Vintage Stuff (30 page)

'The Germans. You must know about Rommel.'

'You tell us. He train you or something?'

'Damned near killed me,' said the Major, rather wishing he had.

'So you were threatened into this, is that what you're saying?'

'No, I'm not. I'm not in this, whatever it is. I was sent down here by the Headmaster to try
to find Clyde-Browne...'

'Tell us something new. We've been through that routine before.'

'But there's nothing else to tell. And what are you doing with that fucking hypodermic?'

In the passage outside Commissaire Roudhon and the man from the Quai d'Orsay listened with
interest.

'The space shuttle and truth drugs and not an inkling of history,' said Monsieur Laponce. 'So
much for the special relationship. The President will be pleased.'

'Monsieur?' said the Commissaire, who hadn't a clue what the Foreign Office man was talking
about.

'Between London and Washington. We are standing at the end of an era.'

Commissaire Roudhon looked up and down the passage. 'If you say so, monsieur,' he said. Eras
meant nothing to him.

'From now on Britain will be what she should always have been, a dependency of France,'
continued Monsieur Laponce, indulging his taste for rhetoric. 'The idiots in Whitehall have
played into our hands.'

'You really think the British government sent these men?'

'It is not what I think that matters, Commissaire. It is what those charming Americans in
there report to Washington.'

'But Gaddafi '

' has nothing to do with this. Nor have the Red Brigade or any other terrorist group. It was a
stratagem to worsen our relationship with the United States and it has failed.'

'I hadn't thought of it like that,' said the Commissaire.

'You will, Monsieur Roudhon. From now on you will. Bear that in mind. And no press releases.
You will simply tell the press that the affair is of too delicate a nature diplomatically to
speak about since British Intelligence Officers...You will stop yourself there in some confusion
and demand that what you have just said is not to be reported. Is that clear?'

'Absolutely.'

'If you fail in the duty, you will have failed France,' said Monsieur Laponce. 'Remember that.
And now, to avoid listening to that terrible noise, I will report to the Minister.'

Inside the interrogation room Major Fetherington under the influence of the drugs he had been
given was living up to Henry Ford's dictum that history was bunk.

'I'll tell you something,' said the chief American investigator after the Major had babbled on
for the tenth time about dog-turds in Shrewsbury, 'you can say what you like about the limeys but
when they make 'em they make 'em tough.'

'Not the other one,' said the medical expert, 'he's plain loco. Give him a shot of this stuff
and he'll be psychotic for life.'

'What's all this shit about letters mean?'

'Zero. He's scrambled eggs cerebral wise.'

'So what've we got? Two names, Glodstone and Clyde-Browne. They're not going to like this in
Washington.'

In Whitehall, Deputy Under-Secretary Cecil Clyde-Browne, CBE, sat staring dismally at a pigeon
on the roof opposite and wondered what was being decided. Somewhere nearby, the Home Secretary,
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Police Commissioner and the Head of MI 5 held his
future in their hands. More accurately, they held a telex from the British Ambassador in
Paris.

'Well?' asked the Foreign Secretary, when they'd all had their fill of the ghastly news. 'Do
we hand the little bugger over or do we not?'

The Chief Commissioner of Police and the Head of MI 5 shook their heads.

'Out of the question,' said MI 5, 'I've had a look at the imbecile and if the French get their
hands on him I've no doubt they can programme him to say anything. Not that they'd need much for
him to say. Nobody'd believe his story anyway.'

'I'm not sure I do,' muttered the Foreign Secretary. 'This couldn't be some frightful CIA
plot, could it? I've never been entirely happy about your American counterparts since they tried
those damned explosive clams on Castro.'

'I can't see what they could possibly gain from it. It's more likely to be KGB-inspired.'

The Foreign Secretary looked nostalgically at a globe of the World which still showed India as
part of the Empire. 'Where have you got the brute?' he asked presently.

'In a safe house in Aldershot.'

The name inspired the Foreign Secretary. 'I don't suppose you could arrange for him to have an
accident, or Lassa fever, or something?'

'It's feasible, but with the man Glodstone on the loose...'

The Home Secretary intervened. 'I'm not prepared to be party to an unofficial execution,' he
said hurriedly, 'I mean if this got out...'

