Witchfinder

by Andrew Williams

  Somerville has met dozens of ‘policemen’ like me. From his file in the MI5 Registry I know the following: he’s Irish, he’s fifty-two, he worked as a doctor in Dublin but volunteered for military service at the outbreak of war. He was seconded to the chemical-warfare establishment at Porton Down and then to the US War Department, in the service of which he was badly burned preparing weapons for the invasion of Japan. It didn’t spoil his good looks, and he was approached by one of the big Hollywood studios to do a screen test. But since 1952 he has worked at the Middlesex Hospital, and on a number of chemical-warfare committees.

  Like all senior doctors he’s a terrible time-keeper, and his ‘with you in a minute’ becomes thirty. I have strolled through the landscapes on the walls of the waiting room many times before he’s ready to see me. At last he shows me to a comfortable leather chair and flumps wearily into his own. His face is big and square and he has a pronounced under-bite that makes him appear pugnacious. Hollywood may have been hoping to cast him as a cowboy.

  He apologises for keeping me, especially when he’s sure there’s nothing more to say. ‘I told your Mr Wright everything.’

  I tell him I’m carrying out a confidential audit of the investigation, just to be sure my colleague has considered all the possibilities.

  ‘I see.’ His eyes narrow a little. ‘You mean you don’t trust him?’

  ‘My colleague says one of Mr Gaitskell’s doctors contacted MI5. It wasn’t Sir John …’

  Somerville leans forward earnestly. ‘And it wasn’t me.’

  ‘My colleague seems to think …’

  ‘I know perfectly well what he thinks. You’re aware of my connection with Porton Down?’

  I say that I am.

  ‘Well, your Mr Wright brought me an article from a Russian medical journal about a drug called hydralazine that causes similar symptoms to Lupus erythematosus. Proof, according to your Wright, that Mr Gaitskell was poisoned. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him and am happy to tell you now. “We use hydralazine to treat hypertension and, by the way, we’ve known about its side effects for years!”

  ‘I see. So you’re ruling out the possibility that someone slipped a pill into his coffee?’

  ‘Absolutely. Mr Gaitskell would have had to take many pills over many weeks for it to have an effect. I tried to tell your colleague.’

  ‘Is it possible KGB scientists have found a way to produce a single-shot dose of hydralazine?’

  ‘We would have to try to develop our own to be sure.’ He touches the corners of his mouth for a moment. ‘I hesitate to say – perhaps you know …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Mr Wright asked Porton Down to try. But I understand its chief doctor has refused on the ground that there isn’t any proof Gaitskell was murdered so time spent researching the efficacy of hydralazine as a single-shot weapon would be a great waste of money. I concur wholeheartedly. Now, is there anything else?’

  Anything else? Oh, yes. Plenty.

  11 February 1966

  The flood of intelligence material that used to cross my desk in Leconfield House has slowed to a trickle. While Wright’s away in France the D3-FLUENCY empire is governed by his satraps, McBarnet and Stewart, and they have become very secretive. But late on Friday afternoon I’m sitting with my feet on the desk, smoking, thinking how best to use the short time left to me, when Evelyn steps into my office with two files.

  ‘Run a check on these, will you,’ she says, handing them to me, ‘especially with Moscow and Berlin.’

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘Links to people of interest.’

  ‘And why are we looking?’

  She frowns and her hand creeps up to her face. ‘It’s in the files.’

  ‘In these?’ I hold them up between a thumb and a forefinger. ‘That’s all there is?’

  ‘That’s why we’re asking SIS to help us. Now be a good boy. Tout de suite, if you please.’

  Maybe she thinks I’m too bored to care, and I’ll push the papers through to Berlin and Moscow stations without question. She’s wrong. I recognise the names straight away: Kagan and Sternberg are rich industrialist friends of the prime minister. Evelyn will have picked their files clean of concrete intelligence before she handed them to me, but I’ve been doing this long enough now to recognise a piece of CIA work. She’s fishing for anything that might suggest Kagan and Sternberg are on the payroll of the Kremlin. Why? Both men earn more than a small country from their ordinary business interests every year. My sense is this is something to do with Wilson.

