by Len Deighton
On the low table in front of us there was an array of financial magazines. Champion toyed with them. 'Why didn't you tell me?' he said. 'You let me make a fool of myself.'
It was Steve who'd taught me the value of such direct openings. To continue to deny that I worked for the department was almost an admission that I'd been assigned to seek him out. 'True-life confessions? For those chance meetings once or twice a year? That wasn't in the Steve Champion crash-course when I took it.'
He smiled and winced and, with only the tip of his finger, touched his bruised cheek. 'You did it well, old son. Asking me if I was recruiting you. That was a subtle touch, Charlie.' He was telling me that he now knew it had been no chance meeting that day in Piccadilly. And Steve was telling me that from now on there'd be no half-price admissions for boys under sixteen.
'Tell me one thing,' Steve said, as if he was going to ask nothing else, 'did you volunteer to come out here after me?'
'It's better that it's me,' I said. A waiter brought a tray with silver coffee-pot, Limoges china and a sealed bottle of private-label cognac. It was that sort of club.
'One day you might find out what it's like,' said Steve.
'There was the girl, Steve.'
'What about the girl?'
'It's a Kill File, Steve,' I told him. 'Melodic Page is dead.'
'Death of an operative?' He looked at me for a long time. He knew how the department felt about Kill File investigations. He spooned a lot of sugar into his coffee, and took his time in stirring it. 'So they are playing rough,' he said. 'Have they applied for extradition?'
'If the investigating officer decides...'
'Jesus Christ!' said Steve angrily. 'Don't give me that Moriarty Police Law crap. Are you telling me that there is a murder investigation being conducted by C.1 at the Yard?'
'Not yet,' I said. 'There were complications.'
Champion screwed up his face and sucked his coffee spoon. 'So Melodic was working for the department?'
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Champion nodded. 'Of course. What a clown I am. And she's dead? You saw the body?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Level with me, Charlie,' said Champion.
I said, 'No, I didn't see the body.' Champion poured coffee, then he snapped the seal on the cognac and poured two large tots.
'Neat. Effective. And not at all gaudy,' said Champion eventually, with some measure of admiration. He waggled the coffee spoon at me.
It seemed a bit disloyal to the department to understand his meaning too quickly. 'I don't understand,' I said.
'You understand, old boy,' said Champion. 'You understand. But not as well as I bloody understand.' He paused while a waiter brought the cigarettes he'd ordered. When the waiter departed, Steve said softly. 'There's no dead girl-or if there is, your people have killed her-this is just a stunt, a frame-up, to get me back to London.' Champion moved his cigarettes and his gold Dunhill lighter about on the magazines in front of him, pushing them like a little train from The Financial Times and on to Forbes and Figaro. 'They are pressing me,' I said. 'It's a Minister wants-to-know inquiry.'
'Ministers never want to know,' said Champion bitterly. 'All Ministers want is answers to give.' He sighed. 'And someone decided that I was the right answer for this one.'
'I wish you'd come back to London with me,' I said.
'Spend a month or more kicking my heels in Whitehall? And what could I get out of it? An apology, if I'm lucky, or fifteen years, if that suits them better. No, you'll not get me going back with you.'
'But suppose they extradite you-it'll be worse then.'
'So you say.' He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. 'But the more I think about it, the less frightened I am. The fact they've sent you down here is a tacit admission that they won't pull an extradition order on me.'
'I wouldn't bet on it.'
'That's because you're too damned naive. The department don't want me back in London, explaining to them all the details of the frame-up they themselves organized. This is all part of an elaborate game... a softening-up for something big.'
'Something that London wants you to do for them?' I asked. 'Is that what you mean?'
'Let's stop beating around the bush, shall we? The department has given me.jobs from time to time. They do that with pensioned-off operatives because it keeps them signing the Act, and also because their pensions make them the most needy-and so the cheapest-people around.'
'Come back to London, Steve.'
'Can't you understand plain bloody King's English, Charlie? Either the girl is not dead, and the department have put her on ice in order to finger me...'
'Or?'
'Or she's dead and the department arranged it.'
'No.'
'How can you say no. Do they let you read the Daily Yellows?'
'It's no good, Steve,' I said. 'The department would never do it this way and both of us know it.'
'The confidence you show in those bastards...' said Champion. 'We know only a fraction of what goes on up there. They've told you that Melodic was a departmental employee-have you ever heard of her or seen any documents?'
The documents of an operative in the field? Of course I haven't.'
'Exactly. Well, suppose I tell you that she was never an employee and the department have wanted her killed for the last three months. Suppose I told you that they ordered me to kill her, and that I refused. And that that was when the row blew up.'
'Go on,' I said.
'The department made that contact for me. They said she was from the Palestinian terrorists. They told me that she was a nutty American student, the London contact for five hundred stolen Armalites and two tons of gelignite.' Champion was excited now and smiling nervously, as I remembered him from the old days.
