by Len Deighton
‘Convenient is the word,’ I said, ‘it stinks.’
‘A …’ Dawlish hesitated, ‘… a frame-up,’ he said very proudly.
‘What’s that mean?’ I asked.
‘It’s an expression that American …’ then he saw me grinning and he frowned. I went on, ‘Then finally da Cunha gives me a long lecture about old Portuguese customs like he’s the Horizon Holidays man and this die, and says it’s for a Mr Smith.’
‘So what do you conclude?’ asked Dawlish.
‘I don’t conclude anything,’ I said, ‘but if I see a man with a Union Jack in his buttonhole wearing a deerstalker I begin to wonder if he’s trying to convince me about his national characteristics, and I wonder why.’
‘What about the canister and the grave?’ Dawlish asked.
‘I’m hoping that the canister isn’t as empty as it looks,’ I said.
‘And the grave?’
‘Was never full,’ I said, ‘just a hole in the ground.’
‘I trust you can tell a grave from a hole in the ground,’ said Dawlish sardonically. He was staring out of the window. ‘There’s a new instruction about your diving,’ he said without turning round. I said nothing. ‘Foreign Office is not interested in the currency any more.’ Outside on the window-sill a starling was getting itself a lungful of diesel smoke.
‘O’Brien isn’t interested in the money,’ Dawlish said again.
‘He’s swinging with the syntax,’ I said, ‘but he’s forcing the story line.’
Dawlish tried to touch his nose with his tongue. He said, ‘If there are any containers that might hold scientific papers you are to send them to the Embassy people unopened.’
‘How do I find out what’s inside if I don’t open them? Did they tell you that?’
‘Unopened,’ said Dawlish.
‘So they are worried about the ice-melting stuff after all.’
‘Ice-melting,’ said Dawlish, ‘who mentioned ice-melting? You’ve got ice-melting on the brain. The only ice-melting equipment that they are interested in is a glass of Johnny Walker.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘now try and see this from my point of view. The political people at Lisbon tell us that they’d like this job done and give it a BB8 requirement importance.* They tell us they’ve chosen us because it must be completely undercover as far as the Portuguese Government are concerned; that means that I can’t check properly on all these people: da Cunha, Harry Kondit and this small-time éminence grise Fernandes Tomas without risking a leak. You know what will happen the minute I ask 37† for a shred of information – every phone in Lisbon will ring.’
‘Well,’ said Dawlish, ‘I can understand their point of view; they don’t want to upset anyone.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘exactly. Now that’s the Embassy position as a rule, isn’t it? Not to upset anyone. Don’t upset all the good work we’re doing – all that crap. Now doesn’t it strike you as odd that the Embassy people at Lisbon not only egg us into this set-up and tell us, mark you, not to let the Portuguese know that we are doing anything down there, but they are all bright smiles and elevator shoes about it. Send us this Singleton character and this girl.’
‘Well,’ said Dawlish, ‘what do you want me to do about Singleton?’
‘Give him back to the Ovaltineys,’ I said.
‘Now then,’ said Dawlish, ‘don’t start on that again. I know you don’t believe it but I’ve checked those answers myself. Absolutely nothing. Singleton may be what you call “a jerk”, but he’s just a junior assistant to the naval attaché and he’s as normal as income tax. Prep, school, Dartmouth, good marks there too. Sea time with Mediterranean fleet. What else do you want me to do?’
‘Just one thing,’ I asked, ‘keep the wraps on that sovereign die find. Don’t say a word about it to anyone without me okaying it. Let’s keep it a nice cosy secret between the people in this office.’
‘And Senhor da Cunha,’ Dawlish said, so I knew he was agreeing to do so. (He would never promise to disobey regulations in so many words.) He continued as though I hadn’t mentioned the die. ‘The girl,’ he said, ‘Admiral’s daughter, right schools, lives in Lisbon except when she goes to Naples with her father. Mediterranean holidays. You should think yourself lucky Lisbon are on their toes. You must admit it was a good idea. You couldn’t have used local labour in the house, the security position being what it was. Why, you’d all have been standing around with damp dishcloths all day.’
