Faithless (9 page)

"He was being ironic."

"I know. I did study."

"So what's next?"

"Well I'll bring my crazy boss and you get your crazy boss  - not sad Sue - but K4 himself - though tell him not to bring the Bible to the meeting. I've seen it on his desk all gold leaf and Catholic piety. I'll let the right people in SOV/OPS know and get someone from SBO from our side and we'll open the indoctrination list. I gave Leonov my card and if he doesn't ring me, I'll ring him with an offer - something to do with coal and money. He should pass it to the Trade Delegation but if I hint strongly at personal profit, I think he's enough of a weasel to keep hold of it himself. In the meantime see if your telephone bods and buggers can give us any idea of where he's getting his posh suit capital."

"I might ask for some mob
ile surveillance."

"Top notch idea Johnnie," said Philip. "If he takes my call, you and I will take him to Annabel's on Berkley Square, at our expense of course. You will be my immensely rich client. Do you think you can pretend to be rich?"

"I'll read some books."

"Maybe walk down Bond Street and look in windows?"

"But not go in?"

"I doubt they'd let you. But just being near money will help your portrayal of a rich man through a kind of fiscal osmosis." He took a sip of cooling coffee. "How I want to play
it is that you are rich but rough. Use your working class roots as source material. You know, boy from tough Glasgow Streets makes it good though hard work but mainly being an unpleasant, psychopathic user."

John laughed. "I'll try. I'm not from Glasgow though."

"Near enough for Leonov not to notice. I am planning to create a rapport with Leonov using this triangle. He and I are clever, sophisticated people. You are a rough brute. I will make him feel special and allied with me in our sophistication and erudition against stupid proletarian people like you and his ambassador."

"It almost sounds like there's some kind of science in this. I always thought MI6 was just full of shit, but now you make me wonder."

"Wonder away little MI5 cousin. Leonov's mine. And yours."

20 September 1970 - Bonnyrigg.
It was John's 18th Birthday. He was planning to go out to the cinema with Karen. Karen was pretty sophisticated and she said she wanted to go and see Five Easy Pieces that had just come out. It was on at the Cameo in Home Street - a cinema that showed subtitled foreign language films. Karen liked Jack Nicholson who took the lead. John wasn't against seeing Easy Pieces because he'd heard it had some dirty bits and was rated X. This would be the first time he could legally go and see an X film because he was now 18. It gave him a grown up feeling that the world was his oyster and vistas of an endless, unlimited future spread out before all him - all starting tonight. He hadn't told his mother he was going to see an X film as she wouldn't approve. He was reading the Daily Express which was on the kitchen table. He'd told his mum that he'd get some chips with Karen later but she'd given him a slice of bread and butter to stave off hunger.

He had a reasonable day at school. He saw Mr Cole and told him that he was definitely going to apply to do German and Russian at Durham University.  That had pleased Cole who'd shook John's hand in his warm, socially awkward way. When he came
home he'd even been playing on the Rolf Harris Stylophone that his mother and father had got him as an 18th birthday present. He liked listening to music but had never really had any talent at playing it. He wondered whether his mother really knew very much about him at all.

He sat at the kitchen table eating his bread and butter and reading out bits of the paper to his mother as she worked. "Did you see that the Soviet Luna 16 probe has landed on the moon successfully?"

"No, son." She was busy cutting carrots for the main meal she would eat later with her husband.

"Sounds amazing. The Soviets are really doing well in the Space Race. They don't have the bluster of the Americans; they just get on with it. You see, America is driven only by money."

"Aye, son."

He looked up at his mother. "You seem preoccupied ma? Anything up?"

"No." She shook her head. He shrugged and went back to the paper.

"I see Jim Morrison's got off with the charge of lewdness. He shouldn't have done it though." John looked up to see his
mother had stopped cutting carrots and was quietly crying by the sink. He got up and went to comfort her.

"What's up ma? Why are you upset?"

"Well you're 18 and all."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Oh dear. Well you know I have to grow up. There's no
stopping time."

"It's not just that."

"What is it then?" He stood back ,  puzzled.

"I promised myself, that when you were 18 I'd tell you the truth about your father."

He felt a strange wave of fear, mixed with elation.

"Sit down," said his mother.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" He said, as if it would diffuse the anxiety mounting in the room.

"Just sit down, son. I have to say it."

He sat and she began. "Well, when I was younger I was working on a surgical ward at the Royal. We had a woman in. She had surgery but got an infection and there were complications. She was in for weeks. Her son used to come and see her. He was very flirty and charming. Eventually he used to call up the ward to speak to me and if Sister answered he'd put on a stupid Irish accent and pretend to be enquiring about a patient who wasn't there. It happened a few times so she must have realised but luckily she never connected it with me.

"He was very confident - very sure of his authority. Strange considering he came from nothing. And he
asked me out. Well I couldn't tell my mum and dad because he was Irish. Well he was Scottish, but his parents were Irish. So that meant he was Catholic. I knew my father wouldn't tolerate me going out with a Catholic."

"He was a miner before he got fired. So he didn't have much money and we used to just do simple things like go walking in Princes Street Gardens, and on a Sunday maybe go out for the day to Musselburgh. I remember a summer day there, when he'd pick up lit
tle crabs out of the rock pools and scare me with them."

"I loved him. He wrote me poetry, even though he was so political, he was romantic too. He looked like you. Just like you. I thought he loved me. He told me he did, and I believed him. Then I fell pre
gnant and there was an awful row. When I was in hospital he never came near. My mother told me he didn't care. That must have been true. Who could leave their child?"

"Was he a Communist?"

"Who told you?"

"Everyone knows ma. The boys at school know."

She started to cry. "I was stupid to think you'd never hear about him."

"I never listened to them. It hurts you and I don't want to know. As far as I'm concerned William's my dad."

