by Tim Flower
I hurriedly swapped the receiver to my left hand, thrust my right deep into the corresponding pocket of my navy slacks and pulled out some assorted change. It was only then I remembered I had prepared for this eventuality by handily leaving a shilling on top of the directories. By dropping most of my unsuitable change on the floor, snatching the shilling and shoving it into the slot with life-dependent desperation, I was just in time to stop the line going dead.
‘Rita?’
‘I’m still here, Harry.’
‘We’ll be fine now: I’ve put another bob in. What were you saying?’
‘Before I tell you,’ Rita said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you have to promise me you won’t say a word of this to anyone. If the Fox found out I’d told you, I would also get the sack. And, unlike you, I haven’t got another job to go back to.’
‘Of course I won’t, Rita. Mum’s the word.’
‘I came across it entirely by accident, you understand,’ she said defensively. ‘I wasn’t snooping or anything.’
‘I know you weren’t,’ I said, dying to hear what she had found. ‘What was it?’
‘Wait. I’m coming to that.’ Like most girls, when Rita told a story you had to hear every last detail, regardless of its relevance. ‘Whilst I was waiting for the Fox to come in, I thought I would catch up on my filing. I had a bit of a backlog, you see, particularly stuff to do with the economy and whatnot.’
‘Yes,’ I said, prodding her along.
‘I had a 29th June memo about the seamen’s strike, which, naturally, needed to go before July’s paperwork. So I took off the tag everything after 29th June, only to discover between the pages of a note from the PM about Mr Cousins’ resignation - you know from the Cabinet, because he didn’t want us to have an incomes policy — ’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said impatiently. ‘What was it?’
Rita finally got to the point. ‘It was a letter to the Fox. I’ve got it here. It’s dated 29th June, from the Special Branch.’
‘What at Scotland Yard?’
‘New Scotland Yard, Yes.’ She paused and then added, barely audibly, ‘It’s stamped “SECRET”.’
‘But you are going to tell me what it says, aren’t you?’
‘I think it’s only right - in the circumstances.’
‘I agree,’ I said not knowing, of course, what secret Rita was about to disclose or the circumstances she had in mind. But before she could do so, we were interrupted by a series of sharp taps on the glass behind me.
‘Oi! How long are yer going to be in there?’ The voice sounded neither female nor French.
I turned to find a balding, rotund man, wearing a fawn raincoat and spotted bow tie, looking as impatient as I felt. I opened the door and said with all the gravitas I could muster, ‘I’m speaking to 10 Downing Street on a very important matter. I could be some time.’
The man didn’t respond immediately. His expression suggested that he wasn’t sure whether I was pulling a fast one. He seemed to give me the benefit of the doubt, because he reached past me, took one of the cards offering “French Correction” and flounced off towards Gerrard Street, muttering, ‘Wanker,’ as he left. Whether he was insulting me or excusing himself wasn’t clear.
‘Sorry about that, Rita. You were about to tell me what the Special Branch’s secret message was.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if you rang me back from somewhere less public.’
‘No, it’s fine. Tell me now.’ I hadn’t felt this suspenseful since the 1965 FA Cup Final.
‘You mustn’t breath a word of this to anyone. You promise?’
‘Rest assured, the Fox has threatened me with Wormwood Scrubs if I disclose anything more than my name, rank and serial number.’
‘It’s probably easiest if I read it to you. If I suddenly go silent, it’s because someone has come into the room.’
‘Or the line’s gone dead. That was my last shilling,’ I said, hoping she would cut to the chase. It worked
‘Oh dear. Sorry, Harry. It says:
Dear Ludo,
I refer to your request for further assistance from D.I. Rodman in relation to what you call “Operation Jules Britannia”. Given the nature of your requirements, the relevant knowledge he already possesses and his foreign language skills, I have approved his continued assignment to your operation until the end of the tournament. Naturally, “the Pole” will no longer be a suitable cover. Accordingly, we are arranging for him to attend Aston’s referee meetings as “Dick Radford”.’