I suppose I must have snorted.
20 Enemy
My flat in Southwark was cold when I got back there at 8 a.m. after the all-night discussion with Dawlish. I paid the cab and had difficulty getting the front door open because of the heap of mail on the front mat. There were the usual things. Red-printed ones from the rates office and a very patient one from Electrolux; thirteen pounds outstanding, I could almost hear the sigh. Advertisements for Lux, a postcard from Munich wishing I was there, a receipt from L.E.B., and the cistern was overflowing methodically.
I switched on the fan heater, boiled a kettle and ground coffee. While I was waiting for the coffee to drip through I phoned the office number, gave them the code word, then told the operator, ‘If Mr MacIntosh phones, tell him to get a car and collect me at about five o’clock this afternoon. We have to go and collect my car from the airport. If he hasn’t phoned in by noon get the message to him at Brown’s Hotel.’
I poured a generous slug of Teacher’s whisky into sweet black coffee and sipped it slowly. The night without sleep was beginning to thump me gently on the cranium. It was 8.45 a.m. I went to bed just as the next-door radio tuned in to Housewives’ Choice. Upstairs the vacuum cleaner began its fiendish flagellation. I dozed.
I looked at my watch in the darkness. The doorbell was ringing. I had slept eight hours, and now Joe MacIntosh was at the door and eager to get to grips with the night-life of the Metropolis. He had one of the taxis from the car pool. They were specially tuned to do over ninety m.p.h. and MacIntosh was keen to find out how much over.
I took a tepid shower, which is my special way of entering the world of consciousness. Then I dressed in a manner suited to a Soho low-life tour – dark worsted and black woollen shirt, with a trench coat that can take home-brew alcohol splashes without flinching.
It was a pleasure to see Joe handle that souped-up cab. His huge shy hands stroked the controls and we slid through the traffic with an élan he never otherwise showed. ‘Nowhere,’ said Joe quietly as we ascended the Chiswick flyover, ‘do Englishmen show a greater spirit of compromise than in straddling a traffic lane.’ He nudged the horn, flicked the cab over to the fast lane and stabbed the speed up to seventy with an acceleration that almost fired me out of the jump seat. He moved through the crash gearbox that all these cabs had with a nerveless skill.
When we got to London airport he parked behind the cab rank and put a glove over the flag in a very convincing way. My VW was tucked deeply into the Ministry of Aviation Priority pound; would I like Joe to get it for me?
It was only 6.30 p.m., but already it was dark and I felt fingers of rain tapping me on the shoulder. I gave him the key and went up to the bookstall for five minutes’ browsing. The headlines read, ‘No Capital Gains Tax this year – Official.’ The Americans were planning a monkey ride to the moon, the new Wehrmacht wanted nuclear weapons, Lady Lewisham was complaining about dirty teacups and the Minister had said that old age pensions just couldn’t be increased. I bought Esquire and walked out into the drizzle. There were lights around the car pound and I saw that Joe had moved enough of the cars to provide a lane through which to bring mine.
A Viscount came down the GCA talkdown, its white, red and green lights peep-boing the traffic patterns. Full flap, throttle back. The dark shape passed overhead with a contrapuntal shriek. I heard the wheels hit the tarmac and the automatic control pull the blades into ‘ground-fine’ pitch. Joe was at the far end of the enclosure; he opened the door of my VW, got in and switched on the main l
ights. The rain tore little gashes through the long beams.
From inside the car came an intense light; each window was a clear white rectangle, and the door on Joe’s side opened very quickly. It was then that the blast sent me across the wet pavement like a tiddly-wink.
‘Walk not run,’ I thought. I jammed my spectacles on to my nose and got to my feet. A cold current of air advised me of an eight-inch rent in my trouser leg. People ran past towards the car park. The explosion had fired the inflammable parts of an adjacent car. The flames lit up the neighbourhood and a bell began to ring close at hand. I heard the attendant shouting ‘Two fellers went over there, two fellers.’ I had my keys in my hand by the time I got back to the cab rank. I selected two. With the first I unlocked the anti-thief device on the gear lever. The second I plugged into the ignition, started up and pulled out of the rank. From the car park I heard another ‘boom’ and saw a flash as a petrol tank exploded. I drove round the roundabout. ‘Other way, cabbie,’ said an airport policeman. The grazed palms of my hands were throbbing and the steering wheel was wet with blood and sweat. I switched the radio to ‘stand by’ to warm the transmitting valves.
