by Bill James
‘I think I might have seen something about your daughter’s career in a couple of the gossip columns,’ Ian said, ‘but, obviously, I didn’t know who she was then.’
‘“The fascinating and pert Daphne West” as one of them called her,’ Emily said.
‘What do you call her?’ Ian said.
‘Just Daphne,’ Emily said. ‘That’s her real first name.’
‘But not West?’ Ian said.
‘Skeeth and his brother Leonard – MD of Skeeth Construction – are two of the people we think could be interested in a coup, the sort we’re talking about,’ Bain replied. Their motives might not be entirely bad. They want stability; they need guaranteed order for the Skeeth interests to thrive in. They seemingly don’t believe the government, or even an alternative government in present circumstances, can produce that stability, that guaranteed orderliness.’
‘Ah, I get it,’ Ian said.
‘Milton and Leonard are under what we hope is covert watch,’ Bain said.
‘You see, Ian, I get reports from some of our operatives about my own daughter,’ Emily said sadly, ‘as one of several women Milton Skeeth is seeing. It’s not sweet. And she talks about him to me. I don’t mean she deliberately informs, but she discusses their relationship and, of course, she’s occasionally telling me more than she realizes.’
‘It’s all very delicate,’ Bain said.
‘Sounds agonizing,’ Ian said.
‘Yes, it is,’ Emily said.
‘What we have to take into account is that some people – some business people, for instance, some moneybags people – agree absolutely that Eden must go, not at all because he committed Britain to an unlawful war in Suez,’ Bain said. ‘The reverse. They gun for him because he turned pathetically indecisive once the fight began,’ Emily said. ‘They consider the invasion entirely justified. As obligatory, in fact. The Suez Canal they regard as vital to Britain’s, and therefore their own, wealth. As they see it, Nasser will interfere with the canal’s free flow of shipping. So, attack and get rid of him. To them, the logic looks simple. If you’ve got a lot of boodle and assets and someone seems to be threatening them, the reaction does tend to be simple: you try to protect yourself by any means you can. One of those means ought to be the Prime Minister of Britain, in their view. This Prime Minister has failed, though – also in their view. He was, apparently, a gallant soldier in the Great War, but has either lost his touch, or isn’t suited to taking the great policy decisions and following them through.’
Emily said: ‘They believe Eden has buckled pathetically. Even treasonably.’ She seemed to have switched back to the large political picture as a relief from discussing Daphne. ‘They think he’s turned yellow because the United States hints it might refuse support for sterling unless Britain pulls back her troops. I’ve heard talk of impeachment. Not a real option. But, in any case, they want him out and someone tougher – someone who understands business and trade better – they want a replacement like that to take power temporarily, until the crisis is settled in our – GB’s – favour. And above all, their personal favour.
‘It wouldn’t necessarily be a substitute produced by conventional democratic methods – almost certainly would not be – but a grand vizier used to leadership, perhaps with royal connections, a figurehead capable of decisive thought and action in defence of traditional British interests, the traditional British interests being mainly, though not totally, commercial. There’s also a pride aspect. “Can a country like GB get messed about by Egypt, for God’s sake?” they ask. “By Egypt! No, sir, never!”’
‘Lord Mountbatten, for instance,’ Bain said. ‘Or Lord Mivale, the Oxford Economics don.’
‘It seems preposterous,’ Ian said. But, repeat question, was he naive, outdated?
‘My daughter doesn’t know the kind of work I do,’ Emily said. ‘Obviously, she does know I’ve a government consultancy job and that my line is Personnel, but not the kind of Personnel. I can’t tell her what we have on Milton Skeeth, or think we have, and that we’ll be trying for more. Even if I did, it probably wouldn’t make her drop him. She’s strong-minded and independent, not disposed to take that kind of advice from her mother. Few girls would. They’d see it as meddling by a croulante, an ancient old wreck. I’m not sure whether Daphne knows about the other women. In any case, Skeeth’s love life is not our concern, even if my daughter’s involved. We are interested in him for other reasons.’
