Noose (24 page)

When Ian pulled the investigation file from its large white ‘Exclusive to Addressee' envelope, the postcard had been drawn out in its wake and fluttered to the floor, her written message uppermost. She would have avoided stapling the card to the file cover, or even paper-clipping it, because either way a mark would be left, and Ray was sure to notice and know there'd been some fancy work. He might already feel there was something unusual in the Ian-Emily relationship.

No ‘might', in fact. At the OCTU, and over the airfield loudspeaker Bain had speculated about the letter from ‘E'. He'd seemed to assume an affair between her and Ian, regardless of age difference, and speculated about the reactions of a cuckolded Group Captain. He'd had that wrong, but he was right to identify a special closeness. The Sword of Honour adjustment away from Ray despite the points tally, and then what happened to his legs in Korea, would probably set him wondering even more strongly about the Emily and Ian connection. And, if Ray spotted Emily's need to make recompense with the job in her select gang for having committed him to danger and the wheelchair, he'd realize more strongly still that she'd craftily favoured Ian, and now felt some shame for it. Maybe she should. Ian wouldn't press this, though.

It was an ancient sepia picture postcard, showing on its other side the
King Arthur
at what looked like full speed ahead in the Bristol Channel, flag flying, crowded with passengers. The caption gave the ship's name, but no date. The envelope must have come overnight. He found it with the rest of the mail when he got up first to make a cup of tea for Lucy and him. He assumed the file was the one Ray had brought to Mooney's locked to his wrist. Then, he must have restored it to the safe. Ian thought he wouldn't mention the file or card to Lucy, as if they came from a lover and must be kept secret. They
were
secret, but only workaday secret, only Her Majesty's Government secret. Had this project begun to make him furtive, sneaky?

He scanned the file before going back to bed for ten minutes with the tea. He looked for the report on Dill, in case Ray Bain had cut out some material when talking about him in Mooney's. Ian himself had discovered next to nothing of any use from Dill. After the hunt they went back to the country pub and Ian had made sure he sat and drank with him. Ian had tried to lead the conversation on to something like those wider topics Emily spoke of – wider, that is, than their sport. But it had been difficult. It had been impossible. And perhaps this impossibility did tell Ian something. He felt a calculated resistance in Dill to let their chat move away from the contained and containable matters of the day – from
this
day and the badger episode. On the return visit to the pub, Ian had still noticed nobody who might have been doing a surveillance stint. Perhaps Emily had withdrawn the watch so he wouldn't feel supervised.

He wondered if he had been too hurried, perhaps clumsy, in trying to get to other subjects with Dill, and eventually to
one
other subject. He was friendly enough when they first met and for quite a time afterwards, but then appeared to grow wary, even hostile. That might mean he had something to be wary about, and hostile about to anyone who seemed to get nosy. So, could Ian regard this as a discovery? Did the non-disclosure amount to a kind of disclosure? That looked a vague and slack deduction, but most likely the best he would get. Dill was clearly someone acute, subtle, tuned-in, probably capable of a big and special and confidential assignment. Might this be another of those half-discoveries for Ian, a positive from the negative? Not, however, the kind of revelations that would make a newspaper story stand up and earn publication.

Some file details for Dill were as Bain and Emily had given them to Ian at Mooney's: the factory job, the union position, bachelorhood, the weekend badger hunts. But these basics were preceded by what seemed to be a tabulated report from a surveillance team. It answered a major and obvious question in Ian's mind: how had Dill been selected in the first place?

OPERATION TITLE: Wallflower

LOCATION: Outside 12 Feder Road, Chelsea, London, home of Milton Skeeth and subsequent visitor tracking.

OBJECTIVE: Note and identify all callers to the house.

ACTION TAKEN: Clandestine stalk of male visitor upon leaving. Subsequently identified via electoral register and local Post Office as Jeffrey David
Dill. His name and biographical details already known to us. (See Paper Ht 834 /L, recording past interviews with two civilian informants coded Jimmy Cagney and Attila the Hun – first intimations that Dill might have role in potential nationwide junta scheme.)

