"London Match" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deighton Len)

8

Christmas was gone but, having been on duty, I had my Christmas leave to come. I took the children to the circus and to the theatre. We did the things they wanted to do. We inspected the model ships and real planes on the top floors of the Science Museum, the live reptiles in the Regent's Park zoo and the plaster dinosaur skeleton in the hall of the Natural History Museum. The children had seen it all before, over and over again, but they were creatures of habit and they chose the things they knew so well so that they could tell me about them, instead of me telling them. I understood this pleasure and shared it. The only thing that marred these delightful events was that Gloria had no leave days to enjoy and I missed her.

I took the children to see George Kosinski, their uncle and my brother-in-law. The place we visited was not one of his swanky motorcar showrooms but a dirty cobbled yard in Southwark. One-time marshland, the district was now a grimy collection of slums and sooty factories interspersed with ugly new office blocks as rent increases drive more and more companies south of the River Thames.

George Kosinski's repair yard was a derelict site; a place that had been hit by a German bomb in 1941 and never subsequently built upon. Next to the yard was a heavy and ornate block of Victorian flats that had become slums. Across the road, more recent municipal housing was even worse.

George's yard was protected by a high wall into which broken glass had been cemented to discourage uninvited callers. For those more difficult to discourage there were two guard dogs. Along the other side of the yard there was a railway viaduct. Two arches of the viaduct had been bricked up and converted to repair shops, but one section of the arched accommodation had been made into an office.

George was sitting behind a table. He was wearing his hat and overcoat, for the small electric fan-heater did little to warm the cold damp air. The ceiling curved over his head and nothing had been done to disguise or insulate the ancient brickwork of the arch. In a cardboard box in the corner there were empty beer and wine bottles, cigarette butts, broken glass and discarded Christmas decorations. Through the thin partition that separated this makeshift office from the workshop there came the sound of rock music from a transistor radio.

George Kosinski was thirty-six years old, although most people would have thought him five or even ten years older than that. He was a small man with a large nose and a large moustache, both of which looked inappropriate, if not false. The same could be said of his strong cockney accent to which I had to get freshly attuned each time I saw him. His suit was expensive: Savile Row, with the lapels stitched a little too tight so as to make the handwork evident. His shirt, his shoes, which were resting on the table amid the paperwork, and his tie were all as expensive as can be. His hair was curly, and greying at the temples to give him the distinguished appearance that is the result of regular visits to the hairdresser. Whatever he economized on, it was not his clothes or his transport, for outside there stood his gleaming new Rolls.

'Well, here we are. You've come to beard your Uncle George in his den, have you?' He took his feet off the table with a sigh. I had the feeling that he'd contrived that posture for our entrance. He liked to think of himself as unconventional.

The children were too awed to reply. Leaning back in his chair George banged on the wall with the side of his fist. Someone next door responded to this command, for the radio was immediately turned down.

'Your father's come to buy a beautiful car from me – did he tell you that?' He looked up at me and added, 'It's not arrived yet.' A glance at his watch. 'Any minute now.'

'We're a bit early, George,' I said.

'Can't give you a drink or anything. I don't keep anything of any value here. You can see what it's like.'

I could see. The cracked lino on the floor and the bare walls said it all. As well as that, there was a notice that said we don't buy car radios. He saw me looking at it and said, 'All day long there are people in and out of here trying to sell me radios and tape recorders.'

'Stolen?'

'Of course. What would these tearaways be doing with an expensive car stereo except that they've ripped it out of some parked car? I never touch anything suspect.'

'Do you spend much time here?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'I call in from time to time. You run a business, any sort of business, you have to see what's happening. Right, Bernard?'

'I suppose so.' George Kosinski was a rich man, and I wondered how he endured such squalor. He wasn't mean – his generosity was well known and admitted even by those with whom he struck the tough bargains for which he was equally well known.

'Rover 3500; you'll not be sorry you bought it, Bernard. And if I'm wrong, bring it back to me and I'll give you your money back. Okay?'

'Okay,' I said. He was saying it to the children as much as to me. He liked children. Perhaps his marriage would have been happier if he'd had children of his own.

