Blame It on the Bossa Nova (17 page)

“Do you really need an answer?”

He smiled, relaxing. He paused for a moment waiting for the lights to change at the north end of Vauxhall Bridge, then when they didn’t we turned and headed over it towards Vauxhall Station and its concomitant grime. At the centre of the middle span he stopped and together we leaned over and watched a tug coming underneath travelling downstream, followed by barge after barge full of brightly coloured scraps of paper, cartons, etcetera.

“What d’you want me to do?”

“I’m going to give you a codename. I want you to use it - always, except in public of course... It’ll be your name on The Company files.”

“What is it?”

“SMARTARSE.”

“SMARTARSE?”

“That’s right... Good, isn’t it?... Kind of appropriate..... You will be SMARTARSE 1. Your main job is to act as Cut-Out between me and any agents you recruit.”

“Cut-out?”

“Go-Between... That way you’re the only one who gets to know me.”

“.. And like you. And gets to hope you like me.”

“That’s what I mean... SMARTARSE. Your recruits will be known as SMARTARSE 2, SMARTARSE 3, etcetera. Get it?”

“Who d’you think I’m going to recruit?”

“Alex, Alex....” He gave me a knowing wink. There followed a period of reflection after which he added, “... I think perhaps you may be exaggerating your importance just a little. We don’t expect no major secrets off of you, though we won’t kick you out of bed if you come up with any... No, this game is about putting a gigantic jigsaw together, piece by piece. And a lot of the pieces have just got plain blue sky on them, nothing more... Anyway, I’m not going to say any more right now. I’m just gonna leave your imagination to work on the problem a little, stimulated, of course, by those five hundred bucks a month.” So saying he turned and left me, heading back towards Pimlico. I looked back down into the water, already tuning my mind to the identity of SMARTARSE 2.

It was early in December that I first heard the rumours, and I must have been one of the first. They were vague at first and they stayed that way for a long time. Short on facts, high on innuendo, but always vague and always reshuffled on every fresh hearing. At first the names and the phrases all seemed such unlikely bedfellows, as if at school one had been asked to write an essay bringing in a spring onion, a vicar, The Great Barrier Reef and Ted Dexter’s cricketing whites. The black guy that had broken up the party at Earls Court - Tony - He was mentioned. Sandie and Forsythe had their names entwined once more. Chris was involved, so were some other politicians and Frank. And other girls I’d never heard of, and Pascale.. And me.

One night I went out for a drink with a guy I knew who was now working at Reuters. He told me the latest story as he knew it. He’d got it pretty badly muddled up, to the extent where, to me, it sounded ridiculous, but he mentioned Pascale, not by name – ‘a French tart’. And Frank – ‘a redneck General’ - right neck, wrong service. ... Sandie and Forsythe, and Christopher was in there somewhere, and Cathcart House, and a story about a bust-up at an orgy where a guy went berserk and smashed up the place, and how the Krays had been paid to take care of him.

“Incredible,” I laughed weakly, “... how d’you know all this; is it true? I mean, the Krays. That sounds a bit far fetched.”

“It’s all straight down the line, believe me.”

I told Pascale about it, but she had already heard. A reporter from the Daily Sketch had rung the doorbell of her flat at two in the morning. It may have worked for the Gestapo but it hadn’t for him.

“How the hell did he get my address?” she demanded, somewhat naively I thought. When she’d slammed the door in his face he’d rung her from a call box until she’d left the phone off the hook.

“What’s the big deal anyway?”

“Sure. Communist girl meets Capitalist boy, falls in love, elicits information about potential nuclear capability of West Germany... Boy gets upset, she only loves him for his Official Secrets, relationship cools, girl and boy drift apart... It’s straight out of Woman’s Weekly.”

“Woman’s what?”

“It’s a magazine.”

“What was all that balls about West Germany?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She was really ratty, rattier than normal. It had shaken her up. I said, “You’ve got to remember, the Americans are touchy about security leaks, they haven’t got our experience.”

She lit a cigarette. I took one of hers. We poured ourselves a large scotch and shared the glass. All the others had got themselves broken over the past weeks and I hadn’t got round to replacing them.

