by Berry, Tony
‘A bit hot and sweaty at the moment, I’m afraid. It’s his turn to do the cooking.’
The man smoothed the front of the floral apron tied around his waist and stood poised with pencil and notepad. The whisper edged up a few decibels, ensuring the other diners could hear.
‘And what would you like us to cook for you this morning, Mr Perkins?’
Bromo smiled; played the game.
‘I think I’ll have the bacon and eggs.’
Cedric scribbled on his pad and beamed back at Bromo.
‘Not a problem, an excellent choice.’
Bromo looked up at him, deadpan.
‘And do you do sunny side up?’
Cedric uttered a brief giggle.
‘Of course we do, Mr Perkins. Always.’
As Bromo watched him waddle off in the direction of the kitchen he threw a quick sidelong glance around the room. Not a flicker. No signs of interest beyond boredom, the only sound and movement coming from a tall, thin man at the middle of three tables ranged along the side wall as he flicked over the pages of his newspaper. Bromo spooned up a mouthful of the bran flakes.
Cedric and Julian had assured him he would be secure at their place, and so it seemed. So far. The pair had been long and loyal servants of the department but that counted for little when a new government decided it could impress the electorate by swinging its budgetary axe hither and thither with little regard for the nation’s real needs or possible repercussions.
The lifelong partners were two among dozens who were bludgeoned off the department’s payroll and into early retirement. They took with them not only their substantial redundancy payouts but also a treasure trove of contacts that left the department’s resources greatly diminished for years after.
And now that the service had been restored to favour few of the old-timers remained and most of those were used for routine, humdrum work. Its new recruits were of a different breed: double degrees, one-time money men, legal-eagles, high-fliers from the city, all given the chop in the days of the great recession and now lured into using their wheeler-dealer witchery in another, equally dubious, market. Streetwise manipulators like Julian and Cedric were being replaced by devious discards from the murky byways of high finance. The tips and whispers they once gathered in seedy bars and dim alleys were collected by reformed hackers and nerdy IT youths tapping at computer keyboards, using cyberspace as their battleground and never meeting the enemy face to face. Bromo finished his cereal and set the bowl to one side.
‘Sunny side up, Mr Perkins.’
Cedric had appeared silently at his side and placed his meal before him. Immaculate timing.
‘Be careful, the plate’s hot.’
‘Thank God something round here is.’
‘And here’s your newspaper.’
Cedric gently laid the broadsheet alongside the plate.
‘But I didn’t—’
Cedric gave a flicker of a smile.
‘Your usual, sir. Julian remembered. “A Telegraph for Mr Perkins”, he said.’
Bromo caught on. He chided himself for being slow on the uptake; out of practice. It was a game he hadn’t played for so long.
Cedric fussed over brushing a few unseen crumbs off the table with a napkin, speaking softly downwards as he did so.
‘I’ll think you’ll find everything’s there, Mr Perkins. Just call if there’s anything we can help you with.’
Cedric gave a quick wink as Bromo sensed him fade smoothly away towards the kitchen. The man was another bloody Cheshire Cat. Just like Poppy, coming and going at whim and never sure when they’d next intrude on his consciousness.
Bromo peppered and salted his eggs, broke one open and dipped a wedge of toast into the yellow ooze. Free range without a doubt. He cut into the bacon rashers. Again, a true taste he had forgotten existed after enduring years of supermarket packaged fodder. It was a welcome pleasure after years of starting the day with nothing more than a black coffee and maybe a slice of toast. The newspaper could wait; food this fresh deserved his full attention. Anyway, why let any watchers think he was in a hurry to unwrap any messages the Telegraph might be hiding?
He took a surreptitious look around the room: everyone in their own little world, furtive and guarded, no one talking, not even acknowledging the others’ existence – the usual breakfast room scene. The bosomy woman with the excess of bling was wiping toast crumbs from her lips. The lean man in the middle was folding his paper and pushing a pair of thick-framed glasses into his top pocket. The other diners had eyes only for their food. Bromo focused back on his plate and dipped a slice of bacon into the egg yolk.
