The Midnight Swimmer

by Edward Wilson

  ‘So what are you then?’

  ‘I come from a fishing port called Lowestoft, but there’s also ship building and canning factories. You’d probably find it a bit rough, but I like it.’

  ‘Was your family poor?’

  ‘Very – why are you asking these questions? I’m supposed to be a fucking bastard.’

  ‘I’m wondering how someone like you ended up with the job you have now? Sometimes you sound educated.’

  Catesby shrugged. ‘I don’t like being interrogated about my background.’

  ‘But I bet you interrogate lots of other people?’

  ‘I suppose I do. It’s part of my job.’

  ‘That’s why you’re a fucking bastard.’

  ‘Even if that is true, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

  ‘It sounds like you want to justify your actions, your life.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Good. All justification is weakness.’

  ‘Are you as hard as you sound?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Catesby, ‘if you want to write a letter to Kit, I’ll take it back to London with me – but it will be a while before he gets it.’

  ‘I will write to him – and I suppose you’ll read it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Catesby smiled, ‘it’s not my job.’

  Caddie nodded at the pan. ‘You might want to leave that to soak.’

  ‘I don’t like leaving a job unfinished – I suppose you would diagnose me as an obsessive.’

  ‘I gave up psychiatry because I like working with my hands.’

  ‘So do I.’ Catesby continued scrubbing for a few minutes in silence. ‘There, it’s clean. Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What did you think of your cousin Jennifer?’

  ‘I hated the bitch.’

  ‘Because she had designs on your brother?’

  ‘Jennifer had designs on everyone. Her ego required men to lust after her – she thought she was la belle dame sans merci. But in the end, she was just a cheap slut. In fact,’ Caddie laughed, ‘she would probably have even got off with you.’ Caddie looked closely at Catesby. ‘Would you have liked that?’

  ‘Maybe I would have.’

  Catesby caught the expression out of the corner of his eye. For a second Caddie’s face seemed contorted with pain as if he had slapped her. Her jealousy seemed almost tangible, but she tried to brave it into a joke. ‘And I hope she would have given you a case of the clap.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re a much nicer person.’

  ‘So am I, but I’m not as pretty.’

  ‘Are you fishing for compliments?’

  ‘Don’t make fun of me – too many people have done that.’

  Catesby noticed that she was gripping the tea towel so tightly her knuckles were white. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t say sorry if you don’t mean it.’

  ‘I do mean it.’ Catesby looked closely at her. She was tall and gawky, but also pretty in a way that was more appreciated in England than the USA.

  ‘Well I’m sorry I’ve been so ratty. I’m very tired.’

  Catesby put his arms around her. She was still for a second; then put her arms loosely around his neck. Her eyes were bright and damp.

  George was frying eggs and grilling bacon when Catesby came into the kitchen the next morning. There was a welcome homeliness of condensation, bacon fat and coffee smells. Caddie, still in a dressing gown, was sitting at the table finishing a letter to her brother. For a second, Catesby was happy. But he quickly remembered that his life was elsewhere and otherwise. Caddie knew it too. It was why they hadn’t made love. But they had gently kissed and held each other for a long time without saying a word.

  Catesby pitched in with the breakfast by toasting bread. ‘I’m an expert,’ he said.

  ‘Then you ought to stay longer,’ said George, ‘we need experts.’

  ‘I wish I could, but I’ve got to be in Washington this afternoon.’

  ‘One of us will give you a lift,’ said George looking at Caddie.

  ‘Thanks, but someone’s picking me up.’

  Caddie stared at him for a second, then finished her letter and sealed it in an envelope. ‘Do I need to address it?’

  Catesby shook his head. ‘But it will get to him, I promise.’

  It was a one-eyed, one-horned flyin’ purple people eater

  One-eyed, one-horned flyin’ purple people eater

  One-eyed, one-horned flyin’ …

  ‘Bob?’

  ‘Yes, William?’

  I said Mr. Purple People Eater, what’s your line

  He said it’s eatin’ purple people and it sure is fine …

  ‘Would you mind turning the radio down, or maybe even off?’

  Bob switched off the car radio. ‘There’s a story behind that song.’

  Bob Neville had arrived just before noon to give Catesby a lift to Washington. He was driving his POV, privately owned vehicle. As an intelligence officer, he didn’t like travelling around in an embassy pool car with CD number plates.

  ‘Thanks, that’s better,’ said Catesby. ‘What an awful song.’

  ‘Oh, I rather like it. And it’s caused quite a stir on Capitol Hill. A Republican congressman wants to get it banned.’

  ‘On aesthetic grounds?’

  ‘No, on political grounds. He reckons the Purple People Eater is a subliminal metaphor for socialism and the song is corrupting America’s youth.’

  Catesby smiled wanly. ‘Bob?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of car is this?’

  ‘It’s a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief. What do you think of the rocket pod fins?’

  ‘Do they shoot real rockets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why did you buy it?’

  ‘I wanted to go native – and the car was cheap. I got it at a police auction.’

  ‘It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Ah, William, then you obviously haven’t seen the 1958 Oldsmobile Eighty-eight. Its sheer vulgarity leaves you half blind and gasping for immediate repatriation.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that your American colleagues might think you’re taking the mickey?’

