Icelight Page 4

  There was a sizeable if rudimentary kitchen with glazed double doors to the living room. On the left, down a corridor, were a bedroom with two single beds, the bathroom and, on the other side, a small room giving on to an internal courtyard-cum-lightshaft that he guessed had been for a maid. At the end of the corridor was the bedroom he used, with a window that gave on to D’Oyley Street.

  There was a gas supply to the kitchen and to the main bedroom, where there was a fireplace containing a structure resembling punctured rolls of parchment that lit up with a plosive puff, at first with a blue-tinged flame that then turned yellow. If used for more than a few minutes, the stack of broken parchment turned red and caused headaches. The electric fire in the sitting room was a mix of ceramic and metal, squares of pristine honeycomb and various wires, some coiled, some protective.

  Cotton put Joan’s food parcel on the kitchen table. He opened the letter. Ayrtoun told him his American contact was Ed Lowell. Lowell would be in touch ‘very shortly’. He might find a journalist called Miles Crichton useful. ‘He camps out at the Garrick Club. I have told him to contact you.’ The handwritten letter was initialled. There were two postscripts: ‘It is not a question of stopping Briggs or getting rid of him – more showing him his limitations in as kindly and as cooperative a way as you can.’

  The final note told him to keep the original appointment card and destroy the letter. He did. He then took the paper off Joan’s parcel and found two envelopes, one to his father, one to him. He opened his. It was a Christmas card. On one side Joan had written: ‘Do try to get Dad to cross the Atlantic and visit us. He has never even seen his grandchildren.’

  The parcel contained American plenty, mostly in cans. There was canned tuna, canned clams, a large can of ham, and of asparagus, spinach, peaches, pears and pineapple. There was also coffee and something called Turbinado sugar. It was pale brown, and looked to Cotton like Demerara. He made a list of the items and wrote a thank-you letter. ‘We’re awfully grateful,’ he began.

  On his desk on Monday, Cotton found an invitation from Ed Lowell to have lunch the next day and, on Garrick Club paper, a suggestion from Miles Crichton that they meet on Wednesday.

  Cotton had to spend the rest of the day calming an agitated Portman.

  ‘There’s a whole selection process to go through! It will take two, perhaps three months to choose Lloyd’s successor. Whitehall won’t speed up but they hold me responsible for finding an acting replacement.’

  They talked about possible candidates.

  ‘Is what you’re doing so awfully important?’

  Cotton showed Portman his card.

  ‘Damn!’ said Portman. ‘Pity. I’d have preferred you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You always give the impression you’re about to give someone two fingers.’

  Cotton smiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s not something I mean to do.’

  On Tuesday, Cotton met Ed Lowell for lunch at the Connaught in Carlos Place, Mayfair. The five-star hotel had something of a reputation as the local for Americans, only a short stroll away from the Grosvenor Square Embassy.

  Lowell struck Cotton as looking more like a State Department diplomat than an intelligence officer. He had the small affectations of style that Cotton had seen in British rather than American diplomats, to show they weren’t run of the mill – two buttons of the left sleeve of his suit undone, his wristwatch worn over his shirt cuff and – he was sitting in an armchair by the fire in the bar to the left of the entrance – showing dark green silk socks. Ed Lowell rose. His tie was also green silk but many shades lighter. Cotton was six foot one. Lowell was taller, a little stooped if only out of politeness, and had the slightly embarrassed manner, not quite of a junior master about to instruct the boys in the facts of life, but of a patrician academic who had, by bank account and brain, inherited considerably more than his fair share.

  He did not shake Cotton’s hand. He tugged at it, as if at a velvet bell-pull.

  ‘Shall we?’ he said.

  In an era of strict rationing, restaurants had been spared. At one level at least, supply and demand worked for those with money to eat out. Prices had been set, but restaurants had shown great ingenuity to cater for those prepared to pay more. Cotton had once been taught that restaurants came about because of the French Revolution. The chefs at suddenly headless great houses had decided to spread their delicacies to a wider and, though living, still limited market.

