by Len Deighton
‘But what?’
‘Kennedy isn’t that kind of shrink. Not any more he’s not. At the clinic he’s doing work on crowd hysteria and hallucination. He doesn’t see patients; he analyses figures, gives lectures and writes dissertations on the herd instinct and that kind of junk. The clinic is paid by some big US foundation and the work they publish is studied by various police departments.’
‘So tell me your theory,’ said Bret.
‘What can I tell you: he’s a good-looking guy. An airplane freak. Canadian. Soft-spoken, well-heeled, smartly dressed, very, very bright and muy simpatico. You get the picture? This Samson lady…she’s a very attractive woman.’ He stopped. A conversation with Bret, when he was in a touchy mood like this, was like a stroll through a minefield. He smoked his cigarette as if trying to decide what to say next. ‘Maybe that kind of soft shoulder, and the Canadian charm this guy Kennedy peddles, is just what she’s short of.’
‘A good-looker, is he?’
‘You saw the photos, Bret.’
‘Looked like he was assembled from a plastic kit.’
‘He’s a natty dresser, I said that. But even people who don’t like him admit he’s brilliant. Good flyer, good doctor and good lover too maybe. He’s one of those people who always come out on top in exams: fluent, adaptable and sophisticated.’
‘And on the down side?’
‘My guess is: neurotic, restless and unhappy. He can’t settle down anywhere. But lots of women go for guys like that, they figure they can help them. And look at her husband. I’ve met him a few times. He’s a really rough diamond, isn’t he?’
‘You said…’
‘That I liked him. And I do up to a point. He’s dead straight: I wouldn’t like to cross him.’ It was quite an accolade coming from Bernstein. ‘He’s a man’s man: not the sort you’d expect to find hitched to a twin-set and pearls lady like that.’
Bret bit his lip and was silent for a moment before saying, ‘Sometimes things are not…’
‘Oh, I know what you’re going to say. But I’ve been doing this kind of work for a long time now. Two people like that…She goes to his apartment: alone, never with her husband…He never goes to her place. And you only have to see them together to know he’s crazy about her.’ He flicked ash into an ancient ceramic ashtray around the rim of which the words ‘Long May They Reign. Coronation 1937’ were faintly visible. It was part of his wife’s collection of commemorative chinaware. He moved it, so there was no danger of it being knocked and broken, and waited for Rensselaer to react.
‘It’s improbable,’ pronounced Bret.
‘You say it’s improbable. Okay, you’re the boss. But do my job for a little while, and maybe you’d start thinking you can’t use that word improbable, because when boys and girls get together, nothing is improbable.’
Bret smiled but he felt sick at heart. In his own futile way he loved and cherished Fiona Samson, and didn’t want to believe she was having a casual affair. ‘Okay, Sylvy. You usually get it right.’
‘There’s always a first time. Maybe they just drink tea, look at pictures of his airplanes and talk about the meaning of life. But really I don’t think so, Bret.’
Bret Rensselaer got up, overcome with anger. He looked around angrily, as if an escape from the room would bring with it escape from the facts he didn’t want to face. He couldn’t get out of his mind the wonderful relationship that he believed had developed between him and Fiona Samson over the weeks and months since he’d started preparing her for what would undoubtedly be the intelligence coup of the century. Fiona was the perfect pupil. ‘Pupil’ perhaps wasn’t the right word and it certainly wasn’t a word he would use to her about their relationship. Protegee, perhaps; although that wasn’t the right word either. In a grimmer truth the relationship was more like the one a prizefighter has with a trainer, a manager, or a promoter.
She needed his support nowadays. The strain was beginning to tell on her, but that was only to be expected. He liked to help her, and of course Bret would not have denied that there was a certain frisson to the way that they had to meet covertly, in such a way that her husband wouldn’t start suspecting. For by now Bret had reluctantly come round to the D-G’s idea that advantages could be obtained from Bernard Samson’s dismay at his wife’s defection.
‘How could she?’ It was only when he stole a glance at Bernstein that Bret realized that he’d asked the question aloud. He turned away and went across to the dining table to lean upon it with both arms outstretched; he had to think.
