The Looking Glass War Part 7

"Your name is Avery, isn't it?"

"Of course it is; you saw my pa.s.sport at the desk." Sutherland didn't like that, and Avery rather wished he hadn't said it. He started the engine. They were about to pull into the centre of the road when a Citroen swung out and overtook them.

"d.a.m.n fool," Sutherland snapped. "Roads are like ice. One of these pilots, I suppose. No idea of speed." They could see a peaked cap silhouetted against the windshield as the car hurried down the long road across the dunes, throwing up a small cloud of snow behind it.

"Where do you come from?" he asked.

"London."

Sutherland pointed straight ahead: "That's where your brother died. Up there on the brow. The police reckon the driver must have been tight. They're very hot on drunken driving here, you know." It sounded like a warning. Avery stared at the flat reaches of s...o...b..und country on either side and thought of lonely, English Taylor struggling along the road, his weak eyes streaming from the cold.

"We'll go to the police afterwards," said Sutherland. "They're expecting us. They'll tell you all the details. Have you booked yourself a room here?"

"No."

As they reached the top of the rise Sutherland said with grudging deference, "It was just here if you want to get out."

"It's all right."

Sutherland accelerated a little as if he wanted to get away from the place.

"Your brother was walking to the hotel. The Regina, just here. There was no taxi." They descended the slope on the other side; Avery caught sight of the long lights of a hotel across the valley.

"No distance at all, really," Sutherland commented. "He'd have done it in fifteen minutes. Less. Where does your mother live?"

The question took Avery by surprise.

"Woodbridge, in Suffolk." There was a by-election going on there; it was the first town that came into his head, though he had no interest in politics.

"Why didn't he put her down?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"As next of kin. Why didn't Malherbe put his mother down instead of you?"

Perhaps it was not meant as a serious question; perhaps he just wanted to keep Avery talking because he was upset; nevertheless, it was unnerving. He was still strung up from the journey, he wanted to be taken for granted, not subjected to this interrogation. He realized, too, that he had not sufficiently worked out the supposed relationship between Taylor and himself. What had LeClerc written in the teleprint; half brother or stepbrother? Hastily he tried to visualize a train of family events, death, remarriage or estrangement, which would lead him to the answer to Sutherland's question.

"There's the hotel," the Consul said suddenly, and then, "It's nothing to do with me, of course. He can put down whoever he wants." Resentment had become a habit of speech with Sutherland, a philosophy. He spoke as if everything he said were the contradiction of a popular view.

"She's old," Avery replied at last. "It's a question of protecting her from shock. I expect that's what he had in mind when he filled in his pa.s.sport application. She's been ill; a bad heart. She's had an operation." It sounded very childish.

"Ah."

They had reached the outskirts of the town.

"There has to be a post-mortem," Sutherland said. "It's the law here, I'm afraid, in the case of violent death."

LeClerc was going to be angry about that. Sutherland continued, "For us, it makes the formalities more complicated. The Criminal Police take over the body until the post-mortem is complete. I asked them to be quick, but one can't insist."

"Thanks. I thought I'd have the body flown back." As they turned off the main road into the market square, Avery asked casually, as if he had no personal interest in the outcome, "What about his effects? I'd better take them with me, hadn't I?"

"I doubt whether the police will hand them over until they've the go-ahead from the public prosecutor. The post-mortem report goes to him; he gives clearance. Did your brother leave a will?"

"I've no idea."

"You'd not happen to know whether you're an executor?"

"No."

Sutherland gave a dry, patient laugh. "I can't help feeling you're a little premature. Next of kin is not quite the same as executor," he said. "It gives you no legal rights, I'm afraid, apart from the disposal of the body." He paused, looking back over his seat while he reversed the car into a parking s.p.a.ce. "Even if the police hand your brother's effects over to me, I'm not allowed to release them until I've had instructions from the Office, and they" he continued quickly, for Avery was about to interrupt him, "won't issue such instructions to me until a grant of probate has been made or a Letter of Administration issued. But I can give you a death certificate," he added consolingly, opening his door, "if the insurance companies require it." He looked at Avery sideways, as if wondering whether he stood to inherit anything. "It'll cost you five shillings for the Consular registration and five shillings per certified copy. What was that you said?"

"Nothing." Together they climbed the steps to the police station.

"We'll be seeing Inspector Peersen," Sutherland explained. "He's quite well disposed. You'll kindly let me handle him."

"Of course."

"He's been a lot of help with my DBS problems."

"Your what?"

"Distressed British Subjects. We get one a day in summer. They're a disgrace. Did your brother drink a lot, incidentally? There's some suggestion he was-"

"It's possible," Avery said. "I hardly knew him in the last few years." They entered the building.

LeClerc himself was walking carefully up the broad steps of the Ministry. It lay between Whitehall Gardens and the river; the doorway was large and new, surrounded with that kind of fascist statuary which is admired by local authorities. Partly modernized, the building was guarded by sergeants in red sashes and contained two escalators; the one which descended was full, for it was half past five.

"Under Secretary," LeClerc began diffidently, "I shall have to ask the Minister for another overflight."

"You'll be wasting your time," he replied with satisfaction. "He was most apprehensive about the last one. He's made a policy decision; there'll be no more."

"Even with a target like this?"

"Particularly with a target like this."

