"(VOICE ON POLICE RADIO)" "We've got him." "(RADIO) Presume he's armed." "Message from the roof, sir." "Do you happen to know, please, the precise type and calibre of the weapon our friend is alleged to have in his possession?" "Standard Browning 9mm automatic." " Type of ammunition, sir?" " Soft nose, I should think." "But not a stopper or a dumdum?" " Why the hell would he want a dumdum?" " I don't know, sir, do I?" "How many rounds has our friend got?" "God's sake!" "He's not a maniac!" "He's not going to start a bloody great..." "Assume one magazine and one spare." " How's his marksmanship?" " He's been trained." " He's good." " Thank you." "How do you know all about the gun?" "Poppy told me." "Who else?" "Oh, yes, of course." "Poppy knew everything." "Poppy." "(MAN) I appeal to my young brethren," "I appeal to my beloved brethren, all, let them guide you like the stars above that guided the Wise Men across deserts to the cradle of truth." "God's light that reaches even into the pit of sin!" "Covetousness is sin, my brethren!" "Greed is sin!" "There is much peril in youthful ambition!" "Oh, what temptation lies in wait for the young!" "What stern resolve must be taught to resist and vanquish Satan in all his guises!" "Lift your eyes to those stars, my brethren!" "The stars of ideals!" "Millions of miles may separate us from them, but strive, strive always, lest ye shall know such agonies as ye have never known before!" "Strive to reach those stars!" "Make them your goal!" "Your life's journey!" "Ideals, my brethren!" "Ideals!" "# Toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-i-ay" "# Any umbrellas, any umbrellas to mend today?" "# Bring your parasol" "# They may be small, they may be big" "# He'll repair them all with what you call a thingamajig" "# Pitter-patter-patter, pitter-patter-patter" " # Down comes the rain - # Don't..." "# Let it pitter-patter, let it pitter-patter Don't mind the rain" "# He'll mend your umbrellas and go on his way" "# Singing toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ay" "# Toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ay" "# Any umbrellas to mend today?" "#" "(LAUGHTER)" "# Toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-i-ay..." "# Bring your parasol, they may be small, they may be big" "# He'll repair them all with what he calls a thingamajig" "# Pitter-patter-patter, pitter-patter-patter, don't mind the rain... #" "Hey!" "Rick!" "Bogeys, a lot of them." "Keep them down here, Syd." "Magnus." " (DOORBELL)" " You girls know nothing." "You've come for tea." "Mrs Pym." "Little Magnus." "Christmas treat." "Like Mr Pym likes to give his office staff, all right?" "(DOORBELL)" "(SYD) All right, all right!" "I'm coming!" "Hang on!" "There's hundreds of policemen in the garden!" "I saw them through the window!" "What are you doing?" "What are you doing?" "What are you doing?" "Don't ever hit me again, son." "When I am judged, as judged we all shall be," "God will judge me on how I have treated you, make no bones about it." "Why are the policemen here?" "Your old man has a temporary problem of liquidity, son." "Tell me if they're coming up, there's a good chap." "(SYD)... in a respectable English household, gathering at the fireside?" "It hardly seems the right and proper time for this kind of line of enquiry, gentlemen." "Mr Pym, who really is a very busy man indeed, with all manner of wondrous responsibilities in the business and financial world!" "Mr Richard Theodore Pym we're talking about here." "His father, in case you didn't know, was Thomas Pym." "Alderman Thomas Pym, great war hero of the trenches, who rose from nothing to be Mayor of Brinkley, which is Rick's..." "That's Mr Richard Theodore Pym's home town." "Now, Mr Pym's entitled to warmth and comfort and joy in his home life..." "Give this key to Mr Muspole, no one else." " (POLICEMAN) Come with me." " You'll remember that?" "We'll do the landing." " Love your old man?" " Yes." "Well, then!" "Excuse me, madam." "Sorry about the disturbance." " That's my dad's." " Yes." "I'm afraid it's ours just for now, lad." "I'm really very sorry, madam." "All right, then." " Did they take the Bentley?" " Yes, Magnus." "They never took the Bentley before." "No." "What's a working holiday?" " Did Rick tell you that?" " Yes." " Hmph!" " I thought it was one of his jokes." "I'll do the best I can, Dorothy." "Course I will, you know that." "But once the bailiffs have had their turn and the repossessing shopkeepers, there won't be much..." "I mean, Dot, you know you won't be able to stay here, of course?" "You know that, don't you?" ""Old Muspole will be making arrangements," Rick said." ""Best accountant in England." ""Salt of the earth, old Muspole," Rick always said." " Dotty, if there's nothing left..." " Don't call me that." " I'm sorry." "When Rick's here we always..." " He's not here." " We've had things taken away before." " Different, this time." "Dorothy, I've got to get that cabinet away." "If they get their hands on..." "Yes, yes, go on!" "Look after Ricky!" "It's for you as well, and Titch." "Yes." "Yes!" "You'll go to your brother, won't you?" "He'll see you and Titch right." "Bound to." "Kith and kin." "Bygones be bygones." "Best thing!" "Only thing, really." "In spite of all." " D'you want me to carry him up to bed?" " No." "I'll see to him." "You'd better go." "Take that filing thing away." " I can see myself out, Dorothy." " I know." "I want to lock up behind you." "(DOROTHY) You remember Uncle Makepeace, don't you, Magnus?" "Course you do." "And Aunt Nell." "(MAKEPEACE) Of course he doesn't." "How could he?" "(DOROTHY) I meant your names." "You remember Uncle's name, don't you, Magnus?" "Well, what is my name?" "Magnus." "Don't be shy." "Speak up, darling." "Hello, Uncle Makepeace." "Are you going to see us right?" "What's that?" "Couldn't hear." "Hello, Aunt Nell." "Bygones be bygones?" "(MAKEPEACE) Be quiet." "Uncle Makepeace isn't used to children, so you mustn't be like you can be with Rick and Syd and Mr Muspole and the others." "Just answer politely when he asks you something." "You can say "sir" to him sometimes." "He'll like that, Magnus." "But you must never say anything about Rick, or things like Rick's parties or going to the races or..." " Or Rick's neverwozzers?" " No, not anything like that." "Uncle Makepeace is very religious." "He doesn't like hearing..." "Especially if you say it." "He'll think you're wicked, you see?" "You will be good, won't you?" "Promise Mummy." "Be good." "And quiet." "And do as you're told." "(MAKEPEACE) A shock?" "Shock?" "Oh, don't be absurd." "The man was made for prison." "Don't imagine this will be the only time." " Him and... my sister!" " (DOROTHY) Oh, don't!" "(MAKEPEACE) Thief!" "Blackmailer!" "Blackmailer!" "You chose him!" "That!" "Too much a young man of the world to waste his life here!" "But the handsome young man of the world had no money, had he?" "How to get it?" "Steal it." "Church funds, of course!" "Where better?" "He was treasurer, wasn't he?" "£900 of donations!" "That's when he should have gone to prison." "Would have!" "But for you!" "But for my sister!" "Why did you have to come back?" "I didn't want to!" "But there's Magnus!" "His child!" "Yes." "His." "Rick's child!" "Rick's!" "Rick's!" "Thief." "Blackmailer." "Fancy Mr Makepeace Watermaster, elder of the chapel, ever so good, having it off with his little sister!" "Blackmailers." "What are you doing here?" "I wasn't sleepy." "(WHISPERS) How long have you been sitting here?" "Don't know." "Not very long." "Honestly." "Not very long." "(CROWS CAW)" "(GROANS)" "You little canary!" "Come here!" "Come back!" "Wipe your feet." "Aunt Nell gets her wobblies out of a bottle!" "I know where she hides it!" "She does!" "I've seen her, Dorothy!" "No." "Don't say that." "You must never say that again, Magnus." "Swear to me you won't." "Aunt Nell's ill." "It's a secret illness, and she takes a secret medicine for it and nobody must ever know, or or else Aunt Nell will die and God will be very angry." "Swear you won't say it." "Will she die if I tell someone else?" "Aha!" "Little Mr Muddy Clogs!" "Come to say you're sorry for what you've done to my nice clean floor?" "I hope you're gonna say you're sorry, young man!" "I can't abide a gawping child." "Mrs Bannister?" "Aunt Nell gets her wobblies from a bottle." " Liar!" " (MAGNUS WAILS)" "Liar!" "Child of sin!" "I won't have the devil in my house!" " (THWACK)" " Your father's son!" "Doing his evil for him!" "(MAGNUS WAILS)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(AMBULANCE DEPARTS)" "They've taken her to a place where she'll be happy." "It's not the same place as your father." "I've told you that, Magnus." "She's being looked after by kind people." "It's all for the best." "Will I be taken somewhere if I'm ill?" "You're not ill, so that's another of your silly questions." "If I wet the bed again, will I be taken somewhere?" "No, you will not." "But I'll tell you what will happen." "You'll be put into nappies like a little baby, and you won't like that." " But suppose I was ill?" " I don't want to hear any more of that." "# There is a green hill far away" "# Without a city wall" "# Where the dear Lord was crucified" "# Who died to save us all" "# We may not know, we cannot tell" " # What pains he had to bear..." " (MAGNUS) # Any umbrellas to mend?" " # But we believe it was for us..." " # Any umbrellas to mend today?" "# He hung and suffered there" " # Bring your parasol, they may be small..." " # He died that we might be forgiven... #" "Billy!" "Billy Thompson's had a fit!" "(CHOKING)" " I am a pretty boy!" " (DOOR CREAKS)" "Ah." "Oh!" "Oh!" "Agh!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "Whatever's this?" "Oh!" "Magnus?" "Is this one of your games?" "Oh!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "Well, I don't know..." "Fetch Nanny." "Drink it down." "If little boys are ill, they must take their medicine and stay in bed until they're better, and we'll see how long that takes." "Think you can play me up?" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(DOOR CREAKS)" "(FOOTSTEPS)" "Oh!" "Ah!" "Ah!" "Ah!" "Aah!" "Get him to the hospital myself." "Observation." " Could be appendicitis." " Thank you, Doctor." "Soon have you well, young man." "What was he doing in my study in the first place?" "He said he wanted to tell you about the pain, sir." "He had to tell YOU about it." "(CAR DEPARTS)" "I hope they've cleaned up that mess." "Now, then, old son." "This is the life, isn't it?" " Did you have a good holiday?" " There's worse hotels than this one, Titch." "We can tell you." " Glad to see your old man?" " More than anything." "Well, then." "# Run, rabbit!" "Run, rabbit!" "Run, run, run!" "# Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun!" "# He'll get by without his rabbit pie" "# So, run, rabbit!" "Run, rabbit!" "Run, run, run!" "#" "Look, there's another one!" "(ALL) Is your journey really necessary?" "Yes, it is!" "Don't you know there's a war on?" "(ALL) Of course we know there's a war on, ducky!" "(SYD) # He'll get by without his rabbit pie" "(ALL) # So, run, rabbit!" "Run, rabbit!" "Run, run, run!" "#" "(LAUGHTER)" "You hear about poor old airy-fairy Ivor Novello, eh?" "Got sent down for a month." "Wormwood Scrubs." "Did a fiddle with his petrol allowance." "Very naughty." "Yeah, they're all at it these days." "I don't know what the country's coming to." "Lead the way, then, squire!" "I hope you put Rick in the bridal suite!" "Cheap at the price, for all this stuff." "Be a life sentence if the bogeys cop us." "Now, this old lady that we're going to see is very old and we have to be extra nice to her." "So I don't want you to scratch your head and pull a face." "You look her straight in the eye and smile." " That's the way to treat old people." " Yes, Rick." "It's like Syd says, Magnus." "If you're gonna shave people, you've got to learn to rub the soap in first." "Don't talk to him like that, please, Millie." " Enjoy your steak tonight, son?" " It was super." "There are not 20 boys in England who ate steak tonight." "D'you know that?" "I know." "Give us a kiss, then." " Goodnight, old son." " Goodnight." " Don't forget his fingernails." " They'll be like glass, Ricky." "(RICK) My dear dead father, Mrs Ardmore, was a Mason and a Liberal, just like your very respected late husband." "And it was Alderman TP, as everyone called my father, who pointed me towards this service, upon which I am now devoting my small talents, such as they are." "But my strength comes from God, Mrs Ardmore." "And he'll see you right." "Should ever I so much as take one step aside from the good Lord's path of certitude in business, there is always this man here behind me, Mrs Ardmore." "The best solicitor in England, I swear it, who is ever present as the legal representative of the Magnus Star Equitable Insurance Company." "Whose service, Mrs Ardmore, is to see to the comfort and the security of the elderly, the disabled and the needy." "My flesh... may be weak when the spirit is willing but Mr Perce Loft, the prince of lawyers," "will never miss a trick on your behalf." "Ten per cent guaranteed, plus profits, for as long as you are spared." "My dear dead father had a vision of moments like this." ""Come to me, all ye that are heavy laden."" "The service we offer is security, safety." "Let us take the burden of your business and financial tribulations." "Ten per cent, guaranteed." "With profits." "Marcus are you called?" "Oh, such a dear little boy." "Such good manners." "(MUSIC: : "I HEAR A RHAPSODY") BYJIMMYDORSEY" "# And when I hear you call" "# Call softly to me" "# I don't hear a call at all" "# I hear a rhapsody" "# And when your sparkling eyes" "# Are smiling at me" "# Then soft through the starlit skies" "# I hear a rhapsody" "# My days are so blue" "# When you're away... #" "Can we send some money to Dorothy?" "Then she can come out of hospital." " Your mother's not well enough." " She said she was." "Said?" "Have you been reading my letters?" "I made it up." "Are you getting fed up with your old man?" "I thought we were having fun." "Aren't we having fun?" "All the fun in the world, Rick." "Goodnight." "God damn it!" "We'd taken care of that!" "Exempted from military service on compassionate grounds." " Watertight, you said." " So it was." "Delicate kid." "Mother in the nuthouse." "You can't beat that for compassion." " Where's the compassion now, then?" " Changed their minds." "Information laid, by the look of things." " You mean someone's peached on me?" " Smells like it." "It's a damn shame, that's what it is!" "Get after it, Loft." "First Syd, then old Muspole." "Damn shame." "Just as the business was getting up a decent head of steam!" "It's persecution!" " I'm losing a packet selling it like this!" " You'll think of something, Rick." "They've no respect for commerce, that's their trouble." "Catterick Camp, blast their eyes!" "North Yorkshire!" "Cold as charity!" "Remember the racecourse?" "Bad luck for me, Catterick Races." "Neverwozzerland." "I don't like it, Loft." "You'll find something new." "Just you put your mind to it." "I must fix up that boy of mine." "Soon as I can get home again and get some leave." "Topsie!" "Watch those eggs!" "Damn it all!" "(TOPSIE) Ha-ha-ha!" "Ooh!" "Ha-ha-ha-ha!" "So, then, son." "It's time for you to set those fine feet of yours on the road to becoming Lord Chief Justice." "And a credit to your old man." "I'll have that now." "There's been too much lazy fare about, and you're part of it." "Look at his hair." "Look at his shirt." "No man ever did business in a dirty shirt." "That's why it's boarding school for you, son." "They'll keep you straight." "Make you a true Englishman." "And a credit to your father." "So, God bless you." "God bless me, too." " Love your old man?" " Yes." "Well, then." "Topsie, where's that new dartboard?" "Present to the sergeant's mess." "If I can land that job as a catering clerk, I should be able to see you right throughout the shortages." "Looking for money, are we, Titch?" "Save yourself the trouble, I would." "It's all tick, with your dad." "I've looked." "He told me there was a bar of chocolate." "There's three gross of army milk and nut sitting in the garage, along with the sugar and the nylons and gin and whatnot." "Help yourself." "It was a special kind of bar." "Huh!" "I don't give a bugger how he got it." "It's having it, that's what counts." "He had a good war, I believe." "Did a lot..." "Really, Waterstone for Parliament!" "What a..." "Army surplus by the ton!" "Don't ask him how he got his hands on it!" "He'd do it to anybody." "One of nature's gentlemen." "Saw my Vera right, anyway." "Harley Street." "She's a nice girl, is my Vera." "We were just saying he's no angel, is he?" "To be absolutely honest, he can't get enough!" "Shortages won't last for ever." "They're becoming a risk business." "You need something new." " I know, Loft." " Course he does." "Got the old brain working at 50 to the dozen." "I know you, Ricky." "Reconstruction." "Rebuilding the nation, that's the coming thing." "Quite right, and we must do our bit." "There's a lot of old property going very cheap." " I've been looking at Fulham." " No capital, you know that." " You can raise it." " Millstone." "No, I'll find a way." "Magnus, bring the bottle." "There must be someone here who knows... someone who knows someone who knows someone." "Now, then." "Flora lovey, just you tell Mr Pym..." "Rick, Flora." "Call me Rick." "Just tell Rick the same as you told us, in the jockeys' bar at the Winning Post Tavern, about your friend Mr Dobbs." "Have a little one, love." "Tell Rick what your friend's profession is, Flora." "My Dobsy's an architect, in the City." " And he's just got a new job, hasn't he?" " Yeah, it's to do with the government." "And what job is it, dear?" "Assessing the compensation." "Compensation for what, lovey?" "Bomb damage compensation." "That's an interesting job, Flora." "So, all Dobsy does, he hops on his bicycle, he nips round to a bombed house, gets on the blower to Whitehall and he says, "Dobbs here." "I want 20,000 quid's worth by Thursday and no backchat."" "The government pays up like a lady." "And why is that?" "Cos Dobsy is impartial!" "And don't you forget it!" "Oh, my Lord!" "It's a natural!" "It's a start, Syd." " Would you care for a cigar, sir?" " Yes." "Thank you, my boy." " May I cut it for you?" " Ah." "So, that's what the stripe-arsed civilians were doing while I was engaged in a certain contest, risking me neck amid shot and shell." "My father was in the war, sir." "Tortured by the Gestapo, actually." "Although he never talks about it." " You won't say that I told you, will you, sir?" " Oh, quite so, my boy." "Quite so." "Mr Dobbs, Mr Pym's so sorry to have kept you waiting, but he and his colleagues are ready for you now, if you'd like to join them." "Has Mr Pym Junior been looking after you?" "Mm?" "Oh, yes, thank you." "Fine boy." "Welcome, Mr Dobbs!" "Welcome to an historic occasion." "In this room today, we are gathered for a vision of the future." "We are here today to dedicate ourselves to the great challenge, our children's heritage." "Let me introduce you to your fellow toilers in the vineyard," "Mr Lemon, Mr Loft," "Mr Muspole, and our advisors from His Majesty's Government, to keep us ever on the straight and narrow," "Mr Crabbe and Mr Fox." "(SYD) Let's put it this way, Titch." "Dobsy, with his bomb-damage compensation he's got, let's call it... money looking for a home." "Now, his little pal Foxy, his responsibility is earmarking land for building on." "Then there's old Crabbe, who's got the running of a friendly society that concerns itself with supplying, shall we say, modest dwellings to people with slender means." "There's your vital elements, Titch, but it takes a brain the size of your dad's to put them together and make a project out of 'em." " There's genius there, Titch." " Well, what did you think of that?" "He's on form." "(DISTANT SHOUTING)" "(STRIKES MATCH)" "Tell me, boy, what does your father do, exactly?" "He... seems to be some kind of free-wheeling businessman, sir." "I don't know, really." "Does he live in some kind of luxury?" "By comparison with the standards that apply to other parents here." "I suppose he does, sir, yes." "Do you approve or disapprove of the kind of life he leads?" "Disapprove a bit, I suppose." "Has it occurred to you that you may one day be obliged to choose between God and Mammon?" "Yes, sir." " Have you discussed