Bernard Samson: Faith - Bernard Samson: Faith Part 17
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Bernard Samson: Faith Part 17

'I'm sorry, Fi.'

'You're sorry?' she laughed bitterly. 'What the hell do you care? I thought you'd be delighted.'

I felt the movement of the bed-springs as she moved as far away from me as she could. I suppose I should have reached out and comforted her, but I didn't. I hadn't sufficient emotion to be able to spare any for Fiona.

Right now my mind was filled with anger at the realization that I'd played right into the hands of Uncle Silas. His reputation for being the most cunning and devious man the Department had ever had would not be eroded by the way he'd handled me tonight. He'd gone through an elaborate scenario to come here, bare his long fangs, and tell me to back off. Had I not gone racing upstairs after him, he might have been forced to take me aside and bully me back in line. But Silas knew me, and knew I'd want a private word. I had to bury my head deep in my pillow in order to block out the sound of him laughing his head off.

12.

I ordered a car to collect me from the office at 6.30 p.m. but it had still not arrived at 6.45, and I was standing in the bitterly cold underground car park, marching round on the concrete in circles, trying to keep my blood circulating. Somewhere out of sight, at the far side of the floor, I could hear an engine turning over repeatedly but showing a melancholy disinclination to spark and start. Finally I walked along to see who it was.

It was Gloria. She had the car hood open and was bending over the engine of a little Peugeot 205. She flipped the starter motor and cursed to herself when the motor didn't catch. As she heard my footsteps approaching, she stood up straight and looked at me. She had taken off her suede coat but her big fluffy fur hat was still on her head and there was a furious scowl on her face.

'Bernard. Is your car on the blink too?' She was in sweater and skirt, and now she rubbed her arms to warm up.

'I'm waiting for a car from the pool.'

'Transport have some kind of crisis. Everyone had trouble getting a car today.'

'Can I use your cell phone?' I asked her.

'Haven't you got your own?'

'Dicky says phones are only for staff permanently assigned to the London roster. That's why I haven't got a proper office or a secretary.'

'Poor Bernard,' she said, without sounding too concerned. 'I don't carry my phone any more. I left it in a pub last week. I was so relieved to get it back that I've locked it up in my desk ever since.'

'Damn.'

'They make you pay for them if they are lost. Fifty-five pounds.'

'Shall I try it?' I said, getting into the driving seat of the Peugeot. I could guess what had happened. When she had her souped-up Mini she was always flooding the carburettor. 'Just leave it alone for a couple of minutes,' I said. I could never make her understand that you could have too much petrol. I could never make her understand that you could have too much anything. I suppose that's what had appealed to me when I first met her. She had a childlike determination to prove the truth of Oscar Wilde's axiom that nothing succeeds like excess.

'I'll give you a lift,' she offered.

'I haven't got it going yet.'

'You will, Bernard. Cars seem to like you.' She got her coat and put it back on.

After a suitable interval I turned the key and, with a couple of hesitant coughs, it roared into life. I stabbed the pedal to make sure the juice was flowing and then let the engine tick over as I got out of the car.

'Wonderful!' she yelled and clapped her hands. 'Jump in, Bernard. Where do you want to go?'

'I'll wait for the car I ordered.'

'Oh, yes? You'll be here all night.' She got into the car and switched the lights on.

I weakened as I saw that my sole chance of escape was about to disappear. 'Maybe I'll ride along with you until we spot a cab.' I climbed into the Peugeot beside her.

'Bayswater any good?' she asked, driving at a hundred miles an hour to the ticket machine, raising the barrier and going up the slope with a scream of burning rubber. She plunged into the evening traffic without hesitation while using one splayed hand to discover if the heater was dispensing warmth.

'You look like hell, Bernard. What have you been doing over the weekend?' She grinned wolfishly.

'I'm fine,' I said.

'You're not fine. Several people have remarked that you are not looking well.'

'I wish you wouldn't discuss my apparent state of health with all and sundry.'

