The Clown Service Read online

  ‘He got the jump on me,’ Toby managed to blurt out. ‘It could have happened to anyone.’

  The Section Chief reached towards the horse ornament again. ‘Don’t make me do it,’ he said. ‘One solid blow, that’s all it will take. Your medical report assures me that Yoosuf has weakened your cranium considerably.’

  Toby sighed and lowered his head. A beaten dog accepting the flexed belt of his master.

  ‘It was a simple assignment, Greene,’ his Chief continued, ‘pathetically so. You just had to babysit him. A man whose hobbies include collecting sheet music and playing the bassoon. A man I would have previously considered one of the most delicate in espionage. Before he brained you, that is. At which point you became the most fragile flower on the books. A fragile flower that I now have to replant.’

  His chief sat back in his chair and looked out of the window. ‘Somewhere shady, I think. Somewhere the bad weeds won’t immediately throttle you.’

  The ensuing silence seemed to swell like a tick feeding on awkwardness. Toby wondered if it might eventually crush them both beneath its terrible weight.

  ‘Of course,’ said his Chief finally, ‘there was that fuss in Basra wasn’t there?’ He clicked away at his computer, making a show of searching for information that Toby knew well enough he already had. ‘A possible PTSD diagnosis?’

  Toby didn’t know if he was really expected to answer. He chose to assume not.

  ‘A diagnosis you fiercely denied at the time. Is that the root of the problem?’ his superior continued. ‘Was that the chink of vulnerability that brought the whole lot crumbling down?’

  He looked at Toby. ‘Was that when I should have realised you weren’t cut out for our line of work? That you didn’t have the …’ he looked up at the office roof, as if hoping to find the word he was thinking of scribbled on one of the ceiling tiles, ‘fortitude?’

  He brought his gaze back down to the computer. ‘I always said there was a problem with sending non-military personnel into hot zones. I should have seen that you weren’t ready for it.’

  Toby thought back to those few months, and one night in particular, when the sky had filled with harsh light and noise and the whole city had trembled. Who could have been ready?

  ‘In the old days it was so much easier,’ his Section Chief mused, ‘you threw a man into hell and he managed. These days I’m surrounded by analysts and doctors telling me to mind my poor, genteel boys.’ The man gazed into space, remembering the glory days when he hadn’t been expected to mind his operatives’ feelings.

  ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘has always been that you’re a dreamer. You joined up wanting to be James Bond, grown fat on a diet of TV shows and spy novels.’

  Toby remained silent.

  ‘You expected to be working for George Smiley, no doubt,’ his chief continued, ‘a genteel old chap with a penchant for cardigans held together with pipe smoke. Instead you got me.’

  He sighed and swiped his mouse on the surface of the desk. ‘Well, if this is the Circus,’ he said, referencing the slang term for the Secret Service, ‘then Section 37 is where we keep the clowns. And frankly, they’re welcome to you.’

  He scribbled on a piece of paper and pushed it across the desk. ‘Report there on Monday and never trouble me again.’

  Toby stared at the piece of paper and opened his mouth to speak.

  The Section Chief snarled, grabbed the horse statuette off his desk and threw it at him.

  b) Flat 3, Palmer Court, Euston, London

  Toby uncoiled the bandage from his head, then leaned back with a handheld vanity mirror so that he could see his wound in the reflection. A crop circle with puckered flesh at the centre of it. He wondered if combing carefully might cover it up. A couple of minutes’ effort resulted only in an even sorer head and a piling of hair whose position was obviously contrived. Blatant as dust swept into the corner of an ugly room.

  Throwing the comb at the sink, Toby went into the kitchen to find something to drink.

  His doctor had been unequivocal with regards to mixing alcohol with his medication. It was something that Should Not Be Done. Finding he couldn’t care less, he opened a bottle of wine.

  After draining half a glass while standing at the worktop, he refilled it and tried to decide what to do next. Naturally, given his self-destructive streak, he called his father.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Toby.’

  There was a lengthy pause at the end of the line. Then, ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No, just calling to see how you are.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was another pause; his father couldn’t have made his disinterest clearer had he hung up.

