‘Then I got my first piece of hard evidence against Rice. He’d been in contact with the German Embassy in Mexico City. And that was when I made my second mistake — I didn’t arrest him there and then. Instead, I arranged for a meeting between him and Frisby — on some incidental pretext, I can’t remember what. I went armed, in Rice’s car. Rice was supposed to have the impression that I was on his side, ready to fix a deal. We arranged to meet outside the town, without witnesses — the sort of place where I could use some strong-arm stuff, if necessary.
‘It was dark. I suspect Frisby had been drinking — though I can’t be sure, because there was never an autopsy. He just stepped out into our lights as we approached, and Rice accelerated and ran him down, splitting his skull open. Rice said he thought it was a wild dog, but I knew damn well it was a lie. I was mad at the man, I can tell you. I filed official complaints, to the Mexican authorities and through ABCO, that Rice had driven with intent to kill, but both somehow managed to get bunged up in the works. Finally I made out an official report to London, and it seems London was worried enough to send out those two MI6 men. I told them what I thought, as well as what I suspected about Rice’s activities, and why he wanted Frisby out of the way. I was even beginning to fear for my own life and took to going about armed, even sleeping with a gun under my bed.
‘The trouble was, without Frisby I didn’t have much of a case. Rice was grilled, but denied everything. Eventually the two officers went back to London. I don’t think they were entirely happy, but whatever report they made, it conveniently disappeared. It was as though somebody up there was seeing that Rice led a charmed life! It always seemed that way, until this morning.
‘Anyway, shortly after the agents flew back to London, ABCO — in the form of some of their top brass from New York — put a Big Brotherly hand on my shoulder and showed me the error of my ways. Rice’s activities had to be tolerated, and my suspicions — not only in the interests of the Consortium, but also in the national public interest — had to be suppressed. In short, I was told to belt up.’
‘And you went along with that?’ said Hawn.
Toby Shanklin gave an impatient wave of his hand. ‘I was a wild young man in those days. But not so wild, or green, to bite both hands that fed me. And I certainly wasn’t going to finish up like de Vere Frisby, lying like a dead dog in a ditch.’ He gave Hawn a hard, unambiguous stare. ‘There was too much at stake — there still is. And nothing to be gained. Oil is our life-blood — quite as much today as it was during the war. And ABCO is still the heart that pumps that blood. We don’t rock the boat, Hawn.
‘I agree that there may have been a few bad boys about — some of them are now big boys with fat pensions and handles to their names. But we don’t touch them — we absolutely must not touch them — or we not only upset the apple cart, we upset the whole rhythm of Western industrialized society.’ He leant forward and stared grimly at each of them.
‘And here I’m not talking about just a few retired ABCO executives in London and New York — or put out to pasture in Haslemere or Palm Springs. I’m not even talking about protecting ABCO’s reputation. I’m talking about senior figures in the British Wartime Government. No, no,’ he added hastily, holding up both hands this time: ‘You don’t catch me playing the dirty sneak. No tittle-tattle, no smear stories from me!’
Hawn spoke calmly. ‘Civil servants, or politicians?’
‘Both. The whole system was involved. And it wasn’t just a matter of money — not for all of them, anyway. No — they were acting, as always, in the national interest. Because, like all of us, they were shit-scared of the Russians.
‘To really understand, you have to go back to the period — get the real flavour and tone of political thinking of the thirties and forties. Pretty muddled, pretty messy — and sometimes pretty daft. You see, with most of the intelligentsia still convinced that Soviet Russia was a haven over the hill, and with the Red Army seen as the great heroes of the day, the Communist menace was, if anything, even more potent than it is today. It was left to a handful of people at the top of the British and American Establishments to realize that Bolshevism had always been the true enemy. It was all right, of course, when the Russians and Germans were allies, and kissing each other in public — then the menace was clear enough, even to the stupidest soul. But after June 1941, when we woke up to find the Russian bear was on our side, a lot of people had to do a lot of rethinking.
‘As early as 1943 it was becoming fairly obvious that the Nazis were beaten. It was just a matter of time. And time was the crucial factor. For every week, every day, the Russians were getting closer. And
