Ultimate Issue (17 page)

“Like you,” said Laurie.

“Or you,” said Ivanov. “Maybe we should both be grateful to him.”

He took a drink from his glass. “I think they’ve added some deodorant,” he said, pulling a face.

“So why do you drink it?”

He lowered his voice, confidentially. “Because, my beautiful Laurie, Stephen is too mean to serve decent drinks. That is his one great failing, I have never seen a drop of champagne at one of his dos. One is left with this.”

“You come quite often?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It passes the time,” he airily.

Near them a girl suddenly raised her voice in protest. “Look what you have done,” she cried accusingly, holding out her skirt, soaked with the drink a man had spilled over her.

“I’m ever so sorry, darling,” mumbled the man, swaying slightly. He was in shirt sleeves, his eyes slightly glassy. “Buy you a new one. Ever so sorry.”

He took a handkerchief and started to dab her skirt.

“Oh, go away,” the girl snapped irritably.

“You see that man?” said Ivanov sarcastically. “Pillar of Fleet Street. Peter Dawkins. Always good for a scoop if you can pour it into him.”

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“For a navy man, you’re well informed about journalists,” remarked Laurie.

He smiled. “No more than you, I imagine. Tell me something. Your name, Czeslaw. Interesting. Eastern European.”

“American,” she said shortly.

“But originally…. My grandfather was a Tzarist grand duke,” he went on. “He loved good restaurants, parties, the ballet, the good life. He adored the ladies. He took to luxury like a duck to water.” He winked. “Just like me. It’s in the blood.”

“even though you’re a good communist.”

“Of course. Not only good. A trusted one. You understand?”

The atmosphere was getting smokier, the noise louder, the music shriller.

“I think,” said Laurie, “it’s time for me to go.”

“So soon?” he protested.

“I have an early start in the morning.”

He was charming about it. “I understand. There’ll be plenty of other times. I’ll call you at your flat.”

“You have the number?” she asked, surprised.

“Of course.” The smiling eyes stared straight into hers. “And I look forward to seeing quite a lot of you, Miss Czeslaw.”

At the door, she glanced back and saw him watching her across the room. He raised his hand, blew her an extravagant, continental kiss. He was still smiling.

Yes, decided Laurie, it had all gone like clockwork.

Thursday, July 6,1961

London

SBRENA Howard lay back in the bathtub, luxuriating in the warm, perfumed water.

She stretched her long legs and relaxed. She was a girl who enjoyed pleasant physical sensations. Like silk against her skin. A man’s hands exploring her body.

And here, immersed in the scented bath, she felt secure, safe.

She always took her time over her bath. It had become

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a ritual, and part of the pleasure was that she could linger as long as she liked.

Sometimes she indulged herself by having a cup of coffee in the tub, or even reading the paper. Often she smoked a cigarette. But mostly she just lazed.

The door buzzer sounded.

She lay rigid for a moment. Living alone, it was the thing she loathed most that the phone should ring or somebody come to the door while she was having her bath.

She had taken off her watch, but she had gotten up late, and she knew it must be around ten thirty. In the sitting room, the radio was playing softly. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

Again the buzzer sounded.

“Go away,” said Serena to herself. It was too late for the postman, she had paid the milkman last week. She was suspicious of these unexpected callers anyway. A couple of Sundays back she’d been roused from a deep sleep by a man and woman with toothy smiles offering to “discuss a Bible message.”

She’d slammed the door in their faces rather more forcefully than was necessary and swore next time she simply wouldn’t answer.

Stick it out, ignore them, and they’ll finally give up, she assured herself.

But not today. This time the buzzer was pushed impatiently, three times in succession.

“Shut up,” shouted Serena, but she knew that she couldn’t be heard by anyone outside the front door.

Then the knocking began. A couple of sharp raps, finally a peremptory thumping.

“God almighty,” she swore, raising herself and stepping out of the bath, her naked body dripping. She had a slim, boyish figure, a tiny waist, small, firm breasts, and very good legs. But she didn’t even look at herself in the long bathroom mirror. She briskly towered herself dry.

“Yes, damn it, I’m coming,” she called out furiously as the banging continued. She wrapped a bathrobe around herself and went to the front door.

