Flashpoint (7 page)

“Sure you can handle it yourself?” said Marvin.

“Quite sure, thank you.”

“Keep the card. You never know, you might need help. We’ve got a lot of friends. Midlands, up North, all over the place.”

Jonas stared at him for a moment, and then said, rather stiffly, “I should, I suppose, thank you for coming.”

“No need to thank us,” said Thomas. “It’s our job. Interests of the working classes. Right, Syd?”

“That’s right, Ben. We must let the gentleman get on with his work now.”

After they had gone, Jonas went back to his chair and sat down. The papers he had been working on were spread all over the desk. It occurred to him that the stouter of his two visitors, who had sat alongside the desk, must have been able to read them. Probably it didn’t matter. They seemed to know a lot about it already. Odd couple. Like an old-fashioned comedy duo. Not entirely funny, though.

Edward Lambard knocked half an inch of grey ash off his cigar into the butt end of a 25-pounder cartridge case which served as an ashtray on Tom Buller’s desk, and said, “Extraordinary story. I don’t know that I’m entirely surprised, though. Killey is an unusual man.”

“He used to work for you, didn’t he?”

“He was with us for four years. He was very nearly a very good solicitor indeed.”

“Meaning?”

“I mean that he had a hard core of obstinacy which is very necessary in our trade. Give him a case which could be fought, and he’d fight it like a tiger. No. Tiger’s the wrong animal. What’s the obstinate creature that never lets go?”

“A bulldog.”

“Not a bulldog. No. A mongoose. I always thought of Jonas as a mongoose. Bottle-brush tail and pink eyes. And the bigger the cobra, the harder he’d bite. I very nearly offered him a junior partnership.”

“But you didn’t?”

“In the end, no. There was something missing. Balance. Judgement. The ability to compromise when the interests of the client demanded a compromise.”

“Did you know about this Dylan business?”

“I knew he was pursuing a private vendetta of some sort. I didn’t know the details. This embezzlement idea is something new, I gather.”

“It’s new,” said Buller. “And it’s a great deal more dangerous than the old line. It’s a criminal offence, and nothing can stop Killey applying for a summons. If Dylan was a nobody, it wouldn’t signify. I don’t think he’ll get his summons. Cedric Lyon plays everything by the book. He’ll find plenty of reasons for refusing it. But that’s not the point. The press will get wind of it and, win or lose, it’s not going to do Dylan any good.”

“Or Killey.”

“That’s my view.”

Lambard thought about the matter. He was a shortish man, running to stoutness, with an aggressive moustache and an attractively bent nose, the result of a misadventure in the boxing ring in his youth. His hair was grey but he still had plenty of it, and had kept most of his own teeth. He wore glasses for reading the small print on his clients’ contracts.

He said, “What do you want me to do?”

“If Killey will listen to anyone, he’ll listen to you. He thinks a lot of you. I know that.”

“I didn’t sack him,” agreed Lambard. “We parted quite amicably. He might listen to me. I rather doubt it. I don’t think I could chase after him.”

“But if he came to you, you’d do your best.”

“Certainly. Tell me one thing. What’s your interest in this?”

Buller thought about that one for a long minute in silence. Then he said, “I believe that the law is the most important thing in the world today. I don’t mean the practice of lawyers. I mean the law itself. Normally I sleep well. If there’s one thing that can keep me awake at night it’s a vision, which I sometimes have, of this country being ruled by the wishes of its rulers and not by the rule of law.”

“Could it happen here?”

“Of course it could. It’s too bloody easy for a Government to panic and set the law on one side
because it happens to be inconvenient.
Temporarily, of course. They always mean to bring it back again – some time.”

Lambard looked at his old friend in mild surprise and said, “And just where does Killey come into all this?”

“He comes into it because one of the things which helps the process along nicely is when people start to despise or dislike lawyers as a class. What people are going to see here is a solicitor pursuing a legalistic vendetta, apparently out of spite, against a well-liked member of the Government. The man in the street may not be great on principles, but personalities are things he can get hold of.”

“You may be right.” Lambard killed the end of his cigar and said. “Blast Killey. Why can’t he keep his mouth shut, and get on with his job?”

