The Harry Palmer Quartet

‘Not unless you particularly want to go. I said you’d prefer to stay with Charlotte.’

‘Let me know if I change my mind,’ I said, and Dalby gave me the slanted focus.

‘Don’t let the last few days put a scare into you,’ Dalby said. The plump little girl in white was still demonstrating dance steps. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, really. It was planned to keep you on the hook for a day or so,’ Dalby went on, since I hadn’t replied, ‘but they were anxious to take the heat off a high-ranking suspect, so they did a phase two on you so he’d stick his neck out helping to clobber you. Just grin and bear it for a little while longer, and look like you’re suffering.’

I said, ‘Just as long as the executioner is in on our cosy little secret,’ and I headed across to the girl in white for a cha-cha lesson.

By twelve-thirty I was loaded with anchovy, cheese dip, hard egg and salmon, and about 300 geometrically shaped pieces of cold toast. I cut out by the side entrance of the garden, across the service road at the side of the post office. Blue light glowed from within the sorting office, and a radio played soft big band music which jarred against the music and laughter from the General’s garden. Beyond the post office a white quonset hut stood alone. Inside, behind the counter, a young blond PFC with an almost invisible moustache handed me two cablegrams that had arrived since I last saw him at 6.30.

‘A spy has no friends’ people say; but it’s more complex than that. A spy has to have friends, in fact many sets of friends. Friends he’s made by doing things and by not doing other things. Every agent has his own ‘old boy network’ and like every other ‘old boy network’ it cuts across frontiers, jobs and every other loyalty – it’s a sort of spy’s insurance policy. One has no specific arrangement with anyone, no code other than a mutual sensitivity to euphemisms.

I opened the first cable. It was from a man named Grenade.* (#litres_trial_promo) He was a political man now, and of high enough rank never to have it used as a prefix to his name. The cable said, ‘YOUR NOMINEE REDUNDANT STOP 13BT1818 WILL PAY BERT.’ It had come from the main post office in Lyons and there was no way of associating it with Grenade except that I had monitored some stuff when he was working for French Intelligence, and Bert had been his cover name.

The PFC lit a cigarette for me and coughed his way into the harsh French tobacco of one of mine. I looked at the other cable. It was an ordinary civilian cable handed over a post office counter, and paid for in cash. It had originated at Gerrard Street post office, London. It said: ‘READING A PAPER IN JC ON 3rd OF SECOND.’ It was signed: ‘ARTEMIDORUS.’

I looked at the two sheets of paper. Each sender had implied his message in different ways. Grenade was clearly telling me that I was for the high jump, but that I could use the funds he’d stacked at that number bank account in Switzerland. To find which bank would be easy enough, since they had different codes, and anyone quoting the number can draw without too much trouble. I smiled as I wondered whether this account was the result of the American Express forgeries he had once been involved with. It would be ironic if I was clamped for being an accessory when I tried to draw on it. The second cable was from Charlie Cavendish, who was an undercover man for C-SICH.

(#ulink_f2b5bfb0-5e4a-5855-8d0f-8fa009378095) He liked me because I’d been in the Army with his son. When his son was killed, I’d told him, and had got on so well with the old man that I saw him often. He had a great and devastating sense of humour that illuminated dark corners and prevented him getting a senior position. He lived in a poky Bloomsbury flat, ‘to be near the British Museum,’ he said, and probably had trouble finding the few bob to pay for the cable. It was the most sobering of all my messages.

Back at the party, globules of people were clinging together. I smiled at a very young soldier sitting on a frame chair outside the room the General used as a second office.

‘The General is definitely not to be disturbed, eh, soldier?’ I leered. He smiled back in an embarrassed way, but made no attempt to stop me going into the library. I moved with a studied lack of hurry and lit another cigarette.

The General’s set of Shakespeare were pigskin, hand-tooled, a pleasure to handle. I didn’t need to look up Artemidorus in the third scene of Act 2 Julius Caesar. The old man knew that I knew the play well enough. But I looked it up.* (#litres_trial_promo)

The library was lit by a signal rocket and a hundred ‘Ahs!’ lay lethargic on the air. In the anticipatory silence a voice outside the window said, ‘They just don’t make corks the way they used to.’ Then followed a giggle-giggle of laughter and the sound of pouring wine.

