Angleton leans forward lazily to flick the ash from his cigarette. ‘You’re not alone. We’re still dealing with penetration at Langley. Leaks from the Agency’s Soviet Division.’
I can’t see his dark eyes behind his glasses because the room is so full of smoke they appear almost opaque, but I know he’s conscious of me watching him, and he knows why, too.
‘You’ve probably heard,’ he says. ‘We’ve arrested some senior officers – Jack Ellis.’
‘No!’ Maurice wriggles to the edge of the couch to stare at him incredulously.
‘I’m afraid so. I had my suspicions, then Anatoli examined his file. His profile fits.’
‘KGB,’ says Golitsyn, definitively.
Maurice glances at me. I concentrate on appearing to feel nothing. ‘Jack isn’t KGB. He’s as loyal and patriotic as they come.’ I lean forward and pluck the brandy bottle from the table. ‘Anyone?’ They all want more. There’s a hush in the room as I do the honours, because they know what’s coming and want to charge their glasses before the show gets going – even you, Moulders, because wittingly or unwittingly you’ve helped Angleton set this trap. He was so very anxious for my company, because he’s going to make the evening about me.
‘Well, Harry,’ he says, ‘you and Jack go back a long way – to Vienna.’
I want to talk about something else. ‘Remember our dinner at Maurice’s house in Washington? Remember what we talked about, Jim? Harold Wilson the spy. The KGB murdered Gaitskell.’
He frowns. ‘We discussed the possibility.’
‘You were very clear at the time. “Harold Wilson is a Soviet agent,” you said. Do you still believe that? Because if you do, why the hell are you wasting time on Jack Ellis?’
He turns to look at Wright. ‘I understand MI5 has some concerns about the company your prime minister keeps.’
‘Yes.’ Wright shifts uncomfortably in his chair. ‘But it isn’t a m-matter for FLUENCY.’
‘Of course, you’ve spoken to Downing Street, Peter,’ I say. ‘I mean, the White House knows. That’s right, isn’t it, Jim?’
Angleton draws deeply on his cigarette.
‘You see?’ I say, addressing Wright. ‘And I know it’s old-fashioned to say so, but collaborating with a foreign power to undermine an elected British government, well, that’s treason in my book. What about you, Maurice?’
‘Bravo.’ Angleton slow-claps me. ‘What a performance!’
‘I’m serious, Jim.’
‘Oh, deadly, I’m sure. A sincere servant of democracy. He should speak to Dick White, shouldn’t he, Maurice?’
‘You don’t deny …’
‘Sure do. It’s a matter for MI5. Peter?’
‘We investigated G-G-Gaitskell’s death because one of his doctors asked us to. N-no one’s accusing Wilson.’
‘Not the business of the evening.’ Angleton flourishes his cigarette at Maurice. ‘We should move on, don’t you think?’
Oldfield frowns at me. ‘That would be best.’
Best for whom? I wonder.
Maurice gets to his feet. ‘Coffee?’ No one wants coffee. ‘Then I’ll fetch water,’ he says, ‘and cheese,’ and he shuffles out to the kitchen. The second the door closes Angleton turns on me. ‘Did you think you’d get away with it for ever, Harry?’ He leans forward to clutch the arm of my chair. His bony fingers are awkwardly jointed, like the legs of a large spider.
‘Get away with what, Jim?’
‘Your smokescreen.’
‘Western values, Jim, rule of law, freedom of speech. You’re right, they are under threat, but is it Communism or those who wish to save us from it we should fear most?’
He smiles. ‘Quis custodiet …? That dog won’t hunt. No one is afraid of the guards when the enemy is at the gate.’
‘Jack Ellis hates Communists as much as you do.’
‘Never mind Ellis, it’s you we’re talking about, Harry.’
Maurice is back and standing with a tray of tumblers, cheese and a plate of biscuits. I catch his eye and he looks away.
‘Vienna, Harry.’ Wright is speaking. ‘F-f-first SUBALTERN, then the wiretapping operation – you were eavesdropping on the Soviets …’
‘Correct.’
‘… until it was b-betrayed. How many m-men and women were lost in those operations? Eighty? Ninety?’
‘Too many.’