“You don’t have to knock the house down,” she said angrily.

A shabbily dressed man in a grubby raincoat smiled at her nervously. Incongruously, he had a bowler hat on.

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“I’m sorry, miss,” he apologised, “but I knew you was in and I thought maybe you hadn’t heard.”

She caught a whiff of his stale breath.

“What do you want?” she demanded, pulling the robe closer around her.

“Miss Serena Ann Margaret Howard?” he inquired, rattling off the string of names on her birth certificate.

“Yes,” she confirmed nervously.

“Here you are, miss,” he said, and handed her an envelope. It was buff, and it had “OHMS” on it. Before she could even look at it, the man held a book and pencil in front of her.

“Sign here, miss.”

Despite his shabby looks and bad breath, his tone had become authoritative.

“It’s just a receipt,” he added, and, hardly thinking, she scrawled her name.

“Thank you,” said the man. He raised his bowler hat politely. “Sorry to trouble you.”

“What is this?” she asked as he started to go.

“Just a witness summons,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Good day.”

She closed the door and stared at the envelope in her hand.

OHMS. On Her Majesty’s Service. And in the bottom left hand corner, “Lord Chancellor’s Office.”

Suddenly the feeling of well-being that she always had after a bath disappeared. Her stomach was tightening into a knot.

She ripped open the envelope. The paper was a printed sheet and only some particulars had been typed in.

It ordered her to appear in person at RAF Station Laconbury on Tuesday, July 25, at 9 A.M., to attend in the matter of the [Jnited States v. Tower and to give and render such particulars as may be required of her.

She put the paper down and went over to her handbag. She took out a small pocket diary. Today was the sixth. Her hand trembled slightly as she counted the days. They had given her just under three weeks.

She sat down and tried to think rationally. Nineteen days. Two weeks and five days. Oh yes, that was right. Daventry had said they had to give at least fourteen days’ notice in a subpoena. They had been very generous.

Serena looked in her diary again. She found the number she wanted, and she reached over and put the phone

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on the floor next to her. She dialed the number and held on while it rang.

Finally it answered.

“Mr. Daventry, please,” she said.

The voice at the other end asked something.

“It’s Miss Howard,” she said rather formally. Then she added, ‘Yell him it’s very urgent.”

Two miles away, in a tall building in Holborn, a red light flashed on a control panel in a room that at first glance looked a little like a recording studio.

A spool began to revolve slowly. This was one conversation that was going to be transcribed in full as soon as it had been recorded.

South Ruislip

In her office, Laurie’s phone rang.

“Colonel Kincaid’s office, Miss Czeslaw speaking,” she announced.

“Hi, Laurie,” came the familiar voice. “Listen, you free Saturday?”

“I can be,” she said.

“Let’s meet at our little French restaurant. Or you got any better ideas?”

“No, that sounds fine,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

“Eight o’clock then. I’ve got a few things to talk about.”

He hung up.

She had been expecting Clyde Unterberg to call. In fact, if he hadn’t, she would have called him. She too had a few things to talk about.

Burderop Park

Duval was enjoying his day out to Wiltshire driving an unmarked OSI car from the motor pool. He relished the green English countryside in the bright July sun.

Outside Swindon he got lost, but the policeman he stopped to ask the way to Burderop Park USAF Hospital gave him excellent directions, and he arrived only half an hour later than he had arranged.

He parked the car by the administrative building and walked up the path, lined on either side by neatly trimmed six-inch-high hedges. They and the closely cropped lawn gave an impression of almost fastidious tidiness.

Duvat wondered, idly, who kept it all so orderly. Some of the patients, maybe, but certainly not inmates of Ward 1Q

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He found Captain Perriton waiting in his office a little impatiently.

“Sorry I’m late, Doc,” apologised Duval. It was the most familiar he had been so far with Perriton and he registered an immediate resentment. He made a mental note always to call Perriton doctor, or by his rank. Funny people, these psychiatrists.

“Let’s go and eat,” said Perriton. His bald head gleamed. Almost as if it had been polished.

“I passed a cute little pub on the way here. Looks two hundred years old. Why don’t we take my car and have a beer there,” suggested Duval.

