Spy Hook (25 page)

Dodo had emerged as a truly remarkable freeloader, so I was not surprised that he'd obtained the rent-free use of a house. It belonged to a Hungarian couple he'd met through Gloria's parents. The owners were having a winter holiday in Madeira. It was an elegant old house in Hampton Wick. Positioned between the river and the grounds of Hampton Court Palace, it stood in a quiet back street of early Victorian houses of varying shapes and sizes.

It was growing dark by the time I arrived, the sky purple with that hazy moon that is said to portend rain. The street lamps showed that number eighteen stood alone and back from the road. Rising over its eight-foot-tall garden wall I could see its intricate ironwork balcony, complete with curving pagoda-style top. The contrived seclusion, and the delicacy of the design, immediately suggested it as the sort of villa in which some alluring concubine might have passed her long lonely days.

The wrought-iron gate gave on to a small front garden. I stood there a moment and looked again at the house. The curtains were carelessly closed so that chinks of light were to be seen in almost every window. It was a bitterly cold night and the only sounds to be heard came from cars going along the main road towards Kingston Bridge.

I went up the steps to the bright green front door. There was no doorbell so I hammered loudly, using a brass lion's-head knocker. There was a long time before I heard movement inside. I had the feeling that someone might have gone to one of the upstairs windows to see who it was. Eventually the door opened to reveal Dodo. He was dressed in a white roll-neck sweater, grey cotton jacket, grey cord slacks and loafers with leather tassels. 'Ahhh! Good evening!' he said. 'So you tracked me down.'

'Can I come in?'

He didn't answer immediately. He clung to the door edge and looked me up and down. 'Very well,' he said without much enthusiasm. 'Come in and have a drink.'

He led the way through the hall, past the bentwood coatstand and the big mirror. He didn't suggest that I should take off my overcoat. He ushered me into a room at the back. It was a large room with a grand piano, a couple of easy chairs and some small antique tables cluttered with an array of snuff boxes and chinaware. The Victorian wallpaper provided a jungle of printed vegetation and the only light came from a brass fixture that directed all its rays upon the sheet music displayed on the piano.

The room smelled musty and unused, the window was shuttered and the piano wore a grey sheen of dust. Dodo turned to face me. 'Now what is it?' he said. His voice was hard and belligerent and his eyes glittered fiercely. I guessed he'd been on the booze but you could never be sure of anything with Dodo.

'Listen, Dodo,' I said. 'We'd better get one thing straight…'

He had moved as if reaching past me, but smoothly and without warning he straightened, and bringing his fist forward slammed me in the guts with enough force to wind me. As I bent forward, choking for air, the edge of his hand came down upon the side of my neck. It was a very well-placed karate chop and the pain of it set fire to every nerve in my body.

As I was doubled over and coughing my dinner up he lashed out with a vicious kick. But with my head down I saw his foot coming and lurched aside so that his shoe did no more than graze my arm.

My overcoat had protected me against the full effect of his blows. Had Dodo got me to take off my overcoat in the hall I would by then have been laid out. Another kick but wide of the mark this time. I reached out in the hope of grabbing his foot but he was too fast for me. Too fast and too experienced. I had underestimated Dodo all along the line: underestimated his brains, his influence, his malevolence and his physical strength.

Still in pain I straightened up. I backed away from him and felt the piano behind me. I welcomed the support it provided and for a moment rested against it and waited for Dodo's next move. The light from the piano Was fully in his eyes. His kicks and punches had caused him some exertion but he was reluctant to give me any chance to recover. He came at me again, slower this time, his hands high and his feet well apart. I took a deep breath; I knew if he placed them right, a couple of those chops would put my lights out.

'Gaah!' He gave a sudden cry and lunged at me. Or was it just a feint to see how I'd react? I sank down a little and kicked out at his guts but didn't connect. My foot made an arc in empty air but the threat of it made him hesitate. Then he ducked his head and reached out with a jab that hit my arm and sent a pain down to my hand. But I went for him then. I went in close swinging my fist, embracing him with a punch that landed in his kidney and produced an angry little grunt of pain. For a moment we stood grappling like partners on the dance floor, then he pushed away, hammering a couple of blows at my chest as we broke.

He stepped back and was almost lost in the shadows of the dark room. We stood apart panting heavily and staring at each other. The element of surprise was gone and I was getting his measure. Dodo was no boxer. If I could get him toe to toe, trading blows, I could knock him unconscious. But that was a big if. From the street there came the sound of a car moving slowly. Dodo cocked his head to listen but after a moment or two the car revved up and moved on.

