Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

  ‘What is it we’re trying to hide, Bret?’ I asked.

  Bret rounded on me angrily. ‘For Christ’s sake…’ He went across the room, picked up his jacket and draped it over his arm. ‘Talk to him, Frank,’ he said. ‘I’m stepping outside for a moment. See if you can talk some sense into the man, will you?’

  Frank said nothing. He held the unlit pipe in his teeth for a moment before taking it from his mouth and staring at the tobacco. It was something to do while Bret Rensselaer went out and closed the door. Even then Frank took his time before saying, ‘We’ve known each other a long time.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Berlin: 1945. You were just beginning to walk. You were living at the top of Frau Hennig’s house. Your father was one of the first officers to get his family out to occupied Germany. I was touched by that, Bernard. So many of the other chaps preferred to be away from their families. They had the plush life of the conqueror. Big apartments, servants, booze, women – everything was available for a few cigarettes or a box of rations. But your father was an exception, Bernard. He wanted you and your mother there with him, and he moved heaven and hell to get you over there. I liked him for that, Bernard. And for much more.’

  ‘What is it you want to tell me, Frank?’

  ‘This business with your wife was a shock. It was a shock for you, and a shock for me. The whole department was caught napping, Bernard, and they are still smarting from the blow.’

  ‘And blaming me? So that’s it?’

  ‘No one’s blaming you, Bernard. As you told Bret just now, you’re the one who tipped us off. No one can blame you.’

  ‘But…Can I hear a “but” coming?’

  Frank fiddled with his pipe. ‘Let’s talk about this chap Stinnes,’ he said. ‘He was the officer who arrested you in East Berlin at the time of your wife’s defection?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And he was the interrogation officer too?’

  ‘I’ve been through all that with you, Frank,’ I said. ‘There was no proper interrogation. He’d had orders from Moscow to wait for Fiona to arrive.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ said Frank. ‘The point I’m making is that Stinnes is a senior officer with the KGB’s Berlin office.’

  ‘No doubt about that,’ I agreed.

  ‘Your wife is now working for the KGB in that same office?’

  ‘The current guess is that she’s in charge of it,’ I said.

  ‘And Stinnes is certain to be one of her senior staff members, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So Stinnes is the one person who knows about your wife’s defection and her present occupation. It’s even possible that he was concerned with her debriefing.’

  ‘Don’t keep going round and round in circles, Frank. Tell me what you’re trying to say.’

  Frank brandished the pipe at me and closed his eyes while he formulated his response. It was probably a mannerism that dated all the way back to his time at Oxford. ‘This chap Stinnes knows all about your wife’s defection and subsequent employment and he interrogated you. Since that time there has been a departmental alert for him. When he’s located in Mexico City why does Dicky Cruyer – the German Stations Controller, no less – go out there to look him over?’

  ‘We both know the answer to that one, Frank. Dicky loves free trips to anywhere. And this one got him out of the way while Bret chiselled a piece out of Dicky’s little empire.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Frank, in a way that made it clear that he didn’t agree with my interpretation of those events. ‘So why send you?’

  ‘Because I work with Dicky. With both of us out of the way Bret had a better excuse for “taking over some of the workload”.’ I imitated Bret’s voice.

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ said Frank. ‘They want to enrol Stinnes. That was a decision of the steering committee, and it’s been given urgent priority. They want Stinnes over here, spilling the beans to a debriefing panel.’

  ‘About Fiona?’

  ‘Yes, about your wife,’ said Frank. I noticed he always said ‘your wife’ since her defection. He couldn’t bring himself to use her name any more. ‘And about you.’

  ‘And about me?’

  ‘How long before the penny drops, Bernard? How long is it going to take you to understand that you must remain a suspect until you are cleared by first-class corroborative evidence?’

  ‘Wait a minute, Frank. Remember me? The one who tipped off the department about Fiona’s activities.’

  ‘But she’d made mistakes, Bernard. If you hadn’t raised the alarm, someone else would have done so sooner or later. So why not have you tell the department about her. And have it done the way Moscow Centre wanted it done?’

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘It doesn’t hold water, Frank.’

  ‘The way you did it gave her a chance to escape. She got away, Bernard. You sounded the alarm but don’t forget that in the event she had time enough to make her escape.’

  ‘There were a few sighs of relief at that, Frank. Some people around here would have done anything to avoid all the publicity of another spy trial. And putting Fiona on trial would have blown a hole in the department.’

  ‘Anyone heaving such sighs of relief is a bloody fool,’ said Frank. ‘She’s taken a pot full of gold with her. No secret papers, as far as we know, but her experience here will be worth a lot to them. You know that.’

  ‘And people are saying that I deliberately arranged her escape?’ I was indignant and incredulous.

  Frank could see how furious I was, and hastily he said, ‘No one is accusing you of anything, but we must examine every possibility. Every possibility. That’s our job, Bernard. If your wife was due to go into the bag anyway, why not arrange for you to tell us? In that way the KGB lose one highly placed agent but have another in position in the same office. And the second agent’s credentials are gilt-edged; didn’t he even turn in his own wife?’