The Under Secretary lightly touched the corners of his in-tray as a bank manager might touch a statement. "You'll have to think of something else," he said. "Some other way. Is there no painless method?"

"None. I suppose we could try to stimulate a defection from the area. That's a lengthy business. Leaflets, propaganda broadcasts, financial inducements. It worked well in the war. We would have to approach a lot of people."

"It sounds a most improbable notion."

"Yes. Things are different now."

"What other ways are there then?" he insisted.

LeClerc smiled again, as if he would like to help a friend but could not work miracles. "An agent. A short-term operation. In and out: a week altogether perhaps."

The Under Secretary said, "But who could you find for a job like that? These days?"

"Who indeed? It's a very long shot."

The Under Secretary's room was large but dark, with rows of bound books. Modernization had encroached as far as his private office, which was done in the contemporary style, but there the process had stopped. They could wait till he retired to do his room. A gas fire burned in the marble fireplace. On the wall hung an oil painting of a battle at sea. They could hear the sound of barges in the fog. It was an oddly maritime atmosphere.

"Kalkstadt's pretty close to the border," LeClerc suggested. "We wouldn't have to use a scheduled airline. We could do a training flight, lose our way. It's been done before."

"Precisely," said the Under Secretary; then: "This man of yours who died."

"Taylor?"

"I'm not concerned with names. He was murdered, was he?"

"There's no proof," LeClerc said.

"But you a.s.sume it?"

LeClerc smiled patiently. "I think we both know, Under Secretary, that it is very dangerous to make broad a.s.sumptions when decisions of policy are involved. I'm still asking for another overflight."

The Under Secretary coloured "I told you it's out of the question. No! Does that make it clear? We were talking of alternatives."

"There's one alternative, I suppose, which would scarcely touch on my Department. It's more a matter for yourselves and the Foreign Office."

"Oh?"

"Drop a hint to the London newspapers. Stimulate publicity. Print the photographs."

"And?"

"Watch them. Watch the East German and Soviet diplomacy, watch their communications. Throw a stone into the nest and see what comes out."

"I can tell you exactly what would come out. A protest from the Americans that would ring through these corridors for another twenty years."

"Of course. I was forgetting that."

"Then you're very lucky. You suggested putting an agent in."

"Only tentatively. We've no one in mind."

"Look," said the Under Secretary, with the finality of a man much tried. "The Minister's position is very simple. You have produced a report. If it is true, it alters our entire defense position. In fact it alters everything. I detest sensation, so does the Minister. Having put up the hare, the least you can do is have a shot at it."

LeClerc said, "If I found a man there's the problem of resources. Money, training and equipment. Extra staff perhaps. Transport. Whereas an overnight..."

"Why do you raise so many difficulties? I understood you people existed for this kind of thing."

"We have the expertise, Under Secretary. But I cut down, you know. I have cut down a lot. Some of our functions have lapsed: one must be honest. I have never tried to put the clock back. This is, after all"-a delicate smile-"a slightly anachronistic situation."

The Under Secretary glanced out of the window at the lights along the river.

"It seems pretty contemporary to me. Rockets and that kind of thing. I don't think the Minister considers it anachronistic."

"I'm not referring to the target but the method of attack: it would have to be a crash operation at the border. That has scarcely been done since the war. Although it is a form of clandestine warfare with which my Department is traditionally at home. Or used to be."

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm only thinking aloud, Under Secretary. I wonder whether the Circus might not be better equipped to deal with this. Perhaps you should approach Control. I can promise him the support of my armaments people."

"You mean you don't think you can handle it?"

"Not with my existing organization. Control can. As long, that is, as the Minister doesn't mind bringing in another Department. Two, really. I didn't realize you were so worried about publicity."

"Two?"

"Control will feel bound to inform the Foreign Office. It's his duty. Just as I inform you. And from then on, we must accept that it will be their headache."

"If those people know," the Under Secretary said with contempt, "it'll be round every d.a.m.ned club by tomorrow."

"There is that danger," LeClerc conceded. "More particularly, I wonder whether the Circus has the military skills. A rocket site is a complicated affair: launch pads, blast shields, cable troughs; all these things require proper processing and evaluation. Control and I could combine forces, I suppose-"

"That's out of the question. You people make poor bedfellows. Even if you succeeded in cooperating, it would be against policy; no monolith."

"Ah yes. Of course."

"a.s.sume you do it yourself, then; a.s.sume you find a man. What would that involve?"

"A supplementary estimate. Immediate resources. Extra staff. A training establishment. Ministerial protection; special pa.s.ses and authority." The knife again. "And some help from Control ... we could obtain that under a pretext."

A foghorn echoed mournfully across the water.

"If it's the only way . . ."

"Perhaps you'd put it to the Minister," LeClerc suggested.

Silence. LeClerc continued, "In practical terms we need the best part of thirty thousand pounds."

"Accountable?"

"Partially. I understood you wanted to be spared details."

"Except where the Treasury's concerned. I suggest that you make a memo about costs."

"Very well. Just an outline."

The silence returned.

"That is hardly a large sum when set against the risk," the Under Secretary said, consoling himself.

"The potential risk. We want to clarify. I don't pretend to be convinced. Merely suspicious, heavily suspicious." He couldn't resist adding, "The Circus would ask twice as much. They're very free with money."