by Len Deighton
‘I’m sorry, Joe,’ replied Harry, caught halfway up the stairs with a red-faced Joe Brody shouting at him from the upper landing. I looked at Brody with interest. Until now I’d never seen him in anything but a relaxed and gentle mood.
Brody was wearing a striped blue three-piece suit appropri ate for lunch with the Ambassador. He was old, a bald man with circular gold-rimmed glasses that fitted tight into his face like coins that have grown into the trunk of a gnarled tree. At other times I’d seen him smiling sagely while holding a drink and listening indulgently to those around him. But here was a frenzied little fellow who could even plough furrows across Posh Harry’s calm features. ‘You’re sorry. Goddamnit, you should be. Who’s this? Oh, it’s you Samson, I almost forgot you were coming over here. Have you finished?’
By that time we were at the upper landing. Joe Brody ushered the two of us back into the room we’d been in before lunch. He strode across the room, took off his jacket and tossed it on to a chair. Slowly, like some aroused reptile, the jacket uncoiled and slid to the floor. Brody gave no sign of noticing it.
I didn’t answer. Brody looked at me and then at Harry. I felt embarrassed, as one feels when accidentally witnessing a blissfully married couple suddenly transformed by a savage domestic rift. In the silence one became aware of the traffic noise which provided an unending roar, like distant thunder.
When Harry realized that I had decided not to tell Brody whether we had finished, he said, ‘Not quite, Joe.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ And then even more furiously, ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Just one more file,’ said Harry repentantly.
‘Did you ask him about Salzburg?’ Brody said, talking about me as if I wasn’t present.
‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to bring that up,’ said Harry.
‘Sit down, Bernard,’ said Joe Brody. He gave a nervous fleeting smile as if trying to reassure me that I was not a part of his row with Harry, but some of his wrath spilled over.
‘Do you want a drink, Joe?’ said Harry, still trying to assauge Brody’s wrath.
‘No I don’t want a goddamned drink. I want to see some work done around here.’ Brody grabbed his nose as if about to take a dose of nasty medicine. Harry muttered something about needing a glass of club soda and went and poured one for himself. I’d never known Posh Harry even slightly discomposed but now his hands were trembling.
Brody sank down into the armchair facing me and sighed. Suddenly he looked exhausted. His tie knot had loosened, his waistcoat was partly unbuttoned and a lot of his shirt had become a rumpled lifebelt round his waist. His bad temper had made demands upon his attire and his stamina. But any expectations I had about his temper moderating were not encouraged by the harshness of his voice as he continued. ‘One of our people was blown away: in Salzburg. You hear about that?’
‘I was there,’ I said.
‘Sure you were there. What exactly happened, Bernard?’
‘So that was one of your people?’
‘I asked you what exactly happened.’
‘I don’t know what exactly happened,’ I said.
‘Now don’t snow me, Bernard. I haven’t got a lot of time and I’m not in the mood.’
‘I can’t tell you anything that the police investigation hasn’t already revealed.’
‘You saw the police report?’
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘So how the hell would you know?’ He grabbed his nose again, then finished the gesture by rubbing his mouth fiercely with the flat of his hand. I decided it was a gesture of self-restraint by a man who was on the verge of a real tantrum.
‘Take it easy, Mr Brody,’ I said. ‘It was an explosive charge triggered by mains electricity. Your man Johnson died. That’s about all I can tell you.’
‘Would you please describe Johnson.’
‘Pleasant manner. Tallish, in good physical shape but slightly overweight. Grey wavy hair; rim beard, no moustache. Gold-rimmed bifocals –’
‘That’s enough. Who set it up, kid?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘I think you have,’ said Brody, letting his voice go a bit nasty.
‘Then give me a clue,’ I said.
‘I’m asking the questions,’ said Brody. ‘Think again.’
‘I’ve told you all I can tell you, Mr Brody.’
He sat there glowering at me.
‘I’m going to ask you again, Bernard. I want to put this on a formal footing.’
‘You can put it on any kind of footing you choose,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again. I don’t know.’
