London Match (27 page)

'Not the Home Office,' I corrected her gently.

'That's not the way they'd see it,' she said. Obviously, she too had had dealings with the Home Office, who assumed executive responsibility over everyone and everything.

'You're right,' I said. 'Please go on.'

'So in those departments the memo would go to the permanent secretary, and to his private office, and then to the appropriate branch to be dealt with.'

'Two more administrative officials and at least one executive or clerical officer,' I said.

'In the Cabinet Office add one private secretary and one executive or clerical officer. From there to the Defence Secretariat, which would mean three administrators and one executive or clerical officer.'

'It's quite a crowd,' I said.

'It adds up.' She drank some tea.

A man came in through the door. 'I didn't know you were in here, Mabel. I was just going to use the phone.' Then he caught sight of me. 'Oh, hello, Samson,' he said.

'Hello, Pete,' I said. He was a baby-faced thirty-year-old, with light-brown wavy hair and a pale complexion upon which his cheeks seemed artificially reddened. For all his Whitehall attire — pinstripe trousers and black jacket — Pete Barrett was a very ambitious career policeman who'd taken a law degree at night school. He'd adapted to local costume in just the way I would have expected when I'd first met him about five years earlier. Barren was a Special Branch man who'd been desperate to get into the Department. He'd failed to do so and despite this soft job he'd found, he was bitter about it.

'Is that man bothering you, Mrs Hogarth?' he enquired with his ponderous humour. He was cautious about baiting me, but it was a diffidence laced with contempt. He went round to the window, looked out at the garden as if he might be checking on the gardeners, and then looked at the papers on the desk. She closed the spiral notebook in which she'd been doing her figuring. It had a double red stripe on the cover; such notebooks are for classified information with all the pages numbered.

She kept her hand on the closed notebook. 'A routine enquiry,' she answered, in a studied attempt to discourage his interest.

But he was not to be deterred. 'A routine enquiry?' He gave a forced chuckle. That sounds like Scotland Yard, Mabel. That sounds like what I'm supposed to say.' He leaned forward to read the document on the desk in front of her. He held his tie against his chest so that it wouldn't fall against her. This stiff posture, hand flat on chest, his wavy hair and red cheeks made him look more than ever like a puppet.

'If you're after tea, you're unlucky. My girl is off sick, I made it myself this afternoon. And my ginger biscuits are all finished.'

Barrett didn't respond to this at all. In other circumstances I would have told him to go away in no uncertain terms, but this was his territory and I had no authority to be asking questions here. And I could think of no convincing reason for having this copy of the memo. Furthermore I had the feeling that Barrett had known I was in the room before coming in.

'A Cabinet memo no less,' he said. He looked at me and said, 'What exactly is the problem, Bernie?'

'Just passing the time,' I said.

He stood upright, a puppet on parade now, chin tucked in and shoulders held well back. He looked at me. 'You're on my patch now,' he said with mock severity. Outside, the two gardeners had dug the line of holes for the roses, but one of them was looking up at the sky as if he'd felt a spot of rain.

'It's nothing you'd be interested in,' I said.

'My office received no notice that you were coming,' he said.

Mrs Hogarth was watching me. She was biting her Up, but I don't know whether this was in anger or anxiety.

'You know the drill, Bernie,' he persisted. 'A Cabinet memo . . . that's a serious line of enquiry.'

Mrs Hogarth stopped biting her lip and said, 'I wish you'd stop reading the papers on my desk, Mr Barrett.' She put the photocopy memo I'd given her into the tray with other papers. That particular paper was nothing to do with my visitor and I find your reading it aloud a most embarrassing breach of security.'

Barrett went red. 'Oh . . .' he said. 'Oh. Oh, I see.'

'Use the phone next door. There's no one in there. I really must get on now. Perhaps you're not busy, but I am.'

'Yes, of course,' said Barrett. 'I'll see you around, Bernie.'

I didn't answer.

'And please shut the door,' Mrs Hogarth called after him.

'Sorry,' he said as he came back to close it.

'Now where were we,' she said. 'Ah, yes: Number Ten. Here in Number Ten such a memo would be handled by two private secretaries. And one executive or clerical officer must have seen it. And I think you should consider the possibility that the press office and policy unit were interested enough to read it. That would be quite normal.'

'I'm losing track.'

'I have a note of it. I haven't added the Defence Ministry people. . . .' She paused for a moment to write something on her pad, murmuring as she wrote, '. . . private office, let's say two; permanent secretary's office, another two . . . and policy branch, plus clerical. Let's say eleven at the Defence Ministry.'

'Eleven at the Defence Ministry? But they had no executive action.'

'Don't you think they would want to notify their units in an effort to keep these SIS intruders out?'

'Yes, I suppose they might. But they shouldn't have done it. That wasn't the idea at all. The plan was intended to test the security.'

'Don't be silly. This is Whitehall. This is politics. This is power. The Defence Ministry is not going to stand there and wait patiently and do nothing while you cut their balls off.' She saw the surprise in my face. She smiled. She was a surprising lady. 'And if you're going to do a thorough investigation, you must take into account that some ministers have private secretaries who would handle all papers that cross their ministers' desks. And the way that papers are filed in a registry sometimes means that the registry clerks handle them too.'

'It's a hell of a lot of people,' I said. 'So even the most secret secrets are not very secret.'

'I'm sure I don't have to mention that papers like this are left on desks and are sometimes seen by visitors to the various offices as well as by the staff. And I haven't included your own staff who handled this particular one.' She tapped the photocopy lightly with her fingertips.

