Hapgood Read online

  (To Merryweather) Have a look round the pool.

  MERRYWEATHER Right. What for exactly?

  HAPGOOD Anything there is, I’ll want to see it. (To radio) Cotton.

  RADIO Mother.

  Wates and Merryweather dovetail with Hapgood and her radio.

  WATES (Shaking hands) Ben Wates.

  MERRYWEATHER How do you do, sir? Merryweather.

  Merryweather goes out to the pool. Ridley is probably contemplating the briefcase.

  Wates moves quietly up towards the cubicles and calmly investigates them, one after another without fuss. During this:

  HAPGOOD (To radio) Where is he?

  RADIO In the Peugeot.

  HAPGOOD (Patiently) Thank you, Cotton, and where is the Peugeot?

  RADIO Camden High Street.

  HAPGOOD Pick him up and I want everything, I want him in a plastic bag.

  RADIO Yes, ma’am.

  HAPGOOD Contents of briefcase. I’m here to be told.

  RADIO You know it’s twins?

  HAPGOOD Yes, I know it’s twins. (To Ridley) You take Kerner—go through him, do it properly. (To radio) Chamberlain.

  RIDLEY Kerner’s clean.

  RADIO P.O.B.

  HAPGOOD (To radio) I know.

  RIDLEY I did the switch.

  HAPGOOD (To Ridley, more sharply) Move.

  Ridley exits to the lobby.

  (To radio) Where are you?

  RADIO Chalk Farm, turning west on Adelaide.

  HAPGOOD Bring him in.

  RADIO Say again?

  HAPGOOD Just do it.

  RADIO Okay, guv.

  HAPGOOD Taxi needs back-up.

  RADIO (New voice) Roger.

  HAPGOOD I’m here to be told.

  She turns the gadget off, hesitates, and turns it on again.

  (To radio) Paul … (Her tone for Paul is different—she is not giving orders. No answer.) Paul …

  Still no answer. She turns the radio off. Wates is coming back to her.

  What are you thinking?

  WATES You wouldn’t like it.

  Hapgood closes the briefcase.

  HAPGOOD What happened to the bleep?

  WATES (Shrugs) It’s dead.

  HAPGOOD I’ll need when.

  WATES You’ll get it. Why did he take the film?

  HAPGOOD Who?

  WATES Yeah, that’s the other thing.

  Hapgood goes to collect her umbrella.

  HAPGOOD (To radio) I’m leaving.

  RADIO Car out front.

  HAPGOOD (To radio) Thank you. (She puts the radio back into her bag.) Wates …

  WATES Yes, ma’am.

  HAPGOOD Thank you for your co-operation.

  WATES You bet.

  He holds the briefcase out for her and she takes it.

  HAPGOOD Well, we’ll talk. You’re invited.

  WATES Appreciate it.

  Hapgood starts off to the lobby door. Merryweather comes back in from the pool.

  MERRYWEATHER Nothing, Mother—the whole place is clean.

  HAPGOOD (Continuing out) Drain the pool.

  The doors swing shut behind her.

  MERRYWEATHER (Thoughtfully, not entirely happy) Drain the pool.

  He goes back to the pool. Wates is alone. He is evidently a man with a burden. He is getting ready to leave, perhaps he has a coat to put on. From the pocket he takes a similar radio and walks towards the doors, raising the radio to his mouth; at which point everything changes for him. He stops to listen, his head turned back towards the upstage, by which time, gracefully and without making a big thing of it, he has tossed his radio from right hand to left, and produced from somewhere about his person a short-barrelled revolver. He stands listening, holding the gun down by his side. He has to be patient but after a while a figure comes out of the dark upstage between the cubicles. This turns out to be a man wearing a hat and a good tweed overcoat, his hands in the pockets, a slightly surprising colourful silk scarf tucked inside the coat. He walks down in his own time, a careful stroll. Wates does not move until the downstage light falls across BLAIR’s face. Blair comes to a halt. Wates puts his gun away, gets the radio back into his right hand, and resumes.

  WATES (To radio) Wates—I need the sweeps. (He nods at Blair.) Paul.

  BLAIR (Greets him back) Ben.

  RADIO Sweeps coming up.

