man, there are a couple of things he ought to know about himself, and take it from there. I’ve a bloody good mind to give the job to Guy. He won’t piss about.’
‘Bryn, will you listen to me please? The wedding is four days away. Shannon’s on a different planet. It isn’t a question of who approaches him. It’s a question of whether we approach him now or wait till he’s got himself married.’
I too am being testy. I’m a free man. From our bench five yards along the river path, Prue awards me a silent nod of approval.
‘Shannon’s as high as a flute, Bryn. If I make a pass at him now, he’ll tell me to get lost and to hell with the consequences. Bryn?’
‘Wait!’
I wait.
‘You listening?’
Yes, Bryn.
‘I am not allowing Shannon to make another treff with Gamma or anyone else until we own him. Got that?’
Treff for clandestine encounter. German spy jargon. And Bryn’s.
‘And I am seriously supposed to tell him that?’ I retort indignantly.
‘You’re supposed to get on with the fucking job and not waste any more time,’ he snaps back as the temperature between us rises.
‘I’m telling you, Bryn. He’s totally unmanageable in his present mood. Period. I’m not going there till he comes down to earth.’
‘Then where the hell are you going?’
‘Let me talk to his bride, Florence. She’s the only viable route to him.’
‘She’ll tip him off.’
‘She’s Office-trained and she worked for me. She’s savvy and she knows the odds. If I spell out the situation to her, she’ll spell it out to Shannon.’
Background grumble before he comes back hard.
‘Is she conscious? The girl. To what her man’s up to.’
‘I’m not sure it matters what she is, Bryn. Not once I’ve spelt out the position to her. If she’s complicit, she’ll know she’s for the high jump too.’
His voice eases slightly.
‘How do you propose to approach her?’
‘I’ll invite her to lunch.’
More off-stage clatter. Then a vehement comeback: ‘You’ll what?’
‘She’s a grown-up, Bryn. She doesn’t do hysterics and she likes fish.’
Voices off, but Bryn’s not among them.
Finally: ‘Where will you take her, for Christ’s sake?’
‘The same place I took her before.’ Time to pull a bit more temperament. ‘Look, Bryn, if you don’t like what I’m suggesting, fine by me, give the bloody job to Guy. Or come back and do it yourself.’
From our bench, Prue is drawing a finger across her throat as a signal to hang up, but Bryn, with a terse ‘Report back to me the moment you’ve spoken to her,’ has beaten me to it.
Heads down, arm in arm, we stroll back to the house.
‘I think she may have an inkling, all the same,’ Prue reflects. ‘She may not know a lot, but she knows quite enough to worry her.’
‘Well, she’ll have more than an inkling now,’ I reply brutally, as I picture Florence hunched alone amid the builders’ debris of their flat in Hoxton, reading my ten-point letter while Ed sleeps the sleep of the just.
20
It didn’t surprise me – I would have been a lot more surprised if it hadn’t been the case – that I had never seen Florence’s face so taut or so devoid of expression: not even when she was sitting across the table from me in this same restaurant reciting the charge sheet against Dom Trench and his charitable baroness.
As to my own face, reflected in the many mirrors, well: operational deadpan best describes it.
The restaurant is L-shaped. In the smaller section there is a bar with padded benches for guests who have been told their tables aren’t quite ready, so why not sit and drink champagne at twelve quid a flute. And that’s what I am doing now, as I wait for Florence to make her entry. But I am not the only one who is waiting for her. Gone the sleepy-wasp waiters. Today’s crew are obliging to a fault, beginning with the maître d’hôtel who can’t wait to show me the table I have reserved, or to enquire whether I or Madame will be having any dietary requirements or special needs. Our table is not in the window as I had requested – unfortunately all our window tables were long taken, sir – but he dares to hope that this quiet corner will be acceptable to me. He might have added ‘and acceptable to Percy Price’s microphones’ because according to Percy your windows, when there’s heavy background chatter to contend with, can play the very devil with your reception.
But not even Percy’s wizards