by Bill James
‘Possibly not.’
But Toulmin sounded as if this didn’t quite meet the point. ‘What, there’s something else?’ Mount said.
‘There’s something else.’
‘Something to interest Goebbels?’
‘They have additional orders from Knecht. Or they come through Knecht. Who knows from where above?’
‘Yes, who does know?’
‘Not me, so far. Failure there. Possibly, as I say, from Himmler, possibly Goebbels, or possibly from Himmler at the request of Goebbels. There’s all kinds of guesswork at the Ministry. It’s not something the Russian desk would normally hear about, but the rumours are everywhere in the Ministry. Important to know whom you’re getting into a fight with.’
‘And these “additional orders” direct Valk and his team to—?’
‘They direct Valk and his team to diversify.’
‘Into what?’
‘Naturally, they’ll do the safety checks, and do them properly. This is the Führer’s skin. Valk is thorough and very loyal. But they’re also to dig for any sexual dirt about a member of the British Defence Cabinet, Lionel Paterin. A sort of on-the-side, on-the-sly, vice patrol. There’s a married woman, Mrs Elizabeth Gane-Torr. Or Liz. A couple of Valk’s people will go to London ahead of him, or may have already gone.’
‘Paterin would be against the visit, I should think. He’s become very strong on anti-appeasement – a powerful member of Churchill’s group.’ They sat in two of the armchairs. Mount had made Bloody Marys. ‘Ah, I see why you think Goebbels,’ Mount said. ‘The findings for propaganda use, in case ordinary negotiations fail.’
‘I’d think so. My people don’t like it.’
‘Your people?’
‘Speaking loosely. The Foreign Ministry.’
‘Because it’s not cricket?’
‘Cricket?’
‘Because this extra operation is sordid?’
‘There’s always been a hate between the Ministry and the secret state police.’
‘Almost all Ministries in almost all countries have a hate for their country’s secret service,’ Mount said, ‘because the country’s secret service might start poking into their privacies, allegedly in the interests of the country’s greater good. I’ve got used to the hostility.’
‘Diplomacy against thuggery. This plan to smear Paterin makes it head-on. Remember, Stanley, it’s von Ribbentrop. He has some family cachet behind him. Yes, he’s a prime warmonger, but he also believes in a bit of protocol and refinement.’
Of course, Mount knew it to be a basic of all secret service practice that if your officers were welcomed into another country for a specific job, you snatched the chance to look into extra, adjacent but unrelated topics on the quiet. That kind of natural, opportunistic deceit wasn’t uniquely German. Britain would do it. France would. Every developed nation did it – ‘developed’ meaning, here, able to afford a sophisticated espionage outfit and amoral, adept and ruthless enough to use it. Spies spied. They spied wholesale. They did not recognize boundaries. Or they recognized them, but only as obstacles to be climbed over, got round, or tunnelled under. If boundaries worked there’d be no spies.
Toulmin said: ‘Suppose diplomacy wobbles, Joe Goebbels might want to show Britain as depraved, with drunks and adulterous lechers in prominent, important roles – Winston Churchill the loud, blood-up, brandy-drunk; Paterin, the wandering cock adulterer. Goebbels would love to batter British morale with that kind of attack and lift German morale at the same time by showing a possible enemy as depraved, easy to dispose of. Paterin is significant as Paterin, isn’t he – not just for being close to the Prime Minister? He was a business chief before Parliament and the Cabinet – or cabinets: he’s in the standard one, and the special Defence group. He’s member of a very select, male-only – distinguished-male-only – politically influential London club.’
‘Most of the mighty males are members of a politically influential club,’ Mount said. He stood, crossed to the sideboard and mixed some more drinks. ‘Not only Churchill can put away the alcohol,’ he said. Toulmin took the glass. He looked relaxed but formidable in the armchair. ‘You’re a bit of a genius, you know, Sam,’ Mount said. ‘Information speeds to you, sticks to you. You’re a natural.’
