by Hugh Laurie
'Bollocks,' said Ronnie.
'That, of course, is the other main difference.'
'Do you honestly think I would want to have a relationship with you?'
Tricky. Straight bat, head over the ball.
'I don't know Ronnie. I wouldn't presume to guess what you want out of life.'
'Oh, other bollocks. Get a grip, Thomas.'
'On you?'
Ronnie stopped. And then grinned.
That's more like it.'
We found a phone box and Ronnie called the gallery. She told them that she was feeling overwrought with the strain of dealing with her broken car, and that she needed to lie down for the rest of the afternoon. Then we got into the car and drove to Claridges for lunch.
I knew that eventually I was going to have to tell Ronnie something of what had happened, and something of what I thought was going to happen. It would probably involve a little lying, for my sake as well as hers, and it would also involve talking about Sarah. Which is why I put it off for as long as I could.
I liked Ronnie a lot. Maybe if she'd been the damsel in distress, held in the black castle on the black mountain, I would have fallen in love with her. But she wasn't. She was sitting opposite me, chattering away, ordering a rocket salad with her Dover sole, while a string quartet in Austrian national costume plucked and fiddled some Mozart in the lobby behind us.
I looked carefully round the room to see where my followers might be, knowing that there could be more than one team by now. There were no obvious candidates nearby, unless the CIA had taken to recruiting seventy-year-old widows with what looked like a couple of bags of self-raising flour tipped over their faces.
In any case, I was less concerned about being followed than about being heard. We'd chosen Claridges at random, so there'd been no chance to install any listening equipment. I had my back to the rest of the room, so any hand-held directional microphones wouldn't be getting much. I poured us each a large glass of perfectly drinkable Pouilly-Fuisse that Ronnie had chosen, and started to talk.
I began by telling her that Sarah's father was dead, and that I'd seen him die. I wanted to get the worst of it over with quickly, to drop her down a hole and then pull her up slowly, giving her natural pluck a bit of time to get to work. I also didn't want her to think that I was scared, because that wouldn't have helped either of us.
She took it well. Better than she took the Dover sole, which lay on her plate untouched, with a mournful 'did I say something wrong?' look in its eye, until a waiter swept it away.
By the time I'd finished, the string quartet had ditched Mozart in favour of the theme from Superman, and the wine bottle was upside down in its bucket. Ronnie stared at the tablecloth and frowned. I knew she wanted to go and ring somebody, or hit something, or shout out in the street that the world was a terrible place and how could everyone go on eating and shopping and laughing as if it wasn't. I knew that because that's exactly what I'd wanted to do ever since I'd seen Alexander Woolf blown across a room by an idiot with a gun. Eventually she spoke, and her voice was shaking with anger.
'So, you're going to do this, are you? You're going to do what they tell you?'
I looked at her and gave a small shrug.
'Yes, Ronnie, that's what I'm going to do. I don't want to do it, but I think the alternatives are slightly worse.'
'Do you call that a reason?'
'Yes I do. It's the reason most people do most things. If I don't go along with them, they will probably kill Sarah. They've killed her father already, so it's not as if they're crossing any big bridges from now on.'
'But people are going to die.' There were tears in her eyes, and if the wine waiter hadn't come and tried to flog us another bottle of the Pouilly at that moment, I probably would have hugged her. Instead I took her hand across the table.
'People are going to die anyway,' I said, and hated myself for sounding like Barnes's nasty little speech. 'If I don't do it, they'll find someone else, or some other way. The result will be the same, but Sarah will be dead. That's what they're like.'
She looked down at the table again, and I could see that she knew I was right. But she was checking everything all the same, like someone about to leave home for a long time. Gas off, TV disconnected, fridge defrosted.
'And what about you?' she said, after a while. 'If that's what they're like, what's going to happen to you? They're going to kill you, aren't they? Whether you help them or not, they're going to end up killing you.'
'They're probably going to have a go, Ronnie. I can't lie about that.'
