'Suppose I was afraid of heights?'
He began to understand. He said, 'We were just told to bring you the message, and give you a lift if you wanted it. As long as you identify yourself, that will get me out of trouble…' He lifted a hand awkwardly to show that he had no instructions about collaring me.
'O.K.,' I said. 'Let's go,' He smiled and unlocked the passenger door for me.
The helicopter was a museum piece: a Westland Dragonfly painted in the Royal Navy livery of dark steel blue. There were no roundels on it, and no lettering except for a civil registration number painted no larger than the 'Beware of the Rotor' sign at the back.
The pilot's appearance was similarly discreet. He wore military flyer's overalls, with maggots of cotton outlining clean patches from which the badges had been removed. He was in the left-hand seat by the time the car was parked, and as I climbed aboard the main rotor was spinning The noise of the blades, and the old piston engine, inhibited conversation. I contented myself with looking out at the tall chimneys of Fulham making billowing white gauze curtains that closed across the river behind us. We passed over Wandsworth Bridge, keeping to the course of the river, as the safety regulations specify for everyone except royalty.
From the private aircraft park at London Heathrow, the same pilot took a Beagle Pup, Within an hour of leaving Marjorie outside The Terrine I was over Rugby at eight thousand feet and still climbing. We were heading north-west and, according to the gauges, sufficiently fuelled to get to the last landfall of the Outer Hebrides. The map on the pilot's knee bore an ancient wax pencil mark that continued in that direction and ended only on the margin. Now and again he smiled and stabbed a finger at the map and at the Plexiglass, to show me the Mi Motorway, or the dark-grey smear on the horizon behind which Coventry coughed. He offered me a cigarette but I declined. I asked him where we were going. He slid his headset back off his head and cupped his ear. I asked again but he shrugged and smiled as if I'd asked him to predict the outcome of the next general election.
A winter's sun was a carelessly sprayed yellow patch on the hard cumulus clouds that were building up over Ireland. Liverpool — and a Mersey crowded with ships — slid beneath our starboard wing, and ahead the Irish Sea glittered like a cheap brass tray. Flying over the ocean in single-engined light planes could never become a pleasure for me but the pilot smiled, pleased to get clear of the Control Zone and reporting areas, and off the confluence of airways through which came traffic jams of commercial jets. He climbed again, now that he was no longer forced down under the lanes, and that comforted me.
I studied the map. This aircraft's electronics were primitive. Flying V.F.R. meant he'd have to put it down before dark. The huge shape of the Isle of Man was only just visible in the gloomy ocean to port. He was not going there, nor to the airport at Blackpool, which we'd already passed. The fuel needles were flickering and still we maintained the same course that we'd steered since Castle Donington. It would be the chin of Scotland, or beyond that its nose, drooped down into the Western Isles. After the peninsula of Kintyre our track would be past the Scottish mainland. Then there were just the Islands and the Atlantic and eventually, long after the last drip of fuel had sounded the final beat of the little engine, Iceland. It had to be an island or a piece of peninsula. I just hoped that it would come over the horizon soon.
'The only way to guarantee privacy, old chap,' said Toliver. He replenished my tumbler from a decanter of malt whisky. 'The grass strip and the landing stage were built in 1941. This peninsula and the neighbouring islands were taken over by the military. Some were used for testing biological warfare stuff. Anthrax was the most persistent… won't be safe for a hundred years, they say. Ours was used for training secret agents: the big manor house, the high cliffs, the ruined villages — there was a good sampling of landscape.'
Toliver smiled. Once, many years before, in the sort of electioneering invective that endears politicians to all of us, his opponent had called Toliver a 'talking potato'. It was a cruel taunt, for it made one notice the small black eyes, receding hair and oval face that were part of his otherwise boyish features.
He smiled now. 'What I'm about to tell you comes under the contract. You understand me?'
I understood him well enough. Every time I signed that damned Official Secrets Act I read the fine print. I nodded and turned to look out of the window. It was dark but there remained a watery pink sky in the west, with a pattern of trees drawn on it. Beyond them, I knew the aircraft was pegged down tightly against the chance of winds that came off the Atlantic with a sudden and terrible fury. But I could see more reflected in the leaded v/indow than I could see through it. The flames flickered in the open hearth behind me, and men were seated around it drinking and speaking softly so that they could half listen to the words that Toliver spoke to me.
'It's too late to leave,' I said. 'You'd have to be damned inhospitable for me to want to face a take-off in this… and positively hostile before I'd brave the water.'
'Splendid,' said Toliver. 'That's all we ask. Take a look at what we're doing — no less, no more. Should you want no part of it — no hard feelings.'
I turned away from the window. This sober Toliver was a different man from the one I'd seen the other night at Ferdy's. It had become understood between us that the dinner party was not mentioned, nor the traffic accident that might, or might not, have come after it. 'It will make a change,' I said.
'Exactly. Nice of Colonel Schlegel to let us steal one of his best people… even for a couple of days.' Toliver touched my elbow and. turned me to face the other men in the room.
Among them I recognized Mason. I also saw the tall policeman who had been at number eighteen that night. The others called him Commander Wheeler. They were all talking softly together but the words flared up a little in good-natured argument.
'… worse in a way — more insidious — pop music and nancy-boy actors.'
'And most of the big international concerns are American-based.'
'No doubt about it.'
'You can't separate them.' It was the tall man speaking. 'Ecology — as they persist in calling it, God knows why — trade unions, big business: all in league, even if unwittingly so.'
'Growth,' said Mason, as if they'd had this argument before and each knew his lines.
'The unions want money for the workers, this forces a policy of growth on the government, so industry pollutes the earth. It's a vicious circle and all of them too stupid to break it.'
'It all comes back to the voter.'
'Yes, it does,' said Mason regretfully.
They were robust types, with quiet voices that here and there retained a trace of Yorkshire or Scotland. I looked for some strong common denominator in the group and was irritated with myself for finding none. Their clothes were well-fitting tweeds and cords, with the leather patches and frayed cuffs so often affected by prosperous Englishmen. The group suggested to me some provincial dining club, where ambitious young men drank too much wine, and agreed that the workers would be better off without trade unions.
'You get these damned Huns reunified and you'll start to see what's what,' said Wheeler.
'Who will?' said Mason.
'Everyone,' said Toliver. He couldn't resist joining their conversation, even though he'd been about to introduce me. 'East Germany is largely agricultural. It will knock agriculture for sis, and their shipbuilding will close the rest of our yards, mark my words.'
'It's going to turn Europe upside down,' said another man.
'The Yanks are behind it,' said Wheeler. 'God knows what kind of a deal they are cooking up behind the scenes with the Russians.'
'This is Pat,' Toliver announced. 'Pat Armstrong — works at the Studies Centre and…' Toliver appraised me with a quick glance up and down, '… a man who knows how to look after himself if I'm any judge. What?' He looked at me quizzically.
'I play a dangerous game of billiards,' I said.
There were half a dozen of them, aged from middle twenties up to Toliver. Their common interest: could have been anything from chess to yachting. I was unsure whether Whitehall was behind them, or just turning a blind eye their way,
'Commander Wheeler,' said Toliver putting an arm around Wheeler's shoulder. 'Our guest would probably like to be put into the picture.'
'And he's cleared for Top Secret stuff, is he?' said Wheeler. He was a tall man, with the kind of ruddy face that comes with those dual benefits of sea-faring: open air and duty-free drink. He had this deep flag-officer voice, and he bit down hard on his Latin roots. 'You probably know as much about Rear-Admiral Remoziva as we do,' he
