Spy Story

Chapter Eight

There's a large piece of plush Campden Hill landscape trapped on the wrong side of Holland Park Avenue. That's where the Foxwells live. Past the police station there's a street of crumbling Victorian villas that West Indian tenants have painted pistachio green, cherry red and raspberry pink. See it in daylight and it's a gargantuan banana split, with a side-order of dented cars.

'On the corner there's a mews pub: topless dancers Friday, Irish riots Saturday, on Sunday morning, advertising men and a sports car club. Alongside the pub there is the mews. At the mews's far end a gate opens onto the entirely unexpected house and garden that Foxwells have owned for three generations.

It was hard to believe that this was central London. The trees were bare, and sapless roses hung their shrunken heads. A hundred yards up the drive there was a large house just visible in the winter gloom. In front of it, well clear of the London planes, the gardener was burning the last of the fallen leaves. He raked the fire with great apprehension, as a man might goad a small dragon. A billow of smoke emerged and fierce embers crackled and glowed red.

'Evening, sir.'

'Evening, Tom. Will it rain?' I went round and opened the car door for Marjorie. She knew how to operate it for herself, but when she had her hair up she liked to be treated like an elderly invalid.

'There's snow up there,' said Tom. 'Make sure your anti-freeze is in.'

'I forgot to drain it out last year,' I said. Feeling neglected, Marjorie put her hands in her pockets and shivered.

'That's cruel,' said Tom. 'She'll rust.'

Ferdy's house sits on two acres of prime London building land. It makes the apples he grows in the orchard an expensive delicacy, but Ferdy is like that.

There were cars already there: Ferdy's Renault, a Bentley and an amazing vintage job: bright yellow, perhaps too ostentatious for Al Capone but certainly big enough. I parked my Mini Clubman next to it.

I hesitated for a moment before ringing the bell. These intimate little dinner parties of the Foxwells were planned with the special sort of skill that his wife gave to everything she did. Committees devoted to musical charities, societies for new music and, according to Ferdy, a trust that restored old organs. But in spite of such gags, Ferdy gave some of his time and money to the same charities. I knew that dinner would be followed by a short recital by some young singer or musician. I knew too that the performance would be Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven or Bach, because Ferdy had vowed never again to have me at one of the evenings the Foxwells dedicated to twentieth-century music. It was a disbarment for which I was eternally thankful. I guessed that the other guests that I saw at these dinners had similarly disgraced themselves by contributing to the discord.

Ferdy and Teresa were in deadly earnest about these musical soirees: they'd put me under real pressure to get me into my second-hand dinner suit. It made me look like a band leader waiting for a return of the nineteen thirties, but twice I'd gone along wearing my dark grey suit, and Teresa had told a mutual friend that I was a man delivering something from Ferdy's office — and she'd felt obliged to ask me to stay — democracy in action. I mean, I like the Foxwells, but everyone has their funny little ways. Right?

I pressed the bell.

Marjorie liked the house. She had an idea that one day, when we grew up, we'd be living in plastic and hardboard scaled-down versions of it. She stroked the door. It was set into an elaborate sea-shell canopy. On each side of it there was a lighted coach lamp. The burning leaves scented the night air. The Notting Hill traffic was no more than a soft purr. I knew that Marjorie was scoring this moment in her memories. I leaned close and kissed her. She clutched my arm.

The door opened. I saw Ferdy, and behind him his wife Teresa. Out spilled the tinkles of music, laughter, and ice-cubes colliding with Waterford glass. It had everything, that house: suits of armour, stags' heads and gloomy portraits. And servants with lowered, eyes who remembered which guests had hats and umbrellas.

There is a particular type of tranquil beauty that belongs to the very very rich. Teresa Foxwell had grown-up children, was on the wrong side of forty and gathering speed, but she still had the same melancholy beauty that had kept her photo in the society columns since she was a deb. She wore a long yellow and orange dress of marbled satin. I heard Marjorie's sharp intake of breath. Teresa knew how to spend money, there was no doubt of that.

Ferdy took my coat and handed it to someone off-stage.

Teresa took Marjorie's arm and walked her off. She must have seen the storm warnings.

'I'm so glad you're here,' said Ferdy.

'Yes…'I said. 'Well… good.'

'You left early and there was a bit of a scene right after.' He turned to a servant v/ho was standing motionless with, a tray of champagne. 'Put the tray on; the hall stand,' said Ferdy.

'A tray of champagne,' I said. "Now that's what I call hospitality.'

Ferdy picked up two glasses and pushed one upon me. 'Schlegel was rude,' said Ferdy. 'Damned rude.'

I took the top off my champagne. I could see I was going to need it. 'What happened?' I said.

And out it came: all the anxieties and resentments that Ferdy had been storing for goodness knows how long hit me in one long gabble of plaintive bewilderment.