  WATES (To radio) Thank you. (He puts the radio in his pocket and, in leaving, speaks to Blair without reproof, just information.) She blew it.

  He goes out through the lobby doors. Blair takes a radio from his pocket.

  The scene begins to change.

  BLAIR (To radio) Ridley.

  RIDLEY (On radio) Ridley.

  BLAIR (To radio) I want Kerner in Regent’s Park, twelve o’clock sharp.

  He puts the radio away and looks at his wrist-watch. The next time he moves, it is twelve o’clock and he is at the Zoo.

  SCENE 2

  Kerner has been brought by Ridley to the Zoo. Blair, having checked the time on his watch, nods at Ridley to dismiss him.

  Ridley moves out.

  Perhaps we are looking at Blair and Kerner through the bars of a cage. There could be a bench, there could be paper cups of coffee … The bars make hard-edged shadows. We need one particular and distinct demarcation of light and shadow on the floor, perhaps thrown by the edge of a wall.

  Kerner speaks with a Russian accent, which is not too heavy; in fact, attractive.

  BLAIR You’re blown, Joseph.

  KERNER I love it. You blew it and I’m blown: well, I’ll be blowed. Nobody teaches that, you know. They teach you so you can almost read David Copperfield and then you find out David talks like a language student, he must have been put in as a sleeper.

  BLAIR Well … you’re blowed, Joseph. Your career is over.

  KERNER Except as a scientist, you mean.

  BLAIR Yes, that’s what I mean.

  KERNER My career as your man at the Pool.

  BLAIR Or theirs. Just an observation. The meet at the pool came unstuck this morning. We have to consider you blown as our joe. The Russians must consider you blown as their sleeper. Either way your career is over. Which way, is perhaps an academic question.

  KERNER And yet, here you are.

  BLAIR One likes to know what’s what.

  KERNER Oh, you think there’s a what’s-what? Your joe. Their sleeper. Paul, what’s-what is for zoologists: ‘Oh yes—definitely a giraffe.’ But a double agent is not what’s-what like a giraffe, a double agent is more like a trick of the light.

  BLAIR Joseph—

  KERNER Look. (He points.) Look at the edge of the shadow. It is straight like the edge of the wall that makes it. This means light is particles: little bullets. Bullets go straight. They cannot bend round the wall and hit you. If light was waves it would bend round the wall a little, like water bends round a stone in the river.

  BLAIR (Irritated) Yes. Absolutely.

  KERNER So that’s what. When you shine light through a gap in the wall, it’s particles. Unfortunately, when you shine the light through two little gaps, side by side, you don’t get particle pattern like for bullets, you get wave pattern like for water. The two beams of light mix together and—

  BLAIR Joseph. I want to know if you’re ours or theirs, that’s all.

  KERNER I’m telling you but you’re not listening. Now we come to the exciting part. We will watch the bullets to see how they make waves. This is not difficult, the apparatus is simple. So we look carefully and we see the bullets, one at a time. Some go through one gap and some go through the other gap. No problem. Now we come to my favourite bit. The wave pattern has disappeared. It has become particle pattern again.

  BLAIR (Obliging) All right—why?

  KERNER Because we looked. Every time we don’t look, we get wave pattern. Every time we look to see how we get wave pattern we get particle pattern. The act of observing determines what’s what.

  BLAIR How?

  KERNER Nobody
knows. Somehow light is continuous and also discontinuous. The experimenter makes the choice. You get what you interrogate for. And you want to know if I’m a wave or a particle. Every month at the pool, I and my friend Georgi exchange material. When the experiment is over, you have a result. I am your joe. But they also have a result: because you have put in my briefcase enough information to keep me credible as a Russian sleeper activated by my KGB control; which is what Georgi thinks he is. So naturally he gives me enough information to keep me credible as a British joe. Frankly, I can’t remember which side I’m supposed to be working for, and it is not in fact necessary for me to know.

  Pause.

  BLAIR It wasn’t Georgi today.

  KERNER No?

  BLAIR No, it was different today.

  KERNER Today you decided to look. Why was that?

  BLAIR Some of your research has turned up in Moscow. Real secrets, not briefcase stuff.

  KERNER Tsk, tsk, tsk.

  BLAIR That’s what the Americans said, roughly.

  KERNER The one shaving.