Despite Rita’s attractive, faintly Welsh lilt, her words were still shocking. ‘So he is the Pole!’ I exclaimed. ‘When I met Radford, I was pretty sure he was. He was certainly the man I saw leaving Central Hall. But it never occurred to me that he was working for the Fox!’
‘Shh! The whole of Soho will hear you.’
I looked around me. ‘Don’t worry, there’s only one person within earshot and he won’t have heard me. He’s too busy plucking up courage to buy a dirty magazine.’
‘Urghh! I don’t want to know.’
‘I don’t understand: why did the Fox get Special Branch to steal the replica World Cup?’
‘Harry, keep your voice down!’
‘No wonder Scotland Yard weren’t looking for the Pole,’ I said, cupping a hand over the top of my mouth to contain my enthusiasm.
‘What I don’t understand, Harry, is why the Fox wanted one of their officers at referee meetings.’
Whereas my query was an intriguing one, Rita’s was profoundly troubling. ‘I suspect I know the answer to that,’ I said reluctantly, hoping I didn’t.
‘Hang on, I haven’t finished:
You have advised me that FIFA have authorised this and that Rodman may assume the role of Referee Support Officer. I confirm that he will be fully briefed regarding the use of the Rous film and the guidance he should give to the particular officials you have identified.’
My spirits sank from bare hope to despondency. ‘So that’s what Operation Jules Britannia has really been about. Jesus Christ!’
I had realised the previous evening that England’s World Cup campaign had been corrupted. What I hadn’t appreciated, even then, was that the corrupter-in-chief was the Prime Minister’s right-hand man - and that I was an unconscious accomplice!
‘I didn’t know, Rita. He didn’t tell me any of this, honestly.’
‘Of course you didn’t. Neither did I.’
‘Does the letter say anything else?’
‘Only, I trust these arrangements meet with your approval. And it’s signed, in turquoise ink, Yours Aye,
Fergie.’
‘Fergie? Whose Fergie?’ The pips started. ‘Hang on, Rita,’ I shouted, searching desperately for a coin to extend the call. I didn’t find one in time and the line went dead. I yanked the receiver from my ear, screamed, ‘Fuck you’ at it and slammed it into its cradle.
I sensed the door open behind me. ‘Yer don’t wanna fuck Rita,’ said a gravely, East-End voice.
I turned around to find a tall, wiry man in a shabby demob suit, holding the door open. ‘Try that,’ he said with a greasy grin, dealing me a card offering a “Big Black Chest For Sale”. ‘Them darkies’ll do anyfing you want.’
Whilst I didn’t doubt her willingness to oblige, at that moment all I wanted was the Tardis to take me back to 23rd February 1966 or, failing that, some change for the phone, neither of which - with the best will in the world - “Ebony” could provide.
So, with a stiff smile, I handed her card back to the dealer and said, ‘Thanks, but it’s not what I need right now. But I could use a shilling for the phone, if you’ve got one? We got cut off mid-crisis.’
His face turned sour. ‘Piss off,’ he said, grabbing my arm and wrenching me out of the box. ‘I’ve got fings to do in there.’
I took his advice and drifted off down Gerrard Street towards Leicester Square station, my head swimming with the events of the last few hours. I passed Restaurant de Boulogne with
its menu entirely in French. Thoughts of Fifi and Fufu offering their services to bemused customers competed in my befuddled mind with questions about the Pole and a fury over Forsyth’s accusations. Me, guilty of deceit? He was about as trustworthy as that demob dealer.
During my journey home, however, I calmed down and, ensconced with my pipe in an almost deserted tube carriage, started processing what I had discovered in Soho. I took a detour along Dollis Brook and had another pipe sat on a bench watching the peaceful water flow past. By the time I reached home it was teatime, and I had come to terms with what I had discovered; my anger had mellowed into resigned contempt; and I had found some of the answers my internal interrogator had earlier demanded.
If Rodman’s latest cover was “Dick Radford, FIFA Referee Support Officer”, why did he introduce himself at Wembley as Radford from the Foreign Office?