Ian thought she might like to believe this, but it was obviously not true. Although she and Bain were interested in Skeeth for other reasons than his love life, the fact that Daphne West figured as part of that love life troubled Emily, perhaps even affected how she would run the department’s investigation of Skeeth, maybe tied her hands.
And this might be why she and Bain needed Ian. He thought he could see how they would want to use him. He thought, too, that Emily might guess he’d pick up on Daphne’s age, apply some simple maths and start wondering – feel compelled to help. Family. Noose.
ELEVEN
Saturday morning, dawn start, Ian went on a badger hunt, most likely illegal under animal-cruelty laws. Badgers shouldn’t be persecuted with dogs. They were amiable, handsome animals loved by everyone who’d read Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, where Mr Badger came over as a wise, gruff, solid, kindly character. Didn’t he welcome Rat and Mole into his home when they were lost and desperate in the Wild Wood? There was even a move to make badgers a protected species. To dig for one, let alone kill or injure it, would be a crime. Not yet.
The badger setts – their elaborate, wide-mouthed and obvious burrows – were strung out on a long grassy bank near a small wood on the edge of a cooperative farmer’s land. He blind-eyed these hunts. To him and his neighbours, badgers rated as pests, bringing TB to their herds. The four hunters carried a couple of spades, a locater instrument like a Geiger counter, and two long steel probes to push into the tunnel network and listen.
Ian didn’t reread The Wind in the Willows as preparation for the hunt, but a pamphlet on the kind of dogs used. He had to get familiarized. He had to blend with the badgerers. On the face of it, he’d be the hunters’ guest, keen to learn. He’d discovered how much the dogs were revered, and once he’d watched what some had to do, he understood why. They starred. They carried the risk: the pair of Jack Russells, Belle and Daisy; a Border terrier, Kate; and two Patterdales, Napoleon and Bert, kept on the leash. Kate wore a special collar that signalled from underground so the huntsmen could guess the dogs’ position: vital once they cornered the prey, because in any prolonged scrap below the badger would win and the dogs get bitten or clawed to death; or shoved under soil and suffocated. It was bred into badgers how to deal with invading dogs deep down and in the dark, and sometimes the quarry would triumph.
At first they put the Jack Russells in – undreamy, short-legged rough-house dogs who’d obviously seen it all before. They’d take on anything, and pushed down hard and quick into the sett. The badger might turn and clobber them, finale blows. The prey was bigger than them, hefty in the paw with jaws that didn’t mess around, a wily subterranean, used to the lack of light.
Immediately the men on the surface knew the target animal and dogs had met and where, the hunters rushed to dig a vertical shaft down to it. When the badger was exposed like this at the bottom of the hole, the Patterdale surface dogs, bigger animals, could pitch in and help. It might take ten minutes or more to reach the underground battle, all four men working hard in relays with the spades.
So, the two Jack Russells – short-legged, bandy, fearless, frantically energetic – had raced into one of the sett’s openings as soon as they arrived. Kate went down soon after. For a couple of minutes, there was no noise as the underground search started, then barking followed by a heavy thumping sound. It must mean one or more of the dogs and the badger had joined and were sparring. Len and Malcolm listened on the probes at two of the sett entrances trying to pinpoint. The locator, held by
Jeff, started a loud, continuous buzz. He moved about like a diviner until the din got to what he regarded as maximum. Ian guessed the badger was cornered in a cul-de-sac tunnel and had turned to fight off the terriers.
Len and Malcolm forgot their probes and very urgent, almost feverish, excavating started. Norman Vernon Towler helped. If the shaft wasn’t absolutely accurate they’d have wasted that much time and that much energy and would have to try another dig at once. By then, the dogs would be near exhaustion and at big risk. The badger was on its natural ground, in its private domain, and could smash intruders as of right. A badger’s home was its castle. Jeff had told Ian how they’d lost a Jack Russell in a sett not long ago because the locator failed and they were forced to operate by instinct; wrong instinct, as it turned out. They’d found the dog smothered.
