by Jeremy Duns
‘Packed his bags?’ asked Pritchard, his voice rising. ‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Well, it looks that way,’ Smale backtracked. ‘He said there appeared to be some clothes missing. Jackets, suits, that sort of—’
‘What about his car?’
‘That’s still there. But the railway station’s a ten-minute walk, with trains to London every hour.’
‘Did Barnes talk to him last night?’ asked Osborne.
‘Yes – he made his final call at half past seven and says Chief answered as usual, with nothing to report. He was just getting ready to go over for his morning pass-by when I rang.’
Osborne harrumphed. ‘Well, if Chief doesn’t see sense now and let the chap have the spare bedroom, I don’t know what we do. This system clearly doesn’t work.’ He turned back to Smale. ‘What about neighbours? Has Barnes had a chance to ask around yet?’
‘Most people are at work. But he said one local claims to have heard a car around nine last night.’
‘What time did you leave, again?’ I asked Pritchard.
‘Around then,’ he said, meeting my gaze. Yes, he suspected me, all right.
Osborne took his glasses off, decided they were dirty, and rubbed them on his tie, smudging them even more. He nodded at Smale, who scurried over to the trolley and put the kettle on.
Farraday was looking at Osborne. ‘Chief received the Slavin dossier as soon as it arrived?’ he asked.
Osborne glanced up, red indents from his frames on either side of his nose. ‘Yes – he was sent it yesterday morning. Why?’
‘Well, because within twenty-four hours of receiving it, he’s disappeared, that’s why!’ said Farraday.
I asked him what he was implying.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Paul,’ he said, turning to me. ‘I know you’re close to the old man. But there is a link with this Grigorieva–Maleva – you’ve just told us so yourself. Mighty suspicious, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,’ I said.
But Farraday was on a roll. ‘What could that be, though?’ he pressed. ‘According to this file you’ve dug up, which Chief himself wrote,’ – he stabbed a long finger at the initials at the top of the page – ‘she died in 1945. Either he’s lying or the dame in the photo ain’t her.’ His attempt at hard-boiled American vernacular was painful, and thankfully he dropped it at once. ‘But it does look rather a lot like it is her, doesn’t it?’
The kettle whistled and everyone suddenly busied himself with passing cups and saucers around. Chief’s empty chair suddenly looked very bare.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Godsal. ‘It’s unthinkable! I mean… I mean…’ He searched for a way to get it across. ‘We’re talking about Chief, for God’s sake!’
‘The same Chief,’ said Farraday, ‘who conspicuously failed to catch Philby and fluffed the Cairncross business. And like them and the rest of the rotten bunch, he’s a Cambridge man.’
Pritchard smiled at him generously. ‘So’s half the Service, John.’
‘I’m not,’ said Farraday. ‘I was at Oxford. You were, too, weren’t you, Paul?’ I nodded. ‘And you, William?’
Osborne pushed his glasses onto his nose prissily. ‘Manchester. Look, we don’t know where Chief is at the moment. But I don’t think we can jump to the conclusion that he’s a double agent simply because he’s missed our regular Monday meeting.’
‘I’m not concluding anything,’ said Farraday. ‘But surely we would all agree that no one – not even Chief – can be above suspicion in a case like this. That, after all, is how traitors survive.’
Osborne drummed his fingers against his glass, and we all watched him. ‘With all due respect,’ he said, finally, ‘I’ve known Chief for a great many years and he has never given me a moment to doubt his integrity or patriotism. If the man has been acting, he’s the best bloody double that ever existed.’
He’d meant it to be a throwaway comment, but as the silence stretched out, it took on an unintended resonance, and he began twiddling his thumbs.
‘As I see it,’ said Farraday, splaying his fingers out on the table as though he were about to start playing a piano concerto, ‘there are only two options. Either Slavin’s a KGB plant designed to get us running around for a traitor who doesn’t exist or he’s real and the traitor does exist. Chief has seemingly disappeared, and Paul has found the file on this woman who he says was killed but apparently wasn’t, and whom Slavin just happens to mention as his source for the entire house of cards. Now if—’
‘If I could just stop you there,’ Osborne cut in, and his usual Billy Bunter tone had been replaced by overt aggression. ‘I must insist that we wait for Chief to be present before we start flinging accusations around.’