Answer: He must have been briefed that, if necessary, he could ensure Argentina’s compliance by threatening to expose the camp’s alleged immoral behaviour to their puritanical President. For this threat to be credible, it had to appear to be coming from the Foreign Office. Ken Aston would have known Rodman as Radford. So, when he left Aston and Cavan to approach Toto at Wembley, he kept the same cover name and just temporarily changed his employer.
What work did the Pole do with Joe Mears for the FA?
Answer: The Pole didn’t do anything for the FA. It was most likely that he and Joe Mears knew each other because they liaised over the “ransom demand” for the return of the “Jules Rimet trophy”. The Special Branch were no doubt aware of Mears’ secret wartime work and knew they could rely on him to play his part discreetly in what was a put-up job.
Why was Forsyth’s favourite Special Branch officer known as “the Pole” when he clearly wasn’t Polish?
Answer: Presumably because he was tall, thin and his real name was Rod-man.
I reached my most important conclusion, however, only once I had got indoors, discovered that Nell and Alison hadn’t yet returned from Bedford and sat down with the Sunday papers and a few bottles of Double Diamond. I didn’t actually want Dr Who to transport me back to the England v West Germany game five months earlier. Although I could then refuse Cudlipp’s kind secondment offer and remain in blissful ignorance of Forsyth’s World Cup corruption, I would miss out on the best thing that had happened to me since Liverpool won the FA Cup: meeting Rita.
If we went out on a Sunday, Nell would like us to be home by five o’clock, so she could make tea, bath Alison and have her tucked up with the lights out by seven. So when the two of them hadn’t returned by the time Alan Freeman played the new chart topper on Pick of the Pops, I had momentarily wondered if they had heeded Georgie Fame’s exhortation to Get Away. However, I didn’t give it any serious thought until it got to Alison’s bedtime and they still weren’t back.
Even then, I wasn’t really worried. When Nell went out in the car, she had a habit of breaking down. Her knowledge of the internal combustion engine didn’t extend beyond where to put the fuel in - and sometimes she would forget to do that. I reassured myself that, with it being a Sunday, they had probably been waiting for hours at the side of the A1 for the RAC to arrive.
I only became truly concerned when The Ken Dodd Show finished and they still weren’t back. I decided to ring Giuseppe. However, as I was searching for his number in the pop-up index Nell kept on the hall table, the telephone on the wall above it sprang into life.
‘Finchley double three nine one?’
‘Harry, it’s me, Nell.’ She spoke like “TIM” the speaking clock.
‘Are you alright? Have you broken down? Where are you?’
Nell chose only to answer my third question. Sounding as if she was announcing a death or fatal illness, she said, ‘Alison and I are in Bedford. We’re staying the night with Mama and Papa.’
‘What? Why? What’s happened?’
Again, she only addressed question three. ‘Nothing’s happened. I’ve just decided to stay in Bedford.’
‘Haven’t you got to be at a briefing tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I’m going to get the train down to St Pancras in the morning.’
I tried a different challenge. ‘What about Alison? She can’t go on the train.’
‘Mama’s going to look after her.’
‘But she’s got school tomorrow.’
‘No, she hasn’t. She broke up on Friday.’
Unable to come up with any other objection, I said weakly, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’
‘No, you’d already buggered off to Birmingham with your girlfriend.’
‘Girlfriend? I haven’t got a girlfriend. What are you talking about? Do you mean on Thursday?’
This time Nell’s reply was comprehensive. ‘Your girlfriend, Rita. Yes, on Thursday - although that was no doubt just one of a whole succession of sordid encounters. I’m talking about the affair you’ve been conducting with that copytaker-cum-camera queen-cum-trollop. The one that prevented you from seeing your daughter in her end of term show.’
In other circumstances, I would have followed up an expression of shocked indignation that she thought I had been unfaithful, with details of a rock-solid alibi and an invitation for her to speak to the people I was really with that Thursday night. With Forsyth’s vivid threat of incarceration still fresh in my mind, I had no intention of doing that on this occasion. Anyway, whilst Nell’s allegation undoubtedly shocked me, I couldn’t honestly say I felt indignant. Perhaps deep down I suspected that my innocence was attributable, not to moral fortitude, but merely a lack of opportunity.