this with the padre?" " No, sir." " Do so, boy." " Sir." "(CLEARS THROAT) Tell me what you know about your mother." "She just sort of vanished when I was young, sir." "Who with?" "With an army sergeant, sir." "He was already married." "So he took her off to Africa to elope." " Does she write to you?" " No, sir." "Why not, boy?" "I suppose she's too ashamed, sir." " Does she send you money?" " No, sir." "She hasn't any." "He swindled her out of everything that she had." "We are speaking of the sergeant still, I take it?" "Yes, sir." "(WHISPERING)" " He asleep?" " He's sleeping." "(GRUNTING)" "(BOY CHUCKLES)" "Is your father an admiral of the fleet?" "No, Sefton Boyd!" "Was your father a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain?" "No!" " Was he ever parachuted behind enemy lines?" " No, Sefton Boyd!" "And do you solemnly swear to Almighty God that you will never boast about him again within the precinct of this school?" "Yes, Sefton Boyd!" "(HEADMASTER) The staff lavatory iis out of bounds at all times, as you well know, Sefton Boyd!" "Mere trespass is a beating offence." "(RICK) Ha-ha-ha!" "# Daylight comes creeping" "# Heralding the dawn" "# Trains rattling by above" "# Pavement is my pillow" "# Everywhere we stray" "# Underneath the arches" "# We dream our dreams away #" "It's Stanley Matthews dribbling down the touchline." "He beats one man." "He beats another man." "He beats a third man." " Are you all right?" " Oh, son!" "With you beside me and God sitting up there and the Bentley waiting to take us home," "I'm the most all right fellow in the world." "(MUSIC: "THE LAMBETH WALK")" "# Any evening, any day" "# You'll find 'em all" "# Doing the Lambeth Walk, hoy!" "# Every little Lambeth gal" "# With her little Lambeth pal" "# You'll find them all" "# Doing the Lambeth walk, hoy!" "# Everything's free and easy" "# You do as you darn well pleasy" "# Why don't you make your way there" "# Go there, stay there?" "# Once you get down Lambeth way" "# Any evening, any day" "# You'll find them all" "# Doing the Lambeth walk, hoy!" "#" "(RICK) Your immediate presence Chester Street essential in matter of vital national and international importance." "Richard T Pym, Managing Director, Pym Co." "(SYD) The important thing is, Titch, just bang hard on the knocker." "It's no use pressing the bell." "All the electric's off." "Get inside the minute the door opens." "Anybody tries to talk to you on the doorstep, keep mum." "Not a word." "Especially some gents who might be parked in a Riley." "Not one word, mind." "I shan't be coming in with you." " Is my father in some trouble?" " Heatwave, Titch, heatwave." "What went wrong?" "Dobsy went wrong, that's what." "Dobsy went woozy in the head." "Got 100,000 quid bomb damage for some housing estate hadn't been started when the bombing finished." "Spoilt it for everyone." "Selfish." "That's what Dobsy was, Titch." "Selfish." " This'll do!" " All right, guv." "You walk the last bit." "(MAN) Just a minute, sir!" " Excuse me, sir!" " (CAR DOOR SLAMS)" "You'll be the son and heir, Magnus." "Greetings, squire." "Salaams." " How do you do?" " I am optimistic, thank you, squire." "I think we're on the road to understanding." "Some resistance at first, it's to be expected." "A very cautious man, your father." "But I think I see a light begin to shine." "Cunningham's the name, squire." "Half cunning, half ham." "Cunning ham." "Please." "You are a German scholar, I understand, Magnus?" "A fine language." "The people I'm not sure, but a lovely tongue in the right hands." "You can quote me." "Your son, sir." "You can be a proud man." " How are you, old son?" "How was the train?" " Fine, thanks." " They give you a bit to eat?" " Just a sandwich and a beer." "Son, you ought to watch that drinking of yours." "You know there's £5,000 in cash for you if you don't smoke or take hard liquor until you're 21." "Baroness, what do you think of this boy of mine?" "Son," "I want you to meet a noble and heroic lady who has known great advantages and misfortunes and who has fought great battles and suffered cruelly at the hands of fate, and who has paid me the greatest compliment a woman can pay a man" "by coming to see me in her hour of need." "Rothschild, darling." "Heard that name anywhere before, have you, son, with your fine education?" "Rothschild." "Baron Rothschild, Lord Rothschild." "Rothschild's Bank." "Or are you not conversant with the name of a certain great Jewish family with the wealth of Solomon at its fingertips?" "Yes, of course I've heard of it." "Well, then." "What do you think of him, Baroness?" "Beautiful, darling." "Now, son," "I want you to listen to what she has to say because I think it's a damn shame and I'm going to see this lady right, you mark my words." "Elena, tell him the story." "Call her Elena." "She likes it." "She's not a snob, she's one of us." "Go on, my dear." "When you got married." "I... was 17." "Like you, Magnus." "My husband was the late Baron Luigi Svoboda-Rothschild, the last in the great line from Czechoslovakia." "Our country seat was the Palais of Nymphs at Brno, which first the Germans then the Russians rape worse than a woman, literally." "My cousin Anna, she married to the head man from De Beer Diamonds, Cape Town." "Got houses like you not imagine." "Too much luxury I don't approve." "My Uncle Wolfram I never speak." "And thanks Gott, I say." "He collaborate with the Nazis." "The Jews, they hang him upside down." "My Grand-Uncle David, now he poor like a kulak." "And my poor Auntie Waldorf, no!" "No, no!" "It's a damn shame, that's what it is." "Danke." "Danke." "You're a gem, that's what you are." "Go on, my dear." "My Luigi, he was financial genius." "Ja." "We got house from marble, we got mirrors, culture, we got..." "They couldn't even count it." "Ask her." "Don't be shy, squire." "We lose everything and when the Germans come my Luigi face them with a pistol." "Don't never been heard of since." "That baron was a fine man." "Ja." "Ja!" "We are going to see this lady right, aren't we?" "Course we are." "What that man did, son, he got some of the best treasures out of his palace and he put them in a box and he gave the box to certain very good friends of this fine lady here and he gave orders that when the British had won the war," "this very same box was to be handed over to his lovely young wife with everything that it contained, however much it may have risen in value in the meantime." "One Gutenberg Bible." "Nice condition, darling." "One early Renoir." "Two Leonardo medical." "One first edition Goya "Caprices"." "Artist's annotation." "300 best gold American dollars." "Rubens, a couple cartoons." " Cunningham says it's worth a bomb." " It's Hiroshima!" "(RICK) Are the two in the Riley still there?" "I'm afraid they are." "They can't come in." "They haven't got a warrant." "I'm an honest citizen." "Come here, son." "You believe in her, don't you?" "Don't spare my feelings." "Do you believe in that fine woman?" "Or do you think that she's a black-hearted liar, an adventuress to boot?" " She's fantastic." " Spit it out, son." "She's our last chance." "I'm not quite sure why she hasn't gone to her own people." "You don't know those Jews the way I do." "Finest people in the world, some of them." "But there's others..." "They'd have the coat off her back as soon as look at her." "I asked the same question." " Who's Cunningham?" " Old Cunningham's first-class." "I'm bringing him into the business when this is over." "Exports and foreign." "His sense of humour alone will be worth 5,000 a year to us." "Was he on form tonight?" "No, you're right." "He... he wasn't." "He was tense." "Get yourself a glass." "So what's the deal, then?" "Faith in your old man." "That's the deal." ""Ricky," she said to me, "I want you to get that box," ""sell the contents and invest the money in one of your fine enterprises."" "She trusts me." "All she wants for herself is 10% a year for life, as long as she's spared, with the usual provisions for endowment and insurance, if I should go before she does." "Son, I haven't got a passport just at the moment, otherwise I'd do this myself." "Syd, Perce Loft, old Muspole, they're not right for this, but you, son..." "That school of yours did the trick." "Your class, your authority." "(RICK) She likes you, she trusts you." "You're my son, that's the point." "(TRAIN WHISTLE)" "You are to proceed to Bern, Switzerland, and take rooms at the Grand Palace Hotel." "Mr Bertl, the undermanager, is first-rate." "The bill is taken care of." "Signor Lapardi will contact the Baroness and guide you to the Austrian border." "When he has given you the box and you have confirmed in our language that it's all there, see him right with the enclosed, and not until." "This is going to be the saving of us, son." "That money took a lot of earning, but when this is over none of us will ever have to worry again." "Very nice, darling." "Make you look handsome man, not nice boy from school." "Thank you." "One day the girls go crazy from you, darling." "Now we go shopping a little for me." "Some small things." "Bern is not Paris, but we'll look what they have." "You like, darling?" " You don't think too tarty?" " I think perfect." "OK." "We buy two, one for my sister Zsa-Zsa." "She my size." "You like this one, darling?" "Not look cheap, like whore from Hollywood?" "The bill, please." "Send to Herr Bertl." "Grand Palace Hotel." "For my sister in Budapest, darling." "You think she like?" "She got good taste, like you." "When are we going to meet Signor Lapardi?" "When is he going to do something?" " He talk with his Vertrauensmann, darling." " I'm sorry?" "Who?" "A Vertrauensmann, darling, is man we are trusting." "Not yesterday, maybe not tomorrow, but today we are trusting him for ever." "He put things right for us." "Rick's getting anxious about when." "On the phone last night he said to me..." "Lapardi, he need one hundred pound, darling." "The Vertrauensmann know a man whose sister know the head from Customs." "Better he pay him now, from friendship." "No, Elena, I can't." "Rick said pay nothing until we get the box." "I can't do that!" "You want to paint a house, darling, first you got to buy the brush." "(RICK) Give her the money?" "God in heaven!" "What do you think we are?" "Fetch me Elena." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Son?" "Are you there?" "Do you hear me?" " God's name, son!" "Will you say something?" " Don't shout me, Ricky." "You got lovely boy here, darling." "He very strict with me." "I think one day he be great actor." "(PIANO MUSIC)" ""The baroness says you're first-rate, son." ""Are you talking our language with them?" ""Have you had an honest-to-God English mixed grill yet?" ""Well, have one on me tonight!" ""God bless you, son!"" "And you too, Father." "(SMOOCHING)" "(ELENA CHUCKLES)" "So, my dear..." " Good morning, sir." " Morning." "Has the Baroness Weber gone out?" "The Baroness has left the hotel, sir." "There is a letter for you." "Thank you." "(ELENA) Darling, you are good man, got body from Michelangelo." "But your papi got bad problems." "Better you stay in Bern." "Never mind." "E Weber." "Love you always." "(RICK) Great God Almighty!" "God in high heaven!" "The trouble is, I've no money now, and Mr Bert!" "says at least I have to pay the shopping bills." "What bills?" "You see, Elena bought some jewellery and some dresses." "Holy hell!" "My father says it's in the post, Herr Bertl, but not to worry in any case, because it might not matter, really, because... he's making a bid to buy the hotel, actually." "(CONTINUOUS TONE)" "(OPERATOR) Sorry, sir." "The number is disconnected." "(CLICK)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "Amen." "(MAGNUS) Dear Father," "I have been awarded one of the scholarships available to foreigners at the university here." "As you would wish, I am of course studying law." "Swiss law, German," "Roman." "Just law, that's all." "So don't worry about me." "I hope you'll soon be liquid again and reinstated to Ascot and everything will be crackerjack." "God bless." "Your loving son, Magnus." "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "Ich verstehe." "Danke." "(BELLS CHIME)" "Let me remind you of the words of St Paul." ""For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities," ""against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," ""against spiritual wickedness in high places."" "So, to sum up, my three adjurations." "One, know your enemy." "The forces of darkness." "Two, don your armour of truth, righteousness and faith." "And three, keep in touch with GHQ." " Do help yourselves." " My father said before I go up to Oxford," "I had to see some real life." ""If you're going to be Lord Chief Justice, you'd best take a dekko at the seamy side first."" "So, I did a few weeks with a bookie in the East End." "Real character, was Syd." "Always packed a knuckleduster." ""Oh, yes." "In case of liberties, be prepared, Titch, that's what I say."" "And..." "I mucked out at a racing stable." "Drove a lorry for a rather suspect poultry farmer." " Such a charming lad." " I was a waiter in a very dubious roadhouse on the Great North Road." " What brought me here was a job as a courier." " Excuse me." "Well, more a sort of companion, actually." "A very old lady needed a hand with her luggage." "I delivered her to Zurich and then came on to Bern, just for a look-see, and thought I'd stay on for a while." "I've got these really squalid digs, absolutely the wrong side of the tracks." "Fascinating, actually." "Terrific experience." "First-rate." "(BABY WAILS)" "(MAGNUS SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(TYPING)" "(MAN COUGHS)" "(TYPING)" "(MAN COUGHS)" "(RICK) Always remember you're an Englishman, the genuine article, son." "And so, be ever true to your advantages and avoid foreign temptations." "You can write to Colonel Mellow, post restaurant, the main GPO, Hull, Yorkshire, who obliges by collecting my mail." "No need to put my name on envelope." "God bless." "Your loving father." "(TYPING)" "(MAN COUGHS)" "(TYPING)" "Don't you know it's forbidden for strangers to hang their clothes in Swiss basements?" "It's the first I've heard of it." "In Switzerland it is forbidden to be poor, it is forbidden to be foreign." "It is completely forbidden to hang clothes except when it's compulsory." " You are an inmate of this establishment?" " A friend of the Ollingers." " English friend?" " Yes." "My name's Pym." " Lord Pym?" " Just Magnus." "But you are of aristocratic stock?" "Well, nothing very special." "Sir Magnus." "You are the war hero, I think." " May I ask who you are?" " My name is Axel." "Since one week I am your neighbour in the attic, so I am obliged to listen to you grinding your teeth at night." " You type all night?" " I am a poet." "And your name is Herr Axel?" "Herr Axel?" "Axel." "My parents forgot to give me a second name." "Sir Magnus." "For God's sake!" "The war is over." "Sorry." "Are you all right?" " You like to talk nonsense?" " Very much." "Why don't you bang on my door sometime when you are lonely?" "We can have a cigar together, drink some wodka, save the world a little!" " All right." " OK." "We talk nonsense!" "(LABOURED BREATHING)" "The nightwatchman found me sleeping in Herr Ollinger's warehouse." "He wanted to hand me over to the police because I had no papers and I was foreign." "But Herr Ollinger, as you know, Sir Magnus, is one of the saints and instead of taking me to the police he took me to a doctor." " And how did you get into Switzerland?" " I walked." "How did you reach Bern, Sir Magnus?" "Are you advancing or retreating?" "Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Magnus who lived with his father in a big house." "We had servants and big warm beds and lots of parties and champagne and it was paradise until one day some men in uniform came." "And here it is, on Grand Palace Hotel notepaper." ""Never mind." "E Weber." "Love you always."" "Tell it again." "I order you, Sir Magnus." "And make sure it's completely different this time." " Did you sleep with her?" " Of course." " How many times?" " Four or five." " In one night?" " She was very experienced." "You tiger." "I love you, you hear?" "I love all English aristocrats." "But you best." "You're a prince, no question." "We shall appoint tomorrow the first day of the Weltschmerz." "We shall begin the education we never had." "The writers." "Brecht." "Zuckmayer." "Tucholsky." "Remarque." "Painters." "Klimt." "Kokoschka." "Kandinsky." "You must know these people, Sir Magnus." "Do we know music?" "And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came and with him a great multitude of swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people." "Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, "Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he." ""Hold him fast."" "And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, "Hail, master"" "and kissed him." "And Jesus said unto him," ""Friend, wherefore art thou come?"" "(MAN) How do you like Swiss academic life?" "Plenty of intellectual rigour to stretch the sinews?" "It's a bit dreary, really." "A lecture is a lecture is a lecture." "Got to be done, I suppose." "Didn't suffer much of that myself." "Saved by the war." "That could be a bit of a bore, too." " What outfit were you in?" " General List." "That's an Airborne Forces tie, isn't it, sir?" "Even I recognise that." "My name is Jack." "Refill?" "Did you see a lot of action?" "Oh..." "Crete." "North Africa." "Sideshow stuff." "It's no use asking, Magnus." "He won't tell you anything about it." "We can eat soon." " Magnus finds Bern a bit of a bore, Felicity." " I'm not surprised." "What do you do for fun, Magnus?" "What extra-curricular life does the university offer?" " Plenty of earnest discussion groups?" "Is that it?" " Very earnest." "Friends?" "Girlfriends?" "Well, one or two." "Come to think of it, the university does have a reputation for harbouring some odd characters." " Wandering emigrés of one kind or another." " Run into any weirdies, Magnus?" "There's a pretty rum crowd who call themselves the Cosmo Club." " How do they take their pleasures?" " Oh, it's a sort of foreigners' political forum." " Know any of 'em?" " Girl called Maria." "She's some sort of an officer in it, like a treasurer." "Any particular complexion?" "Well, she's, um, dark." "One thing, Magnus, it's quite clear what your politics are." "You could probably tell us a good deal about these odd birds." " Would you mind that?" " Why should I?" "No scruples about the sanctity of academic life or anything like that?" "None at all." "Not if it's for my country." "You ought to meet Sandy." "Drink or lunch or something." "Sandy's my boss." "Good scout." "How's your German, by the by?" "Coming on." " Any good at translation?" " What sort?" "You're a chap who can keep his mouth shut, aren't you?" "Yes, I think so." "We get a lot of technical stuff in from time to time, mainly about funny little Swissy firms that are manufacturing things we don't much like, nasty things that blow up." "It's not exactly secret but we hire a lot of local labour in the embassy, so we'd rather have it done by someone outside, preferably a Brit, someone we trust." "Are you game, if you were asked?" "Of course, if I can help." "We pay." "Not much." "Pennies, Magnus." "Pfennigs, cents, centimes." "Washers." "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "What's wrong with him?" "They shove a British sherry up his arse and he's having trouble shitting it out." "Maybe it was you who fired it at me, Sir Magnus." "Did you lead the invasion?" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(AXEL SNORES)" "Urgh!" "Uh." "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)" "(AXEL) Sir Magnus!" "Where are you, you bastard?" "(RECORD SLOWS DOWN)" " Tchaikovsky is dying!" " (RECORD STOPS)" "Too late." "Send for the undertaker." ""For Sir Magnus, who will never be my enemy."" "The flyleaf also says AH." "Karlsbad 1939." "Where's Karlsbad?" "Karlsbad no longer exists." "It was changed to somewhere else." "When you have read "Simplicissimus", you will understand why." "It is about the madness of war and other madnesses." "Where was it?" "It was my home town." "You've given me a treasure from your own past." "Would you prefer me to give you something I did not value?" " You been to the Cosmo recently?" " Not just lately." "I'm told some of the people who go along are a bit outspoken." "Nothing against your Maria, mind." "These outfits always have a broad spectrum." "Part of a democracy." "All the same, it might be a good idea if you took a closer look." "Don't stick out." "If they expect you to be a lefty, play along." "They want a right-of-centre Brit, give 'em one." "If necessary, give 'em both." "Don't go overboard." "We don't want you in trouble with the Swissies." "Course not, Jack." "Oh, nearly forgot." "Next month's stipend." " Names would help." " Right." "Thanks, Jack." "You're not averse to taking a peep round the odd desk, Magnus?" "Not at all, Jack." "Thing to do is float, Magnus." "Get in there, be your charming self." "Just in case, if you want me urgently, ring Felicity and say your uncle's in town." "If I need you I'll phone your digs from a call box and say I'm Mac from Birmingham passing through." "OK?" "I'm starting a Cosmo Club newsletter." "I thought we might include a contribution from each group." "Cosmo don't got no groups." " All I need is a list of names." " Cosmo don't want no newsletter!" "You must have a list, as secretary." "I thought if I had it I could send out a circular and find out who's interested." "Why don't you come to the next meeting and ask them?" "Not everyone comes to meetings." "I want to test all shades." "It's more democratic." "Nothing is democratic." "All is illusion." "That's a perfect debate for the newsletter." "English stupid." "What does an English know from illusion?" "No newsletter." "(CLICKING)" "(CLICKING)" "(CLUNK)" "(FOOTSTEPS)" "If we get interrupted by some chance encounter, friend of yours, friend of mine, but not in the family, I'm sure you understand me, you and I are embroiled in the affairs of the British Embassy's Anglo-Swiss Christian Society." "I'm the new secretary." "You're my missioner at the university." "Just in case." "(CHATTER AND LAUGHTER)" "You did a good job." "Church'll be proud of you." "Only it seems... one or two members of our choir have been unduly modest about their personal particulars, almost as if they wanted to hide their lights under a bushel." " I didn't really look." " Nor should you." "That's our job." "Danke." "Can't find your lovely Maria anywhere." "What have you done with her?" "I'm afraid she went back to Italy." "Found a replacement?" "Names without addresses we can pin down soon enough." "But then there's the very shy sprite with an address of a sort but no name." "What about AH?" "Does it ring a bell, AH?" "I haven't been to a lot of meetings, to be honest." "Bit busy." "This and that, you know." "Think." "AH." "Perhaps it's AH... somebody else." "AH Schmidt..." "Smith!" "I suppose I could find a way of asking, if you like." "It's all quite open, really." "Would it help if I told you that AH, whoever he is, says he can be contacted at an address in the Länggasse, care of Ollinger?" "You live there, don't you?" "Oh, you mean Axel!" "(MAGNUS) He fought in Russia first." "He was taken prisoner but escaped." "Then he was in Normandy when the Allies invaded France." "He was wounded in the spine and hip." "That's why he limps." "They had to shorten one of his legs." " How did he escape from the Russians?" " He said he walked." " Like he walked to Switzerland." " Well, that's what he said." "How long was he in Russia?" "Um, I don't know." "Long enough to learn Russian." "He's got books in Cyrillic in his room." "And after Normandy?" "He was sent back to Karlsbad." "It was Karlsbad then, until the Czechs took it over after the war." "I know, Magnus." "Go on." "Well, his mother was ill." "With jaundice." "So he put her on a cart and pushed her to Dresden." "But the Allies had just bombed it flat." "He took her to the district where the Silesian refugees had gathered, but she died soon after he got her there." "So, now he was alone." "What about his father?" "Well, he seems quite proud of his father." "Fought in Spain with the International Brigade." "He was an old-style Social Democrat, so he was lucky to die before the Nazis could arrest him." "So, he's a lefty." "No, I just said he's dead." "I meant the son." "Well, not really." "Not that he's said, anyway." "He's uncommitted, I'd say myself." "Righto." "Now it's peacetime, what does he do?" " Gets out of the Russian zone." " Why?" "He was scared that the Russians would find him and put him back in a prison camp." "Good story, so far." "What does he do about it?" " Burns his papers and buys some more." " Where from?" "From a soldier who looked fairly like him." "Came from Munich." "Why didn't he want his papers?" "He said that he wanted to stay in the East." " Why?" " Axel didn't know." "Bit thin, isn't it?" "Yes, I suppose it is." "On we go." "Where's his next stop?" "Well, Munich, 'cause that's where he's supposed to come from now." "But the Americans pulled him off the train and, er, put him in prison and... beat him up." " Why would they do that?" " Because of his papers." "He... bought them from a wanted man." "He'd just walked completely into a trap." "Unless they were his own papers in the first place and he never bought them from anybody." "How long did the Yanks lock him up?" "I don't know." "He got ill again, then he escaped from hospital." "Pretty good at escaping, I must say." "How does he spend his days here, Magnus?" "Who are his buddies?" "Well, he doesn't go out much." "He's afraid the police will arrest him." "It isn't only the police." "If the ordinary Swissies knew about him, they'd inform against him." "He says they do that." "It's the national sport." "He says they do it out of envy and call it civic-mindedness." " It's just household gossip I'm telling you." " It's a pity you didn't tell us earlier." "It didn't mean anything to me." "I didn't think you'd be interested." "Herr Ollinger told me most of it." "He... he gossips all the time." "What are Axel's reading habits?" "Well, everything, really." "He gives me a list of books and I get them out of the library for him." " In your name?" " Yes." "It's a bit rash, old boy." "(SHOUTS IN GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(FRAU OLLINGER) Axel!" "Pym!" " (HERR OLLINGER SHOUTS IN GERMAN) - (AXEL) Pym!" "You bastard!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "Where are you?" "Pym, help me!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "I'm sorry, Magnus." "Don't take it too much to heart." "We can all get taken in." "Way of the world, I'm afraid." "I think you were very brave, I really do." "The Swissies'll be grateful." "One favour they owe us." "(AXEL SHOUTS IN GERMAN)" "Pym!" "Pym, help me!" "Pym!" "You bastard!" "Where are you?" "Help me!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "Pym!" "(MAGNUS) Dearest Father, I'm so glad to hear that business is flourishing for you." "And I'm looking forward to Oxford, even if my head is still swimming from all the seminars and lectures over here." "One way and another, life's just about first-rate." "The only bad thing is that I had a pal who recently let me down, but that's the way of the world, I suppose." "# Pavement is my pillow" "# No matter where I stray" "# Underneath the arches" "# I dream my dreams away" "(TANNOY ECHOES) Smashing having you back with us, Titch." "We all missed you." "Here, better turn that off now." "Getting a bit nearer civilisation." "Civilisation!" "They still eat missionaries for tea." "Does Rick really expect to win this by-election?" "Listen, the day your dad announced his intention you could have got 50 to 1." "But now?" "He's 9 to 2 and shrinking." "Be evens by polling day." "They love him, Titch." " Do we have any policies?" " Course we do!" "Home ownership for all, with less red tape." "We'll have mustard on that." "(RICK) Why, ladies and gentlemen, have you ventured out tonight, on this inhospitable night, to hear the words of one who is a stranger in your midst?" "Why?" "Because you care about your country." "Well, that makes two of us, because I care about it, too." "I care about the way it's run and the way it's not run." "I care because politics are people." "People with hearts, to tell them what they want, for themselves and for one another." "People with minds, to tell them how to achieve it." "People with faith and guts," " to send Hitler back where he came from." " Hear, hear!" "People like ourselves gathered here tonight, the salt of the earth, and make no bones about it." "English people, root and bough, worried about their country and looking for the man to see them right!" "(MAN) Hear, hear!" "Hear, hear." "Without a certain person's helping hand, and you all know who I mean..." " (MAN) Hallelujah!" " Yes, you do!" "...I would not be where I am today, offering myself, be it ever so humbly, to the people of Gulworth North!" " He guides me!" " (CROWD) Hallelujah!" "If I know that I am the man for you, it is because he tells me." "I am his man, the people's man." "The man for Gulworth North!" "Hear, hear!" "Um, ladies and gentlemen, this is not in the programme, but I understand our candidate's celebrated son Magnus is among us tonight, with his honours thick upon him from his legal studies in Oxford, so I do believe." "He is here to assist his father in this great campaign." "I'm sure we'd all appreciate a word from you, if you'll favour us, please, a word or two of wit and wisdom." "Erm, it's not every day the mantle of the dreaming spires..." " Or is that Cambridge?" "I can never remember." " (APPLAUSE)" "I expect that many of you here tonight, even after that fine speech, are asking yourselves what manner of man my father is." "Well, ladies and gentlemen, he is the man you see, the plain man's honest friend." "I should know." "He's been the best friend I've had all my life." "(FOOTSTEPS)" "Mattie!" "Mattie, you old ponce!" "You got a bed for us, Mattie?" "It's Ella." "Come on, you old bugger!" "We're freezing!" "Get away from here, Ella!" "Drag him behind a bus shelter!" "What d'you think we are?" "Bloody dosshouse?" "You old bugger!" "My money not good enough for you now, eh?" "You cheeky swine, you!" "Just piss off, Ella!" "Piss off yourself!" "Very bad for the campaign, that sort of thing." "Candidate's committee room an old haunt for some caterwauling whore." "No harm done, Major Blenkinsop." "Nobody saw." "Anyway, if they did, it was only old Ella." "Could ruin the plan of battle." "As your campaign manager, Rick, I can't be held responsible." "You've done a terrific job, Blenkinsop." "Crackerjack." " Don't you think so?" " Yeah." "Absolutely." " You know the terrain." "This is your country." " There's no substitute for local knowledge." "L'info, know-how." "Know who." "That's what counts." "(BLENKINSOP) Well, I hope I've served, Rick." "I must say I've tried." "(RICK) You've done a fine job." "A triumph of organisation." "Don't you think so?" " Yeah." " Absolutely, yeah." "(RICK) We're nearly home and dry." "One last push." "As long as I get the city hall for the eve-of-poll meeting." "Prime position, the big crowd, all the reporters." "(BLENKINSOP) Well, now, that's all in the lap of the gods." "The three candidates draw lots for the city hall." "I can't guarantee..." " (MUSPOLE) Names in a hat?" " (BLENKINSOP) Just so." "Who's in charge of this game of chance, Major?" "(BLENKINSOP) It's quite a ceremony, done in the mayor's parlour." "They use the actual mayor's hat." "(SYD) Yeah?" "Who... who passes His Worship's titfer round, then?" " Whose job's that?" " (BLENKINSOP) Mayor's clerk." " (MUSPOLE) Know this fellow well, do you?" " Finished for tonight, son?" "Might check a few names, the don't-knows worth a second visit tomorrow." " Good for you." " (SYD) Night, Titch." "(BLENKINSOP) Mayor's clerk." "Known the little blighter donkey's years." "British Legion dinners." "(RICK) I'd like Syd to meet with this chap, if you would see to it, Blenkinsop." "Of course, of course!" "(STAIRS CREAK)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "Hello, Magnus Pym." " Who are you?" " My name is Peggy Wentworth." "Peggy, short for Margaret." "Your father, Mr Richard Theodore Pym, killed my husband Arthur and if it takes me the rest of my living death, I'll get the bastard for it." "You'll never open it with a chisel." "I tried that years ago." "We had a farm in Cornwall called Tamar Rose." "My husband inherited it from his father." "It was a tough life, but it was a living." "It was ours." "But you can't run a farm if you get both your legs cut off below the knee and lose all the fingers of one hand, and that's what happened to Arthur." "My husband fell into the threshing machine." "But he wasn't just a victim." "He was a fool as well." "He was made for Ricky Pym, sure he was." "There was £9,000 compensation." "Rick came to see Arthur in hospital." " (FOGHORN)" " Wasn't he the friend and benefactor!" "Oh, yes, see the flowers and the chocolates and the champagne." "And see the great trust fund that he'll set up with Arthur's 9,000 quid." ""Twelve and a half per cent plus profits, my dear." ""Year in and year out!" ""Enough to see dear old Arthur right for as long as he's spared" ""and enough for yourself when he's gone." ""And enough left over after that, my dear," ""to put some by for that first-rate boy of yours" ""for when he goes to college."" "So Arthur signs all the documents." "Sure he does, Magnus, why not?" "Isn't Rick always there to explain whatever the fool doesn't understand?" "Isn't Rick always patience itself?" "What does Arthur want with 9,000 quid when he can have Ricky Pym for a friend instead?" "Because that was the bloody truth of it all!" "When Arthur died, there was no twelve and a half per cent!" "There was no capital, there was no trust fund, there was nothing!" "There was less than nothing!" "Because on his deathbed Arthur mortgaged his farm!" "And his livestock!" "And bloody nearly his wife and child as well!" "And he made over the proceeds to his dear old pal Rick." "Seeing as he can beckon you up to London first class, send the tickets with a flick of his fingers because he thinks you're going to get the lawyers on him, well, you go." "If you hadn't had a man in two years and more, there's only your own body to look at, withering away in the mirror every day," "well, you go." "I don't want to hear it." "It's not my business, this part." "He robbed you." "The rest doesn't make any difference." "Seeing as the bloody man possesses you anyway!" "Since he's already got his filthy arms around you as sure if as he had you in his fancy bed, with the big frills and the fancy looking glasses all round!" "Please, Peggy, the rest is very private." "Seeing as he's got the power of life and death over you and you're a foolish lonely woman in the world, with a sickly boy to care for and a bankrupt farm to mind, and only the stupid bailiff to say "Nice day" to for a week at a time," "well, you go, don't you?" "I'm sure you had every reason." "Please, Peggy, don't tell me any more." "Oh, my God, you go!" "You scurry up there, bursting to have the fight of your life the moment you set eyes on him, and when you arrive instead of a business conference with Mr Percy Loft," "Mr Muspole and the whole filthy gang of them, a man takes you to Bond Street and he buys you fine clothes and he treats you like a princess with the limousines, the restaurants," "and you can always have your row with him later." "No." "You've got to have it now or never." ""I always fancied you, Peggy." "You know that?" ""Always had my eye on that pretty Irish smile of yours." ""And not just the smile, either."" "So why not?" "If he fancies me." "There's many worse bastards than him in the world." "So why not?" "Except there aren't many worse bastards." ""I've got something to show you," he says, and we stand in front of his stupid green filing cabinet." "In there are all the rights and wrongs he's done." "Oh, he's so proud of it." "He's showing me the rope they ought to hang him with and he's made it himself." "The man's mad, as well as everything else." "When he's judged, he says, everything in this cabinet will be put into the balance." "Then we'll see him for what he was, up alongside of the angels, while us poor sinners down here below starve and bleed for the glory of him." "It's what he's put together to con the Almighty with." "You can imagine that." "Ricky boy is going to con his way to heaven." "I want justice." "I want him shown up for what he is." "If the proof's there, like he says it is, I want it." "I know what you want." "Please, stop now." "(MAGNUS) Dear Peggy," "I hope the following will be of use to you." "They stopped me in the street, touched my arm and said, "Rick, what is liberalism" ""except a package of ideals?" ""We can't eat ideals, Rick," they say." ""Ideals don't buy us a cup of tea or a nice touch of English lamb chop, Rick, old boy." ""We can't put our ideals in the collection box." "We can't pay for our son's education with ideals." ""So what's the point, Rick," they say to me, "in this modern world of ours," ""of a party of ideals?"" "And I say to them, good people of Gulworth, and I say to you, I say this." "Ideals are like the stars!" "We cannot reach them, but, oh, how we profit from their presence!" "(PEGGY)... candidate is a jailbird!" "I wish to know if this candidate is a jailbird!" " What's your name?" " Say it again!" "I wish to know, please, whether it is true, if you would be so kind, sir," "that the Liberal parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Gulworth North has served a prison sentence for swindle and embezzlement." "Thank you very much for your consideration." "It's all right, son." "Don't be frightened." "Ladies and gentlemen, my old friend Peggy Wentworth here," "and, Peggy, I still count you a friend, you know, is quite right." "Many years ago, when I was a very young man," "striving to get on in life, as we all once were, impulsive, ready to cut a few corners," "I found myself in the position of... the office boy who had borrowed a few stamps from the till and been caught before he'd had a chance to put them back." "My mother, like Peggy here, was a widow." "I had a great father to live up to." "The responsibilities that weighed on me blew me across the borders of what Justice in her blind wisdom deemed right," "and Justice exacted her penalty and I paid it in full measure," "as I shall pay for it for all of my life." "I want to ask you older people this." "If one of these children, like this son of mine sitting here behind me, poised to collect some of the highest prizes the law of this country can offer, if one of these children should ever make a mistake," "and pay the price society exacts, and come home and say," ""Mum, it's me!" ""Dad, it's me!"" "Which one of you sitting here tonight would slam the door in his face?" "You could've sat me on the stage with a dunce's cap on, Ricky." "I'd have taken it." "You were prepared for me, weren't you?" "Prepared." "You've known I've been dogging your footsteps from the start." "You could've stopped me, got Muspole to have me picked up and dumped somewhere." "Ah, sure you could, easy." "What's some penniless blackmailer like Peggy Wentworth going to do about it, if the great Ricky Pym wants her mouth shut?" "But you wanted the trial, didn't you?" "To be judged and found spotless." "Did you enjoy it, Ricky boy?" "Sure you did." "Oh, sure!" "(PEGGY SOBS AND CHUCKLES)" "(RICK) Don't shrink away from me, old son." "I'm not angry with you." "We're pals, remember?" "We don't need to tiptoe around each other, looking in one another's pockets, poking in drawers, talking to... misguided women in the dead of night." "Come on, dry those old peepers of yours." "Give your old pal a hug." "(CAR HORN)" "Never lie, son." "No Pym was ever a liar." "See how I told them the truth tonight?" "God heard me." "He always does." "What do you think's going to happen tomorrow?" "Still think you'll win?" "Oh, I very much doubt it, old son." "In the sober light of morning, you wouldn't vote for an ex-jailbird." "# Underneath the arches" "# We dream our dreams away" "# Underneath the arches" "# On cobblestones we lay" "# Pavement is my pillow" "# Everywhere I lay... #" "(TRAIN WHISTLE)" " Do you know what a shit is, Pym?" " Yes, sir." "No, you don't." "A shit, Pym, is an officer whose tie is a lighter shade of khaki than his shirt." "Yes, sir." "Compare them, Pym, and ask yourself what kind of young officer you are." "Yes, sir." "You've been posted, Pym." "Number Six Interrogation Unit, Graz." " Are you a lecherous little swine, Pym?" " I don't think so, sir." "Remember that Austria is an occupied country and subalterns do not, repeat, not, fraternise in public with female civilian