‘What’s going on over there, mate?’ I asked him. ‘Keep moving,’ said the policeman. I was through the tunnel and away. Just to be on the safe side I turned left at the main road before using the two-way radio.
They answered promptly. ‘Go ahead Oboe Seven. Over,’ said the operator.
‘Oboe Seven to Provisional. Message. Black London Airport Ministry of Aviation car park. One student: MacIntosh. Flat. Scissors.* Over.’
‘Provisional to Oboe Seven. How are you proceeding? Over.’
‘Oboe Seven. A4, approaching Slough. Over.’
‘Thank you, Oboe Seven. Roger. Out. Provisional at stand by.’
When Dawlish came in on the radio telephone link he was touchingly concerned for my safety, but remembered first to ask for the name of my insurance company. He said, ‘We can’t afford to have them getting curious about how it happened before we send out the D notice.’†
I soon mastered the knack of double-declutching the crash gearbox.
21 Are the wages of this, that?
A great big sunny Friday in London, the policemen standing around like tourists. On Jermyn Street two old men edged crabwise past the calm cheeses of Paxton and Whitfield. On five-string banjo and accordion they whitewashed the sound of ‘La vie en rose’ across the brittle winter air. Jean was waiting for me at Wilton’s restaurant. She wore a dark-brown Chanel suit. How did she manage it on her salary? A pale sherry awaited me and so did the news of the Strutton Report.
‘O’Brien is forming one of his famous little committees,’ she said.
‘O lord,’ I groaned, ‘I know what that means.’
‘You’re well out of the way,’ said Jean. ‘Dawlish is sitting in on it at present. They will discuss chain of command.’
‘Power,’ I said. ‘Lord Acton wasn’t kidding.’
‘Even the War House are trying to get into the act.’
‘It can’t possibly be anything to do with them,’ I said.
‘You know how it is,’ said Jean. ‘If they don’t make at least a token play for the things they don’t want, they’d have no bargaining gambits for the things they do want.’
‘You are highly knowledgeable on the subject of interdepartmental committee work.’
Jean smiled and replied, ‘I’m only telling you what every woman has always known.’
The waitress brought the famous Wilton menu that has no prices on it. I’d never been foolhardy enough to ask for anything but what the chef recommended and this was no day to start flexing my muscles.
The melon had gone, and the fresh salmon too, before Jean brought up the subject of the package that da Cunha had given me.
‘Alice even predicted that the sovereign die would portray Queen Victoria – that was brilliant, wasn’t it?’
‘Brilliant.’
‘How do you think she guessed?’
‘No idea,’ I said.
‘You have too. Please tell me,’ said Jean.
‘For the simple reason that Queen Victoria is a woman.’
‘Was a woman,’ said Jean.
‘Don’t be smart,’ I said, ‘is a woman where counterfeit sovereigns are concerned.’
‘So?’
‘Arab countries, or rather let’s say Muslim countries, are very much in the market for sovereigns, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Muslims object to unveiled female face, therefore most counterfeit sovereigns depict a king. Therefore a Queen Victoria sovereign is unlikely to be counterfeit, therefore Nazis decide to make their super-duper authentic die in the likeness of Queen Victoria.’
‘And it works?’
‘When they thought of it it was a wow, but now it’s been tumbled to for ages, but since counterfeit and genuine fetch the same price, who cares?’
‘And Alice guessed that it would be of Nazi origin?’
‘I radioed Dawlish and got diplomatic clearance for a parcel of that size and weight. Alice jumped to a tentatively correct conclusion.’
‘Tentatively?’ Jean poured me some more coffee.
‘Oh, it’s dead right as far as it goes. But let’s not jump to any conclusion. There are no markings on the mould, nothing to connect it with the U-boat or the Nazis or with anything, come to that.’
