The Intercom Conspiracy (2 page)

That first draft, then, was in a sense definitive.

In withdrawing his objections, Mr Carter made only one condition. Certain names, he said, must be changed, ‘to protect the guilty’.

Two such changes have been made.

The rest is left, unedited, to speak for itself.

ERIC AMBLER

FROM THEODORE CARTER

transcribed dictation tape

All right, Nicole, my dear, you’ve got Mr Latimer’s letter. Or does he call himself Lewison? Well, whichever it is, this is what I want to say to him
.

Dear Mr Whatsit,

I have received your letter of whatever the date is, and duly noted the contents. You ask if I would be so ‘kind’ as to cooperate with you in preparing for publication in book form a full and authentic account of the ‘so-called’
Intercom
affair. Then, after a lot more guff, you hint at the possibility that, if I’m very good, there may be a little something in it later for me. An honorarium you call it.

Well, that’s nice. Would I be right in suspecting that you had a lawyer draft that letter for you? It smelt like it. I particularly like the word ‘kind.’

Mr Thing, let’s cut the cackle, shall we?

I can quite well see that you need my cooperation. As I was and am the worst-hit casualty of the
Intercom
affair (why ‘so-called’ – how else would you refer to it?), and as I was the person at the receiving end of all the rough stuff, and as I am the only protagonist still breathing who is able and willing to talk for the record, it’s pretty clear, I’d say, that without my cooperation you haven’t a hope in hell.

You talk about a
full and authentic
account. Don’t kid yourself, Mr Thing. Don’t think you can get
that
by browsing through the news-magazine files and having cosy chats with the Swiss security boys. You can’t. I still have a lot of inside stuff that the bogeymen persuaded me to keep under my hat, and that has not
so far
been published. You don’t know the half of it. There may
even be some things that I
still
can’t talk about. But, where info about the
Intercom
affair is concerned, I am, you’d better face it, the one and only horse’s mouth.

That does not mean, Mr Whatsit, that I am prepared to make a horse’s arse out of myself.

Why the hell should
I
be kind?

You may be a distinguished writer of
romans policiers
, but has it escaped your notice that I am an experienced editor, wire-service reporter and rewrite man? Don’t let the fact that I worked for
Intercom
fool you or influence your thinking. It didn’t influence the thinking of the Italian publisher who approached me with the proposition that
I
should write a full and authentic account of the affair for book publication. Nor did it influence the thinking of the American magazine editor who made a special trip from Paris to suggest that I do a three-part piece on the affair for them.

Why didn’t I accept those offers? Because they weren’t good enough, that’s why. What the Italian was offering for world rights wouldn’t have kept me in tranquillisers while I was bashing it out. What the Americans had in mind was that I should spill the beans to one of their tame ‘as-told-to’ boys for a thousand bucks and my name on the cover page. I soon told them where they could shove
that
one.

I am not desperate, Mr Thing, and I am not interested in crap about possible honoraria. If you want cooperation from me,
you’re
the one who’s going to have to be kind.

What
I
mean by kind is this.

We stop talking about cooperation – the word is collaboration. We stop talking about honoraria – the terms are 50 per cent of the proceeds,
all
the proceeds.

Take it or leave it.

My guess is you’ll have to take it, because if you don’t, I’m not going to talk, and if I don’t talk, your account is going to be about as full and authentic as your maiden aunt’s codpiece. What’s more – and I hope you’ll take this in good part, Mr Thing, because, though I don’t yet know you personally, I’m hoping that ours can be a beautiful friendship – I know enough about the laws
of libel, copyright, misrepresentation and invasion of privacy, here and elsewhere, to be really troublesome if my name is taken in vain. That isn’t a threat, but it could be a promise.

So let’s assume that we’re going to be collaborators. You say that you plan to make this, to use your own mellifluous prose –
get this quote right, Nicole
– ‘a chronological account composed partly of transcribed and edited tape recordings of statements by important witnesses willing to be identified, and partly of narrative reconstructions based on evidence obtained from involved persons and others who for various reasons must remain anonymous.’ In other words, a scissors-and-paste job.

Well, I have a couple of things to say about that.

As you have probably already found, the only
important
witness willing to be identified is me. That means that I’m going to be doing quite a lot of the work – and explains, incidentally, why I’m asking for half the proceeds.
But
, Mr Thing, while I may be willing to stand up and be counted, I am definitely
not
willing to be edited. You’d better understand that now. Nothing I say or write is going to be abridged, abbreviated, cut, rearranged, reorganised, modified or ‘improved’ by you or anyone else. I’m not asking that my name go up in lights as collaborator and I’m not interested in narrative reconstructions (Christ, what a phrase!) or any arrangements you may make with other witnesses, if any. What I am insisting on is that everything
I
say or write goes in
exactly
as is, without any change or distortion, and that it is properly credited to me: From Theodore Carter.

Get me another drink, will you, love? There should be a fresh bottle in the stair cupboard
.

