Quiller's Run

'For the moment.'

He sat gazing into his small amber glass. 'For the moment. I suppose that means you're working.'

'Not really. I walked out.'

He swung his head up to squint at me with his yellow eyes, taking time to focus. 'Walked out?'

'A little disagreement.' I didn't want to talk about it; the whole thing had been tearing at my mind for the last ten days like a pack of dogs.

'Walked out of the Bureau?

'It can happen to anyone, for Christ's sake.'

He went on watching me. 'But you're one of their top shadows.'

'Tell me about yourself.'

He ignored that. 'You'll go back, of course. I mean, after a while. Won't you?'

'No.' I picked up my drink. I'd give him another three minutes for old times' sake, and then out.

'When did you leave?' he asked me.

'Ten days ago.'

'You must have been going mad.'

'Probably.'

'That's what I should've done, before they had a chance to fire me. I know what it feels like. I mean, I know what it feels like to me. What's it feel like to you?'

'None too funny. Aren't you afraid of swallowing that bloody thing?'

He looked into his drink, rather fondly. 'But I always do, old boy. He's my little friend, you see. Poor little perisher, died of drink, and you know something? So will I. Eventually.' He straightened up on the stool, making an effort, glancing across my eyes. 'Of course I don't really mean that. But Christ, you know what I did the day I walked out of there? I put down half a bottle of Black Label and went along to the funfair and bought every bloody seat on the roller-coaster and tried to see if I could hop from the front to the back before it came in again. Fucking near fell off- there's a really rotten bend on that thing. The next day I took a .38 up there with me and had a go at shooting out the bulbs on the tower in the middle. Got most of them. Arrested me for public endangerment, or some such thing.' He gave a short laugh that turned into a cough, 'You should do something like that, you know, get it out of your system.'

'I did.'

'Jolly good show. Stick a piss-pot on top of the palace gates or something? I've always wanted to do that, you know.'

'Nothing so fancy.' The cop hadn't been able to put the actual speed down on the ticket because the needle in the Jensen had been tight against the 120 mark when the front end had started aquaplaning on the wet road somewhere past Windsor and the whole thing had taken off. I'd been lucky the cop had found me: there was a bit of concussion involved.

'I suppose Scobie's after you, is he?'

'What?'

'Scobie.'

'Yes.' I'd got the letter a week ago, three days after I'd left the Bureau. Scobie worked fast. There was an official crest at the top of the paper, and the name of a department which didn't in fact exist: Coordination Staff- Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It has been suggested to me that you might be interested in a discussion with us about appointments in government service in the field in foreign affairs, which occasionally arise in addition to those covered by the Diplomatic Service Grades 7 and 8.

The letter was signed illegibly over the title Recruiting Officer.

Scobie ran an undercover staffing operation for the British Secret Intelligence Service from Warwick Square, and he'd picked up the vibrations at once when I'd walked out of the Bureau. The next thing would be an invitation to lunch at the Travellers' Club in St James to sound me out.

'You won't take up with that gang, of course.' Pepperidge was watching me steadily now. 'Will you?'

'Not really.'

'Too much bloody red tape.' He finished his drink, and I looked away. He's my little friend, you see… 'But then, where else is there? There is nowhere, of course, or I wouldn't be sitting here… sitting here wishing to Christ -' he squeezed his eyes shut and sat rocking gently on his stool for almost half a minute, then let his shoulders go slack and gave a short laugh – 'wishing to Christ I wasn't. Because I had an offer, too. Not from Scobie.' He swung his head to look for the barman. 'Not from Scobie.'

'Same again, Mr Pepperidge?'

'Yes. That is to say, no.' He looked into the shadows behind him and touched my arm. 'Let's go and sit over there.'

Every table had a small brass lamp on it, burning dimly; between them it was almost dark. You didn't come here to be seen, or to see anyone. I nearly said I'd got to go, but changed my mind, in case there was any small thing I could do for him – because in the last ten minutes I'd been chilled, appalled. Pepperidge had been first class in the field before he'd come home to the Asian desk. He'd never touched booze, he'd kept in training at Norfolk and he could take on anything they gave him – a totally shut-ended checkpoint situation without papers or contacts – and get away with it; he could stalk, infiltrate, kill if he had to, and get out with the product. Ferris had run him in Sapphire, Croder had run him in Foxtrot, two of the major ones, and now he was sitting here with his thin blue hands restless on the polished oak of the table, his eyes needing time to focus, his memory slow, a burnout, finished, and not yet forty.

This wouldn't happen to me, I knew that; but I'd have to find a good reason for going on, a new direction. And it would have to take me back to the only life I could live with.

But there is nowhere, of course. ..

Pepperidge had his shoulders against the panelled wall, even this dim light bothering his eyes. The attempt at wry humour was done with now; it had been an act I'd seen through, and he'd dropped it. 'Not from Scobie, no. This came from Cheltenham.'

Government Communications HQ, out in the West Country, the nerve-centre for international classified traffic. So he'd been keeping his ear to the ground, at least.

'It was offered to me personally,' he said, 'under the desk.'

'When?'

'Last week.' His yellow eyes watched me steadily, defiance in them. 'It surprises you, of course, that anyone should offer this . . . this ship-wrecked fucking sailor any kind of mission. I see that. I quite understand. But -'

'Spare me the violins,' I told him, and finished my drink. One more minute, and out. I'd joined him here at the table because the poor bastard had started talking business, but it couldn't add up to anything; he was just wandering in the wastelands of the lost, to pick over the shreds of his pride.

'I will spare you the violins,' he said with heavy articulation, 'yes, of course.' There was a light in his eyes now that carried a warning, and I noted it. But if the poor devil tried coming at me in his besotted rage I'd only have to subdue him, and that would make things worse, humiliating. 'It so happens, you see, that a certain party knew of my accomplishments out East, and thought this one might catch my interest. It's for me to accept or turn down, as I think fit.' He sat with his back straight again, watching me with a dreadful steadiness, waiting to see if he was getting the message across — that he was still on his feet, still in the running, well thought-of.

'Then you're in clover,' I said, and tried to make it sound genuine.

There was a moment's silence and then he gave a kind of sob, squeezing his eyes shut and just sitting there without moving, his fists pressed onto the table to keep him upright, their tremor conveying itself to the brass lamp and setting up a vibration. Then it was over.

Not much above a whisper: 'Don't humour me, you bastard. Spare me that.' Aware suddenly of his clenched fists, he opened them and brought his hands slowly together, as if for comfort. 'Of course you're perfectly right. There's no kind of action I could take on now without getting killed.'

In a moment I said, 'Dry out somewhere.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Go into a clinic and dry out. Then do a bit of training. You'll soon get it back.'