Secret Kingdom

by Francis Bennett

  2

  It was a glorious afternoon, the sun high in a clear blue sky, the outlines of the buildings that Pountney loved so much sharp and hard in the summer air. On days like this, London was a city without compare, its architecture majestic, the spans of its bridges stunning in their boldness, the great river sweeping resolutely through its heart. This was his metropolis; here gathered in one place was everything he believed in and loved, its victories, its sufferings, its humour, its monuments, the spires and domes of its great churches and cathedrals, the music of its pageantry, the noise and bustle of its citizens going about their daily business. For a fleeting moment his heart soared. This was his city, his country.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Gerry. Couldn’t get a cab for love or money.’

  Sykes was always late. Harriet claimed he’d been hopeless about time when they were children and he’d never grown out of it. He only understood the time he was in; he had never developed a concept of other people’s time and she’d disapproved that he was allowed to get away with it.

  They set off beside the river towards the City.

  ‘We’ve interviewed Leman,’ Pountney said. ‘He’s told us everything.’

  Better to say as little as he could get away with. This time he wanted to establish his authority over Sykes.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  He was never prepared for Sykes. Somehow (how?) he felt he was always outmanoeuvred, wrong-footed, put on the defensive. It had happened again now.

  ‘There are some unanswered questions.’

  ‘Come off it, Gerry. If you asked me out so you can tie up loose ends so you can put a pink bow round the file, find someone else, don’t waste my time. Taxi?’

  ‘I have a proposition to put to you.’

  The taxi pulled up beside Sykes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to publish what Leman has told us. I have the transcripts of the interview with me here.’

  Sykes waved the taxi on. ‘Is this official?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You’re taking a risk, aren’t you?’ Sykes was curious. ‘Not like you, is it, Gerry?’

  They found a pub and sat in a corner, away from the bar, where it was quiet. Sykes bought himself a packet of Smith’s crisps.

  ‘Leman confirmed everything you told me some time ago and that Merton House now believes will happen. The process to revolution is unstoppable, despite the arrival of Nagy. He’s seen the size of the Soviet response and he’s certain the suppression of the uprising will be harsh. I know from other sources that Suez has been our preoccupation, not Hungary. I am concerned that if something is not done to change that policy we will be spectators at a slaughter.’

  ‘Are you thanking me for giving Leman the opportunity to see for himself what Bobby Martineau has been telling you for months?’

  ‘I’m suggesting you might like to publish what Leman has told us in a last-ditch effort to get us all to see the error of our ways.’

  ‘Aren’t you taking a risk, breaking the rules? I mean, they’ll be able to guess where I got the information from pretty quickly, won’t they?’

  ‘I don’t care any more. I am haunted by the thought of people dying because we did nothing to help. Saving a single life would justify what I’m doing. I’m hoping to do better than that.’

  *

  A bus rumbled by. Around him life was going on as it did every day: people crossing the bridge to Waterloo, tugs and barges on the river, buses and taxis carrying the world on its way; beneath the pavement the rumble of the Underground, in the distance a train pulling out of Blackfriars. Behind them, the great engine of Whitehall was turning.

  What would happen when they found out that he’d given information to Sykes? He couldn’t believe the authorities would let it go. There was bound to be a scandal. He could see the headlines. Senior Civil Servant Disgraced. He grimaced at the absurdity of the old-fashioned term. Disgraced. Sacked. Rejected. Well, at least Harriet wouldn’t have to face the prospect of going abroad again.

  ‘Why do you let Watson-Jones browbeat you all day, Gerry? Don’t pander to him. Tell him what you think. Stand up to him. He’ll respect you for it.’

  In her way she was right. Why shouldn’t the great adventures of his heart see the light of day? Was it wrong, once in your life, to want to stand up and be counted? Why hadn’t he recognized that dreaming can be self-deception too? Harriet didn’t understand the demands of conscience, how even the meekest, most apparently submissive of us, have a point where something fundamental rebels. Her whole life was a rebellion against a childhood she felt had been stolen from her by a brother who exploited their parents’ guilt to his own advantage and at her expense. Her resentment was deep, her response to it was a determination to create a world ordered by her own views, where she ruled supreme. He was as much a victim of her delusion as she was herself.

  He wouldn’t wait to be sacked. He would do better than that. He would tell Watson-Jones what he had done and offer his resignation. He would take control of his own life.

  He looked across the Thames. Only the dereliction on the South Bank disturbed him, dismal buildings languishing grimly in another time. No unity. No grandeur. Nothing to excite the dreamer’s eye. An opportunity missed, a scar not healed, a symbol of indecision that brought him back to earth, torn between a glorious past and an unformed and featureless future.

  What dreams could be realized there.

  *

  ‘He wants to see you at once,’ Margaret said. She looked distressed. ‘I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know what to say. He’s been very difficult.’

  He knocked on Watson-Jones’s door and went in.

  ‘There you are, Gerry. Good lunch, I hope? Come and look at this. I think it may interest you.’

