by D. J. Taylor
Davenport was a stoutish, red-haired man of fifty, who preferred to go about in military uniform rather than the dark suits that most people of his rank put on, and was famous for two idiosyncrasies. One of these was to smoke cigarettes through an amber holder. The other was to affect to forget the faces and even the identities of people that he came into contact with on a daily basis.
Davenport’s room was not easy to find, as it lay at the far end of the right-hand side fourth-floor corridor, at the point where the rows of offices petered out into a kind of no man’s land of broom-cupboards and store chests, from which it was sometimes possible to pilfer stationery. It was a tiny, bare-walled cubicle whose only ornament, apart from the desk, was a gunmetal filing cabinet and a photograph of Davenport standing on the House of Commons terrace with Stanley Baldwin, and conveyed an air of studied impermanence, as if Davenport had come there under duress, disdained to unpack the things he had brought with him, and was hard at work negotiating better quarters.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Good morning.’ It was one of Davenport’s habits not to look up if anyone under the rank of major came into his room. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Johnson, sir. B.1. I believe we’ve met several times.’
‘Well, you obviously remember them better than I do. What do you want now?’
‘You sent a message that you wanted to see me, sir. About that subversives report.’
‘Did I? Did I indeed?’ Davenport looked horribly glum. The skin of his plump, shiny face was full of odd abrasions, far too deep to have been made by a razor. ‘Oh yes, the League of St George. In which, I seem to remember, the very first paragraph contained a faulty subjunctive. If it were possible to invoke the Defence of the Realm Act, not if it was.’ It was another of Davenport’s habits to trump initial vagueness about any document sent to him with total recall of its contents.
The redness was spreading to all parts of his face now, like red wine leaching into a tablecloth. He picked up the report, which, as anyone who had dealings with him would have been able to predict, lay an inch or two from his elbow beneath the amber cigarette holder, and began to riffle through it, all uncertainty gone.
‘Miss Harris-Foster, now. Has a Nazi flag in her sitting-room and thinks the PM’s real name is Mosieski. I don’t know what you want me to do about her.’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. For let me tell you, at this stage there’s nothing that can be done, nothing at all.’ Davenport raised both hands dramatically in the air to emphasise this point. ‘What about Captain Ramsay?’
‘We’ve been monitoring him at meetings of this kind for nearly two months, sir. You can see the sort of thing he says. We’ve taken legal opinion. The Home Office lawyers think that statements of this kind may very probably be regarded as treasonable. As for his supporters, we know the whole thing is organised. One of our people has been following the membership book around London, but we haven’t yet been able to get a sight of it.’ You had to be careful about involving the Home Office lawyers with Davenport, but it was sometimes the only way.
‘Home Office lawyers, eh?’
The people who regarded Davenport as a figure of fun were those who had no dealings with him. Subordinates knew better.
He picked up the amber cigarette holder and took a puff of smoke, then slowly exhaled, so that it hung round the corners of his eyes. He was intensely irritated. ‘I can’t let you go after Ramsay. Absolutely no question of it. I don’t care if he is in cahoots with Mosley. As far as I know, Mosley is urging all patriotic Englishmen to do their duty. If he were sending cables through the neutral embassies it would be a different matter. As for what he thinks about the Jews, you can read pretty much the same thing in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph.’ Then, seeing that he might have gone too far, he said: ‘Not that I want to disparage what you’ve done, Johnson. Not at all. Highly commendable. But between you and me, I think we have other things on our plate beyond half a dozen lunatics in a church hall in Bayswater.’
According to all the best-tried methods of dealing with Davenport, this would have been the moment to retire. But he could not resist asking: ‘Are you personally acquainted with Captain Ramsay, sir?’
Davenport could get very angry when asked direct questions. Now he simply took the amber holder out of his mouth and tapped the end on the topmost page of the report. ‘I don’t think that’s any business of yours at all …’
‘Johnson, sir.’
‘Johnson. And Lord Lymington’s correct title, for future reference, Johnson, is Viscount Lymington.’ The stretched damson skin of his face had almost returned to normal. There was supposed to be a Mrs Davenport, although no one Johnson knew had ever seen her.
What did she make of the amber cigarette holder, the abraded face, and the studied incomprehension? You could never tell.
‘I’m very sorry, sir. B.3 borrowed our copy of Debrett and we haven’t been able to check things in the usual way.’
For some reason Johnson was thinking about his school days: lumps of suet pudding on blue-and-white plates; the liniment reek of the changing rooms; fog hanging low over the Sussex Downs. One of the masters had looked rather like Davenport, which explained the trick his mind had played.
‘What about Denison, sir?’
‘Denison?’
‘The BUF man, sir. Been liasing between Mosley and the Right Club since the war began. Anthea Carey saw him last week with a chap that Special Branch are positive is a German agent.’
Davenport spread the papers on his desk into a kind of star, shuffled them together and then slapped them down. It was a mournful gesture, the gesture of the man cut out for better things, the man who has followed enticing trails into the jungle only to see them disappear, the man who has worshipped gods that turned out never to have existed. He said: ‘Oh, well, if that’s the case you’d better bring him in.’
