The Harry Palmer Quartet. Len Deighton

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       29

      It all worked quite smoothly: approach without lights, parking, and the walk to the house. It was quite dark now, but gaps in the curtains let some light fall across the flower beds. Perhaps those were the chinks Waterman saw, I thought. I was getting quite skilled at negotiating growing plants on foot at night. Without making too much noise on the gravel I got close to the window of the room in which I had spoken with Dalby. It was a bit shattering to find Dalby was very close to the window on the other side; like a picture on a 21-inch screen. He wasn’t, however, concerned with prowlers in his garden; he was pouring a drink from that damn’ cabinet. On the sofa sat Murray listening to Dalby as he poured and talked. They were talking to someone else outside my range of vision; he must have asked what they wanted to drink because the third party walked across to the drinks cabinet. I watched them only three feet away from me. I could catch an occasional word of conversation even through the double glass. My hunch was right; there was no other face like K.K.’s, and every feature was inscribed on my retina. He was Waterman’s ‘Chink’. K.K. and Dalby. I had seen enough and was about to go – but Dalby and K.K. were both looking across the room speaking to another. It wasn’t Murray, I’d seen him go into the kitchen. And then into my line of vision – like the bad fairy at the princess’s christening – walked Jay.

I almost fell backwards into the Convallaria. After all those hours of screenings, there could be no mistake. The elusive Jay. Few members of the department had ever seen him, and yet I was always coming across him – in Led’s, in the street, in theatre clubs, and now – finally the prince of evil is chatting with the head of the department. How can I tell you the impact this made on me? It was like seeing Mr Macmillan drop a CP¹ card out of his wallet; it was like discovering that Edgar Hoover was Lucky Luciano in disguise. I was watching the scene like a small boy in a lollipop factory. Goodness knows how long I stood petrified with surprise. K.K.’s presence shattered me, but Jay’s made me forget K.K.! ‘We are moving in from opposite ends to the same conclusion,’ Dalby had once told me. How wrong can you get? I remembered the two men I had seen from the Terrazza Restaurant window. Undoubtedly they were Jay and Dalby.

      Waterman had followed me up the path, and I reached out my hand to help him avoid the lily of the valley. After staring wide-eyed into the bright room, the darkness was a baffling blanket of void, out of which a hand smelling of toilet soap clamped across my mouth, and something very sharp penetrated the ‘one-piece back’ of my jacket. I stiffened and held very still.

      ‘It’s Murray, sir,’ a voice in my ear said, and I thought, ‘Sir? This is a nice time for formalities.’

      I remembered Raven who we’d kidnapped near the Syrian border, and how puzzled I’d been to hear Dalby say, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ when he injected him. Perhaps ‘Sir’ was something they always say when they – what were Dalby’s words – ‘bumped you off’.

      ‘I’m taking my hand away now, sir. Don’t shout or we’ve both had it.’ I nodded my head but Murray mistook it for an attempt to escape, and he instinctively twisted my arm and held my mouth even tighter. Where the hell was Waterman? Come and earn your twelve guineas I kept thinking – but there was no sign of him. Murray eased me quietly away from the house, and finally let go of me altogether. He was the first to speak.

      ‘You were walking all over the infra-red alarms.’

      ‘I might have guessed it wasn’t as wide open as it looks,’ I said.

‘I’ve got to get back to the house now, but …’ he hesitated. There was plenty I wanted to know. I was in no position to extract a confession, but I leaned towards him and said, ‘Listen, Murray, whatever screwy damn’ thing is going on, you know that all the people in that house are actionable under the Treason Act. You will act on my orders and mine only as of this moment, or you will become an enemy of HMG.’² Murray was silent. ‘Can’t you see, man? Dalby has sold out, or perhaps he’s been a double agent for years. My task was to verify that information. I have five provost platoons in Haslemere – whatever happens the whole show is over. I’m giving you a chance, Murray, because I know you are not in as deeply as the others. Come with me now and help me assemble my data. The whole crowd of them are done for.’ I stopped; my invention had flagged: I was on the verge of saying the game’s up.

      ‘My name’s Harriman,’ said Murray. ‘And I’m a lieutenant-colonel in Special Field Intelligence, and it’s you who must be temporarily subject to my orders.’ His voice was different to that of the Sergeant Murray I had known. He went on. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time, but you must get out of here now. We are not out of the proverbial wood by any means. To get Dalby is nothing …’ That was the moment when Waterman hit him with the spanner.

      I looked down at Murray or Harriman or whoever he was and I knew quite clearly what I must do. I must get out of here. What Dalby & Co would do when they found their unconscious friend with his head in the petunias was anyone’s guess. Waterman, that soul of simplicity, was now bound to me by complicity in my actions. ‘Did I do right, Super?’ he said about three times. I told him that he was sensational, but it was difficult to sound enthusiastic. It was something though, that he was prepared to do as I told him. We dragged Murray’s body into the taller flowers.

      I was prepared to have to sit in Waterman’s car for a couple of hours, but within ten minutes we saw the front door open and car headlights switched on. It was a large car, and as it came steadily down the drive the headlights skimmed across the prostrate Murray. We both held our breath, but I suppose we saw it only because we knew it was there. Dalby went inside, and the big Rolls turned on to the road and headed towards London.

      ‘Catch that up,’ I told Waterman. ‘I want to see the driver.’

      At Milford the street lighting gave me a chance to take a look at the car. It was a black Rolls Phantom IV, a straight-eight that Messrs Rolls-Royce will only sell to Royalty and Heads of State. How typical that Jay should have one. Waterman flipped open the glove compartment and produced a pair of prismatics. With them I could see Jay as he leaned back on fine West of England upholstery and sipped a drink from the cocktail cabinet. Now and again I could glimpse the chauffeur’s face in the green-tinted СКАЧАТЬ