Icelight

by Aly Monroe

  Cotton nodded. He could not think of anything fitting to say. ‘What are you doing now?’

  ‘After the war the BBME took me on as a trainee.’

  ‘What’s the—?’

  ‘Sorry. The British Bank of the Middle East. I’ve just finished my banking exams. I’m being posted to Damascus in April. Of course, I’ve had to promise them I won’t get married for three years.’ Causley smiled. ‘That’s the usual condition for the first tour. I have also met some Syrians. I don’t know why but the scars don’t seem to upset them. Or at least they don’t ask me about them.’

  ‘How do you think this helps us get Sinclair and Boyle?’ said Dawkins.

  Causley drank some wine. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Tom McEwan told me their names. I know one of his colleagues socially, met McEwan himself a few days ago.’ He shrugged. ‘You know journalists. He asked me directly if two boys from Glasgow had cut my face. He described them quite well.’

  ‘Mr Causley, we’re trying to get them put away,’ said Dawkins.

  Causley showed polite but decidedly restrained interest. ‘I’ve explained already I think. I have chosen my career path. In a few weeks I’ll be out of Britain. I’m not risking that. In terms of testicles, I am as I understand Hitler was. And I have these SFEs on my face.’

  ‘You’ve got what?’ said Dawkins.

  ‘Sorry. SFE is Scotland For Ever.’

  ‘Or Sod Fucking Englishmen,’ said Dawkins.

  ‘Quite,’ said Causley. ‘I’ve got quite a few other names. I’ve been called Lord Haw-Haw by children.’

  Lord Haw-Haw, William Joyce, of ‘Germany calling’ fame during the war had had a scar from his earlobe to the corner of his mouth caused by a cut-throat razor attack in the twenties. Cotton had read that the scar had burst open when he had been hanged.

  Dawkins groaned.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Causley,’ said Cotton. ‘We appreciate your position and we appreciate your help.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Causley. He put his hat on again and started putting on his gloves. ‘I wish you luck, gentlemen.’ He slid out of the booth, finished off his wine and left.

  Cotton sighed and cut into his Cornish pasty. There was swede in it and carrot, as Dawkins had said, and some strands of grey meat. The mix had been heavily peppered but was now cold. He pushed the plate away. ‘He’s right,’ said Dawkins. ‘What a shower of shit!’

  Cotton looked up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get an address for the boys from Glasgow.’ Dawkins shook his head. ‘Haven’t done it. They’ll have identity cards, ration cards – I’ve found nothing.’ He grunted. ‘They must be at the Radcliffe Arms,’ he said.

  ‘Seems likely,’ said Cotton.

  Dawkins looked up and sighed. ‘That young man tells a bloody good story, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Dawkins grimaced and shook his head. ‘I’m not criticizing,’ he said. ‘I just wish he hadn’t been quite so good.’

  Cotton nodded. ‘I’ll do everything I can,’ he said, ‘to make sure that Sir Percy hears about Sinclair and Boyle.’

  Dawkins narrowed his eyes. ‘Why did you go to McEwan?’

  ‘Because I thought he could help.’

  ‘You could have told me.’

  ‘I didn’t know what McEwan had planned. And I knew you don’t have a high opinion of journalists.’

  Dawkins looked round.

  ‘Do you want another drink?’ he said. ‘I’ll pay.’

  ‘Do you want to say something?’

  ‘No,’ said Dawkins. ‘I just need another drink.’

  31

  ON THURSDAY, 20 February, Cotton’s twenty-eighth birthday, the temperature dropped again. By the time he had got to his office, news was arriving that the cross-Channel ferries had been suspended because of pack ice. Somewhere, someone had tried to keep warm by burning a stack of old files. On his desk he found a note from Major Briggs:

  ‘I have a dinner party this evening but would like to see you beforehand. Please be at my Dolphin Square address at 5.30 p.m. Briggs.’

  Cotton was mildly intrigued. Was this Alfred Perlman’s idea or had Major Briggs acted on his own?

