‘As in teeth and fillings?’
‘Is there another kind?’
‘I suppose not.’ Anselm was distracted, considering a dramatic sacrifice late in the game. His queen for a pawn. Something unheard of in the annals of their many confrontations. ‘What about him?’
‘Well, he was just a voice at the end of the line, feeding me inside stories… he remained hidden… until, one day I met him.’
‘Really? He dropped his guard?’ All sacrifice involves a gamble, thought Anselm coldly He made his move.
‘Yes,’ replied John, his voice light with surprise. ‘He came to see me just before I left Warsaw’
Anselm looked up.
‘You know — ’ John hesitated, his brown eyes alight with subdued anxiety — ‘I think I might have reached too far.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Into the sewer.
‘Why?’
‘He was a hood. The stories had been jam. Something sweet to get me on side.’
‘To do what?’
‘I don’t know… and it doesn’t matter any more. Because they kicked me out.’
Even as he spoke, John withdrew into himself. He looked at the board in confusion and, three moves later, trapped Anselm’s king with vicious intellectual satisfaction, the brutality — Anselm was sure — having nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with the lingering memory of that ‘Dentist’.
Anselm wondered if there was some connection between this shady individual and John’s arrest in the graveyard, an intuition that acquired sudden weight when Anselm raised the matter, delicately and John brushed it away with the same gesture one might use to slam a door. The conversation, he seemed to say, was over.
The subject appeared to have died a friendless death until, one morning, it gave John a sudden kick, demonstrating that it was very much alive — for others if not for him. A short article appeared on the third page of a national broadsheet intimating a more involved explanation for the sudden ejection of John Fielding from Warsaw Its substance, fleeced of insinuation, lay beneath the headlines of two major tabloids.
‘They’re saying I was moonlighting for MI6,’ seethed John. ‘That I’d been using journalistic cover to gather intelligence.’
And so much more: that he was a key player on the ground with access to dissidents in hiding and liberals in the government. A spy.
‘How do you hide a “dead drop” in a graveyard?’ asked Anselm, not displaying the supreme tact advertised by his clerk.
‘Don’t you realise what this means for me?’ barked John. ‘For my career?’
They were sitting in the upstairs bar of the Bricklayers’ Arms in Gresse Street, near Soho, lodged deep in soft armchairs near a low-lit corner. Perhaps it was the clinking and raised voices — the sense of festival away from the office — that had nudged Anselm’s sensibilities off course. He apologised profusely but John wasn’t listening.
‘Don’t you see?’ His deep brown eyes were anguished. ‘If I leave the accusation unchallenged, I’m finished. No media outlet will employ me. It means I’m tainted. I can’t be trusted.’
‘What do you mean by unchallenged?’ Anselm was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You’re not squaring up for a fight, are you?’
‘Not personally It’s your round,’ said John, pointing at his empty glass.
John wouldn’t listen — either that night, the following day, or during the tense weeks after the writ of libel had been served. He’d resolved to sue the most powerful news corporations in the United Kingdom. No warning or cautionary tale from Anselm would deter him. He remortgaged his flat in Hampstead to pay his solicitors’ costs. He duly begged Anselm to handle the trial, despite compelling evidence that his old friend’s speciality was bread and butter crime, cut from the rough end of the loaf at that, and served with margarine. In the end, worn down, Anselm agreed, insisting on a CD of Johnny Hodges in lieu of payment.
Then relations between the two friends became strained. John wouldn’t give any detailed instructions about his arrest in 1982. No information was forthcoming beyond what he’d revealed to his recently disbanded fan club.
‘I’m protecting a contact,’ he said, blinking like a mule.
‘Which one?’
‘The person I went to meet in the graveyard.’
‘Tell me about him or her.’
‘I can’t. I made a promise.’
‘To whom?’ Anselm was twirling a pencil, conscious that it wasn’t going to be used.
‘The contact.’
‘Promising?’
‘To do and say nothing.’
‘About what?’
‘I’m not falling for that one.’
‘John, I need an account. I need an explanation stronger than theirs.’
‘Forget it. Put them to proof.’
Anselm bit the pencil, watching John sat cross-legged in the chair facing his desk. He was a worried man — one knee bobbing, a moist hand constantly smoothing back his combed sandy hair — but he wouldn’t help himself. He was the worst kind of client.
‘What about the Dentist?’
‘He was a legitimate source.
‘This is like pulling teeth,’ sighed Anselm. He leaned back and pulled a little harder. ‘He was — I use your words — a hood.’
‘But our dealings were purely journalistic. He was channelling information into the western media. I was just the conduit. Like I said, he gave me jam. It never got to the point where he asked for anything from me.
Anselm came from another angle.
‘Did you keep any private papers when you were in Warsaw?’
‘Like?’
‘A diary, taped or written.’
‘Yes.’
‘Which kind.’
‘Written.’
‘Did it contain material germane to the matter in hand?’
‘Decidedly’
‘Can I see it?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I burned it.’
‘You didn’t. Tell me it’s a joke. Okay it’s not a joke. Tell me why?’
‘Pique. I’d hoped to use it later for a book. Cold War memoirs.’
‘Why pique?’
‘Because a handful of British newspapers accused me of spying and the substance of my experiences — rich, varied and well worth recounting — would, if printed, be interpreted from that perspective.’
‘You shouldn’t tell me you destroyed evidence.’
‘You should be careful what you ask.’
‘I’ll have to tell the other side.’
‘Go right ahead. Tell them I burned it after they burned my career.
Anselm chewed his pencil. The mule with the bobbing leg wasn’t going to budge.
‘Character witnesses,’ he said, hopefully ‘Do you know anyone who was close to the ground in Warsaw who can vouch for your professional integrity?’
‘No.’
Anselm was getting nowhere. He decided to bring the conference to an end.
‘Forget the cemetery and your burned journal and the friends you might have had. While in Warsaw, or anywhere else for that matter, did you have any form of contact — be that written, oral, signs, numbers, sounds — with any individual or organisation or their representatives which was inconsistent with your status as a foreign correspondent or any other capacity that you might have held or assumed, given the limitations conferred by your visa?’
‘None whatsoever.’
Anselm dropped his pencil and closed his empty pad. ‘It’s a fight, then.’
The defendants had pleaded justification, implying that hard evidence would be forthcoming, presumably from credible persons with knowledge about John and the work of the intelligence community. However nothing was disclosed. Like John, they claimed to be protecting their source. Which, while admirable, was not a recognised defence to libel. They’d thought the little man wouldn’t stand his ground. Negotiations began at the court door.
What should have been one of those rare experiences of uncomplicated joy for Anselm — knowing he’d won before he’d opened his mouth — turned out to be a remarkably unpleasant tutorial in humiliation. He was pitted against the most renowned performers from London’s specialised libel chambers who viewed him, not altogether unfairly as a mole on their lawn. Every offer of settlement refused by Anselm was met with soaring contempt.