A Little White Death (53 page)

‘I was afraid you’d say something like that. The power of metaphor notwithstanding, whatever you do, you know I can’t knock on any doors for you, don’t you,
Freddie?’

It was the odd, familiar moment – so many of them in the life they had led together. Hostility resolved into common purpose, lies boiled down to a frankness Troy seemed to achieve with few
people, then the line too far, the rout, the retreat, the withdrawal, and they edged their way back to the perimeter, strangers and brothers once more.

It was a pointless boast. There was no door on which Troy could knock. It was the knock upon his door that mattered. Driberg, standing in the courtyard, hesitant, startled, his
arm outstretched to the knocker, so quickly had Troy snatched back the door.

‘Not a bad time, I hope? Did try to catch you this morning, but it looked to me as though you and your brother were knee deep in something.’

‘We were. Are you coming in?’

‘Yes.’ He followed Troy back into the house. ‘But then, if you’ve time we should nip out pretty sharpish.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Curran.’

‘What?’

‘Spoke too soon about old Egg. Appears there’s something he has to say to you. I left him in the Coach and Horses not ten minutes ago.’

Troy had spent much of the year gazing upon the lean and hungry. Men, like himself, sapped skeletal by ill-health, the ullage of all that was vital. Edward George Gilbert
Curran was a robust, rotund slob of a man and looked by far to be the unhealthiest specimen he had seen all year. Even Charlie on his self-imposed drunkard’s ride to bloated death by
cirrhosis looked better than this dandruffed, walrusjowled, purple-faced, reeking wreck of humanity. Imagine, thought Troy, if Dante Gabriel Rossetti had gone to pot, not just to fat as he did, but
utterly, irretrievably to pot, boozed out of brain and body – he would look something like the unfortunate Egg.

Egg was drinking the drinking man’s version of beer and a shot – beer and a triple shot. Like most habitual drunks he had a way of communicating through any amount of booze and
seemed, for all his inebriation, to have an immaculate portion of his mind that remained untouched – virgin for speech, even if that speech only amounted to ‘Don’t mind if I
do’, which were his first words once Driberg had introduced them.

‘He hasn’t finished what he’s got,’ Troy whispered.

‘No matter,’ said Tom. ‘He’s a pro. Bring him a large one. Show willing. Look on it as a peace offering, glass beads to the natives.’

‘You mean another triple?’

‘I mean a sextuple. Get them to fill a tumbler.’

When Troy returned from the bar with a pint for Tom, a ginger-beer shandy for himself, and a quarter pint of Scotch for Egg, the two of them were rocking with laughter at something Driberg had
said.

‘Stopit, stopit,’ Egg was saying. ‘Or I’ll wet meself.’

Judging by the state of his trousers this was not an uncommon occurrence. Troy waited for the laughter to die down, waited while he knocked back his pint and triple and started on the tumblerful
of Scotch.

‘Your very good health, sir,’ he said to Troy. ‘Now are you the chap was going to ask me about that bugger Wig?’

Wigg. No. He’d got it wrong. He’d talked to Rod about Wigg. He wanted to talk to this bloke about Curran.

‘That’s right,’ said Driberg, elbowing Troy out of interrupting.

‘Shit,’ said Egg.

And for the best part of a minute shit was all he said.

‘Tell me, er . . .’

‘Troy,’ said Troy.

‘Troy, tell me. D’ye have a brother?’

‘Yes,’ said Troy. ‘I do.’

‘Younger’n you?’

‘Older.’

‘Shit is he?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Troy.

‘All brothers are shits,’ Egg went on. ‘Still, could be worse I suppose. With your name you could have that shit in the Commons for a brother.’

Egg roared, spluttered and choked on his own joke. Tom smiled falsely. Troy had no idea what to do, and regretted bitterly that he’d fallen for another of Tom’s wild goose
chases.

‘Ingratitude. That’s what it all comes down to. Ingratitude. All the things I’ve done for young Wig in his time . . . sheer fucking ingratitude.’

‘Who’s Wigg?’ Troy asked, thinking that perhaps he could cut through this mess, that perhaps they were not talking about the same Wigg, and not getting the elbow from
Driberg.

‘Wig? Wig? He’s me little brother, the little shit. Our Wig – Wallace Irving Gordon . . .
ergo
Wig!’

