Spy Story (14 page)

‘You know what they do – licences, insurance, breathalyser tests.'

‘But Toliver was unconscious.'

‘They let me take him home. The others were all with the police when I left. I pretended that I'd arrived at the same time as the police. None of them realized I knew what it was all about.'

‘Drink your cocoa.'

I know you think I treat him badly, but I knew Ferdy Foxwell of old. I'm telling you, we could well be talking about a perfectly normal traffic shunt: two drivers with powerful scouse accents arguing with a drunken Toliver who'd nearly killed them going through a red light.

‘I got the registration numbers both for the Albion lorry and the Humber Estate. Will you find out about it? And see what the police did with the Russians?'

‘I'll do what I can.'

‘Tomorrow?'

‘Very well.'

‘And, Patrick. You must remember that Toliver really is working for the British Secret Service.'

‘What difference will that make?'

‘What I mean is … don't let your prejudice mislead you.'

‘Look, Ferdy. Toliver is a drunk. They kicked him out of that Cabinet Office job he had, because he was a drunk. And they have put up with some very drunk people in the past.'

‘He's still an MP,' said Ferdy.

‘The chances of him remaining one after the next election are very slim. But the point I was going to make was that Toliver was a member of the Party back in 'forty-five and 'forty-six. He'd never be considered for a high security clearance, let alone a job in the Service.'

‘How do you know? About him being a communist, I mean.'

I'd read it in Toliver's file many years ago but I could hardly tell Ferdy that. ‘It's an open secret. Ask anyone.'

He smiled. ‘He was at Oxford a year ahead of me, another college, but our paths crossed now and again. He had a rough time there. His father gave him only a very tiny allowance. We all had cars and a little spending money but poor old Tolly did some lousy job in the evenings to make ends meet. Never saw him at parties. The trouble was that he wasn't all that bright. Of course, it's no crime being average, no crime at all, but it meant he had to get his nose into the books whenever he wasn't washing dishes or whatever he did. It's enough to make anyone join the communists, isn't it?'

‘You're breaking my heart. What about the poor bastards who didn't even get as far as grammar school. And some of them a lot more intelligent than Toliver at his brightest and most sober.'

‘You don't like him, I know. It's difficult to see the situation when there are personal feelings involved.'

‘Ferdy, you're in no position to pronounce judgement on people who are less than bright. Or those who let personal feelings warp their judgement. Toliver is not a part of any intelligence service and I'll bet everything I own on that.'

‘Do you still want the registration number?'

‘OK. But just get it clear in your mind that Toliver is nothing to do with the British Secret Service and that these men were not Russians. Or at least not Russian spies.'

‘Then who were they?'

‘I don't know who they were, Ferdy. Maybe they were claret salesmen or a delegation of well-wishers from the
Good Food Guide.
But they were not Russian spies. Now do me a favour, and go home and forget it.'

‘But you'll check the registration?'

‘I'll check the registration.'

‘I'd go, but with the
TACGAME
Schlegel would –'

‘– kill you with his bare hands. You're right.'

‘You think it's funny, but did it occur to you that Schlegel might be behind the whole thing?'

‘Because he crossed swords with Toliver tonight? If that's enough reason, why couldn't I be behind the whole thing?'

‘I had to take a chance on someone,' said Ferdy, and I realized that he had given that possibility a lot of thought.

‘I'll send a message to Schlegel that I'll be late.'

Ferdy bit his lip at the thought of it. ‘He won't like it.'

‘No, but I won't be around to hear, you will.'

Outside, the traffic lights had changed: a sports car with a broken silencer accelerated past a milk truck that rattled noisily as it went over a newly repaired patch in the road.

‘I'd never get used to that traffic all night,' said Ferdy.

‘We can't all live in two acres of Campden Hill, Ferdy,' I said. ‘It would get so damned crowded.'

‘Oh dear. No offence. I just mean, I don't know how you ever get to sleep.'

‘No? Well buzz off and I'll let you know.'

‘Yes, right-ho. Was there anything else then?'

That's what I like about the Foxwells of the world – was there anything else then, as if he'd already done me one favour.

