The Human Factor Part 4

'A very small stream with very big fish.'

'I can't say I've ever had much interest in fishing,' Daintry said, 'and he began to tidy up his gadget.

'How I run on, don't I?' Percival said. 'Never can go straight to a subject. It's like fishing again. You sometimes have to make a hundred false casts before you place the fly.'

'I'm not a fish,' Daintry said, 'and it's after midnight.'

'My dear fellow, I really am sorry. I promise I won't keep you up a minute longer. Only I didn't want you to go to bed troubled.'

'Was I troubled?'

'It seemed to me you were a hit shocked at C's att.i.tude- I mean to things in general.'

'Yes, perhaps I was.'

'You haven't been a long time with us, have you, or you'd know how we all live in boxes you know-boxes.'

'I still don't understand.'

'Yes, you said that before, didn't you? Understanding isn't all that necessary in our business. I see they've given you the Ben Nicholson room.'

'I don't...'

'I'm in the Miro room. Good lithographs, aren't they? As a matter of fact it was my idea these decorations. Lady Hargreaves wanted sporting prints. To go with the pheasants.'

'I don't understand modern pictures,' Daintry said.

'Take a look at that Nicholson. Such a clever balance. Squares of different colour. And yet living so happily together. No clash. The man has a wonderful eye. Change just one of the colours-even the size of the square, and it would be no good at all.' Percival pointed at a yellow square. 'There's your Section 6. That's your square from now on. You don't need to worry about the blue and the red. All you have to do is pinpoint our man and then tell me. You've no responsibility for what happens in the blue or red squares. In fact not even in the yellow. You just report. No bad conscience. No guilt.'

'An action has nothing to do with its consequences. Is that what you're telling me?'

'The consequences are decided elsewhere, Daintry. You mustn't take the conversation tonight too seriously. C likes to toss ideas up into the air and see how they fall. He likes to shock. You know the cannibal story. As far as I know, the criminal if there is a criminal-will be handed over to the police in quite the conservative way. Nothing to keep you awake. Do just try to understand that picture. Particularly the yellow square. If you could only see it with my eyes, you would sleep well tonight.'

PART TWO.

Chapter I.

I.

An old-young man with hair which dangled over his shoulders and the heaven-preoccupied gaze of some eighteenth-century abbe was sweeping out a discotheque at the corner of Little Compton Street as Castle went by.

Castle had taken an earlier train than usual, and he was not due at the office for another three-quarters of an hour. Soho at this hour had still some of the glamour and innocence he remembered from his youth. It was at this corner he had listened for the first time to a foreign tongue, at the small cheap restaurant next door he had drunk his first gla.s.s of wine; crossing Old Compton Street in those days had been the nearest he had ever come to crossing the Channel. At nine in the morning the strip-tease clubs were all closed and only the delicatessens of his memory were open. The names against the flat-bells Lulu, Mimi and the like were all that indicated the afternoon and evening activities of Old Compton Street. The drains ran with fresh water, and the early housewives pa.s.sed him under the pale hazy sky, carrying bulging sacks of salami and liverwurst with an air of happy triumph. There was not a policeman in sight, though after dark they would be seen walking in pairs. Castle crossed the peaceful street and entered a bookshop he had frequented for several years now.

It was an unusually respectable bookshop for this area of Soho, quite unlike the bookshop which faced it across the street and bore the simple sign 'Books ' in scarlet letters. The window below the scarlet sign displayed girlie magazines which n.o.body was ever seen to buy they were like a signal in an easy code long broken; they indicated the nature of private wares and interests inside. But the shop of Halliday & Son confronted the scarlet 'Books ' with a window full of Penguins and Everyman and second-hand copies of World's Cla.s.sics. The son was never seen there, only old Mr Halliday himself, bent and white-haired, wearing an air of courtesy like an old suit in which he would probably like to be buried. He wrote all his business letters in long-hand: he was busy on one of them now.

'A fine autumn morning, Mr Castle,' Mr Halliday remarked, as he traced with great care the phrase ' Your obedient servant '.

'There was a touch of frost this morning in the country.'

'A bit early yet,' Mr Halliday said.

'I wonder if you've got a copy of War and Peace? I've never read it. It seems about time for me to begin.'

