‘Please sit.’ He pointed to a chair in front of a table at which sat two other men. They were all, she guessed, about her father’s age, with manicured nails and well-cut suits. James Goodfellow resumed his place between them, pointed left, and right.
‘My colleagues, Frank Lloyd, Brian Cullis.’ They smiled, backs straight, heads tilted in acknowledgement. Betty had no doubt who they were: military men, and this was a delegation from the Security Services.
‘Please let us offer our condolences,’ James Goodfellow said, and his colleagues nodded in agreement. ‘And our apologies for bringing you in at this sensitive time.’
Betty sat, hands on her lap, threading and rethreading her fingers.
‘There are just a few small things we need to clear up,’ James Goodfellow said. He looked at his colleagues, as if waiting for their approval to proceed. ‘We understand you are aware of the nature of your father’s work.’
‘I am now,’ Betty said. ‘But I had no idea. He never said a word. No, well…’ These formal, formidable men in suits were in a strange way comforting, and for reasons she couldn’t fathom she wanted to blurt out everything. ‘He did. He said he worked for de Havilland. He gave the impression he was some kind of engineer, a factory worker.’ She swallowed. ‘That’s what I thought. I trusted him. He was my father. He didn’t talk about his work, except about the Comet. Its teething problems, metal fatigue and stress and turbojets and boring stuff like that.’
Should she have paid more attention? She had her own problems to cope with, settling into a new country, a new language, school. He hadn’t given a toss about what she was going through, had never asked how her day had been.
‘He lied.’
‘A little white lie,’ Brian Cullis said. ‘I’m sure you forgive him for that.’
‘Actually,’ Betty said, inhaling, shoulders rising, head high, ‘I don’t.’
Cullis coughed, pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his mouth.
‘Did your father ever talk about Germany with you?’ Frank Lloyd said.
Betty shook her head. ‘Hardly ever. He wouldn’t even speak German.’ He denied me language, she thought, the language that shaped me, my thoughts and feelings, loves and hates. Perhaps that’s why he was so bitter too, the loss of his language had puckered his heart.
‘Did he talk about politics?’
‘We didn’t really talk about very much at all,’ Betty said, adding, ‘He pontificated.’
Frank Lloyd smirked. ‘About what?’
‘Communism, mainly.’ There was a silver cigarette box on the table. ‘May I?’ she said, leaning forward. James Goodfellow flipped open the lid and passed it across the table to her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. He scraped back his chair, walked round with his lighter, smiling as if she was a dinner guest, leaning over her as he lit her cigarette, close enough for Betty to see the hairs in his nostrils. ‘Thank you again,’ she said. She felt suddenly gripped by nerves. She sucked the smoke inside, feeling it swirl through her blood, tightening her thoughts.
‘Such as?’
‘He did once say that the Third Reich had been right to try to purge Europe of Communism.’
James Goodfellow leaned forward, his head on one side, nodding encouragement. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he said that all that was needed was to rid the Party of its rotten apples, like Admiral Dönitz had suggested, and Germany could rise again, complete its destiny. He said the Nazis who were prosecuted in Nuremberg were evil, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.’
She watched as the men made notes.
‘Did his views change?’ Frank Lloyd said.
‘A bit,’ Betty said. ‘Not much.’
‘How?’
‘He thought Germany wasn’t to blame for the Nazis,’ she said. Sitting at the end of the dining room table, knife and fork laid to rest, he waited until the dessert was served, lifting his spoon, waving it for emphasis. She wasn’t allowed to start before he did, had to watch the custard go cold, congeal, a thick skin forming. He knew she hated the skin. ‘He believed it could have happened to any country and said the Allies were happy to go along with Hitler when it suited them before the war. It just seemed unfair that Germany had to bear the brunt of it, he used to say, when it wasn’t Germany’s fault.’
Brian Cullis was nodding. ‘Strong views. Controversial. Did you agree?’
Betty stared at him. ‘Of course not. It was Germany’s fault. He couldn’t reconcile himself to that. It would mean confronting his past, coming to terms with it.’
