Yesterday’s Spy

‘There was no reason to be suspicious,’ said Champion. ‘They told me to order the suits, and they paid for them. It was only when they sent a funny little man round to my place to take the labels and manufacturers’ marks out of them that I began to worry. I mean … can you think of anything more damning than picking up some johnny and then finding he’s got no labels in his suits?’

‘There was money in the shoulder-pads,’ I told him. ‘And documents, too.’

‘Well, there you are. It’s the kind of thing a desk-man would dream up if he’d never been at the sharp end. Wouldn’t you say that, Charlie?’

I looked at Champion but I didn’t answer. I wanted to believe him innocent, but if I discounted his charm, and the nostalgia, I saw only an ingenious man improvising desperately in the hope of getting away with murder.

‘How long ago are we talking about?’ I said.

‘Just a couple of weeks before I ran into you … or rather you sought me out. That’s why I wasn’t suspicious that you were official. I mean, they could have found out whatever they needed to know through their normal contacts … but that girl, she wasn’t one of them, Charlie, believe me.’

‘Did you tell her?’

‘Like fun! This girl was trying to buy armaments – and not for the first time. She could take care of herself, believe me. She carried, too – she carried a big .38 in that crocodile handbag.’ He finished his coffee and tried to pour more, but the pot was empty. ‘Anyway, I’ve never killed anyone in cold blood and I wasn’t about to start, not for the department and not for money, either. But I reasoned that someone would do it. It might have been someone I liked a lot better than her. It might have been you.’

‘That was really considerate of you Steve,’ I said.

He turned his head to me. The swelling seemed to have grown worse in the last half hour. Perhaps that was because of Champion’s constant touches. The blue and red flesh had almost pushed his eye closed. ‘You don’t go through our kind of war, and come out the other end saying you’d never kill anyone, no matter what kind of pressure is applied.’

I looked at him for a long time. ‘The days of the entrepreneur are over, Steve,’ I told him. ‘Now it’s the organization man who gets the Christmas bonus and the mileage allowance. People like you are called “heroes”, and don’t mistake it for a compliment. It just means has-beens, who’d rather have a hunch than a computer output. You are yesterday’s spy, Steve.’

‘And you’d sooner believe those organization men than believe me?’

‘No good waving your arms, Steve,’ I said. ‘You’re standing on the rails and the express just blew its whistle.’

He stared at me. ‘Oooh, they’ve changed you, Charlie! Those little men who’ve promised you help with your mortgage, and full pension rights at sixty. Who would have thought they could have done that to the kid who fought the war with a copy of Wage Labour and Capital in his back pocket. To say nothing of that boring lecture you gave everyone about Mozart’s revolutionary symbolism in “The Marriage of Figaro”.’ He smiled, but I didn’t.

‘You’ve had your say, Steve. Don’t take the jury out into the back alley.’

‘I hope you listened carefully then,’ he said. He got to his feet and tossed some ten-franc notes on to the coffee tray. ‘Because if you are only half as naïve as you pretend to be … and if you have put your dabs all over some carefully chosen incriminating evidence …’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Then it could be that London are setting us both up for that big debriefing in the sky.’

‘You’ve picked up my matches,’ I said.

7

‘You’d sooner live in a dump than live in a nice home,’ said Schlegel accusingly.

‘No,’ I said, but without much conviction. I didn’t want to argue with him.

He opened the shutters so that he could see the charcuterie across the alley. The tiny shop-window was crammed with everything from shredded carrot to pig feet. Schlegel shuddered. ‘Yes, you would,’ he insisted. ‘Remember that fleapit you used to have in Soho. Look at that time we booked you into the St Regis, and you went into a cold-water walk-up in the Village. You like dumps!’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘If this place had some kind of charm, I’d understand. But it’s just a flophouse.’ For a long time he was silent. I walked across to the window and discovered that he was staring into the first-floor window across the alley. A fat woman in a frayed dressing-gown was using a sewing machine. She looked up at Schlegel, and when he did not look away she closed her shutters. Schlegel turned and looked round the room. I’d put asters, souci and cornflowers into a chipped tumbler from the washbasin. Schlegel flicked a finger at them and the petals fell. He went over to the tiny writing table that wobbled unless something was wedged under one leg. My Sony radio-recorder almost toppled as Schlegel tested the table for stability. I had turned the volume down as Schlegel had entered, but now the soft sounds of Helen Ward, and Goodman’s big band, tried to get out. Schlegel pushed the ‘off’ button, and the music ended with a loud click. ‘That phone work?’ he asked.

‘It did this morning.’

‘Can I give you a word of advice, fella?’

‘I wish you would,’ I told him.

For a moment I thought I’d offended him, but you don’t avoid Schlegel’s advice that easily. ‘Don’t stay in places like this, pal. I mean … sure, you save a few bucks when you hit the cashier’s office for the price of a hotel. But jeeze … is it worth it?’

‘I’m not hitting the cashier’s office for the price of anything more than I’m spending.’

His face twisted in a scowl as he tried to believe me. And then understanding dawned. ‘You came in here, in the sub, in the war. Right? I remember now: Villefranche – it’s a deep-water anchorage. Yeah. Sure. Me too. I came here once … a long time ago on a flat-top, with the Sixth Fleet. Nostalgia, eh?’

‘This is where I first met Champion.’

‘And the old doll downstairs.’ He nodded to himself. ‘She’s got to be a hundred years old … she was the radio operator … the Princess! Right?’

‘We just used this as a safe-house for people passing through.’

‘It’s a brothel!’ Schlegel accused.

‘Well, I don’t mind that so much,’ I told him. ‘The baker next door waves every morning when I leave. This morning, he winked.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather be in a hotel?’

‘Well, I’m going to ask the Princess if the girls could be a little quieter with the doors.’

‘Banging all night?’ said Schlegel archly.

‘Exactly,’ I said.

‘A cat house,’ mused Schlegel. ‘A natural for an escape chain. But the Nazis had them high on the check-out list.’

‘Well, we won the war,’ I said sharply. Schlegel would get in there, checking out the syntax of my dreams, if he knew the way.

‘I’ll call Paris,’ he said.

‘I’d better tell the Princess.’

‘Do we have to?’

‘We have to,’ I said. ‘Unless you want her interrupting you to tell you how much it’s costing, while you’re talking to the Elysée Palace.’

Schlegel scowled to let me know that sarcasm wasn’t going to help me find out who he was phoning. ‘Extension downstairs, huh?’

I went to the door and yelled down to the bar, at which the Princess was propped with Salut les Copains and a big Johnny Walker. ‘I’m calling Paris,’ I shouted.

‘You called Paris already today, chéri,’ she said.

‘And now we’re calling again, you old bag,’ growled Schlegel, but he took good care to keep his voice down. Already she’d made him apologize to one of the bar girls for saying goddamn.