Mexico Set

12

'That bloody Werner has been seeing Stinnes,' said Dicky. He was pacing up and down chewing at the nail of his little finger. It was a sign that he was agitated. He was often agitated lately. Sometimes I wondered that Dicky had any nails left.

'So I hear,' I said calmly.

'Ah,' said Dicky. 'I thought so. Have you been going behind my back again?'

I salaamed; a low bow in a gesture of placation, 'Oh, master. I hear this only from Harrington sahib.'

'Cut out the clowning,' said Dicky. He sat down behind his huge rosewood table. He didn't have a real desk in his office; just a few fine pieces of antique furniture including this rosewood table that he used as a desk, a Charles Eames chair for him to sprawl in, and a couple of easy chairs for visitors. It was big room with two windows facing across the park. At one time he'd shared this room with his secretary, but once he'd annexed the office next door for her he spread himself.

'No one tells me anything,' said Dicky. He was sitting on his hard little chair, legs and knees pressed together and arms folded tight across his chest. It was an illustration from a textbook that tells you how to deal with sulking children. 'Bret's determined to take over my job. Now I suppose he's going to cut off all my communications with my stations.'

'Werner Volkmann doesn't officially work for the department. You wouldn't give him any money in Mexico City. You remember I asked you, and you said over your dead body.'

'He's got no right to have meetings with Stinnes without keeping me informed.'

'He can't have had many meetings in Berlin,' I said. 'He's only been back there five minutes.'

'He should have asked permission,' said Dicky.

'Werner doesn't owe us anything; we owe him.'

'Who owes him?' said Dicky con tenuously.

'The department owes him. Werner located Stinnes for us and then you wouldn't okay a payment. What can you expect?'

'So your pal Werner is out to teach us a lesson. Is that his game?'

I sank down deep in Dicky's Charles Eames armchair; it was very relaxing. Little wonder Dicky never got any work done. 'Werner is one of those strange people who like to work in intelligence. He makes a good living from his banking activities but he wants to work for us. You put Werner back on the payroll and he'd be the most enthusiastic agent on your books. Give him a little money and even his wife would start getting interested.'

'She's mercenary. That Zena is very mercenary.'

So even Dicky had noticed. 'Yes, she is,' I said. 'But if they both are seeing Stinnes, my advice is to keep her sweet.'

Dicky grunted and continued biting his nail.

'Zena keeps her ears and eyes open. And Stinnes seems to like her. She might be able to guess what's in his mind before anyone else does.'

Dicky pouted. He was always like this about approving extra payments to any field agents. Normally I would have arranged any discussion about money for some day when Dicky was in one of the upward phases of his manic lifestyle. 'If Werner Volkmann makes a complete cock-up of everything, and he's not on the payroll, I can disown him,' explained Dicky, who tackled every task by deciding how he'd extricate himself from it if disaster ensued.

'I'll take personal responsibility for him,' I said.

Dicky brightened at the idea of that. 'That might be a way of doing it,' he said. The wall behind Dicky was almost completely covered with framed photos of Dicky smiling and shaking hands with important people. This form of self-advertisement, more usually found in the offices of extrovert American film producers, was considered bad form when Dicky first began his collection. But Dicky had made it into a prank, a droll collegiate form of fun, so that now he was able to have his joke and eat it too. One of the photos showed Dicky in Calcutta, while on a tour with Sir Henry Clevemore, the Director-General. It was a large colour photo in a gold frame. The two men were standing in front of a stall displaying crude lithographic posters. By looking closely you could recognize portraits of John Lennon, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe, Lenin and John F. Kennedy. Somehow I always thought of Dicky as that young man in the photo, smiling at his boss amid a galaxy of successful people. 'I've told Berlin that I want Werner over here immediately. He'll be on the morning plane. I've sent a car to the airport so he will be here about three. We'll sit him down and find out what the hell it's all about. Okay, Bernard?'

'I hope you'll start off by offering him a proper contract,' I said.

'He's not your employee. He can just tell you to get stuffed and phone his lawyer.'

Dicky bit his lip. 'We've just been through all that. You said you'd take responsibility for him.'

'Then let me offer him a proper contract,' I said. Dicky looked doubtful. I said, 'Distancing yourself from Werner in case everything goes wrong might be sound reasoning. But don't distance yourself from him so far that he's out of sight. Don't distance yourself so far from Werner that you'll get no credit if everything goes well.'

Dicky took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. 'I'm getting a cold,' he said woefully. 'It's coming back here after the hot weather in Mexico.'