  He handed Pountney a telegram.

  ‘Good news, isn’t it? We’ve gone into Suez. We’ll soon teach that little bugger who’s boss.’

  That was the moment when Pountney knew he had been betrayed.

  3

  ‘I understood Dora would be home by now.’ He made it sound as if it was her fault that Dora was late back from school. He was impatient, restless, unused to the world of a sixteen-year-old that that did not respond instantly to his instructions. She registered his discomfort with wry amusement.

  ‘She’ll be back before long.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he replied, looking at his watch.

  ‘Tell me,’ she asked as she poured Abrasimov some whisky, ‘why did Julia come to see you in Moscow?’

  If he was surprised by her question, he gave no sign of it.

  ‘Did Koli tell you about her visit?’

  ‘He told me where she’d gone, but not why.’

  ‘She wrote, asking to see me. Her letter was very insistent.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  Abrasimov lit a cigarette. ‘Did Julia never discuss this with you?’

  ‘She never said a word.’

  ‘I thought you two were close, like sisters.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean you tell each other everything. I didn’t discover she’d been to Moscow until long after she was dead.’

  ‘She was very distressed when I met her, very upset. She told me that you were in danger. She begged me to do what I could for you. She said she did not know where else to turn.’

  ‘What did she mean, I was in danger?’ She hoped she could conceal her scepticism.

  ‘You have a formidable enemy in Budapest. Were you unaware of that?’

  ‘I didn’t think I was important enough to merit enemies.’

  ‘The deputy head of Soviet intelligence here is Colonel Osanova.’ He drew on his cigarette. ‘Does that tell you what you need to know?’

  ‘Osanova?’ She hasn’t heard her name in years. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘She joined the KGB when her swimming career came to an end. Some of us believe that she was always in the KGB.’

  If Julia knew about
Osanova’s presence in Budapest, why hadn’t she told her?

  ‘What did Julia say?’

  ‘She’d found out that Osanova had put you under surveillance for more than a year, that she was building a file on you and that in Julia’s judgement it would not be long before you were denounced. Then you would be arrested on false charges and probably executed.’

  It was then that she felt her stomach sink. Despite the heat of the afternoon she shivered. She knew what he was going to tell her.

  ‘What did you do about it?’ she asked.

  There was no hesitation in his answer, no change of tone in his voice, no sense of contrition, only the same authority she had always heard, that what he had done was right.

  ‘A day after I’d seen Julia, I got hold of a military plane, invented some reason to fly to Budapest and located the file. I recognized at once what Osanova was doing. Julia was right. She was fabricating evidence, doctoring the reports, constructing a false case against you. She had sufficient authority that no one would question what she was doing. You would have been arrested. I was sure your arrest would have led to your execution.’

  ‘You did more than that, didn’t you?’

  ‘I had a few seconds in which to act. It wasn’t difficult to know what to do. I gave an instruction that your name be changed to Julia’s.’

  ‘You arranged for her to die.’

  ‘It was impossible to save both of you. The only question was, which one. You are the mother of my only child. That is how I justify what I did. I saved your life.’

  *

  ‘Does she know I am her father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never told her?’

  She can see he is shocked that he has to ask the question.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Whose name does she carry? Not Balassi’s? You can’t tell me that.’

  ‘Balassi was good to both of us.’

  ‘For how long? A year at the most.’

  Josef Balassi had passed through her life briefly and she had hardly noticed. They had been married when Dora was one. They had lived together for a few weeks, then he had been sent to Stalingrad and she had never seen him again. She could hardly remember now what he looked like.

  ‘Do you plan to tell her about me?’

  ‘No.’ How can you tell your child that her father is a murderer?

  ‘Doesn’t she have the right to know who her father is?’

  ‘She thinks her father is a brave man who died in the defence of his country at Stalingrad.’

  ‘What if I tell her the truth?’

  She saw Julia lying on a prison bed, eyes closed, still in death. She saw the three bodies of the young Soviet recruits floating motionless in the pool in the Dynamo Stadium. That was the only truth, and she knew that Alexei would never tell it.

  ‘It will be up to her to believe whom she chooses.’

  *

  ‘Dora,’ Eva said, ‘I want you to meet General Abrasimov.’

  ‘Hello,’ Dora, smiling, held out her hand. Abrasimov stood up and shook it formally.

  ‘Are you Mother’s friend from Moscow?’

  Abrasimov looked enquiringly at Eva. ‘Is that how you would describe me?’

  ‘It’s good enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re the one who said you’d help me get to medical school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dora smiled. ‘Thank you. That was kind of you. But my life is here, in Budapest, with my friends.’

  ‘How will you become a doctor?’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind. I might do something else. Who knows?’

  Abrasimov lit a cigarette. ‘I want you to come to Moscow.’

  There was nothing she could do. She was an observer in this strange contest between a Soviet general and his Hungarian daughter.

