Billion-Dollar Brain. Len Deighton

operatives that they are working for someone whom they will be happy to work for. A Francophile is told that his reports go to the Quai d’Orsay, a Communist is told that his orders come from Moscow. Few agents can be quite sure whom they work for, because the nature of the work precludes their being able to check back.

      The second reason that I wasn’t getting a big laugh was because Signe just might be working for Ross’s department at the War Office. Unlikely but possible.

      As a general rule – and all general rules are dangerous – agents are natives of the country in which they operate. I wasn’t an agent, nor was I likely to be one. I delivered, evaluated and handled information that our agents obtained, but I seldom met one except a cut-out, or go-between, like the Finn I had spoken with on the ferry. I was in Helsinki to do a simple task and now it was becoming very complex. I should follow up this strange opportunity, but I was not prepared. I had no communication arranged with London except an emergency contact that I dare not use unless world war were imminent. I had no system of contacts, for not only was I forbidden to interrupt the work of our resident people but, judging by the speed with which the grey-haired man answered the phone, that was a public call-box number.

      So I had another vodka and slowly read the expensive menu and felt in my pocket the five hundred marks the girl with the wide mouth had given me. Easy come; easy go.

      The next morning was blue and sunny but still a couple of degrees below. The birds were singing in the trees of the esplanade and I walked through the centre of town. I walked up the steep hill where the University buildings are painted bright yellow like boarding-house custard, and down on to Unioninkatu and the shop full of ankle-length leather coats.

      The girl Signe was standing outside the leather shop. She said good morning and fell into step beside me. At Long Bridge we cut off to the left without crossing it and walked alongside the frozen inlet. Under the bridge ducks were probing around among the debris that was scattered across the ice, soggy old cardboard cartons and dented cans. The bridge itself was pock-marked with bomb-splinter scars.

      ‘The Russians,’ said Signe. I looked at her.

      ‘Bombed Helsinki; damaged the bridge.’

      We stood there watching the lorries coming into the city. ‘My father was a trade unionist; he used to look at that damaged bridge and say to me, “Those bombs were made by Soviet workers in Soviet factories in the land of Lenin, remember that.” My father had devoted all his life to the trade-union movement. In 1944 he died broken-hearted.’ She walked ahead rather quickly and I saw the quick flash of a pocket handkerchief as she dabbed at her eyes. I followed her and she climbed down towards the frozen surface of the water and began to walk out on the ice. Other tiny figures were taking the same short cut across the inlet farther to the west. Ahead of us an old woman was tugging a small sledge full of groceries. I planted my feet carefully, for the ice was worn smooth by a winter of heavy use. I came alongside Signe and she took my arm gratefully.

      ‘Do you like champagne?’ she asked.

      ‘Are you offering some?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just wondered. I’d never had champagne until three months ago. I like it very much. It’s almost my very favourite drink.’

      ‘I’m pleased,’ I said.

      ‘Do you like whisky?’

      ‘I like whisky very much.’

      ‘I like all alcohol. I expect one day I shall become an alcoholic.’ She picked up a handful of snow, compressed it into a snowball and threw it with great energy a hundred yards along the ice. ‘Do you like snow? Do you like ice?’

      ‘Only in whisky and champagne.’

      ‘Can you have ice in champagne? I thought that was wrong.’

      ‘I was just kidding,’ I said.

      ‘I know you were,’ she said.

      We came to the other side of the frozen water and I walked up the embankment. Signe stayed on the ice and fanned her eyelashes.

      ‘What’s the matter?’

      She said, ‘I don’t think I can make it. Could you help me?’

      ‘Stop fooling about. There’s a good girl.’

      ‘OK,’ she said cheerfully and climbed up beside me.

      The city changes slightly on the north side of Long Bridge. Not in the sudden dramatic way that London changes south of the river or Istanbul changes across the Galata Bridge; but on the north side of Long Bridge Helsinki becomes duller, the people are not so smartly dressed and lorries outnumber the cars. Signe took me to a block of flats near Helsinginkatu. She pressed a bell-push in the foyer to announce our arrival but produced a key to let us in. Few of Helsinki’s buildings have the bright newly minted shine that is associated with Finnish design; instead they are well-weathered Victorian hotels. This block was no exception, but inside the air was warm and the carpets soft. The flat we entered was on the sixth floor. There were lithographs on the walls and Artie Shaw on the turntable. The main room was light and large enough to hold a few examples of superb Finnish furniture and still leave room to practise dancing the rumba.

      The man practising the rumba was a short thickset man with thinning brown hair. One hand he held in the air beating time to the music. The other hand held a tall drink. His footwork was adequate, and while we stood in the doorway he treated us to an extra few moments of expertise before looking up and saying, ‘Well, you old Limey sonuvabitch. I knew it was you.’ He took Signe into his arms with an easy movement and they began to dance. I noticed that Signe’s feet were actually standing on his toes, and he waltzed around the floor taking her weight upon his feet as though she was a rag dummy tied to his feet and wrists. The dance ended, and he said, ‘I knew it was you’ again. I said nothing, and he swallowed the remainder of his drink and said to Signe, ‘Oh boy buttercup did you let your pants down for the wrong guy?’^fn1

      Harvey Newbegin was a neatly dressed man; grey flannel suit, initialled handkerchief in top pocket, gold watch, and a relaxed smile. I had known him for a number of years. He had been with the US Defense Department for four years before transferring to the State Department. I had tried to get him working for us at one time but Dawlish had failed to obtain authority to do it. Under those droopy eyelids Harvey had quick, intelligent eyes. He used them to study me while going to get us all a drink. The music was still thumping out of the radiogram. Harvey poured three glasses of whisky, dropped ice and soda into two of them, then walked across to me and Signe. Halfway across the floor he picked up the beat of the music and did a brief sequence of steps the rest of the way.

      ‘Don’t be such a fool,’ Signe said to him. ‘He’s such a fool,’ she added. Harvey gave her the glass of whisky, let go of it before she grasped it and in mid-fall caught it with the other hand and handed it to her without spilling it. ‘He’s such a fool,’ she said again with admiration. She shook little droplets of melted snow from her hair. Her hair was much shorter and even more golden today.

      When we were all seated Harvey said to Signe, ‘Let me tell you something, doll, this guy is a hot tamale: he works for a very smart little British Intelligence outfit. He’s not as dopey as he looks.’ Harvey turned to me. ‘You’ve been tangling with this guy Kaarna.’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘OK, OK, OK, you don’t have to tell me. Kaarna is dead.’

      ‘Dead?’

      ‘DED dead. It’s here in the newspaper. You found him dead. You know it, pal.’

      ‘I give you my word I didn’t,’ I said.

      We looked at each other for a minute, then Harvey said, ‘Well anyway he’s joined the major leagues, there’s nothing we can do about that. But when Signe was hustling you yesterday it was because we urgently need someone to carry between here and London. Could you take on a part-time job for the Yanks? The pay is good.’

      ‘I’ll ask the office,’ I said.

      ‘Ask