Friends and Traitors

by John Lawton

  He woke around three in the morning. The reading lamp on. Foxx with her knees up. Scribbling on a notepad.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Christmas list.”

  “Christmas isn’t for …”

  “It’s next week, Troy, less than a fortnight away. And I bet you’ve done nothing about it.”

  After the war, Troy and his mother had hosted Christmas out at Mimram for the whole family. When his mother died he would gladly have stopped playing host to quite so many, but his sister-in-law, Cid, had offered to take over his mother’s role and they had carried on. Foxx had been at the last two family Christmases and had accepted it as a tradition to be maintained and relished. To Troy it was little more than an exchange of socks and hankies, but he knew he’d never be able to cheat her out of this one.

  “Fine,” he said, and turned over.

  §148

  It was Christmas Eve before the inevitable row burst. He was dressing for dinner, which they did for just two nights and had Boxing Day in mufti—kids in new pullovers, Rod in new socks and slippers, and, if he showed up, the Fat Man in a shiny new “weskit” or a bow tie Troy would see him wear once and never again.

  From Sasha and Hugh’s room came the first low-flying cliché.

  “Bitch!”

  Well, she was, wasn’t she? But she was their bitch, and every time Hugh called her that Troy would happily have thumped him.

  He was in his own room, which was unfortunately next to theirs, trying in vain to ignore the swapping of insults, and to tie his own bow tie.

  He heard a door slam, then the door to his room opened, and when he turned around Sasha was pressed against it, tears of rage refusing to roll from her eyes.

  “I swear, Freddie, one day soon I’ll kill the fucker.”

  “Don’t,” he said simply. “I am awash in death right now. Save it for the new year when you’re bored and having nothing else to do.”

  She moved off the door, neat and beautiful in her little black dress.

  “Sorry,” she said, a word that hardly ever passed her lips. “Wasn’t thinking.”

  She stood in front of him, took the two ends of his bow tie in her hands.

  “Venetia?”

  Troy nodded.

  “Was it your case?”

  “It was Jack who was called out,” Troy said, only half lying.

  “But it was an accident, wasn’t it? I mean, I’d hate to think …”

  “Yes,” he said, lying. “It was an accident.”

  Her hands created the knot that always seemed to elude him, saying as she did so what she had said to him since childhood whenever she tied his tie, “The little rabbit runs round and round the tree, and then he goes down the little rabbit hole.”

  And with that he was looped, and tied, and dressed.

  §149

  In bed, after Boxing Day, the wee small hours of the twenty-seventh, aligned like spoons between the sheets, Foxx said, “Where are you?”

  “Eh?”

  “Well, you’re not here with me. You’re not even in the same room, so where are you?”

  “There are things I have to do. Won’t take long.”

  “And when they are done?”

  “I’ll be back. I promise.”

  “Then I won’t ask who she is.”

  “Was, not is.”

  “Oh fuck, Troy. What have you done?”

  §150

  Normal service, as the BBC always termed it, was resumed on January 2. Another Friday.

  Troy had been in his office less than an hour when Eddie put through a call from Vienna.

  “Freddie?”

  “I’m here, Gus.”

  “I have a few words from our friend. ‘Absolutely not. Straight as a die, and queer as a coot.’ Does that answer your question?”

  It did. It lent a certain purity to what he knew. A singularity to his purpose.

  Eddie, clearly, had listened in.

  He stood before Troy now.

  “You can’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “You can’t just kill an MI5 section head.”

  §151

  Troy had grown used to the Fat Man seeing through him. They had known each other … what? … fourteen or fifteen years … since 1944. He’d known Eddie since ‘48, but had seen nothing of him for most of that time. For the last two years, they had worked side by side. Coffee and cake. There was bound to come a moment, and clearly it had come, when Eddie would attain Fat Man perception.

  But for one thing.

  It had not occurred to Troy that he might kill Kearney.

  It had not occurred to Troy that he could or should kill Kearney.