At last. The bastard was Wallace Curran’s brother. Driberg winked at him across the topof his pint.

‘You wouldn’t by any chance know how I could get in touch with young Wig, would you?’

Egg leant in, his gut wedged against the table, his breath foul upon the tap-room air.

‘Cross me palm with silver.’

‘Simple as that, eh?’ said Troy.

‘Man’s gotta eat.’

‘You mean a man’s gotta drink,’ said Troy.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Egg before Troy could even blink.

Troy whispered to Driberg. ‘Agree a price with the fool, while I go to the bar. I don’t want to find myself haggling with him when I get back.’

Troy returned with another glass of liver rot. Egg was grinning the grin of self-satisfaction.

‘Twenty-five should see us right,’ said Tom.

Twenty-five pounds was outrageous. The last round had all but cleaned Troy out. He was down to a fiver.

‘It’ll have to be a cheque,’ he said.

Egg shook his head slowly. Driberg nodded. Egg shook. Driberg nodded and won. Egg nodded and said, ‘Made out to “Cash”, of course.’

Troy whipped out his cheque book and dashed off a cheque for twenty-five pounds before the rogue upped the ante on him.

‘Now,’ he said, holding up the cheque in one hand and the whisky in the other.

‘Albert Hall Mansions. Back of the hall. Lived there for years.’

The whisky was downed, the cheque trousered with the speed of a magician palming pigeons.

Troy remembered telling Clark he had heard the name Wallace Curran before when what he had meant was that he had seen it. His Uncle Nikolai lived in Albert Hall Mansions, between the eponymous
hall and his old college, Imperial. Long, long ago, in the days of lower crime rates and more bobbies on the beat, the flats in the mansion block had had an in/out nameboard rather like a Cambridge
college. Burglary had put paid to its use, but the board remained, the gold leaf lettering fading on the names, minus its little wooden shutters across the in/out part – and above the name
Troitsky, N.R. Troy could now see in his mind’s eye the name Curran, W.I.G. All this time wondering and he could not pull the name from his unconscious to recognise that he had seen it a
hundred times over the years.

It had crossed his mind to talk to Nikolai – Rod had suggested it too – and he had dismissed the notion. The last time he and Nikolai had talked at length had been
before dinner, the day he had been discharged from the sanatorium. Troy had uttered a few words to the old man, and while he would readily concede that he was softly spoken, he had not thought
himself inaudible.

‘Ah, dear boy,’ Nikolai had said. ‘I think perhaps you haff become a two-hearing-aid man.’

He was already wearing a hearing aid, the bulky batteries stretching his cardigan pocket out of shape, the black plastic receiver pinned to his waistcoat, a snaky, cream cable curling up his
chest, around and into his right ear. He produced a second set from his jacket pocket. Stuck an earpiece in his left ear, fiddled with the volume and pinned a second receiver symmetrically to his
waistcoat.

‘Proceed, dear boy. We haff stereo.’

When he opened the door to Troy at Albert Hall Mansions the following morning, he was still wearing two sets. The idea had taken root.

‘What brings you here, nephew? Am I dying and has no one told me?’ There was no answer Troy could or would make standing on the threshold. Nikolai ushered him in. It had changed much
since the last time he was here. The room was now dominated by a huge desk, strewn with books and papers, and where the desk ended they overflowed onto lesser tables, onto chairs and cascaded down
to the floor. The magnum opus, whatever it was, and he never said, had become his life. It seemed to Troy that he lived at the desk. The remains of bacon and egg congealed upon a plate perched high
on a batch of manuscripts. His false teeth grinned from a tumbler between the inkwells. The living part of the living room was reduced to a chaise longue wedged between the desk and the wall and
two small chairs either side of a roaring gas fire. This, plus the central heating, made for the typically stifling, overheated flat of an old person.

Nikolai resumed his seat at his desk, turned down the deafening blast of Mahler on the Third Programme. Troy stood. The only chairs not littered were the two by the fire. He’d roast if he
sat there.

‘Thank God for Mahler, say I. Loud enough to get through to the deafest ear.’

‘I wanted to ask you about one of your neighbours.’

‘Which one? As if I could not guess from the look of the conspirator you wear so raggedly.’

‘Curran.’

‘Third floor back,’ said Nikolai. ‘Now, ask me your question.’

Nikolai began to shuffle papers. Troy was not at all sure he had the old man’s full attention.

