‘Nobody else is involved but me.’
The blow was completely unexpected, and so fast that he never saw it coming. The general’s fingers whipped his cheek, his nails stinging rather than hurting him.
‘It will be better if you answer my questions truthfully.’
Leman rubbed his cheek. Time to give something away. Take the facts and bend them enough to convince.
‘I went to Vienna to do research connected with my work at the Institute. On my first night there I went out for a short walk before bed. On my way back to the apartment I was attacked by two men, tied up and dragged into their car. They drove me to an industrial area out of town and put me on to a barge which set off down the Danube. Some hours later I was forcibly disembarked somewhere in Hungary and left to fend for myself. I have no idea why I was abducted nor who did it. When your people stopped me, I was trying to get back to Vienna. I didn’t want to be in Hungary, as you’re suggesting. I’m here against my will.’
‘It is a good tactic, Mr Leman, to make one’s lies as close to the truth as possible. I can see you have been professionally trained. My difficulty is, I do not believe a single word.’
Again, the sudden movement, a stinging pain across his cheek and this time the taste of blood in his mouth.
‘I have here on this paper the details of everything you have done since you set foot on our soil. Where you have been. The people you have talked to. There is hardly an hour of your time that we cannot describe. I see no evidence of your wish to return home before your mission is completed.’
‘I have no mission.’
‘You contrived to stay here unnoticed for as long as you could and many people were involved in that deception.’ More papers from the file. ‘Here is a list of the names of the men and women you would have met in Budapest had we not chosen to interrupt your journey. All of them are known to be hostile to the democratic regime in Hungary. Are you convinced by how much we know about you, Mr Leman? It is not helpful to either of us if you continue to conceal the truth. Why not make things easy for yourself and tell me who sent you here and why.’
‘I have told you all I have to say.’
He waited for the blow but this time his interrogator did not move.
‘It is not brave but foolish, Mr Leman, to defy those who hold you in their power. It is a pointless tactic that will achieve nothing. I do not wish to spend all night here and I am sure you do not either. I suggest we put aside this silly game and treat this meeting with the gravity it deserves.’
‘Unless you believe me, we will spend all night here.’ Leman smiled insolently and instantly felt sharp fingers stinging his cheeks.
‘Do I make myself clear?’
Leman wiped blood from the corner of his eye where the Russian’s ring had torn the skin, and said nothing.
‘Let us begin again, this time with the truth.’
In the lonely hours he had spent in his cell he had imagined such an interview. Each time he had reached this question, why are you here, what are you doing in our country, he had failed to find a convincing answer and his imagined interrogation had come to an abrupt end. He would rely on his instincts and the inspiration of the moment, he told himself as he lay on the hard bed in the darkness. Now the moment had come it was unlike anything he had imagined, and in his terror, his instinct had deserted him. His mind was frozen, his imagination trapped deep in his mind which was paralysed with fear. Was this the time to acknowledge Sykes? If he did, would they believe him?
‘You want me to admit to an involvement with the British Intelligence Service,’ Leman said slowly. ‘With the sources you have, I am sure you already know that I have no connections with them. I know no one in the Service. I have never met anyone in the Service. They have nothing to do with my being here.’
‘Making an illegal entry into this country calls for certain arrangements, Mr Leman.’ His interrogator was changing tack. ‘Not every barge-owner will carry illegals.’
‘I had money. I paid people to get me over the border.’
‘Ah, yes. The rich girlfriend. How useful to have such an unquestioning source of finance for your schemes.’ Silence. ‘You still have not told me where you got your connections.’
‘You know what Vienna’s like.’
‘Unlike you, Mr Leman, I have never been there.’
‘A city where money talks.’
‘A corrupt bourgeois society.’ The Russian got up from his seat and walked around the room. He was shorter than Leman had reckoned, a stockier, more heavily built man, but strong. The weight was muscle, not excess flesh, he was sure of that.
