by John Gardner
By nine o’clock, Penny Bartholomew, the dinner spoiled, began to worry. At nine-thirteen she telephoned London Airport where they checked the flight and passenger list for her. Yes, Mr. Bartholomew was back in England.
At nine-thirty she called the office. No reply. She still hung on in hopes and it was not until nearly midnight that she rang the police. It did no particular good, for it was six months before they found Bartholomew’s rotting corpse in a Buckinghamshire copse. And by that time it was all over.
CHAPTER TWO
STAR
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
SEA FEVER: John Masefield
‘Firing command, thirty, mark.’ The voice held that deep disenchanted quality which invariably finds its way into vocal service officialdom. It echoed through a dozen loudspeakers, and six times as many headsets inside the launch Control Centre.
‘Roger. Periscope has retracted.’ A lighter shade, crisp, matter of fact, difficult to believe that it came from a human on the brink of space.
‘T minus two minutes forty-five seconds.’ The launch Supervisor, earnest, crew-cut and cool, spoke flatly into his microphone. The big Neon Digital counter relentlessly subtracted the seconds towards zero; conditioned eyes were steady on television monitors; needles quivered in readiness, or already flickered their nervous curves on slowly moving graphs within the telemetering systems; a couple of hundred switches began automatic reaction. The additional one hundred and ten combinations of control, communication, display consoles, power panels, patchboards and computers which make up ACE s/c (Acceptance Checkout Equipment — Spacecraft) were giving green lights.
Way out in the cold grey morning, which betokened a later heat, across the uninspiring one hundred and twenty acres which makes up Launch Complex 37 at the northern end of Cape Kennedy, the beast, white tipped, pointed critically towards the sky: a Saturn IB rocket, separated now from its gargantuan gantry, gripped by the hold-down clamps against the moment it would be unleashed, a mist of spray rising around its first stage as tons of water flooded on to the launch pad cooling the vicious heat.
Commander Rupert Birdlip, one of the many Intelligence Officers assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration turned to Boysie Oakes and whispered. ‘From here on in, the countdown is computerized, but you’ll hear them call the last ten seconds.’
Boysie did not speak. To all intents he was caught up in the tension of the moment, icy eyes narrowed, fixed on the tall finger of hardware out on the launch pad. Like a child, it was the moment to which he had looked forward for days, yet, now it was here, his mind kept leaping back to the night before last. Leaping like a rampant antelope. Jumping back to his old playmate Chicory Triplehouse. There was a warm feeling around his loins as he gazed at the rocket, pondering on his reunion with the concubinatious Miss Triplehouse.
Standing close, Birdlip sneaked glances at Boysie. It was four years since he had seen the tall, tanned Englishman, and Birdlip thought he detected some changes.
In 1964 Rupert Birdlip had been stationed in San Diego, and his involvement with Boysie, at that time, led to a frantic experience almost ending in court martial.
In those days Boysie seemed more anxious in manner. Now, there was a relaxed toughness about the man, a mature self-confidence which Birdlip could not associate with the friendly buffoon who had caused such havoc out in sunny San Diego Bay. Perhaps, he thought, it stemmed from the change in Boysie’s circumstances, the switch from those rigorous hazards of official undercover intrigue to the more gentle conditions of a private security organization.
There had been changes in Brian Ian (Boysie) Oakes’ nature. Superficial, but real enough. In spite of having an enviable physique and rugged good looks, Boysie had capitulated to the doctrine of confirmed cowardice early in life. Added to this he was a clown, it was part of his basic nature.
His ambitions were not far removed from those of most men — a horn of plenty, his own castle (a penthouse would do) and an inexhaustible supply of young women yearning to be cherished by him alone. To give credit, Boysie had, at one time or another, managed to achieve most of those dreams. Albeit at the cost of self-knowledge and a closetful of screaming neurotic skeletons.
But, in some senses, Birdlip was right. After a number of years with British Special Security, served more by accident than choice, under Colonel James George Mostyn, the most sadistic boss for which anyone could wish, Boysie had suddenly found himself free and in from the chilly confines of spyland.