Mount felt damn pleased he’d decided not to destroy the four chairs because of that woman’s call to the police. It could have been really hurtful and bewildering for Toulmin – arriving at the apartment, understandably excited and proud because of what he’d discovered, then finding the chairs gone, or in fragments waiting to be gone. And he’d realize, of course, that this change in furnishing had been caused by him – or, rather, him and Olga in considerable concert. He might feel shame, but also anger that Mount should behave so immoderately. Mount’s explanation would have sounded like panic, just that. This could taint a relationship between an officer and his agent. Mount knew he’d have despised himself. Toulmin might have despised him, also. Mount simply had to hope the continuing life – so far – of the chairs would bring no trouble. Mount wondered whether Paterin and Liz broke chairs. ‘Did you keep an eye for tails on your way here?’ he said.
‘As always. Nothing.’
Mount didn’t like this blandness about possible gumshoes. It reminded Mount of himself. ‘There’ve been some scares. I thought I might have been followed myself from your place the other night.’ Mount sat down again.
Toulmin twitched a bit in his chair. He obviously saw at once the new hazards. A slice of the blandness disappeared. ‘That would be bad,’ he said. ‘You didn’t mention it.’
So true! Mount wasn’t going to admit he hadn’t known until later and had needed a prompt from the woman on the stairs. It would make him look bloody careless and incompetent. As the training school had said, he was careless and incompetent when it came to tailing and counter-tailing. Best Toulmin did not know this, though. His life might depend on Mount’s carefulness and competence. No . . . No might: his life did depend on Mount’s carefulness and competence. You had to do everything to maintain an agent’s trust in your abilities. He’d possibly drop you otherwise. You’d become a liability. Admittedly, inviting Toulmin in with the light and curtains signal could bring him danger. Was Mount sure surveillance had been pulled off? In any case, though, the contact with Toulmin had to be kept, somehow, and used. Mount must try to balance things – risk against progress.
‘It could have been alarmist to speak too soon,’ he said. ‘I’m always on guard against excessive haste. And I’m still not sure I was followed. There doesn’t seem to be anyone about. I’m relieved you confirm it.’
‘They’d have a link between you and me.’
‘But I’m Stanley Charles Naughton and harmless.’
‘If they swallow it.’
‘Stay watchful.’
‘I never come direct. Some doubling back. Tactics.’
‘Good. Perhaps it was nothing.’
‘Who?’ Toulmin said.
‘If anyone, possibly the people who went to Russia with you.’
‘State security boys. So, definitely not good.’
‘Which? I ought to dossier them.’
‘Viktor Mair, BL Schiff. They work for Valk, who works for Knecht, who works for Himmler. Mair and Schiff go to London, as well as Valk. I don’t know how that will function, if at all. They don’t think much of Valk. Too old. Too knocked about mentally by the war. He was at the Somme. Began at the Somme. Then the rest of it until November ’18.’
‘My boss got a Distinguished Conduct Medal there. Later, the Military Cross. Maybe it affects people differently. He seems all right.’
‘Valk might seem all right. It could be only that these two don’t like him, and so want to find a reason. They’re devious.’
‘Our job’s devious, Sam, and often sordid. They don’t have the sole title. Calling you Sam is devious, when your name’s something else.’
‘They did some standard trickery the other night, on our r
eturn from Russia,’ Toulmin replied. ‘One of them accompanied me on a tour of the apartment as a supposed safety drill. It gave the other time to go through papers in my room. Personal letters, mostly. A lot of my family will be in their records now. I’m not a bit happy about that. Not a bit.’
Toulmin’s face took on despair and fear. Mount had never seen anything like this happen to him before. It was a sudden, deep change. Toulmin spoke of worries sometimes, but they didn’t normally register in his features. It was as if he regarded it as a duty to stay calm and look able to cope. For instance, the possibility Mount had been followed troubled him because it would suggest that ‘link’ he spoke of, between the two of them. His body had suffered the little convulsion, but you couldn’t have read anxiety in his face or voice. Concern for his family seemed stronger than any concern he felt for himself. He loathed the regime and those running it, and had resolved to try to help bring it and them down. He was committed. He’d take what came. But he obviously dreaded any pointers towards his relatives. They shouldn’t have to take what came. They hadn’t committed themselves.
For a couple of moments, the usual impassiveness left him. His mouth tightened, and his breathing grew laboured. Perhaps he felt guilty for leaving papers around. But if they had him nailed, they’d possibly go after his kin anyway, and it wouldn’t take long to find them, with or without the papers.