‘Today, sir?’
‘Today. Tomorrow. This minute if you feel like it. It’s all the same to me. Just make sure that the usual protocols are followed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Naturally I shall want a full report of everything he says. If he does say anything, of course. Some of them don’t.’
‘Of course, sir.’
He waited for the nod of dismissal, but it never came. Davenport had picked another file out of the stack on his desk and was examining its cover with a kind of desperate seriousness, like an actor auditioning for the part of an intellectual.
Going back down the corridor, past the stationery cupboards with their broken locks, and desolate cubby-holes from which furious-looking men stuck out their heads at his approach and then disappointedly drew them back, he found that he was still oppressed by the memory of his school days: whitewashed corridors smelling of disinfectant; sawdust piles in the joinery shop; gulls flying overhead towards the Channel. The department’s resemblance to a minor public school had occurred to other people. Hegarty had once said: ‘It’s not just that Davenport and his pals behave as if they were the prefects and we were the lower fourth, it’s the eternal feeling that you’re about to be blamed for an offence you didn’t even know you’d committed.’
Back on the B.1 corridor, everything was just as he had left it, except that a stack of files nearly a foot high had appeared on the carpet outside Hegarty’s door. Hegarty sat at his desk with one hand pressed to his forehead and the other dangling a half-smoked cigarette. ‘Any news?’
‘You were right about Ramsay and Lord Lymingon—sorry, Viscount Lymington. We’re not to touch them. But we can go and get Denison whenever we like.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Highbury way, I think. Near the Arsenal football club.’
‘There’s a directory on the chair,’ Hegarty said. He was thoroughly galvanised, as if an electrical current had just
started to shoot through him. ‘I’m going to enjoy this. Or perhaps not. At any rate, for the moment we must give Davenport the benefit of the doubt.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll see… . What about reinforcements?’
‘Davenport said to follow the usual procedures.’
‘Ah, but what are the usual procedures? That’s what I’d like to know. Everyone talks about them and then does exactly what they like, as far as I can see.’ He picked up the telephone receiver on his desk and, after a moment or two, said in an impossibly languid voice: ‘This is Mr Hegarty from B.1. I know there are meant to be proper channels, but this is an emergency. I should like to order a couple of constables to attend a little event that my colleague Mr Johnson and I are planning.’ Hegarty always spoke to the police sergeant as if he were hiring waiters for a party. ‘We’d better go in my car,’ he said, when he had finished making the arrangements, ‘and they can meet us there.’
‘Why do you always speak in that affected voice to the duty sergeant?’
‘Because they think we’re all pompous idiots who swan about while they do all the heavy work.’
‘But isn’t that more or less true?’
‘It may well be, but the last thing we want is those people at West End Central getting above themselves.’
Outside there were faint striations of mist floating in from across the Whitehall battlements, so that the passers-by walking down Jermyn Street seemed more than usually wraith-like and sinister. Hegarty’s car was at the far end. Seated at the wheel, he turned unexpectedly glum, as if the expedition had been a mistake from the start, was bound to end in failure. All this meant, as those familiar with Hegarty’s temperament well knew, was that he had temporarily lost interest in his professional duties and returned to the permanently engrossing subject of his personal life.
Sure enough, they had barely reached Piccadilly when he said: ‘Did I tell you about Julia?’
‘I don’t think you did. Is she the one you met in the Lyons?’
‘No, that’s Sally-Ann. Julia’s the one whose aunt was a friend of my aunt’s at school. It sounds unlikely, I know, but there you are. Now I come to remember it, I did tell you about her. That afternoon when we were writing the report about the White Knights of St Athelstan. Well, that girl will be the death of me. It’s not that she won’t let you stuff her. Far from it. It’s just that everything has to be, well, I suppose the word would be choreographed. You know. Smart restaurant. Decent show—if there is a show. Taxis both ways. Do you know, the other night I’m pretty sure the reason she wouldn’t let me come back with her was because when she wanted a cigarette in the cab I chucked a box of matches over rather than waving my lighter under her nose as I believe a civilised gentleman is supposed to do.’
It was one of Hegarty’s better monologues about women.
‘Never mind about Julia. What about Denison? Will there be any rough stuff?’
‘Bound to be,’ Hegarty said. Hegarty liked rough stuff. ‘Don’t all those BUF chaps keep knuckledusters in their sock drawers? I’ve a good mind to leave the policemen outside so I can really have a go.’
The really disturbing thing about the department, Johnson had long since decided, was its propensity to violence. It was full of gentlemanly young men in dark suits and Toc H ties with hockey-club fixture-cards on their desks, just itching to cause serious damage to the people they came across in the course of their duties. Hegarty had once broken a suspect’s arm while bringing him back for questioning.
As they sped along Upper Street, he said again: ‘What did you mean about giving Davenport the benefit of the doubt?’
‘You’ll see,’ Hegarty said. ‘Do we take a right here, or turn at the top? I don’t think I’ve been this way since I was chasing that Pilkington woman. Which was a tremendous mistake, I can tell you.’