  ‘So, how are you?’

  ‘Fine. Busy.’

  ‘Busy doing what? You haven’t broken a sweat in four years.’ Toby had meant the comment to sound light-hearted. It was out of his mouth before it occurred to him that it might come across as a criticism. His father certainly took it as such.

  ‘Retired doesn’t mean lazy,’ he said. ‘I can still be busy.’

  ‘I know. I was joking.’

  Toby’s father made a noise that could have been dismissal or phlegm. Then was silent again.

  ‘I’ll ring back another time, shall I?’

  ‘No,’ his father replied, ‘chat away.’

  ‘Right, well it was more to find out how you were really.’

  ‘Busy, like I said.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause, then Toby added, ‘With what?’

  ‘Stuff, you know, just … stuff.’ His father seemed to suddenly remember how conversations worked. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh, some fuss at work, nothing major. I could do without it, though.’

  ‘I bet. You’re lucky to have a job in this recession. So, what have you done now?’

  ‘Done?’

  ‘You say there’s been trouble. What have you done?’

  The fact that his father was right hardly helped Toby forgive him the assumption. ‘Why would I have done anything?’ he countered. ‘All I said was that there was trouble at work. Why do you automatically think that means I’ve fucked up somehow?’

  ‘Experience,’ his father laughed. Toby was familiar with that laugh. It was a common shield, his jolly weapon to be re-employed should Toby argue over the comment. ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ his father would say. ‘Couldn’t you tell I was joking?’

  Toby refused to give his father any satisfaction. He took another mouthful of wine. ‘I’m being transferred, actually – moved to a better department.’

  ‘Better, eh? Says who?’

  ‘Says me. But I would rather have had a bit more notice; it leaves a lot of unfinished business on my desk.’

  ‘You always flitted about, never could settle.’

  ‘Not my choice,’ Toby replied, feeling his anger build, a roaring tension that made him stiffen from neck to toe, becoming one clenched muscle. ‘They need me elsewhere.’

  ‘God help them!’ – that laugh again. Toby felt the stem of his wine glass snap in his hand and the bowl tumbled to the floor to spill wine across the carpet. ‘What’s wrong now?’ his father asked, responding to Toby’s short, startled cry.

  ‘Nothing,’ Toby insisted, refusing to admit anything that might be seen as idiocy in the eyes of his father. God, how tiring it was trying to be perfect. He threw the stem onto the sofa and squatted down to pick up the bowl of the glass.

  ‘You made a noise,’ his father said, utterly attentive for the first time in the phone call.

  Toby went to the kitchen, meaning to tug some kitchen roll off the holder but it was empty. He always forgot to replace the roll. Stupid.

  ‘No,’ he said into the phone as he rummaged in the cupboard under the sink, turfing out a mess of carrier bags and the sort of kitchen junk that was never used but never thrown away. ‘Must have been the line.’

  He found a kitchen roll and tried to tug it free from the shrink-wrapped plastic packaging. It fought him
and, as the anger continued to build, he wished he could tear it to fucking shreds.

  ‘Anyway,’ Toby declared, determined to keep his voice even despite his jaw beginning to tighten as much as the rest of him, ‘I start next Monday – so at least I can have a few days to chill out a bit. The doctor says I should avoid doing much. Concussion can sneak up on you, apparently.’

  ‘Only you could manage to brain yourself working in HR,’ his father said. ‘Who knew filing cabinets had such fight in them?’

  Of course he had had to lie about the cause of his accident, his father not having been cleared to know the nature of his son’s job. But it irritated Toby. It was bad enough that his father always seemed to consider him a failure without him having to bolster that opinion.

  ‘Yeah,’ he laughed, deciding it was better to brush the comment off than dwell on it. ‘Stationery has teeth in the Civil Service.’

  ‘I imagine it’s the only thing that has. So what’s this new job of yours then?’

  ‘More of the same, really,’ Toby replied as noncommittally as he could – it was always easier to maintain a lie that was barely uttered in the first place. ‘Just a different department.’

