‘You needn’t be afraid. We’ve been most careful over that report. Though I don’t think Muller’s mission can be what you call a marked note. Porton perhaps, but not Muller. We’ve had confirmation of that from Washington. We take Uncle Remus very seriously, and we want you to concentrate on that. It could affect us in the Mediterranean, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean. Even the Pacific. In the long term . . .’
‘There’s no long term for me, Boris. I’m over retirement age as it is.’
‘I know.’
‘I want to retire now.’
‘We wouldn’t like that. The next two years may be very important.’
‘For me too. I’d like to live them in my own way.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Looking after Sarah and Sam. Going to the movies. Growing old in peace. It would be safer for you to drop me, Boris.’
‘Why?’
‘Muller came and sat at my own table and ate our food and was polite to Sarah. Condescending. Pretending there was no colour bar. How I dislike that man! And how I hate the whole bloody BOSS outfit. I hate the men who killed Carson and now call it pneumonia. I hate them for trying to shut Sarah up and let Sam be born in prison. You’d do much better to employ a man who doesn’t hate, Boris. Hate’s liable to make mistakes. It’s as dangerous as love. I’m doubly dangerous, Boris, because I love too. Love’s a fault in both our services.’
He felt the enormous relief of speaking without prudence to someone who, he believed, understood him. The blue eyes seemed to offer complete friendship, the smile encouraged him to lay down for a short time the burden of secrecy. He said, ‘Uncle Remus is the last straw – that behind the scenes we should be joining with the States to help those apartheid bastards. Your worst crimes, Boris, are always in the past, and the future hasn’t arrived yet. I can’t go on parroting, “Remember Prague! Remember Budapest!” – they were years ago. One has to be concerned about the present, and the present is Uncle Remus. I became a naturalized black when I fell in love with Sarah.’
‘Then why do you think you’re dangerous?’
‘Because for seven years I’ve kept my cool, and I’m losing it now. Cornelius Muller is making me lose it. Perhaps C sent him to me for that very reason. Perhaps C wants me to break out.’
‘We are only asking you to hold on a little longer. Of course the early years of this game are always the easiest, aren’t they? The contradictions are not so obvious and the secrecy hasn’t had time to build up like hysteria or a woman’s menopause. Try not to worry so much, Maurice. Take your Valium and a Mogadon at night. Come and see me whenever you feel depressed and have to talk to someone. It’s the lesser danger.’
‘I’ve done enough, haven’t I, by now to pay my debt to Carson?’
‘Yes, of course, but we can’t lose you yet – because of Uncle Remus. As you put it, you’re a naturalized black now.’
Castle felt as though he were emerging from an anaesthetic, an operation had been completed successfully. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I made a fool of myself.’ He couldn’t remember exactly what he had said. ‘Give me a shot of whisky, Boris.’
Boris opened the desk and took out a bottle and a glass. He said, ‘I know you like J. & B.’ He poured out a generous measure and he watched the speed with which Castle drank. ‘You are taking a bit too much these days, aren’t you, Maurice?’
‘Yes. But no one knows that. Only at home. Sarah notices.’
‘How are things there?’
‘Sarah’s worried by the telephone rings. She always thinks of masked burglars. And Sam has bad dreams because soon he will be going to prep school – a white school. I’m worried about what will happen to both of them if something happens to me. Something always does happen in the end, doesn’t it?’
‘Leave all that to us. I promise you – we’ve got your escape route very carefully planned. If an emergency . . .’
‘My escape route? What about Sarah’s and Sam’s?’
‘They’ll follow you. You can trust us, Maurice. We’ll look after them. We know how to show our gratitude too. Remember Blake – we look after our own.’ Boris went to the window. ‘All’s clear. You ought to be getting on to the office. My first pupil comes in a quarter of an hour.’
‘What language do you teach him?’
‘English. You mustn’t laugh at me.’
‘Your English is nearly perfect.’
