The Looking Glass War (16 page)

When he opened the cocktail cabinet it played a brief tune on a music box.

He mixed himself a White Lady, carefully, like a man making up medicine. She watched him, moving her hips to the record, holding her glass away to one side as if it were her partner’s hand, and the partner were not Leiser.

‘What man?’ she repeated.

He stood at the window, straight-backed like a soldier. The flashing heart on the roof played over the houses, caught the staves of the bridge and quivered in the wet surface of the Avenue. Beyond the houses was the church, like a cinema with a spire, fluted brick with vents where the bells rang. Beyond the church was the sky. Sometimes he thought the church was all that remained, and the London sky was lit with the glow of a burning city.

‘Christ, you’re really gay tonight.’

The church bells were recorded, much amplified to drown the noise of traffic. He sold a lot of petrol on Sundays. The rain was running harder against the road; he could see it shading the beams of the car lights, dancing green and red on the tarmac.

‘Come on, Fred, dance.’

‘Just a minute, Bett.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Have another drink and forget it.’

He could hear her feet shuffling across the carpet to the music; the tireless jingle of her charm bracelet.

‘Dance, for Christ’s sake.’

She had a slurred way of talking, slackly dragging the last syllable of a sentence beyond its natural length; it was the same calculated disenchantment with which she gave herself, sullenly, as if she were giving money, as if men had all the pleasure and women the pain.

She stopped the record, careless as she pulled the arm. The needle scratched in the loudspeaker.

‘Look, what the hell goes on?’

‘Nothing, I tell you. I’ve just had a hard day, that’s all. Then this man called, somebody I used to know.’

‘I keep asking you: who? Some woman, wasn’t it? Some tart.’

‘No, Betty, it was a man.’

She came to the window, nudging him indifferently. ‘What’s so bloody marvellous about the view, anyway? Just a lot of rotten little houses. You always said you hated them. Well, who was it?’

‘He’s from one of the big companies.’

‘And they want you?’

‘Yes … they want to make me an offer.’

‘Christ, who’d want a bloody Pole?’

He hardly stirred. ‘They do.’

‘Someone came to the bank, you know, asking about you. They all sat together in Mr Dawnay’s office. You’re in trouble, aren’t you?’

He took her coat and helped her into it, very correct, elbows wide.

She said: ‘Not that new place with waiters, for Christ’s sake.’

‘It’s nice there, isn’t it? I thought you fancied it there. You can dance too; you like that. Where do you want to go then?’

‘With you? For Christ’s sake! Somewhere where there’s a bit of life, that’s all.’

He stared at her. He was holding the door open. Suddenly he smiled.

‘OK, Bett. It’s your night. Slip down and start the car, I’ll book a table.’ He gave her the key. ‘I know a place, a real place.’

‘What the hell’s come over you now?’

‘You can drive. We’ll have a night out.’ He went to the telephone.

It was shortly before eleven when Haldane returned to the Department. Leclerc and Avery were waiting for him. Carol was typing in the Private Office.

‘I thought you’d be here earlier,’ Leclerc said.

‘It’s no good. He said he wouldn’t play. I think you’d better try the next one yourself. It’s not my style any more.’ He seemed undisturbed. He sat down. They stared at him incredulously.

‘Did you offer money?’ Leclerc asked finally. ‘We have clearance for five thousand pounds.’

‘Of course I offered money. I tell you he’s just not interested. He was a singularly unpleasant person.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t say why.

They could hear the tapping of Carol’s typewriter. Leclerc said, ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘I have no idea.’ He glanced restlessly at his watch.

‘There must be others, there must be.’

‘Not on our cards. Not with his qualifications. There are Belgians, Swedes, Frenchmen. But Leiser was the only German-speaker with technical experience. On paper, he’s the only one.’

‘Still young enough. Is that what you mean?’

‘I suppose so. It would have to be an old hand. We haven’t the time to train a new man, nor the facilities. We’d better ask the Circus. They’ll have someone.’

‘We can’t do that,’ Avery said.

‘What kind of man was he?’ Leclerc persisted, reluctant to abandon hope.

‘Common, in a Slav way. Small. He plays the
Rittmeister
. It’s most unattractive.’ He was looking in his pockets for the bill. ‘He dresses like a bookie, but I suppose they all do that. Do I give this to you or Accounts?’

