The Ipcress File hp-1

by Len Deighton

  ‘It doesn’t say whether you can sew,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Can you?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Trousers?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘You’re in.’

  I thanked her and handed the card back. It was fine; she was fine, my very first beautiful spy, always presuming of course that this was Jean Tonnesen’s card, and presuming that this was Jean Tonnesen. Even if she wasn’t, she was still my very first beautiful spy.

  She put the card back into her small, for a handbag, handbag.

  ‘What do you have there?’ I asked. ‘A small snub-nosed, pearl-handled.22 automatic?’

  ‘No, I’ve got that tucked in my garter. In here I have the flare pistol.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘What do you like for lunch?’

  In London with a beautiful hungry girl one must show her to Mario at the Terrazza. We sat in the ground floor front under the plastic grapes and Mario brought us Campari-sodas and told Jean how much he hated me. To do this he had to practically gnaw her ear off. Jean liked it.

  We ordered the Zuppa di Lenticchie and Jean told how this lentil soup reminded her of visits with her father to Sicily many years ago. They had friends there, and each year would coincide their visits with the Feast of San Giuseppe on 19th March.

  On that day the wealthier families provide gigantic amounts of food and open house to the whole village. Always the feast begins with lentil soup and spaghetti, but on St Joseph’s day no cheese must be eaten, so, instead, a mixture of toasted bread-crumbs, sardines and fennel is sprinkled over the dish.

  ‘Those days in the hot sun were as perfect as anytime I remember,’ Jean mused.

  We ate the Calamari and the chicken deep in which the butter and garlic had been artfully hidden to be struck like a vein of aromatic gold. Jean had pancakes and a thimbleful of black coffee without mentioning calories, and went through the whole meal without lighting a cigarette. This showed virtue enough, she must have some vices.

  Mario, deciding that I was on the brink of a great and important seduction, brought us a bottle of cold sparkling Asti ‘on the house’. He filled and refilled Jean’s glass then turned with the bottle still in his hand. He pointed the neck at me. ‘Is good?’

  It certainly was. The wine and Jean had conspired to produce in me a gentle euphoria. The sunlight fell in dusty bars across the table-cloth and lit her face as she grinned. I watched her image inverted in the clear coolness of the wine in her glass. Outside, the driver of a wet fish van was arguing violently with a sad traffic warden. The traffic had welded itself into a river of metal, and from a taxi a few yards up the road two men paid off their cab and continued their journey on foot. The glass of the cab permitted only a momentary glimpse, then the traffic moved together; closing like the shutter of a camera.

  One of the two men had the build of Jay, the other Dalby’s style in shoes. I was suddenly very wide awake.

  Chapter 17

  [Aquarius (Jan 20—Feb 19) This can be a week of scrambled emotions. Seize any opportunities that come your way and be prepared to change your plans.]

  On the filing cabinet was a vast jugful of yellow daisies, my new carpet had been tacked into the dry rot, and the window was open for the first time in months. Below in the street a couple of young men, collegiate in a Cecil Gee way, were hammering the neighbourhood eardrums with their motor scooters. There was a colliery brass band in the dispatch office with a xylophone that made my daisies quiver. Alice sent Jean out on some errand or other, then brought me the real file on Jean Tonnesen. A thick foolscap loose-leaf book held together by a brown lace bearing a small metal seal with a number on it.

  It followed the transfer card roughly, although this wasn’t always the case with all our people. There was the Zurich business — an affair with a man named Maydew, who had some connection with the US State Department. Her brother in Yokohama worried the author of this file — some anti-nuclear warfare activity, declarations, letters to Japanese papers, etc, but that was all pretty standard stuff nowadays. A brother missing 1943 in German-occupied Norway. On the last summary page there was the word Norway followed by a mathematical plus sign. This meant that she should not be involved in work that would call into question her loyalty to the Norwegian Government, but was recommended for anything involving Norwegian co-operation. It was all straightforward.

  ‘I say — like a look see at the latest? New set of figures you might just…’

  I groaned, ‘No time now, I’m afraid.’ I just didn’t want any more of Carswell for a long time, but I just couldn’t raise the energy to transfer him. In any case, lose him, we’d lose Murray, and I wanted to hang on to the only muscular intelligent adult male we had.

