And he was himself an unashamed operator in a business where the smallest piece of reliable inside information could always be made to pay handsomely somehow. What was surprising was that neither Jack nor Paul had mentioned the Russian dimension of the supposed emergency.
He picked up the receiver and pressed the buttons. (Maybe Paul hadn't known. But Jack surely would have done —
wouldn't he?)
dummy1
He heard the ringing note —
(Captain Cuccaro would have now. And so had Zimin!) Cover story first, just in case, though.
'Hullo?' Faith answered properly for once, neither giving her name nor her number. 'Who is that?'
'It's me, love.' Also he simply wanted to hear her voice.
'David! Are you in trouble?'
'What?' Everyone seemed to know too-bloody-much: he hadn't even had time to lie — and as far as she knew he was still safe in Washington. 'What do you mean — am I in trouble?' All the half-truths he'd marshalled turned their backs on him mutinously, looking for escape. But he grabbed the slowest of them. 'I was just phoning to say I'm back.'
'Yes. I know you're back. And now you're going to tell me that you won't be coming home just yet.'
'What? How do you know?'
'I've just put the phone down on Jack Butler. He told me to tell you — to tell you if you phoned me — to come in at once.'
The rest of the half-truths were running for cover now, having thrown away their shields and spears. 'Oh?'
'And he didn't sound too pleased.'
And Faith herself didn't sound too pleased, either. 'No?'
'No. And I've been given protection, David, if you're interested.' No one transmitted displeasure down the phone better than Mrs Audley. 'A very nice young man. Who thinks dummy1
the world of you. Although I can't think why.'
'No?' There was a set of Low cartoon originals on the wall of Matthew's study. But it didn't include the famous 1940 one, in which an embattled British Tommy shook his fist against the dark clouds of impending defeat, facing it alone. And that omission switched his own control from Defence to Offence.
'Well, don't forget to get his name, love — he's obviously ready for promotion. But meanwhile . . . give me some bad news: tell me something awful.'
'What?' The tables were turned on that word.
'Tell me something awful.' What was awful? 'Mrs Mills is pregnant again — and the washing-machine has gone wrong . . . And Cathy's fallen in love with the boy who delivers the papers — anything.'
' What — ?' Suddenly her voice changed. 'You mean it —don't you!'
'I mean it — yes!' There was just an outside chance that all this was going on tape somewhere. But, as Jack wasn't the man to squander his resources eavesdropping on someone he trusted, it was on the far outside.
Several seconds ticked away. 'Cathy wants to go to India for her year off before University as a nursing auxiliary. And I've said no.'
Audley agreed with her. 'Change your mind — say yes.'
'What d'you mean? They catch the most awful diseases —'
'I know. But "yes" will buy us time. "No" will only make her dummy1
more determined. Just leave it to me.' He began to feel guilty.
But then the genuine awfulness registered, and he didn't.
'Goodbye, love! I'll call you again . . . when I can —'
He put the phone down, and then picked it up again and punched in the well-remembered numbers of the Saracen's Head public house by the river.
'Saracen.'
Teenage female voice. 'Get the boss, dear.'
'Dad's 'avin' 'is breakfast. You'd better call back later.'
There had been a child in the background at the Saracen's Head long ago, he remembered. 'Just tell him it's a friend of Mr Lee's, dear.'
''E won't like it — '
'He won't like it if you don't tell him. Go on! A friend of Mr Lee's.'
There was a moment's silence. 'Oh — all right! But 'e won't like it.'
Audley waited. It had been a very small child, his memory corrected him. But it had also been a long time ago — the old days indeed!
'Saracen.' Dad's tone bore out the ex-small child's warning.
"Ullo.'
'I'd like a word with Mr Lee.' Audley crossed his fingers.
'Oo wants 'im?'
So far, so good. 'A friend of his.'
dummy1
'Oh yus? Well, 'e 'ain't 'ere.'
Audley relaxed. It was like fitting a key into the rusty old lock of a long-disused room and finding that it still turned easily, as though newly-oiled. 'Mr Lee owes me three favours, for services rendered.' Over the years, those numbers had gradually decreased, as those Anglo-Israeli debts had been called in one by one. Although, of course, it wouldn't be Jake himself, now. So it all depended on how well his successors had been briefed. 'I want to speak to him, nevertheless.'
'Oh yus?' The landlord, of the Saracen's Head might also be struggling with his memories of long-disused procedures, as between "Mr Lee" and his "friend". But when you worked for the Israelis once, you worked for them always, was the rule.
'An' this would be an emergency, like — as per usual?' The phlegm rattled in the man's throat as he chuckled. 'Naow —
don't tell me! Face-to-face — or you got a number?'
Audley estimated Butler's orders against his own need. With the trouble he was already in — the new Russian trouble as well as the Berlin-Capri trouble — he was already in for a penny, in for a pound; and he could easily and (probably safely) encode Matthew's number with the very private and unforgettable formula which he and Jake had decided so long ago, after they had agreed that the one set of figures which no soldier ever forgot was his old army number. But he had always hated the telephone, and the hothouse temperature of Matt's flat was stifling him. 'Face-to-face.'
Everything came together as he spoke: perhaps because he dummy1
felt suddenly starved he imagined he could smell Marie-Louise's bacon, and her coffee too — and this side of Heaven there would be nothing to equal a thoroughly-Anglicized Frenchwoman's coffee-and-bacon. And also he must allow
"Mr Lee" time to make a rendezvous. So the lines on the map converged as he drew breath: ten minutes from here, in Sir Matthew Fattorini's Rolls-Royce, plus five for him from there to Jack Butler's fastness on the Embankment . . . plus fifteen to demolish the bacon and the coffee before that . . . finally offering "Mr Lee" maybe twenty minutes — ? 'Fifty minutes.
By the statue of General Abercrombie, in Abercrombie Gardens. One hour, maximum. Then I'll be gone. Have you got that?'
'Yuss.' The phone clicked and died. Time — seconds, rather than minutes — was always of the essence on the phone, when you didn't know you were on a safe line, they would have taught him.
He looked at his watch. Fifty minutes from now.
'And how is that beautiful daughter of yours, David? I am told that she takes after her mother — yes?'
His mouth was full of bacon. And the bacon carried with it a hint — the merest paradisal hint — of kidney-fat, did it — ?
'Cathy?'
'She must be working for her examinations, surely — ?
Always, now, they are in the midst of examinations!'
dummy1
A major anti-terrorist alert? (Matthew, still only half-dressed, had been silenced by his wife: "Let the poor man eat his breakfast, cheri! Is the car ready? Do something useful!")
'She has exams, yes.' Not co-operation — more like cause-and-effect: but what cause could produce this effect? The irony was that he needed to know the answer to that much more urgently than Matthew himself, who only had his stocks and shares at risk. 'But now she wants to go to India, before university. So Faith's worried sick.'