Uncommon Enemy

by Alan Judd

  The file told the story of an operation organised in haste and crowned with success. The MI6 Paris station made good use of its liaison contacts, the French cooperated enthusiastically and Martin’s girlfriend – Martha in Charles’s memory, but Mary according to the file – had a wonderful, unsuspecting time. Martin, track-suited and notionally out for a solo run in the Bois de Boulogne, left her to luxuriate in the Hotel St James. He was dropped by a French surveillance car just off the Champs Elysees where the Irish couple had taken a table at a pavement bar. For once, everything had worked as planned. Martin jogged past, they saw and hailed him and he joined them at the table. They drank and talked and arranged dinner as a foursome that night. Charles sat in a side-street with Michel from the DST, the French security service, in a blue Citroën surveillance car, where they were kept informed by the foot surveillants’ radio reports. When Martin ran back towards the Bois de Boulogne they picked him up just off the Avenue Foch.

  ‘They say they’re here on holiday,’ he said. ‘Crap. They can’t afford a pint in Dublin. Jimmy’ll talk later if I get him on his own. Bound to, he can’t help it. Always boasting.’

  The two couples met that night. It was impossible for Martin to get away for a debrief afterwards, so late on the Sunday morning Charles waited for him in a corner café off the rue d’Astorg. Martin had left Mary in bed while he went for another run. Charles had taken a table deep in the dark interior, well back from the windows but with a good view of the cobbled junction. It was quiet, apart from a few cars splashing through the puddles and the occasional pedestrian hunched against the rain and trying not to slip on the cobbles. Charles lingered over his coffee, attempting to recover a little more of his French with an old Le Monde.

  Martin was wet, breathless and exhilarated. He really had run in the Bois de Boulogne, buoyed up by success from the night before. ‘Getting me fit, this job,’ he said. Then, adopting a stage Irish accent, ‘Jenny’s not a bad wee girl, I’ll say that for Jimmy. We got on fine.’

  ‘Don’t go getting ideas. You don’t need complications.’

  ‘She’s got enough of her own. She’s got a boyfriend back in Dublin. Very convenient, this little awayday with Jimmy. Suits them very well. And she’s got a weak bladder, which is also very convenient. Went to the loo twice, second time with Mary, so Jimmy and I had a little chat.’ He grinned. ‘He wanted my advice, bless his dissident soul.’

  Charles’s telegram, written later that day in the MI6 station, gave the meat of it. Jimmy and his operational girlfriend had what Jimmy called a ‘big job’ involving the transfer of ‘useful tools’ for the cause back home. He had to visit a particular site in the woods at Chantilly and could Martin tell him if that part of the woods was within walking distance of the station?

  ‘Never been near the place in my life,’ said Martin. ‘But I pretended I had, though my memory was a bit hazy, so he gave me a more precise location, based on what he’d been told, and I gave him even more precise and completely imaginary directions. Christ knows where they’ll end up if he remembers what I said. But he won’t. We had another bottle after that and then some, and he was well away by the time we left.’

  It wasn’t clear whether they were reconnoitring a new weapons hide or confirming the accessibility of an existing one. Either way, their visit and the site would now be monitored and one day, weeks, months or years hence, the French would make arrests. But that was for others to follow up.

  Martin was in no hurry to leave the café, which was beginning to fill with early lunchers, stamping their feet in the doorway and shaking the rain off their umbrellas. Mary would sleep till doomsday, he said, or at least until he’d had his breakfast. They ordered more coffee and croissants, again went over what had been said and watched the downpour spattering like bullets on the cobbles. An elderly couple got up to leave but the woman refused to step outside when she reached the open door, which annoyed the man who had spent some time laboriously putting on his coat and adjusting his cap. It was as they stood bickering in the doorway that Martin, who had been looking past them into the street, said quietly, ‘Well, look who it isn’t. Your rival in love.’

