Billion-Dollar Brain (25 page)

‘Oh well, we shall see,’ said Stok. ‘In a decade we shall know which system can offer the best standard of living if nothing else. We’ll see who has an economic miracle. We’ll see who is travelling where to get luxury consumer goods.’

‘I’m pleased to hear you endorsing the idea of a competitive system,’ I said.

Stok said, ‘You are going too fast,’ to the driver. ‘Overtake the lorry with care.’ He turned back to
me and smiled a warm smile. ‘Why did you push your friend
*
Harvey under the bus?’

We looked at each other calmly. There were cuts on his chin and the blood had dried in small shiny dark pimples. ‘You tried your criminal murdering activities at the frontier and failed, so you were assigned the murder of Newbegin here in the centre of our beautiful Leningrad. Is that it?’

I took another swig at the Riga Balsam and said nothing.

‘What are you, English, a paid assassin, a hired killer?’

‘All soldiers are that,’ I said. Stok looked at me thoughtfully and finally nodded. We were speeding down that incredibly long road to the airport that ends at some strange monument I have never visited. We turned off to the right, through the entrance to the airport. The driver drove up to the wire barriers and sounded the horn. A soldier swung the barrier back and we drove right on to the tarmac, bumped off the concrete and pulled up alongside an IL-18 that had the turbo props spinning. Stok reached inside his black civilian overcoat and produced my passport. He said, ‘I collected this from your hotel, Mr…’ he peered at the passport, ‘…Mr Dempsey.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Stok made no attempt to let me out of the car. He went on chatting as though the wash of the turbo props wasn’t rocking us gently on our springs. ‘You must imagine, English, that there are two mighty armies advancing towards each other across a vast desolate place. They have no orders, nor does either suspect that the other is there. You understand how armies move: one man a long way out in front has a pair of binoculars, a submachine-gun and a radiation counter. Behind him comes the armour and then the motors and the medicine-men and finally dentists and the generals and the caviare. So the very first fingertips of those armies will be two, not very clever, men who when they meet will have to decide, very quickly, whether to extend a hand or pull a trigger. According to what they do, either the armies will that night share an encampment, exchange stories and vodka, dance and tell lies; or those armies will be tearing each other to shreds in the most efficient way that man can devise. We are the fingertips,’ Stok said.

‘You are an incurable romantic, Comrade-Colonel Stok,’ I said.

‘Perhaps I am,’ Stok said. ‘But do not try that trick of dressing your men up in Soviet uniforms for a second time. Especially in my district.’

‘I did nothing like that.’

‘Then do not try it for the first time,’ Stok said. He opened the door on his side and clicked his
fingers. His driver ran quickly around the car and held the door. I got out of the car past Stok. He looked at me with Buddha-like impassivity and cracked his knuckles. He held out an open hand as though he expected me to put something into it. I didn’t shake hands. I walked up the steps and into the aircraft. There was a soldier standing in the aisle scrutinizing the passport of every passenger. I wasn’t breathing easily until we were out over the sea. It was then that I found myself still holding Stok’s hip-flask. Outside the snow beat around the plane like a plague of locusts. It wasn’t going to thaw.

There was an old woman Lived under a hill And if she’s not gone She lives there still.

NURSERY RHYME

‘Responsibility is just a state of mind,’ said Dawlish. ‘Naturally Stok is going to be furious, all his work has come to nothing, but from our point of view it happened beautifully. Everyone is pleased about it, in fact the Minister used these very words, “The Newbegin business happened beautifully,” he said.’

I stared at Dawlish and wondered what really went on under that distinguished greying hair.

‘The operation was successful,’ Dawlish said as though explaining to a child.

I said, ‘The operation was successful but the patient died.’

‘You mustn’t ask for too much. Success is just a state of mind. We don’t get called in until there has already been a failure somewhere. The trouble with young people nowadays is that they worship success. Don’t be so ambitious.’

