Samson 07 spy hook, p.17
Samson 07 - Spy Hook, page 17
‘What sort of stupid thing is he likely to do?’
‘The physician has him on drugs up here.’ She held her hand up to her head. ‘And he has to rest in the afternoon too. He’s sick.’
‘The surgeons in Berlin didn’t expect him to survive,’ I said. ‘He’s lucky to have you to look after him, Mrs O’Raffety.’
‘What else could I do? The hospital bills were piling up, and Bret had some lousy British insurance scheme that didn’t even cover the cost of his room.’ She smoked her cigarette. ‘I got Buddy to try getting more money from them but you know what insurance companies are like.’
‘You were the good Samaritan,’ I said.
‘Who else did he have who would take him? And I was related to him in a crazy roundabout way. Not kin. My grandfather married Bret’s widowed mother. She changed the children’s names to Rensselaer. Bret’s real name was Turner.’
‘He was married,’ I said.
‘Do you know his wife?’ She flicked ash into the ashtray.
‘No.’
‘I contacted her. I wrote and told her Bret was on the point of death. No reply. She never even sent a get-well card.’ Mrs O’Raffety inhaled deeply and blew smoke in a manner that displayed her contempt. She reminded me of Cindy Matthews just for a moment. They were both women who knew what they wanted.
‘Perhaps she’d moved house,’ I suggested.
‘Buddy got someone on to that. She cashes her alimony check every month without fail. She got my letter all right. She’s taken all the money from him and doesn’t give a damn. How can a woman behave that way?’ She drank iced tea and waited while a huge portion of blueberry pie with icecream and whipped cream was put on the table for me. Then she said, ‘Bret and I were kids together. I was crazy about him. I guess I always figured we’d be married. Then one day he went downtown and joined the Navy. I waited for him. Waited and waited and waited. The war ended but he never came back.’
‘Never came back?’
‘Never came back to live hereabouts. London, Berlin. I got letters and cards from him. Long letters sometimes but the letters never said the one thing I wanted to hear.’
I started eating my pie.
‘You didn’t think you were going to hear the confessions of a lonely old lady. Well, I don’t know what got me started. You knowing Bret, I suppose. The only other acquaintance Bret and I have in common is that bitch of a wife of his.’
‘So you know her?’ She had spoken of her distantly, as if she existed only as a spender of Bret’s money.
‘Nikki? Sure I know her. I knew what would happen to that marriage right from the start. Right from the moment she told me she was going to marry him. Sometimes I think she only went for him because she knew how much I would suffer.’
‘Is she from around here?’
‘Nikki Foster? Her folks had a shoe store in Santa Barbara. She was at school with me. She always was a little bitch.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘Eight long miserable years they lived together, or so I understand. I’ve never spoken to Bret about her and he never mentions her name.’
‘And he had a brother.’
‘Sheldon.’ She gave an enigmatic little chuckle. ‘Ever met him?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Big man in Washington DC. Big, big man. A nice enough guy but always on his way to somewhere better: know what I mean?’
‘I know what you mean.’
She lowered her voice. ‘And none of them seem to have any money. What did they do with all that Rensselaer money? That’s what I’d like to know. Old Cy Rensselaer must have been sitting on a fortune when he died. Surely Bret couldn’t have given so much of it to that awful woman. But if not, where did it go?’
I don’t know what I was expecting but Bret Rensselaer, when I finally got to see him, looked far from fit and well. He was somewhere about sixty, a slim, tailored figure in white cotton slacks, white tee shirt and white gym shoes. It could have been the height of fashion but on his frail figure the outfit looked institutional. He smiled. He’d kept that tight-jawed smile and he’d kept his hair.