I nodded. I recognized the signs. When Dicky displayed the symptoms of the common cold it was usually because he was expecting some work he couldn't handle, or questions he didn't want to answer. 'Let me see Werner,' I said. 'Let me draft a contract. Don't bring him up here to the office. Tell me what you want him to do and I'll keep you in touch with him. Run him through me. Then you'll have the best of both worlds.'

'Very well,' said Dicky. He blew his nose again, trying to conceal his relief behind his big white handkerchief.

'But I'll need money,' I said. 'Not a handful of small change; ten grand at least, Dicky.'

'Ten grand?'

'It's only money, Dicky.'

'You're irresponsible, Bernard. Two thousand maybe, not ten.'

'It's not your money, Dicky.'

'That's just the sort of thing I'd expect you to say,' said Dicky. 'You think the department has money to burn.'

'Money is a part of our armoury,' I said. 'It's what we use to do our job. We can conserve the department's money by sitting on our arses and staring into space.'

'I knew you'd have an answer,' said Dicky.

I nodded. I knew it was an answer which Dicky would be noting down for future use the next time the cashier's office queried Dicky's profligate expense accounts.

'Very well then, ten thousand. On account, mind you. I shall want every penny of it accounted for.'

'I think Werner should go over into East Berlin and see what he can find out about Stinnes on his home ground.'

Dicky took his little finger and bit into the nail with a dedication that made our conversation a secondary matter. 'Dangerous,' said Dicky between nibbles. 'Dangerous for all concerned.'

'Let Werner be the judge of that. I won't force him to go.'

'No, you'll just give him the money, and tell him he's getting a contract. And then you'll ask him if he wants to go over there. You're a ruthless bastard, Bernard. I thought Werner was your friend.'

'He is my friend. Werner won't go unless he thinks he can do it without getting into trouble.' But was it true, I wondered? Was I really planning to manipulate Werner in such a cynical way? If so, would I even have realized it without Dicky's rejoinder?

'Ten thousand pounds,' mused Dicky. 'Couldn't I use a windfall like that. I don't know how I'm going to afford the boys' school fees next year. I just had a long letter from the headmaster. I don't blame the school; their expenses are rocketing.'

'The government say that inflation is down again,' I said. I wondered what Dicky would say if he got to hear that I was getting a supplementary 'Boarding School Allowance' and the money for the nanny.

'What do the bloody politicians care?' said Dicky. 'The first thing those bastards do when they get into office is to vote themselves some astronomical rise in salaries and allowances.'

'Yes,' I said. 'To the barricades.' So discontent was running through the ranks of Whitehall, despite index-linked pensions and all the rest of it.

'Yes,' said Dicky. 'Well, I daresay you have your own financial worries.'

'Yes, Dicky. I do.'

'So where shall I tell the driver to dump Werner when he brings him from the airport? You say you don't want to see him up here. And if he's in and out of the East all the time it's just as well he stays at arm's length.'

'Shall I tell your secretary to type out a chit for the money?'

'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,' said Dicky irritably. 'I said yes. I'm not going to go back on my promise to your precious Werner. Get the chit and I'll sign it.'

I went back to my office with the chit. I wouldn't put it past Dicky to retrieve the signed form from his secretary's tray and start having second thoughts about it. My secretary had gone to early lunch but Gloria Kent was there. I had the feeling that she was slowing down on the filing so she could make sure she stayed upstairs.

'Take this money order along to the cashier's office. Tell them I want a cheque made out to cash. And I want it before lunch.'

'The cashier's office is awfully busy, Bernard,' she said.

'Stay there until you get it. And make yourself a nuisance while you're waiting.'

'How do I do that?' said Gloria.

'Talk to them,' I suggested. 'Or, better still, read all the paperwork you can find, and comment on what payments are going out to whom. That always makes them jumpy.'

'I'm never sure when you are joking,' said Gloria.'

'I never joke about money,' I said.

No sooner had she gone down the corridor than my phone rang. It was the operator telling me there was an outside call from Mrs Kozinski. I was always puzzled in the same way when I heard that name Kozinski. I never thought of Fiona's sister as being Mrs Kozinski, and I certainly never thought of dear old George, my.brother-in-law, with his cockney accent and his terrible jokes, as George Kozinski.

'Bernard here.'

'Oh, Bernard, I've been trying to get you for ages. Your people there guard you so well, darling. How I wish I had such suspicious guardians looking after me. It's like trying to get through to Buckingham Palace. Worse, in fact, because George has several customers in the royal household and I've seen him get through to them in no time at all.' It was the breathless syntax of the gossip column.

