Horse Under Water

21 Are the wages of this, that?

A great big sunny Friday in London, the policemen standing around like tourists. On Jermyn Street two old men edged crabwise past the calm cheeses of Paxton and Whitfield. On five-string banjo and accordion they whitewashed the sound of ‘La vie en rose’ across the brittle winter air. Jean was waiting for me at Wilton’s restaurant. She wore a dark-brown Chanel suit. How did she manage it on her salary? A pale sherry awaited me and so did the news of the Strutton Report.

‘O’Brien is forming one of his famous little committees,’ she said.

‘O lord,’ I groaned, ‘I know what that means.’

‘You’re well out of the way,’ said Jean. ‘Dawlish is sitting in on it at present. They will discuss chain of command.’

‘Power,’ I said. ‘Lord Acton wasn’t kidding.’

‘Even the War House are trying to get into the act.’

‘It can’t possibly be anything to do with them,’ I said.

‘You know how it is,’ said Jean. ‘If they don’t make at least a token play for the things they don’t want, they’d have no bargaining gambits for the things they do want.’

‘You are highly knowledgeable on the subject of interdepartmental committee work.’

Jean smiled and replied, ‘I’m only telling you what every woman has always known.’

The waitress brought the famous Wilton menu that has no prices on it. I’d never been foolhardy enough to ask for anything but what the chef recommended and this was no day to start flexing my muscles.

The melon had gone, and the fresh salmon too, before Jean brought up the subject of the package that da Cunha had given me.

‘Alice even predicted that the sovereign die would portray Queen Victoria — that was brilliant, wasn’t it?’

‘Brilliant.’

‘How do you think she guessed?’

‘No idea,’ I said.

‘You have too. Please tell me,’ said Jean.

‘For the simple reason that Queen Victoria is a woman.’

‘Was a woman,’ said Jean.

‘Don’t be smart,’ I said, ‘is a woman where counterfeit sovereigns are concerned.’

‘So?’

‘Arab countries, or rather let’s say Muslim countries, are very much in the market for sovereigns, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Muslims object to unveiled female face, therefore most counterfeit sovereigns depict a king. Therefore a Queen Victoria sovereign is unlikely to be counterfeit, therefore Nazis decide to make their super-duper authentic die in the likeness of Queen Victoria.’

‘And it works?’

‘When they thought of it it was a wow, but now it’s been tumbled to for ages, but since counterfeit and genuine fetch the same price, who cares?’

‘And Alice guessed that it would be of Nazi origin?’

‘I radioed Dawlish and got diplomatic clearance for a parcel of that size and weight. Alice jumped to a tentatively correct conclusion.’

‘Tentatively?’ Jean poured me some more coffee.

‘Oh, it’s dead right as far as it goes. But let’s not jump to any conclusion. There are no markings on the mould, nothing to connect it with the U-boat or the Nazis or with anything, come to that.’

‘I see,’ said Jean, ‘you mean that these people at Albufeira may have merely given it to you to get rid of you. In fact, as a straightforward bribe. That they didn’t expect you to believe that it came straight from the sea.’

Jean paused. ‘Or if they thought you were from this man Smith it could be a bribe to Smith,’ she paused again, ‘so he would do something.’

‘Or not do something,’ I prompted.

She looked up. ‘Yes,’ she said, speaking each word separately and slowly, ‘discontinue the investigation?’

‘Zen,’ I said, ‘you got it quicker than Dawlish.’

‘Now let me see, this man da Cunha says it came from a German sailor’s body that came out of a fishing net, but they don’t do “bottom trawl” fishing anywhere hear where the U-boat is, they do American-style closing circle fishing, don’t they?’

‘“Purse seine” style, yes, you’re reading me loud and clear, and it didn’t come from any German corpse either.’

Jean said, ‘If it was a bribe, it would be a pretty good one, wouldn’t it? I mean, worth a lot of money.’

