She was only a yard away from him, and she looked huge, fear pumping her up to twice her normal size.
“No need to explain,” she hissed.
“No, I can explain, really I can. Your husband . . .”
She was moving toward him, needing only the excuse of a wrong movement to send the knife plunging down. Two feet from him, then a foot, her breath as loud as any wild animal’s . . .
“Sheila?”
Miles came clattering down the stairs.
“Sheila?”
He was dressed in the blue terry cloth robe she had bought last Christmas. His hair was wet and stringy, his eyes trying to pierce the blurred air. His glasses had been left behind in the bathroom.
“Oh, Miles.”
They embraced, pulling each other inward hard.
“Oh, Miles, where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”
“No need,” he whispered, stroking her soft hair, feeling her weight against him, and then, in embarrassment, remembering the presence of Collins, he pulled away from her, but slowly, tenderly.
“How did you get in?” she asked. “You left your keys behind.”
“Through the back garden. My friend here is a dab hand with a locked door. This is Mr. Collins, by the way. Will, this is my wife, Sheila.” Miles examined the knife, which was still trapped in Sheila’s fist, as incongruous now as some cheap joke-shop toy. “It looks,” he said, “as though you’ve already been introduced.”
Sheila smiled toward Collins, her face as red as a funeral wreath. Collins shrugged and smiled back, a little humiliated at his own show of cowardice. It surprised him that he could feel humiliation without any concomitant anger. Something was changing inside him, but what?
They ate the mushrooms, which Sheila had cooked from her special recipe. During the meal, Miles and Collins glanced at each other, smiling conspiratorially. Both were thinking how strange this food seemed after the huge Irish breakfasts, the solid and comforting amounts of fatty meat, the potatoes and veg. While they ate, Sheila asked her questions, and Miles tried to parry them, feigning tiredness and artlessness. He had introduced Will Collins as a friend of long standing, but Collins was no actor and Sheila, sensing that here was the weak point in her husband’s armor, had begun, gently but skillfully, to interrogate Collins. At last, some scraps of rice still untouched on her plate, Sheila put down her fork.
“You’re lying through your teeth, both of you. It’s quite transparent. Miles, I thought we had some kind of an agreement. Truth in marriage and all that. Is our agreement at an end?”
Miles chose to stare at Collins. “Not here, Sheila, not now. Later.”
“Why don’t you trust me, for Christ’s sake? Why does there always have to be this screen between us?”
“Of course I trust you, Sheila. Don’t make a scene.”
“Am I making a scene, Mr. Collins?”
“No, Mrs. Flint, you are not.” Miles looked at Collins in silent horror, while Sheila turned to her husband in victory. “Your husband,” Collins continued, “likes to think that he’s armor-plated. That much I do know. But”—he paused to sip some wine—“I never set eyes on him until last week. I don’t know why he’s lying to you, frankly I don’t care, but I don’t see what point there is to it. He . . .we need all the friends we can get. You’ve got to see that, Flint. Else we could both be corpses by the morning.”
Sheila put her hand to her mouth, her eyes dancing with shock.
“For God’s sake, Collins,” spat Miles.
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” asked Sheila quietly. “Isn’t it? Tell me.”
“Over coffee then,” said Miles, placing his napkin on his plate. “The dinner table is no place for a horror story.”
So they cleared the table, mouthing pat phrases and stock responses, and Miles poured out the last of the wine into their glasses and found a bottle of Bowmore whiskey.
“Take this through, will you?”
“All right.”
“And some glasses.”
“Will these do?”
“Yes, fine.”
“Coffee ready?”
“Just about. Do you take sugar, Mr. Collins?”
“Three, please.”
“And two for me, dear.”
“But you don’t take sugar, Miles.”
“I’ve changed.”
It was all very civilized, but it was fake, too, and they all knew it.
“Will you help me?” Miles asked.
