The Last Two Weeks of Georges Rivac (6 page)

Rivac explained his visit by saying that he had business in London and longed to see the old place at the beginning of summer. He did not mention Zia, intending that they should meet accidentally once he was convinced that it was safe to be seen together. Such caution seemed ridiculous; it was impossible that he could be traced and unbelievable that the leafy peace of Alderton could be invaded by barbarities. Still, one must not forget that Kren had been obliterated without disturbing any diplomatic niceties, and he himself could be just as badly wanted.

He brought up with Daisy the question of nearby inns where a guest would find reasonable comfort. She flatly refused to let him stay anywhere but under her roof and was easily led on to speak with contempt of neighbouring innkeepers. There wasn't one, she said, with an idea beyond the bar takings except the White Hart at Alderton Abbas which took a few summer visitors; if they had a full house she used to go over herself to cook the dinners.

After Daisy's high tea—a triumph of variegated starches which even a Frenchman, he thought, would admire provided he didn't have to eat it oftener than once a month—he strolled out into the field behind the garden with two hours of the pastel evening light of May to enjoy and took the path to his grandmother's home, snugly tucked away in a loamy bottom between trees. It was up for sale again with an air of being unloved and gloomy. He had gathered from Daisy that the last owners had used it as a weekend retreat from London and after one disastrous Sunday when the septic tank had leaked into the well—a surprise for them which Daisy found richly comic—had run from it as if the devil was after them. From there, after a sad glance, he took the bridleway to the Manor Farm. White gates opened and shut as easily as hotel doors. He remembered that in former days it was simpler to climb them than to wrestle with old Longwill's chains and pins, giving a heave which always loosened the pivot and stopping to replace the lot.

The south side of the house facing open country was worthy of a picture postcard. Brick, mouldings and gables had returned to the era of high farming when they were new. He found that the broad, flag-stoned terrace which had been hidden behind a straggling hedge of wych elm swallowed up by bramble was now in full view over newly-planted yew. He could imagine squire and parson, bewigged and flushed with port, damning his eyes for impertinence as he watched them lurching up and down the terrace. What he did in fact watch was Paul Longwill sitting alone with a book and a bottle of claret, contentedly rid of one wife and a half. The velvet jacket, the dark hair thick over the ears and beautifully groomed, the cushioned and comfortable wrought iron chair and the general air of exquisite leisure were intimidating. Rivac reproached himself for shyness and gently called: ‘Er—Paul!' As evidently he was not heard, he tried again vulgarly loud.

Paul Longwill jumped and rose with dignity. Seeing who it was, his public manner changed at once to private affection.

‘Georges, come round by the gate! Georges, how good to see you!'

For ten minutes they laughed over memories of early youth. Then Paul got up to fetch another bottle and Georges was free to marvel at the admirable taste with which the house had been restored.

‘I don't remember that coat of arms over the door,' he said when his glass had been refilled. ‘Did it turn up during the repairs?'

‘It could have done. It could have done. And the College of Heralds—for a consideration—agreed that I might quarter the arms of Longueville.'

‘We always thought the name came down from an ancestor of yours called Long Willy because he had one.'

‘Certainly a village tradition to be proud of, but I'm afraid that is all it is. There can be no doubt that we are descended from Longueville who came over with William the Conqueror.'

‘What happened? A win on the pools?'

‘Pools are grease for the dreams of the proletariat, Georges. I just used the little capital father left me and mortgaged the place as well. No money in pigs, they all said. So they sold and I bought. Two years later shortage of pigs and market strong. So I sold. I put that lot into property and secondary banking and had the luck to get out at the top before both collapsed. That makes me a coming City man with an office in the West End.'

‘And you're making a profit out of farming?'

‘At any rate I am not making a loss. An estate and some horses is the in-thing and I can ask anybody, absolutely anybody, to come down for a night or two. Now, tell me what has brought you over to England?'

‘I had some business. Small stuff, you know. Just another agency.'

