Which, Shaw guessed, was precisely what Latymer would be doing on the telephone at this very moment.
Four cigarettes and nearly an hour later Latymer came back into the room. There was a glint of satisfaction and triumph in his eye, and he was rubbing his hands together briskly. He was smoking a cigar.
He said, ‘Well — that’s that! Things are moving, Shaw. I’ve just been on the line to a friend of mine in Washington and I’ve done a little string-pulling. This is right off the record, by the way,’ he added, confirming Shaw’s earlier fears. ‘I’ve fixed for you to see him personally. He’s a certain Admiral Clifford Pullman, who’s one of the Deputy Chiefs of Naval Operations — my opposite number, in point of fact. Know him well.’ He paused. ‘Any questions?’
‘Plenty, sir!’ Shaw’s eyes snapped and he gave a short laugh. ‘But they’re mainly ones I’ll have to find the answers to myself. When do I go?’
Latymer puffed a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘I’ve booked you a seat on the B.O.A.C flight leaving London Airport for Idlewild via Boston at 1030 tomorrow. That’ll get you in at 1425, their time. I can’t give you any precise instructions, obviously, since so far we haven’t a clue as to what we’re up against. Pullman was as unforthcoming as the West German Embassy. But I want you to get a full picture of what’s behind that dock and what Dolly Gray was doing and where she was doing it. If you can find out what it is that the U.S Government’s keeping back from us, so much the better. You can give Pullman my personal guarantee that this time there’ll be no leaks.’ He stubbed out his cigar brusquely in a large jade ashtray, which Shaw happened to know had been given to him by a youthful Grand Duchess from some European country, who would have liked to have given him a great deal more had he been willing. ‘Well — that’s all, Shaw. As usual, it’s up to you from this point onward. Keep in touch via our Embassy in Washington — but go carefully! I can’t stress that too much, nor can I overemphasize the unofficial nature of all this. At the present, I’d prefer neither government, ours or theirs, to know how far I’m sticking my neck out. Let’s keep it all on the old-boy network as long as we can. When I’ve got all the facts, when I know what I’m about, then I’ll come out into the open — but we don’t want to start a panic over what could still turn out to be a false alarm.’
‘But you don’t believe it’s a false alarm, sir?’
Latymer snapped, ‘As I’ve said before, that girl didn’t die because someone was after her body. She was aboard the dock for a much better reason than that.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I’m damn sure it’s not a false alarm, but I’m not the P.M.’
Next morning while shaving Shaw switched on his radio and listened to the early news. The floating dock was being given headline treatment. The announcer said, ‘The floating dock, which hit and sank the Wrangles lightship in the early hours of yesterday morning, and was then abandoned, went aground off Canvey Island in the Thames late last night. First reports indicate that it will take some considerable time to move her. The West German authorities in Bonn have already lodged a protest with the British Ambassador.’
Shaw switched off. As the electric shaver ran smoothly over his chin he thought to himself that Bonn could protest as much as they liked but nothing would shake Latymer now he’d got his teeth in. Yet Shaw hoped desperately that the story wouldn’t be bust wide open by some pushing diplomat before he had got his answers. If anything happened publicly to disrupt the Atlantic Alliance, to bring suspicion to a head, there would be a storm. The public wouldn’t like it; and the public was a curious animal. It was inclined to lift its head and roar at its allies when it felt like it, but it had a deep respect for the United States just the same and it would feel horribly naked without the American defence umbrella. If Shaw or Latymer, by their actions, were responsible for an American withdrawal from Britain even the nuclear disarmers wouldn’t, in their hearts, thank them. And the public was always happiest when it hadn’t to think, when it could go on holiday in due season and bury its collective head in the sands of Blackpool or Margate or Clacton, or on the Continent, with the pleasant feeling that all was well in regard to those international affairs to which it hated to give a thought. The public never bothered about what was going on behind the scenes — fortunately for the peace of the world — so long as it was behind the scenes. Shaw reflected that whoever it was who’d dreamed up Open Diplomacy had been the biggest menace to peace of all time, not-withstanding the fortunate fact that the day of secret diplomacy wasn’t over yet by a long chalk. He wondered what would have happened in the past, had the public known of the times that amicable relationships had been at a breaking-point behind a facade of smiling, confident Prime Ministers and Presidents, or how many times their leaders had, in the ultimate interests of peace, connived at brinkmanship in the cold war.
Over breakfast Shaw read his newspapers. There was a photograph, which appeared in most of those papers, showing the dock tilted to starboard at an angle of around fifteen degrees and with the tide rising around her. Captain Bennett, however much it must have gone against the grain, had done a very thorough job — and he’d been dead lucky to have that wind to use as an excuse afterwards. That was lucky for Latymer too, in the circumstances. And Bennett hadn’t said a word to the Press boys; neither had the Press boys got hold of anything of the true story. Shaw recognized Latymers’ hand in that as well. Latymer had a short way with the Press when it came to national security and his own jiggery-pokery. So there would be no supercharged stories about Dolly Gray’s steel-sided tomb, and that pathetic naked body.
Dolly Gray… she’d been a beautiful girl all right, and now she was an enigma, a key to some unknown door, an unknown door that he had to identify.
Before going to London Airport Shaw cleaned and oiled his Webley .38; then he rang Debonnair, whom he’d tried unsuccessfully to contact after leaving Latymer’s flat the night before, to say that there was now no chance of seeing her. He didn’t tell her anything of his movements but he did ask her for her address in Bolivia so he could keep in touch by letter. She said, ‘Care of Villaroel, Concepción, will find me. Carlos’s family are influential out there, Esmonde. But for a few days we’ll be staying in La Paz. Hotel Cochabamba. It’s right up in the mountains.’
Then she rang off. Shaw was left wondering miserably about that hotel. It sounded a shade too romantic, somehow… and so did Carlos Villaroel. Before he’d left Latymer’s flat last night the Old Man had made some remark about Debonnair and Shaw had realized that he knew the set-up. Latymer had admitted that he had heard a thing or two from the girl’s former chief in the Foreign Office, who knew Villaroel’s family. Carlos had been in his country’s Diplomatic Service and was a good fellow, so Latymer had said… but that wasn’t any comfort at all.