  Carswell came nearer and dusted off the old velvet cushion. ‘How’s things?’ I asked. I capitulated.

  He lowered his creaking bones into my wicker chair.

  ‘Very fit, very fit indeed. Plenty of exercise and fresh air, that’s the secret — if you don’t mind me saying so, you could do with a little of the same. Overdoing it a bit, old chap. Can see it; dark here!’ He ran a finger under his large red staring eyes.

  The door opened noiselessly and Alice came in to collect Jean’s file. I was getting used to having my own department. My history books, notes and unpaid bills were scattered through our only light clean office in such profusion that I had almost forgotten the rigorous tidiness it had enjoyed when it was Dalby’s domain. Alice hadn’t, however, and was constantly straightening files and hiding things in places where ‘Mr Dalby keeps them’. I found the crossword puzzle I had been working on. Alice had completed it. I had got ten down correct. It was EAT. ‘Not so funny, rheumatism,’ Carswell was saying. DITHYRAMBE had been quite wrong. I don’t know why I’d ever thought it otherwise…‘With white horse oils,’ Carswell was saying, ‘and go straight to bed.’

  I wished Carswell would stop talking and go home. He smoked his cigarette with a nervous concentration taking it compulsively out of his mouth, but never more than three inches away. Alice watched Carswell as he scratched his shoulder blades upon the carved uprights of the guest chair. She knew, as I did, that he was settling in. She gave me the rolling eyes and screwed face of sympathy. I pretended I hadn’t seen the completed puzzle.

  At that moment Chico was pressing button A.

  My outside phone rang. And everyone began talking.

  ‘Where are you speaking from? Yes, where are you now? What the hell are you doing in Grantham?’

  ‘Let me talk to him, sir. There are the film requisitions, he hasn’t done anything about them and they must go off today.’

  ‘Well, you’ve no business in Grantham. Who signed your travel form? Oh, did you? Well, you needn’t think you’re charging it on expenses.’

  ‘Murray,’ Carswell was going on relentlessly. ‘A dashed good trooper, mind you, without your confidence, nothing. I appreciate it. Working very closely, restraining the impulse to guess hastily. Thoroughness is the essence of a statistical operation.’

  ‘Just what do you think my role is in this drama of your life?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I know, sir, the commanding officer, sir, but when I saw…’

  ‘Right, Chico, that’s right, you’ve got it right for once. That’s what I am, the, and more immediately, your commanding officer. But that doesn’t worry you, does it? Would you have just minced off into the blue if Dalby had still been in charge here — would you?’

  ‘I’ve seen Dalby, sir, spoken with him. I’m seeing him again this evening.’

  Carswell spread some sheets of paper across my desk. He said, ‘These figures I’ve brought along here are only the briefest possible extract, I don’t want to worry you with the nuts and bolts. What you want is results, not excuses, as you are always saying. There’s a lot more work if they are to be made convincing. I mean really convincing. At this stage it’s more of an analytical hunch.’

  �
��You have no business seeing Dalby.’

  ‘It’s wrong to say commanding officer on a clear line, sir.’

  ‘You stay out of this, Alice.’

  ‘An analytical hunch, but nevertheless, a hunch.’

  ‘You have no business going above my head. It’s a most despicable thing and it’s damned unmilitary.’

  ‘You shouldn’t say unmilitary — that’s a clear line. He’s on just an ordinary GPO line.’

  Carswell was still talking. ‘Reading the results, old boy, is where the skill comes in, I always say. Just needs a trained mind. I know you thought some of our whims a little odd at times. Oh, I know. No, no, no, you see, you are a man of action. Pater just the same, the same exactly.’

  ‘I recognized this fellow, sir. In the film at the War House, sir. A friend, sir, of my cousin, and frightfully good at chemistry. It really is, sir. I’ll see Dalby again tonight. He thinks I should have a few days here, sir. Dalby said to tell no one but I knew you’d wonder where I was, and there is the film requisition too, sir. I haven’t done them for a few days.’

  Carswell was folding his sheet of statistics and replacing it in the large laced file. ‘Murray will do all the action stuff, phoning and carrying on. But I want your OK to say he’s from the Special Branch Metropolitan Police. I wanted to see you last week, but Murray said without a few figures to start on we had just no case at all. We’ll have to check hospitals, nursing homes, convalescent homes — nut-houses too, old boy, I said, if they are scientists. Ha ha. But it is convincing, I want to stress that.’

