Shuttlecock (21 page)

I took my glass. There were long bars of sunlight across the lawn; the fragrance of honeysuckle. I thought: where is the catch? As he gave me my drink I studied the bandage on the finger of his right hand.

We dipped our noses into our glasses and looked at the garden. Then Quinn spoke.

‘So you came, my dear chap. You know, I had my doubts whether you would. No, not really, I was sure you would.’ He took a hurried sip of gin – as if he had begun badly – then smacked his lips, and wiped his glasses which had become speckled with bubbles.

‘Now. You have some questions you want answered. And I have some explaining to do. That’s the position, isn’t it?’

He gave me a penetrating but shifting look. It was as though he had said, ‘You still want to go through with this?’

‘Excuse me for using a cliché, but I don’t know if this is going to be harder for me or for you. For me, it’s a confession – of a kind. For you – well, you must make up your own mind. I’m saying this just as a way of telling you that if you find yourself wanting to cut the whole thing short, to forget the whole thing – though somehow I don’t think you will – please, don’t hesitate.’

As he spoke, one of the Siamese cats came and rubbed itself sinuously against his leg. Quinn put out his hand and fondled the scruff of its neck. He did this, not in a gentle, stroking way, but almost roughly, as if, at any moment, his hand might close round the animal’s throat. Siamese cats, they say, are different from other cats.
They don’t ooze affection. There’s something unpredictable, even sinister about them.

I shrugged awkwardly, as Quinn, still stroking the cat, seemed to wait for me to give some signal.

‘You want to know what is going on at the office. But it doesn’t stop with the office. That’s the whole point. Our office isn’t just an office, it spreads everywhere. Do stop me, Prentis, won’t you, when I waffle? Well, shall I begin?’

He gave the cat a shove and it slunk broodily away.

‘C9. And especially File E of C9. That is the particular point at issue, isn’t it? But it’s only an example of something general. You don’t have to tell me, Prentis. You’ve been making private inquiries into C9, haven’t you? I’ve half been egging you on to do that very thing. I know why you’ve been coming into work early and about – what shall I say? – your private correspondence with the Home Office. No, I’m not accusing you of anything –
I
should talk. I’ve been terribly undecided about all this. We’ll get round to C9 in a moment – I’ll put all the pieces together for you. But I can tell you now that I’ve had File E all along, and I nearly destroyed it. And it’s not the only one. But shall we deal with the general matter first? That’s what you said – you remember, when we spoke last – that you’d rather clear up the general issue first. Very well. I’m not going to say to you, Prentis, as I might, that I hope what I’m about to tell you will go no further and you’ll keep quiet about it. Because, for one thing, it doesn’t work like that. I’m not trying to defend myself. If you liked, you could put me through the mill. Don’t look alarmed. And for another thing, I can trust you to make your own judgement. Yes, I’m asking you to judge me – because I, in my way, have been judging you. You’ve been aware of that, haven’t you? And what
I’m going to tell you is only an example of just the kind of judgement – am I being clear? – I’m asking you to make. I mean, how much you should tell, and how much you should keep silent, and how much you should know.’

The glow on the garden wall and the flowerbeds seemed to deepen almost perceptibly.

‘Do you think there’s enough trouble, enough misery in the world without causing any more?’

This came like a sudden challenge.

‘Well – yes.’

‘So you wouldn’t condemn the action of someone who tried to eliminate extra misery where it could be avoided?’

‘No – not on the face of it.’

‘Thank you, Prentis. I’ve alluded to all this before, haven’t I? That great heap of secrets at the office. A cupboard full of skeletons – I think that was the phrase I used. I wonder if I really have to spell it out to you. You must have worked out for yourself by now what I’ve been up to.’

I looked into my glass of gin.

‘Well?’

I swallowed. ‘You’ve been withholding – or destroying – information so as to spare people – needless painful knowledge.’

It was as though I had voiced something that had been pressing on my conscience for years.

‘Precisely. I knew you would arrive at it. Do you know, I
wanted
you to arrive at it. To help me. And – what a benevolent construction you put upon it!’

I was looking at my hands. Somehow I didn’t want to look at Quinn’s face.

