London Match (44 page)

'Of course with Tessa.' I suppose I was overdoing the innocence. He was getting testy now and I didn't want that either.

'Daphne wouldn't talk to me about such things, Dicky.'

'I thought she might have poured her heart out to you about it. She pestered several other friends of ours. She said she was going to get a divorce.'

‘I glad it's turned out all right,' I said.

'Even now she's still very moody. You'd think she'd be overjoyed, wouldn't you? Here I've made Tessa unhappy — terribly unhappy -to say nothing of my own sacrifice.
Finito
.' He made a slicing movement of the hand. 'I've given up the woman I truly love. You'd think Daphne would be happy, but no. . . . Do you know what she said last night? She said I was selfish.' Dicky bared his teeth and forced a laugh. 'Selfish. That's a good one, I must say.'

'A divorce would have been terrible,' I said.

'That's what I told her. Think of the kids, I said. If we split, the children would suffer more than either of us. So you never knew that I was having an affair with your sister-in-law?'

'You kept it pretty dark, Dicky,' I said.

He was pleased to hear that. 'There have been a lot of women in my life, Bernard.'

'Is that so?'

'I'm not the sort of man who boasts of his conquests — you know that, Bernard — but one woman could never be enough for me. I have a powerful libido. I should never have got married. I realized that long ago. I remember my old tutor used to say that the trouble with marriage is that while every woman is at heart a mother, every man is at heart a bachelor.' He chuckled.

'I have to see Werner Volkmann at five,' I reminded him.

Dicky looked at his watch. 'Is that the time? How that clock goes round. Every day it's the same.'

'Do you want me to brief him before he sees the Stinnes committee?'

'The Rensselaer committee, you mean. Bret is very keen it's called the Rensselaer committee so that we'll keep control of it.' Dicky said this in such a way as to suggest that we'd already lost control of it.

'Whatever it's called, do you want me to brief Werner Volkmann about what to say to them?'

'Is there something that we don't want him to tell them?'

'Well, obviously I'll warn him he can't reveal operating procedures, codes, safe houses. . . .'

'Jesus Christ!' said Dicky. 'Of course he can't reveal departmental secrets.'

'He won't know that unless someone tells him,' I said.

'You mean we should warn all of our people who are called to give evidence?'

'Either that or you could talk to Bret. You could make sure that each person called to give evidence is told that there are guidelines they must follow.'

'Tell Bret that?'

'One or the other, Dicky.'

Dicky slid off the table and walked up and down, his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans and his shoulders hunched. There's something you'd better know,' he said.

'Yes?' I said.

'Let's go back to one evening just after you came back from Berlin with that transcript . . . the German woman who disappeared into the Havel last Christmas. Remember?'

'How could I forget.'

'You were getting very excited about the radio codes she used. Am I right?'

'Right,' I said.

'Would you like to tell me that over again?'

'The codes?'

'Tell me what you told me that evening.'

'I said she was handling material, selected material, for transmission. I said it was stuff that they didn't want handled by the Embassy.'

'You said it was good. You said it was probably Fiona's stuff that this woman was sending.'

'That was just conjecture.' I wondered what Dicky was trying to get me to say.

'Two codes, you said. And you said two codes was unusual.'

'Unusual for one agent, yes.'

'You're beginning to clam up on me, Bernard. You do this sometimes, and it makes my life very difficult.'

'I'm sorry, but if you told me what you were getting at, I might be able to be more explicit.'

That's right — make it my fault. You're good at that.'

'There were two codes. What else do you want to know?'
'
ironfoot
and
jake
.
You said that Fiona was
ironfoot
.
And you said 'Who the hell is
jake
?'
Right?' 'I found out afterwards that
ironfoot
was a mistranslation for
pig IRON
.'

Dicky frowned. 'Did you follow that up, even after I told you to drop it?'

'I was at Silas Gaunt's house. Brahms Four was there. I just casually mentioned the distribution of material and asked him about it.'

'You're bloody insubordinate, Bernard. I told you to drop that one.' He waited for my reply, but I said nothing and that finally forced him to say, 'Okay, okay. What did you find out from him?'

'Nothing I didn't already know, but he confirmed it.'

'That if there were two codes, there were two agents?'

'Normally, yes.'

'Well, you were right, Bernard. Now maybe we see the killing of the Miller woman in another light. The KGB had her killed so that she couldn't spill the beans. Unfortunately for those bastards on the other side of the fence, she'd already spilled the beans . . . to you.'

'I see,' I said. I guessed what was coming, but Dicky liked to squeeze the maximum effect out of everything.

'So who the hell's
jake
,
you asked me. Well, maybe I can now tell you the answer to that question.
jake
is Bret Rensselaer! Bret is a double and probably has been for years. We have reports going back to his time in Berlin. Nothing conclusive, nothing that makes firm evidence, but now things are coming together.'

'That's quite a shock,' I said.

'Damned right it's a shock. But I can't say you look very surprised, Bernard. Have you been suspicious of Bret?'

'No, I don't . . .'

