“It’s not as good as the Irish stuff, is it, Mr. Flint?” said Collins.
“You’re right, Mr. Collins,” said Miles.
“So,” began Billy, not sure quite whether he were joking, “you’ve gone over to the other side, eh, Miles?”
“Perhaps,” answered Miles. Then, “Do go on with your story, Billy.”
“That was it so far as the Hayton thing went. No one was any the wiser. He was seen as a victim of the troubles, nothing more. But Gray got hold of something, I’m not sure what. Hayton’s lover, having used the firm as cover for the operation, had aroused some interest. The Israeli, I would guess, worked for everyone: CIA, Mossad, us. I think Gray got his information from him.”
“And?”
“And”—Billy paused again, rather overplaying his hand—“the trail led back to our own Mr. Partridge.”
“Partridge?”
“None other. He’d been Philip Hayton’s lover all those years ago, had tried to break it off, and had, well, finally taken stronger action.”
“My God,” whispered Miles. It was beginning to fit into place. “You mentioned a third man?”
“Quite a lowly political huckster then as now. Harold Sizewell.”
“Who was almost blown up at Kew?”
“Quite. He’s my local MP actually. I’ve a place in his constituency, Chillglade.”
“Well, well.” Miles had the feeling that he was burrowing quickly into some warm and rotten piece of wood.
“But all this was, as you say, Miles, a long time ago.”
“So what happened?”
“Several things. A concatenation of circumstances, you might say. For one thing, Partridge has worked his way up to a position where he is next in line to run the show.”
“He’s worked hard and fair to get there, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, I’m not disputing that. But skeletons do have a way of appearing from the cupboard just when one doesn’t want them to. So our friend decided to tie up the only loose ends in his past.”
“Which necessitated putting out of action those people who could be dangerous to him: Mr. Collins here, the Israeli, and Sizewell.”
“As to Sizewell I can’t be sure. Gray seems to think that the bombing was coincidental. No, Sizewell wasn’t the threat. He would have as much to lose as Partridge should anything have emerged from the cupboard. But as for the others, yes.”
“Where do I fit in to all this, Billy?”
“You were an accident, Miles. Partridge had arranged it so that the tail on Latchkey should lose him. Gray reckons it worked something like this.” Billy was on the edge of his chair now, becoming something like his old brash self again. “Partridge had found out that Latchkey’s target was to be the Israeli—”
“How?”
“Well, the closer you come to the top of the chain of command, the more intelligence comes your way. Perhaps it was a trade-off with one of our allies or our enemies.”
“Go on.”
“All Partridge had to do, having gleaned this information, was to ensure that the surveillance, which had already begun by this time, botched the job. Voilà, one of the thorns in his past disappears, and no one’s any the wiser. It was beautifully simple really. He must have thought it divine intervention when the opportunity arose. But then you entered the picture, just when you weren’t supposed to. You went along on the surveillance, you ended up being the one to lose Latchkey, and you became suspicious. In Partridge’s mind, you became another problem.”
Miles shook his head.
“He was way off the mark, Billy. Yes, I was suspicious, but I hadn’t a clue what was going on, and I certainly wasn’t getting any closer to solving it.”
“I know that, Miles, but Partridge thought that you were. That was what was so important.”
“Sounds to me,” said Collins slowly, “as though you were set up, Mr. Flint. Set up by this bastard here and the Gray character.”
Miles nodded.
“That’s the way it looks to me, too. What do you say, Billy?”
“Well, Miles . . .” Billy had already lost what confidence he had gained during the telling of his tale. “It was Gray, you have to understand that.”
“You were trying to flush Partridge out using me as bait?”
Billy looked into his lap again, but saw little comfort there. “Something like that,” he mumbled.
“But why was Gray so interested in the first place?”
“Oh, good reasons. For one thing, and even you must see this, Miles, it is in nobody’s interest for someone like Partridge to step into the old boy’s shoes. The Americans have been nervous of our setup here since the 1970s. They’ve kept tabs on us. And for another . . .”
“Well?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Billy, it looks to me as though Mr. Collins is itching to do you some violence.”
“A lot of violence,” corrected Collins.
Billy sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “Then go ahead and do it.”
It was Miles’s turn to lean forward in his seat. “You were going to tell me about Gray, I think. Well, you’re not the only one who can put two and three together and come up with a conspiracy. What about this: Sizewell is on a committee investigating cooperation and the lack of it among the security services, as well as other highly secret and confidential proposals. The Americans would like to know what’s being said, and would simply love to have someone in there putting forward their own views. Sizewell was the obvious candidate because of the Hayton killing. They’d had him tucked away in their files since then in the hope that they could use him in just such a way at a later date, and that date is now. So your friend Gray was attempting to frighten a member of the British Parliament, to blackmail him, and the only way to stop blackmail like that, as we both know, is to root out the evidence. So Sizewell got in touch with his old friend, and Partridge was given another reason for eliminating the past. They must have thought the world was falling down on top of them.” Miles looked over to Collins, who had started to sweat a little, though the central heating was temperate at most. “You’re a wanted man, Will. You’re the last one left alive who can jeopardize this whole stinking thing.”