Bret and Fiona, they had become so close that lately he’d dared to start believing that she was becoming fond of him. He’d arranged fresh flowers whenever she came, and she’d remarked on it. Her rare but wonderful smiles, the curiously fastidious way she poured drinks for both of them, and sometimes she brought silly little presents for him, like the automatic corkscrew which replaced the one he’d broken. There was the birthday card too: it came in a bright green envelope and said ‘With all my love, Fiona’. Bad security, as he told her at their next meeting, but he’d placed it by his bedside clock; it was the first thing he saw when he woke up each morning. Bret closed his eyes.
Bernstein watched him twisting and turning but said nothing. Bernstein waited. He wasn’t puzzled; he didn’t puzzle about things he wasn’t paid to puzzle about. He’d discovered over the years how mysterious could be the ways of men and women, and Bret Rensselaer’s wild pacing and unrestrained mutterings didn’t alarm him or even surprise him.
Bret hammered a fist into his palm. It was inconceivable that Fiona was having an affair with this man Kennedy. There must be some other explanation. Bret had come to terms with the fact that, when she said goodbye to him, Fiona Samson went home to her husband and children. That was right and proper. Bret liked Bernard. But who the hell was Kennedy? Did Fiona smile and make jokes with Kennedy? Even more awful to think about, did she go to bed with this man?
It was at that point that Bret Rensselaer steadied himself on the mantelpiece, drew back his foot and kicked the brass fender as hard as he could. The matching fire-irons crashed against the fireplace with such force that the grate sang like a tuning fork, and one of the tiles of the hearth was hit hard enough to crack.
‘Take it easy, Bret!’ said Bernstein in a voice that, for the first time, betrayed his alarm. He found himself standing up, holding, for safety, the two Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee plates that were his wife’s most treasured items.
This displacement activity seemed to release some of Bret’s anger, for the desperate nature of his movements subsided, and he stepped more carefully about the room and pretended to look at the books and then out of the window to where his car was parked. It was not often that Bret was lost for words but he simply could not get his thoughts in order. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said to himself, and resolved to get Fiona Samson assigned to Berlin right away, perhaps by the weekend.
When Bret sat down again both men remained silent for a while and listened to the dustmen collecting the garbage: they banged the bins and yelled to each other and the truck gave a plaintive little hooting noise whenever it backed up.
‘Give me a butt, Sylvy.’
Bernstein let him take one and flicked the Zippo open. He noticed that Bret was trembling but the cigarette seemed to calm him down.
Bret said, ‘What would you say to a regular job?’
‘With your people?’
‘I just might be able to fix it.’
‘Are you getting tee’d off with paying me out of your own pocket?’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’ said Bret calmly.
‘You never ask for vouchers.’
‘Well, what do you say?’
‘I wouldn’t fit into a British setup.’
‘Sure you would.’
‘The truth is, Bret, that I wouldn’t trust the British to look after me.’
‘Look after you how?’
‘If I was in trouble. I’m a Yank. If I was in a jam, t
hey’d feed me to the sharks.’ He stubbed out his cigarette very hard.
‘Why do you say that?’ Bret asked.
‘I know I’m stepping out of line, Bret, but I think you’re crazy to trust them. If they have to choose between you and one of their own, what do you think they are going to do?’
‘Well, let me know if you change your mind, Sylvy.’
‘I won’t change my mind, Bret.’
‘I didn’t know you disliked the Brits so much, Sylvy. Why do you live here?’
‘I don’t dislike them; I said I don’t trust them. London is a real nice place to live. But I don’t like their self-righteous attitude and their total disregard for other people’s feelings and for other people’s property. Do you know something, Bret, there is not an Englishman living who hasn’t at some time or other boasted of stealing something: at school or in the army, at their college or on a drunken spree. All of them, at some time or other, steal things and then tell about it, as if it was the biggest joke you ever heard.’
Bret stood up. Bernstein could be sanctimonious at times, he thought. ‘I’ll leave all this material. I’ve read it all through. I don’t want it in the office.’