The Prime Minister looked at Bernard Gracey over the top of the half-moon spectacles which the cartoonists had adopted as his trade mark. It was not the first time that he had doubted whether Gracey was the right man for the job. He was clever, and adaptable, but a Minister for Labour needed more than cleverness and adaptability. He needed guts. More; like Napoleon’s generals, he needed luck. Gracey had been unlucky on more than one occasion. If they got a reasonable majority at the next election he would be tempted to give Gracey’s job to Dylan. It would be exceptional promotion, but there were precedents for it.

He said, “Our organization people tell me that Will Dylan is worth thirty or forty seats to us. Partly by luck, partly by judgement, he’s become a sort of talisman. There are plenty of marginal constituencies in the Midlands and the North where the unpolitical elector, the ‘don’t know and don’t much care’, the man who wins or loses every election, will say, ‘If Will’s on their side, they can’t be as black as they’re painted.’”

“I realize that,” said Gracey.

“What have you done about it?”

Gracey hesitated. There were certain things you told the old man, and other things which you didn’t tell him, because it might be better for him to be able to disclaim knowledge of them at a later stage. The fact that he might have to disclaim you into the bargain was a risk you took.

He said, “I mentioned the matter to Pulleyne.”

“Pulleyne?” said the Prime Minister irritably. “I can’t see what it’s got to do with him. He’s something in Intelligence, isn’t he?”

Gracey nearly said, “You ought to know. You appointed him yourself,” but discretion prevailed. He gathered that this was to be an occasion on which the right hand had no idea what the left hand was doing. He said, “I thought he might be helpful, Prime Minister. Probably I was quite wrong.”

At half past two that afternoon Toby Pulleyne came out of the front door of the United Services Club into the strong sunlight. As he descended the Duke of York’s Steps, an American lady said to her daughter, “Now isn’t that just a typical English gentleman.” Her daughter said, “I’ve certainly seen his picture in the papers, mom. Do you think he might be Lord Mountbatten?” Her mother said no. Lord Mountbatten hadn’t got a grey moustache. She said it regretfully. It would have been very agreeable to her sense of the fitness of things if she had been able to tell the folks back home that she had seen Lord Mountbatten descending the Duke of York’s Steps.

Unconscious of the impression he had caused, Pulleyne proceeded on his way across St James’ Park, up the Cockpit Steps, and into Queen Anne’s Gate. He was making for Petty France, that curious byroad that curls, like an old snake asleep, between Buckingham Gate and St James’ Park Underground station, and seems to be dedicated to the memory of the Iron Duke. One side is flanked by Wellington Barracks. Its two public houses commemorate his victories. The side streets are named after his generals. The second side turning on the left is Picton Street, and a few yards along this stands the square greystone building, considered sizeable in its day, but now dwarfed by its neighbours, named Lynedoch House after the victor of the battle of Barossa.

Pulleyne reached it at ten minutes to three, greeted the hall porter as an old friend, and took the lift to the fourth floor, which was wholly occupied by the offices of the Civil Service Special Medical and Welfare Unit.

The organization which had its headquarters, at that time, on the fourth floor of Lynedoch House was not a large one. Five or six rooms were adequate for its carefully screened employees. It was primarily a communications centre, with private lines to the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Special Branch, the Passport Office and the headquarters of Customs and Excise at King’s Beam House. Also to the officer in charge of the mobile reserve in Wellington Barracks, the Government telephone-tapping centre at Chelsea and other less publicized departments of the Executive.

The head of the Unit at this time was Simon Benz-Fisher. He had taken over when his predecessor was booted out for failing to anticipate, and deal with, the Christine Keeler affair. That he had survived so long in this particular post was a tribute, first to his ingenuity and secondly to his ability to think quickly and adapt his plans to the requirements of the moment. These were talents which his training as a barrister had implanted and developed. Before his name disappeared from the Law List he had been a promising junior Treasury counsel, in a chambers which handled a great deal of criminal work. He dressed well, had a head of thick black curly hair on which he balanced a bowler hat, exactly one size too small and purchased new, each year, from Lock’s in St James’. His voice was high, without being in the least effeminate.

