13
Whitelands, England. June 1983.
'No, Dicky, I can hear you perfectly,' said Bret Rensselaer as he pressed the phone to his ear and shrugged at Silas Gaunt, who was standing opposite him with the extension earpiece. Dicky Cruyer, German Stations Controller, was phoning from Mexico City and the connection was not good. 'You've made it all perfectly clear. I can't see any point in going through it again. Yes, I'll talk to the Director-General and tell him what you said. Yes. Yes. Good to talk to you, Dicky. I'll see what I can do. Goodbye. Goodbye.' He replaced the handset and sighed deeply.
Silas Gaunt put the earpiece in the slot and said, 'Dicky Cruyer tracked you down.'
'Yes, he did,' said Bret Rensselaer, although there had been little difficulty about it. The Director-General had told Bret to visit Silas and 'put him in the picture'. Bret had left the Whitelands telephone number as his contact, and Mrs Porter – Gaunt's housekeeper – had put the call from Mexico through to the farm manager's office.
Having thanked the greenhouse boy who'd run to get them, Silas, wearing an old anorak, muddy boots and corduroy trousers tied with string at the ankles, led the way – ducking under the low door – out to the cobbled yard. Bret was being shown round the farm.
'I don't encourage guns any more,' said Silas. 'Too damned hearty. Those gigantic early breakfasts and mud all through the house. It became too much for Mrs Porter and to tell you the truth, too much for me too. Anglers are not so much trouble: quieter, and they're gone all day with a packet of cheese sandwiches.'
Silas swung open the yard gate and fastened it again after Bret. The fields stretched away into the distance. The harvest would be gathered early. The field behind the barn would be the first one cut and flocks of sparrows, warned by the sound of the nearby machinery that the banquet would not be there forever, were having a feed that made their flight uncertain as they swooped and fluttered amongst the pale ears.
It was a lovely day: silky cirrus torn and trailed carelessly across the deep blue sky. The sun was as high as it could get, and, like a ball thrown into the air, it paused and the world stood still, waiting for the afternoon to begin.
As they walked along they kept close to the hedge so that Silas could be sure it had been properly trimmed and weeded. He grabbed ears of unripe wheat, and with the careless insolence of the nomad, crushed them in his hand, scattering chaff, husk and seed through his splayed fingers. Bret, who had no interest in farms or farming, plodded awkwardly behind in the rubber boots that Silas had found for him, with a stained old windbreaker to protect his elegant dark blue suit. They went through a door set in the tall walls that surrounded the kitchen garden. It was a wonderful wall, light and dark bricks making big diamond patterns that were just visible under the espaliered fruit trees.
'I am not convinced that it was a wise move to send both Dicky Cruyer and Bernard Samson to Mexico City,' said Bret, to resume the conversation. 'It leaves us somewhat depleted, and those two seem to fight all the time.'
Silas pointed to various vegetables and said he was going to start a little rose garden next year and reduce the ground given to swedes, turnips and beetroots. Then he said, 'How is Bernard taking it?'
'His wife's defection? Not too well. I was thinking of making him take a physical, but in his present paranoid state he'd resent it. I guess he'll pull out of it. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on him.'
'I have no experience as an agent in the field,' said Silas. 'Neither have you. I can think of very few people in your building who know what's involved. In that respect, we are like First World War generals, sitting back in our chateau and sipping our brandy, and subjecting the troops to nastiness that we don't comprehend.'
Bret, not knowing exactly what was coming, and never ready to state his views without time to think, made a sound that indicated measured agreement.
'But I have seen a lot of them,' said Silas, 'and I know something of what makes such fellows tick. Fiona Samson will not wind down slowly like a neglected clock. She'll keep going at full power until she has nothing more to give. Then, like a light bulb, she'll glow extra bright before going out.'
It sounded too melodramatic to Bret. He looked at Silas wondering if this same little speech, with other names, had been used many times before, like next-of-kin letters when the unthinkable happened. He couldn't decide. He nodded. 'When the question of her going over there was first discussed, I was in favour of taking the husband into our confidence.'
'I know you were. But his ignorance has proved a great asset to us, and to his wife. It's given her a good start. Now it's up to her.' Silas looked around him in a proprietorial manner and crushed a clod of earth with the toe of his heavy boot. It was good fertile soil, dark and rich with leafmould.
Bret undid his borrowed windcheater and fingered a bundle of computer printout to be sure he hadn't dropped it during his walk.
It was hot in the garden, everything silent and still, protected by the high garden walls. This was the culmination of the gardener's year. There was billowing greenery everywhere but all too soon the summer would be over; the leaves withered; the earth cold and hard. 'Look at these maincrop carrots,' said Silas. He bent over to grab the feathery leaves. For a moment he seemed on the point of uprooting one but then he changed his mind and let go. 'Carrots are tricky,' said Silas. 'They grow to maturity and you have to decide whether to lift them and store them or leave them in the earth.'
Bret nodded.
'Leave them in the earth and you get a sweeter-tasting carrot but if there is a really severe frost, you lose them.' He found a carrot and pulled it up. It was small and thin but of a beautiful colour. 'On the other hand if you lift them, you can be sure that they haven't been got at by the worms and slugs. See what I mean, Bret?'
'So how do you decide when to pull them?'
'I consult,' said Silas. 'I talk to the experts.'
Bret decided to ignore the wider implications of Silas's agricultural nostrums and return to the subject of Bernard Samson. 'But once that decision was taken, it might have been wiser to move Bernard Samson out of Operations. He's too damned curious about what exactly happened.'
'That's natural enough,' said Silas.
'He pries and asks questions. On that account, and a few others too, Samson was not the man to send to talk to a potential KGB defector in Mexico City, or anywhere else.'
'Why?' asked Silas sardonically. 'Because he hasn't been to University?'
'This KGB fellow: Stinnes – whatever his motives or intentions – will be expecting an Oxbridge man. Sending a blue-collar type like Samson will make him think he doesn't rate.'
'You're a dedicated Anglophile, Bret. No disrespect, I'm delighted that you should be. But it sometimes leads you into an exaggerated regard for our old British institutions.'
Bret stiffened. 'I have always supported Samson, even when he was at his most intractable. But Oxford and Cambridge attract the most competitive students, and will always be the Department's finest source of recruits. I'd hate to see the day come when that policy changed.'
Silas ran his hand lovingly over the outdoor tomatoes. One of them, full size and deep red, he picked and weighed in his hand. 'Oxford and Cambridge provide an excellent opportunity to learn, although not better than any well-motivated student can find in a first-class library. But an Oxbridge education can make graduates feel that they are members of some privileged elite, destined to lead and make decisions that will be inflicted upon lesser beings. Such elitism must of necessity be based upon expectations that are often unfulfilled. Thus Oxbridge has not only provided Britain with its most notable politicians and civil servants but its most embittered traitors too.' Silas smiled sadly, as if the traitors had played a long-forgiven and half-forgotten prank upon him.