The actions of the civil power will not be included in the
TACWARGAME
.

RULES
. ‘
TACWARGAME
'.
STUDIES CENTRE
.
LONDON

The new security badges that Schlegel had arranged for us seemed a suitable device for impressing detective-sergeants of the Met. I pushed mine across the debris-laden desk of Sergeant Davis. He read it, one word at a time, looking for spelling mistakes, tried to prise the plastic facing off it, put some tension on the safety pin fixed to the back and bowed it between his fingers. Having passed the forensic tests it was tossed back onto the desk. It slipped down between files marked ‘Life Saving (Cadets)' and ‘Community Relations'. He watched me as I fished it out and put it back in my pocket.

‘So?' he said. ‘So?' As if he'd found on it some affront: an insulting anagram or a sneer on the mouth of my identity photo.

‘So nothing,' I said, but he was unappeased. He pushed aside heaps of dead paperwork, reshuffling bits of it almost without noticing. ‘The Bentley.' He found a sheet of paper and read from it. ‘Two forty-five ack emma?' He was that kind of policeman. Not only ack-emma, but skull-close haircut, and shoes polished on the sole.

‘That's it.'

‘And you are acting … ?'

‘For the driver – Toliver.'

‘Unconscious.'

‘Yes.'

He read his papers carefully and looked up. ‘All that …' he screwed up his face trying to think of a word. ‘All that … spy-now-pay-later, credit cards …' he flicked a finger at my pocket where I'd put the card. ‘That cuts no ice with me. Nor does it being a Bentley.' He waved a hand, to tell me he hadn't finished. ‘I'll tell you as much as I'd tell the kid on the local rag. No more, no less.'

A policewoman came into the room. She brought two mugs of tepid tea. His mug had a coloured photo of the Queen, mine had Peter Rabbit. ‘Thanks, Mary.' He shuffled the papers again, hiding behind them coyly, like a flirtatious Edwardian opera-goer. ‘Container lorry in collision with green Bentley …' He stopped reading and looked up. ‘There's no mystery story. Traffic signals, hydraulic brakes, car driving too close – it happens a dozen times a day, and night.'

‘You are not making it a police job?'

He looked at his watch. ‘You people really earn your money, don't you. It's only ten past eight. I thought coppers and burglars were the only people up this early.'

‘Are you?'

His voice rose a fraction. ‘A police job? How could we? The breathalyser was OK, licence, insurance, hours on duty, all OK. The lorry was halted at the red light, the damage to the Bentley was the offside
front
wing. Front wing speaks for itself, doesn't it? If your boss Toliver sent you down here to save his no-claim bonus he's unlucky, forget it.'

‘Toliver is unconscious.'

‘That's right, I forgot. Well, the answer's still the same.' He read a little more from his script and broke it down into baby-talk for me. ‘The constable took the names of the lorry drivers but you can tell your boss he's wasting his time. The court will always take the policemen's evidence in a case like this, and they'll say your boy was following too close. If there was a careless driving charge to be made,
he'd
get it.'

‘This could be more serious than just a traffic accident,' I said.

He whistled softly – to feign amazement. ‘Are you trying to tell us something, Mr Armstrong?' The way he said ‘us', it meant the police forces of the Western world.

‘I'm trying to ask you something.'

‘And I'm not getting it. Yes, I'm very dense this early on a Thursday morning.'

‘But this is Tuesday.'

‘No, it's not, it's … ah, I thought you'd turn out to be a comedian.'

‘Sergeant, a ten-ton truck stopping hard in front of a car would be a good way of killing a man, wouldn't it?'

‘It would be a risky way of killing a man, Mr Armstrong, for a number of reasons. Motive, for a start: a fatality like that attracts enough paperwork for the connection to be noticed. Hell, we get enough allegations from
strangers
in collision.' He grabbed his thumb to tell me that was his first reason. ‘I won't mention the traffic lights again but I will remind you that your boss is not dead …'

‘He's not my boss.'