“Except that now you have it all on tape,” said Collins.
“Suppositions, theories. You’re the only witness, the only physical obstacle left.”
“Which is why this CIA bastard was looking for me, to protect me?”
“Yes. Where is Gray by the way, Billy?”
Billy shrugged. “France maybe. He’s heavily involved over there just now. Antiterrorism.”
“A real troubleshooter, eh? It’s a pity. I’m sure we’d have liked to meet him, wouldn’t we, Will?”
“Yes, Mr. Flint, we would.”
“So, Partridge had set it up so that Latchkey could escape. Simple enough to do, I expect. An anonymous warning that he was being followed. But one of our men had to be in on it.” Miles thought of splendor beetles and Sobranie cigarettes. “Phillips?”
“Of course.”
“Yes, he of the lateral promotion.” But hadn’t Phillips been in Mowbray’s camp? “What about Mowbray? His little setup was surely more of a threat to Partridge than I was?”
“Not at all.”
“Not with Phillips in his camp, keeping Partridge informed of all Richard’s doings?” Miles was thinking back to that night at the Doric. But hadn’t Felicity first approached him while Phillips was parking the car? That would mean that her first sally had been . . .coincidence.
“What about Cynegetics? Where does it enter the scheme of things?”
“Well,” said Billy, “shadowy as it is, we do know that Partridge set up the group and staffed it with agents loyal to him so that he could monitor anyone within the firm who might be trying to dig up the dirt on him.”
“But he never guessed that it was you who was doing the burrowing?”
“There were too many others for him to k
eep busy with. Andrew Gray saw to that.”
“Others like me you mean?”
“Yes. But now I have a question to put to you.” Billy was rubbing at his face tiredly.
“What?”
“Just what happened to you in Ireland?”
Collins manufactured some rough and ready sandwiches, and they ate them, washing each one down with mouthfuls of tea. During which time Miles, as he thought only fair, told Billy his own story.
“Incredible,” was Billy’s response. “Partridge didn’t overestimate you. If anything he underestimated you. We all did, Miles.”
“What’s this fellow Partridge’s first name anyway?” Collins asked, through a paste of cheese and tomato.
“Nobody knows,” said Billy, still in awe of the Irishman.
“Somebody must know,” said Collins, “even if only his mammy.”
“Let’s come back to Gray,” said Miles. He was obsessed now, and was not about to be led away from his obsession. He had turned the tape over, and now he switched the cassette recorder on again.
“Gray,” he repeated, “was using me as bait, was he?”
“Not especially,” answered Billy lethargically. “But you did help discomfort Partridge, which was all to the good. Gray wanted to create the maximum panic so that Sizewell would give in. It wasn’t just you. I think he kept dropping hints and clues to Mauberley, too, knowing that Richard, no matter how stupid, was bound to come up with something eventually. Then there was a newspaper reporter called Stevens. Andrew did his anonymous phone call routine on him, sending him clues, so that Stevens would go after Sizewell. He’s probably still after him.”
“Stevens, you said?”
“Yes.”
Miles looked at Collins.
“That’s the man Sheila said had been pestering her about me.”
“Well, well, well,” said Billy, “he must be a better reporter than we’d thought if he’s tracked you down.”
“But all this,” persisted Miles, “the reporter, me, the whole thing, was designed merely to pile on the pressure?”
“That’s about it.”
“Using human lives as bits and pieces in a game?”
“Isn’t that what we do for a living, Miles?”
A fair answer, thought Miles, but it didn’t help to make any sense of it all. But, he supposed, if he were in a game, or even a game within a game, there must be a way out. All he had to do was keep on playing.
“I’ll tell you this, Billy, it’s got to end, and it’s not going to end with me as the corpse and you lot as the grieving colleagues.”
“It was never planned that you’d—”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Christ, Miles, how long have we known each other? If I’d thought that Partridge was planning anything so drastic, I’d have stopped you from going to Ireland, and I mean that.”
Miles stared at him hard, and Billy had to fight to keep his gaze matched to that of this new Miles.
“I wonder,” said Miles, not in reproach or disbelief but with real curiosity. “You know, Billy, you’ve been sitting back throughout, letting anyone and everyone become involved except yourself, afraid of committing yourself, of being on the losing side. We’ve been walking around with third-party insurance, and you’ve been fully covered. I could admire that to some extent. I could, but I don’t.”
“What’s done is done, Miles. There’s no escaping it.”
“True.”
“Listen, confession’s over on my part, no more to tell. Except to say that you must be mad, running around with the man behind the Kew bombing. He’ll be public enemy number one any day now. But I suppose none of this is my concern. Do you mind if I put a record on, something relaxing?”
“No, go ahead.”
Billy went to the stereo, slipped the record back into its sleeve, and began to search through his collection.
“You’ve got a lot of records,” said Miles, coming up behind him.
“Oh, yes, well, I like to think that my tastes are eclectic.” He brought out a classical album, thought better of it, and looked for something else.