Sorry, Nicole. Forgot to switch off. Val’s here
.

So there it is, Mr Whatsit. As soon as I get a letter from you confirming your acceptance of the terms and conditions I have outlined here, plus a copy of your contract with the commissioning publisher, plus a cheque for 50 per cent of the advance (dollars or Swiss francs, either will do), we’re in business. The publisher can countersign our letter agreement.

Oh, one more thing. Under no circumstances, Mr Whatsit, am
I prepared to have anything to do, directly or indirectly, with any of those persons you mention who can’t or won’t be identified. That department’s all yours. Chicken? You bet I am. I’ve had enough of those buggers to last me a lifetime. And if you’ll take a tip from me, you’ll meet them only in broad daylight and in public places with plenty of other people around and a policeman within sight. You’ll have trouble enough with those ‘narrative reconstructions’. You don’t want to end up needing a reconstruction job on yourself, too.

Nicole, my dear, scrub the last paragraph. I don’t want him getting cold feet. Then clean it up a bit, end yours sincerely and do an extra carbon. No, wait. Better do a draft for me to see first. After all, this is business
.

FROM CHARLES LATIMER

Dear Mr Carter,

Thank you for your letter. I found it most entertaining. I do hope, however, that I am not expected to take all the proposals you make in it seriously.

You appear to favour the forthright, no-nonsense method of doing business. I say ‘appear to’ because, of course, exhortations to face the facts and cut the cackle are often the reverse of what they seem; the most devious men commonly profess simplicity. However, I will take you at what appears to be your word and speak plainly.

There is always a tendency among those who have survived a harrowing experience to exaggerate the danger they were in and to assume that they alone are qualified to speak about it. As an experienced journalist you should be aware of that tendency and so be capable of observing it in yourself.

You say that you were the worst-hit casualty of the
Intercom
affair and are the only surviving protagonist. My dear Mr Carter, you were a minor casualty and never a protagonist. You just looked like those things, because you were standing on that small piece of the iceberg that showed above the surface. You don’t really know what hit you; you only
think
you know. There are
two ways of describing your part in the affair – as that of an innocent bystander caught in a bank hold-up, or as the victim of a practical joke perpetrated by strangers.

You don’t understand what I am now talking about, do you? Quite so. Your view of what you call the
Intercom
affair is a very restricted one. All you know is what happened to you. You don’t know why or exactly how it happened. I do know
why
, and I am now beginning, because I am taking the necessary trouble and a certain amount of risk, to discover
how
. There is more than one horse’s mouth, Mr Carter.

It does not surprise me in the least to hear that the offers you have received for your story have been disappointing. What does surprise me is that at this late stage you have received any offers at all. That is why I thought that my suggestion of a fee (yes, I am afraid that ‘honorarium’ was lawyer’s language) in return for your cooperation might be acceptable. My offer is still open. If you saw your way to accepting it, I could probably see my way to accepting by letter agreement the conditions you make about acknowledgment and editing.

Don’t misunderstand me, please. In stressing the narrowness of your view I am not trying to belittle your position. A contribution from you in statement form would be valuable. It would not, however, be indispensable. You see, I already know much more about the
Intercom
affair than you do.

That I got to know the ‘why’ part of it by accident rather than design, I freely admit. That is how I first became interested in the affair. Through a friend in the country where I spend the autumn of my days I became acquainted with the man I am calling ‘Colonel Jost’ in the book. The Colonel is in retirement now and already a little bored by it. He likes company and he likes to talk. He especially liked talking to me because I have written some books he has enjoyed. Thrillers and detective stories are his favourite reading; they make him laugh.

I am sorry that you dislike the phrase ‘narrative reconstruction’, but perhaps you won’t object to reading one. I wrote it after
listening to Colonel Jost talk. It is entitled ‘A Game for Two Players’ and may help explain why certain things happened to you.

It may even persuade you to accept my offer after all.

Yours sincerely,

CHARLES LATIMER

A GAME FOR TWO PLAYERS

The steamer from Evian on the French side of the lake had made its stop at Territet. Now it came into sight again and turned to head for the pier on which Colonel Jost stood waiting.

He looked down at the water. He remembers that there was a cold breeze blowing along the lake that day and that waves were breaking over the boulders along the shore. The sight did not interest him in the least. He came from a country with a coastline open to North Sea gales, and these waves, he says, reminded him of slopping bath water; but he kept his eyes on them just the same. It was better than staring expectantly at the approaching steamer, and better than appearing to examine, even idly, the other persons waiting beside him on the pier. There were five of them: two women with bulging string bags, a seedy man carrying an imitation-leather sample case, and a pair of out-of-season German tourists, husband and wife. All probably harmless, he thought, but you could never be certain; and if you appeared not to notice people, there was less chance of their noticing and remembering you. He kept staring at the waves until the steamer came alongside.

Paddle wheels churned, mooring lines were passed, the gangway was pushed out. Four persons came ashore. The waiting passengers walked on board.