Unbearable Lightness of Scones

86. To Catch a Dealer

No sooner had Angus pressed Domenica’s bell than the door was opened from within. “It’s always a bit disconcerting,” he said, “to have a door fly open immediately one presses the bell. Not that I’m criticising you, Domenica – I’m merely making an observation.”

“I see,” she said. “So you’d prefer to wait?”

She turned to James. “Good morning, James. I take it that you’re not disconcerted?”

James smiled in embarrassment. He had heard Domenica and Angus sparring with one another in the past, a pursuit they no doubt found enjoyable, but which could make others feel awkward. “I don’t think it really matters,” he said. “The important thing is that the door is opened. That’s what counts, surely.”

Domenica ushered them into the flat, Cyril being allowed in as well. The well-mannered dog looked around appreciatively and sniffed the air. There was a rug, and he moved to this and sat down, his mouth slightly open, showing his single gold tooth, awaiting instructions. Much of the life of a dog is spent awaiting instructions; any instruction will do – a command to sit, even when sitting will serve no purpose, is appreciated; or a command to fetch, even when there is no reason for anything to be fetched. With instructions, a dog feels that he is contributing to the human world that he sees going on about him, a world which is so often opaque and confusing – for dogs, and indeed often for humans; a world of frantic activity, of people going backwards and forwards, entering rooms and then leaving them, sitting down and then standing up, and to what end?

Domenica’s mind, though, was still on the question of when to open the door. She was not going to have Angus getting away with a remark she regarded as undermining. “I must say that I find it very irritating to be kept waiting,” she said firmly. “In my view, if the door is not opened within one minute of the bell being rung, there is a need for an apology or explanation. Anything longer than that and the message is clear: the caller is not important.”

“Yes,” said Angus. “But you do need a little time to compose yourself once you’ve rung a bell. That’s all I was saying. Composition time. It’s the same with telephones. If the other person picks up the phone immediately it rings, you get a bit of a shock. You expect a few rings at the other end.”

“That’s true,” agreed James. “It’s a rather abrupt start to a telephone call otherwise.”

They went into the kitchen. Angus sniffed the air, just as Cyril had done: the smell of Domenica’s coffee always seemed so much more delicious than the smell of the coffee he made for himself. Why, he wondered, does somebody not make a perfume, or an aftershave lotion perhaps, that mimicked that smell? Perfumes could be so overwhelming, so cloying by comparison; a person who brought with him or her some wafting reminder of coffee would surely be much appreciated.

The pouring of the coffee was the signal for the topic of conversation to move on. Domenica now related to her guests how Antonia had rung her doorbell – she did not reveal how quickly she answered it – earlier that morning and asked her, again, to take a delivery. “She was as cool as a cucumber,” she said. “Standing there, utterly without scruple. And do you know what she said to me? She said: please be discreet.”

“That clinches it,” said Angus. “This is… what do they call it? The drop?”

James shook his head. “I don’t think so. The drop is a term used purely in espionage. It’s when you drop the papers or the microfilm in a dead tree and somebody comes along and picks them up. Half the secrets of the Cold War were exchanged in that way.”

“How bizarre,” said Domenica. “Men don’t ever really grow up, do they?”

Angus and James were both silent for a while. Then Angus spoke. “Many intelligence people were women, you know. Daphne Park, for example. She worked for MI5, I believe. I had lunch with her down in London once after they put her in the House of Lords. She’s a very remarkable woman.”

“Women make rather good spies because we’re observant,” said Domenica. “But, listen, this is not the point. The point is that at any moment Antonia’s consignment is going to arrive. What are we going to do?”

“We call the police,” said Angus.

Domenica shook her head. “I really don’t think we have time. If I phoned the police now, they would simply send somebody round to check up on my story. And that could frighten the dealers off. They’d see a police car parked outside.”

Angus conceded that this was likely. “So what do we do?” he asked. “Do we simply take delivery?”

“Why don’t we do that?” James said. “Domenica takes delivery, and one of us nips downstairs and takes the number of the person’s car. Then that’s the stage that we call the police. They then come – we tell them the full story…”

“We can’t,” said Angus. “I’m not going to tell them about getting into Antonia’s flat and hiding in the cupboard. That’s probably an offence in itself. I’m not going to tell them that.”

Domenica intervened. “We don’t need to say anything about that. All we need to tell them is that I was asked to take delivery by Antonia. I can then say that my suspicions were aroused – which will be true – and that we investigated the box or packet or whatever it is and discovered that it was full of drugs. Then we hand the whole thing over, and Antonia goes to jail.”

The mention of jail made Angus think again of Antonia’s flat. “If she goes to prison,” he said, “and there can be no doubt that it’s about time that she did, then I wonder what will happen to her flat? It’s very nicely situated. One of the rooms, I’ve always felt, would make a very fine studio. It’s that one with the skylight, which gives a good northern light.”

He watched her for signs of a reaction. If she said, “Well, Angus, why don’t you think of buying it?” it would be a good sign. That would show that she would like him to be her neighbour. And if she would like him to be her neighbour, then perhaps she would like him to be something more than that.

But Domenica said nothing. She let the remark pass, as if nobody had said anything of the remotest interest or consequence.