A Perfect Spy

Syd Lemon was a tiny, thickset old man these days, dressed all in brown like a rabbit. His brown hair, without a fleck of grey, was parted down the centre of his skull. His brown tie had horses’ heads looking doubtfully at his heart. He wore a trim brown cardigan and pressed brown trousers and his brown toecaps shone like conkers. From amid a maze of sunbaked wrinkles two bright animal eyes shone merrily, though his breath came hard to him. He carried a blackthorn stick with a rubber ferrule, and when he walked he swung his little hips like a skirt to get himself along.

“The next time you press that bell, just say you’re an Englishman,” he advised as he led the way down the tiny, spotless hall. On the walls Brotherhood saw photographs of racehorses, and a younger Syd Lemon wearing Ascot rig. “After that you state your business clearly and I’ll tell you to piss off again,” he ended with a gush of laughter and pivoted awkwardly on his stick so that he could wink at Brotherhood and show him it was just his joke.

“How is the young tyke then?” said Syd.

“In excellent shape, thank you,” said Brotherhood.

Without warning Syd sat himself abruptly on a high-backed chair, then leaned cautiously forward on his stick like a tiny dowager until he had the angle that cost him least discomfort. Brotherhood saw dark shadows under his eyes and a film of sweat on his forehead.

“You’ll have to do the honours for us today, squire, I’m not myself,” he said. “It’s in the corner. Lift the lid. I’ll take a drop of the scotch one for my health and you’ll please yourself.”

A thick maroon carpet ran wall to wall. A lurid painting of a Swiss scene hung above the tiled fireplace, to one side of which stood a fine burr-walnut cocktail cabinet. As Brotherhood lifted the lid, a music box began playing a tune, which was what Syd had been waiting for it to do.

“Know that one, do you?” said Syd. “Listen to it. Put the lid down again — that’s right — now pull it up. There we go.”

“It’s ‘Underneath the Arches,’” Brotherhood said with a smile.

“Course it is. His dad give it me. ‘Syd,’ he says. ‘I can’t afford a gold watch just now, and I’m afraid there’s a temporary problem of liquidity about your pension. But there’s an article of furniture I possess which has given us a lot of fun down the corridor of years which is worth a bob or two and I’d like you to have it as a small token.’ So we run the van up, me and Meg, before the repossession artists got their hands on it. Five years ago that was. He’d bought six of them from Harrods to see his contacts right. There was this one left. He never asked for it back, not once. ‘Still playing, is she, Syd?’ he’d say. ‘Many a good tune played on an old fiddle, you know. I can still surprise them myself.’ He could too. The bloody keyholes wasn’t safe when he was around. Right till the end. I couldn’t get to the funeral. I was indisposed. How was it?”

“I’m told it was beautiful,” said Brotherhood.

“Well it would be. He’d made his mark. They weren’t burying just anybody, you know. That man had shaken hands with some of the Highest in the Land. He called the Duke of Edinburgh ‘Philip.’ Did they write about him when he died? I looked in a few papers but I didn’t see a lot. Then I thought, Well they’re probably saving it up for the Sundays. Of course you can never tell with Fleet Street. I’d have slipped up there if I’d been well, offered them a few bob to make sure. Are you a bogey, sir?”

Brotherhood laughed.

“You look like a bogey. I did time for him, you know. A lot of us did as a matter of fact. ‘Lemon,’ he says — always called me by my surname when he wanted something very badly, I never knew why—‘Lemon, they’ll get me on my signature on those documents. Now if I was to deny it was my signature, and you was to say you’d forged it, nobody would be the wiser, would they?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I would. I’d do a lot of time for it,’ I said to him. ‘If doing time makes you wise, I’m going to be as wise as Methuselah,’ I said. I still did it, mind. I don’t know why. He said I’d have fifty grand when I come out. I knew I wouldn’t. I suppose you could call it friendship really. A cocktail cabinet like that, you couldn’t get one to save your life these days. Here’s to him. Mud in your eye.”

“Cheers,” said Brotherhood and drank while Syd looked on approvingly.