‘I see,’ said Jean, ‘you mean that these people at Albufeira may have merely given it to you to get rid of you. In fact, as a straightforward bribe. That they didn’t expect you to believe that it came straight from the sea.’
Jean paused. ‘Or if they thought you were from this man Smith it could be a bribe to Smith,’ she paused again, ‘so he would do something.’
‘Or not do something,’ I prompted.
She looked up. ‘Yes,’ she said, speaking each word separately and slowly, ‘discontinue the investigation?’
‘Zen,’ I said, ‘you got it quicker than Dawlish.’
‘Now let me see, this man da Cunha says it came from a German sailor’s body that came out of a fishing net, but they don’t do “bottom trawl” fishing anywhere hear where the U-boat is, they do American-style closing circle fishing, don’t they?’
‘“Purse seine” style, yes, you’re reading me loud and clear, and it didn’t come from any German corpse either.’
Jean said, ‘If it was a bribe, it would be a pretty good one, wouldn’t it? I mean, worth a lot of money.’
‘Yes, you can get about 50,000 coins from a good die and this is a good one. It certainly would be worth a lot of money, especially to someone involved with illegal movement of gold.’
‘So that when you returned to London our people out there continued to dive on the wrecked U-boat. They realized that the bribe hadn’t worked and so they planted dynamite in your car?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘that explosion was a carefully planned venture. They find out that I always send my car to L.A.P., discover where it’s parked, employ a specialist to do quite a complex wiring job, buy dynamite. I don’t think that there is an immediate connexion between my getting the package from this man da Cunha and the bomb that killed Joe. The two things may be unrelated.’
‘Then who is this man da Cunha?’ Jean asked.
‘Work it out for yourself,’ I said. ‘He speaks perfect Portuguese – syntax and inflection wonderful! He dresses like a Portuguese aristocrat should. I have had my knees under his table, I can tell you the food is authentic. As for Portuguese history and folklore, he is one of the greatest ear-benders in Western Europe.’
‘You are going to prove that he isn’t Portuguese,’ Jean said, ‘because he says he is.’
‘I’ve got a hunch,’ I said.
‘What you’ve got is a pointed head,’ Jean said rudely, ‘but tell me what I have to do.’
‘I want one of the movie people to go on holiday in Southern Portugal,’ I said.
‘Victor had better go,
’ said Jean, ‘he has a genuine Swiss passport and he knows how to stay out of trouble.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, ‘we’ve had all the trouble we can use for the time being.’
Jean was quiet for a few moments, then she said softly, ‘I’d just like to kill whoever murdered Joe.’
‘I’ll forget that you spoke.’ I looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘If you want to continue working in the department you’ll never even think a thing like that, let alone say it. There is no room for heroics, vendettas and associated melodrama in an efficient shop. You stand up, get shot at, then carry on quietly. Suppose I’d been full of George-Cross-emotion and gone running back to Joe last night. I’d have got myself smothered in smoke, reporters, blisters and policemen. Act grown-up or I’ll cut your security rating back.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘O.K., but don’t ever hanker after tidiness. Don’t ever think or hope that the great mess of investigation that we work on is suddenly going to resolve itself like the last chapter of a whodunnit: I’ve-got-all-gathered-together-in-the-room-where-the-murder-was-done kind of scene. After we’re all dead and gone there will still be an office with all those manilla dust-traps tied in pink tape. So just knit quietly away and be thankful for the odd sock or even a lop-sided cardigan with one sleeve. Don’t desire vengeance or think that if someone murders you tomorrow we will be tracking them down mercilessly. We won’t. We’ll all be strictly concerned with keeping out of the News of the World and the Police Gazette.’
Jean was determined to prove what a master of her emotions she was. ‘The liaison officer at Scotland Yard sent pictures of your car over, did you see them?’
‘Yes, they sent me a set of wet prints last night. By the way, thank Keightley for doing a good job; there’s no mention in the dailies.’
‘Yes,’ said Jean, ‘they were writing D notices like a literate traffic warden. There were four cars written off. If the Yard people are right in reconstructing the explosion points, it’s almost as if they wanted the fire to spread.’