So I found myself surrendering the chance of a swift and glorious, Lady Chatterley type acquittal, in favour of a weak and defensive denial.
‘I told you, I had to go to Birmingham on Thursday evening for work. I wasn’t with Rita. Nor am I having an affair with her.’
Before Nell could respond, Mrs Bolton disclosed her presence on the party line. ‘Can you two save your domestic ‘til later. I’ve got a call to make and I don’t want to miss The Blackpool Show with Tony Hancock.’
Nell switched from accusatory to placatory. ‘Can you just give us five minutes, Mrs Bolton?’
I remained antagonistic. ‘It isn’t Hancock tonight: it’s Dave Allen. So you won’t miss it anyway.’
I heard her huff and puff; but I didn’t hear the receiver go down.
‘Harry, I’m not a fool,’ Nell said, immediately reverting to adversarial mode. ‘I know it was a woman you were talking to this morning. So, unless the Mirror has made Fleet Street history and appointed their first female editor, who honoured her predecessor by changing her name to his, that wasn’t Jack.’
I had realised, at the time, that my “throat infection” explanation had been about as convincing as Jimmy Young’s toupee. I made the instant judgement that receiving a telephone call from a woman wasn’t illegal or immoral, even on a Sunday, and replied, ‘You’re right: it wasn’t Jack. It was Rita. But I’m not having an affair with her, I promise. It was about work. Nothing else. Our relationship is purely professional.’
‘Then why didn’t you say it was Rita?’
‘I knew you’d make a song and dance about it, that’s why.’
‘You’re right there, Harry.’ Barely missing a beat, she added, ‘So she only contacts you about work, does she?’
Her question was like one Perry Mason would ask when he was about to prove his client’s innocence by getting the witness he’s cross-examining to incriminate himself. I sensed a trap; but I didn’t know how to avoid it.
‘Only about work?’ I repeated unnecessarily. ‘As I said, she’s just a colleague. So when she contacts me it’s about work, yes.’
‘So what sort of work do you do with her in the lavatory?’
Although extraordinary, to say the least, her question had to be leading somewhere, I thought. But where? I was baffled.
‘What do you mean, “in the lavatory”?’
‘You’re a journalist. I’m
using ordinary English words. My meaning should be crystal clear. I’m asking you what work you and Rita do in the lavatory.’
At this point, I began to lose my temper. ‘That cocktail of Marsala and “mother’s little helpers” seems to mess with your mind,’ I said venomously. I followed it with the impassioned declaration, ‘I don’t do anything in the lavatory with Rita: work or otherwise!’
This was a mistake.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Nell’s simple question concealed a lethal hook. Perry Mason would have been proud.
‘As sure as eggs is eggs. So, unless you’re about to call Rita to the stand to say that I dictate copy to her in the toilet, perhaps you’d like to apologise and we’ll move on.’
‘No, I’m not about to do that.’
‘Oh, I am surprised,’ I said, milking the irony.
‘I don’t need to: I’ve got a written admission from her.’
‘Admission! What are you talking about?’ I said, trying to sound dismissive whilst feeling apprehensive. ‘She can’t have admitted it, because it didn’t happen.’
‘I’ve got her note in my hand right now. I found it in your room.’
‘What were you doing searching my room? I keep confidential material in there.’
‘I was looking for Jack’s telephone number, which I found. But when I phoned it I was told that Jack wasn’t working today. That’s funny, I said: my husband is coming to see him, as we speak, with “a major exposé - an exclusive”.’ Nell quoted me with a pantomime Scouse accent.
‘I told you: I wasn’t speaking to Jack.’
‘No, we’ve established that it was Rita who phoned you: the author of this note I’ve got here.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Stop playing around.’
‘That’s rich coming from you.’
‘What does this so-called note say?’
‘Shall I read it to you?’ Her voice oozed derision. ‘It’s very short.’
I was like Henry Cooper in his recent rematch with Muhammad Ali: wounded and on the ropes, but determined to fight on.