  I ring Tom Driberg at home.

  ‘I’m going to a party,’ he says. ‘You can have five minutes, that’s all.’

  We meet outside the Marquis of Granby on Romney Street, because it’s only a stone’s throw from Parliament and from home. Driberg is in a filthy mood and curses me roundly when I refuse to talk in front of his driver.

  ‘Tell me what you know about Kagan and Sternberg,’ I say.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I thought you were in a hurry.’

  ‘I am, old boy, but you’re supposed to be giving me information.’

  ‘This will help.’

  He rolls his dark eyes. ‘I can’t tell you much. Jewish refugees from the Nazis who have made good here. Sternberg in plastics, and Kagan has made a fortune from his Gannex raincoats – you must have seen Harold in one. They’re his capitalist friends, and I hear they make a hefty contribution to the cost of his private office. What else? Kagan told me he has family in the Soviet Union – in Lithuania, I think. Is that why you want to know? Are they spies?’

  ‘I don’t expect so.’

  ‘If you don’t think they’re spies, why are you asking?’

  ‘Any idea how much money they give Wilson?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. Sorry. There,’ he says, with an extravagant flourish. ‘Not much use, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You have been.’

  ‘Really? Then when are you going to be of use to me?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Good!’ He’s in too much of a hurry to join the party to argue. Drinks at his gangster friend’s flat in Soho, he says, and he’d like to invite me but he can’t guarantee I would receive a warm welcome. I walk him to his chauffeur-driven car and open the door, just as I would for the Queen. ‘By the way, Harold’s going to the country,’ he says, patting my hand as it rests on the door. ‘There’s going to be an election. Don’t tell anyone I told you so.’

  There’s always a table at the Marquis. I could drink at home, but this is Friday and pub noise helps me think. Whisky and smoke, and my imagination wanders back to the wilderness of mirrors, where I consider every possible side of Elsa, our time together, and the years before she met me. And when I know I’m lost, beset by horrible imaginings, I stop, and reflect instead on what Tom has told me of the prime minister’s business pals. Are they dipping into their own pockets to fund his campaigns, or acting as a channel for KGB money? Angleton and Wright conjured up a plot to murder Gaitskell in the First Act of their conspiracy drama, the election of a Soviet agent as prime minister in their Second, and now they have conceived a Third in which two of the country’s foremost industrialists risk their fortunes and reputations to keep a Kremlin puppet in power. Too fantastic! But I can think of no other explanation for the information Evelyn is seeking from our stations in Berlin and Moscow. One thing I’m sure of: OATSHEAF is alive. The madness didn’t end, and why would it? They’re convinced the prime minister of Great Britain is a Soviet agent of influence.

  12 February 1966

  I take two wrong turns in search of the car park by the fish ponds. Chobham Common is furled in dense fog and Graham Mitchell is late arriving too. He pulls up beside me in a comfortable Rover and invites me to join him. Parked a short distance away but barely visible in the mist are two more cars. There’s no sign of their drivers and it’s safe to assume at this early hour their owners are either fishermen or walking with
their dogs. Mitchell is unhappy, nevertheless, and grumbles that Elsa’s little blue sports car is too conspicuous. ‘Calm down, Graham,’ I say. (I won’t take lectures on security from a career desk officer.)

  We sit shoulder to shoulder in our coats as the little we can see through the windscreen disappears behind a film of condensation.

  ‘Cigarette?’ He hasn’t shaved and, with white stubble and slack cheeks, he appears older in the morning light than his sixty years. ‘How’s Pat?’

  ‘We agreed no more contact,’ he says wearily.

  ‘Circumstances change.’

  ‘You know, it will be three years this year since I left the Service.’

  ‘You never leave, you should know that. What can you tell me about OATSHEAF?’

  He shuffles sideways to look me in the eye. ‘Is this a fishing expedition?’

  ‘In a way, yes.’

  ‘Then I can’t help you. OATSHEAF means nothing to me.’

