Foundations were sinking and damp rising. Stockbrokers in Daimlers and casual clothes arrived relaxed and would leave on Monday morning tense and exhausted. It was a cold evening. Toasted tea-cakes, kettles singing on the hob, hansom cabs and deer-stalker hats almost visible through the light fog. Besterton village was
a clutter of architectural styles from timber frame with brick nogging to the phoney Georgian of the Pike residence.

The converted barn that Ralph Pike had lived in had burn marks on two of the upstairs windows. There were no cars in the drive now, no music or signs of life anywhere. I rang the bell. The Spanish manservant came to the door.

‘Yes?’

‘Let’s see Mrs Pike.’

‘Not here,’ he said and began to close the door.

‘You’d better find out where she is,’ I said, ‘before I find myself checking your work permit.’

He grudgingly admitted us. We sat down on the long buttoned Chesterfield among the ivory carvings, antique snuff-boxes with funny rhymes, silver pen-sets and letter-openers. In the hearth a dachshund was curled like a pretzel among the carefully polished fire-irons. The manservant came back. ‘Mrs Pike is here,’ he said and gave me a bright orange paper.

Besterton Village Junior Private School invites parents and friends to a grand performance. Ting-aling-a-ling. Performances by children of Besterton Junior Private School. Doors open 6.30. Performance begins at 7.0 P.M. Admission free. Silver collection in aid of local charities. Come early. Coffee and light refreshments available at popular prices. Teachers will be happy to answer parents’ questions.

‘Come on, Jean,’ I said.

A cold wind howled through the telephone lines, the last molecule of daylight gone. A great amber traffic-light moon urged caution upon the reckless universe. Toads croaked in the ditch. Somewhere near by a Little Owl was making its kiu-kiu-kiu call. Jean took my arm and said,

‘The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign;

The night-owl cried, aboding luckless time;

Dogs howled, and hideous tempests shook down trees…’

I said, ‘My sole excursion into Shakespearean drama was playing the ghost of Hamlet’s father. My cue was Marcellus saying, “Look where it comes again.” Enter ghost; stand around haunting until someone said, “Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!”, then exit ghost, without a word.’

Jean said, ‘You were forming the behaviour patterns of later years.’

I said, ‘The ghost does have lines: “My hour is almost come when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself.” And there were some about “lust, though to a radiant angel link’d, will sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey on garbage”, but they didn’t like the way I said them and they finally had a boy backstage speak them through a metal funnel.’

The school is a large house that was once called The Grange. Its grounds had been divided into rectangles upon each of which a modern house stood. A large signboard—Besterton Junior Private School—had been hammered into the front garden to attract juvenile residents of the village who declined to mix with lower-income groups.

A lady in a fur coat sat in a chair in the doorway. ‘Are you a father?’ she asked, as Jean and I entered.

‘We’re working at it,’ I said. She smiled grimly and allowed us in. A large hand-drawn arrow pointed down a corridor that smelled of exercise books and chalky dusters. We went through the door marked ‘Assembly Hall Platform’. The monotonous sound of a carefully played piano came from the body of the hall. Mrs Philippa Pike was behind the scenes. I gave her the note from her husband and she looked at me a long time before unfolding it. When she had read it she looked unsurprised.

‘I’m going nowhere,’ she said. There was only just enough light to see her face, but beyond her a little girl on the stage was caught in the criss-cross green beams of the spotlights. She wore sequincovered wings and they flapped as she moved, twinkling in the hard green light.

‘You’d be wise to take your husband’s advice,’ I said. ‘He’s probably in a better position to judge the situation.’

The little girl was saying,

‘The north wind doth blow And we shall have snow, And what will poor Robin do then? Poor thing.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Pike. ‘You tell me he’s in prison, that’s not a good place from which to judge any situation except your own.’

‘I didn’t say where he was, I said I had a message from him.’

The little girl said,

‘He’ll sit in a barn, And keep himself warm, And hide his head under his wing, Poor thing.’

The spotlight changed to pink, as she hid her head under her nylon wing.

Mrs Pike pulled the collar of her suit against her neck as if she too felt the north wind blowing. ‘Felix was a fool,’ she said to no one in particular. Her face was brightly lit by the pink spotlight and I could see the place where her liquid make-up stopped a little below her jaw. ‘Someone should pay,’ she said. ‘Someone had the benefit of the work they did—dangerous work—someone benefited and someone should pay. Why should I suffer, and why should the child?’

I looked at Mrs Pike, a small, hard, faceless woman with hair expensively tinted and tiny eyes
ashine with bitterness because her spying hadn’t paid off. There was a pause while I controlled my anger, and when I spoke I spoke quietly.

‘It’s simple enough,’ I said. ‘Here’s an airline ticket for you and your son to Milan. If you catch this next plane I will pay your expenses and there will be plenty for clothes etcetera to save you going back to the house, which may already be under observation. If you don’t do that we will accompany you back to the house when you leave here. You will be taken into custody.’

‘I suppose you are just obeying your orders,’ she said.

‘But not unthinkingly, Mrs Pike,’ I said. ‘And that’s the difference.’

The little girl on the stage twirled around with her head under her wing. I could see her lips move as she counted the twirls. Mrs Pike said, ‘I don’t trust you.’

A little boy dressed as a toy soldier with huge white buttons and two discs of red on his cheeks came up to Mrs Pike and touched her hand. ‘I’m on next, Mummy,’ he said.

‘That’s right, dear,’ said Mrs Pike. The little girl on the stage was waving a large papier-mâché lantern about the stage and there was now only one blue spotlight.

She said,

‘How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again.’

All the lights came on. Mrs Pike’s face was suddenly revealed clearly. The little girl curtsied and there was a noise of clapping. The audience had been so quiet that I hadn’t realized that there were about sixty people just a few inches behind the hardboard.

‘Do you have a clean handkerchief, dear?’ Mrs Pike said.

‘Yes,’ said little Nigel Pike, the toy soldier. The little girl came flushed and laughing to the side of the stage where her father lifted her down. A man said, ‘In position the toy soldiers. Where’s the unicorn?’ He climbed on to the stage and arranged Nigel and his friends in formation and scrambled out of sight behind a pile of dwarfsized desks.

‘And I don’t trust you,’ I said to Mrs Pike. ‘I also was in Helsinki last week.’

The toy soldiers, a lion with sticking plaster on its knee, and a unicorn with a horn that was coming unravelled, had formed up on the stage. The piano began. One of the toy soldiers waved a sword and the others began to recite in unison.

‘The lion and the unicorn Were fighting for the crown; The lion beat the unicorn All round about the town.’

The lion and the unicorn tapped wooden swords and made growling noises like TV wrestlers.

Mrs Pike was watching the brightly lit children with unseeing eyes.

‘You’d better make up your mind quickly,’ I said. ‘But let me just make it as clear as I can. By now…’ I looked at my watch: it was 7.45 ‘…a warrant has probably been issued, but because this is Buckinghamshire there will probably be a bit of telephoning going on to appease the Chief Constable. I’d say you have two hours before they block ports and airfields. These tickets won’t be worth a damn once Special Branch at London Airport get their orders.’