*****

In my spare time I’d been doing some serious thinking about my new salaried position as Agent and Cut-Out. At first I had sincerely thought through my contacts for possible sub-agents. There weren’t that many. In fact after writing a list of all my current social acquaintances I discovered there wasn’t anyone whom I could be sure Frank didn’t already know, who was eligible. This line of thinking was getting so negative I would have given up if it hadn’t occurred to me that not only would failure result in no more cash but that it could also be construed as obstructionism if not hostility, resulting in positive retribution. I bent my mind to the task again, but with no greater luck. Adrian, the one guy I knew who could even begin to fit the bill was unapproachable and was meant to be seeking me out for his own unpleasant purposes. It wasn’t getting any better.

I can’t remember where I made the quantum leap - It could have been The Duke’s Head at Putney, but more probably was The Cornet Of Horse, Lavender Hill, where I had taken to drinking at the time. It was a simple idea and, although as I later discovered flawed, it came flooding through bringing great relief. It had struck me while I was toying with the title of Cut-Out and the function of that position that there was a question begging to be asked - If Frank never saw the other agents but dealt with them only through me in order to preserve his anonymity he would, by definition, never meet them, and hence would never be in a position to personally verify that they were agents. The rest came quickly, it was easy. Adrian would be my first recruit, but he would never know it. I could tell Frank all about his position, his background, and make up the data. What was it Frank had said - Most pieces were clear blue sky. That wouldn’t be too difficult. I could even give him the odd piece of cloud. Like all good plans further thinking revealed a solid structure that reinforced the original concept: I would keep Adrian’s pay. The more agents I produced, the more money I got to keep. By the time I met Frank again I had been working on the details for several days.

Frank’s face screwed up in concentration and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

“Let me get this straight... This guy Adrian is some kind of muscle for Ronnie Forsythe... He has access to his papers you say, and he needs money fast?”

“Yuh. His ex-wife is bleeding him white, and his new one has expensive tastes.”

“Sounds good... I like it Alex.”

We were stuck in a traffic jam on the South Circular, somewhere near Tulse Hill. Frank had suggested we drive and talk and had also suggested the South Circular. Probably to him it had said three lane freeways elevated over the sprawling city with exits plunging down in the sort of widths we were just starting to think about for new motorways - Last Exit To Dulwich.

“This is some crummy route Alex.”

“Yeah. They thought the name up first... never did get round to building the road.” We waited another minute or two as a traffic light in front changed from red to green, but we still hadn’t moved before it changed back to red.

“Pull off down there,” I said, pointing out a side street. He turned the Bentley off the main road and parked it halfway up a street of terraced houses. Surrounded by three-wheeled Messerschmitt cockpits, Standard Eights and a rusting Triumph Mayflower, we looked slightly out of place.

“You sure this place is OK?” he said. “... They could have a Listening Post.” He was a changed man when talking business.

“Forget it. I’m jamming them with this secret lapel badge.”

“Who made the contact? - You or him?”

“I made the suggestion after he dropped some pretty broad hints. All he knows is, he’s getting paid. That’s all he wants to know.”

“When does he start earning?”

“He’s going to contact me.” I’d been working over a few ideas for the sort of information SMARTARSE 2 could actually deliver, but it hadn’t yet reached the presentation stage.

“That’s a good start Alex.” He reached across to open the door.

“Wait. That’s not all.... I’ve got someone else lined up. A guy at the L.S.E. He’s pretty involved in student politics.”

It hadn’t taken much rooting around at Houghton Street to come up with a name.

“A student huh?” Frank said the word as if ‘student’ was a type of precious stone.

“It’s early days yet Frank, don’t rush me on this one. I think it could be big.”

“A student huh?” He thought for a moment. You’re a student aren’t you Alex? You could join up some course...” In Frank’s mind to be student was to follow a trade, to carry around a bag of tools. He considered it, if not an honourable calling, a specialised one. Some people could never be ‘students’, no matter how hard they tried. To others it came naturally. He numbered me among this latter class. One might be in or out of official study, but one was always a student. “... Maybe we could use you and this other guy in COSEC, or WAY... Maybe even to penetrate WDFY.”

He chewed on it.

“What the hell are they?”

“COSEC? - Co-ordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students...”

“And WAY?”

“World Assembly of Youth.” He said it absently, distantly. He was now deep in thought miles away, hatching his plans.” ... they’re both student organisations set up by The Company in the forties to combat the student fronted Soviet organisations like WFDY... World Federation of Democratic Youth... Wherever we could we infiltrated WFDY. Otherwise we used our own front organisations to brand it as a Soviet stooge set-up... We got their HQ expelled from Paris in ‘51. Had to set up in Budapest... They do a lot of good work - travel, culture, breaking up anti-nuclear rallies..... That kind of thing...” He thought some more. “Yeah, maybe we should get you enrolled onto some kind of course at the L.S.E., so you can stay with this guy... monitor him closely. What d’you say?”