  ‘And this is what I spend my taxes on. Christ! I’m still paying your pocket money, aren’t I?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s money well spent.’ Of course, Toby’s Section Chief hadn’t thought so and he was quite sure his father wouldn’t have either. All the more reason to keep his secrets. He tried to change the subject. ‘When are you coming up to London next?’

  ‘There’s a sale on the 23rd that’s probably worth the train ride.’

  Like seeing your son isn’t? thought Toby. ‘Maybe we could have lunch while you’re here.’

  ‘Look at you trying to take extra time off so soon into your new job.’

  ‘Just lunch, the department’s flexible on lunch.’

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t be,’ said his father, ‘it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.’

  ‘Forget it then.’ Toby wasn’t going to fight for it; he was only too happy to not see him. ‘Listen, I’d better go.’

  ‘Got something more important to do, have you?’ And, again, the laugh, just to make it quite clear that his father wasn’t really bothered. ‘I’m sure I’ll be talking to you again soon.’

  The phone went dead and Toby spent a few minutes contemplating the red wine-stain on the rug.

  c) Section 37, Wood Green, London

  Monday morning crept slowly across the city as Toby headed to the Piccadilly line like a man going to his death.

  The raucous clatter of the Tube didn’t intrude upon him as he sat staring at his own reflection in the darkened glass of the window. He seemed to see someone he didn’t know anymore. Even his clothes looked uncomfortable. The suit that never quite fitted the way he hoped it would, the shirt collar that would never sit still. The man in his head never appeared in the mirror; it was always this fragile idiot.

  He got off at Wood Green and ascended the stairway into a riot of traffic and pedestrians. The noise wrong-footed him as it occasionally had since his injury. It was all engines, shouting and the roar of life. A feeling of claustrophobia swelled up inside him and he dashed across the road looking for somewhere to catch his breath. Misjudging the lights, he narrowly missed being hit by a bus, a solid red wall of metal and glass that swung towards him as if out of nowhere.

  The pavement hardly seemed safer. Having lost his rhythm he felt as if he were in everyone’s way, constantly swinging to one side or another as people converged on him. He had to fight an urge to shout as he turned off the main road to find a place of relative silence.

  Resting against a street sign Toby caught his breath, trying to tug the collar of his shirt away from his sweating throat. Was this it now? A promising career finished because of a series of mistakes and panic attacks? Had he fallen so far? The last few years had certainly rained punches on him: the shooting in Israel, the bomb attack in Basra, now Yoosuf … Everyone had their fair share of bad luck in this business, but his seemed particularly sour. It weighed on him. It made him feel spent.

  The temptation simply to quit had surfaced repeatedly. A constant argument with himself that he could never quite resolve. Was he really cut out for this work? The way he was feeling now suggested not, mentally battered from one conflict after another, and yet … the more he suffered the more he was determined to push through it, to regain the strength he was sure he had once had. The act of giving up seemed a failure too far. The more it tempted him, the more he became determined to continue. He could be better than this – had to be better than this.

  Checking the map on his phone to make sure he knew where he was going, with a deep breath, Toby pushed on. He moved back to the bustling street, like a deep-sea diver leaving the air-filled surface far behind him.

  Past the mobile-phone shops and fast-food restaurants, the shopping precinct and the market, Toby worked his way along the main road. He grew more accustomed to the noise as he walked and was almost his old self by the time he reached the nondescript door that led to the offices of Section 37. It stood to the left of a cluttered window offering cheap international call minutes, phone-unlocking and cheque-cashing.

  ‘Lovely,’ he muttered, trying to decide between the two buttons mounted next to the flaking, purple-painted door. Neither was marked. He jabbed the upper one.

  Inside the shop an angry Turkish man began hurling abuse at children loitering by the racks of cheap mobile-phone covers. If nothing else, Toby thought, his career had taught him to understand curses in most languages.

  The door was opened by a jaded young woman in a silk dressing gown. It had been slung on in a casual manner, like a serviette draped over a nice slice of cake to dissuade flies.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘You woke me up.’ Most people would have registered a Russian accent, but Toby could be more precise. It was Armenian.