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference. They don’t trust me anyway.’

  Bob Neville’s specific job was liaising with the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. It wasn’t an easy job. One of Neville’s predecessors in the post, Kim Philby, had been declared persona non-grata by the Americans and sent back to the UK. In Britain the jury was still out on Philby, but not in Washington.

  ‘Tarred with the same brush?’

  ‘Not me personally, but there’s still a lot of prejudice against SIS. And please, William, keep a low profile with whatever you’re doing.’

  ‘Haven’t you been briefed?’

  ‘No.’

  Catesby was surprised that Neville wasn’t in the loop. Once again, it made him feel lonely – like a puppet whose strings had been cut. In some ways being cut free was worse than being manipulated. He suspected it was another of Henry Bone’s methods. It was called ‘plausible deniability’ – the Judas option. But why?

  ‘If you haven’t been briefed, Bob, how did you know where to find me?’

  ‘The Head of Station was informed of your itinerary. I volunteered to pick you up so I could ask you about Aston Villa.’

  ‘They’re going through a bad patch.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  Catesby liked Neville. They had trained together in SOE and been parachuted into France in ’43, but in different sectors. At first Catesby assumed that Neville was a posh kid from Eton, but then discovered that he was a fellow grammar schoolboy from East Anglia with a gift for languages.

  ‘Bob, I met this girl who said I was common.’

  ‘But you’re not.’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘Then that makes two of us.’

  Bob,
thought Catesby, always said the right thing. He had all the social skills that meant that he could get on without being constantly targeted as a troublemaker. Catesby knew that Bob’s politics and social background were not far from his own. In many ways, Bob was the better spy. He could be as smooth and silky as Philby, but there was, of course, no question concerning his loyalty.

  ‘Where am I taking you?’ said Bob.

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Well, I suppose,’ said Bob, ‘that we might try the Lord Calvert Hotel to see if anyone has booked you in.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t in the loop.’

  ‘I just know your itinerary – and that Henry wants me to look after you.’

  They were going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The view was that of a wide misty estuary bounded by low wooded countryside woven with meandering creeks. There was one ship, an unladen freighter high in the water, thumping its way between a narrow buoyed channel up to Baltimore.

  ‘Remind you of home?’ said Catesby.

  ‘A corrupted version – it looks like an East Anglia re-cast with too much money, over-rich food and racial prejudice. The beauty of the countryside is too lush, too obvious. It’s overdone.’

  ‘Not like a shingle beach on a winter’s day.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Catesby wasn’t sure he completely agreed. There seemed to be two Americas at war with each other. But the better one, the one that wrote poetry, composed music and longed for social justice, was losing. Money was the poison that spoiled the dream and defaced the landscape. American money didn’t create a national health service, but enormous phallic cars with rocket fins.

  ‘What else,’ said Catesby, ‘has Henry asked you to do?’ He wasn’t sure that Neville was being completely open about how much he knew.

  ‘He asked me to trace three telephone numbers – but you obviously found Calvert, aka Uncle Georgy, without my help.’

  ‘Did Henry tell you how he found the numbers?’

  ‘Absolutely not – “No need to know, old boy.” And Bone never tells me anything even when there is.’

  Catesby wondered if Neville was merely pretending not to know that the numbers came from the US Ambassador. The game was tedious, but he had to keep playing it. ‘Someone gave them to me and I passed them up to Henry.’

  ‘Actually, I thought so. In any case, it was easy linking the first number to Fournier’s uncle. It was a rural Maryland exchange on the Eastern Shore, almost like getting the map grid coordinates. The second one is in Washington – that was a lot more difficult. But the third one is impossible to pin down. It looks like it’s a secret exchange of some sort. Banks, private eyes and governments use them for confidential stuff. Very expensive.’

  ‘Did the FBI help you?’

  ‘You must be joking. No, I used a private detective agency that specialises in adultery.’

  ‘Not good security. These people can be a bit leaky.’

  ‘You think the FBI would have been a better idea? Did you want to end up on Hoover’s desk the next morning?’

  ‘Point taken. What about the DC number?’

  Neville smiled. ‘Delicious, absolutely delicious. The number traced back to a flat on N Street SW, 308 to be exact. I decided to put it under surveillance, checking for comings and goings around rush-hour times. Absolutely nothing. Whoever lives there doesn’t do normal office hours. So I decided to have a saunter past during my lunch hour – and there she was. And very nicely turned out considering how early it was: bouffant hair, pancake makeup. Well, I was the only eyeball, no mobile backup, so I thought I would lose her as soon as she got in a car or taxi. But, would you Adam and Eve it? She started walking – and I saw why.’

  ‘She had a dog.’

  ‘Well done – and what a dog. It was white, small and fluffy. I’d never seen anything like it before. So I decided it was a good excuse to start a conversation.’

  ‘And the English accent helps.’

  ‘Yeah, it means you’re respectable, not a weirdo or a mugger – how little they know. In any case, I started with, “Excuse me for intruding, but I was wondering what sort of dog that is. It’s not a breed I know.” And she says, on cue, as if she had just met a Martian, “Are you from England?”’ Neville said it in a deep southern accent.

