The Dog Who Came in from the Cold (11 page)

Sebastian watched William’s expression as the story unfolded. By now, he thought, it would be obvious what MI6 had in mind, and he was sure that William would pick it up.

He was right. William gasped.

“Yes,” said Sebastian. “Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

Sebastian smiled. “Well, I assumed that you had worked out what we had in mind, which is to borrow Freddie de la Hay for a while—a couple of months perhaps.”

“And?”

“And get the Russian to look after him for a few days now and then.”

“And put a transmitter on his collar?”

Sebastian inclined his head, as if to bestow praise. “Exactly,” he said.

William grimaced. It was
very
annoying when somebody said “exactly” all the time. When he was fourteen there had been a boy at school who had said
d’accord
to virtually everything anybody said to him. Eventually, William had punched him, quite hard, breaking his nose in the process, which was something he had regretted down
the years, and still did. He knew that one should not punch people who annoyed one, although there was a case for it at times, a seemingly irresistible case. He wanted to punch this man, this enigmatic Sebastian Duck—if that was his real name—but he knew that he could not.
Wine Merchant Punches Duck in Royal Park
 … that was how his son, Eddie, with his annoying habit of talking in headlines, would put it. No, he could never do it.
Wine Merchant Shows Restraint in Meeting with Spy
. So he simply said, “Oh, well,” and Sebastian Duck, interpreting this as agreement, nodded and said, “Exactly.”

But there was no agreement—at least not yet. “I’ll need time to think about it,” William said. “Can you give me a telephone number? I’ll get back to you.”

Sebastian Duck nodded, and took a card out of his pocket with a telephone number printed on it. “Here,” he said. “Don’t pass it on, though.”

Oh really, thought William. You people are ridiculous. He grunted.

“Exactly,” said Duck. “I’m pleased you understand.”

A
FTER HIS MEETING
with Sebastian Duck, William walked all the way back to Corduroy Mansions. He wanted to give Freddie the exercise—even though only a small part of the walk would be through the park—and he wanted, too, some time to think. William had always found that walking encouraged thought. Unlike the unfortunate American president who, waspish critics said, found it difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time, William could walk and think very effectively. He did not chew gum, of course, and
indeed chewing gum was one of his pet hates. “People look so bovine when they chew gum,” he had said to Marcia once. “Like cows chewing the cud.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marcia. “If people enjoy it, then why shouldn’t they do it?”

Marcia was fundamentally libertarian at heart. She might not have described herself as a Benthamite, but that was what she was, and she would have enthusiastically endorsed Bentham’s view that the only things that should be prohibited are those things that harm others.

“Because it’s disgusting,” said William. “As I said, it makes people look bovine.”

“But if that’s what they want to do,” said Marcia, “why shouldn’t they? If I want to look bovine, then surely I’m entitled to do so. It’s not as if I’m harming anybody by chewing gum. It’s not that—”

“But it
is
harmful,” William interjected. “It makes a terrible mess. That’s why Lee Kwan Yew objected to it. That and failing to flush the lavatory. That’s an offence too in Singapore.”

Marcia looked astonished. “Your own loo?”

“No,” said William. “Just public ones. And why not prohibit it? It harms people.”

Marcia shook her head. “Hardly. Offends them, maybe. Doesn’t really harm them.”

William was not going to let Marcia get away with that. “But it does harm them. Public health. Same with spitting. Spitting should be illegal because it spreads disease, and that harms other people—it harms us all.” He paused. “And anyway, I still think chewing gum is awful. It’s on a par with eating with one’s mouth open in public. It’s just …” He tailed off; he and Marcia would never agree over some matters—rather a lot of matters, in fact—and that was one of the reasons why it was not to be … There could be no romantic attachment to somebody who might at any moment take out a stick of chewing gum and start to chew like a cow.

But their difference of opinion on that matter did not prevent him from deciding, as he walked back across the park, that he would discuss the meeting with Marcia when he saw her that evening. She had told him that she would drop in on her way back from a catering engagement for the Romanian embassy.