'He doesn't have to come over the speaker with it, does he?'

'No,' I said. 'But perhaps you'd better take it from the beginning.'

'Schlegel came through on the yellow phone, as soon as I put those M.A.D.s into the Kara. Did I mean the Barents, kid. No, Kara, I said. You know where the Kara is, Ferdy kid, he says. You know where the Kara is.'

Ferdy sipped some of his champagne, smiled, and as he continued slipped into his devastating impression of Schlegel's accent. 'And those Mallow flying boats — you're making crushed ice out there, sweetheart, that's all you're doing — check those ice-limits, baby, and take another look at the Kara. Will you do that for me.'

Again Ferdy sipped his drink, by which time I'd almost drained mine. Ferdy said., 'I didn't reply. Schlegel came through on the loudspeaker, shouting, Are you reading me, Foxwell kid, because if you're giving me that old time limey high-hat treatment I'll move your tail out: of that chair so fast your tootsies won't touch the ground, got me.'

I said, 'Schlegel was probably getting a bad time from those cinclant admirals.'

Ferdy putting those huge flying boats down on the ice was probably what was really worrying Schlegel. If the big computer showed them as landing safely, a lot of the Arctic strategy would have to be rethought, but meanwhile, Ferdy might wipe the floor with Schlegel's two V.I.P.s.

'What would you have done?' asked Ferdy.

'Kicked him in the crutch, Ferdy.'

'Zap! Pow! Wallop!' he said doubtfully. 'Yes, look here, drink up.' He took a glass of champagne off the hall stand and handed it to me.

'Good health, Ferdy.'

'Cheers. No, the little swine was angry because we got a contact. And because he was being such a little bastard I put three atomic depth charges in a tripod off the coast: of Novaya Zemlya. I wiped out two subs. Schlegel was so angry that he tore the print- out off the machine and stalked out of the Control Room without saying goodnight.' Ferdy spilled some of his drink without.noticing. I realized he was a bit drunk.

'What will happen now, Ferdy?'

'There you are. I'm dashed if I know. I'm expecting the little swine any minute.' He leaned over to pat the dachshund. 'Good Boudin! There's a good little chap.' But the dog backed under the hallstand, baring its teeth, and Ferdy almost overbalanced.

'Here?'

'Well, what was I supposed to do — run after him and cancel the invitation?' He spilled some champagne on his hand and kissed away the dribbles from it.

'Stand by for flying glass.'

'Little swine.' He held the brimming glass at chest height and lowered his head to it. He was like a great untidy bear and had all the clumsy strength of that much maligned creature.

'What were Blue Suite doing; two subs close together like that?'

Ferdy gave a knowing smile. He wiped his mouth with a black silk handkerchief from his top pocket. 'Schlegel buttering up the admirals. Telling them how to win the game.'

'Do yourself a favour, Ferdy. What happened today wits just Blue Suite at their most typically inept. It wasn't Schlegel. If he decides to cheat on you, he's not going to muff it like that.'

'Machine failure, then?' said Ferdy. He allowed himself a grin.

'That's about it, Ferdy.' I drank some more champagne. Machine failure was our way of describing any of the more stupid sort of human errors. Ferdy shrugged and raised a hand to usher me into the drawing-room. As I passed him he touched my arm to halt me. 'I've lost that damned Northern Fleet battle order.'

'So what? You can get another.'

'I think Schlegel stole it. I know he came into Red Ops while I was at lunch.'

'He gets his own copy. He's only to ask for a dozen if he wants more.'

'I knew I shouldn't have mentioned it.' He patted his hair, then he picked up his drink and swallowed the whole of it before putting the glass down.

'I don't get it,' I said.

'Boudin, Boudin.' He crouched down and called the dachshund but it still didn't come to him. 'Don't you see that it's just a devious way of getting me kicked out?' His voice came from under the hall stand.

'By inventing some sort of security stunt?'

'Well, it would work, wouldn't it?' He spat out the words find I knew that he'd not completely eliminated me from the conspiracy. Perhaps telling me was only his way of complaining to Schlegel.

'Life's too short, Ferdy. Schlegel's a bastard, you know that. If he wanted to get rid of you he'd just have you in the office, and give it to you right between the eyes.'

Ferdy took another glass of champagne and handed it to me, taking my empty in exchange. He said, 'I keep telling myself that.'

The door bell sounded. Ferdy looked anxiously at the front door. 'Kick him in the crutch, you say?'

'Mind he doesn't grab your ankle.'

He smiled. 'It's all right, I'll attend to the door,' he called. He picked up his drink and finished it. 'We're having drinks in the library. See yourself in, will you? I think you know everyone.'

