The Looking Glass War (11 page)

Peersen seemed to deliberate. He extracted the remainder of Taylor’s papers from the steel drawer of his desk, added them to the pile already in front of him. He telephoned somebody and spoke in Finnish. After some minutes an orderly brought in an old leather suitcase with an inventory which Sutherland signed. Throughout all this, neither Avery nor Sutherland exchanged a word with the Inspector.

Peersen accompanied them all the way to the front door. Sutherland insisted on carrying the suitcase and papers himself. They went to the car. Avery waited for Sutherland to speak, but he said nothing. They drove for about ten minutes. The town was poorly lit. Avery noticed there was a chemical on the road, in two lanes. The crown and gutters were still covered with snow. He was reminded of riding in the Mall, a thing he had never done. The street lamps were neon, shedding a sickly light which seemed to shrink before the gathering darkness. Now and then Avery was aware of steep timbered roofs, the clanging of a tram or the tall white hat of a policeman.

Occasionally he stole a glance through the rear window.

Woodford stood in the corridor smoking his pipe, grinning at the staff as they left. It was his hour of magic. The mornings were different. Tradition demanded that the junior staff arrived at half past nine; officer grades at ten or quarter past. Theoretically, senior members of the Department stayed late in the evening, clearing their papers. A gentleman, Leclerc would say, never watched the clock. The custom dated from the war, when officers spent the early hours of the morning debriefing reconnaissance pilots back from a run, or the late hours of the night dispatching an agent. The junior staff had worked shift in those days, but not the officers, who came and went as their work allowed. Now tradition fulfilled a different purpose. Now there were days, often weeks, when Woodford and his colleagues scarcely knew how to fill the time until five thirty; all but Haldane, who supported on his stooping shoulders the Department’s reputation for research. The rest would draft projects which were never submitted, bicker gently among themselves about leave, duty rosters and the quality of their official furniture, give excessive attention to the problems of their section staff.

Berry, the cypher clerk, came into the corridor, stooped and put on his bicycle clips.

‘How’s the missus, Berry?’ Woodford asked. A man must keep his finger on the pulse.

‘Doing very nicely, thank you, sir.’ He stood up, ran a comb through his hair. ‘Shocking about Wilf Taylor, sir.’

‘Shocking. He was a good scout.’

‘Mr Haldane’s locking up Registry, sir. He’s working late.’

‘Is he? Well, we all have our hands full now.’

Berry lowered his voice. ‘And the Boss is sleeping in, sir. Quite a crisis, really. I hear he’s gone to see the Minister. They sent a car for him.’

‘Goodnight, Berry.’ They hear too much, Woodford reflected with satisfaction, and began sauntering along the passage.

The illumination in Haldane’s room came from an adjustable reading-lamp. It threw a brief, intense beam on to the file in front of him, touching the contours of his face and hands.

‘Working late?’ Woodford inquired.

Haldane pushed one file into his out-tray and picked up another.

‘Wonder how young Avery’s faring; he’ll do well, that boy. I hear the Boss isn’t back yet. Must be a long session.’ As he spoke Woodford settled himself in the leather armchair. It was Haldane’s own, he had brought it from his flat and sat in it to do his crossword after luncheon.

‘Why should he do well? There is no particular precedent,’ Haldane said, without looking up.

‘How did Clarkie get on with Taylor’s wife?’ Woodford now asked. ‘How’d she take it?’

Haldane sighed and put his file aside.

‘He broke it to her. That’s all I know.’

‘You didn’t hear how she took it? He didn’t tell you?’

Woodford always spoke a little louder than necessary, for he was used to competing with his wife.

‘I’ve really no idea. He went alone, I understand. Leclerc prefers to keep these things to himself.’

‘I thought perhaps with you …’

Haldane shook his head. ‘Only Avery.’

‘It’s a big thing, this, isn’t it, Adrian … could be?’

‘It could be. We shall see,’ Haldane said gently. He was not always unkind towards Woodford.

‘Anything new on the Taylor front?’

‘The Air Attaché at Helsinki has located Lansen. He confirms that he handed Taylor the film. Apparently the Russians intercepted him over Kalkstadt; two MIGs. They buzzed him, then let him go.’

