by John Gardner
‘Coincidence then. Funny thing, coincidence. Was it coincidence that brought Alexander back later?’
‘When he left his fingerprints all over the place? I doubt it. He never did come clean on that, did he, Gus?’
‘Denied it again and again. But he was there?’
‘No doubt. He tripped all my little traps, and I thought it was BMW’s boys.’
‘Why? I mean why did Alex go back?’
‘Maybe to check I’d taken everything. That would’ve been on James’s orders. Or he might well have wanted to be sure he’d left nothing incriminating behind. By the time he returned nobody had mentioned his visit on the day of Caspar’s death. Who knows —’
The telephone rang.
Outside, it was growing dark, and freezing hard. Naldo thought of the green house in Berlin. Looking out of the window to see the snow falling, while Arnie Farthing gave him due warning that Caspar’s name was on the shit list, and the rest of his family would follow pretty soon.
‘He’s on his way,’ Gus Keene said. ‘We’ve got about an hour and a half. They’re bringing a car for you and Herb in one hour.’
Naldo turned his head, and Barbara bent to kiss him, lovingly. ‘I’m so bloody proud of you,’ she whispered.
‘Proud?’ he said. ‘Proud because I’ve done my uncle’s dirty work for him? The sooner we all get out of this fucking country; out of Europe; away from the lies; then the better it will be for me.’
‘Oh, Naldo —’
‘No! I belong to a family who, down its secret generations, has committed every capital sin in the book, and, while I would never work for the Sovs, I believe a lot of them were right not to work for England. We live in a little, tight, bright island, where everything has to be done in bloody triplicate. You been into a public lavatory lately? It’s like being in a prison. Nobody cares, really cares any more — the Labour Party rabble, or the Conservative shits. They just don’t care. We ceased to be a great nation years ago, yet we still pretend. Rule Bloody Britannia; Britons never never shall be slaves; wider still and wider. We have to forget our one-time greatness before we can begin to atone.’
‘Naldo.’ Gus laid a hand on his shoulder, having come around the table during the outburst. ‘Naldo, you’re angry. It’s natural. You feel injustice.’ He turned his head to Barbara. ‘Coffee, I think.’ Then, to Naldo, ‘Just a little way to go now, Nald.’
Big Herbie Kruger sat, hunched in a chair, his huge shoulders shaking, hands over his face to hide the tears. Herb had loved them all: Caspar, James, Arnie Farthing, Naldo.
‘What else you fucking want to know, Gus, so that you can flay my old dad? Isn’t it enough that I’ve done what my saintly — and I mean saintly — uncle couldn’t do? You want me to provide iron for the branding, leather for the whips? What?’
‘Just when you first suspected.’
A long silence draped the room. It seemed to Naldo that he was speaking from a distance. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ve known since he played soldiers with me. Maybe since he sat up with me all night when I was ill. Maybe since he read me to sleep with Treasure Island. I don’t know. I know I suspected him, but, Oh Christ …’ The tears came now, and he shook. Even Gus had turned white, his hands locked together, fingers laced.
‘Oh, dear sweet Jesus,’ Naldo sobbed. ‘I knew from childhood that it wasn’t right. Then I put it down to his job. Gus, you should have known him really well. You couldn’t love him like Caspar, but I can never forget — picnics, outings, learning to shoot and fish, learning to drive, listening to him and Ma play the piano. Hearing him quote Shakespeare. He was better at that than anyone in the family.’
Then he seemed to pull himself together, and reeled off a series of facts. ‘C let me into the Registry. I asked for it. Asked to take a stroll through the past. I wanted to take a stroll through James’s past, and I found it all.’ He had picked three names — three from many locked in childhood and adolescent memory. ‘There was this guy called Jean Brissault. We used to meet him, almost regularly, in Poitiers on holiday; and another when we were in Berlin, Hans Schnaffel. And a girl used to bump into us, every time we visited Milan. Lena. Lena Legarto. The old man said he could hardly remember any of them. He’d forgotten the Italian girl completely, he said.’