The street was in sight of the Arsenal football ground, treeless and nondescript, thirty or forty terraced houses jammed together in comfortless profusion. The two policemen were already loitering at the kerb. It was Hegarty’s policy on these occasions to spend a very long time in parking the car. When he finally stepped out of it, he said, ‘I’m very glad to see you men here. A very significant operation. It’s important we co-operate at a time like this. Have you established the address?’
The policemen were not impressed by Hegarty. The taller of them said: ‘They divide into flats down this end. Looks as if it’s on the top floor.’
‘Excellent,’ Hegarty said. He glanced to left and right, as if a huge invisible crowd had gathered along the pavement. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
The front door of the house was unlocked. They went rapidly up the staircase, drumming their feet deliberately on the bare boards. A cat went scampering down to safety in the hall. The staircase brought them to a solitary, blue-painted door whose letter-box looked as if it had been stuffed up with brown paper. There was no answer to their repeated knocks.
‘Better break it down,’ Hegarty said. His eyes were staring out of his head. ‘There’s a hammer in the car. Hang on, though. Might as well have a go myself. These things are never very well secured. Stand back there, will you?’
In the end the door gave way with surprising ease. The uplifted frame fell into the hallway but there was no one behind it. The flat was empty.
‘Poor sort of place,’ Hegarty said. He strode into the tiny kitchen, pulled open a cupboard or two, stared at an ironing board that had been propped against the window, and then picked up a paper bag that had been left on the kitchen table to see if anyone had written a telephone number on it. Nobody had. Something caught his eye. ‘Look at that,’ he said. He put his hand out to touch a kettle that lay on the gas-ring. ‘Still hot. Can’t have gone far.’
The policemen were more interested, now they had broken into somebody’s property. ‘Perhaps he’ll be back,’ one of them said. ‘No telling where people come and go, is there?’
‘No,’ Hegarty said, a bit wearily. ‘He won’t be back.’ His eyes had returned to normal: grey, distant, and faintly mad. ‘He won’t be back,’ he said again. There was a pound weight lying on the kitchen table, next to a set of scales, and with a sudden dramatic movement he picked it up and hurled it through the kitchen window. A fragment of glass sprang out and stuck in the back of one of his hands.
‘You won’t be needing us, then?’ the taller of the two policemen asked respectfully. Hegarty had gone up in his estimation by smashing the window.
‘No, we won’t. But thanks very much all the same.’
While they listened to the noise of the policemen’s boots receding down the stairs, Hegarty took a cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and began to bind up his bleeding hand. He looked horribly self-righteous.
‘Well, no more benefit of the doubt,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it. Who knew we were coming here? Apart from the desk sergeant at West End Central?’
‘That’s easy. You, me, and Davenport.’
‘Well, I didn’t tip Denison the wink and neither did you. So that leaves our man on the fourth floor.’
‘Why would Davenport want to tip off a member of the BUF known to be fraternising with Nazi agents?’
‘A very good question,’ Hegarty said. ‘And one I’ve been asking myself for some time.’
They went back through the empty flat, through the shattered doorway, and out into the silent street.
Chapter 8
Palace Days
At Buckingham Palace the wind is blowing in against the high windows. It does this with an extraordinary force, as if someone were throwing lumps of invisible concrete. The frames buckle and shift and make ominous cracking noises, like a ship at anchor, battened down before the approaching storm. Like the war news, the weather is uncertain. No single pattern prevails. Like the war, agai
n, nobody quite knows where they are with it. From fifty yards below comes the sound of a sentry’s boots crunching up the gravel. At this distance the noise is oddly insubstantial, like the rasp of a match, an ant passing the Queen of Brobdingnag in her tower.
Head down over his square mahogany table, the King feels the wind rather than hearing it. Oddly enough, it reminds him of his time at Dartmouth: a world of creaking spars, the smell of salt, the grey arm of the Channel. Even now, walking down one of the endless corridors in which the palace abounds, he sometimes finds himself reaching out a hand to steady himself on a phantom ship’s rail. His old midshipman’s uniform is in a cupboard somewhere, mouldering into dust.
It is half-past ten in the morning and he is examining his correspondence. Not the official letters, the ambassadorial requests, and the episcopal appointments—these have been borne away on a salver by a footman half an hour since—but what his private secretary calls the ‘unsoliciteds’: the great tide of expostulation, entreaty, and advice that rolls in every morning from country rectories, suburban villas in the Greater London sprawl, and mean little houses in the industrial north.
His father, the old King, never saw these effusions. He had a digest of the opinions expressed in them drawn up by an equerry, which he considered, or did not consider, at his leisure. But the new King is fascinated by them. He likes their variety, their deference, the occasional irruptions of temperament.
Some of the correspondents write in strangely coloured inks. Most of them are faintly ashamed of their effrontery, one or two of them even fearful, as if presuming to address one’s sovereign were an offence punishable by law. Their language is unexpectedly archaic, as if the writing of them was a step backwards into a landscape of knights and troubadors, pageboys in the banqueting hall and seneschals at the gate.