The Harry Palmer Quartet. Len Deighton

in order to get at a little bent tin of snuff that had been polished by years of use. He offered me a pinch, but if I sneezed there was a good chance my head would fall off and roll under Alf’s gas stove. I didn’t risk it.

      I promised Alf an oil stove at cost price. He let me wash. Would Alf walk down the road with me? My brother-in-law wouldn’t make trouble if I was in company I said.

      Alf exploded with volubility. ‘I don’t care if he does, mate. You won’t catch me climbing garden walls to get away from him.’ I was suitably admonished. It was very kind of Alf, and could he wait till Friday for the bean frame money. ‘Today’s Friday,’ said Alf. He had me there.

      ‘Yes, next Friday,’ I said, deciding to complete the picture for him. ‘I’ve given my wife my wage packet for this week. Nights get paid first thing Friday morning.’

      ‘Cor blimey!’ said Alf.

      At the last minute Alf gave me sixpence and some coppers and a really withering look as I got on the bus. I was what things are coming to these days.

       27

      [Aquarius (Jan 20–Feb 19) If you are a stick-in-the-mud you’ll get nowhere. Widen your social horizons. Go somewhere gay and relaxing.]

      I heard the operator asking Charlie if he’d accept a reversed charge call. He said OK. ‘This is a friend of Reg,’ I said.

      ‘I recognize the voice.’

      ‘I’m in quite a bit of trouble, Mr Cavendish.’

      ‘That’s right,’ said Charlie. ‘You got it?’ He was referring to the cable I’d had in Tokwe.

      ‘Yes, thanks.’

      ‘’s OK. What can I do for you, my boy?’

      ‘Could you meet me? Now?’

      ‘Sure. Where?’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘’s OK,’ said Charlie. ‘Where?’

      I paused. I’d prepared the next bit: ‘“A dungeon horrible, on all sides round …”’ I paused and Charlie completed it for me.

      ‘“As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames

      No light, but rather darkness visible.”’

      That may not appeal to you, but to Milton and Charlie it was just the thing. ‘That’s it,’ I said.

      ‘OK. I’ve got you. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. I’ll go in first and pay for you. Anything special you want?’

      ‘Yes, a job.’

      Charlie gave a squeaky little laugh and rang off.

      There are no lights inside but through the huge windows that form one wall of the little chamber two lights that wouldn’t have chagrined a medium flak battery, stare relentlessly. The view through the glass is impressionist; the world outside muted by the constant dribble and trickle of hot water across the glass. The endless crash of sheets of water hitting the red stone floor provided a banshee background to the sudatory heat. Through the dense vapour Charlie’s pale pink and white blotchy body wrapped in a small gingham towel could just be seen.

      ‘Good idea,’ Charlie said. He was six inches shorter than me and he stared up with bright myopic eyes, now more shiny than ever. ‘Good idea this.’ I was flattered at Charlie’s enthusiasm. ‘I brought you some clothes. A white shirt – one of Reg’s. I thought you’d take about the same size as Reg. Socks and a pair of old canvas shoes size ten. Too big for me.’

      There was a crash as someone leapt into the cold plunge.

      ‘Turkish baths,’ said Charlie, ‘and sleep here too if you want.’

      The pain was beginning to trickle out of my pores. I said, ‘You see, Mr Cavendish …’ the wet heat struck the back of my lungs as I opened my mouth ‘… I had no one else to go to.’

      ‘’s OK. I would have been furious if you hadn’t come to your Uncle Charlie.’ It was a joke we had between us, like the joke of Charlie reciting those stanzas of Paradise Lost here in the steam room on previous occasions. Charlie was looking at the cuts on my face and my bruised cheek. The steam had probably made them much more visible. ‘You look like you got caught in a combine harvester,’ Charlie said gently.

      ‘Yes, and now they’ve sent me a bill for the damages.’

      ‘Go on. What a sauce,’ said Charlie seriously, then he did his squeaky laugh. Charlie wouldn’t hear of me going anywhere but back to his place. Although the Turkish bath was very therapeutic I was still as weak as a half-drowned kitten. I let him put me into his 1947 Hillman that was parked right outside the door in Jermyn Street.

      When I woke up on Saturday morning it was in Charlie’s bed – Charlie had spent the night on the sofa. There was a smell of freshly ground coffee, a spitting of grilling bacon, and a big coal fire that had reached that state of perfection that the manufacturers of plastic fronts for electric ones seek to emulate.

      I’m not good at guessing numbers, so it would be the roughest possible estimate if I said that Charlie’s little apartment contained three thousand books. Enough to say perhaps that in no room was there much wall to be glimpsed. And I wouldn’t like you to think that they were paperbacks of the Bushwacker of Deadman’s Gulch genre either. No, these wonderful books were the reason Charlie Cavendish hadn’t got past 1947 with his motor-cars.

      ‘You’re up,’ said Charlie, coming into the living-room with a big white coffee-pot. ‘Continental roast. OK?’ I hoped I wasn’t becoming that sort of fanatic that people had to check blends with before they could offer me a cup of coffee. ‘Great,’ I said.

      ‘Would music bother you?’

      ‘No, it would do me good,’ I answered. Charlie went across to the hi-fi. It was a mass of valves and assorted components strung together with loops of wire, sticking-plaster and slivers of matchstick. He laid a huge shiny LP on the heavy turntable and delicately applied the diamond head. Strange that he should have chosen Mozart’s 41st; for the second movement took me directly back to that evening I sat with Adem listening to the song of the blackcap. How long ago was that?

      After breakfast Charlie settled down with Encounters and I tuned in to the Saturday morning concert and began to wish I hadn’t eaten, I was feeling pretty sick. I walked into the bedroom and took the weight off my feet. I had to think. I’d told Charlie as much as he need know, and ideally I should get away from here. Implicating a personal friend was bad enough, implicating someone employed within the framework of the service was unforgivable.

      I had got as far as this merely because K.K. and Co had divided their anxieties between recapturing me and packing up their confidential stuff and clearing out quickly. But that did not mean that they were a set of amateurs, nor that they were going to take the heat off me in any way. What to do now?

      Dalby seemed out of the question, so did anyone who worked for him. Ross wasn’t even on my list. I could go to the CIGS but I really wasn’t under Army jurisdiction any longer. Anyway that was out because Dalby would hear about my application for an interview before the ink on it was dry. If I gave a false name they would look me up in the List and arrest me when they found it wasn’t there. If I gave someone else’s name? No, of the Military Police and secretaries at the War House there was too many that know me by sight. Anyway, the CIGS probably wouldn’t believe me. Ripley is probably the only one that will believe it, I thought.

      The PM? I toyed with this idea for thirty seconds. What would the Prime Minister do? He’d have to ask advice from the next responsible security authority. Who was that? In this particular case it was Dalby. Even if it wasn’t Dalby it would be someone closely associated with Dalby. It was a maze and Dalby