by Lawton, John
‘It took me till yesterday to work out that it was Cobb following me around. Stupid of me, damn near got me killed. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to keep track of my movements at the Yard, he’d only have to put his ear to the ground to know I was going down to Derbyshire to see Cockerell’s wife. I found Jessel, and before I could get anything out of him Cobb killed him. I don’t think he meant to, but he overdid the bully boy routine and scared the poor bugger to death. I’ve got fingerprints from Jessel’s desk. One of the prints will surely match Cobb’s.
‘Then . . . then I fucked up. Cobb had no idea Madeleine Kerr existed. No idea that Cockerell had a mistress. I led him straight to her, and he killed her. No accident this time. He snapped her neck, pulled the cord, jumped from the train, and if he’d been a better shot he’d have killed me too.
‘I found myself on enforced sick leave and in the detective’s doghouse. But that meant I wasn’t at the Yard, and with Onions’ wrath hanging over me it meant that I was a damn sight more secretive about what I was doing. Cobb lost me. He didn’t pick up the next lead, he didn’t follow me to Paris because he didn’t know I’d gone. In fact you none of you knew a damn thing about it till yesterday, when my wife blundered into the Café Royal and blew both our covers.
‘But we were all on borrowed time. If you’d been around when I first brought her home with me, it would all have come apart in our hands weeks ago.
‘So, I found Arnold Cockerell’s insurance policy—the document Cobb suspected he’d left behind, and for which he killed Madeleine Kerr. And now I not only know what happened—I know why.’
Charlie’s reactions had been minimal. A slight twitch in the muscles of the cheek—a little like the King’s nervous tick during the abdication speech—a tilt of the head forward so his lips touched the tips of his extended fingers.
‘I’m still listening,’ he said, scarcely more than a whisper across his fingertips.
‘Now we will go back a while, not as far as the thirties, and not to Cambridge, but to, let’s say, 1951, to London. You and Cobb are setting up a new network for the Russians. I presume you knew both Cobb and Cockerell from the war?’
Charlie straightened up, smiled, almost happy to be able to make a contribution.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘They were SOE. Very much our operational arm in those days. I knew Cobb fairly well. He’d no politics to speak of, but he always needed money, and I knew he’d do almost anything to get it. They don’t make the best agents, but then you’ve always some degree of power over them, because they’re so damn greedy. A greedy man is a weak man. I met Cockerell a couple of times at best, but I didn’t know him. Norman was the one who knew Cockerell.’
‘And when the Russians told you they needed a money-laundering service and a courier, Cobb suggested Cockerell?’
‘Of course, I’d forgotten all about the chap. He hardly stuck in the memory, did he? Cobb knew he was in business, and it seemed like just the cover we needed.’
‘1951,’ Troy went on. ‘Cockerell told his wife he was going to visit the Festival of Britain. At the same time Cobb arranged a meeting for the three of you. And I’ve wondered, what lie did you tell him, Charlie, what yarn did you spin him?’
‘None at all. Told him the truth. It was a Russian operation. Not my fault if he couldn’t grasp the reality. And he did go to the Festival. We met him in the Dome of Discovery, as a matter of fact.’
‘You recruited Cockerell to bring in and distribute money to your network. You created a plausible cover, you told him to set up a foreign business, to inflate it to heaven, and he brought in Jessel to keep everything looking kosher. Jessel worked out the trick of paying tax on the money, effectively legitimised it—but nobody told Jessel the truth. Jessel just thought it was a fiddle. And if there’s one thing the age of austerity did for us, it made us a nation of fiddlers. Sid James is our national archetype. Jessel saw very little wrong with this. God knows, until I showed up he probably thought of himself as honest. It was just one more piece of spivvery—the economic modus operandi of the ration book society.
‘Strangest of all—you told Cockerell to turn respectable. He improved his cover, left the Labour Party, joined the Tories and the Rotary Club—he became a pillar of the local Establishment, the middle man of Middle England, and all the time you were pushing thousands of pounds through his Contemporary tat business to a network of Soviet agents working to overthrow everything Cockerell now appeared to stand for. A nice sense of irony, I’ll give you that.