  Nut-houses, I thought, whatever would Carswell be on about next. Meanwhile Chico was saying, ‘Shall I phone you back tomorrow after I’ve spoken to Dalby, sir?’

  ‘Jean is here, sir,’ said Alice, trying to hide Jean’s confidential file under her mauve cardigan with the blue buttons.

  ‘Hello, my dear young lady.’

  ‘No, don’t ring off, I haven’t finished with you yet!’

  ‘I had a lot of trouble, Alice. They said it wouldn’t be ready till morning.’

  ‘Have my seat, it’s not awfully comfortable.’

  ‘They distinctly said four-thirty. It’s always the same. The more time one gives them the more unreliable they are.’

  ‘This friend of my cousin, sir, top ranker with the Chemical Warfare people. I knew if I spoke to him.’

  ‘No, I’ve been sitting down all day.’

  ‘How did you come to see Dalby?’

  ‘Dalby came in after the ad in the Stage.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me, Alice?’

  ‘I’d rather stand really.’

  ‘No, I was talking to Alice. How did you see Dalby?’

  ‘Can’t I tell Murray to go ahead then, sir, acting most discreetly, of course. Mustn’t upset the guardians of the law.’

  ‘Did they say what time in the morning, Jean?’

  ‘Just by accident. Horrid little place. It’s where he usually meets you.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Grantham in my life, not to get out of the train, anyway.’

  ‘It cheers me up, my dear. When you get old, the sun warms your bones.’

  ‘Remind him about the reqs, sir. He’s the only one that understands them.’

  ‘No, there’s a chair there if I want one, really, umm.’

  ‘Distinctly: where he usually meets you. That’s what he said.’

  ‘I’ll go through all the results with you, if you like. You’ll be impressed, I know. Cracked it wide open.’

  ‘No, sober as a judge.’

  ‘Shall I hang on, sir? It’s almost five-thirty.’

  ‘Me, sir. No, sir. You know I almost never tipple, sir.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I like you, Chico. Phone in this time tomorrow. I’ll be finished doing your damned requisition by then if I start now.’

  The reputation of the department needed another crack-pot scheme from Carswell like it needed more film requisitions. But my little phone conversation with Chico left me too weak to argue. I gave him the OK in the hope that Murray was intelligent enough to keep him out of harm’s way. He shuffled out with his big brown file of statistics. That was Wednesday. I finished the reqs by ten-thirty, had a drink at the Fitzroy and then went back to the office to phone for a car. We had a lot of taxis in the car pool. They were the least noticeable car and the blue glass was great for observation. As I crossed the road there was one of our cabs there already. It seemed unbelievable that Jean or Alice had predicted to a few minutes how long the reqs would take. I looked in the cab but it was empty. As I got to the top floor I saw the light was on under the door of my office. I hadn’t left it on. I moved near. Inside there was someone moving the paper work about on my desk. I could hear two voices having a row in the street below. Near to my head the office clock was ticking gently. I reached for the big metal ruler from Alice’s desk and found myself rubbing the scar tissue from my descent into the gaming room. I turned the brass door handle as silently and as slowly as I could. Then I kicked the door and dropped in the doorway on my knees, the steel ruler poised behind my head.

  Dalby said, ‘Hello,’ and poured me a drink.

  Dalby’s clothes were tweedy and shabby. Silhouetted grey in the red neon-lit sky were Jean’s big armful of daisies. Dalby sat heavily at the desk on which the Anglepoise light splashed across the large piles of non-secret office work that I never seemed to complete. The low place light emphasized his dark deep-set eyes, and his quick nervous movements belied his slow reactions. I realized that he hadn’t out-thought me when I rocketed in the door. He just hadn’t begun to react.

  There seemed so much I wanted to ask him. I wondered whether I’d have to go right back to Ross with my cap in my hand and tell him that we’d be very happy to have the Gumhuria stuff. He poured me a large Teacher’s whisky and by now I needed it — I had the shivers. I held the glass in both hands and sipped it gratefully. Dalby’s eyes came slowly back into focus on his surroundings as from a long, long journey. We looked at each other for perhaps two minutes, then he spoke in that careful deep voice of his, ‘Did you ever see a bomb explode?’ he asked. I wanted him to explain things to me and here he was adding to the confusion by asking me questions. I shook my head.