It was a curious evening and yet there is no easy way to convey the atmosphere that was generated. Anyone might have guessed that attention would be on Schlegel. Not because he was Ferdy Foxwell's boss — not everyone present knew that, so perfunctory were Ferdy's introductions — but rather owing to Schlegel's personality. It was not entirely Schlegel's profligate expenditure of energy. Nor was it his resonant voice, that made shouting unnecessary. It was an atmosphere of uncertainty that he generated, and seemed to relish. For instance, there was what Schlegel did to the wood carvings.

Schlegel walked around the library, peering close at the engravings and the furniture and the ornaments and the bookcase. When he got to the medieval wooden pilgrim that stood five feet tall in the corner, Schlegel rapped it with his knuckles. 'Damn nice, that,' he said in a voice that no one missed.

'Let me give you a drink,' said Ferdy.

'Is it real?'

Ferdy gave Schlegel another drink.

Schlegel nodded his thanks and repeated his question. 'Real, is it?' He rapped the priest on the arm as he'd so often rapped me, and then he cocked his head to listen. Maybe he'd been checking on whether I was real.

'I believe so,' said Ferdy apologetically.

'Yeah? Well, they sell plaster jobs in Florence… just like that, you'd never tell.'

'Really?' said Ferdy. He flushed, as if it might be bad form to have a real one when these plaster ones were so praiseworthy.

'Fifty bucks apiece, and you'd never tell.' Schlegel looked at the Foxwells.

Teresa giggled. "You're a terrible tease, Colonel Schlegel.'

'So maybe they are a hundred bucks. But we saw a couple of dandy angels — ninety-eight dollars the pair — beauts, I tell you.' He turned and started to examine the Chippendale long-case clock. And people began talking again, in that quiet way they do when waiting for something to happen.

Marjorie took my arm. Mrs Schlegel smiled at us. 'Isn't this a wonderful house.'

Marjorie said, 'But I was hearing all about your beautiful thatched cottage.'

'We love it,' said Mrs Schlegel.

'By the way,' I said, 'that thatched roof is beautiful, jfind it's real, not plastic'

'I should think it is real.' She laughed. 'Chas did ninety-five per cent of that roof with his own bare hands; the local thatcher works in a factory all the week.'

It was then that the butler came to tell Teresa that dinner could be served.

I heard Schlegel say, 'But as they say in the Coke commercials, you can't beat the real tiling, Airs Foxwell.' She laughed, and the servants folded back the doors of the dining-room and lit the candles.

Schlegel's midnight-blue dinner suit, with braid edge collar, showed his athletic build to advantage, and Mrs Foxwell wasn't the only woman to find him attractive. Marjorie sat next to him at dinner, and hung on his every word. I knew that from now on I'd get little sympathy for my Schlegel horror stories.

There were enough candles on the table to make the silver shine, the women beautiful, and provide light enough for Schlegel to separate pieces of truffle from the egg, and line them up on the edge of his plate like trophies.

There was still a full decanter of wine on the table when the ladies were banished. Each of the men filled, his glass and moved along the table nearer to Ferdy. I knew them all. At least, I knew their names. There was Allenby, a young professor of modern history from Cambridge wearing a lacy evening shirt and a velvet tie. He had a pale skin and a perfect complexion, and preceded most of his earnest pronouncements with, 'Of course, I don't believe in capitalism, as such.'

'Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals,' Mr Flynn had told us in the soft accent of County Cork. 'Grown, processed, and exported from the U.S.S.R.'

The Flynns built harpsichords in a refurbished Shropshire rectory. And there was the taciturn Mr Dawlish, who eyed me with the steely predatory stare that: I'd once known so well. He was a high-ranking civil servant who never finished his wine.

The elegant Dr Eichelberger had found literary fortune, if not fame, after writing a scientific paper called 'The physics of water layering and temperature variations in northern latitudes'. All his subsequent literary output being printed, classified, and circulated to a select few by the underwater weapons research department of the U.S. Navy.

Finally, there was the vociferous guest of honour: Ben Toliver, Member of Parliament, businessman and bon viveur.

His low voice, wavy hair, piercing blue eyes and well-fitting girdle had earned Toliver a starring role in British politics in the late 'fifties and early 'sixties. Like so many ambitious British politicians, he used slogans from John F. Kennedy as Ms passport to the twentieth century, and expressed belief in both technology and youth. Toliver had long ago discovered that a well-timed banality plus a slow news day equals a morning headline. Toliver was available for any programme from 'Any Questions' to 'Jazz at Bedtime', and if he wasn't at home someone knew a number where you'd find him and don't worry about the holding hair spray, he had a can of it in his briefcase.

I suppose all those 'B.T. for P.M.' buttons have been put into the attic along with those suits with Chinese collars, and the hula-hoops. But I still hear people talking about how this Peter Pan, who runs his father's factories at such big profits while expressing loud concern about the workers, might have made the greatest P.M. since the young Mr Pitt. Personally, I'd sooner dust off the hula-hoops.

