1990 (11 page)

Greaves sounded perplexed.

'Tiny, I need column five.'

'Column five?' Now he was critical.

'Column five. It's a bit urgent.'

'We'll keep it open,' confirmed the news editor, beckoning to a reporter.

The columnist and Delly Lomas relaxed for the next half an hour and were still sipping brandies with their coffee on the sofa when the doorbell rang. A grey-haired old man, carrying a zip-up canvas hold-all, stood waiting.

Delly looked baffled, but the newsman shouted, 'Come in, Tommy. How many down there?'

'Three out front. Two by the fire escape,' the old man reported on the PCD tails, then pulled off a grey wig and his grubby raincoat. Suddenly, Tom Pearce looked very much like Kyle, who had begun to take off his suede jacket and polo-necked shirt.

'If you'd like us to change in the bathroom?' he offered.

Delly laughed. 'Carry on. You won't upset me.' And watched with amusement as her guest handed over his clothes to the reporter, who put them on.

The columnist then tugged on the red cotton shirt and linen jacket he found in the bag, as the other man, ducked in front of the mirror, combing his hair to set a parting like Kyle's. Pearce put a gold ring on his wedding finger. Kyle took his off and pocketed it. The whole operation was swiftly and neatly completed, with both men clearly used to the routine.

'What about the kids?' the columnist asked.

Delly glanced out of the kitchen window to her children playing in the garden. 'They'll not come in till I call them.' She sat down with a cigarette and watched the strip artistry, good humouredly, as they exchanged trousers.

'Anywhere special you want me to lead them?' Pearce was asking.

'How about hell?'

The young reporter nodded, unamused, and Kyle advised, 'Go out by the fire escape.'

Tom Pearce made a prim apology to Delly for the interruption, and perhaps also for having removed his trousers in her presence, before leaving.

Then she joined the columnist at the window overlooking the fire-escape exit. Two men were hanging about conspicuously below, one smoking and the other pretending to check the waste chute. The woman murmured her surprise at Kyle's indiscretion.

'I thought we'd just done a deal,' he responded, easily. 'I help you. You help me?'

But she found such naivete in him very unconvincing, so he admitted, 'This is only one way I use to dodge your goons. And I think we've used it enough anyway, so who cares that you know about it?'

The two tails below alerted as Pearce emerged, head bent, hands tucked into his pockets - Kyle's style, and hurried away. One of the men promptly followed, as the other spoke into his hand radio before moving off, too, smoothly, quietly, as they had shadowed a hundred suspects before. Pearce did not look back.

'Time I was away,' Kyle said. 'And thanks for lunch.'

'So that's column five,' Delly Lomas remarked, as though to delay him.

'It was. Till now,' he agreed. 'Though I don't doubt you'll tip off your mates the moment I've gone out of the door, but it'll be a waste of manpower. I'll lose 'em just the same.'

'And then write some more about the over-manning of our surveillance branch?'

'Very likely,' he confirmed.

She smiled. 'They still haven't forgotten that you called them pigs in print.'

'That was a mistake,' he declared, quickly. 'A libel on a noble animal. It makes me want to turn vegetarian.'

'I'll give you soya bean chops next time,' she threatened.

'Ah, there's to be a next time,' he rubbed his hands, delighted.

'That's up to you.'

He eyed her, appreciatively, scanning from her shining dark hair, down the coltish body and the slim, incredible legs, and back again. 'How can you look like you do, doing the job you do?' he said, almost sadly, then turned to the door.

'Kyle!' she appealed. He stopped. 'You can use this trick again.'

He twisted round, full of disbelief, wondering what ambush she was setting.

'Is he really a newsman?' she asked of Pearce. 'Or an actor?'

'A good and misused reporter,' he stressed, wondering nervously whether she could actually be making a pass.

'It's safe with me, Kyle, if he gives them the slip...' she insisted.

Perhaps she had really wanted him all along. 'He will,' he emphasized.

Then she followed up, 'I'm saying it's safe with me, as long as you let me know anything you dig out on the emigration racket...' He stared at her. '
Me
, not Skardon.'

The feeling of relief startled him. 'Ambition becomes you, Delly,' he said. 'I could kiss you.'

