by John Gardner
1
During his last five-year stint in Berlin, Naldo Railton had worked out of an anonymous grey building, close to Gatow Airfield. There, as assistant to the SIS resident, his cover was diplomatic. Most of his time was spent in the field, though he remained directly responsible for ten operational case officers, around a hundred technicians, drivers, and desk jockeys, analysts, cipher clerks and the like, who made up the bulk of the Secret Intelligence Service’s presence in Berlin.
Throughout his tour, Naldo became almost paranoid over the use of tradecraft. He practised it day and night, asleep or awake, twenty-four hours a day, every day. This was no game, from which some field agents got a buzz. Naldo, like his father and uncle before him, saw tradecraft as a way of life. A highly skilled agent had once told him that tradecraft should be second nature — ‘You don’t go into a country where cholera or typhoid are rife without taking the normal medical precautions,’ this man had said. ‘You make sure you get your shots. Sure, you might still get the damned disease, but you stand more chance of remaining immune and alive if you’ve done something about it.’ Some people in the trade thought the rituals were a joke. Anyone serving under Naldo who showed a casual or flippant nature towards the everyday practice of their craft was in for a pasting.
The return to England, while not unexpected, had made him edgy and frustrated, but he still behaved exactly as he had done in the field. Those who could see it, whispered that he was ‘Wall-happy’. Naldo Railton was subject to the twitch, ready for retirement into some backwater of the service. So murmured the mighty wurlitzer, as they called HQ rumours: a double-edged nickname, for it mirrored a long-running American intelligence media story-planting operation.
Indeed, after the normal month-long debrief at Warminster, while Barbara worked on refurbishing the house near Kensington Gardens, nobody appeared to have any serious occupation for Naldo at the shop. The shop was a high-rise building overlooking the Thames, housing the headquarters of the SIS, perched above the ground floor offices of a great oil company.
When the debrief was over, Naldo had found himself working from a small, cluttered office on the eighth floor, above the canteen. It was here that London watched over its operations within the Soviet Bloc countries, and Naldo was given a special responsibility for East Germany, the DDR, about which he knew a great deal.
Below, on the fifth floor, there was no worry about the mighty wurlitzer. In fact, the rumours could have been traced straight back to the CSS’s staff, who wanted people to believe Naldo was ready for retirement, possibly with a cut in pension. They had successfully propagated a similar whisper about Big Herbie Kruger, when, in fact, Herb worked from the Annexe with a special, and highly secret, title of Director Special Sources, East Germany. The powers on the fifth floor had initially planned that Naldo and Herbie would eventually work in double harness.
As far as Naldo was concerned, this small act of in-house disinformation had been abruptly aborted in late November. The reasons were dark, dubious, and not absolutely confirmed. But on the fifth floor nobody took chances any more. All they could do was slowly decrease the amount of classified material which passed across Naldo’s desk.
It was a situation which ran parallel to the events concerning Arnie Farthing in Washington, and had led, inevitably, to the painful interview in which Maitland-Wood laid the news before Naldo that his late uncle’s career was under investigation. He did not have to say that Naldo was also under the microscope, or that there was alarm because the surveillance team assigned to cover his recent trip to Berlin had lost him, somewhere along the Ku-dam, not picking him up again until he reached the safe house where he had spent the night with his source. The CSS’s special aides would have been even more worried had they known of certain events which had taken place, first, in mid-November, and again, just after Sir Caspar Railton’s death.
On Naldo and Barbara’s return from Berlin, Naldo’s parents had thrown a small party for them in London. A few weeks later, Sara and Dick did the same thing over a weekend at Redhill Manor. It was at this second party that Naldo’s father, James, arranged to dine with him a few weeks later.
They met and ate at the Reform Club. ‘I prefer it here to the Travellers,’ James told his son. ‘Not so many connections with past and present.’
‘Not to mention future,’ Naldo had said seriously. The Travellers was still known as the Foreign Office canteen and you could bet on at least four or five members of the Secret Intelligence Service being there at any given time.