personnel." " Do you hear?" " Yes, sir." " You seen your tie recently?" " Yes, sir." " You're a shit, Pym." "What are you?" " I'm a shit, sir." "You find you'll spend a lot of your time in the refugee camps." "Pathetic." "One big sob story, that's what this place is." " Don't you say "sir" to officers?" " Yeah, course." "When there's anyone about." " Don't worry, I won't show you up." " Thank you (!" ")" " Oxford, weren't you?" " Yes." "Cambridge, me." "Economics." " What did you get?" " First." "Do you know much about fish?" " Fish?" " Yeah, fish." "The feeding and breeding and general lifestyle thereof." " Why should I?" " You'll find out." "Here we are." "The loony bin." "Sir!" "Major Membury, sir, Second Lieutenant Pym, reporting for duty, sir." "Oh, my goodness!" "You're Pym!" "Yes, well, so glad you've come." "We do need another pair of hands." "Look here, I'm going to clear away all this reed and drag the whole bed to see exactly what we've got." " What do you think?" " Sounds great, sir." "Trout." "I'm restocking the lake." " It's a big job." "You married, Pym?" " No, sir." "Marvellous!" "You'll be free at weekends." "There's an awful lot to be done." "What's your first name?" "Magnus, sir." "Go and meet my wife." "Hannah!" "Magnus Pym!" "Jolly glad to have you, Magnus!" "We tap telephones, we intercept mail." "8.30 to 4.30, Monday to Friday." "8.30 to 12.30 on Saturday." "There's a night-duty clerk all week, of course." "Telephone traffic tails off at night, does it, sir?" "We get a lot of Russian technicians singing Cossack songs." "Drunk, obviously." "Our line to Graz takes in a bit of the Soviet zone." "Our interpreters have most of the west wing." "All recruited locally." "Splendid women, the lot of them." "In the refugee camps, you know, you'll find Hungarians, Poles, Czechs," "Romanians, Yugoslavs." "Got themselves here by every means imaginable." "Babes in arms, grandmothers, rapists, thieves, and the odd spy here and there, which is why you'll be doing the rounds of the camp, Magnus, to sort out the wheat from the chaff, with one or another of these marvellous women." " (MAGNUS) What shoes were you weariing?" " (WOMAN TRANSLATES)" "What weapons did the troops have?" "Tell me again, which ankle did you sprain?" "(WOMAN TRANSLATES)" " What troops did you see on the border?" " (WOMAN TRANSLATES)" "(MAGNUS SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(MAGNUS SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "Where you learn to play such stupid clever games so good?" "When I was at Oxford, I became friendly with a German student who turned out to be a spy." "We had rather a weird battle of wits." " He was communist?" " As it turned out, yes." "He made friends with you because he was homosexual?" "No, he had lots of women." "That was to disguise his homosexuality." "This is normal." " You want I give you Czech lesson on Saturday?" " I'd like that very much." "I think we make love this time." "We shall see." "You have had many woman, Magnus?" "Er, not many." "You are homosexual, like all English?" "No, I'm really not, Sabina." "Oh, Sabina." "Sabina." "Sabina, Sabina..." "I have something to tell you, something important I have not told to any Englishman." "I love you, Sabina." "In Prague, I have younger brother." "Jan his name." "If you tell this to Membury, he dismiss me immediately." "British do not allow us to have close family in communist country, you understand." "Of course, Sabina." "My brother send me this message for you." "Only for Pym." "No one else." "He trusts you because of me." "I have told him only good things about you." "He has a friend who wishes to come out." "This friend is very gifted, very brilliant." " Top Axis, you understand?" " I love you, Sabina." "This friend will bring you many secrets about the Russians." "Is true, Magnus." "Big secrets." "Make you very famous in Vienna." "But listen." "First, you must invent a story to tell Membury." "To explain how you receive this information." "You are clever." "You can invent many stories." "Now you must invent one for me." "Please do this for me, Magnus." "(SABINA) You will wear civilian clothes." "If you cheat and bring protection, he will not appear." "He will stay in the forest and be angry." "It is very near the border." "There is a stone pillar." "That is where Kaufmann must stand." "If Kaufmann passes the pillar, the man will not appear." "He will stay in the forest." "He wishes only Pym." "This is as far as you go, Kaufmann." "Don't move from here." "Can't I go back to the Jeep?" "I'm a coward, see." "Do as you're told." "Don't move." " I'm a sitting target here!" " Shut up!" "Don't move." "(KNOCKING)" "Keep walking towards me, Sir Magnus." "Put your arms up and, for heaven's sake, don't go imagining you're a great cowboy or a war hero." "Neither of us is a member of the shooting classes." "We put our guns away and we have a nice chat." "Axel!" "Axel, my God!" " Axel!" " You look well, Sir Magnus." "You are a fine fellow." "We should buy you a white horse and give you India." "What are you doing here?" " How is Sabina?" " She's fine." "She knows nothing." "You understand?" "Of course." "You wouldn't come empty-handed." "Honestly, Axel, nobody ever went out of my life so abruptly." "There you were, all safely tucked up in your bed in the Ollingers' attic." "The next morning, gone." "Dragged away by the Swiss police." "We held a sort of wake for you." "Buried you." "Frau Ollinger was convinced you'd been informed against." "Who did she think did it?" "Everyone in turn, really." "The neighbours, shopkeepers." "Someone from the university." "One of the girlfriends." "Listen." "I was illegal." "I was a bum." "No money, no papers." "On the run." "So they caught me, they threw me out." "That's what happens to illegals." "Don't frown so much." "It's over." "Who gives a damn who did it?" " To tomorrow!" " Tomorrow." "What happened to you?" "The Swiss handed me over to the West German police in the American zone." "Everybody beat me a little." "It's a ritual." "Then they threw me out and handed me over to the Czechs, who beat me a lot more." "Then one day they stopped beating me and let me out." "For this, it seems I had my dear dead father to thank." "Remember?" "He was a great socialist who fought in Spain in the Civil War." "I had become an aristocrat in the new Czechoslovakia." "I was Sir Axel, suddenly." "The old socialists had loved my father, so they sent me to university." "So, what work have you actually been doing since university?" "Like you, Sir Magnus, I am also a great spy." "It's a boom industry these days." "Haven't you noticed?" "We are clever fellows, you and I. We did well to select it." "But you are still proposing to come over to us, assuming we can offer you the right conditions?" "It's not perfect, but it's my country." "Why are you here if you don't want to defect?" "I heard about you." "The great Lieutenant Pym." "I was so excited to think of you spying on me and me spying on you." "I thought, "I've got to get in touch with this fellow." ""Maybe we can set the world to rights, same as we used to in the old days."" "Great (!" ")" "I owe you so much, Sir Magnus." "You were so generous." "You held my head when I threw up." "Cooked me tea." ""I owe this man," I thought." ""I owe this man a step or two forward in his career." ""I should make him a gesture that is painful to me." ""If I can help him achieve a position of influence in the world," ""that's rare, that's good." ""So I'll play a little trick and go and see him and shake his hand and say, 'Thank you, Sir Magnus,'" ""and take him a gift to pay my debt to him." ""Because I love this man, do you hear?"" "You have landed a great coup, Sir Magnus." "It took me a lot of spying to get it for you, a lot of risks." "If they ever find out what I have done I can bring you my balls as well." "(AXEL) Tonight you are meeting Fifth Sergeant Pavel." "He'll defect not just once but twenty times, a hundred!" "He'll bring you wonderful intelligence again and again." "But it will be you?" "Listen." "What I am doing for you now I can never undo in my whole life." "Axel gives you Axel." "Do you understand?" "I am putting my future in your hands." "I don't want it, Axel." " I'd rather give it back." " It's too late." "I've stolen the papers." "You have seen them." "You know what they contain." "Your nice Major Membury." "All these clever aristos in Vienna." "None, none of them ever saw such information." "This is the whole Soviet order of battle in Czechoslovakia you've given me." "If it's genuine." "To me, Axel, you must promise loyalty." "Sergeant Pavel, he is different." "Sergeant Pavel you can betray and invent as much as you like." "But I, Axel," "I do not exist." "Not for Membury, not for Sabina." "Not even for yourself." "Even when you are lonely and bored and you need to impress somebody, buy somebody or sell somebody." "I'm not a creature in your game." "If your own people threaten you, if they torture you, you must still deny me." "If they put you on the cross in 50 years from now, will you lie for me?" "Yes, I will." "What will you?" "I will keep you secret." "I'll lock you in my memory... and give you the key." "For always?" "For always." " You like Membury?" " Yes, I think so." "Me too." "Help him with his fish." "That's important work." "It's a lousy world, Sir Magnus." "A few happy fish will make it better." "One of you." "And one of me, Sir Magnus." "There will never be another of either of us." "(BELL TOLLS)" "(AXEL) Listen." "Something very terrible has happened." "They are arresting my friends." "Sir Magnus, I had to tell them about us." "It was the only way." ""Sure," I say to them," ""I go over the border, I am cultivating a British traitor." ""It's my job, remember?"" "They say I have to bring them proof." "Intelligence." "Pinkepinke." "Product." "It doesn't have to be the secrets of the atom bomb, but it has to be good." "As you love my freedom, get me something wonderful." "Steal for me, Sir Magnus." "(CLUNK)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(FOOTSTEPS)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(SCREWS SQUEAK)" "(SHUTTER CLICKS)" "Promise you will never bring me anything so good again." "If you do, they will make me a general and we shall not be able to meet any more." "Axel, come over." "Please." "Be an ordinary defector." "Forget about Sergeant Pavel." "Don't tell me to betray my friends." "I'm the only one who can save them." "They work in factories, in the universities." "They have no back doors." "When they are tortured, they tell the truth and the truth kills them." "But me, I am a big spy." "I've got a strong position, same as you, Sir Magnus." "If you help me, we can win a great victory." "You know," "Vienna are already asking what happens when I finish my service." "Who takes you over." "Membury?" "I won't see anyone else." "Make sure they understand." "When you go, it must be Membury on his own." "A great victory, Sir Magnus." "I expect you got the wrong night." "Or the wrong barn." "You can be frightful about these things." "No, I didn't, darling." "I got stood up at the altar, that's all." "I'm not surprised." "I always thought he was a bit of a fraud." " You never told Vienna that." " Well, it didn't seem useful." "All the brigadiers beaming away like Father Christmas." "Roars of applause from the War Office." "Young Magnus cock-a-hoop." "I didn't want to spoil his fun." "What was wrong with Pavel?" "His stuff was all so flashy, somehow." "Always looked good on the plate." "But when you came to chew it over, nothing really there." "Same as trying to eat a pike." "All bones." "I hope the Czechs haven't been batting and bowling at the same time." "I think that's why Pavel didn't show up." "He wasn't sure he could hoodwink an older chap." "Thank you, sir." "Private and personal to Lieutenant MR Pym, care of the Demobilisation Officer, the Intelligence Corps, Sussex." "Dear Pym, mutual friends in Austria have passed your name to me as someone who might be interested in employment of the kind to which you have recently been introduced." "If this is so, would you care to lunch with me at the Travellers' Club on Friday 19th at 12.45?" "Sir Alwyn Leith, the Government Overseas Research Group, the Foreign Office." "(MAN 1) This fellow comes with a strong recommendation from Brotherhood." "Picked him up in church in Bern." "He's barely out of school." "Nothing's sacred to Brotherhood." "(MAN 2) Behave yourself, Terry." "Brotherhood's a star womaniser and a war hero." "The boy ran a few errands." "Some eavesdropping among the long-hairs at the university." "Good mixer." "Very willing." "Then there's his army service, for what that's worth." " Nice girl you're marrying." " Do you know Belinda?" "Just good reports." " (MAN) Do you like danger?" " I love it, actually, sir." "Will you adore your country right or wrong so help you God and the Tory Party?" "Yes, of course." "Tell us about your father, will you, Pym?" "He seems a bit of a colourful sort to me." "He's a bit too colourful sometimes, sir." "I don't see a lot of him, to be honest." "We're still friends, but I do rather steer clear." "I feel I have to, actually." "A friend of mine says he knew a Pym." "He kept a dirty great office somewhere in Mayfair." "Best man at his job my friend ever knew." "A con man." "Any relation?" "It must be my distant wicked uncle." "There's no harm in a healthy streak of criminality in a young spy's background." "Positively useful." "Look here, Pym." "You're by way of being a Czecho buff - speak their language, know their people." "What do you say to these purges and mass arrests?" "Appalling, sir, but only to be expected." " It's a rotten system." " What would you do about it?" " In what capacity, sir?" " As one of us, man." "Officer of this service." "Anyone can talk." "We DO." "I'd play their game, sir." "Divide them against themselves." "Spread rumour, false accusations, suspicion." "I'd let dog eat dog." "You wouldn't mind getting innocent men chucked into prison?" " Being a bit harsh, aren't you?" " A bit immoral?" "No, I don't think so, sir." "Not if it shortens the life of the system." "Both eyes out." "It takes no longer than it does to say it." "Or, Belinda, I could break your windpipe with a single blow." "Like this." "(SHE GASPS)" "I could, Bel." "I was one of the best on the unarmed combat course." "Did you really enjoy it?" "Smashing." "What else did they teach you, or can't you say?" "Well, I shouldn't really." "I mean, if it was anyone else..." "How to use guns, knives, cameras, radios." "We're the chaps who have to do the dirty work so that purer souls can sleep in bed at night." "It's true, Bel." "That's what the Firm's for." "Someone's got to do it." "So you know what you're marrying into." "I'm marrying YOU." "Well, I can see that my new son-in-law Magnus has been giving you all the benefit of his wit and charm." "(LAUGHTER)" "No doubt about it." "If it's charm that gets a man through the ranks to the top of the Christmas tree, then, no doubt about it, he is Prince Charming himself." "(LAUGHTER)" "Ask my daughter." "Ask my wife." "Magnus can do no wrong." "And who am I to question the wisdom of the distaff side?" "(LAUGHTER)" "Magnus is a man of many parts, I'll have you know." "He tells me he's moving on from his government-sponsored language laboratory and he's going into electronics." "Well, I'm sure we all wish him well in his new chosen field." "But this young man IS Mr Success, and, as my wife keeps telling me, it's high time we had some of that in the family." "Which puts me in my place - which is where a father-in-law ought to be, according to the rules of modern family life." "Sorry." "Oh, Daddy, please shut up." " I won't keep you from the feast much longer..." " (DOOR OPENS)" "Hello, old son." "Didn't you expect your old pal?" "Think I'd let you down on your wedding day, hmm?" "Now, son, where's this bride of yours?" "Come here, my dear." "Give your old father-in-law a kiss." "My God, there's some flesh here, son." "Where have you been hiding her all these years?" "You're a lucky fellow." "A match made in heaven if ever I saw one." "Come and see what I've got for you." "Congratulations, Titch." " I wish you everything you wish yourself." " Thanks, Syd." "You know what this is?" "Your old man's gift to the pair of you." "Oh, but it's..." " Mr Pym, it's so expensive!" " Call me Rick." "Ricky, if you like." "Well?" "What do you think of it, old son?" "Will it do for you?" "(RICK LAUGHS)" "Did you think your old man would ever let you down?" "Your best pal?" " Of course not." " Course not." " Course not." " (MAN) Mr Richard Theodore Pym?" "(MAGNUS) There's some mix-up about the car's registration book." "My father can be a bit careless about things like that." "He'll sort it out." "I think he stole it for us." "I like your father." " You said he was abroad." " I thought he was." "India, actually." "Mummy and Daddy were furious. (LAUGHS)" "(DRIVER) Some geezer said to give you these." "He came up whilst I was waiting for you." "(BEL) Poppies?" "Are you gonna take 'em, then?" "Well, I want them, darling." "Thank you." "There's no card." "No name." "Nothing." "Isn't that funny?" "It was probably meant for another wedding altogether." "Chap got the wrong hotel." "(LAUGHS)" "Sales drive?" "My own boy, a commercial traveller selling electric shavers to foreign communists?" "We did all that." "It's over." "What did I buy you an education for?" "They're not electric razors." "I sell oscillators, alternators and sparking plugs." "It's important - opening up the East European market." " Could you stop doing that?" " Where's your patriotism?" "It's a damn shame when a man gives up everything to make his son a great lawyer and he gets into some shady racket, trading with the reds." "How's your glass?" "(PINGS GLASS)" "(PEOPLE SPEAKING CZECH)" "Magnus Richard Pym?" " You are Magnus Richard Pym?" " Yes." "You are charged with espionage, provocation of the people, incitement to treason and murder and sabotage on behalf of an imperialist power." "Face the wall." "Face the wall, hands on your head." "Hands on your head!" "(SPEAKS CZECH)" "This is an outrage." " I demand to see a British consul immediately." " Shut up!" "Walk to the stairs." " This is a ridiculous and scandalous act." " If you collaborate, you will not be harmed." "My government will insist that you be punished." "If you try to escape, you will be shot." "You've been watched by the protectors of the people." "(AXEL) Go in." "You are very dangerous friend, Sir Magnus." "Why in God's name couldn't you have used an alias?" "They said I would be better being me." "They call it natural cover." "This was my aunt's house." "Really?" "The aristos I work for, they want me to blackmail you." "That is the only good news I have for you." "Blackmail?" "How?" "They think I should show you the photographs of the two of us coming out of the barn together and play you the recordings of our conversations." "(AXEL) Yes, it's true." "In Austria I set you up." "I entrapped you with a pretty girl." "Crude." "God forgive me." "These guys I work for are very crude people." "This is a very crude country, as you have no doubt noticed on your journeys." "Actually, I rather like it." "Have you got the flowers OK, Sir Magnus?" "They were super." "Best surprise of the wedding." "So what will they find in your room?" " Pretty well everything, I suppose." " What's everything?" "Secret ink." " Film." " Film from your agents?" "Yes." "Like from the dead letter box you cleared yesterday?" "Yes." "Then don't bother to develop it." "It's cheap pedlar material." " Money?" " Some, yes." " Codebooks?" " A couple." "What else?" "There's a concealed camera." "It's hidden in the talcum powder tin." "If you peel the sticky paper off the lid, it makes a lens." "We've got to get ourselves out of this." "Out, Sir Magnus." "We've got to rise in the world." "We have to help each other until we become the aristos ourselves and we can kick the other bastards goodbye." "You make it so difficult for me, you know that?" "They put me in prison because of you." "It gave me bad thoughts about you." "You know what they will do with you, these aristos of mine, unless I make them listen to me?" "They mean to parade you before the world's press." "Have a show trial." "Hang some people." "When they start to do that, it will be sheer oversight if they don't hang me, too." "They would prefer an American, but they will settle for an Englishman until they can