Click! The flick-knife was in his hand, and as he inched forward the light shone on the blade. He was holding it low and pointed upwards, the way a man holds a knife when he means business. 'I'll teach you a lesson, Samson,' he promised in that low growl he produced when being especially venomous. 'Slice you up!' His face was flushed and he was over-salivating.

I moved sideways. Now the support that the piano had provided became a trap. I didn't want to be impaled: I dragged my scarf from my neck and flipped it around my hand to provide a flimsy glove. I edged sideways more. From the corner of my eye I chose the largest glass ornament within reach, a big cut-glass pineapple with silver leaves. I grabbed it and threw it with all my force. It hit him in the chest and he grunted and reeled back, banging against a table so that a dozen pieces of chinaware went crashing to the floor. But it didn't provide me with the chance I was hoping for. Dodo swore softly, some Hungarian curse, and kept his balance without looking round to see what he'd done.

When he came at me again I was trying to unlock the old-fashioned shutters and get to the french windows that opened on to the garden. I turned back to face him and kicked high trying to knock the knife from his hand but he was ready for that. He avoided the blow and smiled with satisfaction.

He closed again. My back crashed against the shutter and behind it a pane of glass cracked like a pistol shot. Dodo's knife came at me, ripping through my coat. I grabbed at his wrist and for a moment held it. We were close: he stank of whisky. He wrenched hard to get free and desperately I butted him in the face. 'Bastard!' he called as he escaped my grip and backed off. A tiny red worm crawled from his nostril, slid over his mouth and dripped from his chin. 'Bastard!' he said again. He moved the flick-knife to his left hand and reached under his jacket. Now there was a gun in his hand, a silly little toy designed for a lady's handbag but it would be enough to settle things.

And that was also the moment when I realized I couldn't beat him. Dodo had the staying power, the confidence, the ruthless determination to win at any cost that makes an Olympic champion.

And it was at that moment that I had the feeling that Dodo had known I was coming. He was prepared for me. He hadn't wanted to talk with me, he didn't ask me what I was there for. He put a gun and a knife in his belt and waited for me to arrive. How could he have guessed that I was on my way?

'Say your prayers, Samson.' With studied glee he took the gun into his left hand. He wanted me to understand what he meant by it. The gun was to be his insurance policy: Dodo was going to use the knife on me. He moved closer but he was wary now. He wouldn't be caught again by my kicks, butts or jabs. I tried to guess his intentions. He would have to cripple me with the knife lest I wrench the gun from him. 'Say your prayers,' he whispered softly.

I was frightened and he could see it. I had no plan to tackle him: he'd chosen his position well. There were no more objects handy for me to throw at him, no rugs under nun, no doors or windows for me to escape through. And the sole light was no longer in his eyes; it was in mine. That was why I didn't see clearly what happened next.

Over Dodo's shoulder I saw a figure coming silently through the door behind him. The intruder moved quietly and with the grace of a dancer. A slim man, wearing a short black car coat and a close-fitting cap. In a balletic movement he raised his hand high in the air, as if trying to touch the ceiling. And he brought it down in a vertical movement that ended with the thud of something hard hitting Dodo's skull.

Dodo gave a gasp like the air escaping from a balloon and collapsed to sprawl senseless upon the carpet. Then suddenly the dark room seemed to be full of men. Someone pushed me flat against a wall and frisked me while others were searching the house and searching Dodo's body too.

'Sit down, Bernie. Sit down and catch your breath.' Someone handed me a glass of whisky and I drank gratefully.

'That was a close one, eh?'

I knew the voice. Prettyman. 'Jim!' I said. 'Jesus! Is it really you, Jim. What…? Why…?'

I looked at him but he gave no sign of friendliness. 'Deep cover, Bernie.'

'Cindy thinks you're dead. What's all this about?' Outside in the hall I could hear the squawks and hisses of a two-way radio. Drawers were being pulled open and doors closed. 'What in hell is it all about?'

'You know better than to ask me that, Bernie.'

'For the Department?' He didn't answer.

He stared at me. His skin was white and his face hard like a waxwork figure. He said, 'I've got to get you out of here. Can you drive yourself home?'

I couldn't resist leaning forward and touching his arm. 'Is this why you sent me that box of ancient scripts and stuff? To keep for you? Was I supposed to guess that you weren't really dead?'

He flinched away from my touch. He got up and looked round the shadowy room. 'Maybe,' he said. He was near the piano. Reflectively he reached down and picked out a few bass notes. The room was dark, so that the lamp on the piano made a hard light upon the keyboard and his seemingly disembodied fingers.