Ian thought he understood why Bain might want to conceal for now the bond between Dill and Milton Skeeth. Ray probably feared this would be to tell too much. After all, Ian was merely a journalist, untrained in the delicacies and careful, variable pace of the secrets business. In fact, journalists were trained in the opposite: if they wanted something from someone they went bull-headed to get it, because if they didn't an opposition paper might swoop and scoop and leave them behind. How did these voices, Jimmy Cagney and Attila the Hun, know Dill, and realize he might qualify for the attention of people like Emily and Bain? Did they work with him, and hear some of his views? Did they go after badgers with him and hear some of his views? Did they drink with him in the country pub and hear some of his views? Did they decide these views might be dangerous and should be referred to the authorities?

And, dwelling on the difference between Emily's and Ray Bain's type of work and his own, he changed his mind about showing the file and card to Lucy and discussing them. The concealment would be wrong, divisive. He'd decided a long time ago at Norton that he didn't want to get sucked into the secrets network. He still felt like that. He disliked the melodrama and autocracy in those repeated injunctions, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. They sounded like the trite, teasing title for a new James Bond spy book. He flipped through a few more pages of the file and noticed further names he recognized: Lord Mivale, Daphne West, Anthony Eden, another actress, Fay Doel, additional insiders' whispers from Cagney and Attila.

As Lucy supped tea and read the card and some of the file alongside him in bed, he knew he had done right in not hiding the stuff from her. Pregnancy suited Lucy. Her skin glowed. She didn't deserve to be blanked out from any part of his life. He wasn't in that sort of career, and still didn't want to be. She obviously liked the way he had ignored the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY label. It showed Lucy he considered his first loyalty was to her, and this brought comfort and reassurance. She would see that Emily was part of a possibly important and startling newspaper tale, and that the connection didn't go beyond this. Lucy, herself a journalist, clearly shared in the excitement of a potentially enormous exclusive. By showing her the papers, Ian had invited her in to the assignment with him. That's how a marriage ought to be. And, of course, it was about more than a possible page-one newspaper splash. The future of the country might be involved. This sounded inflated, maybe, and alarmist. Just the same, it was true. And they'd have a child's prospects in that country to consider soon.

‘Did she buy up a sackful of these cards d'you think, Ian, to commemorate that escape from death?' she said.

‘She thinks she commemorated it wrongly at first – crowing about the drowning of Corbitty for her sake. She put my father into second place. She's been making up for that for years.'

Lucy pointed at the file. ‘She takes risks on your behalf. Classified material slipped to you on loan.'

‘Yes, but she's also looking for a benefit. Her daughter's apparently tied up with one of the people they suspect. That's Daphne West, the actress. We've seen her in plays on TV, haven't we?'

‘Pretty girl, hardly out of her teens?'

‘Yes.'

‘From a previous marriage?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘It means no.'

Lucy sipped some tea. ‘Oh, I see. My God, Ian. Your dad's?'

‘Quite. I'll probably have to interview her, as part of the inquiry.'

‘That will be strange for you, won't it?'

But he felt curious, naturally. Apprehensive, also, naturally. ‘Possibly a bit strange, yes.'

In the afternoon he'd take the file into the box room he used as an office/study and go through it thoroughly. Now, sitting up in bed, Lucy did the kind of page skimming he'd carried out himself a few minutes before. ‘Here's something fascinating,' she said, ‘a note by Emily in person, I think. At the end comes her majestic “E”, like something from the Queen. It's apparently an assessment of three informants on their list, someone called Jimmy Cagney, another is Attila the Hun, and another, Ivor Novello.

‘I think I might have met one of them out on the badger hunt.'

‘Which?'

‘Don't know. There's probably an informant at his works, and maybe another on the hunts – Attila and Jimmy Cagney. The hunt voice feeds them the insights, and then they want me to follow these up, find what else I can and sell it as a Press story – which would most likely kill the conspiracy. You can't have a conspiracy when its existence is a splash in the Press.'

‘Attila she considers “enthusiastic, determined but inclined to fabricate and oversell”. He gets a B-plus. Cagney is “scrupulous but indolent” and is awarded only a B. Ivor Novello she finds “factual, bright, wide-visioned, systematic” and earns an A/B.'