She shook his head. "He's a good man to me, but he's not much of a father to you. He hasn't got it in him."

"Neither did my real dad. He left us."

She shook with sobbing. He went up and put his arms around her. She said, "I loved him, but we weren't enough for him."

"It doesn't matter now," he said. "Don't be upset ma. I love you."

She said, "I think he killed himself because he lost us," she said. "I can never know, but that's what my heart says."

Then the doorbell rang.

"That'll be Karen," said John.

"Go and get it," said Elizabeth, "I'll be all right."

He opened the door. Karen stood there looking gorgeous in a short orange skirt and brown boots; a pumpkin coloured woollen jacket over a maroon top. "Wow," he said. He realised his eyes were wet and he wiped them so she did not see.

"Gimme a kiss," she laughed. So he did.

"Come in. I'm in the kitchen with my mam."

Karen came in. "Hello Mrs Gilroy."

"Hello Karen."

Karen stopped and looked at John's mother, taking in her red eyes but she didn't say anything. John went and kissed his mother's cheek. "Don't worry about me," said Elizabet
h. "I'm just a silly old woman." There was an awkwardness in the room which John broke. "Come on Kazzie, time for us to go out on the town."

"Are you going like that?" she said.

"What do you mean? I'm clean."

"Aye but well. You're no very fashionable John.
"

"Well if you haven't figured that out by now, you're slower than I took you for." He grabbed her arm. "Come on. We've a bus to catch."

"Ok, goodbye Mrs Gilroy." Karen waved as she went out.

His mother had gone back to cutting carrots. She looked round a
nd smiled at them. "You enjoy yourselves."

Outside as they walked to the bus stop, Karen said, "Is your ma all right?"

"Just a bit upset about something."

"Oh."

"I'll tell you later."

"Oh. Ok. I don't mean to intrude."

"You could never intrude in my life, ma wee sleekit, cowerin' timorous beastie."

She punched his arm. "I may be sleekit, but I'm no cowerin' nor timorous."

"That's true in fact."

"You know the movie, John?"

"Aye. I think."

"Well, it's a bit intellectual."

"Oh really?"

"
Aye, a wee bit artsy."

"I may struggle."

"I know. I was worried about that. But I'll help you out."

He laughed. "What would I do without you?"

"You wouldn't manage. But don't worry. I won't leave you to cope on your own."

April 30th 1985 - Berkley Square
, London:
John got out of the black London taxi closely followed by Philip who paid the driver, giving him a £10 tip.

"Thanks Guv," said the bald driver, his fat rolling under his chin as he turned his head to grin and quickly stuff the money into his shi
rt pocket. He had given them the benefit of his views on immigration between Gower Street, where they had changed, and Berkley Square where they had alighted on the west side outside Annabel's. He didn't think it was a good thing. He had, with a conciliatory tone, accepted that the inward flow of Old Commonwealth citizens from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa might be beneficial to the economy, and even Americans  - as long as they were white.

"Hateful wasn't he?" said Philip, pulling up the
collar of his dark coat against the wind.

"Why did you give him such a big tip then?"

"Psychological for my self. I am getting into character as a high roller. Here."  He reached into the inner pocket of his suit and pulled out a big wad of cash.

"Fuck me
," said John. "How much is there?"

"About
£1000. Don't spend it all as we want it back later. It's just a prop. Make sure you flash it as you buy him a drink. Anyway, this is Annabel's. Feel free to use more sex words. I want you to appear coarse."

"Should
n't be too hard." John put the money into his trouser pocket in a suitably rough manner. He gestured at the discreet frontage of Annabel's. "Are all posh places as anonymous as this? The Traveller's Club was."

"Yes. We believe less is more. We don't like to make a fuss - we posh folk."

"What time's he due?"

"I told you that. Ten minutes."

"I must be nervous. Let's go in."

The door was open and a smiling doorman offered to take their coats. Philip signed for John
. "Remember I'm Andrew St-John Bird. St John is pronounced Sinjen." They walked down the perilously steep stairs into the club.

"I'm not totally ignorant."

"So what's your cover?"

John groaned. "Do you think I'm green at this?"

"Yes. As grass."

John said,
"I am Jimmy McGee. I wheel and then I deal. I have made my money in an unspecified but apparently underhand way. Up in Glasgow. Probably involved murder once or twice."

"Probably," said Philip, smiling. "I can see you getting into the part."

John put on his broadest imitation of a Glaswegian accent. "See me? Ah'm a nasty Weejie thug. Don't mess." Then he lost the accent and dropped into the refined Edinburgh accent he had learned at the Heriot School. "Couldn't you have got me a gorgeous yet vapid tart to hang off my arm?"

"One of the K4 secretaries you mean?"

"Well the Sup-sec is quite tasty."

"Thought you were married?"

"John is. Happily. But Jimmy's a fucking shag animal. All that testosterone and money."

"Jesus. I have created a monster."

John laughed. The inside of the club looked like an Edwardian drinking den - all dark wood and portraits of dead rich people. John didn't recognise them. It was gloomy.  They made their way over to a table and Philip straightened his black bow tie. "I would have liked to come white tie, but sadly I think that's a thing of the past." He looked around. "My god there are people in here in lounge suits. Did you see?"

John nodded. "What's the world coming to? Mine's a clip on."

"I noticed. Just right for Jimmy. I think you should take it off and let it hang at some point. Suitably vulgar."

The waiter came and Philip ordered a gin and tonic.  John, being Jimmy, ordered a beer.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the waiter. "We don't sell beer."

"Have you got a lager then?"

Philip sighed. "He thinks he's being funny. Get him a malt whisky - a Lagavulin please."

When the waiter departed with a gentle smile, John said, "That means the Mill Hollow by the way."