  BLAIR Mm. Ben Wates, CIA. You’d appreciate him, he makes waves with a Smith and Wesson.

  KERNER I’m sorry, Paul.

  BLAIR (Shrugs) Cousin-trouble is nothing new. This thing with you is trouble, though. Oh yes. If the Evil Empire has a tap into you, that’s quite another ballroom as Wates put it—

  KERNER Ballgame. I think.

  BLAIR I assure you it wasn’t. Ballpark. Anyway, Wates flies in and says, ‘I have come from Washington to help you. How about Kerner for a start? Do we know anything about Joseph Kerner?’ Well, we do as a matter of fact. He’s Russian from Kaliningrad. The Russians put him in as a sleeper years ago but we turned him round and now he’s really working for us, they only think he’s working for them.

  KERNER What did he say?

  BLAIR He said: you guys.

  KERNER Poor Paul. What happened at the Pool?

  BLAIR Wates wanted us to abort the meet and put you through the mangle. But Mrs Hapgood insisted you were straight. And she wanted to keep the channel open. She made Wates an offer. She duplicated the contents of your briefcase. So now we had everything twice, in two briefcases. Ridley showed up before you at the Pool—

  KERNER What is a mangle?

  BLAIR I’m trying to tell you what happened at the Pool.

  KERNER You already did. Your Mr Ridley delivered to my Russian control and I delivered where Ridley put his towel. Quite nice. If I’m putting something extra in my briefcase, you get it all back.

  BLAIR That sort of thing.

  KERNER And was there something extra in my briefcase?

  BLAIR No. There was something missing. The computer disc was there but the films were gone.

  KERNER A puzzle.

  BLAIR Now we come to the exciting part. Wates had booby-trapped your briefcase. He sprayed the inside with an aerosol can, like radioactive deodorant—did you ever hear of such a thing?

  KERNER An isotope solution. If I open the briefcase I give a Geiger reading.

  BLAIR Yes.

  KERNER So, did I give a Geiger reading?

  BLAIR No.

  KERNER (Pleased) Oh, good.

  BLAIR We also had a bleep in your briefcase.

  KERNER A bleep?

  BLAIR A radio transmitter.

  KERNER Oh—a bug.

  Blair gives him a look.

  Sorry. A bleep in my briefcase. Go on.

  BLAIR Wates tracked the signal all the way to the meet. There the signal died. And the transmitter went missing from the briefcase, which nobody opened. The job was done by Mr Nobody.

  KERNER Well I’m blown. Blow me for a monkey’s uncle. Can I say that?

  BLAIR I would avoid it. Any thoughts, Joseph?

  KERNER Mr Nobody put something extra in my briefcase. Then he found out my delivery was going to be intercepted. So he had to take it out again.

  BLAIR But why remove our rolls of film? He’d only have to take out what he put in, and we’d be none the wiser.

  KERNER Obviously because he put in a roll of film and they all look the same; he had to take them all.

  BLAIR (Pause) Obviously. By the way do you know anything about twins?

  KERNER Twins?

  BLAIR That was the other thing. It wasn’t Georgi today, it was twins.

  Kerner laughs.

  Yes, that’s my favourite bit too. Give it some thought. Will you?

  KERNER Oh, yes. But excuse me, now it is time for the feeding of the seals.

  Kerner strolls away, jerking his head at the unseen Ridley to follow him. Ridley re-enters and follows Kerner out at a comfortable distance.

  Blair stands looking out front. The next time he moves he is on the touch-line of a rugger pitch.

  SCENE 3

  Blair is standing in an open exterior against a grey sky on a cold October afternoon. He is watching thirty eleven-year-old boys playing rugby. This, alas, is not as rich in sound effects as one might think: There is the referee’s whistle, there are occasional piping exhortations to ‘Heel’, ‘Drive’, ‘Shove’, and so on, and the occasional sound of the ball being kicked, but much of all this is happening at a distance, and so the general effect is sporadic anyway. Nevertheless it would be nice to work out where Blair is before the next thing happens—which is that Hapgood comes hurtling crabwise and in full cry along the touch-line. She is shod and dressed for the conditions and is carrying a boy’s two-piece tracksuit, the top half of which is perhaps tied round her neck. Her momentum takes her a good way along the front of the stage, passing in front of Blair.