If Boysie dreamed of retirement to the traditional cottage with roses round the door he was out of luck. Mostyn was a hard man to shake off. Mostyn was also out of a job. Within a short time of finding his new democracy, Boysie was catapulted into a new kind of business. The superficial special swinging detective type security agency which Mostyn had dreamed up. With headquarters in Dolphin Square, lots of contacts from the old days, and a staff recruited from former members of Special Security, the firm, GRIMOBO ENTERPRISES, was headed by Mostyn, Boysie and their old unofficial colleague Charlie Griffin.
Like most cowards, Boysie had the ability to slip on the cloak of bravery after the event, and, while there were the occasional nightmares, his memory played the ultimate trick of deception. Now Boysie looked back on his time with Special Security as a period of great stimulation, seeing himself as a hero in the mould of the great fictional dare-devils.
Paradoxically, Boysie had the measure of himself in other ways. After rattling round the world, playing at being the poor man’s Don Juan, he saw that a part-sophisticated oaf in his mid-forties cut a somewhat ludicrous figure. Trying to display virility, playing the teenage field and whooping it up in fast crimson sports cars was not really his style. But, like so many men, the various disguises he had been forced to assume led Boysie into whole stretches of time when truth and reality stumbled, fuzzed-up and dodged the issue. It was during those periods that he passed himself off, quite seriously as a ruthless personality, desperate, well-connected, equally well-educated, and with a family background which would make even Tony Snowdon look like a fake.
*
Yet, if honest, Boysie would admit to the old churning in his stomach pit, a natural warning of disaster ahead, when, two weeks previously, Mostyn announced his intention of leaving for New York.
The three directors of GRIMOBO had just concluded their usual Monday morning meeting when Mostyn dropped his grenade.
‘That’s nice,’ said Griffin, mistrust splitting the vocal seams. ‘We got a job there or somethin’?’
‘Not yet.’ Mostyn, bland as ever. ‘I’ve a few business arrangements to make.’
‘Private business then?’ Boysie trying to sound unconcerned.
‘No.’ Mostyn secretive.
‘Then who’s paying?’ Boysie using a rapier as a bludgeon.
‘The company of course’
‘Ah,’ grinned Griffin. ‘Then if it’s company business we got to ‘ear more. ‘Ent we, Boysie boy?’
‘I should bloody well think we have got to ‘ear … hear, more. Swanning off on company business to New York without even a by your leave …’
‘… from your fellow directors,’ Griffin finished.
Mostyn contorted his face into the trickiest of smiles. ‘Hold hard, brethren. Don’t you trust me?’
‘No,’ said Boysie with feeling.
‘Not where the company’s money’s concerned,’ retorted Griffin. ‘Sooner trust the government than you, and that’s sayin’ somethink.’
‘We’re not invited?’ Boysie joined in on the make.
‘I see.’ Mostyn paused as if trying to think up a suitable excuse. ‘Naturally, Oaksie, I was going to consult both of you. My feelings are that we should back the old economy and become dollar earners.’
‘Dollar earners,’ repeated Boysie.
‘Precisely. I’m travelling to New York, that great city wherein pounds the very heartbeat of democratic freedom, in order to set up an
American branch of GRIMOBO ENTERPRISES. What could be better than that?’
‘All three of us going to New York to set up an American branch of GRIMOBO ENTERPRISES,’ parried Boysie.
‘Yerse,’ said Griffin.
‘Yes, my dear blue-based boobs, but who’d mind the store here?’ Smooth and sticky little Mostyn.
‘Everythink’s ‘unkey dorey ‘ere. Martin can look after this end for a couple of weeks. No problem.’ Griffin was sold on the idea of a jaunt to the big naked city.
‘I wouldn’t leave cheery benighted Aston to look after the tea money,’ reacted Mostyn.
They argued. For half an hour. Mostyn even resorted to the gin bottle. But Boysie and Griffin were adamant. If the firm’s money was being used to set up an office in New York, then the whole trio had to go. All for one and one for all, or something. ‘Those Three Muscatels and that,’ said Griffin.