‘Our guy,’ he said and paused. I’d forgotten the way senior CIA men always said ‘our guy’. When he continued he spoke in that disjointed way that people do when they are upset. ‘Our guy was named Bart Johnson. He was a good man…worked out of Frankfurt. I’ve known Bart twenty years. We were together in Moscow: a long time back. Toughed out some bad ones. I lunched with the Ambassador today. I wanted him to know that Washington has authorized me to follow this one up as forcibly as my resources permit.’
‘I’m gratified to hear that, Mr Brody, because if I should get blown away like your friend Johnson, I’d like to be up there knowing that someone is following me up as forcibly as resources permit.’
‘Okay, Bernard, we know you were in contact with Bart Johnson. No one is saying that you were implicated in the killing but I want to know exactly what was going on in that damned hotel right up to that explosion.’
‘The only thing I can tell you that was going on in that hotel up until the explosion was a stamp auction.’ I was trying to keep my voice calm and polite but not entirely managing it.
‘Try harder.’
‘Try easier questions.’
‘Okay. Here’s an easier question: why are you being such an asshole?’
I got to my feet and went across the room. Inconspicuously fitted into the oak panelling, and flanked by two horse-racing prints, there was a door. In front of the door there was an occasional table with an inlaid chequered top upon which chess pieces had been arranged by some interior decorator. I turned. Brody was standing up. I kicked the table aside, chess pieces and all, and tried to open the door. It was locked. ‘Will you open the door, Mr Brody? Or shall I do it?’
Perhaps without that bottle of Château Talbot and the double measure of malt whisky with which my meal had ended I would have had neither the rashness nor the force to do what I did next. I raised my boot and kicked the door almost off its hinges. It swung into the next room with a noise like thunder.
For a moment I thought I’d made a terrible miscalcu lation, but I hadn’t. Standing up blinking in the sudden light were two shirt-sleeved men with headphones clamped over their ears. Their faces were set in an expression of horror. Beyond them there were some TV monitoring screens shining in the gloom. The operators had jumped to their feet. One of them leapt back so that his headphones’ lead pulled a piece of equipment from the table. It fell to the floor with a crash. Then the heavy door, with a prolonged squeaking noise, twisted on its remaining hinge and sank slowly to the floor, landing finally with a resounding bang. Neither operator said anything: perhaps it happened to them frequently.
They were of course putting me on videotape. I suppose it would have been stupid of them to hear what I knew without having some sort of record of it, but that didn’t mean that I had to sit there and cheerfully confess to anything that might later be construed as making me an accessory to a murder.
‘Okay, smart ass, you’ve made your point,’ said Brody calmly. It was a different sort of voice now. I still don’t know how much of his former bad temper was feigned. And if it was feigned to what extent it was a device to intimidate me or to intimidate Posh Harry. ‘Come and sit down again. We’ll talk off the record if that’s what you want.’ To the two video operators he said, ‘Take off you guys. We’ll cut the crowd scene,’ and he smiled at his own joke.
Posh Harry hadn’t
moved. He was still standing near the refrigerator sipping his soda water.
‘Could we go downstairs and talk in another room?’ I asked. ‘The kitchen for instance?’
‘With the water running and the fluorescent light on?’ offered Brody sarcastically. He went and picked up his jacket from the floor, frisking it to make sure his wallet was still in place. ‘Sure. Anything that will make you feel good, Bernard.’ His manner was warmer now, as if he preferred the idea of talking about his friend Johnson’s death to someone who could kick doors in.
We went downstairs to the tiny kitchen in the basement. It had the same well-preserved look that the rest of the house had. Here was a kitchen where no meal was ever cooked. There were wet cups and saucers in the sink and some glasses on the draining board. On the shelf above it there were packets of coffee and a huge box of tea bags and a big transparent plastic container marked sugar. A grey slatted blind obscured the window.
Joe Brody opened a refrigerator filled with canned drinks. He helped himself to a Pepsi, snapped the top open and drank it from the can. He didn’t offer anyone else one: he appeared to be lost in thought.