'That particular one? What do you mean?'

'Well, this is a photocopy of the Cabinet secretary's copy. You knew that, didn't you?'

'No, I didn't. The number and date have been blanked out. How can you tell?'

She took a biscuit and nibbled it to gain time. 'I'm not sure if I'm permitted to tell you that,' she said.

'It's an investigation, Mrs Hogarth.'

'I suppose it's all right, but I can't give you the details. I can only tell you that when sensitive material like this is circulated, the word processor is used so that the actual wording of its text is changed. Just the syntax, you understand; the meaning is not affected. It's a precaution . . .'

'So that if a newspaper prints a quote from it, the actual copy can be identified.'

'That's the idea. They don't talk about that very much, of course.'

'Of course. And this is the one that went to the Cabinet Office?'

'Yes. I wouldn't have wasted your time with all that detail if I'd known that's all you wanted. I naturally thought you'd photocopied your own copy and were trying to trace one that had been stolen.' She passed the photocopy to me.

'It's natural that you'd think that,' I said as I put it back into my pocket. 'It was stupid of me not to make it all clear.'

'Oh yes, that's made from your Department's copy,' said Mrs Hogarth.

She got to her feet, but for a moment I sat there, slowly coming to terms with the idea that the document Bret Rensselaer had been given for action was the one copied for Moscow's KGB archives. I'd gone on hoping that her answer would be different, but now I would have to look the facts straight in the eye.

'I'll come with you to the door,' she prompted. 'We're getting very security conscious nowadays. Would you like to go out through the Number Ten door? Most people do, it's rather fun, isn't it?'

'You're quite certain?' I said. 'No chance you've got it wrong?'

'No chance at all. I checked it twice against my list. I can't show it to you, I'm afraid, but I could get one of the security people to confirm it. . . .'

'No need for that,' I said.

It was raining now and the gardeners had abandoned the idea of planting the roses. They'd put the plants back into their box and were heading towards the house for shelter.

Mrs Hogarth watched them sorrowfully. 'It happens every time they start on the garden. It's almost like a rainmaking ceremony.'

In the front hall of Number Ten there was a bored-looking police inspector, a woman in an overall distributing cups of tea from a tray, and a man who opened the door for me while holding his tea in one hand. 'I appreciate your help, Mrs Hogarth,' I said. 'I'm sorry about not having the official chit.'

She shook hands as I went out onto that famous doorstep and said, 'Don't worry about the chit. I have it already. It came over this morning.'

'It's our anniversary,' said Gloria.

'Is it?' I said.

'Don't sound so surprised, darling. We've been together exactly three months tomorrow.'

I didn't know from what event she'd started counting, but out of delicacy I didn't enquire. 'And they said it wouldn't last,' I said.

'Don't make jokes about us,' she said anxiously. 'I don't mind what jokes you make about me, but don't joke about us.'

We were in the sitting room of an eleventh-floor flat near Netting Hill Gate, a residential district of mixed races and lifestyles on the west side of central London. It was eight-thirty on a Monday evening. We were dancing very very slowly in that old-fashioned way in which you clasped each other tight. The radio was tuned to Alan Dell's BBC programme of big-band jazz, and he was playing an old Dorsey recording of Tea for Two'. She was letting her hair grow longer. It was a pale-gold colour and now it was breaking over her shoulders. She wore a dark-green ribbed polo-neck sweater, with a chunky necklace and a light-brown suede skirt. It was all very simple, but with her long legs and generous figure the effect was stunning.

I looked around the room: gilded mirror, silk-lined lamp-shades, electric-candle wall lights and red velvet hangings. The hi-fi was hidden behind a row of fake books. It was the same elaborate clutter of vaguely nineteenth-century brothel furnishings that's to be seen in every High Street furniture shop throughout Britain. The curtains were open, and it was better to look through the window and see the glittering patterns of London by night. And I could see us reflected in the windows, dancing close.

Erich Stinnes was thirty minutes overdue. He was to stay here, with Ted Riley in the role of 'minder'. Upstairs, where Stinnes would spend most of his time, there was a small bedroom and study, and a rather elaborate bathroom. It was a departmental house, not exactly a 'safe house' but one of the places used for the clandestine accommodation of overseas departmental employees. It was the policy that such people were not brought into the offices of London Central. Some of them didn't even know where our offices were.

I had come here to greet Stinnes on his arrival, double-check that Ted Riley was in attendance, and take Stinnes out to dinner to celebrate the new 'freedom' he'd been so reluctantly granted. Gloria was with me because I'd convinced Bret, and myself, that her presence would make Stinnes more relaxed and soften him up for the new series of interrogations that were planned.

'What happened about that chit for Number Ten?' I said as we danced. 'Your friend over there said she'd already had one. How could she have got a chit? I didn't even apply for one.'

'I told her a tale of woe. I said that after it was all signed and approved I'd lost it. I told her that I'd get the sack if she didn't cover for me.'

'You wicked girl,' I said.

'There's so much paperwork. If we didn't bend the rules now and again, we'd never get everything done.' As we danced she reached out and stroked my head. I didn't like being stroked like a pet poodle, but I didn't complain. She was only a child and I suppose such corny little manifestations of endearment were what she thought appropriate to her role as a femme fatale. I wondered what she'd really like
me
to do — bury her in long-stem red roses and ravish her on a sable rug in front of a log fire in the mountains, with gypsy violins in an adjoining room?