  ‘Is that why they want to enrol Stinnes?’

  ‘I thought you’d understand that right from the start. Bringing Stinnes in for interrogation is the one way that you can prove that everything went the way you say it went.’

  ‘And if I don’t bring him in?’

  Frank tapped the bowl of his pipe against his thumbnail. ‘You’re not doing yourself any good by saying that Stinnes can’t be enrolled. Surely you see that.’

  ‘I’m just saying what I believe.’

  ‘Well, dammit, Bernard, stop saying what you believe. Or the department will think you don’t want us to get our hands on Stinnes.’

  ‘The department can think what the hell it likes,’ I said.

  ‘That’s foolish talk, Bernard. Stinnes would be a plum defector for us. But the real reason that the department is spending all this time and money is because they think so highly of you. It’s principally because they want to keep you that they are pushing the Stinnes enrolment.’

  Frank had the diplomatic touch, but it didn’t change the underlying facts. ‘It makes me bloody angry, Frank.’

  ‘Don’t be childish,’ said Frank. ‘No one really suspects you. It’s just a formality. They haven’t even put you on a restricted list for secret information. So much of the difficulty arises from the way that you and Fiona had such a happy marriage, that’s the absurd thing about it. One only had to see you together to know that you were both in love. Happy marriage; promising career; delightful children. If you’d had constant arguments and separations, it would be easier to see you as the wronged party – and politically uninvolved.’

  ‘And if we don’t enrol Stinnes? What then, if we don’t enrol him?’

  ‘It will be difficult to keep you in Operations if we don’t enrol Stinnes.’

  ‘And I know what that implies.’ I remembered a few employees whom Internal Security considered unsuitable for employment in Operations. It was chilling to remember those people who’d had their security ratings downgraded in midc
areer. The periodic routine checks were usually the cause. That’s what turned up the discreet homosexuals who weekended with young Spanish waiters, and lesbians sharing apartments with ladies who turned out not to be their cousins. And there were younger people who’d conveniently forgotten being members of international friendship societies while students. Societies which had the words ‘freedom’, ‘peace’ and ‘life’ in their articles so that anyone who opposed them would be associated with incarceration, war and death. Or had joined other such innocuous-sounding gatherings, which locate themselves conveniently near universities and provide coffee and buns and idealistic talk from respectably dressed foreign visitors. I knew that such downgraded rejects found themselves working the SIS end of an embassy in Central Africa or checking Aeroflot cargo manifests at London Airport.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about having to leave Operations,’ said Frank. ‘You’ll get Stinnes. Now you understand what’s involved, you’ll get him. I’m confident of that, Bernard.’

  There seemed to be nothing more to say. But as I got up from my chair Frank said, ‘I had a word with the D-G last night. I was having drinks at his place and a number of things came into the conversation…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re all concerned about you and the problem of looking after the children, Bernard.’

  ‘The only problem is money,’ I said sharply.

  ‘We all know that, Bernard. It’s money I’m talking about. The D-G has looked into the possibility of giving you a special allowance. The diplomatic service has something called “Accountable Indirect Representational Supplement”. Only a bureaucrat could think up a name like that, eh? It reimburses the cost of a nanny, so that children are taken care of while diplomats and wives attend social functions. Diplomats also have “Boarding School Allowance”. I’m not sure how much that would come to, but it would probably ease your financial situation somewhat. It might take a bit of time to come through; that’s the only snag.’

  ‘I’m not sending the children to boarding school.’

  ‘Relax, Bernard. You’re too damned prickly these days. No one is going to come snooping round you to find out what kind of school your children are attending. The D-G simply wants to find a way to help. He wants a formula that’s already acceptable. An ex gratia payment would not be the way he’d want to do it. If anyone discovered an ex gratia payment going directly to an employee, it could blow up into a scandal.’

  ‘I’m grateful, Frank.’

  ‘Everyone is sympathetic, Bernard.’ He put his tobacco pouch in his pocket. His pipe was still unlit. ‘And, by the way, Stinnes is back in Berlin. He’s been in the West Sector to visit your friends the Volkmanns…Mrs Volkmann, in particular. I thought you’d like to know that.’

  Frank Harrington had had an affair with Zena Volkmann and there was bad feeling between him and Werner that dated from long before. I wondered if Frank was telling me about Stinnes as some sort of reproach to Werner, who’d not reported it. ‘Yes, I’ll follow that up, Frank. I will have to go to Berlin. It’s just a matter of fitting it in.’

  I left Frank to tell Bret that he’d done what was wanted. He’d drawn a diagram so simple that even I could understand it. Then he’d written detailed captions under all the component parts.

  I went to my office and sent for a young probationer named Julian MacKenzie. ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘No, the nurses at St Mary Abbots don’t wear the uniform you described and they don’t change shifts at eight forty-five. And there is no coloured woman, of any age, known to the residents of the block opposite your house.’

  ‘That was very quick, MacKenzie.’