‘God,’ said Woodford stupidly. ‘That clinches it.’

‘It does nothing of the kind; it’s consistent with what we know. If they declare the area closed why shouldn’t they patrol it? They probably closed it for manoeuvres, ground-air exercises. Why didn’t they force Lansen down? The whole thing is entirely inconclusive.’

Leclerc was standing in the doorway. He had put on a clean collar for the Minister and a black tie for Taylor.

‘I came by car,’ he said. ‘They’ve given us one from the Ministry pool on indefinite loan. The Minister was quite distressed to hear we hadn’t one. It’s a Humber, chauffeur-driven like Control’s. They tell me the chauffeur is a secure sort of person.’ He looked at Haldane. ‘I’ve decided to form Special Section, Adrian. I want you to take it over. I’m giving Research to Sandford for the time being. The change will do him good.’ His face broke into a smile as if he could contain himself no longer. He was very excited. ‘We’re putting a man in. The Minister’s given his consent. We go to work at once. I want to see Heads of Sections first thing tomorrow. Adrian, I’ll give you Woodford and Avery. Bruce, you keep in touch with the boys; get on to the old training people. The Minister will support three-month contracts for temporary staff. No peripheral liabilities, of course. The usual programme: wireless, weapon training, cyphers, observation, unarmed combat and cover. Adrian, we’ll need a house. Perhaps Avery could go into that when he comes back. I’ll approach Control about documentation; the forgers all went over to him. We’ll want frontier records for the Lübeck area, refugee reports, details of minefields and obstructions.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Adrian, shall we have a word?’

‘Tell me one thing,’ Haldane said. ‘How much does the Circus know about this?’

‘Whatever we choose to tell them. Why?’

‘They know Taylor is dead. It’s all over Whitehall.’

‘Possibly.’

‘They know Avery’s picking up a film in Finland. They may very well have noticed the Air Safety Centre report on Lansen’s plane. They have a way of noticing things …’

‘Well?’

‘So it isn’t only a question of what we tell them, is it?’

‘You’ll come to tomorrow’s meeting?’ Leclerc asked a little pathetically.

‘I think I have the meat of my instructions. If you have no objection I would like to make one or two inquiries. This evening and tomorrow perhaps.’

Leclerc, bewildered, said, ‘Excellent. Can we help you?’

‘Perhaps I might have the use of your car for an hour?’

‘Of course. I want us all to use it – to our common benefit. Adrian – this is for you.’

He handed him a green card in a Cellophane folder.

‘The Minister signed it, personally.’ He implied that, like a Papal blessing, there were degrees of authenticity in a Ministerial signature. ‘Then you’ll do it, Adrian? You’ll take the job?’

Haldane might not have heard. He had reopened the file and was looking curiously at the photograph of a Polish boy who had fought the Germans twenty years ago. It was a young, strict face; humourless. It seemed to be concerned not with living but with survival.

‘Why, Adrian,’ Leclerc cried with sudden relief, ‘you’ve taken the second vow!’

Reluctantly Haldane smiled, as if the phrase had called to mind something he thought he had forgotten. ‘He seems to have a talent for survival,’ he observed, finally indicating the file. ‘Not an easy man to kill.’

‘As next of kin,’ Sutherland began, ‘you have the right to state your wishes concerning the disposal of your brother’s body.’

‘Yes.’

Sutherland’s house was a small building with a picture window full of potted plants. Only these distinguished it, either externally or internally, from its model in the dormitory areas of Aberdeen. As they walked down the drive, Avery caught sight of a middle-aged woman in the window. She wore an apron and was dusting something. She reminded him of Mrs Yates and her cat.

‘I have an office at the back,’ said Sutherland, as if to emphasise that the place was not wholly given over to luxury. ‘I suggest we tie up the rest of the details now. I shan’t keep you long.’ He was telling Avery he needn’t expect to stay to supper. ‘How do you propose to get him back to England?’

They sat down either side of the desk. Behind Sutherland’s head hung a watercolour of mauve hills reflected in a Scottish loch.

‘I should like it flown home.’

‘You know that is an expensive business?’

‘I should like him flown all the same.’

‘For burial?’

‘Of course.’

