by Tom Stoppard
Hapgood I’ve done that.
Blair And someone should tell Downing Street we’re standing by Kerner.
Hapgood I’ve done that too.
Blair Well … (He nods goodbye at her.) Don’t pack it in yet, I need you.
Hapgood I was calling you at the pool this morning.
Blair I was there.
Hapgood I needed you.
Blair No, no, that was only personal. But you’re going to need me now.
Hapgood I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll be twenty minutes late in, there’s something I have to do.
Blair watches her go. The next time he moves he’s in Hapgood’s office giving his hat to Maggs and taking off his overcoat.
SCENE FOUR
Hapgood’s office, ten a.m.
There is a door from Maggs’s office. A window would be nice but is not necessary. There is a desk with the usual stuff including at least two telephones one of which is red. Push-button dialling. You can dial without picking up the receiver, and you can talk to Maggs without picking up anything. There is a photograph frame on the desk, not too large. There is a safe. There is a decent old polished table big enough for six people to meet though we never need it for more than four. It might be nice to make the conference table and the desk all one thing so long as Hapgood doesn’t look like Mussolini at work. An armchair would be useful but not if it has to be carried on. Anyway, there should be room to walk around. Maggs is Hapgood’s secretary. He is young, calm, professional.
Maggs Mrs Hapgood will be late. I’ve told Mr Wates.
Blair Is he here? I didn’t see him.
Maggs He’s washing his hands and can he have a word.
Blair Well, I’m here.
Maggs He said to say he’s washing his hands and can he have a word.
Blair Don’t be silly.
Maggs That’s what he said. Can I get you some tea?
Blair No, I don’t think so, thank you, I had some. Was that Merryweather out there?
Maggs Yes, sir.
Blair Well, somebody should go and tell Mr Wates to stop washing his hands.
Maggs I’ll ask Mr Merryweather.
Maggs takes Blair’s hat and coat and scarf out. Under the coat Blair looks a bit rumpled, yesterday’s shirt, that sort of feeling. He has a Daily Telegraph. He makes himself comfortable and opens it up.
The red telephone rings. It has its own sound. Blair takes no notice.
Maggs hurries in.
Blair It’s the red line, I thought I wouldn’t get in the way.
Maggs (into phone) Mrs Hapgood’s office … oh, hello, I’m sorry she isn’t in … Yes, I’m fine, thanks, how are things your end?
Wates enters, looking terrific: suit, white shirt, tie, polished shoes. The clothes are loose enough for a gun and the radio to be in there somewhere but not baggy.
Blair gets up to greet him.
Blair Ben! Good morning!
Wates Paul.
Blair Come in – sit down –
Maggs (into phone) Uh, hold on a moment –
Blair Mrs Hapgood won’t be long.
Maggs (to Blair) Excuse me – should I …?
Blair No, no – it’s perfectly all right.
(To Wates) Downing Street.
Wates Uh-huh.
Maggs (into phone, baffled) You lost Mr Clark’s garage key?
Blair (hastily) The Telegraph has got a lot better, I notice … doesn’t come off on your hands the way it used to. Maggs said you were washing your hands, but he didn’t say of what.
Wates You guys.
Blair (cheerfully) Yes, it’s wit city around here.
Wates No, you’re funny like funny money, it doesn’t mean everything it says.
Maggs (into phone) He threw your boot on the roof.
Wates I’m not listening.
Maggs (into phone) Five minutes for every square. Uh-huh. One square finding Whitaker for Matron. In the toilet, all right – two squares just dossing about, all right –
Wates What number Downing Street?
Maggs (into phone) Oh! Have you got another coin? I’ll call you straight back from my office. (He puts down the red phone and leaves, closing the door.)
Blair You wanted a word, I think …
Wates Well …
Blair … in the washroom.
Wates gets up, or perhaps he hasn’t sat down, his manner is restless. He picks up the photo on Hapgood’s desk.
Wates (quietly) Mother.
Blair Mm?
Wates Ridley and the other one, Merryweather, they call her Mother.
Blair Yes.
Wates There’s a son.
