The Broken Penny Read online

  ‘Our last state is worse than our first,’ Garden said. ‘But our future state is likely to be worse still. Don’t tell me that it’s no good, I’m beginning to understand that.’ He managed to sit up, and moved around in the hope of finding some projection that might loosen his ropes, or some sharp surface that might cut them. He was still engaged in this vain project when he noticed a car moving slowly just ahead of them. They pulled out to pass it and then the mute driver gave a high-pitched cry as he saw the two vans standing together across the road. The brakes screamed as they came to a stop a yard from one of the vans. The two mutes opened the doors and dived out. Garden was aware of the car they had passed rushing up beside them. He remembered the machine-gun and thought, ‘They’ll never do it.’ But instead of the spatter of machine-gun fire he had expected, there came a terrible long-drawn wailing cry, like nothing he had ever heard. A moment later the car that had rushed up beside them crashed into the van, making a tremendous noise. From this side, the left, he heard again the wailing cry, a shot and then silence. From the other side there were several shots and the sound of running. Then somebody said in English, ‘All right, got him.’ Garden could see nothing at all of what was going on.

  The front door of the car was opened, and then the back one. A light played over Garden and Ilona, a voice said, ‘Trussed up like a chicken dinner. Half a jiffy.’ Their ropes were cut. Stiffly Garden got out of the car. He looked closely at his deliverer in the darkness but could see nothing except that he was apparently youthful. ‘Come on now, come on, over to this van.’ The night seemed alive with dark figures.

  ‘Who are you?’ Garden asked.

  ‘Nobody you know. Over to the van, quickly, the one we haven’t bashed up. We’ll clear up this mess.’

  Garden found that he had been steered dextrously over to the van. ‘Lend a hand there,’ somebody said. Ilona disappeared inside. He put a leg up on the footboard and winced as his leg muscles refused to obey him. Hands from outside lifted him up, hands from inside received him. Inside the van it was quite dark. A voice that seemed familiar called ‘Ready’. The engine revved up, they moved away, made a turn and were going back on the road to Dravina.

  The same voice said, ‘Cigarette?’ A lighter clicked and a small flame lit up the face of Trelawney. Garden saw it with a certain slight shock which was somehow remote from surprise. Ilona gasped.

  ‘Well, old man, you made a pretty fair mess of that, didn’t you? Why the devil didn’t you keep the date we fixed instead of haring off to Zeb?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seemed important. Perhaps it wasn’t.’ He thought of the two bodies on the bed, the big man and the little man.

  ‘I’ll say it wasn’t. The only important thing as far as you’re concerned, old man, is getting out of the country. I got the willies when I found you’d popped out of that film show for good. Luckily, one of our boys was hanging about outside and saw you board the tram. Then we had another bit of luck. A lad of ours in the People’s Police saw you on the tram and reported it. We traced you as far as Zeb, and then set a little ambush on the main road. It worked.’ Trelawney chuckled. The tip of his cigarette moved in the darkness. ‘Pity about those dummies. They often use ’em for important jobs. Safe, you see, can’t give anything away.’

  ‘What do you mean, a pity?’

  ‘Car ran over one – didn’t you hear him squeal? Didn’t have any option, he was going to machine-gun us, another half-minute and we’d have been for it.’ Unreality again oppressed Garden. This was Trelawney, quite recognisably the loud-voiced Trelawney who uttered progressive clichés at every opportunity, the man who was just good enough (or was he just too good?) to be true, the Trelawney to whom Garden had told his fantasies about a mission. But the body of this Trelawney with its rolling eyes, stringy neck and hairy red wrists was

  now understood to be the home of a quite different inhabitant. That was not precisely what disturbed Garden. What seemed incongruous and terrifying was the fact that the two Trelawneys were one, that this new Trelawney spoke with the other’s coarsely confident voice. They turned a corner sharply and Garden clung to one of the struts on the side of the van. Trelawney spoke again. ‘You saw Peplov, I suppose? Did he tell you anything?’

  ‘Jacob Arbitzer is dead. They were going to use us as the show witnesses for a State trial.’