‘Whoever he is, he's not dead. That's what proves it wasn't some maniac trying to kill him. They must have put the brakes on carefully enough or he would have been buried somewhere inside the mesh of the lorry's differential. So don't tell me murder.'

Davis had mentioned the same flaw in Ferdy's allegation that I'd seen. There was no arguing it. Attempted murder was a possibility but a damned slim one. ‘There was a Humber Estate just behind him.'

‘Yes, a whole procession of people driving up and down … Half the bloody world drives round London all night, didn't you know that? Beats me why they don't want to go home and get some sleep, but there they are every night. Anyway, all this lot arrived too late to see anything.'

‘Did they?'

‘What am I supposed to do, give them the water torture?'

‘But if anything new turns up, you'll phone me?'

‘OK, Philip Marlowe, leave your name and phone number with the desk sergeant.'

‘You are going to make it a traffic statistic, come what may, aren't you?' I said.

He looked through all his pockets for a cigarette but I failed to respond to my cue. Finally he had to walk across the room and get his own packet from his raincoat. He didn't offer them. He took one out and lit it carefully, held up his gold-plated Dunhill and snapped the top closed at arm's length. Then he sat down and almost smiled. ‘We have a witness, that's why, Mr Armstrong. Fair enough? Can I get on with my work now?'

‘What witness?'

‘There was a lady in the car with Toliver. She signed a statement for us before the doctor gave her a sedative. It was an accident – no panic, no murder, just one of those traffic statistics you mentioned.'

‘Who?'

He took out a little black book. ‘Miss Sara Shaw, The Terrine du Chef – a French restaurant, sounds like, eh? You go and put your foot in her door but watch out that she doesn't send for the police.' He smiled. ‘Put your foot in it but don't put your foot in it, if you see what I mean.'

I got to my feet and waved goodbye. ‘You didn't finish your tea,' he said.

He'd pulled that damned witness out of his helmet and now he was very pleased with himself. I said, ‘Can I have the names and addresses of the lorry drivers?'

‘Now, you know I'm not supposed to do that,' but he turned the sheets of paper over to find it. Then he twisted the page round so that it faced my side of the desk and got up and walked away so that I could read it.

‘They were catching the boat,' he said from behind me. ‘You wouldn't think it would pay a Polish meat-canning firm to send truck and drivers all the way here and return empty, but I suppose they know what they are doing.'

‘Maybe it's a nationalized industry,' I said. It was a long Polish name with an address in London Wall.

‘You didn't drink the tea,' he said again.

‘I'm trying to give it up,' I said.

‘Stick with the tea,' he advised. ‘Give up playing copper.'

Intelligence and espionage (in plus and minus categories) are programmed according to Section 9 of the
STUCEN
Programming Manual. Commanders are solely responsible for information, false or otherwise, collected outside game time, i.e. in off-duty hours.

RULES
.
ALL GAMES
.
STUDIES CENTRE
.
LONDON

I was half inclined to give the sedated Miss Shaw a miss, but it would only give Ferdy another excuse for a long whine. The Terrine du Chef was a converted shop in Marylebone. ‘Restaurant Française' had been gilt-lettered across the old shop window and the interior obscured with a large net curtain.

A menu was jammed into an illuminated holder in the doorway. It was handwritten, in the crabbed calligraphy that the English believe to be a hallmark of the French restaurateur. There was a ‘Closed' sign behind the glass panel in the door but I pushed and the door swung open. I reached up to catch the sprung bell before it announced my arrival.

It was a cramped place. An odd collection of bentwood chairs were dancing on the table-tops. The dining-room had been dressed to look like a Paris bistro of the 'thirties, with enamel Suze adverts, marble-topped tables and fancy mirrors on every wall. A debris of corks, paper napkins and cigarette ends had been swept to a neat pile in the corner under the serving hatch. On the counter there was an array of cutlery, a line-up of old bottles stuck with coloured candles and a pile of freshly laundered red check tablecloths. There was a smell of burned garlic, ancient cigars and freshly peeled potatoes. I walked through to the kitchen. From a tiny dark yard beyond it I could hear a young man's voice singing softly and the noises of buckets and metal lids.