‘You do know him?’

‘So, so . . .’

‘Professionally?’

‘I met him in the corridors of power from time to time.’

‘What exactly is it he does for Five?’

‘He was D1, as I recall. A good Russian speaker.’

‘Is he still D1? What do you think he does for them?’

‘Since Sir Roger Hollis saw fit to put me out to grass I have learnt nothing new, nor have I cared to. But when I knew Curran in the old days, he was many things – pimp, blackmailer,
a purveyor of lies and misinformation, a rumourmonger, a . . . a . . .’

‘It’s OK. I get the picture.’

‘Do you, Freddie, do you? I cannot but think that if you did you would want nothing to do with the man. But he has crossed your path in some way, hasn’t he? What has he
done?’

‘All the things you just listed.’

‘And?’

‘And murder.’

Nikolai stopped playing with his manuscript. The word did that. It was in the nature of ‘murder’ to eclipse other words and actions. He leant back in his chair, ran his fingers
through the spirals of white hair that coiled out like a haircut from the
Bride of Frankenstein
.

‘Ach,’ he said as he was often wont. ‘Ach, ach!’

Troy pushed a sheaf of papers aside and sat on the chaise longue, a wayward spring grazing his backside. Whatever was passing through his uncle’s mind was taking its time arriving at
language, any language.

‘No,’ he said at last.

‘No?’

‘Not Curran. I could fancify it by saying it is not his “style” but it is more . . . it is not . . . not his . . . not his “function”. He does not kill. They haff
plenty who can kill. What skill does it take?’

Nikolai cocked his right hand and took aim at Troy, the thumb arced in lieu of a hammer, the long finger coiled round an imagined trigger.

‘You point a gun, you pull the trigger. Pouf ! Blackmail takes talent. Good blackmailers are not trained, well . . . not trained by MI5 anyway. They are made; they are shaped in their
playpens, in their nurseries . . . families make blackmailers. To an organisation like ours they are priceless. They would never waste a man like Wallace Curran on the crudity of
killing.’

‘Then he sent someone.’

This was to Troy the most plausible of arguments – Blood as a serving officer of Special Branch had spent much of his career at the beck and call of MI5. It was odd, very odd, for them to
have sent a Branch man to carry out a hit, but it was, nonetheless, what had happened. What Troy would not believe was that they had sent Blood to carry out both murders. Therefore Curran had
someone else at his beck and call, someone more subtle, less clumsy, less crazy than Percy Blood.

‘Do you propose to ask Curran yourself ?’

‘Of course,’ said Troy.

‘Then now is your chance. I heard his door close not five seconds ago.’

‘I thought you were deaf ?’

‘The vibrations, dear boy, the vibrations. I can feel this building as though I lived in the belly of a long-case clock. Every tick vibrates in the inner ear. He will pass the door any
second. You have only to follow. But . . . I warn you. I would not. If I were you I would not want to mix my life with that of Wallace Curran. I would prefer it if our paths did not
cross.’

‘As you said,’ said Troy, ‘they have already crossed.’

Feet were dashing down the staircase below as he left Nikolai’s flat, the old man’s voice ringing out behind him, ‘You don’t need an excuse to come and see me, you
know!’

Out in the street a small man in a blue coat had his back to him, opening the door of a Riley Pathfinder.

‘Mr Curran?’ Troy said.

The man turned, hands resting on the open door of the car. He was short, as short as Troy, in heavy, black-rimmed, thick-lensed spectacles. All the same, he was recognisable. The thin,
controlled version of Egg. Egg leaked and spilled. This man was contained.

Troy held up his warrant card.

‘Put it away, Commander. You may not know me, but I most certainly know you. Put it away and walk away. There is nothing you can discuss with me.’

His gaze was intense. Beyond the intimidation of words. He looked like a weasel. He did not act like one. He really did expect Troy to be stared down and walk away.

‘I have reason to believe you can help me with my enquiries.’

‘Why so formal? Why not just ask me who killed her? That is why you’re here, isn’t it? To expiate your own guilt by asking me who killed her?’

Troy kicked the car door shut on his hands. Curran moved quickly, but not quickly enough. One hand trapped in the gap, and held him by broken fingers. He screamed. Troy kept his foot against the
door and pressed slowly. Curran sank to the ground, almost suspended by his fingers.