I sat with Harry at the circular kitchen table. Brody gripped an empty chair, rested his foot on a bar of it and said, ‘Were there two Americans, or just the one?’
‘Two,’ I said, and described Thurkettle and the way he’d come out on to the terrace and talked about sharing an office with Peter Underlet, and the way in which Johnson had approached me after the auction. I didn’t say that I’d bid in the auction and I left out any mention of my wanting the cover.
Brody sat down and said, ‘We know about the auction.’
‘Why don’t you tell me what you know, Mr Brody? I’ll try and fill in the spaces.’
‘Thurkettle, you mean?’
‘That’s what I mean,’ I said.
‘Well, now you see why I wanted to leave a few of the details out,’ said Brody. ‘We’re trying to establish that both men were there at the time of the explosion.’
‘I heard Johnson speak to Thurkettle as he went into his room. At the time I thought he was talking to himself. Afterwards…well, I don’t know.’
‘When was that?’ said Brody. He up-ended his Pepsi and drained the last of it with obvious relish. I suppose he needed the sugar.
‘Maybe half an hour before the explosion,’ I replied.
‘What did he say?’ Carelessly Brody tossed the empty can across the room. It landed with a clatter in the rubbish bin.
When Brody’s eyes came back to me I said, ‘I think he said “What about that?” It was the sort of remark a man might make to himself. But it might have been a greeting.’
‘To someone already in his room?’
‘He knew Thurkettle was there the previous day.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He talked about it. He asked me if I knew who he was.’
‘He asked you that?’
‘He said he’d met Thurkettle before but didn’t know who he worked for or what he did.’
‘Do you know who Thurkettle is? Really know?’
‘I do now,’ I said.
‘Let me ask you a speculative question,’ said Brody. ‘Why would Thurkettle go back to the hotel and go to that room? The bomb was already in the razor. Why didn’t he keep going?’
‘Ummm,’ I said.
‘Don’t umm me. You must have thought about it,’ said Brody. ‘Why didn’t he keep going?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But when I went back to warn him who Thurkettle was…’
‘Hold the phone,’ said Brody. ‘Are you expecting me to believe you were going to tip Johnson off about Thurkettle? You? The guy who sits there stonewalling all questions about the death? No sir, I don’t buy that.’
‘I’m not sure what I was going to do. I went along to his room to find out what the hell was going on.’
‘Okay, keep talking.’
Posh Harry got up and went to the refrigerator and after looking at everything on offer, and selecting a tumbler from the cupboard, poured himself a drink of soda. Harry must have been very fond of soda. Or perhaps he was trying to sober up. Brody glared at him to show that such movement disturbed his concentration. Harry sipped his soda and didn’t look at Brody.
I said, ‘I went into his room and spoke with him just before the explosion. He said I was to come back in fifteen minutes. Right after that the damned thing exploded.’
‘Let me get this straight. You spoke with Johnson in his room a few minutes before he died?’
‘He called from the bathroom.’
Brody said, ‘The bathroom door was closed? You didn’t see him?’ He tugged his nose as if in deep thought.
‘That’s right.’ I began to understand what was going on in Brody’s mind. He waited a long time. I suppose he was deciding how much to tell me.
Eventually Brody said, ‘When that voice told you to come back in fifteen minutes there were two men in the bathroom. Johnson was probably just about to be murdered.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘I don’t think you see at all,’ said Brody.
‘Who was Thurkettle working for?’
‘He’s a renegade. He’s been a KGB hit man for two years. We’ve lost at least four men to him but this is the first time he’s come so close to home. Johnson and Thurkettle knew each other well. They’d worked together back in the old days.’
‘That’s rough,’ I said.
Brody couldn’t keep still. He suddenly stood up and tucked his shirt back in to his trousers. ‘Damn right it is. I’ll get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘So he didn’t die as the result of the explosion?’
‘You worked that out did you?’ said Brody sarcastically. He went over to the sink and turned to look at me, leaning his back against the draining board.
