by Alec Waugh
Forrester smiled. ‘My dear young man, I never quite know what I know. I make it my business not to. I keep an open mind. I make a list of as many eventualities as possible. I spread my nets. I don’t chase my fish; I wait for them to entangle themselves. Sooner or later they all do. I let time do my work for me. I make fewer mistakes that way.’
‘Would you have discovered the plot unless I had warned you?’
‘Everyone in the island believes I wouldn’t.’
‘I know and that’s what puzzles me. I’m regarded as a hero.’
‘It’s pleasant to be a hero, particularly a wounded hero.’
‘But how has this story got around?’
‘I spread it.’
‘Why?’
‘I wanted to recruit a new double agent.’
‘But …’
‘You are going to be extremely useful to us in the years ahead. You have among your colleagues in Pearl a very high reputation for courage and self-sacrifice; your promotion will be accelerated; a highly successful career is opening for you; because of your actions the other night you will be trusted universally; you will receive confidences that would not normally come to a person of your years, which is something that the Communists will appreciate.’
‘The Communists?’
‘Your stock stands high with them.’
‘With them?’
The policeman nodded. His smile could not have been more bland.
‘The Communists consider you a man of courage. They believe that you unmasked an attempt to discredit them, that you risked your life foiling a Nationalist plot against their interests. You are not only a hero to the directors of Pearl in London, you are also a hero to a certain bureau that directs subversive operations from the Kremlin. I have ensured that. You can see now, can’t you, how very useful you can be to me.’
Basil did not answer. He could not yet completely visualize his position.
‘Wherever you go,’ Forrester continued, ‘you will be contacted by the Communists. You do not need telling that Communism is an advancing tide. It has its outposts, its pockets of resistance. That is a mixed metaphor, but let it stand. You have been posted now to Trinidad. As far as we know, there is no established outpost there; but Communism undoubtedly flourishes or until recently flourished across the water in B.G. It may very easily reach Trinidad, where there are very many Indians who have links with the country of their ancestors. Trinidad could prove fertile soil for them. Your presence there will be of great value to us. If you are not contacted, it will be a reassurance to us. A nil report is valuable, but I think you will be contacted.’
‘What shall I do then?’
‘You will do what we shall tell you to. You will be recompensed for your work. Money will be paid into a numbered account in Switzerland. There will be no record of these transactions; no income tax will be charged against it. You will find it very useful when you retire; it will be a pleasant addition to the pension Pearl will pay you.’
‘Suppose I refuse to do this?’
‘You are not in a position to refuse. Those endorsed cheques are in your file.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
‘It’s counter-espionage, which is not the cleanest game. We are not fighting people who respect the laws of cricket. We like to have a hold over our agents. Our agents are usually people who have made one grave error, as you have done, my dear young friend.’
‘But how long will this game go on?’
Forrester’s smile was as benign as Father Christmas’s. ‘Till the day you die, my friend.’
Chapter Thirty
Four days before Angus Macartney’s ship was due to dock at Southampton, Blanche Pawling in her London flat received three letters, one with British, the other two with Karaki stamps. The British envelope was addressed in a sloping schoolboy script.
Darling Mummy,
We beat St. John’s by 3 goals to 1. I got one of them. Granny and Grandpa came down. They have a new Vauxhali. I felt very proud. The next best thing to you and Daddy coming. I have fixed my new model aeroplane. No more news.
Love, Robin.