'Jim,' I said. 'Who ordered you to disappear? Is it something to do with Fiona?'

Unhurriedly he hit a few more notes to complete a doleful little melody. Then he looked up and said, 'Bernie, it's time you realized that the Department isn't run for your benefit. There's nothing in Command Rules that says we have to clear everything with Bernard Samson before an Operation is okayed.'

'I'm talking about my wife, Jim,' I said angrily.

'Well, I'm not talking about her: not to you, not to anyone. Now shut up and get out of here. Go home and forget everything, and leave me to sort out this bloody mess you've created.'

'Or else?'

There was a pause. I met his gaze. 'Or else I include you in the report. You were told not to contact Dodo but you can't leave anything alone, can you, Bernie? You've just got to keep poking that nose of yours into everything.'

'So Silas Gaunt sent you here?'

He played a minor chord and held it. 'I told you to get going, so get going.' He closed the piano. Think you can drive?'

I gulped the rest of the whisky and got to my feet. I was still shaky. 'Okay, Jim,' I said.

'Just for old times' sake, I'll keep you out of it. Don't forget now. If anyone wants to know – and I do mean anyone – you went straight home.' He was watching me and now, for the first time, he smiled, but he didn't put a lot of energy into it. 'Don't drop me into it.' I thought he would offer his hand but he turned away and prodded Dodo's inert shape with the toe of his shoe. 'Come on, Dodo,' he said. 'The fight is over.'

'Go to jail!' It was not unexpected. There was a measure of inevitability to every game of chance.

I sometimes wonder if the reservations and doubts that my generation showed for capitalism were the legacy of being bankrupted and humiliated by our parents in those Sunday afternoon Monopoly games. Billy and Sally will not be similarly assailed; for them Monopoly games are simply a time when family discussions, reminiscences, stories and jokes (Waiter, waiter, this Pekin Duck is rubbery. Chinese waiter: thank you sir) are punctuated by desultory throws of the dice.

'Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.' Oh, well.

This was my family now: three children in effect, for seeing Gloria with my children was to recognize the way that she was just a grown-up child with all the sudden changes of mood that children believe normal. I looked at her that Sunday afternoon. It was a promise of spring to come, the sun shone from a blue sky, and we sat in the dilapidated conservatory that, more than any other thing, had made Gloria want to live in Balaklava Road. The potted plants and flowers that filled every shelf had been bought at the local garden centre but the effect was green and luxuriant, and for Gloria effect was everything.

The sun gave new life to Gloria, as it does to so many women»and I had never seen her looking so beautiful as she did that day. The sunshine had turned her blonde hair to the colour of pale butter. Her high cheekbones and wonderful teeth made her broad smile infectious and despite my misery – or perhaps because of it – I fell in love with her all over again.

Not once but often I had wondered how I would have survived that terrible time after Fiona's defection without Gloria there at my side. Apart from working all week, studying for university and attending to the household chores she cared for my children and worried about me. Most of all she renewed my self-respect at a time when my male ego was badly bruised by Fiona's departure.

I guess I should have told her all this but I never did. At the bad times when I needed her most I had no stamina for such tributes, and when things were going well between us there seemed to be no need of them.

'You can't move, you're in jail,' said Sally. 'You'll have to throw a double six.'

'Yes, I'm in jail.' I said. 'I forgot.'

Sally laughed.

I wondered if the children were aware of the difficulties that their mother's defection had brought. They were always polite to Gloria and occasionally affectionate but there was no way that she could replace their mother. At best they treated her as an elder sister, and the authority they granted her was on that basis. I worried about them, and work was not going well. Dicky Cruyer complained that I was not working hard enough to clear my desk. I countered that I was getting too many messenger-boy trips to Berlin but Dicky laughed and said that the Berlin jaunts were one of the best perks of the job. And Dicky was right. I liked the trips to Berlin. I'd be desolated to be deprived of the chance to see my friends there.

Were all the people I'd always trusted and depended on working against me? Perhaps I was beginning to go mad: or maybe I was far gone! At nights I stayed awake, trying to figure out what might be going on. I went to a pharmacy and bought sleeping tablets that had no discernible effect. Something more powerful would have required a prescription from the doctor, and regulations for senior staff said that any medical consultations of any sort have to be reported. Better to stay awake. But I felt more and more exhausted. By Wednesday I had decided that the only possible way of escaping from this nightmare was to talk to someone at the very top. Since the Deputy was a new boy and something of an unknown quantity this meant the Director-General, Sir Henry Clevemore. The only remaining task was to locate him; I was determined to do this before my next Berlin trip.