  At 5.30 he was at Briggs’ flat. Briggs, despite his new pinstripe suit, was looking rough, had a cold sore on his upper lip.

  The Major’s first words were ‘Fucking hell! We’re taking a beating over this bloody weather! Eh? What do they want? For the miners to go on strike?’

  Cotton did not reply.

  ‘We need something, lad! We need to hit back with something!’

  Cotton nodded. The meeting had evidently not been suggested by Alfred Perlman.

  ‘At one level, I’m only a civil servant, Major,’ said Cotton. ‘We have to keep clear of party politics. It’s our remit.’

  Briggs reacted badly. ‘This isn’t politics! This is justice!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Cotton. ‘That may be. Unfortunately, perhaps, I’m strictly forbidden from involving myself in either politics or justice.’

  ‘I could harm your career, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cotton. ‘You could.’ He shrugged. ‘If you feel like that, by all means complain.’

  Briggs narrowed his eyes. ‘What’s your game?’

  Cotton shook his head. ‘I have none, Major. There may be something but I’m afraid it’s too early to say and it won’t help your present difficulties.’

  ‘Do you know who you’re talking to?’

  Cotton let this pass. ‘Do you have anything for me, Major?’

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘Damn,’ said Briggs. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Could you leave by the back door?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cotton. ‘I’ll be in touch. Probably through Mr Perlman.’

  Cotton saw himself out. In the kitchen he passed two uniformed maids preparing canapés. He trotted down the stairs almost cheerfully. Alfred Perlman would not be pleased with his associate.

  When he got home, he found Anna Melville had arranged a birthday party for him in which she was the only other guest.

  She was wearing the tartan trews that he had last worn in Washington DC, the legs rolled up but, despite the cold, nothing else apart from what the British call braces and the Americans suspenders.

  In the drawing room she had rigged up a kind of tent. It was made up of the four kilts he had had to buy as an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and now no longer had a use for. They had been in a trunk with mothballs. Substantial woollen items, they had been worn from his sternum to his kneecaps and had lead shot at the base of the pleats to ensure the correct swing and to avoid windy mishaps.

  ‘A tepee? In tartan?’

  She laughed. ‘I was thinking more of a place in which to give you my present. I am putting my mouth where my money should be. I think the French say faire la pipe.’

  Cotton’s eyebrows came up.

  ‘My French language may not be very good,’ she said. ‘But my French is universal. Or is that too near the bone for you?’

  They drank champagne, she showed him luminescent paint in the dark, and they ate. Anna Melville had even prepared supper. It consisted of cubes of fried spam, green beans she had found in a jar and slices of fried bread dumpling. Cotton did not eat much but did open another bottle of Dry Monopole.

  Before he had even left for work on 21 February the telephone rang.

  ‘Mr C?’ It was Derek.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cotton.

  ‘I’ve got a question.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Well, it’s not strictly speaking about our business, if you understand me. I’m thinking of my own position.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s about rewards.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Would there be a reward for information about Vernon? Vernon Carter?’

  It took Cotton
a moment to remember. Carter had been ‘the expert in shrinkage’ who had disappeared in or around Croydon in December 1945, possibly, even probably at the hands of Maurice Bly. There was the story Maurice had beaten him to death with a solid wood chair no longer amongst the seven in the Snow White display. The chair named for Dopey was supposed to have gone missing.

  ‘Are you in hiding again?’

  ‘No, Mr C, no. I’m offering information.’

  ‘Why to me?’

  ‘I was thinking of Mr Ayrtoun, sir.’

  ‘Right. You want me to tell Mr Ayrtoun you’ve helped the police in the hope that will help your own situation.’

  ‘Christ, I haven’t spoken to the police! Mr C, you’re the first person I’ve talked to. But yes, I’d be wanting to do a deal. A murder is worth more than anything I could be had up for.’

  ‘All right,’ said Cotton. ‘I’ll try but you understand this is Mr Ayrtoun’s business? And before I do that you tell me what you have.’

  They agreed to meet at a bar in the Cromwell Road at noon.

  ‘You’re looking a bit peaky today,’ said Derek.