  Lowell and Cotton were led across the entrance hall through another bar and into the panelled dining room. An actress Cotton could not quite place was having a crystal flute of champagne with an elderly man. His pate and face were tanned the colour of brandy, setting off the strip of white hair above his ears. Her face was the colour of single cream, her lips cochineal. Both were wearing new suits, hers shiny, satin, black; his double-breasted pale grey.

  Cotton and his host were given a table for those less anxious to be recognized, towards the windows.

  Lowell sat down, then abruptly held up his arms as if surrendering.

  ‘Now wasn’t that just a wonderful speech Winston gave in Missouri earlier this year?’ he said as a waiter draped a napkin over his lap.

  He meant – another waiter was flourishing a napkin for Cotton – Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech delivered on 5 March 1946.

  ‘But Winston’s gone,’ Lowell went on. ‘And then poor old Maynard passed.’

  John Maynard Keynes had died in April.

  ‘Leaving us with our skirts up and our knees trembling at the prospect of Soviet rapine?’ said Cotton.

  Lowell paused. His face showed polite pain but not a great deal of enquiry.

  ‘Shall we order then?’

  Cotton was not that good at distinguishing different American accents but was fairly confident Lowell was from the Brahmin, or what his sister Joan called the cold-roast side of Boston. There was something husky and constrained about his voice, as if his throat was getting hoarse from being obliged to be sociable. These sounds did not so much vary as waver and jump. The o of old, for example, sounded probably more English than Cotton’s, but the o of order was like ‘awda’.

  Lowell chose paté de foie gras, a rare steak, and mint ice-cream on a praline tart. Cotton chose scallops, turbot, and a lemon sorbet. The choice of wine was not a problem. Ed Lowell dismissed the sommelier’s wine list with a wave of his hand.

  ‘I have to work this afternoon,’ he said.

  Cotton raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’ he said.

  Lowell smiled, again as if unsure, and then chose a Virgin Mary.

  The sommelier spoke up. ‘Might I suggest a chaste Bellini, sir,’ he said to Cotton. ‘Without the Prosecco? But with alternative bubbles?’

  Cotton was doubtful. ‘Do you think that would work?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the sommelier. ‘I assure you. I can give you my guarantee.’

  There was a story in Whitehall that the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, had just persuaded Cabinet that Britain should proceed with developing the atom bomb regardless of whether or not they could afford it, because he had just had US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes on the telephone and was not going to be spoken to like that ever again. Evidently the sommelier was having a similar, if more masked reaction to Ed Lowell.

  Imperturbable, Lowell decided on another tack, but continued to insist on British weakness.

  ‘When do you think your government will honour the agreement to make the pound sterling convertible?’

  Cotton shrugged his shoulders. ‘No idea.’

  ‘How long after that before you devalue?’

  ‘Likewise,’ said Cotton. ‘You wouldn’t like to get to business, would you?’

  Lowell smiled. ‘You have a reputation for being straightforward,’ he said.

  The Bellini arrived. The sommelier had simply used champagne instead of Prosecco.

  Cotton tasted it and tried to look apologetic. ‘I know nothing about you or your repu
tation.’

  To Cotton’s surprise Lowell looked discomfited, though perhaps out of embarrassment at Cotton’s bluntness. For some reason the first name of the actress across the room came to Cotton. It was Patricia, but he could not decide whether her surname was Roc or Medina because both were half-known to him from billboards, perhaps a magazine, and a notion that both tended to act in off-the-shoulder costume dramas.

  ‘Mr Lowell—’

  Lowell held up a large, manicured hand. ‘Oh, call me Ed, please. By the way, that is not short for Edward, but Edwin.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Cotton. ‘Well, do please call me Peter.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In the US you have more experience of a variety of security agencies than we have. Do you have any senators or representatives who run their own operations?’

  Lowell considered, probably, thought Cotton, as to whether or not this approach to business was acceptable. Then he nodded.

  ‘No, not in that way,’ he said. ‘We have committees. In any case, we don’t consider Major Briggs to have an organization as such.’