Apart from some spells in a nursing home, Sir Henry lived in a big stockbroker-Tudor mansion near Cambridge. In the distant past I had taken urgent papers there. Once I'd even been given lunch by the old man; a privilege so rarely granted to anyone but his immediate associates that Dicky interrogated me afterwards and wanted to know every word uttered.

How often Sir Henry came to London nowadays no one on my floor seemed to know. As far as the staff were concerned he was only to be glimpsed now and again emerging from – or disappearing into – the car of the express lift that took him to his top floor office, his face gloomy and his back hunched.

Sir Henry's office was still there and still unchanged; a desperate muddle of books, files, ornaments, mementoes and souvenirs too cheap and ugly to be enshrined in his richly furnished home but too imbued with memories to be thrown away.

The irrepressible and ever enchanting Gloria provided an answer to my problem when she invited a friend of hers to sit down with us in the canteen for lunch. Peggy Collier, a prematurely grey-haired lady who'd befriended Gloria right from the first day she'd come to work here, said something that indicated that Sir Henry must be in London every Friday. Peggy said that every Friday at noon she had a box of 'current and vital' papers ready and waiting for the D-G. It was delivered to the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly. Also I remembered that the Operations log-book showed the Cavalry Club as the contact number for the Deputy D-G every Friday afternoon.

Peggy said a special messenger brought the document box back to the office at varying times between five and seven pm. It was poor old Peggy who had to wait for the box to arrive, and then refile all the documents the D-G had been looking through. Sometimes – in fact quite frequently – this meant that Peg did not get home in time to prepare a proper meal for her husband, Jerry – spelled with a J because it was short for Jerome not Gerald – who worked as a fully qualified accountant for the local office of the Inspector of Inland Revenue and so was always home early, not having the train journey which Peggy had to endure from the office on account of the absurd rents they charge anywhere near the centre of town, and anyway wasn't the rent they paid out in the suburbs where they lived next door to Jerry's mother enough? And who wants a cold meal at night after a long day's work, although by the time you've dished up a cold meal it has taken almost as long as cooking? And who can afford the price you have to pay in the little shop just along the road from the bus stop that stays open to midnight – it's run by foreigners but no matter what you say those people don't mind hard work and that's something you can't say about some of the English people Peg knows – but really the prices they charge for ready-prepared food. They have pork pies, cooked chicken or those foreign sausages that are all meat and Jerry likes but which Peg finds funny tasting on account of the way they are full of chemicals or anyway that's what the papers say, still you can't believe everything you read in the papers can you?

'Who takes the box?' I asked.

'Anyone cleared to carry "Top Secret",' said Peg.

'I see,' I said.

'And his dog,' said Peggy. 'The driver takes the box and the dog. The dog walks in Green Park.'

The Cavalry Club is not one of those 'gentleman's Clubs' which have been infiltrated by advertising men and actors. The only time outsiders gained access to these sacred portals was in January 1976 when members of the newly closed Guards' Club were allowed in. The quiet dignity of this old house at the Hyde Park Corner end of Piccadilly fits well with its elite and clannish membership. Reminded of their reputation for consuming more French champagne than any comparable establishment, these clubbable cavalrymen are likely to account for it by the popularity their premises enjoy as a venue for regimental events and the private cocktail parties that are so often to be heard even in the quiet of the library.

Sir Henry Clevemore was in the otherwise unoccupied writing room when I took his document box to him. He always chose this room, which was on the ground floor. It is different to all the other rooms in the Club, for it can be entered from the street without passing through the main entrance and answering questions from the men behind the desk. Here were stored cocktail party chairs and a billiard table that the committee didn't want to throw away. The room smelled of ancient leather and scented polish and Sir Henry was alone there. There were no cocktail parties to be heard, only the sound of buses crawling along the rainswept street outside. Sir Henry was sitting before a writing desk at the window, with a frantic wide-nostrilled charger of the Light Brigade thundering through the oilpaint above him. Beneath the vivid painting – framed and reverently positioned – there were pressed flowers collected from the 'Valley of Death' and a lock of hair from Wellington's favourite charger.

'Oh, it's you,' said Sir Henry vaguely, his arms extended to take the document box.

'Yes, Sir Henry,' I said as I handed it to him. 'I was hoping that you'd grant me a few minutes of your time.'