After dinner they took coffee on the marbled balcony that runs around the first floor of the Reform, and it was at a secluded table that James told his son what was on his mind.
‘It’s your Uncle Caspar, Donald,’ he began. Only rarely did anyone call him Donald. Occasionally his father or mother would use the name, but he noticed it was usually when they were under stress.
‘Old Cas and I, we’re getting on,’ James said. ‘He’ll go first, no doubt about that. His doctors have been very open with him. He hasn’t got long. As for me, the first show took a lot out of me, and since the second unpleasantness I’ve begun to feel my age.’
‘Come on, Father, you’ve still got a lot of years left in you.’
‘Maybe. Yes, maybe, but I’m not as spry as I was and that worries me.’ He went on to tell Naldo, in confidence, what Caspar had prepared in his will. ‘Doesn’t want either of his sons to have the Eccleston Square property, that’s the top and bottom of it. He’s afraid Andrew, being the shrewd lawyer he is, would sell out; and he knows damned well that Alexander would do it without a second thought. He also knows old Phoebe wouldn’t want to stay on there without him, so he’s leaving the place to you, and your children, with the usual proviso that it doesn’t pass out of the family.’
Naldo lit a cigarette and blew smoke down his nostrils. ‘I thought Great-Uncle Giles made that proviso years ago.’
James nodded, ‘Well, he did. But Cas is concerned. Andrew’s such a clever bugger with the law that he reckons they’d be able to break the clause in no time.’
‘That all?’ Naldo asked gently.
‘No. No, there’s something connected with it, and it’s a matter for someone like you or I. Got to be in the trade, you see.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, Cas put me under discipline on this one, but I think I’ll have to let that go. Should tell him, but I think it’s best I don’t.’
‘You want to share it with me?’
‘More than share it.’ He fumbled in the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a bulky, thick manilla envelope which he passed across the table. It was heavy, and Naldo heard a jingle, and felt metal inside.
‘One full set of keys to Eccleston Square.’ His father’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘If your Uncle Cas dies suddenly he wants me to take certain actions. As I said, I’m not as spry as I was. Could be that the opportunities for me to do as he asks will be limited. You’re a different matter. I’m passing his instructions to you. There’s a note of the safe combination in there as well. I’d memorize it then destroy, if I were you.’
‘Right.’ Naldo knew there was no arguing with his father. ‘Tell me what’s to be done, and I’ll do it.’
It took twenty minutes for James to go through all the points. When he was finished he made Naldo repeat everything.
When Caspar died, only a few weeks later, Naldo carried out the orders to the letter, and knew his father had done the right thing. There was no way in which James could have followed Caspar Railton’s instructions.
As it turned out, the news of Caspar’s death, in the Travellers Club, after lunch in the first week of December, reached the shop long before anyone else. Sir Caspar had been with other old friends and one of them had the presence of mind to telephone the duty officer even before the ambulance arrived. It took less than ten minutes, from the DO receiving the call, to Naldo getting the news from C himself.
He tried to call his cousin Andrew, but
he was in court. A message would have to be taken to him by hand. ‘And I can’t be certain he’ll leave straight away,’ the clerk said. ‘It’s a very important case.’
So much for filial love and responsibility, Naldo thought, and telephoned Alexander in Cheltenham. He would leave as quickly as possible, but could not expect to be in London for three hours at the soonest. ‘Has Mother been told?’ At least he asked that. Naldo told him, no, and he was to leave that to his father’s old firm.
C came with Naldo, who had taken the precaution of telephoning Dick and Sara first. Together, they broke the news. Phoebe was herself a sick woman, and Naldo could not recall seeing anyone else take news of a death so badly. Now he knew what ‘prostrate with grief’ really meant. She made wild statements; asked foolish questions. ‘Is Alex coming back? Has James been told? I think Alex phoned James.’
