His gaze settled on the photograph of him punting on the River Cherwell with Charlie and one of his many lovers at the time. Then he remembered the man who had actually taken the photograph, from another punt that had pulled alongside – Malcolm Hully himself.
Malcolm had been older, thirty to their early twenties, and was one of August’s tutors at Balliol. Defiantly English in a public-school kind of way, prematurely balding and enthusiastic to the point of irritation, he had a barking energy that concealed a far more complex persona, August discovered a few years later, for it was Malcolm Hully who recruited him into the Special Operations Executive in 1940, after August returned to England from the war in Spain.
At the time Malcolm told him he’d been scouting for the secret services at Oxford and even back then had singled out August, but socialism and Spain had stolen the American away. They’d been close during the time at the Special Operations Executive. Malcolm was his controller back in London when he was on assignment in occupied France helping the resistance smuggle Allied airmen out across the Pyrenees to Spain and back to England. Yet even then August sensed there was a calculating aspect to Hully’s personality August had only occasionally glimpsed. Malcolm Hully was the consummate player of the great game, and had the perfect personality for espionage, but then so do I, August told himself, a little ruefully, wondering if anyone would ever really know him, including himself. I am a creature of shifting parts, a prism, God help those who choose to stare in.
He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling again. Maybe Cecily is right. Maybe I am married to my work. I justify my existence by convincing myself all this research is important, as if I can find a shape to my life through tracing fables. Does any of it matter? Does one political system offer true equality over another or are we condemned to the inevitable Darwinian struggle where the talented and rich always triumph? ‘Every man according to his needs’ – was Marx right? Who should I stand with now? His internal debate slipped into exhaustion then toppled over into sleep. Over on his desk, the gilded Lauburu on the cover of the chronicle caught the moonlight, and August, turning in his bed, registered change somewhere deep in his subconscious.
4
It had been a turbulent flight and the Boeing had bounced all the way from Madrid. Try as he may, Tyson could never get used to flying. It was ridiculous, he’d jumped out of helicopters into jungles, out of small planes into the ocean, yet put him in a conventional passenger plane and he was a mess. It was being out of control; Tyson was a man who hated being out of control. It unnerved him to look out of the windows down at those propellers whirling madly against the void. Night flights were the worst. There always seemed to be something profoundly senseless to them: the roar of the engine and the relentless darkness that enveloped the plane over and over.
This flight he’d hardly slept at all. Still he’d arrived, and already that dry throb of excitement, of beginning the hunt had started to thread its way through him. He wound down the window of the Austin Seven and allowed the crisp London air to peel back the exhaustion that prickled under his tired eyes.
The man sitting next to him, a taciturn, brawny presence that to anyone else might appear threatening, handed Tyson a dossier of large black-and-white photographs. Tyson pulled out the first one. It was of Jimmy van Peters standing at an iron gate of an Edwardian mansion that looked as if it had been converted into flats. The musician, although older and far thinner than Tyson remembered, was instantly recognisable, the distinctive stance taking Tyson back to that forest camp in the Basque country. He’d never hated the man, if anything Tyson had always secretly felt the kinship of the outsider with Jimmy – but the musician had simply got in the way.
‘That’s him, Vinko, you did well,’ he told the silent Croatian. He’d rescued the university-educated Vinko from a war crimes tribunal in 1947 after Interpol had finally caught up with the former Ustashe assassin and crossbow champion. Tyson, recognising certain traits as well as a huge capacity to keep his silence even under torture, befriended the taciturn giant, then quietly made sure the charges were dropped. Within a month Vinko was working unofficially for both him and the US government. Tyson had made sure the Croatian was indebted for life and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the CIA agent.
Tyson glanced at the next photograph that had been shot through the large window of the ground floor of the same building. Jimmy van Peters could be seen talking to a younger man – a tall blond who had a bookish appearance despite his large, muscular frame. ‘Who’s this?’ Tyson asked.
‘August E. Winthrop, a minor player, ex-Special Operations Executive during the war. Before that spent some time as a hothead fighting in Spain, now drifts around in academia. A nobody who’s the son of someone – Clarence E. Winthrop, ex-Republican senator now UN representative.’
‘Interesting, Clary’s boy.’
Tyson peered closer at the photograph. Now he could see that van Peters was handing something to this August, this nobody. ‘What field?’
Vinko frowned; this was not the question he had been expecting.
‘Field?’
‘Of academia, Vinko.’ Tyson was careful to keep his irritation out of his voice. If there was one thing that ignited the emotionless Vinko, it was the sense that he was being patronised, and Vinko angry was terrifying.
‘Classics and botany, a curious mixture. Apparently he gives the occasional lecture on the mythological use of magical herbs, a real clown,’ Vinko answered in his flat Croatian accent.
Under the heavy wool coat Tyson’s heart jumped, his jaw tightened as he controlled his facial reaction. He felt like a bloodhound that had sniffed the metallic smell of bleeding prey after a season of forced abstinence. ‘And you tell me you’ve lost van Peters?’
‘We think he’s left the country. Paris is back on it.’