'With your friends,' she said. There was still a measure of teasing.

'I've never felt better,' I said. 'How would you like me to start an inquiry into how you spend your weekends?'

'I told you what I was going to do. I was on a car rally in Shropshire. We came ninth out of fifty-three cars.'

'Why weren't you first? Have trouble starting?'

'That's a mean gibe, Bernard. I'm not the driver; I'm the navigator.'

'I forgot.'

'The competition's fierce. Some of the teams do almost nothing other than rallies; some of them were professionals. I think we did fine.'

'You did, Gloria. I was only kidding.'

'You've got to have a good driver; I just sit there and shout directions.' We were on Westminster Bridge going over the Thames now. 'Where are you heading?'

'I'm meeting someone in that safe house at Notting Hill Gate.'

'Is there a safe house there?'

'We were there. Don't you remember that night? The radio was on and we danced together.'

'When?'

'I don't remember the date. A nice apartment up at the top of the building. There's a view right across London. It was moonlight. You said how wonderful it would be to live in a penthouse like that.'

'Do you know, Bernard, I think I must be getting prematurely senile or something. I can't remember anything these days. My mother says I should take one of these memory courses that she sees advertised in her kitchen and bathroom magazines. Do you think they do any good?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't go bitter and twisted, Bernard. I can't help it if I can't remember going to a safe house in Notting Hill with you.' She jammed her foot hard on the gas pedal and the engine roared as we streaked down the wrong side of the road while she was tapping the clock to see if it was still working. 'Is that the time? I have to just call in to a garage in Bayswater, Bernard. Two minutes. Would that make you awfully late?'

'That's okay.' I had been looking out for a cab, but all the ones I'd seen were either carrying passengers or too far away to intercept. In the circumstances, accepting Gloria's offer seemed like the only way to reach my appointment on time.

'I have to collect the rally maps for next week. We're going to drive the route and do a reconnaissance before the rally.' She turned off Bayswater Road and, after going round a leafy square, found a narrow arched entrance. It gave on to a street of crippled little two-storey dwellings that had once been coach houses for the grand mansions they backed on to. The street was dark, its cobbled surface lit only by a couple of low-powered orange-coloured street lights. She pulled up in front of one of a row of lock-up garages. Discreet painted signs and brass plates indicated that the coach houses now housed repair and maintenance specialists for drivers of high-powered cars or fussy owners of ordinary ones. 'Come in if you want.'

Gloria got out and, using a key she took from her handbag, unlocked a brass padlock to enter one of the garages through a wicket-door that was part of a larger one.

Ducking my head I followed her through the door and waited until she had switched the lights on. Half a dozen blue fluorescent tubes pinged into life to reveal the sloping back of a turbo-engined Saab 900 of indeterminate age, painted with all the numbers and adverts that rally cars wear. On the far side of the garage stood a work bench and metal-working lathe. On the wall there were spanners, wrenches, saws and other tools. Shelving held tins of various spare parts, labelled and arrayed with commendable order across the width of the wall. A locker was decorated with a coloured photo of a shapely oiled nude hugging a spark-plug; the sort of calendar without which no workshop is complete. Impaled on the nail from which the calendar was suspended there was a sheet of oil-stained paper and scrawled upon it: 'Gloria darling, maps in kitchen. Take one set and the application form. I will deal with the insurance queries a It will be a tough one a Love P.' Gloria took the message and folded it carefully before throwing it into the waste-bin. She smiled at me.

'Whose workshop is this?'

'My driver owns the place. A really good fitter works here full-time. He pays his rent by fixing the car without charge.'

'And this Saab belongs to your driver?'

'It's getting old,' she said. 'In summer the Porsches can make rings around us, but in winter a Saab stands a good chance of winning.'

'It's serious, this rally business, is it?'

She smiled. 'I'm not giving up the day job, if that's what you mean. Wow!' she said as she looked at the bench. 'Look at what he's doing.' She switched on a bench light.

