Emerald Decision

ident out to the rough, empty sea, listening to the banging of the truck's tailboard, the scuffling of boots and the clink of metal which some freak of the wind brought to him clearly. He might even hear them click on their torches. 'Come on, come on, come on—'

October 198-

McBride wondered whether the crepes suzette after the richly sauced venison was for his benefit, or whether Professor Goessler was indulging himself in the surroundings of the Hotel Spree's dining- room and its cuisine. McBride felt full, and impatient. Goessler — florid, large, beaming, grey hair swept back into wings at the peripheries of a bald pink dome, bulbous nose and full lips — was someone who spoke little while he ate, except for pleasantries concerning the meal. Who would settle the bill had not been decided, but McBride — with some quiet amusement — considered it was more likely to be American Express than the University Bursary.

When Goessler had finished his crepe, he sat back, dabbed his mouth with his napkin in a tidy little gesture that would have suited a smaller head and more delicate hand, and beamed once more on the American.

'Not for your goodwill, you understand,' Goessler said with unexpected perception. 'This is what they serve here every night, not just when Americans are resident.'

McBride laughed, put down his fork. The crepes were beginning to pall on him, possessing a certain unmistakable Germanic heaviness, richness.

'Coffee?' Goessler nodded, and McBride summoned the waiter. 'Schnapps?'

'Bring me an Asbach brandy,' Goessler told the waiter without replying to McBride, as if he had been irritated. There was also a barely masked casualness of authority, as if it had been long- accustomed, about the way he addressed the waiter. 'And you, my friend?'

'I'll pass — just coffee.'

'Bring a pot, and leave it,' Goessler instructed, and the waiter nodded. 'Large cups,' Goessler called after him. He beamed on McBride, as if reassuming a role. 'Now, of course, you wish to talk. Go ahead.'

Permission to speak? McBride was puzzled by Goessler, and resolved the German academic must be interested in his work. Perhaps too interested — then again Goessler, interrupting him as he was about to speak, said: 'Do not worry, my friend, I am not concerned to steal your work—' Again the broad smile, and the mouth almost overfilled with dentures. 'No, I can imagine what you must think of me. Softening you up, mm?' He indicated the plates before them, looked with passing regret at the remains of McBride's crepes. 'No, I am at present at work on more dialectical material — the official history of the German Communist Party, from the beginnings. I don't think any work of yours is likely to throw up new material for me, eh?' He put back his head, laughed, then smoothed the wings of grey hair flat against his head. 'No, no, not that I would not perhaps change places with you—' He leaned forward confidentially. 'To be truthful, much of my research is extremely dull. I do not suppose yours is, mm? What is it — what invasion plans are you wishing to discover?'

'Illuminate, you mean? Each one of the Fallen, every invasion up to and including Barbarossa.' McBride returned the unblinking stare, the slightly fixed smile. Then Goessler nodded, as if releasing him from an hypnotic control.

'Very well, but I warn you, the bones have been well-picked by the Soviet Historical Academy.'

'But for their purposes, not mine.'

'Ah, true — they weren't writing for the American mass-market.' Goessler laughed disarmingly, and McBride felt it impossible to be nettled by the implied slight. 'Anything in particular, my friend?'

McBride had weighed the moment in advance, while showering. He could get nowhere without Goessler — Goessler might know people, as well as documents. He had decided to tell him.

'A little-known invasion plan without a Fall designation — called Smaragdenhalskette? He turned the remark to a question on the last word. Goessler crinkled his shiny forehead, then shook his head. The grey wings of hair loosened their grip on the sides of his head. He brushed them back again.

'The name means nothing to me — but, we can put some of my postgraduate students to work with you, Professor, to save you time.' He clapped his hands together, possibly at the arrival of the coffee and brandy. 'Yes — we shall do that for you, certainly. Your own little research team — and we will see what turns up, mm?'

* * *

David Guthrie sat in one of the beige PVC chairs with a tubular steel frame common to many current affairs programmes. Opposite him sat a renownedly belligerent interviewer, a low glass table between them. Guthrie always insisted on this staged informality when he was interviewed on television, rather than become a talking head and trunk behind a desk. He was never pedagogic in his manner, eschewing all suggestion of lecturing or hectoring that a formal setting might convey.

Red light — a camera moving in on him, the interviewer aware of the director shouting in his earphone and the link-man's voice across the studio. Guthrie felt the slightest pluck of tension; adrenalin sidled through him. He smiled in the general direction of the interviewer, half-profile to the oncoming camera. Behind the cameras, beyond the meagre area of carpet, the bareness of the studio suddenly impressed itself upon him — he kept the smile, but deepened it as if prior to serious thought. His little circle of bright light, himself spotlit — and the rest of it nothing more than a facade.

'Secretary of State, we've heard on the news tonight of a further spate of fire-bombs in Belfast, of two bombs being defused in Birmingham, and an explosion in Glasgow. What do you say to those people who tonight are concerned for their safety?'

Guthrie did not clear his throat, but leaned slightly forward, talking to the interviewer but at points of emphasis turning to the camera.

'I wish there was better news — I can only tell you that the Government, in co-operation with the police, the Special Branch and the security forces in Ulster, is committed to hunting down and removing into custody the people guilty of these hideous crimes—' His eyes glittered, and the interviewer, who knew Guthrie as well as anyone in television, suffered the familiar moment of doubt as Guthrie seemed to shift into a higher gear of response, of emotion. He could not decide — ever — whether it was a political or a human response. 'I saw the film of those people being carried out of the wreckage of that supermarket in Belfast — just as your viewers did. We want this business finished.'

'But, Mr Guthrie, many people may well consider you to be one of those guilty men. Is it not your forthcoming meeting with the Irish Republic's Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues that has provoked this latest round of outrages?' The interviewer disturbed his papers, as if checking his own question.

'I would understand that, except that I'm sure that the people of this country — of the United Kingdom — understand by now that our attempt to preserve the Anglo-Irish Agreement is the only answer, immediately and in the longer term, to the bombings, the killings and the violence. It is not the cause—' He smiled at the camera soberly, with gravitas. 'It is my belief, firmly held, that all the parties here, in Ulster, and in the Irish Republic, with the. sole exception of the IRA, really do want the Agreement to continue to be the basis of our approach to the problems of the Province. What we must not do is to lose resolution. We can win — we will win—'

'Mr Guthrie, you say that we can win. You hold out a degree of optimism. But is it not a fact that the Irish Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues are interested in ending the Anglo-Irish Agreement?'

Guthrie was silent for no more than a moment. He smiled gravely and shook his head almost delicately. 'No,' he said. 'My meetings with him and his colleagues next week are occasions I approach with a deal of cautious optimism.' He looked directly into the camera. 'The Dublin government is not interested in chaos in Ulster. The Prime Minister of the Republic feels the grave responsibility of the hour as much as I do myself. I am firmly convinced that he will not be persuaded by acts of terrorism to withdraw his support for the Agreement. If the Provisional IRA believe that either government will compromise on its determination to defeat the men of violence, then I must tell them that they are wrong.'

'What other subjects — apart from the maintenance of the Agreement — will be on your conference agenda, Minister?'

Guthrie smiled. Authority and confidence, he told himself. Would they come…? How many more bombs would