Such enquiries might appear innocent to those he was asking, but the answers — fragments in fact from a culture of in-house and after-hours barroom gossip — put together, could form a picture that would make for uncomfortable reading for both parties. It was a fair guess he had found out about the Brno mission in the process; now, with Quex’s clearance, Peter was finally making that visit to talk to him.
Physically, Peter thought, the man looked like the perfect undercover operator and he had once been that, having held the intelligence job at two important embassies, Paris and then Berlin, just before Hitler became chancellor. McKevitt’s face was pinkish and bland, the forehead unlined, his receding hair fair and wispy, while his green eyes seemed, regardless of what was being discussed, devoid of expression.
It was said by some Peter had asked that he was a man you could insult with impunity, he would never show any reaction, only for those same people to find out in time that he was a fellow who never forgot an affront, being the type to lock it away and wait for an opportunity to pay back the slur in spades, quite often at the point where a rival needed to be removed or diminished.
Working for the Secret Intelligence Service abroad was not a task that could be glorified with the designation of ‘spy’, despite what the Gestapo claimed for Captain Kendrick; MI6 officers in foreign embassies usually held the lowly post of passport control officer, a job that could safely be left to minions while he got on with the real task of sniffing out bits of information the forces of the country they were stationed in would rather keep to themselves.
In a world where you could never trust anyone’s stated opinion — the truth might be the polar opposite of what they said in public — McKevitt was one fellow who made no effort to avoid being pigeonholed. He was open in his admiration for firm government and never hid his hatred of trade unions under a bushel, particularly ‘bloody miners and their Bolshevik chums’.
He was wont to tell anyone who wanted to listen or not, always in a particularly grating Northern Irish accent, that the best way to deal with recalcitrant workers was to shoot them. That he always followed such a view with a braying laugh did little to diminish the chilling effect.
The man was efficient, of that there was no doubt; he had run his embassy operations faultlessly and brought in good intelligence about the intentions of the political masters of the countries in which he operated, all of which was filtered and passed to the Foreign Office so that the diplomats could formulate Government policy.
In time, he had been brought into MI6 HQ in Broadway to command a regional desk for Central Europe — at the time of appointment not the hot potato it had become since the crisis had blown up in Czechoslovakia. Yet it was still not one of the senior positions in the firm, not the German or French Desk, and it was well known that was what he craved — the other obvious thing about McKevitt was his ambition.
‘Quex heard you have been asking about me,’ Peter lied, given his boss had said nothing of the sort, reverting quickly to the truth. ‘He thought I should come in and let you know what happened in the operation I was tasked with, not that it is at all clear. Better you hear it from the horse’s mouth, what?’
‘He sent you to Brno, did he not?’
‘He did, which I think he has the right to do, but I’m curious how you know about it since it was supposed to be top-floor only.’
Any hope of embarrassing him was futile. ‘If I choose to make contact with the man we have there, that is my affair. What concerns me more, Lanchester, and you know it, is the job should have properly been left to me to initiate.’
The use of the surname was irritating; it was normal to get on to first-name terms with your SIS colleagues quite quickly, even if, as in this case, they were not well known to each other. McKevitt was being condescending and he was equally determined to show his pique at being sidelined.
‘It was no doubt felt that, with what is going on already in Czechoslovakia, you had quite a lot on your plate.’
There was no reaction to what both men knew to be a lie and it was at that point Peter Lanchester realised how very rarely the other man even blinked.
‘Not that there is much I can tell you,’ Peter added, ‘that you don’t already know.’
‘Not really my concern now,’ McKevitt replied, and given his control of his features, there was no indication if that was the truth either.
In the life of an intelligence operative, working in several different countries, the name of the game was contacts. Few people go in for outright betrayal of their national cause — the odd one yes, for principle or money and they are gold dust, but mostly an SIS man will work on collective small indiscretions, the little things let slip by numerous folk he talks to that add up to something worthwhile in the whole.
Given McKevitt’s way of openly stating his political leanings, it was a fair guess that many of those contacts he had made abroad would subscribe to his views; that was how you got talking to someone with inside knowledge, you shared in decrying the things that upset them, you created a fellow feeling that allowed for things that should be left unsaid to slip out.
Peter Lanchester knew that, just as he knew that if the man he was talking to had made connections with the right-wing zealots in France, like the Jeunesses Patriotes, the last thing he would do was be open about such an association.
‘Just the same, Quex felt it best you are made aware of what I did and when.’
‘Of things like that little dust-up in La Rochelle.’
It was hard not to tense at that; Peter had not expected any mention of it. ‘You know about that?’
‘One of the fellows you took there from the Paris embassy is an old friend of mine.’
You have been putting it about in asking questions, Peter thought, but why do so in Paris unless…? And when was the question posed, because there had been some delay in lining up that pair and the actual departure?
‘I take it,’ McKevitt continued, ‘given you went to Brno to check out the illegal purchase of guns, there’s some connection in the fact that you ended up there?’
Now he was being sarcastic, but there was no point in denying it, nor was his knowledge indicative of anything. The gun battle would have come to the attention of the French press, or perhaps that friend in Paris had put two and two together — indeed they might have still been there and not, as he had instructed them, heading back to Paris.
‘I am assuming you were trailing the consignment, you being there I mean?’
Peter made the response as laconic as he could. ‘All I know is there was a hell of a flap a few miles outside the port at the time I was expecting the guns to show up.’
It would have been quite unnerving to be the object of McKevitt’s stare if one was not experienced; fortunately Peter was enough that to sit back in his chair and look relaxed.
‘According to what I could glean from the local gossip there was a confrontation in which a light machine gun was employed and a couple of young blades wounded. Given the employment of such a weapon, as well as the mention of foreigners being involved, it’s a fair bet that was part of the consignment I was looking for.’
‘And how, Lanchester, did you find all this out?’
‘By poking around a bit when I heard about it, the place was awash with rumour and gossip. Hospital first, then I found a local bobby who liked his beer too much and had been out at the scene.’
‘And he told you what?’
‘Apparently there was a burnt-out lorry blocking the road but no sign that it had any kind of load on board, so if it was those machine guns they must have been spirited away somehow.’
It was equally unnerving, this lack of any sign of a reaction; Peter Lanchester rated himself as no slouch in the game of which they were both a part and he had to believe that McKevitt was well aware of his true reason for calling.