In the Mouth of the Tiger (110 page)

I'd been ringing promising bed-and-breakfast places in Kent when Denis came back from a visit to the bank. He had taken longer than I had expected, and came into our room looking grim. ‘Something has gone wrong,' I said immediately, but I couldn't think what it could possibly be. The children were playing happily in their room next door, and Denis and I were together: what could
possibly
have gone wrong?

‘You'd better prepare yourself for a shock,' Denis said seriously. He gestured me to one of the armchairs and we sat down facing each other.

‘The bank has frozen our accounts,' Denis told me. ‘Yours and mine. Malcolm Bryant has made an allegation that I fiddled the till, and the Registrar of Companies in Singapore has begun proceedings to recover the missing funds. The allegation is that I took War Reparations Commission money that wasn't mine to take.'

‘What do you mean, frozen our accounts?' I asked blankly. ‘What about money to live on?'

Denis spread his hands. ‘Frozen means exactly that, I'm afraid. I went in to cash a cheque but the bank wouldn't allow it. I spoke to the manager, who told me that an injunction had been served on the bank's Singapore office two days ago. The injunction is to be argued before the court next week, but unless and until the court makes another order the bank can't give us anything.'

The full enormity of what had happened was beginning to sink in. ‘Have we any money at all?' I asked in a very small voice.

Denis opened his wallet. ‘I've got about fifty pounds in travellers' cheques, and about ten pounds in loose change. Not a lot to live on. We're paid up here until tomorrow, then we'll have to take ourselves somewhere cheaper.'

I sat perfectly still for a moment, collecting my thoughts. This was awful, but it was not going to hurt any of us. Certainly not in the long term. We'd live through it, and probably laugh about it all one day. It bore absolutely no comparison to the trials and dangers we'd already survived. None at all. So I
smiled at Denis and shrugged my shoulders. ‘So we are paupers. Who cares a jot about that?'

We dug out the Yellow Pages and phoned a few of the cheaper hotels, but the prices were absurdly high for a family with only sixty pounds to its name. On an impulse I phoned a couple of caravan parks on the outskirts of London, and struck gold. Not a lot of people were keen to stay in a caravan in the depths of winter, and I was able to book a five-berth van at a park in Amersham, heating provided, for eight pounds a week. ‘Bedding and towels are not included,' the woman said, ‘but if you are in need you can get very warm ex-army blankets from a disposal store just up the road.'

In need
. The words reminded me just how dramatically things had changed since the morning, when we had been cheerfully looking to buy a London mansion.

That night we both tossed and turned, finally giving up any idea of sleep to make ourselves a cup of tea. We sat at the window looking over a sleeping London, with the dome of St Paul's silvered by the moon amidst a field of empty bombsites. ‘What's going to happen, Denis?' I asked. ‘I'm not
really
worried, but I suppose I'd like to know the worst.'

Denis looked at me over the rim of his cup. ‘Courts can be pretty unpredictable animals, so one can't be dogmatic. But for what it's worth, my own view is that they'll have to chuck out the injunction when the matter comes on next week. At least in respect of your money if not mine, because Malcolm couldn't have anything on you. I've cabled Mark Morrison, and he'll be briefing counsel for the hearing. Mark will know precisely what has to be said.'

‘Can't we simply tell the court what the money was really used for?'

Denis shook his head. ‘You know we can't,' he said. ‘But Mark will have some appropriate words.'

I shrugged irritably. ‘Why was Malcolm allowed to poke around into our accounts anyway? They know perfectly well he has it in for you.'

‘Morton should have shot Malcolm straight back to England after the last business, but he didn't,' Denis said. ‘He kept him on in his security officer job, which was damned silly given that they'd just quashed his bill against me.' Denis dug out a cigarette and lit it, taking a long draw. ‘Morton apparently told Malcolm that the bill against me had been dismissed for lack of evidence, which quite naturally spurred Malcolm on no end because of course there was plenty of evidence.' He took a second long draw on his cigarette, and then
stubbed it out less than half smoked. ‘It wasn't Malcolm's fault he found out about the money. He was only doing his job.'