get hold of the real thing." "We've got to get out of this, Sir Magnus." "I'm sick of bad superiors." "Bad food." "Bad prisons." "Bad tortures." "It's time I looked after your career and you looked after mine." "And this time, properly." "No bourgeois shrinking back from the big scoops." "This time we are professionals." "I mean it." "Sir Magnus, you have in the past betrayed me." "But more important, you have betrayed yourself." "Even when you are telling the truth, you lie." "You have loyalty and you have affection, but to what, to whom?" "I don't know." "One day maybe you will tell me." "Maybe you have put your love in some bad places now and then." "Yet you also have morality." "You search." "What I'm saying, Sir Magnus is, for once, nature has produced a perfect match." "You are a perfect spy." "All you need is a cause." "I have it." "I know the revolution is young and sometimes the wrong people are running it." "In the pursuit of peace, we are making too much war." "Looking for freedom, we are building too many prisons." "But in the long run, I don't mind." "Because I know this." "All the junk that made you what you are - the privileges, the snobbery, the hypocrisy, the Church, the school, its fathers, the class systems, the historical lies, the little laws of the countryside," "the little laws of big business and all the greedy wars that result from them - we are sweeping all that away for ever." "For your sake." "So..." "I have said it." "You are a good man and I love you." "Axel, in Bern when we first met were you already...?" " A spy?" "No." "No, Sir Magnus." "I was just Axel." "I wanted to be a poet and a great novelist." "And your friend." "It was Jack Brotherhood who did all this to us." "He recruited us both into the great big game." "The secret world." "The only difference was with me." "He didn't know it." "There's no doubt about it." "It's the same plant the Americans photographed with overflights." "No question." "It's the nuclear plant at Pilsen." "Confirmed." " Important." " (JACK) Well done." "Very well done." "Those two workmen you gave a lift to, Magnus, did they just start opening their hearts to you?" "Not exactly." "It was seven o'clock in the morning by then, and the rain was piddling down." "They felt like a good old grumble about life in general, and the stuff about them having to handle radioactive material without protective clothing leaked out with the rain, you might say." "You don't think they were a bit too ready to give their names and addresses?" "No." "We were talking about coffee by then." "It's a big grumble in Czecho." "I said I'd take them round a pound or two of decent English stuff next time I was in the area." "They thought their wives would like that." "(LAUGHS) Or some other chaps' wives!" "What makes you think they won't turn you in if you show up on their doorstep?" "It's a hunch, that's all." "I think they both trusted me, and they hope that I'll play grocer's delivery boy one evening, just as I said I would." "(JACK) We've run them through." "There's nothing known." "It looks as if you're about to start putting a network together, Magnus." "You'll need official status." "Joined the Foreign Office?" "(LAUGHS)" "And how do you do that from a deadbeat electronics firm in Walthamstow?" "Well, well, I must say!" "He's boosting British trade, Daddy." "You wouldn't understand." " I hope he gets a decent cover story!" " It's a contract appointment." "British Embassy in Prague." "Second Secretary Commercial and Visa Officer." " They need Czech speakers." " Sure they do, old boy." "Sure they do!" "(AXEL) The second anniversary of the founding of our first network, Sir Magnus" " Conger." "Our first repertory company of make-believe agents." "We have earned a little celebration." "I shall take you to an enchanted castle set aside by my aristos for people they think the world of." "People like you and me have a right to play the libertine from time to time." "Besides, it's not good if we always look too much on our guard." "Relax, Sir Magnus." "I have a nice surprise lined up for you." "You're sure it's not a torturers' party night?" "Your people haven't called me in to extract a confession out of me?" "Zzz!" "Yes, I am Jack Brotherhood's man!" "Zzz!" "Yes, I am planting disinformation." "Zzz!" "Yes!" "Yes!" "Anything but this!" "I'm delivering so much of the Firm's material to you." "Don't you think I'm too good to be true?" "You told me how much your people admire Jack Brotherhood." "I MUST be suspect." "Of course." "Someone will always suspect you." "And me." "In our world, suspicion is a way of life, but I can protect you because I know my people." "I know when to slam the table and when to threaten." "And you protect me with the product you bring." "They won't risk losing that." "Mutual survival." "Pledged for ever." "Exactly." "And success." "We are aiming for the very top, Sir Magnus." "One day America - land of the free." "Yes, yes." "What are you thinking of, Sir Magnus?" "Two men such as ourselves can live out our lives as spies without ever having spied on the Americans?" " It cannot be!" " (THEY LAUGH)" "(ROUSING CZECH CHOIR ON RADIO)" "(CLASSICAL MUSIC)" "(MILITARY-TYPE MARCH)" "(MAN SPEAKS CZECH)" "(RADIO OFF)" "(MAGNUS) Sorry, Bel." "Got to go up country again." "May be a day or two." "Can't help it, Bel." "Duty calls." "You know." "Come on, Bel." "Kiss-kiss." "Be my lovely girl." "(AXEL) I have decided to present you with an excellent new agent - the nice surprise I promised you." " More work?" "Some surprise." " Wait and see." " Which network?" " Watchman." "It's lamentably short of industrial intelligence." "Here we have the Americans devoted to the collapse of my country's economy, but what is the Firm providing to support their optimism?" "Nothing." "You must put that right, Sir Magnus." "Oh, sure." "How would you like the services of a middle executive from our great National Bank of Czechoslovakia with access to some of our most serious mismanagements?" "Where am I supposed to have found him?" "Did I say him?" "(DOOR OPENS)" "Sabina!" "My Sabina from Graz!" "(LAUGHS)" "(THEY LAUGH)" "Sir Magnus, meet Olga Kravitsky, who will rise to become secretary to the Prague Internal Committee on Economic Affairs, or so they will believe in London." "It takes time to build a career." "You are still homosexual, Magnus." "(THEY LAUGH)" "(JACK) Berlin." "That's a whole garrison of a Station, Magnus." "Tunnellers." "Smugglers." "Forgers." "Watchers." "Listeners." "Seducers." "Assassins." "And whatever we have, the Yanks have it twice over, the East Germans have five of it and the Russians ten." " You will enjoy yourself, old boy!" " Can't wait, Jack." " Rougher than Prague." " All the same if you get caught." "Depends who catches you, so you watch your step." "We have some very funny committees springing up around the place these days." "Outside talent, supposed to be." "Watchdogs of the secret war." "They reckon we're too blinkered, people like you and me." "Too incestuous." "Interfering little bastards." "They're dangerous." " Committees." "Christ!" " (MAGNUS LAUGHS)" "Don't you laugh at me, young Magnus." "Nothing funny about Berlin." "Of course not, Jack." "Why are you telling me?" "I wondered if you'd like to come with me." "No." "What will you do?" "Do you care?" "I'm sorry, Bel, but somehow we never..." "You're sorry you married me, that's all." "We both wanted to marry." "You needed a wife because the bloody Firm likes wives." "All part of the cover." "And you picked me because I was easy." "Available." "And weak." "And I didn't scare you." "And you could leave me on my own whenever you felt like it, and never even think about me." "Five years." "Of nothing!" "Bel, I'm sorry you were so unhappy in Prague, but the job..." "I was just some kind of hiding place for you." "Another hiding place." "How many more are there, Magnus?" "Berlin sounds just the spot." "Your father should never find you there." "Sounds like hiding places all over town!" "Come on, Bel." "What's this about?" "No, he's not here, Rick." "Gone abroad, Rick." "Sorry, Rick." "He's back in London." "Or is it Mars or bloody Timbuktu?" "Anything will do, as long as we keep Rick out of sight and out of mind." "Sad, that, because he actually loves you, if you know what that means." " It's complicated with Rick, you know that." " Rick (!" ") What's complicated about Rick?" "He's a con man, that's all, but you..." "What are you?" "You'd come home one person, I'd try to match you, and in the morning, you're someone else." "(SIGHS)" "Go to Berlin." "Leave me alone." "Divorce me." "(SOBS)" "Bel..." "I'm sorry." "Forgive the bad parts." "Hello, Jack." "Ein Bier." "What's up?" "Why so grumpy-looking?" "These wise men." "These no-nonsense, unfettered, idiot outsiders." "Do you know what they're dreaming up now?" "You won't believe this." "(MAGNUS) These lunatics are proposing to get us plugged into the Soviet ground control, talk a MiG over allied airspace, blow it out of the sky, and if the pilot survives, offer him the choice of being put on trial for espionage" "or staging a public defection in front of the microphones and cameras." "It's true!" "They'll start a war." "They want to." "Calm yourself, Sir Magnus." "Have another drink." "Jack was right." "We're dealing with madmen!" "The Firm will handle them." "It will close ranks." "You will see." "I'll keep you posted." "Countdown to Armageddon." "God help us!" "You will see." "I have total faith in the great Brotherhood and all the Brotherhoods!" "I hear you are seeing his girlfriend." "I didn't know that." "Mary?" "A couple of times." "When Jack's away." "Nothing heavy." "Tell me about her." "I don't know much." "She's a daughter of the Service." "One of our cleverer forgers." "Good with papers." "Watermarks." "But personally, Sir Magnus." "We're not that close yet." "Jack the Stoat." "Jack the Stripper." " His women don't stray lightly." " I'd like to know about Mary." "Next time, Sir Magnus, yes?" "(VAN DOORS SLAM)" "(KNOCKING AT DOOR)" "(KNOCKING CONTINUES)" "(MAN) Herr Pym?" "Herr Pym, wake up, please!" "Just a minute." "Who is it?" "(KNOCKING AT DOOR)" "I'll be right with you." "(KNOCKING AT DOOR)" "Lieutenant Dollendorf, what's the problem?" "It's two o'clock in the morning." "Forgive us, Herr Pym." "Excuse the disturbances so late." "Our Herr Kommandant asks that you come immediately to headquarters on a personal and urgent matter." "He assures me that everything can be arranged discreetly." "He wishes at this stage to be delicate." "He has made no approach to your superiors." "The Kommandant has high respect for you, Herr Pym." "Yes." "Um..." " I'll have to get dressed." " Yes, but quickly, if you are so kind." "The Kommandant wants the matter to be dealt with before he has to hand it over to someone else." "He means to the day shift, Herr Pym." "I'll get dressed, then." "I may use your telephone?" "Yes." "Go ahead." "(DOLLENDORF SPEAKING GERMAN)" "The Herr Kommandant will be pleased you are cooperating." "I am a man of the world, Mr Pym." "I'm not didactic, I'm not political." "I do not make moral judgments." "I am conversant with what I call the "intimate sphere"." "Misdeeds, a spectrum running from human error which can be pardoned... to calculated crime." "Do you agree?" "In my experience, foreigners in a strange country often feel a sense of false security when they contemplate performing what might strictly be regarded as a felonious act." "Is that your experience?" "I would say so, yes." "We have a man in our cells, Mr Pym." "When they brought him to me," "I looked at him and I listened to him, and I said, "No." ""This cannot be so." "I do not believe this." ""Not Mr Pym." ""The man is an impostor."" "However, as I continued to listen to him," "I detected a sense of, shall I say, vision." "There's an energy here." "An intelligence." "I may also say charm." "Maybe this man IS what he says he is." "I thought, "Only Mr Pym can tell us."" "I may confront him with you?" "Of course." "Father?" "It's me." "God in heaven, old son!" "What are they trying to do to me?" "Can't an honest fellow do a bit of business in this country?" "Have you seen the food here?" "These German sausages!" "What do we pay our taxes for?" "What did we win the war for?" "What's the good of having a son who's head of the Foreign Office if he can't keep these German thugs away from his old man?" "I knew you wouldn't let me down." "I told them, "My son's damn as near ambassador!" (LAUGHS)" ""He'll have your hides if you lay a finger on his old man!"" "(MAGNUS LAUGHS)" "(RICK) Two sisters." "Real Prussian nobility." "Old school - you could see the breeding - but don't know the ways of the hard little world of commerce, so I offered to lend a hand." "Got some paintings they wanted to sell and some other stuff - a diamond brooch, a few furs, what have you." "All I was trying to do was to maximise their profit." "You see, I met this fellow who had an aeroplane for sale - fighter-bomber." "Mint condition inside and out." "So I thought, "Good investment for these two nice old dears." ""Use their stuff to buy the kite, then sell it at a decent mark-up," ""and everyone's helping the great wheel of finance to keep turning."" "But the old dears wouldn't give me time to clinch the deal." "Came clamouring for their money." ""Right now." "Pronto." "Instanta."" "They just don't understand the problems of liquidity." "Set the German bobbies on me." "A couple of damn storm troopers hauled me off." "Well, you can't do business from a cell, old son." "Would you like me to go and see these old ladies?" "Do what I can?" "Just this once." "For old times' sake." "I'll see you right in a week or two, of course." "Well, you know that." "Sure, Father, sure." "Listen, old son..." "I understand that 999 Gold can be got here at par." "Now, someone in high position with access to the diplomatic bag could earn himself a nice little informal reward in this sector of international commerce." "Rick." "You'll never let me see you in prison again, will you?" "Do you love your old man?" "Yes." "Well, then." "A long-stemmed English rose." "I have it right?" "Very good, Axel." "Mary's a "Country Life" girl." ""Country Life" magazine - society weddings, hunt balls, desirable country residences for sale." "She is a lady?" " You mean morally?" " If you like." "But by reputation." "Well, she's not an office bicycle." "No ex-husband or nasty business in her cupboard?" "No." "She lost her virginity to the under-gardener at her boarding school at 16." "Since then, she's kept to her own class." "Pretty choosy." "She told you this?" "No." "She told Jack Brotherhood." "Jack told me." " What about her family?" " Soldiers." "Heroic deaths." "Her grandfather at Passchendaele, her father, eventually, from what hit him in North Africa." "He left her a small manor house in Dorset." "She's quite rich." "Good in company?" "She was born to it." "Sir Magnus, she is what we need." "She is the ideal diplomatic wife." "Maybe she's a ticket that will get us to Washington." "Yes!" "Why not?" "You can't move up the ranks without a wife." "You know that." "Mary is made for you." "Court her, Sir Magnus." "Think..." "America." "Home at last!" "Court her." "I shall have to court Jack Brotherhood first." "Sir Magnus and Mary." "And America." "(JACK) Well, if you ask me, you could travel a lot further and fare a damn sight worse." "She's one of the best girls we've got." "I've never met one who understood the service better, or who could tickle a key out of a concierge the way she can." " I didn't know we used her that way." " Oh, yes." "Once or twice." "You'll have to behave yourself, young Magnus." "Smart girl, Mary." "She doesn't miss much." "(AMERICAN WOMAN) This is a great cause, ladies and gentlemen." "A truly great cause." "It is with great honour and great humility that I, as your lady chairperson, welcome you all to this most important event in our calendar." "Welcome, and God bless you for your support on this deeply wonderful occasion." "Forgive me, but I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wonderful generosity in coming here tonight." "There are people who say we live in a cruel and wicked world, ladies and gentlemen." "I don't say that." "I know that isn't true when I am privileged to say thank you for what you good, kind people are gonna do here tonight." "Adoption, ladies and gentlemen, is a truly beautiful act." "To take into your home one of those lost, lonely and needy of God's creatures is something truly wonderful." "And now, ladies and gentlemen, will you welcome those little ones whose presence here tonight is what brought you to the Palm Springs Humane Society's Annual Dog Adoption Dinner!" "(APPLAUSE)" "(BAND PLAYS "HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW?")" "We shall never fly so high again, Sir Magnus." "I think we may retire also." "(MAGNUS) The whole blueprint for the nose-cone of the stealth bomber." "Very latest edition." "Congratulate me, Axel!" "(AXEL) You're a truly great man." "(MAGNUS WITH AMERICAN ACCENT) We're a truly wonderful team (!" ")" "We should retire." "Not that again!" "(MAGNUS SIGHS)" "We're a success." "Top of the bill." "We can't miss." "Oh, my heavens, Axel - the fun we're having!" "You love coming to this country." "It IS Disneyland." "Where else would you ever find outdoor air conditioning?" "Was any country ever easier to spy on?" "I have a Cosmic Pass." "I'm cleared for everything and everywhere." "What's theirs is mine." "And what's mine is yours." "We must not be too greedy, like thieving children who steal even when they know the police are round the corner." "That is not for us." "Isn't it?" "I'd say it's been like that for the last 20 years." "Are you getting tired, Axel?" "Look." "Here's a proposition for you." "I'll sell you to the CIA, which will buy my freedom." "Then I'll set the record straight and negotiate an amnesty for you." "Then off we'll go to that farmhouse you and I admired in Pennsylvania, me and Mary and little Tom." "The resettled family at work and at prayer." "And you, the sage old friend, rocking on the garden swing, drinking vodka and shelling peas for lunch." "How will that be?" "My life is in your hands, Sir Magnus." "(TYPING AND BEEPING)" "(BEEPING)" "I'll nail you, Pym." "I'll nail you, boy." "(SPORTS STADIUM TANNOY)" "(CROWD CHEERS)" "(AXEL) Certain aristos in Washington and London are getting worried about our Czecho networks." "They have begun to discern certain unfortunate patterns." "What patterns?" "There are no patterns." "They have noticed that the Czecho networks provide better intelligence when you are running them - that is to say when WE are running them - and almost nothing when we are not." "That is a pattern." "It bothers them." "I don't see why it should." "All networks go moribund now and then." "It's normal." " It bothers Washington very much." " I just don't see it." "Jack Brotherhood runs those networks now." "Everybody knows he can do it as well as I can." "The head agents are genuine - that's our safeguard." "They report whatever they can get." "OK, the supply drops off when we're not there to feed in the phony material." " It's normal." "It happens." " Only when we are not there." "That is Washington's perception." "We have been careless, Sir Magnus." "Give the networks better material." "Signal Prague." " Tell your aristos we need a scoop." " You know Prague." "The man who is absent is the man they conspire against." "I have no power to persuade them." "We'll just have to ride it out." "Wait." "See how far they get." "Wexler is setting up an investigation team." "Harry Wexler (!" ")" "(MAGNUS) Harry E Wexler, who sits at the right hand of God." "Who played a star part in the Bay of Pigs show, otherwise known as the "Ziegfeld Follies"." "Who fathered some of the finest intelligence cock-ups of the Vietnam War." "Who has destabilised more bankrupt economies in Central America than are dreamed of, and supped with the greatest in the land, from the heads of the Mafia downwards." "And who is circumcised... from the neck up." "Mick Carver, head of the London Station." "A spoilt Boston millionaire, considered brilliant on no evidence at all that I'm aware of." "Frank Artelli from the Bronx." "Whizz-kid mathematician who should be listened to... but no one will." "And Grant Lederer III." "The pushy little lawboy from South Bend, Indiana." "An ambitious jerk who happens to be my best buddy in America - self-appointed." "He'd get between the sheets with me if