‘Adenauer’s done a pretty good job. Bringing the country together, moving on. What do you say to that?’
This was not about her father’s views. It was about her own. Betty shook her head. ‘There needs to be a wider reckoning, don’t you think? An acknowledgement of what Germany did, and why, a shared responsibility.’
‘And how will that come about?’
‘I don’t know,’ Betty said. ‘But it will happen, I’m sure.’
James Goodfellow leaned back in his chair. His jacket fell open and Betty caught a glimpse of his waistcoat, the bulge of his paunch, the lie of his genitals beneath his trousers. She looked up, over his head, at the picture of the Queen on the wall behind him.
‘Did he discuss his views with anyone else?’ He tilted forward once more.
‘Not that I know,’ Betty said. ‘But I was away at college for years, and before that, when I was at school, I didn’t pay much attention to him. You could ask Mrs H. He seemed to be in her thrall. Perhaps he confided in her too.’
The men exchanged glances and Betty understood in that moment that Mrs H wasn’t just the housekeeper Betty had always assumed, but something more sinister.
‘Was she spying on us?’
James Goodfellow laughed, but it was a synthetic, patronising ha-ha. ‘She kept us informed, that’s all.’
Her life in England fell apart once more. And into place. The house in Hatfield, Mrs H, the school. Her father was an immigrant, but he had never struggled, not like the fathers of other immigrants in her class. He’d had it handed to him on a plate. Her father had never relinquished his goals, just swapped his paymaster. If the Third Reich wasn’t allowed to rid Europe of the Communists, then he’d carry on its work.
Did he now realise Germany had been a lost cause, all of it? Was that why he had taken the cyanide?
‘Miss Fisher’ – James Goodfellow leaned forward, clasping his hands, elbows on the table – ‘your father’s work was top secret, you must appreciate, and we had to protect ourselves, be sure that nothing jeopardised our national defence, no moles passing information to extremists on either side.’ He steadied his gaze on her. ‘We had to protect him, too. And you.’
She stubbed out her cigarette.
‘Vasily Kuznetsov,’ he went on. ‘You might know him as Anatoly Kuznetsov. What can you tell us about him?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I knew a Vasily once but have no idea of his full name.’
‘You are aware he is in London.’
She blew out, the questions coming closer, a steamroller out of control. She could feel her fingers quake, sat on her hands so no one could see. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was quiet.
‘When did you first meet him?’
‘In Berlin. He was with his superior, a major, Boris Somebody-or-other. He used to come to the apartment when Boris was…’ Three men. What did they know? What could they know? She breathed in, gave the word its full airing. ‘Raping my sister.’
Cullis and the other man looked down, but Major Goodfellow kept her gaze, nodding, continue.
‘Then they left. Only the morning after Lieselotte disappeared, Vasily came back to our apartment.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He wanted me. He wanted to rape me, but I shot him.’
‘Is that why he limps?’ Frank Lloyd asked.
‘Yes,’ Betty said.
‘A good shot,’ he said, and smiled at her.
>
‘I didn’t think that at the time,’ Betty said. ‘I was too terrified. I dropped the gun and ran.’
‘He came back after your sister had been murdered,’ Goodfellow said, looking at his notes. ‘You’re an intelligent young woman, as well as a pretty one.’ He smirked, but Betty sat, her face blank. It didn’t feel like a compliment, more like a threat. ‘Do you think he had another purpose in returning to your apartment?’
Betty stared at him.
‘Your father would have been quite a coup for the Soviets,’ Goodfellow went on. ‘Have you any idea how they could persuade him to come over to them?’
Betty shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Could they have argued their cause?’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Betty said. ‘He was vehemently anti-Communist.’
‘What about bribes? Do you think he would have succumbed to those? The promise of a good apartment, a lucrative salary with plenty of perks, the best laboratories and brains. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Betty said. ‘I doubt it. He always said he was a man of principle. He never did anything to excess.’