Jeff was Jeffrey David Dill, thirty-one, burly, fresh-faced, fair-haired, no criminal record, unmarried, school leaver at sixteen, trade-union shop steward, two younger brothers, no criminal records, father and mother living on a council estate in Bristol, no criminal records, Baptists, lapsed.
When Ray Bain had ultimately unlocked his chained briefcase and opened it in Mooney’s bar, he brought out a file of the Skeeth operation to date. Jeffrey David Dill was one of the names recorded and backgrounded there. ‘We believe the revolution/coup planners have people in various parts of the country who’ll run anti-government, anti-Eden, protests when the time’s considered right to signal general unrest. The aim is to make a takeover appear justified and necessary, even inevitable,’ Emily had said. ‘The coup chiefs will look like saviours. It’s a traditional ploy by insurgents: Robespierre, Musso, Adolf. Dill’s one of these potential stirrers. We’ve watched him for a while. He works in an automotive parts factory and is used to organizing the workforce. Probably best to get to him when he’s relaxed, off-duty. Some weekends he goes badger hunting with pals.’
‘Len Gale, Malcolm Ivins, Norman Vernon Towler,’ Bain said.
‘If you could talk your way into joining them you might be able to get on matey terms with Dill,’ Emily said. ‘I don’t pretend it’s simple or easy. But they’re very proud of their dogs. Ray has the names and breeds. Throw the pooch praise around. They’ll accept you, maybe. Then you can sneak on to wider topics with Dill.’
Ian had sensed from near the start what Bain and Emily hoped to get from him. It was devious and clever. Ian might have expected something like that from Ray. Emily could manage it, too, apparently. They wanted Ian, as a freelance reporter who necessarily knew all the Press markets, to follow up leads from their investigation. They’d like him to publish in one or more newspapers an article, or articles, about the organization of a projected putsch. This sudden, unforeseen and basically hostile exposure would ruin its timetable, identify and target its leaders, probably kill it off. And if Emily’s daughter didn’t already know of Milton Skeeth’s involvement she’d find out about it now, without Emily herself having to breach security rules of the trade to tell her. It was personal, but it was professional, too.
‘This would make a splash newspaper piece, wouldn’t it, Ian?’ Bain said.
‘Or more than one,’ Emily said. ‘You could bring about immense political and even military change. It’s what a responsible Press in a democracy is for, isn’t it?’
Possibly. But it wasn’t the role of a responsible Press to do fetch-and-carry dirty work for the security services. He felt as though Emily and Ray Bain had wanted to recruit him in straightforward, ‘unconditional’ style to their outfit, and, having got nowhere, were now trying a more devious, compromise method.
‘Law and order, Ian,’ Bain said. ‘Democracy can function properly only when those essentials are in place. You and your newspaper of choice will be helping to preserve these. It would be a vital contribution.’
Yes, this was probably true – if, and triple if, their reading of the political crisis made sense. They did present a good case. And then, also, and very weighty, there was the matter of the mighty debt he owed them both. The noose again – gratitude. He could follow a badger hunt over no matter what kind of ground. He had both his legs in full.
But he hadn’t felt like committing himself, just the same.
‘L-J. – Lorna-Jane Underhill – wanted to give the tale to Sefton Delmer on the Express, but we stopped that,’ Bain said. ‘It seemed so right for you. Charlie backed us.’
‘It’s good of you all,’ Ian said.
‘Make a start with Dill and his friends,’ Bain said. He returned the file to its briefcase and re-locked the chain to his wrist.
‘You’d be helping us, Ian,’ Emily said, ‘and doing yourself some good as a brilliantly vigilant and constructive reporter, wouldn’t you?’