‘Secure?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘And you spoke about the urgency? New loyalties and that kind of thing?’

‘He found the old loyalties more attractive.’ He put the bill on the table.

‘And politics … some of these exiles are very …’

‘We spoke about politics. He’s not that sort of exile. He considers himself integrated, naturalised British. What do you expect him to do? Swear allegiance to the Polish royal house?’ Again he looked at his watch.

‘You never wanted to recruit him!’ Leclerc cried, angered by Haldane’s indifference. ‘You’re pleased, Adrian, I can see it in your face! Good God, what about the Department! Didn’t that mean anything to him? You don’t believe in it any more, you don’t care! You’re sneering at me!’

‘Who of us does believe?’ asked Haldane with contempt. ‘You said yourself: we do the job.’

‘I believe,’ Avery declared.

Haldane was about to speak when the green telephone rang.

‘That will be the Ministry,’ Leclerc said. ‘Now what do I tell them?’ Haldane was watching him.

He picked up the receiver, put it to his ear then handed it across the table. ‘It’s the exchange. Why on earth did they come through on green? Somebody asking for Captain Hawkins. That’s you, isn’t it?’

Haldane listened, his thin face expressionless. Finally he said, ‘I imagine so. We’ll find someone. There should be no difficulty. Tomorrow at eleven. Kindly be punctual,’ and rang off. The light in Leclerc’s room seemed to ebb towards the thinly curtained window. The rain fell ceaselessly outside.

‘That was Leiser. He’s decided he’ll do the job. He wants to know whether we can find someone to take care of his garage while he’s away.’

Leclerc looked at him in astonishment. Pleasure spread comically over his face. ‘You expected it!’ he cried. He stretched out his small hand. ‘I’m sorry, Adrian. I misjudged you. I congratulate you warmly.’

‘Why did he accept?’ Avery asked excitedly. ‘What made him change his mind?’

‘Why do agents ever do anything? Why do any of us?’ Haldane sat down. He looked old but inviolate, like a man whose friends had already died. ‘Why do they consent or refuse, why do they lie or tell the truth? Why do any of us?’ He began coughing again. ‘Perhaps he’s under-employed. It’s the Germans: he hates them. That’s what he says. I place no value on that. Then he said he couldn’t let us down. I assume he means himself.’

To Leclerc he added, ‘The war rules: that was right, wasn’t it?’

But Leclerc was dialling the Ministry.

Avery went into the Private Office. Carol was standing up.

‘What’s going on?’ she said quickly. ‘What’s the excitement?’

‘It’s Leiser.’ Avery closed the door behind him. ‘He’s agreed to go.’ He stretched out his arms to embrace her. It would be the first time.

‘Why?’

‘Hatred of the Germans, he says. My guess is money.’

‘Is that a good thing?’

Avery grinned knowingly. ‘As long as we pay him more than the other side.’

‘Shouldn’t you go back to your wife?’ she said sharply. ‘I can’t believe you need to sleep here.’

‘It’s operational.’ Avery went to his room. She did not say goodnight.

Leiser put down the telephone. It was suddenly very quiet. The lights on the roof went out, leaving the room in darkness. He went quickly downstairs. He was frowning, as if his entire mental force were concentrated on the prospect of eating a second dinner.

They chose Oxford as they had done in the war. The variety of nationalities and occupations, the constant coming and going of visiting academics and the resultant anonymity, the proximity of open country, all perfectly suited their needs. Besides, it was a place they could understand. The morning after Leiser had rung, Avery went ahead to find a house. The following day he telephoned Haldane to say he had taken one for a month in the north of the town, a large Victorian affair with four bedrooms and a garden. It was very expensive. It was known in the Department as the Mayfly house and carded under Live Amenities.

As soon as Haldane heard, he told Leiser. At Leiser’s suggestion it was agreed that he should put it about that he was attending a course in the Midlands.

‘Don’t give any details,’ Haldane had said. ‘Have your mail sent
poste restante
to Coventry. We’ll get it picked up from there.’ Leiser was pleased when he heard it was Oxford.

Leclerc and Woodford had searched desperately for someone to run the garage in Leiser’s absence; suddenly they thought of McCulloch. Leiser gave him power of attorney and spent a hasty morning showing him the ropes. ‘We’ll offer you some kind of guarantee in return,’ Haldane said.