  The first thing Charles noticed was the DST car, the blue Citroën. It had just drawn up across the road, its wipers still going and rain machine-gunning its bonnet and roof. He knew it not only by its number plates but by the discreet additional aerial. There were two men in it, neither of them Michel. So far, so normal; it was probably a DST fleet car used night and day for a variety of jobs, changing numbers and colour every so often. But what Martin had seen was not normal.

  Sheltering in the doorway of a tobacconist and struggling to close his umbrella, was Nigel Measures. He was wearing a Loden coat and had a small brown suitcase at his feet. As they watched, the rear passenger door of the Citroën opened and Nigel, having mastered his umbrella, picked up his suitcase and ran across the pavement into the waiting car. The Citroën drove rapidly away.

  ‘Not my rival,’ said Charles as they watched the car disappear, conscious that Martin said it only because it always provoked a response. ‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

  ‘Sarah invited me to dinner a few months ago. I thought I told you. Not my cup of tea, Mr Measures. I can see why he isn’t yours, either.’

  Charles let that go. They were both still looking at where the car had been.

  ‘That was a pick-up,’ said Martin.

  ‘He spends a lot of time in Brussels; has official business here, too.’

  ‘With the DST? On a Sunday morning? In one of their operational cars? That was a pick-up if ever I saw one, the sort we’ve been practising. Only not a well-chosen place. Three out of ten, you’d have given me for that one.’

  Charles nodded. ‘Can’t think what he could be up to.’

  Martin sipped his coffee. ‘Obvious, isn’t it? He’s talking to the French. And not just passing the time of day.’

  12

  Everything connected with the arms hide was recorded in the main file, but Charles’s report of the sighting of Nigel Measures, written for Matthew Abrahams, was in the secret annex now held by Nigel himself.

  Matthew had listened to Charles’s first oral report without expression, his eyes focussing unrelentingly through his heavy-rimmed spectacles. He said nothing for a while after Charles had finished.

  ‘You are sure, absolutely sure, that it was him?’ he asked eventually. ‘Despite bowed head, hunched shoulders, intervening rain and glimpsing him for only a few seconds?’

  ‘Absolutely sure. And so was Gladiator.’

  One of the three phones on Matthew’s desk, the grey one, rang. He waited for it to stop after the conventional three rings. ‘Tell me again. And tell me more about the café, the junction, the rue d’Astorg and why you chose it.’

  Charles had chosen it because it was close to the Champs Elysees, a part of Paris that any foreigner might visit, but off the main routes, slightly withdrawn; not a tourist magnet, but just busy enough for anyone to have wandered into.

  Matthew sighed, put his hands in his pockets and leant back in his chair. ‘If this is what it appears you would expect the DGSE – their foreign service – to handle it, not the DST security people. But, who knows, perhaps they swap cars when they’re short, or perhaps it’s different if the case began on French soil. No matter. There are indications – no more than that – of something going on into which this would fit rather neatly. I shall say no more now and you mustn’t mention it to anyone. Write up what you saw and give it to me for the annex. Don’t dictate it, a handwritten note will do. Or perhaps not, with your handwriting. Give it to Sonia for typing. Then we must consider how we – you – can find out more.’

  Charles was still reluctant to accept the evidence of his eyes. ‘But would the French really risk spying on us while liaising so closely? I mean, we have a lot going on with them, they have a lot to lose.’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘Would we spy on them?’

  ‘I don’t know. It
would depend.’

  ‘Precisely. If it were easy, relatively risk-free and the rewards were high – say, the French fall-back positions in the current negotiations – would it be surprising if the prime minister permitted us to accept an offer of service?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be risk-free. And we’d never get political clearance to recruit a French official, especially not during the negotiations.’

  ‘But if he offered his services? We’d at least get clearance to hear what he had to say, if not from the Foreign Office, then from Downing Street.’

  ‘You think that’s what Nigel’s doing?’

  ‘I think we need to find out.’