He frowned as I put the box on the table in front of him. It was not done of course. Decent chaps didn't bamboozle their way into a fellow's club and then corner them for a chat. But he managed a brief and mandatory smile before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a key on a long silver chain.

'Of course, of course. Splendid! My pleasure entirely.' He was still hoping that he'd misheard, that I would say goodbye, and go away and leave him to his paper-work.

'Samson, sir. German Desk.'

He raised his eyes to me and rubbed his face like a man coming out of a deep sleep. Eventually he said, 'Ummmm. Brian Samson. Of course.' He was a strange old fellow, a gangling, uncoordinated emaciated teddy bear, the bruin-like effect heightened by the ginger-coloured rough tweed jacket he was wearing, and his long hair. His face was more wrinkled than I remembered and his complexion had darkened with that mauvish colour that sickness sometimes brings.

'Brian Samson was my father, sir. My name is Bernard Samson.' The D-G put on his spectacles and for a moment he stared at me quizzically. This action disarranged his hair so that demoniacal tufts appeared above each ear. The lenses glinted in the light from the window. The frames were incongruously small for his long droopy face and did not fit properly upon his nose.

'Bernard Samson. Yes, yes. Of course it is.' He unlocked the box and opened it to get a glimpse of the papers. He was excited now, like a child with a box of new toys. Without looking up – and without much conviction – he said, 'If we can find that waiter we'll get you a cup of coffee… or a drink.'

'Nothing for me, thank you, Sir Henry. I must get back to the office. I'm going to Berlin this afternoon.' I reached out for the lid of the box and firmly and gently closed it.

He looked up at me in amazement. Such insubordination was like a physical assault, but I enjoyed the shining armour of the self-righteous innocent. He did not voice his anger. He was a luminary of the expensive end of the British education system which specializes in genial, courteous philistines. So, concealing his impatience, he invited me to sit down and take as long as I wished to tell him whatever I had to say.

There were plenty of stories that said the old man was non compos mentis, but any concern I had about explaining my worries to a potty boss were soon gone. I decided to leave out my visit to Dodo in Hampton Wick and my strange encounter with Jim Prettyman, If the Department said Jim was dead, then dead he would remain. As soon as I began Sir Henry was bright-eyed and alert. As I told him what I had discovered about the funds passed over to Bret Rensselaer's company, and what I could guess about the way in which the money had been moved from place to place before going to the Berlin bank, he interrupted me with pertinent comments.

At times he was well ahead of me, and more than once I was unable to understand fully the import of his questions. But he was an old-timer and too much of a pro to reveal the extent of his knowledge or the degree of his fears. This didn't surprise me. On the contrary I fully expected any Director-General stolidly to deny suggestions of treason or malfeasance, or even a possibility that any member of staff might be getting a second biscuit with their afternoon tea.

'Do you garden?' he said, suddenly changing the subject.

'Garden, sir?'

'Dammit man, garden.' He gave a genial smile. 'Dig the soil, grow flowers and shrubs and vegetables and fruit?'

I remembered Sir Henry's twenty-acre garden and the men I'd seen labouring in it. In his lapel he wore a small white rose, a mark of the rural Yorkshire upbringing of which he was so proud. 'No, sir. I don't garden. Not really.'

'A man needs a garden, I've always said so.' He looked at me over his spectacles. 'Not even a little patch?'

'I have a little patch,' I admitted, remembering the wilderness of weeds and nettles at the rear of Balaklava Road.

'July is my favourite month in the garden, Simpson. Can you guess why?' He raised a finger.

'I don't think I can, sir.'

'By July everything that's coming up is up. Some lovely things are ready for cropping: raspberries, red currants and cherries, as well as your beans and potatoes…'He paused and fixed me with his eyes. 'But if any of them haven't appeared above ground, Simpson. If your seeds failed to germinate or got washed out in the rains or frozen by late frosts…' His finger pointed. 'There's still time to plant. Right? July. Nothing you can't plant in July, Simpson. It's not too late to start again. Now do you follow me?'

'I see what you mean, sir,' I said.

'I love my vegetable garden, Simpson. There's nothing finer than to eat the crop you've planted with your own hands. I'm sure you know that.'

'Yes, I do, sir.'

'
Our
world is like an onion, Simpson,' he said with heavy significance, his voice growing hoarser by the minute. 'The Department I mean, of course. I told the PM that once, when she was complaining about our unorthodox methods. Each layer of the onion fits closely upon its neighbour but each layer is separate and independent: terra incognita. Follow me, Simpson?'

'Yes, Sir Henry.'