‘My first pupil today is a Pole like myself. A refugee from us, not from the Germans. I like him – he’s a ferocious enemy of Marx. You smile. That’s better. You must never let things build up so far again.’
‘This security check. It’s even getting Davis down – and he’s innocent.’
‘Don’t worry. I think I see a way of drawing their fire.’
‘I’ll try not to worry.’
‘From now on we’ll shift to the third drop, and if things get difficult signal me at once – I’m only here to help you. You do trust me?’
‘Of course I trust you, Boris. I only wish your people really trusted me. This book code – it’s a terribly slow and old-fashioned way of communicating, and you know how dangerous it is.’
‘It’s not that we don’t trust you. It’s for your own safety. Your house might be searched any time as a routine check. At the beginning they wanted to give you a microdot outfit – I wouldn’t let them. Does that satisfy your wish?’
‘I have another.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I wish the impossible. I wish all the lies were unnecessary. And I wish we were on the same side.’
‘We?’
‘You and I.’
‘Surely we are?’
‘Yes, in this case . . . for the time being. You know Ivan tried to blackmail me once?’
‘A stupid man. I suppose that’s why I’ve been sent back.’
‘It has always been quite clear between you and me. I give you all the information you want in my section. I’ve never pretended that I share your faith – I’ll never be a Communist.’
‘Of course. We’ve always understood your point of view. We need you for Africa only.’
‘But what I pass to you – I have to be the judge. I’ll fight beside you in Africa, Boris – not in Europe.’
‘All we need from you is all the details you can get of Uncle Remus.’
‘Ivan wanted a lot. He threatened me.’
‘Ivan has gone. Forget him.’
‘You would do better without me.’
‘No. It would be Muller and his friends who would do better,’ Boris said.
Like a manic depressive Castle had had his outbreak, the recurrent boil had broken, and he felt a relief he never felt elsewhere.
2
It was the turn of the Travellers, and here, where he was on the Committee, Sir John Hargreaves felt quite at home, unlike at the Reform. The day was much colder than at their last lunch together and he saw no reason to go and talk in the park.
‘Oh, I know what you are thinking, Emmanuel, but they all know you here only too well,’ he said to Doctor Percival. ‘They’ll leave us quite alone with our coffee. They’ve learned by this time that you talk about nothing except fish. By the way, how was the smoked trout?’
‘Rather dry,’ Doctor Percival said, ‘by Reform standards.’
‘And the roast beef?’
‘Perhaps a little overdone?’
‘You’re an impossible man to please, Emmanuel. Have a cigar.’
‘If it’s a real Havana.’
‘Of course.’
‘I wonder if you’ll get them in Washington?’
‘I doubt whether détente has got as far as cigars. Anyway, the question of laser beams will take priority. What a game it all is, Emmanuel. Sometimes I wish I was back in Africa.’
‘The old Africa.’
‘Yes. You are right. The old Africa.’
‘It’s gone for ever.’
‘I’m not so sure. Perhaps if we destroy the rest of the world, the roads will
become overgrown and all the new luxury hotels will crumble, the forests will come back, the chiefs, the witch doctors – there’s still a rain queen in the north-east Transvaal.’
‘Are you going to tell them that in Washington too?’
‘No. But I shall talk without enthusiasm about Uncle Remus.’
‘You are against it?’
‘The States, ourselves and South Africa – we are incompatible allies. But the plan will go ahead because the Pentagon want to play war games now that they haven’t got a real war. Well, I’m leaving Castle behind to play it with their Mr Muller. By the way, he’s left for Bonn. I hope West Germany isn’t in the game too.’
‘How long will you be away?’
‘Not more than ten days, I hope. I don’t like the Washington climate – in all senses of the word.’ With a smile of pleasure he tipped off a satisfactory length of ash. ‘Doctor Castro’s cigars,’ he said, ‘are every bit as good as Sergeant Batista’s.’
‘I wish you weren’t going just at this moment, John, when we seem to have a fish on the line.’