  ‘Of course they were. Lord, man, you were the best bit of propaganda that had dropped into their lap for years. We simply had to get you away.’

  ‘Now that you’ve done that, what’s going to happen?’

  ‘Anybody’s guess, old boy. I doubt if they’ll hold a public trial – not much point in it without you or Arbitzer to testify. Peplov will get demotion if he’s lucky, if he’s unlucky he’ll find himself on trial too. That’s my guess, but I can be as wrong as the next man.’

  Garden had almost forgotten Ilona’s presence when she spoke: ‘Who are you? Some kind of special agent?’

  ‘Call it that if you like, my dear. Kind of general dogsbody you might say. Secret dogsbody, with secret the operative word. At least it was. That’s why I passed those notes through to you anonymously. The less people know about this kind of thing, the better. I’ve been doing it for years.’

  ‘A spy.’

  ‘Call it what you like,’ Trelawney said. ‘Most of it’s routine stuff. Two of us came over here specially to keep an eye on friend Garden and see he didn’t get into any mischief. The little chap in plus fours is the other one. I was going to push off on my own, but I couldn’t do much of that. Lady Vi got pretty touchy when the trouble started, didn’t want any of her lambs to stray. Now I’ve had to come out in the open much more than I like. There’s still a bit of the resistance movement left here that we’re in touch with, otherwise we’d never have got you out of this show tonight. But I shall have to think up something for Lady Vi when we get back, and it will have to be good.’

  There was an injured note in Trelawney’s voice. Garden felt constrained to say, ‘I’m sorry to have given you so much trouble.’

  Trelawney responded handsomely. ‘That’s all right, old boy, all in a day’s work. But shall I tell you what I think, as an unprejudiced observer? I think there was something phony about the whole thing.’

  ‘Peplov–’ Garden began.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about Peplov. I’ve got a feeling there was something more than that. I’m only a small cog in a big wheel, mind you, but to me the whole thing smells uncommonly fishy.’

  ‘How are you going to get us away?’

  ‘All laid on, old boy. We’re a bit late, but they’ll wait. At least I hope so.’

  ‘Suppose they don’t.’

  There was a short silence. ‘Then we’ll have to think of something else. But we shan’t have to. A boat will take you over the straites – you should be across before daylight. The skipper’s got a fix with the harbour authorities here. A dozen people have come out this way in the past month. Once you’re across the straits, out of the country, you make your own way home. I shall send a message through to say mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned, VIP on his way home. Somebody at HQ seems to be taking an awful lot of interest in you.’

  ‘Very nice of them. What about money?’

  ‘All fixed with the captain.’

  The van stopped. Trelawney moved up to the front of the cab and held a consultation in murmurs. Then he came back. ‘This is the place. Come on.’ The back of the lorry dropped with a rattle. They jumped down to the road. It was very dark. They could hear the sea’s suck and roar. A voice Garden recognised as Bridgewater’s said, ‘Over the road.’

  A dozen steps took them to pebbles. A hand, cool and small, groped for Garden’s. A fresh wind blew in from the sea. They crouched behind rocks, Trelawney and Bridgewater with them. The noise of the sea was loud. The lights of the lorry flashed on and off. They flashed on again, more lengthily, and then off for a moment. Short-long-short, short-long-short, the lorry’s lights repeated three times
. Garden looked out to sea and saw no answering signal. ‘They don’t reply.’

  ‘Too dangerous. They’ll put a boat out.’

  ‘If they’re still here,’ Bridgewater said in an unfriendly voice. ‘You’re three-quarters of an hour late.’ They waited in silence. A few feet away the waves rushed up the beach and back again, with a sound like tearing fabric. This was repeated over and over again. Time passed. Ilona’s hand grasped Garden’s with convulsive tightness.

  ‘Shall we signal again?’ Bridgewater was fidgeting.

  ‘No,’ said Trelawney decisively. They crouched and waited. Bridgewater began to swear quietly.

  Ilona said, ‘I can hear something.’ Garden listened and heard nothing but the sea. ‘A boat?’

