Venetian Blind Read online

  Richard Wakeley was just a solicitor when the Home Secretary sent for him.

  ‘Have you heard of the Security Executive?’ he asked...

  ‘A man called Colonel Russell is the head of it. He retires in six months.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want you to take his job.’

  Richard Wakeley stared at the window.... ‘With respect,’ he said finally, ‘you must be crazy.’

  Nevertheless, by the following Monday, Wakeley was wading into the security files on Negative Gravity, trying to guess who would and could have leaked the information a foreign power was getting. There was Leat, the big industrialist... he knew Leat. And Leat’s satellites. And Leat’s stepdaughter (if that was the right term), a beautiful Venetian.

  In this characteristic thriller by the author of The Arena and The Unquiet Sleep the puzzles of a ‘who-dunnit?’ gradually generate the smouldering tensions of a ‘who’ll-do-it?’ And if they do, God save England.

  ‘Here at last we have the adult Ian Fleming’ – Robert Pitman in the Sunday Express

  Penguin Book 2174

  Venetian Blind

  William Haggard is the pseudonym of a writer who was educated at Lancing and Christ Church, Oxford. Entering the Indian Civil Service in 1931 he became a magistrate and sessions judge before joining the Indian Army for service during the Second World War.

  He passed through the Staff College at Quetta and was promoted to G.S.O.l. on intelligence work. In 1945 he returned to work in Whitehall, where – to quote his own words – ‘I’ve been a layabout ever since’. William Haggard has travelled widely in the East and South America but prefers now to stick to Europe ‘while it lasts’. His other books are Closed Circuity The Arenay and The Unquiet Sleep (published in Penguins), Slow Burner, The Telemann Touch, and The High Wire. Of these, three have been published in Sweden, two in Spain and Holland, one each in Italy and Japan, and all in America. Living in ‘doctor-land’, near Harley Street in London, he also maintains a long-standing connexion with Italy, where he has a pied-a-terre near Venice.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth,

  Middlesex, England

  Penguin Books Pty Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  First published by Cassell 1959

  Published in Penguin Books 1964

  Copyright © William Haggard, 1959

  Made and printed in the Netherlands by

  N.V. Drukkerij Bosch, Utrecht

  Set in Linotype Garamond

  This book is sold subject to the condition

  that it shall not, by way of trade,

  be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise

  disposed of without the publisher’s

  consent, in any form of binding or cover

  other than that in which it is published.

  I

  Lionel Lowe-Anderson – he was apt to be insistent about the hyphen – walked on to the platform at Gidney Manton station. He was going to catch the eight thirty-seven, and as usual he was in excellent time. The eight thirty-seven wasn’t his regular train, but he had been delayed; he had been having a tiff with Kathie Anderson. He thought her, now, a very stupid woman, but not as stupid as all that. She had contrived a sort of deliberate stupidity which he realized he couldn’t cope with; she had him therefore at a disadvantage, and he wasn’t a man who suffered disadvantages gracefully. She asked questions – monosyllables utterly destructive. Only what he himself thought silly answers, superficialities, stilled her, whereas his own instincts were towards the proper answer, something solid and satisfactory.

  Which Kathie somehow always managed to demolish. Not by dialectic, naturally – Lionel Lowe-Anderson hadn’t a doubt that he was her superior in logic, and logic the thought important. Nevertheless she could destroy him and he knew it: it was a defeat which ate at him. Kathie didn’t exactly sniff, for she was a lady. Very much a lady, Lionel Anderson sometimes reflected. Her father had been a Brigadier in the Ordnance. She didn’t exactly sniff then, but it was evident that she thought her husband a shocking bore.

  They had been married fifteen years.