But now he’d aged. His cheeks were drawn and his face wrinkled. And yet something of that former youth had been replaced with distinction, as a film star might age and become a president. He was doing some gentle arm exercises when I entered the room. ‘Bernard,’ he called amiably. His exertions had made him a little out of breath. ‘Sorry to be so elusive, Bernard, but there’s no way they’ll let me break this routine.’ He always put the accent on the second half of my name, and hearing him say it in that low burring accent brought back memories. I looked around at this private gym. Someone had spent a lot of money on it: the upstairs had been ripped out to make a ‘cathedral’ ceiling, there were polished wood bars right across one wall, and a picture window in the other. The floor was wood blocks and the room was equipped with an exercise bicycle, a rowing machine and a big steel frame with a seat inside, and weights and pulleys, like some instrument of torture. Bret was inside it pulling and pushing levers. ‘It’s time I finished,’ he said.
It was that moment of the late afternoon when nature comes to a complete standstill. Even up here on the hillside, there was no wind, not a leaf moved and no birds flew. The afternoon sun now low and far away over the Pacific Ocean gilded everything, and the air was heavy and suffocating. It was at this moment that sunlight coming through the big window painted Bret and the machine that encaged him gold, so that he looked like the statue of a remote, wrinkled and pagan god.
‘I hear they’re getting you ready for the Decathlon.’
Bret looked gratified by this silly compliment. He smiled the shy fleeting smile that he’d used on the best-shaped girls from the typing pool and rubbed his face. Three hours a day but it pays off. In just the last two months I’m really getting back into shape,’ he said. He climbed out of his machine and wiped his forehead with a towel.
‘Sounds grim.’
‘And with an ex-Marine Corps medic to put you through it, it is grim,’ said Bret with that proud masochistic relish that all men are prone to at times. ‘I even went skiing.’
‘Not bad!’
‘Sun Valley. Just a weekend. Easy slopes: no black runs or double diamonds.’ He shook my hand and gripped it tight. For a moment we stood looking at each other. Despite all our ups and downs I liked him and I suppose he knew that. Three years ago when he’d really been in trouble it was me he came to and for some stupid reason that I could not fathom I was proud of that. But Bret had spent too much of his life with the rich and powerful, and he’d developed the hard carapace that all such people use to hide their innermost feelings. He smiled as he let go of my hand and punched my arm gently. ‘Jesus Christ! It’s good to see you, Bernard. How is everything in the Department?’
‘We’re managing, but only just.’
‘But Dicky never got Europe?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s just as well. He’s not ready for that one yet. How are you getting along with the Deputy? I hear he’s kicking ass.’ He indicated that I should sit down on the bench and I did so.
‘We see a lot more of him,’ I admitted.
‘That’s good. A Deputy with a knighthood hasn’t got so much to work for,’ said Bret. ‘I suppose he wants to show he’s keen.’
‘He didn’t get the K for working in the Department,’ I pointed out.
‘Is that a cry from the heart?’ said Bret, and laughed a sober little laugh that didn’t strain his muscles.
I hadn’t meant to criticize the Deputy’s lack of experience but it reminded me that a chat with Bret was like a session on a polygraph. And as soon as the subject of honours and titles came up Bret’s face took on a predatory look. It always amazed me that educated and sophisticated people such as Bret, Dicky and Frank were so besotted by these incongruous and inconvenient devices. But that’s how the system worked: and at least it cost the taxpayer nothing. ‘The Deputy will be all right,’ I said. ‘But a lot of people don’t like new ideas, no matter who’s selling them.’
‘Frank Harrington for instance,’ said Bret.
He’d hit it right on the nose, of course. Frank so near to retirement would oppose change of any sort. ‘I get to hear things, Bernard. Even over here I get to know what’s going on. The D-G tells me what’s what.’
‘The D-G does?’
‘Not personally,’ said Bret.
‘We hardly ever see him nowadays,’ I said. ‘Everyone says he’s sick and going to retire early.’
‘And let the Deputy take over … Yes, I hear the same stories, but I wouldn’t write the D-G out of the script too early. The old devil likes to be a back-seat driver.’
‘I should come out here and talk to you more often, Bret,’ I said admiringly.
