The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

He was getting into deep water. ‘Two years is a long time,’ he said platitudinously. He would have to learn how to speak like a politician – saying a lot and meaning nothing.

‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘You’re … you’re milder.’

That would never do. ‘I can still be acid when I want to be.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps I’m just becoming older and, maybe, wiser.’

‘You always were wise,’ said Lyn. ‘If only you weren’t so bloody right all the time. Anyway, I wanted to tell you something to your face. I was disappointed when I found you weren’t in England, so I rushed over here.’ She hesitated. ‘Give me a cigarette.’

‘I’ve stopped smoking.’

She stared at him. ‘You have changed.’

‘Temporarily,’ he said, and stretched out his hand to open a drawer in the dressing-table. He took out the gold cigarette case and the lighter and offered her a cigarette. ‘I’ve had a bad head cold.’

She took a cigarette and he lit it. ‘That never stopped you before.’ She drew on the cigarette nervously and blew a plume of smoke. ‘I suppose you’re surprised I’m not smoking a joint.’

Denison suspected that he was encountering something of which hitherto he had only heard – the generation gap. He said, ‘Stop talking nonsense, Lyn. What’s on your mind?’

‘Direct and to the point as usual. All right – I’ve taken my degree.’

She looked at him expectantly and he was aware that she had dropped a bombshell. How he was supposed to react to it he did not know, but the damned thing had better be defused carefully. However, taking a degree was usually a matter for congratulation, so he said, ‘That’s good news, Lyn.’

She regarded him warily. ‘You mean it?’

‘It’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.’

She seemed relieved. ‘Mother thought it was silly. She said that with all the money I’m going to have why should I worry about working – especially with a lot of snotty-nosed East End kids. You know what she’s like. And the Bore didn’t care one way or another.’ For a moment she sounded pathetic. ‘Do you really mean it?’

‘Of course I do.’ He found he was really glad for her and that put sincerity into his voice.

‘Oh, Daddy; I’m so glad!’ She scrambled off the bed and went to her bag. ‘Look what it says in here. I had to get a new passport, anyway.’ She opened the passport and displayed it ‘Occupation – teacher!’ she said proudly.

He looked up. ‘Was it a good degree?’

She made a wry face. ‘Middling-good.’ There was no smile on her face now. ‘I suppose you think a Meyrick should have passed with honours.’

Mentally he damned Meyrick who, apparently, set a superhuman standard. This girl was set on a hair trigger and his slightest word could cause an explosion in which somebody would get hurt – probably Lyn. ‘I’m very glad you’ve got your degree,’ he said evenly. ‘Where are you going to teach?’

The tension eased from her and she lay on the bed again. ‘First I need experience,’ she said seriously. ‘General experience. Then I want to specialize. After that, if I’m going to have a lot of money I might as well put it to use.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll have to know more about what I’m doing before I can tell you that.’

Denison wondered how this youthful idealism would stand up to the battering of the world. Still, a lot could be done with enthusiasm and money. He smiled, and said, ‘You seem to have settled on a lifetime plan. Is there room in the programme for marriage and a family?’

‘Of course; but he’ll have to be the right man – he’ll have to want what I want.’ She shrugged. ‘So far no one like that has come my way. The men at university could be divided into two classes; the stodges who are happy with the present system, and the idealists who aren’t. The stodges are already working out their retirement pensions before they get a job and the idealists are so damned naive and impractical. Neither of them suit me.’

‘Someone will come along who will,’ predicted Denison.

‘How can you be so sure?’

He laughed. ‘How do you suppose the population explosion came about? Men and women usually get together somehow. It’s in the nature of the animal.’

She put out her cigarette and lay back and closed her eyes. ‘I’m prepared to wait.’

‘My guess is that you won’t have to wait long.’ She did not respond and he regarded her intently. She had fallen asleep as readily as a puppy might, which was not surprising considering she had been up all night. So had he, but sleep was the last thing he could afford.