He listened carefully to what Pulleyne had to say, making no notes. When he was quite sure that his visitor had no more to tell him, he said, “We’ve got a file on Killey. It’s not a very big one. He’s been a minor nuisance. He published an article in a legal journal three years ago, commenting on the voting procedure under the 1964 Trade Union Act, with a clear implication that Dylan had had a hand in ballot rigging. There was a question of whether he ought to be sued for libel. That was what Killey was hoping for, of course. He was trailing his coat. We said no.”

“It may not be so easy to head him off this time,” said Pulleyne.

“He comes up in front of Cedric Lyon. He won’t get much change out of him.”

“The press will get hold of it.”

“If the application is turned down, they’ll have to watch their step. It’ll be a simple statement of the fact that the application was made and refused. I don’t think they’ll dare go any further than that.”

“Then you don’t think any action is called for?”

“Unless you’re suggesting that I have Killey tied up in a sack and dumped in the Thames, it’s difficult to see what action would be really effective.”

“I wasn’t making any suggestions,” said Pulleyne, “I was presenting you with a problem.”

When he had left, Benz-Fisher pressed a bell and a man came in through the communicating door. He said, “You heard all that, Terence?”

“Yes. I heard it.” It was a rule of the office that when Benz-Fisher had a visitor anything that was said to him must be heard by a third person. Pulleyne had been aware of this too. “Are we going to do anything about it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It sounded like a lot of balls. A lawyer making a fuss about some small thing to get himself a lot of cheap publicity.”

“That’s your view of the matter, is it, Terence?”

The little man said, “Well, that’s what I thought. I could be wrong.”

“A small thing,” said Benz-Fisher. “The First World War was fought over a small thing. A scrap of paper. And twenty million men died. Mind you, they’d mostly have been dead by now anyway. I suppose there’s some comfort in that.” He was abstracted by his thoughts. He was seeing rows of little white crosses, stretching away in diminishing perspective towards infinity. Terence shifted uncomfortably, and said, “If you don’t want me, I’ve got one or two things–”

“But I do want you. I want you to keep an eye on this small thing. This lawyer in search of cheap publicity. I want to know where he goes and who he sees. And we’ll get a tap on his office line. No need to do it officially.”

Terence said, “I suppose you know what you’re up to.”

“You suppose wrongly. I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m up to. Do you know what to do if you’re lost in a fog? Walk downhill. If you walk downhill far enough, you’re bound to get to somewhere in the end. Even if it’s only out to sea.”

Terence said, “I’d better get on with it, eh?”

“I’ve had another thought.”

Terence nearly said, “Oh Gawd,” but thought better of it. You could take liberties with B-F when he was in a certain mood, but his moods changed very quickly.

“I wonder if this is a case where Mr Stukely might be able to help us?”

“Could be.”

“Do we know where he is?”

“It’s a year or two now. He might be almost anywhere.”

“That’s true. He might be anywhere in the whole wide world. A tiny particle, floating unseen on the boundless tide of humanity. A speck of protoplasm, a millionth of a millionth of an inch in diameter. A microcosm.” Benz-Fisher returned to earth with a rush. He said, “All the same, I think he’s somewhere in London. Let me have his last address.”

After Terence had taken himself off, Benz-Fisher sat for a few moments staring at the closed door. He was wondering why he put up with Terence. A cheeky little sod, and totally insignificant. But that, of course, was his strength. He was so insignificant, that no one ever noticed him; not until it was too late. Like a trypanosome. The thought of Terence as a flagellate infusorian protozoan pleased him so much that he took up a pen and sketched the little creature on the margin of a top secret report he was reading. It had a rudimentary tail at one end and Terence’s snub-nosed face at the other.

The buzzer on his desk sounded. The voice of Terence said, “We’ve only got this old address. It’s a crummy sort of residential hotel. I gave them a ring, but they couldn’t help. It was more than three years ago. You couldn’t expect anything, really.”

“I never expect anything,” said Benz-Fisher. “That’s why I’m never disappointed. I’m going out to have a bathe.”

“Keep walking downhill,” said Terence, “and you’ll reach the sea.” But he had taken the precaution of switching off the intercom before he said it.