'I saw it yesterday morning. Dark green, a beautiful respray, just like a factory finish, and the people doing the waxing job are the best in the country. You've got a vintage car there, Bernard. Better than that: a special. The V-8 engine has scarcely been used.'

'It's not another one of those cars that's been owned by that old lady who only used it to go shopping once a week and was too nervous to go more than twenty miles an hour?' I said.

'Naughty,' said George with a smile. 'Your dad is naughty,' he told the children. 'He doesn't believe what I'm telling him. And I've never told a fib in my life.' Suddenly there came a thunderous roar. Billy flinched and Sally put her hands on her head. 'It's the trains,' said George. 'They're only just above our heads.'

But George's boast had captured Billy's imagination and when the sound of the tram diminished he said, 'Have you really never told a fib, Uncle George? Never ever?'

'Almost never,' said George. He turned to me. 'I have a friend of yours calling in this morning. I told him you'd be here.'

'Who?'

'It's not a secret or anything?' said George. 'I won't get into trouble for telling somebody where you are, will I?' It was a jest, but not entirely a jest. I'd heard the same sort of resentment in the voices of other people who had only a rough idea of what I did for a living.

He screwed his face up in an expression that was somewhat apologetic. 'There are people who know I know you… people who seem to know more about what you do for a living than I know.' Nervously George pushed his glasses up, using his forefinger. He was always doing that when he became agitated. The spectacle frames were too heavy, I suppose, or perhaps it was perspiration.

'People try to guess what I do,' I said. 'Better they're not encouraged, George. Who is it?'

'Posh Harry they call him. Do you know who I mean? He's something in the CIA, isn't he? He seems to know you well enough. I thought it would be all right to say I was seeing you.'

'It was a long time ago that he worked for the CIA,' I said. 'But Harry is all right. He's coming here, you say?'

'He wants to see you, Bernard. He reckons he's got something you'll like.'

'We'll see,' I said. 'But you know what he's like, George. I never meet him without wondering if he's going to wind up selling me a set of encyclopedias.'

Posh Harry arrived on time. He was a pristine American, whose face, like his suits and linen, seemed never to wrinkle. He was of Hawaiian extraction, and although in a crowd he would pass as European, he had the flat features, small nose, and high cheekbones of Oriental peoples. He spent half his life on planes and had no address except hotels, shared offices and box numbers. He was an amazing linguist and he always knew what was happening to whom, from Washington to Warsaw and back again. He was what the reporters call 'a source' and always had something to add about the latest spy scandal or trial or investigation whenever the media ran short of comment. His brother – much older than Harry – was a CIA man whose career went back to OSS days in World War II. He'd died in some lousy CIA foul-up in Vietnam. Sometimes it was suggested that Harry was a recognized conduit through whom the CIA leaked stories they wanted to make public, but it was difficult to reconcile that with Harry's family history. Harry was not an apologist for the CIA; he'd never completely forgiven them for his brother's death.

Harry was exactly the kind of man that Hollywood casts as a CIA agent. His voice was just right too. He had the sort of low, very soft American voice that is crisp, clear and attractive; the voice that sports commentators use for games that are very slow and boring.

Harry arrived wearing those English clothes you can only find in New York City. A dark-grey cotton poplin raincoat, calfskin oxford shoes, tweedy jacket, and a striped English old school tie that had been invented by an American designer. The hat was a giveaway though; a plaid sports cap that few Englishmen would wear, even on a golf course.

'Good to see you again, George,' he said as he took George's hand. Then he gave me the same sort of greeting, in that low gravelly voice, and shook my hand with a firm, sincere grip.

'I'll go and see if your motorcar has arrived,' said George. 'Come on, kids.'

'I spoke on the phone to Lange,' explained Harry. 'He really enjoyed meeting with you again.'

'What did Lange have to say?'

'Nothing I didn't already know. That you're still working hard, following up orders from London Central.'

'What else?'

'Something about Bret Rensselaer,' said Harry. 'I didn't pay too much attention.'

'That's the best way with Lange,' I agreed. 'He has a bee in his bonnet about Bret Rensselaer.'

