Len Deighton - The Harry Palmer Quartet

At ‘our’ end of the room Jay’s voice, a rather rich detergent-advertising voice, floated through the open doorway. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

The three city gents withdrew like the Beverley Sisters taking a curtain, but we all knew they were no farther than the thickness of the door away.

‘This is Mr Waterman,’ I said loudly to the invisible Jay, ‘of Waterman’s Detective Agency. I hired him this afternoon.’ There was only silence so I spoke again even more loudly, clearly enunciating my words as one would speak to a rich deaf uncle. ‘I don’t think there is anything further from Mr Waterman. He may as well go home now.’

There was silence, then Jay’s voice, ‘Do you owe Mr Waterman any money?’

‘Fifteen guineas,’ I said, ‘but I thought you would want to fix it.’

Jay must have pressed a button for I heard a soft buzzer. The door opened so quickly that Maurice must have been standing with his hand on the handle.

‘What kept you, Maurice?’ I said. I hated Maurice; he was so polite and restrained. He stood there without speaking. His spectacles were clean and efficient – the glass emphasized the deadly little eyes through which he dispassionately viewed his world, of which I was, for the time being, a part. Again came Jay’s instruction. ‘Maurice, you will let Mr Waterman here have a cheque for fifteen guineas. The number three account, Maurice. Then you will show Mr Waterman to the door.’ Maurice nodded even though Jay couldn’t see him.

Mr Waterman was pinching large sections of his nicotine-stained little moustache between index finger and thumb, and twisting it until it pained him. Mr Waterman also nodded. Mr Waterman must go. Mr Waterman was feeling a little out of place. Money is money but even at fifteen guineas a time he felt he must go. ‘Good-bye Mr Waterman,’ I said, and Mr Waterman left us.

I wanted to see what Jay was doing in the little annexe without a door. I could hear him moving around. I knew these big Kensington houses; visitors just never participate. I walked across to the doorway. I don’t know what I expected to see Jay doing. Sitting in front of bubbling test tubes like a Bela Lugosi movie. Watching ‘This is your Life’, or perhaps cultivating hot-house orchids.

‘You are interested in cooking?’ Jay looked much older than I remembered him, and against the white cook’s apron, strapped over one shoulder in the French manner, his complexion was rubicund as is a heavy drinker’s. In his hand he held a three-pound lobster. The kitchen was illuminated by merciless daylight tubes. Copper, stainless steel and sharp knives were distributed with the careful forethought of an operating theatre. A kitchen with such a maze of scientific aids that would make Cape Canaveral look like a rectangular wheel. Jay put the fresh mottled black and verdigris lobster down on the white counter and picked a bottle of Moet & Chandon out of the ice bucket with a happy tinkle. He poured two generous glasses full.

‘I could get interested,’ I said.

‘That’s right,’ said Jay, and I began to drink the cool clear bubbling drink.

I said, ‘Didn’t Lao-Tze say something like “Govern the Empire as you would cook a little fish”?’

Jay warmed to me. A smile peeped around his giant moustache. ‘Montaigne said, “Great men pride themselves on knowing how to prepare a fish for table,”’ he answered.

‘But did he mean it as a compliment?’ I asked.

Jay didn’t answer; he was driving a long metal rod through the lobster. I sipped the cold champagne.

‘It’s quite dead,’ said Jay. I could see it was a difficult job. ‘I just can’t bear killing things,’ he told me. He’d finished getting the lobster on the spit. ‘You know, I have to get the fish merchant to kill it for me.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Some people are like that, I know.’

‘A little more champagne,’ he said. ‘I only need half a bottle for this recipe, and I don’t like to drink too much.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and I meant it. It was hot in that kitchen.

He poured the remainder of the bottle into a metal tray and threw a little salt into it. ‘You’re a cool young man,’ he said. ‘Don’t you care about your friend Cavendish?’ He added a large piece of butter to the champagne. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect that the butter would float. I remember watching and thinking ‘It only does that because Jay put it in.’ I sipped my champagne again.

Jay picked up his champagne and drank some – he watched me intently through his tiny little eyes. ‘I run a very big business.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said, but Jay waved his big red hand.

‘Bigger,’ he said. ‘Bigger than you know.’ I said nothing. Jay had a jar down from the shelf and sprinkled a few peppercorns into the champagne. He carefully carried the tray and limping across the tiny kitchen clipped it into the radiant heat vertical grill. He picked up the lobster that he couldn’t bear to kill and waved it at me.

‘The fishmonger sells fish. Right?’ he said, and fixed it to the grill. ‘The wine merchant sells champagne. The French don’t protest at the idea of their champagne leaving France. Right?’

‘Right,’ I said. I was beginning to recognize my cue.

‘You.’ I wondered what I sold. Jay switched on the grill and the lobster, lit bright red on one side by the electric element, began to revolve very very slowly. ‘You,’ said Jay again, ‘sell loyalty.’ He stared at me. ‘I don’t do that: I wouldn’t do it.’ For a moment I thought even Jay thinks I have changed sides, but I realized that it was Jay’s way of talking. He went on, ‘I sell people.’

‘Like Eichmann?’ I asked.

‘I don’t like that sort of joke,’ said Jay like a Sunday-school teacher at the Folies Bergères . Then his face cracked into a little grin. ‘More like Eichelhauer let’s say.’ That was the German name for Jay. Jay, I thought. Garrulus glandarius rufitergum . Jay: egg thief, bully of birds and raider of crops, lurking, cautious Jay who flies in clumsy undulating hops. ‘I deal in talented men exchanging employment of their own free will.’

‘You’re a talent scout from the Kremlin?’ I said.

Jay began to baste the lobster that he didn’t like to kill with the champagne that he didn’t like to drink. He was thinking about what I said. I could see why Jay was such a big success. He took everything at its face value. I still don’t know if Jay thought he was a talent scout from the Kremlin because the wall phone rang in the kitchen. Jay stopped basting long enough to wipe his hands. He listened on the phone. ‘Put him through.’ A pause. ‘Then say I am at home.’ He moved round and fixed me with that basilisk’s stare that people holding phones have. He suddenly said to me, ‘We don’t smoke in the kitchen,’ then, uncupping the phone, ‘This is Maximilian speaking. My dear Henry.’ His face split open in a big smile. ‘I won’t say a word, my dear friend, just carry on. Yes, very well.’ I saw Jay push the ‘scramble’ button. Jay just listened, but his face was like Gielgud doing ‘The Seven Ages of Man’. Finally Jay said, ‘Thanks,’ and he hung up the phone thoughtfully, and began to baste the lobster again.

I puffed my cigarette. Jay watched me but said nothing. I decided the initiative in this conversation had passed to me. ‘Is it time to talk about the head-shrinking factory at Wood Green?’ I asked.

‘Head shrinking?’ Jay asked.

‘Brain Washing Incorporated: the place I jumped out of. Isn’t that what we’re leading up to?’

‘You think that I’m something to do with that?’ his face was 11 A.M. November 11th.

There was a knock on the door and Maurice brought a slip of paper to Jay. I tried to read it, but it was impossible. There may have been about fifty typewritten words there. Maurice left. Then I followed Jay across the big sitting-room. Near the radio and TV was a small machine like a typewriter carriage. It was a paper shredder. Jay fed the sheet in and pressed a button. It disappeared. Jay sat down.