  The result was that Charles saw more of Nigel and Sarah. His job by then was to help assess British and allied intelligence reports on the Soviet bloc. The majority were foreign liaison reports, mostly American, but a significant number from the Old Commonwealth and from Europe. He was frequently at meetings in the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office and it was easy to contrive reasons to call on the Western European Department, where Nigel worked.

  He did so two days after his conversation with Matthew, deliberately passing Nigel’s open door while visiting someone along the corridor. Nigel looked up. Charles waved and paused.

  ‘Spying on us now, Charles?’

  ‘Trying, but it’s hard to find anyone in. You’re all always in meetings in this place. In fact, I was in Brussels the weekend before last and called your office on the off-chance you were there, but they said you’d gone home.’

  Nigel grinned. ‘Spying in Brussels, too? We can’t have that. No, I came back first thing Sunday morning. We’d worked all Saturday and half the night. Gave me most of Sunday at home and the chance to catch up a bit. You busy?’

  ‘When I can find anyone.’ He raised his hand and turned to go. ‘Sorry, late for a meeting.’

  ‘Must have lunch sometime.’

  ‘I’ll ring.’

  Charles did not follow up immediately but instead rang Sarah the next morning at the law firm where she worked part time. Obeying her injunction to the letter, he had not contacted her since their night in Dublin. It had not been easy, but she had been serious, and he wanted to show that he respected that. But he was pleased now to have reason to breach the injunction.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he began, ‘but I know you’ve seen a bit of Martin, and thought I ought to bring you up to date with what we’re doing with him.’

  She sounded cool. ‘I haven’t seen very much of him. He came to dinner a while ago. He seemed happy enough. He didn’t mention you or your office at all, and neither did I.’

  ‘That’s good. But I think it would be useful if I let you know how things are going and where we’re going with him, in case he wants to confide in you again.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t shown any sign of that. But, okay, if you think it’s important.’

  ‘At least it’s a meeting with a respectable reason. Half respectable.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s true, I s’pose. Half true.’

  They had sandwiches at a small round table in El Vino’s, at Blackfriars. She drank Perrier because she was busy that afternoon, forcing Charles to content himself with a single glass of wine. He told her about Martin’s progress in his training and the kind of deployments he might expect, showing concern as to whether he was doing enough work to get his legal qualification, and seeking her advice on that. After he had spun it out for long enough to seem like the main reason for their meeting, he asked about her own work.

  ‘I’d like a permanent full-time job with them,’ she said. ‘Not a partnership – I’m too old to start on that ladder – but the kind of assistant solicitor job in which you can come and go a bit. Trouble is, I never know what we’re doing. Whether Nigel’s going to leave and go into politics here as he keeps threatening or whether we’ll stay in the Foreign Office and have a posting, or whether he’ll run off to be an MEP in Brussels or what. Still, I suppose I’m no worse off than women who run careers with children. At least I don’t have them to worry about.’

  Did you – do you – want them? he wanted to ask. Are you trying, as the wretched phrase has it? As she sipped her Perrier, he noticed for the first time tiny lines around her mouth. What is life like for you? he wanted to ask. Is it becoming – is it already – a disappointment?

  ‘So, things are sort of permanently up in the air?’ he said, intending it as a preliminary.

  She shrugged dismissively. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. ‘You’re becoming bit of a boozer. You’ve finished your wine already.’

  He had noticed recently that his wine glasses emptied themselves faster than other people’s. ‘Occupational hazard. I had to do a lot of wining and dining in my last job.’

  ‘You’re lucky it doesn’t show in your waistline. Unlike Nigel’s. He’s getting really rather fat. All those Brussels lunches. They say it’s the best cuisine in Europe.’

  ‘Didn’t strike me when I saw him. In fact, I was in Brussels at the weekend and dropped in on his office – what I thought was his office – but couldn’t find him.’

  ‘He was there, doubtless in meetings. He didn’t get back until late Sunday night.’

  ‘Meetings are bad for waistlines, too.’