'Full bodied for a Pauillac, and that's what deceived me,' said Toliver, swirling his wine and studying its colour against the candle flame. He looked around inviting comment, but there was none.

'Space research, supersonic travel and computer development,' said Professor Allenby, resuming the conversation that' Toliver had interrupted. 'Also grown and processed in the U.S.S.K.'

'But not yet exported?' Flynn asked, as if not sure that he was right.

'Never mind all that crap,' said Schlegel. 'The simple fact is that it takes five per cent of us Americans to produce such big food surpluses that we sell grain to the Russians. And the Russians use twenty-five per cent of their population in food production and screw it up so bad they have to buy from the United States. So never mind all that crap about what's cultivated in Russia.'

The young professor tweaked the ends of his bow tie, and. said,

'Do we really want to measure the quality of life in output per cent? Do we really want to…'

'Stick to the point, buddy.' said Schlegel. 'And pass that port.'

'Well, Russians might want to measure it like that,' said Flynn, 'if all they had to eat was American grain.'

'Look here,' said Professor Allenby. 'Russia has always been beset by these bad harvests. Marx designed his theories round the belief that Germany — not Russia — would be the first socialist land. A unified Germany would provide a chance to see Marxism given a real chance.'

'We can't keep on giving it a chance,' said Flynn, 'it's failed in half the countries of the world now. And the West Zone will swallow the East Zone if they unify. I don't like the idea of it.'

'East Zone,' said Ferdy. 'Doesn't that date you?'

'The D.D.R., they call it,' said Toliver. 'I was there with a trade delegation the summer before last. Working like little beavers, they are. They are the Japs of Europe, if you ask me, and equally treacherous.'

'But would the socialists support a reunification, Mr Toliver?' said Flynn.

'I don't think so,' said Toliver. 'Simply because in the present climate of talks it looks like a sell-out. It's a deal between the Americans and the Russians, out of which will come a bigger stronger capitalist. Germany — no thanks. Those West German buggers are trouble enough already.'

'And what's in this deal for us Yanks?" Schlegel asked sarcastically.

Toliver shrugged. 'I wish I could answer that, but it won't be any comfort for us British, and that you can be sure of.' He looked round the others and smiled.

Professor Allenby said, 'The official text says federation, not reunification. In the context of history, Germany was born out of a miscellany of principalities gathered around the royal house of Brandenburg. This is nothing new for them. Reunification is a dynamic process of historical reality leading inevitably to Marxism.'

'You sure use fifty-dollar words,' said Schlegel, 'but don't talk about historical reality to guys who carried a gun from the beaches to Berlin. Because you might get a swift kick in the principalities.'

The professor was used to flamboyant hectoring. He smiled and continued calmly. 'The common language of the two Germanys is not a lubricant but an irritant. Most of the East-West tensions are simply extended, amplified versions of purely parochial arguments. Reunification is inevitable — lie back and enjoy it.'

'Never,' said Flynn. 'A reunited Germany that moved closer to the West would make the Russians very nervous. If Germany moved closer to the East they'd make us nervous. If, and this is more likely, Germany decided to play man in the middle, the worst days of the cold war could be remembered with nostalgia.'

The Russians have made up their minds,' said Toliver. 'The Americans don't care. There's not much chance for anyone else. The mere fact that the Russians have agreed to talk in Copenhagen shows how keen they are.'

'Why?' asked Flynn. 'Why are they so keen?'

'Come along, George,' Ferdy coaxed, and everyone turned to look at Dawlish.

'My goodness,' said the elderly grey-haired man, who had so far said so little. 'Old codgers like me are not privy to such secrets.'

'But you were in Bonn last week and Warsaw the month before,' said Ferdy. 'What are they saying?'

'Being there and being told anything are two different matters,' he said.

'A diplomatic offensive,' said Toliver, availing himself of Dawlish's reluctance to explain. 'A small group of Russian whizz-kids have pushed these proposals. If the unification goes through it will be such a triumph for that faction that they'll assume command of Russian foreign policy.'

'Surely it should have been debated,' said Ferdy.

'The Germans have debated it,' said Eichelberger. 'They want it. Is it right that foreigners should interfere?'

'You can't trust the Germans,' said Toliver. 'Let them all get together and they'll be electing another Hitler, mark my words.'

'We've got to trust someone,' said Professor Allenby, without going further to remind Toliver that in the space of five minutes he'd condemned the Americans, the Russians, the Germans — East and West — and the Japanese. But the taunt was obvious to the men present, and there was a long silence during which Ferdy opened his boxes of cigars and passed them down the table with a maximum of displacement activity.

I resisted and passed them to Schlegel. He took one. He rolled it in his fingers and listened to its sound. Only when he had everyone's attention did he bite the end off it. He lit it with a match that he struck with one hand, using his thumbnail. He fixed me with his beady eyes. 'Big snafu at the Table today, after you left. Did you hear?'

