Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door

‘I asked you to come in,’ Prior said, after Spragge had settled into his chair, ‘because we’re thinking of employing you again.’ He watched the flare of hope. Spragge was less well turned out than he appeared to be at first sight. His suit was shiny with wear, his shirt cuffs frayed. ‘You’ll have gathered from the papers there’s a lot of unrest in the munitions industry at the moment. Particularly in the north, where you spent a good deal of time, didn’t you? In’16.’

‘Yes, I —’

‘With MacDowell. Who’d just come out of a detention centre, I believe?’

‘Yes, he’s a deserter. Conchie. You should see the size of him, for God’s sake. Built like a brick shithouse. See some of the scraggy little buggers that get sent to France.’ Spragge was looking distinctly nervous. ‘I don’t think I could approach him again. I mean, he knows me.’

‘He knows you from the Roper case, doesn’t he?’

‘Before that.’

‘You might be able to give advice, though. Obviously we’d need to keep you away from the areas you were working in before.’

Spragge looked relieved.

‘You met MacDowell in the summer of ‘16? In Sheffield?’

‘Yes, I was making inquiries into the shop stewards’ movement.’

Prior made a show of consulting his notes. ‘You stayed with Edward Carpenter?’

‘I did.’ Spragge leant forward, his florid face shining with sweat, and said in a sinister whisper, ‘Carpenter is of the homogenic persuasion.’

‘So I believe.’ That phrase again. It had stuck in Beattie’s memory, and no wonder. It was transparently obvious that Spragge’s natural turn of phrase would have been something like ‘fucking brown ‘atter’. ‘Of the homogenic persuasion’ was Major Lode. Who had once told Prior in, of all places, the Cafe Royal, ‘This country is being brought to its knees. Not by Germany’ — here he’d thumped the table so hard that plates and cutlery had leapt into the air — ‘NOT BY GERMANY, but by an unholy alliance of socialists, sodomites and shop stewards.’ Prior had felt scarcely able to comment, never having been a shop steward. ‘Do you think that’s relevant?’

‘It was relevant to me . There was no lock on the door.’

‘He is eighty, isn’t he?’ said Prior.

Spragge shifted inside his jacket. ‘A vigorous eighty.’

‘You went to a meeting, next day? Addressed by Carpenter.’

‘I went with Carpenter.’

‘And in the course of his speech he quoted a number of… well, what would you call them? Songs? Poems? In praise of homogenic love.’

‘He did. In public.’

‘Well, it was a public meeting, wasn’t it? And then after the meeting you went into a smaller room, and there you were introduced to a number of people, including the author of these songs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Walt Whitman.’

‘Yes.’

‘Walt Whitman is an American poet.’ Prior waited for Spragge’s mouth to open. ‘A dead American poet.’

‘He didn’t look well.’

‘1819 to 1892.’

Spragge jerked his head. ‘Yeh, well, it’s the money, innit?’

‘Is it?’

‘I’ll say it is. Two pound ten a week I was promised. Mind you, he says the information’s got to be good and you’ve got to keep it coming.’ Spragge sat back and snorted. ‘Didn’t matter how good it was, I never had two pound ten in my hand, not regular, just like that. Bonuses, yes. But what use are dribs and drabs like that to me? I’m a family man.’

‘You got bonuses, did you?’

‘Now and then.’

‘That would be if you turned up something special?’

Spragge hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘How big a bonus did you get for Beattie Roper?’

Spragge hesitated again, then clearly decided he had nothing to lose. ‘Not big enough.’

‘But you got one?’

‘Yes.’

‘All in one go?’

‘Half on arrest, half on conviction.’

‘You got a bonus if she was convicted?’

‘Look, I know what you’re after. You’re saying I lied under oath. Well, I didn’t. Do you think I’m gunna risk — what is it, five years — for a measly fifty quid? ‘Course I’m bloody not. I’d have to be mad, wouldn’t I?’

‘Or in debt.’

Spragge blinked. ‘Just because I lied about Walt Whitman doesn’t mean I was lying all the time. That was the first report I wrote, I was desperate to get enough in.’

‘You never talked about dogs to Mrs Roper?’

Spragge made an impatient gesture. ‘What dogs? There weren’t any fucking dogs. They’re not used in detention centres. You might not know that, but she does. She’s talked to men who’ve been in every detention centre in England. She knows there aren’t any dogs.’ He stared at Prior. ‘Have you been talking to her?’

‘I’ve interviewed her, yes.’

Spragge snorted. ‘Well, all I can say is the old bitch’s got you properly conned.’

‘I haven’t said I believed her.’

‘She was convicted . It doesn’t matter what you believe.’

‘It matters a great deal, from the point of view of your job prospects.’ Prior gave this time to sink in. ‘The letter that came with the poison. From Mrs Roper’s son-in-law.’ He drew the file towards him. ‘“If you get close enough to the poor brutes, I pity them. Dead in twenty seconds’.”

‘All that proves is that the son-in-law thought it was for the dogs. Well, she’d have to tell him something, wouldn’t she?’

‘You still say she plotted to kill Lloyd George?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that the suggestion came from her, and not from you?’

‘Yes . She didn’t need any bloody encouragement!’

‘Even to the details? Even to suggesting Walton Heath Golf-course as a good place to do it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How would she know that? She’s spent her entire life in the back streets of Salford, how would she know where Lloyd George plays golf?’

Spragge shrugged. ‘Read it in the paper? I don’t suppose it’s a state secret.’ He leant forward. ‘You know, you want to be careful. If you’re saying I acted as an agent provocateur — and that is what you’re saying, isn’t it? — then you’re also saying that Major Lode employed an agent provocateur. Either knowingly, in which case he’s a rogue, or unknowingly, in which case he’s a fool. Either way, it’s not gunna do his career much good, is it? You watch yourself. You might find out it’s your head on the chopping-block.’

Prior spread his hands. ‘Who’s talking about chopping-blocks? I’m interviewing a new agent — new to me . And I’ve made it clear — at least I hope I’ve made it clear — that any little flight of fancy — Walt Whitman rising from the dead — and I’ll be on to it. If there aren’t any flights of fancy, well then… no need to worry.’ With the air of a man getting to the real purpose of the meeting at last, Prior drew another file towards him. ‘Now tell me what you know about MacDowell.’

After he’d finished milking Spragge of information, all of which he knew already, and had sent him home to await the summons, Prior sat motionless for a while, his chin propped on his hands.

‘The poison was for the dogs.’

‘There weren’t any fucking dogs. You might not know that, but she does.’

Was it possible Beattie had tried to reach out from her corner shop in Tite Street and kill the Prime Minister? The Beattie he’d known before the war would not have done that, but then that Beattie had been rooted in a communal life. Oh, she’d been considered odd — any woman in Tite Street who worked for the suffragettes was odd. But she hadn’t been isolated. That came with the war.