  He shrugged his shoulders in an overcoat which he had realized he must soon replace. The thought was a worry, for he wasn’t at all well off. That too was something to resent, for he was conscious that he was a clever man – much more intelligent, much more cultured and sensitive than the brokers and wine merchants and men in Lloyd’s who would soon be filling the platform. Lionel Lowe-Anderson considered himself civilized; he could tell a Maffei from a Munnings, though he owned neither; he had a developed social conscience. But he wasn’t at all successful, he hadn’t a half of the income of these men who would soon be travelling on his train.

  He thought it very unfair; he thought that the world’s rewards were very improperly distributed.

  He looked at the station clock, noticing that it was a minute fast again, for by unfailing habit he had checked his watch by the nine o’clock news the night before. Below the clock was a mirror, something to do with the signal in the siding. Lionel Anderson approached it with circumspection, for he did not wish to be observed examining himself in station looking glasses . . . No, the platform was still empty, for there was a minute or two to go and the commuters were good at commuting, and yes, the overcoat was a little shabby. He would have to get another and he really didn’t know where the money was coming from. The rest wasn’t bad, though: bowler hat, careful shoes, umbrella. His hair was thick still, carefully parted.

  He would have been shocked to be told that it needed a trim, horrified to hear that his appearance wasn’t, as he imagined, coolly distinguished but simply shabby-dapper.

  He turned from the mirror as the first of the eight thirty-sevens began to fill the platform. Lionel Lowe-Anderson didn’t like them, and indeed there were few in Gidney Manton whom he did. It was a very superior suburb. Once it had been a largish village, and even now there was somebody they still called the Squire. He was a little dotty. But three good trains in the morning and three at night, an hour to London by the timetable and seventy minutes in fact if you were lucky – these trains had changed it to a surtax dormitory. And Lionel Lowe-Anderson didn’t pay surtax; he couldn’t really afford to live in Gidney Manton.

  It didn’t help at all.

  He turned towards the platform a little uneasily, more than a little conscious that he wasn’t among friends. The three fast trains in the morning were the ten-past eight, which was what Lionel Anderson usually caught, the nine fifteen for the semi-retired and for the genuine potentates, and the eight thirty-seven for the ordinarily successful man. There were little jokes about them, rather tiresome little jokes when a regular on one train unexpectedly caught another . . . ‘Crisis in the market, old man?’ when a nine fifteener caught the eight thirty-seven or, if it were the reverse: ‘I saw you put up the interim dividend.’

  Lionel Lowe-Anderson told himself that these pleasantries bored him; that he had an intelligence above them. Nevertheless it was not with assurance that he turned towards the men who made them. One or two nodded, but coolly. They were polite but they were reserved. Some were mildly sorry for Lionel Lowe-Anderson: all thought him rather a fool, a man with a chip on his shoulder, something less than an adult male.

  Lionel Anderson stood a little apart from the two groups which formed. He did not wish finally to walk away, and actively to join these men he did not dare. That he would not have admitted, though he was half conscious of it. It made him more resentful than ever.

  He stood a little apart, looking down the line, watching the train come nearer.

  He was aware, quite suddenly, that the atmosphere about him had changed. These men, these prosperous barbarians, he thought, were no longer relaxed; they wer
e alert, staring towards the gate to the platform, into the station yard, staring but trying not to appear to. The old-fashioned Bentley stopped silently; the chauffeur got down with a brief-case. The man at his side joined him, and together the two walked on to the platform.

  It was Gervas Leat, a nine fifteener pur sang, Gervas Leat who employed Lionel Anderson.

  He hated him.

  A few hats rose, but not very many, for these men weren’t nonentities: they were men of substance, successful in their business, men of account. But they weren’t Gervas Leats and they knew it. They were much too solid to be obsequious, but certainly they were respectful. Gervas Leat walked on to the platform with his driver. One moment they were alone, beside them two separate knots of men chatting a little self-consciously; the next there was a single group, its centre Gervas Leat. There hadn’t been anything as vulgar as a rush – simply a coalescence. One didn’t talk business on the train: there was a convention about that, particularly amongst the White Tickets. One chatted for a station or two, then retreated behind The Financial Times. Conversation was for the Thirds. One didn’t, then, talk business on the eight thirty-seven, but Gervas Leat was something more than business. He was Money; he was, in some manner undefined, Authority.