‘Maybe you should, Bernard,’ he said. ‘Sometimes an onlooker sees the game more clearly than the players.’
‘But do any of the team take advice from the stands?’
‘That’s the same old Bernard I used to know,’ he said in a manner which might, or might not, have been sarcastic. ‘And your lovely Gloria? Is that still going strong?’
‘She’s a good kid,’ I said vaguely enough for him to see that I didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I heard you’d set up house with her.’
Damn him, I thought, but I kept my composure. ‘I rented the town house and got a mortgage on a place in the suburbs.’
‘You can never go wrong with real estate,’ he said.
‘I’ll go wrong with it if my father-in-law turns nasty,’ I said. ‘He guaranteed the mortgage. Even the bank doesn’t know I’m renting it yet.’
‘That will be all right, Bernard. Maybe they’ll inch your payments up but they won’t give you a bad time.’
‘Half the house belongs to Fiona. If her father claimed it on her behalf I’d be into a legal wrangle.’
‘You did get legal advice?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m trying not to think about it.’
Bret pulled a face of disapproval. People like Bret got legal advice before taking a second helping of carbohydrates. ‘The Department would help,’ said Bret in that authoritative way he was inclined to voice his speculations.
‘We’ll see,’ I said. I was in fact somewhat fortified by his encouragement, no matter how flimsy it was.
‘You don’t think Fiona might come back?’ he said. He put on a cardigan. The sun had gone now and there was a drop in the temperature.
‘Come back!’ I said. ‘How could she? She’d mid herself in the Old Bailey.’
‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Bret. ‘How long has she been away?’
‘A long while.’
‘Bide your time,’ said Bret. ‘You’re not thinking of getting married again are you?’
‘Not yet,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Come back to me,’ said Bret. ‘Any problem about the house or your father-in-law, or anything like that, you come back to me. Phone here; leave a number where I can reach you. Understand?’
‘Why you, Bret? I mean thanks. But why you?’
‘Ever hear of the Benevolent Fund?’ said Bret, and without waiting for me to say no I hadn’t, he added, They recently made me the President of the Fund. It’s an honorary title but it gives me a chance to keep in touch. And the Fund is for this kind of problem.’
‘Benevolent Fund?’
‘These problems are not of your making, Bernard. Sure your wife defected but there’s no way that can be laid at your door. It’s the Department’s problem and they’ll do what they can.’ He stopped studying his fingernails for long enough to give me a sincere look straight in the eyes.
I said, ‘I envy you your faith in the Department’s charity and understanding, Bret. Maybe that’s what keeps you going.’
‘It comes with being an Anglophile, Bernard.’ He put both hands in his pockets and grinned. ‘And talking about your marriage, what do you hear about Fiona?’
‘She’s working for the other side,’ I said stolidly. He knew I didn’t want to discuss any of this but it didn’t deter him. I’d been hoping to hear why he’d been playing possum all this time, but he was obviously unwilling to confide in me.
‘No messages? Nothing? She must miss the children.’
I said, ‘She’d be crazy to have the children there with her. It wouldn’t be good for them, and her new bosses would hold the children ransom if she ever strayed out of line.’
‘Fiona is probably trusted, Bernard. She gave up a lot: children, husband, family, home, career. She gave up everything. It’s my guess they trust her over there.’ He fiddled with the controls of the exercise bicycle. It was like Bret; he always had to fidget with something. Always had to interfere, his critics said. He pushed the pedal down so that the mechanism made a noise. ‘But a lot of people find it impossible to live over there. Don’t give up hope yet.’
‘Well, I guess you didn’t have me come all the way to California to talk about Fiona,’ I said.
He looked up sharply. Years back I’d suspected him of having an affair with Fiona. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company in a way that I envied. I was no longer jealous we’d both lost her but my suspicion, and his awareness of it, cast a shadow upon our relationship. ‘Well in a way, yes I did.’ Big smile. ‘I had some papers for London. Someone had to come, and they sent you, which makes me very happy.’