‘Anatoli remembers,’ says Anatoli, poking a finger at me. ‘KGB mole at Vienna station work for VIKTOR – only VIKTOR. Anatoli spoke to VIKTOR.’ He sways towards me drunkenly, eyes shining with pride that he once met the murderous shit who used to run Russian foreign intelligence.
‘Let’s give him his proper name. General Fitin controlled the KGB’s most important sources,’ says Angleton.
‘You’re accusing me?’
He stares at me impassively through a bridge of fingers.
‘I’ve seen this pattern,’ I say.
‘Harry …’ Maurice brandishes a bottle at me. ‘Gentlemen. A friendly chat. The chance to tie up a few loose ends, that’s all. Here,’ he says, and tries to fill my glass.
‘No, Maurice.’
‘V-VIKTOR’s agents JACK and ROSA,’ says Wright. ‘We thought the Harts. Jenifer was a member of the Party and an agent – but she can’t be ROSA because Herbert Hart is clean. JACK and ROSA were a couple – they may still be. We know they w-were operating in London in 1945 but it’s p-possible they were posted to Europe. They may be the middle-grade agent or agents we’re looking for in the Service.’
My laugh sounds brittle.
Wright’s smile suggests he’s thinking the same. ‘And we’ve discovered something else about VIKTOR’s mole in Vienna. Anatoli,’ he says, inviting Golitsyn to speak, ‘it’s your secret.’
‘I remember order from Moscow Centre,’ he says. ‘No one touch the Jewess. Close SUBALTERN, take the rest – not her.’ He raises his glass with a smug smile. ‘I remember VIKTOR said “not the Jewess”.’
Twenty years flicker through my mind like images in a zoetrope: the two of us stand at the grave of the boy the KGB dumped on our doorstep when SUBALTERN was blown, tears, and her long goodbye to the Service, to me – she said she couldn’t live with the guilt. The house came down around us and, yes, we were the only ones to escape but not without scars. ‘How can I look Béla Bajomi’s wife in the eye?’ she said.
They’re staring at me, waiting for me to speak. Stupid bastards. Look me in the eye and say it: Harry and his dear lady wife.
Maurice clears his throat. ‘Housekeeping, Harry, that’s all. No one’s pointing the finger.’
I concentrate on Angleton. ‘You’re pointing it, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll say only this.’ He picks up his brandy and coaxes it round the glass. ‘Seems to me JACK and ROSA ain’t gone away.’
I watch him take a sip. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘That’s right.’
Wright leans forward as if to speak but I cut him with a gesture. ‘You’ve killed us, Jim, you know that. You’ve done it for them – the Russians, I mean. You’re worse than Kim because you’ve hurt your own side. All this talk of fakes, well, you’re the fake. You’re Moscow Centre’s creature, only you can’t see it. Listen to me … Keep away from my wife, you hear! Keep right away.’ I get to my feet with the neck of a bottle in my right hand. ‘You, too,’ I say, pointing it at Wright. ‘And you, Maurice – you pusillanimous shit.’ I kick a leg of his coffee-table and set the glasses tinkling. ‘Here, catch!’ And I toss him the bottle.
‘Sit down before you fall down!’ he says quietly.
‘Twll dy din di!’ I say. ‘And arseholes to you.’
I know what I’m doing. Sober enough to appreciate that the clock stands at a minute to midnight.
48
22 March 1966
I HAVE SEX with Linda because there’s no other way. I feel sorry but it’s fine. I’m using her, she’s using me, but she’s hoping for more. Her head is a plea
sant weight on my chest, her hand on my belly, curling hair at my groin about her forefinger. The bedroom is thick with perfume and the sweet scent of our lovemaking. I feel guilty but I learned to live with guilt a long time ago. The kissing, caressing, licking, fucking, this post-coital stupor and the kind words to come create trust.
‘Are you free on Friday?’ she says, and I say I’ll try to be. And as I stroke her hair and cat’s cradle her fingers, she talks to me of her boys and her dead husband and the routine of the office, and how much she dislikes FJ.
Then we do it again. After that it’s easier than I thought it would be. Wet with sweat, garrulous with happiness, she doesn’t seem to think my questions strange. ‘Oh, it wouldn’t be difficult during the day,’ she says, ‘and even at night. There’s a key in the duty office. You would need the numbers for the safe, of course.’
