by John Gardner
‘I remember we always stopped in Poitiers, on our journeys back to Paris. We used to eat in the same little restaurant. We stopped only for dinner, before catching the next train to Paris, and a fellow called … oh, what was his name …?’
‘No, I’m talking about the bust-up we had with your mother, Naldo. On the train we would always plan our menu, what we would eat at the St Hilaire …’
That was it, Naldo thought. He could even name the little restaurant. Could he not name the man?
‘… We had eaten a very large lunch, on the train as I recall it. But the two of us said we wanted to start with that magnificent soup they served there, thick and full of vegetables. We always ate the pork chops. Chops the size of plates —’
‘Whenever we were there,’ Naldo interjected, ‘every time we broke for dinner there, a fellow came in, was it Jean something?’
‘Jean Brissault,’ James supplied it as though throwing the name away. ‘I don’t think Jean came in every time we stopped there. It’s your memory, Naldo. From childhood we always remember long hot summers and cold snowbound winters. The Christmases of our childhood are always white. The memory is selective. But this time, do you recall, your mother put a veto on the soup.’ He began to laugh. ‘She said we’d never finish the pork chops if we had the soup. We stuck to our guns, and had the soup, and your mother was right. We smuggled most of the chops out in our handkerchiefs. Oh, my, but your mother was cross.’
Naldo had a vague memory of the incident. What he had plainly fixed in his mind was the man called Jean Brissault. ‘I wonder whatever happened to Jean?’ he seemed to muse aloud.
‘Long gone, I should imagine. Now he was much older than you, almost my age. He’ll be in his box by now, Naldo.’
‘And Lena Legarto, in Milan?’
‘Who?’
‘Lena. Pretty, dark girl. Now she was about my age, because I fancied her something rotten as a teenager. But she only had eyes for you, Pa. Every time we went to Milan we used to bump into her in that huge arcade near the Duomo. I used to think that she sought you out. Lena Legarto.’
James shook his head. ‘No. Your memory’s better than mine, Naldo. But you would remember a pretty girl from years back. Come, let’s ask your mother.’
They went through into the small room they insisted on calling the drawing room. It was filled with James’s memories: framed photographs of him as a young man, standing in front of fragile flying machines with Dick; one of him soon after the war with Mansfield-Cumming, the first CSS. ‘Look at old C,’ he would say. ‘Old fraud that he was. After he lost his leg in that car accident they put it about that he had cut the trapped leg away with a penknife to get to his dying son. Not so, but it added to the mystique, the legend. Old Caspar told me the story first, and I believed it for a long time.’
There were other things, a framed coded cable from the Second World War; medals that really should not have been on display, for they were awarded in secret. The Americans called them jockstrap medals. A letter from Churchill. A photograph of the famous Yalta conference showing Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. On the sidelines, James stood with other men in civilian clothes, his face partly obscured by shadow, as though he was deliberately trying to hide his features.
‘Your son has a prodigious memory, my dear.’ James threw a crisp clean smile in the direction of his wife. ‘Says we always ran into some chit of a girl when we passed through Milan. Name of … what did you say, Naldo?’
‘Lena,’ he sounded bored now. ‘Lena Legarto. You always stopped to talk to her, Pa. I used to walk on with Ma, feeling very jealous.’
Margaret Mary shook her head slowly, brow creased. ‘I can’t recall it, or the girl. We didn’t go to Milan that often, did we?’ It was as though she was closing the topic of conversation.
They discussed trivia for an hour or so, James constantly pretending to be in the sulks with Naldo, because his son would not talk about Russia.
Back home, Naldo asked how Barbara had felt about them. ‘Amazing,’ she replied. ‘You’d never think they were in their eighties. So bloody agile, physically and mentally. I feel decrepit next to them.’
During the first week of November, visiting Gus at Warminster, Naldo heard that the Credit committee had reversed their decision. Caspar was completely exonerated.
The one thing Naldo could never forgive was the fact that no official statement was made, and there was no hint of apology. He asked Gus to get the original documents back for him. ‘They are family papers, after all, and valuable,’ he told the Grand Inquisitor.
