succession.
'You encouraged them to snatch Ferdy,' I accused Schlegel.
'These grapes are good,' said Dawlish. 'Must be hot-house at this time of year but they're awfully sweet.'
'You bastard,' I said.
Schlegel said, 'Ferdy was deep into Toliver's set-up. He needn't have gone on the trip at all, but he insisted.'
'So you two have been conniving all down the line?'
'Conniving?' said Dawlish. 'Sure you won't try a grape. No? Well, I mustn't eat them all.' But he helped himself to another. 'Conniving isn't at all the word I'd choose. Colonel Schlegel was sent to help us sort out the Toliver complication — we appreciated his help.'
'… got it,' I said. 'Use Colonel Schegel to beat Toliver over the head. Then if Toliver complains to the Home Secretary you say its the C.I.A. doing it. Neat, but not gaudy.'
'Toliver came near to knocking you off,' said Schlegel. 'Don't shed any tears for that bastard.'
'Well, I'm sure he'll be taken care of, now.'
'He's discredited,' said Dawlish. 'That's all we wanted.'
'And all the hard work is being done by Russian security,' I said. I picked up the newspaper.
TWO JOIN SOVIET POLITBURO, THREE OUSTED.
Moscow (Reuters)
The first Politburo shake-out since the ousting of Nikita Khrushchev was announced at the end of a two-day meeting of the Central Committee.
According to observers here the new line-up means the end of all hopes for the German treaty of federalization.
I pushed the paper aside. The stop press said the D Mark had already begun falling against the dollar and sterling. So that was it. A united Germany would have upset the status quo. Its agricultural East would make French agriculture suffer, with a resulting gain for the French communists. Meanwhile Germany got a share in the Common Market's agricultural share-out. Germany's contribution to NATO — something like a third of all nato forces-would certainly have to be dismantled tinder the treaty's terms. U.S. forces in Germany would not be able to withdraw to France, which wasn't a member of NATO. And this was timed for a period when the U.S.A. would be changing to an all-volunteer force. It would inevitably mean U.S. withdrawal from Europe. Just as Russia had completed its big five year military build-up. Yes, worth a couple of operatives.
They both watched me as I finished reading. 'And the Russians arrested all the Remoziva;s just on the basis of us meeting that chopper?'
'Don't you care that you've helped to frame completely innocent people?'
'You've got it wrong, haven't you? It wasn't British policemen who went out arresting everyone named Remoziva the other morning, it was Russian communist policemen. And the people they arrested were working very energetically to strengthen, improve and expand this system that arrests people in the middle of the night on the grounds that they might be an enemy of the state. I don't intend to lose any sleep over it.'
'Just to foul up the reunification, eh?' I said.
'They've got an analogue computer at the Foreign Office you know,' said Dawlish.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'It's not supposed to mean anything. It's a fact. They put the German reunification on it and didn't like the scenario one little bit.'
I helped myself to one of my fast disappearing grapes. Dawlish said, 'You are bound to feel a bit depressed for a while: it's the drugs. You were in. a bad way, you know.'
'Does Marjorie know I'm here?'
'I've been trying to get hold of her, Pat. She's left the hospital.'
It was a softer voice he used. 'She seems to have cancelled the bread and the milk deliveries.'
'Did she go to Los Angeles?'
'We're not sure,' said Dawlish, trying to break it to me, gently. 'We've only just got her family's address in Wales. Quite a tongue-twister, it is. She might be there.'
'No,' I said. 'Forget it.'
I turned away from my two visitors. For a moment I saw the wallpaper that I never did replace and heard Marjorie greet me as I returned from a trip. The bookshelves would now be cleared of those damned anaemia books but I'd go on finding hairpins down the back of the sofa.
Self-pity reached in and grabbed my breakfast. It hurt, and if you want to say it was nothing but a self- inflicted wound, I can only reply that it hurt none the less because of that. Ferdy had gone and Marjorie too: the comfortable little world I'd built up since leaving the department had disappeared as if it had never been.
'Are they treating you well in here?' said Dawlish.
'Pickled fish for breakfast,' I said.
'The reason I ask', said Dawlish, 'is that we have a bit of a problem… It's a security job…'
I suppose I might have guessed that a man like that doesn't fly to Norway to bring anyone grapes.