  ‘I thought it was pretty good myself, boss.’ MacKenzie was an impertinent little sod who’d come down from Cambridge with an honours in modern languages, got the A1 mark that the Civil Service Selection Board usually reserve for friends and relations, and had been a probationer with the department for a few months. It was a record of achievement made even more remarkable by the fact that MacKenzie, despite his Scottish name, had a strong Birmingham accent. His ambition was such that he would work hard and long, and never ask questions nor expect me to give him signed authorizations for each little job. Also his insubordinate attitude to all and sundry amused me.

  ‘I’d really like to get into fieldwork. How can I start on that? Any hints and tips, boss?’ This had now become a standard inquiry.

  ‘Yes, comb your hair now and again, change your shirt every day and introduce an obsequious note into your social exchanges with the senior staff.’

  ‘I’m not joking.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ I assured him. ‘But, while you’re here, what’s the last name of that girl Gloria. That typist who used to work for Mr Rensselaer?’

  ‘The gorgeous blonde job with the big knockers?’

  ‘You have such a delicate way of phrasing everything, MacKenzie. Yes, that’s who I mean. I haven’t seen her lately. Where is she working now?’

  ‘Her name’s Kent, Gloria Kent. Her father is a dentist. She’s very keen on ballroom dancing and water skiing. But she’s not a typist, she’s a Grade 9 executive officer. She’s hoping to fiddle one of those departmental grants to go to university. And what’s more she speaks fluent Hungarian.’ He grinned. ‘Ambition drives us all. I’d say Miss Kent is hankering after a career in the service, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’re a mine of information, MacKenzie. Is her father Hungarian?’

  ‘You guessed. And she lives with her parents, miles out in the sticks. No joy for you there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’re an impertinent little sod, MacKenzie.’

  ‘Yes, I know, sir. You told me that the other day. She’s working in Registry at present, the poor little thing. It’s only my daily trips down there to see her among the filing cabinets that keeps her sane.’

  ‘Registry, eh?’ It was the most unpopular job in the department and nearly one-third of all the staff were employed there. The theory was that the computer in the Data Centre would gradually replace the thousands of dusty files, and Registry would eventually disappear. But, true to the rules of all bureaucracy, the staff at the Data Centre grew and grew but the staff in Registry did not decrease.

  ‘She’d like working up here with you, sir. I know she’d give anything for a job with any member of the Operations staff.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Almost anything, sir,’ said MacKenzie. He winked. ‘According to what I hear.’

  I phoned the old dragon who ran Registry and told her I wanted Miss Kent to work for me for a few days. When she came up to the office I showed her the great pile of papers due for filing. They’d been stacking up in the cupboard for months, and my own secretary was pleased to see the task taken off her hands.

  Gloria Kent was tall. She was slim and long-legged and about twenty years old. Her hair was the colour of pale straw. It was wavy but loose enough to fall across her forehead, short but long enough to touch the roll neck of her dark-brown sweater. She had large brown eyes and long lashes and a wide mouth. If Botticelli had painted the box top for a Barbie doll the picture would have looked like Gloria Kent. And yet she was not doll-like. There was nothing diminutive about her. And she didn’t bow her head, the way so many tall women do to accommodate themselves to the egos of shorter men they find around them. And it was her straight-backed posture – for her use of make-up was minimal – that gave her the appearance of a chorus girl rather than a civil servant.

  She’d been sorting out the files for about an hour when she said, ‘Will I be going back to work in Registry?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Miss Kent,’ I said. ‘We’re both working for Mr Cruyer. He makes all the decisions.’

  ‘He’s the Controller of German Stations,’ she said, giving Dicky his official title. ‘So that’s my department, is it?’

  ‘The German Desk, we usually call it,’ I said. ‘Everything’s in a turmoil up here at present, I’m afraid.’

  ‘
I know. I was working for Mr Rensselaer. But that only lasted ten days. Then his Economics Intelligence Committee had no more work for me. I did odd bits of typing for people on the top floor, then I was sent down to Registry.’

  ‘And you don’t like Registry?’

  ‘No one likes it. There’s no daylight and the fluorescent lighting makes me so tired. And you get so dirty handling those files all day. You should see my hands when I go home at night. When I get home I can’t wait to strip right off and have a bath.’

  I took a deep breath and said, ‘You won’t get so dirty up here, I hope.’

  ‘It’s a treat to see the daylight, Mr Samson.’

  ‘No one round here calls me anything but Bernard,’ I said. ‘So it might be easier if you did the same.’

  ‘And I’m Gloria,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘And by the way, Gloria, Mr Cruyer always likes to meet his staff socially. Every now and again he has a few members of the staff along to his house for an informal dinner and a chat.’

  ‘Well, I think that’s very nice,’ said Gloria. She smoothed her skirt over her hips.

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘We all appreciate it. And the fact is that he has one of these dinners on Thursday. And he made a special point of saying that he’d like you to be there.’

  ‘Thursday. That’s rather short notice,’ she said. She moved her head to let her hair swing and touched it as if already calculating when to go to the hairdresser’s.

  ‘If you have something more important to do, I know he’ll understand.’

  ‘It would sound terrible, though, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t sound terrible. I’d explain to him that you had some other appointment that you couldn’t give up.’