Bernard Samson: Faith - Bernard Samson: Faith Part 24
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Bernard Samson: Faith Part 24

'And have an anti-VERDI Deputy in London? How would that suit Dicky?'

'You're right,' I said. Fiona must have been talking it over with Dicky; she wasn't usually so attuned to office politics.

'Frank will have to play ball,' said Fiona. 'He's filed his objection. Now he'll have to just get on with it the way it's been planned.' It was the voice of London Central at its most inflexible.

'Yes,' I said. I wondered if she knew that Timmermann was dead. She must have been expecting him to report back to her. I decided it was more expedient to wait for her to bring it up.

'Why did you go over and talk to VERDI? It's not like you to be so foolhardy.'

'It's nice of you to say so.'

'Why?'

'I wanted to see if he's still the same strong-arm man I knew twenty years ago.'

'And is he?' said Fiona.

'Yes. He just has better suits and shirts. Strong-arm men like VERDI always find it difficult to adapt to a life of stealth. If Operation VERDI comes to grief, it will probably be because of VERDI's loud mouth.'

'Is that what you really think? That he's unreliable?'

'I just hope I'm not standing near him when he explodes,' I said.

'But he's coming over to us? He's genuine?'

'I think he's been on the payroll for years and years.'

'How is that possible? On our payroll and we don't know?'

'His father was certainly on our payroll. I believe his money was paid into a bank account in Zurich; name of Madame Xavier. It's possible that the Madame Xavier money still continues, but instead of paying the old man, it now gets paid to VERDI.'

'But he didn't say that?'

'Not him. He just yells at me and wants me to tell the D-G what an eager beaver he is. He's full of crap.'

'On our payroll?'

'I'd love to get into that bank account and see if Xavier's payments are still being credited,' I said. 'Maybe not on our direct payroll. Some of our Berlin agents were turned over to the Americans, some to Bonn.'

'I don't think I understand.'

'I suspect he's on the payroll of someone else a the Americans, the French, or Bonn. Now he's spotted a way of selling himself twice. He's dangled the computer scheme in front of Dicky's eyes, and Dicky's taken the bait.'

'You think we should break contact with him?'

'If we could find evidence that VERDI has been on some Western payroll for years, we could make him dance to our tune.'

'Blackmail him, you mean?'

'Damned right. We could have him in the palm of our hand. I wish I knew how much the father knows; he obviously doesn't know the full story.'

'Is that why you went over there?'

'I went to show the old man that we have evidence that could get him a death sentence. I was hoping that VERDI would get the message that he too could find himself behind the eight ball.'

'And were you successful?'

'Not in the way I planned. But yes, VERDI got it all right. He's used to hints and half-truths.'

'Well, let's start at the very beginning,' said Fiona. 'Let's assume that someone somewhere is still paying him. We should be able to trace the payments or the transfer. If we let an agent go elsewhere, there will be a record somewhere.'

'And even if Dicky objects to a search, you can find out,' I said.

'I'm not sure about that,' she said hurriedly.

'You're Dicky's attendant, assistant and hired hand, aren't you?'

'Why would Dicky object to the search?'

'Everything is going Dicky's way at present. If we find that VERDI is someone else's agent a the Americans for instance a they will want a slice of him. Or even claim VERDI as their own and want us to back off.'

'Dicky keeps a lot of cards very close to the chest. But if you've got something definite to start me off, I'll try and dig it out without mentioning it to Dicky. There must be a record somewhere in Central Funding.'

'Not Central Funding; they deal in millions. This is just one secret account. It will be well hidden, Fi. It's not a small task.'

'But you have no hard evidence to start me off?'

'Only circumstantial evidence.'

'You mean it's just your hunch.'

'It's just my hunch,' I admitted.

'You have too many hunches,' said Fiona. She looked at her watch. 'I think you are due to have an X-ray,' she said, and put on her coat.

'I'm perfectly all right,' I told her.

She leaned over the bed and gave me a kiss. 'Of course you are, you're wonderful. I'll see you tomorrow.'

'I'll be home tonight,' I said.

'Now, be good,' she said. 'You have the blood tests tomorrow. You'll be finished by early afternoon.' She was rummaging in the cupboard among my clothes. 'I'll take your suit and send it to the cleaners. I'll bring jacket and slacks when I come to collect you.'

I knew that my relationship with Gloria Kent was over and finished with. I think Gloria knew it too. And I'd promised myself that it would not resume. Not now; not ever. Ours had never been a sensible relationship; Gloria was young enough to be my daughter. I was happily married to a wonderful successful wife.

So it was sensible and to be expected that no word, no flower nor greeting came from Gloria. I wasn't disappointed. She was a sensible girl and I was relying upon her to accept the situation for the thing of the past that it clearly was.

I'd come back from radiography and was dozing over a cup of tea and plate of chocolate biscuits when I heard the door open.

'Hello, iron-head!'

'Gloria.'

She came swaggering into the room with a bottle of wine and a warm cardboard box smelling of toasted cheese. She put the box on the table by my bed and opened it to reveal two large slices of hot pizza.

