The Secret Families

by John Gardner

  The first interruption came, at this point, from Belper, the lawyer. ‘I would like to know, if we are presumably all agreed on the evidence as it stands, what steps we can take. If this,’ he lifted the pile of typescript, ‘is proven and conclusive evidence, then the damage control will be considerable. Add to that the possibility that two very senior officers from our service and the American agency, have both been penetrations for some time, the damage is heavy. What it means, Willis, is that practically every operation since the end of the war is compromised. What it means is that almost every case officer and agent we have working within the Sovbloc is also compromised. What it means is we’re scuppered, sunk.’

  Everyone began to speak at once, and BMW had to bring the meeting to order. For him, he was incredibly restrained. As yet they should not make judgements on the younger Railton, or Farthing. The pair had always shown renegade instincts. They had to await developments from that quarter. While they waited, it was essential for them to make some very definite decision regarding Caspar Railton’s secret diary. For his part, the news here was bad. He saw nothing but deception and intrigue in Caspar’s actions, therefore everything he had done since his return to the service in 1938 should be examined in the light of this overwhelming evidence.

  Each member of the committee had his or her say. All but one were in favour of treating the secret diary as genuine, and taking steps to examine what damage resulted. There was one dissenting voice. Tubby Fincher rose to his feet and spoke for almost ten minutes, saying he felt the evidence was, in the main, slim. It was against all the tradecraft practised by Caspar during his long and loyal career. In a word, he felt they were being duped.

  Maitland-Wood was furious. ‘How duped?’ he shouted. ‘We were already led to this conclusion by the evidence and warnings from Alex.’ Even now he would not speak Penkovsky’s name aloud, though the world knew of it.

  ‘You know what I feel about that.’ Fincher held his ground.

  ‘There’re also the words of our latest catch.’

  ‘Five’s latest catch,’ Fincher corrected him, ‘and I wouldn’t put too much credence on him either.’

  In the end, it was decided that Keene alone should be invited in to discuss possible interrogations.

  As Keene was being summoned, so a signal was brought in from C’s office. Maitland-Wood read it quickly, not believing what he saw. The signal had come in an undetectable squirt of complex cipher, direct from the DCI, Washington. Decrypted it all but told C to call off any action against both Arnold Farthing and Naldo Railton. C’s own scrawl on the paper instructed BMW to keep the matter to himself until they could talk, later.

  It took Maitland-Wood a minute or so to compose himself, and when Keene came in, he asked, rather shakily some thought, if this master interrogator had read the diary. Keene said he had, his voice reflecting his thoughts which were soon to be aired.

  Like Fincher, Gus Keene quite simply told the Credit committee that he was unconvinced. ‘None of it rings true of the man we all worked with,’ he said. ‘This is not so much evidence as a false confession. The kind of thing the police are faced with every day. Only in Caspar Railton’s case, one would have to assume that there is a reason for it. Certainly I believe he met the people he claims to have met. That he sold out to them is another matter altogether. Yet there has to be a reason. I believe it’s this committee’s duty to investigate the reason rather than the assumed guilt. I, for one, cannot accept that Sir Caspar Railton would have blazed such an easy trail for us to follow had he been telling the truth under oath.’

  The argument went back and forth for some time. In the end, Gus Keene was asked to speak to James Railton, Alexander and Andrew Railton, and Dick Railton-Farthing. Their wives would probably require interviews also.

  Once more, to the committee’s surprise, Keene made another suggestion. He would prefer to speak to Caspar’s widow, Lady Phoebe, before he carried out any further questionings.

  Reluctantly the Credit committee gave its permission, with Maitland-Wood adding a rider. As the German, Kruger, had been a particular friend of, and was influenced by, the entire trio — Caspar, Naldo and Arnold — Keene should also, as he put it, have a dig around him.

  ‘There’d be no harm in it,’ Keene said with some diffidence.

  5

  The small enclosed square in Thun which contains the town hall, or Rathaus, had always seemed to Naldo to be like something out of a horror film. Not that there was anything sinister or horrible about it. Quite the contrary. The Rathausplatz is ‘quaint’. As Naldo’s father once said, ‘Quaint with a capital K.’