  Cotton smiled. ‘We use the phrase “a keen interest in certain aspects of security” I think.’

  Lowell did not smile but he did nod. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Would you know how he’s financing this interest?’ asked Cotton.

  Lowell shook his head. ‘It’s not Communistic.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Lowell paused. ‘We’re not funding him either.’

  Cotton nodded. At least Lowell was beginning to choose his words with obvious care. ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Not directly, no,’ said Lowell. ‘Our reading of him is that he’s an English nationalist.’

  ‘You’re using English for British?’

  ‘No,’ said Lowell. ‘The Major doesn’t like the Scotch.’

  ‘For any particular reason?’

  Ed Lowell blinked. ‘It may be his first commanding officer was a Scotchman and didn’t cut him much slack.’

  Cotton smiled. He agreed he should have known. ‘I haven’t met Major Briggs yet,’ he said. ‘But I understand I’ll be doing so shortly.’

  Their first courses arrived. Cotton cut into a scallop and placed about a third of it on his tongue. To his own surprise, he almost moaned. The last time he had eaten anything so good was some three months ago when he had been given a real ham sandwich.

  ‘Is that satisfactory?’ said Ed Lowell.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Cotton.

  ‘Mine could be a little warmer,’ said the American.

  Cotton decided to eat another bit of scallop before he spoke again. It was wonderful.

  ‘Tell me what worries you,’ he said.

  There was a pause. Ed Lowell seemed to be considering whether the foie gras was acceptable or not. He nodded.

  ‘We consider some members of the Labour Government to be either pro-Soviet or anti-American.’

  ‘Is there someone in particular you have in mind?’

  ‘Some concerns have been expressed about Sir Stafford Cripps.’

  Cotton was genuinely surprised.

  ‘Why? He’s not a Communist. His objection to a British atom bomb is purely on the grounds of cost. He’s not trying to curry favour with you – or with the Soviets.’

  ‘Rolls Royce,’ said Lowell.

  Rolls Royce had developed a centrifugal jet engine, the RB41 or Nene, designed by Frank Whittle. When approached by his own jet engine scientists about this, Stalin had expressed doubts that anyone in the West would be stupid enough to help them out. He had not counted on Sir Stafford Cripps. Cripps had not only invited a Soviet delegation to Britain to see the engines, but, as a gesture of good faith, he had even gifted twenty-five of the engines to the Soviets, apparently thinking this would encourage them to sign up for a licensing agreement that would bring in much needed cash. The Soviets had gratefully accepted the jet engines but had not signed any commercial agreement. Instead, they had promptly started to ‘reverse engineer’ the gifts with a view to manufacturing their own jet engines for a new fighter plane. The British Cabinet, under the guise of collective responsibility, had decided to close ranks round Sir Stafford and back his decision.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Cotton. ‘That kind of thing has a cost.’

  ‘You really would think so,’ said Ed, ‘but we understand there’s a movement to replace Prime Minister Attlee with him.’

  Cotton shook his head. ‘It won’t happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There was a movement for Cripps to replace Churchill a couple of years ago.’ Cotton shrugged. ‘This is merely the peacetime echo. Foreign Secretary Bevin doesn’t like him. That is why, just like Churchill, he keeps sending Cripps away on visits to India to talk to Gandhi. Gandhi was inelegant enough to suggest to a journalist that his visitor was akin to an old-fashioned bank manager unaware his bank is bust.’ Cotton shook his head. ‘Sir Stafford is not the kind of man to stoop to know this. That’s why Churchill said “There but for the grace of God, goes God”.’

  Lowell frowned. ‘I never quite understood that. What does it mean exactly?’

  ‘That were he to perform a miracle it would be to make wine into water. As better for us, you see. Most down-to-earth Labour politicians know that the electorate would prefer more bread and dripping to more austerity. Sir Stafford has the principled innocence of the prohibitionist.’

  Lowell considered. ‘What’s dripping?’ he said.

  ‘Animal fat left over from roasting. It congeals as a sort of greasy memory of meat for people who don’t often get to eat it.’