'How are you, Tessa?' So it was my amazing, sexy, scatterbrained, wanton sister-in-law. 'Is anything wrong?'

'Nothing I could possibly talk about over the telephone, darling,' she said.

'Oh, really,' I said, wondering if the call was being monitored by Internal Security. After everything that Frank Harrington had told me, it would have been very stupid of me to imagine I was not under some sort of surveillance, however perfunctory.

'Bernard. Are you free for lunch? Today, I mean. Right now, in fact. If you have an appointment, change it. I must see you, darling.' She was able to say this with strong emphasis upon each phrase and yet not convey any note of real urgency. I had the feeling that even if her house was on fire, Tessa would shout a stylish 'fire' in a manner that sounded more fashionable than desperate.

'I'm free for lunch.'

'Super.'

'Where would you like to go?' I knew that Tessa had always got some place she wanted to go to for lunch. Too many times I'd heard her acerbic descriptions of inadequate lunches in unfashionable places.

'Oh.' Only the English middle class have the gliding diphthong that makes them able to say 'Oh' like that. Tessa could make 'Oh' into a Bach cantata. Having had time to think, she said, 'I'm too bored with all these frightfully twee little restaurants run by young male couples who've been to Bocuse on holiday. What about the Savoy, darling? When you get right down to it, it's the only place in London with any real class. Everywhere is full of advertising people these days.'

'I'll see if I can get a table,' I promised.

'The Restaurant, darling, not the Grill. I never see any of my friends when I go to the Grill. Shall we say one o'clock? When you phone, ask for the chef, Mr Edelmann. George knows him awfully well. Mention George.'

'Is it just social, Tessa? Or is there really something special?'

'I had dinner with Daddy last night, Bernard. I must talk to you. It's about you-know-who and the children, darling. I heard about your visit to Leith Hill.'

'Yes, David wanted to see me.'

'I know all about it. We'll have a lovely lunch and we'll talk about everything. There's so much to tell you, Bernard. It seems ages since we last had a proper talk together.'

'And George is well?'

'George is always well when he's making money, darling. You know that.'

'I'm glad to hear he's making money,' I said.

'He has the Midas touch, darling. We've got an apartment in Mayfair now. Did you know that? No, of course you didn't. The change-of-address cards don't go out until next week. You'll love it; it's adorable. And so central.'

'We'll talk about it over lunch,' I said as I spied Dicky coming in.

'Savoy Restaurant, one o'clock sharp,' said Tessa. She was muddle-headed and vague about most things, but she was making sure there would be no mistake about our lunch. I suppose anyone who had the number of illicit love affairs and assignations that Tessa enjoyed would have to be methodical and precise about appointments.

'See you there,' I said.

'Who was that?' said Dicky.

I felt like saying it was none of his damn business but I answered him truthfully. 'Tessa Kozinski,' I said. 'My sister-in-law.'

'Oh,' said Dicky. As I understood it from Fiona, Tessa had had a brief mad affair with Dicky. I watched his face and decided it was probably true. 'I've met her. She's a nice little woman.'

Nice little woman was not the description that usually came to mind when a man met Tessa Kozinski. 'Some people think she's a sex bomb,' I said.

'I wouldn't say that,' said Dicky very coolly.

'Was there something you wanted?'

'Werner. Where shall I send him?'

'Send him along to the Savoy Restaurant,' I said. 'I'm lunching there with my sister-in-law.'

'I thought you were short of money,' said Dicky.

'Werner is joining me for coffee,' I said.

'Oh no you don't,' said Dicky. 'You're not going to charge that lunch. It's not on.'

'The Restaurant,' I said. 'Not the Grill. Tessa never sees any of her friends in the Grill.'

Tessa arrived looking magnificent. She was thirty-three years old but she looked ten years younger than that. Whatever Tessa was doing, it seemed to be good for her. She had wonderful skin and light fair hair that she wore long so that it broke over her shoulders. George's income, to say nothing of the allowance she got from her father, was to be seen in every expensive stitch of the dark-blue Chanel suit, the Hermes handbag and Charles Jourdan shoes. Even the most blase waiter turned his head to watch her as she kissed me with extravagant hugs and sighs before sitting down.

She kicked off a shoe under the table and swore softly as she rubbed her foot. 'What a wonderful table you've got for us. With that lovely view of the river. They must know you.'

'No,' I said truthfully. 'I mentioned George's name as you suggested.'