He heard a scraping of chairs, first from the far corner and then from the direction of the side wall. There was a short draught of air and a waft of scent as the woman passed his table. Ten paces behind, the man caused a slighter breeze and left the tang of nicotine in his wake. Bromo glanced up as they left the room, well apart and each seemingly oblivious of the other. He picked up the newspaper from alongside his plate and discarded the business and sport inserts. He made a show of perusing the headlines but found nothing to entice him to read further: more bickering within the main political parties; another official caught with her hand in the public purse; some TV nonentity caught behaving badly … same old, same old.
He sighed and turned to the back page where the weather forecast warned of more bleak days to come. Beneath it was the crossword, the daily tease that had become his unchanging delight in an unstable world. He folded and smoothed the paper and took a pen from his inside pocket. All part of the act, although no one seemed to be watching. Another diner had left the room, briefcase in hand. One man and one woman remained, tense and brittle business types, the woman whispering into a mobile phone and the man flicking over sheets of A4 paper and making occasional annotations with a stubby highlighter pen.
It was as Bromo had expected: some of the squares of the crossword had already been filled in. It reminded him of those early days when recruits were assessed not on how many degrees they possessed but on their ability to complete the Telegraph crossword is no more than 15 minutes. Such foibles were the stuff that old-timers like Cedric and Julian clung to; fail-safe methods that beat the hell out of a technology that even teenage hackers could access.
Bromo put pen to mouth, tapping his lower lip in contemplation, studying the random words, some down and some across, to transform them into a cohesive whole. There were only seven of them – “awaits”, “kitchen”, “car”, “through”, “swanpool”, “leave”, “drive” – and the message he unravelled was terse. He put his pen to the paper and wrote the word “adjutant” in 10 across, “Military assistant gives notice to project worker”. Too easy. He turned his attention back to the jumbled words, making sure there was only one way of assembling them.
Cedric waddled across the room, clearing tables, brushing crumbs into a miniature brass dustpan, flicking a napkin over the chairs and tidying the cereal packets from the sideboard. He offered a percolator of coffee to the woman still talking into her mobile. She waved him away with a brusque flick of her hand. The man at the other table said a polite ‘No thank you’, gathered up his sheets of paper and stuffed them into a dark red folder.
‘Gotta go. Running late,’ he muttered and left the room with short, urgent steps.
Bromo studied the crossword, ears tuned to any movement from the woman with the mobile. “Leave through kitchen car awaits drive swanpool” ran through his mind like an unpunctuated ticker-tape, the unravelled words memorised and firmly imprinted. No urgency implied so he would wait until he was alone in the dining room.
Twenty down briefly puzzled him: “He composed music many dance to at home”. The answer dawned. He wrote “Chopin” in the empty squares. The silence felt almost oppressive; the woman had stopped talking.
Bromo kept his attention downward, on the newspaper. He heard a clasp being snapped shut, a chair being pushed back, the clacking of heels on the wooden
floor. He gave an involuntary sniff as a pungent perfume assailed his nostrils; noted the sigh of the door closing behind the woman. It was almost time to go.
He took another cautious look around the room. Cedric was by the exit to the kitchen, waggling a finger at him. “Leave through kitchen” were the cryptic instructions. Bromo did as instructed, easing past Cedric’s aproned paunch.
‘You’re eating too well.’
‘And enjoying every morsel,’ giggled Cedric. ‘Julian will show you the way.’
He pointed beyond a long stainless steel bench slotted with hot plates and bain-maries to a scrawny, lean and unkempt figure standing by a solid wooden door. His tanned but gaunt face was framed by long strands of greying hair. Nothing was recognisable from the anally neat and robust colleague Bromo once knew.
Cedric’s voice echoed across the kitchen: ‘Take care and may the force be with you.’
Julian nodded and smiled as Bromo neared.
‘Poor love, he can’t help himself. Once a tart, always a tart.’