'Finished Clarissa already, sir?'

'No, but I'm afraid I'm stuck. The thought of all those volumes to come... I need a change.'

'The Macmillan edition is out of print, but I think I have a clean second-hand copy in the World's Cla.s.sics in one volume. The Aylmer Maude translation. You can't beat Aylmer Maude for Tolstoy. He wasn't a mere translator, he knew the author as a friend.' He put down his pen and looked regretfully at 'Your obedient servant'. The penmanship was obviously not up to the mark.

'That's the translation I want. Two copies of course.'

'How are things with you, if I may ask, sir?'

'My boy's sick. Measles. Oh, nothing to worry about. No complications.'

'I'm very glad to hear that, Mr Castle. Measles in these days can cause a lot of anxiety. All well at the office, I hope? No crises in international affairs?'

'None I've been told about. Everything very quiet. I'm seriously thinking of retiring.'

'I'm sorry to hear that, sir. We need travelled gentlemen like you to deal with foreign affairs. They will give you a good pension, I trust?'

'I doubt it. How's your business?'

'Quiet, sir, very quiet. Fashions change. I remember the 1940s, how people would queue for a new World's Cla.s.sic. There's little demand today for the great writers. The old grow old, and the young well, they seem to stay young a long time, and their tastes differ from ours... My son's doing better than I am-in that shop over the road.'

'He must get some queer types.'

'I prefer not to dwell on it, Mr Castle. The two businesses remain distinct-I've always insisted on that. No policeman will ever come in here for what I would call, between you and me, a bribe. Not that any real harm can he clone by the things the boy sells. It's like preaching to the converted I say. You can't corrupt the corrupt, sir.'

'One day I must meet your son.'

'He comes across in the evening to help me go over my books. He has a better head for figures than I ever had. We often speak of you, sir. It interests him to hear what you've been buying. I think he sometimes envies me the kind of clients I have, few though they are. He gets the furtive types, sir. They are not the ones to discuss a book like you and I do.'

'You might tell him I have an edition of Monsieur Nicolas which I want to sell. Not quite your cup of tea, I think.'

'I'm not so sure, sir, that it's quite his either. It's a sort of cla.s.sic you must admit-the t.i.tle is not suggestive enough for his customers, and it's expensive. It would be described in a catalogue as erotica rather than curiosa. Of course he might find a borrower. Most of his books are on loan, you understand. They buy a book one day and change it the next. His books are not for keeps-like a good set of Sir Walter Scott used to be.'

'You won't forget to tell him? Monsieur Nicolas.'

'Oh no, sir. Restif de la Bretonne. Limited edition. Published by Rodker. I have a memory like an encyclopaedia, so far as the older hooks are concerned. Will you take War and Peace with you? If you'll allow me a five-minute search in the cellar.'

'You can post it to Berkhamsted. I shan't have time for reading today. Only do remember to tell your son...'

'I've never forgotten a message yet, sir, have I?'

After Castle left the shop he crossed the street and peered for a moment into the other establishment. All he saw was one young spotty man making his way sadly down a rack of Men Only and Penthouse... A green rep curtain hung at the end of the shop. It probably held more erudite and expensive items as well as shyer customers, and perhaps young Halliday too whom Castle had never yet had the good fortune to meet-if good fortune were the right term, he thought, to employ.

2.

Davis for once had arrived at the office ahead of him. He told Castle apologetically, I came in early today. I said to myself the new broom may still be sweeping around. And so I thought... an appearance of zeal... It does no harm.'

'Daintry won't be here on a Monday morning. He went off somewhere for a shooting week-end. Anything in from Zaire yet?'

'Nothing at all. The Yanks are asking for more information about the Chinese mission in Zanzibar.'

'We've nothing new to give them. It's up to MI5.'

'You'd think from the fuss they make that Zanzibar was as close to them as Cuba.'

'It almost is-in the jet age.'

Cynthia, the major-general's daughter, came in with two cups of coffee and a telegram. She wore brown trousers and a turtle-neck sweater. She had something in common with Davis, for she played a comedy too. If faithful Davis looked as untrustworthy as a bookie, Cynthia, the domestic minded, looked as dashing as a young commando. It was a pity that her spelling was so bad, but perhaps there was something Elizabethan about her spelling as well as about her name. She was probably looking for a Philip Sidney, and so far she had only found a Davis.