‘For the best part of five years it ran like clockwork. Then something got into Cockerell. I’ve had a high old time trying to figure out what, but at some point he came to you and said he wanted a real mission, he wanted one more crack in the field, didn’t he, Charlie?’
‘It was almost insane,’ Charlie said. ‘He came to me and said he had to swim again. It was something he had to do for himself. He said, “I must have a mission”—you’re quite right, his exact words—he suggested some crack at Bulganin and Khrushchev, not me. I said “Arnold, we’re on their side.” And he didn’t seem to grasp it. It was as though a button had been pressed in his brain and he was back in the war. Swimming into Brest, a recce out to the beaches of Normandy, or whatever. I couldn’t get through to him what we were doing. He seemed to have grasped so little of it. He seemed to think that in some way it was all circular, that in doing this for me he was party to some double- or triple-agent scheme whereby it would all turn out to be for Britain in the end. And you’re wrong about his cover—I never told him to go Establishment. He did all that off his own bat. Worse still, I think he genuinely believed it all. He was the man he pretended to be. Pretty much the fate of all of us when you come to think about it. You invent yourself.
‘As you will imagine, by March he was a liability. I told the Russians about his crackpot scheme and asked what to do with him, and they said, “Fine, send him out to the Ordzhonikidze.” Could’ve knocked me down with a feather. I was staggered. But I did it. I didn’t know they were going to kill the poor sod.’
‘But they didn’t tell you why they wanted him sent out, did they?’
‘Not till I’d done it, no.’
‘It was a black joke. One of Khrushchev’s finest. Cockerell was sent out to spy, by the Russians on the Russians, and they in turn used him to create a scandal that rocked the British Government. It really spits in your eye, doesn’t it? You thought you’d finally got Cockerell off your hands and they toss him back at you like a sprat. Can’t you see the contempt they had for you in pulling a stunt like that?
‘But, it didn’t go smoothly. On the Monday night I heard Khrushchev say, “Do it.” I’d no idea what he meant. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but sure enough the next morning the Captain of the Ordzhonikidze complained to the Foreign Office about a frogman spy. That Monday night, while Khrushchev and I were out pub-crawling, they dumped the late Commander Cockerell overboard. That was “Do it”—“dump the body now!” But in the morning there’s no body. It had vanished, when it should have been floating belly up in Portsmouth Harbour like a dead mackerel. God, Krushchev must have been furious. He’d been saving Cockerell to create a diplomatic crisis when he felt like having one, and he felt really bloody after the row with the Labour Party, so he told the Russian captain to “do it”—but nobody allowed for the currents and Cockerell’s body got washed along the coast for five miles and as many months, and it became a scandal without proof. Only my brother raising hell in the Commons and Eden’s stupidity ever allowed Khrushchev so much as a whiff of victory. He got his scandal, but all too late and too little for his purposes. What he wanted was all hell to break loose while he was still here. Two birds with one stone—the public embarrassment of the Government and the disposal of a useless former agent. Khrushchev probably thought Cockerell was more useful dead than he’d ever been alive.
‘When the body finally washed up, it’d been chewed beyond recognition by fish and propellers and Go
d knows what. It was still important that it should be Cockerell, but by the time I gave you the positive identification you wanted, the proof of the pudding as it were, none of it really mattered much. Yesterday’s rice pudding. Eden had opted for damage limitation, owned up to something he didn’t do, and it was all old hat. And besides, the perfect scapegoat had been found. Both sides needed a victim, both sides needed someone else to blame, and once he’d been nailed the matter could be safely buried by everyone concerned. Scandal, retribution, sacrifice and finally justice. Tell me, how did you manage to pin it on Daniel Keeffe?’
‘Oh, that was easy. I told Cockerell to report to his wartime controller. Keeffe. I knew Keeffe would dismiss his plan as rubbish, but by then it would be too late. His visit would be a matter of record. It didn’t matter what Keeffe said, no one in Five and Six would believe him.’
