Icelight

by Aly Monroe

  For a moment Cotton did not know how Briggs would react – but he let out a gruff laugh.

  ‘Right! And votes are votes,’ he said, ‘even if they’re from snobbish buggers and toffee-nosed perverts.’

  Cotton thought Briggs probably took some comfort and some thrill in the notion of a weakness in the upper classes. Presumably he did not think privileged and/or effeminate men were good at washing coal. The coal industry had been finally and formally nationalized at New Year. Cotton suspected that for Shinwell, and so for Briggs, they were now on the coal standard, as it were. This standard was about honest justice for workers, was way above any considerations on homosexuality, homophobia or potential coal shortages. At one level, from Briggs’ point of view, adultery and homosexuality were the same: secrets to be exposed if doing so were to his advantage.

  ‘There is a precedent, you know,’ said Major Bertie.

  ‘I’m sorry. What do you mean?’

  Briggs sat back in his chair. ‘Vansittart,’ he said.

  Cotton said nothing. In the thirties, Robert Vansittart, in the Foreign Office, had run a private intelligence service out of frustration with appeasement. His concern had been exclusively anti-Nazi. For Briggs to compare the two was, as kindly as Cotton could put it, optimistic. He did not ask who Briggs was fighting.

  Major Briggs laughed. ‘What’s this word “honeytrap”?’

  Cotton remembered the word ‘smut’ from his conversation with Ayrtoun in the car. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘the Soviets – and others, of course – are keen on compromising people. A girl finds you amazingly attractive – or, if they think you’re like E. M. Forster, a boy does. A few photographs and you’re caught between losing your position and status or helping out with the Soviet cause.’ He looked up. He was entirely aware of Briggs’ own interest in compromising photographs. Briggs did not look at all abashed.

  ‘And of course,’ Cotton went on, ‘another problem is that photographs of indiscretions can become currency, can be sold on.’

  Briggs shook his head. He was very confident. ‘I only deal in exclusives,’ he said. ‘I can tell you that.’

  ‘Exclusives don’t tend to stay exclusive,’ said Cotton.

  ‘No, no. I always get the negatives.’

  Cotton shrugged. ‘Of course there’s always the business of wanting people to think you’ve got them.’

  Briggs smiled. ‘Now that’s a thought, eh?’ He looked directly at Cotton. ‘I suppose what you really want to know is how I finance things.’

  Cotton did not answer. Briggs pierced a chunk of ham and covered it with chutney.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you the Government has some leeway with funds. You know that. I’m not sure I’m not being backed by “The Fund for the Relief of Sundry Female Objects in Distress”.’

  ‘Ah. Those poor girls again,’ said Cotton.

  Briggs laughed. ‘That’s it.’ He put the ham and chutney into his mouth.

  Cotton knew that this dismissively named fund really did exist. He also knew Briggs was lying to him in the sense that he was trying to get him to collude with a fiction that implied that Major Albert Briggs MP had Government backing for his snooping.

  On one level the lie was astute enough. Briggs was merely bringing up the various bags of Government money that were excluded from the accountants’ attentions. Cotton knew that Ayrtoun, for example, had access to money that officially came from nowhere.

  On another level the lie was depressing. Briggs wanted Cotton to accept the lie, either because he shared a view of how snooping was done or because he was too stupid or deferential to question it.

  Both men agreed after lunch that the meeting had been ‘extremely useful’ and shook hands. They would ‘check on things’, in Briggs’ phrase, every month.

  ‘He’s a bully,’ said Hans when the Triumph was running.

  ‘Yes, he is,’ said Cotton. ‘What are you basing your opinion on?’

  ‘He kerb-crawls.’

  ‘He does what?’

  ‘Drives along the kerb talking to whores.’

  ‘I know what kerb-crawling is! How do you know this?’

  ‘I’ve watched him do it.’

  ‘All right, Hans,’ said Cotton.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Wait.’

  Cotton waited until they reached Dorking. He then asked Hans to park and suggested a walk. Cotton knew Dorking a little. It was where he often arrived by train to visit his father, though he rarely strayed further than the station forecourt.