‘Did it occur to you,’ I asked, ‘that Harvey Newbegin might have been ordered to defect by
the CIA or the Defence Department? He used to work for them. It’s a possibility.’

‘It’s not our job to calculate the permutations of deceit. If Newbegin was still alive at this moment we’d be sitting here worrying about him. A Newbegin dead means there is no risk.’ He leaned forward to tap ash into the waste-basket and stiffened as a new thought hit his mind. He swivelled his head to look at me. ‘You did see him dead?’ I nodded. ‘It was his body? No chance of a substitution?’ He began to tidy his desk.

What a convoluted mind Dawlish had. I said, ‘Don’t make it even more complex. The dead body was that of Harvey Newbegin. Do you want it in writing?’

Dawlish shook his head. He screwed up a couple of memo sheets and threw them into the wastebin. ‘Close the file,’ he said. ‘Check records for sub-files and give anything we hold to the morning War Office messenger for Ross. He’ll probably file it under Pike. Check that by phone and mark our card accordingly.’ Dawlish scooped up a heap of pins, clips and ribbons from the morning’s correspondence and threw it away. He picked up a blackened light bulb from his desk. ‘Why do the electricians leave these dud bulbs lying around?’

‘Because they’re not allowed to take anything out of the building,’ I said. Dawlish knew that as well as I did. Dawlish weighed the bulb in his palm, then tossed it gently into the waste-bin. It shattered. I don’t know if he intended that it
should, it wasn’t like him to break things, not even a used bulb. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows but I said nothing.

Of course the case wasn’t over. It never will be over. It’s like a laboratory experiment where some poor bloody mouse is injected and everything is normal for one hundred generations and then they start bearing offspring with two heads. Meanwhile science had pronounced it safe. That’s what we did. We pronounced it safe but we weren’t surprised when the two-headed monster turned up. It was the first thing in the morning; nine forty-five. I had just got to the office. I was reading a letter from my landlord that said playing the piano and singing ‘The Wearing of the Green’ at half past midnight was breaking the terms of the lease. The landlord only mentioned that one song and it wasn’t clear whether his objection was political, musical or social. Furthermore, said the letter from the landlord, there was a small motor vehicle parked outside which had offensive remarks scrawled over it. Would I please clean it or remove it. Jean was saying, ‘It could be the steam treatment but I think it’s the backcombing.’ The phone rang and she said ‘Very good’ and hung up. ‘The car is outside. Hair is very delicate, if you continually brush it the wrong way it begins to break.’

‘What car?’ I said.

‘Trip to Salisbury. First of all you feel the texture getting rough and stiff and then the ends divide.’ She twirled an end of hair round her finger.

‘What car?’

‘Trip to Salisbury. And of course it won’t hold a wave. Stringy. I don’t want that to happen.’

‘What for?’

‘You’ve got to go and see Doctor Pike in prison. So I had the best man there to look at it. Geraldo. He’s going to reshape it so that it can grow right out.’

‘First I’ve heard about it.’

‘It’s on the memo under your digestive biscuits. No more backcombing and certainly no more steam until it grows back into a soft texture.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I thought that it would be the first place you would look. Once you break the hair it can be very serious. The actual growth is impaired. Now I don’t know whether that means…’

‘All right, I’m sorry. When I said yesterday that I didn’t need you to do anything except type and answer the phone I was hasty. I apologize. You have made your point so let’s not carry the scheme of sabotage any further.’ I got up and stuffed the memo into my briefcase. ‘You’d better come with me. There’s probably all sorts of information that I will need, and you have.’

‘That’s right,’ said Jean. ‘If you would deal with the files in order instead of getting madly interested in half a dozen of them and neglecting the rest you would know your day-to-day schedule. There’s a limit to what I can handle.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And on Wednesday I would like…’

‘To get your hair done,’ I said. ‘OK. I get the message. You don’t have to be subliminal. Now let’s go.’ Jean went to her desk and found a sealed file with a code word—Turnstone—and a reference number on it. Pencilled very lightly in the corner was the word Pike. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ I said, pointing to the pencilled words. ‘They are going dotty over at South Audley Street about two of our files that had names pencilled on the outside. It’s a bad breach of security. Don’t ever do it again, Jean.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ Jean said. ‘Mr Dawlish did it.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said. Jean told the switchboard where we would be, told Alice that we wouldn’t be wanting morning Nescafé, locked the carbons and ribbons etc. into the metal cabinet, renewed her lipstick, changed her shoes and we left.