'Port for anyone who'd like some,' said Ferdy nervously.

'My informant said jackpot,' I replied.

'A host's prerogative,' said Schlegel. He inhaled, nodded and blew a perfect smoke ring. 'No time now to pull the back off and probe the balance spring.'

Toliver waved away Schlegel's cigar smoke and with measured care sipped enough of the Pauillac to commit its flavour to memory. 'I'm glad there are still some people who serve a Bordeaux with game,' he said. He finished his wine, then took the port decanter and poured himself some. 'What kind of a meal can I expect if I visit your Studies Centre? Does your influence obtain there, Foxwell?' He touched his wavy hair and moved it a fraction off his forehead.

'You needn't worry about the food,' said Schlegel. 'We don't run tours.'

Toliver's knuckles whitened as he grasped the neck of the decanter. 'I'm not exactly a tourist,' he said. '.An official visit… on behalf of the House.'

'No tourists, no journalists, no free-loaders,' said Schlegel 'My new policy.'

'Mustn't bite the hand that feeds you,' said Toliver. Dawlish watched the exchange. Gently he took the port decanter from Toliver's clenched hand, and passed it to Eichelberger.

'I'm not quite sure I understand your duties at the Studies Centre,' said Dr Eichelberger to Ferdy. He took the decanter, poured himself some port and passed it.

'War Games,' said Ferdy. He was relieved to deflect the collision course of Toliver and Schlegel. 'I usually do the Russian Navy side of it.'

'That's funny,' said Toliver, 'You don't look Russian.' He looked round and then laughed heartily with every one of his perfect white teeth.

'But what does he do?' Eichelberger asked Schlegel.

'He introduces the element of human fallibility,' said Schlegel.

'And very important, too,' said Eichelberger, and nodded seriously.

'The nuclear submarine,' said young Professor Allenby, 'is the most perfect symbol of imperialistic aggression. It is designed solely for long-range use to distant countries and can only destroy the civilian populations of large cities.'

He fixed me with his bright eyes. 'I agree,' I said, 'and the Russians have more of them than the.American, British and French fleets combined.'

'Nonsense,' said the professor.

'A palpable hit,' said Mr Flynn.

'What's more,' said Schlegel, poking a finger at Allenby, 'Your goddamn red buddies are building at a rate of one a week, have been for years, and show no sign of slowing construction.'

'My goodness,' said Flynn, 'the seas must be filled with the awful things.'

'They are,' said Schlegel.

'It's probably time we joined the ladies,' said Ferdy, dreading an argument among his guests.

Dawlish stood up politely and so did I, but Schlegel and his new-found enemy, Professor Allenby, didn't give tip so easily. 'A typical example of propaganda from the rearmament lobby,' said Allenby. 'Isn't it obvious that the Russians need more submarines: their coastline is incredibly long and they need naval forces for their land-locked seas.'

'Then what the hell are they doing all over the Med, the Atlantic, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean?'

'Just showing the flag,' said Allenby.

'Oh, pardon me,' said Schlegel. 'I thought only crypto-fascist reactionary imperialists did that.'

'I don't know why you Yanks should be so frightened of the Russians,' said Allenby. He smiled.

'You Brits should be a little more frightened of them, if you ask me,' said Schlegel. 'You depend upon imports just in order to eat. Hitler came into the war with twenty-seven long-range submarines. He sank enough of your merchant shipping to make it touch and go whether you could continue the war. Today, with a Royal Navy no longer visible to the naked eye, the Russian Navy has about four hundred subs, many of them nukes. Maybe they are just for showing the flag, Prof, but you want to start asking yourself where they are planning to run it up.'

'I think we really should join the ladies,' said Ferdy.

Coffee was sewed in the drawing-room. It was a fine room; tapestries, placed to absorb stray sounds, made its acoustics as good as any recital room. There were a dozen delicate gilt chairs placed equidistant upon the pale green Afghan carpet. The Bechstein grand piano had been stripped of family photos and cut flowers, and placed under the huge painting of Ferdy's grandfather's favourite horse.

The pianist was a handsome youth with an evening shirt even frillier than those currently de rigueur at Oxford, and his tie was bright red and droopy. He found every note of one of the Beethoven Opus 10 Sonatas, and held many of them for exactly the right duration.

Coffee was kept: hot in a large silver samovar — O.K., don't tell me, but it was Ferdy's samovar — and thimble-sized demi-tasses were positioned alongside it. Dawlish held his; cigar in one hand and the coffee cup and saucer in the other. He nodded his thanks as I operated the coffee tap for him.

I held up the jug of hot milk and raised an. eyebrow.

'Worcester,' said Dawlish, 'late eighteenth century, and damned nice too.'