She smiled wryly. She had not yet told Robin about the imminent divorce. She was waiting for the holidays for that. She and Harry would never again go down to Robin’s school. Robin’s son would never write to Robin’s wife, ‘Granny and Grandpa came down … I felt very proud.’ How would Robin feel when she came down, if she did, with Angus, and Harry came down with Iris? Why should he feel anything in particular? A tenth of the boys at Robin’s school came from broken homes. There was nothing in a divorce, nowadays, of which a schoolboy need feel ashamed, unless it was linked with scandal and there was no scandal here. Schoolboys were very conventional. They were only ashamed of the unusual. Angus was a stepfather of whom any schoolboy could be proud, and when Harry went down with Iris …
She checked. She looked ahead. How would Iris and Harry strike a group of schoolboys in five years’ time? She remembered how Harry looked after a party, his face muscles sagged, his vitality subsided. At the moment he was emotionally in a party mood, rejuvenated by the excitement of a young woman’s interest in him. But it would not last. He could not stay the course. She imagined it in five years’ time. Iris fretful and discontented, linked to an ageing man. A nagging couple; if they were still together, that was to say. Well, that was not her concern. Harry had brought this on himself.
One of the envelopes was typewritten. It contained an invitation to Shelagh’s wedding. Barbara had pencilled, ‘Just to let you know the date. We shall miss you. Think of us.’ The other Karaki letter was from Harry. It started with routine details about furniture and lawyer’s plans. ‘I had an air letter from Iris posted at Aden,’ he concluded. ‘On the way there from Singapore she fell in love with a fellow passenger, a young short-service Air Force officer, without entanglements. They plan to set up house together when they reach London, which will make the Sinclairs’ divorce very simple. I suppose I am lucky to have this happen now rather than later.’
Again Blanche smiled wryly. How quickly that problem had been settled. It would not be a nagging couple that went to see Robin. Harry would go down alone, in five years’ time. How would he strike Robin then? Would he be the kind of father of whom Robin would feel proud? She wondered. She tried to picture Harry in five years’ time. It was unlikely that he would become a general manager, even without Iris. It would be marked against him that there had been a scandal, that his wife had left him. In solid professions there was a distrust of the man who was emotionally unstable. A general manager needed a wife; and the right kind of wife. Harry was unlikely to remarry. He had not much to offer a woman after all; paying out alimony the way he would be doing. He would be chary a second time of a woman much younger than himself; his best bet would be a widow, with money of her own; but he was not likely to find that kind of widow in an oil camp.
The betting was ninety-nine to one against his marrying, a thousand to one against his taking Charles Keable’s place. He would be shelved, passed over, retired early. He would be a half-failure and as that he would lose the self-confidence and dash that made him attractive now. To forget this disappointment, he would drink more and more. Already he drank too much. In five years’ time he might have ceased to be the kind of father of whom a son could be proud. She faced the possibility and winced.
The father of her children. She had somehow never thought of the obligations, the responsibilities that devolved upon her through his being that. She had never thought its issue out. She had never needed to before; had never in consequence recognized or realized that it was part of her duty to her children to maintain their father as someone of whom they could be proud.
She made up her mind quickly. She picked up the Keables’ invitation to Shelagh’s wedding. I am going to accept this, she thought, by cable. I’ll be back in time for it.
2
Two letters awaited Angus at his club. One envelope was addressed by hand, the other by a
typewriter. The handwriting was not familiar; he opened that letter first. He looked at the signature. ‘Blanche.’ His heart beat quickly. Fancy not having recognized the writing, but then had he ever seen it? They had had no need for letters.
Angus dear,
I had hoped to be here to welcome you, but the situation has changed and I have gone back to Harry. Please wish me luck, as I do you, in every way, with all my heart. I shall never forget, never cease to be grateful for our times together.
He experienced a spasm of regret, followed a second later by a sensation of relief. During the boredom of the long journey home, his health each day increasingly restored by the sea-air and sunlight, with the only female on board the fifty-year-old wife of a retiring planter, he had looked forward to seeing Blanche again, but now that he was back …
Ah, but it was good to be in London, free and twenty-six with a substantial bank balance. …
He opened the other envelope. Its letter heading was from an office in the city. It was signed by Francis Reynolds.
Dear Macartney,
We met, do you remember, at Karak, at the Residence. I was so sorry to hear of your father’s death. Please accept my deepest sympathy. I was also most distressed to hear of your accident. I trust that you are completely recovered. I wonder if you would have time to lunch with me one day. It would be pleasant to see you again and I should like to hear your version of the recent dramatic incidents in Kassaya.
