by Jeremy Duns
My body fell, bones crunching as my spine hit the floor.
I opened my eyes. My vision was still somewhat blurry, but I could see a fierce-looking brown face with a beak for a nose and bloodshot eyes. He was deeply tanned all over, like polished mahogany, and his eyes were sharp little pellets in his skull. Zimotti’s chief enforcer and chair-carrier. Behind him was Barnes, gripping a brutish-looking sub-machine gun. They talked between themselves for a few moments, but too low for me to hear, and then they went out, leaving me in my private world of pain.
I managed to sit up, and touched the back of my head: it was sticky with blood. I was dizzy from hunger and thirst, although it was still the craving for tobacco that hovered utmost in my mind. I knew if I even thought about any of that I would go mad, so I rocked back and forth on my haunches, whimpering lines from a hymn I’d sung at Templeton’s service:
O still, small voice of calm.
O still, small voice of calm…
My vision gradually began to clear, and I looked around. It looked very similar to the first cell, only the dimensions seemed slightly different: a little squarer. There was a pile of grey matter in one corner of the room, and I crawled towards it frantically, hoping it might be food or drink. But as I got closer, I saw with horror that it was a body, laid out like a corpse. At first I thought it might be Pyotr, but then I saw a curl of blonde hair, and realized it was her.
XIII
‘Sarah,’ I whispered.
No response.
I lifted myself onto my elbows and slowly crawled nearer, willing the pain in my neck and spine away. Her nostrils flared as the breath came in and out: she was alive, but either in a deep sleep or unconscious. She was wearing the same clothes I’d last seen her in, back at Pyotr’s flat, only they were now torn and spotted with blood. Her skin was yellowish, and mottled and dark under her eyes. Finally, I saw the deep welts that criss-crossed her shoulders and neck. He had used the cat on her, too. A wave of revulsion swept over me, which swiftly turned to a cold rage. He had tortured his own wife.
I retreated slowly to the nearest corner to gather my thoughts. I wondered how many Severn and Zimotti would kill to get their way. Hundreds? Thousands? The goal would be a dictatorship, with Zimotti either the head of it or part of the leadership. It would be a coup, effectively, albeit a gradual and undeclared one. Italy had seen coups before, of course, but nothing like this. After a few large-scale attacks and swift arrests, Zimotti and his men would be able to introduce whatever measures they felt necessary, while a pliant and terrified public would greet them with open arms. And the British were apparently lending a hand, through their man in Rome. It seemed extraordinary, but I realized that I hadn’t been paying close enough attention. There was a very powerful right-wing faction operating within the Service. Perhaps more of a movement than a faction. They had tried to take control of the government but failed – because of me. Perhaps they were planning a similar series of attacks in England, blaming everything on the First of May or similar groups. Perhaps Italy was just the beginning…
Something in me turned. This wasn’t where my life should end. I hadn’t helped. I had spent it trying to divine the difference between causes, but I hadn’t seen the forest for the trees. East and West, I now knew, were just two frightened children spurring each other on to greater and greater acts of excess. But I was no better, standing on the edge of the field pointing out their mistakes. I had to get onto the pitch, into the game. I had to put aside all my cynicism and stupid bloody English pride and admit that there were choices here, and that I could make a difference to the situation. Where was the shame in that? Why was I so afraid of it? Here was the opportunity: a chance to save others, and atone for all the men I’d betrayed.
No. That was still selfish thinking. I glanced across at Sarah, her chest rising and falling. I wondered what she would think were she to know who I really was. Utter contempt, I was sure. Nothing could wash the blood from my hands or atone for those I had betrayed – for Colin Templeton, or Vanessa, or Isabelle. But I could save others from their fate, and stop a gang of power-hungry men taking this country over, simply because it was the right thing to do.
