The Unfortunate Englishman

by John Lawton

  The brief silence that followed wasn’t enough for thought, deep or shallow, it was simple acceptance.

  Their walking had slowed down to a stop. Yuri looked at his watch.

  “Come, let us lunch.”

  “You must be kidding. Lunch in East Berlin? I’d sooner have sex in Murmansk.”

  “Of course not. You think I eat the pig swill these fuckers call food? We go West. And by the way I have had sex in Murmansk. Pays to keep your socks on is all I will say.

  “Pavel can bring the car round. You can drive, I don’t drive any more.”

  §129

  The car was a massive 3.5 litre ZIM-12.

  “You know what I’d really like?”

  “Yuri, I couldn’t begin to guess.”

  “I too would like one of your British Minis. But I doubt I’d fit in one these days.”

  “OK. Where to?”

  “The French restaurant on the Tegeler See. The Pavillon. I think the occasion calls for claret.”

  §130

  Slow-roasted shin of pork that slipped gently off the bone. Mashed potatoes with garlic and parsley. Onions that swam in butter. A bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild ’29.

  Was Yuri toying with him? Asking for a bottle from the same chateau and year as those they had horse-traded for? Or had he merely ordered what he knew and liked?

  Wilderness had never had Mouton Rothschild before. He’d never tasted anything like it. Dusty, dry, granular on the tongue.

  “What do you think?”

  Yes, he was toying with him.

  “’S’OK.”

  Yuri smiled. An old man’s uncontentious smile.

  “Just OK? And we have ten thousand and eighty bottles?”

  “Yep.”

  Where had he got the precise figure? He hadn’t told him that.

  “I am not a greedy man, Joe. Keep the eighty. You might get to like it a little better than OK.”

  Yes, he was definitely toying with him.

  “Twenty per cent and you’re on.”

  “Twenty per cent? Hmmmm . . . to think I knew you when you’d swap half a pound of coffee for a dozen eggs. Twenty per cent? Okeydokey. Done.”

  §131

  When Wilderness got back to the Adlon Masefield was sleeping. Wilderness let him.

  He sat and picked up one of Masefield’s magazines. A two-year-old copy of Encounter. Good bloody grief. Did Yuri have no idea who funded Encounter or was the CIA “house mag” just a random choice? He leafed through the bundle. Newsweek, the Listener, the Economist, the Sunday Times magazine. Ah, so it was just random. All these had in common was that they were in English and rather out of date. He settled on Private Eye instead—a magazine with a delightful capacity to ruin Burne-Jones’s breakfast.

  Half an hour passed. The sheer malice of Lord Gnome and the anarchic antics of Spiggy Topes had begun to pall. Wilderness stood over Masefield and took a second look. That he had aged was a given, but now he revised his opinion. Masefield looked ground down, and Wilderness wondered if that metaphor might not have a literal quality to it. It seemed as though bits of him had been worn away, that any second now raw bone might burst through parchment skin and he would resemble one of those partially unwrapped mummies they kept in the British Museum.

  The eyes opened.

  “That was . . . nice. I could get to like morphine.”

  “Don’t. On the pension Her Majesty has lined up for you you won’t be able to afford it.”

  Masefield swung his legs off the couch, shook his head like a wet dog.

  “Have you been here long?”

  “No.”

  “I think I owe you an apology.”

  “No. Just don’t do that again. I don’t mind you getting yourself shot, but I was in the line of fire too.”

  “All the same. I’m sorry. Is Bogusnik telling the truth?”

  “About the Tsitnikova sisters? Oh yes. He wasn’t in charge of the case.”

  “So he’s not a killer?”

  Such an odd remark . . . and a flashback so vivid it was unnerving. Yuri opening up with a Sten gun on a bunch of neo-Nazi teenagers—not one of whom survived.

  “Oh, he can kill. I’ve seen him do it. All I’m saying is that he didn’t kill the Tsitnikova sisters. He had nothing to do with what happened to them. If he had he would hardly feel the need to deny it.

