Eric Ambler - Siege at the Villa Lipp

We have been reasonably secure against everything except excruciating boredom, malnutrition and the possibility of those conditions becoming permanent features of what’s left of our lives.

That’s why the second letter was so important.

It was from the man who has helped me prepare this account of the ‘siege of the Villa Lipp’ for publication.

I had sought him out because I had liked something he had written and deduced from it that he was a person who would be unlikely to strike high-minded or other tedious attitudes. My approach was made by sending him a copy of Krom’s book and a commentary I had written on the original New Sociologist piece. At the same time I had him vetted as a security risk.

At our first meeting on the Out Island we reached an understanding. Neither of us, I am happy to say, has since had reason to remind the other of the terms of it. Our relationship has developed remarkably. From being my amanuensis, he has become my literary mentor, then a business intermediary dealing on my behalf with publishers, and finally, my trusted legal adviser.

He anticipated that final role on several occasions during the writing of the book by sending me warnings — ‘You can’t say things like that,’ or ‘Nobody’s going to stand for this’ — that I had simply ignored. Then, when the first English language text was submitted to our publisher, the blow fell. The publisher made his acceptance conditional on legal waivers being obtained from those persons whom his lawyers said were libelled in the book as it stood; namely, Connell, Henson, Langridge, Williamson, Yamatoku, Symposia SA and, of course, Krom.

For me, that could have finished it. I was tired and unusually depressed. Indeed, at a gloomy last meeting on the Out Island with my adviser, I told him to have all those expensive typescripts — expensive because they had been done on that special paper that goes black if anyone tries to photograph or photocopy it — retrieved and destroyed.

He persuaded me not to be hasty. Let the publisher, who was willing to persevere with the book, try to get the waivers. If massive deletions or other vital changes were required, we could decide then whether or not they were acceptable. Possibly some name changes would be sufficient. There was nothing to be lost by finding out.

I told him to go ahead and see what happened. He gets a percentage of any royalties that the book may earn, so I could see his point of view. Mine was that, providing the book wasn’t totally emasculated, he and the publisher had better be left to do the best they could for what they have been polite enough to refer to as my Cause.

The first reaction we had was encouraging though somewhat surprising. It was from Connell and said simply: ‘Publish and be damned.’

An accompanying letter from my adviser explained that Dr Connell was now teaching in a different university and also being divorced by his second wife. However, the lawyer seemed to think that his brief note constituted a waiver.

Dr Henson’s reply puzzled me.

‘Publish by all means,’ she wrote, ‘recent school-leavers and college drop-outs should find some passages in the book heartening as well as instructive. Funnier than Smiles’s Self help and likely to be preferred by modern teenage readers. Probation officers everywhere will love it.’

I wondered if she had been sent the wrong book, but was assured that she hadn’t. It was thought that her reply may have been designed to cause annoyance to the head of her department.

He objected strongly to the use of his name and the attribution to him of certain statements. His name was changed to ‘Langridge’ and some deletions of references to British security service personnel were made.

The response from Mat was most strange. I was sent a photocopy.

The letter came, beautifully typed, on paper with the heading, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, PLACID ISLAND, in discreet capitals. It was signed by a Personal Assistant.

‘I am directed by His Excellency Mathew Tuakana to present his compliments. He has read the manuscript of the book described as the edited recollections of Mr Paul Firman. It may, he agrees, be of some sociological interest to specialists, particularly in the field of psychiatric social work. It is not a field with which His Excellency has had occasion to become familiar. On Placid Island psychiatric illness, even in its milder forms, is virtually unknown. Mr Firman’s account of a western criminal sub-culture seems, possibly for that reason, as far fetched as the one he would like to give of Placid and its people. It is to be hoped that his recollections of the former are as unreliably based on hearsay as his speculations about the latter.

‘Since His Excellency could not conceivably be the Mr Williamson described in this book, he feels unable to comment at greater length. I am instructed to add for your information that there are no less than twenty families named Williamson with Placid Island nationality. If the author, or Mr Firman himself, cares to communicate direct with our Office of Information, it may be possible to clear up any confusion existing in Mr Firman’s mind, at least on that point.

‘I am further instructed to say that the only Mr Yamatoku who could be described as being in His Excellency’s employ, is financial counsellor to the Placid Island mission at the United Nations. Counsellor Yamatoku is presently stationed in New York.’

My adviser thought the letter quaint; but said that my credibility had suffered a set-back. Twenty Williamson families on Placid? Hadn’t I known that?

I explained the joke Mat had once explained to me. On Placid, changing family names was a popular sport, far more popular than the European political sport of street-name changing. In 1946 there had had to be a bye-law passed declaring a moratorium on name changing for two years. That was because every family name on Placid was suddenly MacArthur. All those Williamsons simply meant that Mat was becoming a potent cult figure.

And I don’t consider that communication in the least quaint. I think it plainly serves notice on me that, book or no book, I’m still on the run; and that if at any time I should feel disposed to think otherwise, I can put my belief to the test by writing direct to Mat’s Office of Information.

Well, I may now decide to do that.

The only reply from Symposia SA was a form letter from an official in a tribunal of commerce. It stated that Symposia was in voluntary liquidation and that any claim against it must be made by such-and-such a date. Very sad; but, as my adviser pointed out with unfeeling satisfaction, you can’t in Anglo-Saxon law libel the dead.

That left Professor Krom.

He was in no hurry to reply; and, after some weeks of silence, it was feared that he did not intend to do so. Enquiries established, however, that he had been in the United States attending another of his international police conferences, and also absent on vacation.

His reply has now been received. A copy of it was attached to the letter that arrived yesterday.

What I had expected, at best, was a tongue-lashing and a stern demand for the deletion of all references to himself and his work that he considered disrespectful. What I have received instead is — well, I haven’t yet quite made up my mind.

The waiver he gives is a conditional one, and my adviser seems to find it in some way entertaining. The conditions the Professor lays down are that, along with my account, there must be published in the same volume and as a postscript or appendix, his own brief Commentary on it. The Commentary must be published exactly as written, in full and as an uninterrupted whole. Furthermore, I may not change or modify it, as a result of anything he has had to say about it or for any other reason. ‘All those false hopes, doomed expectations, demonstrable lies and unintentional errors must remain in their original state, unspoilt and undisguised by the scratchings-over of hindsight.’ If these conditions are accepted, he will waive any objections he might have had to the submitted text.