Moscow hadn’t tried to kill me, after all – but they would now. I had deliberately exposed one of their men and got him tortured and, it appeared, killed as a result. Even if they were prepared to let that go and still wanted to use me, I didn’t want them any more, and they no longer had anything to blackmail me with: the Service knew who I was now. I realized that I had become unmoored from both sides and no longer had anyone to blame for my actions but myself – that I was, finally, living up to my codename: independent, a free agent. But what to do with that new-found freedom? Run to ground? Or fight back – and create my own side? I had to, or I was lost forever.
I shook my head suddenly: the only thing that was unmoored was my mind. I wasn’t free at all, and had no way of creating any side. I was not only imprisoned, but hours or perhaps minutes from death. The guards would return soon, and for the last time.
I looked across at Sarah again, and wondered why had they put me in here with her. On the face of it, it was a weak move, as we could conspire together, perhaps even help each other escape. On the face of it. In reality, of course, we were in a secured cell inside a military base that was doubtlessly manned by hundreds of soldiers; she was unconscious; and I was nearing the point of physical and mental collapse. There was no bucket or bed or food or anything else in this room, so it looked like they were only planning to hold us here for a short while before killing us. Severn had thrown me in here with her because it no longer mattered to him if she knew of his plans, or that she might tell me them. He had discarded us both.
So how would they end it, then? A bullet to the head, like Pyotr? That might well be the plan. But where had Severn and Zimotti disappeared to in the meantime? Perhaps they had left to oversee the next stage in their grand scheme, the next attack. Or perhaps it was now the middle of the night, and they were simply catching up on their sleep before returning for some more games in the morning. Yes, a bullet to the head would be too easy. They would have a slow and painful death in mind for me…
Perhaps it was the awareness that I hadn’t long to live, or perhaps my nascent conscience, but my mind latched on to the idea that they had disappeared to execute the next attack, and refused to let it go. Hypothetically speaking, it asked, if you were somehow able to escape, how could you help, how could you stop them? What would the man you might have been do? What would the man Colin Templeton had believed you were do? Well, perhaps he’d try to get in touch with London, reach Haggard and tell him what was happening. No, I realized at once, that would be pointless. I was an exposed double agent. Haggard would never believe me. Yes, but exposed in what way? The only proof they had of my treachery depended on their admitting that they had murdered Farraday. A chink of understanding opened in my mind. Was that why they needed a confession from me – to block any remaining chance I could expose them? Was that why I was here, and not in London? They could extract a confession, then see that I didn’t live much beyond it. And sort out the paperwork later.
Perhaps. But my confession hadn’t seemed paramount. Regardless, I didn’t trust taking this to Haggard, or anyone else. I would have to find out what they were planning and address it myself.
I stopped, and glanced at Sarah once again. I thought of her walking down the corridor, her hips swinging in front of me, asking if I wanted to see the Station. She must have wanted to take me there for a reason. Could it be that she knew what they were planning?
I crawled over to her and stared at her face, pale and gaunt from the stress and fear. I felt her pulse. She was sleeping, not unconscious. She needed her rest. I shouldn’t wake her.
But somewhere outside these walls, a bomb might be ticking down.
I shook her shoulder gently, and her eyes opened. The moment she saw me she started sobbing.
*
It took some time for
her to stop, but when she did it was almost frightening how calm she was, as if utterly detached from the world. I left her alone, fearing the worst, but eventually she called out to me. ‘I think we need to talk,’ she said, and I couldn’t help smiling at the matter-of-factness of it.
At first I insisted we only communicate in whispers. I was afraid that the whole thing might be some sort of a set-up so Severn could learn what it was she knew – the place was almost certainly bugged. But it soon became clear she had told him everything already. She didn’t say what he had done to extract the information, and I didn’t ask, but we both knew we had been left here to die, and therefore had nothing to lose from telling each other all we knew. Her voice was hoarse, as was mine, and we spoke quickly and frantically, uncertain how long we had before Barnes and his friend returned.
