Читать книгу The Spy Quartet - Len Deighton - Страница 45

My case officer arrived about 11 A.M.; there were cooking smells. A large black Humber pulled into the courtyard and stopped. Byrd got out. ‘Wait,’ he said to the driver. Byrd was wearing a short Harris tweed overcoat and a matching cap. His boots were muddy and his trouser-bottoms tucked up to avoid being soiled. He clumped upstairs to my room, dismissing the Fleming with only a grunt.

‘You’re my case officer?’

‘That’s the ticket.’ He took off his cap and put it on the bed. His hair stood up in a point. He lit his pipe. ‘Damned good to see you,’ he said. His eyes were bright and his mouth firm, like a brush salesman sizing up a prospect.

‘You’ve been making a fool of me,’ I complained.

‘Come, come, trim your yards, old boy. No question of that. No question of that at all. Thought you did well actually. Loiseau said you put in quite a plea for me.’ He smiled again briefly, caught sight of himself in the mirror over the wash-basin and pushed his disarranged hair into place.

‘I told him you didn’t kill the girl, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Ah well.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Damned nice of you.’ He took the pipe from his mouth and searched around his teeth with his tongue. ‘Damned nice, but to tell you the truth, old boy, I did.’

I must have looked surprised.

‘Shocking business of course, but she’d opened us right up. Every damned one of us. They got to her.’

‘With money?’

‘No, not money; a man.’ He put the pipe into the ashtray. ‘She was vulnerable to men. Jean-Paul had her eating out of his hand. That’s why they aren’t suited to this sort of work, bless them. Men were deceivers ever, eh? Gels get themselves involved, what? Still, who are we to complain about that, wouldn’t want them any other way myself.’

I didn’t speak, so Byrd went on.

‘At first the whole plan was to frame Kuang as some sort of oriental Jack-the-Ripper. To give us a chance to hold him, talk to him, sentence him if necessary. But the plans changed. Plans often do, that’s what gives us so much trouble, eh?’

‘Jean-Paul won’t give you any more trouble; he’s dead.’

‘So I hear.’

‘Did you arrange that too?’ I asked.

‘Come, come, don’t be bitter. Still, I know just how you feel. I muffed it, I’ll admit. I intended it to be quick and clean and painless, but it’s too late now to be sentimental or bitter.’

‘Bitter,’ I said. ‘If you really killed the girl, how come you got out of prison?’

‘Set-up job. French police. Gave me a chance to disappear, talk to the Belgians. Very co-operative. So they should be, with this damned boat these Chinese chappies have got anchored three miles out. Can’t touch them legally, you see. Pirate radio station; think what it could do if the balloon went up. Doesn’t bear thinking of.’

‘No. I see. What will happen?’

‘Government level now, old chap. Out of the hands of blokes like you and me.’

He went to the window and stared across the mud and cabbage stumps. White mist was rolling across the flat ground like a gas attack.

‘Look at that light,’ said Byrd. ‘Look at it. It’s positively ethereal and yet you could pick it up and rap it. Doesn’t it make you ache to pick up a paintbrush?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Well it does me. First of all a painter is interested in form, that’s all they talk about at first. But everything is the light falling on it – no light and there’s no form, as I’m always saying; light’s the only thing a painter should worry about. All the great painters knew that: Francesca, El Greco, Van Gogh.’ He stopped looking at the mist and turned back towards me glowing with pleasure. ‘Or Turner. Turner most of all, take Turner any day …’ He stopped talking but he didn’t stop looking at me. I asked him no question but he heard it just the same. ‘Painting is my life,’ he said. ‘I’d do anything just to have enough money to go on painting. It consumes me. Perhaps you wouldn’t understand what art can do to a person.’

‘I think I’m just beginning to,’ I said.

Byrd stared me out. ‘Glad to hear it, old boy.’ He took a brown envelope out of his case and put it on the table.

‘You want me to take Kuang up to the ship?’

‘Yes, stick to the plan. Kuang is here and we’d like him out on the boat. Datt will try to get on the boat, we’d like him here, but that’s less important. Get Kuang to Ostend. Rendezvous with his case chappie – Major Chan – hand him over.’

‘And the girl, Maria?’

‘Datt’s daughter – illegitimate – divided loyalties. Obsessed about these films of her and Jean-Paul. Do anything to get them back. Datt will use that factor, mark my words. He’ll use her to transport the rest of his stuff.’ He ripped open the brown envelope.

‘And you’ll try to stop her?’

‘Not me, old boy. Not my part of the ship those dossiers, not yours either. Kuang to Ostend, forget everything else. Kuang out to the ship, then we’ll give you a spot of leave.’ He counted out some Belgian money and gave me a Belgian press card, an identity card, a letter of credit and two phone numbers to ring in case of trouble. ‘Sign here,’ he said. I signed the receipts.

‘Loiseau’s pigeon, those dossiers,’ he said. ‘Leave all that to him. Good fellow, Loiseau.’

Byrd kept moving like a flyweight in the first round. He picked up the receipts, blew on them and waved them to dry the ink.

‘You used me, Byrd,’ I said. ‘You sent Hudson to me, complete with prefabricated hard-luck story. You didn’t care about blowing a hole in me as long as the overall plan was okay.’

‘London decided,’ Byrd corrected me gently.

‘All eight million of ’em?’

‘Our department heads,’ he said patiently. ‘I personally opposed it.’

‘All over the world people are personally opposing things they think are bad, but they do them anyway because a corporate decision can take the blame.’

Byrd had half turned towards the window to see the mist.

I said, ‘The Nuremberg trials were held to decide that whether you work for Coca-Cola, Murder Inc. or the Wehrmacht General Staff, you remain responsible for your own actions.’

‘I must have missed that part of the Nuremberg trials,’ said Byrd unconcernedly. He put the receipts away in his wallet, picked up his hat and pipe and walked past me towards the door.

‘Well let me jog your memory,’ I said as he came level and I grabbed at his chest and tapped him gently with my right. It didn’t hurt him but it spoiled his dignity and he backed away from me, smoothing his coat and pulling at the knot of his tie which had disappeared under his shirt collar.

Byrd had killed, perhaps many times. It leaves a blemish in the eyeballs and Byrd had it. He passed his right hand round the back of his collar. I expected a throwing knife or a cheese-wire to come out, but he was merely straightening his shirt.

‘You were too cynical,’ said Byrd. ‘I should have expected you to crack.’ He stared at me. ‘Cynics are disappointed romantics; they keep looking for someone to admire and can never find anyone. You’ll grow out of it.’

‘I don’t want to grow out of it,’ I said.

Byrd smiled grimly. He explored the skin where my hand had struck him. When he spoke it was through his fingers. ‘Nor did any of us,’ he said. He nodded and left.