  She sighed. ‘The whole process seems endless. He’s been away every other weekend for months now. I’m beginning to wonder if he keeps a mistress there.’

  ‘Europe is his mistress, surely. Will you have a wine if I have another? It might perk you up.’

  ‘Send me to sleep, more like. Sorry to be such a bore.’

  ‘What if I promise to drink half yours?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Tell me more about Martin,’ she said when he was back. ‘I know he works near here but I never run into him. Is he happy with the law? Will he stick it, d’you think? He never seemed the sort to persevere with something that didn’t fire his imagination.’

  It was obvious that she didn’t want to say any more about herself, so he talked about Martin until she had to go.

  Matthew Abrahams had access to information on people within the bureaucracy from sources Charles could only guess at. He summoned Charles the following day.

  ‘Point one, it’s true that Measures was working in Brussels on the Saturday,’ Matthew said. ‘His colleagues thought he returned to London early on the Sunday morning, as he told you; but he changed his flights, took a train to Paris and flew back from there on the Sunday night, getting home late, as his wife said. Point two’ – he glanced at his notes which were as usual in Chinese characters – ‘it is not true that he has had to work in Brussels every other weekend for the past few months. He has worked some weekends – four out of fourteen, counting this last. His wife may have exaggerated how often he was away, but if she hasn’t I suspect he was in Paris during the remaining weekends. We might learn something from flight manifests. If we do, it would be careless of him, and them. Meanwhile, keep seeing her, if you can.’

  ‘What do you think he’s doing – passing documents?’

  ‘Possibly. Probably. But drafts and copies of drafts are two a penny in the Foreign Office and in Brussels – there’s no proper control – and anyway many of them are going to be shown in negotiations. More important is the interpretation he can give them – this is a prime ministerial sticking point, that was put in at the last minute as a giveaway, this is only there because Number Ten wants it but the Foreign Office doesn’t, and so on.’

  ‘So what do we do about it?’

  Matthew’s gaze traversed the south London panorama beyond his window, settling on the two heavy naval guns outside the Imperial War Museum. ‘We accumulate evidence. What we have so far is not evidence – a suspicious meeting, an example of his telling his wife one thing, his colleagues another. Perhaps there is a mistress after all. He wouldn’t be the first diplomat to play away from home. But even if he admitted contact with French intelligence, that would not in itself constitute treachery. If
we refer it to MI5 now, as we should any evidence of espionage, we’d lose control; and they probably wouldn’t put resources into investigating it because they’ve too many other fish to fry. Besides, they wouldn’t want to upset their close liaison with the French. Nor would Foreign Office Security Department want to create any waves. Spying revelations always mean trouble and scandal; everyone prefers a quiet life. In this case we’re the only ones with an interest in doing something.’

  ‘You said there were other indications that something was going on, with which this fitted?’

  Matthew nodded, without lifting his gaze from the 15-inch guns. ‘There is a context. It may provide useful corroboration of what Measures is up to, but may not be in itself useable.’ He looked back at Charles. ‘Meanwhile, the only way to accumulate evidence is for you to go on seeking it. Which means seeing more of him – and her. I can see it may not be comfortable for you but the point is, he might say something – most spies develop a confessional urge at some point – or she might, even if she knows nothing about it. She’s already been unwittingly helpful.’

  Charles did feel uncomfortable. It was all too convenient, giving him reason to see Sarah and to plot against Nigel. He worried particularly about the latter. Nigel’s espionage merited punishment – at least the punishment of exposure – but Charles’s personal connection could too easily make it look – even feel – as if he had a deeper agenda. It was true that something made him feel that Nigel was fair game, almost. His relentless self-seeking, his calculated, energetic charm, his unhesitating use of others, the continuous engagement of a colonising personality made him seem not an ordinarily vulnerable human being, but a beast of the jungle. In which case, Charles could not help asking, was he himself not another? His own readiness to strike made him uneasy; he was not used to the idea of himself as that sort of person.