Samson 05 - Hope, page 15
‘No one’s misleading him, he’s chock-full of theories. If you persuade Dicky that George is alive, Dicky will rush out a long and elaborate report saying so. Dozens of people will have access to it. One word in the wrong place could put George in jeopardy.’
‘From what you’ve told me, the faked death won’t fool any experienced Polish police investigator for longer than two minutes.’
‘That depends on whether the Polish investigator wants the truth to be known. Stefan is a fixer. He no doubt fixed the cops at the same time as he fixed the death certificate.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose you could be right. But I feel very uneasy keeping this from the Department. We’re supposed to be loyal employees. We’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, and our contracts … I mean, darling!’
‘I went to see Harry Strang.’
‘With the children?’
‘Yes, with the children.’
‘I wondered how it could have taken you so long to get to your mother. How was he?’
‘Up to his eyebrows in pig shit, but he seems to like it.’
Some people do. And let’s face it, would that make much of a change for any of us?’ Wow this was Fiona showing her feelings; something that didn’t happen often. ‘And his son was with him?’
‘Son?’
‘The retarded one. Tommy. He must be grown up by now.’
‘I didn’t know Harry had a son.’
‘How can you be so thick, Bernard? Harry’s wife had a nervous breakdown after the baby’s condition was diagnosed. That’s why they split up. It’s every mother’s nightmare. There wasn’t any kind of a row between the two of them; his wife just couldn’t take it. Little Tommy. It was a tragedy. After that, Harry gave every spare minute of his life to looking after the child.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I said.
‘So why did you go down there? He obviously isn’t your closest old pal.’
‘Over that period … That time when they brought you out of the DDR, Harry Strang was filling in as the personal assistant to the D-G.’
‘Yes, of course. Morgan was sick.’
‘He had an arse filled with lead shot. Harry says the old man had no meetings about you, or your escape.’
‘But would Harry tell you?’
‘He’d been warned off, I think. Top-floor alarm bells have been ringing. Recently.’
‘If you’ve been roaring around making inquiries about how they brought me out … Of course they are alarmed. I’m not surprised at that.’
‘No meetings, Fi! Are you listening? The D-G had no meetings. I’ve already had one of the Night Duty people go to his office and take a look at the old man’s appointments and desk diary, and that confirmed it.’
There came a sharp intake of breath to let me know that getting a pal to sneak a look at Sir Henry’s personal appointment book and diary was not playing the game, so I didn’t tell her that I’d also phoned Mrs. Porter, Uncle Silas’s housekeeper, and discovered that there were indeed meetings one particularly long meeting between Silas and the D-G immediately before they spirited Fiona out of the East.
Fiona asked, ‘So what am I supposed to say now?’
‘Don’t you see, Fi, it means the D-G was keeping everything outside the office.’
‘It’s a bit of a leap in the dark, isn’t it, darling?’
‘Meetings with Uncle Silas, for instance.’
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘Of course I can’t be sure, but Harry hinted. Uncle Silas and the D-G hatched it up together. I’d love to hear what they said about Tessa.’
‘I wish you’d drop it all, Bernard. Tessa’s dead. You know how much I’d like to see her given a decent burial, but that doesn’t mean I want to turn the Department upside down. I’m worn down with it. Perhaps it would be better to let her rest.’
Well, well. This was quite a change of heart from the woman who conspired to send Timmermann to investigate her sister’s death on a freelance basis. I said, ‘Suppose that the plan was to kill Tessa? Would you still prefer to let it go?’
Fiona was good at controlling her feelings. Perhaps our marriage would have benefited from her being less good at it. ‘You always go off at a tangent, darling. How does this connect up? What has it got to do with George going to Poland?’
‘It’s a part of the same business, it’s got to be.’
‘George went willingly, didn’t he? You’re not going to tell me they drugged him and rolled him in a carpet or something?’ Since working in the East, Fiona had become less condemnatory about our enemies, or perhaps more realistic would be a fairer way of describing it.