  ‘Mr Ayrtoun suggested you follow Major Briggs. Right?’

  Hans nodded. ‘I asked the girls on Park Lane. The Major insults them and tells them what he would like to do to them.’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘He does it when he’s angry or frustrated.’

  ‘Quite. After a hard day in Parliament, is this?’

  ‘Yes. It’s quite a well-known fact.’

  ‘Not to me, Hans.’

  Hans looked surprised. ‘He is not a complicated man,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Cotton. ‘But we have a problem.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Were you given a time to tell me about this? After my meeting with him?’

  Hans twitched. ‘Well, no. Mr Ayrtoun didn’t actually give a time. He just said I should tell you. I didn’t want to influence you before you met him.’

  ‘All right, Hans, I want you to tell Mr Ayrtoun something.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t you know what it is?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Dear, dear. Take me home, now, would you?’

  Cotton got back to Wilbraham Place in the dark at shortly after five. At 9 p.m. he got a call from Washington DC.

  ‘What precisely is the problem?’ said Ayrtoun.

  ‘What’s Hans’s job, apart from driving that is?’

  Ayrtoun sighed. ‘He does some surveillance work for me.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Cotton. ‘Would that include watching me?’

  ‘I haven’t got the time for this.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ said Cotton.

  Ayrtoun paused again. ‘You accepted the job.’

  ‘No I did not,’ said Cotton. ‘I agreed to the job description you gave me.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘More information and better timing.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘For a start, at least equality in the information my ex-Nazi driver gets.’

  ‘There are wider issues, you know.’

  ‘Kerb-crawling isn’t one of them. I’m entirely happy to go back to St James’s Street and show enthusiasm for the potential problems in Malaya.’

  There was a pause. ‘MI5,’ said Ayrtoun, ‘have launched their push. Right now. They’re on a queer hunt.’

  ‘Hans knows about this?’

  ‘You should be prepared,’ said Ayrtoun.

  ‘Have you any specific information?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘No,’ said Ayrtoun. ‘That’s your job.’

  ‘What else does Hans do for you?’

  ‘He’s well connected.’

  ‘Ah.’ Cotton wondered if Hans’s Robert had been targeted.

  ‘He does a drag routine. Lili Marlene. He’s very popular in some circles,’ said Ayrtoun.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He showed me his own draft of his own report.’

  Ayrtoun grunted. ‘Have nothing to do with that,’ he said.

  Cotton put down the telephone, lifted it again and left a message for Derek to call him. About an hour later, Derek called Cotton from a telephone box.

  ‘We’ve got a snooper. Usually does divorces in Brighton. Just stopping off earlier on the line.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ asked Cotton.

  ‘He’s some sort of photographer out of Soho.’

  ‘MI5?’

  ‘I doubt it. More a Special Branch kind of person. Takes portraits of
prostitutes for call-girl directories and catches adulterers in bed when they tell him to.’

  ‘Have you seen him with a camera?’

  ‘Nah. He says he’s trying to track down some woman’s brother.’

  ‘He’s fishing?’

  ‘And clocking. You know, getting familiar with the faces.’

  ‘Amateur?’

  ‘At this. He’s not kosher, is he? He’s small porn.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’

  ‘Joe. I think he’s Italian. I mean his parents are. He’s just here, sweating a little bit from all that rail travel and the smiles he gets.’

  ‘All right. Keep him in view. And look around. Oh, next time you see him, ask him if Major Briggs is well.’

  ‘Major Briggs? All right. I’ll do that.’

  13

  AROUND SIX in the morning of Monday, 6 January Cotton received a telephone call. He had been woken by the shrill bell and the sound was still in his ears.

  ‘It’s Derek,’ said Jennings. ‘You’ve got one, a man called Watson. He’s been arrested. He’s an atomic something. He’s in Croydon police station.’

  ‘Thanks, Derek.’

  Cotton called Hans Bieber, who was already up and remarkably cheerful. They agreed he would pick Cotton up at 6.45.

