Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

There was a chap Frank Harrington had known at Eton who went on to be a doctor with a practice serving a prosperous part of agricultural Yorkshire. He said that he'd grown used to the way in which a patient coming to him with a problem would spend half an hour chatting about everything under the sun, get up to go and then, while actually standing at the door saying goodbye, tell him in a very casual aside what was really worrying him. So it was with the Director-General. He'd been sitting there exchanging pleasantries with Frank all the afternoon when he picked up his glass, swirled the last mouthful round to make a whirlpool and finished it in a gulp. Then he put the glass down, got to his feet and said once again that he would have to be going. Only then did he say, 'Have you seen Bret Rensselaer lately?'

Frank nodded. 'Last week. Bret asked my advice about the report on the shooting in Hampstead.' Frank got to his feet and made a not very emphatic gesture with the brandy bottle but the old man waved it away.

'May I ask what you advised?'

'I told him not to make a report, not in writing anyway. I told him to go through it with you and then file a memorandum to record that he'd done so.'

'What did Bret say?'

Frank went across the room to put the bottle away. He remained slim and athletic in appearance. In his Bedford cord suit he could easily have been mistaken for an officer of the Berlin garrison, in his mid-forties. It was difficult to believe that Frank and the D-G had trained together and that Frank was coming up to retirement. 'I remember exactly. He said, "You mean cover my arse?" '

'And is that what you meant?'

Frank stopped where he was, in the middle of the Persian rug, and chose his words carefully. 'I knew you would file a written version of his verbal report to you.'

'Did you?' A slight lift on the second word.

'If that was an appropriate action,' said Frank.

The D-G nodded soberly. 'Bret was nearly killed. Two Soviets were shot by Bernard Samson.'

'So Bret told me. It was lucky that our people were well away before the police arrived.'

'We're not out of the woods yet, Frank,' said the D-G.

Frank wondered whether he was expected to pursue it further but decided that the D-G would tell him in his own time. Frank said, 'From what I hear in Berlin, a KGB heavy named Moskvin was behind it. The same ruffian who killed the young fellow in the Bosham safe house.'

'Research and Briefing take the same line, so it looks that way.' The D-G turned and came back to where he'd been sitting. Looking at Frank he said, There will have to be an inquiry.'

'Into Bret's future?'

'No, it hasn't quite come to that, but the Cabinet Office are going through one of those periods when they dread any sort of complaint from the Russians.'

'Two dead KGB thugs? Armed thugs? Hardly likely that Moscow are going to declare an interest in such antics. Sir Henry.'

'Is that a considered opinion based on your Berlin experience?'

'Yes, it is.'

'It's my own opinion too, but the Cabinet Office do not respond to expert opinions; they are too concerned about the politicians they serve.' The D-G said it without resentment or even displeasure. 'I knew that, of course, when I took the job. Our department's strategy, like that of every other government department, must be influenced by the varying political climate.'

'The last time you told me that,' said Frank, 'you added, "but the tactics they leave to me".'

'The tactics are left to me until tactical blunders are spread across the front pages of the tabloids. Did you see the photos of that launderette?'

'I did indeed, sir.' Big front-page photos of the launderette, with the sprawled dead men and blood splashed everywhere, had made a memorable impression upon the newspaper-reading public. But whatever was being said about the shooting in London's bars and editorial offices, the story printed was that it was another gangster killing, with speculation about drugs being offered for sale in all-night shops and launderettes.

' "Five" are pressing for an inquiry and the Cabinet Secretary is convinced that their added expertise would be valuable.'

'A combined inquiry?'

'I can't defy the Cabinet Office, Frank. I will bring it up in committee, and look to you for support.'

'If you are sure that's the right way to do it,' said Frank, with only the slightest intonation to suggest that he didn't think it was.

'It's a matter of retrenching before I get a direct order. In this way I will set up the committee and be able to give Bret the chair,' said the D-G.

'You think Bret will need that sort of help and protection?'

'Yes, I do. But what I want you to tell me is, will Bret have the stamina to see it through? Think before you answer, Frank. This is important to me.'

'Stamina? I can't give a quick yes or no on that one, Sir Henry. You must have seen what has been happening to the Department since Fiona Samson defected.'

'In terms of morale?'

'In terms of morale and a lot of other things. If you are thinking of the psychological pressure, you might look at young Samson. He's under tremendous strain, and to make it worse there are people in the Department saying he must have known what his wife was up to all along.'

'Yes, I've even had members of the staff confiding their fears about it,' said the D-G sadly.

'When a chap is having a difficult time with his wife he can get away to work; a chap having a hard time in the office can look forward to a break when he gets home to his family, Bernard Samson is under continual pressure.'

'I understood that he has formed some kind of liaison with one of the junior female staff,' said the D-G.

'Samson is a desperate man,' said Frank with simple truth. He didn't want to talk about Samson's private life: do to all men as I would they should do unto me, was Frank's policy.

'I asked you about Rensselaer,' said the D-G.

'Samson is a desperate man,' said Frank, 'but he can withstand a great deal of criticism. He is a born rebel so he can fight back when called a traitor or a lecher or anything else. Bret is a quite different personality. He loves England as only the foreign-born romantic can. To such people the merest breath of suspicion comes like a gale and is likely to blow them away.'

'Well done, Frank! Was it Literae Humaniores you read at Wadham?'

Frank smiled ruefully but didn't answer. He'd known the D-G ever since they were very young and shared a billet in the war. The D-G knew all about Frank Harrington's mastery of the Greek and Roman classics, and – Frank suspected – was still somewhat envious of it.

The D-G said, 'Will Bret crack up? If the committee turn upon him – as committees in our part of the world have a habit of turning upon a vulnerable chairman – will Bret stand firm?'

'Has this inquiry been given a name?' asked Frank.

The D-G smiled. 'It's an inquiry into Erich Stinnes, and the way he's been handled since coming over to us.'

'Bret will take a battering,' pronounced Frank.

'Is that what you think?'

'The Department is awash with rumours, Sir Henry. You must know that or you wouldn't be here asking me these questions.'

'What is the thrust of the rumours?'

'Well, it's commonly thought that Erich Stinnes has made a complete fool of Bret Rensselaer, and of the Department.'

'Bret was not experienced enough to handle a wily fellow like Stinnes. I thought Samson would keep Bret on the straight and narrow but I was wrong. It now seems that Stinnes was sent to us on a disinformation mission.'

'Is that official?' Frank asked.

'No, I'm still not sure what sort of game Stinnes is playing.'

'A senior official like Stinnes sent on a disinformation mission can do whatever he likes and damn the consequences. He might well decide to come over to us.'