The telephone made a noise like a clock about to strike the hour. Royston’s hand lifted the receiver before the bell could ring while the rest of him was still struggling up to the surface of a deep sleep.
‘Do you recognise the voice?’
Royston fought for bearings in his personal history. His sick daughter had cried in her sleep. Night ops, and the enemy were coming. The burglar downstairs making off with the silver. Special Branch at the door…
‘I said, do you recognise…?’
‘Yes, I know who you are.’
Royston was awake in the bedroom of the house in Sheen, his wife beside him, still asleep, his children grown up, the past dead. Cold sweat on his back and a less than steady hand were now the only links between him and the unquiet world beneath the surface.
‘For God’s sake, man, do you know what time it is?’
‘Later than you think.’
Royston held his watch up to his eyes before realising that the caller intended this for a warning.
‘What is it?’
He was fully awake now.
‘Meet me in exactly twenty-five minutes at the junction with the South Circular. My car, not yours. Don’t be seen if you can help it.’
A click heralded the purr of the free line. Royston swung his legs out of bed and went to stand by the window, partly out of professional instinct to see if there were watchers in the street, but mainly because he wanted to know what the weather was doing. In the glare of the white street lamps the pavements glistened with drizzle. He sighed and quietly began to put on his clothes, while Jenny, his wife, slept on.
As well as being wet it was cold outside, typical March weather, and as Royston hurried along with his head down he prayed that Bonham wouldn’t be late for the rendezvous. About half a mile from his house a phone-booth stood at the junction of the South Circular Road with a side-street. It took him eight minutes to reach it, allowing for an elementary detour to shake off any tails. From the shadow of the booth he had an uninterrupted view of the main road and of the street down which he had come. Both were empty. In the few minutes he had to wait he saw only two cars, both travelling west. Royston’s dark mac and brown suede shoes, shrouded in the angle where the phone-booth met the wall, made no impression on their headlights.
Bonham was late. To divert himself Royston tried to devise stories that would satisfy the curiosity of a hypothetical policeman on the beat who chanced to find him leaning against the wall, wrapped up in a shabby old gardening mac. The ideas wouldn’t come. Royston looked at his watch. Bonham was three minutes overdue. ‘Exactly’, he had said, when appointing the rendezvous.
Something was wrong.
For the first time Royston felt a stab of real curiosity about Bonham’s mysterious phone call. It wasn’t like him to use the telephone. It wasn’t like him to be late, either.
Royston wanted to walk up and down, a process which helped him think, but resisted the impulse. Somewhere in London, something which affected Royston was happening without him. And it had gone wrong.
He was about to step from the shadows and damn the risk of being detected when he saw the lights of the car. The driver was coming up the long arm of the ‘T’ to the South Circular Road, the engine labouring in second. As Royston raised his head the front nearside indicator began to flash. The car idled to the junction and he saw it was Bonham’s. Two steps took him across the pavement and in through the passenger door, already ajar; as he pulled it shut after him the driver revved the engine to drown the noise of the slam and engaged gear. A hidden observer might have seen Royston enter the car, provided he hadn’t blinked at the crucial moment.
Bonham went gently through the gears, travelling east, and for a while there was silence.
‘Whatever it is that keeps Five awake at nights,’ said Royston eventually, ‘it had better be bloody important.’
Without waiting for a reply he took a portable electric razor from his mac pocket and began to shave, tracing progress with his fingertips. Royston’s pointed, angular face was not well suited to electric shaving. As a young man his skin had been too sensitive; now, in his early fifties, the skin had slackened, making it hard for the rounded shaving-head to cut close inside the folds of the worry-lines.
‘There’s some aftershave in the dash,’ said Bonham, and Royston wrinkled his nose.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can smell it. Is that why you’re late? Been shaving, had you?’
‘Another phone call. Sorry.’
‘Exactly, you said. Twenty-five minutes exactly.’
Bonham moved his hand and the indicator warning-light glowed. As the car swung right Royston saw the locality sign reflected in the beam of the headlamps. Battersea, Clapham, Balham. He suddenly realised that Bonham was driving very carefully, well within the statutory limit. The tingle of apprehension which Royston had first experienced outside the phone-booth was refining itself into a state of permanent unease.
He put the razor back in his pocket. ‘Where’s the fire?’
For a moment Bonham said nothing, but continued to concentrate on the road ahead. Then he turned to look at his passenger, just for a second, and in the reflected glow of the orange standards Royston saw that Bonham seemed older than his 45 years.
