‘What did you tell them to account for our interest?’
‘Standard story. That we’re Special Branch, that we want to interview Knight in connection with passport offences.’
‘If this halfwit’s vague on time, how do we know he hasn’t got the day of the sighting wrong?’
‘It checks out. Billy spent the weekend with his married sister. He comes and goes on the train and someone meets him either end. This was the only occasion his sister can recall being late and he set off up the road on his own to meet her. That’s when he says he saw Knight.’
‘I want the area knee deep in police. Get the local men to list everywhere and anywhere he could possibly be staying – houses, hotels. Empty properties. Any squats in that area? Garden sheds, if necessary. If there’s a scout hut, turn it inside out.’
‘There’s just one thing, Sir Horace.’
‘What?’
‘Billy said he looked a bit different from usual.’
‘What does that mean? “A bit different” – get him to be specific.’
‘It’s difficult. He’s only like a seven-year-old.’
Gaunt leaned closer and dropped his voice. ‘Then take him into a nice, dark room, lock the door and get it out of him. He can hardly report you, can he?’
Sumner left the office as meekly as if they had been discussing his career prospects; in a way, he realised, they had.
*
With Sumner gone, Gaunt turned again to the document he’d been reading. It had been delivered to him just one hour before.
Preliminary diagnosis
I saw the subject this morning as part of her clinical examination and have had access to her file notes and certain other material.
She shows a degree of affective disorder in which agitated depression is present, along with some paranoia. It is difficult to say at this stage whether this is severe enough to be classifiable as paranoid schizophrenia.
Supporting evidence
1. The results of my own observation and those of the subject’s recent clinical examination (for which see Annex II). She shows the physiological symptoms of acute stress (blood pressure, agitation, sleeplessness, loss of concentration, forgetfulness, disorientation, etc.). I find that she also voices suspicions and distrust of those around her in her work, particularly her superiors. She is either unwilling or unable to give specific form to these feelings so that they can be evaluated, but is evidently convinced of their legitimacy. This is typical of paranoia.
2. Written and oral reports from her superiors.
3. The Metropolitan Police Incident Report appended as Annex III. This merits further comment.
First the alleged assault. If this did occur it is difficult not to conclude that it must have been far less grave than the subject described: for example, horseplay with no real sexual threat. Had there been a more determined sexual content, it is odd that the event did not proceed to its natural conclusion. This raises the question of why the subject felt impelled to embroider the incident. If this was done unconsciously, then paranoid schizophrenia is a possibility. If it was a deliberate act on her part, some other explanation must be sought.
Following on this, there is the apparent raid on the subject’s home. The Police Incident Report raises doubts as to whether or not this was really the work of vandals or thieves. Nothing was stolen; interestingly, the subject is even reported to have claimed that she did it herself anyway. If she was indeed the conscious or unconscious protagonist, paranoid schizophrenia again becomes a possibility.
Conclusion and recommendations
An intensive programme of psychoanalysis is recommended. Its objective would be to identify the nature and origins of the subject’s disorder.
There is every likelihood that the disorder will prove responsive to psychotherapy; this is therefore my second recommendation.
This favourable prognosis might not hold unless treatment is begun as soon as possible.
It has to be my further recommendation that the subject be relieved of her duties with immediate effect.
Gaunt closed the manila folder, laid it on the desk and placed his elbows on either side. He steepled his fingers, rested his chin on his thumbs and tapped his forefingers gently against his lips.
He would bend over backwards to handle the whole thing in a humane way, of course: sick leave on full pay, no loss of pension rights. No reasonable person would have any grounds to criticise him.
40
The morning was dry and sunny, the storm of the previous night forgotten. A brisk breeze was helping to dry off the remaining puddles.
Knight’s train, the first of the day after his night in Cardboard City, brought him out to the chalk hills of Buckinghamshire shortly after first light. He walked the three miles from the station to the boulder-strewn field overlooking the graveyard where Bill Clarke lay buried and the little Norman church where his memorial service was to be held. The press announcement hadn’t given a time, so Knight was resigned to waiting all morning. He still had no very clear idea of what he might be able to do, but he could think of no other way than this.
It was ten fifteen when the congregation began to arrive. They were clearly all family or close friends. The absence of government ministers or top civil servants meant that security was light: when Marion and the two children arrived in the Rover, there was just one female officer in the car with them.
The service was brief. Afterwards Marion embraced or shook hands with the other mourners and walked with some of them through the churchyard to the graveside. They stood together in silence for a few minutes, then began returning to their cars. But as they were passing under the lychgate, she halted and spoke briefly to the others. They nodded and she returned alone to the grave while they climbed into their cars and left. The Special Branch officer watched her from the edge of the churchyard. The children waited in the car.
Marion stood with her back to both Knight and the officer as she faced the grave, her hands clasped before her. After a moment she knelt in the damp grass and began making some small adjustments to one or two of the wreaths.
