The Mask of Memory

by Victor Canning

  His second appointment was with the Duke of Woodford at his London bouse in Kensington. The appointment had been made for him by Warboys. He was conscious at once from the Duke’s manner that he felt that Warboys should have come to see him. To discount this, he said as soon as he had the opportunity, ‘Mr Warboys has had a high-level directive that, to begin with, all enquiries should be kept low-keyed, your Grace. Otherwise he would have come himself.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see that.’

  ‘After all it’s quite conceivable that Commander Tucker has had some accident. He could he lying unconscious in hospital somewhere, unidentified.’

  ‘Surely he’d have some identification on him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. It’s a Department rule not to carry any identity – unless it’s a false one – on certain assignments. We’re making a check as far as we can of all accidents, but that’s a long job, your Grace, when it has to be done discreetly. The main thing I wanted to ask you was how you felt about Commander Tucker while he was with you.’

  ‘Don’t follow you, man.’

  ‘I know you didn’t know him, but one gets a sense sometimes of, well, uneasiness in a man. Something on his mind. Or, maybe, just an intuition difficult to base on anything but an instinct. That – or anything which struck you as odd or unusual might help. At the moment we’re in the dark and we can’t rule out any possibilities.’

  ‘I see. Well, frankly, I thought he was a damned good chap. Knew something of him through my boy, of course. They were both in the Navy together. No, given the circumstances of his visit and its importance, he behaved exactly as I would have expected anyone with this responsibility to have done.’

  ‘Your daughter took him to the station on Saturday morning. Did she wait with him until he got his train?’

  ‘No. Asked her that myself. She just left him at the station, waiting for the London train. Which of course he may not have taken.’

  ‘That could be. He had an important report to prepare. He would have arranged somewhere quiet to work on it. Also he had specific instructions not to return to London until the Tuesday morning. He gave you a clearance on the material Sir Harry Parks had brought, and also on Sir Harry. You accepted this, and so did Mr Felixson. I’d like to know, sir, whether there was in any slightest way any element of unease about Commander Tucker in your mind – no matter how small or transient?’

  ‘None at all. I thought Commander Tucker was a first-class man, right on top of his job. You can tell these things at once. Same goes for Sir Harry Parks. I don’t approve of the man in some ways, but his motives were, I am sure, genuinely sound. If you want my opinion in case Warboys hasn’t passed it on to you, I don’t think there’s any question in all of this of treachery by Sir Harry or double-crossing by Commander Tucker. I think the reason he hasn’t turned up is that something as natural as death or an accident has prevented him from doing so. If I’m wrong then there’s going to be a lot of trouble for some people. There’s nothing else I can tell you.’

  Quint got much the same response from Felixson when he went to see him at his London flat. At the end of their meeting Felixson said, ‘Well, I hope you find him soon, and the stuff with him. The PM’s said that we have to honour our contract with Sir Harry. It’ll be a new experience for me paying money for something I’m not going to get. So try and make me happy, will you?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  That, he thought, as he went back to the office that afternoon, was an understatement. His best and much more than his best were called for. He was going to find Bernard. Warboys had dropped this into his lap like a gift from the gods. There were a dozen other people who could have been given the assignment, but Warboys had picked him. That choice carried a promise which only failure could kill. An embargo had been placed on any approach to Sir Harry Parks. The man did not know that Bernard had disappeared. He would never know anything, except that he had been paid. If the documents and report were never found he might wonder why they had never been used as designed by him. He might ask, but he would be given no satisfactory answer. He had never been given any specific promise that the stuff would ever be used. Nobody in the political world or in his, Quint’s, would so rashly overcommit themselves as that.

  Back in the office Quint found a sealed memorandum from Warboys to him. It read:

  You’ll need a partially briefed assistant on all this for the spade-work. I’ve assigned Lassiter. He knows Tucker is missing and that he was on an important mission at Vigo Hall, and that he had with him documents, etc., of high importance. At your own discretion you may, if circumstances warrant it, enlighten him further. But on no account must he become privy to the ultimate-political implications.