‘Does the name Loshkevoi mean anything to you? No? We rather thought not. A couple of years ago the Special Branch raised a query on him. For the owner of a used-car-cum-garage business in Balham he was taking some pretty funny trips abroad. They ran the usual checks. Seems the Revenue weren’t too happy about some of his trading accounts, but nothing else showed up. They put a note in the file and let it pass, you know how it is. Interested?’
Royston grunted. He had pushed back the passenger-seat and was now sprawled out as far as the Rover’s limits would allow, his eyes level with the glove compartment. He was finding it hard to stay awake, or so Bonham must have thought, because now he raised his voice.
‘Earlier tonight we took a look at Loshkevoi’s business premises. There was some evidence of handling stolen cars…’
‘Some evidence…?’
The irony sounded through the drowsiness in Royston’s voice, and Bonham smiled.
‘The police said “some”. I didn’t press it.’
Another grunt from Royston.
‘I went round myself. We had all night. Loshkevoi is currently assisting the police with their inquiries, and likely to be so for at least another eight hours. No one else lives over the shop, so we didn’t have any worries. What fun. An armoury, for a start. Automatic weapons. Grenades. Hand guns. And rifles.’
‘So Loshkevoi’s a terrorist.’ Royston sounded bored. This wasn’t his line.
‘With Kalashnikov AK-47s? American FC-180s? A pretty well-equipped terrorist, wouldn’t you think? But you haven’t heard it all yet. We found approximately fifty-thousand pounds in hard currencies. Passport blanks. Secret compartments in some of the cars, large enough to hold a man. And a radio set, tuned to a short-wave band which we’ve been monitoring off and on for the past ten years. Without any great success, I may say. A band where the messages are invariably in code and the code-pattern is unmistakably Russian.’
Royston pulled his chair forward again and struggled upright.
‘You’re telling me,’ he said softly, ‘that you’ve uncovered a KGB treasurer… an armourer…’
‘Yes.’
‘…Who’s been lying low, undetected, for… how many years?’
‘He came here in 1944, when he was still in his teens, claiming to be a refugee from north Italy. Son of White Russians fleeing the glorious revolution by a neck, drifting from place to place, you know the sort of thing. He had papers that fitted; then. We’re checking it out.’
‘More than thirty years late,’ mused Royston. His unspoken conclusion hovered between the two men like an accusation.
‘We’re unlikely to find very much,’ agreed Bonham. ‘I know. That’s where you come in. Here we are.’
He swung the car on to the forecourt of a large garage. Royston got out and looked around. Some dozen cars were stationed to one side of the pumps, each with a fluorescent orange price-sticker on the windscreen. Above his head and all down either side of the forecourt tiny red and white flags fluttered and flapped in the breeze. By the light of the nearest street lamp he read this week’s Special Offer plastered across a fluorescent green board: half a dozen ‘tumbler type’ glasses. Royston had seen a hundred places just like it and never turned his head.
‘Come on.’
With an uncomfortable start Royston realised that Bonham had silently materialised beside him and was hissing in his ear. The garage looked shut up and deserted. Bonham took him by the forearm and guided him through the darkness until Royston sensed an obstacle across their path. Bonham knocked quietly, using what was obviously a prearranged tattoo. A thin line of light appeared in front of the two men, turned into a rectangle, became an open door. Bonham hustled Royston through and an unseen hand closed it behind them.
The interior of what Royston now realised was a large workshop had a dreamlike quality about it. The only lighting was provided by a muted red glow from lamps strung round the walls at head level. Royston could hear muffled hammering in the far corner, and quite close to where they were standing a steady stream of white sparks illuminated the masked face of a welder.
‘They’re clearing up,’ explained Bonham. ‘All nice and tidy for the morning. He had this knack of building the stuff into cars, you see.’
‘He’s never going to fall for that,’ muttered Royston. ‘He’ll know.’
‘Of course he will.’ Bonham’s voice was tired but patient. ‘That’s the point. We’re going to sweat him, aren’t we?’
Royston frowned. ‘You mean… you’re going to leave the stuff lying around?’
‘Of course. Then perhaps we might find out what chummy’s up to.’
Royston had not hitherto credited MI5 with such imagination. The idea appealed to him, despite the risk.
‘You’d better just hope that the Minister doesn’t find out,’ he said grudgingly.
‘That’s why I was late,’ Bonham replied casually. ‘That other phone call I mentioned, remember? Ever tried to get the Home Secretary in the middle of the night? Don’t. That’s my advice to you.’
