Spy Line (7 page)

‘No,’ I said. ‘What about him?’ Frank had never made any secret of his hope that his son would find a place in
the Diplomatic Service. He’d prepared the ground well in advance. So when the boy came down from Cambridge with the declared intention of getting a commercial pilot’s licence, Frank still didn’t take it too seriously. It was only after he’d seen him flying the routes for a few years that Frank reluctantly faced the fact that his son was going to live a life of his own.

‘Failed his medical.’

‘Frank, I’m so sorry.’

‘Yes, for an airline pilot that’s a sentence of death. He said that to me on the phone. “It’s a sentence of death, Dad.” Until that very moment I don’t think I understood what that damned flying job meant to him.’ Frank wet his lips nervously; I knew that I was the first person to whom he’d confided his true feelings. ‘Flying. It must be so boring. So repetitious.’ This was of course exactly the superior attitude that his son had so resented, and which had created the unsurmountable barrier between them. ‘Not much of a job for a fellow with a good degree, I would have thought.’ He looked at me quizzically and then realized that I didn’t have a college degree of any kind.

‘What will he do?’ I asked hurriedly to cover his discomfort.

‘He’s still in a state of shock,’ said Frank and gave a little laugh, trying to hide the distress he felt at the abrupt ending of his son’s career.

‘It will be all right,’ I said, improvising as I went. ‘They’ll find him a ground job. He’ll end up with a seat on the board.’ I knew that such a tedious administrative job would be something that Frank would really approve.

‘There are too many of them,’ said Frank. ‘Too many unemployed aviators who don’t know anything except how to drive an airbus. He’d be no damned use behind a desk, Bernard, you know that.’ Frank had been going through his pocket in a distracted way; finally he brought out a yellow oilskin tobacco pouch. From his top pocket he got out his
cherry-wood pipe and blew through it experimentally before he snapped open the pouch.

‘I’m not sure they permit smoking in here any more, Frank,’ I said.

‘Nonsense,’ said Frank. He sat down and began pushing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and pressing it down with his thumb.

Klara brought Frank’s gin and tonic. As she set it down before him she saw his pipe and said,
‘Hier darf nicht geraucht werden, Herr Harrington.’

‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Frank.

Despite Frank’s devastating smile, Klara waggled a finger at him and said,
‘Die Pfeife! Die Pfeife ist strenglich verboten!’

Frank kept smiling and said nothing. Klara looked at me and pulled a fierce face that asked me how Lisl would deal with such a dilemma. Then she shrugged her shoulders and marched off. I don’t think Klara cared very much whether guests smoked in the dining room: she’d done her duty as laid down by Lisl. That was enough.

Perhaps Klara’s warning took effect, for Frank continued to toy with his smoking equipment but did not light up. At first I thought his mind was still wholly occupied with the consequences of his son’s failure to pass his pilot’s medical, but there was something else. ‘But I bring good news for you, Bernard,’ he said.

‘What’s that, Frank?’ I said.

‘You’re free.’ Perhaps my face didn’t show the joy that he’d anticipated for he added, ‘Free to go to England. All charges dropped. No board to face, not even a tribunal.’

‘I see,’ I said.

‘I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. All charges against you are to be dropped.’

‘I thought you said they
had been
dropped.’

‘You’re in a captious mood today, Bernard.’

‘Perhaps. But which is it?’

He coughed. Was it a sign of nervousness, the way the interrogation teams said, or was it something that came with that damned pipe tobacco? ‘A couple of formalities still remain. Nothing more, I assure you.’

‘Either or,’ I said. ‘Did London send you to hold a pistol to my head?’ I looked out of the window. The blue sky had only been a brief interlude, a deception. Now it had clouded over and it looked like more snow, or with the thermometer going up, rain.

‘Come along, Bernard. It’s nothing like that.’

‘What formalities?’

He tapped the table with his pipe. ‘Well, we wouldn’t want you selling your memoirs to one of the Sunday papers.’ He smiled as if the restriction was upon something outrageous like leaping from the topmost pinnacle of Big Ben holding an umbrella. ‘We don’t want you starting an action in the High Court.’ Another big smile.