‘I don’t need it,’ Leiser replied, explaining quite seriously, ‘I’m working for English gentlemen.’

On the Friday night Leiser had telephoned his consent; by the Wednesday preparations were sufficiently advanced for Leclerc to convene a meeting of Special Section and outline his plans. Avery and Haldane were to be with Leiser in Oxford; the two of them would leave the following evening, by which time he understood that Haldane would be ready with his syllabus. Leiser would arrive in Oxford a day or two later, as soon as his own arrangements were complete. Haldane was to supervise his training, Avery to act as Haldane’s assistant. Woodford would remain in London. Among his tasks was that of consulting with the Ministry (and Sandford of Research) in order to assemble instructional material on the external specifications of short- and medium-range rockets, and thus provided come himself to Oxford.

Leclerc had been tireless, now at the Ministry to report on progress, now at the Treasury to argue the case for Taylor’s widow, now, with Woodford’s aid, engaging former instructors in wireless transmission, photography and unarmed combat.

Such time as remained to Leclerc he devoted to Mayfly Zero: the moment at which Leiser was to be infiltrated into Eastern Germany. At first he seemed to have no firm idea of how this was to be done. He talked vaguely of a sea operation from Denmark; small fishing craft and a rubber dinghy to evade radar detection; he discussed illegal frontier crossing with Sandford and telegraphed Gorton for information on the border area round Lübeck. In veiled terms he even consulted the Circus. Control was remarkably helpful.

All this took place in that atmosphere of heightened activity and optimism which Avery had observed on his return. Even those who were kept, supposedly, in ignorance of the operation were infected by the air of crisis. The little lunch group that gathered daily at a corner table of the Cadena café was alive with rumours and speculation. It was said, for instance, that a man named Johnson, known in the war as Jack Johnson, a wireless instructor, had been taken on to boost the strength of the Department. Accounts had paid him subsistence and – most intriguing of all – they had been asked to draft a three-month contract for submission to the Treasury. Who ever heard, they asked, of a three-month contract? Johnson had been concerned with the French drops during the war; a senior girl remembered him. Berry, the cypher clerk, had asked Mr Woodford what Johnson was up to (Berry was always the cheeky one) and Mr Woodford had grinned and told him to mind his own business, but it was for an operation, he’d said, a very secret one they were running in Europe … northern Europe, as a matter of fact, and it might interest Berry to know that poor Taylor had not died in vain.

There was now a ceaseless traffic of cars and Ministry messengers in the front drive; Pine requested and received from another Government establishment a junior whom he treated with sovereign brutality. In some oblique way he had learnt that Germany was the target, and the knowledge made him diligent.

It was even rumoured among the local tradesmen that the Ministry House was changing hands; private buyers were named and great hopes placed upon their custom. Meals were sent for at all hours, lights burnt day and night; the front door, hitherto permanently sealed for reasons of security, was opened, and the sight of Leclerc with bowler hat and briefcase entering his black Humber became a familiar one in Blackfriars Road.

And Avery, like an injured man who would not look at his own wound, slept within the walls of his little office, so that they became the boundary of his life. Once he sent out Carol to buy Anthony a present. She came back with a toy milk lorry with plastic bottles. You could lift the caps off and fill the bottles with water. They tried it out one evening, then sent it round to Battersea in the Humber.

When all was ready Haldane and Avery travelled to Oxford first class on a Ministry Warrant. At dinner on the train they had a table to themselves. Haldane ordered half a bottle of wine and drank it while he completed
The Times
crossword. They sat in silence, Haldane occupied, Avery too diffident to interrupt him.

Suddenly Avery noticed Haldane’s tie; before he had time to think, he said, ‘Good Lord, I never knew you were a cricketer.’

‘Did you expect me to tell you?’ Haldane snapped. ‘I could hardly wear it in the office.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Haldane looked at him closely. ‘You shouldn’t apologise so much,’ he observed. ‘You both do it.’ He helped himself to some coffee and ordered a brandy. Waiters noticed Haldane.

‘Both?’

‘You and Leiser. He does it by implication.’

‘It’s going to be different with Leiser, isn’t it?’ Avery said quickly. ‘Leiser’s a professional.’