  Eddie had worked out the fate Troy had meted out to Inspector Cobb. God alone knew how he had done this, but he had. And he had leapt to a plausible, if wrong, conclusion.

  It had not occurred to Troy that he might kill Kearney.

  Until now.

  He’d known, from the second he had worked out the truth, that he would do something.

  Kearney had killed the woman he … the past participle of the verb “to love” went unuttered in both speech and thought.

  He knew he would do something.

  He had to do something.

  He could inform … accuse … arrest … the list chugged on awhile in his mind only to hit the buffers at Jordan’s “Who do we tell? We tell no one.” The logic of which rested on there being no one to tell who would believe, and worse, no one who would listen.

  It had not occurred to Troy that he might kill Kearney.

  Until now.

  §152

  Kearney was a creature of habit. Most men were. It took Troy only three days to establish his pattern. Not being of sufficient rank to merit a Special Branch watch, he was abroad in the city indistinguishable from any other Londoner, apart from the fact that he was probably better dressed.

  His morning routine was to walk to the far end of Prince of Wales Drive and catch the 137 bus across Chelsea Bridge to Park Lane, get off at the Dorchester, and walk the few remaining yards to Leconfield House in Curzon Street. He was a late starter. Hardly in the office much before ten, but also a late leaver. Scarcely out of it before eight, and even then with a briefcase full of documents under his arm. Troy felt certain that if he watched for longer he’d find plenty of nights when Kearney was still in his office at midnight, but time was running out. There is only so much squatting on the rim of the volcano a man can do.

  Kearney’s indulgence was not to travel home by public transport. A cab met him in Curzon street, every night, and bearing in mind that it was never quite the same time every night, it looked to be an arrangement set up and varied daily. The cab always dropped him on the far side of Chelsea Bridge, at which point Kearney would cut across Battersea Park, south of the fun fair, to the eastern end of the boating lake, which he would then follow on the southern side, parallel to the road, until he reached the exit pretty well opposite his own apartment. Troy ascribed it to the illusion of exercise. It was less than half a mile, but it probably appeased Kearney’s conscience and took up less time than yoga or Sunday morning soccer. After that, he’d bet money that Kearney kicked off his shoes and poured himself a large Scotch. It did not seem that he did rough trade, but the advantage of no watchers was that he could do anyone. Again, if time permitted and Troy waited he felt sure he’d see young men at the door. What he wouldn’t see was a visit to any Soho bar known for its homos. This was a man with a secret. That he’d ever bedded Burgess struck Troy as a stupid mistake, and one Kearney no doubt had regretted ever since. And, there was no live-in. Kearney spent his private life largely alone. And largely frustrated, Troy thought. Just as well. Frustrated or not, Troy needed Kearney alone. He’d no wish to kill him in company.

  §153

  Troy took a day off. Caught the train down to Brighton and sought out a man he’d known for twenty years and not seen for twelve—Danny the Deserter.

  Troy had nicke
d him in his last days in Stepney, Danny—real name Herbert Smith—was still a teenager, and Troy himself not much older. Danny had been a fence, passing on everything and anything from jewellery to guns. He’d won in court. The judge had reprimanded Troy from the bench for a poor presentation of evidence and instructed the jury in a verdict of “Not Guilty.”

  As they left court, Danny had had the cheek to accost Troy and say, “No hard feelings, Mr. Troy.”

  Troy said nothing.

  “You taught me a valuable lesson. This manor’s too small for me. I’ll be moving off your patch an’ up West.”

  The brass neck of this was startling. This man was still a boy and treating Troy, a serving police officer, like one of his low-life pals.

  “I’ll be in the caffs in Old Compton Street. If you need me, just try ‘em, I’ll be in one or the other. A sort of office that ain’t an office, if you know what I mean.”

  Troy said nothing.

  He could not think of a single reason why he would ever need the services of Herbert Smith. Soon after, Troy himself moved “up West” with his promotion to the Yard and the Murder Squad. He’d encounter Smith in the streets of Soho, return his cheery “Wotcher, Mr. Troy” politely, note his newly acquired wartime nickname, and think little of him. He dealt in what he dealt, and as long as he didn’t kill anyone he was of no interest to Troy.