'It is out, damn it. Whatever it is. And we've got to decide something now. The American
Ambassador is due at two and with the confounded French putting it about that there's an SAS
hit-squad conducting an assassination campaign to worsen Franco-US relations, I've got to tell
the fellow something credible. I know he's from Arkansas but...'

'The truth perhaps?' murmured the Home Secretary. 'They say it always comes out in the
end.'

'They can say what they bloody well please, but I haven't spent forty years in the foreign
service to believe that one, and from what I can tell no one knows what the truth is.'

'I suppose we could always put the blame on the IRA,' said MI 5. 'It's as good a ruse as any
and it won't do the Irish lobby in Washington any harm to get a kick in the teeth!'

'And what the hell do we do with Clyde-Browne? Call the little bastard O'Brien? I know this
fellow from Arkansas thinks Bombay is part of a B52, but he's not going to fall for anything as
dumb as an Irish dimension.'

It was the Police Commissioner who came up with the answer. 'I should have thought the obvious
thing to do was put the lad in the SAS. He's obviously a born killer and it's the last place
they're going to look.'

'The first, you mean,' said the Foreign Secretary, but the Police Commissioner held his
ground.

'The last. If we had organized a hit-squad along these lunatic lines with vintage Bentleys and
men with glass eyes nobody would think the SAS were involved. They're experts and
professionals.'

'But this raving Major Fetherington's already admitted...'

'Which makes it certain no one seriously believes he is. The man's in his mid-fifties. In any
case he has nothing to do with it. He was in the UK at the time of the murder.'

The Home Secretary backed him up. 'It's the same with Slymne. The Headmaster sent them both
off.'

'Splendid,' said the Foreign Secretary, 'so how do I explain to this Arkansas beef baron that
the bloody boy isn't in the SAS when he is?'

MI 5 smiled. 'I think you can safely leave that to me,' he said.

The Foreign Secretary had his doubts. He was thinking about Blake, Philby and Blunt. 'Safely?'
he asked.

MI 5 nodded.

By the time the American Ambassador arrived a hooded figure was standing in the ante-room.

'Of course, we wouldn't disclose the identity of any of our men in the Special Air Services,'
said the Foreign Secretary after asking politely about the health of the Ambassador's cattle and
learning that he was actually into natural gas and came from Texas, 'in ordinary circumstances,
that is. But we're prepared to make an exception in this case.'

He pressed a bell on his desk and the hooded figure entered. 'Sergeant Clyde-Browne, remove
your balaclava,' he said.

'We're going to want more identification than than,' said the Ambassador, staring at the large
individual with the walrus moustache.

'Fingerprints? I mean the French have got those of the assassin, haven't they?'

'I guess so.' He was still guessing when the man, having given his fingerprints, weight, size
of shoes and height in centimetres (to confuse the issue still further) donned his balaclava
helmet and left the room. 'Haven't I seen him some place else?' enquired the Ambassador.

'Possibly,' said the Foreign Secretary loftily. 'Between ourselves I understand him to be in
charge of certain...er...unmentionable security operations at Buckingham Palace.'

'I guess that explains it then. Those goddam Frenchies seem to have screwed things up again.
I'll have our security chief check the details but they don't fit the description I'd been given.
The killer was shorter and twenty years younger.'

'And doubtless French,' said the Foreign Secretary, and saw him to the door.

'Who on earth was that grisly-looking blighter?' he asked MI 5 when the Ambassador's
armour-plated limousine was safely out of the way. 'And what are those unmentionable duties at
Buck House?'

'Actually he's Captain of the Queen's Heads,' said MI 5. 'I thought that was rather a nice
touch.'

'Captain of...you mean he's a lavatory attendant? Good God, man, no wonder that blasted Yank
guessed he'd seen him before.' He stopped and looked at MI 5 suspiciously. 'He's not another
swine like Blunt, is he? Has he had positive vetting?'

'Oh absolutely. Comes from an eminently respectable Catholic family in the Falls Road area of
Belfast. Anyway he's only in charge of the visitor's loos. Don't suppose he's set eyes on Her
Majesty.'