  HAPGOOD Come on, big shove now, St Christopher’s! Heel!—break! … well tackled, darling!—I mean, Hapgood—oh, sugar …

  The match recedes but she always gives it as much attention as she can spare or as she is allowed.

  Look at their little knees. Don’t you love little boys?

  BLAIR It’s never been encouraged in the Service. Which one is he?

  HAPGOOD The handsome one.

  BLAIR Oh, yes.

  HAPGOOD Don’t wave.

  BLAIR I wasn’t going to.

  HAPGOOD You are nice wearing the scarf, you don’t have to.

  BLAIR I like the scarf. I wanted to see you—

  HAPGOOD —wanted to see you—

  BLAIR —before you see Wates. Washington wants—

  HAPGOOD Kick!—kick for touch!—oh, sugar!—Tackle!—tackle low …

  Referee’s whistle. Bad news for Hapgood.

  Oh … Bad luck, St Christopher’s! Little darlings, they look so cold. Sixteen love.

  BLAIR Nil. Washington wants us to take Kerner off everything.

  HAPGOOD What have the Americans got against Kerner?

  BLAIR Well, this is just an educated guess but I suppose if they’re going to spend a hundred million dollars over here on Kerner’s SDI research they’d rather he didn’t continue swapping briefcases with the high dive champion of the Russian Embassy.

  HAPGOOD Paul, Kerner is my star.

  BLAIR Means nothing.

  HAPGOOD Do you want me to tell you or not? I had six months’ work in Kerner’s delivery, long-term reflectors on countdown.

  BLAIR Do talk English.

  HAPGOOD Disinformation that had to be launched, I couldn’t afford to abort the meet just because Washington got into a flap about Kerner.

  BLAIR You can’t blame Washington. Kerner’s pure gold, the man with the anti-particle trap, and if he’s leaking his own stuff to Moscow we’re making it awfully easy for him.

  HAPGOOD Kerner’s all right—I run him and he’s just doing what I tell him.

  BLAIR Wates made the same point. Don’t take it personally.

  HAPGOOD Why would I? It isn’t personal.

  The referee’s whistle—the conversion of the try.

  Eighteen. Come on, St Christopher’s! Lets get one back! This is personal. Everything else is technical. You’re personal sometimes; but not this minute which is all right, so what can I tell
you?—it isn’t Kerner.

  BLAIR So what happened at the pool? It’s a technical question, it almost looks as if you could solve it with pencil and paper: cubicles A, B, C, D, briefcases P, Q, R, find X when the angles are Kerner and the Russian twins, which is a question in itself—are these the famous KGB twins? Now that’s what I call a double agent. Who’s in charge and is he sane?

  HAPGOOD I hate it, Paul.

  BLAIR Yes, why aren’t we pleased?

  HAPGOOD It reeks. The KGB twins are like an old joke that keeps coming back, we’ve been hearing it for years and I never believed it. And suddenly here they are, identical and large as life. I hate it. (Pause.) But it’s about the twins. The answer. I nearly got it, then I lost it.

  BLAIR Do you want to keep them for a while?

  HAPGOOD No—chuck ’em out. They’re stooges, Paul. The meet this morning went exactly as the Russians planned it, including the arrests. The twins were expendable, they were meant to be seen, they were a success—‘Now he’s here, now he’s there, oh my God, there’s two of them!’ Wates nearly cut himself shaving he was so fascinated. He’s doing a diagram, on pink paper, showing who was where when, all the coming and going.

  BLAIR He showed me. Guess who was holding the briefcase when the transmitter went off the air.

  HAPGOOD Who was?

  BLAIR You were.

  Referee’s whistle—a try is scored.

  Our side isn’t doing too well. Well, if it’s you I don’t care which side traps its particles. Anti-particles. Do you know what they are? They were never mentioned by Democritus who was the pro-particle chap when I was at school.

  HAPGOOD When a particle meets an anti-particle they annihilate each other, they turn into energy—bang, you understand. You can produce anti-particles in a collider and bottle them in a magnetic field but then you’re stuck—the bottle is as big as a barn, and when you open the door you’ve got a billionth of a second so you have to be quick. If you could slow them down enough to get hold of you’d be in business, and Kerner thinks he can. Do you want me to tell you how?