We’re face to face on the pillow, my thigh clamped between hers. ‘Who knows the numbers, annwyl?’
‘I do,’ she says. ‘At least I think I do.’
I put my finger on her nose. ‘Really?’
‘I cover for the DG’s secretary,’ she says. ‘They’re supposed to change them every few weeks but they don’t.’ She cranes her neck to kiss me. ‘Are we planning a robbery?’
I smile. ‘That’s what double zeros do.’
On her doorstep she says, ‘I really like you, Harry,’ and I say, ‘I like you, Linda,’ and I mean it too. She asks me to play the piano for her next time and I promise I will, only there won’t be a next time. She watches me walk away – looking back I can see her silhouette at a bedroom window – and I imagine her anger, her distress when she hears what I’ve done. She’s a widow with sons to keep, and when it breaks she’ll lose her job. Twenty years after SUBALTERN, still messing with people’s lives.
Big Ben strikes half past as I’m fumbling with my keys. Elsa is sleeping. I brush my teeth, undress in the bathroom, then carry my clothes back into our bedroom and drape them on my chair. I generally sleep naked but there’s a chill in the room – or is it shame? – and I rummage in a drawer for pyjamas. As I’m buttoning the top her breathing changes, and I turn to discover she’s gazing at me, an unnerving reflex of streetlight in her eye.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ I say.
She doesn’t reply, only stares at me.
‘How was your evening?’
Still nothing. Do I smell of Linda’s soap? I move round the bed to my side. ‘What is it?’
But she continues to ignore me, only gathers the bedspread and curls into a ball, her back towards me. And I don’t think I’ve felt more alone, not after my mother died, or at boarding school, or even when Elsa broke from me the first time. She’s the only woman I’ve loved, and she doesn’t realise it but we need each other more than ever.
*
The wheels are moving so slowly I could be persuaded no one suspects me of being a KGB spy and I dreamed the whole thing. I simply dropped into a hole, and now I’m out again. Angleton has gone, I haven’t seen Wright since Monday; Evelyn McBarnet is no pricklier than usual; the phone rings; files are delivered to my trays. Only it wasn’t an illusion: the wheels are moving, but they are proceeding with caution. Keep old Harry away from the sensitive stuff but don’t spook him or he’ll run, like his friend Guy. I know they’re weeding files and anything that looks good is chicken feed they’re hoping I’ll offer a KGB controller. Standard procedure: we tried the same stunt three years ago on Graham Mitchell.
Thursday’s FLUENCY meeting is cancelled because FJ is interrogating Mitchell. Wright and Evelyn are monitoring a sound feed in D Branch. I wander through the office at the end of the day and I can tell from the long faces that they don’t have their ELLI.
‘PETERS is over?’ I ask. ‘Graham’s in the clear?’
Wright gives me his stoniest stare. ‘A-a-an absence of evidence isn’t proof of innocence. Arthur thinks someone is r-running Mitchell as a stalking horse.’
The someone he means is Hollis.
‘When are you bringing him in?’
‘We’re pr-preparing the brief,’ he says. ‘I’m interviewing one of the Oxford circle tomorrow – an old friend of yours, Floud, the Honourable Member for Acton. You should be there.’
‘If you like,’ I say, knowing full well that he doesn’t like, because he will coax Floud to incriminate Elsa, and perhaps me too.
Later, I receive a note from Maurice asking me to meet him in the usual place. Is he hoping for a confession, or will he apologise for offering me as a sacrifice?
‘Were you followed?’
‘Don’t you know, Maurice?’
St Matthew’s is full of shadows, just a pool of yellow light at the altar and a strip above Maurice’s organ music, the last of a dull day indigo in the windows. Maurice was playing the hymn ‘Hills of the North Rejoice’, his thoughts roaming to Derbyshire, perhaps.
‘What do you want, Maurice?’ I say.
‘You know it’s gone too far now, Harry. I can’t protect you.’
I laugh.
‘It’s not just you who’s in the shit,’ he says, craning earnestly towards me. ‘I trusted you.’
‘Afraid you won’t make the top job after all?’