‘As you wish,’ said Farraday. ‘But this may be the last chance we have for an open discussion on this. Once Chief gets here – presuming he hasn’t done a flit to Moscow – any such talk will be next to impossible on account of his position.’
‘Nobody seems to have taken his position into much consideration,’ said Pritchard. ‘It’s surely far more likely that the Russians or someone else have taken advantage of his abysmal security set-up and snatched him. I would suggest we give Barnes some support to search the area properly, and put out an alert to all ports just in case.’
‘Should we circulate the names of Chief’s known aliases?’ asked Quiney. ‘Or is that too delicate?’
‘Far too delicate,’ said Osborne, before Farraday could open his mouth.
‘Perhaps your Section could look into the Slavin dossier,’ Pritchard said to Quiney. ‘See if your contacts in Germany can get a list of all the patients admitted to this Red Cross hospital in 1945.’ He was talking to Quiney, but he was looking at me.
‘Yes,’ I said, meeting his gaze. ‘Good idea. Perhaps you could also collate all the files of British military operations in the area at the time. I seem to remember there was some sort of a base in Gaggenau.’
Pritchard’s mouth locked tight. I’d put forward a way of implicating him, but it was precisely what the other version of me, the patriotic British agent who had never gone near any Russian nurses, would have done. I’d have suspected Pritchard for the same reason he now suspected me: I knew he had been in the British Zone in ’45.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Quiney. ‘Though I can’t imagine many of those records have been kept.’ Good old Quiney – you could always rely on him not to do anything in a pinch.
‘I would like to go out to Lagos and interview Slavin,’ I said. ‘It’s been five days since he approached us, so time is of the essence – his colleagues could realize he’s thinking of defecting at any moment and then we’d have lost any chance to find out what’s really going on here. Henry has already as much as admitted that Lagos Station isn’t up to the job, and I have a personal interest in making sure a thorough job is done. This operation of my father’s occurred after he was last seen in London, so it obviously could provide an explanation for whatever happened to him.’ I avoided looking at Pritchard, because he knew I was lying at this point.
‘Perhaps Chief killed him,’ murmured Farraday, at which Osborne’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
‘Killed him?’ he said. ‘Please, John, let’s try to keep the discussion sane. Chief’s hardly a killer.’
‘You have a point,’ Farraday replied, nudging the photostat forward on the table. ‘He last didn’t kill someone twenty-four years ago, to be precise.’
Another silence descended, and people started shifting in their seats. This was a new side to Farraday, and no one knew what might be coming next.
‘Paul has made an interesting proposal,’ said Pritchard, in that fastidious tone of his. ‘But let’s consider it. I agree that Lagos Station isn’t capable of dealing with something of this importance, and that it’s vital someone go out there at once to do so. Because, of course, if the traitor’s not Chief, then the real Radnya may be among us.’ He paused to let th
at sink in, and then continued. ‘But while I’m sure we all sympathize with your desire to discover the true cause of your father’s disappearance,’ – he looked into my eyes at this point, and I tried not to react – ‘I’m not sure a matter of this magnitude should be influenced by individual officers’ personal concerns – however troubling they may be.’ He dropped a sugar cube into his tea and dipped his spoon in to stir it.
‘Chief’s an old friend of the family,’ I said. ‘If he’s a traitor, or involved in my father’s disappearance, I bloody well want to know.’
‘We all want to know,’ said Pritchard. ‘But have you ever even been to Nigeria? Or Africa at all, for that matter? It’s not quite la dolce vita, you know.’
It was another crack: my last posting had been in Rome. I didn’t rise to it, just asked him if he had any experience of handling Soviet defectors. ‘You don’t even speak Russian,’ I pointed out.
He laughed it off. ‘There are people in Lagos who can translate,’ he said. ‘Someone translated Slavin’s interview, didn’t they?’
