Our Man In Havana (20 page)

‘Oh yes, yes.’

‘I was interested that you had enlarged your staff. That charming secretary with the siphon and the coat that wouldn’t close. And the young man.’

‘I need someone to superintend accounts. Lopez is not reliable.’

‘Ah, Lopez. Another of your agents.’ Captain Segura laughed. ‘Or so it was reported to me.’

‘Yes. He supplies me with secret information about the police-department.’

‘Be careful, Mr Wormold. He is one of the torturable.’ They both laughed, drinking daiquiries. It is easy to laugh at the idea of torture on a sunny day. ‘I must be going, Mr Wormold.’

‘I suppose the cells are full of my spies.’

‘We can always make room for another by having a few executions.’

‘One day, Captain, I am going to beat you at draughts.’

‘I doubt it, Mr Wormold.’

From the window he watched Captain Segura pass the grey
pumice-like
figure of Columbus on the way to his office. Then he had another free daiquiri. The Havana Club and Captain Segura seemed to have taken the place of the Wonder Bar and Dr Hasselbacher – it was like a change of life and he had to make the best of it. There was no turning time back. Dr Hasselbacher had been humiliated in front of him, and friendship cannot stand humiliation. He had not seen Dr Hasselbacher again. In the club he felt himself, as in the Wonder Bar, a citizen of Havana; the elegant young man who brought him a drink made no attempt to sell him one of the assorted bottles of rum arranged on his table. A man with a grey beard read his morning paper as always at this hour; as usual a postman had interrupted his daily round for his free drink: all of them were citizens too. Four tourists left the bar carrying woven baskets, containing bottles of rum; they were flushed and cheerful and harboured the illusion that their drinks had cost them nothing. He thought, They are the foreigners, and of course untorturable.

Wormold drank his daiquiri too fast and left the Havana Club with his eyes aching. The tourists leant over the seventeenth-century well; they had flung into it enough coins to have paid for their drinks twice over: they were ensuring a happy return. A woman’s voice called him and he saw Beatrice standing between the pillars of the colonnade among the gourds and rattles and negro-dolls of the curio-shop.

‘What are you doing here?’

She explained, ‘I’m always unhappy when you meet Segura. This time I wanted to be sure …’

‘Sure of what?’ He wondered whether at last she had begun to suspect that he had no agents. Perhaps she had received instructions to watch him, from London or from 59200 in Kingston. They began to walk home.

‘Sure that it’s not a trap, that the police aren’t waiting for you. A double agent is tricky to handle.’

‘You worry too much.’

‘And you have so little experience. Look what happened to Raul and Cifuentes.’

‘Cifuentes has been interrogated by the police.’ He added with relief, ‘He’s blown, so he’s no use to us now.’

‘Then aren’t you blown too?’

‘He gave nothing away. It was Captain Segura who chose the questions, and Segura is one of us. I think perhaps it’s time we gave him a bonus. He’s trying to compile a complete list for us of foreign agents here – American as well as Russian. Wild duck – that’s what he calls them.’

‘It would be quite a coup. And the constructions?’

‘We’ll have to let those rest a while. I can’t make him act against his own country.’

Passing the Cathedral he gave his usual coin to the blind beggar who sat on the steps outside. Beatrice said, ‘It seems almost worth while being blind in this sun.’ The creative instinct stirred in Wormold. He said, ‘You know, he’s not really blind. He sees everything that goes on.’

‘He must be a good actor. I’ve been watching him all the time you were with Segura.’

‘And he’s been watching you. As a matter of fact he’s one of my best informers. I always have him stationed here when I meet Segura. An elementary precaution. I’m not as careless as you think.’

‘You’ve never told H.Q.’

‘There’s no point. They could hardly have traces of a blind beggar, and I don’t use him for information. All the same if I had been arrested you’d have known of it in ten minutes. What would you have done?’

‘Burnt all records and driven Milly to the Embassy.’

‘What about Rudy?’

‘I’d have told him to radio London that we were breaking off and then to go underground.’