I'd let him." "Little Grant is a Cassius looking for a Caesar." "If he doesn't find a back to stab soon, the agency will give his dagger to someone else." "OK." "Grant, will you lead us in with a kind of preamble to your projective hypothesis?" "Sure, Harry." "Just to open up with, who is this guy, Magnus Pym?" "Well, credentials couldn't be better." "Prague, Berlin, Stockholm," "Prague again, Vienna, and now Washington - four years." "What's his job exactly?" "What does he do?" "Well, he's their top fieldman." "Pym travels the country." "Pym's never still." "He knows everybody." "Industrialists, science professors, soldiers." "Naval attachés." "Pym hears a lot of talk." "He sees a lot of documents." "A lot of machinery." "Weaponry." "Blueprints." "He gets to know what works." "What fails." "What's new." "What's coming up." "Pym gets to know an awful lot of what's supposed to be secret in this country." "Very secret." "What does he do with all this stuff?" "Well, let's assume he makes sure London gets a side of some of it, anyway." "Anybody else?" "'Fraid so." "I think Prague gets a side of everything." "(YELLING)" "(THEY LAUGH)" "You know, Mary, I think our two kids are in love." "Which two, Bee?" "(LAUGHS) Those two fags can't keep their hands off each other." "First time they met, jackpot." ""Holy cow, Bee!" Grant says, like he's ten years old." ""That Magnus." "Some person."" "If I remember, Magnus said, "If that's Grant Lederer III, what were the first two like?"" "Make what you like of that." "(CHILDREN LAUGH)" "I've been reading a great deal recently about the creativity of the criminal mind." "It got pretty close to home, boy, I'll tell ya." "Tell me, Grant." "Quote..." ""What is the difference in morality between the totally anarchic criminality of the artist" ""which is endemic in all fine creative minds," ""and the artistry of the criminal?" Unquote." " What do you say to that one?" " (LAUGHS) Can't do it." "Too many long words." "Hell, Magnus, that's us!" "The guy's looking at us." "Sure as hell he is." "You and me, we're licensed crooks." "We place our larcenous natures at the service of the state." "Sure as hell we do." "A truly terrible admission, Grant." "I'll tell you something else about us." "We're both barking psychopaths, you know that?" "I'll think about it." "Because we LIKE what we do." "Our racket's into rape and assassination and every crime there is, and we like it." "(LAUGHS)" "It's a crying shame, that's what it is, as my father would say." "Cheers, Rick." "Ever thought about defecting?" "Got an offer, Grant?" "(GRANT LAUGHS)" "I mean the nature of defecting - what it's about." "I'll tell you." "It's self-renewal." "A rebirth." " You reckon, huh?" " Know why so many defectors redefect?" "It's because they're in and out of the womb all the time." "Have you noticed that about defectors - the one common factor in all that crazy band?" "They're immature." "They are LITERALLY motherfuckers." "(LAUGHS) Of course they are!" "You're a genius, old son." "I'm right, Magnus." "Sure as hell I am." "(CHILDREN LAUGH)" "Hey, you two sweethearts!" "How ya doin'?" "(CHILDREN SQUEAL AND LAUGH)" "Stop this now!" "This is exactly what I hate most about the way the Firm is going these days - this pandering to American methods." "They come baying for Pym's blood and what have they got?" "Some nasty little fanciful suspicions based on nothing more than a few computerised coincidences!" "Go one more yard with this and everyone who tells the truth will become a bare-faced liar and everyone who does a decent job will work for the other side." "Carry on like this and you'll sink our service better than the Russians ever could, or is that what you want?" "Jack, our American cousins have put a lot of time into this." "They ARE serious." "They're not just stirring the dirty water with a stick to see what jumps out." "I believe like you that they're wrong about Pym, but we'll have to listen to them." "Face them and hear them out, then send them on their way when their case falls apart." "We're not going over there." "Harry Wexler can bring his team here." "I want you at the meeting, Jack." "I want you in there punching for me, just like your usual self." "Will you do that?" "(JACK) How many times has this happened to me?" " (DOG GROANS)" " Around a dozen since the end of the war." "Night telegrams, flash, for Brotherhood's eyes only." "The phone." ""Where is he, Jack?" "He's your man, Jack."" "Now revealed as a Soviet intelligence agent, or Polish or Czech or East German." "A long wait with the codebook." "Who the hell is it?" "Who?" "Until up comes a name you've never heard of." "And when the expurgated case history finally lands on your desk, what have you got?" "A vague memory of some over-educated little nancy boy in the cipher room in Warsaw who thought he was playing the world's game when all he really wanted was to shaft his employers." "But this is different." "Pym?" "For Christ's sake!" "Stupid bastards!" "Stupid!" "Stupid!" "(DOG WHINES)" "(WHINES)" " Get up." " (DOG WHINES)" " Seek." " (DOG WHINES)" "Can I do anything?" "Jack..." "What?" "About Magnus." "What about him?" "Oh..." "It's nothing really." "(DOG WHINES)" "(KATE) It's just that..." "He'll be all right, you know." "Your reputation." "As you say, it's just silly." "(DOG WHINES)" "Shall I go with you?" "No." "I said no!" "(AMERICAN COMMENTATOR) Watch him go into that tuck!" "As soon as he's out of a turn, he's back into it." " How many kids are coming tomorrow?" " Eight." "Sounds heavy." "It's called reciprocity." "Or even Christmas." "(PHONE RINGS)" "(MAGNUS) Hello?" "Where are you?" "Now?" "No, stay there." "Half an hour." "See you." "Bye." "(SIGHS)" "Sorry." "I'll try not to be back late." "It's called Christmas." "(DOOR CLOSES)" "Happy Christmas, old son!" "Happy Christmas to you, too, Father." "I thought you were back in London." "Got a few coppers for your old man, have you?" "How about a nice mixed grill somewhere decent?" "God is the twelfth man of the cricket team, son." "It's God who tells us to keep our left elbow up through life." "No one else." "So you always said." " Steak all right?" " He's umpire, judge and jury all rolled into one." "Don't you forget it." "There's no conning God." "There never was." "I'm not conning God, Father." "All I'm trying to do is celebrate Christmas with my family." "Turkey?" "Yes." "English bread sauce?" "I expect so." "That grandson of mine all right, is he?" "Got the Pym forehead, has he?" "The one I gave you that everybody talks about." "He's got a very good brow." "I hear first-rate reports of Mary." "They say that fine property in Dorset is worth a bob or two." "I've already told you." "It's in trust." "It's thanks to me you've taken your place among the highest in the land." "Why don't those fellows give you a knighthood?" "Got a skeleton in your cupboard?" "Maybe I ought to have a word with those personnel boys of yours." "How much do you need, Father?" "There is a limit." "You know that." "But I'll help, as I always have." "Denver." "Seattle." "Chicago." "Boston." "San Francisco." "Who are you now?" "Colonel Hanbury?" "Sir William Forsythe?" "A man ought to be allowed to see his own daughter-in-law." "And his only grandson." "My own boy's son." "After all, I gave you your education." "I did it all for you." "Everything was for you." "Please stop it, Rick." "Just tell me how much." "I'm ill, son." "Heart, mostly." "Doctor keeps the worst of it from me." "I have to stick to plain food." "Champagne only." "No Californian." "(LAUGHS)" "Do you love your old man?" "Yes." "Well, then." "(RICKAND WOMEN) # Toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-i-ay" "# Any umbrellas, any umbrellas to mend today?" "# Bring your parasol, it may be small, it may be big" "# He'll repair them all with what you call a thingamajig #" "(SINGING ENDS)" "# Pitter-pitter-patter" "# Pitter-pitter-patter... #" "(SHUDDERING SIGH)" "# It looks like rain" "# Pitter-pitter-patter" "# Pitter-pitter-patter" "# Don't mind the rain" " # Bring your parasols, they may be... #" " Magnus?" "Are you drunk?" "Not much." "You're upset." "What was it tonight?" "You ARE upset." "What was it?" "(SIGHS)" "Nothing, Mabs, really." "Just an old Joe." "A very old Joe." "Who tracked me down, feeling sentimental." "Wanting me to hold his hand." "(SIGHS)" "He used to be quite a monster, that man." "Big bad wolf in the game in his time." "Bit of a ghost now." "Bit of the past come back to haunt me." "A rattling of bones in the night." "(HARRY WEXLER) Gentlemen..." "Our position - that is to say, the agency position overall on this thing - at this important meeting and at this moment in time is that we have an accumulation of indicators from a wide range of sources on the one hand and new data on the other" "which we consider pretty much conclusive in respect of our unease." "It looks to us, therefore, like... the logistics here require that we go back over the course a little distance, and when we've done that, to slot the new stuff in where we can all take a good look at it" "in the light of what has latterly gone before." "If you want to do it differently, Bo, we'll try to accommodate you." "You must do exactly whatever makes you feel most comfortable." "Gentlemen, our unease concerns the period of the past four years when the indicators aforementioned persuaded us to make a special study of particular movements, both signal-wise and personnel-wise, relating to Czechoslovak intelligence and the United States of America from the date when Magnus Richard Pym was appointed to your Washington Station." "Grant, tell 'em what you fed into the computer." "Names and records of all Western intelligence officers past or present in Washington with access to the Czech target, whether central or peripheral consumers." "Names of all Czech couriers, officials, legal and illegal travellers passing in and out of the US, plus separately entered personal descriptions to counteract false passports." "Dates and ostensible purposes of such journeys, frequency and duration of stay." " Now..." " Later, Grant." "Of course, gentlemen, into that input we incorporated our general awareness of Czech methodology with regard to the servicing of and communication with their agents in the field." "Ah, you mean tradecraft, Harry, do you?" "Well, yes, sir." "I guess that's what I do mean." "Frank, will you take it up, please?" "As the indicators continued to multiply, my section made a reappraisal of clandestine radio transmissions beamed from the roof of the Czech Embassy in Washington." "Our people reconsidered skip distances, frequency variations and reception zones." "They matched all intercepts of that period against the movements of suspects." "Hold on, Artelli." "The point you're going to make is that every time Pym left the precincts of Washington, whether to go on leave or to visit another town, a particular series of coded transmissions from the Czechs was discontinued." " Yes?" " That's right." "The assumption being that if Pym was out of range of their Washington transmitter, the Czechs wouldn't bother to talk to him?" "Yes, sir." "Well, turn it round for a moment, will you?" "If you were framing a man isn't that precisely what you would do, too?" "Not today." "Ten years ago, maybe." "Why not?" "I wouldn't be that dumb." "The communication techniques we observed were out of fashion." "You get a feel... a smell." "A smell of age." "A sense of long habituation, one human being to another." "Years of it, maybe." "My God." "How many times do we have to put this to you?" "For years there have been Czech transmissions stirring the shit pot in any part of the globe where Pym sets foot." "Of course they coincide with his movements." "That's how you play the radio game when you're framing a man." "You persist and you repeat, and you wait until the other fellow's nerve cracks." "The Czechs aren't fools." "Sometimes I think we are." "Thank you, Frank." "Grant, will you take it up with the Pretz-Hampel-Zaworski situation?" "(GRANT) So this is what we have." "Hans Albrecht Pretz." "Czechoslovak journalist." "Alexander Hampel." "Identified as long-standing Czech intelligence officer." "Jerzy Zaworski." "Born Karlsbad 1926." "West German journalist of Czech origin." "They are all the same man." "This man, in one name or another, has been placed in Salzburg, Linz, Athens and every American city visited by Pym on the same dates." "It's beautiful." "I'd like to find the Czech intelligence officer that thought this one up and give him my private Oscar immediately." "Damn it all, Harry." "It's the same old game." "It's guilt by coincidence." "Computerised coincidence." "Has anybody actually seen Pym chinwagging with this three-in-one myth-maker of yours?" "Well, you must see our unease, Harry." "All this is no different from the radio stuff." "If we were looking to frame a man, we'd play the same game on them." "Get 'em to shoot themselves in the foot." "Dead easy." "It's a set-up." "Sticks out a mile." "It's awfully tenuous, actually." "By the by, you haven't been following him over here, have you?" "That would be going it a bit." "Bo, we need a piece of this." "If this is a Czech deception operation, it's the most ingenious case I've ever heard of." "Pym is a most ingenious officer." "Bo, you've got to pull Pym in and interrogate the living shit out of him." "He's fooling with our secrets as well as yours." "We have some heavy questions to put to him and some fine people trained to do it." "Harry, you have my word that if and when the time is ripe, you and your people shall have as much of him as you want." "Maybe the moment is right now." "Maybe we should be there when he starts to sing." "Hit him while he's soft." "And maybe you should trust sufficiently in our judgment to bide your time." "Well, gentlemen, we seem to have covered the ground." "Sir, not entirely, sir." "There's one more thing." "It's the psychology involved here." "Pym's father." "Sir, I know about that father." "I have a father who is not, in certain ways, dissimilar." "Mine's a small-time iffy lawyer, and honesty is not his strong suit, no, sir." "But that father of Pym's is a real red-toothed crook." "A con artist." "Do you know that in New York, Richard T Pym faked a whole empire of bogus companies?" "Borrowed money from the most unlikely people." "Really some important people." "There's a serious strain of controlled instability here." "We have a paper on this." "I mean, Jesus!" "Do you know Magnus made a pass at my own wife?" "I don't grudge him that - she's an attractive woman - but the guy is everywhere." "Psycho-wise, he's all over the place." "That English cool of his is just veneer." "Yes, well, I always assume that businessmen are crooks - don't you, Harry?" "I'm sure we all do." "Harry, why don't you and I get our heads together for an hour?" "If there is to be a hostile interrogation," "I'm sure we should agree some guidelines in advance." "Nigel, why don't you come along to see fair play?" "You won't all leave together, will you?" "It scares the local peasants." "You'll be around later, Jack, won't you?" "If I need a chat." "Jack, well put." "Well played." "We absolutely stymied them." "(SIGHS)" "(GRANT) Magnus has told me a lot about you, Jack." "I guess he broke the rules, but that's how we've been." "We've really shared." "It's a great liaison." "That's the crazy thing." "We really ARE the special relationship." "And I believe in that." "I believe in the Atlantic Pact - the whole damn bit." "What do you want?" "You remember that burglary you and Magnus did together in Warsaw?" "I don't think I do, I'm afraid." "Come on, Jack." "He told me." "How you lowered him through a skylight and you had fake Polish cops on the doorstep in case the guy came home unexpectedly?" "He said you were like a father to him." "Jack..." "Sir?" "I can think of no greater honour than taking you out to dinner tonight." "I'd be a happy man, sir." "Jack?" "Mr Brotherhood?" "Can I drop you somewhere?" "(MAGNUS) Mabs!" " Mabs!" " (MARY) What do you want?" " Come upstairs and have a drink." " Can't." "I'm busy." "Don't be a difficult cow, darling." "Be nice to me." "I told you." "I'm busy." "Come upstairs and be a proper wife." "Wait on me, that sort of thing." "(SHE SIGHS) Just let me finish this." "Busy, busy!" "It's playtime." " Why are you so drunk?" " Playtime." "An awful lot of Scotch these days, Magnus." "It's this trip to London, isn't it?" "What's so special about it?" "Nothing." "Routine." "I don't think so." "You don't have to tell me anything you don't think I should know, but if there's trouble, just say yes." "Nobody's going to knock my teeth out." "Just a few bloody impertinent questions, that's all." "No, Mabs." "No trouble at all." "Let us just say that my organisational, administrational diligence is to come under question." "No trouble at all." "Will Jack be there, in your corner?" "(LAUGHS)" "To Jack." "Yes, of course he will." "He's a bit of a sham these days, you know." "They should have retired him by now." "(SIGHS)" "(BO) You'll be getting an official letter of apology in due course, Magnus, naturally." "Meanwhile, I'd like to thank you for being so patient with us all." "What a silly business." "No hard feelings, I hope?" "I'll think of it as a sort of review board." "Quite useful in a way." "Now, as to the future." "We want you to go back to your old stamping ground." "The Vienna Station." "Take over your networks again." "They need you." "Right, Jack?" "Dead right." " How do you feel about that, Magnus?" " Fine." "Whatever you want." "No doubt the Americans will stay on my tail, endlessly running me through their computers." "Let them play with their toys." "So what?" "(BO) Well..." "Good luck, Magnus." "And thanks." " Enjoy Vienna." " Thank you." "Do you want me, Bo, or can I take Magnus for a drink?" "Of course, Jack." "Of course." "Enough rope..." "And we'll see." " Traveller's do you?" " Lead the way, Jack." "Just get me started." "I'm going to get lost for a few days." "Quite right, old lad." "I'd do the same." "...pounds and 50 pence." "(MAGNUS) I love you, I love you." "You've never loved a woman in your life, Magnus." "We're enemy, all of us." "Oh (!" ")" "You think I'm a con." "Maybe... (LAUGHS)" "Maybe the biggest con I know." "What do you think, Kate?" "Am I finished?" "Is that what you think?" "There's no saving me?" "You can have me any time, you know that." "Right from the start you knew it." "One more con will see me right." "That's me, isn't it, Kate?" "You're tired and you're bitter." "It was rougher than you want to admit, wasn't it?" "But it's over." "You're clear." "Oh, I'll win through, all right." "They love me." "I've given my life to them." "But I'll always need you, Kate." "You're my lifeline." "Wait for me." "I'm going to cut the cable and be free." "I'll dump Mary." "We'll live abroad" " France, Morocco - who cares?" "I want action, Kate." "We'll just go - free." "What happened to Norway and Canada?" "We'll do it." "We will." "I'll write the book." "Tell it straight." "Word for word." "The truth." "My over-promised self set free." "(RICK) Got a few coppers for your old man, have you?" "I did it all for you, son." "Everything was for you." "I did it all for you, son." "Never lie, son." "No Pym was ever a liar." "Ideals are like the stars." "We cannot reach them, but, oh, how we profit from their presence!" "(APPLAUSE)" "(CHEERING)" "(CONDUCTOR) As far as we go, sir." "(RICK) It's Stanley Matthews dribbling down the touchline!" "He beats one man, he beats two men, he beats three men!" "Son, with you beside me and God sitting up there and the Bentley waiting to take us home," "I'm the most all right fellow in the world." "(LAUGHS)" "(WOMAN) All right, all right!" "Heavens, what a fuss!" "There's a fuse gone." "I was on the top step." "I'm really rather good at fuses." "Canterbury's my name." "Like the city." "I don't usually take casuals." "That's why I keep the notice up." "You never know these days." "All sorts of people." "Very sensible, Miss Dubber." "If everyone was as careful..." "There." "Try it now." "Ah!" "Thank you very much, Mr Canterbury." "I'm very grateful." "Now, where do these steps go?" "Through the parlour into the old larder out the back." "Through here." "You are cosy here." "Well, you have to look after number one in this world, Mr Canterbury!" " This way." " Right you are." "Thank you." "That'll need a new screw one of these days." "Set me on, Miss Dubber!" "(LAUGHS)" "I'm looking for sanctuary from