'Lightly then.' She leant forward and her lips yielded beneath his, fleetingly, before she whispered, 'Give my regards to Faceless.'

'Who says I'm seeing him? Or her?' the newsman asked over his shoulder, and left.

She crossed to the telephone at once and began to button out a number, then stopped, thought for a moment and replaced the receiver. Moving back to the window, she called down to her children and, as they reached the flat, Kyle emerged from the door below and walked away.

No-one followed him.

Kyle took a cab, the tube and a second cab to reach his own car and, by the time he arrived in the scrapyard, he was late. Brett, Cursley and the manager were leaning over a huge block of compressed metal and using it as a plotting table. The newsman made his apologies.

'Rumour has it you were having it off with a lady from the Public Control Department,' Brett chuckled.

'All I was having was an omelette,' protested Kyle, wondering who watched him most - his enemies, or his friends? He changed the subject rapidly. 'No problems with Vickers?'

'Thursday. It's a doddle,' his partner confirmed. 'I could get five more out besides him...' Answering the journalist's questioning look, 'I've seen the emigration officers' duty roster and we're on clover Thursday and next Tuesday.'

The newsman looked annoyed. 'We haven't five more ready.'

'Some of the other groups have,' put in Cursley. 'I know Cardiff has a queue and so has Manchester.'

'What? Ready and fixed to go?' queried Kyle. He and Brett regarded each other for a few moments, before he added, 'No. We're not ready to link up yet. I don't know enough about 'em.'

The agent objected, keenly, 'So we chuck away valuable freight space?'

'I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all.'

They fell silent as the crusher crumpled another heap of junk metal behind them, roaring and crashing like a foundry.

Kyle turned back to confirm the number of spaces. Six. Then wondered aloud how much the escape operation was costing him in bribes and payola. But the other only scratched his head and grinned, claiming that few activists wanted tips.

'You're in for a busy couple of days, Ian,' the journalist cautioned Cursley. 'First, Vickers. Make sure he knows what he's doing. He's not to go home from surgery. He'll come straight to us. If he wants any family goodbyes, they'd best drop into the health centre, very casually. I don't want him going home...'

The machine hammered down behind them again, then pulled away. 'I reckon we could pick up five more quickies from tomorrow's courts,' he suggested.

Guarded looks passed between them. They had never carried out such an eleventh hour arrangement before, without time for reconnoitre or security checks. The current official stir over illegal emigrants had increased the risk of PCD plants among court appellants. Nevertheless, they were all agreed. The vacant freight space was too valuable to lose.

The first leaves had opened on his rose bushes, so that each parked like a burgundy cloud on the circular bed. The Controller noticed them with immense satisfaction before breakfast. The journey to the office was swift and uninterrupted by a single traffic jam and the duty police had been deferential. A new and pretty receptionist had smiled invitingly at him from her desk and the Memo had been waiting on his desk. It was Herbert Skardon's day.

After reading it, he pounced on the video-intercom and then bustled about the room in a kind of tantrum of delight until his deputies arrived. Their boss pointed gleefully to the Memo, the only piece of paper on the vast wooden surface. Tasker read it over Delly Lomas' shoulder.

'Well?' beamed Herbert Skardon, actually rubbing his hands.

'Very good. Splendid,' enthused Tasker.

'It's a start,' Delly was forced to admit.

'It's the break-through! It's just what we need!' her boss asserted, expansively. 'I've wanted this bunch for months! And I'll not be surprised if the Home Secretary decides to announce this personally to a press conference.' He eyed the red telephone, longingly.

'I doubt it,' Delly Lomas remarked.

Trust the bitch to try to detract from one of his achievements. Skardon scowled at her. 'I know you had no part in our work against this particular group,' he snapped. 'But at least you might show some appreciation for those of us who had.'

'Congratulations,' she drawled. 'It's just that I happen to know the Home Secretary doesn't relish being personally identified with emigration control.'

The Controller lit a leisurely cigarette and tried to look wise. 'It's up to us, as senior civil servants, to see the politicians keep centre-stage. We pull the strings. They take the applause.'

'And the rotten eggs.'