'So it's not true that Bret's being specially vetted?'

'Not as far as I know,' I said.

'I'm no special buddy of Bret's, as you probably know. But Bret is one hundred per cent okay. There's no chance Bret would do anything disloyal.'

'Is that so?' I said, keeping it all very casual.

'For years your people kept Bret away from any US sensitive material in case it compromised his loyalty, but he was never any kind of undercover man for the Agency. Bret is your man, you can rest assured on that one.'

I nodded and wondered where Posh Harry had got the idea that Bret was suspected of leaking to the Americans. Was that Lange's misinterpretation or Harry's? Or was it simply that no one could start to envisage him doing anything as dishonourable as spying for the Russians? And if that was it, was I wrong? And, if he was guilty of such ungentlemanly activities, who was going to believe it?

'What have they got against Bret anyway?' asked Harry.

'Better you contact me through the office, Harry,' I said. 'I don't like getting my relatives involved.'

'Sure, I'm sorry,' said Harry, giving no sign of being sorry. 'But this is something better done away from the people across the river there.' He gave a nod in the vague direction of Westminster and Whitehall.

'What is it?'

'I'm going to give you something on a plate, Bernard. It will give you a lot of kudos with your people.'

'That's good,' I said without sounding very keen. I'd suffered some of Harry's favours in the past.

'And that's the truth,' said Harry. 'Take a look at that.' He passed me a photocopy of a typewritten document. There were eight pages of it.

'Do I have to read it? Or are you going to tell me what it's all about?'

'That's a memo that was discussed by the Cabinet about three or four months ago. It concerns the security of British installations in West Germany.'

'The British Cabinet? This is a British Cabinet memo?'

'Yessir.'

'Is there anything special about it?'

'The special thing about it was that one copy at least ended up in the KGB files in Moscow.'

'Is that where this photocopy came from?'

'KGB; Moscow. That is exactly right,' he smiled. It was the salesman's smile, broad but bleak.

'What has this got to do with me, Harry?'

This could be the break you need, Bernard.'

'Do I need a break?'

'Come on, Bernard. Come on! Do you think it's a secret that your people are nervous about employing you?'

'I don't know what you're talking about, Harry,' I said.

'Okay. When your wife defected it was swept under the carpet. But don't imagine there were no off-the-record chats to the boys in Washington and Brussels. So what do you think those people were likely to say? What about the husband, they asked. I'm not going to baby you along, Bernie. Quite a few people – people in the business, I mean – know what happened to your wife. And they know that you are under the microscope right now. Are you going to deny it?'

'What's your proposition, Harry?' I said.

'This memo is a hot potato, Bernie. What son of a bitch leaked that one? Leaked it so that it didn't stop moving until it got to Moscow?'

'An agent inside Ten Downing Street? Is that what you're selling me?'

'Number Ten is your neck of the woods, old buddy. I'm suggesting you take this photocopy and start asking questions. I'm saying that a big one like this could do you a power of good right now.'

'And what do you want out of it?'

'Now come on, Bernie. Is that what you think of me? It's a present. I owe you a couple of favours. We both know that.'

I folded the sheets as best I could and put it all into my pocket. 'I'll report it, of course.'

'You do whatever you choose. But if you report it, that paper will go into the box and you'll never hear another thing about it. The investigation will be directly handed over to the security service. You know that as well as I do.'

'I'll think about it, Harry. Thanks anyway.'

'A lot of folks are rooting for you, Bernard.'

'Where did you get it, Harry?'

Posh Harry had a foot on the chair and was gently scraping a mud spot from his-shoe with his fingernail. 'Bernard!' he said reproachfully. 'You know I can't tell you that.' He wet his fingertips with spittle and tried a second time,

'Well, let's eliminate a few nasties,' I said. 'This wasn't taken from any CIA office, was it?'

'Bernard, Bernard.' He was still looking at his shoe. 'What a mind you've got!'

'Because I don't want to carry a parcel that's ticking.'

He finished the work on his shoe and put his feet on the floor and looked at me. 'Of course not. It's raw, it's hot. It hasn't been on any desks.'