Maybe. Not if their scenario of future events proved to be only that – a scenario, prompted by a half-baked, half-daft urge to see the crisis of 1956 as a repeat of something allegedly – very allegedly – similar twenty years ago. He was fond of Emily and Bain, and did owe them something. But that must not mean he had to shut down his mind, ditch all sensible judgement. And his judgement said that no editor would buy their idea. If a paper did show a morsel of interest and the whole business then turned out to be eyewash and impossible to verify, the blame would stick for months, or for ever, to Ian. A colourful account of his stupidity would get around Fleet Street to every national paper via bar talk at the Press Club. Future work would get to be very scarce. Credibility in his byline would be terminated.
Bain’s car and driver were waiting when they left Mooney’s. ‘We’ll take you home,’ Emily said. ‘I want to see that mauve front door.’
‘I’m going to think about things,’ he’d told them. As he felt then, he meant he would think a little more about things, and then forget their scheme. It was too woolly, too basically unlikely, too damned imaginative. He’d try to find a more polite way to put it, of course. It would still be a refusal. They’d be hurt and probably angered. He was sorry, but this looked to him like the only reasonable decision.
A couple of days later, though, he had to back off from that supposedly rational decision and think again. He had a call at home from a work acquaintance, the Labour politician and former Daily Express writer Tom Driberg: Delmer now, Driberg then. In the 1930s his articles under the pen name William Hickey, after the eighteenth-century diarist, had revolutionized gossip column journalism. Driberg had often featured ordinary people as well as royalty, the aristocracy and show-business stars. He must be into his fifties, half a step or less from decrepitude on London newspapers, unless you actually owned a title or two, of course.
‘Could we meet, Ian?’ he said. Driberg was an ardent and questing homosexual but didn’t take offence if you let him know you preferred something else. Rumour said he was writing an autobiography to be called Ruling Passions. It would be withheld from publication until after his death. People assumed the Passions were politics and fellatio. He would probably describe it as such himself. He named a pub in the Strand, walkable from Fleet Street, though not a journalists’ spot and reasonably private.
Did Driberg feel he must struggle to stay in the game? Fleet Street crawled with one-time greats trying to sell exclusives to the papers, and so resurrect their names for a day. Not long ago, The Morning Sentinel had asked Ian to look at a political tip from Driberg, and Ian met him a couple of times then. This potential tale had never got off the ground, though. Ian had the notion that Driberg felt guilty about the failure and wanted to compensate somehow. It was the lesson he’d got from that kind of flop that had made Ian plan to sidestep the Emily-Bain project.
‘It’s re the Suez situation,’ Driberg said near the end of the phone conversation.
This had almost made Ian back off again. That same old topic. Well, not so old, perhaps, but ever-present these days. ‘What about it?’ he said.
‘Not for phone talk,’ Driberg said. He fixed a time and ended the call.
Oh, God, more semi-secrecy. But Ian had some sympathy
for this former journalistic big wheel, some fellow-feeling. Who’d be next to tumble, next for the tumbril? National newspaper offices and staffs could be very rough, and also very sentimental, could be unscrupulously competitive, yet sometimes mildly considerate to those once mighty in the trade and now shrunken. ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.’
It was a sedate, panelled pub, with comfortable, discreet booths. Driberg possibly approved of booths. He looked a booth person, somehow: suave, plaid shirted, bulky, dew-lapped, pondering. He’d put on some pounds since Ian last saw him. He uttered a big, comic groan. ‘I’ve been in newspapers for – oh, Lord, who’s counting? I’ve seen all sorts.’ He appeared eager to drop into reminiscence. It was natural. It was enforced. He had excelled in the past. He needed to boost himself and impress Ian with prestige bygones. But did he have anything for now? Now was the Press’s favourite period. For the sake of Driberg’s ego, Ian would let him get recollective for a while, though. He wanted to be kindly.
‘I’ve run into all sorts, you know, Ian.’
‘Well, I expect so.’
‘Statesmen. Actors, actresses. Kings. It’s kings I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Which?’
‘Or at least a king.’
‘Which?’
‘Edward.’
‘Which?’
‘Which? Which would I have been concerned with?’
‘Edward the eighth?’ Ian tensed. Echoes of Mooney’s.
‘Prince of Wales, then short-term king.’