Longwill kindly remarked that the foreign agent was the backbone of trade: the invaluable sergeants, one might say, without whom the high command of industry was helpless.

‘Mere money is always up for grabs,' he added. ‘But to grab it one must know the right people.'

The right people, yes. It occurred to Rivac that his old and much changed friend might know the right people. Much changed? Well, he sounded the biggest damned snob in the county; on the other hand he was not at all uncertain of himself like, say, some building contractor buying a flashy way into the jet set. Ever since that peasant Long Willy—who must have done a bit of boasting too—his roots had been firmly set in his countryside. And Daisy had said that he would do anything for a friend.

‘I came over to see a firm called Bridge Holdings, Paul. I don't quite know what their business is. They may be just a holding company or have something to do with government buying and selling, especially import.'

‘You came over without knowing who they are? How extraordinary!'

‘I don't like missing chances.'

‘You talk like a pedlar, my dear chap! Tomorrow I will find out for you who Bridge Holdings are. We have a directors' lunch. Lord Bamborough will be there. They say his daughter is attracting attention in the highest quarters. Useful! He can't be such a fool as he looks. And let me see! I don't like the sound of your Bridge Holdings. I'll give our accountants a call. They know a different kind of everybody. Come round and see me on Saturday morning! I won't be home tomorrow.'

Rivac next morning called at the White Hart to inspect it and book a room for Zia. He thought it best that she should not produce a Hungarian passport in signing the hotel register; there might be other investigations into the Rippmann incident besides those of Harbour Police and, to judge by her story, she had no excuse for visiting England. So he christened her Mrs. Fanshawe, mentioning that she was French and married to—he was about to say Colonel Fanshawe, but Paul had reminded him that the English bourgeoisie loved to be impressed. The colonel was promoted.

‘The wife of Major-General Fanshawe, commanding the Armoured Brigade in Germany, you know.'

The proprietor of course appeared to know and asked if he himself was serving in Germany. Rivac whose military knowledge was limited—his service as a conscript being largely confined to trapping hares for his platoon—decided that he was on the Civilian Staff of the Commission. It was unnecessary to say what commission.

That done, he set out for the rendezvous with Mrs Fanshawe. She was late and he paced uneasily around Thame's noble church assuring himself that she could not be expected to be punctual after an intricate journey in a foreign land, yet more and more certain that she was already in a police cell or unconscious and on a plane to Hungary.

‘And that leaves me, Georges Rivac, the other secret agent badly wanted by the KGB,' he remarked to the outspread wings of an incredulous marble angel.

Incredulous. Quite right! But it could be true. He was shocked that it could be. One does not, he admitted, readily recognise oneself as a character from news or fiction. Examples of non-recognition, Georges? Well, what about some hot-tempered woman who occasionally throws a plate at her husband or lays into him with the poker? How horrified she would be if suddenly she were to identify herself as the wife with a rolling pin in the common cartoon.

Denys James Scott K.C.M.G. Born 1829. At Rest in the Lord 1900 with a severely consular granite slab. Governor of New Guinea.

There's another of them—a chap who represented his country in desert or forest or among a stone age tribe. How can he fail to interest his fellows by all they do not know and can hardly imagine? And then one day Sir Denys, with too fierce a hangover for his age, asks himself: what are you? Answer: the club bore.

So there it is, Georges! You are a secret agent and must accept it. Sunday School 10 a.m. The meeting of the Parish Council will take place on Tuesday. Miss Zia Fodor is having her toenails pulled out. What a shame! They must be pretty toenails. Where the hell is she?

When she passed through the lych gate he did not immediately recognise her. Green tweed, cap, red boots had all gone. She was bare-headed, wearing a neat summer frock of printed linen—he knew it was linen because he represented a small Belfast firm—and easily swinging her suitcase instead of leaving it at the bus station.

‘Thank God you've made it!'

‘Were you worried? I went shopping this morning—that's why I'm late. Have you found me a nice place to stay and do I have to register with the police?'

‘No. You are British by marriage.'