In a little while, Toulmin began to recover. He was plump, bordering on fat, less than middle-height, roman nosed, heavy cheeked, and it was as if he pulled it all back into customary shape now, like reassembling a torn-up photograph. During the bad moments, his head had slumped forward. He put that right. ‘Also, they may have taken a receipt for the chair,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand why.’
‘No, I lifted that. It seemed special, somehow. Cherishable. You can have it back.’
‘Yes, special,’ Toulmin said. ‘They look so good, the four chairs. Exactly right; a proper complement.’
‘Olga said the same.’
‘The way chairs are placed gives a room its character.’
‘Her opinion, too.’
There was something half barmy and obsessive about the way these chairs had taken on such importance, but Mount thought he could see how it happened. A spy had no binding connection with anything or anybody in the country where he or she operated. Maybe this deep falseness and professional lack of true involvement could lead in some cases to a need for a bit of token reality. It might be subconscious. Had Mount given that kind of status to the chair, chairs? The spy came and went. That’s what spies were for. I spy with my little eye. My little eye, and only my little eye, established any join with this or that domain. The stay might be long, but that did not affect the non-rootedness. The spy was trained and paid to watch and efficiently pretend to belong, but never to belong, only to watch and collect and reveal. Perhaps the donated chair, and the recent general history of armchairs in this apartment, had acquired a sort of totem significance for Mount. The furniture symbolized so much that was good and spiritually refreshing; particularly, of course, the chair Toulmin and the girls had thoughtfully bought to replace the one he and Olga co-shattered during a very good frenzy. They’d ruined it, but absolutely unintentionally, as anyone observing could testify, such as Mount and Inge.
Mount considered it moot – or, in fact, a damn bit less than moot – whether the chair should have been able to cope with the double, active load. What kind of stress tests were applied by manufacturers? These chairs had a modernistic look and might therefore be bought by young, healthy, vigorous people. Had the makers taken due account of this and of the demands, and gorgeous sudden, hop-aboard urges, of sex? What point laminating if the essential structure of the chair was faulty? That would be like polishing up the exterior of a car when the engine’s big end had gone.
Anyway, in his eyes, the other three of the set now possessed some of that gifted chair’s fine, communal aura. And, even if they weren’t so brilliantly symbolic, Mount might have been put off dismantling them by the amount of sheer work involved. Four chairs were a lot to tear apart. After that would come the extremely awkward task of disposal. Things had altered. He felt he couldn’t do a secret share-out around the bins again. His neighbour might become badly depressed and nervy if it all restarted, and with more pieces than before. He wanted to avoid cruelty. It would be grossly heartless to play dumb again if meeting her accidentally. ‘More pieces, you say? Oh, dear, dear.’ No, impossible.
This meant the river, and two, possibly three, taxi journeys with the items in a suitcase. And he could hardly have asked a taxi to wait. The driver, looking on, was sure to wonder why someone took a trip, or trips, to chuck chair fragments from a suitcase into the Spree. Mount would have had to pay him off, then try to find another cab to take him home, or trek to an U-Bahn station; and subsequently, perhaps, repeat the chore more than once. This kind of rigmarole didn’t seem necessary, did it? Necessary? It didn’t even seem sane. And, obviously, it wouldn’t be possible at all if he was being watched.
For God’s sake – he had a First in literae humaniores from one of the world’s finest universities and was here to gauge the likelihood of a second world war involving Germany, Britain, Russia, France, Italy and a clutch of smaller countries, plus, possibly, the United States: say just over half the world. He’d been asked to spot signs of Armageddon. Carting laminated chair pieces about because some woman went paranoid couldn’t be appropriate or worthwhile for him. Plus, Mount felt it would be a disgrace and a kind of betrayal to watch the wooden pieces float away towards the Baltic in the dark river, while the metal parts, flung far out, sank.