  There was a murmur of pleased surprise but none of the jokes. Gervas Leat might be a nine fifteener, though often he drove to London by road; but he wasn’t a man to risk offending. It would have been stupid to risk it.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Somebody actually said sir. It was considered a bit of a gaffe.

  The murmur rose as the tension relaxed again. Gervas Leat was being amiable, and it was known that sometimes he could be otherwise. So this was going to be one of his good days. That was excellent, that was propitious. You never knew. A hint, something unanswered, an innuendo . . .

  It could be worth a good deal of money to an intelligent man.

  Now Lionel Lowe-Anderson joined the group unhesitatingly. He hated Gervas Leat, but of his manners he was entirely confident. ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  ‘Good day to you.’ Gervas Leat was affable.

  The chauffeur put down the brief-case, touching his hat and withdrawing. It was a big brief-case, but old and battered. Gervas Leat hadn’t any need of important-looking brief-cases. Moreover he thought them ostentatious.

  ‘I didn’t know you would be on this train,’ Anderson said.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you either.’

  Somebody sniggered. He stifled the sound quickly, for Gervas Leat had frowned. He hadn’t in fact intended a rebuke and he was angry that some fool should so interpret it. He glanced at Lionel Anderson. Lowe-Anderson was very white.

  The devil, he was thinking, the rich wicked devil. Successful and wicked. It was the only word. He should have known better too – that made it worse. Once he had been . . . been responsible. At Oxford, for instance, and as a young man. He had seemed to be thinking then; he had gone to the right political meetings, had seemed to have a conscience. Now he was comfortable and uncaring. Secure. Now he was Gervas Leat.

  And Lionel Lowe-Anderson was Lionel Lowe-Anderson. His servant.

  The train, going rather fast, slipped past the ramp at the end of the platform, approaching the men who stood on it. The group began to break up. Gervas Leat, chatting, had turned his back to the line. He turned again suddenly, and the brief-case caught his foot. He tripped; staggered; lurched sickeningly towards the train, his hands held helplessly before him. He did not utter.

  And nor did Anderson think. He threw himself instinctively, unconscious of boyhood tackles, obeying a reflex as mandatory as it was undefined. His shoulder came against Leat’s thighs and they fell together, sideways to the train, Leat a little ahead. Lowe-Anderson was outside, his head within inches of the engine’s cylinder. He felt its heat as it passed him, a tiny blur of steam, the smell of oil. He lay quite still, for he was feeling very sick.

  It seemed a lifetime before the train stopped.

  The two men rose together and at once there was pandemonium. A dozen men converged, and the Station-master, Gervas Leat waved them away; he turned immediately to Anderson.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. I’m sorry I. . .’

  ‘It is I should apologize. And thank you,’

  ‘Not at all.’

  The Stationmaster was still fussing and Leat turned to him again. ‘All right,’ he said briefly. ‘My fault, but no harm done. Don’t bother to report it.’

  ‘But, sir . . .’

  ‘It’s nothing, I assure you. Let her go. There are other passengers.’

  The Stationmaster looked relieved. ‘Very good, sir,’ he said.

  Gervas Leat took his hat from a porter; he held out his hand to Lionel Anderson. ‘Thank you,’ he said again. ‘There isn’t time now, but. . .’

  ‘Please don’t mention it.’

  Gervas Leat climbed into his First and Anderson, walking along the corridor, into a Third. He fell into a corner seat, very glad indeed to find an empty compartment. For he was trembling. Not with fear, nor even in reaction. But with shock. Not shock that he might have missed his tackle; not shock that the engine of a train had shaved him. But shocked was what he was – shocked at the realization that if he had had time to think he would have let Leat fall. Leat was anti-social, Leat was dangerous. He were better dead.