The dim light of the small desk lamp enabled me to see a slim figure standing at the door. The tearing sound of another rocket made me jump. The figure was a tall young PFC with a Band-Aid on his neck and ginger eyebrows that he jammed together to simulate concentration. He marched towards me. He carefully read my identity brooch then compared the photo with me. He gave me a strange perfunctory salute.

‘Compliments of Brigadier Dalby, sir,’ he said.

Brigadier, I thought. What the hell is coming next? He waited.

‘Yes?’ I said inquiringly, and put Julius back on the shelf.

‘There’s been an accident, sir. A generator truck has gone off the road at “Bloody Angle”.’ I knew the place that bore the name of one of Lee’s Civil War emplacements. A low brick wall painted in black and yellow checks separated a roadway blasted out of solid rock from a perpendicular drop into empty space. It was a tricky place for cornering in a jeep; with thirty foot of generator truck it was like drinking from a square glass. He didn’t have to say the next bit. ‘Lieutenant Montgomery was the officer on it, sir.’ It was Barney. The young soldier looked awkward in the face of death. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. He was being nice. I appreciated it. ‘The Brigadier was heading for his car. He said that if you didn’t have transport I was to …’

‘It’s OK,’ I told him, ‘and thanks.’ Outside the clouds had put dark glasses on the moon.

It was a black night, of the sort one only encounters in the tropics. Dalby had on a lambswool US Army windcheater, and stood near a big new shiny Ford. I shouted, ‘Let’s go,’ but his reply was lost in the crackle crackle of a big chrysanthemum rocket. I couldn’t get used to the idea of a dead Barney Barnes. I told myself that it was a mistake, the way one does with facts that the brain prefers to absorb piecemeal.

By the time I had pulled the big oversprung Lincoln Continental on to the road, Dalby’s rear lights were way down the General Guerite highway. The big V8 engine warmed to the rich mixture. I saw Dalby pull over to the left and head along the coast road. This road was less carefully made since only certain lorries carrying supplies were normally allowed to use it. To the left only a hundred metres of sea separated us from the Shot Island. Had it been a better night the ‘mountain’ would have been clearly visible. Dalby was drawing even farther ahead and must have been doing sixty in spite of the road. I hoped he’d be able to talk us out of trouble if any of the road sections were closed. The forty-foot towers at about 300-yard intervals reflected back the sound of the car in roars. Most of the towers held only infra-red TV cameras, but every third tower was manned. I hoped none would phone ahead to stop us taking this obvious short cut from the General’s party. Odd tangles of brush obscured Dalby’s lights now and again. I was peering at the blackerty that sat upon the windscreen when I caught sight of the red ‘CAUTION HALT AT 25 YDS’ sign. I stopped the car. It was 2.12 A.M.

They had closed this section ahead of me with only three miles of forbidden road to traverse. Dalby was nowhere in sight, he had slipped through.

As I felt for my spare cigarettes my hand touched a coarse fabric. I switched on the dashboard light. Someone had left a pair of heavy asbestos insulation gauntlets on the seat. I wondered if Barney had been in the car; he was doing the ‘power’ act. Then I found my Gauloises.

I clicked the cigarette lighter on and waited for it to glow red.

I was still waiting when the sky exploded into daylight – except that daylight and I had, neither of us, been so bright lately.

(#ulink_2ade430b-d579-555f-84a2-5cb8e08e7dde) Combined Services Information Clearing House.

22 (#ulink_1130fc78-c06b-5a58-936d-5a6fddd62054)

I opened the car door and rolled out into the white frozen day-like night. It suddenly became very quiet until from the far side of the island I heard a siren wailing pitifully.

Overhead two police helicopters chug-chugged towards Shot Island, and began dropping hand grenades into the sea. Under each, a huge spotlight waved an erratic beam.

The Air Police had located, recognized and flown towards the light of the large flare, while I was still expecting my eyeballs to melt.

One of the ‘choppers’ stopped, did an about turn and came back to me. The flare spluttered and faded, and now the glare of the spotlight blinded me. I sat very still. It was 2.17. Against the noise of the blades a deeper resonant sound bit into the chill black air. From a loudspeaker, mounted with the light, a voice spoke from the air. I didn’t hear or make sense of the words at first, although I was trying hard. They had a strong accent.

‘Just don’t move a muscle, boy!’ the voice said again.