  ‘It’s the CIA code name for the file on the prime minister.’

  ‘Is it? Well, that’s none of my business.’

  ‘Come on, Graham.’

  ‘Or any of yours, Vaughan. Strictly Security Service business.’

  ‘I’m making it mine, and so should you, if your working life has any meaning. We’re better than the Russians – that’s what we’ve always told ourselves. That’s how we’ve learned to live with ourselves.’

  Mitchell closes his eyes and holds the bridge of his nose. He would love to slip away to Pat and The Times crossword, perhaps an early-morning round of golf.

  ‘By the way, Graham,’ I say, ‘Wright has permission to bring you in for interrogation.’

  His hand drops so he can stare at me again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the colour drain from someone’s face so quickly. Did he really believe that it was over?

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Soon.’

  ‘Christ. What is Dick White thinking?’ he says, fumbling with the door handle. ‘Christ. I want some air. Can we walk?’

  Pulling his coat tighter, he limps towards the edge of the car park as if he’s carrying the weight of suspicion on his back. I follow a few paces behind. He knows I’m going to press him to fight, urge him to rescue his reputation. Does he have the guts? On we walk through the winter scrub, our coats beaded with dew. The mist appears to leach the little colour left in this season from the heather and cottongrass and birches, and there is a strange stillness, as if we are walking through a dream landscape. After about ten minutes we come to a plank bridge across a stream.

  ‘I won’t ask you what you’re going to do,’ Mitchell says, turning at last, ‘and I don’t want you to tell me.’

  ‘Wright says the Security Service has been investigating Wilson for years.’

  Mitchell shakes his head. ‘I know nothing about OATSHEAF. Look in the Central Index under WORTHINGTON. Norman John Worthington.’

  ‘That’s Wilson?’

  ‘A pseudonym to safeguard the file.’

  ‘Can you tell me what’s in it?’

  ‘No, Vaughan, I can’t.’ He takes a step towards me. ‘I don’t know why I’ve told you that much.’

  ‘You do.’

  We stand an arm’s length apart, staring at each other. ‘Christ,’ he says, at last. ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Calm down. Here.’ I offer him my packet and take one too. ‘Look, my lips are sealed.’

  ‘Are they?’ he says, grabbing my hand to steady the lighter flame. ‘Are they?’

  ‘Er mwyn duw! Yes, they are.’

  He nods, then draws deeply on his cigarette.

  We finish them in silence, then turn back along the track. The mist has cleared just a little. As we approach the car park I touch his arm to check our pace to a few shambling steps. ‘Just one more thing: why did Five open a file?’

  He hesitates. ‘Let’s just say Wilson’s loyalty was a matter for speculation. You know how it is – once we’ve opened a file it’s on a shelf for ever.’

  ‘Marked by the apparat.’

  There’s the grinding of gravel as he comes to a halt abruptly with his hands on his hips. ‘Honestly, Vaughan, whatever your scheme is, don’t go outside the Service. Keep it in-house. Do you hear me? Don’t start a crusade. And don’t involve me.’

  44

  14 February 1966

  I TELEPHONE ELSA first thing on Monday only to discover she checked out of her Bielefeld hotel a day early. No messages, and no one at nearby RAF Gütersloh knows where she has gone. By the time I’ve finished my fruitless search for her I’m late, and Evelyn is waiting at my door to greet me with a sour expression. She thrusts a list of supplementary questions at me. ‘Be a good boy and pass these on to Berlin and Moscow.’

  ‘Come in, take a seat,’ I say, as I unlock my door. ‘I want to know what this is about.’

  ‘It isn’t your concern.’

  ‘But you want my help?’

  We stare at each other, like gunslingers in a Hollywood Western, until sense prevails and – hand still on her revolver – she steps inside my office.

  ‘Sit down,’ I say, pulling a chair away from my desk.

  She ignores me. ‘All you need to know is that the prime minister’s two business chums have very loose tongues – especially the raincoat millionaire. Kagan impresses a Lithuanian drinking pal with tales of the comings and goings at Downing Street. His pal just happens to work for Moscow Centre.’