‘He actually wore it?’ Royston sounded incredulous. Bonham did not answer. Instead: ‘Come over here,’ he said. ‘I told them to leave this one open for you.’
He led the way down the steps of an inspection pit. As Royston’s foot touched bottom a torch flashed in his eyes.
‘Who’s this?’
‘This is the guest I told you about, Superintendent. I’ll even sign him in the club book, if you like.’
There was a moment of uneasy silence. Royston stood perfectly still and did not try to hide his eyes from the glare of the torch.
‘It’ll have to go in my report, Mr Bonham.’
‘No it won’t, Superintendent.’ The torch was suddenly extinguished, and Royston was aware of whispering close by. Bonham must have sounded convincing, for when the torch came on again a few seconds later the beam was directed to the side of the pit.
‘The brickwork looks new,’ said Royston.
‘We’re waiting to hear from Forensic on that.’ The superintendent’s voice was a shade less hostile. ‘Six months is my guess.’
‘Look at this,’ said Bonham. The beam of the torch centred on a large cavity in the side of the inspection pit. Bonham put in his hand and withdrew it holding something heavy. Royston took it from him and with a tremor of excitement recognised an FC-180. The barrel felt cold and slightly damp. His fingers played with the trigger while his thumb, guided by instinct, found the switch to the laser sight. A thin red beam of light darted along the barrel. Royston turned the gun on end and looked up at the ceiling of the workshop. Thirty feet above their heads the red beam flickered across the corrugated iron, its focus still no bigger than a fivepenny-piece.
‘Amazing.’ Royston was slightly shocked to hear the awe in his own voice. ‘Amazing.’ Almost reverently he handed the automatic rifle back to the superintendent, who wiped it with a handkerchief before replacing it in its hiding place beyond the wall.
‘You say there are more of them?’
‘Forty in all. Another forty Kalashnikovs. British SLRs. Mr Loshkevoi appears to do business internationally.’
‘And you’re just going to leave it all here…’
Royston shook his head, dumbfounded by the audacity of it. Suddenly he had had enough of the suffocating, oily darkness. He wanted to breathe fresh air. ‘Let’s go up,’ he said.
Back on the workshop floor he took a last look round, while the superintendent gave orders for bricking up the cavity in the pit wall. The operation seemed to be winding down; the welder had finished and somebody was starting to unsling the first of the several ropes of red light-bulbs which adorned the walls.
‘Come outside,’ said Bonham, and Royston steeled himself for the pitch. Publicly the secret services enjoyed an unparalleled degree of mutual trust, co-operation and brotherly love. That was the official version. On the ground, in the undergrowth, it was different.
‘Smoke?’
They were sitting in the Rover again. Royston accepted the proffered cigarette and inhaled gratefully, holding the smoke deep in his lungs.
‘I suppose you’re wondering why I brought you here.’
Royston said nothing.
‘I wanted to convince you. I wanted you to see for yourself that we’re not joking. Think about that. If you merely saw the photographs, heard about it in a briefing, would you believe it?’
Royston was forced to shake his head.
‘We badly need someone on the inside, Michael. Someone who can get close to Loshkevoi, what is it you call it? “Befriending”, isn’t it? We want to borrow a P.4. A lawyer. The best.’
As Bonham said ‘best’ Royston launched into his prepared speech.
‘You are well aware that P.4 is attached to MI6, furthermore that it operates solely and exclusively beyond the seas, beyond the jurisdiction of Five.’
‘And you know that’s a load of shit.’
Bonham’s quiet voice was as controlled as ever but Royston could hardly mistake the anger in it. He registered, not for the first time, that heads were going to roll over Loshkevoi. In the operational files of the domestic security service tonight’s find must represent a failure of monumental proportions. For Royston it was a seller’s market.
Bonham paused, as if conscious that his self-control was less than perfect. When he resumed his voice was still tired but all emotion had been shaded out of it.
‘I could name you every occasion on which P.4 has worked in England over the past eighteen months. There are seven of them. All illicit. All without ministerial knowledge or sanction. The psychiatrist who treated a certain Member of Parliament for the two months immediately before he shot himself, that was one of yours. Not very good at his job, it seems. The architect who designed the security chambers in the basement of Sheikh Ab’ A’ Man’s house in Cumbria. Are you telling me a copy of those plans isn’t sitting in the safe at Vauxhall Bridge Road? Shall I go on? What about a certain highly respected venereologist in Wimpole Street…’
‘My, my,’ said Royston. ‘You have been working hard.’
‘Hard enough. Well? Do we get our lawyer? Or do I go back to my office and prepare a regretful report stating that certain irregularities have come to light in MI6’s conduct of one of its key sectors?’