C quickly melted away when Andrew arrived, with his wife, and together they made the arrangements. Alexander eventually got in from Cheltenham, and the two sons and one daughter-in-law set off in convoy to take their mother to Haversage, and from there to Redhill. Everyone knew that Caspar would be buried with the rest of the family at Haversage.
‘I’ll have to come back to London tonight,’ Andrew had said petulantly before they left. ‘It’s just like Father to die when I’m in the middle of an important case. Difficult judge as well.’
‘Your father has died, Andrew. For God’s sake …’
‘It isn’t as though we weren’t expecting it.’ Andrew was putting on weight. When he stood upright the pot belly showed, even through his dark overcoat. ‘He’s been living on borrowed time for years. I don’t know if I can cope with Mother doing her deathbed scene either.’
Naldo kept his temper in check. ‘I don’t suppose your mother’ll want to return here for some time,’ he said, grit in his throat. ‘I should lock the place and activate the alarms if I were you.’
‘No, you’re not me, Naldo. Thank God. And thank God I’m not you. You would think of that, making sure the alarms’re on. It’s the bloody filthy trade you and my father shared.’
‘Actually, I was thinking about criminal activity,’ Naldo said rather primly, and Andrew moved away to the car in which his mother sat, shocked, cradled in her daughter-in-law’s arms. When he returned, Andrew curtly said Naldo had better come with him, they’d do the whole thing together. ‘And you can hold on to the bloody keys. The old man’s left the place to you, I gather,’ Andrew snapped.
‘I’d rather you kept the keys. At least until everything’s been settled.’
‘Mother can have them, then. Place’ll cost you a bloody fortune to run.’
They went through the business and drove away, the two cars moving off into the traffic with none of the occupants giving Naldo a wave or look.
Later that same night, Naldo returned to Eccleston Square with his own set of keys, and several items he had collected on the way. He switched off the alarm system and went straight to the Hide, the study on the first floor. It had been called the Hide, so family legend went, by his great-uncle, Giles Railton — a large room with an unusually big desk and a strange built-in filing cabinet. The cabinet contained drawers full of miniature soldiers — armies which went back to Roman and ancient Greek times, with all the accoutrements of war through the ages, from siege towers and ballistae to the howitzers and field guns just coming into service before the First World War. There were also large rolled, handmade maps showing the terrain of hundreds of great campaigns. Giles Railton had claimed that re-enacting the battles from the past helped him plan a secret strategy in his present. Naldo knew these things were, now, most precious, worth thousands of pounds in the specialist field of war-gaming. Uncle Caspar had toyed with them, and he could recall being in the Hide as a child, with his father and Caspar as they tried to relive battles.
For the moment, though, he did not open the tall cabinet. Instead he pulled on a pair of woollen gloves, knelt on the floor, close to the window, and manipulated the tumblers and lock on an elderly, heavy Chubb safe. The mechanism was well oiled and the door swung back without a sound. Ten minutes later he had been through everything, removing the long metal strong-box, opening it with a key from the house set provided by his father, and adding to its contents from the many bundles of papers neatly stacked on the metal shelves of the safe.
He closed the safe, turned the key and spun the dial. Then Naldo went through the house, unlocking doors, then closing and locking them again. As he went, he left a small but unobtrusive trail: on the hinge side of the Hide’s door, a splinter of matchstick, tiny and crushed into the jamb; over the lock of the master bedroom, a hair from his own head, pressed into place with two pin-heads of wax. On the carpet, across the locked doorway of his uncle’s old smoking room, he laid a tiny piece of cotton, matching the carpet itself, but left in such a way that it would be moved should the door be unlocked and opened. There was a sliver of paper tucked into another lock; another shaving of matchstick jammed into one of the doors downstairs, and telltale sprinkles of breadcrumbs, fresh on the stairs, invisible unless you went down on your hands and knees to look.
He set further traps, on the rear door and the windows, sprinkling an almost invisible powder, a fine aerosol foot spray he had discovered in Germany, inside the door and along the sills. He also did this to the front door interior, and, in the sixty seconds between setting the alarms and leaving, he arranged more small pieces of cotton.
