He went on along Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square.
He went down into the subway, which was stuffy and close, stale almost to retching-point with the days’s heat and a million spent breaths, dirty with the tumbled litter of the earlier homeward-bound crowds. Shaw thought with nostalgia of the sea… the good, clean sea moving so restlessly around the world but no longer carrying Commander Esmonde Shaw on its bosom. He grinned without humor at an advert for a girdle, and then the train was rattling and swaying him through to Tottenham Court Road, where he climbed up into an atmosphere only slightly fresher and cooler than the subway itself. He pushed through the slow-moving groups of lounging and meandering youths and their girls, past the closed shops, some of them with their fronts still lit to display intimate underwear, beauty preparations, and rubber goods. There was a lingering smell of frying oil everywhere. Ahead was a brighter glow, a large pool of light thrown on to the dusty pavement and the faint throb of erotic music. Shaw drifted past a show-case crammed with handwritten pasteboard squares advertising French lessons by attractive young blondes and gentlemen’s dressmaking by sultry young brunettes, and the cris-de-coeur of models who wished to give personal sittings of short duration to gentlemen. The pool of light was coming from the Fig Leaf. A stout bus inspector came from the doorway, paused to flick a lighter at a cigarette, then walked off trailing smoke into the intimacy of the dusk. After him, but going in the opposite direction, towards Shaw, came a filthy teenage beatnik smelling of stale sweat.
Shaw, moving on, came abreast of the Fig Leaf.
Its name was more intriguing than its appearance; through plate glass, Shaw could see marble-topped tables, uncleared dirty cups, overflowing ashtrays. Flies crawled behind the glass, buzzed in the air over an Espresso machine. He went in. A jukebox throbbed and jangled in his ears. The place was a self-service outfit, and about half the tables had customers sitting at them, dragging at cigarettes and drinking coffee. Mostly they were young men with long sideboards, and girls in jeans with pony-tails or uncombed, greasy mops; some of them necking hard with no inhibitions visible, others hunched gloomily over their cups not speaking, as though they had just finished a violent row or were bored to tears with their partner. A couple of down-and-outs huddled themselves into greasy clothing, sitting motionless over cold cups of tea with street-garnered dog-ends adhering to their lower lips, their red-rimmed, hopeless eyes staring glassi-ly at nothing. It was that sort of place — a mixed clientele from the lower reaches of society. Shaw glanced all around without seeming to do so, taking it all in. The girl hadn’t fooled him — maybe! At any rate a thin man in a dark suit was sitting in a corner with a newspaper folded in front of him, a thin man with an overanxious expression who seemed lost in thought and never noticed Shaw’s entry. Or didn’t appear to have done so.
His contact?
Shaw moved over to the counter, where a well dressed drunk — cream silk shirt, beautifully tailored suit, gold cuff-links, and very far gone indeed — was talking over-loudly at the girl behind; a girl whose big breasts hung over folded arms as she pretended to listen, tossing a strand of dung-colored hair away from her eyes at intervals.
“…private striptease,” the drunk was saying. Blasts of exhaled whisky came in Shaw’s direction. “Three guineas, they wan’ed! Three guineas… just to watch a woman undress. Well, I said, what’ve you got to offer that my wife hasn’t, or that I can’t get for fifteen bob or a quid at any ordinary strip show? Know what… know what they said?”
The girl said, “No, what?” tossing her hair again.
“They just said, ‘Well, it’s more intimate’.” He made an expansive gesture. “I ask you! I said, my wife…”
The bosomy girl caught Shaw’s impatient eye and moved along towards him, heavily blackened eyebrows arching in a query.
Shaw said, “Cup of coffee, please.”
“With?”
He said, “Yes, please.” The girl operated her Espresso, silent herself while the machine hissed angrily, belching steam. She slopped in milk and a spoonful of sugar, and Shaw handed over his ninepence, turned, and surveyed the tables.
As he did so the thin man stretched out a hand towards the folded newspaper. He was a tall, very lean, almost emaciated man with a hatchet face that still carried that anxious, strained look, and though there was nothing foreign in his appearance his skin was dark with more than the intermittent sun of English summer beaches. He looked straight at Shaw for an instant and then opened up his paper and disappeared behind the back page. The front one said Evening Standard.
Shaw carried his cup across to an empty table next to the thin man’s.
He started to drink his coffee and after half a minute he turned in a bored way, glancing at the man casually. There was a mole beneath the left eye… The man looked a decent sort. Not a crook, not a racketeer, not a ponce. Honest… and worried as hell about something. An amateur at the game — obviously. The newspaper moved slightly, crackling as the man turned a page. Once again, Shaw glanced sideways. The man was looking steadily at the print but his hands were shaking a little and a bead of sweat was about to run down his forehead on to his nose and then splash from the end of it.
Shaw blew his own nose, twice.
The Evening Standard crackled again, and the thin man gave a brief nod. Then the paper slid away from his hands and he crumpled up, his head drooping towards the table. His empty cup rattled in its saucer. Shaw got up and moved over to the man.
“You’re ill,” he said. “Let me help.”
He lifted the head and the man, his lips trembling, opened his eyes. He said, “You’re very kind, but I’m really quite all right.” He mopped at his face, struggling into an upright position. Soon, the momentary flicker of curiosity from the other tables subsided.
Then, in a voice so low that Shaw could only just catch it over the throb of sexy music from the jukebox, the man said, “I can’t go into details, there isn’t time. Don’t even comment on what I say. You may have heard of a man called Ivan Conroy. If you haven’t you soon will. Conroy’s going into Russia and he’s going to kill Kosyenko. You’ll know who he is, all right!”
Shaw did; Comrade General Kosyenko was the First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Supreme Soviet — a very big bug indeed and next in line, so it was said, for the top leadership; the most powerful behind-the-scenes influence in the Soviet Union.
“Conroy’s left London already, as a passenger on Tour Number 37 of Superluxury Tours Limited. That’s a coach trip through to Moscow. I don’t think I need to elaborate.” The man cleared his throat noisily. “I can’t tell you any more than that and I’m not telling you my name — it doesn’t matter to you anyway. I don’t come into this any more. I’m anonymous… and maybe expendable too, who knows!” He gave a ghost of a grin. “Don’t try to follow me or you’ll find yourself in real trouble. All I’m asking you to do is act on what I’ve told you. I know you’ve got bags of pull.”
The lean man folded his paper and got to his feet.
He walked away from the table without looking back and shouldered his way through the swing doors into Tottenham Court Road. The moment he was outside, Shaw was on the move but it was already too late. Tottenham Court Road had swallowed up the thin man totally and the spasmodically neon-lit darkness was guarding his anonymity. Within three minutes of the man’s disappearance, Shaw was on the phone to Latymer at the Eaton Square flat — Latymer, who had transferred from the Naval Intelligence Division to be Chief of Special Services, Defence Intelligence Staff, when the Ministry of Defence absorbed the Navy, and who was still Shaw’s chief. Now he was told that Latymer was in the Ministry building, working late. The call was put through and all Shaw said was that he was on his way — no explanation volunteered and none asked for. Latymer knew exactly what Shaw meant when the agent said he was on his way like that.