‘So, with the help of your rich and impressionable girlfriend, you are now here among us, a mysterious Englishman who claims he is not a spy, that he has nothing to do with British Intelligence, who crossed our borders on his own. His motive? He wanted to satisfy his curiosity about life behind the Iron Curtain.’
The Russian was standing over him, locking out the light from the lamp on the desk. A menacing presence.
‘Tell me, Mr Leman, are you convinced by such a story? We are both intelligent men. Why can’t we be honest with each other? Neither of us finds your story believable because both of us know you are not telling the truth. I do not understand the reasons for your unwillingness to explain your presence among us here, and you do not seem to appreciate the powers at my command to make you answer my questions.’
He looked at Leman like a hangman assessing his victim to calculate the length of the drop.
‘What matters is that you are here in Budapest illegally; you and your companions have committed acts of sabotage against the state; you are my prisoner and likely to remain so for some time. One day, perhaps, you will tell me why you came here. Or perhaps the facts will emerge at your trial.’
Acts of sabotage. It was nonsense. Lies. Lies. He wanted to shout at his interrogator but some instinct held him back. Don’t fight what you can’t defeat. The lie is an instrument of power. The rules are different here. Do nothing until you know what you are up against.
Once more the Russian set off round the room, pacing solemnly, blowing out smoke. He had his back to Leman when he spoke again.
‘You were captured with someone else, a young woman. She was one of your accomplices in your misguided attempt to destabilize this sovereign state.’
‘No, that’s not true.’ He knew the moment he said it that he should not have spoken out.
‘She is being held in a cell not many yards from here. In a few hours’ time, she will be taken out and shot.’
‘No.’
It was a cry torn from his heart, a response that was both involuntary and unavoidable. The thought of that young girl with her child’s body, her trusting eyes, dying because she had dared to get into a car with him was impossible. (‘I will be your sister.’ Wasn’t that what she’d said?) He shivered at the horror of it.
The Russian looked at his watch. ‘Dawn comes early in summer. If my watch is correct, she has little more than two hours to live.’
‘You can’t do this. It’s inhuman. The girl’s innocent.’
‘Innocent of what?’
‘She is nothing to do with me. Nothing at all.’
‘She was sitting beside you in the car, Mr Leman. How do you explain that?’
‘She had no idea who I was. She wanted a lift. We picked her up. We spoke Russian together. She thought I was Russian.’
‘That is not what she told us. She has made a confession stating the opposite.’ The Russian searched his briefcase again and read from a document. ‘I was aware at once that Leman was an agent of the West. I offered him help and support in his declared intention to create unrest in the country. I see now the error of my ways. I was deceived by the spy Leman into acting against the interests of the Hungarian people. He made me betray my country.’
‘She’s a child. She had no idea what she was signing.’ His voice was urgent, hoarse.
‘She was assisting an agent of
a foreign power when we arrested her.’
‘That’s not true. She didn’t know who I was.’
‘In this country treachery is a capital offence, Mr Leman.’
‘You cannot do this!’ He was standing up, shouting across the desk at the Russian, his body trembling with the realization that he was pleading for the girl’s life. ‘You cannot kill a child.’
‘Here is her confession. If you do not believe me, read it. There is no sign of pressure. It is a voluntary confession.’ He took out a carbon copy from an envelope and passed it to Leman who refused to take it.
‘I don’t believe a word of it.’ Leman turned away in contempt. ‘There’s no girl here in any cell. You’re not having anyone shot at dawn. That’s a lie you’ve made up to frighten me into admitting crimes I’ve not committed. Well, you’re going to have to do better than that.’
‘Then your scepticism must be challenged.’ The general got up and walked to the window. ‘Come here,’ he commanded. Leman joined him at the window. ‘Look out there.’ He put his arm on Leman’s shoulder to direct where he should look. ‘You see the courtyard? Perhaps you would like more light.’
He made a signal with his arm and at once lights flooded the courtyard. An area like a small parade ground, surrounded by stone walls on all sides. No doors or windows visible anywhere. Leman knew what he was being shown. A killing ground. He felt sick with terror. Only an effort of will stopped him from turning away.