The old idiot knew that I was asking him if he wanted milk, but he was right. Holding a hundred pounds-worth of antiques in your hand to pour hot milk was part of the: miracle of the Foxwells' lifestyle.

'Mozart next,' said Dawlish. He was wearing an old-fashioned dinner suit with a high wing collar and a stiff-fronted shirt. It was difficult to know if it was an heirloom or whether he had them made like that.

'So I read on the programme,' I said.

That's my car outside, that Black Hawk Stutz.'

'Come along, you chaps,' called Toliver from behind us. 'Move along there. Can't stand milk in coffee — ruins the whole flavour. You might just as well have instant if you're going to put that stuff in it.'

'I know you're interested in motors,' said Dawlish. On the far side of the room I heard the strident voice of the history professor proclaiming how much he liked cowboy films.

'He's going to play the Mozart A Major in a minute,' said Dawlish.

'I know,' I said, 'and I quite like that.'

Well then…'

'It better have a heater.'

'Our friend wants to look at the motor,' he told Ferdy, who nodded silently and looked around to see if his wife Teresa was likely to see us abandon their protégé.

'He's had more practice with the Mozart,' said Ferdy'.

'It's a thirsty beast,' said Dawlish. 'Seven or eight miles to a gallon is good going.'

'Where are you going?' said Marjorie.

To see my motor,' said Dawlish, 'Overhead camshaft: eight cylinders. Do come, but put a coat on. They tell me it's, beginning to snow.'

'No, thank you,' said Marjorie. 'Don't be long.'

'Sensible girl, that,' said Dawlish. 'You're a lucky man.'

I wondered what climatic conditions he'd have invented had she accepted his invitation. 'Yes, I am,' I said.

Dawlish put on his spectacles and looked at the instruments. He said, 'Black Hawk Stutz, nineteen twenty-eight.' He started the engine and so got the primitive heater to work. 'Straight eight: overhead camshaft. She'll go, I'll tell you that.' He struggled to open the ash tray. Then he inhaled on his cigar so that his rubicund face loomed out of the darkness. He smiled. 'Real hydraulic brakes — literally hydraulic, I mean. You fill them up with water.'

'What's all this about?'

'A chat,' he said. 'Just a chat.'

He turned in order to tighten the already firmly closed window. I smiled to myself, knowing that Dawlish always liked to have a sheet of glass between himself and even the remotest chance of a parabolic microphone. The moon came out to help him find the handle. By its light I saw a movement in a grey Austin 2200 parked under the lime trees. 'Don't fret,' said Dawlish, 'a couple of my chaps.' A finger of cloud held the moon aloft and then closed upon it like a conjurer's dirty glove upon a white billiards ball.

'What are they here for?' I asked. He didn't answer before switching on the car radio as another precaution against eavesdroppers. It was some inane request programme. There was a babble of names and addresses.

'Things have changed a lot since the old days, Pat.' He smiled. 'It is Pat, isn't it? Pat Armstrong, it's a good name. Did you ever consider Louis to go with, it?'

'Very droll,' I said.

'New name, new job, the past gone forever. You're happy and I'm glad it all went so well. You deserved that. You deserved more than that, in fact, it was the least we could have done.' A fleck of snow hit the windscreen. It was big, and when the moonlight caught it it shone like a crystal. Dawlish put a finger out to touch the snowflake as if the glass was not there. 'But you can't wipe the slate clean. You can't forget half your life. You can't erase it and pretend it never happened.'

'No?' I said. 'Well, I was doing all right until this evening.'

I sniffed his cigar smoke enviously but I'd held out for about six weeks and I'd be damned if it was Dawlish who'd make me weaken my resolve. I said, 'Was this all arranged? Us both being invited tonight?'

He didn't answer. Music began cm the radio. We watched the snowflake as the heat from his fingertip melted it. It slid down the glass in a dribble of water. But already another snowflake had taken its place, and another, and another after that.

'And anyway there's Marjorie,' I said.

'And what a beautiful girl she is. But good grief, I wouldn't think of asking you to get mixed up in the rough and tumble side of it.'

'There was a time when you pretended that there was no rough and tumble side of it.'

'A long time ago. Regrettably, the rough parts have become much rougher since then.' He didn't elaborate on the tumbles.

'It's not just that,' I said. I paused. No point in hurting the old boy's feelings but already he had me on the defensive. 'It's simply that I don't want to become part of a big organization again. Especially not a government department. I don't want to be just another pawn.'

'Being a pawn', said Dawlish, 'is just a state of mind.'

He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a small multi-bladed device that I'd seen him use for everything from picking a despatch box lock to reaming his pipe. Now he used the pin of it to probe the vitals of his cigar. He puffed at it and nodded approval. He looked at the cigar as he began to talk. 'I remember this boy-young man perhaps I should say — phoning me one night… This is a long time ago now… public call box… he said there'd been an accident. I asked if he wanted an ambulance, and he said it was worse than that…' Dawlish puffed at the cigar and then held it up for us both to admire the improvement he'd wrought. 'Do you know what I told him?'