Collins sat in the corner, realizing that he could be nothing more than an onlooker here. He smoked a cigarette, but Miles had refused the offer of one.
“Not unless you tell me what’s going on.” Sheila had folded her arms, such an obvious gesture of defiance that Miles was forced to smile.
“I need your trust,” he said, “and I need you not to ask questions.”
“Then I simply won’t help you, Miles. I want to know what it’s all about.”
“So do we,” muttered Collins to himself. He stubbed out his cigarette and drew another from the packet. Miles signaled that he would like one, too. Collins had already started to place both cigarettes in his mouth to light them when he realized what he was doing. They both laughed, and he first offered Miles the packet, then threw across the lighter. Miles lit and drew on the cigarette as though it would be his last.
“Sheila,” he said, “I’m a spy.”
“Of course,” she said calmly.
“You had an inkling?”
She laughed at this.
“More than an inkling, darling. You didn’t marry a wooden doll, you know, you married me. And I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Miles sat back, not daring to look toward Collins, who might be smiling a little too happily. Had it always been like this? Had he always been slower and more naive than those around him, standing outside the door listening while Sheila heard his every breath?
“Yes,” he said, playing for time, “of course.”
“That reminds me actually,” said Sheila.
“What?”
“A man’s been pestering me. Said his name was James Stevens and that he wanted to see you on business. I know who he is, though.”
“Who?”
“He’s a journalist on one of the Fleet Street—or should I say Wapping?—dailies. Investigative reporting is his forte, I believe.”
“What the hell does he want?”
“I rather thought you’d know that. Or perhaps Mr. Collins does?”
“Not me, missus. I don’t even like reporters.”
“I wonder what he’s after?” Miles said quietly.
“Oh, we’ll find out, no doubt, now that you’re back. Anyway, forget all that for the moment. What is it that you want me to do?”
It seemed to Miles that he did little else these days but take deep breaths and steel himself for action. He took one now, just for luck, and felt himself grow in confidence again. He went to the window and looked out to where a blackbird had balanced itself precariously on the pliant branch of a tree. The woman, standing across the road, turned and walked away toward Abbey Road. He had decided, after all, to give them a fighting chance. Let her call in. They wouldn’t have time to react. Miles drew the curtains closed.
Janine had been mad as hell’s own fires with Jim Stevens for his absolute lack of subtlety. The irony was that she rather liked him—not just admiration for his journalist’s skills, but an actual like of the occasionally boorish personality that lay behind those skills. Yes, it was his plain and honest stupidity that had angered her, the way he had suddenly come to the conclusion that because he had had a bellyful of drink, she would suddenly be putty in his arms, leading to a warm bed and a late breakfast the following day. He had thought wrong, and she hoped that his neck and head hurt as much as she suspected they would. He had deserved everything he got, except perhaps her offer of money for a taxi when it transpired that he had spent every last penny on alcohol.
She was, however, seriousl
y thinking of resigning her thankless commission. She had come here today only to show faith, so to speak, to work out her final days for him so that he could not turn around and accuse her of slacking. But she was glad that she had come, and felt sure that Jim would be interested to hear what she had to tell him. All she had to do now was find a telephone that still worked. In St. John’s Wood, she didn’t think that would be a problem.
TWENTY-FIVE
BILLY MONMOUTH LEAFED THROUGH A book on Brueghel, purchased on his way home for no good reason except the sudden and desperate need to spend money. He skipped the commentary and concentrated on the paintings themselves, solid representations of peasant life and the natural cycle, followed by those few but powerful images of death and hell and the whole works. Billy clutched his whiskey glass as though it were some kind of crutch, while the book, resting on his thighs and knees, seemed as heavy as sin.
From the seldom-used stereo came the sounds of the Rolling Stones. They were another of his secret vices, though he played their albums seldom and selectively. They were to him predictions of chaos as potent as any Cassandra’s. Hell, Billy knew, was not some far distant region. It was a millimeter away, and all one had to do was scratch at the surface with one’s fingernail to reveal it.