  ‘And you suspect Kagan might be KGB too?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ she says cautiously. ‘The prime minister’s a bit of a Romeo – he’s sleeping with a member of his staff – and that makes him a good blackmail target. A word from Kagan to his pal …’

  ‘And that’s what this fishing trip is all about?’

  ‘We have the necessary authority.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Then leave it with me.’

  She squints at me suspiciously. ‘You’ll get them off today?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I kick the door shut after her and light a cigarette. The radiator’s leaking and I forgot to empty the bowl beneath it on Friday so there’s a dirty great puddle on the floor. That’s the first mess to clear up. Like a naughty schoolboy, I tip the water that’s collected in the bowl out of the window into the street below, and it splashes on to the pavement and a couple of smartly dressed businessmen. Gazing down at their angry faces it occurs to me that Evelyn may be trying to do something similar. Prime minister’s friend is a KGB spy would make a fine newspaper splash just before a general election. Perhaps Wright intends to place it with a ‘friend’ in Fleet Street, like Pincher on the Express. Well, if you’re convinced the prime minister’s a spy it makes perfect sense to do all you can to stop him winning.

  Half past five, and secretaries and junior officers are already leaving Curzon Street at the end of the working day. Evelyn will be at her desk three floors above, and on the fifth, FJ will have begun the evening office, clearing his desk, locking files in the safe, then home to his handsome house in Hampstead for dinner with his wife and daughter. The shift’s changing in the Registry: queens are slipping into or out of their coats. I recognise most of them now: who may be willing to help, who will hinder. Library rules apply most of the day with very few opportunities for conversation, but at handover queens have a little time to catch up on tasks still outstanding and share their news.

  Dropping my briefcase by the duty officer’s desk, I slip through a group of them and walk towards the Central Index room. No one bats an eyelid: I’m a familiar face, one of those awkward sods in D3 who are making everyone’s life a misery.

  Miss Allan is the guardian of the index. I smile sweetly at her and step over to the wooden boxes that line three walls of the room.

  ‘Can I help you, Mr Vaughan?’ she says, fingering the yellow pearls at her neck. She has a voice like HM The Queen. In the past I’ve bowed to her knowledge of the index and let her guide me, but not on this occasion.
‘No, Miss Allan, thank you.’

  She’s piqued. I watch her flounce back to her desk and jot my name on the visitors list.

  WORTHINGTON comes after WALLIS in the index. Mr Wallis was an old Fascist who died in 1955, and to judge from the entry on his card his friends were many, and many were his scrapes with the law. There’s nothing but a telephone extension on Mr Worthington’s card and an instruction to ‘apply to the director general’. No file number, no comrades in the same constellation, no cross references, no past, no future. Norman Worthington is a ‘no trace’. Taking a biro from my pocket I push up my shirt cuff and jot the extension number on my wrist.

  ‘Found what you were looking for, Mr Vaughan?’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Allan.’ I turn with a smile. ‘May I say that is a lovely blouse? Prydferth, we say in Welsh. Pink suits you.’ Raising my right hand to my lips I pretend to pinch a thought. ‘I wonder, do you happen to have an internal directory?’

  Of course she does, and now she’s been stroked a little she’s willing to share it with me. Sure enough, extension 505 is one of the director general’s numbers. No one’s able to access Worthington without his personal authorisation. If I want to read it I must find a way to open the combination safe in his office.

  15 February 1966

  The following day I receive a postcard from Berlin. She says everything’s fine, which reassures me not one whit. Why hasn’t she rung? She promised to. And why has her card come through the post room at MI5? I telephone military headquarters in West Berlin: no one has seen her since the secretary of state flew home. I try the ministry main building in Whitehall and discover Mr Healey has been back at his desk for three days. Mrs Vaughan? Still in Berlin, they say. I ask for the name of a hotel and they admit they don’t have a clue what she’s doing or where she’s staying. She’s on leave, they say. A few days’ leave! Guy Burgess was on leave. That’s what he said: ‘I’m taking a few days.’ Only his leave became the rest of his life.