He put on his jacket and took the keys from the zippered compartment of her bag. In the lobby he saw two suitcases standing before the desk and, after checking to make sure they were Lyn’s, he said to the porter, ‘I’d like these taken to my daughter’s room. What’s the number?’

‘Did she have a reservation, Mr Meyrick?’

‘It’s possible.’

The porter checked and took down a key. ‘Room four-thirty. I’ll take the bags up.’

In Lyn’s room Denison tipped the porter and put the two cases on the bed as soon as the door closed. He took out the keys and unlocked them and searched them quickly, trying not to disturb the contents too much. There was little that was of value to him directly, but there were one or two items which cast a light on Lyn Meyrick. There was a photograph of himself – or, rather, of Harry Meyrick – in a leather case. The opposing frame was empty. In a corner of one suitcase was a small Teddy-bear, tattered with much childish loving and presumably retained as a mascot. In the other suitcase he found two textbooks, one on the theory and practice of teaching, the other on child psychology; both heavyweights, the pages sprinkled with diagrams and graphs.

He closed and locked the suitcases and put them on the rack, then went down to his own room. As the lift door opened on to the third floor he saw Armstrong just stepping out of the other lift. Armstrong held out an envelope. ‘Mr Carey told me to give you this.’

Denison ripped open the envelope and scanned the sparse typescript on the single sheet. The only thing it told him that he had not learned already was that Lyn Meyrick’s sport was gymnastics. ‘Carey will have to do better than this,’ he said curtly.

‘We’re doing the best we can,’ said Armstrong. ‘We’ll get more later in the day when people have woken up in England.’

‘Keep it coming,’ said Denison. ‘And don’t forget to remind Carey that I’m still waiting for an explanation.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ said Armstrong.

‘Another thing,’ said Denison. ‘She said she’d find me either here in Oslo or in Helsinki in Finland. That baffled me until I realized I don’t know a bloody thing about Meyrick. Carey mentioned a dossier on Meyrick – I want to see it.’

‘I don’t think that will be possible,’ said Armstrong hesitantly. ‘You’re not cleared for security.’

Denison speared him with a cold eye. ‘You bloody fool!’ he said quietly. ‘Right now I am your security – and don’t forget to tell Carey that, too.’ He walked past Armstrong and up the corridor to his room.

TWELVE (#ulink_4748f8ca-5471-5318-a593-d0bb6964fbe3)

Carey walked past the Oslo City Hall in the warm mid-afternoon sunshine and inspected the statuary with a sardonic eye. Each figure represented a different trade and the whole, no doubt, was supposed to represent the Dignity of Labour. He concluded that the Oslo City Fathers must have been socialist at one time.

He sat on a bench and looked out over the harbour and Oslofjord. A ship slid quietly by – the ferry bound for Copenhagen – and there was a constant coming and going of smaller, local ferries bound for Bygdøy, Ingierstrand and other places on the fjord. Camera-hung tourists strolled by and a tour bus stopped, disgorging more of them.

McCready walked up and sat on the bench. Carey did not look at him but said dreamily, ‘Once my job was easy – just simple eyeball stuff. That was back in the days when Joshua sent his spies into the land of Caanan. Then the bloody scientists got busy and ballsed the whole thing up.’

McCready said nothing; he had encountered Carey in this mood before and knew there was nothing to do but wait until Carey got it off his chest.

‘Do you realize the state we’ve got ourselves into now?’ asked Carey rhetorically. ‘I think you’re George McCready, but I could be wrong. What’s more, you could think you’re George McCready and, if Harding is to be believed, still be wrong. How the hell am I supposed to cope with a situation like that?’

He disregarded McCready’s opening mouth. ‘The bloody boffins are lousing up the whole damned world,’ he said violently, and pointed towards the line of statuary. ‘Look at that crowd of working stiffs. There’s not a trade represented there that isn’t obsolete or obsolescent. Pretty soon they’ll put up a statue of me; there’ll be a plaque saying “Intelligence agent, Mark II” and my job’ll be farmed out to a hot-shot computer. Where’s Denison?’

‘Asleep in the hotel.’