Development for its own sake is insufficient. There must be a keen purpose in every move.
London, Thursday, October 17th
‘It’s no good trying to blame Hallam,’ Dawlish was saying. ‘He’s given you more co-operation and information than you could reasonably ask for. Good Lord, you should have worked with the Home Office people when I was seconded to them.’
‘Let’s not talk about when coppers wore high hats,’ I said. ‘I’ve got my problems now – I don’t want to hear your chilling experiences.’
‘And bringing the San Sebastian people into this – it’s a grave error of judgement. Grenade’s people will have listened to the whole thing.’
‘Don’t worry about Grenade,’ I said. ‘I gave him that girl and said she was working from Bonn. That was quite enough to have them all busy for a couple of days.’
‘You don’t have to sit here and sort it all out,’ said Dawlish. ‘You just make a lot of trouble right across Europe and leave it for me to curtsy, kiss your hand, apologize, explain that we all make mistakes sometimes and carry the can for you.’
‘You do it so well,’ I said. I turned to go.
‘Another thing,’ said Dawlish, ‘that young Chillcott-Oakes came up here the other day babbling about books and thistle stamens. Couldn’t understand a word of it except that he’d got it from you.’
‘I just said that you were interested in wild flowers,’ I said. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
Dawlish began to move items off the top of his desk like he was going to climb on it and do a Gopak. It was a sign of deep emotion.
‘Do you know, even the wife likes it now? People have heard about it and they come to see it. They come to scoff. I know they do, but they stay to admire and one or two people have brought me plants. I have cornflowers – I don’t know why I didn’t think of those right from the start. I have some lovely scarlet pimpernel, corn camomile (you may know that better as mayweed) …’
‘Yes,’ I said.
Dawlish was looking into the far, far distance now as his crop paraded slowly before his eyes. ‘Sweet alyssum, galinsoga, the yellow ox-eye daisy and some quite remarkable grasses, and wild birds and butterflies.’
‘You aren’t going to encourage pests then. You aren’t going to have wire-worms and Colorado beetles,’ I said.
‘What about poisonous plants?’ I said. ‘What about fox-glove and monk’s-hood or deadly nightshade and wild arum or some of that great agaric fungus? Deadly as hell.’
Dawlish shook his head.
He switched his squawk box on and asked Alice for a dossier he needed, then switching the box off for a moment, he said: ‘Whatever else you conclude, right or wrong, don’t make any mistakes about Hallam. He’s a damn good chap; whatever you may feel about him personally, the HO would hardly function without him. Leave him well alone or you will be tackling me – in person.’
I nodded. Dawlish passed me a flimsy message form. ‘I would appreciate it if in future you didn’t request even routine information from field units without permission. You don’t understand …’ He waved the flimsy sheet. ‘These things cost us a fee.’
‘OK,’ I said. Dawlish had a happy knack of indicating when a meeting was at an end, even though he would often feign surprise when one made towards the door.
‘I say,’ he said. ‘All that twaddle about my writing books and meadow flowers.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
Dawlish shrugged in embarrassment. ‘Good of you,’ he said and suddenly busied himself with work on his desk top.