Reynolds invited him to lunch at the Carlyle Club. Angus had never heard of it. It was in Dover Street, and he expected it to be a vast mausoleum with columns, a wide staircase, and dark portraits of men in uniform. It was not that kind of place at all. It looked more like a restaurant than a club. The waiters wore scarlet jackets; it had been decorated recently in red and gold and diere were a number of elegantly dressed women in the cocktail lounge. ‘This was one of the few places in London,’ Reynolds said, ‘where you could be certain of getting a good steak when meat was rationed.’
Reynolds was assured and affable. A short, busy-looking man paused at their table. ‘I’ve something that might interest you, Reynolds. Could you ring me up this afternoon?’
‘I’ll do that.’
The man’s features were familiar to Angus. ‘Haven’t I seen his photograph in the papers?’
‘You certainly have. Sir Stuart Marchant. Anyone can join this club who can afford the entrance fee. But some quite good people do belong. Now tell me how the Karakis themselves took the incident?’
Reynolds asked question after question, but appeared to know a good deal more about what had happened than Angus did himself.
‘You keep yourself well informed,’ said Angus.
‘It pays to, in my game. I made a lot of money out of your little piece of trouble.’
‘How so?’
‘Pearl shares dropped several points when the news reached London. Investors have got windy about oil. They remember Abadan. But I had my sources of information. I knew there was no danger; I bought heavily. Within two days the shares were back where they belonged. By the way, I hear that Shelagh Keable is going to marry the A.D.C. I hope you’re not too upset.’
‘So you heard that rumour?’
‘It was one of the first things I heard when I arrived. I was interested in her. I had known her father in Abadan and I travelled out in the same plane. I asked after her and that was what they told me.’
Angus laughed. ‘I’m afraid a good many people got dust thrown in their eyes over that. It was a silly joke that got out of hand.’
‘Then I’ve been wasting my sympathy, and I’m glad I have. There was someone else I was going to ask about. Young Hallett. He showed me round the refinery. How did he strike you?’
They discussed camp personalities, then the talk switched to Angus’s present plans, and to the London where he would spend his holiday. Reynolds advised him on the first plays to see. ‘If I can be of any help in any way, you won’t forget to ask?’
Angus thoroughly enjoyed his lunch, excellent food but not too much of it, excellent wine but not too much of it; he was stimulated by Reynold’s company. It was the first time he had met a man of the world on equal terms.
Reynolds looked at his watch. ‘I must be on my way. I’m not on a holiday like you; but we must keep in touch. And there is one thing I’d like to say: international finance is a very interwoven racket and your father was in touch with a group of businessmen in Karak and the Far East who are in touch with certain interests of mine. I don’t suppose he told you about it. He hadn’t time. But when you go back, I’d like to put you into touch with them. It should be to all our advantages.’
Angus instantly was on his guard; a section of a pattern had grown plain; his father’s taking up of chess, Forrester’s concern, Reynolds’s start of surprise at the Residence dinner when he mentioned it. In a flash he saw Reynolds under a new light as part of a conspiracy.
‘That’s very good of you,’ he said. I’m very grateful.’ Forrester might have cut down the branches of the conspiracy, but the roots might remain. Here was his chance to prove his loyalty to the crown and to avenge his father’s death. If he allowed himself to be guided by Reynolds for a little, he might discover the secrets that had eluded Forrester. His pulses thudded with a sense of high adventure. The cycle of causation, that had been started when an experienced worldling had tried to take advantage of a young woman’s trustfulness, was not yet complete.
