Bradshaw stared at him. "Bollocks," he muttered, returning it to the lamp and his phone book. "Bullshit, whole thing. Some stupid game."
This time he dialled Darker's office, and yet again Burr saw the scene in his mind: Palfrey picking up the telephone for his * finest hour as Rooke's loyal agent; Rooke standing over him while he listened on the extension, Rooke's big hand helpfully * on Palfrey's arm and his clear, uncomplicated gaze encouraging Palfrey in his lines.
"I want Darker, Harry," Bradshaw was saying. "I need to I talk to him right away. Absolutely vital. Where is he?... Well, what do you mean, you don't know?... Fuck's sake, Harry, What's the matter with you? There's been a burglary at his house, the police are there, they've been on to him, spoken to him, where is he?... Don't give me that operational shit. I'm Operational. This is operational. Find him!"
For Burr a long silence. Bradshaw has the earpiece flat against his ear. He has turned pale and frightened. Palfrey is saying his great lines. Whispering them, the way Burr and Rooke rehearsed him. From the heart, because for Palfrey they are true:
"Tony, get off the line, for Christ's sake!" Palfrey urges, doing his furtive voice and scrubbing his nose with the knuckles of his spare hand. "The balloon's gone up. Geoffrey and Neal are for the high jump. Burr and company are throwing the book at us. Chaps running in the corridors. Don't call again. Don't call anyone. Police in the lobby."
Then, best of all, Palfrey rings off ― or Rooke does it for him ― leaving Bradshaw frozen at his post, and the dead phone at his ear, and his mouth open in the interests of better hearing.
"I brought the papers, if you want to see them," Burr said comfortably as Bradshaw turned to stare at him. "I'm not supposed to, but they do give me a certain pleasure, I'll admit. When I said seven years, I was being pessimistic. It's my Yorkshire blood not wanting to exaggerate, I suppose. I think you'll get more like ten."
His voice had gathered volume but not pace. He was unpacking the briefcase while he spoke, ponderously, like an insinuating magician, one rumpled file at a time. Sometimes he opened a file and paused to study a particular letter before he put it down. Sometimes he smiled and shook his head as if to say, Would you believe it?
"Funny how a case like this can turn itself round on a sixpence, just in an afternoon," he mused while he toiled. "We flog away, me and my lads and lasses, and nobody wants to know. Up against a brick wall, every time. We've had a cast-iron case against Darker for, oh" ― he allowed himself another pause for smiling ― "as long as I can remember, anyway. As for Sir Anthony, well, you were in our sights while I was a beardless lad at grammar school, I should think. You see, I really hate you. There's lots of people I want to put behind bars and never shall, it's true. But you're in a category of your own, you are; always have been. Well, you know that, really, don't you?" Another file caught his eye, and he allowed himself a moment to flip through it. "Then all of a sudden the phone goes ― lunchtime as usual, but by a mercy I'm on a diet ― and it's somebody I've hardly heard of from the Director of Public Prosecutions' office. 'Hey, Leonard, why don't you slip down to Scotland Yard, get yourself a couple of hungry police officers and go and pull that fellow Geoffrey Darker in? It's about time we cleaned up Whitehall, Leonard, got rid of all these bent officials and their shady contacts on the outside ― men like Joyston Bradshaw, for instance ― and made an example to the outside world. The Americans are doing it, so why can't we? Time we proved we're serious about not arming future enemies ― all that junk.' " He pulled out another file, marked TOP SECRET, GUARD, EYES ONLY, and gave it an affectionate pat on the flank. "Darker's under what we're calling voluntary house arrest at the moment. Confession time, really, except we don't call it that. We always like to stretch habeas corpus when we're dealing with members of the trade. You have to bend the law from time to time, otherwise you don't get anywhere."
* * *
No two bluffs are the same, but one component is necessary to all of them, and that is the complicity between the deceiver and the deceived, the mystical interlocking of opposing needs. For the man on the wrong side of the law, it may be the unconscious need to get back on the right side. For the lone criminal, a secret longing to rejoin the pack, any pack, if only he can be a member. And in the worn-out playboy and scoundrel who was Bradshaw ― or so at least the attic weaver prayed as he watched his adversary read, turn forward, turn back, take another file and read again ― it was the habitual search for exclusive treatment at any price, for the ultimate deal, for revenge against those who lived more successfully than he did, that made him the willing victim of Burr's deception.
"For Christ's sake," Bradshaw muttered at last, handing back the files as if they made him sick. "No need to go over the top. Got to be a middle ground. Must be. Reasonable man, always have been."
Burr was less forthcoming. "Oh, I don't think I would call it middle ground at all, Sir Anthony," he said, with a resurgence of his former anger as he took back the files and stuffed them into the briefcase. "I'd call it a fixture postponed until the next time round. What you do is, you telephone the Iron Pasha for me, have a quiet word with our mutual friend."
"What sort of word?"
"This sort. Tell him the shit's hit the fan. Tell him what I've told you, what you've seen, what you've done, what you've heard." He glanced out of the uncurtained window. "Can you see the road from here?"
"No."
"Pity, because they're out there by now. I thought we might see a little blue light winking at us across the lake. Not even from upstairs?"
"No."
"Tell him we've rumbled you all ways up, you've been quite careless and we've traced your phony end users back to source and we're following the careers of the Lombardy and the Horatio Enriques with interest. Unless. Tell him the Americans are warming up a cell for him at Marion. They want to bring their own charges. Unless. Tell him his high friends at court aren't friends anymore." He handed Bradshaw the telephone. "Tell him you're scared to death. Weep, if you still can. Tell him you can't take prison. Let him hate you for your weakness. Tell him I nearly strangled Palfrey with my bare hands, but that was because I thought he was Roper for a moment."
Bradshaw licked his lips, waiting. Burr crossed the room and placed himself in the darkness of a far window.
"Unless what?" Bradshaw asked nervously.
"Then tell him this," Burr resumed, speaking with great reluctance. "I'll drop all charges. Against you and against him. This time round. His ships get a free run. Darker, Marjoram, Palfrey ― they're going where they belong. But not him and not you and not the cargoes." His voice rose. "And tell him I'll follow him and his terrible generation to the ends of the earth before I give up on him. Tell him I'm going to breathe clean air before I die." He lost himself for a moment, and recovered. "He's got a man called Pine on his boat. You may have heard of him. Corkoran telephoned you from Nassau about him. The River rats dug up his past for you. If Roper lets Pine go within one hour from you putting down the phone" ― again he faltered ― "I'll bury the case. He has my word."
Bradshaw was staring at him with a mixture of astonishment and relief. "Jesus Christ, Burr. Pine must be some catch!" A happy thought struck him. "I say, old boy ― you're not on a piece of the action yourself, by any chance, are you?" he asked. Then he caught Burr's eye, and the hope faded.
"You'll tell him I'll want the girl too," Burr said, almost as an afterthought.
"What girl?"