‘But an extremely loyal and trustworthy one,’ said Bromo.
‘So very true.’
The smile had gone. Bromo saw pain and sadness in the deep-sunk eyes. There was a story there that no one was telling.
Julian eased the door open. It was thick and weighty, made of planks of solid timber held in place by flat iron bars. He paused briefly and patted the door’s surface.
‘Probably 300 years old,’ he said. ‘Seen some strife in its time.’
Bromo stumbled as Julian ushered him through. He was at the top of a short flight of stone stairs, narrow, age-worn and steep.
‘Down and to your left,’ whispered Julian.
‘The dungeons?’
‘Almost. Most likely used by smugglers, even private armies. The river used to come right up into the city.’
They were at the foot of the stairs. A corridor, its walls damp and mossy, went off to the left. Julian took a pencil torch from his pocket and shone its small beam. He led the way, stooped beneath the low roof.
‘I thought I was going by car, not boat,’ snapped Bromo.
He felt edgy, claustrophobic. The walls were closing in. A flashback seared through his head: that time in Novi Sad, when there was still a country called Yugoslavia. In the catacombs under the city, deep, winding, disorienting. He felt rivulets of sweat down his back.
‘Patience,’ said Julian, his voice calming and steady.
Okay, so this isn’t Novi Sad, he reminded himself. There were no comrades or patriots or renegades or double agents. No one had a knife at his throat or a gun in their belt. He took a deep breath. Found something else to think about.
‘This place, what’s the story?’
‘It goes back a long way,’ said Julian.
‘The tunnel or the story?’
‘Both. No one says too much. We let our houses keep their secrets. Don’t go telling strangers. The city’s had riots, battles and fights for centuries. Been set upon by pirates, torn apart by tin miners, battled with invaders. Little wonder there are places like this.’
Julian guided Bromo into a low alcove, his knees bent, his head bent almost on to his chest. Another sturdy door confronted them.
‘We wait,’ Julian murmured.
‘For Godot?’
Julian sniggered. He shone the torch on to his watch.
‘Soon.’
Bromo felt the claustrophobia returning. They were huddled close; it was airless, the roof crowding down on him. Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Novi Sad thrummed through his head. He shivered.
‘Is this really necessary?’
‘You were followed.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘And if we had?’
Bromo shrugged. Julian was right. A need-to-know situation. It was their territory, not his. Best leave them to deal with it.
‘I would probably have stuck my oar in; tried to take charge.’
‘Bloody control freak.’
Bromo grunted, an unwilling admission of guilt. What was so wrong with wanting to be in charge? It was his life everyone was playing with. It was his to control, not theirs. Not a team player, his handlers had said. As if putting your trust in the hands of a bunch of disparate abilities, emotions and reactions was the way to survive. Not bloody likely; too many unknowns and random psyches to cope with. Another shiver rippled through his body. Too cramped, too dark. He felt the timber of the door tremble in response to a single thump from the other side. Julian banged back in response; just once, with his fist.
‘Time to move,’ he said. ‘And fast. You’ll find everything you’ve been looking for when you get to Swanpool.’
He leaned hard against the old timbers with his shoulder. The door was being jerked open from the other side. Bromo felt Julian push him through the widening gap. His arm was grabbed. Cedric was tugging him clear into a whitewashed space, its uneven cobblestoned floor cluttered with crates and drums pushed against the walls to make room for a dark green Toyota Corolla, its engine already running, fumes thick in the air.
Bromo stumbled across the cellar, coughing, spluttering, pulled by Cedric, trying to catch his breath. There was no time for questions. At least he now knew Swanpool was a place. He was pushed into the driver’s seat. Cedric slammed the door and leaned in through the window.
‘Up the ramp, turn left, then right and take the short cut up Infirmary Hill. The sat-nav’s set. Do what it says. Your bag’s in the boot. We’ve taken care of the rest.’
Bromo’s head was whirring. He caught the implication in Cedric’s final remark but gave it scant attention. He ran the cryptic ticker-tape through his mind once more: “Leave through kitchen car awaits drive swanpool.”