He explained her new identity and the story he had made up for her.

‘Won't they know my accent isn't French?'

‘They will not, Zia. In the English countryside all foreign accents are assumed to be French unless obviously German. They recognise that from war films.'

‘And I look too young for a general's wife.'

‘I know. But your parents thought he was a good catch and you submitted to their wishes. Anyway the general is charming and his moustache exciting.'

‘What's happened to you, Georges?' she asked. ‘This morning you're full of mischief.'

‘I'm on holiday, you see, till tomorrow.'

‘Tomorrow?'

‘Tomorrow we should hear from Suzi. And I have been in touch with a friend called Paul Longwill. He has become a financier or thinks he is, and he's finding out for me what the City knows about Bridge Holdings.'

He sent her off to the White Hart at once, regretfully watching the taxi drive away. But it was essential that if the trail of one was picked up it should not lead to the other.

Saturday was still holiday. When he called at Thame Post Office for the expected letter from Lille there was nothing for him; so he had to wait till Monday for those damned brochures in which he only half believed. It was astonishing that only a week had passed since the plausible Karel Kren had called at his office and lured him into this intrigue or trusted him to see it through. Trusted. That was better.

At eleven he called on Paul Longwill. A lumpy, pretty girl was bouncing round the paddock on a bay mare watched by Paul and a young man who could have passed for a male model of weekend wear if he had not been so rotund—a smoothness exaggerated by the watchchain stretching from pocket to pocket across his check waistcoat. Rivac, still dressed for Lille, felt as if he were calling for orders.

Paul introduced him, vaguely explaining that Rivac kept an eye on things for him during the week. Tact or snobbery? It was hard to decide.

‘Necessary bores who can wait for us, dear Georges,' Paul commented as he carried him off to his study. ‘They are opening a night club where it will be useful to be seen until they go bust. I have been able to find them a backer.'

Settled down with a decanter of Madeira—which, Paul had to say, was specially selected by his wine merchant for a few connoisseurs—he was as good as his word and gave him an outline of what was known of Bridge Holdings.

‘Export agents with a network of representatives abroad. They hardly ever import, so I am told. You are wrong there. I think they might be interested in your languages. How did they hear of you?'

‘Through a friend. I do some business with Eastern Europe. Very minor stuff,' Rivac added apologetically, ‘fountain pens, embroidery and things. But I do have a sale in the north of France for excellent little Czech petrol engines.'

‘Perhaps they think that you could sell British engines in Czechoslovakia instead.'

‘But I don't know the country and don't speak Czech.'

‘They must have interests there. The manager, Herbert Spring, is a rather mysterious fellow, always very well informed. It's known that some of the best newspapers refer to him and it wouldn't surprise me if the Government ask questions too.'

‘You mean—well, secretly?'

‘Oh, I shouldn't go so far as that. But our accountants say you would be perfectly safe in taking any agency he offers you.'

‘He reminds me of a terrier,' Georges muttered with distaste.

‘What on earth do you mean?'

‘Oh, you know. Small and wiry and moustached and ready to use his teeth on anybody if he's suspicious.'

‘I shouldn't be surprised, Georges, if it's his duty to be suspicious.'

On Sunday, still avoiding Zia except for a telephone call to see that she was content, he took Daisy over to Oxford by bus and gave her lunch. She was far more impressed by the setting than the food and disguised her merry local accent. The waiters were particularly polite to such old-fashioned dignity, taking her, he guessed, for a provincial lady, comfortably off, entertained by a rather shabby nephew with expectations. The grapevine had already provided her with working notes on the new guest at the White Hart, a pretty, young Frenchwoman and the wife of a general.

‘She must be lonely, my dear. You should go over and have a couple in the bar. It would do her good, it would, to have a chat in her own language.'

‘What's she doing there?' he asked, for it was a point to which he had not paid enough attention.

‘Looking round to see if she likes the district. The general will soon be 'ome and wants a place with a bit of 'unting and shooting.'