The Whitehall Mandarin

by Edward Wilson

  ‘Yeah, I know. And all that psych bullshit that we’re supposed to use comes from your side of the Atlantic. I was just curious. It might be the last time you have a chance to talk to a friend.’

  Cauldwell laughed. ‘Why didn’t you become a Communist?’

  ‘Because of Stalin. I couldn’t stomach his brutality.’

  ‘Typical bourgeois answer, Catesby. But Stalin’s Soviet Union was strong enough to defeat Hitler. Nine million Soviet soldiers died in the Great Patriotic War and eighteen million Soviet civilians. No decadent bourgeois country, certainly not the United States, could have endured that sacrifice.’

  ‘Far fewer would have died if Stalin hadn’t made stupid mistakes through blind ignorance and arrogance.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Cauldwell, ‘write alternative “what-if” histories.’

  ‘Sure. In any case, your hero Stalin is dead.’

  ‘I never said he was my hero.’

  ‘You have to say that now. Don’t you, Jeffers?’

  Cauldwell gave a cagey smile.

  ‘What,’ said Catesby, ‘did you think of Khrushchev’s secret speech?’

  ‘Are you sure, William, that you don’t work for the KGB? It sounds like you’re testing my ideological commitment, to make sure I’m toeing the latest Party line.’

  ‘I have the impression that you’re not a big Khrushchev fan.’

  ‘You’re wrong about that. Khrushchev’s speech denouncing Stalin was a braver thing than any Western leader has ever done. There’s now more freedom for artists and writers.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘I detect a faint look of scepticism on your face. You think I’m reeling off Party line propaganda too readily … as if I’ve practised it to deceive you about my real loyalties in a double bluff.’

  ‘Or maybe a triple bluff.’ Catesby shrugged and tried to look bored. He didn’t want to show Cauldwell that he had walked into his trap. ‘Did your Soviet handler ever ask you to write a memoir for the KGB files?’

  ‘Of course, it’s standard practice and you know it.’

  ‘And is your memoir just as full of bullshit?’ Catesby picked up the Makarov 9mm and passed it from hand to hand.

  ‘You’re getting tedious, Catesby – and I need to piss.’

  ‘Go piss against the wall.’

  ‘Can you undo my handcuffs?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Cauldwell got up and walked to the wall. Catesby listened to the urine splashing and knew the Americans wouldn’t be pleased.

  When Cauldwell came back to the table, Catesby picked up the photo. ‘Who do you think sent me this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You ought to know. It was the same person who betrayed you.’

  Cauldwell shrugged. ‘So what?’

  ‘You’re a cool customer, Jeffers, but the Americans will break you.’

  The dank bunker now smelled of warm urine. The only sound was the dripping water.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ said Catesby.

  Cauldwell nodded and took the hip flask.

  ‘Remind you of the old days?’

  ‘What old days?’

  ‘When you were at the University of Virginia. Tell me about Kit Fournier; he’s told me a lot about you.’

  Cauldwell shifted uneasily.

  ‘You were in the same class as Kit.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know him then. He did political science with a minor in French. I did English Literature and drama.’

  ‘He said you were on the boxing team.’

  ‘That’s right. I was the middleweight champion.’

  ‘Under that smooth exterior, you’re a pretty hard guy.’

  ‘It’s not just being hard.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘I had been trained as a ballet dancer. I was so much quicker and more graceful than the brutes, I could easily shrug off their jabs with a casual épaulement or a left hook with a pas de bourrée dessous-dessus. And then when the clumsy-footed brutes were arm weary…’ Cauldwell got to his feet and was throwing punches as well as he could with handcuffed wrists. ‘Coupé, degagé; degagé, coupé, coupé!’

  ‘Did you do ballet with Michael Straight?’ Catesby had tossed the bombshell to see Cauldwell’s reaction. It was widely suspected in SIS that Straight had been one of Blunt’s lovers and had probably worked for Moscow. But no one knew for sure. Those in high places were well protected.

  Cauldwell smiled. ‘You know everything. Don’t you, William?’

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘You want me to say that Michael and Anthony are fellow Communist spies.’

  ‘Maybe,’ smiled Catesby, ‘I’m a malicious bastard out to victimise the completely innocent.’

  ‘Michael Straight is completely innocent. He never worked for the Soviet Union.’ Cauldwell smiled. ‘But you probably think I’m covering for him?’

  ‘You’re right; that is what I think.’ Catesby paused. ‘Funny, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Michael Straight is a Soviet spy, but you’re not.’

  ‘Double bluff, William, double bluff.’

  ‘Why don’t you finish the bourbon?’

  Cauldwell took a deep drink.

  Catesby felt he was getting close to something. The art of interrogation was finding the talk button. But it took time and patience – and you needed to wear the other person down.

  Cauldwell pushed back the empty hip flask. He looked very tired.

  Catesby gave Cauldwell a long stare and then whispered, ‘Tell me about Quentin. Was he a Communist too?’

  For the first time Cauldwell’s face showed a flicker of surprise, as if Catesby’s question was completely unexpected.

  ‘Kit Fournier told me all about it.’

  ‘Kit has a big mouth.’

  ‘Was Quentin your best friend?’

  ‘He was killed in the war. Did Kit tell you that?’

  Catesby nodded. The Quentin question had been a stab in the dark. He wanted to put together a full picture of Cauldwell’s sexual and emotional past.

  Cauldwell yawned and gave a sad smile. ‘Quentin was a pilot, but obviously not a very good pilot.’

