by Len Deighton
‘We’ll have half an hour or so,’ said Albert, ‘and Sir Henry might be late: he said that.’
‘It’s just as well I remained in London,’ said Bret. ‘You never know where Sir Henry will turn up.’
‘No, sir,’ said Albert Bingham.
Bret settled back in the leather seat of his Bentley. He had been tempted to spend the weekend with some horsy friends near Newmarket, and make a sidetrip to the D-G’s house in Cambridgeshire. Then his wife had insisted that they met for Saturday lunch and he’d stayed in town. It was just as well. A sudden dash back to London at short notice, just to satisfy the old man’s whim, was the kind of thing that gave Bret indigestion pains.
‘I’m sorry if this was an inconvenient meeting place,’ said Sir Henry Clevemore when he arrived in the tiny upstairs room above the garage. He had knocked his head against the door frame but now, having fitted his huge bulk into a big, somewhat dilapidated armchair, he seemed quite content. ‘But it was a matter of some urgency.’
‘I’m sorry that it’s not more comfortable here,’ said Bret. The room was dusty and damp. There were fingermarks on the mirror, unwashed milk bottles in the sink and dead flowers on the bookcase. The only festive note was provided by the carpet, which was rolled up, stitched into canvas and garnished with bright red plastic packets of moth repellant. Used by transients as a place to sleep, the house was sadly lacking in any sort of comfort. Even the electric kettle was not working. What a shame that Nikki was so difficult. This place would really benefit from a woman’s touch.
Bret reached down to see if there was hot air coming from the convection heater. He’d put on the electric heating as soon as he arrived, but the air was musty. He resolved to do something drastic about refurbishing the place. He’d write to the lawyers about it. He opened a cupboard to reveal some bottles. ‘There is a bottle of whisky…’
‘Stop fussing, Bret. We needed somewhere to talk in private. This is ideal. No, I don’t want a drink. My news is that Erich Stinnes is flying here from Mexico City together with young Bernard Samson. I think we’ve done it.’
‘That’s good news, sir.’ He looked down to see where the D-G’s black Labrador was sprawled. Why had the old man brought that senile and smelly creature up into this little room?
‘It’s going to be your show, Bret. Let Samson do the talking but keep a tight control on what’s really happening. We must turn Stinnes round and get him back there.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But it occurred to me, Bret…’ He paused. ‘I don’t want to interfere…It’s your show. Entirely your show.’
‘Please go on, sir.’ Bret flicked the dust from a chintz-covered chair and sat down very carefully. He didn’t want to get his clothes dirty.
The D-G was lolling back with his legs crossed, oblivious of the shabbiness of the room. The gloomy winter light coming through the dusty window was just enough to describe the old man’s profile and make spots of light on the toes of his highly polished shoes. ‘Should we collar this damned fellow Martin Pryce-Hughes?’
‘The communist. Ummm.’
Bret’s tone was too mild to satisfy the D-G. ‘That little tick who was the contact between Mrs Samson and the KGB hoodlums,’ he said forcibly. ‘Shall we collar him? Don’t say you haven’t given it any thought.’
‘I’ve given it a lot of thought,’ said Bret in the strangled voice that was his response to unjust criticism.
‘You cautioned against pulling him in too soon after Mrs Samson went over. But how long are we going to wait?’
Bret said, ‘You see, sir…’
The D-G interrupted him. ‘Now with this fellow Stinnes arriving here, we have to consider to what extent we want Moscow to link Stinnes and Pryce-Hughes. If Stinnes is to go back there, we don’t want them to think that he betrayed Pryce-Hughes to us, do we?’
‘No, sir, we don’t.’
‘Well, for the Lord’s sake, man. Spit it out! What is on your mind? Shall we grab Pryce-Hughes and grill him or not? It’s your decision. You know I don’t want to interfere.’
‘You are always very considerate,’ said Bret, while really thinking how much he would like to kick the D-G down the narrow creaking stairs and watch to see which way he bounced off the greasy garage floor.
‘I try to be,’ said the D-G, mollified by Bret’s subservient tone.
‘But another dimension has emerged. It is something I didn’t want to bother you with.’
‘Bother me with it now,’ said Sir Henry.
