Jane caught her breath and closed her eyes. A chill feeling spread over the surface of her body like a cold garment. ‘How?’
Cedric’s voice at the other end of the line was so subdued that it was barely audible. ‘A car crash. Late yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where? In France?’
‘Somewhere on the north coast, near St Malo.’
‘St Malo?’
‘I’ve spoken to Justin Stevens in Paris. They managed to trace de Gaulle’s cryptographer and Dick drove out there to see her. She lives right on the coast, on a steep headland some miles west of the town. He spent some time with her and then started back. He was using a powerful car. It seems he misjudged a turning on the cliff road. It was a hundred-foot drop.’
She made an anguished sound. She had a vivid mental picture of the scene.
‘He must have died instantly. He didn’t suffer.’
‘Cedric, I can’t believe this. Dick was a careful driver.’
‘Yes. I can only presume it was a lapse of concentration. His mind running over the interview. And a car he wasn’t used to … Jane why don’t you pour yourself a stiff drink, and then get in a taxi and come over here to the office? We can talk things over.’
‘Dick’s dead. What is there to talk about?’
‘My dear, we are a newspaper. I shall have to decide what we say about this.’
Embittered by the shock, she shouted down the phone, ‘Is that all you can think about, how you report it? Don’t you have any feelings at all, Cedric?’
After an interval, when she began to suppose he had put down the phone, he answered stiffly, ‘Jane, it isn’t easy to break appalling news like this to a close colleague.’
She let her breath out slowly, trying to be reasonable. ‘I’m sorry. It’s the shock, I suppose. All right. I’ll come.’ She hung up. She was shivering. She did exactly as Cedric had suggested, taking out the brandy and drinking it from a teacup.
Dick dead? She bit her lip and crossed her arms and paced the room, trying to come to terms with what she had just been told. The sense of loss was personal and profound. She had felt committed to Dick in a way that went beyond professional ties. She had been trying earnestly to know him and understand him. How could he have allowed this to happen? Of all the men she had known and worked with, he was by far the most stable. Lapses of concentration simply didn’t happen to a guy like that. If this had happened to Red, she would have been devastated, but she would have understood. She could picture him racing a car down a cliff road, but not Dick. It wasn’t in Dick’s character. It wasn’t remotely possible, not as Cedric had described it.
She couldn’t blame Cedric, but she deeply resented his response to the tragedy. She had lost almost all respect for him over the past two weeks. He might be one of the better editors in Fleet Street, but what had that made him as a man? The whole of humanity, as Cedric perceived it, fell into three groups: newsmen, news subjects and readers. In death, Dick had become a news subject, and Cedric had to decide what angle to take on the story. It sickened Jane.
Going by recent experience, he wasn’t calling her in for a consultation. He had made the decision already. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t step out of line. In this frame of mind, she left the flat and took a taxi to the office. He was ready with the brandy when she arrived. To do him justice, he looked paler than usual.
‘No, thanks. I had a large one before I came.’
‘Sensible.’
‘I can’t believe this has happened. Have you heard any more about it?’
‘A little. Stevens has driven out there. I gather the trip was abortive anyway. The cryptographer woman wasn’t able to help Dick at all. She wasn’t close to de Gaulle and she doesn’t remember much.’
‘Are you sure? Why was he distracted, then? What went wrong with his driving?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. The car was checked by a good mechanic before he rented it. The police experts will examine it, no doubt, but I gather it’s a mangled heap now.’
Jane shivered.
‘Are you sure you won’t have that brandy?’
She shook her head. ‘Have you called Red yet?’
‘Been trying all morning, and can’t raise him. I sent a cable asking him to call me urgently. Nothing.’
She managed a cynical comment. ‘So what’s new?’
Cedric grunted ill-humouredly and got out a cigar, the usual prelude to a statement from the editorial chair. ‘There’s another reason why I need to speak to him. I had a visitor last night. The security services have been alerted to your investigation.’
Jane sourly noted the your. ‘I know. We had a tail put on us on Sunday. He followed us all the way out to Henley.’
Cedric looked shocked. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘We didn’t want to risk it. We had the impression that you were going cold on the story.’
He observed a Mandarin silence.
Jane justified herself by adding, ‘Well, you were. You told us it was finished.’
‘True,’ conceded Cedric, ‘and if I had stood firm, this would not have happened. I know you can’t legislate for an accident like this, but …’ He shook his head.
‘What did the security people want?’
‘An undertaking from me to drop the investigation.’
‘Why?’
‘They don’t have to give a reason other than the interests of national security.’
‘Is this a D Notice?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Cedric, ‘but I was left in no doubt that we’d be in serious trouble if we didn’t back down on this one.’
‘So you did?’
Cedric drew on his cigar and exhaled. ‘Yes.’
‘Then Dick has died for nothing,’ Jane exclaimed accusingly.
‘Jane, that’s unworthy and illogical and I don’t believe you would say it under different circumstances,’ Cedric responded with all the dignity he could command. ‘I’m as shattered as you are at what happened to Dick, and I take some blame for it, but I refuse to commit my newspaper to some sentimental and utterly futile crusade to appease my conscience, or anyone else’s.’
Jane, too, was implacably controlled in her response. ‘You didn’t use words like sentimental and utterly futile that first weekend at your cottage.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Jane! The story has changed out of all recognition.’
‘What’s different? Hess is still in Spandau. We still don’t know why for certain, but we’re getting close. We must be, if the secret service wants to spike the story. Is this what a so-called independent newspaper does: backs down when the editor’s arm is twisted by MI5?’
Cedric said, like a judge delivering sentence, ‘Jane, this may be painful for your idealism, but the answer to your question is yes. I’m telling you now that the investigation is over. There will be nothing published. The story is dead.’
She lowered her eyes and said nothing. This time there would be no timely telephone call from Red to salvage the project. She might never see or hear from Red again. She bit back her despair.
She had never felt so desolate. She was consumed by one idea, one need: she had to find some way of achieving it. She looked up at Cedric and said, ‘If you can’t contact Red, I’d better go to Berlin and find him. I can tell him what has happened.’
Cedric studied her for a long time, weighing the suggestion. No doubt, Jane decided as she faced him through the cigar-smoke, he considered it a brazen bid to get a freebie to Berlin. She was demanding a consolation prize. Yet she could also sense that he was genuinely alarmed not to have heard from Red. He had nightmare visions of sparking some international crisis over Hess. He had always feared Red’s impetuosity. He had to be warned off as a matter of urgency. Was it enough to rely on a cable that had so far brought no response?
He reached his decision: ‘How soon could you be ready?’
She opened her eyes just a fraction wider, but her heart pumped furiously. ‘I’m ready now.’