‘Why is Pike at Salisbury?’

‘He’s being held as a psychotic under treatment at a military prison. He’s tightly locked up, they aren’t very keen on even us seeing him, but Dawlish insisted.’

‘Especially us, if I know Ross.’

Jean shrugged.

I said, ‘Ross can’t hold him longer than a month. Can’t hold him at all if he’s a voluntary patient.’

‘He’s not a voluntary patient,’ Jean said. ‘He’s protesting like mad. Ross gave him a wad of papers to sign and Pike found he had applied for a
commission in the RAMC. They commissioned him and put him straight into prison. He smashed up his cell and now is held in the mental ward. Ross is holding on to him like mad. It looks as if he’ll be there until Ross is certain that the Midwinter network is absolutely disintegrated. Ross, you see, got the rocket about the eggs from Porton. The Cabinet were very shirty and reading between the lines told him that it was us that pulled the coals out of the fire.’

‘Ross must have been delighted,’ I said, not without some pleasure. ‘So what have I got to do, sign something?’

‘No,’ Jean said. ‘You’ve got to get Pike to write his wife a letter advising her to leave the country.’

‘Ho-ho.’

‘Yes. The Cabinet are desperately anxious that we don’t have another big spy trial this year, the Americans are making life difficult enough already. This business—Midwinter amateur spy network—could get colossal exposure in the States and there will be even more pressure about US secrets not being shared with Britain.’

‘So Mrs Pike will join that great army of people spirited away to all parts East before the Special Branch boys arrive huffing and puffing with an arrest warrant with its ink still wet, in their hand. It’s only a matter of time before Special Branch tumble to what’s going on.’

‘It’s only a matter of time,’ Jean said, ‘before the
Daily Worker
tumbles to it.’

We collected a file of flimsies from RAMC records at Lower Barracks, Winchester, and stopped in Stockbridge for lunch. From there it’s only a short journey.

The fingers of winter pressed deep into the white throat of the land. The trees showed no sign of leaf and the soil was brown and polished shiny by the damp winds. Farms were still and silent and the villages deserted as though spring was not expected to return. The prison is sited on a narrow ridge on the extreme edge of the plain. It’s the only Psychiatric (Maximum Security) Prison that is run entirely by the Army. The buildings are modern and light and in the grounds there is a huge piece of abstract sculpture and two fountains that are switched on when someone important is coming. Along the drive, flowerbeds—now brown and bare—were the size and shape of newly filled-in graves. The Governor’s secretary was waiting for us in the main entrance. It was a Kafka-ish place that looked a little too big for humans and smelled of ether. The Governor’s secretary brandished a large manilla file at us. He was a small, beautiful man who looked as though he had been assembled from a plastic kit, and his fingertips were in ceaseless movement as though he had got sticky stuff on them and was trying to remove it. He extended one of the flickering little hands to me and let me shake it. Then he saluted Jean and went into an on-guard with a copy of the prison rules which I signed. Jean parried with the RAMC documents
and a straight thrust with Pike’s passport. The man did a cut-at-flank with a Governor’s memo that we hadn’t seen. Jean lost ground initialling this but did some criss-cross high-cuts with a War Office file from Ross. The man was signing it with a flourish when Jean lunged with a photostat of some Cabinet minutes that had nothing to do with this case at all. She had judged her opponent well, for he surrendered before reading it all through.

‘Very comfortable interrogation room,’ the man said.

It was much too likely to be bugged.

‘We’ll see him in his cell,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you’d send some tea down there.’