‘In the summer of 1978…’ Bret paused, deciding how much he should reveal, and how he should say it. ‘Mrs Samson…formed a relationship with a Dr Henry Kennedy.’
When Bret paused again, the D-G said, ‘Formed a relationship? What the devil does that mean? I’m not going to sue you for defamation, Bret. For God’s sake, say what you mean. Say what you mean.’
‘I mean,’ said Bret, speaking slowly and deliberately, ‘that from about that time, until she went over there, she was having a love affair with this man.’
‘Oh my God!’ said the D-G with a gasp of surprise upon which he almost choked. ‘Mrs Samson? Are you quite sure, Bret?’ He waited until Bret nodded. ‘My God.’ The black Labrador, sensing its master’s dismay, got to its feet and shook itself. Now the air was full of dust from the dog’s coat: Bret could see motes of it buoyant on the draught coming from the heater.
Bret got his handkerchief to his nose just in time before sneezing. When he recovered he dabbed his face again and said, ‘I’m quite sure, Sir Henry, but that’s not all. When I started digging into this fellow Kennedy’s past, I discovered that he has been a party member since the time he was a medical student.’
‘Party member? Communist Party member? This fellow she was having it off with? Bret, why the hell didn’t you tell me all this? Am I going mad?’ He was straining forward in his chair as if trying to get up and his dog was looking angrily at Bret.
‘I appreciate your concern, sir,’ said Bret in the gravelly American accent that he could summon when he needed it. ‘Kennedy is a Canadian. His father was a Ukrainian with a name that couldn’t be written on an English typewriter so it became Kennedy.’
‘I don’t like the smell of that one, Bret. Are we really dealing with a Russian national wielding a Canadian birth certificate? We’ve seen a lot of those, haven’t we?’
‘Ottawa RCMP have nothing on him. Served in the air force with an exemplary record. Medical school: postgraduate and so on. The only thing they could turn up was an ex-wife chasing him for alimony. No political activity except for a few meetings of the party at college.’ Bret stopped. The fact that the fellow was being chased for alimony payments made Bret sympathize.
‘Well, don’t leave it like that, Bret. You’re not trying to break it to me that Mrs Samson might have been…’ The D-G’s voice trailed away as he considered the terrifying complexities that would follow upon any doubts about Fiona Samson’s loyalties.
‘No, no worries on that account, Sir Henry. In fact they are both clear. I have no evidence that Dr Kennedy has been active in any way – in any way at all – during the time he was seeing Mrs Samson or afterwards.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on him.’
‘You personally?’
‘No, of course not, Sir Henry. I have had someone keeping an eye on him.’
‘Someone? What someone? A Department someone?’
‘No, of course not, sir. I arranged it privately.’
‘Yes, but not paid for it privately, eh? It’s gone on the dockets. Perhaps you didn’t think of that. Oh, my God.’
‘It’s not on any dockets, Sir Henry. I paid personally and I paid in cash.’
‘Are you insane, Bret? You paid personally? Out of your own pocket? What are you up to?’
‘It had to be kept secret,’ said Bret.
‘Of course it did. You don’t have to tell me that! My God. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
’ The D-G slumped back in the chair as if in collapse. ‘What kind of whisky have you got?’ he said finally.
Bret reached for a bottle of Bell’s, poured a stiff one into a tumbler for the D-G and gave it to him. After sipping it, the D-G said, ‘Confound you, Bret. Tell me the worst. Come along. I’m prepared now.’
‘There is no “worst”,’ said Bret. ‘It is as I told you. There is nothing to show any contact between Kennedy and the Soviets.’
‘You don’t fool me, Bret. If it was as simple as that you would have told me long ago, not waited until I faced you with collaring Pryce-Hughes.’
Bret was still standing near the bottles. He had never been a drinker, but he poured himself a tiny one to be sociable, took it to the window and nursed it. He wanted to get as far away from the dog as he possibly could. The smell of the drink was repulsive and he put it down. He pressed his fingers against the cold windowpane. How well he knew this little house. Glenn Rensselaer had brought him here while still wearing the uniform of a US Army general. Glenn had been someone Bret had loved more than he could ever love the pathetic alcoholic who was his father.