He had decided during the drive that it would be much better to have his discussion with the captain off base. It somehow made it less official.

“I’ve got a lot of patients to see this afternoon,” Perriton grumbled unhelpfully.

“That’s okay. It’s only ten minutes from here.”

The pub was the ideal place for a private little chat. It had a huge lawn at the back, with benches set far apart.

“What will you have?” asked Duval.

“A shandy.”

“A what?” Duval had never heard of it.

“Lemonade and beer. It’s sort of peculiarly English,” explained Perriton. He also liked buttered scones, crumpets, and little pork pies because he prided himself on getting to know a country’s way of life.

“Sounds it,” said DUVAI doubtfully. He walked into the saloon bar, ordered a scotch and soda and a shandy.

“With ice,” he added.

Although Duval was in civilian dress, he might as wed have worn a uniform. His suit was American, like his shirt, his tie, and his shoes. In the village bar, he stood out.

The fat girl behind the counter carefully dropped one lump of ice in each glass. Duval still couldn’t believe it. He had been in many pubs and bars since arriving in England, and the English reluctance to serve anything iced always amazed him.

“Give me a little more ice.”

If his clothes and his accent hadn’t branded him, this would have been it.

He carried the drinks out to the garden.

“Cheers,” said Perriton, to underline his acclimatization.

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“Nice part of the country you got here,” remarked Duval. He wanted to play it gently.

“Mr. Duval,” said Perriton, “you haven’t come all this way to talk about the scenery.”

“No,” said Duval. “It’s about Captain Tower.”

“Of course.”

Duval shot him a quick sideways look. Just how much did this trick cyclist know?

“I’m sorry he was so uncooperative at the test,” said Duval. “He wasted everybody’s time.”

“You haven’t come just to tell me that either,” Perriton said testily.

Damn, thought Duval, he got out of the wrong side of bed today.

“No.”

“Well?”

“Doctor, this is absolutely unofficial,” said DuvaL

“Aha.”

“And absolutely off the record.”

“So?”

“We’re very concerned about Captain Tower.” Duval juggled his glass, but the ice had melted and there wasn’t the clinking sound he usually enjoyed. “He’s in a lot of trouble. And we hate to see a good man in trouble.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Well,” said Duval, “he goes on trial soon, as you know, and he looks like going straight into the hoosegow. Hell of a shame. I’d hate to see my worst enemy in Leavenworth.”

“I didn’t know the OSI cared so much,” commented Perriton.

“Sure we do. We look after our own. Now, I appreciate that the test you made was inconclusive. But we think Captain Tower has problems. So I want to have your advice.”

The bald man stared at him.

“It wouldn’t be too difficult to set up a board, would it?”

“A board?”

“Section One twenty-one. If certain observations of a man’s behavior are reported through channels, regulations provide an inquiry into his mental condition may be appropriate. It only needs two medical officers. One of them should be a psychiatrist. You follow, Doctor?”

“For what purpose?” asked Perriton. His look was cold.

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“Well, procedure lays down that the accused can be placed under observation, examined, and further investigated. Right here, for example. At Burderop.”

“WhyI”

“Supposing,” said Duval, looking into the distance, “supposing you find an accused may have, er, difficulty to inteDigently cooperate in his defence. I’m quoting the book, of course. ‘Intelligently cooperate in his defence.”’

“I know the book,” said Perriton.

“If that were the case, it would not be fair to subject such a man to a courtmartial. I’m sure you agree, Doctor.”

“Guess so,” said Perriton slowly. He had worked with the OSI before.

“So, if the poor guy needs help, the right thing is to ship him out and confine him in a place until you people can shape him up again, wouldn’t you say?”

It was restful on the lawn. Birds sang and a man lay on the grass, his eyes closed. Two benches away a young couple had their heads together and were laughing, oblivious to their surroundings.

“Have you got evidence that there is something wrong mentally with Captain Tower?”

Duval stared straight at Perriton. “You saw him. Donald Duckl Mickey Mouse! The guy was irrational. Wouldn’t cooperate. You said so yourself. And Lieutenant Jensen agrees. He’s trying to help the man, but he just won’t listen. Wants to plead not guilty against the best advice.”