  Richard Wakeley had been surprised when his secretary told him that the Home Secretary was on the telephone. He knew Mr. Palliser, but not particulrly well. They met at the club, and they had been at school together. Both had come south, Palliser to successful politics from a Midlothian manse, Wakeley from the greatest of Lancastrian cities to what by now was a partnership in a London firm of solicitors. The son of a prosperous printer’s shop, he had had brains too; he had won a scholarship to the urbanest of London schools. It hadn’t spoiled him, hadn’t in the least made him contemptuous of his background; but it had made him entirely a metropolitan. He had served his articles in London, served on interminably at a salary rising respectably but hardly generously. He had thought it worth while. He knew that the right little, tight little world of professional society in his own city would have excluded him, for he wasn’t of its number. In any case he did not wish to return; he was a man of the capital now, irrevocably a Londoner. His modest means would have bought him a partnership in the suburbs or in the provinces, but that too he did not desire. A bachelor, he could afford his preferences, and his preferences were for the centre of things, for the rough and tumble, the stimulus of metropolitan practice. His ambition was a partnership, but he knew that the sort of partnership he wanted wasn’t simply to be bought. He went on working, very hard and very competently indeed.

  Nevertheless, he had almost abandoned hope when, unexpectedly, for no reason apparent, the senior partner had sent for him. Quite casually Sir Maurice had offered him his partnership, almost as though a partnership in Travers and Bliss went begging every week. The Deed, ready for execution, had been lying on the table. There had been glasses of sherry, a handshake, and it was over.

  To Richard Wakeley it had seemed a very long time: in fact he was still in his thirties.

  He smiled now, thinking that he had come some way. Now he had been a partner for five years. His share had increased and would increase again: the older men had begun to lean on him. Besides, a partnership in Travers and Bliss, any degree of partnership, was something worth having, for it was a very good firm indeed, one of the five or six whose huge commercial practices were almost beyond envy. They seldom bothered with Counsel, for they did not need to; they hardly ever litigated, for they had other resources.

  So that Richard Wakeley hadn’t been surprised to be told that a Minister of the Crown wanted him – only that a Minister was on the telephone. He had a Minister for client already, and that Minister, beneath his extrovert façade, was in serious trouble privately. But he hadn’t simply telephoned: the approach had been as delicate as a Chai
rman fishing for an Honour. But Palliser was on the telephone . . .

  Tut him through, please,’ Wakeley told his secretary.

  ‘Richard Wakeley?’ the telephone inquired.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘ I m sorry if you were busy. I had hoped to catch you at the club.’

  ‘We seem to have been missing each other.’

  ‘Could you spare me a little time?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Come to lunch then.’

  ‘We could talk more comfortably here perhaps,’ Wakeley said cautiously. He was taking it for granted that Palliser wanted to see him professionally.

  ‘I can come to you, naturally.’

  ‘Or I could come to you.’ Richard Wakeley suppressed a smile, thinking that his Minister, his other Minister, always insisted on interviews in his own home. Wakeley always went. He didn’t object, but he charged very handsomely for it.

  ‘It couldn’t be today, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Name a day then.’

  Wakeley turned to his diary. He wasn’t being coy, he wasn’t playing difficult to get; he was genuinely busy. ‘Thursday,’ he said finally.

  ‘Not before?’ Palliser asked. Richard Wakeley thought him a little importunate. Ministers of the Crown. . .

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘At noon then?’

  Wakeley looked at his diary again, On Thursday at midday he already had an engagement. He saw that it was with Gervas Leat, and that was bound to be interesting. ‘Could you make it at eleven?’ he inquired.

  ‘Just as you like. And let’s compromise about the rendezvous. Could you come to my office?’

  Richard Wakeley hesitated. ‘To the Ministry?’ he asked.

  ‘If you would.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  The Minister’s brief laugh was muffled by the telephone. ‘I’m not in any trouble, you know. Not personally.’