Royston stubbed out his cigarette and said nothing for a moment, reasoning that it would do Bonham no harm to sweat a little.
‘What’s in it for me, then? Apart, of course, from avoiding the consequences of your burn.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A lift back to Vauxhall Bridge Road, for a start. By the way,’ he continued, as Bonham turned the ignition key, ‘congratulations on finding out where MI6 has its London HQ. I always knew you people in Five were bright.’
Bonham braked hard to avoid a police Scimitar manoeuvring off the forecourt without lights, and swore.
‘I want to know everything you know. Same day, same hour. Got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Say “agreed”.’
‘Agreed.’
‘That’s better.’
‘So long as it works both ways.’
‘What?’
‘Somewhere out there in your world, the world beyond the seas, there’s a man listening for that transmitter. You’ll be looking for him. If I know anything about the way you work, and I do, before nine a.m. this morning there won’t be a single out-station from Seville to Sydney which hasn’t been set to work on Loshkevoi’s name. I want to know what you find out. I have a need to know.’
Royston thought about it. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I buy that. Now listen. There’s rules, see? One. My man has to be protected at all times. Two. He reports only through me, right? You go near him and two things will happen very quickly: he’ll shut up like an oyster and I’ll post him to Katmandu on the next flight. Three. It’s your job to get Loshkevoi to pick my lawyer out of the hat. If he wants another solicitor, that’s tough.’
‘All agreed.’
‘Good.’
Traffic was beginning to pick up. Bonham passed several cars and cut in front of a lorry in order to make a left on to Vauxhall Bridge. Royston smiled to see how the standard of driving had declined since leaving Balham.
‘Where’s chummy being held?’
‘Lavender Hill nick.’
‘Right. This is the name. Sculby. S-c-u-l-b-y, Laurence. Got it? He’ll be in the Law List.’
‘Sculby,’ muttered Bonham, and Royston knew relief when he heard it. The car drew up outside London Station. Royston got out and stood on the pavement, a hand on the car’s roof, his head bent to Bonham’s level. Bonham wound down the window a fraction.
‘Thanks,’ said Royston. ‘Be in touch.’
As station chief Royston was able to go through the fandangle of electronic alarms without assistance, the only man who could. He went first to the cellars to reassure the duty officer, then to the first floor where they kept the Personnel files. Equipped with Sculby’s bulky dossier he made his way upstairs to his office on the second storey.
It was an undistinguished room, hardly a fit place in which to enjoy the summit of a career. The wiring had originally been installed when the building was erected in the ’20s; the light-switch was a nipple set in a round twat, easy to find with the fingers in the dark. Royston momentarily closed his eyes against the flashing white neon (which at least was new), waiting for the noisy hum which meant the strip-lighting had settled down. When he opened his eyes nothing had changed since yesterday. All was as it should be. The yellow net curtains, in need not just of a wash but of outright replacement; the bulbous, old-fashioned radiator under the stone window-sill; leather-covered dining-room chairs strategically positioned to cover holes in the threadbare grey carpet; upturned tin-lids still full of dog-ends. But the desk was brand new Ryman’s, as was the swivel-chair behind it, and the green press-button telephone stood out brightly against the heavy black scrambler. Give it another year or two, thought Royston to himself, as he always did on coming in first thing, and I’ll have renewed everything.
If they haven’t renewed me first.
Royston dumped the file on to the desk and sat down in his swivel-chair, thinking that he was not often presented with a tailor-made opportunity for disposing of a subordinate as troublesome as Sculby. It was an ill wind… He opened the dossier’s cover, read a few words; then the events of the night overtook him; he rested his elbows on the desk and placed his head in his hands.
They had caught up with Loshkevoi at last, then. For the past ten years not a day, not an hour had gone by without Royston wondering whether somewhere, out there in the London suburbs, a man was walking up to Loshkevoi with a warrant card in his left hand while he kept his right firmly closed over the gun in his pocket. He had envisaged the scene over and over again. The variations were infinite. Now at last it had happened. From where he was sitting Royston bleakly reviewed the possibilities, starting with merely inconvenient and going methodically through to bloody catastrophic; although if he had been sitting in the club to which his superiors had, after years of baulking at his polytechnic education, finally elected him, sipping port and watching his vowels, he would doubtless have described the worst in more prosaic terms. A bit of a bore, perhaps. Or: a singularly unattractive prospect.
But whatever the language, Royston didn’t mean to spend the twenty declining years of his life in prison if he could help it.