A week later, the papers arrived at the Kensington Gore house by special messenger. Naldo took the first page from the letter of instructions, and carried it out to Maida Vale; to a stooped old man called Hammerstein. His friends called him ‘Oscar’, though he admitted no kinship to the librettist. Closer friends knew him as ‘Handy’. Handy Hammerstein had spent various segments of his life in jail, but people like Naldo accepted him for what he was: one of the world’s greatest forgers.
‘Naldo, come in, come in, why I not seen you so long? Come.’ The old forger was thinner than Tubby Fincher, and his stoop, caused by long hours of extraordinary penmanship, often in bad light, made him look like a walking question mark. His home was small but neat and clean. ‘Clean as a nun’s knickers,’ the old man would say with a dry laugh. His granddaughter lived with him, looked after the house, cooked and slaved for him. She had lost her husband in warfare somewhere in the Middle East, and had taken a vow of chastity, determined to tend her grandfather to the grave.
Naldo was always very formal with Handy, who, in his time, had done excellent pieces of work for the service, between his letters from Napoleon to Josephine and many other ladies, scribbled notes from Lord Nelson, and beautifully penned memos from Disraeli. This work had earned him a fortune at Sothebys and Christies.
The grandchild, a woman in her middle thirties, brought them tea and sweet biscuits, moving silently and clucking over an imagined speck of dust on the mantel.
‘Naldo, is good to see you. What you want, eh? A certificate for some painting or what?’ He gave his dry laugh again, winked and laid a finger alongside his nose. Hammerstein had built his own legend with gestures and mannerisms, rather as Big Herbie had built his on malapropisms and a general mutilation of the English language.
Naldo opened his briefcase, and drew out the single sheet of typewritten paper, covered in clear plastic. He handed it to the forger whose expertise he would back against a dozen forensic document specialists any day. ‘Handy, I want to know if any of that first line could have been added at a later date. It looks OK to me, but there is room, and I need to know.’
Hammerstein took the paper to his table, set in the bay of a window, and pulled an angled, lighted magnifying glass over it. A few seconds later he gave a little cry, which could be taken as ‘Eureka’, or a howl of anguish. ‘You need the truth on this, Naldo. Truth given without prejudice?’
‘Nothing matters but the truth, Handy.’
‘Is mine.’ The old man turned. ‘Is my work. I do this, Naldo. You set me up, huh?’
‘No, it’s OK. I’ll pay you a fee. All I need to know is who asked you to do it?’
‘Cost you, Naldo.’
‘So it costs me. Who?’
Hammerstein told him, and Naldo should not have been surprised; but, like a man waiting a long time to hear of a death, he was shocked. However well prepared you are, death always comes as a huge blow to the heart.
‘Nobody make trouble, Nald, eh?’
‘Don’t give it another thought.’ He had come with a large amount of cash on him. Naldo had never in his life paid Handy by cheque. In his eyes that was good tradecraft. When he got home he sat down alone and wept.
3
On the first Thursday of December, Naldo woke feeling deeply depressed. Barbara, once more attuned to his moods, asked if he was unwell.
‘Depressed for some stupid reason.’ Naldo’s brow cr
eased. There were many reasons for him to feel depression, but not as leaden and heavy as this. ‘Don’t know why.’ He kissed her, like a child wanting affection from a mother.
‘You really don’t know why?’ Barbara cradled him in her arms. ‘Look at the date, my darling,’ and it came to him — it was the anniversary of Caspar’s death. Eight years ago, the old man had gone out like a light, and his nephew still mourned him.
‘You loved Caspar more than any of us,’ Barbara said in an almost matter-of-fact way.
‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s inexplicable.’
‘It’s very understandable. The children know, and so do I. You’ve nothing to apologize for. Men sometimes have relationships with other men that are more binding than with wives, children — anybody. I mean straight relationships, of course. There was nothing more binding and close than your attachment to Caspar. You loved him, Nald. I sometimes think you loved him more than Phoebe did, which is saying a great deal.’