'Yes, I know what you told him.'

'I told him to do nothing, stay where he was until a car came for him… He was whisked away… a holiday in the country, and the whole business never got into the papers, never went into the police files… never even went on record with us.'

'That bastard was trying to kill me.'

'It's the sort of thing the department can do.' He gave the cigar a final adjustment and then admired it again, as proud as some old ferry-boat engineer putting an oily rag over nn ancient turbine.

'And I admire the way you've done it all,' said Dawlish. 'Not a whisper anywhere. If I went back into that house and told Foxwell — one of your closest friends — to say nothing of your good lady, that you used to work in the department, they'd laugh at me.'

I said nothing. It was typical of the sort of moronic compliment that they all exchanged at the Christmas party, just before that stage of inebriation when the cipher girls get chased round the locked filing cabinets.

'It's not a cover,' I said. "Nothing to admire: I'm O.U.T.'

'We'll need you for the Mason business, though,' he said.

'You'll have to come and get me,' I said. From the radio came the voice of Frank Sinatra, change partners and dance with me.

'Just an hour or so for the official inquiry. After all, it was you and Foxwell they were impersonating.'

'While we were away?'

'Stupid, wasn't it? They should have chosen someone more remote, one of the radio-room clerks, perhaps.'

'But it nearly came off,' I was fishing for information and he knew it.

'It did indeed. It seemed so genuine. Your old flat, your address in the phone book and one of them even looking a bit like you.' He puffed smoke. 'Ninety thousand pounds they would have collected. Well worth the money spent on those retouched photos. Beautifully done, those photos, eh?' He gave the cigar another adjustment and then held it up for us both to look at it.

'For what?

'Oh not just the A.S.W. Task Force procedures. A whole lot of stuff — radio fuse diagrams, the latest sins modifications, lab reports from Lockheed. A rag-bag of stuff. But no one would have paid that sort of money for it if they hadn't set up all the pantomime of it coming from you and Foxwell.'

'Very flattering.'

Dawlish shook his head. There's a lot of dust still in the air. I was hoping to soft-soap your Colonel this evening but I judged it not opportune. He'll be angry, of course.' He tapped the polished wooden dashboard. 'They don't make them like that any more.'

'Why should he be angry?'

'Why indeed, but that's how it always is, you know that. They never thank us for getting onto these things… slack security, the change of directors, your trip, the empty flat, no proper coordination: it's the old story.'

'And?'

'There will probably be a trial, but their lawyers will do a deal if they have any sense. Don't want it all over the papers. Delicate situation at the moment.'

'Schlegel asked me how I got the job at the Centre.'

'What did you say?'

'I said I bumped into Ferdy in a pub…'

'Well, that's right isn't it?'

'Can't you ever give a straight answer?' I said angrily. 'Does Ferdy know — must I pry every last syllable… Schlegel is quite likely to bring it up again.'

Dawlish waved away his cigar smoke. 'Don't get so agitated. Why the devil should Foxwell know anything?' He smiled, 'Foxwell: our man at the Studies Centre, you mean?' He laughed very softly.

'No, I didn't mean that exactly.'

The front door of the house opened. In the rectangle of yellow light, Toliver swayed as he tied his scarf and buttoned his overcoat to the neck. I heard the voices of Toliver and Ferdy as the two men walked across to Toliver's shiny new two-door green Bentley. It was icy underfoot and Toliver grabbed Ferdy's arm to steady himself. In spite of the closed windows I heard Ferdy's 'Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight.'

Dawlish had made it sound ridiculous. Why would Dawlish have an agent in the Studies Centre when he could have the analysis delivered every month merely for the asking.

He said, 'Another extraordinary tiling, after all the procedures we've been through, we've gone right back to routing our phone connections through the local engineers into Federal exchange.'

'Don't tell me, I don't want to hear about it,' I said. I opened the catch of the car door. It made a loud click but he gave no sign of noticing it.

'Just in case you want to get in touch,' he said.

Write in today for the Dawlish system: sent in a plain sealed envelope and it might change your life. But not for the better. I could see it all now. The Dawlish gambit — a piece sacrificed and then the real move. 'Not a chance,' I said. 'Not. A. Chance.'

And Dawlish heard that new tone in my voice. He frowned. On his face there was bewilderment, hurt feelings, disappointment and a sincere attempt to understand my point of view. 'Forget it,' I said. 'Just forget it.' You may never want to change partners again, sang Sinatra, but he had an arranger and a big sobbing string section.