the corridors of Whitehall." "Somewhere to spend a few days whenever I can slip away." "I think I've found just the place." "(MISS DUBBER) You get the best view of the beach from here." "Open that window in the summer, you can even hear the band concerts." "Winston Churchill used to speak on that radio in the old days." "I'd like to think, Miss Dubber, that this room will always be mine." "I can come and go as I please, Whitehall permitting." "I'll know there'll always be a bed for me, my own key, no one else but you allowed in to disturb things, because they're perfect as they are." "I'll always pay six months in advance." "Cash, of course." "Tell the tax man what you like." "Oh, Mr Canterbury." "And you from Whitehall!" "(LAUGHS) Well, you've got to look after number one, Miss D!" "(RICKAND MAGNUS) # Underneath the arches" "# We dream our dreams away" "# Underneath the arches" "# On cobblestones we lay" "# Daylight comes creeping" "# Heralding the dawn" "# Pavement is my pillow" "# No matter where we stray" "# Underneath the arches" "# We dream our dreams away #" "The Brits brought the game here, Tom." "We ran the place for about 50 years last century, till the natives got restless." " Did they throw us out?" " Not exactly." "We retired." "Gave it back." " Declared at 50." " Yes, Tom." "Well put." "Oh, brilliant shot!" "Sir Magnus, we have to talk." "My dear old friend." "This is a terrific pleasure!" "I find you here of all places." "What a surprise." "Wonderful." "Wonderful." "This young man is your son?" "Hello, young man." "What's your name?" "Tom, just hang on for me here, will you?" " Shan't be long." " Very pleased to meet you, Tom." "(AXEL SPEAKS GERMAN)" "It's over, Sir Magnus." "It's time for us oldies to make way for the next generation." "Let them tear their hair in anguish over the state of the world." "Leave me in place, Axel." "I can do it." "Do you want to be like a poor old actor one has literally to drag from the stage?" "They'll clear me again." "I can do it." " Like last time?" " Yes." "You won't see it, will you?" "You were not cleared." "Jack Brotherhood won a little time, that's all." "What happens if Jack joins the bad guys?" " Hell hath no fury like a deceived protector." " He won't." "I know I can do it." "Sir Magnus..." "I beg you." "You know they're straight." "Do I have to frighten you?" "Axel, really!" "After 25 years." "36, Sir Magnus." "And now it's over." "I have to get back to Tom." " I haven't finished." " Tomorrow maybe." "It's a family holiday!" "(TOM) I'm Superman!" "(MAGNUS) I'm King Kong!" " I'm the greatest!" " I'M the greatest!" "(TOM) I'm bionic!" " I'm getting tired." " I'm knackered." "Agh!" " (TOM LAUGHS) - (MAGNUS) I'm having a cigarette." "That looks pretty good." "You're coming on." "Thanks." "Tom told me this morning he was German." "Who was?" "The ancient Brit who pestered you at the cricket, trying to flog his villa." "Tom wanted to know why you told me he was a Brit if he wasn't." " What did you say?" " I snapped at him." "I said if he wanted to listen to our conversations in bed, he should come in and not skulk outside the door like a bloody spy." " I haven't roared at him like that for ages." " Sorry, Mabs." " My fault." " Yes, it was." "Why the mystery?" " He's an observant kid, isn't he?" " For God's sake!" " There's nothing to worry about." " Balls!" "My son tells me about some creep with a moustache and a limp and spook written all over him - or else I'm potty - who pops up out of nowhere, and you're arm in arm like two old nancies and you give me this rubbish about him." "Who is he?" "Is he dangerous?" "We have our son with us!" "Calm down, Mabs." "All right." "He's an old Joe." "A bit pathetic these days, but a real tough egg once upon a time." " Nothing goes away in life." " You could have said that before." "We're on holiday." " I don't want to think about Joes." " We're not on holiday." " We're hiding." "Someone found us." " Mary, stop this nonsense." "The man's harmless." "He wants a jaw, he wants to get drunk." "He wants a trip down memory lane." "And who's hiding?" "What put that in your mind?" "You've seen how relaxed I am here." "Sometimes." "Dad, did you see those two men with the motorbike?" "They were at the cricket match." "They were in the car your friend got into." "Are you sure?" "The island's full of boys like that." "They all look the same to me." "It was them, Mum." "Honestly." "How about a drink, Mabs?" "I'm parched." "(MARY) Come on, darling." "Well, I think it's them, anyway." "(AXEL) Come over, Sir Magnus." "Enjoy a well-earned retirement with us." "Distinction." "Medals." "Your family around you if they wish it." "(LAUGHS)" "Axel, really!" "My dear old Poppy." "Do you honestly think anything would tempt Tom into Czechoslovakia, away from his school?" " He's captain of Pandas next term." " Another brave little English soldier." "Weren't we going to put a stop to all that?" "It's a better school than anything I experienced." "They can take their teddy bears to bed." "Hmm!" "The revolution (!" ")" "I won't budge." "You must keep me in place." "It's all I know." "And what I know, I owe to you... and Brotherhood." "You're my parents." "You made me." "And kept me going." "You know, Axel I wish I could adequately describe to you the pleasure of being really well run." "(MAGNUS) Let's get away, Mabs." "Let's really get away." "Let's bugger off for the whole of the summer." "You paint, I'll write my book, and we'll make love until we fall apart." "Listen." "Don't forget, darling, please." "You give this letter to Granny the moment you meet her at London airport, and at school, you give this one to Matron about your shrimp rash." "That's 1,999 times!" " I'm sorry, but..." " Mum!" "I just saw one of them!" " I did!" " Who?" "One of the men on the motorbike." "I did!" " I saw him." " Please, Tom." "We've finished that game." " Please be nice." " Oh, all right, then." "Sentimental crap!" "(WATER RUNNING)" " (BLOWS) - (SHE LAUGHS)" " Still sleepy?" " Mmm." "How did it go?" "It went well, Mabs." "Seven pages of deathless prose." " Undercoat, but good." " Great." "Later." "Sure." "Where are you going?" "Walk." "I'll come with you." "You could tell me about it." " About what, for heaven's sake?" " Whatever's worrying you." "Just tell me... whatever it is." "I don't mind what." " Just so that I don't have to..." " What?" "Bottle it up." "Look away." "Nonsense, Mabs!" "Everything's fine." "We're both just a bit blue without Tom." "You sleep it off," "I'll walk it off." "I'll see you at the taverna around three." ""For Sir Magnus, who will never be my enemy."" "Screw her!" "Screw fancy nicknames!" "(SLAMS BOOK SHUT)" "(MAGNUS) Duplicity is when you please one person at the expense of another." "Rick invented me." "Rick is dying." "What will happen when Rick drops his end of the string?" "Now everyone's after me." "The Firm's after me." "The Americans are after me." "You're after me." "Even poor Mary's after me, and she doesn't know you exist." "Poppy." "My destiny." "Dearest Poppy." "Best of best friends." "Get your bloody dogs off my doorstep." "The creditors are beating at the door." "I lower my head and lift my shoulders." "I wade at them." "I punch and flail and butt them while they smash my face in." "But even with no face left, I'm doing what I should have done 30 years ago to Jack and Rick and all the mothers and fathers for stealing my life off my plate while I watched you do it." "Poppy, Jack, the rest of you driving me into a lifetime's betrayal." "We betray to be loyal." "Betrayal is like imagining when the reality isn't good enough." "Betrayal as hope and compensation." "Betrayal as love." "As a tribute to our unlived lives." "Betrayal as escape." "As a statement of ideals." "Betrayal as worship." "As an adventure of the soul." "You were my promised land, Poppy." "You gave my lies a reason." "(SHE SOBS)" "Hello, old love." "Catching up on the great novel, are we?" "It's not exactly Jane Austen, I'm afraid, but some of it may be usable when I get a proper run at it." "Telegram from Jack Brotherhood." ""Return at once." "All is forgiven." ""Transatlantic harmony restored." ""Committee reassembles Vienna Monday 10am."" "Everything's fine, girl." "Told you." "(MEN AND WOMEN JOKE IN GERMAN)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(LAUGHTER)" "(LAUGHTER DROWNS WORDS)" "(MARY SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(GERMAN CONTINUES)" "(TELEPHONE RINGS)" "(RINGING CONTINUES)" "(SPEAKS GERMAN)" "(WHISPERS)" "(MAGNUS) Auf Wiedersehen." "Bye." " Super venison, Mabs." " They all thought Frau Wenzel cooked it." "Then sod them!" "Everything all right, darling?" "Darling?" "I'm free." "What do you mean?" "Free." "Free?" "Free?" "Of what?" "Who?" "What?" "Rick is dead." "Rick, my father, is dead." "He died of a heart attack at six o'clock this evening." "While we were getting ready for dinner." "It's all we could think of." "It's just that there wasn't any funds for the undertaker." "Not a penny piece to be found anywhere, is there, Vi?" "Nothing." "This was a favour from the pub over the road." "Your dad was very popular in there." "The slate he ran up, of course, that's got to be settled." " Will 200 look after the immediate bills?" " Oh, that is nice of you, dearie." "We was holding him." "We was having a nice little drop next door." "He'd been a bit depressed, you see." "He'd had this barney on the blower with the telephone exchange about a cheque what was in the post to them." "It was all over for him, dearie." "He said how could he do his business without a blower and a clean shirt?" "Oh, don't look at us like that, darling." "He'd had everything we'd got a long time ago." "We pulled tricks for him more than was natural." "Three times a day for him sometimes." "He was very lucky to have you both." "(DOOR OPENS)" "Did he talk about me at all in the last few days?" "Only at the end." ""Tell my boy Magnus we'll both be ambassadors soon."" "And after that?" "He says, "There's enough in them files to see you right, girls, till you join me."" "There wasn't, though." "Did you ever see an old green filing cabinet?" "Syd Lemon's got that." "Your dad had it sent over when he went on one of his last little trips." "He never got it back." "Couldn't afford the van, I'd say." "It was purely personal." "Love letters." "I peeked in once." "(ORGAN PLAYS "THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD")" "(TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT IN GERMAN)" "(RINGING TONE)" "(JACK) Yes?" "Jack, do you know what's happened to Magnus?" "(SYD) Who the bloody hell's that?" "Syd, it's Magnus." "Who?" "Speak the Queen's English, you bloody fool!" "Magnus, Syd." "Magnus Pym." "(DOOR IS UNLOCKED)" "Hello, Syd." "Hello, Titch." "I'm sorry about that." "I have to these days." "All sorts of foreigners about, selling things." "Good to see you after all these years, Titch." "(GROANS)" "Do the honours for us." "In that corner." "Open the door." "Go on." "Open the door." "(FLANAGAN AND ALLEN) # Underneath the arches" "# We dream our dreams away" "# Underneath the arches" "# On cobblestones we lay" "# Every night you'll find us" "# Tired out and worn" " # Happy when the daylight comes creeping..." " (SYD) Remember that?" "Rick gave it me." "# Heralding the dawn... #" ""Syd," he said..." ""can't afford a gold watch just now." ""I'm afraid there's a temporary problem of liquidity about your pension..." ""...but there's an article of furniture in my possession..." ""given us a lot of fun down the corridor of years..." ""worth a bob or two." ""I'd like you to have it as a small token."" "# Underneath the arches" " # We'll dream our dreams away #" " I'll take a drop of Scotch." "You please yourself." "(MUSIC STOPS)" "I did time for Rick." ""Lemon," he said..." "He always called me by me surname when he wanted something very badly." "Playing the guv'nor, I suppose." "Like he'd make out he was a colonel instead of a lance corporal." ""Lemon," he said," ""they get me on my signature, these documents." ""Now, if I was to say it's not my signature," ""and you was to say you forged it," ""nobody would be the wiser, would they?"" ""Well, I would, Rick," I said." "Still did it, mind." "Don't know why." "We all did things for Rick." "We was all bent, Titch, but Rick was very bent indeed." "It took me a long time to realise that." "Still, if he came back, I bet we'd do the same again and more." "Bet we would." "What do you want, Titch?" "Come on, Titch." "You've come to con me into something." "Get on with it." "No." "It's all right, Syd." "It's legal." "I'm his heir, aren't I?" "All his papers are mine now." "He never let nobody see in there." "I'm going to write a book." "I need the papers to get things right." "There's some bad things in that cabinet." "The truth's in there, Syd." "Your dad never held with books." "Syd..." "Rick always said that one day he'd see everyone right, didn't he?" "He's dead." "Let him have his peace." "For HIS sake, Syd." "Settle it all up." "How he always wanted." "I'll have it collected." ""A package for Canterbury," they'll ask for." "In a day or two." "(TELEPHONE RINGS)" "(RINGING CONTINUES)" "Yes?" "Hang on, I'm going over." "Right." "Listen." "He WAS at Heathrow." "He'd checked in for the flight." "He'd got his boarding card." "After that, vanished." "I'm going to Vienna in the morning." "First flight." "(RATTLING FRUIT MACHINES, POUNDING MUSIC)" "What the hell are you here for, Pym?" "It must be 25 years." "Hello, Sef." "Sorry to barge in." "Hope you don't mind." "No, no." "Don't mind at all, old boy." "Want a drink?" "Scotch do?" "Scotch, Steggie." "Fetch him a Scotch, will you?" "What do you want in your Scotch?" "Ice?" "Water." "He'll want water." "Bring him some water." "Put a jug on that table next to his chair." "Then he can help himself and you can go away." "You can top mine up, too, while you're at it." "I thought we were going to the Albion." "I can't go now." "I have to talk to this chap." "What the hell do you want, Pym?" "A bed for the night?" "A crash pad for old times' sake?" "It suits me, old boy." "Steggie, you go to the Albion and I'll join you there later." "Charmed, I'm sure (!" ")" "Well, then." "When you're ready (!" ")" "Steggie bother you at all?" "Think I've gone to the devil?" "(SOBS)" "Sef, I'm sorry." "I shouldn't have done it." "It was such a bloody lousy thing to do." "God, I've been so ashamed ever since." "I'm sorry, Sef." "I mean it." "What the hell are you talking about?" "Your initials, Sef." "At school." "I carved your initials on the wall in the staff lavatory." "Out of bounds." "Flogging offence." "It was me, Sef." "(LAUGHS)" "Look here, old boy." "I always knew you did it." "You cocked it up, too." "You bloody fool." "You put a hyphen between the S and the B and we don't have one." "I told the old bugger." "Made not a blind bit of difference." "He still flogged me." "I remember how I felt at the time." "I was God." "I was Hitler." "My eyes went blurred, my ears were ringing that I'd done it to my best friend." "Then I buried my penknife behind the cricket pavilion and at evening line-up, your name was called... (SOBS) ...and he took you behind the mahogany door and we all heard you getting it and I counted the strokes." "(MAGNUS SOBS) I'm sorry, Sef." "I don't think we should go through life wearing hair shirts about something we did at our private 40 years ago." "And besides, I wasn't very nice to you, was I?" "Always ragging you about your father. (LAUGHS)" "It's a pity he never got into parliament." "We'd have had jolly good fun together." "He's dead." "That's what I'm doing in London." "Funeral... all that." "I'm sorry, old boy." "No wonder you're a bit pissed." "I understand now." "(SEF LAUGHS)" "The last time I saw you really ossified was at Oxford." "Six of us put away a case of your father's port." "(LAUGHS)" "(SOBS)" "It was the first time, you see?" "Carving your initials." "First betrayal." "The start of everything." "I had to tell you, Sef." "You started me off." "You came before Brotherhood." "(SOBS)" "The excitement of it all." "I felt so clever." "I was me." "Who's this Brotherhood, old boy?" "The Brotherhood." "Name I give the people I work for, some of them." "Can't talk about that, Sef." "Are you in secret work these days?" "I'm not surprised." "Who isn't?" "I've got to set the record straight, Sef." "Everyone." "The Brotherhood, the other lot, Mary." "I'm clear with you, aren't I, Sef?" "Clean slate?" "(MARY) What do you mean?" "Free?" "Free?" "Of what?" "Who?" "What?" "What?" "(CLATTERING AND HAMMERING)" "(MARY) Where is he?" "(JACK) He's anywhere in the world, or out of it." "(JACK) Who's in Edinburgh?" "(MARY) No one." "(JACK) They think he went there." "Shuttle from Heathrow." "Tall man with a heavy briefcase." "Perhaps he just went through the motions." "The same as he checked in for Vienna, but didn't follow his suitcase." "Laying funny trails for us." "Has he ever vanished before and you not told me?" " No." " I want it straight, Mary!" " I've got the whole of London at my throat." " Never." "No." "I swear." "Did he ever talk of going over?" "A little dacha by the Black Sea?" " Don't be a fool." " Well, you rang very fast when he didn't show." ""Jack!" "Jack!" "Where's Magnus?"" " Were you expecting this?" " I was expecting HIM!" "What about his drinking?" " Less than before." " Less than Corfu?" "Miles less." "How about yours?" "(HAMMERING UPSTAIRS)" "Other women?" "I wouldn't know." "How could I?" "If he says he's out for the night, he's out for the night." "It could be a woman, it could be a Joe." "I thought women could always tell the difference." "Not with men like you and Magnus, they can't, Jack." "What about that briefcase he was carrying?" "He didn't take it from here." " Did he take it from the embassy?" " I suppose so." "He rushes off to London to bury his father but calls in the office on the way, or rather, well out of his way..." "I didn't know that." "Listen, Mary..." "There's no disappearance." "Nothing abnormal." "He's staying on in London for talks." "End of message." "It mustn't get out, Mary." "You know that, don't you?" "Yes." "I guessed." "There's his Joes to think of." "There's everything to think of, far more than you can know." "London is stiff with theories, begging for time." "Nothing to the Americans - nothing to anybody - but for God's sake, nothing to the Americans." "God damn it, Mary." "Magnus is my best boy." "What the devil have you done with him?" "Someone's kidnapped him." "I know they have." "(CLATTERING UPSTAIRS)" "Well, well." "That would make you feel better, would it?" "A kidnapping?" "Now, why do you say that, dear?" "What's worse than a kidnapping, I wonder?" "(MISS DUBBER) Now..." "What have you done now?" "I won't have it!" "Take it back." "Don't be a silly girl, Miss D. Of course I won't take it back." "Open it, dear." "It's you that's the silly one." "Isn't he, Toby?" "Wasting his money." "He ought to be saving it!" "Oh!" "(JACK) Who's P?" "25th September, 6.30pm." "P." "There was a P on the 16th as well." "That's not P for Pym, is it?" "Can't be." "Who's this P, Mary?" "I don't know." "A Joe, I suppose." "I don't know." "It's in your writing but it's his meeting." "If I go back further, there'll be more dates with this P, will there?" "Magnus didn't keep a diary of his own." "He said it was insecure." "He'd say, "Put down I'm meeting P."" "He made you write the entries for him?" "He said if anybody looked, they wouldn't know which were his dates and which were mine." "It was part of sharing." "Explain." "He couldn't tell me what he was doing, but he could show me that he was doing it and when." "He wanted me to know." "Know what?" "Know that he had another life." "An important one." "Know that he was being used." "Used?" "By you!" "By the Firm!" "Who do you think?" "Get off my back, will you?" "(FOOTSTEPS ON STAIRS)" "(KNOCK AT DOOR)" "Excuse me, Mr Brotherhood." "Would you care to pop upstairs a jiffy, sir?" "John and Sylvia Illegible of Wimbledon." "(MISS DUBBER) They're in computers." "Jeremy Squiggle and Simon Squiggle." " Couple of lover boys?" " They were not, Mr Canterbury." "They watched the football on the television." "Come and have your cup of tea." "Any interesting casuals?" "Runaways, honeymooners, nosy parkers?" "Casuals!" "You know I won't take casuals." "Tell you every time you come, but it's in one ear and out the other with you, isn't it, Toby?" "I said to Celia Venn..." "I said, "Mr Canterbury will never change."" " Who