  Half an hour later Lassiter reported to Quint. They knew one another but not well, and had never worked together before. Quint knew that Lassiter, twenty years older than he was, was the thinly fleshed epitome of failure. His abilities were unquestioned, but they had always stopped short of the point which could have made him a Tucker or a Warboys. Lassiter had been given his chance at some time and had failed – that mandate once issued was never revoked – and now he lingered on, comfortable, competent, but confined for the rest of his working days in a fixed grade. He accepted it with a cheerfulness which could be irritating at times to Quint because he wondered whether, if he should reach the same dead end, he would be able to match the man’s comfortable equanimity … ambition long kissed goodbye, and the acceptance of this covered by a good-natured irreverence. Lassiter, thought Quint, a spectre to haunt the young and the ambitious.

  He was a small man with a thin, richly veined face that came from hard home drinking. Jockey-sized, long armed, impeccably neat in his dress – which in the office was always a navy-blue suit and a dark tie with highly polished brown shoes – his first words were, ‘So, the good Commander has either defected to the other side, taken his money and popped off with some floosey or been run over by a Green Line bus in the country and now lies—’

  ‘Shut up.’ Quint said it quietly and without malice.

  ‘Sorry. But it’s the kind of thing dear old Bernard could have said himself. Great sense of humour – with the right people.’

  ‘When did you see Warboys?’

  ‘Before lunch. And what have I done since – apart from a beer and a sandwich? No police checks, missing persons. That’s out from on top. But I’ve given the sign to passport controls, airports, harbours and so on – discreetly. I’ve got a girl ringing through a list of hospitals for casualty admissions. That’ll take days.’ He dropped a sheet of paper on Quint’s desk. ‘There’s a list of all connections, local and mainline, from Salisbury station around the time Tucker was dropped there until four o’clock in the afternoon. He could have gone anywhere, but he couldn’t have gone on travelling on the Sun day by train because of the ASLEF Sunday ban. I haven’t checked Somerset House for deaths yet but I will do in a few days. Regional notifications take some time to come through. Also, I’ve been thinking about him. He was told not to come back until Tuesday. He could just have taken the stuff home to work on.’

  ‘Home? But he lives in London.’

  Lassiter smiled. ‘He keeps a woman in London. He could have another in the country. He’s not our Commander Tucker now. He’s our problem and so gets no special concessions. Tania Maslick is not the first mistress he’s had. He likes: women. For all we know he could be keeping a wife somewhere.’

  Quint smiled despite himself, but underneath he was annoyed with himself. Lassiter had given him a sharp lesson in the powers of imagination. Tania Maslick had said that Bernard had created a transparent fiction about having an old mother still living whom he visited on some weekends. There was no reason why, in fact, he could not have a wife somewhere.

  He said, ‘You’ve known Bernard far longer than I have. You think that could be possible?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but we can’t ignore it. Nevertheless, I’ll run a check.’ Lassiter lit a cigarette and slid h
is lighter back into its little suede cover. ‘ I’ll get someone on to marriage registrations at the Registrar General’s Office here and in Scotland. I’ll fix the rest of the routine things, too. Try and pick up his movements from the station. Some porters have long memories and passengers are the only things they have to look at. What about the opposition? I gather there is one.’

  ‘I doubt whether they could have been off the mark so quickly. I’ll look into that. There’s something else, too. I want to see every one of our regular drivers with their duty schedules over the last month – but only the ones who drove the Commander.’

  ‘Will do. So there it is … a pretty vivid bunch of probabilities. He’s done a deal with, or been grabbed against his will by, the other side. Or – he’s lying dead, or unconscious, and unknown in some hospital. Or – he’s all the time had a secret life somewhere with a wife or mistress and he went back to it to do his report – and something has happened there.’

  ‘Loss of memory?’