Knight found that he was feeling ashamed to be watching this private moment. The policewoman seemed to be feeling the same way; she turned away and moved across the parking area to stand by the car. Knight saw what she was doing and took his chance, the only one he might have, and made his way quickly down the far side of the hill from the officer, circling around at the bottom to arrive at the side door of the church.
Marion came past a minute later. He simply stepped out into her path and looked at her. She glanced at him in alarm, then quickly away, then her eyes came back and this time stayed on him.
‘Edmund? I don’t believe it. You’re a mess.’
‘Please don’t walk any further, Marion – if I go beyond this wall your detective will see me.’
‘The whole world’s looking for you.’
‘I wasn’t sure if I’d get a chance to see you if I came. You surprised me.’
She lifted her veil and drew it over her hat. ‘How?’
‘By going back to the grave.’
‘To check who had sent wreaths? What’s surprising about that?’
Knight shut his eyes and shook his head. ‘Can we talk?’
‘Where?’
‘In the church. Tell your chaperone you want a minute or two alone.’
‘Think she’d believe that? Of me?’
‘Look contrite. Pull your veil down.’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
He wondered if he really could rely on her. ‘I want to talk about Bill.’
‘Give me a break, Edmund. I’ve had a morning of that.’
‘And I need your help.’
‘What help can I give you?’
‘You’re the Home Secretary’s widow. That doesn’t change, however you and Bill were. I need your contacts. Your ways in.’
‘You’re losing me.’
‘See me in the church and I�
�ll explain.’
She shrugged and went off to talk to the policewoman. Knight walked across to Clarke’s grave. Explain? Yes. Some of it. As much as he had to.
He stared at the dark earth beneath the multicoloured wreaths. After a few moments he picked up a handful of damp soil, crumbled it in his hand, and let it run slowly through his fingers onto the grave.
*
Serov kept the A–Z on his lap as he took the big Ferrari slowly along West Cromwell Road. He stuck to the inside lane, taking bearings from the roads on his left and keeping one eye on the atlas. He thought how useful such a book would be for motorists in Moscow, where the only people who seemed to own reliable maps were the KGB and the CIA, and even the local taxi drivers got lost when they went beyond the city centre.
He took a left turn at the lights and went down North End Road for a couple of hundred metres. Then he swung right and picked his way through the side streets.
They fascinated him, these streets. Row after row of tall, terraced houses with columns by their front doors and parapets along their roof lines. Some were private hotels but the rest, judging from the ranks of doorbells, seemed to be split into apartments. It was the variability of the houses, and the mixture of lifestyles they implied, that intrigued him. Seediness next door to affluence. Skips, clouds of dust and workmen identified the properties that were going up in the world. Moth-eaten curtains, peeling doors and cracked columns indicated the ones that were not. In no other city in Western Europe could he recall seeing such contrasts side by side. It was an arrangement that appealed to him. No doubt about it: he was going to like London.
He consulted the A–Z again, then parked. Nearby was a dusty Volvo station wagon. From the Ferrari’s glove compartment he took a yellow plastic lunch box, quite empty, and finished his journey on foot. It was only seventy or eighty metres and the sun was shining.
He entered Normand Park near the swings, where he saw some mothers with their children, and strolled across to stand by the pavilion and park keeper’s annex. From there he had a perfect view of the bowling green and the rest of the park beyond it. It was a fine day, with spring in the air, but the turf still looked soggy from the recent rain; there were no bowls players today. One or two people strolled around the perimeter of the green, otherwise he couldn’t see a soul this side of Lillie Road. In the pavilion itself there were only a teenage boy and his girlfriend, both in school uniform. They puffed defiantly on their cigarettes as he passed. The girl was giggling; the smoke caught her throat and she was seized by a fit of coughing.
He doubled back and turned into the northern corner of the park. Here it became like a secret garden, about half an acre in size and tucked away behind the pavilion. A path encircled a lawned area dotted with trees; behind the path, high hedges shielded the whole area from the street and the pavement outside. There were benches at intervals along the path, set into recesses in the hedges.
Three of the benches were occupied. On one, two old men were engaged in high-volume conversation. On another sat a young mother rocking a pram.
Two women were seated on the third bench. They were in their twenties, attractively made-up and neatly dressed. Nicely turned out but in an everyday way. They could have been typists, bank clerks, shop assistants, or any of half a dozen similar occupations. One of them was eating an apple, the other a sandwich. On the bench beside them were their lunch boxes: one was orange and the other, exactly like his own, was yellow.
Serov gave the women a friendly smile as he drew near. He saw now that one of them was strikingly pretty, her fine features emphasised by black hair cropped into a crew cut.
They had been chatting quietly but fell silent as he came within earshot; they ignored his smile.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ he asked politely, indicating the other end of the bench.
The one with the crew cut glanced in his direction but without actually meeting his gaze. She shrugged indifferently and said nothing. Her companion stared straight ahead, stony faced.
He sat down and set his lunch box on his lap, but made no move to open it. Instead, he looked around the enclosed area. No one else had entered it since himself.