'What can you lie about?' she said quickly, but I don't think she meant it the way it sounded.
'People have tried to kill me before, Ronnie,' I said, 'and they haven't managed it. I know you think I'm a slob who can't even do his own shopping, but I can look after myself in other ways.' I paused to see if she'd smile. 'If nothing else, I'll find some posh bint with a sports car to take care of me.'
She looked up, and nearly smiled.
'You've got one of those already,' she said, and took out her purse.
It had started raining while we'd been inside, and Ronnie had left the roof down on the TVR, so we had to pelt through Mayfair as fast as we could for the sake of her Connolly-hide seats.
I was scrabbling with the catches on the car's hood, trying to work out how I was going to fill the six-inch gap between the frame and the windscreen, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I kept myself as loose as possible.
'And who the fuck might you be?' said a voice.
I straightened up slowly and looked round. He was about my height, and not far off my age, but he was considerably richer. His shirt was from Jermyn Street, his suit was from Savile Row, and his voice was from one of our more expensive public schools. Ronnie popped her head up from the boot where she'd been folding away the tonneau cover.
'Philip,' she said, which was pretty much what I'd expected her to say.
'Who the fuck is this?' said Philip, still looking at me.
'How do you do, Philip?'
I tried to be nice. Really I did.
'Fuck off,' said Philip. He turned to Ronnie. 'Is this the shit who's been drinking my vodka?'
A knot of tourists in bright anoraks stopped and smiled at the three of us, hoping that we were all good friends really. I hoped we were too, but sometimes hope isn't enough.
'Philip, please don't be boring.' Ronnie slammed the boot and came round to the side of the car. The dynamics shifted a little, and I tried to squirt myself out of the group and away. The last thing I felt like was getting involved in someone else's pre-marital row, but Philip wouldn't have it.
'The fuck do you think you're going?' he said, raising his chin a little higher.
'Away,' I said.
'Philip, come on.'
'You little shit. Who the hell do you think you are?' He put his right hand out and took hold of my lapel. He held it tight, but not so tight that he was committed to fighting me. Which was a relief. I looked down at his hand and then at Ronnie. I wanted to give her the chance to call this off.
'Philip, please, don't be stupid,' she said.
Which, obviously, was about as wrong a thing as she could have chosen to say. When a man's reversing himself flat out into a corner, the very last thing to make him slow down is a woman telling him he's being stupid. If it had been me, I'd have said I was sorry, or stroked his brow, or smiled, or done anything I could think of to dissipate the flow of hormones.
'I asked you a question,' said Philip. 'Who do you think you are? Drinking at my bar, cocking your leg in my house?'
'Please let go of me,' I said. 'You're creasing my jacket.' Reasonable, you see. Not facing him down, calling him out, squaring him up, or anything else involving odd prepositions. Just straightforward concern about my jacket. Man to man.
'I couldn't give a fuck about your jacket, you little tosser.'
Well, there you are. Every possible diplomatic channel having been tried and found wanting
, I opted for violence.
I pushed towards him first, and he resisted, which is what people always do. Then I dropped back with his push, straightening his arm, and turned away so that he had to flip his wrist over to keep hold of the lapel. I put one hand on top of his, to make him keep the grip, and with my other forearm I leaned gently downwards on his elbow. If you're interested, this happens to be an Aikido technique called Nikkyo, and it causes a quite stupendous amount of pain with almost no effort.
His knees buckled and his face went white as he dropped down to the pavement, trying desperately to take the pressure off the wrist joint. I let him go before his knees touched the ground, because I reckoned that the more face I left him with, the less reason he'd have to try anything else. I also didn't want to have Ronnie kneeling over him saying there, there, who's a brave soldier? for the rest of the afternoon.
'Sorry,' I said, and smiled uncertainly, as if I didn't quite know what had happened either. 'Are you all right?'
Philip wrung his hand and shot me a pretty hateful look, but we both knew he wasn't going to do anything about it. Even though he couldn't be certain that I'd hurt him deliberately.