'Some kind of floater then?'

'What do you think I am, Bernard? A part-time pimp for the KGB? Do you think I've lasted this long without being able to smell a KGB float?'

'There's always a first time, Harry. And any one of us can make a mistake.'

'Well, okay, Bernard. I've got no real provenance on this one, I'll admit that. It's a German contact who's given me nothing but gold so far.'

'And who pays him?'

'He's not for sale, Bernard.'

'Then it's no one I know,' I said.

He gave a little mirthless chuckle as a man might acknowledge the feeble joke of a valuable client. 'You're getting old and embittered, Bernard. Do you know there was a time when you'd get angry at hearing a crack like that? You'd have given your lecture about idealism, and politics, and freedom, and people who have died for what they believe in. Now you say it's no one you know.' He shook his head. It was mockery, but we both knew he was right. We both knew plenty of people who had never been for sale, and some of them had died proving it.

'Is George selling you a car?' I said to change the subject.

'I lease from George. I've done that for years. He lets me change cars, see? You knew that, didn't you?' He meant that George let him have a succession of cars when he was keeping someone under observation and didn't want the car he used recognized.

'No,' I said. 'George observes the discretion of the confessional. I didn't even know he knew you,'

'And nice kids, Bernie.' He slapped me on the back. 'Don't look so worried, pal. You've got a lot of good friends. A lot of people owe you. They'll see you through.'

Posh Harry was in the middle of saying all this when the door of the office crashed open. In the doorway there was a woman, thirtyish and pretty in the way that women become pretty if they use enough expensive makeup. She wore a full-length fur coat and hugged a large handbag to herself as if it contained a lot of valuables.

'Hon-ee,' she called petulantly. 'How much longer do I have to sit around in this dump?'

'Coming, sweetheart,' said Posh Harry.

'Har-ree! We're going to be so late,' she said. Her voice was laden with magnolia blossoms, the sort of accent that happens to ladies who watch Gone With the Wind on TV while eating chocolates.

Harry looked at his watch. Then we went through the usual routine of exchanging phone numbers and promising to meet for lunch, but neither of us put much enthusiasm into it. After Harry had finally said goodbye, George Kosinski returned with the kids.

'Everything all right, Bernard?' he said. He looked at me expectantly. I suppose for George all meetings were deals or potential deals.

'Yes, it was all right,' I said.

'Your Rover is there. The kids like it.' He put his briefcase on the table and began to rummage through it to find the registration book, but he only found it after dumping the contents of his case on the table. There was a bundle of mail ready to be posted, a biography of Mozart, and an elaborately bound Bible. 'A present for my nephew,' he said, as if the presence of the Bible required some sort of explanation. He also found a copy of the Daily Telegraph, an assortment of car keys with large labels attached, an address book, some foreign coins, and a red silk scarf. He waved the Mozart book at me. 'I've become interested in music lately,' he said. 'I've been going to concerts with Tessa. Mozart had a terrible life, did you know that?'

'I'd heard rumours,' I said.

'If ever you wanted to prove that there is no relationship between effort and reward in this world, you've only got to read the life of Mozart.'

'You don't even have to do that,' I said. 'You can come and work in my office and find that out.'

'The piano concertos,' said George. He pushed his glasses up again. 'It's the piano concertos that I really like. I've gone right off pop music since discovering Mozart. This morning I've ordered the complete quintets from the record shop. Wonderful music, Bernard. Wonderful.'

'Is Tessa sharing this musical enthusiasm?' I asked.

'She goes along with it,' said George. 'She's an educated woman, of course. Not like me; left school at fourteen hardly able to write. Tessa knows about music and art and that sort of thing. She learned it at school.'

He saw me glancing out of the window at what was going on in the yard. 'The children are all right, Bernard. My foreman is letting them help him with a decoking job. All kids are keen on mechanical things; you probably know that already. You just can't keep boys away from motorcars. I was like that when I was young. I loved cars. Most of the cars pinched are taken by kids too young to get a driving licence.' He sighed. 'Yes, Tessa and me are getting along. We've got to, Bernard. She's getting too old for running after other men; she's realized that herself.'