He thought of Sheila’s insistent phone call. She had to see him, it was as simple as that. He supposed that she would need comforting now that Miles was gone, but he did not relish the task. And so he would allow her to see him like this, bemired in self-pity, allowing himself to be led into the Dance of Death to the music of a 1960s guitar wail. He just didn’t care anymore.
There was a knock at the door. Why didn’t she use her key? The knock came again. Ah yes, she had sent back the key, hadn’t she? Well, he supposed he could just about manage to lift himself from his chair. He heaved the book onto the floor and heard the stereo switching itself off, the record finishing with a nice sense of timing. Should he choose something else? No, let silence be their coda.
As he opened the door, he felt it push against him, causing him to stagger back, so that he was already—physically as well as mentally—completely off balance when Miles Flint strode into the room. He seemed taller than Billy remembered, and behind him came a taller man still, a mercenary-looking character with thick black hair and the beginnings of a beard, who seemed to have been conjured out of his own thoughts.
“Miles . . .”
“You’d better sit down, Billy. You look a little weak. Been having a drink? Perhaps we might join you. Mr. Collins, see Mr. Monmouth here to his seat.”
It was Miles all right, but it was like no Miles Billy had ever encountered, not even the one who had slapped him on the face at the Vorticist exhibition. Miles’s eyes roamed the room, checking this aspect and that, avoiding Billy. There was something sharper and quicker about him, as though he had been working on half power before. He seemed larger, too, muscular, his eyes keen and ready for anything. Billy might have taken this for posturing, but knew instinctively, despite the haze of alcohol around him, that this was something real, something dangerous. He wanted to be very sober for this, whatever this might be, but instead found himself feeling woozier still. He needed cold water for his face and coffee for his bloodstream.
“Miles . . .”
Miles nodded, seeming to read his thoughts.
“Wait,” he ordered his accomplice, who remained silent and impassive as a golem. “Take Mr. Monmouth to the bathroom and allow him to wash himself. I’ll make some coffee, Billy. Oh, and Mr. Collins?”
“Yes, Mr. Flint?”
“Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“I surely won’t.”
Sweet mother, thought Billy, being led away, this man is Irish. Who the hell is he?
Miles watched the wretched Billy being led away, his face ashen as though the extermination trucks were parked around the corner of the lounge. So far so good. Miles felt rather pleased with himself, and noticed that Collins was entering into the spirit of the thing, too. They had scared the utter living shit out of an utter living shit. Now they could examine at their leisure Billy’s hollow shell.
He drank the first scalding cup of coffee without his lips once leaving its rim. Miles stood over him with the steaming jug, pouring more out when requested. The second cup Billy drank more slowly, almost gingerly, taking deep breaths between mouthfuls. Collins, standing behind him, mimed the sticking of fingers down his throat to Miles, indicating that Billy had made himself sick in the bathroom. The weak strands of Billy’s hair were still beaded with water, a few drops falling occasionally onto his pale, heavy face, where they sought the safe shadows of his throat.
“OK?” asked Miles.
“A bit better, yes.”
Miles motioned for Collins to sit in the other armchair, and then made himself comfortable on the sofa.
“I have a lot of questions, Billy, and I know that you know the answers. Before beginning, I should point out that Mr. Collins here is a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and I’ve given him a promise that if I’m not satisfied with your answers, I’ll hand you over to him. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Collins?”
The nod was slow, the eyes fixed on those of the trembling Billy. Miles decided to himself that he would have made a damned good interrogator. No, perhaps not: he was enjoying it too much.
“Miles, what is this all about?”
Miles pulled a small cassette recorder from his pocket and switched it on, placing it on the low coffee table.
“That’s not the kind of answer I need, Billy, that’s not a good start.” Billy looked down into his lap in a show of obeisance. “Do you remember,” continued Miles, “on one of our lunch dates, not so very long ago, how you introduced me to a . . .how did you put it? . . .an ‘old friend’ of yours, someone you saw only at dinner parties?”