She smiled dutifully as at an oft-repeated joke. She waved away the menu without looking at it and ordered an Ogen melon and a grilled sole with a small mixed salad. When she saw me looking down the wine list she said, 'Would you think me awful if I asked you to order a bottle of Bollinger, darling? My doctor has told me to avoid red wines and all other sorts of booze.'

'A bottle of Bollinger,' I told the waiter.

'I saw David,' she said. She rubbed her foot again. 'He's an absolute bastard, isn't he?'

'We've never got along very well together,' I said.

'He's a bastard. You know he is. And now he's trying to get the children. I hope you told him to go straight to hell.'

'I wouldn't like him to have the children,' I said.

'I wouldn't allow the old bastard to run a zoo,' said Tessa. 'He ruined my life and I blame him for what happened to Fiona.'

'Do you?'

'Well, don't they say all these spies and traitors are just reacting to the way they hate their parents?'

'It is a popular theory,' I said.

'And my father is living evidence of the truth of it. Who could imagine poor old Fi working for the rotten commies unless she'd been driven to it by David?'

'I'm keeping the children with me,' I said. 'It will be difficult to afford it, but no more difficult than it was for my father.'

'Good for you, Bernie. I was hoping you'd say that, because I'm going to help you, if you'll let me.' She looked at me with a stern expression that I found so appealing. It was impossible not to compare her with the diamond-hard Zena. But despite her sophisticated lifestyle and smart back-chat Tessa was insecure. Sometimes I wondered if her casual love affairs were attempts to reassure herself, just as some people use drink or mirrors. I'd always had a weak spot for her, no matter how exasperating she was. She was shallow, but she was spontaneously generous. I'd find it easy to fall in love with her but I was determined not to. She smiled demurely, and then looked out of the window. The River Thames was high, the water gleaming like oil. Against the current, a string of barges, piled high with rubbish, moved very slowly and were devoured piecemeal by an arch of Waterloo Bridge.

'I'll let you, Tessa. I can use any help I can get.'

'I phoned your mother. She worries about you.'

'Mothers always worry,' I said.

'She said the children are coming back to Duke Street. Nanny is still with them, that's one good thing. She's been wonderful, that girl. I didn't think she had it in her. It's probably very uncomfortable for her, cramped up in that little house of your mother's. Anyway I thought I'd come over to Duke Street with my cleaning woman and get everything ready for them. Okay?'

'It's nice of you, Tessa. But I'm sure it will be all right.'

'That's because you're a man and you've got no idea of what has to be done in a house when two young children are moving in. They'll need the rooms aired, clean clothes ready, beds made, food prepared, groceries in the cupboard and some cooked meals in the freezer.'

'I suppose you're right,' I said.

'Well, of course I'm right, darling. You don't think all these things get done by magic, do you?'

'I've got Mrs Dias,' I explained.

'Mrs Dias,' said Tessa. She laughed, drank some champagne, eyed the waiter and pointed to our glasses to get more. Then she laughed again at the thought of Mrs Dias. 'Mrs Dias, darling, is about as much use as a spare whatnot at a wedding, if you know what I mean.'

'I know what you mean,' I said. 'But Fiona always managed with Mrs Dias.'

'Because Fiona always did half the housework herself.'

'Did she? I didn't know that.'

'Of course you didn't. Men don't know anything. But the fact remains that you'll have to get the house properly organized if you are to hang on to your children. It won't be easy, Bernard. But I'll do everything I can.'

'It's very kind of you, Tessa.'

'I'm determined that David won't get his hands on them.' The waiter brought the food. Tessa held up her glass and said, 'Good luck, Bernard.' Leaning across the table to me, she said, 'Champagne – real French champagne – is not fattening. I'm going to this perfectly wonderful doctor who's put me on a diet.'

'I'm glad to hear the wonderful news about champagne,' I said. 'How fattening is cheap red Spanish plonk?'

'Don't start all that working-class-boy-makes-good stuff. I've heard it all before. Now let's get this straight; I'll send a car to bring your nanny and the children from your mother's house on Saturday morning. George can always find a car from one of the showrooms, and a spare driver.'

'Thanks,' I said. 'Was there something else you wanted to talk to me about?'

'No, no, no,' she said. 'Just about the house. I'll get it in some sort of order. Give me your door key. I know you keep a spare one in your office desk.'

'Is there anything you don't know?' I said.

She looked up and reached across the table to touch the back of my hand with her outstretched finger. Her touch made me shiver. 'Quite a lot of things I don't know, Bernard.' she said. 'But all in good time, eh?'