  ‘Oh,’ Toby said, ‘I’m sorry, I was after Mr Shining.’

  Her shoulders sagged but she gave a soft, sleepy smile. ‘Wrong bell,’ she said, pointing at where he had pressed the upper, rather than lower button.

  ‘So sorry,’ Toby said, ‘do you think I might come in anyway?’

  At that, the smile vanished and she held her hand out in flat-palmed denial. ‘Nobody visits August unless they are approved,’ she said. For a moment he thought her English was off and had been about to insist that it was actually May. Then he realised that his new boss must be called August. August Shining. It was not the most inconspicuous name a spy could wish for.

  ‘I’m expected,’ he assured her.

  She settled a suspicious look on him and pressed the correct button. The buzzer could be heard going off up the stairs behind her.

  ‘Yes?’ asked a voice.

  ‘August,’ said the girl, ‘I have a man here who says you expect him.’

  ‘Well,’ said the man who sounded much older than Toby had envisaged, ‘what’s he like?’

  Toby sighed as he was given a thorough once-over by the Armenian girl.

  He looked over her shoulder at the dingy hall and the stairs that climbed towards the pale light of a window shrouded in yellowing dust and cobwebs. It certainly didn’t look worth the effort it was taking to gain access.

  ‘He’s late in his twenties,’ the girl said, ‘probably eleven and a half stone, maybe twelve. Spent a lot of time abroad, his skin shows too much tan for the weather here these last months.’

  ‘Sunbed?’ asked the voice.

  ‘Not the type,’ she replied. ‘He is alone and has been for long time, I think. He wears his clothes and hair like they are habits. He deals with them because he has to, not because he wants to be handsome.’

  ‘He sounds charming.’

  ‘And he’s stood right here,’ Toby reminded them both.

  ‘Oh, let him in,’ said Shining. ‘If he wants to kill me you can soon come to my rescue.’

  ‘Is damn right,’ she said, stepping
back to let Toby pass. ‘I break his neck if he hurt my August.’

  There was the sound of a door opening from above and Toby climbed around a corner in the stairway to come face to face with August Shining.

  The man looked even older than his voice had suggested, with thin hair combed perfectly over a liver-spotted scalp. A white beard helped to hide some of the wrinkles, but his eyes were sharp – watching Toby from behind thin, designer wire-framed glasses. Wearing a fawn three-piece suit with a thick, dark-green checked shirt, Shining looked something between an old-fashioned country gentlemen and a fold-out fashion spread from GQ.

  ‘I don’t think he’s here to kill me, Tamar,’ Shining commented. ‘You can try to get some more sleep.’

  ‘I will keep the ears open,’ the girl replied, ‘and if he turns out bad you can shout.’

  ‘I certainly will.’

  Shining stepped back and gestured for Toby to make his way through the door ajar behind him.

  The office for Section 37 was a nest of filing cabinets and comfortable soft furnishings. Bookshelves lined one wall, framed black and white photographs another. A pair of leather sofas formed an avenue for the window to pour in North London light; it spilled out onto a carpet that was manila-envelope brown.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Shining, pointing to one of the sofas, ‘I’ll just get some coffee on the go.’

  He stepped out of the room and there came the distant sound of running taps and coffee filters being banged against the plastic of a swing bin.

  Toby walked over to look at the book shelf. It was a combination of geographical texts, political manuals, occult books and trashy horror novels. He pulled out a book and looked briefly at the blood-stained woman on the cover. Apparently it was a ‘thrill-storm of gore’ and ‘a meaty must-read’. He returned the book and moved on to the photographs. They were of locations all over the world, from obvious tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower or the Sphinx to other, more obscure locations: a West German alleyway; a rain-soaked street in Portugal; an icy bandstand freezing its wooden bones in an indeterminate landscape. Obviously they must mean something to Shining, but Toby couldn’t guess what. Places he’d worked possibly. If he’d been a member of the Service for as long as his age allowed, he must have seen his fair share of the world.