‘Wait a minute, Frank. Action in the High Court? I couldn’t do that if I was still working for the Department.’ I looked at him: his expression was unchanging. I said, ‘Was that order for my arrest just some bizarre way of getting rid of me? Did they want me to run? Was someone half hoping that I might go East?’

‘God forbid!’ A gust of air rattled the windows like some demon trying to break in. Despite the double windows, the noise of the wind continued low and undulating, crooning a lament.

‘From the Department’s point of view that would make things easier, wouldn’t it? If I ran East I’d be labelled a defector…For their reputation that would be marginally better than having me in an English courtroom, or even facing a military court in Berlin.’

‘Bernard, please. They are simply asking for a signed sup ple mentary agreement, covering the matters of confidence, contract and official secrets and so on. Formalities; just as I said.’

‘Are you telling me I’m fired? Is that the “final solution” to the Samson problem? I’m to be tightly gagged and put out to grass?’

‘Hold your horses, Bernard.’

‘Then tell me, Frank. But tell me straight.’

‘They want you to resign…They suggest you give a year’s notice. You’ll work the year normally.’

‘Severance pay? Pension rights?’

‘To be agreed.’

‘Oh, I see the hand of Morgan in this one. I work a year relegated to some remote job where nothing classified will pass across my desk. If I behave myself and keep my mouth shut, and sign a hundred forms to make sure I can’t say a word to anyone without dire consequences, then I will tiptoe off stage and get my pension. But if I shake rattle and roll during that twelve months, I’m cut off without the proverbial penny.’

‘These matters always have two sides, Bernard.’

‘But am I right?’

‘That would be one way of looking at it. But I hope you’ll see that it’s good for you too. It’s a chance to cut loose from an impossible situation.’

‘The answer is no,’ I said.

‘Wait a minute, Bernard.’

‘I’ve done nothing dishonest. They know that. Jesus! When Fiona took off I faced positive vetting teams from the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. They pronounced me clean and I am still. That’s why they’ve dropped this lunatic plan of arresting me. The lawyers have told them that there is no case for me to answer. Not even here in occupied Berlin, where they can virtually invent their own laws. If they’d arrested me in England I would have been headline news, and by now the Department would be looking damned stupid.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Frank with what might have been a sigh. ‘In fact I understand the Deputy discussed you, and the order
to arrest you, with someone from the Attorney-General’s office.’

‘And came out with his arse in a sling.’

‘I don’t know what was said.’ He was looking down and giving all his attention to his tobacco pouch. Frank’s position as Berlin Head of Station had brought him into many head-on collisions with London Central. He couldn’t entirely conceal his pleasure at the hash London had made of this whole business. That he was being asked to pull their coals from the fire must have made it even more piquant.

‘I’m not resigning,’ I told him. ‘I’ll work the year as they suggest but only if I continue in the same job. If in twelve months’ time the Department still wants my head we’ll talk about compensation then.’

‘I don’t see the difference, Bernard.’

‘Don’t you, Frank? The difference is that if I resign now it’s like admitting that I’ve done something wrong: that I’ve sold secrets to a foreign power or taken the office pencils home. If they employ me normally for another year it will be a tacit admission that I was wrongly accused.’

‘They won’t like that answer,’ said Frank. ‘They are very keen to get it settled very quickly.’ The wind came again, fiercer now. When the wind abated it would rain.

‘I’ll bet they are. Well, we can get it settled very quickly, if that’s what they want. I’ll fax my story to the
New York Times.’

For a moment Frank didn’t react. Then he rubbed his face and said, ‘Don’t make jokes like that, Bernard. I shudder to think of the damage that would be inflicted upon all of us if you did something silly.’

‘Okay, Frank. I’ll stop making jokes like that but you tell London that it’s my deal or nothing.’

He kept his voice low and measured. ‘I don’t know anyone who has your knowledge – and your instinct – for what’s happening here, Bernard. Your time in the field added to
time on the German Desk in London makes you a key person, and so a prime target. You’ve seen the Department at work since you were on your father’s knee. Surely you can see why they worry so much.’

‘Yes, Frank. So you tell London that it’s my deal or nothing.’

‘They’ll not be threatened, Bernard.’

‘That has a sinister ring to it, Frank.’

‘Did it? I’m truly sorry, that’s not at all what I intended to convey. I was trying to point out that your approach is ill-considered. Their offer is made in good faith. Must you throw it back into their face?’