  At a little before noon, Naldo entered the square and once more marvelled at its quaintness. The streets leading into it were cobbled, as was the square itself. The Rathaus was just too good to be true, ultra-Swiss, with its cleanliness and pristine painted look, the shutters open and the signs of Christmas across its blank face. It was, Naldo now thought, its blankness that made it like some unreal chocolate-box painting. If there was anything sinister about the little platz, it was the castle which towered high above it.

  Standing among the cloistered arches which run opposite the Rathaus itself, Naldo looked up at the castle, realizing that, depending on weather or mood, it could either be straight out of Disneyland, or some unreal backdrop to an early Frankenstein movie.

  Today, though, Naldo did not smile for he, of all people, knew that here, in this unreal little square, he awaited his destiny. As his eyes moved slowly around the square, watching each point of entry for the contact to arrive, he was conscious of all that had led to this point.

  In the beginning there was Caspar’s funeral and the secret approach through Herbie. He recalled the Berlin meeting, with its attendant horrific truths revealed: Penkovsky, the magnificent hero of the Western intelligence community, the dream source, shown as an unreliable witness. A manipulator through which the West was saved from the holocaust of nuclear war, when, in reality, the holocaust would have been in the Soviet Union. Penkovsky, the man who had, at the end, fingered Naldo’s dear dead uncle as a traitor. Penkovsky who was executed, yet still magically lived on in luxury by the Black Sea. Penkovsky who could help clear the air.

  Then the full revelation of Caspar’s two diaries and his notes. For those who had eyes to see, the true treachery was clearly revealed, and Naldo, being a Railton, had seen the flaw, and felt the bacteria plunge into his own bloodstream. Time had to pass, so that he also could recover from the sickness and recuperate enough to fight the disease that had been spread, to the point of ruination, from within his family.

  He thought of Arnie’s place in all this, and hoped he was right in the deductions he had made. He thought of those he was leaving to face whatever music had been arranged for them. In particular he thought of Big Herbie.

  Two men, out of place, wrongly dressed and furtive, came into the square and loitered. Another pair, one of them a woman, came in, walked to the centre and took a photograph of the Rathaus, then the woman whirled around and snapped off three quick frames of Naldo, who stood quite still waiting.

  ‘Glad you made it, Nald.’ Arnie had materialized behind him, arriving with no sound, probably during the seconds Naldo was distracted by the photographer.

  ‘You knew I would, didn’t you?’

  Arnold moved in beside him, pointing up at the castle. ‘Wouldn’t like to serve any time in there,’ he said casually and both men laughed.

  As the laughter died, Arnold spoke very quickly. ‘They have no sound equipment on us, and I’m not wired. Well, I am, but it’s faulty. Trust me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They think they’ve been running me for the past five years,’ he said, his voice low, and the words coming out very fast. ‘I was put on a hook and they bit. The problem is that very few people back in the real world know it. The Blunt stuff made me panic and run, if you understand.’

  ‘Perfectly. I have more, Arn. A lot to tell you about Cas.’


  ‘Later. You have to be clued in, and there’s no time.’

  ‘You’ve been running me, right?’ Naldo almost smiled.

  ‘Astute, Railton. Most astute. Your crypto’s Beaver. You’ve given me a lot of stuff on the US bases in England, mainly security details and types of forces, names of squadrons and units stationed there. Everything you know about. You also gave me Fontana, Dredger and Matador.’

  ‘My, I’ve been busy.’ He was amazed by what Arnold had said. ‘You’re a close devil, Arn. I ran those ops, and knew your service was involved. I didn’t realize it was you personally.’

  Fontana, Dredger and Matador were all operations which looked as though they had been blown by a penetration agent. It was how they had to look, for they were interconnected and their success depended on the Russian and East German services thinking they had been disasters.

  Arnie smiled at him, making clear eye-contact. ‘Funny what you learn when you start browsing,’ he said. ‘Ready to get the bastard?’

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Who else? This is the only way I could get the pair of us near him. You ready?’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  They walked, comfortably, across the square, the four minders taking station, one walking point, another back-stopping, the remaining pair quite close behind Arnold Farthing and Naldo Railton.