'It's not fair to ask you that question. It makes me sound like Joe McCarthy. The fact is that the D-G is dealing with the problem. Now perhaps you realize why Bret is in Northumberland Avenue rubbing shoulders with those MI5 heavies.'

'Has the old man delivered him to MI5 without telling him?'

'Sir Henry wouldn't do anything like that, especially not to one of our own. No, Ml5 know nothing of this. But the old man wanted Bret out of this building and working somewhere away from our sensitive day-to-day papers while Internal Security investigate him. . . . Now this is all just between the two of us, Bernard. I don't want a word of this to go out of this room. I don't want you telling Gloria or anyone like that.'

'No,' I said, but I thought that was pretty rich since I'd already got the gist of it from Daphne. Daphne was a wife with no reason to be friendly to him, while Gloria Kent was a vetted employee who was handling the sensitive day-to-day papers that Bret wasn't seeing.

'Bret doesn't realize he's under suspicion. It's essential that he doesn't get wind of it. If he fled the country too, it would look damned bad.'

'Will he face an enquiry?' I asked.

'The old man's dithering.'

'Hell, Dicky, someone should talk to the old man. It can't go on Like this. I don't know what evidence there is against Bret, but he's got to be given a chance to answer for his actions. We shouldn't be discussing his fate when the poor sod has been shunted off so that he can't find out what's going on.'

'It's not exactly like that,' said Dicky.

'What is it like then?' I asked. 'How would you like it if it was me telling Bret that you were
jake
?'

'You know that's ridiculous,' said Dicky.

'I don't know anything of the kind,' I said. Dicky's face changed. 'No, no, no . . . I didn't mean you might be a KGB agent. I mean it's not ridiculous to suppose you might be a suspect.'

'I hope you're not going to make a fuss about this,' said Dicky. 'I was in two minds whether to tell you. Perhaps it was an error of judgement.'

'Dicky, it's only fair to the Department and everyone who works here that any uncertainty about Bret be resolved as quickly as possible.'

'Maybe Internal Security need time to collect more evidence.'

'Internal Security always need time to collect more evidence. It's in the nature of the job. But if that's the problem, then Bret should be given leave of absence.'

'Let's assume he's guilty — he'll run.'

'Let's assume he's not guilty — he must have a chance to prepare some sort of defence.'

Dicky now thought I was being very difficult. He moved his lips as he always did when he was agitated. 'Don't get excited, Bernard. I thought you'd be pleased.'

'Pleased to hear you tell me that Bret is a KGB mole?'

'No, of course not that. But I thought you'd be relieved to hear that the real culprit has been uncovered at last.'

'The real culprit?'

'You've been under suspicion. You must have realized that you haven't had a completely clear card ever since Fiona went over to them.'

'You told me that was all past history,' I said. I was being difficult. I knew he'd only told me that to be encouraging.

'Can't you see that if Bret is the one they've been looking for, it will put you in the clear?'

'You talk in riddles, Dicky. What do you mean "the one, they've been looking for"? I wasn't aware they were looking for anyone.'

'An accomplice.'

'I still don't get it,' I said.

'Then you are being deliberately obtuse. If Fiona had an accomplice in the Department, then Bret would be the most natural person for that role. Right?'

'Why wouldn't I be the most natural?'

Dicky slapped his thigh in a gesture of frustrated anger. 'Good God, Bernard, every time anyone suggests that, you bite their head off.'

'If not me, then why Bret?'

Dicky pulled a face and wobbled his head about. 'They were very close, Bernard. Bret and your wife — they were very close. I don't have to tell you the way it was.'

'Would you like to enlarge on that?'

'Don't get touchy. I'm not suggesting that there was anything less than decorous in the relationship, but Bret and Fiona were good friends. I know how comical that sounds in the context of the Department and the way some people talk about each other, but they were friends. They had a lot in common; their background was comparable. I remember one evening Bret was having dinner at your place. Fiona was talking about her childhood . . . they shared memories of places and people.'

'Bret is old enough to be Fiona's father.'

'I'm not denying that.'

'How could they share memories?'

'Of
places
, Bernard. Places and things and facts that only people like them know. Hunting, shooting, and fishing . . . you know. Bret's father loved horses, and so does your father-in-law. Fiona and Bret both learned to ride and to ski before they could walk. They both instinctively know a good horse from a bad one, good snow from bad snow, fresh foie gras from tinned, a good servant from a bad one . . . the rich are different, Bernard.'

I didn't answer. There was nothing to say. Dicky was right, they had had a lot in common. I'd always been frightened of losing her to Bret. My fears were never centred on other younger, more attractive men; always I saw Bret as my rival. Ever since the day I first met her — or at least from the time I went to Bret and suggested that we employ her — I'd feared the attraction that he would have for her. Had that, in some way, brought about the very outcome I most feared? Was it something in my attitude to Bret and to Fiona that provided them with an undefinable thing in common? Was it some factor absent in me that they recognized in each other and shared so happily?

'You see what I mean?' said Dicky, when I hadn't spoken for a long time. 'If there was an accomplice, Bret must be the prime suspect.'