A song in the morning

6

"I see the world's looking up on you."

Nicholas Villiers noted the change in Jack.

"Sorry about the snap. I was a bit under the weather. The problem's sorted out."

"Glad to hear it."

Janice and Lucille heard the satisfaction in Villiers' voice.

The girls liked Jack for his apology.

Jack told Villiers that he was going straight out to do his elms, that he'd be back in after lunch. He asked Lucille to mind his telephone. He said that a Mr Arkwright might phone him, and to be sure to get the message exactly.

He drove down to Dorking, then came off the main road and took a winding tree-lined route to Ockley. He reached a remote farm, far up a lane, with post and rail fencing for the hunters. Hell of a backwoods place for thirty miles from London. The owner had looked as though he'd had a death in the family when he'd first had Jack down, when the elms were toppled on their sides, felled but waiting to be cut up and carted away. Taking out the stumps was small business to Jack, but he'd had to work for the contract because the owner seemed hesitant to uproot his final memories of the elm avenue.

For once George had beaten Jack to the site. Just the two of them. The JCBs and the lorries would come in the owner's own time. Jack had asked that the horses be kept well clear and there was no sign of them. Some beef bullocks watched them. They'd take plenty to be frightened.

George had already dug neat holes at the side of each of the stumps.

By his small unmarked van was the wooden crate that held the nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate based dynamite, and also the metal box in which he carried his no. 6 detonators, and also a drum of Cordtex and a drum of safety fuse.

"Are you going to sit on your arse, or are you going to help?"

"I'd like to help, Mr Hawkins."

They worked together. Jack at George's shoulder as the old blaster stowed the 4 oz cartridges of explosive down under the arches of the roots. Jack didn't speak, didn't interrupt. He watched as George slid the aluminium tubed detonators into the cartridges. He saw him crimp the Cordtex to the open ends of the detonators. He was learning. He was watching a master at work.

"Set 'em off all together," George muttered. "Cordtex and safety fuse are cheaper than my time."

Jack had many times witnessed the routine. He had seen the laying of the explosive, the insertion of the detonators, the crimping in of the Cordtex, the linking of the Cordtex to the safety fuse, the unwinding of the safety fuse back to the van and the charger box.

"You're bloody quiet this morning, Jack boy."

Jack didn't answer, just watched. A long job with thirty-two stumps to be taken out.

If Sandham was nervous then he was good at hiding it.

A secretary had come up to the South Africa desk to collect him.

Furneaux had been in the open plan area, he had seen Sandham summoned, and known who the secretary worked for, and wondered what in hell's name was going on. Sandham, Grade 2, having an audience without it going through the Assistant Secretary running his desk.

Sandham came into the hush of the outer office, where the girls' fingers whispered over the electric typewriters. He thought a funeral parlour might have been more cheerful.

The Permanent Under Secretary was waiting in front of the closed inner door, ill at ease. Sandham understood. When a Grade 2 man requests a personal meeting with the Foreign Secretary on a matter concerning national security then the fat cats would be wetting themselves, one and all. There had been some exquisite moments in Jimmy Sandham's life. He reckoned this would knock spots off les affaires Bangkok, Teheran and Amman.

The P.U.S. opened the inner door, waved Sandham inside.

It was the first time that he had been inside the Foreign Secretary's office. He was too far down the ladder to take part in the South Africa policy meetings, where strategy was hammered over. He thought the Foreign Secretary's wife must have had a hand in the decor. It was seven years since his own wife had left him, shouting from the pile of suitcases at the front door that she couldn't endure one more day with a man so pompous and self-opinionated. And nor had she.

But he still recognised a woman's hand. The Foreign Secretary, tepid and small, wouldn't have had the wit to choose the colours and the fabrics and the gentle hidden lighting.

The Foreign Secretary had his nose into a paper-covered desk.

There was a second man in the room. He sat in a low chair with his back to the door, the bald crown of his head just visible over the chair's back.

The P.U.S. announced Sandham. He pointed to a plain, upright chair and Sandham went to it, and sat. Sandham wondered if they had any inkling of what was about to drop into their laps.

The Foreign Secretary raised his head. He had pale skin and owl spectacles.