Naldo had toiled in Registry, followed trails and cross-references. ‘It was all there. Brissault was caught by the French in the fifties. Tried and shot — they don’t fuck about in France. Long-term. Soviet, of course. They even found a tiny lead with James at the end. I think someone from your lot spent an afternoon with him, Gus. But he walked away. The German was the same. They never caught dear old Hans, and he ended up happy as Larry in Moscow.’
‘And Lena?’
‘The Italian bitch. Still at it. They know. She’s worked in Rome, since the war. An old lady now, but she goes into the office three times a week. They drew her sting, even though she made PR to the head of bloody Puccini-singing counter-espionage. All they did was shuffle her sideways and cut off the material. If she hears about this, it’ll be the last act of Tosca, won’t it.’
‘That’s all in the files, is it?’
‘Oh, and more. Bring Alice Ross, née Pritchard to book, Gus. Five years isn’t enough, even at her age. James dallied with her, and Lord knows what else went on. There, I’ve broken my staff and drowned my book.’
They drank coffee, and Naldo went off to clean up. The car arrived at seven, and they wondered if the last act would play true to form. They should have been so lucky.
2
They had placed four heavies downstairs, in the building opposite James’s house in King Street. The walkie-talkies crackled as Big Herbie led Naldo up the stairs and into the eyrie. A room with no lights on, only the glow from some communications equipment, and the receivers which picked up every word from the privacy of James Railton’s home.
Curry Shepherd was at the window with another man and a pair of binoculars on one tripod, and a camera with a lens that would reach to Trafalgar Square on a good day on another.
‘Nobody on your backs, was there?’ Curry sounded anxious, as though he was worried about the whole thing.
‘We were clean as scrubbed cats,’ Herbie said, using this strange image as though it was a normal English simile.
‘Why?’ Naldo asked, a shade briskly.
‘Don’t know really.’ The usually languid Curry Shepherd was far from languid tonight. ‘Don’t know, but things haven’t got the right smell. It’s like having another team that’s not under your control.’
Naldo remembered the taxi of the previous night, and wondered. Later he did not regret remaining silent, but, for years after, he saw the silhouette in the taxi when he dreamed.
Everyone was silent, and very still.
They heard Margaret Mary constantly asking questions inside the house across the road. ‘Why tonight, darling? It’s damned cold and they’ve forecast snow.’
‘Because Alex is coming all the way from Cheltenham, and he wants a private talk. ‘ James sounded almost too relaxed. ‘I’ll take him to the club. He likes that. Likes a good dinner at the club.’
‘They’re going to do a runner.’ Curry said. Then he turned to Naldo. ‘C suggests that you go first. Ring the bell and get your ma to open up. The boys’ll pile in after that. All be over before you can say Klaus Fuchs. OK by you, Nald?’
‘It’ll save nastiness.’
‘Oh, I doubt that. Maybe Herb should go with you.’
‘I definitely go with him, actually, Curry. I carry. Know what I mean?’
‘Oh, right. Good.’
A radio crackled. ‘Red Robin entering St James’s Square,’ a disembodied voice said.
‘Red Robin,’ Naldo muttered in disbelief.
‘OK, here we go,’ Curry said. ‘Want to nip downstairs and join the others?’
‘Wait till he gets here and parks.’ Naldo sounded as though he had the authority to give the order.
‘If you say so, old dear,’ from Curry
.
From the window, they watched as Alexander Percival Railton’s Mercedes took a parking space in front of James’s house. Special Branch had made sure the local law kept it clear.
They saw the small figure get out, glance up the street, down, then up again. He did not lock the Merc, but went straight up the steps and rang the bell.
‘Now?’ Curry asked.
‘Leave it a minute.’ Naldo knew it was right to wait, though he could not have given a logical explanation if someone had asked him.
‘Nald, it should be now,’ from Herbie.
‘In a second!’ Angry, almost shouted. ‘Damn it, Herb, it’s my old dad.’
‘It’s a fucking Soviet agent,’ someone said from the communications gear.
‘Christ!’ from Curry as the taxi came hurtling down the street, to stop next to the Merc. ‘Now, for God’s sake. Now, Naldo!’
