Horse Under Water

Travel:

Extensive (see ah.40).

Photos:

aa/1424/77671.

36 Sort of Secrets

Kevin walked across to the Country Life calendar, stared at it and turned before answering my question.

‘What’s he like?’ he repeated. ‘It’s hard to say in a few words. He was made a Fellow of All Souls before he was thirty. Which means he is no fool. They say that when he was up for election,’ Kevin paused, ‘it’s probably not true but I’ll tell you anyway. Candidates are invited to stay to dinner to see if they tuck their napkin into their collar or drink from the finger bowl.’ I nodded. ‘Smith was served with a cherry tart to see how he got rid of the pips. But he fooled them by swallowing the cherries, pips and all. I don’t know if it’s true but it’s in character.

‘All Souls is C. P. Snowland. These are the boys who tell the Government what to do. At weekends all the Fellows and a crowd of the “quondams” — men who used to be Fellows — get together for a big gutbash and a cosy yarn — they’re the sort of people who have devoted a lot of time and expensive training to detecting the difference between Russian and Iranian caviare. He has about ninety thousand a year.’ I whistled softly. Kevin repeated, ‘Ninety thousand pounds a year. He pays tax on some of it, and sits on ten or twelve boards who like to have a representative on the old-boy network. Smith’s big contribution is that he can influence affairs abroad with as much aplomb as he can move them here. He can afford to lay off every bet by backing the other side. He paid Germany and Italy for planes, tanks and guns that they were sending to Franco in 1936. He also quietly financed a Loyalist division. When Franco won, his reward was holdings in Spanish breweries and steel works. When he went to Spain in 1947 there was a Spanish Army guard of honour flashing swords around at the airport. Smith was embarrassed and told Franco never to do it again. In South America he has always been quick to put a few thousand into the hands of a discontented general. He’s persona grata with Fidel Castro. It’s gambling without risk.’

The red phone rang. ‘Cassel.’ Kevin pinched his nose. ‘Complicated diagram?’ He pinched the bridge of his nose again. ‘Just photostat it in the normal way, show the engineering people before you destroy the original.’ He listened again. ‘Well, just show them the part that hasn’t got the name on.’ He put the handpiece down. ‘ ’Struth,’ he said, ‘they’ll be asking me if they can go to the lavatory next.

‘Where was I?’

‘I wanted to ask you about shipping investment,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that how he first made his fortune?’

‘Of course, the fiscal side; I always forget that you are the money expert.’

‘Try and tell my bank manager,’ I said. Kevin lit cigarettes for us, then spent several minutes removing a shred of tobacco from his lip.

‘The wartime government insurance of shipping. You know about that?’

I said, ‘The British Government insured all ships carrying cargoes to U.K. during the war, didn’t they?’

‘Yes,’ said Kevin. ‘Overseas suppliers wanted money before the goods left the wharfside at Sydney or Halifax; what happened after that was purely a private arrangement between us and the Germans.’

He smiled, ‘Like your insurance policies and mine the insurances for shipping in 1939 were carrying six-point type saying “except for Acts of War”. It was possible to get insured against U-boat attack in the North Atlantic, but the actuaries had little experience and the assessors were apt to be pessimistic. So H.M.G. decided to do their own insurance. Shipowners bringing goods to the U.K. would be insured against sinking. It didn’t take long for the wide boys of the shipping industry to see the opportunity, and there are some really fly boys in the shipping industry between here and Piraeus. To get rich all you had to do was to buy some rusty, derelict old ruin, register it in Panama where anything goes as far as crew, pay, seaworthiness and experience are concerned, then trundle it off to hobble a North Atlantic convoy to six knots and make enough smoke to alert every U-boat in the vicinity.

‘If it got to Liverpool you were rich, if it sank you were richer.’ Kevin smiled. ‘That’s how Smith got richer.’

The phone rang. ‘Phone me back, I’m busy,’ said Kevin and hung up immediately. He turned back to the card, asking: ‘You understand the pressure column?’

‘Well, I’m no expert,’ I said, ‘but I gather they’re filed items of human weaknesses like drink, women, or membership of the Tory Party Central Committee.’

‘That’s right,’ said Kevin.

‘I know, for example, that references commencing “mh” are sex things.’

‘Feminine complications,’ said Kevin.

‘What a nice way of putting it,’ I said.

‘Makes you cynical though,’ said Kevin, ‘if you work here.’ He smiled.

I read from the card I held: ‘There’s a “gh.”’

‘Accessory after an illegal act,’ said Kevin quick as a shot.

‘Does that mean something he has been prosecuted for?’ I said.

‘Good lord no,’ said Kevin, in an astounded voice. ‘He’s never been in a law court. No, for anything about which the Mets[27] know anything it’s another sort of card altogether — it’s a “j” card.’

‘Spare me the details,’ I said, ‘What about a “wh”?’

‘Bribery of a public servant,’ said Kevin.

‘Again not prosecuted?’

‘No, I told you,’ said Kevin, ‘it has a “j” suffix if it’s been made public. It would be a “wj” card if he had been accused of bribing a public servant.’

‘And “rh”?’ I said.

‘Illegal selling,’ said Kevin. Now I was beginning to understand the system and I’d found the item I wanted.

37 Two readings

After I’d had Jean show me the revised notes of the Strutton Plan and I had torn them into small, bitesized pieces and scattered them into the wastepaper basket like pantomime snow, and after we’d been all through it again, and she’d typed it, I thought some more about Smith. Two items about him were still fuzzy. I phoned Kevin, scrambled, and said, ‘That matter I spoke of this morning.’

‘Yes?’ said Kevin.

‘War service?’ I asked.

‘Ah,’ said Kevin, ‘his mother did very well. Too young for Number 1 and too old for Number 2.’

‘O.K.,’ I said, ‘second question: why did you have his file card so handy on your desk?’

‘Simple, old bean,’ said Kevin, ‘he’d sent for your card only that morning.’

‘That’s just great,’ I said, and I heard Kevin chuckle as he hung up. He could just be kidding, I thought. No one in W.O.O.C.(P) had a card on file at Central Register; but I didn’t chuckle.

38 Chin wag

The butler led me along soft corridors, men in red coats and tight trousers looked quietly down from the dark