Horse Under Water

‘What you give me then?’

‘Not a thing. I told you we have no file and I haven’t the authority to open one.’

Ivor Butcher speared the cherries with a cocktail stick after chasing them around the bright yellow drink.

‘Bring it to my place about seven. I’ll have Dixon, the F.O.’s Portugal expert, with me. But I tell you now, I don’t think there’s a chance that they’ll want it. Even if they do it will be with normal vouchered funds, so don’t pay any supertax in advance.’

The ad-man at the next table said, ‘But bread isn’t a luxury!’

Mr Henry Smith, the world-famous Cabinet Minister, lived in Maidenhead. Either Mr Ivor Butcher was double- crossing his boss or I was being set up.

When I got back to the hotel, the plastic flowers were heavy with the day’s soot and the desk man was working his dentures over with an orange stick. I remembered the name I had given him. ‘Craske,’ I said. He reached back without looking, unhooked my room key and cracked it down on the desk-top without a pause in his dental hygiene curriculum.

‘Visitor waiting for you,’ he said with a heavy Central-European accent. He stabbed the frayed orange stick upward. ‘In your room.’

I leaned forward till my face was closer to his. His razor had missed a section of face. ‘Do you always let strangers into your guests’ rooms?’ I asked.

He removed the orange stick from his face — without haste. ‘Ya, when I think they aren’t likely to complain to the Hotel Proprietors’ Association I do.’

I picked up my key and began to ascend the stairs. ‘Ya,’ I heard him say again.

I went up to the third. The light was on in my room. I switched off the hall light, put my ear to the door and heard nothing. I put the key in the door and turned it quickly. I flung the door open wide and moved through it stooped.

A man can go through his whole life making sure there is no light behind him when he enters a darkened room, unscrewing the base plate of a strange phone before using it, and checking the wiring before conducting a confidential conversation. All his life he can do these things and then on one occasion it is all worth while. However, this was not to be that occasion for me.

Spread-eagled full length on the rose-patterned Terylene bedspread was the seventeen-stone weight of ‘Tinkle Bell’. A large and not clean grey felt hat was parked over his face.

32 For this game

‘It’s only me.’ The words came muffled by the crown of the hat and the sentence ended in a chesty cough. All Tinkle Bell’s sentences ended in a cough. A hand removed the hat from his face and an atomic cloud of smoke rose to the ceiling.

I straightened up, feeling a little foolish.

‘What did you do to the doorman?’ I asked.

‘I showed him an old warrant card I hung on to from the war years.’ Tinkle Bell stood up and produced a half-bottle of Teachers from his coat pocket. He poured a drink, using the two plastic glasses from the sink.

‘Mud in your eye,’ said Tinkle.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

By ingenious articulation of the finger joints he was able to smoke and drink virtually simultaneously. He coughed, smoked and drank for a few minutes.

‘Surprised I found you?’ he coughed. ‘Astute, eh?’ Some more coughing. ‘Not really, y’know. Albufeira phoned this morning with a message. It wasn’t difficult to sort through the plane passenger lists. You’ve used Craske once before, about a year ago.’ He coughed again. ‘Perhaps you’re getting a bit old for this game.’

‘We all are, Tinkle,’ I said, ‘we all are.’ Tinkle nodded and continued to cough and drink.

‘The old man would like to see you tomorrow morning, “10 a.m. if possible”, he said.’

‘Yes, he’s always polite, you must give him that,’ I said.

‘He’s all right, Dawlish,’ said Tinkle, and poured us both another. ‘Oh yes, and I’m to tell you that Jean is awaiting instructions. Perhaps you would phone her as soon as you can.’

He picked up his hat and downed his drink in one smooth motion.

‘Anything I can do for you?’ he said. ‘I’m going back to the office.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘mail interception.’ I gave him Ivor Butcher’s name and address.

‘And phone?’ asked Tinkle.

‘Yes,’ I said, and smiled at the thought, ‘let’s tap his phone.’

‘Right, see you later,’ he said, and I heard him coughing his way down the creaky stairs and out into the street as I began packing my bag again. Before I saw Dawlish at 10 a.m. I hoped to have something up my sleeve.

33 Jean when I find her

I got back to my flat about five thirty. I fixed coffee and started a large coal fire. Outside, lines of mud- spattered cars moved southward out of the city through a gauze of diesel fumes. The weather forecaster was worried about snow and I’ll bet the six o’clock news didn’t relax him any.

I erected a card table in the bedroom, dusted off the Nikon F and clipped it into the holder after loading it with fine resolution film. Over the baseboard four photoflood holders were directed downwards. I flipped the switch and a glare of tungsten light splashed around the walls. I left the bedroom and locked the door behind me.

I was drinking a second cup of Blue Mountain as Jean arrived. Her mouth was cold. We touched noses and exchanged hellos and ‘isn’t-it-turning-colds’ and ‘snow-before-Christmas-I-wouldn’t-be-surpriseds’, then I put her into the Ivor Butcher picture. Jean said, ‘Buy it’, but I didn’t want to do that. If I showed any interest it would reveal more than I wanted to reveal, especially to Ivor Butcher. Jean said I was a paranoiac, but she hadn’t been in the business long enough to develop that sixth sense that I was always telling myself I had.

Ivor Butcher sat in his blue Jag across the road for some time before coming to the front door. It was very professionally done. I took his coat and poured him a drink. We hung around waiting for my fictional man from the F.O. for twenty minutes. Ivor Butcher had the diary in a sealed manilla envelope. When the tension had built up a little I asked him if I could look at it. He passed the envelope across my desk and I tore the top off quickly and extracted a leather diary with gold-edged pages. The surface was scuffed and it didn’t look any too new. Ivor Butcher was about to open his mouth to protest, but I kept the diary tightly shut and he kept his mouth the same way. I put it back into the envelope.

‘Looks O.K.,’ I said. Ivor Butcher nodded. I turned the envelope slowly around, passing it between fingers and thumbs. His eyes watched the envelope. I got up, walked across to him. I folded the torn envelope top and pushed it into the pocket of his shiny, synthetic fibre suit. He smiled sheepishly. ‘I’ll phone the F.O. man’s office,’ I said, and went to the extension phone in the bedroom.

It had been simple to drop the diary out of the torn end of the envelope into my lap and not too difficult to substitute an object of approximately the correct shape and size. Luckily Ivor Butcher’s description of the dimensions had been fairly accurate, but I had two variations handy had it not been.

I clipped it on to the baseboard and switched on the bright lights. I pushed the shutter. Kerlick — the roller blind moved gently across the film. I turned the page and photoed the next one. Now everything depended upon Jean keeping Ivor Butcher occupied. She could reasonably ask him not to come within earshot of a conversation between me and the F.O., but if he got that envelope out of his pocket and found six coupons that would get him a bar of Fairy Soap fourpence cheaper, my photography was liable to be interrupted.

By 12.45 the last print was off the dryer and Ivor Butcher had long since departed, with his diary back once more in his pocket. I went into the lounge; Jean had slipped her shoes off and was dozing in front of the dying coal