‘Anything you say, Bret.’
Bret brought out his wallet and counted out twenty fifty-pound notes. Bernstein wrote ‘one thousand pounds sterling’ on a slip of paper without adding date or signature or even the word ‘received’. It was the way they did business.
Bret noticed the freshly cut leather on the toe of his shoe and touched it as if hoping it would heal of its own accord. He sighed, got up and put on his hat and coat and began thinking of Fiona Samson again. He would have to face her with it, there was no alternative. But he wouldn’t do that today, or even tomorrow. Much better to get her off to Berlin.
‘This guy Pryce-Hughes,’ said Bret very casually as he stood near the door. ‘What do you make of him, Sylvy?’
Bernstein was not sure what Bret wanted to hear. ‘He’s very old,’ he said finally.
Bret nodded.
8
West Berlin. September 1978.
The afternoon was yellowing like ancient newspaper, and on the heavy air there came the pervasive smell of the lime trees. Berlin’s streets were crowded with visitors, column upon column, equipped with maps, cameras and heavy rucksacks, less hurried now as the long day’s parading took its toll. The summer was stretching into autumn, and still there were Westies here, some of them fond parents using their vacations to visit draft-dodging sons.
Her day’s work done, Fiona sighed with relief to be back in their new ‘home’. There was a bunch of flowers, still wrapped in paper and cellophane, on the hall table. It was typical of Bernard that he’d not bothered to put them into a vase of water, but she didn’t touch them. She took off her hat and coat, checked to be sure there was no mail in the cage behind the letter-box nor on the hall table, and then examined herself in the mirror for long enough to decide that her make-up was satisfactory. She had aged, and even the make-up could not completely hide the darkened eyes and lines round her mouth. She flicked her fingers through her hair, which had been crushed under the close-fitting hat, then took a breath and put on a cheerful smile before going into the drawing room of her rented apartment.
Bernard was already home. He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. Shirt wrinkled, red braces visible, he was lolling on the sofa with a big drink in his hand. ‘What a mess you look, darling. A bit early for boozing, isn’t it?’ She said it loudly and cheerfully before seeing that Bernard’s father was sitting opposite him, also drinking.
Despite her flippant tone, Mr Brian Samson, still technically her superior in the office, frowned. He came forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Hello, Fiona,’ he said. ‘I was just telling Bernard all about it.’ If it did anything, the kiss confirmed her father-in-law’s feelings about upper-class wives who came home and reprimanded their husbands for making themselves comfortable in their own homes.
‘All about it?’ she said, going to one of the display shelves above the TV where by common consent the mail was placed until both of them had read it. There was only a bill from the wine shop and an elaborate engraved invitation to her sister’s birthday party. She’d seen both pieces of mail but examined them again before turning round and smiling. Since neither man offered to get her a drink she said, ‘I think I’ll make some tea. Would anyone like tea?’ She noticed some spilled drink and took a paper napkin to mop it up and then tidied the drinks tray before she said, ‘All about what, Brian?’
It was Bernard who answered: ‘The Baader-Meinhof panic, as they are now calling it.’
‘Oh, that. How boring. You were lucky to miss it, darling.’
‘Boring?’ said her father-in-law, his voice rising slightly.
‘Much ado about nothing,’ said Fiona.
‘I don’t know,’ said her father-in-law. ‘If the Baader-Meinhof people had hijacked the airliner and flown it to Prague…’ Ominously he left the rest unsaid.
‘Well that would have been impossible, father-in-law,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The signal that came back from Bonn said that Andreas Baader committed suicide in Stammheim maximum security prison a year ago and the rest of them are in other prisons in the Bundesrepublik.’
‘I know that,’ said the elder Samson with exaggerated clarity, ‘but terrorists come in many shapes, sizes and colours; and not all of them are behind bars. It was an emergency. My God, Fiona, have you been to Bonn lately? They have barbed wire and armed guards on the government buildings. The streets are patrolled by armoured cars. It’s not boring, Fiona, whatever else it may be.’