Not very well, I wanted to tell him. But I didn’t have the chance to formulate another response, because there was a cough from the head of the table. It was Farraday.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Let us not bicker, please. I have come to my decision.’ Osborne started turning puce and made to interrupt. Farraday shushed him and smiled, pleased that he was exerting control and, finally, rather enjoying this espionage business. ‘Paul,’ he said, ‘you and Chief are very close – not just as colleagues but as friends. So I understand that this is something near to you. Believe me. And I quite see how the matter of your father’s disappearance is something you would want to clear up.’ He leaned back in his chair and spoke to a point on the ceiling, just left of the ventilator shaft. ‘But I agree with Henry: I think it’s probably best if he deals with this one.’
Then his head dropped down again and he smiled innocently at Smale. ‘Any chance of putting some more water on?’
*
My office was cold and cramped. I turned the radiators on full blast and lit a cigarette.
Not good news. Not good news at all. I began pacing the carpeted cell. After several dozen crossings and two Players, I came to a conclusion: I’d have to go it alone – without back-up, without sanction, and probably with Pritchard in the same field.
The first thing to do was to write a note: something for them to get their teeth into, something that would appeal to their Boy’s Own view of the world. When I’d prepared a few suitably indignant lines, I dug out the Service’s Operations Manual from a drawer and looked up which vaccines and certificates were needed for Nigeria. These turned out to be yellow fever and smallpox, so I took out the forms and spent the next ten minutes carefully filling them in, making sure the dates were well within the prescribed time. Nigeria being a former British colony, no visas were needed. Then I placed two calls: one to a travel agent in Holborn, and the second to a number in Fleet Street, where I asked to be put through to someone in the newsroom.
‘Dobson,’ he answered. He sounded tired and a little angry. Not especially propitious.
‘Joe!’ I said, putting all the chumminess I could muster into my voice. ‘It’s Paul. Paul Dark.’
‘Paul, me old china!’ he said, more jovially. He liked to play up the old cockney wag act, even though his father was a barrister in St John’s Wood. ‘Long time, no hear. Got a scoop for me?’
It was a joke, of sorts – I wasn’t a journalist, and he was reminding me of the absurd nature of our relationship – but at the same time he was being serious. He wanted to know if I did, indeed, have a scoop.
‘I can get you one,’ I said, ‘if you return a favour.’
He laughed. ‘You owe me a few, don’t you, mate?’ After a moment or two, he bit: ‘All right. What can you get me, and what’s the favour?’
‘Something big is about to happen in Nigeria,’ I said. ‘I need to be there.’
‘Nigeria? Since when was that your field? You been shifted to the Africa desk and not told me?’
‘No, nothing like that,’ I said. ‘I just need accreditation – that’s all.’
‘Paul, old son, you do know there’s a civil war on there?’ I said I did, and he harrumphed. ‘We’ve got three stringers out there already. I don’t see how I could justify another. It’s not like BOAC will just fly you into the jungle…’
‘I don’t want to fly into the jungle. I want to fly to Lagos.’
I listened to the sound of prolonged wheezing. ‘Nice try, but April Fool’s ain’t ’til next week. There’s bugger all fighting in Lagos – even I know that much.’
‘Yes, but that’s where the story is. Trust me.’
He laughed again. ‘The PM’s visit, you mean? Nobody’s flogging that one. Unless you can give me a clue—’
‘I’ve got everything else,’ I said, trying to keep the desperation from my voice. ‘I just need you to have me listed with the Nigerians that I’m one of yours – in case nobody buys my press pass, you see.’
‘Robert Kane?’
It was the pseudonym we’d used for several stories I had sent his way. I’d had the documents made up months ago, as I did for all my cover names – now I was going to have to bring ‘Kane’ to life.