‘You see, there are two types of power madness. No,
no – don’t dispute it – it’s power we’re talking about, and power mishandled. There’s plain and simple corruption. We all know about that. Think of the harm, think of the sheer destruction you could wreak if you wanted to, if you were in my position.’ I looked up at this point, and there was something sharp, almost like a mischievous gleam in his eyes as he said, catching my gaze, ‘in my position’. ‘We’d all agree that that’s wrong, wouldn’t we? But what about the opposite of that? What if you just as surely pervert your power and overstep the bounds of your responsibility under the notion that you are doing good? Is that wrong too?’

‘I – I would –’ I looked away from Quinn again. I was experiencing the capsizing feeling that the very thing I sought most – Quinn’s job – was the thing I wanted least. The old suspicion that Quinn was mad – and, in his shoes, I would be mad too. For a moment, I really wanted to be ignorant, an irresponsible underling.

‘That’s all right. What should I expect you to say? “Yes”? Or even “No”? I’m not here to ask questions anyway.’

‘And what is the alternative,’ he went on, ‘the straight course, I mean? The straight course is to curb the imagination. To sit with all that knowledge and just to sort through it as if it had nothing to do with you. And that’s why – if you have any imagination at all’ (as he said this I faced him again and there was the same gleam in his eye, but no longer mischievous, almost sad) ‘– the best, the securest position to be in is not to know. But once you do know, you can’t do anything about it. You can’t get rid of knowledge.’

I thought of Marian – Marian like a stranger in the same bed. All those nights seeking enlightenment.

‘Do you know what the hell I’m talking about?’ He
gave a wry smile. ‘I said it was madness. I’m not absolutely lunatic, mind you.’

One of the cats – perhaps the same one as before – drew near his seat again, and as it stood, uncertainly, about a yard away, he stared at it, then made a sudden jerking movement, as though to pounce on it, so that it gave a start and turned away. I thought: Quinn could be cruel to these cats.

‘Do you know what makes you different from Fletcher, Clarke and O’Brien, Prentis? They’re happily lacking in imagination.…’

He toyed with his glass. For a long time he seemed to be bracing himself to speak.

‘You can’t get rid of knowledge. But I believed I could. At least, I believed I could get rid of knowledge on other people’s behalf – before it became their knowledge. I used to sit at that desk of mine and think of all those people who – were within my power. I started to take files from the shelves. I started little inquiries of my own – from the reverse end. I started to destroy information. I used to think: here is such and such an individual – just a name in a file – who will now never have to know some ruinous piece of information. He’ll never even know his benefactor. I used to think I was actually ridding the world of trouble. Good God. And the motive behind all this – was nothing but the desire for power.’

He paused for a moment, removed his glasses, wiped them. He looked, for the first time, in my eyes, like a man without any power at all.

‘I warned you, Prentis. If you want me to stop, just say so.’

I shook my head.

‘Very well.’ He took a sip of his drink, replaced his glasses. ‘The irony of it all – the absurdity of it all – was
that in order to continue what I supposed was this benevolent scheme I had to put up a screen around myself so I wouldn’t be found out; and, to keep people at a distance, I found myself having to behave the very opposite of benevolently. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a tyrant.’

‘So, you mean – all your – ’

‘All my high-and-mighty bloody-mindedness?’

‘– was just a cover? But you must have known that sooner or later the missing files and so on would have been discovered.’

‘Yes, but I thought if I spread enough intimidation around nobody would dare do anything about it.’

‘And the mixed-up files – the inquiries that didn’t lead anywhere at all?’

‘Red herrings – to cloud the issue. You see, I thought that if you or one of the others got wind of something, then the more generally confusing I made things, the better. The fact is, by this time, I was beginning to work hard at this other role – not just a cover – baffling people, making people afraid of me. Suspiciously hard. Did it work? A good performance?’

‘It worked.’

An anxious, almost desperate look had come into his face.

‘But only up to a point. Up to a point. Here, you’d better drink up, we’re getting to the difficult part.’

We both drank. Everything in the garden was perfectly still. I thought of the patients on the terrace, with their tales of woe.