  Until 1944.

  When Troy had needed to buy a gun.

  §154

  A ruined face answered the door in Kemptown. Forty years old and spent.

  “Hello, Danny.”

  “‘Allo, Mr. Troy. It’s Bert now. I dropped all that malarkey when I left the smoke. Danny the Deserter? Deserter my arse, I never even got called up. ‘Cos to call you up they gotta be able to find you first, ain’t they?”

  Rheumatoid arthritis had rendered Smith pitifully thin, lopsided in his walk, and blind in one eye—he sported an affecting eye patch, attractive but for the perished skin surrounding it.

  “You come all this way to see your old pal, eh? Must be summink special.”

  Smith led off down a narrow corridor, up a short flight of stairs into the front room facing the sea.

  “Always wanted a sea view. Ever since I was a nipper. Used to come to Brighton of a Saturday a’ternoon with me old man. Now I can look at it every day.”

  The room was bare but for a deck chair, plonked in front of the floor-to-ceiling sash.

  “An’ now look is all I can bleedin’ do. Still you din’t come ‘ere to listen to me whinge, did yer?”

  “No,” said Troy. “I’m enquiring into the theft of municipal deck chairs.”

  Smith almost doubled up with croaky-chokey laughter.

  “I swear, you are a wag, Mr. Troy. Now, last time you came to me it was for a shooter.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Well, I got another room for shooters.”

  He pushed open the double doors that separated this room from what had once been the dining room. In total contrast, the back room was full and filthy. It seemed to Troy that Smith probably slept in the bursting armchair by the fireplace, put his feet up on one of the piles of newspapers, and ate off any one of the dozen dirty plates scattered around the room. All this in a network of cobwebs, offset by fading and faded Georgian wallpaper.

  Smith closed the doors. Most of the light vanished.

  “Shooters needs darkness. I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “Herbert … it would take a man in France with a telescope to spy on you.”

  “All the same, I takes no chances.”

  He flicked on the light bulb. And the room seemed filthier still. He opened up the cupboard built in next to the chimney breast to reveal a rack of half a dozen guns, quite possibly the only things in the room that had been cleaned lately.

  “As I recall, it was a .22 Beretta last time, wasn’t it? A ladies’ gun.”

  Appropriate. Troy had killed a lady with it.

  “I’d like something with a bit more …”

  “Wallop?”

  “Yes, wallop.”

  “Then I think this might do the trick. An Inglis HP 9mm.”

  He handed an automatic pistol to Troy.

  Troy turned it over and looked at it from every angle. All guns were alike to him. This one was about eight inches long and a bit on the heavy side.

  “This,” Smith went on, “has wallop. HP for high power. Canadian made during the war. A Browning by any other name, reverse-engineered by our colonial cousins. And it’s good in a shoot-out. Magazine holds fourteen. The Belgian model only had thirteen. You’ll be popping the bad guys long after they run out of ammo.”

  As ever, Troy felt blinded if not by science then by detail.

  “I was rather hoping one shot would do the trick.”

  “Best make it two, eh? Just to be on the safe side.”

  Smith took a cardboard box of 9mm bullets from the cupboard and closed up.

  “I won’t ask who.”

  “That’s OK, Herbert. I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “But … what’s your plan for disposing of the gun?”

  “I hadn’t thought.”

  “Well, think. And don’t be thinking you’ll just drop it nonchalant next to the body like. Get rid of it proper. Off a bridge would be best, and not the first bridge you come to neither, ‘cos that’s too obvious.”

  “It’s … it’s a bit public.”

  “So?”

  “A silencer?”

  “No can do, Mr. Troy. Even if this was threaded for one, which it ain’t, the reason criminals like me can get hold of guns is ‘cos they’re legal, they got a legitititimate use. Soldiers use ‘em, coppers use ‘em. You name me a country wot has silencers as legal?”

  “Is it loud?”