Today he could afford to be magnanimous. 'People think twice these days before complaining. Our Department can take some credit for that.' He viewed her, loftily. She was jealous, of course. He knew that, just as he knew she was after his job. 'You have a better idea?'

'I'd let Kyle have the story exclusive.'

He leered. 'You're not beginning to fancy this bloke?'

The unmistakable contempt in her look shook him. 'I've put forward a proposal and I'd like it to go on record,' she stated in a hard voice. 'Help Kyle. He can help us. The rest of the media follow his stories, anyhow.'

Skardon thought he had better not commit himself. He looked at Tasker. 'So?'

'I'm inclined to support Delly.' The reply came reluctantly.

The Controller affected to ponder his decision, before agreeing, 'Very well. Let's have Kyle in.' He reached for the intercom control.

'Wouldn't it be better if I leaked the story to him privately?' Delly Lomas suggested.

He puzzled unkindly over her motives. She was too smart for her own good - too smart for him at times. The uneasiness she induced in him rankled. Occasionally, she almost seemed to make him feel slightly stupid. But he would never have admitted that, even to himself.

People queued outside the Ombudsman's court, some waiting on the wooden chairs, which lined the corridors, and latecomers standing about aimlessly. No-one spoke. They did not even look at each other. A few had opened newspapers, but without absorbing the words. The rest simply gazed blankly at the grubby cream walls. Kyle had arrived early to listen to the proceedings from the press section in the court.

'We have some sympathy for you, Mr Clayton. But you did sign Form P17 binding you to work ten years in Britain after graduating. And this country needs all the managerial talent it has just now.'

The Chairman was addressing an intelligent-looking man in his mid-thirties, who was standing to attention, like a child trying to behave.

'One day, we may be in a position as a nation to release people like you from such a solemn and binding commitment. That time is not yet. We must, therefore, dismiss your appeal.'

The appellant looked round the crowded room pugnaciously and met Kyle's eyes for an instant, before wheeling round and leaving. Another name was called and a slightly younger man entered to detail the reasons for his appeal.

His wife was German, he explained, twisting a handkerchief in his hands. After living several years in Britain, she had become homesick and gone back to Berlin, refusing to return to the U.K. He wished to join her in Germany. Under questioning, he outlined his job and circumstances.

The chairman pronounced his decision. 'Marital separation is not acceptable under the law for your being excused your commitments. You signed P17. Your training as an aerospace designer was costly. This court hopes you will be able to persuade your wife to rejoin you here. We have to dismiss your appeal.'

It had all taken less than fifteen minutes and the man looked bitter as Kyle watched. The next name was called.

The chairman yawned, a little bored. He was another elderly civil servant, only a few years from retirement. After a lifetime of obedience to the system, he could be relied on to do nothing unexpected and to make no exceptions.

An attractive brunette in her twenties stepped into the court and the old man referred to his notes.

'Carol Harper?'

She nodded.

'I see you are a biochemist on clinical research and your appeal is against the Public Control Department's refusal to grant you an exit visa for post-graduate studies in America.'

Kyle checked that his tape recorder was still running, then glanced absently across the court. Delly Lomas appeared near the door and beckoned to him. He began to edge out.

The chairman probed, 'You are aware that, in these critical times, there is a quota to limit the number of those wishing to pursue post-graduate studies abroad?'

The girl nodded again, but her eyes pleaded.

'You are probably not aware that the quota for 1990 has already been exceeded...' His voice carried after Kyle and Delly as they left. 'Those who have been granted visas have been security-vetted and have given solemn undertakings to return here.' The words followed them, growing fainter as they walked down the corridor.

'What's the game?' quizzed Kyle. 'Luring me from my favourite bullring?'

She looked arch. 'I
was
going to give you an exclusive.'

'Give, then,' he encouraged. 'I love the sound of your voice.'

'I'd rather talk elsewhere.'

'Name it.'

'My flat this evening... strictly business.'

'I'd not assume otherwise with you.'

She took his arm and bent her head towards him, warning him that he was being location-bugged. Her spicy scent filled his nostrils and he caught his breath sharply. She imagined she had surprised him. But then he merely indicated his tape recorder and replied, 'I know. One of your clowns put one in here. What you mean is that you'd like me to get rid of it before I come to your place.'