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.Anyone who was not demonstrably on the right was on the left.Anyone on the left was automatically suspect.Thirkill was potentially a man of power, and so he was more suspect.Humphrey shook his head.There was no use talking about it; there never had been any use.And yet Higgs was smiling with obscure satisfaction, as though he was allowing Humphrey to waste his energy.‘What have you got out of it?’ he said.‘Do you mind telling me why you are interested, Humph?’Sir Eric Higgs was the only person alive who used that diminutive.‘You’ve heard of the Belgravia murder? Old Lady Ashbrook?’Sir Eric had heard, though not in his professional job, of most murders.He was an amateur of crime.He was very quick to pick up references, forgot nothing, knew of Humphrey’s former connection with the police.Maybe he could even have recaptured Briers’ name.No further explanations were necessary, after Humphrey said he would like any data they had on Thirkill’s whereabouts on 24/25 July.Higgs gave a plump cunning grin.‘Oh, you’re on the wrong track there, you know.We’ve had some curious instructions from on high.I’m not permitted to tell you the reason.It’s nothing to do with what you were thinking a moment ago.Thirkill’s by way of being valuable just now in high quarters.’‘Well, then, what were you really playing at? What was the man doing?’‘I’m inclined to think,’ Sir Eric said, ‘we ought to do what we can to help.But I don’t think it will be much use for your purposes.’Those would have been something like the correct ceremonies, even if Humphrey had still been one of the inner circle.‘What have you got out of the telephone calls?’ Humphrey repeated.‘Very little.Precious little.’ Immediately, Sir Eric became precise, businesslike, exhibiting a memory as automatic as Frank Briers’, better than Humphrey’s, which was good enough.Humphrey didn’t doubt that in detail he would tell the truth.The truth was, however, not sensational.On the tapes, Tom Thirkill was recorded as talking to three or four Moscow Marxists in the parliamentary party – just general bonhomie, asking them not to stab him in the back more than necessary.Interesting that he didn’t talk in the same terms to the much larger group of the militant left, irregular Trotskyists.Not disciplined, Humphrey commented.Thirkill wouldn’t trust them; no experienced politician would.Humphrey added: ‘Of course, the man’s fighting for his political life.’Sir Eric was not concerned about party factions.There was nothing that disturbed him on those tapes.Anyway, Thirkill was in favour in the highest places, for reasons which he still couldn’t tell Humphrey.The curious thing was, he was not dissembling, Humphrey had to realise.If high authority had a use for Thirkill, so automatically had Higgs.‘Of course,’ Higgs said with avuncular caution, ‘we’re dealing with a remarkably cagey man.’Humphrey was impelled to remark: ‘I’m glad you’ve stopped worrying about him–’‘We’ve said that before, haven’t we? And it turned out rather uncomfortably different.’Bland, obstinate as ever, but Humphrey had to accept that this was the mirror image of himself and Frank Briers.Brilliant suspiciousness through living at the centre of a spider’s web, feeling the twitches, losing one’s sense of the impossible.Sir Eric remarked with subdued pleasure: ‘He really is remarkably cagey, you know.We have some evidence that he won’t talk about anything serious in his own drawing-room.’‘He thinks you’ve bugged it?’‘So it would appear.’‘As a matter of fact, have you?’Sir Eric gave a chairman-like smile.‘No, we haven’t gone as far as that.’He knew nothing of Thirkill’s daughter, and there was nothing about her on the file.But he did as he promised.Yes, there had been a check on Thirkill’s movements, which had continued up to the present day, on those same unproducible instructions.He would let Humphrey read the record of the night of 24 July.It was several steps down the hierarchy, in a small gloomy windowless room, taken there by Sir Eric, who politely introduced Humphrey to the incumbent, whom he already knew quite well, that Humphrey saw the papers.By that time Sir Eric had said goodbye.The incumbent was called Kirby, once in the Colonial Service, sad, indrawn, at the same time requiring sympathy and giving none.He was not anxious to help, but he had to obey orders.Yes, they had been keeping tabs on Mr Thirkill (as Kirby called him throughout).‘Have you any idea why?’‘Matter of form,’ said Kirby mulishly.‘Anything on 24 July?’‘Usual pro forma.’Thirkill had left 27 Eaton Square at 5.36 on 24 July 1976
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