  “Now . . . listen to me, Geoffrey. All this is going to take a little longer than I told you.”

  “How long?”

  “Dunno, but more than ten days.”

  Masefield pondered.

  “I can handle that. After the Lubyanka I can probably handle anything. But I’ve read every damn magazine in this place. I know what colours are trendy in Hampstead, I’ve read reviews of concerts on the Third Programme I’ve never even heard, I understand that Albert Finney could be the biggest thing on the English stage since Laurence Olivier and I know what the Economist is predicting for 1959. In the Lubyanka I got so bored I even read the scraps of Pravda they gave us to wipe our arses on.”

  Wilderness couldn’t help smiling at this.

  “Point taken. Yuri isn’t trying deprive you of anything. Just a limited imagination on his part. I’ll be in London, tomorrow or the day after. I’ll see you’re sent books.”

  §132

  It crossed Wilderness’s mind to call Eddie from Delves’s office on Kantstraße. And it also crossed his mind not to.

  He wanted no record whatsoever of what happened next. No flapping ears, no hidden recorders. It could wait till he got home.

  The following morning he sat quietly in the travel agent’s, outside Delves’s office—the same office in which the whole Masefield mess had splashed down four years ago.

  About 11:00 a.m. Gretchen brought an envelope through from the front desk.

  “This came for you. Big man, driving a ZIM.”

  She raised an eyebrow, almost mockingly.

  Wilderness opened the envelope.

  The deed with Wölk’s signature, a witness named Ullmann, who had signed as a “Civil Law Notary Public of the DDR”—Wilderness had no idea whether Ullmann was real or not, nor did he care—and the assignee “John Wilfrid Holderness,” described as “Representative of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government.”

  The deed—done.

  “Gretchen. Would you get me on a flight to London? This afternoon. Anything after two.”

  Delves emerged from his office.

  “Joe. Didn’t know you were here.”

  Wilderness could not warm to Delves, and knew it was just class prejudice.

  “I’m not, Dickie. I am gone.”

  “London? I do envy you. I haven’t had a London run yet this year.”

  And aiming to overcome prejudice . . .

  “Anything I can bring you, Dickie?”

  “Tea bags, old man. Indian Prince. Get ’em at any branch of the ­Co-Op. And a jar of Marmite, if you’d be so kind.”

  §133

  London

  Wilderness called in at Queen Anne’s Gate. The door to his office was ajar. It was his office. He was sure it was his office. It just didn’t look like his office. It was neat, it was ordered. And a glass and stainless steel contraption sat on one of the bookshelves dripping hot coffee at the speed of glaciation.

  “Touch nothing.”

  He turned. It was Alice Pettifer.

  “This man is a saint. Edwin, patron saint of tidiness. I may never work for you again, Joe Holderness. If it turns out that he’s also a dab hand at the ironing board I may marry him. I have met the superior being. All other men are Untermenschen.”

  “And where is our Übermensch?”

  “In with Burne-Jones.”

  “Does Alec know I’m back?”

  “No. I�
��d sneak out now if I were you.”

  “I need to see Eddie.”

  “Then you may wait in here.”

  “What? It’s still my bloody office.”

  “No it’s not. You’re a field agent again. We don’t provide offices for field agents—we provide fields.”

  Wilderness sat in the visitor’s chair, musing on the possibility that Alice and Rose Blair might be related. It felt oddly pleasing. To be sitting on the wrong side of the desk, and to know it was the right side.

  A short, fat figure in the doorway.

  “Don’t even think about sloping off. He knows you’re here.”

  “Good morning, Übermensch.”

  “Eh?”

  “Never mind. It’s you I need to see, Ed. Can you call by Perrin’s Walk in the morning? We’ll have breakfast and talk.”

  “We can talk now.”

  Wilderness looked around the room, making sure Eddie took in the gesture.

  “Not in here we can’t.”

  “Oh bloody ’eck. When?”

  “Nine, nine thirty. Judy’s usually out of the house by then.”