The two beaters were really close to the car; the one that had spoken held its light about six feet away from my eye sockets – it inched around the car keeping well off the ground. The other ’copter ran its light over the high tension lines and the camera tower. The light looked yellow and dim after the intensity of the high-pitched, almost green, light of the flare. The beam sliced the darkness, it moved up the steel ladder of the tower. Way before the top was reached I saw the dead soldier in the penumbra of the searchlight: he was hanging half out of the smashed glass window. That he was dead came as no surprise. No one could stay alive in a metal tower connected to the high tension power line, connected by angle irons and bolts in the most professional way.

It was about 2.36 A.M. when a Provost-Colonel arrived to arrest me. At 2.36½ I remembered the big insulating gauntlets. But even had I remembered before, what could I have done?

23 (#ulink_3ba3bdc2-b016-5281-b201-d70ec513c0eb)

I opened my eyes. A 200-watt light bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling. Its light scaled my brain. I closed my eyes. Time passed.

I opened my eyes again; slowly. The ceiling almost ceased to flutter up and down. I could probably have got to my feet but decided not to try for a month. I was very very old. The soldier I’d seen outside the General’s office was now sitting across the room, still reading the same copy of Confidential. On the front cover large print asked, ‘Is he a broad-chasing booze-hound?’

I’d tell you whose face the cover featured, but I can’t afford a million-dollar law suit the way they can. The soldier turned over the page and gave me a glance.

I remembered arriving in this room at 2.59 one night. I remembered the Sergeant who called me names: mostly Anglo-Saxon monosyllabic four-letter ones with the odd ‘Commie’ thrown in for syntax. I remembered that it had been 3.40 when he said, ‘You needn’t keep looking at your watch, Colonel. Your pals are well away by now.’ It was 3.49 when he hit me because of the 200 times I had said ‘I don’t know.’ He hit me a lot after that. He hurt me to the point where I wanted to tell him something. My watch said 4.22 now. It had stopped. It was smashed.

I hoped they would follow standard interrogation techniques so that the good one would appear soon. I lay on a US Army stretcher. Above me the window shutters were locked with a padlock. The room was a big one. The cream paint looked faintly green in the light of the fluorescent tubes. I guessed we were in one of the single-storey buildings of the Administration block on the north end of the island. The room was empty except for a phone, over which was a chair, upon which was my guard. He was unarmed. A sure sign that they weren’t kidding.

That hard metal stretcher felt wonderful. I flexed my torn bruised muscles and tried to reopen my swollen eyes. My companion wrenched himself away from Confidential magazine – he walked across to me. I feigned death – perhaps I have a natural talent for it: I found it very easy. He gave me a kick in the leg. It wasn’t a hard blow but it sent molten pain through every nerve-end from knee to navel. I bottled up my groaning and somehow wasn’t sick, but it was very difficult. The very young soldier reached into his shirt pocket. I heard the sound of a match striking. He gently eased a cigarette into my mouth.

‘If this is Ellis Island I’ve changed my mind,’ I said.

The soldier smiled gently then kicked my leg again. He had a great sense of humour that kid; fine repartee.

I was very hungry. The kid had finished Confidential, Screen Romances, Gals and Gags, and Reader’s Digest before they took me out. I read ‘WAITING-ROOM No. 3’ on the outside of my door. We went a short distance down the hall.

Behind a door marked ‘Medical Officer Security Division’ was a dark, cosy womb-warm room; well-furnished, the handsome brass lamp marshalled light into a bright circle on the mahogany desk.

In the circle of light stood a stainless-steel percolator of hot aromatic coffee, a blue jug of hot milk, toast, butter, crispy grilled streaky bacon, egg en cocotte, marmalade, some waffles and a little jug of hot resinous corn syrup. Behind the desk was an elderly man in a brigadier’s uniform; I recognized the crown of his short-cropped head. It was the Brigadier that Dalby and I had been talking with. He was well enough involved in eating not to look up as I was brought in. He passed bacon into his mouth and pointed to a soft leather armchair with a fork.

‘Cup of coffee, son?’ he said.

‘No thanks,’ I said. My voice was strange and distorted as it left my swollen mouth. ‘I’ve eaten just about all the rich chow I can hold for one day.’

The Brigadier didn’t look up. ‘You’re a real tough kid, eh sonny?’ He poured a coffee into a black Wedgwood cup and put four sugars in. ‘Raise the sugar count,’ he said.