George was stuck. To say anything would be wrong, but this was one gap Boris’s fertile imagination didn’t seem willing to plug.
“Er… that depends,” said George.
“On what?”
“Er… on… on what you think is going on in the er… ‘fockin’ dyesert.”‘
Boris stared at him.
A silence screaming to be filled.
And Boris wasn’t going to fill it.
George risked all.
“After all, I mean… you either have spy planes or you don’t.”
It was enigmatic.
George had no idea whether the Russians had spy planes. The Americans did. One had been shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, resulting in egg-on-face as the Russians paraded the unfortunate pilot alive before the world’s press. So much for the cyanide capsule.
It was enigmatic. Enigmatic to the point of meaninglessness, but it did the trick. It turned Boris’s inquiries inward. Meanwhile, George had scared himself shitless. He’d got cocky and he’d nearly paid the price.
He lobbed another envelope of money into the bottom of Donna’s wardrobe. He hadn’t counted it, and neither of them had spent any of it, but he reckoned they must have about two thousand pounds in there.
“I have to stop,” he said. “Boris damn near caught me tonight.”
Two days later, George opened his copy of the Daily Telegraph on the train to work, and page one chilled him to the briefcase.
Russian Spy Plane Shot Down Over Aden
He had reached Waterloo and was crossing the Hungerford Footbridge to the Victoria Embankment before he managed to reassure himself with the notion that because it had been shot down, the USSR still didn’t know what was (not) going on in the “fockin’ dyesert.”
He told Donna, the next time they met, the next time they made love. He lay back in the afterglow and felt anxiety awaken from its erotically induced slumber.
“You see,” he said, “I had to tell Boris something. There’s nothing going on in the ‘fockin’ dyesert.’ But the Russians launched a spy plane to find out. On Boris’s say-so. On my say-so. I mean, for all I know the Vietcong are deploying more troops along the DMZ, the Chinese might be massing their millions at the border with Hong Kong… This is all getting… out of hand.”
Donna ran her fingers through his hair, brought her lips close to his ear, with that touch of moist breath that drove him wild.
“Y’know, Georgie, you been luckier than you know.”
“How so?”
“Supposin’ there really had been something going on out in the ‘fockin’ dyesert’?”
“Oh Christ.”
“Don’t bear thinkin’ about, do it? But you’re right. This is all gettin’ outta hand. We need to do something.”
“Such as?”
“Dunno. But, let me think. I’m better at it than you are.”
“Could you think quickly. Before I start World War III.”
“Sssh, Georgie. Donna’s thinkin’.”
“It’s like this,” she said. “You want out, but the Russkies have enough on you to fit you up for treason, and then there’s the Polaroid of you an’ me in bed an’ your wife to think about.”
“I got the Polaroid back months ago.”
“You did? Good. Now… thing is, as I see it, they got you for selling them our secrets ‘bout rockets an’ ‘at out east. Only you gave ‘em saucepans and tea urns. So what have they really got?”
“Me. They’ve got me, because saucepans and tea urns are just as secret as nukes. I’m still a traitor. I’ll be the Klaus Fuchs of kitchenware.”
“No. You’re not. The other Horsfield is, ‘cos that’s who they think they’re dealing with.”
George could not see where this was headed.
“We gotta do two things, see off old Boris and put the other Horsfield in the frame. Give ‘ em the Horsfield they wanted in the first place.”
“Oh God.”
“No… listen… Boris thinks he’s been dealing with Lieutenant Col. Horsfield. What we gotta do is make the colonel think he’s dealing with Boris… swap him for you and then blow the whistle.”
“Or let the whistle blow,” said George.
“How do you mean?”
“If I understand that cunning little mind of yours aright, you mean to try and frame Horsfield.”
“S’right.”
“I know HG. He’s a total bastard, but he cant be scared or intimidated. We make any move against him, he catches even a whiff of Russian involvement, he’ll blow the whistle himself.”
“Y’know. That’s even more than I hoped for. Let me try for the full house then. Is he what you might call a ladies’ man?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, no offense, Georgie, but you was easy to pull. If I was to try and pull HG, what would he do?”
“Oh, I see. Well, if office gossip is to be believed, he’d paint his arse blue and shag you under a lamppost in Soho Square.”
“Bingo,” said Donna. “Bingo bloody bingo!”
They dipped into the wardrobe money for the first time.
“I can’t do this myself, and I can’t use the room in Bridle Lane. I’ll pay a mate to do HG, and I know a house in Marshall Street that’s going under the wrecking ball any day now. It’ll be perfect. I’ll get a room kitted out so it looks like a regular pad and then we just abandon it. The gray area is knowing when we might get to HG.”
“It’s Ted’s birthday next week. Bound to be a pub and club crawl. I could even predict that at some point we’ll all be in the same club you found me in.”
“What would be HG’s type?”
“Now you mention it… not you. He goes for blondes, blondes with big…”
“Tits?”
“Quite.”
“Okay, that narrows it down. I’ll have to ask Judy. She’ll want a ton for the job and another for the risk, but she’ll do it.”
Ted’s birthday bash coincided with George’s Boris night at the Berwick Street caff. Something was going right. God knows, they might even get away with this. “This”-he wasn’t at all sure what “this” was. He knew his own part in this, but the initiative had now passed to Donna. She had planned the night’s activity like a film script.
He slipped away early from Ted’s party. Ted was three sheets to the wind anyway. HG was in full flight with a string of smutty stories, and the only risk was that he might get off with some woman before Judy pulled him. As he was leaving, a tall, busty blonde, another Jayne Mansfield or Diana Dors, cantilevered by state-of-the-art bra mechanics into a pink lamb’s wool sweater that showed plenty of cleavage and looked as solid as Everest, came into the club. She winked at George and carried on down the stairs without a word.
George went round to Bridle Lane.
It was a tale of two wigs.
Donna had a wig ready for him.
“You and Boris are about the same size. It’s just a matter of hair color. Besides, it’s not as if HG will get a good look at you.”
And a wig ready for herself. She was transformed into a pocket Marilyn Monroe.
He hated the waiting. They stood at the corner of Fouberts Place, looking down the length of Marshall Street. It was past nine when a staggering, three-quarters pissed HG appeared on the arm of a very steady Judy. They stopped under a lamppost. He didn’t paint his arse blue, but he groped her in public, his hand on her backside, his face half-buried in her cleavage.
George watched Judy gently reposition his hand at her waist and heard her say, “Not so fast, soldier, we’re almost there.”
“We are? Bloody good show.”
George hated HG.
George hated HG for being so predictable.