"Ah, Sandham. Thank you for coming. You wanted to alert us to a matter of national security, I think. I have asked the Director General to sit in. You know P.U.S., of course, who will make any notes that may be r e q u i r e d… The floor is yours."

The Foreign Secretary had his elbows on his papers, his chin in his hands. The P.U.S. lounged back on a short settee, a pad on his knee. The Director General gazed with frank hostility into Sandham's face because he had read the wretch's file. J. Sandham, Grade 2 man, given the moment could be mischievous or impertinent, but he needed a deep breath. He had expected that the P.U.S. would sit in with the Foreign Secretary. He had not expected that the Director General would have been summoned across the Thames from his Century tower. The Director General as the man in place in the Secret Intelligence Service had responsibility for Jack's father. The Director General was the employer of Jeez Carew, alias James Curwen. A hell of a deep breath before launching into his accusation.

"Thank you for seeing me, sir. I t h o u g h t there was a matter that you should be aware of. It is a question of life and death and that is why I have requested this personal meeting with you… "

The P.U.S.'s propelling pencil was poised.

"In South Africa, in about three weeks time, a man called James Curwen, but who goes under the name of James Carew in that country, is going to hang… "

Sandham saw the muscles tighten under the pug dog chin of the Director General.

"I'll call him Carew because that's the only name that the South Africans have for him. Carew was convicted of driving the getaway car used by African National Congress guerrillas in their escape from the Supreme Court bombing in Johannesburg fourteen months ago. At the time that Carew drove the vehicle he was a full-time operative of the Secret Intelligence Service… "

He saw the eyebrows of the P.U.S. flicker upwards, he saw him begin to write.

"A situation has arisen where a man working for his country is going to hang because the British Government has not chosen to exercise its influence, first to secure clemency and second to win Mr Carew's release…"

There was a cloud of surprise on the Foreign Secretary's face. Sandham wondered what had surprised him.

The allegation, or the fact that a Grade 2 man knew the history.

"If you'll forgive me, sir, I think it's unacceptable that a man doing his job should be abandoned… "

The P.U.S. closed his notepad, pocketed his gold pencil.

"What's your source?" The Director General beaded Sandham with his eyes.

"I saw a file that I was not entitled by rank to see, sir."

"Have you passed on this allegation to any other person?"

The Foreign Secretary spoke through closed teetth

"No, sir." It was Sandham's second instinctive lie. With it clear of his tongue he thought of the earnest, sincere, concerned face of young Jack Curwen.

"And that's all that you wanted to tell the Foreign Secretary?" The P.U.S. seemed to make a trifle of Sandham's statement.

"Yes, sir."

The P.U.S. shone Sandham an affectionate smile. "We're very grateful to you for drawing this matter to our attention.

If it's not inconvenient for you, would you mind waiting a few minutes in my office?"

The Foreign Secretary had twisted in his chair to look down from his window and into the park. The Director General stared at the tapestry screen that masked the open fireplace. The P.U.S. ushered Sandham towards the door.

They wanted him out. They wanted to thrash it round. It had been bloody good entertainment. He would have liked to dance a bit, and shout.

"No problem, sir," Sandham said easily.

"I'll get someone to take you down to my room. You won't be kept long."

They watched him leave. They waited for the door to close behind him.

The Foreign Secretary spoke with a squeaking, nervous voice. "You knew about this, Director General."

'I did not."

"Your department, your man."

"I'll be making it my business to find out, Foreign Secretary."

"If this Sandham is to be believed… "

The P.U.S. swirled his hand above his knee, cut the Foreign Secretary short. "He's to be believed. Our Mr Sandham is always to be believed. More important, he's a difficult man, that's his history."

"What's to be done with him?"

The Director General looked up. "He should go home, Foreign Secretary, that's best. He should be at home where he can commit no damage. I'll have a man take him home."

"If this allegation were to become public property… "

"It won't," the Director General said quietly.

"You can guarantee that?"

"Foreign Secretary, leave it in my hands. You give me that authority?"

"Whatever authority you want."

"Thank you, Foreign Secretary, just the authority to isolate him."

•**

They had the hard hats on, and they were crouched one hundred and fifty yards from the nearest stump, and they were sheltered by the van. George always crouched, didn't matter what protection he had. They'd done the checks together.