The car's engine was totally eviscerated; its oily entrails scattered piecemeal along the benches. Pistons, connecting rods, nuts and bolts were arrayed in such a way that they would go back in the same places from which they had come. Mysterious springs and small metal objects had been placed in tin lids and immersed in oily marinades.

It was a strange old place. Marks on the walls showed where the horse stalls had been fitted, and there was damaged brickwork from which the troughs had been removed. The floor was made from bricks worn smooth, with a gutter going to an ornamental central drain. Everything was almost exactly as it had been when these same premises held a coach and a couple of horses.

'I'll get the maps. Do you want to see upstairs?'

'Sure,' I said, and followed her up the steep wooden stairs which creaked under our combined weight. These houses were getting on for 150 years old. The kitchen was just big enough to hold an unpainted table, two chairs and a square-shaped 'butler's sink' with a fearsome-looking gas water-heater above it.

'Does your friend live here?'

'Of course not. It's just store-rooms for engine spares and so on.' She picked up the maps that were arranged on the table together with a big envelope holding letters and application forms from the rally organizers. 'Have you got time for a perfectly foul cup of coffee?'

'No,' I said.

'It won't take a minute,' said Gloria. As she filled the kettle with water from the gas heater it gave a soft bang and then roared into life with a furnace of blue and orange flames. She reached into the cupboard for an opened tin of thick gooey condensed milk, a jar of powdered coffee and two decorated pottery mugs. Then she sat down and waited for the electric kettle to boil. 'You didn't talk to anyone a Silas Gaunt or Dicky or anyone a about what I told you ... about Daddy?' She began spooning the treacle-like milk into the cups.

'Mind your coat,' I said. 'Suede coats and condensed milk don't go well together.'

'Because it all worked out all right.'

'In what way?' I asked.

'For Daddy. They voted him a prestigious job at the university. He's leaving in a day or so.'

'Leaving? To go where?'

'Budapest. The university in Budapest. It's what he's always wanted, Bernard. He's so happy.'

'When did this happen?'

'They sent the official letter a month ago. The wrong address. It was returned to them. Luckily one of the Senior Fellows ... a man Daddy used to know, decided to phone. They haven't got used to making international phone calls for things like that. He'll have a lot of things to adjust to.'

'They phoned?'

'Last night. They tracked him down.'

'That's wonderful.'

'Just think: they might have simply asked someone else when their letter came back to them undelivered.'

'It's dentistry?'

'Yes. Research, teaching and so on. He's part of a programme the Americans are financing. He'll have control of his own budget, they said on the phone. Of course it won't be much of a budget, but that doesn't matter.'

'No, of course not.'

'Not when you think you are all washed up. You should have seen him.'

'What about your mother?'

'She's pretending it's what she always wanted too. I know she's a little scared of going back, but she can see how much it means to Daddy.'

'You'll miss them.'

'It's not so far away as once it was. And they won't sell the house here until they're quite sure.'

The kettle boiled. Gloria poured hot water on to the milk and coffee powder, and stirred the mixture furiously before passing one mug to me.

I sniffed at it. 'It's delicious,' I told her.

'Do they still XPD people?' she said without warning.

I stiffened. It was one of those taboo questions that I thought everyone at London Central knew better than to ask. Expedient Demise, the deliberate killing of an enemy operative, is an action never officially acknowledged or referred to in spoken word or writing. 'No,' I said firmly. 'That all ended many years ago, if it ever happened at all.'

'Is that your way of saying Shut up?'

'What's worrying you, Gloria?'

'Nothing. Why should you think that anything is worrying me?'

'This business with your father ... You don't seem so pleased about it.'

'Of course I am.'

'I know you too well, Gloria. There's something on your mind.'

'Did you speak to anyone about Daddy?'

'Yes. Entirely by chance I saw Silas on Saturday evening. I mentioned your father. Perhaps I tackled Silas in a bad mood, because I got no change out of him.'