Without pausing, making no concession to the figure in a state of near collapse at the desk, he said, as if reconsidering Ruskin’s first reaction, ‘My question is simple. Did you know that he had died?’
Ruskin’s poise came back in ragged fashion at the last, and he staged a rally. Flemyng admired the effort. ‘Dead? What are you talking about? All I know is he was as high as a kite – I can tell it when I see it, as Will is aware.’ He glared at Abel. ‘You’re a friend, after all, you know his problem. When he challenged me – insulted me, threatened me – I left him on the terrace at the House. He’d phoned me and I’d agreed to meet him for a drink… because of what he said he knew. Stupid. Said he had the whole story, and that it might all come out. I told him to go away and never come back and that was the last I saw of him. I went to my room in the House and locked myself in, raged for a while.’ He sagged back into the chair.
The brothers watched him. They had rehearsed the last piece of choreography, and Flemyng took the lead.
‘Jonathan, this has been unpleasant for all of us. You’ve been frank, and nobody envies you the experience of having a troubling piece of your past thrown at you without warning. We all have something tucked away. But you’ll realize with this death – it’s very private by the way – that you will need to be spoken to, because you met Manson. He worked for his government, came here under cover, and is dead. We have to know why. The investigating officer is called Osterley, from Special Branch, and he’ll contact you. You’ll have to lay it all out for him. When you met Manson, where you saw him, every word that was spoken. The lot.’
Ruskin’s china blue eyes were wide and dazed-looking.
‘It will be today. You know what it’s like, trying to keep a lid on these things. We need to move fast. He’ll listen to your story. Tell him everything, and then it’s over.
‘He will be particularly interested in the hour of Manson’s confrontation with you, because he died on Thursday, not Wednesday.’
Ruskin tried to smile. ‘Something must have happened after I saw him then. He was obviously on drugs. I’ve been there and I’ve looked over the edge.’ With a physical effort that was obvious to everyone, he said, ‘I’m so sorry. He was a sad man.’
Flemyng could see that Paul was watching through the crack in the door behind Ruskin, still wearing an expression of horror. He seemed not to have moved for several minutes.
‘It was sad indeed,’ said Flemyng. ‘And violent too, I think, at the end.’ He slid back Paul’s desk drawer and took out his own blue handkerchief. From it he extracted the short sliver of marble he had picked from the floor of the store-room and placed it on the table. ‘Violent enough for a big bust of Gladstone to be split almost in two. I think the crash may have been the last thing Joe Manson heard.
‘Poor Manson, mad enough at the end to have a fight with a statue.’
There was silence.
Then Abel said, ‘I’d like to thank you, Minister – Jonathan, if I may? It’s a difficult moment, especially for those of us who knew Joe. Please tell the police everything you can. No doubt we’ll meet again.’
A twitch appeared on Ruskin’s face that Flemyng had never seen before, and he sighed.‘I will,’ he said as he walked – stumbled, to Abel’s eyes – towards the door.
Abel matched his brother’s timing with his last shot, Paul watching from the adjacent room.
‘There is one particular difficulty that Osterley may ask you to help with. Just so you know.’
Ruskin turned to face Abel. As he did so, he caught sight of Paul. But the fight had gone from him.
‘It looks as if Joe died from drugs that were injected. There was a syringe nearby. But we know he’d never used one in his life. Any light you can cast…’
Ruskin gazed at them both in turn, shook his head towards Paul, gave a kind of bow and closed the door behind him.
26
The clock struck the half-hour and broke the silence that Ruskin had left in his wake. Paul was back at his desk, with Flemyng opposite him and Abel standing by the window, looking towards the park. ‘I need to send a message,’ he said. Paul gestured to the outer office, and he left without another word. Flemyng had never seen Paul silenced so quickly, and watched him grapple with feelings that had robbed him, for the moment, of all authority.
Abel closed the door gently behind him and Flemyng waited for Paul, giving him the chance to regain command. After a few moments his grey eyes came up, and met Flemyng’s. ‘The most terrible scene I’ve ever witnessed. I had no idea… The agony. How has he hidden it?’