Jack had watched each step. He reckoned he could have gone through all the procedures himself.

"Well, don't hang about all day, lad."

Jack thought he'd die old waiting for a bit of politeness from George.

"What's so bloody funny?"

"Nothing's funny, Mr Hawkins."

"Get on with it."

Jack rested the palm of his hand over the bar of the plunger.

"Don't stab it, ease it."

He closed his fist on the bar. He looked at George, warts and wrinkles and thinned out hair protruding from under the garish orange rim of his helmet. George winked. Jack pressed the charger bar slowly, steadily down.

There was the clap thunder of the detonations. There was the rich loam soil spurting up, the shuddering climb of the tree stumps, the thumping patter of earth and roots landing, the furious croaking of rooks.

Jack gazed fascinated at what they had achieved. Away beyond the line of uprooted stumps the bullocks were in flight.

George studied the scene. His face was closed. Jack looked into George's face. One thing to know a man and work with him, another thing to trust him. He thought he could trust George Hawkins, but what he thought didn't really matter because he had to trust the man.

"Get on with it, Jack," George said tersely.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Say what you've got to say."

He told George that his father had disappeared from his life when he was two years old, before he could remember.

He told him that he had been brought up to believe that his father was cruelty incarnate. He told him that there was not even a photograph of his father that had been kept by his mother when she had cleared out her husband's possessions.

He told George of the letter, how the missing James Curwen had been resurrected as James Carew, under sentence of death. He told him that his father had been working for the government, an agent in place, that his life was not going to be pleaded for.

"That's the history, Mr Hawkins."

George's was a low gravel voice. "You could have spoken to your M.P., a journalist, one of those lads on television.

Why didn't you cry on their shoulders? Why do you talk to me, a blaster?"

"Had to be you."

" You didn't have to come today and watch me lift a few Moody tree stumps."

"Right."

"You want some know-how?" jack nodded.

George said softly, "Where are the targets?"

"Not here, waste of time in London. I know where the target is, I don't know what it'll take."

"Explosives?"

"Has to be."

George was striding fast to his van.

"Hope you're not asking me for explosives. Every last cartridge of mine has to be accounted for. You're going to South Africa? Even if you could get them here you can't just put them in your bloody suitcase and fly out of London.

Don't think the x-rays and the sniffers would miss it. You wouldn't get as far as the 'plane."

"I'll get the explosives there."

"You got the right friends?"

"I'm finding them." There was the obstinate thrust to Jack's chin.

God, he was racing ahead. He hadn't the targets, he hadn't the explosives, he hadn't the friends. So bloody innocent, and talking as though he could just snap his fingers and achieve them.

George cuffed him. "Come back to me when you've some answers."

Major Swart resented having any more of his time taken up with the Carew affair. The file was hardly worth the effort of couriering it from Pretoria on the overnight 747 of South African Airways. Carew was a home desk problem, and following up stray ends was unrewarding work for a major of security police. The woman had seen him off. He'd have thought she'd have spilled her heart out given the chance to save a man from the rope. A week earlier he thought he had placed her in the game. All by leg work and tracking back in the files of Somerset House. Before her divorce Mrs Hilda Perry had been Mrs Hilda Curwen. She had been married to a James Curwen. James Curwen was his man, until he had driven down to the Hampshire village which was listed as the woman's address at the time of her marriage. He'd had a photograph from Pretoria, taken in the gaol but especially so as not to look like a police shot. He had found three men who remembered James Curwen in a pub by the cress beds. A retired postman, the man who kept the village grocery store, and the vicar. He had said he was the London representative of a South African based legal firm. He had said he was trying to trace this James Curwen because there was money left to him. He showed them all the photograph, and he had seen each one of them shake his head and heard each one of them say the photograph was not that of James Curwen. Wrong face, wrong physique.

So, he hadn't linked Hilda Perry to James Carew, and it didn't have a high priority from Pretoria, and there was a limit on his time.

A higher priority was the man who had come in from Lusaka.

If there was a matter that could make Major Swart emotionally ill, it was that the United Kingdom, on top of all its cant about the suppression of terrorism, could allow African National Congress murderers free rein to visit their chummies in the London office.

He thought he might get to see the bastard from Lusaka that evening, not certain, but a good chance.