Len Deighton - Horse Under Water

Jean said, ‘It’s not had a good effect on you, that Naval Depot.’

I dialled the Ghost exchange number and switchboard answered. I put a hand over the mouthpiece while asking Jean, ‘What is the code word for the week-end?’

‘Fine pickle you’d be in without me,’ she said from the kitchen.

‘Don’t carp, girl. I haven’t been in to the office for a week.’

‘It’s “cherish”.’

‘Cherish,’ I said to the switchboard operator, and he connected me to the W.O.O.C.(P) duty officer, ‘Tinkle’ Bell.

‘Tinkle,’ I said, ‘cherish.’

‘Yes,’ said Tinkle. I heard the click of the recording machine being switched into the circuit. ‘Go ahead.’

‘I have a tail. Anything on W.M.?’ Tinkle went to look at the Weekly Memoranda sheets that came from the Joint Intelligence Agency at the Ministry of Defence. I heard Tinkle’s outsize brogue shoes pad lightly back to the desk. ‘Not a sausage, old boy.’

‘Do me a favour, Tinkle.’

‘Anything you say, old boy.’

‘You have someone you could leave in charge if you nipped down to Storey’s Gate for me?’

‘Certainly, old chap, pleasure.’

‘Thanks, Tinkle. I wouldn’t bother you on Saturday if it wasn’t important.’

‘Precisely, old boy. I know that.’

‘Go up to the third floor and see Mrs Welch – that’s W-e-l-c-h – and tell her you want one of the C-SICH fn2files. Any one. I tell you what, make it a file we’re already holding. You with me?’

‘Sinking fast, old boy.’

‘Ask her for some file we already have and she’ll tell you we already have it, but you say we haven’t. She will show you the receipt book. If she doesn’t offer to, raise hell and insist that she does. Get a good eyeful of all the receipt signatures down the right-hand column. What I want to know is who receipted file 20 W.O.O.C.(P) 287.’

‘That’s one of our personal dossiers,’ said Tinkle.

‘Mine, to be precise,’ I said. ‘If I know who’s handled my file lately I have a lead on who might be tailing me.’

‘Very crafty,’ said Tinkle.

‘And, Tinkle,’ I added, ‘I want a quick check on two car registrations, a black Anglia and a Bristol 407.’ I waited while Tinkle read back the numbers.

‘Thanks, Tinkle, and ring me back at Jean’s.’

Jean poured me a third cup of coffee and produced some pancakes with sugar and cream. ‘You are a bit careless on an open line, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘C-SICH and file numbers and all that.’

I said, ‘If anyone listening isn’t in the business it will be gibberish, and if they are, they were taught that stuff in Dzerzhinski Street.’

‘While you were on the phone your Anglia arrived.’

I walked to the window. Four men were talking, well down the road. Soon two of them got into the Bristol and drove away, but the Anglia remained outside.

Jean and I spent a lazy Saturday afternoon. She washed her hair and I made lots of coffee and read a back issue of the Observer. The TV was just saying ‘… a Blackfoot war party wouldn’t be using a medicine arrow, Betsy …’ when the phone rang.

‘It was the Director of Naval Intelligence,’ I said into the phone before he could speak.

‘Blimey,’ said Tinkle, ‘how did you know?’

‘I thought D.N.I. would screen a visiting civilian pretty thoroughly before letting him into their diving school.’

Tinkle said, ‘Well, good thinking, old boy. Central Register fn3and C-SICH both booked your files out to D.N.I. on September 1st.’

‘What about the car registrations, Tinkle?’

‘The Anglia belongs to a man named Butcher, initials I. H., and the Bristol to a Cabinet Minister named Smith. Know them?’

‘I’ve heard the names before. Perhaps you would do an S6 report on both of them and leave it in the locked “in” tray.’

‘O.K.,’ said Tinkle and rang off.

‘What did he say?’ Jean asked.

‘I’m riding shotgun on the noon stage,’ I said. Jean made a noise and continued to paint a finger-nail flame orange.

Finally I said, ‘The cars belong to a Cabinet Minister named Henry Smith and to a little thug named Butcher who does a cut-price service in commercial espionage on the “seduced secretary” system.’

‘What a lovely system,’ Jean said.

‘You haven’t seen Butcher,’ I said. ‘My file, incidentally, went to D.N.I. on September 1st.’

‘Butcher,’ Jean said. ‘Butcher. I know that name.’ She painted another nail. Suddenly she shouted, ‘The ice-melting report.’

What a memory she had. Butcher had sold us an old German laboratory report about a machine to melt ice at an amazing speed. ‘What can you remember of that report?’ I asked her.

‘I couldn’t understand it properly,’ she said, ‘but the rough idea was that by rearranging the molecular structure of ice it would instantaneously become water. Or vice versa. That’s something the Navy might be keen on now that there are missile submarines that have to find a hole in the polar ice-pack before they can fire them.’ She held her hand at arm’s distance and studied the orange nails for a minute.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Butcher had the report. Navy want the report … That’s the connexion. I’m a genius.’

‘Why are you a genius?’ Jean asked.

‘For getting myself a secretary like you,’ I said. Jean blew me a kiss.

‘What about Mr Smith the Cabinet Minister?’ Jean asked.

‘He’s just having his car borrowed,’ I said. But I wasn’t sure about that. I looked at Jean and stubbed out my cigarette.

‘My nails are still wet,’ Jean said, ‘you mustn’t.’

My two weeks at Portsmouth passed quickly and I came home with a small Admiralty shallow-water certificate suitable for framing, and incipient pneumonia, although Jean said it was a sore throat. Monday I stayed in bed all day. Tuesday was a cold bright morning in September that warned you that winter was all set to pounce.

A letter from the Admiralty arrived authorizing me to take possession of the R.N. underwater gear from the school and charged it to me! The same post brought me another bill for the repair of the refrigerator and a final demand for the rates. I nicked my chin while shaving and bled like I’d sprung a leak. I changed into another shirt and arrived at Charlotte Street to find Dawlish in a quiet rage because I had made him late for the Senior Intelligence Conference that takes place in that strange square room of the C.I.G.S. the first Tuesday in each month.

It was a terrible day and it hadn’t even begun yet. Dawlish went through all the rigmarole of my new assignment: radio code words and priorities for communicating with him.

‘I’ve persuaded them to give you the equivalent authority to Permanent Under-Secretary, so don’t let them down. It might be useful if you deal with Denning fn1or the Lisbon Embassy. You’ll remember that after last year they said they would never give us a rank above Assistant Secretary again.’

‘Big deal,’ I said, eyeing the papers on his desk. ‘P.U.S. and they send me on a Night Tourist aeroplane.’

‘All we could get,’ said Dawlish. ‘Don’t be so class-conscious, my boy, you don’t want us to demand that they off-load some unfortunate taxpayer; why, you’d have the whole of Gibraltar polishing its blanco – or whatever soldiers do.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right, but you don’t have to be so bloody gay about it all.’

Dawlish turned over the next paper on his desk. ‘Equipment.’ Before he could read on I interrupted.

‘That’s another thing, they’ve put about two thousand quids’ worth of Admiralty equipment on my personal charge.’