The Contract

'Do you still want to marry Willi Guttmann, make the rest of your life with him?'

'I don't know.' The certainty was gone, the radiance had dripped away.

Just a secretary, one of a hundred, and the prettiness trodden out of her.

'The relevant authorities will inform Guttmann of what you've told me.'

'It's not just me that's to blame…'

'Get out, Miss Forsyth. Get out of this office and never come near it again.'

She didn't understand, he knew that, and his anger was wasted on her.

She hadn't the smallest comprehension of the squalid mess she had left behind her. He tried to recall the face of the boy under his wet and sleeked-down hair, and could remember only the way that he had stood beside the girl and held her hand and looked with love at her and trembled from the cold of the lake.

He walked to the door and opened it and then went across the hallway and unlocked the front door. She hurried past him and when she was gone he heard only the sharp clatter of her heels on the steps.

They stayed up late in the sitting room.

The terms of reference for the evening had been set by Mawby. No shop talk, no gossip about the Service. This was a night off for all concerned, the last they would have, Mawby had said, this was the team familiarising with its selection, learning the mannerisms and habits and pecu- liarities. There was a bottle of whisky on the table and crystal glasses and the level of the drink slipped as the tongues loosened and the laughter echoed from the walls. Mawby played host, his back to the fire, orchestrating the enter- tainment, involving the players, and did it skilfully.

Henry Carter talked of a strike-bound family hotel on the Costa del Sol with guests cooking and washing and making their beds, and a suspicion of cholera up the coast. Adrian Pierce recounted his Cambridge days and the homosexual don who took tutorials in a satin dressing gown and the chase around the table and the flight back to his room. Harry Smithson, a leer at his face and a grin at his mouth, told of the 19-year-old second lieutenant that was himself and the posting to occupation forces in Germany and the favours that could be gained for a pair of soft stockings and a bar of milk chocolate.

Happy, friendly, nonsense talk, and Mawby allowed Johnny to remain on the fringe, to enjoy but not to contri- bute. Sizing them up, weighing them, and he could bide his time over the development of the relationships. No fool, Charles Augustus Mawby. Nobody's fool.

Johnny basked in quiet pleasure because this was how it had been sometimes in the mess, and he was the moth drawn to an old flame.

Johnny had laughed and chuckled at the private faces of the men in the room. Carter for whom nothing worked and the tale was of chaos and failure. Pierce, whose sarcasm was vital and cutting. Smithson the cynic, believing in nothing, trust- ing nobody.

Content to be in charge, giving them their heads and for a purpose, Mawby dispensed the whisky.

And it was good to be part of something again. The noise of the room highlighted the narrowness of the escape bolt that Johnny had chosen for himself in Cherry Road. Run away, hadn't he? Sprinted for cover after the awfulness of the trial. Shunned contact with the great outside and leaned on his frail mother for support. Not healthy, but inevitable. What would any of these men have done if they had sat in the wide dock of the Crown Court in Crumlin Road? Would thay have bounced back and erased the memory of the mili- tary escort across the city each morning and afternoon, and the stern-lipped warders with the keys and chains and trun- cheons? The whisky helped the memories to run, and with the clock chimes Johnny's attention to the jokes and anecdotes became weaker, was replaced. What did these men know of trial for murder?

Nothing, Johnny, but that's not their fault. And they were doing their best to make him forget. But they knew… of course they bloody knew.

The court of the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. A high and red-painted ceiling, ornate moulding, hanging lights, a garish wallpaper, layers of scrubbed duck green paint over the dock and the benches for the lawyers and the journalists and the public. The Lord Chief Justice, without hostility or kindness, asking and probing, writing his answers with a creaking pen. Counsel for the prosecution, the disbelief at his raised eyebrows and the voice that carried the quiet, incisive questions. The father of the girl and her brothers, all in a line, all hunched and staring at Johnny, their eyes never leaving him, all loathing him for the irreplaceable loss that he had brought to their home. Carter and Pierce and Smithson knew of it. Mawby would have read the file, read of the accusation and the defence before he sent his minions to bring Johnny to London. To bring the poor fool who would do what he was told so that he might regain his stature as a free man.

37

Pathetic and snivelling they seemed to him now, his court- room explanations.