Naldo planned to drive them both to Redhill that day. ‘Drop in unexpectedly. It’s the kind of thing Sara and hick would like,’ he said.
But, as they made preparations, the telephone rang. It was Willis Maitland-Wood and he sounded cock-a-hoop. ‘The chief’s compliments,’ he said. ‘Would you step over to his office?’
‘Don’t you mean could I step over?’ They had long since removed the scrambling devices, and BMW or C had no true jurisdiction over his life, but he knew instinctively this was important.
‘It’s in your interest, Naldo. Soon as you can make it. They’ll give you a special pass.’
They were all gathered together in C’s office: BMW, Tubby Fincher and, of all people, cousin Alexander who looked more like a jockey than ever. Like many tall men, Naldo did not take to other members of his sex who were short of stature; particularly one of his own family, for the males were normally very long-boned.
Sitting close to C’s desk was a distinguished-looking man, whose appearance screamed the word ‘lawyer’. He wore the old-fashioned uniform of the profession, striped trousers and a black jacket. His face was round but very smooth, as though he shaved twice daily, and his silver hair was swept back, thick and well groomed. He gazed at Naldo through thick spectacles set into gold wire frames, and he rose as they were introduced by C.
‘Donald Railton: Mr Leo Morris, your late Uncle Caspar’s solicitor.’
The handshake was, Naldo noted, very firm.
C spoke again as Morris lowered himself back into his chair. ‘You’re not going to like this, I fear. Mr Morris should give you the facts first.’
Leo Morris’s voice was calm, controlled and gentle. ‘As you know,’ he began, ‘I acted for your late uncle, who was, to say the least, slightly eccentric in his habits.’
Naldo nodded, and waited for the blow he knew would come as Morris continued. ‘On the day after Sir Caspar’s death, I received a letter from him. It had, I think, been posted on the very day he died, so my receiving it the day after his death was a minor miracle.’ The smile was pleasant, as though he knew the small joke was minute. ‘There was a letter inside a long manilla envelope, marked for myself, personal and private, and another letter, which you will see in a moment.’
Naldo felt that BMW was smiling as though in victory. ‘Sir Caspar instructed me to keep the enclosed letter safe, and under seal, until the eighth anniversary of his death.’ Morris looked straight at Naldo. He was telling the same story twice. ‘On that anniversary, he instructed me to bring the sealed letter and place it personally into the hands of the CSS, who would almost certainly understand its contents. I understand your father should also be present, but the CSS tells me he has a slight chill and cannot leave his house. The CSS, I gather, has already passed on the contents of this letter to him.’ He made a little bowing movement towards C, as though he was a judge.
The chief of service handed two pieces of heavy paper to Naldo. Both sheets were letter-size, around five inches by eight, and the top page bore the printed address of Eccleston Square. The letter was typed.
Dear C,
Forgive me for not addressing you by name, but I shall have been eight years gone by the time you read this, and you might well not be the C I knew at the time of my death.
Nevertheless, you will, I am certain, be familiar with my case, for my cousin, James Railton, will almost certainly have been through flood and fire on my behalf. After all, I instructed him to do certain things. For all I know, he might even, if he is alive, be in jail, for I set some very small traps which could just have pointed to him being a Soviet penetration agent. Whether he had the shrewdness to follow my devious plotting, I shall never know. If he did, then it is possible nothing at all has come out. If he did not, then others might well have picked up what he missed. I know we harbour such idiots in the trade. If anyone has been foolish enough to fall for innuendo then this is to clear James’s name. There was no reason for me to point fingers elsewhere, for James has always been a good and loyal friend and cousin. But one has to do something to cover tracks, and I am aware, at the moment I write this, that I am under some form of investigation.
I trust that, by now, my diaries will have been discovered, together with my letter to James, and the papers I coded Bogeyman. This letter is to give the posthumous lie to my truth, if you follow me.
