A Perfect Spy

“He’s not seventy. I’m not seventy. I’m not sixty. Well only just. Is he older than me?”

“The same.”

“Carry anything?”

“A briefcase. A grey thing like elephant skin. And he was stringy like Mr. Toombs.”

“Who’s Toombs?”

“Our gym master. He teaches aikido and geography. He’s killed people with his feet, though he’s not supposed to.”

“All right, stringy like Mr. Toombs, carried an elephant skin briefcase. Two points. Another time, omit the subjective reference.”

“What’s that?”

“Mr. Toombs. You know him, I don’t. Don’t compare one person I don’t know with another I don’t know.”

“You said you knew him,” said Tom, very excited to catch Uncle Jack out.

“I do. I’m fooling. Did he have a car, your man?”

“Volvo. Hired from Mr. Kaloumenos.”

“How do you know that?”

“He hires it to everyone. He goes down to the harbour and hangs about and if anyone wants to hire a car Mr. Kaloumenos gives them his Volvo.”

“Colour?”

“Green. And it’s got a bashed wing and a Corfu registration and a fox’s tail from the aerial and a—”

“It’s red.”

“It’s green!”

“No points,” said Brotherhood firmly, to Tom’s outrage.

“Why not?”

Brotherhood pulled a wolfish smile. “It wasn’t his car, was it? How do you know it was the bloke with the moustache who hired it when two other blokes were riding in it? You lost your objectivity, son.”

“He was in charge!”

“You don’t know that. You’re guessing it. You could start a war, making up things like that. Ever met an Auntie Poppy at all, son?”

“No, sir.”

“Uncle?”

Tom giggled. “No, sir.”

“A Mr. Wentworth a name to you?”

“No, sir.”

“No bells at all?”

“No, sir. I thought it was a place in Surrey.”

“Well done, son. Never make it up if you think you don’t know and ought to. That’s the rule.”

“You were teasing again, weren’t you?”

“Maybe I was at that. When did your dad say he’d see you again?”

“He didn’t.”

“Does he ever?”

“Not really.”

“Then there’s no fuss, is there?”

“It’s just the letter.”

“What about the letter?”

“It’s as if he’s dead.”

“Bollocks. You’re imagining. Want me to tell you something else you know? That secret hideaway of your dad’s that he’s gone to. It’s all right. We know about it. Did he give you the address?”

“No.”

“Name of the nearest Scottish town?”

“No. He just said Scotland. On the sea in Scotland. A place to write where he’s safe from everyone.”

“He’s told you all he can, Tom. He’s not allowed to tell you any more. How many rooms has he got?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Who does his shopping then?”

“He didn’t say. He’s got a super landlady. She’s old.”

“He’s a good man. And a wise man. And she’s a good woman. One of us. Now don’t you worry any more.” Uncle Jack glanced sideways at his watch. “Here. Finish that up and order yourself a ginger beer. I need to see a man about a dog.” Still smiling, he strode to the door marked toilets and telephone. Tom was nothing if not an observer. Points of happy colour on Uncle Jack’s cheeks. A sense of merriness like his own and everybody absolutely fine.

* * *

Brotherhood had a wife and a house in Lambeth, and in theory he could have gone to them. He had another wife in his cottage in Suffolk, divorced it was true but given notice willing to oblige. He had a daughter married to a solicitor in Pinner and he wished them both to the devil and it was mutual. Nevertheless they would have had him as a duty. And there was a useless son who scratched a living on the stage and if Brotherhood was feeling charitable towards him, which oddly enough these days he sometimes was, and if he could stomach the squalor and the smell of pot, which he sometimes could, he would have been welcome enough to the heap of greasy coverlets that Adrian called his spare bed. But tonight and for every other night until he had had his word with Pym he wanted none of them. He preferred the exile of his stinking little safe flat in Shepherd Market with sooty pigeons humping each other on the parapet and the tarts doing sentry go along the pavement below him, the way they used to in the war. Periodically the Firm tried to take the place away from him or deduct the rent from his salary at source. The desk jockeys hated him for it and said it was his fuck-hutch, which occasionally it was. They resented his claims for hospitality booze and cleaners he didn’t have. But Brotherhood was hardier than all of them and more or less they knew it.

“Research have turned up more stuff about the use of newspapers by Czech Intelligence,” Kate said into the pillow. “But none of it’s conclusive.”

Brotherhood took a long pull of his vodka. It was two in the morning. They had been here an hour. “Don’t tell me. The great spy pricks the letters of his message with a pin and posts the newspaper to his spymaster. Said spymaster holds the newspaper to the light, and reads the plans for Armageddon. They’ll be using semaphore next.”