The Partridge Kite (6 page)

‘I’m not certain I do see,’ Tom said, ‘but I’m willing to believe you. You are paying the bill. . . I assume you know your own business best.’

‘And I’m told you know yours better than most, Tom,’ said Fry, ‘which is why I’m asking you to be my agent for as long as it takes you to find out the identity of this organisation. Quite a brief, I know, especially as we can offer you very little help. But I and the resources of my company will give you all the assistance we can. Any information you supply will be fed into my computers which can take a great deal of the backache and legwork out of your researches. You will find, Tom, that I can make a great many shortcuts in many ways. My clients are not short in influence - assuming, of course, that is the way you’ll want to work.’

‘Assuming, of course, that I’ll take the job anyway!’ said Tom.

‘Of course!’ Fry said, taking the empty glass from Tom’s hand and walking to the globe for the third time for ice.

‘You said that just like an old employer of mine,’ said Tom.

‘Said what?’ Fry asked, looking at Tom again through the mirror.

‘The way you keep saying “of course!” reminds me of an old bastard I sometimes work for.’

Fry dropped the ice cubes into the glass by Tom’s side and laughed.

‘You’ll want ice again, Tom?’

‘Of course!’ But he didn’t laugh.

Fry felt a band of sweat form over his temples. He poured more gin into the half-inch of tonic in his glass.

‘Habits of speech, Tom - so easily picked up, so hard to lose! Speaking so much in Swedish, I find on visits to Britain like this I speak in clichés until I’ve warmed up.’

‘Sorry,’ said Tom. ‘I was just thinking aloud. Another bad habit, if you think a lot, that is, and I don’t as a rule.’

Fry watched him down his Scotch, trying to sense any change in mood.

‘How much do you pay, Mr Hampton?’

‘Generously, Tom, very generously. Remember, my clients deal in it. I thought that five thousand pounds in a cash transfer from Malmö to your bank as a starter, expenses as you wish to claim them - I promise there’ll be no red pencils - and a further ten thousand when the job is completed.’

‘And what if it isn’t?’ asked Tom.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Fry.

‘What if I can’t find the people you’re after?’

‘You will, Tom, I guarantee that you will.’

‘When do I start, then?’

‘You already have, Tom.’

‘Cheers!’ said Tom, lifting up the inch of Scotch left in the tumbler.

‘Sköl!’ said Fry.

‘You’ll want my bank and account number,’ said Tom. ‘No need!’ said Fry. ‘The money was deposited there this morning - Lloyds. Baker Street branch.’

‘How the hell did you know that? How the sodden hell did you know I’d agree to it at all?’

‘As I said at the very start,’ Fry remarked, smiling, and pouring more of the Malt into Tom’s tumbler of ice, ‘Mrs Cathcart is a lovely woman and she really
is
your best PR.’

Tom smiled for the first time that evening. Malt and the mention of Kate, to say nothing of five thousand pounds in the bank - a lovely combination.

Tom’s conversation with Hampton of Trygg-Ö-Säker, Malmö, employed by British Intelligence, lasted just over one hour while they agreed on details. In that time the man in the hotel lobby downstairs had made three telephone calls, from the coin box by the night porter’s desk. He watched Tom come out of the lift at ten minutes past nine, then made a fourth call. It was quickly done, no more than fifteen seconds.

Then he walked swiftly from the booth to the imitation leather sofa where he’d been sitting, and picked up an umbrella. Then he, too, left the hotel and disappeared into the cold mist of London.

Tomorrow would be Tuesday - six days since Francis Sanderson defected from CORDON and walked into Cannon Row station to tell his story.

Suite 814 of the hotel was now cleared except for Fry’s briefcase and the pile of Swedish newspapers. He was finishing what was left of the gin. He felt obliged to: it was paid for, and if he didn’t drink it one of the many Spanish floor waiters most certainly would! It wasn’t often he could drink on the firm, anyway. Things had gone well. He hadn’t noticed a flaw in his own performance or in McCullin’s reaction. But he was drinking for quite another reason.

He had watched McCullin leave, from his bedroom window which overlooked Cadogan Place itself. He had watched him walk the twenty yards to the taxi rank in Pont Street. He saw a man run from the hotel entrance to catch up with McCullin. He was only a yard behind him as McCullin bent into the taxi’s side window to give directions. The man then took the next in line and pointed to the taxi carrying McCullin as it moved away.