‘Tag the other guy. I want to know exactly where he goes and when.’
‘But he’s a nobody.’
‘Tag him.’ Tyson’s tone left no room for ambiguity.
The Reform Club on Pall Mall had, in August’s opinion, its own advantages and disadvantages. One advantage was the fact that it still banned female membership, which tended to make the majestic club, with its magnificent atrium around which studies and reading rooms radiated, a little sedate and muskily male in atmosphere. But also, August found, allowed a man to focus his mind without feminine distractions. The disadvantage was that it required even visitors to wear a tie and would insist on providing one at the door if anyone was foolish enough to try and enter inappropriately dressed.
During his service with SOE, it was one of the places Malcolm Hully would occasionally lunch with the American whenever he was on leave in England. August had grown fond of its rarefied atmosphere. Bookish and idealistic, it had been started by the Whig Party – the founders of British liberalism in all its egalitarian, utopian philosophies. As an American and one proud of his country’s revolutionary genesis, August felt at home sitting beneath the marble busts of like-minded individuals, all of which seemed to stare down with a kindly gaze.
They sat at one of the tables on the upper gallery that overlooked the huge atrium that ran the full height of the building and was decorated with a series of portraits of the founding members, a tray of club sandwiches set out before them. His ex-employer, now portly, still boasted that ruddy English complexion that suggested a childhood in the country. A controlled man whose inane enthusiasm would occasionally burst out untidily, Malcolm had been in charge of decoding and supervising August’s operations in occupied France – all from the safe distance of the Special Operations Executive’s headquarters on Baker Street.
Malcolm had had to fight hard to keep the highly imaginative, maverick multi-lingual American within his ranks, but August’s intimate knowledge of the Pyrenees on both French and Spanish borders, as well as his language skills, had made him invaluable. It was a gamble that had paid off. The American’s sheer bravado and reckless courage always succe
eded despite extraordinary odds.
August had made four successful missions in occupied France, coordinating with the resistance – both Basque and French rebels had managed to help organise Operation Comet, a series of linked safe houses and a route to freedom for Allied airmen who’d been forced to bail over enemy territory. They would be led over the Pyrenees through the Basque country then smuggled out by boat off the Spanish coast back to Southampton.
Malcolm had ended up revelling in August’s glory, but after the war many of the old SOE operatives found themselves superfluous in peacetime. Some retired, others returned to their previous incarnations as academics, mathematicians, civil servants. The really bright ones went into private business and even by 1950 had begun to emerge as the new impresarios of the financial world. A few quietly and secretly moved on to MI5 or MI6, like Malcolm, while others got lost in the austere struggle of the post-war years of rationing and unemployment. Malcolm had always regarded August as one of these vanished souls. He’d fallen off the cocktail party circuit, the embassy and business receptions, and art gallery openings, a couple of years ago, and the two men had lost contact. Occasionally August’s name would pop up in the social columns or at a dinner party in passing conversation, but Malcolm really had no idea what August had actually been doing since the war, and he was banking on the fact that, likewise, August would have no idea about the true nature of his own employment.
August held up one of the sandwiches.
‘Real bacon, Jesus, I don’t think I’ve seen that since 1942.’
‘Canadian. I believe the club has some strong alumni connections in the Colonies. Enjoy it while you can, it’ll be fish paste sandwiches next week. So, you still engaged to that gorgeous girl?’
‘Cecily.’
‘That’s right, I read about it, Cecily Highton-Smith, beautiful, intelligent and rather wealthy, if I remember rightly. Father’s an ex-diplomat now in the House of Lords, isn’t he?’
‘Lord Highton-Smith …’
‘Well, August, you were never one for doing things by halves, but how the hell he approved of you, I can’t imagine – natural charisma, I suppose. Never had much of it and never had much time for it. So, all going well?’ Malcolm couldn’t help but notice the American looked hungry, hungover and poor.
August bit into the sandwich, allowing the sharp flavours to seep luxuriously into his senses. For a moment the status quo of a prosperous England returned as if by magic. Malcolm Hully watched amused – on closer inspection the cuffs on the American’s, admittedly once expensive, shirt were frayed and he was unshaven. He also looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Already Malcolm had begun to calculate what kind of information August might offer up and how he might be able to use it to his own benefit – had his old prodigy any worthy connections with the Communist Party of Great Britain or perhaps the Soviets themselves? August always had been very left-wing, and lately Malcolm’s own career had slipped into a kind of apathy. Some insight or compromising intelligence could prove to be invaluable. The atmosphere at Leconfield House was tense, bordering on paranoid both at MI5 and MI6, especially since Guy Burgess’s defection eighteen months earlier. The notion that there was a mole high up in the Oxbridge echelons of the leadership was unofficially but widely believed inside both institutions, and Malcolm, as an ex-Oxford man who actively recruited in the heady political days of the thirties – when both Oxford and Cambridge were awash with passionate young men similar to August Winthrop who were attracted to seemingly egalitarian political systems like socialism, often in reaction to the rise of fascism – was naturally suspicious. Winthrop was one of the brightest men he knew – that kind of charm and intelligence was inevitably useful. But Malcolm had always secretly questioned why August had chosen the name ‘Tin Man’ from The Wizard of Oz as his operative codename. Sometimes Malcolm had wondered whether the unusual choice hadn’t indicated a flaw in the American’s psychology, a deep-seated unconscious fear that he too might be lacking a heart. But then, an intelligent man lacking a heart is even more useful than one with a heart, as any good spy could tell you. Empathy was an impediment, yet why did the women like him so much? Malcolm puzzled, thinking with some chagrin about his own wife Marjorie and her ill-disguised excitement when he mentioned he was having lunch with Winthrop.