Naldo just had time to see the tall figure leap from the cab and run for the steps: ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, already at the run towards the door. ‘This way we get the lot.’
James’s front door was closed and the cab had gone when they reached the street. Naldo felt the ice on the pavement but made it in fifteen seconds to the front door, where he leaned against the buzzer, Herbie at his shoulder, and the other hoods in the street behind him.
‘Naldo? What —?’ his mother asked, shocked, surprised, as she opened the door, but Herbie’s long arm shot out pushing her back and pinning her against the wall.
‘Where, Ma? Where are —?’ Naldo got out before the shot. Two shots, quick, one after the other, from what they called the drawing room. He lunged for the door, but it was Big Herbie who was in first.
‘Drop it, Arn, or I’ll take you out now.’ Herbie’s English was commanding.
James stood, white and shaking, by the mantelpiece, his eyes wide, looking across the room where the bloodstains on the wall pointed to Alexander Railton’s body crumpled and smashed by the 9 mm bullets from Arnold Farthing’s automatic.
‘Shit!’ said Arnie, pausing for a second, before dropping the gun, which was turned towards James.
As he did so, the tall figure of Paul Schillig seemed to appear, like the Demon King from an unseen star-trap, behind Naldo. He pushed his way through and strode, furious, across the room. ‘You good-for-nothing, low-down, jerk, Farthing. You bastard.’ Schillig hit him twice, once with the palm and once with the back of his hand, then spun him around.
‘I’ve spoken with C,’ Schillig said, looking not the least bit ruffled. ‘This one’s ours, and I hope he doesn’t even make it to Washington.’
‘I hoped the bastard was mine.’ Naldo’s shoulders drooped. ‘I hoped it since I saw him last night. How long did it take Washington to work out which side of the street he was working? And how did he know we were —?’
‘Never mind. That’s not your department, Railton.’ Schillig had Arnie in an arm lock and had begun to push him out of the room.
‘Why did you let me kill Penkovsky?’ Naldo asked, incredibly quietly as they passed him.
‘Because it was your right, and he was getting greedy. You got your Alex, and I got mine. Pity I lost your father.’
‘Afraid they’d blow the lot?’
‘Of course. Your old man’s got everything to spill.’ Then they were gone, and the hoods were all over the place: pronouncing Alex Farthing dead while a Special Branch officer read James his rights.
‘Why, Pa? Why?’ Naldo looked his father straight in the face.
‘Because, for me, it was the only way. I’d rather go down with them, than with the other kind of corruption. No ideology is perfect, but theirs has an equality about it. It is the end of privilege.’
‘You’re still that naive. God help you.’ Naldo’s eyes were brimming again.
‘Shouldn’t you kiss me or something, Naldo? Isn’t that what Judas did?’ James had regained strength, his eyes blazing towards his son.
‘Ah, but that was Christ.’ Naldo shook with rage. ‘That was blessed Mary’s son …’ Before he could stop himself he continued the Shakespearian quote, most of it under his breath as Herbie helped him from the house, down the steps into the waiting car.
‘This land of much dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world
Is now leased out — I die pronouncing it —
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.
That England that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.’
And all the time, in his head, Big Herbie Kruger could only hear the sudden crash and thump of the double timpani strokes at the start of the third movement of Mahler’s Second.
When they got back to the Kensington house, where Barbara said she would meet them, they saw something was wrong from the moment she opened the door.
‘Nald.’ She touched him as though he was a bomb unfused, and likely to explode. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid.’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘What could be bad after the night we’ve had?’ Then he saw the fresh tears on her cheek. ‘What?’
‘Dick.’ She made a hopeless gesture, arms rising and falling. ‘Dick Railton-Farthing died suddenly this afternoon at Redhill.’
‘Thank God for that. James was his idol. It would have killed him anyway. They’re all dying off. Amen to that.’
Herbie helped him inside, and closed the door, as though to shut out the world for ever.