Ronnie moved in between us and gently put her hand on Philip's chest.
'Philip, you've got this very badly wrong.'
'Have I really?'
'Yes, you have really. This is business.'
'Fuck it is. You're sleeping with him. I'm not an idiot.'
That last remark ought to have had any decent prosecution counsel leaping to their feet, but Ronnie just turned to me and half-closed an eye.
'This is Arthur Collins,' she said, and waited for Philip to frown. Which he eventually did. 'He painted that triptych we saw in Bath, do you remember? You said you liked it.'
Philip looked at Ronnie, then at me, then back to Ronnie again. The world turned a little more while we waited for him to chew it over. Part of him was embarrassed at the possibility that he'd made a mistake, but a much bigger part was relieved that he now had the chance to seize on a respectable reason for not trying to hit me - there I was, don'cha know, ready to lay the blighter out, had him begging for mercy, and he turned out to be a wrong number. Different party altogether. Laughs all round. Philip, you're a scream.
The one with the sheep?' he said, straightening his tie and shooting his cuffs in a well-practised movement. I looked at Ronnie, but she wasn't about to help me with this one.
'Angels, actually,' I said. 'But a lot of people see them as sheep.'
That seemed to satisfy him as an answer, and a grin spread across his face.
'God, I am so sorry. What can you think of me? I thought . .. well, it doesn't really matter, does it? There's a chap ... oh, never mind.'
There was more in this vein, but I just spread my hands wide to show that I quite understood and that I made the same mistake myself three or four times a day.
'Will you excuse us, Mr Collins?' said Philip, as he took hold of Ronnie's elbow.
'Course,' I said. Philip and I were the best of pals now.
They moved a few feet away and I realised it had been at least five minutes since I'd smoked a cigarette, so I decided to put that right. The bright anoraks were still hovering anxiously further down the pavement and I waved to them to show that yes, London's a crazy place but they ought to go ahead and have a nice day all the same.
Philip was trying to make it up to Ronnie, that was obvious - but it looked as if he was playing the 'I forgive you card', instead of the much stronger 'please forgive me' one, which I've always found wins more tricks in the end. Ronnie's mouth was twisted into a half-accepting, half-bored shape, and she glanced at me every now and then to show how tiring all this was.
I smiled back at her, just as Philip reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheaf of paper. Long and thin. An airline ticket. A come away with me for the weekend and we'll have wheelbarrowsful of sex and champagne ticket. He handed it to Ronnie and kissed her on the forehead, which was another mistake, waved at Arthur Collins the distinguished West Country painter, and set off down the street.
Ronnie watched him go and then sauntered over to where I was standing.
'Angels,' she said.
'Arthur Collins,' I said.
She looked down at the ticket and sighed. 'He thinks we should have another go. Our relationship is too precious, etc.'
I went ah, and we stared at the pavement for a while.
'So he's taking you to Paris, is he? On the corny side, I'd have said, if it was any of my business.'
'Prague,' said Ronnie, and a bell rang somewhere in my head. She opened the ticket. 'Prague's the new Venice, according to Philip.'
'Prague,' I said, and nodded. 'They tell me it's in Czechoslovakia at this time of year.'
'The Czech Republic, actually. Philip was very precise about that. Slovakia's gone to the dogs and isn't half as beautiful. He's booked a hotel near the town square.'
She looked down again at the open ticket and I heard the breath stop in her throat. I followed her gaze, but there didn't seem to be any tarantulas crawling up her sleeve.
'Something wrong?'
'CED,' she said, snapping the ticket shut.
I frowned.
'What about him?' I couldn't see what she was getting at, even though the bell was still ringing. 'D'you know who he is?'
'He's OK, isn't he?' said Ronnie. 'According to Sarah's diary, CED is OK, right?'
'Right.'
'Right.' She handed me the ticket. 'Look at the carrier.'
I looked.