‘Very well,’ said the man. ‘They said you’d have your own way of doing things.’ He smiled to indicate that he didn’t approve. I waited a long time for him to say, ‘It’s very irregular,’ but he didn’t say it. We walked down the main hall to the senior warder’s office. Inside a muscular warder with a key-chain down to his knees looked up from his desk as if he hadn’t been poised there waiting for us.

‘Take these people across to three wing—special observation,’ said the man. He handed the warder the flimsy sheet of yellow paper which I had signed.

‘That body’s receipt must be back in my office before this lady and gentleman leave the main gate.’ He turned to us and twittered an explanation. ‘Otherwise you won’t get out.’ He turned back to the warder. ‘All right, Jenkins?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jenkins. The Governor’s secretary offered us his fidgety little hand.

I said, ‘It’s very irregular.’

‘Yes,’ he said and went away tuttuttering.

Jenkins went across to the filing cabinet. ‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘Yes please,’ Jean said. He unlocked the filing cabinet and produced a bag of sugar. ‘I’ll bring some sugar down for you. Have to lock it up,’ he explained. ‘The night shift pinches it.’

Three wing is used for the prisoners who need constant attention, and is set apart from the other buildings. The grass was beaten into mud by winter and the grounds were silent and devoid of any sign of gardeners or guards. The Psychiatric Prison was like a very modern primary school from which all the breakables have been removed. The gates were designed in modern patterns to avoid the feeling of being behind bars. But the patterns weren’t large enough to squeeze a man through. There was a constant clang and clatter of keys, everywhere was much too clean. As we passed each door Jenkins sang out the name of it: diningroom, association room, quiet room, classroom, library, physiotherapy, electro-convulsive therapy. Obviously Jenkins was kept specially for visitors. In the highly polished corridor leading to Pike’s cell there were prints by the better adjusted of the Impressionists. Outside his cell in a wooden frame were slotted cards bearing his name, number, a
coloured one for his religion so that the chaplain could spot it, and special diet—none—but I noticed that there were no cards in the space that said sentence and classification.

Pike’s cell was small but light and—oddest of all for a prison—the window was low enough to see through, although only for a distance of ten yards. The wind was howling across the yard outside but the cell wasn’t cold. The paintwork was a petrifying yellow and there was a narrow strip of coconut matting of the same colour. On the wall was a copy of the prison rules in microscopic type. There was a hospital bed, a triangular wash-basin and flushing water-closet. On the wall there was a crucifix, a photo of Pike’s house, a photo of his wife and a photo of the Queen; the Queen was in colour. Beside the bed there was a tiny reading lamp with a lampshade of a baroque design with red plastic tassels. Pike had been reading a copy of
I
,
Claudius.
He placed a cigarette paper inside as a marker and put the book on the table.

The warder said, ‘Vis’ter f’yer Pike on y’er ft nat erper sission nerve tenshun.’ Pike obviously understood this strange language for he stood rigidly at attention. He was dressed in army fatigue uniform. The warder walked close to Pike and inspected him. There was nothing threatening in the way he did it. He did it like a mother who had cleaned a bowlful of porridge off her child and wants to be sure he is now quite tidy. The warder turned back
to me and spoke in a different voice. ‘Two teas for you and the lady. I’ll put sugar on the tray. Do you want tea for the prisoner?’

‘That would be very nice,’ I said.

When the warder had left Pike said, ‘You’ve done all right for yourself, haven’t you?’

‘I’m a busy man, Pike,’ I said. ‘If I had my way I would just deliver you to the Soviet Embassy and forget the whole thing, but providing you don’t make my job more difficult than it already is I’ll try and remain as unprejudiced as possible.’

‘Well first of all you’d better hear…’

‘When and what I want to hear from you, I’ll let you know,’ I said. ‘In any case you’re one of the Army’s problems at present, nothing whatsoever to do with me.’

‘What do you want then?’ He touched his buttons to be sure they were all correctly fastened. Finding that they were, he glared at me defiantly.