'I thought they might not be feeding you properly in here,' she explained, while getting a corkscrew from her handbag and then throwing it to me.

'You're right,' I said, remembering the miserable chicken salad I'd been served at lunch.

'Open the wine then.' She slung her brown suede coat over the armchair. Under it she was wearing a beige roll-neck, matching skirt and polished leather riding boots. She took one of the slices of pizza in its paper wrapper and started eating. Elbows out, she craned forward awkwardly, holding the pizza in one hand while protecting her sweater against drips with the other hand. Between swallows she said: 'Two Spanish brothers do them in Marylebone High Street. They're the best pizzas in London.'

'It's good,' I said.

She took the two glasses that stood beside my allocated bottle of Perrier water and set them before me while I extracted the cork from the wine. 'Hurry,' she said impatiently. 'I've got a cab waiting.'

'Why didn't you pay it off?' I poured wine for us.

'I've got things to do: work!' she said scornfully. 'I'm not checking into the ante-natal clinic.' She grabbed the glass and swallowed some wine between bites at the pizza. 'This is hot sausage with extra cheese.'

'Not very hot sausage,' I said.

'Not very hot,' she agreed.

I watched her as she loped across the room and looked through the get-well cards and sniffed at the tulips, while continuing to eat. She was tall, with long slender legs and slim arms, and she displayed the halting gawkiness of a young antelope. Yet she was never clumsy. She never actually dripped tomato down her sweater, she didn't fall over when she was running for a bus in that ungainly way, neither did she ever drive truly dangerously a she just looked as if she was going to. Or was my concern for her parental and protective in a way that a true lover's concern should not be?

'Show me your war wounds, bruiser,' she said. With her free hand she grasped my hair and pulled my head forward to see the place where my head had been shaved. I could smell the soap with which she'd washed her hands and her touch made me shiver. If she noticed the effect this physical contact had upon me she gave no sign of it: 'It's not much. How did it happen?' She let go of my hair and bit into the pizza and licked a dribble of sauce that was about to fall.

'What did you hear?' I said, secretly hoping that it would be some awesome feat of arms.

'Don't say you really did dive into a drained swimming pool?' she said. 'I'll bet you broke some tiles.'

'Where is all that tender loving care you used to bestow upon the weak and weary?'

'Spurned.'

'Ouch.' Oh, well. I held up the tumbler of heavy red wine to see the light of the window gleaming through it. Gigondas, a rich and heavy Rhone red. 'This is beautiful wine, Gloria. It must have set you back a fortune.'

'It's from my father's cellar. He said I could help myself to what I wanted.'

'Ummm. Is your father all right?' I doubted whether Gloria's father would have approved us guzzling his carefully stored old wine with a take-out pizza.

'We haven't heard from him yet. It's sure to take him a few days to settle down. I don't want to fuss, and neither does Mummy, but she runs to answer every phone call. You can imagine.'

'I hope it works out for him.'

She finished the last of her pizza and threw the paper napkin into the waste-bin. Then she licked her fingers. 'Listen, Bernard. That was silly, all that stuff I told you the other night.' I looked at her without responding. 'I was drunk.'

'You weren't drunk, Gloria. I've never seen you drunk.' She never had shown much liking for alcohol. Her wineglass was still more or less full.

'I can hold my drink,' she said sternly but, unable to sustain her serious face, she burst into a giggle of laughter. 'I was worried about Daddy going away. I was silly.'

'Yes, of course.'

'Did I tell you, I've still got lots of your clothes? I was going to leave them at the office for you but I didn't know who to leave them with. People gossip. And you know how the security staff get about unattended boxes and bags. They force them open if they think there might be bombs in them.'

'I'll send someone down to your home to collect them.'

'There are dozens of shirts. And there's that lovely old suede jacket. You always look great in that, Bernard. I loved you in that, you always looked so ...'

'Young?'

'Don't start that all over.'

'We mustn't start anything all over,' I said. Perhaps I said it too hurriedly.

'No. I know we mustn't. I try to avoid making difficulties for you, Bernard, I really do. In fact the real reason I popped in, was to ask you if it's okay about dinner.'

'Dinner?'

'Yes, I thought you wouldn't know. The Cruyers have asked me to dinner next Saturday. And I know you are going to be there with Fiona. Would it annoy her? Me being there, I mean.'

'I don't know. I don't think so,' I said, although I felt quite sure that Gloria's presence would in fact upset Fiona very much indeed. I was surprised that Dicky didn't know that too. Or was this Dicky's way of sowing trouble for me?

'Daphne phoned me this morning. They have an extra man at dinner, and she wants to make the numbers even. It was Daphne's idea.'

'Won't your boyfriend mind?' I asked, clutching at a straw in the hope she would suddenly decide not to go.

'Boyfriend? I haven't got a regular boyfriend.'

'Is it over so soon?'

'What?'

'Your driver. Your rally companion.'

'You pig! We're an all-woman team.'

'Your driver is a girl?'

'No, she's a forty-year-old woman. Do you think I need a man to drive a rally car?'

'No, of course not.'

A slow grin: 'You were jealous.'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

She was immediately angry. 'Ridiculous?'