‘I can trust you to land it without my help – anyway it may be only an old boot.’
‘I don’t think it is. One gets to know the tug of an old boot.’
‘I leave it with confidence in your hands, Emmanuel. And in Daintry’s too, of course.’
‘Suppose we don’t agree?’
‘Then it must be your decision. You are my deputy in this affair. But for God’s sake, Emmanuel, don’t do anything rash.’
‘I’m only rash when I’m in my Jaguar, John. When I’m fishing I have a great deal of patience.’
CHAPTER VI
1
CASTLE’S train was forty minutes late at Berkhamsted. There were repairs to the line somewhere beyond Tring, and when he arrived at the office his room seemed empty in an unaccustomed way. Davis wasn’t there, but that hardly explained the sense of emptiness; Castle had often enough been alone in the room – with Davis at lunch, Davis in the lavatory, Davis off to the Zoo to see Cynthia. It was half an hour before he came on the note in his tray from Cynthia: ‘Arthur’s not well. Colonel Daintry wants to see you.’ For a moment Castle wondered who the hell Arthur was; he was unused to thinking of Davis as anyone but Davis. Was Cynthia, he wondered, beginning to yield at last to the long siege? Was that why she now used his Christian name? He rang for her and asked, ‘What’s wrong with Davis?’
‘I don’t know. One of the Environment men rang up for him. He said something about stomach cramps.’
‘A hangover?’
‘He’d have rung up himself if it had been only that. I didn’t know what I ought to do with you not in. So I rang Doctor Percival.’
‘What did he say?’
‘The same as you – a hangover. Apparently they were together last night – drinking too much port and whisky. He’s going to see him at lunchtime. He’s busy till then.’
‘You don’t think it’s serious, do you?’
‘I don’t think it’s serious but I don’t think it’s a hangover. If it was serious Doctor Percival would have gone at once, wouldn’t he?’
‘With C away in Washington I doubt if he’s got much time for medicine,’ Castle said. ‘I’ll go and see Daintry. Which room?’
He opened the door marked 72. Daintry was there and Doctor Percival – he had the sense of interrupting a dispute.
‘Oh yes, Castle,’ Daintry said. ‘I did want to see you.’
‘I’ll be pushing off,’ Doctor Percival said.
‘We’ll talk later, Percival. I don’t agree with you. I’m sorry, but there it is. I can’t agree.’
‘You remember what I said about boxes – and Ben Nicholson.’
‘I’m not a painter,’ Daintry said, ‘and I don’t understand abstract art. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you later.’
Daintry was silent for quite a while after the shutting of the door. Then he said, ‘I don’t like people jumping to conclusions. I’ve been brought up to believe in evidence – real evidence.’
‘Is something bothering you?’
‘If it was a question of sickness, he’d take blood tests, X-rays . . . He wouldn’t just guess a diagnosis.’
‘Doctor Percival?’
Daintry said, ‘I don’t know how to begin. I’m not supposed to talk to you about this.’
‘About what?’
There was a photograph of a beautiful girl on Daintry’s desk. Daintry’s eyes kept returning to it. He said, ‘Don’t you get damned lonely sometimes in this outfit?’
Castle hesitated. He said, ‘Oh well, I get on well with Davis. That makes a lot of difference.’
‘Davis? Yes. I wanted to talk to you about Davis.’
Daintry rose and walked to the window. He gave the impression of a prisoner cooped up in a cell. He stared out morosely at the forbidding sky and was not reassured. He said, ‘It’s a grey day. The autumn’s really here at last.’
‘“Change and decay in all around I see,”’ Castle quoted.
‘What’s that?’
‘A hymn I used to sing at school.’
Daintry returned to his desk and faced the photograph again. ‘My daughter,’ he said, as though he felt the need of introducing the girl.
‘Congratulations. She’s a beautiful girl.’
‘She’s getting married at the week-end, but I don’t think I shall go.’
‘You don’t like the man?’