‘I’m not resigning.’

‘Go back to London. I’ll arrange everything. Go to the office and work normally. Let the resignation issue stand for the time being while I talk to the old man.’

‘There remains the question of Fiona,’ I said.

Frank flinched as if I’d struck him. ‘We can’t discuss your wife.’

‘I’ve got to know whether Fiona defected or went over there continuing to work for the Department.’

Frank stared at me. His face was like stone without even a flicker of sentience.

I said, ‘Very well: you can’t tell me officially, and I understand that, Frank. But it’s my wife. I’ve got to know.’

I waited for him to frame an answer that would comply with his sense of propriety but he still didn’t speak.

‘Fiona was sent, right? She’s working for us still?’ Frank’s face was the same Frank I’d known since childhood, but those pitiless eyes revealed a Frank that I’d always said did not exist. This tough unbending reaction to my question did not cause me to hate him: on the contrary it made me want his help and assistance even more. That of course was the secret of Frank’s success over these many years; I’d taken a long time to discover it. ‘Right?’ I seemed to see in his eyes an affirmative. I felt sure that Frank wouldn’t allow
me to harbour the dangerous belief that Fiona was innocent if she was really a dedicated opponent.

After what seemed an age Frank said, ‘I forbid you to discuss Fiona with me or with anyone else. I told you I would do my best to find out what you want to know. Meanwhile you must keep completely silent. Put her out of your mind.’

‘Okay.’

‘And I mean it.’

‘I said okay.’

Frank relaxed a little. He said, ‘I take it you’ll want to go to London as soon as possible?’ I nodded. ‘You must have a lot of things to attend to.’

He looked at me for a moment before putting his hand in his pocket and putting a foolscap-sized white envelope on the table in front of me.

I looked at him and smiled. He’d outmanoeuvred me, and been so confident about being able to do so that he’d brought the airline ticket with him. ‘Checkmate in three moves, eh Frank?’ I smiled and tried not to sound too bitter.

‘I thought you would want to see Gloria and the children as soon as possible.’ He touched the ticket and moved it a fraction of an inch closer to me. ‘You’ll be with them tonight. Go in to the office tomorrow and work as usual. I’ll phone you at home to tell you what’s happening.’ He was careful to keep any note of triumph out of his voice. From his tone and demeanour you’d have thought we were fellow sufferers with the same misfortune.

‘Thanks, Frank,’ I said, picking up the ticket. ‘What happened to our colleague Teacher today?’

‘You won’t regret it, Bernard. I’m giving you good advice, the sort your dad would have given you.’ A pause as he breathed deeply and no doubt congratulated himself upon getting a chance to change the subject. ‘Teacher. Yes. A spot of bother,’ said Frank, picking up his pipe and touching it to his lips. ‘His wife skedaddled. An awfully nice girl. Extremely
intelligent. Clementine: gorgeous-looking creature: wonderful figure. Ever meet her?’

I nodded. Frank had a sharp eye for desirable young females with wonderful figures. His eyes stared into the distance as he remembered her.

‘She went off with some flashy Yankee film producer. Met him for the first time ten days ago. Women are so impulsive aren’t they? What provokes a young wife to such a headstrong act?’ The wind had dropped now. The sky had darkened. At any moment it would rain.

‘Poor old Teacher,’ I said. ‘He seemed to be very fond of her.’ Now I realized why the beautiful Clemmie had become so agitated when I had lunch there on Sunday. Never mind her shouting about me being a pariah, my guess is that she thought the Department had got wind of her plans and sent me to spy on her.

‘This wretched American has taken her to a film festival in Warsaw. Warsaw! Alarm bells started ringing I can tell you. London overreacted: the telex got red-hot! “Do this; don’t do that; disregard previous message; provide present whereabouts.” You know. Luckily Mrs Teacher must have realized what trouble she was causing us. She phoned me from her hotel in Warsaw and explained, in guarded terms, that it was just a domestic rift. She had, she said, fallen in love for the very first time. Deep sighs and all. Says she’ll never go back to her husband. They plan to fly on to a film festival in Japan and then to America. She wants to live in Beverly Hills. She said that I was not to worry.’ Frank blew through his pipe and gave me a worried smile. ‘So I’m not worrying.’