“Yes,” replied Billy, holding his coffee cup in both hands, quite sober now. “It was Andrew Gray.”
“Oh, yes,” said Miles, nodding, “yes, that was the name, Andrew Gray. Do you happen to know, Billy, why Mr. Gray should have gone to Ireland looking for Mr. Collins here?”
If such a thing were possible, Billy actually grew paler. He looked over to Collins.
“Time for explanations, Billy. Time to get it all off your chest.”
“Miles, this is madness. Do you know the danger you’re in?”
Miles shrugged. Billy rested for a moment, seemed to make up his mind, then leaned forward in his chair.
“You know me, Miles, I’ve always liked to know what’s going on in the world and in the firm particularly. I like to think of myself as the eyes and ears of the place. Well, that goes for past events as well as present. You know that your sidekick here murdered Philip Hayton?”
“In exchange for some guns, yes.”
“And that the middleman on the job was—”
“The Israeli assassinated by Latchkey, yes.”
Billy nodded.
“Then you know a great deal,” he said.
“But you, Billy, you knew it all the time. And you knew that something was up, that someone was trying to get me out of the way.”
“I tried to warn you when you were leaving for—”
“Some warning,” spat Miles. He rose to his feet and walked around to the back of the sofa, where heavy net curtains hid them all from the darkened city.
“Some warning,” he repeated evenly. “You let me walk right into it every step of the way, without knowing what I was getting into. You and your friend Gray. He’s CIA, yes?”
Billy nodded.
“Something like that.”
“And you’re his eyes and ears, Billy, his puppet, nothing more than a puppet. Yes?”
Billy touched the side of his face, but said nothing.
“Yes,” Miles answered for him, “or maybe a performing monkey would be a better description. At first I suspected you of being behind the whole thing, but it didn’t fit. You wouldn’t have gone near She
ila if you had been.” He turned toward Billy and rested his hands on the back of the sofa. “She had nothing to do with this, did she?”
Billy thought about his answer for a long time. He had detected a hint of pleading in Miles’s voice. If he were to lie and say yes, she was involved, then he could reverse the roles, could . . .But he was past all caring. The game had become too complex, and he couldn’t be bothered anymore to read the new rulebook. So he shook his head.
Miles nodded, thankful and satisfied. Collins just sat there. This was a revelation to him, like some grand, unfolding soap opera. But, he had to keep reminding himself, this was for real. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that.
“So,” Miles continued, “you were a magnet for gossip, bits and pieces of information, and Gray used you as an informer.”
“It was mutual,” said Billy, growing more confident. “He gave me information, too. He knew quite a lot about the other side, about his own people, and”—he paused—“about us. He knew, for example, about the Hayton business, not all of it, but enough. Between us we put together a pretty fair picture of the whole thing. Philip Hayton had been . . .involved.”
“Meaning?”
“The love that dare not speak its name.”
“He means homosexuality,” Miles said to Collins, who had furrowed his brow.
“Yes,” said Billy. “Well, nothing new in that, is there, Miles? Not in our profession. But the man with whom Hayton was involved was trying to break it off. Perhaps he had been scared by the whole ‘Fourth Man’ business. Hayton didn’t want to lose him, was threatening public exposure, moral blackmail, all that sort of thing, I suppose. I’m a bit hazy on this part of the story. There was a kind of triangle, you see, and Hayton was going to cause trouble for all. So he was eliminated. It looked like a terrorist killing”—he looked to Collins—“and so was hushed up, but it had been arranged from within the firm, quite clandestinely, utilizing the firm’s own channels and techniques.”
“All a very long time ago now,” said Miles as Billy sipped at his coffee, made a face, put it aside, and rose to fetch a bottle from the cabinet. They all sipped the whiskey for a moment or two, savoring the break in tension. Miles checked the tape in the cassette recorder.