‘Does Stewart Menzies know what's going on?'

‘I did pop into Broadway, but Menzies is still up in Scotland on Christmas leave. But it's up to me to sort this business out myself, anyway. We're none of us children any more who need Daddy to tuck us into bed at night.'

Fortunately, the Wolseley had by now been offloaded and serviced and was available to us when we left the hotel the next day. It was a cold, grey morning, and I recall shivering as I waited for Denis to bring the car around, partly from the cold, partly I suppose from some form of delayed shock. Things were happening just a bit too fast for me. I looked back into the opulence of the foyer, full of well-dressed people and hurrying bellboys, and wondered whether we would ever move in such circles again.

The caravan in Amersham was incredibly small, and the ‘heating provided' came in the form of two smelly kerosene heaters that made the walls drip with condensation. After agreeing to take it, we had a busy day buying army surplus blankets and a larder of tinned food before taking the children for a long walk through our new neighbourhood (‘Amersham: hidden jewel of Old London Town'). The plan was to tire them out before bedtime: arguments had already broken out about how hard and narrow the beds were, and how awful it was going to be to sleep with blankets and no sheets.

It was midwinter and dark before four o'clock, after which we were stuck in the van with the smells of kerosene and the greasy fish and chips we'd had for dinner. We played draughts and checkers, and then ‘I Spy', postponing the inevitable as long as possible. But eventually it was lights out and the torture of a night adjusting to scratchy blankets and lumpy pillows made of folded towels. To add to our woes a storm swept in, with the hail so loud against the tin sides of the van that sleep was quite impossible.

I began to laugh silently in the darkness, and Denis reached across, no doubt afraid that it was sobbing that caused our rickety bed to shake like a kalang in a hurricane.

‘I was just thinking,' I explained. ‘Yesterday I thought we'd end up as ancestral portraits on a castle wall. Today I'd settle for Kodak snaps above a cottage sink.'

I won't pretend that our week in that grimy caravan park was a memorable holiday, but in the end it proved by no means as bad as we had feared. The storm that had greeted our arrival cleared to bracing winter sunshine, and we
fell into a routine that made the days pass almost pleasantly. We got up at the crack of dawn (it was always a relief to climb out of our damp, heavy army blankets), then took a brisk walk to collect the milk and papers from the local store. Then, while Denis organised breakfast – baked beans or spaghetti on toast – I'd take the opportunity of an empty laundry to wash the clothes and hang them out in the thin winter sunshine.

Mid-morning we designated our ‘exercise' period. We'd take a long ramble along a riverbank that ran behind the caravan park, or hold sprint races for the children on the lank yellow grass of the local park. We'd arrive back at the van with the children hungry and rosy-cheeked, and I'd cook a filling lunch of sausages and mash followed by fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then Denis would kiss me for luck and head off into the city to haunt the Malaya desk at MI6, hoping for news from Singapore.

And then evening would be drawing in and we would gather around the cosy dinette to paint and draw on butcher's paper, or to cut out figures from old magazines. Or – most favoured of all –settle down to exciting games of checkers and snakes-and-ladders, or Monopoly. These games often took on unique rules and identities of their own, and the van would rock with cheerful shouts and laughter and I'd wonder if perhaps we might not have missed out on something in our previous, more gracious life.

There was a woman in the van next to ours who adopted us from our first day. I think she thought we had a shady past – the contrast between the polished Wolseley and our straitened circumstances must have suggested people on the run – and she went out of her way to make us feel accepted. Her first name was Happy, and she was the happiest person I have ever known. She was Scots, very large and blonde, her double chins always quivering with mirth. She would tap on our door in the middle of the afternoon while Denis was away in town, always bearing something she had cooked to share with us.