‘Necessity,’ said Flemyng without obvious emotion, and pressed on.
‘Was it you who sent him to see Archie Chester?’ Now that he had opened himself up to the questions that must follow, Paul didn’t pause to ask Flemyng how he knew. Instead, he let it flow.
‘Yes, but not for this kind of thing.’ He waved to the door, as if the shadow of Ruskin were still there, refusing to fade in the light.
‘Tell me,’ said Flemyng.
‘We’ve often used Chester for people in difficulty. Top man, and more discreet than some of these characters. Your old friends have a good relationship with him and he’s sorted out a few of their walking wounded, one way or another. You must know that.’ Flemyng gave no response. ‘Ruskin came to me months ago with a story about troubles he was having at home – maybe true for all I know – and said he needed help. His wife has always hated this life, as you know. Did I know anyone? Naturally I mentioned Archie. I had no idea there was a drugs thing going on. Well, I know now. My God.’
Flemyng said, ‘He’s dangerous of course, knowing what he does. He sees so many of the papers, wanders the byways, knows where the bodies are buried.’ He shook his head at the phrase. ‘I’m sorry.’
Paul slapped his hand on the desk. ‘Exactly. You know what he’s like – ear cocked for any gossip. I couldn’t believe it when he mentioned Berlin. I knew then that he’d flipped. Will, that’s as deep as it goes.’
He got up and stretched. ‘I’m sorry, I found that a physical trial.’ He went to the window, and spoke with his back to Flemyng. ‘I’m going to fill you in a little more, because I think after the last half-hour you deserve that at least. You’re cleared for most of this kind of thing obviously, but we’ve had to keep this so dark you’d hardly believe it.’
He walked to a side table where his secretary had laid out four china cups and saucers on a wooden tray, even the biscuits that she knew Ruskin liked. The pot of coffee was untouched. No one had noticed it. Paul stood there, the host embarrassed by having forgotten his duties.
Flemyng took up the reins. ‘I can help you, Paul. On Berlin, I should tell you that I’ve discovered enough to give me an outline, and in my head I’ve been colouring in the picture. Let me try it out, and see how we go. You don’t need to say anything.’
Paul made a gesture of relief.
‘I have a few facts and I’ve been thinking about the gaps,’ Flemyng said. ‘This probably sounds strange, because you think you get it all in this office, but I think for just about the first time in this whole bloody saga I may be able to assist you. Let some light in.’
Paul stayed absolutely still but his shoulders had relaxed.
Flemyng began. ‘The way I took your request for help was that you needed me to think for you – to try and understand the connections between people that weren’t immediately obvious, and watch how they behaved. My old game. I don’t imagine for a moment this is what you wanted me to unravel, but I was drawn to it. Of course I was, like a trout to the fly.
‘First of all, I made the assumption that your alarm about Berlin – I know Sassi mentioned it at the opera – must involve a sensitive source. Nothing else produces this kind of panic. It’s familiar enough to me from days gone by, and I learned enough from an old friend to set me on my way. But there was a problem I couldn’t unlock. More than one, as it turned out.
‘A surfeit of allies.’ Flemyng echoed S
am’s words. ‘A phrase I picked up recently, and it won’t go away.’
He closed his eyes in a natural effort at concentration. When he resumed he had turned away instinctively to avoid distractions and as he began to spin his story, in a measured, soft tone, he and Paul had their backs towards each other as if neither wanted to acknowledge what lay between them.
‘To begin at the beginning, I went back in time. Two decades, Europe in the deep freeze, Hungarians on our conscience, the sixties still over the horizon. You remember it – a grey world. Starting out – Berlin, then Vienna – I was aware of a trickle of gold dust that came through a crack, treasure so precious that it was hardly spoken about, even among friends. I was junior, a boy and not much more on my second posting, but I was lucky enough to see it shine. I know others who spend a half a lifetime and never get the chance, but I was taken into the game, played my part and grew up in a hurry. I was in on it, and I loved the dark, Paul.’