  Cotton stood under the shower, shaved, dressed and was boiling the kettle when the telephone rang again. It was Dickie Dawkins.

  ‘We’ve had a security alert,’ he said.

  ‘From Croydon?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dawkins sounded disappointed.

  ‘I’ll be going there directly,’ said Cotton.

  ‘So will I,’ said Dawkins.

  Cotton smiled. ‘I only have his surname.’

  ‘Alexander Ashley Watson,’ said Dickie Dawkins. ‘He’s a specialist in something called plutonium enrichment. Works at Harwell. Was on his way to Fort Halstead near Sevenoaks in Kent.’

  ‘What’s the charge?’

  ‘Gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.’

  ‘Do you have the details?’

  ‘When I see you,’ said Dawkins.

  ‘Right. Can you put a block on everything you can until we get there?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Dawkins. ‘I don’t know what plutonium enrichment is.’

  In January 1947, beyond a very general notion, neither did Cotton. Though British and refugee scientists had been involved, even initially been at the forefront of what became the Manhattan Project, the McMahon Act, unanimously passed by the US Congress in August 1946 to avoid nuclear proliferation, had made it clear that British scientists did not have a complete understanding of the atom bomb production process. One of the gaps was in plutonium enrichment.

  ‘I think we can say it’s important,’ he said.

  He decided however to test Alfred Perlman. He called his secretary.

  ‘This is Marion.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t know your name.’

  ‘No,’ said the lady. ‘You want Olivia. One moment.’ There was a pause and another voice came on the line.

  ‘This is Olivia. Is that Mr Cotton? How can I help?’

  Cotton said he had to go to Croydon police station and wanted to ask Mr Perlman a question.

  ‘Does it involve a possible criminal charge?’

  ‘Section 11 of the Criminal Amendment Act.’

  ‘Will you be there by nine? I’ll have Mr Perlman telephone then.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  Cotton and Dawkins arrived at Croydon police station almost at the same time. They found Watson was being held but had not yet been formally charged. The draft charge sheet said that Watson had been found in the grounds of a local school, Whitgift Middle School in North End, close to the OTC armoury with its supply of First World War rifles, by a night watchman who was quoted as saying he had heard ‘the rattle of chains’. The watchman, fearing an IRA robbery, had contacted the police and then spied on what he was quoted as describing as ‘an unnatural act’. Disturbed by police whistles, Watson’s companion had run across the playing fields and escaped in the direction of Wellesley Road. Watson had merely done up his flies and asked what the racket was about.

  The police sergeant was helpful. ‘We could also get him for trespass, you know.’

  ‘Where is he?’ said Dawkins

  The police sergeant was surprised. ‘In the cells, of course.’

  ‘Get him out,’ said Dawkins. ‘Change the records. Put him in an interview room and make sure he’s always been there.’

  Dawkins turned towards Cotton.

  ‘Who is the head man here?’ Cotton asked the sergeant.

  ‘Well, that would be the chief constable, sir.’

  ‘Contact him,’ said Dawkins.

  A police constable went off to deal with Watson. The sergeant telephoned the chief constable.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, having left a message that the chief constable was urgently required.

  ‘You’ll find out when and if necessary,’ said Dawkins.

  The police constable came back.

  ‘Transfer completed, sir.’

  Cotton and Dawkins went to see Watson. He was standing in his socks putting the laces back in his shoes. One of his socks had a hole in the toe.

  ‘I have an appointment near Sevenoaks,’ he said. ‘And I’m going to be late because of this.’

  Dawkins nodded. ‘Do you want me to call anyone, sir?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Watson. ‘This is something only I can deal with.’

  Cotton considered him. Alexander Ashley Watson was about five foot nine. He was square-shouldered but thin, and had strands of hair so blond they were almost white combed over his scalp but not enough to cover the crown of his head, blue eyes and a rather shapeless nose. He was flushed, his eyelids were twitching and he spoke with an almost asthmatic emphasis.

  ‘Given the circumstances, Mr Watson,’ said Cotton, ‘you seem remarkably calm.’