'I should bloody well hope not. And if I were in your shoes I'd see to it she doesn't set eyes
on the wallah. Wouldn't blame her for setting those damned Corgis on the brute. Anyway, thank the
Lord that's settled. Even the present American administration wouldn't have the gall to start
checking the Palace.'

At the cortège drove slowly out of the Crematorium, Glodstone stared miserably at the back of
the chauffeur's head. It was one of the ironies of having attended his own funeral that he should
now recall that 'chauffeur' came from the French for stoker; presumably even modern furnaces had
to be attended by somebody to take out the ashes. Whoever had just been incinerated (probably an
unidentified tramp or something they'd finished with in the dissecting-rooms at one of the
teaching hospitals) had gone to his Maker bearing Glodstone's name. It was there on the death
certificate and a little obituary would shortly appear in the Old Groxboumian. The Great
Adventure had gone up in smoke.

'I know just how you feel,' said the Countess, patting his hand. 'Mourir c'est partir un
peu.'

'What?' said Glodstone.

'To die is to part a little. But it won't be for long. By the time the surgeon's finished with
you you'll be a new man.'

'Surgeon?' said Glodstone. 'What bloody surgeon?'

'The plastic one. He's said to be terribly good with burns.'

'Burns? Considering where I'm supposed to be he'd have to be fucking miraculous.'

'There's no need to use that sort of language,' said the Countess sharply, 'I haven't gone to
all this trouble and expense to have you swearing like a trooper.'

Glodstone considered the change in her own language and said nothing. There was something
about this extraordinary woman that frightened him and it was only when she stopped the car at
the top of Hampstead Heath and they were walking down to the tube station that he brought up the
matter of burns and plastic surgery.

'What the hell do I need plastic surgery for? Apart from whoever went up in that
coffin...'

'Well, we won't go into that now,' said the Countess, 'that's all past and done with. You've
got to look to the future and since you refuse to go to Brazil you'll just have to do what I tell
you. The main thing will be to alter the shape of your ears. They're the give-away and the police
always look at them first. Then '

'But with this wig on no one can see my blasted ears,' said Glodstone.

'I'm not going to be married to a man with a toupee. It's unbecoming and anyway it won't fit
your image. As far as the rest of you...'

But Glodstone wasn't listening. 'Did you say "married"?' he asked.

'Of course I did. You don't imagine for one moment that I'm going to live in sin with you, do
you?'

Half an hour later Glodstone entered a clinic near Portland Place. On the door a brass plaque
seemed to suggest its main business lay in abortions, but Glodstone no longer cared. It was
enough to know he was going to be married. It was infinitely preferable to spending the rest of
his life in Brazil.

'My hero,' said the Countess, kissing him lightly on the cheek, 'Now don't forget to sign your
name as Mr Smith.'

'Slymne's where?' said the Headmaster when Major Fetherington returned a week later, in the
company of two Special Branch officers.

'Rampton,' said the Major.

'Rampton? But that's that ghastly hospital for the criminally insane, isn't it? And what on
earth have you been doing to your face?'

'Dog-turd in Shrewsbury,' said the Major, who hadn't fully recovered from the effects of the
truth drug and his hours of interrogation.

'But that was your backside. Now you come back here with a face looking like a...'

'Dog-turd in Shrewsbury,' said the Major.

'Christ,' said the Headmaster. If Slymne was sufficiently off his rocker to be in Rampton, the
Major could do with some treatment himself. 'And what about Glodstone?'

'That's what we've come to see you about,' said one of the men and produced his
identification. The Headmaster examined it cautiously.

'Special Branch?' he asked weakly.

The man nodded. 'Now about Mr Glodstone, sir,' he said, 'we're going to require access to his
rooms and we'd be glad if you answered a few questions. For instance, were you aware that he had
any Communist inclinations?'

'Communist inc...I thought the sod belonged to the Monday Club. He certainly read the Daily
Telegraph.'

'That could have been cover. Homosexual tendencies? Excessive drinking? Chip on his social
shoulder? Anything of that sort?'

'All of it,' said the Headmaster fervently and glanced out of the window. A number of soldiers
had driven up in a lorry and were debussing on the drive. 'What the hell are they doing
here?'