Chapter Seven

He went underground by taking a room in the Cosmos, a dubious hotel in Pimlico, just off Wilton Road. Here he registered under the name of William Smith, ate the dreary food, roast beef, mashed and cabbage for lunch, roast lamb, baked and carrots for dinner, sat in the lounge downstairs and watched the tarts come in with their men, or lay on the bed in his mauve-papered room upstairs that looked out over Pimlico chimney pots, and read the papers.

He had been quite right about the newspaper boys quickly making the link between Hartley and O’Brien. Indeed, he had got out only just in time. The evening papers on the day he left the flat were full of it, and the morning papers on the following day elaborated the theme, telling the full story of his original IRA exploit and of night watchman Tibbitt’s murder – he had forgotten the name, and now its slight absurdity brought the whole thing back to him, but how extraordinary it was to kill a man and then forget his name. Very naturally, the papers were chiefly concerned with his progress from convicted murderer to television reporter. The evening newspaper for which he had worked ran a special feature of notes by people who had been with him on the news desk, and had apparently made all kinds of interpretations of his character that had not been evident at the time.

He had been engaged after the submission of a series of spoof articles supposed to have been written by a traveller in the Soviet Union. The paper had bought, but never printed, these articles. Somebody had now disinterred one of these from the files, and it was printed, presumably to show the extreme disingenuousness of his character. There was an interview with Jerry Wilton in which he stuck rather bravely to some sort of guns, saying that Bill Hunter had been a very good television interviewer, with fresh ideas and a good technique, and that he had been personally extremely sorry when Bill resigned. In answer to the question, ‘Would it have made any difference to you, had you known you were working with a convicted murderer?’ Jerry had gallantly replied, ‘Not the slightest. I judge people by their behaviour, and Bill was always a good trooper.’ Anna was mentioned in a couple of the stories, as his friend. She replied to all questions about where he was, ‘He told me he was going away to the country for a complete rest.’

All this was what he had expected, and he was glad to be away from it. There was one other item of interest, a telephone call made by the Banner to Mr Nicholas Mekles, at his villa on the Riviera. Mekles, according to the paper, had said:

‘I was given the information about Hunter shortly before the interview began. I confess that I was surprised that such a man should be sent to interview me, but I thought it would not be polite to raise an objection at the last minute. During the interview, however, the remarks he made were so insulting that I felt obliged to say something. I had no wish to force his resignation.’

‘Why did you refer to him by the name O’Brien when he was tried and convicted in the name of Hartley?’ the Banner reporter asked.

‘I did not wish to cause Hunter unnecessary embarrassment.’

‘His suggestions about your business connection with Bond were quite baseless?’

‘Quite baseless. As I told the police, I never heard of the man before in my life.’

Lying on his bed and staring up at the stained, cracked ceiling, he realised that few people would believe that he had asked the question about Bond innocently, merely on the basis of Charlie’s research notes. Mekles had naturally considered the remark as a vicious personal attack, and had struck back. But how had he been able to strike back, where did his knowledge come from, how did he know the name of O’Brien? It was common, although not invariable, for members of the IRA to use another name, especially if they were engaged in dangerous work. The police had guessed that Hartley was an assumed name, but had made little attempt to trace his real one. What did it matter, when he was safe inside with a sentence of life imprisonment? He had quarrelled with his parents, and had left home. They had never got into touch with him while he was in prison, and if they had identified their son with the man accused of murder in Britain they had, typically, kept quiet about it.

How, then, had Mekles learned the name O’Brien? When Anna had mentioned this very point he had asked, ‘Does it matter?’ But now, with knees up on the bed, he found himself mildly curious. Three men had been with him on the job – Craxton, Mulligan and Bert Bailey. They had known his real name, they had all done long stretches. But Mulligan had died in the war, and Craxton had been knocked over by a car and killed five years ago, just after doing a job. That left Bert Bailey – garrulous, stupid Bert Bailey with his whining voice and his interminable stream of hard-luck stories, which he even sprung on the police after his arrest. Could Bert Bailey be working for Mekles? It seemed unlikely and in any case, he repeated to himself as the small spark of curiosity died, what does it matter? Bill O’Brien, alias Bill Hartley, alias Bill Hunter, alias William Smith, he said to himself, you are worrying about something that is no longer any concern of yours. Worn out by the strain of so much, and such depressing, thought, he fell into a light sleep.

Waking, he felt a strangely exhilarating sense of freedom, with a small undercurrent of shame. Freedom: it was something, after all, to have the worst known and said, to have lost temporarily the fear of discovery that had been for years the motive force of his actions. He had committed a crime, he had spent years in prison for it, the offence had been paid for. What was he afraid of, then, why was he hiding like a rat in this stinking hole of a hotel? And the shame was complementary to this feeling, it urged him to start a new life without delay, since that was apparently what he wanted.

Before that, though, he should finish with the old one. Having said goodbye to Anna, he should now say goodbye also to Charlie Cash. He went down to the gloomy lounge, telephoned Charlie and arranged to meet him in a Wilton Road pub. When he got there, Charlie was already at the bar.

‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, Bill. Anna said you’d left, she didn’t know where you were.’ He looked sideways down his long nose. ‘She’s taking it hard, Bill.’