Maybe I should have known it already. Maybe everybody knew it except Ronnie and me. But, according to Sunline Travel's printed itinerary for Ms R. Crichton, the national airline of the new Czech Republic goes by the letters CEDOK.
Fifteen
In war, whichever side may call itself the victor,
there are no winners, but all are losers.
N. CHAMBERLAIN
So the two strands of my life met in Prague.
Prague was where Sarah had gone, and Prague was where the Americans were sending me for the first stage of what they insisted on calling Operation Dead Wood. I told them straight away that I thought it was a terrible name, but either somebody important had chosen it, or they'd already had the writing paper done, because they refused to budge. Dead Wood is what it's called, Tom.
The operation itself, officially at least, was a standard, off-the-shelf scheme to infiltrate a group of terrorists and, once there, to muck up their lives, and the lives of their suppliers, paymasters, sympathisers and loved ones, as far as was practicable. Nothing remotely special about it. Intelligence agencies all over the world are trying this kind of thing all the time, with varying degrees of failure.
The second strand, the Sarah strand, the Barnes, Murdah, Graduate Studies strand, was all about selling helicopters to nasty despotic governments, and I gave this a name of my own choosing. I called it Oh Christ.
Both strands met in Prague.
I was due to fly out on the Friday night, which meant six days of briefing from the Americans, and five nights of tea-drinking and hand-holding with Ronnie.
The boy Philip flew to Prague the day I nearly broke his wrist, to cut some high-powered deals with the velvet revolutionaries, and he left Ronnie confused and more than a little miserable. Her life may not have been a thrill-packed roller-coaster before I happened, but it wasn't exactly a rack of pain either, and this sudden jerk into the world of terrorism and assassination, coupled with a rapidly disintegrating relationship, didn't help to make a woman feel at her most relaxed.
I kissed her once.
The Dead Wood briefings took place in a red brick thirties mansion just outside Henley. It had about two square miles of parquet floor, every third board of which was curling up with damp, and only one of the lavatories flushed properly.
They'd brought furniture with them, a few chairs and desks and some camp beds, and slung them round the house without much thought. Most of my time was s
pent in the drawing-room, watching slide shows, listening to tapes, memorising contact procedures, and reading about life as a farm hand in Minnesota. I can't say it was like being back at school, because they made me work harder than I ever did as a teenager, but it was an oddly familiar atmosphere all the same.
I took myself down there every day on the Kawasaki, which they had arranged to have repaired for me. They wanted me to stay overnight, but I told them I needed to take a few deep draughts of London before I left, and they seemed to like that. Americans respect patriotism.
The cast changed constantly, and never dropped below six. There was a gofer called Sam, Barnes was in and out, and a few Carls hung around in the kitchen, drinking herbal tea and doing chin-ups in the doorways. And then there were the specialists.
The first called himself Smith, which was so unlikely that I believed him. He was a puffy little chap with glasses and a tight waistcoat, who talked a lot about the sixties and seventies, the great days of terrorism if you were in Smith's line of work - which seemed to consist of following Baaders and Meinhofs and assorted Red Brigaders round the world like a teenage girl tracking a Jackson Five tour. Posters, badges, signed photographs, the lot.
The Marxist revolutionaries were a big disappointment to Smith, most of them having packed it in and got themselves mortgages and life insurance in the early eighties, although the Italian Red Brigades occasionally re-formed to sing some of the old songs. The Shining Path and its like in Central and South America were not Smith's thing at all. They were as jazz to a Motown buff, and hardly worth mentioning. I dropped in what I thought were a couple of telling questions about the Provisional IRA, but Smith put on a Cheshire cat face and changed the subject.
Goldman came next, tall and thin and enjoying the fact that he didn't enjoy his work. Goldman's preoccupation seemed to be etiquette. He had a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, from hanging up a telephone receiver to licking a stamp, and he would brook no deviation. After a day of his tutoring I felt like Eliza Doolittle.