‘Is there no' room for a jolly wee Scots lassie?' she would call in her thick Glaswegian accent, and the children would run to draw her inside, trying desperately hard not to seem interested in the offering she bore. A bowl piled high with shortbread, or a thick black chocolate cake sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, or scones so big and light they threatened to lift off the plate of their own accord. I'd brew tea, the children would munch to their hearts' content, and Happy and I would yarn, and laugh, and tell absurd stories until the Wolseley pulled up outside. ‘Well, the Laird is back and so I'd best be awa',' she'd say. She always had one last present for the children, a sweet, or a marble
each, or just a small drawing she would have made for each of them before she came – of flowers, or deer, or coloured birds in flight.

I once remonstrated with her at her generosity. ‘You really shouldn't waste your coupons on us,' I said. ‘What about your own family?'

Happy laughed so hard that her double chins had threatened to shake themselves loose. ‘Oh, you poor, thoughtful bairrn!' she cooed. ‘I've no family to worry about – you see, my own wee bairrns are all long grown and moved awa'. One of them's the mayor of San Francisco, one of them's an actress with the BBC – and poor wee Jock is spending twenty years in Dartmoor.' She wasn't joking about Jock, either – Mrs McNally, who ran the caravan park, confirmed every word with relish. She also told me that of Happy's three children only Jock had communicated with her since she'd arrived five years ago, sending a blue prison-stamped envelope every month. Her husband had deserted her twenty years beforehand, running off with a skinny girl who I'm sure had not a spark of happiness in her, so that she was utterly alone.

‘Mrs Happy Deighton should by rights be a very bitter old woman,' Mrs McNally said. ‘But instead she's the blithest spirit I've ever known. Never stops laughing, and a friendly word and a kind deed for every soul that crosses her path.' Happy Deighton was happy in the profoundest sense. With her, happiness wasn't the result of things that happened to her, but an innate quality of her soul. That made her invincible to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and for that I envied her.

Denis came home one afternoon later than usual, and stood in the doorway of the caravan, his eyes seeking mine. My heart leapt into my mouth but then I saw him smile and I knew that everything was all right. I remember that I took a long, deep breath, and then turned to Mrs Deighton. ‘We have something to celebrate, Happy,' I said. ‘I would regard it as an honour if you would celebrate it with us.'

We dined on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding at the Swan Inn, and afterwards drove Happy back to her van. ‘I'm verra' glad the job came off,' she told Denis solemnly at her doorway. ‘Now go straight, laddie, and make Norma the happy woman that she deserves to be.' She was completely serious, despite the champagne she had drunk.

Denis had booked us into the Inn during dinner, so we bundled our night things into a couple of bags and drove back there, the children sleepy and bemused in the back. ‘We haven't played Monopoly yet,' Bobbie grumbled. ‘Don't forget it's my turn to be the shoe.'

It was exquisite to climb into a real bed again that night, to feel the soft feather mattress sink beneath me, and to enjoy the silky feel of the sheets as I slipped between them. Denis snapped out the light and joined me, and for a while we just lay together, happy beyond kisses or even words. Then I nudged him. ‘I want to know everything. But not tonight. Tonight we have an awful lot of lost time to make up . . .'

Twenty-four hours before, Counsel representing the Singapore Registrar of Companies had climbed portentously to his feet in the Singapore Supreme Court. ‘Your Honour, this is a most serious matter indeed,' he had said. ‘Nearly half a million Straits dollars have been removed from the accounts of several companies owned and run by the respondent. Questions have been raised about the legality of those cash transfers. The respondent is outside the jurisdiction of the court, but he does still have very substantial assets in Singapore. Your Honour, last Wednesday Mr Justice Small granted an interim injunction freezing those assets in order to give us time to explore the legality of the transfers made so far. We are working very hard to make those explorations but of course . . .'

‘Do you have any evidence at all that the money taken by Mr Elesmere-Elliott from his own company accounts was taken illegally?' Mr Justice Truscott interrupted.

Counsel adjusted his wig and then cleared his throat. ‘We are expecting an affidavit from an authorised officer of the War Reparations Commission to be sworn and made available to this court in the very near future . . .'

‘I don't think that is good enough, Mr Wall,' the judge said. ‘You have now had almost a week to obtain your supporting affidavit. You will recall that you undertook to file and serve that affidavit before the end of last week. What is the reason for the delay?'