Confessor (14 page)

“Down the coast, Mr. K., sir?” Joshing back, never quite certain when Herb was playing the fool.

“I come, Herbie?” Bitsy grinned and put her hand on his wrist. She was becoming an all too heavy touchy-feely person. Herbie did not really like being touched all the time, or kissed on the cheek—which he made certain of by turning his head when Bitsy aimed for his lips.

“No, Bits. Sorry, man stuff.”

“In this day and age? Year of the Woman and all that?”

“That’s how it goes. One of the nice gents from across the way will be in the house looking after you.”

She was genuinely offended by this. Her face flushed and her lips turned gray.

“Come on, Bits. Is work. Only I can do it, and Ginger’s been told to watch over
me
. Guardian angel style.”

“Then I can look after myself here, thank you very much.”

The daft smile from Kruger, and a tiny shake of the head. “Sorry, dear Bitsy, but them’s the orders. Someone here all the time in case Blind Pew comes in and tips you the Black Spot.” Treasure Island was one of his favorite reads and he had seen all the movie and TV versions. “Har-har, Jim lad!” He threw her a goofy smile attached to who-knows-what-the-future-may-bring eyes, which mollified her for the time being.

“So, where to, Mr. Kruger, sir?” Ginger asked the next morning when they were seated in the car.

“Long John Silver! Awaaaay!” Herbie chuckled. “Eastbourne, Ginge. Maybe we go sailing, maybe not.”

They found the house on the outskirts of Eastbourne, having stopped off for lunch at a Little Chef where Ginger insisted on sitting so that he could see the door, with his jacket unbuttoned.

“What you carrying, Ginge?” Herbie had asked.

“Bloody Glock, sir. Scared stiff of it. Light enough but the safety’s iffy. A fellow could shoot his bobbit off.”

But now they had found the house and Ginger parked down the road, well away, while Herbie slowly walked back past other houses, each with a nice three or four acres, some with mock Tudor façades, imitation leaded windows, the whole three-ring circus, with names like Three Pines, The Grange, Manor Lodge and, last of all, the more restrained Oak House—the one he wanted. He had looked up the address by going on-line from Gus’s computer and using his own password, getting into the Registry files that were not closed to him.

The house was pleasant, unassuming, stippled white, with a porch and an obligatory basket of flowers. The wide driveway, from the waist-high wrought-iron gates, was flanked by borders of flowers that he guessed were given instructions to stand at attention, even on a hot day. He followed the path around the house, glimpsing a lawn perfectly mowed.

“I help you?” She had come out of the front door, behind him. Tall, mid-forties, ash-blond with just a tint of gray here and there. Daughter, he thought at once, then he vaguely recognized her from the past and marveled at her presence here.

“Looking for the master of the house.” Herbie grinned cheekily.

“We don’t need anything you’re selling today.” There was a glint of steel in her eyes. Then: “I
know
you.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised. I—”

“Yes!” A bark from the side of the house, and there he was, looking older, fatter, if anything a little more pugnacious, the face a retired colonel crimson. Gardening trousers held up by what appeared to be an old Etonian tie, and a denim shirt. A battered and fraying Panama jaunty on his head, the short body in a boxer’s stance. “Good God in heaven,” he said suddenly, peering from behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. “As I live and sneeze, it’s Herbie. Herbie Kruger come to look up an old comrade-in-arms, eh?” Still the near-military bark, the words snapped out in small phrases as though from some kind of semi-automatic weapon.

“Just passing, Mr. Maitland-Wood, sir.” Herb gave him the glad-hand grin that said old comrades always stick together.

“Well. Well. Heaven help me, Herbie Kruger. You met the Memsahib, I see.”

Kruger turned and nodded to the lady, saying yes, in some kind of way he had met her, but was amazed at the discrepancy in ages, and the idea that Willis Maitland-Wood, the once hated First Deputy Chief of the Office, had possibly known any woman in the carnal sense. In the old days they had disliked each other with a hearty, near passionate hunger. Willis Maitland-Wood, who, with many others, had helped to train Herbie and had so often been the cross that Kruger bore, not gladly but with a stoicism necessary for his own safety.

“Old chum, Willis? Old pal from the Cold War? I recognize the oaf,” said Mrs. Maitland-Wood.

“Old chum indeed, Memsahib. Thought you put yourself out to grass, though, Kruger.”

