by John Gardner
‘Caspar Railton’s denunciation by this committee is understandable. You had copies of one diary, covering those years during the 1930s when Sir Caspar was living out of the discipline of the service. I fear the diary you read is a fake —’
‘Absolute nonsense —’ Belper began.
Naldo continued to speak, using the actor’s trick of dropping his voice, hands by his sides, using no gestures, never once stooping to histrionics which could later return and haunt him. ‘A fake,’ he repeated. ‘For Caspar did see everyone he claims to have seen in that diary; his movements were the movements he made. Meetings; journeys; conversations. They all took place. But he kept two diaries. One a fake, intended to mislead and, possibly, condemn him. The other, the true diary, his own reality, will show that all the events so neatly itemized in Diary One, the fake, take on a new and significant meaning in the true diary — Diary Two.’
He went on to suggest that they should subject the originals to stringent forensic tests; to get every piece of expert advice on paper-dating and machines used for typing. ‘You’re going to need it,’ he told them, hinting that they would almost certainly find the true, and original, diary was written while the events were happening in the 1930s, and typed from notes made in the field.
‘My Uncle Caspar had a sense of humour.’ He did not smile or allow his manner to show frivolity. ‘He was also possessed with a great sense of honour to the service, together with an almost overpowering love of country and the monarchy. He grew up with these attributes which, as we all know to our cost, are not much in vogue here in Britain these days.’
He went on to explain that the sense of humour was displayed in the diary they had already examined: the fake diary; the diary that was written in the early 1960s, almost thirty years after the events; written when Caspar knew his time was running out.
‘I trust you’re going to discover that Caspar’s devotion to his country went as far as attempting to penetrate the Soviet intelligence services. By the time the Second World War broke out, he had already obtained the blueprint for what was then Stalin’s plan for all Europe.’ He paused again, as his eyes roamed the room, and, in the back of his head, he thought of the real treason. Lowering his voice again, he continued, ‘In more subtle ways, that is probably still the Soviet plan. I leave you to judge.’
Then Naldo put the boot in. ‘There are people still close to the service, still living, who helped pour water on Caspar’s private secret work. Certainly the truth, bought by my uncle, and paid for with his reputation, was never believed. So his little joke was to leave spurious evidence. He can smile happily now, because I am revealing his practical joke.’ Naldo smiled at them, each in turn, as though inviting them to share the jest of dead Caspar.
‘I hope that, when you have reached your final conclusions, based on the true facts, I shall be informed. I shall also be out of the service by then. I am now going to hand out the documents, then leave you in peace while I tender my own resignation to C.’
He passed down the table, placing a photostated bundle in front of each member of the committee. Every pile of papers contained both diaries and the first covering letter in which Caspar had given his detailed instructions, and the résumé of what he had done. As he went, Naldo thought of The Wind in the Willows, and the moment where the Rat makes piles of accoutrements, in readiness for the attack on the Wild Wooders in Toad Hall. ‘Here’s-a-belt-for-the-Rat, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Badger, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Mole!’ BMW was classed as the Rat; but who the Mole?
At last, he placed the copies in front of Maitland-Wood, and added to them the original true diaries. In silence he walked to the door. The air somehow felt cleaner on the other side.
2
C reminded Naldo Railton of the deal that had been done with the Soviets. ‘No releases to the press; no public affirmation of any kind regarding the exchange of Andrew for a matter of five years. I feel it should probably be longer,’ he said. ‘However, that will depend on the Soviets — whether they wish to make capital out of it or not.’
He was also clear about what he called the ‘limitations of your release from the Secret Intelligence Service’. Gus Keene had to give him a clean bill of health; and, once gone, Naldo would remain under the disciplines which are normal to the intelligence and security services: namely, that he should never disclose anything he had seen, learned about, or taken part in while a member of the service.
‘You can take all that as read, sir. There is one request — for old time’s sake; not for anything devious.’
‘Well?’ The CSS had met with too many requests termed not to be devious. His mind hovered on the poisoned chalice of suspicion.
‘A stroll down memory lane, sir.’
‘Registry?’
Naldo nodded. Just a gentle tour down all my days. Mine, my Uncle Caspar’s, my father’s even.’
C coughed, ‘Take you 1,001 nights.’
‘Week, sir. Ten days tops.’
C gave a jerk of his head. ‘No notes. Search on going in and coming out. No current files. Nothing running now. Nothing Cosmic. All right for you?’
‘Generous, sir. Thank you.’
With these provisos agreed, the chief asked, ‘What shall you do, Donald?’ He hated the diminutive used by everybody, including himself.
‘There’s some family money. My pension’ll be forfeit, I know. But, between us, Barbara and I should have plenty. I shall probably leave this septic island and live in the United States.’
C did not approve of the Shakespearean misquote, and glared Naldo out of his office. Gus drove him back to Warminster, said he would make arrangements to see him, maybe once or twice a week, ‘To finish the debrief’. Apart from that, as long as they kept their heads down, there was no reason why they should not return to the house off Kensington Gore.