He sipped his drink, 'They sent an American chap to see me. Is his name Schindler? Drinks that Underberg stuff, I remember. I wouldn't believe he was from the department at first. Then they sent a Mutual down to confirm him as O.K. Is it Schroder?'
'Something like that,' I said.
tie mentioned the killing end. I didn't take him seriously at first. I mean, they must still have special people for that game, surely. But he was in earnest. Ten thousand pounds, he said. He had it all set up, too. He'd organized a flat in Barons Court stacked up with beer and whisky and cans of beans and soup. I'm telling you, it was equipped like a fall-out shelter. And he showed me this hypodermic syringe, killing wire and rubber gloves. Talk about horror movies, I needed a couple of big whiskies when I got out of there.' He drank some coffee. 'And then I realized how I'd put my prints on everything he'd shown me.' He sighed. 'No fool like an old fool.'
'Did they pay the bill for the tweed jacket we found there?'
'There was no reason to be suspicious,' said Champion. 'They told me to order the suits, and they paid for them. It was only when they sent a funny little man round to my place to take the labels and manufacturers' marks out of them that I began to worry. I mean... can you think of anything more damning than picking up some johnny and then finding he's got no labels in his suits?'
'There was money in the shoulder-pads,' I told him. 'And documents, too.'
'Well, there you are. It's the kind of thing a desk-man would dream up if he'd never been at the sharp end. Wouldn't you say that, Charlie?'
I looked at Champion but I didn't answer. I wanted to believe him innocent, but if I discounted his charm, and the nostalgia, I saw only an ingenious man improvising desperately in the hope of getting away with murder.
'How long ago are we talking about?' I said.
'Just a couple of weeks before I ran into you... or rather you sought me out. That's why I wasn't suspicious that you were official. I mean, they could have found out whatever they needed to know through their normal contacts... but that girl, she wasn't one of them, Charlie, believe me.'
'Did you tell her?'
'Like fun! This girl was trying to buy armaments-and not for the first time. She
could take care of herself, believe me. She carried, too-she carried a big.38 in that crocodile handbag.' He finished his coffee and tried to pour more, but the pot was empty. 'Anyway, I've never killed anyone in cold blood and I wasn't about to start, not for the department and not for money, either. But I reasoned that someone would do it. It might have been someone I liked a lot better than her. It might have been you.'
'That was really considerate of you Steve,' I said.
He turned his head to me. The swelling seemed to have grown worse in the last half hour. Perhaps that was because of Champion's constant touches. The blue and red flesh had almost pushed his eye closed. 'You don't go through our kind of war, and come out the other end saying you'd never toll anyone, no matter what kind of pressure is applied.'
I looked at him for a long time. 'The days of the entrepreneur are over, Steve.' I told him. 'Now it's the organization man who gets the Christmas bonus and the mileage allowance. People like you are called "heroes", and don't mistake it for a compliment. It just means has-beens, who'd rather have a hunch than a computer output. You are yesterday's spy, Steve.'
'And you'd sooner believe those organization men than believe me?'
'No good waving your arms, Steve,' I said. 'You're standing on the rails and the express just blew its whistle.'
He stared at me. 'Oooh, they've changed you, Charlie! Those little men who've promised you help with your mortgage, and full pension rights at sixty. Who would have thought they could have done that to the kid who fought the war with a copy of Wage Labour and Capital in his back pocket. To say nothing of that boring lecture you gave everyone about Mozart's revolutionary symbolism in "The Marriage of Figaro".' He smiled, but I didn't.
'You've had your say, Steve. Don't take the jury out into the back alley.'
'I hope you listened carefully then,' he said. He got to his feet and tossed some ten-franc notes on to the coffee tray. 'Because if you are only half as naive as you pretend to be... and if you have put your dabs all over some carefully chosen incriminating evidence...'
'Go on,' I said.
'Then it could be that London are setting us both up for that big debriefing in the sky.'
'You've picked up my matches,' I said.
Chapter Seven
YOU'D SOONER live in a dump than live in a nice borne,' said Schlegel accusingly. 'No,' I said, but without much conviction. I didn't want to argue with him.
He opened the shutters so that he could see the charcuterie across the alley. The tiny shop-window was crammed with everything from shredded carrot to pig feet. Schlegel shuddered. 'Yes, you would,' he insisted. 'Remember that fleapit you used to have in Soho. Look at that time we booked you into the St Regis, and you went into a cold-water walk-up in the Village. You like dumps!'
'O.K.,' I said.