‘Over there is the wall in front of which we place the condemned prisoners. Can you see?’ Leman felt renewed pressure between his shoulder blades. ‘The execution squad line up down there.’ More pressure. ‘We will bring you down to the courtyard to watch the procedure. You will stand over there. The girl will, naturally, pass close by you on her way to die. You will see the terror in her eyes, you will smell the terror on her body. Perhaps you have not been present at an execution before. Terror exudes from the bodies of those about to die. Especially women. It is an evil stench. One that sticks to you for days after, it follows you wherever you go. After an execution, one smells of the fear of one’s own death. She will see you standing there, Mr Leman. She will cry out, call your name, beg you to save her life. She will scream and struggle in a last frenzied attempt to stay alive. But of course it will be too late. At the signal, the execution squad will fire. The officer in charge will inspect the body to ensure it is dead. If necessary, he will administer the coup de grâce with a revolver. Then her corpse will be removed for disposal. We do not return the corpses of traitors to their families. The yard will empty. The event will have taken two, perhaps three minutes of our time. Life will go on. The world will continue to spin. The state will have one less enemy to worry about. You will have the death of this girl-child, as you call her, on your conscience.’
The Russian pulled him away from the window, forcing Leman to look at him.
‘Are you brave enough for that, Mr Leman? Can you stand by and watch a young girl being led to her death? Can you live with the knowledge that you will have been the instrument of her capture and execution? Are you strong enough for that?’
‘What do you want from me?’
He wanted to choke, to spill out his guts. He felt the bile burning his throat, the rush of saliva in his mouth. He put his head between his knees. Was his interrogator telling the truth? Would they kill the girl? Or was this all some kind of appalling game of bluff? He had no way of knowing. For the first time he felt defeated, outmanoeuvred. He was in the Russian’s power and there was nothing he could do about it. He could not let the girl die. Whatever else he did, he could not let that happen.
‘What must I do to save her?’
2
What Martineau hadn’t bargained for was the desperate nature of his longing, the perpetual ache deep in his bones, the raw edges of his nerve-endings, his stomach turning over when he thought of her. There wasn’t a moment when he didn’t want her face, her laughter, her presence, her body. His feelings for Eva had gone too deep to be torn off his back like a shirt at the end of the day and thrown on to the floor for tomorrow’s laundry. That was the clever part. Carswell hadn’t said he shouldn’t remain in love with Eva. The instruction was brutally simple. He was not to see her any more. The relationship was to be broken off, ended. How he did it, whether he suffered or not, was a matter of indifference to Carswell and those he worked for. They’d given their verdict: provided he gave her up, he’d get the benefit of the doubt that he’d given away no secrets to Eva. How he coped with it was up to him. He’d know what to do.
He made an effort of will. He tried not to think of her. He threw himself with manic energy into anything he did. He measured his life by the moment and worked hard at it. But Eva’s presence swooped and dived over him like a swallow before a storm. Whatever he did, wherever he was, she would appear suddenly, unexpectedly, devastatingly subverting his intentions. He was defenceless against the assaults of his memories of her on his body and his mind. He discovered intimations of her in the words he used, the actions he took, the places he went, what he ate, what he drank. She was everywhere, in everything, surrounding him, invading him, enveloping him. Budapest was her, the Danube, the bridges, the cobbled streets of Buda, the cries and laughter in the streets, the silence of the night broken only by the chimes of the city’s clocks marking the stations of his insomnia. Even round the table in the board room at the embassy.
Her presence, like the truth of his love for her, was inescapable. His life was joined to hers. They were inseparable. As each day passed his longing did not diminish. Nourished by her absence, it grew. Without her he was wounded, mutilated, much less than whole. Recovery was only possible through her and with her. But he was forbidden to see her ever again. For the rest of his life she could only be a memory. His condition was hopeless. The wound was fatal. He was incurable.
*
‘Why are you not seeing the Englishman any more, Mama?’