‘It isn’t “of course” at all,’ Sutherland countered with distaste. ‘If your brother’ – he said it in inverted commas now, but he would play the game to the end – ‘were to be cremated, the flight regulations would be totally different.’

‘I see. I’m sorry.’

‘There is a firm of undertakers in the town, Barford and Company. One of the partners is English, married to a Swedish girl. There is a substantial Swedish minority here. We do our best to support the British community. In the circumstances I would prefer you to return to London as soon as you can. I suggest you empower me to use Barford.’

‘All right.’

‘As soon as he has taken over the body, I will provide him with your brother’s passport. He will have to obtain a medical certificate regarding the cause of death. I’ll put him in touch with Peersen.’

‘Yes.’

‘He will also require a death certificate issued by a local registrar. It is cheaper if one attends to that side of things oneself. If money matters to your people.’

Avery said nothing.

‘When he has found out a suitable flight he will look after the freight warrant and bill of lading. I understand these things are usually moved at night. The freight rate is cheaper and …’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I’m glad. Barford will make sure the coffin is airtight. It may be of metal or wood. He will also append his own certificate that the coffin contains nothing but the body – and the same body as that to which the passport and the death certificate refer. I mention this for when you take delivery in London. Barford will do all this very quickly. I shall see to that. He has some pull with the charter companies here. The sooner he—’

‘I understand.’

‘I’m not sure you do.’ Sutherland raised his eyebrows, as if Avery had been impertinent. ‘Peersen has been very reasonable. I don’t wish to test his patience. Barford will have a correspondent firm in London – it is London, isn’t it?’

‘London, yes.’

‘I imagine he will expect some payment in advance. I suggest you leave the money with me against a receipt. As regards your brother’s effects, I take it that whoever sent you wished you to recover these letters?’ He pushed them across the table.

Avery muttered, ‘There was a film, an undeveloped film.’ He put the letters in his pocket.

Deliberately Sutherland extracted a copy of the inventory which he had signed at the police station, spread it out before him and ran his finger down the left-hand column, suspiciously, as if he were checking someone else’s figures.

‘There is no film entered here. Was there a camera too?’

‘No.’

‘Ah.’

He saw Avery to the door. ‘You’d better tell whoever sent you that Malherbe’s passport was not valid. The Foreign Office sent out a circular about a group of numbers, twenty-odd. Your brother’s was one of them. There must have been a slip-up. I was about to report it when a Foreign Office teleprint arrived empowering you to take over Malherbe’s effects.’ He gave a short laugh. He was very angry. ‘That was nonsense, of course. The Office would never have sent that on their own. They’ve no authority, not unless you’d Letters of Administration, and you couldn’t have got
those
in the middle of the night. Have you somewhere to stay? The Regina’s quite good, near the airport. Out of town, too. I assume you can find your own way. I gather you people get excellent subsistence.’

Avery made his way quickly down the drive, carrying in his memory the indelible image of Sutherland’s thin, bitter face set angrily against the Scottish hills. The wooden houses beside the road shone half white in the darkness like shadows round an operating table.

Somewhere not far from Charing Cross, in the basement of one of those surprising eighteenth-century houses between Villiers Street and the river, is a club with no name on the door. You reach it by descending a curving stone staircase. The railing, like the woodwork of the house in Blackfriars Road, is painted dark green and needs replacing.

Its members are an odd selection. Some of a military kind, some in the teaching profession, others clerical; others again from that no-man’s-land of London society which lies between the bookmaker and the gentleman, presenting to those around them, and perhaps even to themselves, an image of vacuous courage; conversing in codes and phrases which a man with a sense of language can only listen to at a distance. It is a place of old faces and young bodies; of young faces and old bodies; where the tensions of war have become the tensions of peace, and voices are raised to drown the silence, and glasses to drown the loneliness; it is the place where the searchers meet, finding no one but each other and the comfort of a shared pain; where the tired watchful eyes have no horizon to observe. It is their battlefield still; if there is love, they find it here in one another, shyly like adolescents, thinking all the time of other people.

From the war, none but the dons were missing.

It is a small place, run by a thin, dry man called Major Dell; he has a moustache and a tie with blue angels on a black background. He stands the first drink, and they buy him the others. It is called the Alias Club, and Woodford was a member.