‘Do you know at what point my little bid for power – my little enterprise for the good of mankind – broke down? Can you guess? It was all right, you see, doing good turns for people who were only names in files. I
didn’t have any qualms, then, that what I was doing was keeping from them the truth. I thought, they can do without the truth. But when it suddenly became a case of keeping the truth from someone I knew, then it was a different matter. I began to waver. Oh yes, I’ve always been a waverer – but I
really
began to waver. What do you do? Let the truth out, always, no matter how painful? I began to get conscience-stricken. You know who the person is I’m talking about, don’t you?’

I looked at him. His bald head shone. I had forgotten he was my boss.

‘At first I thought there was an easy way out. When your father – became ill. When he ceased to speak. I thought, that puts a better seal on things than ever I could. It’s all right, Prentis, I’ll explain in a moment. No, but that was
too
easy. And it didn’t solve the real issue. Supposing your father – forgive me – were to speak again. And the evidence, in any case, was still traceable. So I started to sound you out. I thought the only fair basis on which to proceed, either way, was your own disposition. I started to test you, to find out if you were the sort of person who would always want the truth – regardless of the cost – or not. I already knew about that fertile imagination of yours. I began to lay down little clues, little hints, to see how you would react. They must have become rather transparent in the last few weeks. And when you seemed to be cottoning on, I’d get scared and come down hard on you. I’ve been blowing hot and cold, I know. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, how you start off wanting to protect someone and then, for that very reason, you end up torturing them? And as I was conducting this little test on you I began to realize that I was testing you for quite another reason too. I knew my retirement would be on the cards this year. Another way
out of the problem, if you like. But it’s not. I used to wonder, what will happen when I go? What will happen to my little half-baked scheme to save the world? All right – the sort of person they need in my job is the firm, inflexible – unimaginative type. But, between the two of us, I hope they never get him. You see, here I am, confessing away like a sinner, but the truth of the matter is – I’m going round in circles, I know – I’m not convinced that I’ve done wrong. Anyway, I put you to the test. And I found out firstly that you weren’t the sort of person who would stop at finding out the truth – you
wanted
to know; and, secondly – I hope this doesn’t shock you – I found out you were just a little bit like me. There were times when you almost came and had it out with me weren’t there? – and then you didn’t. You want your little bit of power as well, and you can’t entirely control your actions, and – forgive me for speaking like this – you really want to be rather better than you are.’

So it was true. I had been spied on. I had been the subject of an investigation.

‘What I’m saying – I’m not being clear, I’m sorry – is that ultimately I can’t trust anything but my own instincts, and when I’ve left the department, I’d like to know that it’s being run, well, shall I just say – wait till you’ve heard everything – by someone who will – trust his own instincts too.’

He turned to face me. Deep in his eyes again was that needle-like gleam.

‘Shall we get down to particulars? How much have you found out – you know what I mean – about C9?’

I drew a long, shaky breath.

‘That Z was a friend of my father’s. That X may have been imprisoned by the Germans at the same time, and at the same place, as my father.’

‘No more? Enough. Look I want to say at the beginning that what we’re dealing with here isn’t necessarily the one hundred per cent proven truth. I’ve been talking just now about the truth. It’s hard enough withholding the truth when you’re sure it’s the truth you’re withholding. But it’s ten times worse when there’s even the shadow of a doubt that it might not be the truth at all. All your pangs of conscience for nothing. But if it’s a lie, Prentis, then maybe you have a right to know the lie as well. Now, do you want to know what was in File E?’

I nodded. My voice had gone.

‘File E contained documents relating to X which came to light soon after X’s death while undergoing trial. These documents contained evidence which might have been grounds for further investigation or even further criminal charges, but because X was dead the case was closed. The Home Office concluded their own investigations and were satisfied that both Y and Z were innocent victims of a malicious attack. Amongst the documents in File E – I can let you see them, I haven’t destroyed them – yet – was a letter, or the copy of a letter, addressed to your father. Attached to this was another, long letter. clearly meant to be copied and circulated, since it was accompanied by a list of addresses. These included two newspapers, your father’s publishers, a number of former members of special operations – and so on. There was another letter, addressed to Z, but I’ll come to that later. The letters involving your father were the set-up for a blackmail. The gist of the blackmail was this: that your father did not escape from the Germans – from the Château Martine. He succumbed under interrogation, betrayed several resistance units and the whereabouts and covers of three British agents operating in the extreme
east of France; and in return for this the Germans “allowed him to escape”.’