Wu Ming - 54

A big bet, commissioner. Never seen so much money in all my born days!

Chapter 12

Palm Springs, California, 30 January, afternoon

Seated on the Chippendale, facing Cary, was Sir Lewis Chester Kennington, a senior MI6 officer who had arrived from London a few days previously. Next to him was Henry Raymond, American director of the same organisation. Stiff, in their perfect grey suits. Combed wool, grey pinstripe, two buttons, waistcoat, probably Anderson and Sheppard, and their shirts had the unmistakable cut of Turnbull and Asser on Jermyn Street. Each of them shod in a pair of black Oxfords. But the ensemble was worn with an impersonality typical of the English, who are more concerned with perfect camouflage inside their office walls than they are with looking good.

Sir Lewis, about six feet tall and about sixty years of age. White hair combed back, a neatly trimmed black moustache.

Raymond was perhaps ten years younger, and three or four inches shorter. Soft red hair, parted on the right. They both had the affected accents of members of the upper classes, and very clear eyes, the kind that tend to look washed out and insincere in black and white.

Cary had dark eyes that could ‘burn through the screen’ and communicate any emotion you liked.

The FBI agent, fair-haired, medium build, a little over thirty, had introduced himself as ‘Bill Brown’ and remained standing beside the marble fireplace. Athletic-looking, unbuttoned blue jacket, magenta shirt, a tie with a skewed knot, sunglasses (frame too heavy for his features). He had said only a couple of words, but Cary had immediately recognised a Texan twang, like that of his friend Howard Hughes.

Pouring a trickle of milk into his tea, Sir Lewis said, ‘Mr Leach, you must have been wondering what Her Majesty’s Government wants of you.’

Cary, an American citizen since 1942, nodded and said nothing. Over the past few days he had been feeling too low to be curious. No one had called him ‘Mr Leach’ for over twenty years.

Sir Lewis, choosing an adulatory register, referred to the ‘past services’ that he had rendered for His Majesty, as he was then, and the patriotism he had shown during the war, for the benefit of the Crown.

‘Your assistance has been extremely precious, Mr Leach. The gratitude of Her Majesty and all the rest of us goes far beyond the honour conferred upon you.’

‘. a few years too late,’ concluded Cary. He had received the King’s Medal only in 1946, officially for having given the strife-torn motherland his entire salary from The Philadelphia Story and Arsenic and Old Lace .

Raymond was caught off guard. ‘I’m sorry?’

Sir Lewis began: ‘Of course you understand that we were waiting for some pretext, a different reason for awarding you the King’s Medal without disclosing the role that you played, and the role played by other valuable informers.’

‘Gentlemen, it is not my intention to deliver pointless polemics, let us be clear about that. I was not annoyed at the time, let alone in the year of grace 1954, but my friend and collaborator Alexander Korda was made a baronet in 1941. Or am I mistaken?’

Who was speaking, Archie or Cary? The spark of memory had relit the flame of his wounded pride, bringing with it a resentful curiosity. What did MI6 want from him? If they were there, in his house, in his drawing room, asking him a favour, well, they had a nerve!

‘Mr Leach, we hope that you do not doubt the deep gratitude —’

This time Cary exploded. ‘Gentlemen, let’s forget about it. We can return to the issue in a moment: I already wanted to enlist in ’39, as David Niven did, but Lord Lothian told me I would be more useful in Hollywood, from where I would report on Nazi sympathisers in the cinematographic industry. Why not, there were Nazis all over the place, even my second wife used to socialise with them, and my Spanish teacher was an Axis spy, not to mention that awful Countess di Frasso. Have you any idea how many interminable parties with unpleasant people I had to endure between ’39 and ’43? I have done my part, even when that damned Hoover and the whole damned FBI were trying everything they could to embarrass me: what’s this Englishman doing on our territory? Couldn’t we dig out the Nazis all by ourselves? Then I point out to Sir William Stephenson that Errol Flynn is keeping company with German agents and, as a British subject, he is guilty of high treason. My God, did I point it out! And what does MI6 do? Nothing. And in fact, for the whole of the course of the war, Flynn is acting the hero on the screen, and I have to put up with the barbs of the London scribblers, calling me a coward because I didn’t join up like David Niven! Then, when the war was over, you give me that damned medal and I, who have among other things become an American citizen, am supposed to be on cloud nine, isn’t that right?’

Who was speaking, Archie or Cary?

‘One second, please,’ Sir Lewis interrupted in the patient but irritating tone of a primary school teacher. ‘Let’s reflect for a moment about what it would have meant to accuse Mr Flynn of high treason or espionage: there would have been a long and tortuous trial, vulnerable to enemy disinformation, and who would have been in the dock? A man adored by women all over the world. We risked turning Flynn into a martyr.’

‘That’s true,’ Raymond went on. ‘If you might allow me to give one more. contemporary example, the same thing might happen with those suspected of “anti-American activities”. It’s terribly risky having all those trials to identify a handful of Bolsheviks. In Great Britain we prefer subtler, less noisy tactics, but the United States is still such a naive and superficial country —’ Then he turned towards Brown and added, ‘With the greatest respect, of course.’

Brown remained impassive and gave no indication that he had understood a single word. Probably, Cary thought, he didn’t even know what a ‘Bolshevik’ was.

‘If, on the other hand, we had left Mr Flynn a free man, as we did,’ Sir Lewis continued, ‘his well-known impulsiveness would sooner or later have led to the discovery of other elements of the spy network, and in the event his reckless movements in Mexico turned out to be terribly revealing. As to your unpleasant experiences with British public opinion, Mr Leach, things could have been worse. It is our duty, should it become necessary for the security and prosperity of the Crown, to expose our real or suspected agents to public opinion as a diversionary tactic. Please remember that in order to protect the intelligence work of your friend Mr Coward, we circulated the rumour that MI6 had relieved him of his duties because of his lack of discretion. It was the only way to keep the Germans from trying to infiltrate.’

‘As to Flynn,’ Raymond continued, ‘there were other ways of getting rid of him, and that’s all I’m saying.’

Sir Lewis turned to Raymond with ill-disguised annoyance. At almost the same moment, Raymond and Brown saw Cary Grant raise his left eyebrow in an expression of surprise already seen on the big screen. In the few moments of unease that followed, Cary thought quickly. How could I not have worked it out?

In 1942, Flynn had been arrested on accusations of raping underage girls, with reference to four incidents that had taken place on his yacht, the Sirocco . The two accusers, known as Betty and Peggy, were no younger than twenty-three, they had been deflowered long before Flynn got there, and they were more than consenting, but during the trial the prosecution had had them dressed up as little girls, with tiny shorts and plaits in their hair. Flynn had been found not guilty, but the rapist label had stuck to him. That had been the start of his decline as an actor and a man, the alcoholism, the drugs, the self-destruction.