‘I don’t know. Yes, he went willingly. George employed that fellow Timmermann. Timmermann was killed and then George goes away, covering his sudden disappearance by making sure Ursi, his housekeeper girl, wasn’t too alarmed.’
Fiona stroked the arm of her fur coat while she thought about it.
I said, ‘Those Stasi hoodlums took Tessa’s engagement ring to Switzerland to show it to George.’
‘What?’ She almost jumped out of her skin. ‘How do you know?’
‘I went to the jeweler in Zurich. George took the ring there for cleaning. I saw it; a heart-shaped diamond with four small diamonds. It was Tessa’s engagement ring all right.’
‘Why would George take it to be cleaned?’
‘You know how distrustful George can be. I think it was a way to find out whether it was a paste copy without actually asking them.’
‘But it’s real?’
‘It’s real.’
‘I won’t tell Dicky or anyone about your thinking George is alive. At least for the time being. After all, it’s only your theory, it’s not as if you’re withholding evidence.’
‘No,’ I said. Fiona had now assuaged her middleclass anxieties of being disloyal to the Crown. ‘There’s no hard evidence; it is just my theory. If I persuaded Dicky to say George is alive, and then suddenly the body arrived, Dicky would have something to complain about.’
‘Very well, darling. But I want you to be honest with me in future. You’re awfully secretive, Bernard, and that’s putting a terrible strain on your career, and on this marriage too.’
‘Yes,’ I said, and drank some whiskey and smiled at her. This was not the time to remind her that she had plotted and planned her defection to the East for years, and never included me in the secret. But that if I wait forty-eight hours before telling her that Dicky’s wide-eyed acceptance of George’s fake death is just one more example of his stupidity, I get scolded for marital infidelity.
Perhaps Fiona guessed what I was thinking, for she avoided my eyes and turned away. ‘I’ll have a biscuit,’ she said, and reached into the kitchen drawer for a packet of oatmeal cookies that are there for Mrs. Dias’s sole use, and are replenished faithfully. I didn’t know Fiona was hooked on them too. ‘Fancy one?’
‘No.’ We sat there for a long time, each thinking our own thoughts until I said, ‘Remember Cindy Prettyman?’
‘Of course. Was she in Warsaw?’
‘Not her. Last I heard, she had a cushy job in Brussels with lots of money and lovely tax-free allowances and lots of good restaurants. Or perhaps it was Strasbourg; some kind of European Community pen pusher’s racket anyway.’
‘Lucky her. She was the first person I showed my engagement ring to.’
‘That’s a long time ago.’
‘I was so proud. I told her, Bernard sold his Ferrari to buy my ring.’
‘You didn’t tell her it was up on blocks and needed a new transmission?’
She smiled. It was a joke. That old Ferrari could make a little black smoke when it was in a bad mood. And it stalled to show how much it didn’t like being slowed up in heavy traffic. But it could still do its stuff when I sold it. When I saw it drive off, with its new owner at the wheel, there were tears in my eyes.
I said, ‘Cindy came to me with a story that Jim Prettyman was embezzling millions from the Department.’
‘He was,’ said Fiona. ‘It was the funding for my operation in the East. Jim Prettyman was on the Special Operations Committee. He was named as the account holder along with Bret Rensselaer, who arranged the chain of payment from Central Funding through a few brokers to a West Berlin bank Bret’s family are associated with.’
‘Could Cindy’s lovely job have been arranged just to stop her prying further into the money setup?’
‘I would imagine so,’ said Fiona, clearly untroubled by the ethics of such a recourse. ‘Having someone like Cindy trumpeting our fiscal secrets up and down Whitehall would have brought disaster.’
‘She came to me ready to blow the whistle on what sounded like a big embezzlement. She thought it was some kind of KGB slush fund. She’d been notified that Jim had just been killed in a parking lot in Washington D.C. and the Department said she wasn’t entitled to the pension because he’d married again.’
‘Jim married again? I didn’t know,’ said Fiona.