What I mean by this is that the diary written as the Diary of Truth, is, in fact, the Diary of Lies, and vice versa. Since Tuesday 5 August 1939 I have, sporadically, and later consistently, worked for various intelligence departments of the Soviet Union. During wartime I provided them with military information denied to them by our own military. In peace I gave them information of various kinds. What I gave them is KGB operational knowledge, and I shall not detail it here.
I worked without interconsciousness with any other deep penetration agents. I was not known to them, and they did not have the benefit of knowing me. Also, on one occasion, I was instructed to betray an NKVD source within my own family.
Here the page break took the letter to a matching sheet with no printed address. Unconsciously, Naldo recognized the paper from countless letters and notes he had received from his uncle.
‘There are no regrets,’ the letter continued.
I have long believed that when the time is right, one should grasp it. I did just that, and if God exists he will allow me to look down and smile on you now. Farewell, a long farewell, and the rest of that Shakespearean tag.
Sincerely,
Caspar Railton
Naldo read the letter twice, his mind numb. Of one thing he was certain. The signature was genuine. He needed no graphologist, or even his most reliable Handy Hammerstein to tell him that. He looked around the room and quietly said that this was impossible. ‘If you believe this, then you’ll believe anything. If I have to spend my whole life disproving this idiocy, then I’ll do it.’ His voice was filled with worm-wood and gall.
It was the lawyer, Leo Morris, who came to his side. ‘I do assure you, this came from Caspar, and you can see it is his signature. There can be no doubt.’
‘I admit to the signature. As for the content, it is lunatic. So there is my doubt.’ Naldo’s voice went out of control. ‘And while I doubt, I shall …’ he trailed off. Indeed, what could he do? Nothing. What he had been about to say would have sounded cheap and melodramatic. Forget it, he thought. Forget the whole bloody business. Just let the whole of his rotten family rest in peace.
By the time he reached the street, he knew there was no way in which he could leave things as they were. With great reluctance, Naldo had gathered a whole case against his own father, James. He had been ready to commit a kind of mental patricide. Now, he had to see it through to the end. If he was wrong, then so be it.
TWENTY-FIVE
1
Naldo arrived back in the Kensington house like a whirlwind. Barbara took in the shocked, grey look of his face, and the bleak fury in his eyes. He kissed her, then made signals from their other life in Moscow —
touching his ear, circling the air with a finger, pointing at the telephone and light fitments. She could almost smell the stale cabbage, the sour odour of that ghastly flat opposite Factory No. 2. She even shivered with cold, though the winter had yet to set in.
‘Was it important, darling?’ She fed him for the tapes, if there were tapes.
‘Caspar,’ he said. ‘Caspar left a letter …’ He went on, into the facts that were true but could not be true, and she knew her own expression was one of disbelief, the look of someone who has just been struck by bullet, cosh, stroke or some other sudden, near-fatal, disaster. She heard herself speaking, but the words had little meaning — ‘Oh, Nald, no! How? Why? I don’t believe it.’
As she said it, so Naldo was writing fast, on the telephone pad. ‘Meet you in the gardens. Ten minutes.’ Aloud he said he wanted to rest; to think; to lie down. Then silence as he slipped out of the front door.
Ten minutes later they were both in Kensington Gardens, walking arm in arm past the Peter Pan statue, and the smattering of Norland nannies, with their charges, the rich tots. Every year there were fewer of them. The uniforms had started to disappear, yet these were scenes that allowed the left-wing socialists still to claim a great class division in Britain, Naldo thought. Them and us had really gone, the old aristocracy was fading like a slow dissolve in a movie. The trade unions had won their battles, yet they still fought them, and fomented hatred on picket line and factory floor. They did not understand the rewards for responsibility, any more than they understood the other side of wealth. All they wanted was what they called a fair distribution of money, with no thought of hours spent toiling, or weekends lost to hard graft, management who had to labour hours the union leaders would never tolerate. The sight of a Rolls-Royce, and even a Norland nanny, made them see red and sing the Internationale.
But, as Barbara and Naldo walked, they spoke of other things — Naldo of the course of action they must take to dig for the truth. Play spy on the spies, he said. Go out into the streets and create their own network. Bring the buggers to book.