But he did mean to stay keyed up for any sign of police activity in the building over the next days and weeks, and, if it came to the push, he’d quickly move the four chairs into the bedrooms and close the doors. Most likely the police wouldn’t have a search warrant – not for such a weird inquiry. A look at the living room should be enough to prove the chair fragments didn’t come from there, although they did. That is, if it was only ordinary police, not more powerful and dangerous people. Each bedroom had a straight backed chair for hanging clothes on or for sitting in front of the dressing-table mirror. He’d bring them out as replacements into the living room. It might look under-furnished, but he was a sole occupant, and the room did have a settee, normally, as well as the armchairs, the drinks sideboard, plus a large mahogany table and the tall radiogram.
‘Knecht will have resident people in London,’ Mount said. ‘Their Passport Controller at the embassy is probably a spy. He or she will almost certainly be able to brief Valk and the other two about Lionel Paterin and, probably, the woman. There’ll be the beginnings of a dossier on Paterin already, or more. That would be routine for any British Cabinet minister, and especially any Cabinet minister who also serves on the Defence Cabinet, and who also sounds off against Adolf, and who is also giving it to a hyphenated married woman. It’s not a difficult operation for Andreas Valk. Child’s play, after the Somme.’
‘But, as you say, sordid.’
‘It’s spying, Sam. It’s the pursuit of knowledge. Sometimes that pursuit can seem a degree dubious. Consider Faustus. Knowledge comes in all categories, if you’re lucky.’
‘So do you have a Passport Controller at your Berlin embassy?’
‘Passports definitely have to be controlled in any embassy.’ Another point against breaking up the chairs: Bernard Kale-Walker, of Passport Control and so on in Berlin’s British embassy, intended getting rid of the Steglitz place soon, and changes in the inventory would become obvious. Clearly, questions must arise if four wood and metal laminated armchairs had gone missing, or if, as a precaution, Mount bought four armchairs with his own money of blatantly different style to replace them. Kale-Walker had already mentioned problems at the apartment following Mount’s brazenly dishonest report to London that a chair had collapsed under him personally while sitting on it alone. Mount would regard it as very painful to be kic
ked out of the service because of an armchair. Something like that could be damaging on a CV, even if the new job you were after had nothing to do with furniture. And Fallows and Baillie were sure to find it a wonderful joke. ‘On a point of order, Mr Chairman, what have you done with the chairs?’
‘We both might have to be pulled out of Berlin – in fact, out of Germany – very quickly,’ Mount said.
‘I understand that,’ Toulmin said.
‘It will be a properly organized trip.’
‘By Passport Control? I ought to be at my brother Luca’s wedding on Saturday November nineteenth.’
‘Well, yes, I can see you ought. But you might not be.’
‘I worry that none of them might be, including Luca.’
They had an Ernst Lubitsch season at the cinema now, and a couple of evenings later Mount went to see Die Flamme, probably the last film he made in Germany before hopping to Hollywood for keeps in the early 1920s. He’d done a fair job with Angel last year, starring Dietrich and her eyebrows. Mount considered it remarkable that Lubitsch’s Jewishness didn’t rule out this present Berlin tribute. Mount thought Die Flamme rated as a quaint historical exhibit, not much more than that. It featured a tart aiming to get off the game, as most tarts probably did, though he’d never heard Inge or Olga say so. Somewhere behind him in the stalls a woman blubbed wholeheartedly, occasionally comforted – or it could be snarled at? – via a whispered few words from a male companion, perhaps her pimp. A mawkish picture, but he stayed till the end. He didn’t have much else to do.
He’d decided to sit on Toulmin’s report of the possible smear operation against Lionel Paterin. Mount had found it hard to judge the credibility of this. Interdepartmental hates often produced slanted or outright phoney accusations. You could get a kind of looking glass war, a distorted looking glass. He’d like to consult Bernard Kale-Walker on how to deal with this material when he came back from his mapping jaunt; particularly how the telegram should be worded, if sent at all. Kale-Walker was good on wording. Mount considered himself not too bad with words, but his skills remained those of a classics scholar. That is, he automatically went for plain exactitude. He must try to kill the habit. Something different might be required at times – wise vagueness, a bit of polite ambiguity, diplomatic euphemism. It would be a delicate job to announce that one of the Prime Minister’s colleagues might be targeted as an adulterer, even though there’d possibly always been plenty of tales in circulation about him, and about half the men of his kind of wealth, position, and opportunity.