Blair There is a son but she was called Mother when she joined the Defence Liaison Committee – the tea would arrive and the Minister would say, ‘Who’s going to be mother?’
Wates She was the only woman.
Blair Yes. She’s still the only woman.
Wates Is there a Mr Hapgood?
Blair No.
Wates Dead?
Blair Is this idle curiosity?
Wates You tell me.
Blair Hapgood is her own name. Mrs is a courtesy title. It saves a lot of explanation. Usually.
Wates Do you mind if I ask you something, Paul?
Blair I’m beginning to.
Wates puts the frame carefully back on the desk. Suddenly impatient.
Wates Look, it’s simple: do you know who the kid’s father is or not?
Blair stares back at him, quite blank, and Wates lets it go. Wates has a complaint now.
She calls me Wates.
Blair It’s a sort of compliment.
Wates It doesn’t sound friendly.
Blair Mister wouldn’t be friendly.
Wates You call me Ben.
Blair That’s another sort of compliment.
Wates She doesn’t call me Ben.
Blair That would be friendly but not necessarily a compliment.
Wates She calls you Paul.
Blair Yes, but we’re friends.
Wates Can you explain this in some way I’d understand it?
Blair considers the question.
Blair No, I don’t think so.
Wates You guys.
Blair What did you want to talk about?
Wates Ridley.
Blair All right.
Wates You don’t look surprised.
Blair It’s deceptive.
Wates I was thinking about Ridley. Kerner delivers but Ridley intercepts. Ridley intercepts and delivers to Hapgood.
Ridley and Hapgood. Hapgood and Ridley. I know the tune. You didn’t tell me it was him in Athens.
Blair Oh, yes, Athens.
Wates Talk to me about Athens, Paul, since we’re friends.
Blair Well, we targeted a radio operator in the Russian Embassy in Athens who was cheating on his wife with a local girl we put in his way, a straightforward honeytrap. Mrs Hapgood came out from London to put the squeeze on him. Ridley was at that time number three in the Athens station, he took the photographs. But it went wrong and as you know we had to pull Ridley out of Athens in a hurry.
Wates He killed an American agent.
Blair That isn’t how I’d put it.
Wates How would you put it?
Blair He killed a Greek national who turned out to be on the Company payroll. Anyway, it was a sideshow. The target’s wife found out he was cheating. Next thing, the KGB goons busted our Russian in the girl’s flat. Simply bad luck. The girl got roughed up in the process and her pimp took it into his head that Ridley set her up. He tried to shoot Ridley on the stairs of his apartment and Ridley shot him first. Most embarrassing.
Wates Embarrassing?
Blair For Her Majesty’s Government. It nearly cost us the Elgin Marbles.
Wates Look at the score. One American source dead, one Russian target blown, one honeytrap busted – that’s three nothing to them, and Ridley moves on to Paris. (Pause.) Now I’m thinking about Ganchev, you remember Ganchev?
>
Blair Ganchev. I can’t quite place him –
Wates Bulgarian. He was one of your joes, shot dead in Paris. He was your Bulgarian – he got blown – the Bulgarians took him out – boom! – and you can’t quite place him.
Blair Oh, yes, Ganchev.
Wates Right, Miron Ganchev. He was Ridley’s joe, wasn’t he?
Blair Yes, that’s right.
Wates He was making a meet with Ridley and he was killed in a safe house in the rue Velásquez except it wasn’t a safe house any more.
Blair Yes.
Wates It was Ridley’s meet. Two doorkeys, whoever gets there first waits for whoever gets there second. Ridley was second.
Blair I think I can see what you’re getting at but unfortunately Ganchev was shot at a range of about nine inches and Ridley was in a taxi in a traffic jam on the wrong side of the river. We went into it.
Wates No, you don’t see. Who says he was in a taxi?
Pause.
Blair (quietly) Ben, I really wouldn’t want you to make an ass of yourself.
Wates Who says he was in a taxi?
Blair Fuck off.
Wates It was Hapgood. She was in the taxi too. And you went into it. Did you get the taxi driver? No. You had Ridley’s boss.
