Gerald Seymour - A song in the morning

Cold anger, no smile. "He'll hang, Mrs Perry."

He was gone through the door. She saw him trotting down the path. When he was outside the garden he started to run.

Years of placid and sedate domestic life were disintegrating. For a long, long time she had loathed Jeez. For the last few short days she could remember only the times that she had loved him.

• • •

By the time the police car turned into Churchill Close, Major Hannes Swart was two miles away, going fast and fuming.

It had taken him long enough to track Hilda Perry from the address used by the prisoner, Carew. Some good, honest footslogging had translated Green Walk into Churchill Close, and for nothing. Swart had been in the South African police for seventeen years, but he hadn't done footslogging for more than a dozen. Security police officers were too precious to have their time wasted on door-to-door and scene-of-crime.

For some of his work he was a businessman promoting in the United Kingdom the sale of Stellenbosch wines. At other times he was an accredited journalist at the Foreign Press Association specialising in financial affairs. Most often he was a lowly member of the visa section of the embassy's consular staff. He worked to a police brigadier from the fifth floor of the embassy. He was one of the bright stars amongst the detail of security police officers assigned abroad. He had blown what ought to have been a simple task. A dowdy housewife had seen him off.

By the time a bemused police officer was leaving Churchill Close, having been told only that a South African male had tried to force entry into the house, no explanations of why, the temper of Major Swart had matured to controlled fury.

They should have jazzed the swine, used the helicopter on him, and the electrics when they had him in John Vorster Square. Too damn correct they had been with him in the interrogation cells.

And a hell of a damn good thing that he had taken the precaution of parking his car out of Churchill Close. At least the cow didn't have the number plate to add to whatever bloody story she hatched to the local force.

Sandham had said that this was an, ah, irregular meeting, if you follow.

He sat with Jack in a tea bar off Victoria Street, some way from the Foreign Office.

"It's irregular because I haven't cleared it with my superiors and because I'm giving you the gist of F.O. thinking that may turn out to be incorrect. Your father's going to be hanged, and neither the private nor the public shouting of our crowd is going to change that. Your father's solicitor has told our people in South Africa that they'll spare him if he turns state evidence. Up to now he's told them nothing.

He doesn't sound to me like a man about to splash through a sea change. That's one pointer, there's another. A few days ago their Justice Minister made a speech that effectively shut out all prospect of clemency. They want to show they're strong. They want blood."

"What would happen if I went out to see him?"

"You wouldn't get a contact visit. You wouldn't be able to touch him, hold his hand. You'd have a glass plate between you. You'd speak down a voice tube. My opinion, it would be pretty distressing for you and for him."

What would they talk about? Jack shuddered. The man would be a stranger. God, and small comfort he'd be to his father.

"What's your interest in his case, Mr Sandham?"

Sandham shrugged. "Something stinks."

"Meaning what?"

"I'll tell you when I've found out."

"When my father's dead and buried?"

"I can't say."

"What stinks?"

"Sorry, Mr Curwen… but you'll hear from me when I know, I promise you that."

"I don't know where to go except to you," Jack said simply. "That's the hell of it, and time's running out."

•* •

Jack drove back to D amp; C.

Janice looked at him curiously, then gave him the message that his mother had rung. He telephoned her. He cradled the telephone on his shoulder, his elbows were on his desk top, his hands in front of his mouth. Janice noted his attempt at privacy.

He heard about the visitor and the questions. He told her that he had been to the Foreign Office, that there wasn't any good news. He rang off abruptly. He was sagging over his desk.

"Why don't you go home?"

He looked up. He saw young Villiers staring down at him.

"Why should I go home?"

"Because you look knackered."

"I'm fine."

"You're not, and you should go home."

Jack was shouting. "If I say I'm fine, then I'm bloody fine. And I don't want any one bloody tip-toeing round me."

"Just concerned, old boy."

"Well, don't be fucking concerned."

Janice and Lucille studied their typewriters. Villiers flushed, flexed his fingers. His father had told him everything that he needed to know about Jack Curwen, that he had been two years and one term at university and left on a disciplinary matter, that a drop-out added up to a cheap work horse for D amp; C Ltd, that Jack Curwen was lucky to have his job however dedicated and able he might be.

"Nice to know that nothing's wrong," he said evenly.

•**

Because he had a good nose, Jimmy Sandham's diplomatic career had long ago been stunted. He said what he felt it right to say and then managed a quaint look of hurt when his superiors rewarded him with lack of advancement.

As a young man, in Teheran, at a time when British factories were on overtime and weekend shifts to turn out Chieftain tanks for the Shah's army, Sandham had briefed a visiting journalist on the help with direct interrogation methods that British Intelligence were giving to Savak. In Amman he had filed a formal report to the ambassador stating that the representatives of British construction companies were buying their contract to build a hydro plant with back handers; two of the representatives were at that time putting up at the ambassador's residence.

He couldn't be fired, but he could be disliked, and he could watch his promotion prospects going down the plug hole.

It was eight years since the industrious Jimmy Sandham had last been posted abroad. He never complained, never sought explanations as younger men leap-frogged him. But the word was out. If there was a bad smell in a section then keep Sandham's nose at arm's length.

The Carew case was a thoroughly nasty smell to Jimmy Sandham, and the error of Peter Furneaux, assistant secretary, had been to let him within a mile of it.

The friend Sandham had telephoned had been his best man at the English church in Bangkok. The friend thought the day spiced with pleasure because the ambassador had been the guest of honour eleven days after receiving the query from the crown auditors concerning his wife's frequent and private use of the Rolls. Jimmy Sandham's bride had been his friend's secretary.

That had been a long time ago, but they had stayed as close as two men can who meet each other for a couple of meals a year and exchange cards at Christmas. The friend worked from a nondescript tower block on the south side of the Thames, home base of the Secret Intelligence Service.

The friend loved Sandham for his pig-headed obstinacy, and made certain they were never seen together.

They sat on a bench in Battersea Park, shielded by a towering shrub from the nearest path. The fun fair hadn't opened for the summer season, the kids were at school, it was too short of pickings for the tramps, too draughty for the lovers.

"Furneaux's a total arsehole," the friend said.

"I get this garbage from Furneaux about 'deep water', and we have a file with Carew's real name on it. Furneaux didn't put the file back into records, it's locked in his own safe."

"To keep your prying eyes off it."

"What would I have seen?"

"Enough to whet your appetite."