He took a few steps and put his hands on the desk. Paul was still turned away.
‘I was blessed. I ran errands to our source, and steadied him in the storm. We spoke, started a friendship, played a little. Berlin, twice in Vienna much later. One or two other places. I was the messenger who turned into something more – an ally, you might say. I brought him comfort, courtesy of London, and held his hand. Prepared him for the years ahead. It was the making of me, as well as him.’
Neither of them had smiled much in the course of the morning, and as Paul swivelled to face him, he saw Flemyng’s long face still serious. But there was confidence in his bearing, his hands loose and his voice strong.
‘He was mine, Paul.’
Flemyng spoke of the prize he’d been given. ‘I was young, new on the street. By chance I fitted the part, that’s all. And I think you know this, Paul – our friend wasn’t on the other side, in the enemy camp. He was on our side of the wall. But just as precious as if he’d been in Moscow, so we thought. His isn’t a story that happens over there. He’s in the west.
‘And now in the middle of all this.’
Paul, grey and serious, said, ‘Go on. You tell it.’
Flemyng was fluent, the story clear in his mind. ‘Here’s a speculation. After my time, our man prospered. We played him long, and it worked. No name, you and I know the rules. But year by year, he gave more. And we’ve learned from him a great deal about how another ally – the big one, our best friend across the pond – is operating on our continent, sometimes on its own and sometimes with others, and not always in our interest. That story is gold dust, for sure. Everything we’ve always wanted. He was the source we have dreamed about so often, looking east and west, laying Europe bare and preparing us for the time when we’re all in from the cold, and we’ll start all over again. When he’ll still be ours.’
Paul said, ‘What was your phrase? A surfeit of allies. How true.’
‘And you’ll understand how I made the connection,’ Flemyng said. ‘There was something particular about this asset, our man with the bag of gold dust. A promise that he made me give from the start: that he was ours and not anyone else’s. His help was for us alone. And now I hear of a request for access from Washington that has got this whole place pitching and yawing like a ship in a storm. It’s too much of a coincidence. I see all the signs – and they smell to me like a mixture of pride and something else. Guilt. I don’t think it can be anyone else.’
Paul laughed for the first time. ‘When I asked you to think for me, this wasn’t what it was about, you know. I needed help with the Manson business because I wanted to know why he was here. That was all. You’ve raced off on your own. I should have known.’
Flemyng’s voice had softened. ‘They’re inseparable, Joe Manson and Berlin. He was a danger to the whole deal. And I think I know why.’
Paul said nothing. Waited.
Flemyng picked up. ‘I decided there must be two operations at risk. One of ours, and one of theirs, coiled up in a knot. Let me try this one out on you.’
He laid Sam’s precious fragment before Paul, like the jewel that it was. ‘Assume that the Americans discovered they had an ugly problem of their own in Berlin, that normally they wouldn’t share, even with us. A leak, operations gone wrong – all the tell-tale signs that one of their own might have wandered off the reservation and gone bad. Embarrassing, but they needed help and turned to us.
‘Did you ever hear of an operation called Empress?’ Paul stared at him. ‘We used an ally to do some of our own dirty business, years ago, on our own doorstep. Inside government. I’m told Operation Empress is a clue, and I think I may know why.’
It’s what allies were for in time of need, he said. ‘The Americans had heard a whisper about our prize asset so they hatched a plan. Maybe they didn’t have the name, but they knew enough. Get us to use our source to identify their leak. Plant information, send some signals and follow them, track him everywhere… that kind of thing. The same kind of help that we got in Empress – an ally called in to muck out the stables.’
He thought of Sam, his excitement at retelling the tale, then his admission that he’d come to a dead end. ‘I think I’ve worked out the next chapter.
‘We gave the Americans a dusty answer. We were reluctant, backed away. Unusual, to say the least. So I asked myself why. Sure, they had rumbled the existence of our super-source and we were piqued, appalled if the truth be told, but allies are supposed to help each other out.’ He paused, and Paul gestured with one hand: keep going.