‘I enjoy eating in the open air,’ he announced. Now he set his empty lunch box down on the bench, next to theirs. Both of them were eating from the orange box, the yellow one remaining tightly lidded.
‘It makes me think of that painting,’ he went on. ‘“Déjeuner à l’herbe”. Do you know the one I mean?’
At first they showed no sign of having heard him. Then the woman with the crew cut said, ‘You mean “Déjeuner sur l’herbe”.’
‘Ah yes,’ he replied at once. “Déjeuner sur l’herbe” – silly of me.’
She swallowed another bite. ‘We all make mistakes. I sometimes confuse that one with Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon at the Grande Jatte”.’
‘Seurat? Don’t you mean Manet?’
‘No, Seurat.’
Now they turned and looked at each other. A greeting of sorts showed in the woman’s face.
‘We’ll keep speaking in English,’ Serov told her. ‘It’s safer. And you should smile occasionally, now that we’ve broken the ice. Which of you is the senior officer?’
‘I am.’
‘What rank?’
‘Captain.’
‘Make your report then, Captain.’
She dropped the last piece of her sandwich into the wire rubbish bin beside the bench and wiped her fingers on a paper tissue.
‘CIA Langley sent two operatives over. At least one of them, the bald man in these photographs –’ she tapped a finger on her yellow lunch box ‘– is already known to us. I saw his file in Registry before we left. He was on the list of agents we predicted they might use. The file said he’d operated before in Nicaragua and Seoul.’
‘Your memory is impressive,’ he said. He smiled and draped an arm across the back of the bench, looking as cheerful and relaxed as any man might who’d just made the acquaintance of two pretty girls. A little way along the path, the young mother vacated her bench and began pushing her pram towards the exit. The old men were still shouting at each other.
Serov helped himself to one of the sandwiches and settled back to listen to what else the Spetznaz captain had to say. At the end of the meeting, he watched from the bench as they strolled off. As far as he could see, no one showed any interest in them.
He stayed on to enjoy a cigar before picking up the yellow lunch box that the captain had left in exchange for his own, and made his way back to the Ferrari. As he walked, he hefted the box in his hand and noted its substantial weight. The Spetznaz women had amassed plenty of photographic material; he was looking forward to going through it. Looking forward even more to putting it to use.
He decided to find himself a decent restaurant. He was still ravenous. One small sandwich wasn’t much to keep going on. After all, the photographs would keep.
*
Knight’s return to the safety of the retreat house was short-lived. It was midnight when Marie-Thérèse came to see him. As soon as he opened the kitchen door to her she hurried past him and inside. She shook her head at his offer of a chair and stood facing him.
‘They came looking for you tonight,’ she said. ‘They’ve just gone.’
Knight felt a sudden emptiness where his stomach had been. ‘Who, Sister?’
‘The police. It’s all right – we’ve said nothing. Well, the Mother Superior doesn’t know who’s over here anyway. They named you and said someone had seen you getting off a bus in the village this afternoon.’
He had no one but himself to blame; he’d broken his own rule against daytime travel.
‘Thanks for getting rid of them.’
‘It’s our duty. Right of sanctuary.’
‘Be careful. That’s an old law and it doesn’t apply any more.’
Her glasses flashed up at him. ‘They can meddle with the laws of the land, but not the laws of God. What are you doing?’
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He’d taken the mackintosh off its hook and was putting it on. ‘They’ll be back. One way or another. I can’t stay.’
‘If you go out tonight you’ll walk slap into them. They’ve left someone in a car outside the gates.’
‘I have to get past sooner or later. I’d rather try my chances in darkness.’
‘I have an idea. If you’d be willing to give it a try.’
*
The winos arrived at ten o’clock sharp the next morning, although not one of them had a watch. There were seven or eight of them and they came up the lane in ones and twos, hands in pockets, watching the ground two paces ahead as if their eyes might burn out if they met another human gaze. It was the saddest little parade that Knight had ever seen.
Their place was by the side door of the dining hall, out of sight of the school block and the classrooms, and they lined up there in mournful silence. There was no life to them, that was the thing that struck him. They were cored shells of human beings. Some could hardly put a whole sentence together, just strings of unrelated phrases. Some of the faces were ones that he’d vaguely noticed around the village from time to time; but they’d had no more relevance to him as individuals than stray dogs.
They were given bowls of soup, cups of tea and foil packages of meat and bread to take away with them. Some of them received articles of clothing; the sisters seemed to know which man would fit this sweater or who needed that pair of trousers.
At ten thirty Knight crossed the cattle grid with them and walked out of the main gate. Like them, he had his foil package under his arm, his head down and his eyes on the heels of the man in front.
Twenty yards up the road, the clean, well-fed officers in their white panda car paid them as little heed as, two weeks ago, he himself would have done.
41
The young man in the estate agency in Berkeley Square had all the obsequiousness of an experienced courtier.
‘Good morning, sir. How may I help you?’
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