‘It’s no more than a hunch,’ said Bret, after a long time of just looking down at the cobbled mews and the shiny cars parked there. ‘But I just know Kennedy is a part of it. I just know he is. I’m sure they put Kennedy in to run a check on Mrs Samson. They met at a railway station; I’m sure it was contrived.’ He let a little whisky touch his lips. ‘She must have got through whatever test he gave her, because the signs are that Dr Kennedy is in love with her and continues to be. But Kennedy is a bomb, ticking away, and I don’t like it. I kept an eye on Pryce-Hughes because I hoped there would be some contact. But it’s a long time ago: I guess I was wrong.’
‘Too much guessing, Bret.’
‘Yes, Sir Henry.’
‘Facts trump the ace of hunches, right?’
‘Yes, of course, sir.’
‘You’ll collar Pryce-Hughes?’
‘I’d rather leave that a little longer, Director. I tried to provoke him into a response a few years back. I had someone produce an elaborate file that “proved” Pryce-Hughes was working for London Central. It was a magnificent job –documents, photos and all sorts of stuff – and it cost an arm and a leg. I went along when it was shown to him.’
‘And?’
‘He just laughed in our faces, sir. Literally. I was there. He laughed.’
‘I’m glad we had this little chat, Bret,’ said the D-G. It was a rebuke.
‘But the file I compiled to incriminate Pryce-Hughes could be very useful to us now, sir.’
‘I’m listening, Bret.’
‘I want to have the whole file revised so it will incriminate this KGB Colonel Pavel Moskvin.’
‘The thug who murdered that lad in the Bosham safe house?’
‘I believe he’s a danger to Fiona Samson.’
‘Are you sure this is not just a way of using that damned file?’
‘It will cost very little, sir. We can plant it into the KGB network very easily. That Miranda Keller woman would be perfect in the role of Moskvin’s contact.’
‘It would be a bit rough on her, wouldn’t it?’ said the D-G.
‘It’s Fiona Samson we have to think of,’ said Bret.
‘Very well, Bret. If you put it like that I can’t stop you.’
19
England. Christmas 1983.
Gloria Kent felt miserable. She had brought Bernard Samson’s two young children to spend Christmas with her parents. She was tall and blonde and very beautiful and she was wearing the low-cut green dress she had bought specially to impress Bernard.
‘Why isn’t he with his children?’ Gloria’s mother asked for the umpteenth time. She was putting the Christmas lunch dishes into the dishwasher as Gloria brought them from the table.
‘He was given Christmas duty at the last minute,’ said Gloria. ‘And the nanny had already gone home.’
‘You are a fool, Gloria,’ said her mother.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ said her mother. ‘He’ll go back to his wife, they always do.’ She dropped a handful of knives and forks into the plastic basket. ‘A man can’t have two wives.’
Gloria handed over the dessert plates and then put clingfilm over the remains of the Christmas pudding before putting it into the refrigerator.
Ten-year-old Billy Samson came into the kitchen. He was still wearing the paper hat and a plastic bangle that he’d got from a Christmas cracker. ‘Sally is going to be sick,’ he announced, without bothering to conceal his joy at the prospect.
‘No she’s not, Billy. I just spoke to her, she’s doing the jigsaw. Is the video finished?’
‘I’ve seen it before.’
‘Has Grandad seen it before?’ asked Gloria. It had been established that Gloria’s father was Grandad.
‘He’s asleep,’ said Billy. ‘He snores.’
‘Why don’t you help Sally with the jigsaw?’ said Gloria.
‘Can I have some more custard?’
‘I think you’ve had enough, Billy,’ said Gloria firmly. ‘I’ve never seen anyone eat so much.’
Billy looked at her for a moment before agreeing and wandering off to the drawing room. Mrs Kent watched him go. The little boy was so like the photos of his father. She was sorry for the poor motherless mite but was convinced that her daughter would know only pain from her reckless affair with ‘a married man at the office’.
‘I know everything you want to say, Mummy,’ said Gloria, ‘but I love Bernard desperately.’
‘I know you do, my sweetheart.’ She was going to say more but she saw her daughter’s eyes already brimming with tears. That was the heart-wrenching part of it, Gloria knew that only misery was in store for her.