It transpired that Severn had used her as a courier, giving her packages to deliver to dead drops around Rome. She told me how she had gone about the job quite happily, not thinking too much about what it might mean – until the bombs had started going off.
‘In Milan?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said, ‘this was earlier than that. They were smaller scale. Charles had been frantic and nervous enough already, but now he was at fever pitch. I noticed one morning that he was reading the newspaper very intently over breakfast, and then rushed off to use the telephone. I looked at the page he’d been reading: it was about a bomb somewhere in the north of the country. A few people had been killed, and the thing had been blamed on some Marxist group. Bits and pieces of conversations I’d overheard suddenly seemed to make sense. The next time he asked me to do one of his late-night deliveries, to a churchyard in the south of the city, I opened the package.’
‘What made you do that?’
‘Well, he’d insisted so much that I never open any of them, and I was worried that they might have something to do with these bombs going off. I thought he might be involved in something… outside the remit of the embassy.’
‘Working for someone else, you mean?’
She held my gaze for a moment. ‘Yes.’
I considered this. ‘All right, so you opened the package. What was in it?’
‘Codes,’ she said. ‘Lots of documents in code: one-time pad stuff. I panicked because I couldn’t find a way to reseal it so it didn’t look like it had been opened. But eventually I did, and I thought the chap who picked up the message wouldn’t notice. But he did, and he told Charles about it, and Charles went completely mad. He screamed at me, asking me dozens and dozens of questions until I just broke down and told him I’d been curious but hadn’t understood any of it. That seemed to calm him down a bit. He made me promise never to mention any of it to anyone else or he’d…’ She grimaced. ‘… or he’d kill me.’
I tried not to think about what sort of marriage they had had, and what had happened to her in this cell. I asked her to carry on.
‘Well, he never mentioned the packages again after that, and I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. But then the message came through that you were being sent over from London, and Charles seemed to panic a little. Towards the end of Thursday afternoon I found myself alone in the Station: Cornell-Smith and Miller had gone home to get ready for dinner in the embassy, and Charles had left to collect you from the airport. Last year, he gave me the combination to his safe as a contingency – if anything ever happens to him, I’m to take everything out and burn it. So I went into his office and opened it. I just had to know what was going on. After looking through several dossiers, I found some one-time pads and documents that contained photographs of some of the drops I’d been sent to. And there were numbers – lots of them. Dates. I recognized them.’
‘The dates when the bombs had exploded?’
‘Yes. But the thing that really scared me was that some of the documents I saw had been stamped with Service seals. Charles isn’t working for anyone else: it’s an officially sanctioned operation, codenamed “Stay Behind”.’
I stared at her, and let the silence envelop me for a moment. A chill crept through my bones.
Stay Behind. Was it possible?
Yes, I thought. Of course it was…
XIV
Saturday, 16 June 1951, Istanbul, Turkey
‘Breakfast in Europe and lunch in Asia!’ cried the ambassador’s wife as the motorboat drew up to the landing-stage. ‘I shall never get used to the decadence.’
‘We do our best,’ smiled Joan Templeton, stretching out an arm to help her ashore. She alighted with an unladylike squeal, but swiftly recovered and handed small bouquets of wild flowers to Joan and her daughter, Vanessa. The ambassador made the leap unaided, then turned back and muttered instructions to the crew, half a dozen young men in starched white shirts and matching pantaloons. They swiftly removed the Union Jack from its position by the wheel, folded it away, and seated themselves cross-legged on the cushions on deck – I guessed they would wait here until required for the return journey.
On land, everyone greeted one another with polite pecks on the cheek, and the ambassador asked Vanessa how she was enjoying her final year at Badminton. His wife, meanwhile, had caught sight of me standing to the side and immediately leapt over.
‘I was so sorry to hear about your mother,’ she said, taking my hands in hers and clutching them urgently.
‘It was perhaps for the best,’ I told her. ‘She had suffered long enough.’