“Came back for the good of my soul.” It was the sort of thing he knew Maitland-Wood liked to hear.

“Good for you, Kruger. Good for you. But, come on in. Come onto the lawn. Spot of tea, Mem? Possible, eh? Spot of Darjeeling and some of your Swiss roll. Makes a good Swiss roll, the Memsahib, Kruger. Best Swiss roll you could ever want.”

“Of course, Willis, if he’s really an old friend. I seem to recall it differently.” She gave a neon wink of a smile and retreated into the house while Maitland-Wood led him onto the lawn with its geometrical stripes.

“You’ve a nice place here,” Herb ventured.

“Keeps me busy. Garden all bloody year long. Always something to do. Year-round business, gardening. I garden, and am on lots of local committees. Chair some of them. Trick when they put you out to grass; keep busy. Keep a life going. This official?”

“I fear, official it is, sir. Yes, you might say so.”

Maitland-Wood gave a little nod, muttered “Mum’s the word” and led them over to a pair of deck chairs in the shade of a fine chestnut. “Have a little bit of body language to keep the Memsahib at bay. Still use the tradecraft. You recognize her?”

“She does have a familiar ring.”

“You probably knew her as Emma Paisley. Accounts. Been courting her for years. Amazed when she said yes when they retired me. She handed in her notice and said yes, old boy—yes, I’ll marry you. Keeps me on a tight leash, though.”

Emma Maitland-Wood, Emma Paisley as was—Herbie recognized her from the secret corridors of a decade or so ago—advanced on them bearing a tray loaded with tea and a large Swiss roll.

He saw Willis scratch his right ear and make sweeping motions with his left hand. He saw the former Ms. Paisley give a stern nod as she said, “I recall
you
, Mr. Kruger. You got yourself wounded with that rake, Curry was it …?”

“Curry Shepherd, yes. Going to look him up sometime.”

“Ah.” Maitland-Wood gave a series of small nods. “He out to grass as well?”

“Not much call for his particular skills at the moment,” Herbie lied, for Curry Shepherd was only a few years younger than himself and had last been heard of trawling the Middle East in search of malcontents. According to Worboys, he would be back in London at the end of the month.

“Like it strong, Kruger?”

“Please, very. With only milk a dash, afterwards, please. Just a pipette full, and sugar, lots. Death through the mouth, yes.”

“Have what you bloody like as long as you try the Memsahib’s Swiss roll.”

“Big piece, please. Very partial. How do you make a Swiss roll, eh? Give him a push, yes?” He roared with laughter, stopping only when he met the former Emma Paisley’s granite eye.

“If you’re both happy, I’ll get on with my chores,” she said. “Nice to have seen you again, Mr. Kruger.” She did not offer a hand, and made it clear that Herbie just had to do his thing, then get out.

“Don’t mind the Memsahib.” Maitland-Wood sounded a fraction off-key from the bully boy he once was. “You ever see any of the other old boys? Tubby Fincher? Old Ambrose Hill? Anyone?”

“Tubby’s in a nursing home. Bad heart thing. Ambrose lives a life of peace in—is it the Sheepland Isles?”

“Shetland. Shetland Islands. Just the place for old Ambrose. Must be ninety in the shade by now.”

“I think early eighties.”

“Ah. Come on, then, Herbie.” Was he softening? “What’s it all about?”

Herb had a mouthful of Swiss roll, so they both had to wait for a few seconds until he pronounced, “Wonderful Swiss roll, sir. Best Swiss roll I eaten in yanks.”

“Yonks, I think you mean, old scout. Come on, then, spit it out.”

“I’d like to chew it, then swallow.”

“I mean what you’ve come for.”

“So. Yes. Okay. Is about something right at the end of your time, sir. But I want you to know this is very official.” He laid a forefinger against his nose. “Also very tight. Better read this.” He passed over the letter with the Chief’s signature and all the fancy legal stuff.

“Old age.” Maitland-Wood drew out a spectacle case and changed his glasses. “Intimations of mortality, what?”

Perhaps marriage had made him more human. He was still the bluff old, bad-tempered old martinet, but softer. Herbie remembered him from earlier days, pushing his weight around, testing the envelope of his authority.

“Mind if I take up the offer in this?” He waved the letter.

“Phone away, Mr. Maitland-Wood. Your privilege.”