He shook his head irritably. ‘It’s better for Anna, as well as for me. We couldn’t go on.’

‘She doesn’t think that.’

‘It has to be, Charlie, it’s just a thing that has to be. I’ve got to make a fresh start. Another name, another kind of life. You must see that.’

Charlie made no comment on that. ‘I wanted to see you. But tell me what you wanted me for, first.’

‘They’ve given me six months’ pay. You’ve lost a pretty good client, and it wasn’t your fault. I ought to pay you something.’ Put like that, it sounded offensive, and he was not surprised that Charlie shook his head.

‘No need. I’ve lined up a replacement client already. Besides, if I hadn’t given you that stuff about Bond you wouldn’t have blown your top. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Bond, I mean.’

‘Bond?’ Whatever he had expected, it was not this.

‘I know a sergeant at the station, and he gave me the inside story.’ Charlie always knew a sergeant, or an electrician, or an understudy, who could give him the inside story. His life was passed in interpreting hints, putting two and two together, reading something – but was it the truth? – between the lines. ‘The police think Bond was being blackmailed.’

He looked at the dark beer in his glass, then wonderingly, up at the barmaid, who returned his stare. It crossed his mind that she might have recognised his picture in the paper. Charlie was talking again.

‘This sergeant may have been dropping a story deliberately. You know that inspector on the case, Crambo? He’s smarter than he sounds. He may have told the sergeant to drop the story to me, reckoning it would get back to you.’ Hunter shook his head vaguely, to show that he did not know or care whether Crambo might have done this. ‘But I don’t think so.’

Charlie put a toothpick in his mouth, twisted it thoughtfully. ‘Bond took dope, that’s the way my sergeant boyfriend tells it, probably reefers. He left a note, can’t go on and all that. He’d been quite a boy this Bond, in Parliament at twenty-seven, made a splash with his first speech, possible advancement, so on. Then none of it happened and he resigned his seat for reasons of health. Ran this Bellwinder Company, but that was on the skids. Hard up. Now, what does all that add up to?’

He was conscious of pure indifference to Melville Bond, and even to Charlie Cash. ‘Does it matter?’

‘It matters this much, cock, that the cops have been giving me an uncomfortable time of it this last day or two. Where did my information about Bond come from, that kind of stuff. They seem to take it all pretty seriously.’

‘And you told them.’

‘Yes, I told them.’ Charlie took the toothpick out of his mouth, broke it, put it in an ashtray. ‘Trouble is, it’s not that simple. There’s a geezer I know named Twisty Dodds, kind of a small-time crook you might call him, and I got this story from Twisty, he’s got a girl named Maida. Now Maida’s cousin is –’

He ceased to listen. Exhilaration about the future filled his mind to the exclusion of anything else. The words, a clean break, were repeated over and over. What kind of a break? On the money now in the bank he could live for how many months – six, nine, twelve? – in Spain, Portugal, Austria, Southern Italy. He would settle there, merge imperceptibly into the life of the country. O’Brien, Hartley, Hunter, Smith, they would all become one anonymous figure living peacefully in the country of his choice…

A name brought him back. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘What did you say?’

Charlie looked surprised. ‘I just told you. This sister of Maida’s cousin, this Queenie, is going about with a man named Paddy Brannigan.’

Paddy Brannigan. The name brought with it a face, square and vicious, young, with expressionless grey eyes. Captain Brannigan of the Irish Republican Army, Captain Brannigan who had told them just what to do and how to do it. Captain Brannigan, not long out of his teens himself, who had given a boy a gun and told him to use it.

‘Brannigan. You said Brannigan?’

Charlie looked at him sideways, slyly. ‘That’s right. You know him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, Brannigan told this girl he was working for Mekles, see. I told the police that.’

‘What did they think of it?’

Charlie’s mouth turned down in mock self-deprecation. ‘Not much.’

‘Have the police been in touch with him?’

‘How would I know? The sergeant didn’t tell me. There’s another thing, Bill.’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t want you to think I’m sticking my nose in. Though you may say it’s long enough.’ Charlie grinned.

‘I didn’t say it.’ He didn’t grin back.

‘You’re not treating that girl right, Bill, running out on her the way you have. A lovely girl like that. It’s none of my business, really.’

‘You’re right there.’

‘But I’ve got to say it. You’re not treating her right, a girl like that. I call it a damned shame.’

He said nothing. Charlie drained his glass and ordered another. ‘PMYOB, is it? All right, you don’t have to say it out loud. But I wanted to talk to you about Bond.’

‘What about him?’

‘There doesn’t seem any doubt it was suicide, but still there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. Suppose you and I took a looksee to try and find out something.’

‘Can it do any good? I don’t see the point.’

‘Hard to tell whether there’s any point,’ Charlie said carefully. ‘May be a waste of time. Half the things we do are a waste of time if you ask me. Won’t get you your job back, that’s for sure. But if we turned up something that put you in the clear with the police, it wouldn’t do any harm. Wouldn’t do me any harm either, to tell you the truth.’

Suddenly he felt warmly affectionate towards Charlie, aware of the utterly unassuming nature of his friendship. ‘Let’s look around,’ he said. ‘And thanks.’

‘Hoped you’d say that. I fixed an appointment for us to see the caretaker of Bond’s block of flats. In half an hour. Just got time for another pint.’