  Bridgewater said contemptuously, ‘You’re daft. You couldn’t hear a boat over the sound of–’

  ‘Quiet,’ said Trelawney. They were quiet. They listened. Was there a sound over or inside the sea’s suck and roar? At times Garden thought so, and then he could not be sure. Then Ilona cried sharply, ‘Over there.’ Garden heard the scrape of a boat a few yards away from them on the beach. Trelawney left them and came back jubilant. ‘Looks as if we’ve done ’em in the eye this time. Come on, you two.’

  There were two men in the boat. ‘Good-bye and thank you,’ Garden said to Trelawney.

  ‘All right, old man. Into the boat.’

  Ilona said, ‘Thank you for–’

  ‘Yes, yes. Into the boat.’

  They moved away from the shore, and instantly the two figures merged in blackness. ‘Good luck,’ Garden called, but the words were lost utterly, swallowed up in the surge of the sea. And suddenly there was something disquieting, disturbingly familiar and yet strange, in this passage over the waves. ‘How far?’ Garden asked, but the men in the boat did not reply. Something shapeless loomed in the darkness, they clambered up a ladder – and about this too there was something familiar. Then a heavy hand thumped Garden’s shoulder, a thick voice said, ‘The Englishman, eh. My friend the Englishman and his little girl.’

  ‘Captain Kaffel.’ Garden understood what he had found familiar.

  The Captain’s laugh rolled richly on the air. ‘And my little friend Milo and the big fellow, they are not with you?’

  ‘They are dead.’

  ‘It is the lot of man,’ the Captain said philosophically. ‘Come and have a drink.’ They went down the companionway and into the small cabin that had housed them before. The filmy white liquid went into the same glasses, but there were two less of them this time.

  ‘I didn’t know you were connected with our friends on the beach.’

  ‘I have many connections, I take many risks, I earn much money. What else is in life?’ With appalling gallantry the Captain bowed to Ilona and took off his filthy cap. ‘I had forgotten. There is also woman. But is she not the biggest risk of all?’

  ‘No.’ said Garden. ‘The biggest risk of all is faith.’

  The Captain’s one small eye stared at him blankly. ‘Of that I know nothing. I believe in myself, Captain Kaffel, in the cunning that lies here and the strength that lies here.’ He tapped his head and his arm. ‘Everything else is nonsense. Good health.’ The Captain downed his second glass.

  ‘You’re probably perfectly right. How long will it take us to get across?’

  ‘Four hours, perhaps five, no more. Then I set you down in safety and you will have something to thank me for, eh? You will say afterwards, “That Captain Kaffel, he was an old scoundrel, but he had it up there.”’ He tapped his forehead. ‘I have made this trip a dozen times, twenty times, with no trouble. Why? I know people, I am useful to people, I use my head.’

  ‘One of these days you’ll lose your head.’

  The Captain guffawed. ‘One day perhaps. And then what shall I say? It is the lot of man. Now I must go. Five hours remember, no more.’

  In fact it was nearly six hours later when they stood on deck and saw land appear like a smudge in the pale light of dawn. Ilona put her arm through his. ‘It is all over. We have come back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you love me? You have never said that you love me.’

  ‘I love you.’ He turned away from the land they were approaching to look back at the country they had left. But there was nothing except sea, glassy and bluish-green, and a cold pale sky.

  ‘I love you also. And I am not such a miserable creature as you think me. I have lost an aunt and an uncle and a dog. Do you wonder that things have been no good? But they will be better later on. I promise it. Shall we get married?’

  ‘Yes.’ Garden stared at sky and water.

  Looking back, looking at the lost country shaped like a broken penny which was now no more than sea and sky, Garden felt that something in his life had ended for ever, that there was some fundamental innocence of the heart which he had betrayed.

  Part Three

  RETURN

  Chapter One

  The sun began to shine as they passed through the Customs at Newhaven, explaining to a surprised Customs officer that they had lost their luggage. It continued to shine as they came up in the train, an English October sun lacking in warmth but lending a clear light to the unimpassioned countryside, and filling Garden with a curious sense of peace. He felt a melting sentimental contentment with everything, the grubby magazines on station bookstalls, the benevolent silence of the middle-aged matron knitting in the railway carriage, the over-cooked expensive food in the dining car.