on earth's Celia Venn?" " Dr Venn's daughter, silly!" "She's taken the top flat at Sea View." "She wants to paint the sea." "Any other comings and goings?" "Mr Cook moved out of Rose Mount after his wife died." "He couldn't take it." "He's allergic." "Anyone moved in yet?" "(MAN) We found it on a ledge in the chimney, sir." "Where it joins the main flue." " It was in this shoe box." " Not a speck of dust on it." "Just reach up and it's there." "Dead handy." "You wouldn't need to move the chest once you'd got the knack." "It's for the Firm." "It's for his work for you." "Of course." "I'll tell London." "No problem." "Just because he didn't tell me about it doesn't mean there's anything wrong." "It's for in case he gets landed with documents." "In the house at weekends." "It's for his Joes." "If they bring him documents, you fool!" "And if he's got to turn them round at short notice." "What's so fucking sinister about that?" "As Mary says, for photographing documents." "On this very chest, I should think." "There we are, sir." "Czecho?" "Could be Russian but..." "I'd say Czech." "That's only where they're made." "Who's dishing them out is another matter." "(WOMAN) That's the lot, Jack." "(JACK) Roses?" "Poppies?" "Poppies..." "Poppy?" "Begins with a P." "P for Poppy, maybe." "Maybe not." "Any thoughts?" "In your diary, dear." "Magnus said, "Write down I'm meeting P."" "I think you're a bad girl, Mary." "I think you know a lot more than you've told me." "I think he's a bad man." "And I'm wondering whether you're bad together." "You shit!" "(MAGNUS) I'm back, Miss D. Any callers while I was out?" "(MISS DUBBER) Only the gasman to read the meter." "(MAGNUS) The usual or someone new?" "(MISS DUBBER) New, of course." "Always are." "Pour yourself a vodka, dear." "(JACK) And that's the first you ever heard of Poppy, in this novel he's writing?" "(MARY) Mmm." ""Poppy." "My destiny." ""Dearest Poppy."" " Say it again." " It's on your tape." "Say it!" ""Poppy, best of best friends, get your bloody dogs off my doorstep."" "You didn't ask him about it?" "You didn't say, "Magnus, who the hell is this Poppy?"" "It's a novel, for God's sake." "What else do you remember?" "Bits." "Only bits." "What bits?" "!" "Sit up, Mary." "What bits, dear?" "Mary..." "Come on." "Piss off, Jack!" "Mary..." "Why do I let you do this to me?" "It's my job." "He'd have been all right if he'd never met people like you." "There was a chapter headed "Overdue bills"." "Written fast, in anger." "No crossings-out." "And this one word again and again, like an obsession." "Over and over." "The same thing." "On and on." ""Betrayal."" ""A lifetime's betrayal." ""Betrayal as hope." "Betrayal as compensation." ""Betrayal as the making of a better land." ""Betrayal as love." "Betrayal as worship." ""Betrayal as the statement of ideals." ""Betrayal as escape." ""Betrayal, betrayal," ""betrayal, betrayal!"" "(SHE SOBS)" "(URGENT KNOCKING AT DOOR)" "Wait!" " (URGENT KNOCKING)" " I said wait!" "This book he won't ever let you touch." "This ancient copy of "Simplicissimus"." "You called it his mascot." "Where is it now?" "With Magnus." " (DOOR OPENS)" " Sorry, sir." "Crash message from the embassy." "They phoned it through in word code." "I've just unbuttoned it." "The Station burnbox is missing." " Since when?" " Not known, sir." "At least, not for certain." "What's a burnbox?" "(MARY) I'm talking!" " What's a burnbox?" " All right, Fergus." "Be right with you." "Of course." "It's since your time." "A burnbox is what it says." "It burns whatever's inside it as soon as you turn the key the right way." "What's in it?" "Not much." "Agents in place." "All our Czechs." "A few Poles." "Hungarians." "Just about everything we have that's run from Vienna... or used to be." "You knew about him." "You bloody knew for years and years." "Didn't you?" "(MAN SPEAKS CZECH ON WIRELESS)" "(WIRELESS OFF)" "(AXEL) Never mind, E Weber love you always." "Poppy." "(LAUGHS)" "You cheeky sod." "Oh, Poppy." "Axel..." "Axel... (LAUGHS)" "(SOBS)" "(JACK SIGHS)" "Listen, Mary, I'm going to tell you the truth, and I think it's time you heard some." "The new committee that he derided so much was a very a high-powered outfit, maybe the best potential working relationship at field level we've had with the Americans for years." "Are you listening?" "Now, then, the Americans objected to your husband's presence on that committee and asked me to replace him." "I said no, and I ordered Magnus to take himself off on leave and stay clear of Vienna till I told him to come back." "I had him cleared." "Committee-cleared, American-cleared," "London-cleared." "That's what I did for Magnus." "You defended your best boy." "You were loyal." "I was a bloody fool as well." "Will they put this house back together again?" "As soon as they're ready." "Fergus and Georgie will stay with you for the duration - take you shopping, embassy wives' club - whatever you do, just keep doing it." "Keep it straight, Mary." "Jack..." "What else is in the burnbox?" "Nothing." "There's something wrong here, Jack." "If you're right about him, why should he steal what he's already handed over anyway?" "There IS something else, isn't there?" "The Station gun." "(AXEL SHOUTING) Pym!" "Pym, help me!" "Pym, you bastard!" "Where are you?" "Pym, help me!" "(MAGNUS) I held it against you, Jack, I confess." "I argued with you in my head for years." "Why had you done it to him?" "What possible danger was Axel to anyone?" "He wasn't a communist." "He wasn't a war criminal." "He was nothing to do with you." "His only crimes were his poverty, his illegal presence in Switzerland and his lameness plus a certain freedom in his way of thinking, which, in the eyes of some, is what we are there to protect." "I know now, of course, that you hardly gave it a thought." "Axel was just a bit of barter material." "You lit your pipe and you thought," ""Hello, I bet the old Swissies will like a smell of this one." ""I'll pop it down to them and earn myself a Brownie point."" "Served me right for having a friend outside the Service." "He could have a knighthood by now for all we know, Toby." "(YAWNS) He could be Prime Minister." "We'd only ever hear it from the television." "(LAUGHS)" "Bo Brammel's putting together what he terms "the alternative view"." "Oh, yes?" "He's called in some top shrink - somebody who specialises in harmless nervous breakdowns." "They've thrown Pym's dossier at him." "He has to assemble a profile of a loyal Englishman under severe stress who is arousing anxiety in other people, particularly Americans." "Will they find him?" "(JACK) Maybe." "Maybe's not enough." "I'm asking you, Jack." "Will you find him?" "You're drinking well." "Something you want to tell me?" " Hold me, Jack." " Like hell I will!" "Please, Jack." "You've got to get me out of it." "(SHE SOBS)" "Tell me." "What did you do for him?" " (SHE SOBS)" " Steal a few secrets, did you?" "Something juicy?" "Come on, Kate!" "He fooled me, too." "What did you do for him?" "I'm dead but I'm not going to throw you to the wolves." "(SHE SOBS)" "There was an entry in his personal file." "He wanted it taken out." "And you did it for him - raided his file?" "What was it?" "Trivial, really." "Seemed to be." "He was still a boy." "He'd been running some low-grade Joe in Czechoslovakia." "Small stuff." "There was this girl called Sabina who'd got in on the act and then defected." "He said if anybody picked through his file and came on this, he'd never make it to the Fifth Floor." " I didn't listen too clearly." "Oh, Christ, Jack!" " Come on." "It's not the end of the world." "What did you do with this stuff?" "Kept it." "I didn't give it to him." "He knew I wouldn't do that." "Where is it now?" "It's in your bathroom, actually." "I tried to tell you before, but I couldn't." "It was when they brought Magnus back from Washington." "You weren't listening to anything." "It was the night you shot your dog." ""Exceptional young officer who is popular and courteous." ""A close personal relationship established with an important source of top-secret intelligence." ""Source's insistence on operating through Pym only." ""Insistence on operating through Pym only."" "Of course." "I'll bet (!" ")" "(MAGNUS) One last thing, Jack." "Important, this." "It's about Tom." "Hold his hand for me." "He's the best thing I had." "(CHURCH ORGAN PLAYS)" "(WHISPERS)" "(AXEL) I can help you find him." "I will send a message to the house." "(MISS DUBBER SHOUTS) Mr Canterbury!" "Where are you going?" "It's for you." "A huge thing." " I was somewhere else for a moment, Miss D." " They've been waiting." "If you'd wanted a cabinet, why didn't you say?" "You could have had the cupboard from number two." "Much better than a huge thing like that." "It'll spoil your room." "Don't nag, Miss D. Just look at those brochures." ""Discover Tunisia." "Seniors a speciality."" "I'm not discovering anywhere." "Really!" "(EASTERN EUROPEAN ACCENT) 8.20 local time," "Prague Station has its chief cut-out dial the Watchman household from a callbox, Bo." "Number engaged." "He makes five calls in two hours round town." "Still engaged." "He tries Conger." "Number out of order." "Everybody vanished." "Out of touch." "700 local time, Gdansk Station puts two boys to mend the telegraph pole in the street where Merryman lives." "It's a cul-de-sac." "Got no other way out." "Every day he goes to work by car - leaves his house 7.20." "Not today." "And no car outside his house." "Front door stays closed." "Nobody leaves or enters." "Downstairs is curtain, no lights." "You want me go on?" "Please go on, Frankel." "We tried radio direct." "It looked good." "Conger's operator came to us like he should, ready to send." "Subject:" "Restationing of Soviet missile bases north of Pilsen." "The message was very short, but OK, so what?" "We decode it straight away." "Message reads," ""Subsource Talleyrand confirms..."" "Message ends in mid-sentence." "Then we send them," ""Your signal garbled." "Rerun immediate."" "Nothing came back." "Stone-dead, Bo." "Oh, dear." "Bo..." "You want a roll-call of all members of the network?" "(LAUGHS)" "Don't, Jack." "(LAUGHS)" "Stop crying!" "No one's hurt." "It doesn't matter what you tell 'em." "Tell 'em to jump in the Vistula." "It won't make a dime of difference." "(NIGEL) Poor Jack." "They're his Joes, you see." "It's the strain." "They're not my Joes... and they never were." "Frankel, for Christ's sake." "When this service catches someone else's Joe, if it ever does these days, what does it do?" "You're not wowing the kiddies at the training school now, Jack." "If he's willing, we play him back." "If he's not, he goes to the Tower, right?" "(NIGEL) Jack!" "(JACK) If we play him back, we do it as naturally and as fast as we can." "Why?" "Because we want to show the opposition that nothing has changed." "We want it seamless." "We don't hide his car, close his house, magic him away into thin air." "We don't sandbag radio operators in full flow." "That is the last, the very last thing we do, right?" "I don't read you, Jack." "I don't think anybody else does, to be truthful." " Unless..." " I think you're naturally upset and you're getting a bit metaphysical." "Unless you want the opposition to know you're rolling up their network." "Explain to us, please." "We never had a bloody network." "Those aren't the Crown jewels that Pym is carrying around in the burnbox." "He took it just to keep us guessing." "They owned those Joes from day one." "They paid the actors, wrote the script." "They owned Pym." "They near enough owned me." "They owned all of you, too." "You just haven't woken up to it." "But, Jack..." "Why would they bother to tell us anything at all?" "Why fake the signal?" "Why pretend they've picked up the Joes?" "Because they want us to think they've got Pym, and they haven't." "It's the only lie they've got left to sell us." "They want us to call off the hunt and go home to our smoked salmon sandwiches." "They want to find him for themselves." "That's the good news for the day." "Pym is still on the run... and they want him as much as we do." "(BO) Don't stop there, Jack." "Now tell us HOW we find him." "Get the police in." "It's the only way." "Pure bobby work." "Please yourselves." "I nearly forgot... remember that American signals man Artelli?" "Reckoned he could crack the code that Pym and his Czecho chum were using." "Thought it might be a bit of Shakespeare or something equally out of date." "Lf, Bo, you're still talking to the Americans, suggest Artelli tries "Simplicissimus"." "(MAGNUS) Why did Pym do it, Tom?" "In the beginning was the deed." "Not the motive, least of all the word." "It was his own choice." "It was his own life." "No one forced him." "Anywhere along the line or right at the start of it, he could have yelled "No!" and surprised himself." "He never did." "It took him 35 years before he threw in the sponge, and by then, the lines were drawn for good." "All the lines." "The point is, Pym quite frequently loved the Firm almost as much as he loved Axel." "He adored its rough, uncomprehending trust in him, its misuse of him, its tweedy bear hugs, flawed romanticism and cock-eyed integrity." "The Firm was home and school and court to him even when he was betraying it." "He really felt he had a lot to give it, just as he had a lot to give Axel." "In his imagination, he saw himself with cellars full of nylons and black market chocolate." "Enough to see everybody right in every shortage." "And now, of course," "Pym himself was the hero of the fable." "(AXEL) I have information that could lead us both to Magnus." "(DOOR BANGS)" "(FOOTSTEPS)" "I just had to come and see how you do it, Mary." "It's such a clever hobby." "(WOMAN) It was, therefore, unanimously agreed that the Foreign Office Inspectors' report on the local cost of living was distorted and unfair, and that a Finance sub-committee would be formed, headed, I'm pleased to say, by Mrs McCormick." "The sub-committee will itemise all our points for submission through the proper channels to the Head of the Inspectorate himself." "Now, I'm sure everybody would like me to say - you said you didn't mind if I mentioned it - how sorry we are about the death of your father-in-law." "We know that Magnus has been hit very hard, and we hope that he will get over it soon and be back amongst us with his usual high spirits which we all find so refreshing." "Thank you." "Honestly, I don't want to lie down." "I'd rather just take a walk." "Could you get my scarf, please?" "I'd rather be alone." "Stupid." "(AXEL) I have information that could lead us both to Magnus." "Please do the following." "Any afternoon between two and six, you will take coffee at the Café Mozart." "Mr König will collect you." "Frau Pym?" "From Herr König." "Thank you." "(DOORBELL)" " You are a courageous woman." " Where is he?" "(MAGNUS) And that's how it was, Tom." "Betrayal is a repetitious trade, and I will not bother you with any more of it." "We've reached the end, though it seems from here to look quite like the beginning." "There was no saving Pym." "The truth is, Tom, that he preferred to sit here in Miss Dubber's upper room and wait for God to come while he looked towards the beach where the best pals ever had kicked a football from one end of the world to the other... and rode their bicycles across the sea." "(AXEL) His last message to me was that he didn't want to see me any more." "He said he was free, and goodbye." "I felt a genuine pang of jealousy." "His father dies and immediately Sir Magnus is free." "What is all that about, do you think?" "I don't know." "I never met his father." "So, what is he?" "Is he a communist?" "He can't be." "It's too ridiculous." "He's a searcher." "Isn't that enough?" "In our profession, I am sure we should not ask for more." "Can you imagine being married to an armchair ideologist?" "I had an uncle once who was a Lutheran pastor." "He bored us all to death." "Mary..." "Quite frankly, we cannot afford to lose him." "He doesn't want you any more, though." "That's why he's hiding." "What happened to the people he betrayed?" "Oh, Sir Magnus hates bloodshed." "He always made that clear." "That never stopped anyone from shedding blood." "Why did you ask me here?" "Mary, listen." "Do you not have the consoling feeling that there is someone looking after him?" "I am sure there is." "He hates to be alone because then his world is empty." "So who's looking after him?" "I'll take a cab." "There's a stand on the corner." "I saw it as I came in." "Why not his mother?" "Not long ago, he talked to me about his mother for the first time." "He said he had unearthed her somewhere and put her in a house by the sea." "He was proud of this." "He spoke about the wonderful walks they had together on the beach." "Do you know where this house is?" "Maybe he's there fixing her garden for her." "Something as innocent as that." "Her house was the first place they looked." "They frightened her out of her skin." "How do I get in touch with you if I need you?" "Throw a newspaper over the wall (?" ")" "I don't think you will need me, and perhaps you are right that Sir Magnus doesn't want me any more either." "Just as long as he wants someone." "That's all we must worry about if we love him." "He'll find an answer." "He always does." "That's what I'm afraid of." "(MARY) Magnus hasn't got a bloody mother." "He'd given this Poppy part of the same fantasy that he'd given me." "Happy families by the seaside (!" ")" "He'd say, "Let's go to Devon for a holiday, Mabs." "When I was in Devon..."" "It was Farleigh Abbott, always." ""When Rick used to pick me up from school..."" "It was his ideal place." "Safe." "Innocent." "Before..." "People like me came along." "Anyway, that's where he is." "I'm certain of it." "What I made him do, he's made me pay for." "All my successes..." "Christ!" "Nothing." "Nothing at all." "Do you hate him now?" "No." "I don't know why, though." "(POLICEMAN) As quickly as you can, please." "Thank you for your cooperation." "There's hot drinks and sandwiches in the church hall." "(MAGNUS) There's one favour I'd like from you, Mary, please." "They'll find an old green filing cabinet in my room here." "It's just a lot of old nonsense that got between my father and me for a time." "No interest to anybody else." "Get them to make a bonfire of it all." "And then... there's my letter to Tom." "Let him read it as soon as you think the time is right, or as right as it will ever be." "Don't wait too long, Mary." "He'll have it rough, I know but I think he may actually understand better while he's still very young." "As for us, Mary not much I can say except... sorry I married you for cover but I'm glad we managed a bit of love along the way." "Thank you for that." "(FAINT POLICE RADIO OUTSIDE)" "He's well liked in the community, sir, or so we're told." "He's always well liked." "Are you sure you wouldn't rather come into the church hall, madam?" "It's warmer." "She's best here." "Only it could be all night, you see, madam, if our friend decides to stick it out, kind of thing." "To be truthful, if we have to go in, she'll have to withdraw, same as you, sir, along with the other non-combatants." "We'll play it as it comes." "You're fussing me too much!" "What's the matter with you?" "And all that writing." "We've hardly seen you, have we, Toby?" "The writing's finished, Miss D." "All done." "All ship-shape." "You're not yourself, Mr Canterbury." "I'm worried about you." "I'm just a bit tired, that's all." "An early night for me, Miss D." " Come on." " Well..." "Goodnight, dear." "God bless." "(FAINT POLICE RADIO)" "A message from the roof, sir." "Do you know the precise type and calibre of the weapon our friend is alleged to have in his possession?" "A standard Browning 9 millimetre automatic." " Type of ammunition, sir?" " Soft nose, I should think." " Not a stopper or a dumdum?" " Why the hell would he want a dumdum?" "I don't know, sir." "Information's like gold dust on this one, I must say." " How many rounds has our friend got?" " He's not a maniac!" "He's not going to start a bloody great..." " Assume one magazine and one spare." " Hmm." "And how's his marksmanship?" " He's been trained and topped up all his life." " He's good." "Shoots targets with Tom." "Thank you." "How do you know all about the gun?" "Poppy told me." "Who else?" "Oh, yes, of course." "Poppy." "Knew everything." "Poppy (!" ")" "Sir Magnus (!" ")" "Sod them!" "(MOVEMENT ON ROOF)" "(SHAKY BREATHING)" "(DOOR OPENS)" "(GUNSHOT)" "(GUNSHOT ECHOES)"