‘So Keeffe died for your sins. The perfect scapegoat.’
‘If you like.’
‘And now your chickens come home to roost.’
‘I don’t quite follow you.’
‘When you pulled Cockerell off the money run, the Russians had no further use for their courier—Tosca. They pulled her from their end of the operation, knocked her about, and she fled for her life—to find me, and eventually, inevitably, she would find you. Doesn’t it strike you as a mite ironic, that you set in train the sequence of events that would undo you when you sent Cockerell to his death?’
‘Irony’s wasted on me, Freddie. I’m not open to it. Underline it, put it in red. Do what you will. It won’t affect me. I’m a believer.’
‘And I’m not. And first and foremost I don’t believe you.’
‘I’m sure you don’t, but now we’ve had the what and the why and the irony, if you’ve reached the end of your little speech perhaps we can get down to brass tacks and do business. Ten out of ten for detection, but Tosca, after all, is why we’re here. There’s got to be a way out for both of us. We can still horse trade, but we can’t leave things as they are.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean—“no”?’
‘No. No deals. Not while you’re still lying to me.’
‘Freddie, I’m not lying.’
‘You said you’d no idea the Russians would kill Cockerell. Maybe you’re trying to spare me, I don’t know, but Cockerell was dead when the Russians got him. Cobb killed him.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because you told him to. Because Cockerell knew too much for you ever to let the Russians take him alive. They told you to send him out to them, but they didn’t say dead or alive, so Cobb sapped the poor fool across the back of the head, and dumped him in the water in full frogman’s gear for the Russians to find. They sent a couple of frogmen out from one of the escort ships as they steamed up the Solent. Whatever they were expecting, Cobb gave them a body—and he only just made it back to Portsmouth in time. He was sweating like a pig and he was frazzled. I was there. I saw him. He was on edge, and I put it down to his temperament. He was someone who got high on power, but it was more than that—he’d just killed a man, and the adrenaline was still ripping through his veins like a shot of heroin.’
‘Speculation, Freddie. That’s all.’
‘No—fact. If Cockerell was alive until the Tuesday when the Russian captain put in his complaint, there’d have been no evidence of his last meal in Portsmouth still in his stomach—he died within an hour of finishing his blasted kedgeree. For all I know the Russians stuck him in the fridge for six days, but he was dead when they got him. And he was dead because you couldn’t take the risk of him telling them the truth about your network. I’ve read Cockerell’s insurance policy, Charlie. His last will and testament. He only wrote it because he didn’t trust you. He knew it couldn’t stop him being killed; it could only make life hell for you and Cobb afterwards. He names seven agents on your payroll. Some bloke in GCHQ, an old don at Cambridge to spot likely undergraduates, a couple of minor civil servants at the War Office, whom you appear to be blackmailing, two MPs and a dotty lord. Now, how many have you told the Russians you’ve got? Twelve? Twenty? Because you’re pushing more money through Cockerell’s books than you could ever spend on that threadbare list of would-be traitors. And where does the rest of the money go?’
Troy paused, but Charlie volunteered nothing.
‘Do you remember when you last borrowed money from me? I do. It was the summer of 1951. You paid me back the same year—in cash, and you never asked for money again. You and Cobb are skimming like a pair of cheap croupiers. You pocket the money that the Russians think is going to your list of phoney agents.’
‘It wasn’t my idea, Freddie. Give me some credit. I believe in what I’m doing. It was Cobb. And I didn’t tell Cobb to kill Cockerell. He acted on his own.’
‘I don’t believe you. “They’re so damn greedy. A greedy man is a weak man.”’
‘Eh?’
‘That’s what you said ten minutes ago. You were describing Cobb, but I think it sums you up rather well too. You’ve always been profligate, Charlie. That’s the next thing to being greedy.’
‘Freddie. I did not kill Cockerell. Cobb killed him off his own bat. Just like he killed Jessel and Madeleine Kerr.’
