A Perfect Spy

“That’s a racehorse, isn’t it? Wasn’t there a Princess Sabina who was fancied for the Gold Cup last year?”

“Who’s Poppy?”

“Here. Is Magnus playing the Lovelies again? Mind you, he wouldn’t be his dad’s son if he didn’t.”

“What did he come here for?”

“I told you. Comfort.” Then, by a kind of cruel magnetism, Syd’s gaze slid to the spot where a piece of furniture had stood, before returning, too brazenly, to Brotherhood.

“Well then,” said Syd.

“Tell us something, do you mind?” said Brotherhood. “What was in that corner there?”

“Where?”

“There.”

“Nothing.”

“Furniture? Keepsakes?”

“Nothing.”

“Something of your wife’s you’ve sold?”

“Meg’s? I wouldn’t sell anything of Meg’s if I was starving.”

“What made those lines then?”

“What lines?”

“Where I’m pointing. In the carpet. What made them?”

“Fairies. What’s it to do with you?”

“What’s it to do with Magnus?”

“Nothing. I told you. Don’t repeat things. It annoys me.”

“Where is it?”

“Gone. It isn’t anything. It’s nothing.”

Leaving Syd sitting in his chair, Brotherhood ran up the narrow stairs two at a time. The bathroom was ahead of him. He looked inside then stepped to the main bedroom left. A frilly pink divan filled most of the room. He looked under it, felt beneath the pillows, looked under them. He pulled open the wardrobe and swept aside rows of camel-hair coats and costly women’s dresses. Nothing. A second bedroom lay across the landing but it contained no piece of heavy furniture two feet by two, just heaps of very beautiful white hide suitcases. Returning to the ground floor he inspected the dining-room and kitchen and, from the rear window, the tiny garden leading to the embankment. There was no hut, no garage. He returned to the parlour. Another train was passing. He waited for the sound of it to fade before he spoke. Syd was sitting hard forward in his chair. His hands were clasped over the handle of his blackthorn, his chin rested passively upon them.

“And the tyre marks in your drive,” said Brotherhood. “Did the fairies make them too?”

Then Syd spoke. His lips were tight and the words seemed to hurt him. “Do you swear to me, Scout’s honour, copper, that this is for his country?”

“Yes.”

“Is what he done, which I don’t believe and don’t want to know, unpatriotic or could be?”

“It could be. The most important thing for all of us is to find him.”

“And may you rot if you’re lying to me?”

“And may I rot.”

“You will, copper. Because I love that boy but I never did wrong by my country. He come here to con me, that’s true. He wanted the filing cabinet. Old green filing cabinet Rick gave me to look after when he went off on his travels. ‘Now Rick’s dead, you can release his papers. It’s all right,’ he says. ‘It’s legal. They’re mine. I’m his heir, aren’t I?’”

“What papers?”

“His dad’s life. All his debts. His secrets, you might say. Rickie always kept them in this special cabinet. What he owed us all. One day he was going to see everybody right, we’d never want for anything again. I said no at first. I’d always said no when Rickie was alive, and I didn’t see nothing had changed it. ‘He’s dead,’ I said. ‘Let him have his peace. Nobody never had a better pal than your old dad and you know it, so just you stop asking questions and get on with your own life,’ I says. There’s some bad things in that cabinet. Wentworth was one of them. I don’t know the other names you said. Maybe they’re in there too.”

“Maybe they are.”

“He argued around and so finally I said ‘Take it.’ If Meg had been here, he’d never have had it off me, legal heir or not, but she’s gone. I couldn’t refuse him, that’s the truth. I never could, no more than what I could his dad. He was going to write a book. I didn’t like that either. ‘Your dad never held with books, Titch,’ I said. ‘You know that. He was educated in the university of the world.’ He didn’t listen. He never would when he wanted something. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Take it. And maybe that’ll get him off your back. Shove it in the car and piss off,’ I said, ‘I’ll get the big Mick from next door to help you lift it.’ He wouldn’t. ‘The car’s not right for it,’ he says. ‘It’s not going where the cabinet’s going.’ ‘All right,’ I says, ‘then leave it here and shut up.’”

“Did he leave anything else here?”

“No.”

“Was he carrying a briefcase?”

“A black airy-fairy job with the Queen’s badge on it and two keyholes.”

“How long did he stay?”

“Long enough to con me. An hour, half an hour, what do I know? Wouldn’t even sit down. Couldn’t. He walked back and forth all the time in his black tie, smiling. Kept looking out of the window. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘which bank have you robbed, then? I’ll go and take my money out.’ He used to laugh at jokes like that. He didn’t, but he was smiling all the time. Well, funerals, they take you in a lot of ways, don’t they? I could have done without his smiling all the same.”

“So then he left. With the cabinet?”

“Course he didn’t. He sent the lorry, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did,” said Brotherhood, cursing himself for his stupidity.