“Quite right. Call me Willis, Kruger. No need to stick to formality these days. Just want to talk to Head Office, because this gives you rather broad powers. What was it you had in mind particularly?”

“Tell you what, Willis, you make the call and I’ll ask the questions, okay?”

“Yes. Right. Won’t be long.”

Herb poured himself more tea and cut another unhealthy slice of the Swiss roll. He had finished by the time Maitland-Wood returned. “You’re working on the thing about poor Gus,” he said almost accusingly.

“I know.” Herbie gave his more intelligent grin. Maybe he should retailor his attitudes. Spies and spymasters should be more sinister, darker, not jokey. He could not think of any of his colleagues who retained their dignity by being inappropriately lighthearted. Possibly he should rethink his entire approach. Bit late in the day, though.

“So this is about Gus?” BMW asked, cutting himself another slice of the Swiss roll. Big Herbie had just remembered they always called him BMW—Bloody Maitland-Wood.

“Sure, about Gus Keene. One aspect anyway.”

“Shoot. I told the Chief I’d answer anything I could remember.”

“I came to you because you were very high up the tree at the time. Quite near to your retirement, though.
Cataract
.”

“Oh.”
Nobody
liked to hear about
Cataract
, but clever old Herbie knew that one of the answers could be prized out of BMW. “Nasty, yes. But you know that. You were implicated as I recall, Kruger.”

“A little, sure. Willis, when things got really dodgy, when things began to unwind, they brought Gus down from Warminster.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Mimicking. “Why? Because he was the best man, of course. Best man for the job.”

“Willis, Gus was our Chief Confessor. The Lord High Inquisitor. Our private Torquemada. His skills were interrogation. This was big-time damage control. So, why Gus? I never figured it out, and now I’ve read the file, I still can’t figure it out.”

“You think the Irish might have done Gus?”

“Can’t tell you that, Willis. Just why Gus? Do you recall? You were close to the old Chief, and I seem to remember that both of you went off on fast vacations as soon as things got iffy. One of you must have recommended Gus, because I know, and the files say, that the thing was COBRA-cleared. So, why an interrogator? Why Gus?”

Willis Maitland-Wood slowly pushed his Panama onto the back of his head. “Yes,” he said, taking up the slack in the waist of his trousers. It was not an old Etonian tie holding them up, but a tie that could be taken as old Etonian at five paces. “Yes, the old Chief and I
did
go on little holidays, but let me tell you that was on the advice of COBRA.”

“Who made the recommendation, Willis?”

“To COBRA? As I recall it, we talked for a long while about it. You’ll find nothing on paper, we had the bubblers on, no tapes running, and I personally went over to COBRA and said we should bring Gus in. The Chief briefed him.”

“Why Gus, Willis? Why an interrogator?”

The sigh sounded as though he were about to admit to some terrible crime. “You read Gus’s file yet? His jacket? His dossier?”

“Some. Events. Gems from his life.”

“A lot more to Gus than meets the eyes. I mean there
was
a lot more.”

“That was obvious. He went through
Cataract
like the proverbial sheep through a goose.”

“I don’t think you mean sheep, Herbie.”

“Maybe not, but was impressive.”

“Gus was a master of deceit, Herbie. But a master. He could look at you and make you believe black was white. One of the reasons we called him in was that he was most qualified to deceive people. Just trust me, Gus was a kind of camouflage expert, camouflage in words. Sleight of mind was his forte.
We
knew about it, about his expertise—the old Chief and myself—because he demonstrated it to us on many occasions. You see, we all belonged to the same club at one time, and I’m not allowed to disclose any more than that. Not even to your current Chief, because this was something quite apart from the Office. Nothing to do with the Office.”

“Then tell me what you can.”

“I’ve told you. We knew that if anyone could manipulate a situation like
Cataract
, it was Gus. He had the ability to make people think the sky was green, and grass was blue. Lots of clues in his dossier. Courses on mental as well as physical concealment. Highly qualified. You’ll find the names of his specialist stuff if you look carefully in his jacket. That
truly
is all I can say, and all I could say under oath, Herbie. Slap a subpoena on me and the answer would be the same. It’s all there if you look.” He peered through his spectacles and gave Big Herb a knowing and pleasant smile. “You don’t really think the old Chief and I would send someone in who wasn’t qualified.”

“The stuff you can’t talk about …?”

“Yes.”

“The stuff
outside
his work for the Office.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Will I find any of that in his jacket?”