Fiona made no concession to her father-in-law. ‘So you don’t want tea?’ she said.
‘The world is going mad,’ said Samson senior. ‘One poor devil was murdered when his own godchild led the killers into the house carrying red roses. Every politician and industrialist in the country is guarded night and day.’
‘And complaining because they can’t visit their mistresses, or so it said on the confidential report,’ said Fiona. ‘Did you read that?’
‘What I can’t understand,’ said her father-in-law, ignoring her question and holding Fiona personally responsible for any delinquency attributed to the younger generation, ‘is the way in which we have people demonstrating in favour of the terrorists! Bombs in German car showrooms in Turin, Leghorn and Bologna. Street demonstrations in London, Vienna and Athens. In favour of the terrorists. Are these people mad?’
Fiona shrugged and picked up the tray.
Bernard watched but said nothing. Throughout the world 1977 had seen an upsurge in the terrorist activities of religious fanatics and assorted crooks and maniacs. People everywhere were expressing their bewilderment. The older generation were blaming everything upon their children, while younger people saw the mindless violence as a legacy they had inherited. Bernard’s wife and his father provided a typical example of this. Any conversation was likely to degenerate into an exchange in which they both assumed archetypal roles. Bernard’s father thought that Fiona had too many airs and graces: too rich, too educated and too damned opinionated, he’d told Bernard once after a difference of opinion with her.
As Fiona went to the kitchen she delivered a Parthian shot: ‘In any case, hardly a suitable cue for panic, father-in-law.’
Bernard wished she wouldn’t say ‘father-in-law’ in that tripping way. It irritated his father, but of course Fiona knew that only too well. Bernard tried to intercede. ‘Dad says it was the Russian message ordering the Czechs to keep their airfield open all night that did it. We put two and two together and made five.’
Fiona was amused. ‘At this time of the year hundreds of East Bloc military airfields are working round the clock. This, darling, is the time of their combined exercises. Or hasn’t that military secret filtered back to London Central yet?’
She wasn’t in view but they could hear her pouring the hot water into the teapot and putting cups and sauc
ers on a tray. Neither man spoke. The animated discussion they’d been having before Fiona’s arrival had been killed stone dead. Brian looked at his son and smiled. Bernard smiled back.
Fiona came in and set the tray down on the table where Bernard had been resting his feet. Then she knelt on the carpet to pour the tea. ‘Are you both sure…?’ she said. She had arranged cups and saucers for all three of them, and a sugar bowl because her father-in-law took sugar in his tea.
‘No thank you, darling,’ said Bernard.
She looked at Bernard. She loved him very much. The hurried assignment to Berlin had not been wonderful for either of them but it had given her a chance to break away from the foolish relationship with Kennedy. These brushes with Samson senior were upsetting, but he was old, and in fact she’d found that the more she disliked the old man, the more she came to appreciate Bernard. He was always the peacemaker but never showed weakness either to her or to his father. Bernard, what a wonderful man she’d found. Now she’d had a chance to see things in perspective, she knew that he was the only man for her. The perilous relationship with Harry Kennedy was behind her. She still didn’t comprehend how that frenzied affair could have happened except that it disclosed some alarming sexual vulnerability of which she’d never been aware.
Even so, she couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t sent the postcard. One was forwarded here every week: a coloured advertising card from a ‘hair and beauty salon’ off Sloane Street. Some friend of his owned it: a woman friend no doubt.
‘No mail?’ she asked as she measured milk into her tea and stirred it to see the colour of it.
‘Only that same crimpers,’ said Bernard.
‘Where did you put it?’
‘You didn’t want it, did you?’
‘If I take the card they said I could get a price reduction,’ said Fiona.
‘It’s in the waste bin. Sorry.’
She could see it now. From where she knelt on the floor she could almost have reached it. It was in the basket together with an empty Schweppes tonic bottle and a crumpled Players cigarette packet that must have been Brian’s. The postcard was torn into small pieces, almost as if Bernard had sensed the danger it held. Fiona resolved not to touch it, although her first impulse was to go and get it and piece it together.