  “Burne-Jones wants to see you.”

  “OK.”

  Wilderness stood in Burne-Jones’s doorway, pointedly not crossing the threshold. Burne-Jones had his head down scribbling in the margins. He glanced up and straight back down again.

  “Everything go OK in Berlin?”

  “Yep. We get our Geoffrey back as soon as I can get my ducks in a row.”

  “You saw Masefield?”

  “Yes. A bit frayed at the edges. Perhaps a bit guilty about having confessed. He told me he told them nothing they didn’t know already. I believe him. In his position I’d have given them Tom Radley in 3-D and stereo.”

  “Jolly good. And what did you make of General Bogusnik?”

  Truth or dare?

  “Just as you said. Another fat little Russian bloke. Put him in a homburg and a mac on top of Lenin’s tomb on May Day and you wouldn’t be able to tell him from the other half dozen fat little Russian blokes.”

  “Jolly good.”

  §134

  Perrin’s Walk, London NW3

  “Bogusnik is Yuri.”

  “What?”

  “Turns out it’s his real name. Myshkin was his nom de guerre for the Stalin years.”

  “Amazing. I’d have put him down for dead or purged by now.”

  “Me too, but he’s not. If I invoke cliché and say he’s very much alive, it would be an exaggeration. He’s very much half-alive. He’s in poor health. Heart trouble, from the look of it. And he wants to retire.”

  “And swapping Masefield for Alleyn is his swan song?”

  “Almost. He also wants the claret you and I stumbled across in ’47.”

  “What? As part of the deal?”

  “Yep. No booze, no Geoffrey.”

  “How did he find out? You never told him, I never told him.”

  “That was the first question that ran through my mind.”

  “But you asked him?”

  “No. I didn’t need to. It was Nell. Yuri knew how many bottles there were, even teased me by serving up a Mouton Rothschild ’29 at lunch. It was Nell.”

  “Could have been Erno.”

  “No it couldn’t. It was Nell. Yuri has kept in touch with Nell, and only Nell, having a memory like an elephant, could have readily told him how many bottles, even down to the chateaux and the vintage.”

  “Might she have told Frank?”

  “Nell wouldn’t give Frank Spoleto the time of day. Frank knew nothing; Frank knows nothing. He got Wölk reinstated and that was an end of it.

  “I still have the certificate of ownership. I dug it out last night. You’re not the only one who can file things in an orderly manner. The merchants in Bordeaux have a transfer in Wölk’s name dated 1943. And I have a transfer in my name dated 1965. Wölk signed it over. And once he did, what Yuri is asking for became doable. It’ll take a bit of fixing . . . I’ll need French cooperation . . . but it’s doable.”

  “How did you get Wölk’s signature?”

  “I left that to Yuri.”

  “And what does Burne-Jones say to all this?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t told him. He doesn’t need to know. And he won’t know. It’s why we’re meeting here.”

  “What you said about Wölk . . . you know getting his signature on the transfer . . . you couldn’t have faked that? You didn’t need to involve Yuri. Find a signature in records. Erno copies it . . . Bob’s your uncle.”

  “My way is better.”

  “Why alert Wölk to what we’re doing? He could be trouble.”

  “Oh no. Herr Wölk will never trouble anyone again.”

  Eddie let this one sink in.

  “You’re letting Yuri have him.”

  “No, I’m letting Yuri bury him.”

  “You had Wölk killed? God, Joe. There are times I think I don’t know you at all.”

  “Me neither.”

  Judy had appeared at the foot of the staircase. A staring, silent baby on her arm.

  “The nanny’s running late. Eddie, you take Molly. Joe, if you’d bring the prima donna down.”

  She thrust the child at Eddie. He grasped Molly with unease and reluctance.

  “Don’t worry, she’s just been on the potty. She’ll be dry and odour-free for a while now. Joe!”

  As soon as Wilderness had gone up to the nursery, Judy sat opposite Eddie and said, “I’m due at work in less than an hour, so I’ll be quick. How long have we known each other, Eddie?”