‘I wonder how she'd rate me?' Ian replied.

‘Oh, an “Incomplete” I expect.'

‘Are we told the genuine names behind the aliases?'

‘No.'

‘She doesn't trust me that much.'

‘Not yet,' Lucy said. ‘I told you, you're an Incomplete. You've some way to go yet.'

‘Do I want to?'

‘Do you?'

‘Probably not, but I've been snared, noosed.'

W
orking at home on the Emily-Ray file with its mentions of secret names, celebrity names, clandestine projects, Ian had a phone call, the voice educated, male, not unfriendly, but not friendly: a touch of
Got-you-at-last-you-sod-and-don't-imagine-you-can-do-another-toddle-off
. ‘Mr Charteris? Mr Ian Charteris, journalist and possibly more?'

‘No.'

‘Not
Mr Ian Charteris and possibly more?'

‘No.'

‘No what?'

‘Not possibly more.'

‘Mr Ian Charteris, journalist?'

‘Speaking.'

‘Forgive me for speculating – the “possibly more”. Guesswork.'

‘In journalism we don't do guesswork,' Ian said. ‘Facts are the thing. Facts are treasured. Who was it said “Comment is free but facts are expensive”?'

‘Yes, all that travel and bribery.'

‘First-class travel,' Ian said. ‘It's journalism's attempt to look like a profession, not a trade.'

‘It's facts I wanted to talk about, facts which to date might have been concealed. Or disguised as something else.'

‘Facts can be like that. Evasive. Hidden. One man's facts are another man's speculation.'

‘This is Milton Skeeth.'

‘Milton Skeeth?'

There was a pause as if he didn't believe in Ian's show of puzzlement, felt riled by it, considered it not based on fact as recently boasted about by Charteris, wondered why the fuck it was necessary, but, OK, whatever game he – Charteris – wanted to play, Skeeth would go along with it for now. Patience. Tactics. ‘I work in the theatre. I think I can claim it's a name known to the Press.'

‘Ah, Milton Skeeth, of course,' Ian said.

‘That's it. I hoped it would register.'

‘We get rung up by so many people,' Ian replied.

‘Who?'

‘Who what?'

‘Who get rung up by so many people?'

‘Journalists. We're well known for it. Folk telephone to tell us things, or to tell us that things other folk have told us are not true. A hell of a lot like that.'

‘It must be arduous.'

‘Most of us wouldn't have it any different. We live on these calls. They are our oxygen.'

‘I'm glad to learn this. Plainly, I am now making such a call.'

‘Quite often there's preamble. We don't complain. It gives us time to get the notebook open.'

‘I hear you've been talking to a friend of mine.'

‘This has to be a possibility. As I've said, we talk to many. It's of the essence in our trade. Our profession, would-be. Heard from where that I've been talking to a friend of yours? This might help me narrow things down, because I'm sure you will have a great number of friends.'

‘I gather you've spoken lately to Jeffrey Dill,' Skeeth replied. ‘Does that narrow it down?'

‘Oh, obviously, it does more than that! It immediately reduces the field to one.'

‘I believe it's so, isn't it? You met him?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘The meeting took place in a situation quite normal for him, but perhaps less so for you.'

‘Journalists get into all kind of situations. Think of Stanley tracking down Livingstone. That would hardly be customary ground for Stanley – if reporters, in fact,
have
a customary ground.'

‘Jeff mentioned it.'

‘You're on those kinds of terms with him, are you?' Ian replied.

‘Which?'

‘Shortened first names – “Jeff”. Would he call you “Milt”? When he mentioned it – the meeting – did he refer to it in, as it were, passing, or make a special point?'

‘He wouldn't normally trouble me with that kind of thing. I deduced he felt anxious.'

‘Anxious?'

‘He wonders.'

‘About what?'

‘Oh, definitely he wonders. He's a worrier. You wouldn't think so to look at him – he seems so hale and solid and attuned to badger hunting. Would you have suspected he was a worrier?'