The Night Manager полностью

Your premise is absurd, Goodhew had told Burr six months earlier, over one of their little dinners. It is destructive, it is insidious and I refuse to countenance it, and I forbid you ever to speak of it to me again. This is England, not the Balkans and not Sicily. You can have your agency, Leonard, but you are to renounce for all time your Gothic fantasies about the Procurement Studies Group being run as a multi-million-pound racket for the benefit of Geoffrey Darker and a caucus of bent bankers, brokers and middlemen and corrupt intelligence officers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Because that way lies madness, he had warned Burr.

That way lies this.

* * *

For a week after talking to his wife, Goodhew kept his secret locked up in his head. A man who does not trust himself trusts nobody. Burr telephoned from Miami with the news of Limpet's resurrection, and Goodhew as best he could shared his euphoria. Rooke took over the reins at Burr's offices in Victoria Street. Goodhew bought him lunch at the Athenaeum, but did not confide in him.

Then one evening Palfrey called by with some garbled tale about Darker taking soundings with British arms suppliers about the availability of certain high-tech equipment for use in a "South American type of climate," end user to be advised.

"British equipment, Harry? That's not Roper. He's buying foreign."

Palfrey writhed and sucked his cigarette and needed more Scotch. "Well, it could be the Roper, actually, Rex. I mean, if he was covering his backside. I mean, if they're British toys ― well, no limit to our tolerance, if you know what I mean. Two blind eyes and head in the sand. If they're Brit. Naturally. Flog 'em to Jack the Ripper, if they're Brit." He sniggered.

It was a fine evening, and Palfrey needed movement. So they walked as far as the entrance to Highgate Cemetery and found a quiet bench.

"Marjoram tried to buy me," said Goodhew, straight out ahead of him. "Three quarters of a million pounds."

"Oh, well, he would," said Palfrey, quite unsurprised. "That's what they do abroad. That's what they do at home."

"There was a stick as well as a carrot."

"Oh, yes, well, there usually is," said Palfrey, delving for a fresh cigarette.

"Who are they, Harry?"

Palfrey wrinkled his nose, blinked a few times and seemed mysteriously embarrassed.

"Just a few clever chaps. Good connections. You know."

"I don't know anything."

"Good case officers. Cold heads left over from the Cold War. Scared of being out of a job. You know, Rex."

It occurred to Goodhew that Palfrey was describing his own predicament and didn't like doing so.

"Duplicity trained, naturally," Palfrey continued, volunteering his opinion, as usual, in a series of torn-off, shop-worn sentences. "Market economy chaps. Peaked in the eighties. Grab it while you can, everybody does it, never sure where the next war's coming from. All dressed up, nowhere to go... you know. Still got power, of course. Nobody's taken that away from them. Just a question of where to put it."

Goodhew said nothing, and Palfrey obligingly continued.

"Not bad chaps, Rex. Mustn't be too critical. Just a bit marooned. No more Thatcher. No more Russian bear to fight, no more Reds under the bed at home. One day they've got the world all carved up for them, two legs good, four bad. Next day they get up in the morning, they're sort of ― well, you know...." He finished his premise with a shrug. "Well, nobody likes a vacuum, do they? Not even you like a vacuum. Well, do you? Be honest. You hate it."

"By vacuum you mean peace?" Goodhew suggested, not wishing in the least to sound censorious.

"Boredom, really. Smallness. Never did anyone any good, did it?" Another giggle, another long drink from the cigarette. "Couple of years ago, they were top-notch Cold Warriors. Best seats in the club, all that. Hard to stop running, once you've been wound up like that. You keep going. Natural."

"So what are they now?"

Palfrey rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, as if to correct an itch. "Just a fly on the wall, really, me."

"I know that. What are they?"