  ‘Why not? There’s plenty on his mind and on ours that we would like to forget.’

  The funeral was on the Thursday at four o’clock. Billy Ankers parked his car a little way back from the entrance to the crematorium and watched. Somewhere in all this business he knew that there must be money to be made. Somewhere, if he played his cards right, there had to be good pickings – and no trouble for himself. His magpie instincts were alert, and so was his own sense of self-safety. Until he had worked out a sure line of approach he was content to remain an observer. Although the local paper had not appeared, the verdict had become known in the town. Accidental death … well, well.

  He saw Margaret Tucker drive into the crematorium in her own car, wearing a black coat and hat. A little later her solicitor arrived, and then came another car with the secretary of the local golf club and two other men. Last of all came the hearse.

  Billy Ankers sat sucking his pipe for a moment or two and then drove off. Although he couldn’t see his way to it at the moment there had to be something in all this for him. Mr Bloody Tucker owed him money, but that was small beer and could wait. He could bring that up after a decent interval and in private with her solicitor. No Maxie Dougall at the funeral. That would have set too many tongues wagging.

  Impelled by curiosity and distant self-interest, he found himself driving out to the house at Lopcommon. Margaret Tucker wouldn’t be back for some time. Wonder how she was feeling now? Glad to have him gone, the field opened up wide for her and Maxie. He’d had a chat in a pub on the evening of the inquest with the local reporter – an occasional contact of his – who had given him a fair account of the proceedings. No mention from Margaret Tucker that she had left the house after her husband had gone out. So far as she was concerned she had stayed in the house and waited for him and eventually gone to bed. Domestic quarrel over a marital problem. The reporter had been a bit guarded about that. But he, Billy Ankers, was miles ahead in that game. Gone off to bed, had she? Tired of waiting. Well, he knew better than that. He was going to have to handle this properly. No rushing. And no question of trying to get at her through Maxie. Maxie was uncertain and he could be violent. No, he’d have to go to her when the moment was ripe. Meanwhile, since an empty house was an empty house, there wouldn’t be any harm in having a quick look round. Everything at sixes and sevens … there might be a few quick pickings which would never be noticed.

  He parked his car in the lay-by at the top of the hill and went down to the house, approaching it along the footpath at the top of the combe. As he passed the spot where Tucker had fallen to his death, untouched by any emotion, he told himself that if she had pushed him over she had picked the best spot Stand in the bushes to one side of the path and – over you were before you knew what had touched you. Not much of a fall though. But there you are. Life always turns up the unexpected. And – Good Lord!

  He stopped suddenly. Maybe that’s how she’d done it. Just like with all that pinching business. He could see the look on her face now as she moved down some crowded store, a milesaway look in her eyes, and nicking stuff as cool as a cucumber. That’s what could have happened here. Quarrelling over Maxie had touched her off. And then – not even knowing it she had gone after him … Well now, that was something that could be worked on.

  He put his pipe in his pocket and went on to the house. He got in through sliding the catch on a back window with his knife. He spent ten minutes in the house, held there largely by his consuming curiosity. He could have loaded himself with stuff, but there was no need now to take more than a token to satisfy his magpie complex and ease the itch from his fingers. There were bigger, easier and safer pickings waiting for him … Oh, yes, big pickings. Still, even with that in view, a man shouldn’t leave a job empty-handed. Ten to one she’d never miss it. All wrought up, with death and funerals and the thought of bright days ahead with that Maxie Dougall … A nice watch it was. Obviously the old boy’s, just kicking around on his dresser top with the other stuff, keys and wallet. Nice touch that to leave the wallet with its money … Yes, ten to one she’d never know it was gone. Her mind wouldn’t be on his things. She’d have nothing but darling Maxie in her thoughts…