‘Thurkettle murdered Johnson and after that blew his head off with explosive. Why? To destroy evidence? Or was Johnson too smart to go for the razor bomb? Was Thurkettle caught switching razors? Did he kill Johnson then use the bomb with a timing device?’ Brody still staring at me gave a contemptuous little smile. ‘That way he wouldn’t get spattered with brains and blood.’
Posh Harry had regained his customary composure by this time. Still holding his glass of fizzy water he went over to where Joe Brody was lounging against the kitchen unit and said, ‘You’d better level with him, Joe.’
Brody looked at me but said nothing.
Harry said, ‘If you want the Brits to help they have to know the way it really happened.’
Brody, speaking very slowly and deliberately, said, ‘We think Thurkettle killed Johnson and then blew his head off to destroy evidence. But the guy who told you he was Johnson was really Thurkettle.’
‘The hell it was!’ I said softly as the implications hit me.
Brody enjoying my consternation added, ‘The dead body you saw in the bathroom was the man who spoke with you on the terrace.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t see much, Samson old buddy,’ said Brody. I’d earned that rebuke: I should have looked more closely at the dead body on the floor.
Posh Harry said, ‘Thurkettle changed identity with his victim on a previous occasion. It had us real puzzled for ages.’
‘So what are you going to do about it, Bernard?’ said Brody.
‘I’ll stick with the soap and water shaves,’ I said. Brody scowled. I got to my feet to show them that I wanted to leave. He turned away and leaned across the sink to prise open the slatted blind and look out of the window. There was a minuscule yard and a whitewashed wall and large flower-pots in which some leafless stalks struggled for survival. From the front of the house, through the double-glazing, came the traffic noise: worse now that the end of the working day was so close.
‘Don’t forget the Kalashnikov,’ said Posh Harry.
Joe Brody was still looking at the yard. He seemed not to have heard.
I went
upstairs to get my parcel. Harry came with me and added a few snippets to what I knew about Thurkettle. Other US government departments, resentful at the way the CIA had got Thurkettle released from prison and provided with false documentation, had proved singularly uncooperative now that he had in Harry’s words ‘run amok’. The CIA had sought a secret indictment from a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia and had it thrown out of court on the grounds of lack of identification. An appli c ation to the Justice Department had also failed and so had the attempt to have Thurkettle’s citizenship revoked. Harry explained that there was now a desperate need to link Thurkettle with a crime. Everyone – by which I suppose he meant Brody – had been hoping that my evidence would supply the needed link. Until it was obtained Thurkettle was thumbing his nose at them and walking free.
‘I still don’t get it,’ I said. ‘If you find out why Thurkettle blew Johnson away things might become clearer.’
‘We know why,’ said Posh Harry smoothly. ‘Johnson had the goods on him.’
‘On Thurkettle?’
‘That was Johnson’s assignment. They were buddies. Joe Brody told Johnson to find him and get pally. Last week Johnson phoned Brody and confirmed that Thurkettle was peddling narcotics. He couldn’t say much on the phone but he said he had enough evidence to put Thurkettle in front of a grand jury.’
‘But Thurkettle was a jump ahead of all concerned.’
‘Joe Brody blames himself.’
‘Narcotics.’
‘The prevailing theory in Grosvenor Square,’ said Harry, ‘is that Thurkettle blew poor old Kleindorf away too.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me. We think Thurkettle is doing business with London Central.’ He laughed in a way that said it might be a joke. I decided not to get angry: I was too old to get angry twice in one day.
I nodded and thanked him for lunch and felt pleased that I hadn’t mentioned Tessa’s new friend with his rim beard and no moustache. They would have been all over George and Tessa. Anyway by now he might have shaved it off.
We talked for a few minutes more and then I said goodbye to Posh Harry, and went home. I hadn’t brought the car into town that day, I was using the train. Standing all the way in the shabby compartment I had a chance to reflect on what had happened. Had I been set up, I wondered? Brody’s fury had been all too convincing and Posh Harry’s reaction to it could not have been entirely feigned. But had the powerful Martinis, and the big lunch with lots to drink, been a way of getting me softened up for Brody’s grilling? And to what extent had Dicky guessed what I was walking into?