As he drove away, on that night, he patted the strong-box on the passenger seat beside him. He had undertaken not to examine the files and other items locked away in the box except in specific circumstances.
Now, as he stood waiting for the lift, Naldo decided the time was almost right for the opening of the box.
2
The telephone rang three times during the morning. Emma answered the first call and shouted to Barbara, ‘Daddy’s not in, is he?’
‘’Fraid not. For him? Let me have it.’ She took the instrument. The voice at the distant end was cockney. ‘Just wanted a word with Mr Railton, like.’
‘Sorry, he’s out all day. Can I get him to ring you?’
‘Nah, I’ll ring back. Maybe tonight. Cheers,’ and the line closed.
Barbara answered the second call, just after eleven. She knew immediately that it was long-distance, from Europe. The line had that odd echo. She said ‘Hello’ three times. Then, ‘Who is it?’ before she heard a receiver go down. But she instinctively felt the line was still open. It was as though her senses could detect another ear listening.
The third call came just after midday.
‘Barbara?’ he said, as though uncertain of her voice.
‘Yes, who —?’
‘Philip. Look I’m calling from home. From Lavenham. I can only stay on a minute. Just wanted to hear your voice.’
‘Philip! What the hell’re you playing at?’ She was angry, and had felt used after the odd call to his Hans Crescent number. Yet, now, as she heard his voice, she felt a twinge low down within her. Almost a pain. A desire. For a second, in her confusion, she did not even hear what he was saying. She had a need and desire for Naldo, yet this was different, as though the very fact of it being illicit made it more urgent.
‘What d’ you mean, what am I playing at?’
‘Your Hans Crescent number.’
‘What about it?’
‘I rang there. Stupid, silly thing to do. Just wanted to hear the telephone ringing. They’d never heard of you at that number.’
‘That’s crazy, Barbara! Impossible! There hasn’t been anyone there since the crack of dawn yesterday. You must’ve been misrouted.’
‘They gave your number, Philip. I felt a fool. Some people called Barnes.’
‘And what was the number you rang?’
‘The same as I rang the night we went out.’
‘The number. Repeat it.’
‘One minute.’ She rummaged in her handbag for the little black address book. She had
copied the number across one of the blank back pages, disguising it with doodles and other numbers. She had not lived with Naldo without learning some tricks. (Whose number’s this? Let me see. Haven’t got a clue. Some party guest, I reckon. Couldn’t have been important. There’s no name next to it.) She read the number into the phone.
‘Barbara! You’ve got it wrong. Last two digits. They’re four-three, not three-four.’
‘But it’s the number I called you on the other night.’
‘Couldn’t have been. You must have reversed that last pair of digits when you dialled. You sure you’ve got them written down like that?’
She repeated them.
‘Well, you got them right the other night. Look, change them around now, so we get no more mistakes.’
She obeyed him automatically, then wondered why the hell she was doing this.
‘Philip,’ she said. ‘I really don’t think this is a very good idea.’
‘What?’
‘You ringing me like this.’
‘Why the hell not? I’m going to see you after Christmas, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. It’s …’
‘It was very good. It can be good again. Not as if we’re hurting anyone. I just called you to say I was thinking about you.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t.’
‘Well, I was, and I’ve rung you. I’ll ring again when I’m back in town. OK?’
She was silent, and he repeated the ‘OK?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘But I can’t promise to see you, Philip. I must go.’
‘See you soon. All my love.’
She dialled the Hans Crescent number again, this time reversing the last two digits. It rang and rang.
‘Nurrrp-Nurrrp,’ she said, half aloud, seeing the bedroom of his flat as clearly as she saw the embossed Sanderson’s wallpaper of her own hall. ‘What the hell!’ she slammed down the receiver. Naldo’s my husband. I love him like nobody else. I have nice kids. All this for a few minutes’ pleasure. It’s just the same thing with a different body. It’s nothing. Forget it. Eat. Lunch time.