  Chapter Nine

  That Thursday he had a job helping to load a gravel barge out on the westerly point of the dunes where the two rivers met. The barge had been floated ashore on the high tide and as it ran out had been left on the crest of the long, sloping sand-bank. He hadn’t wanted the money and had only marginally been interested in obliging the barge owner, a friend of his. The day being what it was, he felt the need to strip down and exhaust his body with the heavy labour of shovelling gravel and sand aboard. More than any other, more than the day when he had spoken his first few words to Margaret, and the day when she had finally come to him, this was the day when the pattern of his life began surely to fall into place, piece fitting piece, colour blending with colour, like a jigsaw surrendering itself. He had been to a crematorium once, to the funeral of a boy – grown man, dead in a road accident – who had been at the orphanage with him. The clinical ceremony had had no meaning for him. It was no more than a graceless tidying away of life. Better, he thought, to burn a man on a pyre on the beach, see the flames taken by the wind, the charred wood flakes fly up to heaven, choired by the screaming of the wheeling sea-birds. One sliould go out with colour and song, grief overlaid with the pride of a primitive return to the ancient dust. No man could avoid his undignified entry to life. But his going, at least, should be a fitting pageantry that would mark itself in the memory of the people who loved him. Someone, even Margaret for a time, had loved Bernard Tucker. Not he. But he could not avoid feeling some pity for the way of his going, dropping like refuse into a disposal unit.

  Working, sweating, feeling the grit of sand between his hands and the heft of the spade, he wondered why he should find time for Tucker in his mind. Tucker was gone. The way was opened for him. He had never seen it this way, never dreamt of it this way. His musings had been darker, himself forced to action and strategies which had coiled and stirred amorphously in his mind, lacking positive shape, resting and, waiting on time to help him. He had that help now. It was all too easy, as though some deity, distrusting his abilities, had taken the matter in hand. He resented that.

  When the sun was gone, the tide turning to drive the shore birds from their feeding grounds, he walked back through the fast gathering dusk to his cottage. Above him, unseen, he heard the whistling of wings as a flight of duck went over, and distantly the cry of curlews. There was a light showing through the curtained window of the cottage. The dark bulk of her small car merged with the shadow of the garden wall.

  He went in, hooked his cap on the back of the door and shucked his pilot coat, dropping it to a chair as he turned to her. For a moment or two they looked at one another without speaking. She was suddenly a stranger to him, and he had a feeling that he was caught up in some drama shaped to his purpose but no longer controlled by him … his original creation ta
ken from him and reconstructed for his better benefit.

  Her coat was off, resting across the end of the table, a little black hat neatly placed on top of it. She sat at the table wearing a plain black dress, her hands in front of her, just touching the black gloves she had too discarded. Her fair hair was salon-schooled, her face moved slowly to a smile that did not banish the lingering solemnity of the day’s rites; and her body had the stiffness of one who still played a given part. The embarrassment of the artifice he sensed in her passed to him. He knew then, again, that this was not the way he had seen or wanted things to run. He was diminished because he sensed that he no longer completely commanded the destiny he had outlined for himself.

  Then she stood up swiftly and, with a little cry, came to him. He put his arms around her and the warmth of her body against his broke the bonds he had fancied held him and gave him back the illusion of direction he coveted. He kissed her, and then ran his hands through her hair, spoiling its imposed form. Then, holding her again, he felt the need in her body for him, and, because he would be master again in his own time and style, he reined back the instinct to lift her and carry her through the drawn curtains to his bed.

  He eased her away from him and said, ‘Girl, I’m all mussed up with work. Get yourself a drink while I clean up.’

  He went to the fire and threw kindling on the white ash, kneeled and blew with a soft whistling breath until the embers glowed and the kindling took, and then piled split logs on the flames.

  Behind him she said, ‘ Do you want me to talk about it?’

  ‘No. ’Tis done and it was none of our doing. But it sets us free to be ourselves. That’s enough.’

  He stood up and seeing she had not moved from her chair he found the bottle and a glass and poured her sherry. He sipped it himself first and then handed it to her, and was suddenly happy and restored to himself for he was in control, pleased with the artifice of his reply.