‘How does one go underground?’ He didn’t probe for an answer. He said slowly as the story grew of itself, ‘The beggar’s name is Miguel. He really does all this for love. You see, I saved his life once.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, it was nothing. An accident to the ferry. It just happened that I could swim and he couldn’t.’

‘Did they give you a medal?’ He looked at her quickly, but in her face he could see only innocent interest.

‘No. There was no glory. As a matter of fact they fined me for bringing him to shore in a defence zone.’

‘What a very romantic story. And now of course he would give his life for you.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that.’

‘Do tell me – have you somewhere a small penny account-book in black wash-leather?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. Why?’

‘With your first purchases of pen-nibs and india-rubbers?’

‘Why on earth pen-nibs?’

‘I was just wondering, that’s all.’

‘You can’t buy account-books for a penny. And pen-nibs - nobody uses pen-nibs nowadays.’

‘Forget it. Just something Henry said to me. A natural mistake.’

‘Who’s Henry?’ he asked.

‘59200,’ she said. He felt an odd jealousy, for in spite of security rules she had only once called him Jim.

The house was empty as usual when they came in; he was aware that he no longer missed Milly, and he felt the sad relief of a man who realizes that there is one love at least that no longer hurts him.

‘Rudy’s out,’ Beatrice said. ‘Buying sweets, I suppose. He eats too many. He must consume an awful lot of energy, because he gets no fatter, but I don’t see how.’

‘We’d better get down to work. There’s a cable to send. Segura gave some valuable information about Communist infiltration in the police. You’d hardly believe …’

‘I can believe almost anything. Look at this. I’ve just discovered something fascinating in the code-book. Did you know there was a group for “eunuch”? Do you think it crops up often in cables?’

‘I expect they need it in the Istanbul office.’

‘I wish we could use it. Can’t we?’

‘Are you ever going to marry again?’

Beatrice said, ‘Your free associations are rather obvious sometimes. Do you think Rudy has a secret life? He can’t consume all that energy in the office.’

‘What’s the drill for a secret life? Do you have to ask permission from London before you start one?’

‘Well, of course, you would have to get traces before going very far. London prefers to keep sex inside the department.’

CHAPTER 2

1

‘I MUST BE
getting important,’ Wormold said. ‘I’ve been invited to make a speech.’

‘Where?’ Milly asked, looking politely up from the
Horsewoman’s Year Book
. It was the evening hour when work was over and the last gold light lay flat across the roofs and touched the honey-coloured hair and the whisky in his glass.

‘At the annual lunch of the European Traders’ Association. Dr Braun, the President, has asked me to make one – as the oldest member. The guest of honour is the American Consul-General,’ he added with pride. It seemed such a short time ago that he had come to Havana and met with her family in the Floridita bar the girl who was Milly’s mother; now he was the oldest trader there. Many had retired: some had gone home to fight in the last war – English, German, French – but he had been rejected because of his bad leg. None of these had returned to Cuba.

‘What will you talk about?’

He said sadly, ‘I shan’t. I wouldn’t know what to say.’

‘I bet you’d speak better than any of them.’

‘Oh no. I may be the oldest member, Milly, but I’m the smallest too. The rum-exporters and the cigar-men – they are the really important people.’

‘You are you.’

‘I wish you had chosen a cleverer father.’

‘Captain Segura says you are pretty good at checkers.’

‘But not as good as he is.’

‘Please accept, Father,’ she said. ‘I’d be so proud of you.’

‘I’d make a fool of myself.’

‘You wouldn’t. For my sake.’

‘For your sake I’d turn cartwheels. All right. I’ll accept.’

Rudy knocked at the door. This was the hour when he listened in for the last time; it would be midnight in London.

He said, ‘There’s an urgent cable from Kingston. Shall I fetch Beatrice?’

‘No, I can manage it myself. She’s going to a movie.’

‘Business does seem brisk,’ Milly said.

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t seem to
sell
any more cleaners.’

‘It’s all long-term promotion,’ Wormold said.

He went into his bedroom and deciphered the cable. It was from Hawthorne. Wormold was to come by the first possible plane to Kingston and report. He thought: So they know at last.