  “Since I came down from Birmingham in ’56.”

  “And I like to think that in all that time you have never lied to me.”

  “I haven’t. I was just an ordinary copper until last week. There was nowt to lie about.”

  “Good. Now . . . are you and my husband up to anything illegal?”

  “Judy, he’ll be down in a soddin’ second!”

  “No he won’t. I left him to put a nappy on Joan. He’s utterly cack-handed at it. He’ll be five minutes at least. So . . . tell me.”

  “I don’t bloody know. I wish to God I did.”

  §135

  Wilderness sat with Joan on his knee.

  She burbled, slipped in the odd, comprehensible word from time to time.

  Eddie sat with Molly on his knee.

  She farted, stared across the table at her father with unrestrained malice.

  “Joe, what’s my part in all this?”

  “Easy. Remember that French bloke who was with their Intelligence when we were in Berlin—Didier Pascaud?”

  “I cleaned him out at pontoon more times that I can count. Lousy card player.”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t bear a grudge. He’s with the Sûreté now, the national cops. If this is to work we need a copper on our side. If anyone threatens to call the cops . . . well, we’ll have our own.”

  “Like having a Special Branch copper with us?”

  “A bit like that, but mostly not.”

  “Good, ’cos we both know what a bunch of wankers they are.”

  “I’ve dealt with Didier a few times over the last couple of years. So, first . . . you get him on the phone and make a formal MI6 request for assistance.”

  “How much can I tell him?”

  “Everything.”

  “Except that you killed Wölk.”

  “Drop it, Ed.”

  “I love the way you prefaced all this with the word ‘easy.’”

  “Second . . . you buy a truck.”

  “A truck? What with?”

  “Petty cash. Give the receipt to Alice.”

  “How big a truck?”

  “Big enough for ten thousand bottles of w
ine.”

  “About thirty-two cubic yards, then.”

  “Did you just do that in your head?”

  “I may be cabbage-looking, but . . . it’s a biggish truck. Ten thousand bottles of wine, that’s . . . about eight tons. Biggish, but not too big.”

  “We’ll take it in turns to drive.”

  “What?”

  “I told you. I can’t do this on my own.”

  “When did you tell me that?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “I’m a desk jockey, Joe. Not a field agent. You got me in so you didn’t have to do the bloody paperwork.”

  “Speaking of which. Third . . . get the truck listed as a diplomatic bag. All the right papers, all the right rubber stamps. We have two . . . or is it three . . . frontiers to cross.”

  “Joe . . . I’m lost. What the fuck are we up to?”

  “We’re driving ten thousand bottles of wine from Bordeaux to East Berlin, under diplomatic immunity. I checked—a diplomatic bag is whatever a diplomat says it is . . . brown envelope, sack of dirty laundry . . . truck full of wine. All the same thing. They may not search; they may not confiscate.”

  A louder than usual baby-fart punctuated their conversation.

  “Your daughter and you—you both just crapped on me.”

  §136

  “What next?”

  “Who me? It appears I’m on nanny duty today. I’ll go down to the Scrubs tomorrow morning and get Alleyn out. Masefield is in what passes for the lap of luxury in East Berlin. He’s at the Adlon. I don’t see why they shouldn’t have parity. Let’s see if we can’t make his last few days in England a little more comfortable. Then he can go back to Mother Russia and tell her what a decent set of chaps we are.”

  “Y’know . . . that sentence was so loaded with sarcasm I can’t tell whether you feel sorry for Alleyn or not.”

  “‘Not’ would be the answer. Can you let the Scrubs know we’re springing him and let me have whatever piece of paper I’ll need?”

  §137

  Under the illusion that she might thus have his attention, Judy was in the habit of saving important matters until the post-coital moment.

  “What are you and Eddie up to?”

  “The job. Just doing what your old man pays us to do.”

  “Then why do I get the feeling there’s something a bit dodgy going down?”