“They’re having a cocktail party,” she had explained. “But it’ll be over by seven—poor dears, they can only rise to two canapés per guest and one and a half glasses of wine. But I’ll throw in a few bottles free, just to give them a slightly better party. And some free sandwiches, which will be only
slightly
secondhand—leftovers from a lunchtime reception for a firm of solicitors. They never eat very much—they’re far too
driven
—and there are bound to be bags of sandwiches left over that can be diverted to the poor old Romanians.”

“Quite right,” said William. “One would not want to waste sandwiches. Particularly in these straitened times.”

Marcia nodded in agreement. “And very few sandwiches
are
wasted,” she said. “Did you know the Prime Minister passes on his extra sandwiches to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for use at his receptions? Did you know that? That’s why you never get any egg mayonnaise sandwiches at the Chancellor’s parties—because the egg sandwiches always go before the cucumber and the cheese ones. It always happens that way.”

William smiled at the thought. It was the cascade system—the same system that allocated older rolling stock to less prosperous railway regions. It was exactly the same, it seemed, with sandwiches.

Marcia was smiling too. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this,” she said, “but I heard the most wonderful story. It’s been going round catering circles for the last few weeks, but everybody who tells it to you asks you to keep it under your hat.”

“Then you shouldn’t tell me,” said William firmly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marcia. “I know how discreet you are, William. You won’t pass it on.”

William said nothing; he was wondering what sensitive stories there could possibly be about sandwiches.

Marcia lowered her voice to a whisper. “There are plenty of receptions in the House of Commons, you know. Members of Parliament are always giving parties in honour of this, that and the next thing. The Commons Antarctic Treaty Group, the Joint Committee on South American Relations and so on. Every evening without fail.”

William made a gesture, the gesture of one who knows that things are going on, but knows too that he is never invited. The parties of others—or those that one doesn’t attend—are always so self-indulgent. For most of us, the knowledge that somebody, somewhere, is enjoying himself more than we are is strangely disturbing. A common human response is to disapprove, and to try to stop the enjoyment; that has been the well-established response of the prude in all ages. William was not like that, but he did feel the occasional pang at the thought that London was full of parties and yet when he contemplated his own social diary, it was virtually empty. Very occasionally he received an invitation to dinner somewhere, and there were always the occasions when Marcia dropped in. And of course there was his club—the Savile—where the conversation sparkled at the members’ table, but the members all seemed so much better informed than he was, and he felt too shy to push himself forward in conversations where he was at a disadvantage.

“Well,” continued Marcia, “I heard from a catering friend that MPs have developed a racket in wine. There’s a group of them who call themselves the Parliamentary Committee on Sustainable Receptions and go round at the end of these occasions, pour all the dregs from the glasses into large containers and
then rebottle it
. Yes! They pour it back into bottles and re-cork the bottles. Then, when it comes to the next reception, they serve the dregs and take the full, untouched bottles for themselves.”

William was appalled. “I thought we’d heard the end of all that,” he said. “What if the
Telegraph
got hold of this?”

Marcia shook her head. “This story will never end up in the
Telegraph.
”

“But that’s dreadful!” William exploded. “And it’s not just because I’m a wine dealer. Think of all the bits and pieces—the crumbs, the lipstick … It’s disgusting. It’s … it’s beyond belief.”

“Precisely,” said Marcia. “And do you know something? They’re all members of one party.”

William frowned. An all-party scandal was one thing, a single party scandal quite another. “Which one?”

Marcia waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I can’t remember, I’m afraid. They all seem so alike these days.”

O
F COURSE
W
ILLIAM KNEW
what Marcia would say about his meeting with MI6; she had already said it. He owed these people nothing; they had no right to make any demands of him. They were playing games, these espionage people—that’s what they did, and there was no difference, no difference at all, between what they did and what boys, mere boys, did when they played on the playground. William knew that, didn’t he? He had been a boy, hadn’t he? (Absurdly distant prospect.) It was ridiculous, all this cloak-and-dagger business in the middle of London
in broad daylight
!