‘And it was a Mexican divorce. But Jim wasn’t dead, he was put on the back burner. Eventually the Department paid both widows rather than let Jim’s bogus death come under scrutiny.’ I looked at Fiona. She nodded. She knew this already. How many more dark secrets were inside her head? ‘So Cindy was right?’ I said. ‘There was an illegal transfer?’
‘It was fundamental to placing me in the DDR. I had to get the Church people over there organized and motivated. They are not all selfless dedicated people with money of their own. You know that-, you’re the field agent.’
‘You don’t have to be defensive, Fi. You did a great job.’
‘Five point seven million pounds sterling. It will work, Bernard. A bargain. They’ll topple the regime eventually but they need time.’
‘And then Jim suddenly came back to life and visited us in California,’ I reminded her. ‘I wonder if the Department asked Cindy for her money back.’
‘It wouldn’t be a lump sum,’ said Fiona, as if she had already found out what happens to those widowed in the service of their country. ‘Is there a connection? A connection with Tessa’s death?’
‘Cindy clammed up suddenly. The Europe job came through and she didn’t want to continue the crusade she’d started. Crusade … I mean she’d really built up a head of steam when I saw her. This is Tessa country. There must be more behind it.’
‘Are you going to find her?’
‘Cindy? No,’ I said. ‘I’ve other things to do right now. And if Dicky is going to be sick in bed, suffering from Polish plague or something, there will be all his work piling up on my desk.’
‘The funny thing is that Daphne thought he’d be away in Poland at least another week. She arranged for the builders to come in and fix the damp in the attic and refurbish both bathrooms. It will be hell for Dicky. He won’t even have a loo, to himself ’
‘I must drop in and say hello,’ I said. ‘I love hammering. I hope they all have transistor radios.’
‘You aregoing to find Cindy aren’t you? I can always tell when you are lying to me.’ She said it in a genial way, as if my lies pleased her; or perhaps it was always being able to catch me out in my lies that gave her that satisfied look.
‘Lucinda Matthews,’ I said. ‘She prefers her maiden name nowadays. Have we got an up-to-date Michelin Guide that would cover it?’
‘Dicky no doubt has one in his office.’
‘We could both go. In the old days they were our closest friends, weren’t they?’
‘I might have to remind you of that, Bernard.’
‘I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Cindy.’
‘You’d shop your own mother if she stood in the way of you finding out something you really wanted to know.’ Fiona laughed in that sincere and friendly way that married couples do laugh when they have said something to their partner that they really mean. When her smile faded she said, ‘This morning there was a “resources” meeting. There are going to be big cutbacks, Bernard.’
‘They are always talking about cutbacks and it winds up with a memo asking everyone to save the paper clips on their incoming mail.’
‘Not this time. Even people on permanent contract are not safe. Central Funding has set aside separate money for severance pay.’
‘I’m not on a permanent contract,’ I said flippantly. ‘I can’t argue with them on your behalf, darling. You understand that don’t you?’
‘No of course not. It would look bad if friends or family argued on behalf of someone it was expedient to get rid of. The only people who can legitimately argue on my behalf are my enemies.’
‘Dicky isn’t your enemy.’
‘Who said anything about Dicky?’
‘That shooting at the Campden Hill flat … VERDI was killed. The inquiry exonerated you and Werner, but losing such a promising source leaves a bad impression.’ She paused. ‘You want it straight, don’t you? You don’t want me to baby you along?’
‘No, don’t baby me along, Fi.’
She ignored the bitter tone in my voice and said, ‘Nothing is decided yet, but all senior staff will be asked to submit a list of people they …’
‘They want to get rid of.’
‘Yes, and if that won’t provide savings enough, they will start listing the necessary cuts … so many grade threes, so many grade fives and so on. Bret says there may be constitutional implications. He said it might be beyond the government’s lawful powers to demand big cuts in the nation’s security services without consulting Parliament and getting all-party consent.’
‘Good old Bret. He’s a flag-waver, isn’t he?’ I got to my feet and patted the stopper on the whiskey bottle to be sure it was tightly plugged. I wasn’t enjoying this conversation.