'If this place had some kind of charm, I'd understand. But it's just a flophouse.' For a long time he was silent. I walked across to the window and discovered that he was staring into the first-floor window across the alley. A fat woman in a frayed dressing-gown was using a sewing machine. She looked up at Schlegel, and when he did not look away she dosed her shutters. Schlegel turned and looked round the room. I'd put asters, souci and cornflowers into a chipped tumbler from the washbasin. Schlegel flicked a finger at them and the petals fell. He went over to the tiny writing table that wobbled unless something was wedged under one leg. My Sony radio-recorder almost toppled as Schlegel tested the table for stability. I had turned the volume down as Schlegel had entered, but now the soft sounds of Helen Ward, and Goodman's big band, tried to get out. Schlegel pushed the 'off' button, and the music ended with a loud click. 'That phone work?' he asked.
'It did this morning.'
'Can I give you a word of advice, fella?'
'I wish you would,' I told him.
For a moment I thought I'd offended him, but you don't avoid Schlegel's advice that easily. 'Don't stay in places like this, pal. I mean... sure, you save a few bucks when you hit the cashier's office for the price of a hotel. But jeeze... is it worth it?'
'I'm not hitting the cashier's office for the price of anything more than I'm spending.'
His face twisted in a scowl as he tried to believe me. And then understanding dawned. 'You came in here, in the sub, in the war. Right? I remember now: Villefranche-it's a deep-water anchorage. Yeah. Sure. Me too. I came here once... a long time ago on a flat-top, with the Sixth Fleet. Nostalgia, eh?'
'This is where I first met Champion.'
'And the old doll downstairs.' He nodded to himself. 'She's got to be a hundred years old... she was the radio operator... the Princess! Right?'
'We just used this as a safe-house for people passing through.'
'It's a brothel!' Schlegel accused.
'Well, I don't mind that so much,' I told him. The baker next door waves every morning when I leave. This morning, he winked.'
'Wouldn't you rather be in a hotel?'
'Well, I'm going to ask the Princess if the girls could be a little quieter with the doors.'
'Banging all night?' said Schlegel archly.
'Exactly,' I said.
'A cat house,' mused Schlegel. 'A natural for an escape chain. But the Nazis had them high on the check-out list.'
'Well, we won the war,' I said sharply. Schlegel would get in there, checking out the syntax of my dreams, if he knew the way.
'I'll call Paris,' he said.
'I'd better tell the Princess.'
'Do we have to?'
'We have to,' I said. 'Unless you want her interrupting you to tell you how much it's costing, while you're talking to the Elysee Palace.'
Schlegel scowled to let me know that sarcasm wasn't going to help me find out who he was phoning. 'Extension downstairs, huh?'
I went to the door and yelled down to the bar, at which the Princess was propped with Salut les Copains and a big Johnny Walker. 'I'm calling Paris,' I shouted.
'You called Paris already today, cheri,' she said.
'And now we're calling again, you old bag,' growled Schlegel, but he took good care to keep his voice down. Already she'd made him apologize to one of the bar girls for saying goddamn.
That's right,' I told her.
'Just as long as you don't forget the money you're spending, my darling.'
'Darleeeng,' growled Schlegel. 'Will you believe that's the first hearing-aid I've seen with sequins on it?'
He picked up his plastic case, put it on the bed and opened it. At first glance it might have been mistaken for a portable typewriter, permanently built into its case. It was the newest model of acoustic coupler. Schlegel began typing on the keys.
I said, 'Anything fresh on the girl? Body been found, or anything?'
Schlegel looked up at me, sucked his teeth and said, 'I'll ask them what Missing Persons knows.' When Schlegel finished typing his message he dialled the Paris number. He gave his real name. I suppose that was to save all the complications that would arise if he was phoning from a hotel that held his passport Then he said, 'Let's scramble,' and put the phone handpiece into the cradle switch inside the case. He pressed the 'transmit' button and the coupler put a coded version of what he'd typed through the phone cables at thirty or forty characters a second. There was a short delay, then the reply came back from the same son of machine. This time Schlegel's coupler decoded it and printed it on to tape in 'plain English'. Schlegel read it, grunted, pushed the 'memory erase' button and rang off.
'You ask those guys the time, and they'd tell you what trouble they're having from the Records Office,' he said. He burned the tape without showing it to me. It was exactly the way the textbook ordered but it didn't make me want to open my bean to him about Champion's version of the girl's death.
But I told him everything Champion had said.
'He's right,' said Schlegel. 'He knows we wouldn't be pussyfooting around if we had the evidence. Even if he enters the U.K. I doubt whether the department would let us hold him.'
He must ha
ve killed the girl,' I said, with some hesitation.
'He didn't collect that shiner by walking into a lamp-post.'
I nodded. Champion's bruised face was just the sort of blow he might have suffered while overpowering the girl. And the two scratches on his cheek were just like the damage to the wallpaper near the bed. No matter how much I tried to push the idea away, Champion's guilt bobbed up again like a plastic duck.
'You tell me Champion was some kind of master spy,' Schlegel said. 'Well, I'm telling you he's a loser. So far he's fouled up every which way, so I'm not joining the fan club. Champion is a creep, an over-confident creep, and if he steps out of line well clobber him, but good!'