Blair (flares up) What is this – couldn’t you sleep? This is stood on nothing: if Ridley did it, Hapgood must have alibi’d him: if Hapgood alibi’d him Ridley must have done it. You’ve got nothing, Ben, except insomnia.
Wates That’s what it was. Nine p.m. Washington time I’m in Grosvenor Square, going through the whole thing again, I’m thinking about the radio signal in Kerner’s briefcase. It gets to the meet, no question. Kerner delivers, Ridley collects, Ridley delivers to Hapgood. The signal goes dead.
Blair It’s still insomnia.
Wates (imperturbably) It’s still insomnia and I’m still thinking about Kerner’s bleep. It went off the air but what does that mean? Maybe it went off the air, maybe we lost the frequency, maybe it hopped frequencies, maybe there was an override, you know what I mean? I didn’t believe any of it, I just wanted to get rid of these things so I could forget the bleep and think about something else. So my guy’s radio-finder is sitting on the desk and I put on the phones and I tune it in … and, Paul, it was alive. It was transmitting like a bullfrog.
Blair Two o’clock in the morning?
Wates (nods) I start waking people up. I have a vector on it, I need co-ordinates. By four o’clock I know which street, I know the building, I know which corner of the building, I know how high up the building within eight feet, I mean, shit, I know which room. It was coming from this office. The bleep has come back home. It’s here.
Blair Why didn’t you wake me?
Wates Where were you sleeping?
Pause.
Blair Where is she now?
Wates You’re asking me?
Blair (snaps) Yes, I’m asking you.
Wates Excuse me. (He takes the radio out of his coat. To radio) Wates – who’s in the Toyota?
Radio Collins, sir.
Wates Where’re you at?
Radio Outside. Target is home.
Wates puts the radio back in his pocket.
Wates She just walked in.
Blair Good.
Wates We should hold back a little, feel this thing out.
Blair Don’t worry. Incidentally, where did she go this morning?
Wates Shopping.
Blair Shopping.
Wates As I say, it makes sense to hold back, Paul, give her a little room, you understand me?
Blair Of course.
The door opens and Hapgood enters briskly. She has her shopping with her. There is a Lillywhites’ carrier bag and a little Fortnum’s bag.
Hapgood Good morning! – Paul – Wates –
Blair Good morning! – Guess what – Kerner’s bleep came alive in the night, it seems to be coming from your office.
Wates Aw, shit.
Hapgood Golly, Wates.
Wates I meant golly.
Hapgood Sit down.
Wates I’ve been sitting, I like standing, ma’am.
Maggs enters. He comes from the outer office with stuff for Hapgood’s attention; a wooden tray (shallow box) overflowing with open letters, memos, etc., and a separate lot of sensitive material which might even be in a little attaché case or a closable file. The tray is put on the desk; it’s the other lot of stuff which Hapgood looks through first.
Maggs Good morning. Do you want to see the decrypts?
Hapgood is behind her desk. Blair has sat down again where he was sitting, and Wates probably stays standing. Maggs stands.
Hapgood (to Maggs) Thank you. Anything else?
Maggs Joe telephoned. I wrote down the grid.
Hapgood Thank you – don’t go. (to Wates) What time, Wates?
Wates One fifty – two o’clock …
Hapgood Uh-huh.
She has scooped the decrypts, etc., out of their case. Maggs gets the case. Hapgood starts going through the pile of stuff. There’s not very much of it. But unless otherwise stated she is reading the material continuously, making notes on pages which one by one go back to Maggs and back into the case. She reads while she listens and she also reads while she talks to Wates. But for Blair she looks up.
(To Blair) Did you see this from the Listeners?
Blair Mm. I’ll believe it when it happens.
Hapgood (to Wates) It was alive when you checked, so you don’t know when it came on air.
Wates That’s right.
Hapgood (to Maggs) This one to Special Branch in the pouch. This one to the Russian Desk by hand.
(To Wates) And you got a triangulation and the beams crossed in this office.
Wates Yes, ma’am.
Hapgood Is it still giving out?
Wates As far as I know.
Hapgood And you would know, wouldn’t you?