‘Shut up, Harry! Shut up and listen.’ He sighs. ‘It’s too late for regrets … if you’re working for the Russians.’
‘Want to hear me deny it?’
He frowns. ‘I’m quite sure you’re a consummate liar. No, I want to tell you Golitsyn is in a boarding house near Bournemouth with our files – promising to point us to KGB moles, and not just in the service. He’s begun with your chum Berlin – Isaiah Berlin. As far as I can tell his much-vaunted methodology consists of accusing Jews and anyone who has ever made a mistake – which is how it works with internal investigations in Moscow. Oh, and you – he’s pointed the finger at you, but you know that.’
‘Why are you telling me, Maurice?’
‘I didn’t think it could get any worse,’ he says dejectedly, ‘but they seem hell bent on a secret war against anyone they suspect.’
‘Wilson?’
‘They’ll use the prime minister’s friends – the raincoat millionaire – to create a stink in the press, you know the sort of thing. And Jim will take it to the White House.’
‘Why are you telling me?’
‘Dick is going to summon you to a meeting at Century House. Christopher Phillpotts will be there. Arthur Martin will be there. I will be there. Expect a grilling. You’ll be suspended while investigations continue.’
‘But why are you telling me?’
‘Doesn’t matter why.’ He removes his glasses and pinches the corners of his eyes. ‘Three or four days, a week at most – that’s what you’ve got.’ Then he places his spectacles back and stares at me.
‘I don’t know why …’
‘Do you understand, Harry?’ he says, more forcefully.
I smile. I won’t make him spell it out.
‘Good,’ he says, turning back to his music.
I walk back to the west door to the accompaniment of ‘Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer’ with all the stops out. A nice joke, and one that brings a very large lump to my throat. Mewn pob daioni y mae gwobr, we say. There’s reward in every kindness, even for the likes of you and me, Maurice.
Home is two minutes away but, just as Guy did on the eve of his flit to Moscow, I choose the Reform. Frank, the smoking-room steward, brings me a large one and some paper, and I write to Driberg, promising to deliver the material he’s been badgering me for in days. Then I telephone the Daily Mirror’s news desk and speak to Dylan Thomas’s friend, Watkins.
‘We’re putting the paper to bed,’ he grumbles. ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Do you want the story or not?’
Watkins suggests a Fleet Street pub; I insist on somewhere private. The last time we met I was a hair’s breadth from taking a swing at him. He’s odious; he’s untrustworthy; he’s a barfly. But he’ll do.
*
&nb
sp; By the time I’ve completed my business calls and paid off my fifth and final cab it’s after eleven. I make a call to Elsa but she doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t look up when I walk into the kitchen. Today’s Times is open on the table in front of her and a plate with scraps of toast and an apple core. She’s still in her civil-service black skirt and white blouse, and the coat she must have worn to the office has slipped from a chair on to the tiled floor. Her head is resting in her right hand, and I don’t need to see her face to know she has been crying. And because I feel ashamed and guilty and in love, and because I can’t tell her the truth, and because I’m afraid of rejection, I don’t step over to the table and hug her. I say the first trite thing that comes into my head: I ask her if she’s had a good day. I regret it straight away but my tired mind is still swarming with the minutiae of my plan to expose the madness that has driven me to this place.
Elsa simply raises her gaze to my face.
‘Sorry, darling,’ I say automatically, and risk a step closer. But there’s a stillness in her that frightens me, something close to despair. I felt it in Vienna and I feel it now.
‘Are you all right? Things have been … It will be over soon, I promise.’
She closes her eyes and mutters something I don’t hear, and I ask her to say it again. She does, and very firmly. ‘It’s over now!’
‘What do—’
‘I want a divorce.’
‘For Christ’s sake. Elsa …’ Her eyes are shut. ‘Look at me!’
‘All right!’
‘No, it isn’t bloody all right. Didn’t you hear me? I need time.’ I take another step and she holds up both hands, her fingers open like a fan.
‘Keep away from me!’
‘What? Christ. Can’t we talk about this?’
‘No. You’re a liar and I want a divorce. There’s nothing more to say.’
‘I want to explain—’
‘It’s perfectly clear,’ she says. ‘You’re a fake. Everything about you is a lie.’
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