  ‘Just tell me,’ said Cotton.

  Derek’s story came down to this: his brother-in-law had seen a small patch of scrubland behind three new garages in Beddington, ‘about another three garages’ worth’. His brother-in-law had made enquiries and found the garages had been built in December 1945 and that they and the scrubland belonged ‘to a lady’. On visiting the lady, an old woman living on the housing estate at New Addington, she had become ‘flustered but still quite stroppy’. The brother-in-law had told her he could put quite a bit of money her way, to which she replied she was already getting ‘something every week’. And anyway, the property wasn’t really hers to sell.

  ‘She’s just a name, Mr C. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  A short time later, the brother-in-law was given a warning by Maurice Bly’s enforcer, a man called Turner. ‘Big Mick bastard,’ said Derek. Persist in pressuring the old lady and he might find a Molotov cocktail coming through his window.

  ‘Bly feels protective towards the old lady,’ said Cotton.

  ‘No! That’s overkill. All he had to say was leave it, son, I’ve got plans for another three garages.’

  ‘Are you really suggesting that Vernon is buried there?’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ said Derek. ‘Life’s not that complicated but it was hard to get building permission and harder to get building supplies in 1945.’

  ‘Surely the building trade suffers shrinkage too.’

  ‘Yeah. But three garages in December 1945? Maurice claims he doesn’t even have a car.’

  ‘He uses the garages for storage? He rents them out?’

  ‘I’m saying he is storing what’s left of Vernon.’

  Waiting for Dickie Dawkins at Charing Cross station, Cotton noticed the news-boards were saying ‘Mountbatten appointed Viceroy of India. Independence by June 1948.’

  When Dawkins arrived, Cotton told him of Derek’s story.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Can you do anything?’

  Dawkins made a face. ‘I’m thinking,’ he said.

  Cotton let him think.

  ‘Do you want Derek safe?’ asked Dawkins.

  Cotton nodded. ‘Well, yes. Why not?’

  ‘Then we’ll have to go in another way. I’ll tell someone the council planning committee is being investigated, maybe the planning officer. Anomalies. Possible corruption. I’ll check who’s who and get back to you.’

  ‘Are you suggesting Maurice may have paid for his planning permission?’

  ‘No. It’s called influence,’ said Dawkins. ‘It doesn’t have to be that direct. How much of a hurry are you in?’

  Cotton shrugged. ‘When you can. What’s the matter? You look down.’

  ‘My little one has a lazy eye,’ said Dawkins.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ said Cotton, though he was not sure what a ‘lazy eye’ was. ‘Is there a treatment?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dawkins. ‘They cut out a disc of paper and put it over one lens of her spectacles. Over her good eye, that is. It makes the lazy eye work harder.’

  ‘Do you know how long this will take?’

  ‘We kick off with three months,’ said Dawkins. ‘Then we check again. My wife’s a bit upset.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I didn’t know. She had the same thing when she was a girl. I think she feels a bit guilty.’

  ‘Give her a present, then.’

  Dawkins looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘maybe.’

  As Cotton was walking back to his office, someone fell into step beside him.

  ‘Which do you prefer, Peter?’ said Ed Lowell. ‘The Odyssey or The Iliad?’

  ‘I haven’t read either of them for a while,’ said Cotton. He saw Ed Lowell was dressed in tweeds as if he had just been shooting pheasant or was intent on showing how mannered clothes maketh man.

  ‘You do know we haven’t the faintest idea who Homer was.’

  ‘Yes. Wasn’t it Samuel Butler who suggested he was a she?’

  ‘Really?’ said Ed Lowell. ‘Homer means “witness”, doesn’t it? Or rather, since I always heard Homer was not a single author, “witnesses”. The Odyssey and particularly The Iliad are a group effort.’

  Cotton nodded. He wondered how long Ed Lowell would take to get to the point. ‘Over time. A sort of chain. I’ve heard that.’

  ‘Yes. It’s really the oral becoming the written, I suppose.’

  Cotton shrugged. ‘Then there were different scribes, some making changes and additions.’