  High, in a room overlooking the Rathausplatz, Clifton Farthing took a dozen more fast frames of film, freezing the departing convoy as it left. He turned to the other man who had been monitoring the long-range sound equipment, and nodded. The man walked over to a telephone and dialled a local number, then handed the instrument to Clifton.

  It rang four times before being picked up at the distant end. ‘Heartbreak is running,’ Clifton Farthing said into the mouthpiece.

  In Thun, the shops sparkled with Christmas treats, and Naldo wondered, for a second, how long it would take.

  He was not to know that this would be his last taste of the West for several years. When he returned, the world would have become a different, and even more dangerous, place.

  6

  A week later, out of habit more than any operational necessity, Big Herbie Kruger moved through the streets of London, observing all foreign rules: checking constantly that he walked alone. Eventually he found himself in Trafalgar Square. He entered the post office and asked at the poste restante desk if there was anything for Ferguson. ‘Peter Ferguson,’ he said and tried not to show surprise when they looked through the letters and told him yes. ‘From Switzerland, Mr Ferguson,’ the girl said, thinking this was an odd name for someone who spoke with Herbie’s accent.

  He had to show ID, which he always carried tucked away in the back of a wallet. Peter Ferguson’s driving licence.

  The letter burned a hole in his pocket all the way back to the Annexe. Then all the way back to the flat in St John’s Wood. There, behind his own locked door, Herbie opened Naldo’s ciphered letter, smiling — at the Mahler quote, then studying the rest of the message which seemed to be about how the correspondent, a Norman Ferguson — hence the signature ‘N’ — had bumped into their Aunt Jane in Lucerne a month earlier, and how well she looked. There followed a long description of how things were in Switzerland and when Norman expected to be home.

  Within ten minutes Herbie was unbuttoning the cipher, knowing that his face was looking more grey as each word was unfolded, for the true message read:

  IT IS POSSIBLE I SHALL BE MISSING FOR DAYS, MONTHS OR EVEN YEARS. TAKE NOTHING YOU HEAR ON FACE VALUE. BUT I THINK I SHALL BE IN MOSCOW WHERE I SHALL NEED SOME FORM OF COMMUNICATION. TRUST NOBODY BUT YOURSELF WITH THE MESSAGES, IF AND WHEN THEY COME. IT MIGHT BE A LONG TIME BUT PLEASE ARRANGE TO REOPEN BOX TWELVE AND HAVE IT CHECKED EVERY THREE WEEKS. IF MESSAGE ARRIVES ACT ON YOUR OWN INITIATIVE AND YOURS ALONE. DO NOT INVOLVE ANY OTHER MEMBER OF MY FAMILY AND ESPECIALLY NOBODY, REPEAT NOBODY, ON THE FIFTH FLOOR. NALDO.

  THIRTEEN

  1

  When Katherine Stear left the Secret Intelligence Service in 1961 nobody in either Personnel or on the fifth floor had any sinister plans for her. Kate Stear had come into the service in the 1930s as a trainee cipher clerk. Her file had been shunted around and, at one point, lost altogether, so it was almost by accident that, in 1940, they realized she was a fluent French speaker. So, early in 1942, having done the necessary courses at the Abbey and in Scotland, she worked two tours with SOE in France, before being badly blown.

  Always lucky, Stear was about to be taken in for a third time, when the compromise was discovered. Thereafter, she worked in Covert Ops (Planning), then, for several years in one of the shop’s cipher rooms. Towards the end of her official career, Kate did a bit of nursemaiding. In the early 1960s they offered her a nice little retirement stipend, looking after three London safe houses, but Stalks, as she was known to most people, said she had done enough.

  Early in her career some idle wrangler had pointed out that, if you used her initials K. L. — Katherine Louise — her name was an anagram of ‘Stalker’. From then on she was known as Stalks, and it was as Stalks that she took on the housekeeping job at Redhill Manor.