  Their first-course plates were removed and replaced by the second course. Lowell bent over a large steak and breathed in. He picked up a knife and fork and cut into it.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s rare. You British are not so good at that.’

  Cotton watched Ed Lowell cut the steak up into smallish pieces before putting down his knife and changing the fork from his left to his right hand. Though Cotton was impressed the Connaught had even been able to provide steak, he was a little more intrigued that Lowell had not mentioned Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, as a candidate to take over as Prime Minister, particularly as a much stronger Westminster rumour than anything to do with Cripps, had Morrison on the US government’s payroll. His turbot, though not as shockingly good as the scallops, was excellent.

  ‘MI5 is hamstrung,’ said Lowell.

  ‘It is,’ said Cotton. ‘Apparently that’s one of the reasons I am talking to you.’

  Lowell moved on to MI6. ‘Sir Stewart Menzies is a great bureaucrat and infighter. But he has a tendency to leave security work to others.’

  Cotton nodded. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Too many loose ends, Peter. We want to see things tightened up.’

  ‘But who doesn’t, Ed? The USA have just spent more than a year on ferocious domestic wrangling while everybody else waits for a successor to the wartime OSS.’

  ‘It’ll come,’ said Lowell. ‘There is no doubt about that.’

  ‘I’m sure it will. But one of our problems is that you Americans are extraordinarily forgiving of your own slow processes but rather demanding that we speed up. Since we are trying to keep in step with you, but you haven’t yet fixed on quite what you are doing, this is not as easy as you might like.’

  ‘Another chaste Bellini, sir?’ said the sommelier.

  Cotton was not much of a drinker. But he decided to accept.

  ‘Yes, thank you. Very refreshing.’

  ‘And I’ll have another Virgin Mary,’ said Ed Lowell. He sat back. He smiled.

  ‘Do you hunt, Peter? Fish?’

  ‘No,’ said Cotton. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I was in Norfolk over the weekend. Pheasant.’

  ‘Interesting?’ said Cotton.

  Ed Lowell smiled. ‘I think it was. Your class system is—’

  ‘Silly, nasty, and crippling,’ said Cotton.

  Ed Lowell smiled again and le
ant forward. ‘You do know I have no interest in homosexuals per se? It’s security risks we’re after.’

  ‘Per se,’ said Cotton.

  ‘It’s vital you keep me abreast of things.’

  Cotton thought about that. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not. You mean it’s convenient for you. But I can’t give you any guarantees, Ed. I haven’t started yet, and to promise anything now would be absurd.’

  Ed Lowell nodded. ‘I do need a form of words, Peter.’

  ‘Try “full and willing cooperation” then.’

  ‘Words matter.’

  ‘Of course they do. But today you’re not getting any words that could inconvenience me.’

  Ed Lowell raised his chin. ‘Are you asking me to trust you?’

  ‘I’m not sure I am, Ed.’

  Ed Lowell laughed. Cotton had the impression he had just, satisfactorily from Ed’s point of view, conformed to type. He didn’t know what that type was.

  Cotton could not recall many difficulties in understanding Americans when he had been in Washington. Ed Lowell, however, had been difficult and then, almost as if a timer had gone off, wanted to appear as much chummy as demanding.

  ‘Are you enjoying your meal, Peter?’

  ‘Oh yes, Ed,’ said Cotton.

  Lowell smiled. ‘Good. I think I understand you better.’ He wagged a finger. ‘We should do well.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so, Ed.’

  5

  COTTON HAD agreed to meet Derek Jennings that evening in a cocktail lounge of Derek’s choice. It was called ‘The Beaufort Club. Private Members Only’. Before the war, the chairs had been painted a pale green but they now looked tired and scratched. The waiter wore a faded red bum-freezer type jacket. The patterned carpet had as many stains as swirls. Derek was wearing another new suit. It looked big for him and Cotton understood that Derek was really very thin. The wide-shouldered, wide-lapelled suit formed a kind of screen from which there were not quite in place projections of elbows and knees.