Mexico Set. Len Deighton

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      ‘Never mind the exam questions,’ snapped Dicky. He didn’t want to be in Mexico; he wanted to be in London making sure his job was secure. In some perverse way he blamed me for his situation, although, God knows, no one would have waved goodbye to him with more pleasure.

      He started bargaining with the Indian squatting behind the folk-art jewellery. After a series of offers and counter-offers, Dicky agreed to buy six of them. He crouched down and solemnly began to sort through all of them to find the best six.

      ‘I’m asking you what you believe and what you don’t believe,’ I said. ‘Hell, Dicky. You’re in charge. I need to know.’

      Still crouched down, he looked at me from under the eyelashes that made him the heart-throb of the typing pool. He knew I was goading him. ‘You think I’ve been swanning around in Los Angeles wasting my time and the department’s money, don’t you?’ Dicky was looking very Hollywood since his return from California. The faded jeans had gone, replaced by striped seersucker trousers and a short-sleeved green safari shirt with loops to hold rhino bullets.

      ‘Why would I think that?’

      Satisfied with his choice of bracelets, he sorted out his Mexican money and paid for them. He smiled and put the bracelets in the pocket of his shirt. ‘I saw Frank Harrington in LA. You didn’t know I was going to see Frank, did you?’

      Frank Harrington headed the Berlin Field Unit. He was an old experienced Whitehall warrior with influence where it really counted: at the very top. I didn’t like the idea of Dicky sliding off to meetings with him, especially meetings from which I was deliberately excluded. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

      ‘Frank was attending some CIA powwow and I buttonholed him to talk about Stinnes.’ We’d got to the end of the line and Dicky turned to go up the next row of stalls; brightly coloured fruit and vegetables on one side and broken furniture on the other. ‘This is not just another Mexican street market,’ said Dicky, who’d insisted that we come here. ‘This is a tiangui – an Indian market. Not many tourists get to see them.’

      ‘It might have been better to have come earlier. It’s always so damned hot by lunchtime.’

      Dicky chuckled scornfully. ‘If I don’t jog and have a decent breakfast I can’t get going.’

      ‘Perhaps we should have found a hotel right here in town. Going backwards and forwards to Cuernavaca eats up a lot of time.’

      ‘A couple of miles jogging every morning would do you good, Bernard. You’re putting on a lot of weight. It’s all that stodge you eat.’

      ‘I like stodge,’ I said.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at all these wonderful fresh vegetables and delicious fruit. Look at those great heaps of chillies. There must be fifty different kinds. I wish I’d brought the camera with me now.’

      ‘Does Frank know anything about Stinnes?’

      ‘Ye gods. Frank knows everyone in Berlin. You know that, Bernard. Frank says Stinnes is one of their brightest people. Frank has a fat file on him, and all his activities from one end of the world to the other.’

      I nodded. Frank always claimed to have fat files on everything when he was away from his office. It was only when you were with him in Berlin that the ‘fat file’ turned out to be a small pink card with ‘Refer to Data Centre’ scribbled on it. ‘Good old Frank,’ I said.

      This end of the market beyond the vegetables was occupied by food stalls. Almost everyone in the market seemed to be eating. They were eating and buying, eating and selling, eating and chatting, and even eating as they smoked and drank. Some of the more dedicated were sitting down to eat, and for these aficionados seats were provided. There were chairs and stools of every kind, age and size, with nothing in common but their infirmity.

      Most of the stalls had steaming pots from which stewed mixtures of rice, chicken, pork and every variety of beans were being served. There were charcoal grills too, laden with pieces of scorching meat that filled the air with smoke and appetizing smells. And the ever-present tortillas were being eaten as fast as they could be kneaded, rolled out and cooked. An old lady came up to Dicky and handed him a tortilla. Dicky was disconcerted and tried to argue with her.

      ‘She wants you to feel the texture and admire the colour,’ I said.

      Dicky gave her one of his big smiles, fingered it as if he was going to have it made up into a three-piece suit, and handed it back with a lot of ‘Gracias, adios’.

      ‘Stinnes speaks excellent Spanish,’ I said. ‘Did Frank tell you anything about that?’

      ‘You were right about Stinnes. He went to Cuba to sort out some of their security problems. He did so well that he became the KGB’s Caribbean trouble-shooter all through the early seventies. He’s been to just about all the places where the Cubans have sent soldiers; and that’s a lot of travelling.’

      ‘Does Frank know why Stinnes is here?’

      ‘I think you’ve answered that already,’ said Dicky. ‘He’s here running your friend Biedermann.’ He looked at me and, when I didn’t respond, said, ‘Don’t you think so, Bernard?’

      ‘Arranging a little money to prop up a trade union or finance an anti-nuke demo? Not exactly something for one of the KGB’s brightest people, is it?’

      ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Dicky. ‘Central America is a top KGB priority, you can’t deny that, Bernard.’

      ‘Let me put it another way,’ I said. ‘Covert financing of that sort is an administration job. It’s not something for Stinnes with his languages and years of field experience.’

      ‘Ho ho,’ said Dicky. ‘Hint, hint, eh? You mean, you chaps with field experience and fluent languages are wasted on the sort of job that administrators like me can manage?’

      It was exactly what I thought, but since it wasn’t what I’d intended to say I denied it. ‘Why the German name?’ I said. ‘And why does a man like that work out of Berlin? He must be forty years old; a crucial age for an ambitious man. Why isn’t he in Moscow where the really big decisions are made?’

      ‘Si, maestro,’ said Dicky very slowly. He looked at me quizzically and ran a fingertip along his thin bloodless lips as if trying to prevent himself from smiling. Instead of concealing my own feelings, I’d subconsciously identified with Stinnes. For I was also forty years old and I wanted to be where the big decisions are made. Dicky nodded solemnly. He might be a little slow on languages and fieldwork but in the game of office politics he was seeded number one. ‘Frank Harrington had an answer for that one. Stinnes – real name Nikolai Sadoff – married a German girl who couldn’t master the Russian language. They lived in Moscow for some time but she was miserable there. Stinnes finally asked for a transfer. They live in East Berlin. Frank Harrington thinks a Mexico City assignment will probably be a quick in and out for Stinnes.’

      ‘Yes, he talked as if he was going soon – “when I’ve gone back to Europe”, he said.’

      ‘He said the Englishwoman had put him in charge of one of her crazy schemes, didn’t he?’

      ‘More or less,’ I said.

      ‘And СКАЧАТЬ