A sudden noise erupted in the background – the grinding of a machine. ‘Hang on a tick,’ said Dobson. The line went quiet and I chewed my nails. Outside my door, the secretaries chatted about boyfriends and pop stars’ weddings, and further down the corridor Pritchard was in a briefing room, quietly going about making arrangements that might see the end of my days.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Dobson when he came back on the line. ‘Bit of a balls-up on the press.’ He took a deep breath, and I took it with him. ‘All right, mate, I’ll give it a go. For old times, as they say.’ It was good of him – we didn’t have any old times to speak of, unless you counted a few furtive meetings in the back room of the City Golf Club. I wanted to kiss him. ‘All being well, I should be able to have you on the list by the end of the week.’
The kiss could wait.
‘Can’t you make it sooner?’
‘Bloody hell!’ he laughed. ‘Give you lot an inch, you want a flipping hectare. Come on, then – let me have it. When were you planning on getting into Lagos?’
‘Tonight,’ I said.
V
Monday, 24 March 1969, Lagos, Nigeria
The heat hit me as soon I stepped onto the ladder – it was like someone throwing one of the airline’s hot towels over my face. I walked towards the terminal building, shimmering in the evening haze. Along the tarmac, a large group of soldiers was silently unloading crates of ammunition.
Twelve hours previously I had rushed home to the flat to collect the Kane passport from the safe and then taken a cab to Heathrow – only for the flight to be delayed. My frustration had been slightly mollified by discovering the latest issue of Newsweek at a stand in the departure hall. As well as the dozen or so pages covering the trials of the Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassins, there was an in-depth article on the civil war in Nigeria, including an interview with Ojukwu, the Biafrans’ commander-in-chief. I read through it and Pritchard’s briefing dossier over a cocktail in the airport bar. After committing as much of both documents to memory as I could, I went to the lavatory and spent ten minutes tearing the dossier to shreds and feeding it into the bowl.
The flight itself had been calm, and I had managed to sleep after we had refuelled in Rome. It was now 22.00 local time – the same as in London. But even if Pritchard moved very fast, he wouldn’t be able to arrive until tomorrow morning at the earliest. My departure would almost certainly have prompted another meeting, which would mean more tea and banter until they reached a decision on how to proceed. He would already be inoculated against yellow fever and smallpox, so he wouldn’t need to forge the documents as I’d done, but he would still have to complete his B-200, get it stamped and cleared – anothe
r meeting to debate what the procedure for that was in the absence of Chief and before the acting Chief had had his position confirmed – and then have his diplomatic cover arranged, flight booked by the secretariat, and so on. My flight was the last to arrive tonight, so I reckoned I had at least until dawn to try to swing things in my favour.
Before anything else, I had to get to Slavin and find out what more he knew, and how he knew it. The obvious move would be to track him down as soon as I got out of the airport, and kill him. But murder was a last resort: his death or disappearance would automatically bring me under suspicion with London, as I had run out here without asking their permission. There was also the question of Anna – I wanted to find her, too, and that would be much harder if Pritchard were actively hunting my hide.
The arrivals terminal was heavy with sweat and frustration. A solitary fan turned high above us at an agonizing pace, while passengers stood around an unmanned desk waiting for their luggage to be brought from the plane. Thankfully, I just had my one bag, so I walked straight through to the passport control area.
There it was even worse. The queues were enormous, interlocking and unmoving. I picked one of the lines at random and joined it. As on the plane, there were a handful of white people – aid workers and diplomats, I guessed – but the rest were Nigerian. All around me, conversations were being held, sometimes in local dialects but mainly in pidgin English, which Pritchard’s dossier had told me was the lingua franca. I spent a few minutes tuning in, managing to pick out words here and there, accustoming myself to the tones in which it was used. It seemed an exuberant, rich language, a world away from the Pritchards and Osbornes of the world. The clothing was a mixture of African and Western, but there was exuberance in that, too. Businessmen in Western-style suits clutched important-looking briefcases, while matronly women in multi-coloured loose-fitting dresses sported thin Cartier watches. Soldiers wandered between the lines, looking over passengers and prodding their rifles into bags. They were young and arrogant, and just the look of them brought the reality of the situation home more than the endless statistics and prolix phrases of Pritchard’s report. Something about them chilled the bones.