  “‘Fraid so. Crack of doom. You’d best be careful where you pull the trigger. Shoot the bugger and leg it would be my advice.”

  Well, Troy knew that already.

  “Now,” said Smith. “About the ackers. I can do you a special copper’s rate …”

  §155

  Battersea Park, London SW Friday, January 9, 1959

  Troy stood under the canopy of a vast ornamental fir tree, where two footpaths met at a rough crossroads. There was just a sliver of moon, and the light from the streetlamps in Prince of Wales Drive was too far away and filtered through too many trees to dispel the shadows.

  It was almost a quarter to nine. His eyes had long since adjusted. He’d been on the spot since eight o’clock, deeming it better to be ahead of Kearney than to be following him. Not a soul had passed him in that time—it was a bitter January night, after all—but he’d set himself a practical if irrational time limit; he’d wait until nine, and if Kearney hadn’t shown by then he’d chalk it up to one of his late nights in the office and come back on Monday.

  His left hand was wrapped around the butt of the Inglis. The safety was off. All he had to do was not shoot himself in the foot.

  He was worried that he might not be certain. In this light, how close would he need to be to be sure he had the right man? How stupid to shoot the wrong man. How distinctive could Kearney be as an outline? He was over six foot, he never wore a hat … but as a man approached from the direction of Chelsea Bridge Road all doubt vanished—there was something about the way he walked, and there was the briefcase he always tucked under his arm rather than gripped by its handle.

  Troy slipped the gun from his pocket and held it against his thigh, counting the seconds until he’d step out to face Kearney. Chest shot first—bound to hit one vital organ or another—head shot to finish him off. Don’t flinch at the bangs. Leg it.

  Seven paces to the centre of the path, Kearney heading towards him, eyes down, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

  Then he looked up, Troy levelled the gun, and as he did so a man stepped swiftly from the darkness to the right of Kearney, put a silenced automatic to his head and shot him. Kearney dropped at once. Blood gushing from the exit wound. The a
ssassin shot him through the heart for good measure, glanced once at Troy, and unscrewed the silencer. It slipped into the right-hand pocket of his overcoat, the gun into the left.

  Then he walked towards Troy. Troy lowered his gun. The man stopped only inches away. He looked much the same as he did himself, Troy thought, two short, dark men in black winter overcoats and tight leather gloves. He had the same black silk scarf at his throat. The same razor-nicked scar under the left eye. He’d even shot Kearney left-handed. The assassin in the mirror, as if an alter ego had been summoned up like some personal golem—this thing of darkness.

  Troy stuck the gun back in his pocket.

  The man smiled pleasantly, said:

  “Have this one on us, Mr. Troy.”

  And walked on.

  But—he’d said it in Russian.

  «Это вам подарок от нас, Господин Трой.»

  §

  ends

  Stuff

  Guy Burgess

  He really did ask to come home. Not in 1958 and not in Vienna, but in Moscow the following year while Macmillan made his famous fur-hat visit. When I ascribe the line “I don’t want Burgess back at any price” to my fictional Harold Macmillan, I doubt it is even a paraphrase of what the real Macmillan said.

  I began this book … well … years ago. Came back to it a few times, and finally got stuck in 2016. I had put it aside in 20-whatever to write Then We Take Berlin. Came back to it yet again. Packed all the research books into a backpack of crippling weight and set off for Tuscany and a winter hunched over QWERTY. Before I’d even reached the airport, I found I was writing The Unfortunate Englishman, and this book, at that time called The Worldling’s Pleasure, got stuck on the back burner.

  All that time, and for long before, Andrew Lownie (literary agent, biographer, publisher—we go back thirty years and more) was at work on his life of Burgess (published in 2015 to great acclaim as Stalin’s Englishman) and if I asked a question Andrew would reply to the question, but no further. Who could blame him? Once the book was published, I had many more questions and Andrew replied to them all and was very generous with his material. It’s safe to say I probably would not have written this novel without his help, and it would have been a mistake to have written it any sooner than I did. The delays seem, with hindsight, to have been so ordered.