Mostyn eventually cut his losses and gave in. ‘All right. It’s a bloody waste of money, three of us going instead of one, but if you won’t trust me, then you …’
‘Won’t,’ chorused the other two.
‘Then there’s nothing more to say.’
‘Ah.’ Boysie’s mind suddenly elsewhere. ‘How far is Cape Kennedy from New York?’
‘Oh my hallowed aunt.’ Mostyn lifted his piggy eyes heavenwards. ‘You and your bloody space ships.’
The whole staff knew of Boysie’s latest craze. His flat was littered with plastic kits of satellites, space capsules and rockets, while the bookshelves bulged with science fiction.
Mostyn sighed again. ‘Cape Kennedy, Boysie, is a considerable distance from New York. Over two hours flying time. And I don’t think they’re going to let you, of all people, go and play with their rockets. We had enough trouble with you on Guy Fawkes’ night. Remember?’
Boysie remembered. Vividly. The rocket cost him five guineas at Hamley’s and the fire brigade was not impressed. ‘How was I to know the trajectory would go all wrong?’ Boysie sullen.
‘It should not have gone as wrong as it did. Only an idiot could have allowed it to be lethally propelled through a half-open window. A half-open lavatory window where a dowager duchess happened to be recovering from a severe bout of dysentery.’
‘Dysentery my eye.’ Griffin came to Boysie’s defence. ‘Touch of the shits she ‘ad. Dysentery, that’s only what the bloody upper class calls the screamers.’
‘And you didn’t help matters.’ Mostyn fixed his eye on Griffin. ‘Making witticisms to the insurance people. Saying must have been something she ate.’
‘Well, it only burned ‘er drawers. She got out before the thing exploded …’
‘Badly damaging one wall …’
‘… and smashing a brand-new lime green …’
‘Tremble chair,’ interpolated Griffin once more.
‘Lavatory pan,’ corrected Mostyn.
Boysie choked at the memory. ‘And sent a roll of matching Double Delsey shooting out of the window like a smouldering gas bomb.’
‘It was not funny.’ Mostyn slapped the table, trying to bring the conversation to a halt and convince himself of the lack of humour afforded by the situation. ‘Right, let’s get back to New York. What we want there is a girl with enough intelligence to sort out the sheep from the goats, keep a communications’ centre open …’
‘You don’t think I could wangle a trip to Cape Kennedy, then?’ Boysie refused to give up.
‘Oakes.’ Mostyn’s jaw closing like a man trap. ‘This is a conference which might have far-reaching effects upon our financial status, but for the record, I do not think you have an iced lolly’s chance in Equatorial Africa of getting a look round Cape Kennedy.’
Boysie grinned. Mostyn had not taken into account the fact that, since their terrifying visit to San Diego, four years before, Boysie had kept in touch with Rupert Birdlip. And Rupert Birdlip was now deep in the heart of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
It took a couple of transatlantic calls, on the firm’s account, for Boysie to get the scheme going. At first, Birdlip was a shade cool. Boysie could not be classed as service personnel any more, which made things impracticable. But finally he agreed to bend the rules and pass off his guest as a visiting British space scientist. Dates, times and flights were co-ordinated. Boysie licked lips in anticipation, for his social call on Cape Kennedy coincided with a launching in the Apollo Series.
Leaving London Airport, or any airport, was a testing time for Boysie. On this occasion the unpleasant pangs he invariably felt when flying were made considerably worse when, as they entered the first class cabin, Boysie glanced towards the flight deck and noted that the entire crew of their Super VC 10 appeared to be studying an instruction manual, brows creased with the look of incomprehension. Boysie recalled that other time, when, seated ready for take off the stewardess announced, ‘Captain Griffin and his crew welcome you aboard …’ More superstitious in those days, Boysie had needed gigantic reserves of self-control to remain strapped in with a picture of his Mr. Charles Griffin, murder bent at the controls.
On this trip, however, even Boysie’s natural aversion to flying was eased by the thought that he had put something over on Mostyn. Throughout the flight, he smirked quietly to himself, or slyly at his senior director. Boysie would cheerfully have walked a couple of hundred miles, with dried peas in his shoes, wearing a monk’s cowl, merely to score a gleeful point off snide James George Mostyn.