‘He didn’t want to go,’ said Gloria. ‘This awful man at the office sent him. I planned everything so carefully. I wanted to make him and the children really happy.’
‘What does he say about it?’ her mother asked, emboldened by the wine she’d had with lunch.
‘He says the same things you say,’ said Gloria. ‘He keeps telling me he’s twenty years older than I am. He keeps saying I should be with someone else, someone younger.’
‘Then he can’t love you,’ declared her mother emphatically.
Gloria managed a little laugh. ‘Oh, Mummy. Whatever he does he’s wrong in your eyes.’
‘When you first told us your father couldn’t talk about it for weeks.’
‘It’s my life, Mummy.’
‘You are so young. You trust everyone and the world is so cruel.’ She packed the last dirty plate into the dishwasher, closed its door and straightened up. ‘What is he doing today that is so important? Or should I not ask?’
‘He’s in Berlin, identifying a body.’
‘I’ll be glad when you go to Cambridge.’
‘Yes,’ said Gloria without enthusiasm.
‘Isn’t his wife in Berlin?’ said her mother suddenly.
‘He won’t be seeing her,’ said Gloria.
In the next room Billy pulled a chair up to the card table where Sally was working at the jigsaw – ‘A Devon Scene’ – which was a present from Nanny. Sally had got two edges of it complete. Without saying anything Billy began to help with the puzzle.
‘I miss Mummy,’ said Sally. ‘I wonder why she didn’t visit us for Christmas.’
‘Gloria is nice,’ said Billy, who had rather fallen for her. ‘What is separated?’ He had heard that his parents were separated but he was not sure exactly what this meant.
Sally said, ‘Nanny said Mummy and Daddy have to live in different countries so that they can find themselves.’
‘Can’t they find themselves?’ said Billy. He chuckled, ‘It must be terrible if you can’t find yourself.’
Sally didn’t find this funny at all. ‘When she finds herself Mummy will come back.’
‘Does it take long?’
‘I
’ll ask Nanny,’ said Sally, who was clever at wheedling things out of the quiet girl from Devon.
‘Is Daddy finding himself too?’ And then, before Sally could reply, he found a piece of sky and fitted it into the puzzle.
‘I saw that bit first,’ said Sally.
‘No you didn’t! No you didn’t!’
Sally said, ‘Perhaps Daddy could marry Mummy and marry Gloria too.’
‘No,’ said Billy authoritatively. ‘A man can’t have two wives.’
Sally looked at him with admiration. Billy always knew everything. But there was a look she recognized in his face. ‘Are you all right?’ she said fearfully.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Billy.
20
East Berlin, February 1984.
Hubert Renn seldom voiced his innermost thoughts, but had he done so in respect of working for Fiona Samson, he would have said that the relationship had proved far better than he’d dared hope. And when, in the first week of January 1984, he was offered a chance to change jobs and work at the Normannenstrasse Stasi headquarters, Renn declined and went to considerable trouble to provide reasons why not.
Hubert Renn preferred the atmosphere of the small KGB/Stasi command unit on Karl Liebknecht Strasse. And, like many of the administrative staff, he enjoyed the feeling of importance and the day-to-day urgency that ‘operational’ work bestowed. Also he’d adopted a paternal responsibility for Fiona Samson without it ever becoming evident from the stern and formal way in which he insisted that the office must be run. Neither did Fiona Samson ever demand, or seemingly expect, anything other than Renn’s total dedication to his work.
Renn did not find it difficult to understand Fiona Samson, or at least to come to terms with her. This mutual understanding was helped by the way in which Fiona had suppressed and reformed her femininity. The uncertainties and the misgivings that child-bearing and marriage had given her no longer influenced her thoughts. She was not masculine – men and their reasonings were no less puzzling now than they’d ever been – but she was simplistic and determined in the way that men are. Even at her most feminine, she had never fallen into the role of victim the way she’d watched her mother and her sister and countless other women readily play that part. Nowadays, whenever something came up that she was unable to deal with on her own terms, she asked herself what Bernard would do in the same situation, and that often helped her to solve the problem. And solve it without delay.