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Saturday morning. The Southampton train was not full. We caught it with only
a few seconds to spare. Fuller led the way, through the buffet car and a
luggage van. Even while the train was still stumbling over the points outside
the station, I knew that this was the sort of way Champion would make contact.
'Go ahead,' said the Bishop. He indicated the door leading to the next coach
and the first-class compartments.
I went forward.
In the corridor, outside his compartment, two men in lumpy raincoats took
exceptional interest in the dilapidated back yards of Lambeth and did not give
me a glance. Champion looked up from The Financial Times and smiled.
'Surprised?' said Champion.
'Not very.'
'No, of course not. Come and sit down. We've got a lot to talk about.' Beyond
him the cramped slums became high-rise slums, and then semi-detached houses
and sports fields.
In my hand I was holding one of the Bishop's roll-ups. I put it in my mouth
as I searched my pockets for matches.
'Been having a rough time?' said Champion.
I nodded.
He leaned forward and snatched the cigarette out of my mouth. He clenched his
fist to screw it up, and threw the mangled remains of it to the floor.
'Balls,' he said.
I looked at him without anger or surprise. He brought a handkerchief from his
pocket and wiped his hands on it. 'Sleeping on railway stations: it's balls. I
know you of old. You can't pass through a big town without dropping a few
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pounds here, and a gun there, and some bearer bonds in the next place. You of
all people-sleeping on railway stations--crap, I say.' He looked out at the
factories of Weybridge, and the streets crowded with weekend shoppers.
'You're losing your cool, Steve,' I said. He didn't answer or turn his head.
I said, 'Certainly. I've got a few quid stashed away, but I'm not leading the
band of the Grenadier Guards there for a ceremonial opening?'
Champion looked at me for a moment, then he threw his packet of cigarettes. I
caught them. I lit one and smoked for a minute or two. 'And I'm not even
taking you there,' I added.
Champion said, 'I'm offering you a job.'
I let him wait for an answer. 'That might turn out to be a bad move.' I told
him. 'A bad move for both of us.'
'You mean the department will be breathing down my neck because I've given
you a job,' he nodded. "Well, you let me worry about that, Charlie, old son.'
He watched me with the care and calculation that a night-club comic gives a
drunk.
'If you say so, Steve,' I said.
'You found out what those bastards are really like now, eh?' He nodded to
himself. I believe he really thought they had framed him for the murder of
Melodic Page. That was the sort of man Champion was, he could always convince
himself that his cause was right and remember only the evidence he selected.
'Remember when you arrived--that night? Me, and young Pina, and little Caty
and the bottle of champagne?'
'I remember,' I said.
'I told you that it would be up to you to keep me convinced you were loyal,
not my job to prove you weren't. It's the same now, Charlie.'
I smiled.
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'Don't think I'm joking, Charlie. It wouldn't need more than a wave to a
stranger, or an unexplained phone call, for you to lose your job ... you know
what I mean.'
'I can fill in the blank spaces, Steve.'
'Can you?'
"We're not going to be distributing food parcels to old-age pensioners.'
'No one distributes food parcels to old-age pensioners, and soon I'm going to
be one, Charlie. I'm past retiring age: ex-Major, D.S.O., M.C., and I'm cold
and hungry, at least I was until a few years ago. I've done my bit of villainy
for God, King and country. And now I'm doing a bit for my own benefit.'
'And where would I fit in?' I asked.
CI need an assistant,' he said. 'And you'd be perfect. Nothing to trouble
your conscience; nothing to ruin your health.'
'It sounds a bit boring, Steve.'
'I have a lot of Arabs working for me. They do the tricky jobs. They are good
workers, and I pay enough to take the pick of the work-force, from botanists
to butlers. But there are jobs that they can't do for me.'
'For instance?'
'I've got to get a school for Billy. I can't send an Arab to take tea with a
prospective headmaster. I need someone who can take a suitcase full of money
somewhere, talk his way out of trouble, and forget all about it afterwards. I
talk Arabic as fluently as any Arab, but I don't think like one, Charlie. I
need someone I can relax with.'
'Sounds like you need a wife,' I said, 'not an assistant.'
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He sighed, and held up his gloved hand in a defensive gesture. 'Anything but
that, Charlie.' He let the hand fall. 'You need a job, Charlie; come and work
for me. I need someone from our world.'
'Thanks,' I said. 'I appreciate it.'
There's a Latin tag--"Render a service to a friend ... to bind him closer",
is that how it goes?'
'Yes,' I said,' "and render a service to an enemy, to make a friend of him".
You wrote that on the report to London, and told the pilot to make sure the
old man got it personally. And we got that reprimand with the next night's
radio messages. You remember!'
He shook his head to show that he didn't remember, and was annoyed to be
reminded. It was difficult for Champion to appreciate how impressionable I had
been in those early days. For him I'd just been another expendable subaltern.
But, like many such eager kids, I'd studied my battle-scarred commander with
uncritical intensity, as an infant studies its mother.
'Well, you didn't sign up for a course in elementary philosophy, did you?'
'No,' I said, 'for one million dollars. When can I start?'
'Right now.' He pointed to a canvas two-suiter on the floor. 'That's for you.
Use the battery shaver in the outside pocket, and change into the suit and
shirt and stuff.'
'All without leaving your sight?'
'You catch on quick,' said Champion. The train gave a throaty roar as we
rushed into the darkness of a tunnel and out again into blinding rain.
'And at Southampton: a false passport, a false beard and a boat?'
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'Could be,' he admitted. 'There's no going back, Charlie. No farewell kisses.
No notes cancelling the milk. No forwarding address.'
'Not even a chance to get a newspaper,' I said, reminding him of a device
we'd used at Nice railway station one night in 1941, when Pina passed back
through a police cordon to warn us.
'Especially not a chance to get a newspaper,' he said. I sorted through the
clothes he'd provided. They'd fit me. If Schlegel had a tail on me, in spite
of my protests, they'd need a sharp-eyed man at Southampton to recognize me as
I left the train. I was about to vanish through the floor, like the demon king
in a pantomime. Well, it was about what I expected. I was changed within five
minutes.
I settled back into the comer of my soft first-class seat, and used the
electric shaver. Between gusts of rain I glimpsed rolling green oceans of
grassland. Winchester flashed past, like a trawler fleet making too much
smoke. After Southampton there would certainly be no going back.
'Have you started again?'
Champion was offering his cigars. 'Yes, I have,' I said.
Champion lit both cigars. The bearded one--the Bishop--was one of my people,'
he said.
'I thought he might be.'
'Why?' said Champion, as if he did not believe me.
'Too fragrant for a tramp.'
'He told me,' said Champion. 'Bathed every day--every day!'
'No one's perfect,' I said.
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Champion gave a stony smile and punched my arm. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]