  Richard and Sara Railton-Farthing had advertised privately, through the service, for anyone with organizational experience and ability to take over the running of Redhill. Stalks was the ideal choice and she settled down happily, becoming almost one of the family in a matter of weeks. She had two assistants with no service connections but with some nursing experience. Both Richard and Sara planned well ahead, for they knew in the late autumn of their lives that Redhill would only continue as a family concern if they kept an eye on their future declining years. Deep in their hearts, they hoped that Naldo would eventually retire and take over the burden on behalf of the whole family.

  Stalks was twenty-two years of age when she first joined the service, five foot four in her stockinged feet, trim and, as one officer put it at the time, as tasty as a ripe melon. It was well known that she had been embroiled in a disastrous love affair with a young member of the service who had later been murdered by the SS in Austria. She never got over it, though there was talk of her carrying on a liaison with another, unnamed, senior officer. But, by the time she went to work at Redhill, she had become a plump, apple-cheeked, happy middle-aged lady.

  Stalks was a natural for Redhill, partly because she was a whiz at organization and liked hard work, and partly because she understood the family. She had experienced the strains and stresses on both sides of the counter, from the worry of making life or death decisions at distance, in the relative comfort of London, to the stomach-knotting, bursting terror of servicing dead-drops or handling difficult agents, and watching friends get taken by the opposition. There was an affinity between her and the entire Railton clan, so it was not unnatural that she felt that old deep sense of nervous indigestion once more when, in the first week of January 1965, she received a polite, though firm, invitation from Willis Maitland-Wood to visit the shop.

  ‘We would like you to come in next week, on the 10th, at around 11 a.m., but feel that you should make some other excuse to the family who employ you and hold from them the fact that you are going to talk with us.’ So BMW wrote, and it was this ‘excuse’ which brought back all the old fears. Willis was telling her to lie, which meant that Willis was into something unpleasant concerning the Railton family. She had a pretty good idea about where the unpleasantness lay, and she would rather not share it with the godhead on the fifth floor.

  Stalks loved most of the Railtons, and the Farthings she had so far met. There were exceptions of course, but she had, unquestionably, never liked BMW, and did not, therefore, take kindly to either his invitation or suggestion. Yet, from experience, she knew that life could become difficult if she did not comply. So she bit on the bullet of conscience, made the excuse, and travelled up to London on the agreed date, presenting herself at the shop just before 11 a.m.

  When she arrived at Maitland-Wood’s office a further surprise awaited her. Willis was
not alone.

  ‘Hello, Stalks, nice to see you again.’ Gus Keene sat in a corner chair reloading his pipe.

  ‘Well, to what do I owe this honour? C’s food taster and the Grand Inquisitor himself?’ Her voice was cheerful enough, but she felt her heart banging at her ribs, and the unpleasant taste of bile in the back of her throat.

  ‘Sit you down, Stalks. Glad you could make it.’ Willis MW was full of friendly zest. Too friendly, she considered.

  ‘You commanded it, Willis, and I obeyed.’ She sat, gathering her Windsmoor coat around her and placing the handbag — black leather, a Christmas gift from Richard and Sara — beside the chair. Keene was doing something noisy with his pipe, sucking in hard with a box of Swan Vesta matches laid across the bowl.

  How’re the folks who live on the hill?’ Keene asked with a chuckle.

  ‘Bearing up, considering the kind of Christmas they subjected themselves to.’ If he was going to be frivolous, then she could be equally so, and would match him.

  ‘And what sort of Christmas was that?’ Keene had got the pipe going now, and he leaned back in his chair. A man ready for a good gossip. Willis, while still present, seemed to have disappeared into the wallpaper. Stalks remembered that he was uncharacteristically good at that trick.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Railton-Farthing take too much on at Christmas.’ She looked at the ceiling. Someone had once told her not to look interrogators in the eye all the time. If you did they inevitably thought you were lying. ‘They have this damned silly family tradition. Everyone has to be at court for the Christmas celebrations, and they do themselves proud. But it’s too much for them these days. Gets out of control; every family has its little ups and downs, most especially if they all get together for the winter solstice. Full house, Christmas dinner, with everyone done up to the nines, long gowns and penguin suits; a tree and presents ceremony. They all arrive and behave like children. That is when some are not behaving like pigs.’