‘Emotional levers?’ the major went on. ‘Kidnap of his surviving daughter would have been a strong incentive to persuade him to come over to them, whatever his principles.’
It had never occurred to her there could be more to this.
‘Why is he here now?’ Her voice was weak. She knew the answer. John had said as much. Kidnap.
‘They wanted his secrets.’
She blinked, stared out of the window, at the plane trees beyond. Two-way mirrors. That’s what they were. Two-way mirrors.
‘Did my father know?’
The French windows had been open. Had he wandered into the garden first, talked to the pansies, said farewell to Mutti? Not bothered to lock the door behind him? Had he been thinking of Betty as he sat in her chair and tipped the powder into his mouth? Or had he had a visitor? Perhaps he hadn’t been alone.
‘We will never know,’ James Goodfellow said. ‘He left no note. But your liberty may well have been in danger. Or…’ He looked at her, studying her face. They all were, monitoring every twitch and flutter, every turn of her body. Why had she thought they were sympathetic?
‘What was your contact with Vasily?’
‘I never made contact.’
‘Not through CND?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she said. ‘This is nonsense. CND?’ She edged forward in her chair, readying herself to leave.
‘Do you have sympathies for the Russians?’ the major said, leaning back again, chair tilting on two legs. ‘I remember the butter-before-guns argument between the wars,’ he went on before she could answer. He nodded at his colleagues either side of him and ran his tongue over his lips so they glistened with spit. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her, half leer, half sneer. ‘Yellow-livered pacifists. If they’d been in charge, we’d all have been under the jackboot.’ The chair slammed forward as the major propped his elbows on the desk, leaning towards her. ‘If we disarmed, the Soviets would overrun us in a blink.’ Spittle gathered in his mouth. She’d heard the argument before, was weary of it. ‘Is that what you want? To be under a dictatorship hell-bent on supremacy?’ He blew through his mouth, pulled out his handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped away the dribble. ‘Against everything we hold dear. Christianity. Democracy. Freedom…’ His voice trailed away.
‘That’s not the point,’ she said.
‘And what is the point?’ Cullis said, his lip curling.
‘The point is nuclear weapons. Do you know what they do? It would be the end of the world if they were unleashed.’ She softened her voice. ‘Don’t you see that? No one would win. There’d be nothing left.’
‘Well,’ Goodfellow said, ‘what are your sympathies for the Russians?’
They weren’t listening. Fixed on their tracks like freight trains.
‘None.’
Communism?’
She hesitated, marshalling her thoughts.
‘I consider myself a socialist,’ she said. ‘I vote Labour. This is not a crime.’ She reached over for a cigarette. She saw them note the move. Chain-smoking. Nervous. ‘And I am passionately against war, especially nuclear war,’ she said. She fiddled with the cigarette in her fingers. ‘You’ll know where I stand on that, since you seem to know everything about me.’ She looked at James Goodfellow, staring him out. She would not be intimidated. ‘May I trouble you for a light?’
He pushed the lighter towards her. Gloves off, she thought. He hadn’t come round the table to light it for her.
‘Pretty girl like you,’ James Goodfellow said, his lips slick and rubbery, ‘good Lord, in another time I’d have claimed the droit de seigneur over you.’ He chuckled, and his colleagues smirked. He licked his lips again, the drool gathering in his mouth. ‘You don’t want to get involved in all of this left-wing ban-the-bomb nonsense.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, standing up. ‘I have nothing more to say.’ She turned, grabbed her coat off its hook, opened the door and left without looking back. The door clicked behind her.
She hurried from the building, over Vauxhall Bridge. Bastard. Sleazy bastard. How dare he. He hadn’t been serious about her, hadn’t a clue what troubled her, probably didn’t care either. Just saw a pretty face to crush beneath him. Had her father had regrets about his former life? Remorse? Despaired of Germany? Or had he killed himself to save her? Perhaps Vasily had been at the door and he’d felt he had no choice.
What demons were in his head that drove him to do it? She would never know. It was a selfish act in a life that revolved round him, leaving behind an eternity of questions with no answers, a particular kind of earthly hell.