But as he walked back to Corduroy Mansions, he tried to put Marcia’s voice out of his mind. “You are not my mother,” he muttered. And Marcia, or the idea of Marcia, looked askance at him, as if to disclaim any such notion. “Why on earth should you imagine that I think of myself as your mother?” He shook his head; it was too
complex even to begin to explain, but every son knew instinctively what the problem with Mother was. It was Mother who
fussed;
who told you what you could or could not do; it was Mother who was always there … providing love, and security, and solace; who was prepared to stand up for you whatever you did. He sighed. That was the problem: Mother provided all that, but at the same time a boy wanted to be free of his mother, wanted to go out into the world and do things on his own account, to lead his own life. Mother and freedom, then, stood in contradiction to one another.

“I’m sorry, Marcia,” he said to himself. “I’m very sorry, but this is something that I’m going to decide myself.”

The virtual Marcia smiled in a rather self-satisfied way. “Then why ask me in the first place?”

“Because I need to talk to somebody. And I like talking to you.”

“Some consolation! You like talking to me, but you don’t want to listen to my advice, do you?”

This internal conversation might have continued for some time, had William not been distracted by Freddie de la Hay, who, having picked up the scent of a squirrel, was straining at his lead. William checked Freddie, and as he did so he came to his decision. He would say yes. He would telephone Sebastian Duck immediately and tell him that he was prepared to go along with what had been suggested and lend Freddie de la Hay to them.

He reached into his pocket and took out the card that Duck had given him. He scrutinised it for a moment, as if the number itself might reveal something. It was one of those very easily remembered mobile numbers, unlike one’s own: a sequence of 123 and 666 at the end—666, whose number was
that
? The Devil’s, of course. William laughed. What nonsense! He would be imagining the smell of sulphur next.

William dialled, and Sebastian Duck answered immediately. “Duck,” he said.

“It’s William French.”

“Of course. Well, I enjoyed our meeting. Such a nice day. And you’re still in the park, making the most of it.”

“Yes. I thought that my dog might enjoy …” William stopped. How did Duck know that he was still in the park? The question presented itself, but was quickly dismissed; Duck and his colleagues might be paranoid, but he would not be.

“I’ve given the matter a bit of thought,” said William. “And the answer is yes. I’ll do what you people want.”

Sebastian Duck’s pleasure showed in his voice. “Well, that’s very good indeed. Thank you. Should we make the arrangements right now?”

William asked what there was to arrange. Did he have to sign something? The Official Secrets Act, if that was what they still called it?

“No, nothing so formal. A waiver form—that’s all. Standard procedure.”

“All right.”

“Then we’ll take him right now, if you don’t mind. And I might add that he’ll be terribly well looked after. We use the Met’s dog-handler people. One of them will be specially assigned to this case. They’re very experienced.”

William looked about him. “Right now? Not when I get back to the flat?”

“No. Here and now. In the park, if you don’t mind. One of our people is not far from you, you see. She’ll take Freddie.” Duck paused. “Or F, as we’ll call him for the purposes of this operation.”

William spun round. A short distance away there was a young couple, obviously immersed in one another, walking arm in arm; another man with a dog, walking in the opposite direction; a teenager carrying a skateboard under his arm; and … He became aware of a woman approaching him along the path.

“Somebody’s coming,” said William. “Is this …”

“That’s her,” said Duck. “When she comes up to you, she’ll
engage you in conversation. She’ll say, ‘Nice weather,’ and you’ll say, ‘Of course, but it could change.’ Got that?”

William wanted to laugh out loud. This was a comedy, and a weak one at that. Would his next set of instructions be tucked away in a hollow tree, he wondered.

The woman, who was somewhere in her late thirties, was attractive, and she smiled brightly at William as she reached him on the path. “Nice day, Mr. French.”

William found himself momentarily confused by the deviation from the agreed code. Did it matter? And what had he been meant to say?
Could change
?