  ‘In different places.’ Ed Lowell smiled. ‘We’re moving ahead,’ he said. ‘By summer we should have a National Security Act. Three parts. A board to oversee intelligence from the White House. The military coordinated in one Department of Defense. And an entirely new agency.’

  ‘Based on the CIG?’

  ‘Yes. It’ll have a slightly different name. Central Intelligence Agency is the front-runner. That’ll deal with . . . abroad.’

  ‘And the FBI?’

  Ed Lowell shrugged. ‘They can go back to being the FBI.’

  Cotton did not believe the FBI would rush to collaborate with the new agency. Nor did he believe Ed Lowell thought they would. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘No. I should thank you,’ said Ed Lowell. ‘We think you were right about Watson. Not that we’ll say so, of course.’

  ‘What? You’re saying he had never begun his reading on Trotsky?’

  ‘Nor Lenin either. Nor Marx.’

  ‘Conclusion?’

  ‘One of those mix-ups you get in this line of work. I blame the French.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re too obliging. If they don’t have Camembert they offer you Brie.’

  Cotton laughed as politely as he could. ‘We think we’ve traced the rumour to a Swiss arms dealer called Bodard,’ he said.

  Ed Lowell half smiled and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Bodard is the kind of man the new agency is very keen on. Naturally he has had to come clean on a few details to show how cooperative he can be.’

  Cotton nodded and glanced at Lowell. ‘But like Homer, the original source for his accusation is obscure, possibly multiple,’ he said.

  Ed Lowell shrugged. ‘Watson died without knowing he was suspected of being more than a fag.’

  ‘And things have moved on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Horse Guards rattled past in the winter gloom. The horses’ snorts mingled with the sound of their hooves on ice and grit. Cotton was struck that even their brightly polished breastplates looked dull. Mist, horses’ breath – he frowned, unsure that he wasn’t dreaming. Some of the patches that appeared looked momentarily oily like contour maps made into sodden rainbows.

  ‘We’re getting a new ambassador after the hiatus,’ said Lowell.

 
; The previous appointee had died in December 1946 before being able to take up the post.

  ‘Has it been announced?’

  ‘It will be shortly. Lewis Douglas.’

  ‘A career diplomat?’

  ‘Not in the least. Mining, academia, insurance, occasional politician.’

  ‘Tough?’

  ‘What do you say? As old boots? Yes, we’re getting there, Peter. Have you heard Voice of America yet? No? Try listening and tell me what you think.’

  Cotton wrote two separate messages to Ayrtoun – on Lowell and on Derek:

  Conversation in the Mall with Ed Lowell. He mentioned the author of the Odyssey and the Iliad. It was too clumsy, overbearing and deliberate to be casual. He filled me in on the likely future organization of US Intelligence Services. He claimed at least to be unfussed by FBI. He agreed, off the record of course, that Watson was not a Trotskyite and went along with the suggestion that the rumour came from the arms dealer Bodard. Lowell says Bodard is doing something for the new American Agency.

  Ayrtoun got back at once.

  Essential you do not relay first or Greek part of conversation to anyone. Lowell fishing. Watch your back – your job may, from the American point of view, make your ‘attitude’ worth investigating.

  Bodard is doing something for many people – he’d be a fool not to recognize the Americans have more money than anyone else. I suspect they are simply paying him to tell them where he is sending arms, in the hope they get more out of him later. I don’t say the Americans have a monopoly on straight-shooting and innocence, but they are the leading players.

  On Derek, Ayrtoun said: ‘By all means see if the little bastard’s information is correct. Your decision on what to do with him. If you do let him go, strongly suggest you get him to give you his replacement.’

  Cotton was surprised by Ayrtoun giving Derek up, and dismayed by Ayrtoun’s response to Lowell. If Bodard had supplied the story that Watson was a Trotskyite, it meant that the Americans had been involved even before Ayrtoun had been appointed to hunt spies in a British response to American pressure. Cotton took the warning about his own position. He thought Ayrtoun was even more exposed.