He sighed heavily and disappeared into the bar.
CHAPTER THREE
the room was half in shadow, the only light the shaded lamp on the desk. The man who sat sideways in the swivel chair, gazing out through the broad window at the glittering lights of London, was small, the parchment face strangely ageless. It was the face of an extraordinary human being, a man who had known pain and who had succeeded in moving beyond it.
The green intercom on his desk buzzed once and he swung round in the chair and flicked a switch. “Yes?”
“Mr. Ashford is here, Sir Charles.”
“Send him in.”
The door opened soundlessly and Ashford advanced across the thick carpet, a tall, greying man in his forties with the worried face of the professional civil servant who had spent too much of his life close to the seats of power.
He sat down in the chair opposite, opened his briefcase and produced a file which he placed carefully on the desk. Sir Charles pushed a silver cigarette box across to him.
“What’s the verdict?”
“Oh, the P M. agrees with you entirely. The whole thing must be investigated. But we don’t want the newspapers getting on to it. You’ll have to be damn careful.”
“We usually are,” Sir Charles said frostily.
“There’s just one thing the P.M. isn’t too happy about.” Ashford opened the file on the desk. “This fellow Mallory. Is he really the best man for the job?”
“More than that,” Sir Charles said. “He’s the best man I’ve got and he’s worked with the Deuxieme Bureau before with some success. In fact, they’ve asked for him twice. His mother was French, of course. They like that.”
“It’s this shocking affair in Perak in 1954 that the P.M. isn’t happy about. Dammit all, the man was lucky to escape prison.”
Sir Charles pulled the file across the desk and turned it round. “This is the record of a quite exceptional officer.” He put on a pair of rimless spectacles and started to read aloud, selecting items at random. “ "Special Air Service during the war… dropped into France three times… betrayed to the Gestapo… survived six months at Sachsenhausen… paratroop captain in Palestine… major in Korea… two years in a Chinese prison camp in Manchuria… released 1953… posted to Malaya, January 1954, on special service."* He closed the file and looked up. “A lieutenant-colonel at thirty. Probably the youngest in the army at that time.”
“And kicked-out at thirty-one,” Ashford countered.
Sir Charles shrugged. “He was told to clear the last Communist guerrilla out of Perak and he did it. A little ruthlessly perhaps, but he did it. His superiors then heaved a sigh of relief and threw him to the wolves.”
“And you were waiting to catch him, I suppose?”
Sir Charles shook his head. “I let him drift for a year. Bombay, Alexandria, Algiers. I knew where he was. When I was satisfied that the iron was finally in his soul I pulled him in. He’s worked for me ever since.”
Ashford sighed and got to his feet. “Have it your own way, but if anything goes wrong…”
Sir Charles smiled softly. “I know, I end up like Neil Mallory. Out on my ear.”
Ashford flushed, turned and crossed the room quickly. The door closed behind him and Sir Charles sat there thinking about it all. After a while he flicked a switch on the intercom.
“Send in Mallory.”
He lit a cigarette and stood by the window, gazing out over the city, still the greatest in the world, whatever anyone tried to say. When he opened the window he could smell the river and the sound from a ship’s hooter drifted faintly on the quiet air as it moved down from the Pool.
He was tired and there was a slight ache somewhere behind his right eye. Something he should really see his doctor about. On the other hand, perhaps it was better not to know? He wondered whether Mallory would survive long enough to ever take his place behind the desk in this quiet room. It would have been a comforting thought, but he knew it was rather unlikely.
The door clicked open behind him and closed again. When he turned Mallory was standing beside the desk. An easy-fitting suit of dark worsted outlined his broad shoulders and in the diffused white light his aquiline face gave an impression of strength and breeding, not out of place anywhere.
Sir Charles moved back to his chair and sat down. “How are you, Neil?”
“Pretty fit, sir. I’ve just had six weeks on the island.”
“I know. How’s your shoulder?”
“No more trouble. They’ve done a good job.”
Sir Charles nodded. “You’ll have to be a little more careful next time, won’t you?” He opened a file, took out a typewritten document and pushed it across. “Have a look at that.”
He occupied himself with some other papers and Mallory skimmed through the three closely typed sheets of foolscap. When he had finished he handed them back, face expressionless.
“Where’s the Kontoro now?”
“The destroyer which found her took her straight into Brest. For the time being the French are holding the lid down tight. Complete security and so on. They can’t keep it quiet for more than three or four days. These things always leak out sooner or later.”
“What are they trying to do about it?”
“The usual round-up of anyone who’s even remotely suspected of being connected with the O.A.S. or C.N.R. On top of that, the Deuxieme Bureau and the Brigade Criminelle, backed by every available military security agent, have been given one order. Find that submarine.”
“I shouldn’t have thought that would be too difficult.”
“I’m not so sure,” Sir Charles said. “For one thing this is no ordinary submarine. She’s quite small. A thing the Germans were working on at the end of the war.”
“What’s her radius?”
"Not much over a thousand.”
“Which means she could be based in Spain or even Portugal?”
“The French are working along those lines right now, but they’ve got to be careful. On top of that, they’re combing the entire Biscay coast, every creek, every island.” He sighed heavily. “I’ve a horrible feeling that they’re completely wasting their time.”
“I wondered when you were coming to that,” Mallory said.
Sir Charles grinned impishly like a schoolboy, opened a drawer and took out a map which he unfolded across the desk. It was a large-scale Admiralty chart of the Channel Islands and the Golfe de St. Malo. \
“Ever hear of Philippe de Beaumont?”
“The paratroop colonel? The one who helped bring de Gaulle back to power?”
“That’s right. He was one of the leaders of the military coup of May 1958 and a member of the original Committee of Public Safety. Philippe, Comte de Beaumont. Last survivor of one of the greatest of the French military families.”
“And he’s living in the Channel Islands?”
“He was the great advocate of a French Algeria. When de Gaulle came down on the side of independence he resigned his commission and left France.” Sir Charles drew a circle on the chart about thirty miles south-west of Guernsey. “There’s an island called lie de Roc owned by old Hamish Grant.”
“You mean Iron Grant, the Western Desert general?”
“That’s right. Been living there for five years with his daughter Fiona, writing up the war. His daughter-in-law Mrs. Anne Grant seems to run things. Her husband was killed in Korea. About a mile west of lie de Roc there’s a smaller island called St. Pierre.”
“And de Beaumont’s living there?”
“He bought it from Grant two years ago. There’s a sort of castle up on top of the rock, one of those mock-Gothic jobs some crank built during the nineteenth century.”
“And you think he’s up to no good?”
“Let’s put it this way. The French have checked on him for two years now and can’t find even the hint of a connection with either the O.A.S. or C.N.R., although he’s known to be sympathetic to their aims. Frankly, even their Foreign Office think he’s simply a grand seigneur who won’t come home because he’s annoyed with the General.”
“And you don’t agree?”
“I might have done until yesterday evening.”