'I'm glad,' I said. 'I've always liked Tessa.'

George stopped this rambling conversation. He looked at me and spent a moment thinking about what he was going to say. 'I owe you an apology, Bernard. I know that.'

He'd virtually accused me of having an affair with his wife Tessa at a time when he was suspecting every man who knew her of the same thing. Now he'd had a chance to see things in perspective.

'It's never been like that,' I said. 'In fact, I never really knew her until Fiona left me. Then Tessa did everything to help… with the children and getting the house sorted out and arguing with her father and so on. I appreciate it and I like her, George. I like her very much. I like her so much that I think she deserves a happy marriage.'

'We're trying,' said George. 'We're both trying. But that father of hers. He hates me, you know. He can't bear anyone he knows hearing that I'm his son-in-law. He's ashamed of me. He calls himself a socialist, but he's ashamed of me because I don't have the right accent, the right education, or the right family background. He really hates me.'

'He's not exactly crazy about me,' I said.

'But you don't have to meet him in your club or fall over him in restaurants when you've got a client in tow. I swear he's screwed up a couple of good deals for me by barging in when I'm in the middle of lunch and making broad hints about my marriage. Life's difficult enough, Bernie. I don't need that kind of treatment, especially when I'm with a client.'

'He may not have done it deliberately,' I said.

'Of course he does it deliberately. He's teaching me a lesson. I go round telling everyone that I'm his son-in-law, so he goes round telling everyone that I can't control my wife.'

'Does he say that?'

'If I caught him…' George scowled as he thought about it. 'He hints, Bernard. He hints. You know what that man can imply with a wink and a nod.'

'He's got some strange ideas,' I said.

'You mean he's dead stupid. Yes, well I know that, don't I. You should hear his ideas about how I should run my business.' George stopped putting his possessions back into the briefcase, placed his hands on his hips, and cocked his head to one side in the manner of my father-in-law. His voice was that of David Kimber-Hutchinson too: 'Go public, George. Look for export opportunities, George. Better still, create a chance to merge with one of the really big companies. Think big. You don't want to be a car salesman all your life, do you?' George smiled.

The egregious David Kimber-Hutchinson was inimitable, but it was a good impersonation. And yet there is no better opportunity of seeing deep into a person's soul than to watch him impersonate someone else. A deep hurt had produced in George a resentment that burned bright. If it came to a showdown, I wouldn't care to be in Kimber-Hutchinson's shoes. And because I was already ranged against my father-in-law, I noted this fact with interest.

'And yet he makes a lot of money,' I said.

They look after each other, the Davids of this world.'

'He wanted the children. He thought he'd adopt them…'

'And make them into little Kimber-Hutchinsons. I know. Tessa told me all about it. But you'll fight him, Bernard?'

'Every inch of the way.'

My enemy's enemy… there is no finer basis for friendship, according to the old proverb. 'Do you see him often?' I asked.

'Too damned often,' said George. 'But I'm determined to be nice to Tessa so I go down there with her and listen to the old man rabbiting on about what a big success he is.' George put his Mozart book into his case. 'He wants to buy a new Roller from me and he's determined to trade in the old one at a good price. He's taken me all round the paintwork and upholstery three times. Three times!'

'Wouldn't that be good business, George? A new Rolls-Royce must cost quite a packet.'

'And have him on my doorstep whenever it didn't start on the first turn of the key? Look, I'm not a Rolls dealer, but I buy and sell a few in the course of the year. They're good, the ones I sell, because I won't touch a dodgy one. It's a tricky market; a customer can't deduct much of the price from his tax allowances these days. But you know, and I know, that no matter what kind of brand new Rolls I get for that old bastard, it will start giving him trouble from the moment I deliver it. Right? It's some kind of law of nature; the car I get for him will give trouble. And he'll immediately decide that it's not straight from the factory at all; he'll say it's one I got cheap because there was something wrong with it.' He snapped the case shut. 'I don't want all that hassle, Bernard. I'd rather he went off and bought one in Berkeley Square. I've told him that, but he won't bloody well believe that there's anyone in this world who turns down a business opportunity.'