‘It leaves me facing one conclusion, which may explain why Sassi and my brother and, for all I know, half a dozen other people are crawling round this town with cloaks pulled round them, looking like death.’
He stepped towards Paul as he turned from the window at last.
‘I can think of one good reason why their request should provoke so much reluctance on our part, and fear.’ They were face to face now.
‘Their man, their bad egg, is one of ours. Turned by my old friends, bless them, and for all I know just as useful to us as the seam of gold that we’ve been trying to protect, and keep from the Americans. And we worried that this operation would break him.’
Paul’s eyes were in shadow, the sun coming through the window behind him giving his profile a soft halo of light. ‘Go on.’
Flemyng said, ‘Our closest ally, the special one, has rumbled our game. What we’ve been doing to them in Berlin, and it hurts us both. The nightmare of nightmares.’
Paul spoke. ‘If Gwilym were here, he’d call it a bugger’s muddle.’
‘Quite,’ said Flemyng.
He said he assumed Maria Cooney had worked it out first. ‘She understood why we were stalling, why we had something to hide and what it might be. Miles ahead of the game as usual, which is why she’s still running her own show.
‘She put the squeeze on us. They knew we’d turned one of theirs, and they played hardball. Wanted double rations. All the stuff we’d got from their guy who’s been working for us – everything we’ve had from him and others of his ilk, for all I know – and on top of that, access to our prized source, inside the European government that’s going to be the most important of all some day. Our German benefactor.
‘And what if we said no?
‘The worst threat of all. My guess is that they’ve threatened to blow our asset so that we end up covered in horseshit. Humiliated with one European ally – and at the same time denied the stuff from Washington that we depend on, day by day, just to keep our peckers up. The prospect has had a lot of people in this town wetting themselves.
‘All for refusing to behave like a good ally.’ Flemyng laughed.
‘So here was the American deal. Give them access to our source, let them dig our seam of gold, and at the same time open the books on all the material we’ve had from their guy whom we turned. In return they promise to protect our Big Person, and lift their skirts for us in some difficult places here and there where we need to know things we can’t get for ourselv
es. Trust us, they said: a nice payback. Otherwise, no deal and a long, cold winter.’ Flemyng was aware that he was beginning to sound like Sam.
‘Then Joe Manson stepped into the middle of it all, doing his girlfriend’s business.’ Flemyng shook his head.
‘He explains the panic. He was the guy who knew too much and might talk. Three allies, at least, would be screaming at each other, and, just for once, so loudly that people out there’ – he gestured to the window – ‘might hear. The thing we dread more than anything.’
Paul sighed. ‘You’re there, more or less. We have to buy the deal, because there’s no other choice. They have us by our private parts, and they’re twisting hard. So here’s our problem.
‘How can we persuade our big source that everything from him is shared with Washington? He’s not that way inclined, as I now know you learned an age ago. Quite the reverse. And he’s in a position to know if we start to share it – believe me, he sees everything these days. Why do you think we’ve got such good stuff on the Americans from that source over the years? As well as goings-on over the wall, I may say. So we’ve had to be open with him about what the Americans want. Everyone has his pride.
‘It’s been our game for a long time and we don’t want to change the rules. We’ve had to work to persuade our brave helper, who’s been on our side through long, difficult years, that it’s better to do what Washington wants than to go down in flames. Very hard when we’re having to admit to our American friends at the same time that we’ve got one of theirs.’
No win, but no choice. Fortunes of war.
‘Sassi knows, and he’s been good – given us some time. Helped with oiling wheels. We may be able to get what Washington wants, and still keep some of our pride. There I must stop. Almost nobody knows all this. But Ruskin, and this is what’s scaring me rigid, knows more than he should and he’s worked out much of the rest for himself. Just how much, I can’t say, because I’m frightened to ask, and that’s the truth.’
Massaging his cheek with nervousness, he added, ‘You’re so similar, you know. Peas in a pod when it comes to this kind of thing.
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