EPILOGUE
London: May 1959
Betty cradled her coffee, opened the French windows and stepped onto the balcony. It wasn’t large enough for a chair, but it would take a window box and perhaps a couple of pots. She’d grow pansies for the spring, geraniums for the summer. She heard the click of the letter box, a gentle plop-plop on the mat. Letters, addressed to her, in her own home.
The coroner had taken his time but had returned an open verdict, which was odd given the cyanide, then she’d spotted a piece in the Manchester Guardian reporting the expulsion of a Soviet diplomat engaged in active espionage. It didn’t mention Vasily by name, but the coroner’s verdict made a kind of sense. The doors to the garden had been open after all, the handles wiped clean of fingerprints.
John had come to her father’s funeral, stood at the back in a dark suit and black tie. She’d wanted to be angry, but his presence had touched her. He hadn’t come to pay respects for her father. His respects were for her. He’d acknowledged her with the smallest nod and the hint of a smile, left at the end of the service, without a word.
Vanished from her life.
She’d sold her father’s house, cleared out the furniture, every damn pleated cushion and Toby jug, and bought an apartment in West Hampstead. The hell with Mrs H. She had a fat pension to live off. Betty had had a new bed and sofa delivered yesterday when she’d moved in, and Nick had helped her transport her stuff from Dee’s, her books and clothes, her clock, and odd bits that she’d accumulated for the move, a dustpan and brush, a Ewbank, a kettle, coffee mugs.
She needed other basics, a table and chairs, bedroom furniture, rugs. There was an auction house on the New King’s Road and Dee had taken the afternoon off to go with her. ‘Leave the bidding to me,’ she’d said, pulling her face into a knowing wink. ‘I’m a past master at it.’ Nick said he could get hold of a van if she needed to shift anything.
Betty drained her mug and went back into the kitchen, picking up the post as she went. The flat needed decorating. She’d watched Barry Bucknell on Dee’s television, DIY every Tuesday evening. Painting, papering. It looked simple enough.
She tucked the letters into her dressing gown pocket and wandered back into the sitting room. It fac
ed south-east, caught the morning sun, was bright and airy. It could take a bold colour. There was a fireplace in the corner with an old-fashioned mantelpiece which she’d rip out in due course, put in something sleek and modern. She put the clock on it for the moment. It still kept perfect time. It wasn’t much, but it was a link. Blue. Perhaps the sitting room could be painted blue, to show off the chrome frame and smoked glass of the clock’s face.
The flat looked out over Fortune Green. It lifted her spirits to see the trees and grass, and she could send the boys out to play there when Dee and Kevin came over. She pulled the envelopes out from her pocket. One had a London postmark, official-looking, with a typed address, the other was handwritten, the postmark indistinct.
She slit open the official-looking letter with her finger, pulled out the contents, opening it up, staring at its letterhead, The Daily Herald, skimming to the signature, Yours sincerely, Douglas Machray, Editor.
Dear Miss Fisher. The letter was fluttering in her fingers as she read to the end, then back to the beginning, taking it in. I have read with interest your features in Peace News, in particular your articles on the recent march from Aldermaston, which in my view captured the fervour and the fun of the enterprise in ways which were both novel and enchanting. I wondered whether you would consider submitting some articles to the Daily Herald? We would be looking to publish a weekly column. As you may know, we have recently adopted a unilateralist stance on nuclear disarmament, and would be interested in what you have to say about issues relating to war and peace. We pay one guinea per 100 words, and would be looking for articles of approximately 500 words. If you are interested please contact my secretary on Fleet 6001.
Interested? A personal invitation from the editor? She wanted to pinch herself, scream with excitement. The Daily Herald too. A respectable paper, with an independent line. She’d ring him straight away. There was a telephone box on the corner. A weekly column would pay more than she earned as a typist. She squeezed her eyes, opened them, checked the letter one more time. She’d add a desk to the list of basics needed at the auction. And a typewriter. She couldn’t wait to tell Dee.
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