The Crocus List - Lyall Gavin - Страница 45

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"And that was sold when the company was wound up?"

"Certainly."

"Do you happen to know who bought the properties? Turnbridge Wells and Eastbourne?"

A slight frown crinkled just above Mr Nightingale's gold-rimmed spectacles. The Uncle Charles connection was wearing thin. "I imagine we still have the conveyancing documents down among the cobwebs somewhere…"

George said: "Well, I dare say I could find out from the Land Registry."

Mr Nightingale beamed with gentle superiority. "I'm afraid you couldn't, you know. You need the permission of the owner to go in for a title search, so you'd have to know the owner first. You mentioned security: I can assure you that one of the most secure things in British life is who owns what property. It's been said, although I wouldn't say it for myself, that the lack of pressure for change stems from the Royal Family's landholdings. A remarkable amount of it is alleged to be held through nominees. If the true title to land were fully disclosed, it might prove that Her Majesty really was the richest lady in the world, which would be, I'm sure you agree"-he Smiled at George over his spectacles-"rather vulgar."

George smouldered quietly.

"Of course," Mr Nightingale added, "you could always go and park a caravan on the grounds. The true owner or owners would have to reveal themselves by going to court to have it removed. A lengthy process, and perhaps you don't have a caravan…" Mr Nightingale was enjoying himself.

"The Americans themselves"-George opted to risk it-"for whom you were acting… can you…?"

"I'm afraid not. Not without a very good reason. You said something about a security aspect…"

"Yes. It's quite possible that Anglam was a front organisation." George decided to plunge; he had already given away too much if Mr Nightingale himself was one of the List, but George didn't think he was, simply because he had been too easy to find.

"A front? For what?" Mr Nightingale was no longer amused.

"We came on the name through a retired CIA man in America; let me put it that way."

"There is a very serious allegation inherent in that."

"Yes," George said carefully. "Hence my quite unofficial approach. Let me say that I would imagine the courses were genuine for most of the time, but on occasional weekends, perhaps, they taught something rather different."

There was a long silence, apart from the creaking of Mr Nightingale's chair as he swung a few degrees either way, frowning down at his desk top. At last he said: "You have no proof of this?"

"And we're unlikely to get any. If it was a front, it was designed precisely to block any such proof, with nominees and cut-outs unto the seventh generation. But I'm not really concerned with your Americans of ten years ago. They're water under the bridge, and if it was murky water…"He shrugged. "I'm only interested if any aspect of Anglam still lives on."

"It was totally wound up."

"Yes… but the properties still, presumably, stand. It's just conceivable that one or other of those houses was passed on to another organisation… A long shot, but the only lead I seem to have. "

"Are you implying that something is still, ah, going on?"

"Something is certainly going on. Whe*e it's going on…"

Mr Nightingale considered. "The reputation of my firm, no matter how innocent our connection… Tell me, Mr Harbinger, how do you envisage this, ah, matter being concluded?"

"Very quietly," George said firmly. "The very last thing my Department wants is any overt scandal with a CIA connection."

"Quite. Indeed, quite. Let me see, now… I could dig up those documents… I seem to recall we dealt through local estate agents, and knowing the properties personally, I might well have recommended them to you, as a prospective buyer… Dear me," he smiled wanly; "I seem to be becoming quite conspiratorial."

When it was late enough for the embassy to be fully staffed, Agnes called to say she probably wouldn't be in, but could perhaps be contacted at the motel number. Now, if the Liaison Office had got the same number from Maxim, then the embassy gossip vine had to be more security-minded than she believed possible for it not to come to one conclusion.

And how close and how far wrong they will be, she thought numbly.

The morning crawled past. St Louis would be a nearly two-hour flight, and then getting to the university and making polite conversation… She drove out for an early lunch at a small diner down the road and was back at the cabin by half past twelve. That was when time really started to drag.

She wished she had brought a bottle of gin with her, even a bottle of wine, but now the only place she could find one was a state liquor store, and while the clerk would know of one, sitting with a bottle waiting for the phone to ring wasn't her own image of herself. Anyway, she'd been drinking too much, of late. She was also running out of cigarettes. But she'd been smoking too much, as well. Pull yourself together, girl.

She lit another one.

I'm not the type to get lonely, she thought. It's a relief to get away by myself for once. She switched on the electric kettle and made a cup of instant coffee flavoured with powdered milk and artificial sweetener. At least the water must be real, she hoped. She spilt it when the phone rang.

"Alan J. Winterbotham."

"Hi, there. How was the flight?" She didn't care if the relief showed.

"Routine. Sorry I've been a time. I've just sent a cable to the club: list of delegates expected for the next week's visit-does that sound okay? The convention was quite a thing, it seems."

"Any mention of Tatham?"

"No." He sounded surprised. "D'you think he was there?"

"I would have been, doing his job. It would need the personal touch." Tatham the believer, recruiter of believers. Yes, he would have been there-but not as Arnold Tatham. "Give me the British names."

He read them over, but Agnes thought she had heard of only two, and one of those now dead.

"If we just get your one," she reassured him, "we're that much further forward. It's up to George now. Are you off to the wilds of Illinois?"

"Wilds is right. It's only two and a half thousand population and one bus a day in each direction. I can't get there tonight: I'll probably spend the night in Springfield and be in something like ten tomorrow. It'll give me time to buy a clean shirt here, anyway."

"Okay, and take care-Alan."

She was going to have to spend a second night at the motel, if only to continue their cover of an 'affair'. My God, if only they knew… but nobody will ever know. How could I have got it so wrong when it mattered so much? Magill wasn't the first time I've given my Little All for my job, but that can't mean I can only get it right when… With Graham, and David, it had mattered-for a while-and that was fine… She let herself drift off to memories of fiercely joyful nights that now… that now… They'd beensnakes. Whatever you said about Harry Maxim, he was no snake.

So why couldn'the have got it right last night? He was like a schoolboy, never mind that I was behaving like a schoolgirl, I cannot stand a man who can'tcope with me…

Even if I was using him, a time of my choosing, to wash away the guilt…

Why couldn't it have goneright?

In the middle of the afternoon, she rang her office: there was nothing more than a routine acknowledgment of the debriefing report she had sent after Maxim's meeting with the Secret Service. Plus a warning not to let him start doing anything of his own.

Ha! You try and stop him, she thought.

But soon-perhaps very soon-I am going to have to lay it on the line, tell them what really has been happening… The trouble was, she could prove nothing yet and certainly didn't want her Service approaching Magill direct, for confirmation. Still, she could get started on a draft. She took out her pocket recorder and began dictating.

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