Read Online Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert - Free Book Online Page B

lips wrinkled.
    He said, “Have the police tried to trace the origin of these?”
    “I have shown them to no one. Paula forbade it. The thought of having to give evidence—”
    “It wouldn’t be nice,” agreed Mr. Behrens. “Can I keep them for the moment?”
    “Please,” said the professor. “I never wish to see them again.”
    Mr. Behrens paused before framing his next question. He said, “These letters and messages. Have they been just general stuff? Or has there been anything specific?”
    “The police have the letters. I cannot remember what was said on the telephone.”
    “Of course not. But what line did they take? Pure xenophobia? ‘Go home Czechoslovak.’ That sort of thing.” He paused invitingly.
    “It was that sort of thing,” agreed the professor.
    He’s lying, thought Mr. Behrens. And he’s going to go right on lying. Because he’s been frightened. I shan’t get anything more out of him at the moment.
    He said, “I’ll leave you this telephone number. It’s on the London code. Someone there will be able to contact me at once if I should be wanted.”
    He took his leave . . .
     
    Richard Redmayne finished his whisky, accepted a second one, and said to Mr. Calder, “It’s a bloody shame. The old man’s the best prospect as Minister of Education this country has had this century. You think I’m prejudiced because I’m his secretary. Perhaps I am. But I can tell you this. Without Nicholson we’re never going to get this bill through.”
    “The PM said he had an able deputy, who would carry on with the same policy.”
    “Able deputy, my foot. Morris is an old woman.”
    They were in a public house near St. James’ Park underground station, much patronised by the junior staffs from Whitehall.
    Mr. Calder said, “I suppose there’s no chance he’ll change his mind.”
    “None at all. He’s made all his plans. As soon as his sister’s fit to move, they’re both going out to Canada.”
    “Why Canada?”
    “That’s where his family came from. He says they’ve got a really efficient Security Service out there, too. If they say they’re going to look after you, they do it.”
    “We bought that one,” said Mr. Calder. “Look here – you knew Nicholson as well as anyone. Better than most. Have you got any idea why – or, more to the point, how – anyone could have been getting at him?”
    “Apart from politics, you mean?”
    “Apart from politics. This wasn’t the first attack, was it?”
    “He’d had letters. And telephone calls. The sort of thing every public man gets.”
    “General abuse? Or specific?”
    “I don’t follow you.”
    Mr. Calder said, patiently, “There are two ways of attacking a public man. You can pick on some large, popularly believed sort of lie. If the man’s a Jew, he’s financially crooked. If he went to the London School of Economics and wears a red tie, he’s a Communist. If he’s a bachelor, he’s homosexual. If you go on repeating the lie long and loud enough, someone will believe it in the end. The other method is to pick up some incident in their past life. It may be something quite silly, which wouldn’t matter twopence if it were you or me – but which can be magnified out of all proportion if you’re a public figure. You know what I mean?”
    “Yes,” said Redmayne. “I know exactly what you mean.” He sat staring into his glass, and then said, “Well, he was a bachelor—”
     
    The disposal of paper is a recurrent headache in government departments. Some of it can be destroyed and some of it must clearly be kept handy, but the bulk of it falls into that middle class of documents which no one can see any immediate use for, but which may conceivably be wanted some day. Having filled an abandoned motorcar factory near Staines Bridge, the Records Department had now taken over an airplane hangar at Brooklands and was fast filling that up too.
    “Five cubic yards of paper a week,” said the custodian to Mr. Behrens.