It is clear now that he is not popular with her this morning.
(Icy) Why didn’t you call me?
He doesn’t reply so she gives him a glance.
Yes, I see. (She bangs a few buttons on her telephone console and then lifts the handset. Into phone) Get me the form on a white Toyota –
Wates (pleading guilty) Yeah, all right.
Hapgood (into phone) Cancel. (She puts the phone down. To Wates) I’ll get back to that. So did you bring a radio-finder with you? (to Maggs) This one upstairs, this one reconfirm.
Wates No, ma’am.
Hapgood You thought you’d give me first crack. That’s all right.
Wates Ma’am, this is a 500 millisecond-repeat transponder-transmitter locked on seventeen megahertz with a lithium battery and a gate interrupter … it …
He falters because she appears to be absorbed in her next paper.
Hapgood Interrupter.
Wates It gives it a signature, it has to be the same bleep.
She scribbles on the last decrypt, hands it to Maggs and takes the top sheet off the other pile.
Hapgood So it went dead at ten-oh-seven yesterday morning and it was alive again at two a.m. Can they come and go like that?
Wates Not that I ever heard. My guy couldn’t figure it either. They’re either fixed or broke, they don’t fix themselves.
Hapgood Uh-huh. Did he mention a hamster?
Wates A what?
Hapgood (to Maggs) Roger.
Maggs No.
Hapgood You sure? – empty square before assembly –
Maggs No Roger-the-hamster.
Hapgood Oh, the chump. (relieved) That’s all, Maggs. Tea.
Maggs goes back to his office. Wates has had enough of this.
Wates Excuse me – we don’t need to know about this stuff. When I put on the phones I felt foolish like putting on a stethoscope for a corpse that’s been ten hours dead in the water – but, ma’am, we’ve got a situation now and I’m glad Paul is here because I’m asking him to ask you if you would open up that safe you have there an
d then I won’t have to worry about it any more.
Hapgood has stopped listening. She sits thinking.
Paul? (He gets no help.)
Hapgood Wates, I could kiss you. (She goes to the door.) Merryweather. (She heads back to her desk.)
Merryweather (entering) Thanks, Mother, I don’t need long, it was just that I had a thought about our Russian friend –
Hapgood (sitting down) In a minute. You drained the pool.
Merryweather Yes, that’s right.
Hapgood How long did that take?
Merryweather Ages – most of the day – right down to the filter –
Hapgood And?
Merryweather I put it in Maggs’s box last night.
He means an envelope on Maggs’s pile. Hapgood tears the envelope across.
Looked interesting to me. Any good?
The envelope contains a ‘poker chip’ transmitter. She tosses it to Wates who catches it.
Hapgood Ten hours dead in the water. It only drowns the signal, when Merryweather fished it out it was back on the air.
Maggs comes in with Hapgood’s tea. It’s like having tea at the Ritz without the sandwiches – nice china, tea pot, hot water jug, etc.
Blair, who has been sitting too still for too long, now stretches all the tension out of his body, sprawling in his chair, languid again.
Blair I think I might change my mind about that tea, Maggs … how about you, Ben?
Wates Yes. Thank you.
Hapgood Just the cups, Maggs. Mr Wates takes it with lemon.
Maggs We haven’t got a lemon.
Hapgood Tsk, tsk, you must always keep a lemon.
Maggs (leaving) The reply from Ottawa came in.
Hapgood Oh yes?
Maggs Exchange bishops, and queen to king one.
Hapgood Exchange bishops, my eye – he’ll be lucky.
Maggs leaves. Hapgood broods for a moment. From his pocket, Wates produces his pink-paper ‘diagram’. He looks at it and passes it to Blair. Meanwhile –
Merryweather Mother …
Hapgood Oh, I’m sorry, Merryweather –
Merryweather It’s just that I had a thought which may or may not be something.
Hapgood Of course – tell us your thought.
Merryweather Well, I was thinking about it and something wasn’t quite right. The Russian delivered to the changing room and he came straight out again …
Hapgood Yes?
Merryweather He didn’t have time for a swim or anything.