He was on autopilot, on track, doing what he was told, asking no questions. Not the best course, but he felt he had no choice.
Cedric gave the car a hearty farewell slap on the bonnet and stepped back.
‘Don’t worry about the bill, we’ll send it on,’ he giggled.
Bromo grinned, feeling his whole body relax. Cedric was ever the joker amid the drama, a great easer of stress.
Bromo put the car into gear and eased back the clutch. It was time to go. Swanpool, whoever or whatever, was waiting.
TWENTY
Gervase Morales happened to glance up from the thick three-ring binder open on his lap as the cameras focused on the sleek sedan gliding between the masses of rhododendrons towards the parking bays. It could be just another car adding to the stream of day-trippers already traipsing through his immaculate cliff-top estate, another stop on their tour of the region’s stately homes and gardens. Yet some innate sense persuaded him to keep watching.
Soon the monitors ranged along the bench showed him all he needed to know. Despite their casual dress and languid walk towards the ticket booth, these three visitors were obviously not there to enjoy the sights. They were too alert, too poised for action.
He heard Mischali’s discreet tap on the door.
‘Come in,’ he called and swivelled his chair to face his aide’s arrival.
‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me we have unwanted visitors.’
Mischali walked over to the bank of monitors, stubbornly erect despite the painful limp racking his leg all the way up from his mangled left ankle. He nodded in agreement.
‘We’re tracking them all the way,’ he said. ‘The gardeners have been alerted.’
Morales slammed his binder shut.
‘Stop them. Head them off. Do whatever’s necessary.’
‘Yes, sir. I think you’ll find that’s already being done.’
Mischali pointed at the monitors. One screen showed a path winding down towards the ornamental lake with its statuary and a mantle of water lilies. A gardener was fixing a sign “No access; closed for maintenance” to a wooden barrier. They watched as he directed a family group and two elderly women to take an alternative route. Another screen pictured a stocky young woman in a tracksuit holding the ta
ut leashes of two large, lean dogs alongside a gate marked “Private – No Admittance”.
‘Good to see Bevil and Payne are getting some exercise,’ said Morales. He knew the animals were placid fireside pets for most of the time but rigorous training had ensured they were unrelenting attackers when commanded. Their names acknowledged two of Cornwall’s most valiant loyalist fighters in the wars that had racked the county 400 years ago. He peered again at the screen.
‘Looks like they’re putting on a bit of weight. Probably could do with a bit of combat training. Pity we can’t stay to watch. Everything else in place?’
Mischali waved his hand along the bank of monitors.
‘All paths are covered and their car’s been clamped.’
‘But Perkins is still on his way,’ said Morales. ‘He needs to be turned back and we need to get moving.’
‘Plan B, sir?’
‘Immediately.’
Morales straightened his tie and took his jacket from a coat-hanger behind the door. He slipped his arms into the jacket, flexed his shoulders and shot his cuffs forward to check the precise amount of the light blue silk sleeve was protruding. He strode towards the door.
‘Right, let’s go.’
Mischali limped valiantly behind him, working his phone as he went.
*
Bromo was following instructions. The disembodied voice of the sat-nav alerted him to a roundabout at the end of Western Terrace where he was to turn left and continue along Woodlane Terrace. There was a sign further back pointing to Swanpool; he was on the right track. He noted the Falmouth Club and its tennis courts on the right and saw the sign warning of the school coming up on his left. It was all new territory. Concentrate. And keep an eye on the rear view mirror – just in case. The roundabout appeared. He did as he was told and turned left. Big houses, high pavements, an occasional view out over the bay where several tankers were at anchor. Past the junction with Trelawney Road, still true to instructions and heading towards the harbour.
His hands nearly flew off the steering wheel as the sound of an orchestra in full Wagnerian flight rang out from somewhere on the seat beside him. He fumbled beneath a couple of newspapers and a road map. A mobile phone. They hadn’t told him.