‘Yes, you can get about 50,000 coins from a good die and this is a good one. It certainly would be worth a lot of money, especially to someone involved with illegal movement of gold.’

‘So that when you returned to London our people out there continued to dive on the wrecked U-boat. They realized that the bribe hadn’t worked and so they planted dynamite in your car?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘that explosion was a carefully planned venture. They find out that I always send my car to L.A.P., discover where it’s parked, employ a specialist to do quite a complex wiring job, buy dynamite. I don’t think that there is an immediate connexion between my getting the package from this man da Cunha and the bomb that killed Joe. The two things may be unrelated.’

‘Then who is this man da Cunha?’ Jean asked.

‘Work it out for yourself,’ I said. ‘He speaks perfect Portuguese — syntax and inflection wonderful! He dresses like a Portuguese aristocrat should. I have had my knees under his table, I can tell you the food is authentic. As for Portuguese history and folklore, he is one of the greatest ear-benders in Western Europe.’

‘You are going to prove that he isn’t Portuguese,’ Jean said, ‘because he says he is.’

‘I’ve got a hunch,’ I said.

‘What you’ve got is a pointed head,’ Jean said rudely, ‘but tell me what I have to do.’

‘I want one of the movie people to go on holiday in Southern Portugal,’ I said.

‘Victor had better go,’ said Jean, ‘he has a genuine Swiss passport and he knows how to stay out of trouble.’

‘That’s good,’ I said, ‘we’ve had all the trouble we can use for the time being.’

Jean was quiet for a few moments, then she said softly, ‘I’d just like to kill whoever murdered Joe.’

‘I’ll forget that you spoke.’ I looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘If you want to continue working in the department you’ll never even think a thing like that, let alone say it. There is no room for heroics, vendettas and associated melodrama in an efficient shop. You stand up, get shot at, then carry on quietly. Suppose I’d been full of George-Cross-emotion and gone running back to Joe last night. I’d have got myself smothered in smoke, reporters, blisters and policemen. Act grown-up or I’ll cut your security rating back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘O.K., but don’t ever hanker after tidiness. Don’t ever think or hope that the great mess of investigation that we work on is suddenly going to resolve itself like the last chapter of a whodunnit: I’ve-got-all-gathered-together-in-the-room-where-the-murder-was-done kind of scene. After we’re all dead and gone there will still be an office with all those manilla dust-traps tied in pink tape. So just knit quietly away and be thankful for the odd sock or even a lop-sided cardigan with one sleeve. Don’t desire vengeance or think that if someone murders you tomorrow we will be tracking them down mercilessly. We won’t. We’ll all be strictly concerned with keeping out of the News of the World and the Police Gazette.’

Jean was determined to prove what a master of her emotions she was. ‘The liaison officer at Scotland Yard sent pictures of your car over, did you see them?’

‘Yes, they sent me a set of wet prints last night. By the way, thank Keightley for doing a good job; there’s no mention in the dailies.’

‘Yes,’ said Jean, ‘they were writing D notices like a literate traffic warden. There were four cars written off. If the Yard people are right in reconstructing the explosion points, it’s almost as if they wanted the fire to spread.’

‘Really? Where were they?’

‘Under the bonnet, centre of the sunshine roof, behind the rear seat, between the front seats.’ The black make-up around her eyes had smudged slightly. She pushed at her dark hair, sniffed and smiled at me. ‘He brought me a green suede jacket,’ she said.

I paid the bill and we walked up towards Piccadilly together. ‘You always pump me when I’m dozily full of food and drink,’ I teased. Jean gave me another weak little smile and I took her arm. ‘I’m going back to Lisbon tonight. I want you to send that empty metal container up to F.S.L. at Cardiff.[20] They’re very good at Cardiff. You’ve given me an idea, Jeannie. I think I know why my car was blown up now.’

I offered to get a cab for Jean but she declined. Outside Fortnum’s I hugged her arm. ‘It must have been absolutely instantaneous,’ I said.

Jean blew her nose and continued to study her shoes.