  ‘Mother told you that I’ve already said no.’

  ‘I don’t accept your refusal.’

  ‘I won’t change my mind, whatever you say.’

  ‘What if I tell you that I am your father?’

  ‘Julia told me about you years ago. It didn’t mean then any more than it does now because I know nothing about you.’

  How similar they are, Eva thought. Father and daughter. Each refusing to give way.

  ‘Living with me in Moscow would give you the chance to rectify that.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Moscow. I thought I’d made that clear.’

  ‘I want to get to know you. I would like to be closer to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I am your father.’

  ‘You don’t understand why it’s impossible, do you?’

  ‘I think it is very possible. I would not be here otherwise.’

  Perhaps if you tell him he will understand what he has never accepted from me. Alexei lives on the limit. There are no half measures with him, no compromises. The expression of love justifies anything in his eyes, even the gift of the bodies of the men who raped me, just as the expression of his duty will allow him to kill my countrymen when the time comes. He is an extremist and extremists are destructive.

  ‘Everything you suggest is for your benefit, not mine,’ Dora said. ‘You suddenly appear in my life, announce you are my father, say you want me to go to Moscow with you so you can get to know me. You never think of what I want, how I might wish to stay where I belong, to continue the life I’ve lived for sixteen years. You can’t drop out of the sky and expect me to respond because I won’t.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get to know the man who is your father?’

  ‘The man I think of as father died in Stalingrad. It’s too late to change that now.’

  ‘Does that mean you want to have nothing to do with me?’

  ‘If you mean nothing to me, how can it be otherwise?’

  4

  Martineau stood by the window and looked out into the street. There were no cars, only people, all walking in the same direction, towards the centre of the city. Some carried Hungarian flags, others wore a green, white and red armband.

  ‘It’s begun.’ She stood by his side, holding on to his hand tightly. He could feel her excitement. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘of course I am.’

  They went out into the street. The crowd had swollen by now; some were singing, most were walking silently, their expressions solemn. Martineau felt their sense of purpose embrace him, sweeping him forwards, taking control of his mind and his destiny. He returned Eva’s grasp.

  These people might be alone, he thought. But that didn’t matter. At this moment they gained strength from each other. They were marching as a group, their movement dictated by their need for freedom, their unspoken wish to direct their own lives, elect their own leaders, to free themselves from the shackles of an authoritarian regime. He was swept up in the force of the crowd, the movement pushing him forward so that he couldn’t have stopped even if he’d wanted to. He was part of an irresistible idea without which life had no meaning. Even death was a preferable alternative to living with the deceits and lies that had reduced their lives to emptiness. Alone they might be, ignored by the outside world, but that no longer mattered. The limits of their patience had been broken. All that was left was their right to assert who they were, what they believed in, whatever the consequences. There was a sublimity about this moment that intoxicated him. He was no longer Bobby Martineau, he was part of something infinitely greater than himself, a movement that would make history.

  ‘Look,’ Eva cried, ‘look.’

  From each street more people arrived, tributaries to a great stream, a Danube of people, flowing inexorably towards freedom. He was delirious, drunk on the power of the masses as they surged forward together, arm in arm, hands joined, Martineau beside the woman he loved. On, on, to the epiphany of his life.

  Then, to his left, he heard the first crack of a rifle shot, the whine of the bullet as it sped past to hit the side of a building before it ricocheted off.

  T
he crowd marched on.

  THE SWIMMING POOL IN THE DYNAMO STADIUM

  29 November 1956

  The swimming pool is deserted. The surface of the water is almost still. The lights are on, even though it is not yet dusk outside. The taps that replenish the water have been turned off. The strong scent of chlorine sits heavily on the atmosphere. It is hot in the baths, hotter inside than outside. The water waits, cold, inviting, dangerous as ever.

  A man comes in. He walks slowly to the shallow end of the pool. He is dressed in a general’s uniform. His polished boots catch the light as he moves, the sound of his feet on the stone surround echoes loudly. He stops to take off his hat and hang it on a hook. He comes back to the edge of the water. He remains still, doing nothing, for a minute or more. If he is thinking, it is impossible to detect what his thoughts may be. Then he takes off his signet ring, kisses it lightly and throws it into the pool. He watches it break the surface of the water and slowly sink to the bottom.

  He reaches into the pocket of his uniform and takes out a revolver. He opens the breech to check that it is loaded. He closes it again. Once more he waits, staring ahead of him. His face shows no emotion. Then slowly he raises the gun and puts its muzzle into his mouth.

  The pool echoes to the sound of the explosion. Shock waves disturb the surface of the water into frantic action. The back of the man’s head flies off. Blood and matter strike the wall of the pool. For an instant his body stays upright, then slowly it keels over and falls into the water. He lies there, face down, blood pouring from what remains of his head. His left arm floats to his side, his right arm is dragged down by the weight of the revolver which remains fastened in his grip. Slowly the water covers his body as he sinks below the surface.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2014