'From Lourenco Marques,' Cynthia told Castle. Your pigeon, Davis.'

'Of absorbing interest,' Davis said. 'Your 253 of September 10 mutilated. Please repeat." That's your pigeon, Cynthia. Run along and code it again like a good girl and get the spelling right this time. It helps. You know, Castle, when I joined this outfit, I was a romantic. I thought of atom secrets. They only took me on because I was a good mathematician, and my physics were not too had either.'

'Atom secrets belong to Section 8.'

'I thought I'd at least learn some interesting gadgets, like using secret ink. I'm sure you know all about secret ink.'

'I did once-even to the use of bird s.h.i.t. I had a course in it before they sent me on a mission at the end of the war. They gave me a handsome little wooden box, full of bottles like one of those chemistry cabinets for children. And an electric kettle-with a supply of plastic knitting needles.'

'What on earth for?'

'For opening letters.'

'And did you ever? Open one, I mean?'

'No, though I did once try. I was taught not to open an envelope at the flap, but at the side, and then when I closed it again I was supposed to use the same gum. The trouble was I hadn't got the right gum, so I had to burn the letter after reading it. It wasn't important anyway. Just a love letter.'

'What about a Luger? I suppose you had a Luger. Or an explosive fountain-pen?'

'No. We've never been very James Bond minded here. I wasn't allowed to carry a gun, and my only car was a second-hand Morris Minor.'

'We might at least have been given one Luger between us. It's the age of terrorism.'

'But we've got a scrambler,' Castle said in the hope of soothing Davis. He recognised the kind of embittered dialogue which was always apt to crop up when Davis was out of sorts. A gla.s.s of port too many, a disappointment with Cynthia...'

'Have you ever handled a microdot, Castle?'

'Never.'

'Not even an old wartime hand like you? What was the most secret information you ever possessed, Castle?'

'I once knew the approximate date of an invasion.'

'Normandy?'

'No, no. Only the Azores.'

'Were they invaded? I'd forgotten-or perhaps I never knew. Oh well, old man, I suppose we've got to set our teeth and go through the b.l.o.o.d.y Zaire bag. Can you tell me why the Yanks are interested in our forecast for the copper crop?'

'I suppose it affects the budget. And that could affect aid programmes. Perhaps the Zaire Government might be tempted to supplement its aid from elsewhere. You see, here we are Report 397-someone with a rather Slavic name had lunch on the 24th with the President.'

'Do we have to pa.s.s even that on to the CIA?'

'Of course.'

'And do you suppose they will give us one little guided missile secret in return?'

It was certainly one of Davis's worst days. His eyes had a yellow tint. G.o.d only knew what mixture he had drunk the night before in his bachelor pad in Davies Street. He said glumly, 'James Bond would have had Cynthia a long while ago. On a sandy beach under a hot sun. Pa.s.s me Philip Dibba's card, would you?'

'What's his number?

'59800/3'.

'What's he been up to?'

'There's a rumour that his retirement as director of the Post Office in Kinshasa was compulsory. He had too many stamps misprinted for his private collection. There goes our most high-powered agent in Zaire.' Davis put his head in his hands and gave a doglike howl of genuine distress.

Castle said, 'I know how you feel, Davis. Sometimes I would like to retire myself... or change my job.'

'It's too late for that.'

'I wonder. Sarah always tells me I could write a book.'

'Official Secrets.'

'Not about us. About apartheid.'

'It's not what you'd call a best-selling subject.'

Davis stopped writing Dibba's card. He said, 'joking apart, old man, please don't think of it. I couldn't stand this job without you. I'd crack up if there wasn't someone here with whom I could laugh at things. I'm afraid to smile with any of the others. Even Cynthia. I love her, but she's so d.a.m.ned loyal, she might report me as a security risk. To Colonel Daintry. Like James Bond killing the girl he slept with. Only she hasn't even slept with me.'

I wasn't really serious,' Castle said. 'How could I leave? Where would I go from here? Except retire. I'm sixty-two, Davis. Past the official age. I sometimes think they've forgotten me, or perhaps they've lost my file.'