‘Oh, I dare say he’s all right. I’ve never met him. But what would I talk to him about? Jameson’s Baby Powder?’
‘Baby powder?’
‘Jameson’s are trying to knock out Johnson’s – or so she tells me.’ He sat down and lapsed into an unhappy silence.
Castle said, ‘Apparently Davis is ill. I was in late this morning. He’s chosen a bad day. I’ve got the Zaire bag to deal with.’
‘I’m sorry. I’d better not keep you then. I didn’t know that Davis was ill. It’s nothing serious?’
‘I don’t think so. Doctor Percival is going to see him at lunchtime.’
‘Percival?’ Daintry said. ‘Hasn’t he a doctor of his own?’
‘Well, if Doctor Percival sees him the cost is on the old firm, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It’s only that – working with us – he must get a bit out of date – medically, I mean.’
‘Oh well, it’s probably a very simple diagnosis.’ He heard the echo of another conversation.
‘Castle, all I wanted to see you about was – you are quite satisfied with Davis?’
‘How do you mean “satisfied”? We work well together.’
‘Sometimes I have to ask rather silly questions – oversimple ones – but then security’s my job. They don’t necessarily mean a great deal. Davis gambles, doesn’t he?’
‘A little. He likes to talk about horses. I doubt if he wins much, or loses much.’
‘And drinks?’
‘I don’t think he drinks more than I do.’
‘Then you have got complete confidence in him?’
‘Complete. Of course, we are all liable to make mistakes. Has there been a complaint of some kind? I wouldn’t want to see Davis shifted, unless it’s to L.M.’
‘Forget I asked you,’ Daintry said. ‘I ask the same sort of thing about everyone. Even about you. Do you know a painter called Nicholson?’
‘No. Is he one of us?’
‘No, no. Sometimes,’ Daintry said, ‘I feel out of touch. I wonder if – but I suppose at night you always go home to your family?’
‘Well, yes . . . I do.’
‘If, for some reason, you had to stay up in town one night . . . we might have dinner together.’
‘It doesn’t often happen,’ Castle said.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘You see, my wife’s nervous when she’s left alone.’
‘Of course. I understand. It was only a passing idea.’ He was looking at the photograph again. ‘We used to have dinner together now and then. I hope
to God she’ll be happy. There’s nothing one can ever do, is there?’
Silence fell like an old-fashioned smog, separating them from each other. Neither of them could see the pavement: they had to feel their way with a hand stretched out.
Castle said, ‘My son’s not of marriageable age. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that.’
‘You come in on Saturday, don’t you? I suppose you couldn’t just stay up an hour or two longer . . . I won’t know a soul at the wedding except my daughter – and her mother, of course. She said – my daughter, I mean – that I could bring someone from the office if I wanted to. For company.’
Castle said, ‘Of course I’d be glad . . . if you really think . . .’ He could seldom resist a call of distress however it was encoded.
2
For once Castle went without his lunch. He didn’t suffer from hunger – he suffered only from a breach in his routine. He was uneasy. He wanted to see that Davis was all right.
As he was leaving the great anonymous building at one o’clock, after he had locked all his papers in the safe, even a humourless note from Watson, he saw Cynthia in the doorway. He told her, ‘I’m going to see how Davis is. Will you come?’
‘No, why should I? I have a lot of shopping to do. Why are you going? It’s nothing serious, is it?’
‘No, but I thought I’d just look in. He’s all alone in that flat except for those Environment types. And they never come home till evening.’
‘Doctor Percival promised to see him.’
‘Yes, I know, but he’s probably gone by now. I thought perhaps you might like to come along with me . . . just to see . . .’
‘Oh well, if we don’t have to stay too long. We don’t need to take flowers, do we? Like to a hospital.’ She was a harsh girl.
Davis opened the door to them wearing a dressing-gown. Castle noticed how for a moment his face lit up at the sight of Cynthia, but then he realized that she had a companion.