A Perfect Spy

Nigel had a funny little gesture designed to ease a charged atmosphere. He raised his beloved hands and, with the fingertips pointing loosely toward Heaven, flapped them as if he were drying his nails. But Brotherhood, still kneeling at Mary’s side, seemed suddenly to have been seized by lethargy. He rose slowly, then slowly passed his hand across his mouth as if he had a bad taste on the tip of his tongue.

“Since when?”

“Not known, sir. Not signed out. They’ve been searching for it for this last hour. They can’t find it. That’s all they know. There’s a diplomatic courier card that goes with it. The card’s disappeared too.”

Mary had not yet grasped the mood. The synchronisation has gone wrong, she thought. Who is in the doorway, Fergus or Magnus? Jack’s gone deaf. Jack who questions in salvoes has run out of ammunition.

“Chancery guard says Mr. Pym called at the Embassy first thing Thursday morning on his way to the airport, sir. The guard hadn’t thought to mention it because he hadn’t put him into his log. It was upstairs, down again and sorry about your father, sir. But when he came down the stairs he was carrying this heavy black pouch.”

“And the guard didn’t think to question him at all?”

“Well he wouldn’t, sir, would he? Not with his father dead and him being in a hurry.”

“Anything else missing?”

“No, sir, just the burnbox, sir, so far as he’s got. And the card like I said.”

“Where are you going?” said Mary.

Nigel was on his feet, tugging at the points of his waistcoat, while Brotherhood was loading things into his jacket pocket for a long journey on his own. His yellow cigarettes. His pen and notebook. His old German lighter.

“What’s a burnbox?” Mary said, close on panic. “Where are you going? I’m talking! Sit down!”

Finally Brotherhood remembered her, and stared down at her where she sat.

“You wouldn’t know, would you,” he said. “Of course you wouldn’t. You were grade nine. You never got high enough to find out.” Explaining was a chore but he managed it for old times’ sake. “A burnbox is what it says. Little metal box. In this instance it’s a diplomatic pouch, steel-lined. Burns whatever is inside it as soon as you tell it to. It’s where a Station Chief keeps his crown jewels.”

“So what’s in it?”

Nigel and Brotherhood exchanged glances. Fergus still had his eyes wide open.

“What’s in it?” she repeated as a different and more elusive fear began to grip her.

“Oh. Not much,” said Brotherhood. “Agents in place. All our Czechs. A few Poles. Hungarian or two. Just about everything we have that’s run from Vienna. Or used to be. Who’s Wentworth?”

“You asked. I don’t know. A place. What else is in the burnbox?”

“So it is. A place.”

She had lost him. Jack. Gone. Lost him as a lover, as a friend, as an authority. His face was her father’s face when she took him the news of Sam’s death. The love had gone out of him and the last of his faith with it.

“You knew,” he said casually. He was halfway to the door, not even looking at her. “You bloody knew, for years and years.”

We all did, she thought. But she hadn’t the heart to say it to him or, for that matter, the interest.

As if the bell had rung for the end of visiting time, Nigel also prepared to make his exit. “Now, Mary, I’m leaving you Georgie and Fergus for company. They’ll agree their cover with you and tell you how to play everything. They’ll report to me all the time. From now on, so will you. Only to me. Do you understand? If you need to leave a message or anything like that, I’m Nigel, I’m Head of Secretariat, my P.A. is called Marcia. Don’t talk to anybody else in the Firm at all. I’m afraid that’s an order. Even Jack,” he added, meaning Jack particularly.

“What else is in the burnbox?” she repeated.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Routine stores. Don’t you worry yourself.” He came to her and, emboldened by Brotherhood’s intimacy with her, placed a hand awkwardly on her shoulder. “Listen. This needn’t all be as bad as it sounds. We have to take precautions, naturally. We have to assume the worst and cover ourselves. But Jack does have a rather Gothic way of looking at things sometimes. The less dramatic explanations are often a lot closer to home. Jack’s not the only one with experience.”

CHAPTER 6

A dark sea rain had enveloped Pym’s England and he strode in it warily. It was early evening and he had been writing for longer than he had written in his whole life and now he was empty and accessible and afraid. A foghorn sounded — one short, two long — a lighthouse or a ship. Pausing under a lamp he again studied his watch. A hundred and ten minutes to go, fifty-three years gone. Bandstand empty, bowling green awash. Shop-windows still wearing their fly-blown yellow cellophane against the summer’s sun.