‘Before we get back to what you charmingly call the debrief, Gus …’
‘Yes?’ Gus did not snap back, but some sense told Naldo there were suspicions lurking around in the inquisitor’s mind.
‘Just a couple of things. Family matters. Real family matters. My family.’
‘Mmmm?’ Again the sound was edged with caution.
‘You ever break my revolting little cousin, Alexander?’
Keene sighed, and admitted failure. ‘His prints were all over that house,’ he said. ‘But he gave no explanation. Swore he hadn’t been near.’ Then, after a long pause, ‘You know they’re taking him back?’
‘Jesus, what’s it coming to, Gus? He’s about as reliable as a whore in a monastery.’
‘The positive vetting cleared him.’
‘You cleared him?’
‘I pointed out that no satisfactory answers had been given regarding the Eccleston Square house.’
‘And what did the vetting committee say to that?’
‘Irrelevant. It was a Railton property; he had every right to go in, and to remain silent about it. I pointed out the devious nature of the deed. They went on saying it was a reasonable risk. Your cousin’s very good at his job. They need men like him.’
‘In spite of his brother’s treason? Not to mention the findings of the Credit committee.’
‘No, probably because of it. Their argument is that Andrew’s folly more or less cleared up everything else.’
‘They didn’t take the view that my family’s history is eaten through with maggots? One rotten apple? That kind of stuff?’
‘Didn’t even touch on it. Anyway, it’s not your business now, Naldo. In a week or two you’ll have no need-to-know. You’ll be out.’
There was a long pause, during which Gus negotiated a pair of narrow S-bends. They were returning by the scenic route, and England was looking at its best. Naldo loved the autumn, the trees turning to the golds and browns of the year’s death. Smoke drifted from fields and gardens. A time of melancholy, and a time of hope. In autumn, Naldo thought, the death of the year was signalled by great beauty, hinting at
rebirth.
‘Mrs Ross?’ he queried.
‘What about the unpleasant Mrs Ross?’
Was Gus suddenly on his guard again?
‘I’ve met Mrs Ross in another life, haven’t I, Gus?’
‘I wouldn’t know. Have you?’
‘I think so. I met her several times in my youth. When she was Alice Pritchard. I was a growing boy, Gus. Parents often think children don’t know their special secrets. I don’t think my mother ever knew about Alice Pritchard, but she was young and pretty. Much younger than my father. She worked in the shop then, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was hinted at during the trial.’
‘Could’ve made nasty headlines.’
‘But it didn’t.’
So, a deal was struck, Naldo thought. Back across the years he saw himself watching his father fondle Alice Pritchard’s hand for a second. He was being taken to the theatre in the school holidays, and was to meet the old man — as he always called him — outside one of the bland government buildings which housed some department of the secret trade. James had told him to wait outside for him, and he saw the looks, the fondling of the hand and a final, loving caress, as his father touched her shoulder.
‘Best my mother never finds out.’ Naldo seemed to be giving Gus a warning.
That night, while Naldo was dining with Barbara, Gus gathered his special cabal around him: Carole, his wife, and Martin Brook. ‘He’s resigning, but still into a personal vendetta.’ Gus told them. ‘It’s family business; but it’s our kind of family as well. We know there’s at least one more high-powered source. I think it might well be that Naldo’ll lead us there. I don’t want round-the-clock watchers on him, because he’d spot them at two miles. In this we have to be discreet, so let him take us there very gently.’ Carole was instructed to follow up on what Gus was certain would be a paper-chase through registry. ‘Just see what files he pulls, and how he cross-indexes them. Use someone he doesn’t know. Plonk your own mole into Registry, doing research for some classified pamphlet, eh?’
‘A doddle.’ Carole nodded. ‘I’ve got just the girl to take care of that.’
For the time being Naldo and Barbara remained in the guest suite at Warminster with Naldo slipping away for a couple of days at a time to the Registry, where he collected names and cross-indexes, shuffled through red-flagged files and old cases. He read for ten hours at a stretch sometimes, flipping from file to file and back again. As agreed, he made no notes while doing the work. But, in the evening, back at Warminster he copied things into a little cheap notebook, for he always returned with his head stuffed full of solid fact — names, cities, old operations. But mainly names that came rising from very old files. And so he prepared for his final days within the world of secrets, which also harboured more obvious facts, together with a disillusionment that seemed so heavy that he thought his bones might break with the weariness of it.
They left the confines of Warminster at the end of October, and, on the night of their return, went to dine with his parents, James and Margaret Mary, at the pleasant town house in King Street, a family property that had once belonged to old Caspar’s own father. There were no other guests, but the elderly couple had learned to manage by themselves in spite of encroaching age. Margaret Mary had prepared a quite lavish dinner, and Naldo expressed surprise at the smoked salmon mousse, rack of lamb, and the almost sickly, but delicious, pudding that had been a childhood favourite — a lime jelly studded with banana slices and filled with double cream, whipped with bananas.