‘Was it his idea to kill Johnny Fermanagh and snatch Tosca too?’
‘What?’
‘Was it his idea to beat Johnny Fermanagh to death and snatch Tosca?’
It seemed to Troy that this must be the make or break question. There they were, each on the edge of their seats, shouting in each other’s faces. But, it should somehow make a difference to the inevitable end of their friendship if Charlie would answer ‘yes’.
The question seemed to halt Charlie in his anger. He looked baffled and his mouth opened soundlessly. Troy never got an answer. Cobb lumbered round the corner from the front of the house, as Troy always knew he would, aiming for them in huge strides, an errant sunbeam breaking the clouds to pick him out like limelight, big feet thudding down like shire hooves, all that grim determination screwed up into an ugly scowl.
Charlie got to his feet.
‘No, Norman. No!’
But Cobb was not listening.
‘I’ve had enough of this bloody farce.’
Cobb reached into his jacket with his right hand, to grasp the Browning sleeping snugly in its leather holster in the armpit of his generously tailored suit. A double-breasted suit may flatter the bigger man, may smooth out the bulge of a concealed weapon, but it adds precious fractions of a second to the action Cobb attempted. Before his hand could clear his lapel once more Troy had shot him five times through the heart.
He had not been wholly sure he could do it.
The Mauser had nestled under the cushion of his chair most of the afternoon, and he had slipped it into his waistband as he sat down. He had taken it off its wooden pegs that morning, felt its weight and wondered. There was ammunition, years old but sound, in the bottom drawer of the old man’s desk. Troy had loaded the gun and found it heavier, longer than any gun he had ever wielded. Worse, his father had been right-handed, and Troy was left-handed, and whilst this mattered not a damn with ninety-nine guns in a hundred, the Mauser, as his wife had so vividly demonstrated, was designed as a cavalry weapon to be cocked by a roll on the thigh as the arm came upwards from a saddle holster. Hence there were models with the hammer on the left, for right-handed people, and, rarely, models with the hammer on the right for left-handed people. He could not draw the gun in any conventional way. He had settled on sticking it in his waistband, in the small of his back with the butt facing to the left. With a little practice he could draw the gun left-handed, cock it almost on the hip as he pulled it up and under and shoot with it held sideways, hammer uppermost, sights to the right—and he found he could do it quickly. But, he had wondered, how quickly would he have to do it?
Every rook in every tree squawked skyward. Cobb fell like an oak struck by lightning—he did not crumple or cry out, but keeled over bac
kwards, with a crash that shook the ground. His hand flew clear of his jacket, the arm extended at right angles to his torso, still clutching the Browning.
Troy had not anticipated the effects of recoil. He had squeezed the trigger and half the magazine had discharged, and the force of it had knocked him off his feet and onto his knees. He put his weight on his right hand. Cobb was still. Stretched out cruciform. He looked to Charlie and found that he, too, was on his knees only a yard away, his face buried in his hands, and a sodden whisper of ‘Jesus, Jesus’ seeking through the mask he had made for himself.
Troy levelled the gun on him, saw an eye open and peep between the fingers like a child pretending to be invisible.
Cobb rattled as his last breath escaped his throat. Troy kept his eyes on Charlie, whipped the gun sideways, shot Cobb once through the forehead, and put the gun back on Charlie.
‘Look at me, Charlie,’ Troy said.
Charlie took his hands from his face, still whispering ‘Jesus, Jesus’ to himself like a fragment of half-remembered prayer, the magic word to undo all he had seen. His cheeks were glazed with tears.
‘Look at me, Charlie.’
Charlie looked up at Troy, then glanced at Cobb as though confirming the worst, then looked back at Troy, still propped up on his right arm, still aiming the gun at him.
‘In case you’re wondering,’ Troy said breathily, ‘it’s an 1896 Mauser Conehammer semi-automatic machine pistol. It holds ten. I rather think I just put six into the late Cobb. Whatever you’re carrying, take it out and throw it on the lawn.’