Dawlish knew then that I'd slipped the hook. 'We'll have lunch one day,' he said. It was as near to admitting defeat as I'd ever seen him. At least, I thought so at the time. For a moment I didn't move. Toliver's car leaped forward, almost stalled and then swung round, missing the next car by only inches. It revved loudly as Toliver changed gear and then lumbered out through the gate. After only a few moments the Austin 2200 followed it.

'Nothing's changed,' I said, as I got out. Dawlish continued smoking his cigar. I'd thought of all the things I'd rather have said by the time I got to the front door. It was ajar. From the end of the corridor there was the music of the piano: not Mozart but Noel Coward. It was Ferdy doing his fat-rich-boy-makes-good act. The Stately Homes of England…' sang Ferdy gaily.

I helped myself to another cup of coffee. Dawlish hadn't followed me. I was glad of that. I didn't believe Dawlish's glib explanations specially designed so that I had to drag the lies out of him. But the fact that Dawlish was even interested made me nervous. First Stok and now Dawlish…

'Shall I tell you something?' said Schlegel. He was rocking on the two rear legs of the delicate gilt chair and beating time to the music with his cigar. 'This is a whole new side of Foxwell. A whole new side of him.'

I looked at Ferdy, who required all his concentration to play the piano and remember the words too. He fitted in a hasty smile as he came to the end of the line. Somewhere under that Savile Row evening suit with the silk collar there was a history graduate, farm owner, man about town and skilled amateur strategist, who could talk for an hour about the difference between digital and analog computers. No wonder the suit didn't fit very well.

'To prove the upper classes always have the upper hand.' He sang it with all the astringent bravura of the maestro, and Helen Schlegel called encore so enthusiastically that he did a repeat performance.

I went to sit next to Marjorie. She said, 'He wasn't trying to sell you that hideous car, was he?'

'I've known him for ages. We were just chatting.'

'Did that awful Toliver drive himself home?'

'I don't know where he was headed, but he was sitting behind the wheel when he left here.'

'It would serve him right if he was caught. He's always half-cut.'

'How do you know?'

'He's on the hospital board. He's constantly in and out of our place. He tries to recruit staff for his nursing home.'

'He'd be a delight to work for.'

'Good pay, they say.'

'It would have to be.'

As if by magic, when Ferdy's piano music stopped a servant came in with jugs of coffee and chocolate. It was a gracious way of telling your guests to go home. Schlegel was enthusiastic about Ferdy's piano playing. I formed the impression that Ferdy was going to spearhead Schlegel's attempt to squeeze more funds out of cinclant. I could imagine Ferdy being paraded through a schedule of Norfolk, Virginia, parties. With Schlegel announcing him like a fairground barker.

I said that to Marjorie on the way home but she would have none of it. 'Give me the Schlegels every time,' she said. 'At present in my department there is a row going on about teaching payments — there's always a lot of teaching in the pathology departments — and the professor isn't speaking to the senior assistant and the staff have divided into two camps and no one will say honestly that it's all about money. They want to pretend they are arguing about the extension to the mortuary. Give me the Schlegels every time.'

'Extension to the mortuary. It sounds like a title for a Hammer film. How can you like working in pathology?'

'Pat, I've told you a thousand times, I hate working there. But it's the only department I can. get: into which gives me a normal nine to five day. And you know how unbearable you are about my shift work.'

'That Toliver!' I said. 'Boy can he pack it away: second helpings of everything and always it's not quite salty enough, or not quite as good as he gets in the south of France.'

'He looks ill,' said Marjorie, overtaken by professionalism.

'He certainly does. I can understand him coming in the Path Lab. What I don't understand is how they let him out.'

'Last week I heard him having a terrific row with my professor.'

'My professor now, is it? I thought he was the one you allied Jack the Ripper. Row about what?'

'Oh, a death certificate or a post-mortem cm: something.'

'Good old Toliver.'

'They went into the office and closed the door but you could still hear them. Toliver was shouting about how important he was and he'd take the whole matter to the board of governors. I heard him say that he was doing this for "a certain department of state that shall remain nameless". Pompous old fool. Trying to pretend he was something to do with the Secret Service or something.'

'He's been watching late-night television,' I said.

'He's been watching the world through the bottoms of empty glasses,' said Marjorie. 'That's his problem, and everyone knows it.'

'You're right,' I said. 'But just out of vulgar curiosity, could you find out exactly what Toliver wanted?'

'Why?'

'I'm just curious. He Wants Ferdy to go into business with him — a new clinic or something — I'd like to know what he gets up to.' It was a feeble improvisation, but Marjorie said she'd try to find out. I suppose she was curious about it too.

'You haven't forgotten that tomorrow we're having lunch, darling.'

'How could I, you've reminded me every hour on the hour.'

'Poor darling. We don't have to talk — we can just eat.' She hugged me. 'You make me feel like a terrible shrew, Patrick, and I'm not. I'm really not. I can't help being possessive. I love you.'

'We'll talk,' I said.