“... Yeah, well. Don’t rush me. He’s not even a SMARTARSE yet.”

We spoke for a bit more after that, but he wasn’t going to deliver on names alone. The money would come in exchange for hard facts and those would be harder.

“Better be off then, Alex.”

“What here? Don’t I get a lift back?”

“Come on. Shape up. You’re a professional.”‘

Grudgingly I got out and slammed the door. I hadn’t got a clue where I was. Opposite a footpath insinuated itself between two houses and led up a slight slope to another street beyond. I crossed the road and made my way up the footpath but at the top it discharged into what looked like a cul-de-sac of nineteen thirties semi-detached houses, a small enclave in an otherwise Victorian area. I trudged back down the path but as I neared its end I was arrested by the sound of Frank’s voice speaking in authoritative tones. I sneaked to the edge of the side wall of the house flanking the alley and peered round. Two heavy looking guys in belted raincoats like they used in the Strand Ads. were standing next to the driver’s door. Frank was giving them orders. They weren’t talking, just listening. He finished at that moment and his car pulled away instantly. He was obviously used to being understood and not questioned. The two guys were left standing in the middle of the street. They turned to look at the alleyway where I was concealed. I too understood - instinct, something malignant in my make up. Something told me they had just been ordered to get me, that there was evil abroad. They started walking towards the alley and as I turned and fled I heard the footsteps behind me start running - That Bastard Frank. That Scheming Cunt. Something whistled high and wide and smacked ricocheting against a wall - A bullet. I could hardly believe what was going on. Five minutes ago I had been sitting in the front passenger seat of Frank’s car chatting amicably about my proposed role as agent provocateur. Now he had loosed a couple of hired killers on me. I reached the top of the alley in a faster time than I would previously have imagined possible. It couldn’t be a cul-de-sac, it couldn’t. Then I saw it. At the end of the short road, in a corner, a black and white striped bollard stopped kids cycling two abreast down another gap between houses. I ran to it bending double behind parked cars. A guy doing some repair work to the sidecar of a lambretta stopped and watched me in casual amazement. I didn’t stop to register his disbelief rating on seeing the two hoods. I skidded to a halt and raced up the alley as another bullet was loosed off in my direction and I heard the sound of flaking masonry not too far distant. Thus far I had made the front page of the South London Press, and I could see the story getting bigger by the second. The alley was short - another mere gap between houses that terminated at its end at the entrance to some allotment patches. It was at the top of one of the many rises in South London that give superb and unexpected panoramas of the city. Below were The Houses of Parliament, St Pauls, Tower Bridge, the Thames and the Tower. But I was too busy to look. The allotments were not well tended, many were completely neglected and overgrown, some were only partially cleared for the planting of a few uninspired winter vegetables. There was no one around. I jumped over some chestnut fencing that had already sagged inwards, encroaching on the boundary it was meant to protect.

My superior motivation had distanced me from my pursuers over the course of the chase. I plunged across three or four plots and dived headlong into the beginnings of an overgrown section that extended to the perimeter on the other side. Thistles or the like tore at my skin through my trousers. I heard the two guys arrive. They stopped, panting for breath. They were talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I didn’t move. I could hear the sounds of movement, of search. In front of me through the grass I could see the roofs of the houses going down the hill towards London. Between me and the first house was about fifty yards of overgrown allotment of that dull green hue into which the London sky transforms all foliage. I saw one of them picking his way across it, a gun in his hand. He looked swarthy, could have been American, French, English...anything. He was met by his mate who had gone round the other way. They leaned against a broken down greenhouse whose panes had been smashed long ago. Together they looked back towards me and around me. I wasn’t certain they couldn’t see me. My arse felt like it was sticking up like a reference point on an Ordinance Survey map. My heart was still pounding, reverberating through my body. I felt the first drops of rain fall tentatively from the sky and then felt the rhythm quicken as a drizzle set in. I saw one of them stretch out his hand to examine the changed conditions more closely. The way they were looking I could see they didn’t relish the thought of coming back and examining every square yard in detail. Every profession has its malingerers - even murder. They spoke a bit more and leaned back on the greenhouse in a way that suggested they considered their exertions for the day over. After a while they lit up cigarettes and, after surveying the scene with obvious contempt, set off on what must be a path leading out on the other side.