It is nearly midnight. Mother and daughter are in bed, their bodies covered by a single sheet. The room is in darkness.
‘Why do you want to know?’
Don’t talk about him to me, don’t mention his name. Pretend he is dead. Pretend we never met. Leave him alone so I may try to forget.
‘I liked him.’ That is Dora’s way of saying I know you liked him, Mother, so why have you stopped seeing him? ‘He had a kind face.’
Don’t say any more. Don’t make it worse than it already is.
‘Did you love him?’
What can she say? She cannot betray herself or Martineau. ‘Yes.’
I loved him because he gave me back my life.
‘Did he love you?’
‘I think so. Yes.’ I know he loved me. Of course he loved me. You can tell her that. ‘Yes, he did.’
When he left he took away the gift he gave me. He doesn’t know what he has done. That is why I feel the loss every moment of every day.
‘Then why don’t you see him?’
‘It was impossible. He is English. We are Hungarian. He belongs in the West, we belong in the East. We are on different sides in an undeclared war.’
‘Was it dangerous to know him?’
‘It might have been, yes.’
‘So you decided to break it off.’
‘Yes.’
There are some sacrifices you have to make. That was the speech she made to herself. She told herself again and again each day why she had to give up Martineau. Perhaps with time she might believe what she told herself.
Dora has fallen asleep. She hears the soft cadence of her breathing. She turns away and lets the tears flow silently down her cheeks.
Oh, Bobby, where are you? What are you doing? Why won’t you come back to me?
*
It was at unexpected moments, in the middle of conversations with Randall or Hart, while shaving or lying in the bath, that Martineau’s longing for Eva would surge through him uncontrollably, like a fire that refuses to die. That was when he wante
d to weep, to cry out her name, to give some form to his emotions. With an enormous effort he smothered his feelings. He would feel himself going hot, he would start to sweat, beads visible on his forehead. Once as he held out his cup to be refilled, he saw his hand shaking.
‘You all right, old boy?’ Randall asked him at one of their conferences before the morning telephone call to London. ‘You look a bit seedy to me.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Martineau lied. ‘Some summer bug I’ve picked up. I’ll be all right. Probably the heat.’
He overheard Randall say a few days later, ‘Whatever Bobby’s got, he doesn’t seem able to shake it off. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t get the quack to take a look at him. We don’t want him going sick on us at a time like this.’
3
The unedited film of Joe Leman’s confession has never been recovered. Perhaps it lies hidden in some unopened vault of AVH secrets, its existence forgotten, waiting to be unearthed by a diligent archivist searching for documentary evidence of the years of communist rule. Perhaps the celluloid has disintegrated inside its rusty can and been thrown out by a janitor careless of its historical interest. Perhaps, on balance, it is better that its fate is unknown, the resurrected images of a systematic humiliation of an innocent man remain unseen and the ghost of Leman’s shame rests quietly in its grave.
Edited copies were distributed by Soviet officials to Western news agencies within hours of the event taking place. Attempts by both the SIS and the CIA to prove that Leman’s confession was a fiction of the film editor’s skill quickly foundered. The reluctant verdict was that the film was authentic. The KGB had staged an effective propaganda event. Neither Western intelligence organization had a suitable response. The Soviets could claim a whitewash.
The newsreel shown in cinemas around the world opens with the shot of a bemused man being led into a room by a Hungarian colonel. The prisoner wears a jacket, trousers, an open-necked shirt. ‘Joe Leman, the British agent provocateur, prepares to admit his crimes to the world’s press,’ the triumphant voice of the Soviet commentator tells us in English. Leman appears diminished, confused, uncertain, in need of guidance. As he emerges into the bright arc lights, he shades his eyes with his hand. For a moment he hesitates; his expression suggests he is wondering if he should not turn round and flee. The Hungarian colonel, sensing his failing nerve, takes him by the arm and leads him to the dais. The prisoner has clearly been held in darkness for long periods. He is sleepwalking in a world of his own imagining.
Secret Kingdom Page 26