‘What else have I to do, my dear? Anyway, we seem to entertain more than ever these days.’ His mother’s smile removed any signs of her years. To Naldo her face was that of the woman who had so cared for him as a child. Again, his mind went back to the days of his youth and childhood. He saw her at the piano, playing with immense style and effortlessness, so that, in the present, the sounds became jumbled in his head, a whole montage of Brahms, Chopin, Lizt, and other fashionable composers, clashed with popular songs of the day: ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’ and a hundred more that he and his now religious sister had frolicked to as tiny children.
‘I can tell you that growing old’s not the greatest thing about life.’ His mother was still speaking. ‘But you have to make the best of it. We have and we do.’
‘Well, neither of you look or behave like elderly people, that’s for sure,’ Barbara said. She meant it, for James could be taken for a man in his late sixties instead of early eighties: still a fine, handsome man, alert and amusing in conversation. When they arrived he had told them of his first flight in Concorde, during the spring. He spoke with the excitement of a young man. Margaret Mary had been with him, of course, but James’s passion had always been aircraft. After all, he had met Dick Railton-Farthing as a young man and persuaded him into letting him fly an early Maurice Farman aeroplane, a day which had ended in near disaster, but also in future pleasure. It was Dick who had taught the young James to fly, and James’s passion had prophesied what would eventually happen, for he had informed the very first Chief of Service that future intelligence operations would rely on flying machines. In his life, James Railton had witnessed the whole panorama, from the wood and string planes before the First World War to the satellites that were now starting to lift intelligence from the air. He went on for a good while about the Concorde flight before turning to his wife and saying, lamely, ‘You enjoyed it as well, dear, didn’t you?’
She gave a twinkling smile, and said he knew very well that she loathed flying, just as much as he adored it.
‘So what was Russia really like, Nald?’ his father asked over the dinner table.
‘Sour; boring; paranoid, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’
‘You’re an odd one. I’d have given my right arm to have avoided my own incarceration during the First World War.’
Naldo smiled. ‘But you didn’t get a chance to do something quite special.’
‘Oh? Tell us. What —?’ But Naldo shut him off with a wink and a quick shake of the head. It did not stop James from returning to the question when the ladies went into the drawing room.
‘Russia, now we’re alone?’ James looked clear-eyed at his son. ‘Someone told me you actually worked in Dzerzhinsky Square. True?’
‘Who told you that?’
James gave a sly smile. ‘They all come and see me, old son.’ The charm, ever-present, twinkled in his eyes like beacons. ‘I might have retired, but I keep abreast of things.’
‘Sorry, Pa. No deal. I don’t talk about it, and I won’t talk about it.’
‘But it’s family.’
‘That’s why I won’t talk, Pa. You know why I’ll keep quiet. It’s in the contract.’
‘My contract as well.’ His father lit a cigar and passed the brandy across the table.
‘A good, sound contract.’ Naldo poured himself a drink.
‘What’s this I hear about that damned Credit committee opening their bloody investigation again?’
‘I wouldn’t know. All I’ll tell you is that I think Caspar’s going to be cleared.’
‘That all came out of the job I passed on to you, didn’t it?’ James was in a pressing mood. ‘Everything stemmed from that.’
‘I did as you were instructed, Pa. It was a job left for you. I did it. It’s over now. You surely never believed all that rubbish about Caspar?’
‘Not for a moment. But I was out of the picture.’
‘And out of the frame,’ his son wanted to say. In one of those revelations that seemed of late to flash without warning through his mind, he saw the whole scene of their conversation in the Reform Club, when James had first talked of Caspar’s wishes, so long ago now. He also saw behind the words and actions of that evening, and wondered what would have happened had James carried out Caspar’s wishes. Another thought trailed through his head, ragged as barbed wire. He saw the salutation at the beginning of that
letter, and realized how someone had already tampered with it. Would the forensic boys detect that, he wondered?
Naldo looked his father full in the face, then allowed his eyes to focus on the wall behind him. Directly over James’s left shoulder was a painting of Berlin between the wars. The Unter den Linden in spring with the blossom making the trees look as though they were shimmering in the warmth of the afternoon sun. ‘Remember when we were last there together?’ he nodded towards the picture.
‘Around ’38, or was it ’37?’ James shifted in his chair to look back at the painting. ‘I picked that up for a song at the end of the war.’
‘It was 1936 to be exact.’ Naldo relaxed, poured brandy for himself and waited, expecting a flood of memories to come from his father.
‘Changed, hasn’t it?’ was all the old man said.
‘I guess it has, but I don’t really know. That’s in the East now. I haven’t been in the Unter den Linden since soon after the war, when we were chasing about over there. I’ve often seen it from the other side of the Brandenburg Gate, but never walked down it. Have you, Pa?’
His father seemed lost in thought, and replied as though he had not heard the last question, his fingers curling around the bowl of the brandy glass. ‘It was ’36, yes. Yes, you’re right.’
‘On our last night there together, you met a guy you always saw in Berlin. Hans Schnaffel. Remember Hans?’ Naldo seemed to be humouring him.
‘Hans, yes. Yes, I remember him. Young. About your age — a little older — at the time.’
‘You saw him every time we went to Berlin.’
‘Good times, those.’ James drew on his cigar. ‘Naldo, you remember that time when we got into terrible trouble with your mother, in Poitiers?’