  ‘You’re going to now,’ he said. ‘The Minister has particularly asked for us to be at the next American test. The American Defense Department say they’ve got a way to jam seismographs; they are going to try to double the Russian readings. I told him that we had a file on some of the British scientists who are there.’

  ‘Some of them,’ I said. ‘If we are prepared to think that Carswell has got anything on the ball at all, then we’ve got a file of eighteen out of a British total of fifty, that total including eleven lab assistants.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dalby came alive for a moment. ‘Alice told me about what you and Carswell have been up to. You can drop it and get Carswell and his sergeant out of this department; we are overcrowded now.’

  A load of help Dalby was being; he stays away a couple of months, then when he does come back it’s unannounced in the middle of the night and all he does is criticize.

  ‘This bomb test, it’s Tuesday. I’ll be going along. You can bring an assistant if you want to.’

  I wondered if he knew about Jean and if I’d still be entitled to an assistant if Dalby was back to take over.

  ‘Will you want Chico to go with us?’

  ‘Yes, get him on the phone. He can arrange the tickets and passes.’

  ‘It’s eleven-fifteen,’ I said. ‘Do you know where I can get him?’

  ‘Do I know? Who’s been in charge here the last few weeks? You’ve got his number, haven’t you? I haven’t seen him for weeks.’

  ‘He’s in Grantham,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Who sent him there and what for?’

  I didn’t know why Dalby was playing close like this, but I decided to cover up. ‘We had a file to be moved and there was no courier with high enough clearance. He’ll be back in
a day or so.’

  ‘Oh, leave him be. Alice can arrange things.’

  I nodded but for the first time I began to suspect that something odd was going on; from now on I was keeping my head down.

  The next morning I completed a little private task that took an hour of my time once every two months. I collected a heavy manilla envelope from an address near Leciester Square, inspected the contents and mailed it back to the address from which I’d got it.

  Chapter 18

  [Aquarius (Jan 20—Feb 19) You will have a chance to follow new interests, but old friendships should not be forgotten. For those in love a thrilling development lies ahead.]

  Tokwe Atoll was a handful of breakfast crumbs on a blue coverlet. Each island had its little green bays that resisted the blueness of the vast Pacific which struck the reefs in hammers of fury and shattered into a swirl of enveloping whiteness around wrecked craft sunk along the shore line since 1944. The open mouths of the tank landing craft gaped toothless at the barbed-wire-strewn beach. Here and there were bright red rusting tanks and tracked vehicles, broken, split and open to the timeless sky. As we came lower we could pick out painted ammunition boxes and broken crates. The huge Vertol helicopter that had lifted us from the aircraft carrier in which only an hour ago we had been enjoying icy orange-juice, cornflakes and waffles with maple syrup, swooped across the water on to the concrete of ‘Laboratory Field’, an air strip that didn’t exist ten weeks ago. As we dismounted, a jeep, painted white, sped towards us. The four air police inside wore shorts (shorts always look wrong on Americans), khaki shirts open at the neck, with white side-arms and crossbelt. On the right chest of the shirt they carried their names on leather strips.

  ‘Laboratory Field’, or ‘Lay Field’ as the Americans had rather perversely shortened it, comprised the whole of this island, which was one of the hundred that made up the whole atoll. In ninety days they had equipped the islands with an airfield, suitable for dealing with both piloted and nonpiloted aircraft; two athletic fields, two movie theatres, a chapel, a clothing store, beach clubs for officers and enlisted men, a library, hobby shops, vast quarters for the Commanding General, a maintenance hangar, personnel landing pier, mess hall, dispensary, a PX, post office, a wonderful modern laundry and a power plant. At one time during the test we were told there were ninety baseball teams in ten organized leagues. The telephone exchange could handle more than 6,000 calls per day; one mess alone served 9,000 meals per day, and a radio station operated around the clock, and buses across the island did likewise. I wish that London could match it. Dalby, Jean and I wore plastic badges showing our photos and description. Across the badge a large letter ‘Q’ was printed. It granted us entry to even the secret laboratory areas.