Arriving at some large city after a long flight invariably gives one a sense of superiority. People on the ground have been sweating out their menial tasks through the day, while you have been close to the gods, shrieking it along the jet stream. Boysie edged his mind into this attitude as, in the wake of Mostyn and Griffin, he passed through the endless formalities of arrival. Their BOAC VC10 had touched down at about four-thirty in the afternoon — just in time to hit the inevitable rush hour traffic of Manhattan.
‘Think we should try for the helicopter service into the city?’ asked Mostyn when they were through passports and customs.
‘Sadist,’ breathed Boysie.
‘Git some right effective shots that way.’ Griffin was all tourist, movie camera at the ready.
Aloft again, Boysie’s face flecked with a colour that would have gone well with Picasso’s Young Woman Drawing, they chopped in over Queen’s and the East River towards the glittering clusters of concrete and glass stalagmites sprouting from the island of Manhattan.
It was a crisp clear evening, and Boysie realized the truth of the old saying that when you are in New York it is the city you most want to get away from, but, once away, it becomes the city to which you must return. From helicopter view the parallel lines of main streets looked like symmetrical ant runs, while a glimpse of the wide oblong of Central Park brought from the normally unmovable Mostyn a sincere, ‘Quite a city.’
Boysie’s stomach cartwheeled as the needle point of the Empire State seemed to tilt ominously, then it steadied and they were smoothly descending onto the white landing circle high above. Park Avenue on top of the Pan-Am Building.
It had taken them only a matter of minutes to cross from Kennedy to the centre of Manhattan. It was a good half-hour before the trio made it up the few hundred yards of Park Avenue to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Crammed, the Fords, Chryslers and Cadillacs moved bumper to bumper up what is now one of the most commercial streets in the world.
*
Among the great glass-walled buildings which have sprung up along this once lush residential area, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel remains strangely anachronistic, even with its twin tower skyscrapers.
Boysie paused under the hotel awning to ogle the ITT Building and Union Dime Savings Bank across the asphalt prairie of divided thoroughfare. The noise was like nowhere else — traffic, doormen’s whistles, loud, brash. Not really so much of a noise as some crazy symphony which slid like a pile of bacteria into your blood stream and shot wads of static into the nerve centre of your body. The son
g of New York; the tingling pitch of the city. And all mixed up in it were the tantalizing scraps of half-heard conversation.
‘So she says to me, “Hot Dog, mister?” And I come back with “I already got one, sister.” How about that? You get it? I already …’
‘Joe, I swear to you I am never. And I mean it, Joe. Never, never going through that ordeal again. Never …’
‘Ah, kiddy, that broad. It was like laying a hard boiled egg …’
‘If you don’t ask you never find out, so I said …’
‘Then I found I hadn’t put them on after all. Was I …’
‘And he died. Just died there in the office.’
‘Terrible.’
‘What do you mean, terrible? I’d been after that guy’s job for seven years …’
‘She’ll know about it. Tonight she’ll know about it …’
Boysie followed a bewildered Griffin and ever-suave Mostyn through the doors, up the marble staircase and into the gilded lobby where, many say, people actually live, sleep and abide.
Mostyn, being Mostyn, had acquired a suite, with main lounge and three bedrooms on the twentieth floor. A thick expensive envelope, the kind you get from wealthy charities, addressed Colonel F. G. Mostyn, lay waiting on the bureau. After they had washed, called room service for drinks, examined the decor (lapsed Regency), fiddled with their TV sets, Mostyn tore open the envelope and called the meeting to order.
‘It seems,’ he began pompously after scrutinizing the contents, ‘That the agency has five possible girls. We start interviewing tomorrow aft …’ A knock at the door.
After years of uneasy living, Griffin’s hand lifted quickly to the inside of his jacket. Boysie loped lazily over to the door and opened up, revealing a diminutive messenger boy, cap in one hand, envelope in the other.
‘A Mr. B. Oakes?’ queried the messenger.
‘In the flesh,’ smiled Boysie.
‘Sign please.’