  ‘Did she really talk like that?’

  ‘Even more so. But here’s the bit you’re not going to believe.’

  ‘Go on, I’m gullible.’

  ‘The dog.’

  ‘What about the dog?’

  ‘It was a cockapoo.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A cockapoo – a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘I’m sure C will be amused – he loves dogs.’

  ‘She was friendly, without being flirty.’

  ‘The cockapoo?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. She was quite a nice girl actually. I had the impression that she enjoyed having a conversation with a man that didn’t require her to be flirty. She asked about me and I said that I worked in the hotel trade. And then she said, “I work in a hotel too.”’

  ‘I’m not completely surprised.’

  ‘Don’t be awful, William. I was starting to feel sorry for her. She was very pretty and very vulnerable – I didn’t want to ask more.’

  ‘You always were nice.’

  ‘But I still said, “Which hotel?” She nodded in the direction of the new Senate Office Building. “You must know it, the Carroll Arms.” “Superb location,” I said.’

  ‘And where is this hotel?’

  ‘Directly across the street from the Senate Office Building.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  ‘Very. But things got even better. I could see that she was proud of her position, of being as it were an insider. I sensed that she even wanted to brag a little. I could see that she was afraid that I was about to go my separate way. Suddenly she said, “I don’t work directly for the hotel. I’m a hostess at the Quorum Club.” Of course, I made a big deal of it – about how exclusive it was and how the Quorum was at the heart of things. She was glowing when we parted.’

  ‘Unlike you, Bob, I’m not a DC insider. Tell me more about this place.’

  ‘The Quorum Club is the US Senate’s private knocking shop. But it’s not as sordid as you might think. It’s all very polite – even the wives of the senators have lunch there. They do the best steak sandwiches in Washington. Kennedy still goes there even though he’s president. You could, William, be on the verge of priceless intelligence treasure. But be careful, very careful.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Catesby stared out the car window. As they approached Washington, the scenery was more and more spoiled by advertising hoardings, motels and service stations.

  ‘By the way,’ said Neville, ‘I’m not going to be here much longer. I’ve been so ineffective as liaison officer with our Anglophobe counterparts that C has promoted me.’

  ‘Congratulations. Where are you going?’

  ‘Cuba. I’m going to be Chief of Station in Havana.’

  Catesby walked the streets of Washington in the rain. He was too paranoid to dial the phone number from the hotel. He went from phone box to phone box with the water dripping from his trilby. At least he looked like a spy. Each time he rang the number there was no answer. As Catesby emerged again into the rain he noticed that he was on M Street. Washington wasn’t an organic town like London that had grown up around villages and greens as the centuries progressed. It was a severe grid of planned streets and funereal monuments bathed in unnatural light. The place scared Catesby, but he continued walking south towards the river. He looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. He was going to try once more. The phone box reeked of stale tobacco, but they did in London too. He put a slippery dime in the slot and dialled the number. This time there wasn’t a ring, but a busy signal. He hung up, waited five minutes and then dialled again. This time it was ringing and still no one answered. But someone was there.<
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  It was only a short walk. Catesby knew there was no other way. He found 308. He tried to find a way to the back door. There was a gate, but it was padlocked from the other side and too high to climb. It was late to be calling, gone midnight, but the lights were still on. He pressed the doorbell and heard a ‘ding dong, dong ding’ from within. And a dog growling. He finally heard the sound of feet and a door chain unlatching.

  The woman looked like the one Neville had described, except her hair was down and cold cream had replaced the pancake makeup. She was wearing a light blue negligee and holding the cockapoo in her arms. The dog was still growling. She stroked its head and whispered, ‘Ruhe Schatz.’ Then looked up at Catesby, ‘Haben Sie das Geld?’

  Catesby answered in German, ‘How much money do you want?’

  ‘Two thousand dollars.’

  ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow.’ Catesby hadn’t a clue what he was buying. It was obvious that she was mistaking him for somebody else, but Catesby knew instinctively that he had to pretend to be that person.

  ‘But don’t come here,’ she said.

  Catesby looked over her shoulder. The flat was done out with silk draperies and lavender carpets. The walls were hung with prints of animals, country scenes and eighteenth-century women on swings. ‘Have you lived here long?’ he said. He wanted to keep her talking so he could place her accent.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ she said. There was a definite hint of Saxony. She was from East Germany.

  ‘Where should we meet?’

  ‘I’ll see you at Martin’s Tavern. It’s in Georgetown. Be there about eight.’

  Georgetown was the most prestigious part of Washington. The Kennedys had lived there before they moved to the White House. Martin’s was the sort of place that Americans thought was cosy and old world. It wasn’t that bad, thought Catesby. It had bare wooden floors and lots of dark wood and subdued lighting. But despite its old world pretentions, Martin’s was still unmistakably American rather than the Irish pub it pretended to emulate. There were tables in the centre where you could eat in full view of everyone else, but there were also intimate booths where you could hide yourself away. Catesby thought it best to wait for his date in one of those. The waiter came over to take his order.