3
Almost everyone turned up for Dick’s funeral. James was not there, of course, but Naldo and Barbara flanked Margaret Mary. Even Anne and Andrew’s children were present, Anne erect, brave-faced and dry-eyed. Stalks and one of the nurses wheeled Sara, who remained bold until the interment, when she broke, and Stalks quickly hurried her back into the house.
When they left, Naldo took a quick glance over his shoulder. He knew it was not likely he would ever return to Redhill. He did not care any more. Sara, was still Sara, and he would adore her for the rest of his life. Odd that the only truly unscathed Railtons had been Railtons by marriage.
They did not attend Alex’s funeral. Later, Naldo heard that Gus had been present, and he knew the coroner’s court had found ‘death by misadventure’. Quite a lot of things were left unsaid and, for a change, the press were either muzzled or kept their peace.
There was still the debriefing with Gus to occupy his time, while they made plans to leave London, and indeed England, for ever.
‘Arnie?’ he asked of Gus, towards the end of their long series of talks.
‘What about Arnie?’
‘How did he know? How was he so certain we had James and Alexander in our sights? And how did he manage to get in and sniff us out?’
‘Nobody’s talking about Arnie.’ Gus drew on his pipe. ‘They flew him out within an hour of what the press called the “incident”. I heard he was being held in a safe house in Washington.’
‘Any theories?’ Naldo asked.
‘Private theories, yes. I’ll tell you all I know. Grosvenor Square put out an alert three days ago. Arnie was out of Russia and on the rampage. No explanation, apart from the fact that he was out and had joined the bears. They got a sniff of him in Amsterdam, and a tiny whiff in Folkestone. After that, nothing, except that he was about to break all the rules. Clever boy, that Arnie. Well, you know that, Nald. You’ve worked with him. Arnie could hide in an empty street at high noon. I knew he was around when C brought me to New Cavendish Street that night. By which time, Paul Schillig had been given the nod. I don’t suppose C wanted Arnie on his plate as well.’
‘But, how did he know?’
‘You’re as wise as I am, Nald. You tell me.’
‘Try this on for size.’ Naldo dug into his logic. ‘F
rom the little I heard, James and Alex were going to do a Burgess and Maclean. Disappear into the night, then turn up in Moscow. We didn’t give them much time, but it’s possible someone already tipped James that we were closing in. Make sense?’
‘It’s how I see it. Quite like the old days.’ Gus sucked at his pipe. ‘I believe there is one more unaccounted for. It might even be you, Naldo, but I don’t think so …’
‘You’d better bloody well not.’
‘I believe that your poor old father had already asked to get out. Arnie, being an acceptable choice, was possibly sent over to take them — one way or the other. When he arrived, you were just warming up. That could have pushed him, particularly if someone else was, and is, telling tales out of school.’
After a long silence, Gus said, ‘In our trade, there are always things you never really untangle. I don’t think we’ll ever untangle Arnie, and his part in things — except that he doubled: that’s not in dispute.’
On his last visit to the shop, Naldo bumped into Paul Schillig hurrying out. ‘Paul!’ He thrust out a hand.
‘No, Naldo.’ Schillig beamed as he spoke. ‘No, I can’t tell you, and I never will. As far as you’re concerned, Arnold Farthing died the last time you saw him, OK?’
‘I wasn’t going to ask,’ Naldo lied. In the far reaches of his mind, he heard unrecognized voices quoting the Railtons’ beloved Shakespeare — ‘Our watchword was “Hem boys!” Come, let’s to dinner; come let’s to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.’
EPILOGUE
1989
In 1989, eight years after Sara Railton died, aged ninety-six and fighting to the end, at Redhill Manor, a horrific disaster was averted in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was now usually spoken of simply as the Territories, out of respect for the People’s Republic of China, who, in 1997, would reclaim the Fragrant Harbour, Hong Kong Island itself, together with Kowloon and the 588 square kilometres of mainland.
Special celebrations were planned, to coincide with the June 1989 Dragon Boat Festival, when the governor would entertain royalty and distinguished members of the government of the People’s Republic of China. Many of these functions were planned in the years leading up to the takeover by China. All were symbolic, acts of goodwill between the British and the Chinese.