August finished the sandwich. ‘Not exactly, in fact the engagement was broken off yesterday. There were … complications.’ August let the last word hang, hoping he hadn’t sounded too callous.
Malcolm Hully grinned, then took a quick sip of the rather bad port they’d been served.
‘Well, as they say, monogamy is usually an activity undertaken by two people – and usually the same two people over a considerable length of time.’
‘So rumour has it,’ August retorted, also grinning. They both burst into a chuckle.
‘God, do you remember when I found dear old Bodery in the broom cupboard with one of the FANY girls? I wasn’t sure whether to congratulate him or demote him.’ Malcolm now reminiscing, relaxed back into his seat.
‘Actually I think you should have decorated her for taking his virginity. I mean, how old was he?’
‘Thirty-nine at the time. My word, those were the days. Do you ever miss them?’
August looked away, not wanting to betray his emotions. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. There were none, he’d run out. In an instant Malcolm was offering him one of his own, Peter Stuyvesants – only available on the black market, August noted, also noticing Malcolm’s new watch and gold cufflinks. Again, he tried to remember what Malcolm’s new job was. The Foreign Service in one of the administrative positions, he seemed to remember. He took the cigarette, but couldn’t help wondering how the man could afford such luxuries on a meagre civil service income. He lit up and exhaled.
‘Miss them? Some mornings I don’t even recognise myself. The tragic thing is that I suspect I was built for combat. You know me, Malcolm, I’m not a settling man. I guess Cecily called my bluff, although she couched it in terms of psychological dysfunction.’
Malcolm glanced up, catching a rare moment of vulnerability in August’s face.
‘Who knows what’s psychologically functional and what’s not, these days?’ he ventured. ‘One just has to get on. We all carry scars from the war. Our generation will, you know, until our graves.’
‘And you?’ August asked, determined to switch the focus away from himself.
‘Oh, we’ve settled. A nice Georgian house in Mayfair, two sons at Eton, a cottage in Sussex.’
‘So the Foreign Service must be paying?’ It was a loaded question and both of them knew it.
Malcolm kept his gaze steady. ‘The father-in-law died and we inherited.’ Now enjoying the deceit, he decided to elaborate. ‘But the job does pay rather well, it’s just a little on the dull side, a lot of entertaining and paper-pushing, but you know Marjorie, she always was socially ambitious,’ he finished, a little more defensively than he’d planned.
‘Then it’s just as well she chose you and not me,’ August couldn’t help retorting.
The civil servant looked away, a tiny tick under his right eye flickering, betraying him. An image of August and Marjorie making love had flashed through his mind – an imagined scenario but one he knew had taken place in those last desperate weeks, the time between his proposal and her acceptance, during the tense build-up to Dunkirk.
Malcolm had fallen in love with Marjorie the moment she’d walked into his office, a small blonde who radiated an erotic concoction of vulnerability and brittle intelligence. Instinctively, he knew she was out of his range – too beautiful, too upper class and (if he was honest with himself) probably too intelligent. But Malcolm had fallen anyway and had suffered her proximity with all the pain of a martyr. Terrified of rejection, he’d stumbled around her, gruff in feigned indifference, unable to make the first move. It had only been the appearance of August, just returned from a mission in France, tousle-haired and electric with adrenalin, th
at had galvanised Malcolm into acting at all. He supposed he had that to thank the American for, but at the time he was secretly infuriated by the casualness with which August had set eyes upon Marjorie and, with all the indifference of the hunter, begun his standard seduction routine. The man was incorrigible. Worse still, to Malcolm’s secret horror and dismay, she had responded. Luckily, just before the relationship was consummated August had been sent away on another mission. Marjorie was inconsolable, well, almost, and this time Malcolm made sure he was there to comfort her. Coincidentally, it was then that August’s encoded messages from France had stopped and the department had every reason to believe he’d been captured, possibly killed. Malcolm took the opportunity to propose.
By the time August reappeared somewhere in Vichy France and his messages had been decoded, Marjorie had accepted Malcolm’s proposal, but when the American returned to London they’d spent one furtive night together – something she had only confessed to Malcolm a year ago.
Looking at August now, still charismatic enough to turn heads, Malcolm hated him momentarily for the ease with which both women and the luck of survival seemed to surround him. A charmed life no matter what destiny threw at him. Again, the idea that he might be offered some hold over the American excited Malcolm.
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