  Trelawney had been right, he saw as he read The Times, in which news of the rising had dwindled to half a dozen lines near the bottom of the foreign news page. Order had been completely restored, and it was now considered likely that the great public trial mentioned by the Ministry of Home Security would take place. In particular, The Times correspondent noted, there was now a complete absence of official interest in the mysterious Englishman who had been mentioned earlier as a leader of the revolt. Another note said that there was no

  further news of Professor Arbitzer, who had disappeared from his home at Brightsand just before the presumed rising. His disappearance had apparently no political connection with the rising, and there was no indication that he was in government custody. Well, that was fair enough, Garden thought, very fair and very English. He settled down to enjoy the mild pleasures afforded by cows, the pattern of fields, rolling downs. Then the pleasures of London – how quickly the train flashed past Clapham Junction and the delicious sight of Battersea Power Station. Victoria Station, when it came, overwhelmed him with its barrack-like simplicity and its nostalgic names – Haywards Heath, Three Bridges, Worthing, Brighton. ‘Here is my home,’ he said to Ilona with a sweep of the hand as they stood by a Smith’s bookstall. She smiled uncomprehendingly.

  ‘You are going to telephone your friend?’

  ‘Latterley? Yes.’ No doubt Latterley knew all about the failure of their mission. He was presumably the HQ to which Trelawney had reported. The whole thing was over. But a feeling of responsibility remained with Garden, and a feeling too that something remained to be cleared up. Somewhere there had been a betrayal, someone in Latterley’s organisation had told Peplov to expect both Arbitzer and Garden. It was perhaps merely an academic exercise now to discover the traitor’s identity, yet Garden found himself anxious to do it. He telephoned Latterley at the Central Liaison Organisation from a box in Victoria Station, and spoke to a girl who said that he was on a few days’ leave. She had no idea where Garden could get hold of him. Yes, she agreed politely, it might be a good idea to try his home. She gave him the number. Garden telephoned, and learned that Mr Latterley was away.

  They took a bus to the big white building, and went up to the third floor. Garden rattled the handle of the door that said THE NEAR-EASTERN, EUROPEAN AND BRITISH GENERAL SECURITY COMPANY LIMITED. The door was closed. The liftman said that nobody had been in now for three days. If Garden asked him, they had skedaddled because they were behind with the rent.

  Garden t
elephoned Multiple Steel, and asked to speak to Sir Alfred. A voice, secretarial, male, urbane, murmured the word unavailable. Garden gave his name, but it made no impression. In a slight variation of the formula the voice murmured out of town.

  By this time Ilona was becoming impatient. She wanted a bath, she said, she wanted to do some shopping. Garden took her back to his room in the Brixton Road. ‘There’s only one bathroom for seven people, and they’re all individuals who don’t believe in queuing,’ he told her. ‘We’re in a vantage spot, though, only two doors from the bathroom, and at this time of day most of them will be at work. Still, it will give you a glimpse of what life on my income is going to be like.’

  But in fact Ilona had very little chance to see that, because when Garden opened the door of his room they saw Latterley inside. He sat in Garden’s battered easy chair nodding gently, with The Charterhouse of Parma on his lap. Garden’s first reaction on seeing him was annoyance at the negligently self-indulgent comfort of his attitude. ‘Hello,’ he said, and Latterley stretched. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’

  ‘I convinced your landlady that I was respectable and she unlocked the door. That was ages ago. I expected you early this morning. Good Lord, I’m hungry. There was only a bit of mouldy bread in the larder.’ Latterley got up and patted Garden’s arm. ‘Good to see you again, Chas my boy. You too, Miss Arbitzer. It was touch and go for a bit, but we knew you’d got out. We heard about Jacob too. That was a bad bit of organisation those boys did over there. They were so sure everything was sewn up tight.’ He said to Ilona directly, ‘We were all really very sorry about Jacob, and we blame ourselves very much.’