Len Deighton - The Harry Palmer Quartet

‘You can say difficult again,’ said Jean. ‘But I’m still not sure if I understand even now. You mean, after this brain-washing, these people, these “concens”, went back to work but were really working as Russian agents, their convictions totally reversed?’

I said, ‘No. It’s far more complex than that. Everything revolves round Jay, really; to understand IPCRESS you must understand Jay. Jay has spent his life amidst changing political scenes. Here in England it’s easy for us to have allegiance to a government that has stayed pretty constant since the Stuart restoration; but Jay has seen governments come and go too often to place too much reliance on them. He remembers the Tsars; government by ignorance; Paderewski, government by gentle pianist; Pilsudski, the general who won the brilliant battle of Warsaw in 1920, and smashed the new Soviet Armies under Voroshilov. He remembers the dictator who seized power by shouting “This is a whorehouse, all get out!” to Parliament. He remembers the government who followed Hitler’s example in 1938 by grabbing a piece of Czechoslovakia by force. He remembers the Nazis, and then, after the war, the protégés of London and Moscow fighting each other for power. Jay has come through all these changes like a plastic duck going over Niagara – by floating along with the current. He has sold information. Information from Klaus Fuchs in Britain, Alan Nunn May in Canada, and the Rosenbergs in the US. Then he graduated to kidnapping and arranging that Otto John from West Germany, the Italian physicist, Bruno Pontecorvo, and Burgess and Maclean should travel eastward. But always for money. He would have sent them equally willingly to anyone who named the right price. Then one day, perhaps while he was shaving, an idea hit him; he would brain-wash a network of well-placed men, and all of them would clear their information through Jay. They would be loyal to Jay personally. Jay knew enough about psychiatry to know that it was possible (and let’s not forget that it’s been working very well for nearly a year), and he knew that it would make us all “trigger happy”, suspicious of everyone once we got on to it.’

I ordered some more coffee and phoned Charlotte Street to see if there were any cables for me, but there was nothing fresh. I went back to Jean.

‘What was that water tank that you mentioned in the “haunted house” report?’ she asked.

‘Yes, the water tank. I should have perhaps said four ways because that was for another system. You mask the subject’s eyes and fit him with breathing apparatus, then suspend him face down in a tank of blood-heat water. At first he sleeps; when he awakes he is completely disorientated and subject to anxiety and hallucination. You choose the right moment and begin to feed him information …’

‘Hence the tape recorder.’

‘Exactly …’

‘It’s a quick way of brain-washing then?’

‘It is, but they discontinued it, so it probably wasn’t so sensational.’

‘And they didn’t use TAP *either,’ Jean said.

‘No,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t know you’d read that report.’

‘Yes, Alice gave it to me to read last night. There were some mentions in a Norwegian medical journal which I translated for her.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s all right then.’

‘Alice said you’d say that.’ Before I could say anything, Jean continued, ‘This brain-washing …’

‘Say “thought reform”. No one says “brainwashing” nowadays.’

‘This thought reform,’ said Jean, ‘is it … ?’

‘Enough of thought reform,’ I said, ‘what are you doing tonight?’

Jean fingered the lone gold ear-ring, and looked at me from low down under her eyelids. ‘I thought perhaps I should give you a chance of making your ear-ring into a pair,’ she said. It was suddenly very quiet and Jean picked up a copy of the Guardian , and I fought back the goose pimples.

The newspapers were playing it down but London murders always found an audience. ‘London Club Murder’ it said, and there was a lot of stuff about the police going through the membership books at the ‘Tin-Tack Club’ where Charlie was a part-time barman.

‘Murray said he was a close friend of yours,’ said Jean.

I told her that he had warned me when I was in danger, but I didn’t tell her that anyone else had.

‘But why would anyone want to kill him? For helping you?’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It was more tragic than that. He’d lent me some clothes, including a light-blue raincoat. I gave Charlie his raincoat back at Fortes, and he wore it when he left me and returned home. It was a simple case of mistaken identity.’

‘Who arranged it?’ asked Jean.

‘A hoodlum that worked for Jay’s network. We’ll pick him up,’ I said.

‘Not Jay himself?’

‘No, certainly not. On the contrary. As soon as he got wind of Charlie’s connection with C-SICH he rushed down to talk to Dalby, which is where I came in.’

‘He hoped Dalby could black it out?’ Jean said.

‘Yes, but Dalby hadn’t a chance with C-SICH. It’s got too many direct government connections via industry, as well as the combined services side of it.’

‘They must have had a fit when you arrived,’ said Jean.

‘Well, Jay hadn’t arrived then, but Dalby knew he was coming. His infra-red detectors gave him a few minutes to get ready for me. I would have left it there if this private eye that I had with me hadn’t mentioned a Chinese. It was a long shot, but I took it, and it paid off. Murray, passing Dalby’s study, heard the detectors buzzing and switched them off before coming to find me. After Murray found me in the garden he was worried that I would spoil the whole thing by precipitate action.’

‘How could he think that?’ asked Jean.

‘That’s what I thought, but anyway, he knew I had little to lose, so he phoned Ross.’

‘After he came conscious?’ said Jean.

‘After he came conscious.’

‘Murray is exclusively Ross’s man?’

‘Not normally, but for the IPCRESS business he was. After talking to Ross he turned around, went back into the house and arrested Dalby. The Chinese man …’

‘Who really is Lithuanian, dear,’ said Jean.

‘So I hear,’ I said. ‘That was what Murray just phoned in about. He picked him up near Liphook. I don’t know the story.’

‘Ross must have acted quickly after Murray phoned.’

‘Well, he certainly did, but don’t forget that he’d had the Home Secretary prepared for days. They knew it would come suddenly when it came.’

‘Why did Jay give up so easily when Ross arrived?’ Jean asked. ‘It’s not like him, somehow.’

‘I’m not sure about that. Either because he thought Dalby would pull him out of the fire, in spite of the struggle for power that was obviously going on between them.’

‘Or?’ said Jean.

‘Or it’s something to do with the phone call from someone named Henry. Time will tell.’

‘More questions,’ said Jean.

‘Very well,’ I said.

‘Why did Jay let you find Raven in that club the day you were nearly arrested?’

‘Simple. Jay and Dalby had the “thought reform” going well by then, but they needed a neat punctuation mark to account for the series of kidnappings. If they could find a scapegoat, there the matter would end, and they could happily go forward with their new plan.’

‘Until they quarrelled.’

‘Perhaps, but they might not have quarrelled. Anyway, Dalby and Jay set me up to be found alongside Raven, with a hypodermic in my pocket, police raid and all.’

‘But,’ said Jean.

‘But instead of waiting a few more minutes, when I would have been organized into the gaming room, I got impatient …’