  ‘I’m not. This is intolerable.’ Watson paused and swallowed. ‘Really, neither of you have the slightest idea who or what you are dealing with.’

  Cotton nodded. ‘Are you quite sure about that?’ he asked. ‘Do you normally get visits from Special Branch and the Intelligence Service when you’re in a police cell?’

  Watson looked instantly bored. ‘I’m under a great deal of pressure,’ he said, ‘and I need occasional release. It’s not particularly interesting. It certainly isn’t important.’

  ‘Agreed. But given your work, you didn’t think a more private arrangement for the obtainment of release might have avoided this?’

  Watson shook his head. ‘I really am not in the slightest bit interested in your morality,’ he said.

  Cotton nodded. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got enough morality to be interested in,’ he said. He sat down. ‘But I would draw your attention to the pertaining law and to certain unpleasant consequences that flow from it.’

  Watson blinked. ‘I don’t think you know what I do.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t. But I do know that it involves plutonium, symbol Pu – a sort of joke I understand, amongst scientists. I know that Plutonium 239 was synthesized at Berkeley in California in 1940 or ’41.’

  ‘It’s pronounced Burkley, not Barclay.’

  ‘Thank you. The problem that you don’t appear to appreciate is that the fallout from the American McMahon Act stretches all the way to Croydon.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘That incidents like this, if known, might lead to grim consequences. For you, that is. The Americans passed the act to stop others developing the atom bomb but – this is called real politics – have retained the ability to blackball some of our scientists. They get particularly anxious that information might be passed to the Soviets.’

  ‘But that’s utter humbug. For all I know, the Soviets may even be ahead of us. The Yanks can’t be that hypocritical.’

  ‘Oh yes they can. Jus
t like us. Because they’re not exclusively concerned with plutonium enrichment. Don’t you understand? If this gets out your security clearance will be removed.’

  ‘Then don’t let it out.’

  ‘That’s why chain rattling is such a bad idea.’

  ‘What chains?’

  ‘Good,’ said Cotton. ‘I can use that. What happened?’

  ‘For God’s sake! All I did was go for a walk with a young man I met in the bar at the Greyhound. He suggested we duck into the school grounds. That’s all. No one else was involved. It was pitch dark. We hurt no one. And no one but a peeping Tom would have known what we were up to.’

  ‘You’re still being charged with breaking the law.’

  ‘But I am not a criminal!’ said Watson indignantly. ‘I am not a burglar or a spiv, you know, and I refuse to be treated as such.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Cotton. ‘Could you leave this with me for a few minutes?’

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘I was thinking of trying to get the charge quashed and unrecorded,’ said Cotton. ‘Is that acceptable to you? If you’re prosecuted your career will be over anyway. Can we start with that?’

  It took a little time, but Watson nodded.

  The chief constable was a man called Kitson. Cotton did not know whether or not he was one of Derek’s ‘homebodies’ or Ayrtoun’s ‘colonials’, but could see that, behind his crisp uniform and shining buttons, he was flustered and unhappy. This was not simply because of what he called ‘this distasteful matter’. The chief constable said he had just received a phone call from a Mr Alfred Perlman.

  ‘He’s some sort of fancy lawyer. I don’t even know how he got my number.’

  ‘I asked him for advice,’ said Cotton.

  The chief constable blinked. ‘The man’s a shyster,’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Cotton. ‘He’s offering help.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. He suggested a charge against Mr Watson was … inadvisable was the term he used.’

  ‘Did he give any reasons?’

  ‘He talked about what he called the Driberg Defence. Whatever that is.’

  ‘It’s a variation of the Portsmouth defence,’ said Dawkins. ‘When a man charged with assault claims he thought his victim was making an unnatural suggestion. In Driberg’s case there was an incident involving two unemployed miners in London in 1935 and in 1943 there was another with a Norwegian sailor in a bomb shelter in Edinburgh, and in both cases Driberg got off through what was also called misunderstanding due to difference of accent. Neither case was ever made public because Mr Driberg worked for a newspaper magnate.’