‘You’ll be all right Bernard.’
‘I’ve got no contract; no pension plan; no tenure; no severance pay, no rights at all. I’d be the cheapest employee to get rid of. Even the doorman has a trade union to back hint if he appeals to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. They could push me out of the door at a minute’s notice.’
‘At least I will be able to tell you what’s happening and when, darling. It won’t just come out of the blue like that.’
‘I’m not going to stay awake all night worrying,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing I can do about keeping my job, so screw them.’
She came close to me and I held her. She was still wearing her big soft fur coat and my fingers disappeared. With uncharacteristic spontaneity, she put her hand to the back of my head and kissed me with unusual verve. Holding me tight she said, ‘There is something you can do: stop fighting Dicky.’ The soft mellowness of her voice was laced with wifely concern. This was the voice she used to hint that I was drinking too much; the voice that had persuaded me to give up smoking.
‘I’m not fighting him.’
She pulled away from me and modeled her coat in the mirror, as if there was no one there watching her. Then she looked up and said, ‘Explain to Dicky your reasons for thinking that George is still alive. Get him to tell you what he’s trying to achieve. Do whatever is needed to help him clear up the George Kosinski file. A neat success might see him confirmed as Controller Europe. Bret wants that ghastly Australian fellow back, I suppose he thinks Dicky is getting too powerful. The D-G is wavering.’
‘So I heard.’
‘And yet you are standing back to watch Dicky fall flat on his face? Your best bet is to stand behind Dicky and make sure he gets everything tight. Let him take the credit.’
‘Is that what you are doing?’ She’d known him since they were at Oxford together and, no matter how clearly she saw what a fool he was, that gave them an intimacy which I could never share.
‘For Dicky? Perhaps. I’ve never thought about it.’ A grin. ‘You’re surely not jealous. You think Dicky has got his eye on me?’ She laughed. ‘I can’t believe it.’ She went and sat in a chair near her tonic water.
‘No, I’m not jealous of him,’ I said.
‘Dicky will need someone reliable in Berlin. Frank Harrington has asked for a Deputy.’
‘So that’s official now? He’s managed without one for a long time.’
‘Deputy to the Berlin Rezident? Berlin Field Unit. You’d love that, darling, I know you would. Allowances and expenses! You would be upgraded to a senior staff pension. And it would make you virtually invulnerable to the cutback.’ So this is what she really wanted to tell me. I suppose she’d planned to explain it over a brandy in some fancy restaurant, rather than over a can of Schweppes tonic water in the kitchen, but this was the sponsor’s message all right.
‘Did Dicky mention my name?’
‘It’s in his gift and there’s no one better suited,’ she said. ‘And if Dicky felt sure you were his man, he’d back you to the hilt.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘What’s the matter? What did I say?’
‘As Dicky’s snooper, you mean? I go to Berlin to keep an eye on Frank Harrington, and undermine him if he ever tries to go against Dicky’s good advice.’
‘Of course not, darling,’ she said, but she wasn’t standing on the table and shouting the denial. ‘My children are here in London,’ I said. ‘You are here in London.’
‘You’re so loyal to us, Bernard. To your family, I mean. It’s what I love about you. But careers count too. Loyalty to the job.’
‘You don’t mind that our children are living with your father, do you? It suits you to have them there in the country with your parents, and visit them when you can.’
‘You’d be back and forth regularly, to consult with Dicky. How much more would we see of the children if they were living here in this apartment with us? You are always being sent off to the other side of the world at little or no notice. I leave early in the morning and work into the night. What kind of life would they have?’
‘It sounds as if you don’t want the children back home ever,’ I said.
‘That’s not true, Bernard. It’s a beastly thing to say.’ She shifted in her chair and tugged at her coat to wrap it more closely around her legs.
‘Fi, suppose I do help Dicky find George, and then coax from him whatever there is to know about his Stasi contacts … ? Can you live with that?’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