Fry telephoned Kellick at home immediately, as Kellick had ordered him to, to give the ‘all clear’. Had Kellick put a departmental tail on McCullin without telling him?

‘No tail,’ said Kellick.

Fry said. The man might be just another hotel guest who was anxious to get somewhere fast. It was just the way he came up behind McCullin, the way he hovered. It just looked as if he was listening to see where McCullin was going. Just a gut feeling, it’s probably nothing,’ he said.

‘Description?’ asked Kellick.

‘Nothing, really,’ said Fry. ‘I’m on the eighth floor here and it’s still raining, and black as hell. He had a dark overcoat on and a hat - a trilby. He was carrying an umbrella.’

Fry felt a little less inhibited talking to Kellick over the telephone: the gin certainly helped. He told Kellick they should have given McCullin far more direct help, told him more of what they knew, even given him extracts of Sanderson’s tape. Why couldn’t a meeting be arranged between Sanderson and McCullin? It could be done somewhere neutral to keep the cover intact. Why make him start from scratch? Fry worried about small things. It was just a small chance, after all, that he’d seen McCullin followed tonight . . . and he
was
followed, he knew his gut feeling well enough.

‘If McCullin was followed, it means something has

already been leaked. It means they’re on to us - the Department!’

‘Or you could be wrong,’ Kellick came back. ‘And if you’re wrong - as you have been known to be - we have nothing to worry about. Have you been drinking, Fry?’

‘A gin and tonic, yes, with McCullin. Why?’

‘Nothing, Fry, but I suggest you wash the glasses and go home. We’ll talk more in my office in the morning - at ten.’

Fry picked up his briefcase and papers, closed the door behind him and left Suite 814, for home. In the lift down he saw himself in the mirror - saw the worried face, suddenly felt absurd in the borrowed clothes. He decided on a detour before he caught his train for Farnham.

Across the Thames, less than a couple of miles away, Kellick in his Battersea flat made one last call. It was to the night duty officer at SSO to instruct him to put a tail on Tom McCullin; the log to start as of midnight, Monday.

Tom felt drunk. He hadn’t eaten all day and he’d carried on with the whisky as soon as he was back in his green shell of a flat over a bookshop in Russell Street in Bloomsbury.

From the second-floor bedroom Tom could see the black mass of the British Museum and hear the traffic in the street below.

Tom was confused, too - really more angry than confused. He’d rung Kate five times in the past half hour and every time her number was engaged. Kate couldn’t be engaged for that long, not at this time of night. Yet the night operator had checked and confirmed that the ‘party’ was speaking. Tom felt like getting a taxi round to her house just off Beaufort Street, Chelsea. But he knew the rules. . . something you never did with Kate was to turn up suddenly. He’d tried it a few times before, usually after a row, when he’d sobered up. Never had she answered the doorbell.

He poured himself another Scotch and picked up the second folder, marked ‘Scammill. Twenty minutes later he’d read the police reports, the photocopied newspaper cuttings, eyewitness reports from eighteen people who’d been on the escalator when Reginald Scammill fell and broke his neck. Finally the post-mortem and coroner’s reports. He flipped through more newspaper cuttings on Scammill’s funeral plans and various articles from industrial correspondents on what would have happened to the nation’s economy and the Government had the General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen not overbalanced and snapped his vertebrae.

But something was wrong. Why should all three incidents, the raid, the bombing, the accident, have any connection? There must be a connection. The three folders wouldn’t have been given to him otherwise. The same gang could have organised the bullion raid and the bombing attack, though he couldn’t see what was behind the bombing. But what had bank robbers and bombers to do with Mr Reggie Scammill’s falling over himself? Hampton!
He
knew the connection. He had promised all help and yet here at the very start he was holding something back.

He picked up the telephone, paused and put it down again. He picked up the A to D directory from under his bed, sought out the number of the hotel and dialled. Guest in Suite 814 had already checked out. . . about an hour ago . . . no, the receptionist couldn’t give any forwarding address . . . none had been left. Had he gone back to Sweden? Had he registered with a Malmö address?