'Well, it's not like you, George.'

He grinned ruefully. 'I suppose not, but it's the way I feel about him.'

'Let's go and look at my new car,' I said. But he didn't move from behind the table.

'Posh Harry said you're in trouble. Is that right, Bernard?'

'Posh Harry makes his living by selling snippets of information. What he doesn't know he guesses, what he can't guess he invents.'

'Money trouble? Woman trouble? Trouble at work? If it's money I might be able to help, Bernard. You'd be better borrowing from me than from a High Street bank. I know you don't want to move from the house. Tessa explained all that to me.'

'Thanks, George. I think I'm going to manage the money end. Looks like they're going to give me some special allowance to help with the kids and the nanny and so on.'

'Couldn't you take the children away for a bit? Get a leave of absence and have a rest? You look damned tired these days.'

'I can't afford it,' I said. 'You're rich, George. You can do whatever you fancy doing. I can't.'

'I'm not rich enough to do anything I want to do. But I know what you mean; I'm rich enough to avoid doing the things I don't want to do.' George took off his heavy spectacles. 'I asked Posh Harry what he had to see you about. He didn't want to tell me, but I pressed him. He has to keep in with me, I do him a lot of favours one way and the other. And he wouldn't find many people who'd wait so patiently to be paid. I said, "What do you want with Bernard?" He said, "I'm helping him; he's in trouble." "What kind of trouble?" I said. "His people think he's working for the other side," said Harry. "If they prove it, he'll go to jail for about thirty years; they can't let him walk the streets; he knows too damned much about the way his people work." ' George stopped for a moment.

' "Bernard Samson wouldn't work for the Russians," I said. "I know him well enough to know that, and if the people he works for can't see that they must be stupid." ' George scratched his neck as he decided how to go on with his story. ' "Well, his wife worked for them," said Harry, "and if he's not working for them too, the Russians are not going to leave him alone either." "What do you mean?" I asked Posh Harry. "That's the bind he's in," said Posh Harry, "that's why he needs help. Either the Brits will jail him for thirty years or the Russians will send a hit team to waste him." ' George put his glasses on again and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.

'Posh Harry earns a living selling stories like that, George. It's good dramatic stuff, isn't it? It's like the films on TV.'

'Not when you know one of the cast,' said George. Another train rolled slowly across the viaduct, its noise enough to prevent any conversation. 'Bloody trains,' said George after the sound had died away. 'We had trains making that kind of a racket right alongside the house where I grew up. I swore I'd never have to endure that kind of thing again once I made enough money… and here I am.' He looked round his squalid little office as if seeing it through the eyes of a visitor. 'Funny, isn't it?'

'Let's go and look at my car,' I suggested again.

'Bernard,' said George, fixing me with a serious stare. 'Do you know a man named Richard Cruyer?'

'Yes,' I said, vaguely enough to suddenly deny it if that became necessary.

'You work with him, don't you?'

I tried to remember if George and Tessa had ever had dinner at my home with the Cruyers as fellow guests. 'Yes, I work with him. Why?'

'Tessa has had to see him a couple of times. She says it was in connection with this children's charity she's doing so much work for.'

'I see,' I said, although I didn't see. I'd never heard Tessa mention any sort of charity she was doing any work for and I couldn't imagine what role Dicky Cruyer would play in any charity that wasn't devoting its energies to his own well-being.

'I can't help being suspicious, Bernard. I've forgiven her and removed from my mind a lot of the bad feeling that was poisoning our relationship. But I still get suspicious, Bernard. I'm only human.'

'And what do you want to know?' I asked, although what he wanted to know was only too evident. He wanted to know if Dicky Cruyer was the sort of man who would have an affair with Tessa. And the only truthful answer was an unequivocal 'Yes'.

'What's going on. I want to know what's going on.'

'Have you asked Tessa?'

'It would mean a flare-up, Bernard. It would destroy all the work we've both done trying to put the marriage together. But I've got to know. It's racking me; I'm desperate. Will you find out for me? Please?'

'I'll do what I can, George,' I promised.