She tilted her head and gazed at me for a long moment, her eyes large and liquid with sympathy. I gave a tight smile in return: I knew this was one of many such exchanges I could expect to face in coming weeks. While we spooks were housed in the city’s Consulate-General – the old embassy, a magnificent nineteenth-century palazzo – the regular diplomatic corps were based out in Ankara, an arrangement that suited us rather well. But in summer they descended on Istanbul, their arrival presaged by a flurry of thick crested invitation cards embossed with gold type. My usual existence, in which I saw less than a dozen colleagues regularly, was about to be overturned with two months of cocktail parties and picnics.
Today was the opening of the season, the Templetons’ annual lunch party, which one had to take a ferry to reach as they lived in Beylerbeyi, a pleasant suburb on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. Like many others out here, the ambassador and his wife had known my parents in Cairo. I had spent much of the previous summer, my first in the city, fielding anxious enquiries over Father’s disappearance at the end of the war and my mother’s continuing ill health. But with Mother’s death a couple of months earlier I had become an orphan, so I was braced for an even higher pitch of concern.
Had she known the truth about my parents, the ambassador’s wife would probably have recoiled in horror. My mother had hailed from an old Swedish family that had settled in Finland in the nineteenth century. Father had been introduced to her at a ball in Helsinki in 1923 when she was just nineteen, and they had married soon after and moved to Egypt, where Father had been Head of Station. I had been born in London a couple of years later – I was to be their only child.
Shortly after my birth, it had become clear that beneath Mother’s poised exterior lurked serious problems. She suffered from continual headaches, and became increasingly demanding, rude and, eventually, hysterical. Her father had been killed in the civil war by the Red Guards, and as a result she harboured a deep hatred of the Soviet Union. She was also virulently anti-Semitic, and would often refer to Jews in public as ‘vermin’.
All this proved to be highly embarrassing for Father, whose career in the Service was flourishing. In 1936, he was posted back to head office in London. As the Nazis in Germany became more powerful, he had advocated closer ties with them, becoming one of the leading lights of the Anglo-German Fellowship. He was also an admirer of fascism – he was briefly Treasurer of the Nordic League – and argued strongly in favour of appeasement. However, he had swiftly abandoned this line once it had become clear that war was inevitable, and following the Molotov–Ribb
entrop pact he had publicly cut all ties with fascist groups and become staunchly anti-Nazi as well as anti-Communist. But Mother’s ‘condition’, as everyone had started to call it, was much harder to disguise.
Things had come to a head in early September 1939, when she had announced at a party in Belgravia attended by several government ministers that Hitler was the strongest leader Europe had seen in generations and that he was fully justified in his persecution of the Jews, who, she had added for good measure, were also natural enemies of England. Father had been advised by friends in the War Office that she was a liability, and that if nothing were done the three of us could be interned. As a result, he had had her shipped off to Finland, where she was cared for by private doctors at a remote estate. I came home from school to be told that Mother was ill, and that it might be some time before I saw her again. In the event, it wouldn’t be for another five years.
In late 1941 Britain had declared war on Finland, and Father had had her shifted again, this time to a clinic in Stockholm. I had visited her there briefly early in 1945, but she hadn’t even recognized me: either madness or medication had frozen her mind. She had remained in the clinic after the war, and had finally passed away after a series of strokes in April. Her funeral had been a quiet affair near her family’s home in Helsinki. I had attended and spent a few days there, and then flown straight back to Istanbul.
The ambassador’s wife let go of my hand, and Joan Templeton led us beneath some parasol pines and into the house. We walked through the cool shade of the living room and out to the sunlit garden, where several cane chairs were arranged beside a table laden with salads, cold cuts and a large dish of pigeon with rice.
‘Colin’s just upstairs with some guests,’ Joan said. ‘Colleagues from London. He’ll be down shortly, I’m sure. Can I get you both a drink? Colin made some of his punch.’