‘Don’t give me all that shit,’ I said. ‘I’m grown up now. If there’s something to say, say it and get it over with.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do I mean? I’ll tell you what I mean. First, Harry Strang, not being in on the joke, whatever the joke is, told me that I was assigned at the particular request of the Washington Field Unit. Secondly, when I get here and open my suitcase, I find that it’s all been searched very carefully. Not hurriedly ransacked and turned over the way a thief does it, or the orderly and systematic “authorized” way customs do it. But turned right over just the same.’
‘Airport security,’ said Bret sharply. ‘Don’t be so paranoid, Bernard.’
‘I thought you’d say that, Bret. So what about my hand baggage?
What about the chatty Mr Woosnam or whatever his real name was, who just happens to get the seat next to mine and goes through my bag while I’m in the toilet?’
‘You can’t be sure,’ said Bret.
‘Sure it happened? Or sure it was the Department?’
Bret smiled. ‘Bernard, Bernard, Bernard,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. I was paranoid: the matter of my baggage was another example of my foolishness. There was nothing to be gamed from trying to pursue the subject. ‘Sit back, and let’s talk.’
I sat back.
‘Years ago before Fiona took a walk I was given a job to do. Operation Hook it was called. It was designed to move some money around the globe. In those days I was always liable to get saddled with those finance jobs. There was no one else upstairs who knew anything about nuts-and-bolts finance.’
‘With Prettyman?’
‘Right. Prettyman was assigned to me to oversee the facts and figures.’
‘Prettyman was on the Special Operations Committee with you.’
‘I wouldn’t make too much of that,’ said Bret. ‘It might have looked good on his CV but as far as that Committee was concerned he was just a glorified book-keeper.’
‘But he reported back to Central Funding,’ I said. ‘Reported directly back to them. In effect Prettyman was their man on the Committee.’
‘You have been doing your homework,’ said Bret, piqued that I should have known anything about it. ‘Yes, Prettyman reported back directly to Funding, because I suggested that we did it that way. It saved me having to sign everything, and answer questions, at a time when I was out of London a lot.’
‘Operation Hook? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘And why should you? Almost no one heard of it. It was very “need to know” … the D-G, me … even Prettyman didn’t know all the details.’
I looked at him waving his hands about.
‘Prettyman signed the cheques,’ I said.
‘I don’t know who told you that. It’s true he counter-signed the cheques. But that was just a belt-and-braces device the D-G added, to monitor spending. The cheques had the amount and the date filled in so that Prettyman could watch the cash-flow but he wasn’t a party to the rest of it, payees and so on.’
‘And suddenly Prettyman goes to Codes and Ciphers. Fiona defects.
Prettyman goes to Washington. Is it all connected in some way I don’t see? What was it all for?’
‘It’s still going,’ said Bret. ‘It’s still damned hot.’
‘Going where?’ I said.
He hesitated and wet his lips. This is still very touchy stuff, Bernard.’
‘Okay.’
Another hesitation and more chewing of the lip. ‘Embassy penetration.’
‘I thought Ravenscroft had taken all that embassy stuff across the river. He’s got a dozen people over there. What do they do all day?’
‘Hook is quite different. Ravenscroft knows nothing about it.’
‘So Ravenscroft and his people were moved because they were compromised?’
He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say. Embassy penetration work is constantly compromised. You know that. A defector goes, and they tighten up, and Ravenscroft’s life becomes more tricky for a while.’ He looked at me. ‘But Hook is not in Ravenscroft’s class. A lot of money is involved. Hook is for really big fish.’
‘I learn more from you in five minutes than I find out in the office after a year of asking questions.’
‘Because I want you to stop asking questions,’ said Bret. A new firmer voice now, and not so friendly. ‘You’re poking into things that don’t concern you, Bernard. You could blow the whole show for us.’ He was angry, and his angry words turned into a cough so that he had to pat his chest to recover his breath.