‘Sorry to be such a nuisance, but I’m his half-brother and my plane was delayed. I don’t want to miss him.’ Had he left for Sweden?

That was my impression,’ said the voice, ‘but he said nothing definite.’

Thank you,’ said Tom. ‘Mother will be relieved. Bye- bye!’

‘Good-night,’ said the voice, untouched, untroubled.

Tom then rang London Heathrow and spoke to Flight Information. The last flight to Malmö had left at 2030 hours . . . the next was at midday tomorrow.

‘No,’ it could almost have been the same hotel voice, it gave the same pleasured emphasis to the word ‘no’. ‘No, we

are not allowed for security reasons to give passenger lists any more.’

‘It’s for security reasons,’ said Tom, ‘that I’d like to know if Mr Hampton is flying out tomorrow.’

‘Who are you, sir?’

But Tom was already replacing the receiver. Stupid bitches, he thought, never happier than when they can’t help you!

‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ he asked himself aloud. ‘He checks out of his nice little suite one hour after the last flight has left. Maybe he’s shacking up with someone - but why not have it away in 814, for Christ’s sake?’ So, first thing tomorrow morning he would ring Mr Bloody Hampton and start again - from the beginning!

T
uesday, 14 December

Five hours later, hungover, dehydrated, his head aching with the whisky and lack of sleep, Tom thought again about his call to Hampton and hesitated. A letter from his bank in the early morning post confirmed the arrival of a banker’s draft for five thousand pounds to his current account. He also remembered the instructions regarding their future means of contact.

He should ring the Malmö number Hampton had given him, every day at midday or as near to it as possible. Hampton had said that for security reasons Tom was to give any information he had to a recording machine at the Malmö end. When Tom rang the following day, Hampton would reply with any information or instructions he had for Tom. So Tom had to wait until midday, anyway.

It would take him two hours to sober up and shave. He went into his tiny kitchen; the bathroom was beyond that. He spooned instant coffee and powdered milk into a mug and filled it with warm water from the electric water heater over the sink. Tom made tea the same way, and sometimes if the water heater was particularly keen the two beverages could be vaguely recognisable. It was only the hot water he wanted, anyway, to clear the acid, to help him belch his stomach clear. Coffee powder and tea-bags merely disguised the disgusting taste of the hot water.

Tom walked back and looked at the mess in the bedroom. By now Fry’s careful filing had become total chaos . . . the cuttings, reports, photographs were scattered around, on and under the bed. He sipped from the mug, standing in the underpants he’d slept in. He began pushing the papers on the floor around with his toe. Even when drunk, as he certainly had been when he collapsed into sleep at five this morning, the things he’d read had registered and had been stowed away in the God-given computer nestling between his ears.

Now as he looked down his brain began programming. What had puzzled him last night was how all three incidents were connected. Easy to explain why any underground movement should blow a bank - money was the base of all power. Nothing and no one travelled very far without it! He’d learnt that much in Northern Ireland. Christ! how much cash had those Fenian bastards swiped from banks and post offices in the time he’d been there? Certainly a good deal more than had ever found its way to IRA treasurers! The bombing was to do with politics: Hampton would know what that was, and he’d bloody well tell him at midday. So, if they can get away with four and a quarter million in gold and do the rig, they wouldn’t think twice about pushing some little Napoleon down the stairs at Leicester Square tube station. All this stuff Hampton had given him was so much crap. But he’d given it because he knew no more than what had been published.

Tom’s big toe continued pushing and sliding papers around the carpet. He read a
Daily Telegraph
headline and the story beneath it, by its Industrial Correspondent. ‘NUR Calls Off Strike. The Executive Committee of the NUR said from its London HQ this morning that the national rail strike due to begin in three days’ time had been called off. A spokesman for the Executive revealed that plans had been agreed in Belgium, Holland, France and Italy to strike simultaneously. This, said the spokesman, would have effectively paralysed the whole of Europe including West Germany. The death of Mr Reginald Scammill, the Union’s General Secretary, who had done most to make the strike effective, had caused it to be delayed. . . this breathing space had enabled a more conciliatory attitude to be taken by both sides in the dispute. They had now agreed to go to arbitration and be bound by its decision.’