3
Charles Keable and Shelagh sat in the drawing-room waiting for the minute hand to reach the figure four. Five minutes earlier Barbara, the Studholmes, Prince and Princess Rhya had driven to the church. Shelagh was wearing the conventional long white dress, of silk but not of satin. She looked very young, the redness in her hair heightened by the gauzy veil; her father, refusing to encase himself in equatorial heat in a black morning coat, had ordered a suit in cream-coloured Siamese silk from a local tailor. They sat in silence. This, he thought, is one of the big moments in a man’s life, when he walks at his daughter’s side, down an aisle towards an altar, the friends of a lifetime gathered on the left-hand side; when he hands over his daughter to the care of another man, his work of parenthood completed. They had talked of this day, he and Daphne, fourteen years ago; wondering where it would be, hoping it would be in England. ‘But it probably won’t be,’ he had said. ‘She’ll probably marry some young engineer in whatever camp I’m posted to, and there won’t be a soul in the church we’ve known longer than three years.’
Daphne had laughed. ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t marry a divorcee, twice her age, in a register office.’
It was his prophecy, not Daphne’s, that had been fulfilled, and Daphne was in England, nine thousand miles away, probably not yet awake. Shelagh had meant much more to her than to him. It was strange that on this, the biggest moment in the life they once had shared, he could not even picture her.
He looked at the clock. Nineteen minutes past. He rose. ‘Time to be on our way,’ he said.
He walked across to her, put his arm round her shoulder. ‘Good luck,’ he said.
As the organ began to play the Wedding March, Barbara turned her head. The sight of Shelagh in white on Charles’s arm sent a glow of satisfaction along her nerves. Shelagh could not have looked prettier; the dress was very simple in design, suitable to her age and looks, accentuating her freshness, her slimness, her air of innocence; it was the dress that she would have chosen for herself if she could have had this kind of wedding. She had a sense of achievement, seeing Shelagh so completely the bride of story books.
From the seat behind, Sir Kenneth Studholme looked with a certain envy at Charles Keable. He wished he was in Charles’s shoes, with Lila on his arm. Why on earth couldn’t she have settled for this young A.D.C. herself? Lila was a problem; and likely to be a greater problem every year. Still, one must be philosophical about it. One must have problems and Lila was his only major one. In every other way, the stars were fighting on his side
. The dispersal of the Nationalist coup d’état was a great piece of luck. He did not know that he could take much credit for it, but Whitehall was inclined to think he could; and after all he had been responsible for Forrester’s appointment; if Forrester had failed he would have been held to blame. He supposed he could take some credit since he had given Forrester his head. No doubt it had been touch and go, but his luck had held. The status quo would last his own time. Prince Rhya was showing every sign of responsibility. The rumour that he was to be a father early in the year had been confirmed. The birth of a son would consolidate the régime. He had no cause for worry, except Lila. He had received a very satisfactory report of his son’s progress. ‘I shall be very surprised if he does not get a scholarship next summer,’ his headmaster had written. Sir Kenneth followed his own thoughts, contentedly.
As others in the congregation were following theirs, Forrester had learned that morning that his name would appear among the C.M.G.s in the New Year’s Honours List. ‘The old Prima Donna’ would get a kick out of it and so would he. He wished that it would be a decoration that conferred some kind of handle to her name. It would have been pleasant in her retirement if she could have been her ladyship. But his kind of job did not collect that kind of lettuce. He was not grumbling at a C.M.G.; the best he’d hoped for when he started was the old boiled egg they’d given him in the Middle East. He hadn’t expected to go beyond that. He’d been lucky here: luckier than his nibs suspected. It had been touch and go. Another time … but there wouldn’t be another time. He’d retire first.
In the same pew next to ‘the old Prima Donna’, Blanche Pawling was still trying to sort out what she half-felt from what she really felt. She had got back a week ago. The warmth of her welcome had left her in no doubt as to how Harry felt. Everyone in camp, too, had been glad to see her back. She had made a personal triumph of it. She had thought out her story in advance. ‘You don’t think, do you, that after fifteen years I was going to let my old man go off without a by-your-leave. I knew the whole thing was nonsense, but I wanted to let them find it out for themselves. I didn’t think I’d have long to wait.’