2

The rendezvous was the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Wormold had not been to Jamaica for many years, and he was appalled by the dirt and the heat. What accounted for the squalor of British possessions? The Spanish, the French and the Portuguese built cities where they settled, but the English just allowed cities to grow. The poorest street in Havana had dignity compared with the shanty-life of Kingston – huts built out of old petrol-tins roofed with scrap-metal purloined from some cemetery of abandoned cars.

Hawthorne sat in a long chair in the veranda of Myrtle Bank drinking a planter’s punch through a straw. His suit was just as immaculate as when Wormold had met him first; the only sign of the great heat was a little powder caked under his left ear. He said, ‘Take a pew.’ Even the slang was back.

‘Thanks.’

‘Had a good trip?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I expect you’re glad to be at home.’

‘Home?’

‘I mean here – having a holiday from the dagoes. Back in British territory.’ Wormold thought of the huts he had seen along the harbour and a hopeless old man asleep in a patch of shade and a ragged child nursing a piece of driftwood. He said, ‘Havana’s not so bad.’

‘Have a planter’s punch. They are good here.’

‘Thanks.’

Hawthorne said, ‘I asked you to come over because there’s a spot of trouble.’

‘Yes?’ He supposed that the truth was coming out. Could he be arrested now that he was on British territory? What would the charge be? Obtaining money on false pretences perhaps or some obscurer charge heard
in camera
under the Official Secrets Act.

‘About these constructions.’

He wanted to explain that Beatrice knew nothing of all this; he had no accomplice except the credulity of other men.

‘What about them?’ he asked.

‘I wish you’d been able to get photographs.’

‘I tried. You know what happened.’

‘Yes. The drawings are a bit confusing.’

‘They are not by a skilled draughtsman.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, old man. You’ve done wonders, but, you know, there was a time when I was – almost suspicious.’

‘What of?’

‘Well, some of them sort of reminded me – to be frank, they reminded me of parts of a vacuum cleaner.’

‘Yes, that struck me too.’

‘And then, you see, I remembered all the thingummies in your shop.’

‘You thought I’d pulled the leg of the Secret Service?’

‘Of course it sounds fantastic now, I know. All the same, in a way I was relieved when I found that the others have made up their minds to murder you.’

‘Murder me?’

‘You see, that really proves the drawings are genuine.’

‘What others?’

‘The other side. Of course I’d luckily kept these absurd suspicions to myself.’

‘How are they going to murder me?’

‘Oh, we’ll come to that – a matter of poisoning. What I mean is that next to having photographs one can’t have a better confirmation of your reports. We had been rather sitting on them, but we’ve circulated them now to all the Service Departments. We sent them to Atomic Research as well. They weren’t helpful. Said they had no connection with nuclear fission. The trouble is we’ve been bemused by the atom-boys and have quite forgotten that there may be other forms of scientific warfare just as dangerous.’

‘How are they going to poison me?’

‘First things first, old man. One mustn’t forget the economics of warfare. Cuba can’t afford to start making H-bombs, but have they found something equally effective at short range and
cheap!
That’s the important word – cheap.’

‘Please would you mind telling me how they are going to murder me? You see, it interests me personally.’

‘Of course I’m going to tell you. I just wanted to give you the background first and to tell you how pleased we all are – at the confirmation of your reports, I mean. They plan to poison you at some sort of business lunch.’

‘The European Traders’ Association?’

‘I think that’s the name.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We’ve penetrated their organization here. You’d be surprised how much we know of what goes on in your territory. I can tell you for instance that the death of stroke four was an accident. They just wanted to scare him as they scared stroke three by
shooting
at him. You are the first one they’ve really decided to murder.’

‘That’s comforting.’

‘In a way, you know, it’s a compliment. You are dangerous now.’ Hawthorne made a long sucking noise, draining up the last liquid between the layers of ice and orange and pineapple and the cherry on top.

‘I suppose,’ Wormold said, ‘I’d better not go.’ He felt a surprising disappointment. ‘It will be the first lunch I’ve missed in ten years. They’d even asked me to speak. The firm always expects me to attend. Like showing the flag.’

‘But of
course
you’ve got to go.’

‘And be poisoned?’

‘You needn’t eat anything, need you?’