“Can’t you find anything suitable?” said Miles.
“Well, it is rather a strange occasion.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
“Not at all. What are your tastes, dear boy?”
“Oh, eclectic, I suppose, like yours.” Miles crouched down, while Billy, having decided upon a Dave Brubeck album, stood in front of the stereo. “I usually just start at the beginning,” said Miles, “and work my way through. Take this section, for instance. I’d start here on the left with Pink Floyd, Liszt, Janis Ian, Michael Nyman, Tchaikovsky”—Miles fingered each record in turn—“and so on, right up to . . .let me see, yes, Miles Davis.” Billy had moved back from the stereo without switching it on. “Look, Billy, it’s a funny thing, but if you take the initials of these records there’s a message spelt out. It says, ‘Flint onto you.’ Isn’t that a coincidence?”
“Sheila told you about our little code?”
“Of course,” said Miles, rearranging the records. “Oh, you’re the clever one, Billy. And I’ve been your dupe for far too long. Time for a change, my dear old friend and comrade. Time for everything to change. But you needn’t bother with this little code. We’re not taking you anywhere.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, firstly I’m going to have this tape copied, and the copies sent to Richard Mowbray and to this journalist Stevens. That should ensure that, even if I don’t survive, something is done to pull this whole cheap façade to bits. Then I am going to demand your silence.”
“You’ll have it.”
“I know I will. You’re going to arrange for me to ‘come in.’ Get in touch with the old boy and insist that Partridge and he fetch me themselves. Tell them that something went badly wrong in Ireland, but that I’m sure it was all a mistake and now I want to be met by people I trust.”
“Partridge won’t fall for it.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. But then he won’t know about Mr. Collins here, will he? As long as I have Mr. Collins with me, I hold the trump card. I can expose Partridge.”
“That brings me to another question, Miles. Our friend here”—Billy pointed a brittle finger at Collins—“how did you ever enlist his cooperation?”
Miles smiled, then produced a gun from his pocket.
“Cooperation is a dead principle, Billy. You of all people should know that. The new religion is coercion. From the Latin, meaning to shut in. I feel as though I’ve been shut in for far too long. It’s time to close some doors on Partridge. And I know just the place to do it.”
“Where?”
“My home territory,” said Miles, smiling a smile that would have chilled a good glassful of gin. “I’ve been playing away from home for far too many matches, and I’ve only just realized it.”
It was as dark outside as the half-moons under Jim Stevens’s eyes when he finally switched on his answering machine and heard Janine’s excited voice.
A few minutes later, he was wrestling with his jacket again, trying to pull it on with one hand while he tied his tie with the other. He staggered against a wall, swore to himself, and opened the door back into the wide and humorless world. He was relieved to have an excuse to get out of the flat. He loathed its emptiness and the fact that he maltreated it. But now he had a mission, and had evidence, too, that Janine had forgiven him, though she had said nothing on the telephone. Well, all that could come later. The spy was back in town, and Jim Stevens was ready to confront him.
Though he had forgotten for the moment just why he wanted to speak with him in the first place.
He rode the tube for two stops, began to feel dizzy and sick, and came up into the chilled night. A black cab was there, as though he had hailed it, and he stepped inside, pulling open the window so that he could breathe whatever was out there. It had been a very long forty-eight hours.
The st
reets were empty, and the traffic lights were with him. Soon enough the taxi came to a halt.
“Marlborough Place, guvnor. That’ll be eight quid and tenpence.”
Muttering to himself, he paid off the cabbie and felt a sudden tiredness descend upon him as he climbed out.
“Jim.” It was Janine, standing before him in her private-eye raincoat and headscarf.
“You look the part,” he said. Then remembered. “Look, Janine, I’m sorry about—well, about everything. I mean it.”
“This is not the time for self-pity, mister. Where have you been? No, never mind. I can guess from your look. Come on, let’s go get your spy.”
He watched her cross the road, wondering what he was doing here so late at night when he could be zapping aliens at one of the all-nighter arcades down by Piccadilly. But the way she moved . . .There was nothing to do but follow, even though it took the final drops of his energy to climb the half-dozen steps to Miles Flint’s front door. By the time he pushed at the doorbell, he was dizzy again and breathing hard. Janine gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Forgiven,” she said with the briskness of a priest.
Flint’s wife opened the door. She looked drawn, as though they had disturbed her in the midst of a crisis. She looked dazed, too, with the sluggish motions of a shell-shocked survivor. She didn’t seem to recognize Stevens and spent the first few seconds concentrating her attention on Janine.
Stevens himself felt about as unhealthy as a human being could come without actually being on a slab.
She recognized him at last.
“Not you again,” she said.
“I know he’s here,” puffed Stevens. “He’s back. Can I speak to him now?”
“He’s gone off again.”
“But I saw him this evening,” said Janine.
“Yes, but now he’s gone.” Sheila Flint opened the door wide. “Take a look if you like. He told me never to let strangers in, but I don’t suppose it matters now.”
The look on Jim Stevens’s weathered face would have melted the heart of the meanest crone. Janine thought he was about to cry and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.