  ‘Fournier said that Quentin had a twin sister.’

  Cauldwell winced.

  ‘And that you used to play a little game.’

  ‘Kit talks too much about what he knows too little about.’

  ‘Can you explain?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to sleep?’

  Cauldwell nodded. He seemed almost in a trance.

  ‘But there’s one more question on my list.’

  ‘And then you’ll let me sleep?’

  Catesby nodded. ‘What do you think of the situation in Malaya?’

  Cauldwell laughed. ‘I know nothing about Malaya.’

  ‘And I don’t know why they wanted me to ask you.’ Catesby looked closely at Cauldwell without appearing to do so. He thought there was a flicker of apprehension on the American’s face, but he might have been wrong.

  ‘In any case,’ continued Catesby, ‘the Communist insurrection in Malaya appears to have failed. Our Asian section would love to know Moscow’s view on the situation.’

  ‘I don’t know. How should I know?’

  ‘Next time you’re in Moscow, tell them the Communist insurrection is failing because it has little support outside the Chinese minority community.’

  Cauldwell remained stony-faced.

  ‘You’re obviously not an Asia specialist.’

  ‘Is any of that bourbon left?’

  Catesby shook the flask. ‘There’s a trickle. Finish it.’

  Cauldwell finished the bourbon and put his head down on the desk. He was soon fast asleep. But it wasn’t a long sleep. Ten minutes later, Hank and a pair of military policemen began to clank down the bunker stairs to take Cauldwell away. Catesby quickly replaced the fuse in the fuse box. The neon strip lighting blinked on again.

  As Cauldwell was led away, Catesby put the Makarov automatic
and the hip flask back in his briefcase. He then picked up the torn photograph and was about to slip it back in its envelope when he stopped and stared. Why hadn’t he seen it before? Whoever had torn off the images of the two missing women hadn’t done a perfect job. The calf and ankle of one of them was visible just below the tear. The shapely ankle was encircled by a thin silver bracelet.

  Henry Bone stared out of his rain-beaded office window at the wedge-shaped building opposite. Bone sipped his tea as if for comfort then sighed. ‘I wonder if they find us as ugly as we find them.’

  ‘We’re much uglier than them,’ said Catesby proudly. ‘We’re the ugliest building in St James’s. That’s why they put us here.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’

  The two buildings in question were 54 Broadway, the anonymous HQ of SIS, and 55 Broadway, the head offices of London Underground. There was, Catesby thought, a certain aptness that the underground and the secret espionage service were neighbours.

  ‘Actually,’ said Catesby, ‘I rather like their building. But I’ve never been able to understand why that boy has such a large penis.’

  The penis in question belonged to a Jacob Epstein sculpture called Morning and was pointing directly at Henry Bone’s office. The London Underground building, hailed on its completion in 1929 as ‘a cathedral of modernity’, also had exterior sculptures by Moore, Gill and Aumonier.

  ‘It has often occurred to me,’ said Bone, pointing at the Epstein, ‘that the architect planned it thus. He must have been told that we were here; it was his way of pissing on us. He wouldn’t have got away with that in Moscow.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make us a better society?’

  ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  As Bone poured the tea from the ‘simply ghastly’ Spode tea service that he despised, Catesby rewound the tape recorder.

  ‘At first,’ he said, ‘I was worried about the Americans having a copy of this, but Hank reassured me.’

  ‘What did he think of the interview?’

  ‘Hank said it was all “diddly squat” and a “waste of US taxpayers’ money”.’

  ‘He wasn’t impressed.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Americans,’ said Bone, ‘aren’t always as unsophisticated as they pretend. You should be careful what you say around them. I am sure they are going to find your interview very useful. I wish you hadn’t mentioned Sir Anthony. You gave away information that may come back to haunt us.’

  Catesby tried not to smile. Professor Blunt was a sore point with Henry Bone – and many others in the establishment. Blunt was called ‘the untouchable’ because he knew where all the bodies were buried. Sir Anthony had been sent to Germany at the end of the war to retrieve personal letters that could have proved very embarrassing for members of the British establishment. It was also believed that Blunt had recruited spies for Moscow at Cambridge University in the 1930s – including Burgess and Maclean as well as the American Michael Straight. But Blunt was untouchable because he knew too many secrets. And, Catesby knew for certain, Sir Anthony had a few interesting stories about Henry Bone as well.

  ‘How would you interpret the frankness of Cauldwell’s remarks?’ said Bone. ‘Was he taken in by your ploy?’ The interview bunker had, in fact, been wired so that a hidden tape recorder continued to record after Catesby pretended to short the electrics.

  ‘I don’t think he fell for it. In fact, I think he relished the idea of being recorded. Part of Cauldwell was performing for posterity. And another part of him was practising his lines for future interrogations.’

  ‘Double bluffs, triple bluffs?’

  Catesby nodded. ‘Is Cauldwell a fake homosexual? Or a real homosexual pretending to be a fake homosexual?’

  ‘Or simply bisexual? There are persons like that.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that simple, Henry. But I feel there is a connection between Cauldwell and a woman who was cut out of Professor Blunt’s photograph.’

  ‘You don’t have any evidence that Sir Anthony took that photo – or had anything to do with it – and I wish that you would stop suggesting it.’

  ‘Mea culpa. In fact, Henry, I have the distinct impression that you don’t find that torn photograph very relevant or important?’

  ‘Not particularly; I think it’s a red herring.’

  ‘Fine. In any case, Cauldwell’s comments about the Soviet Union are fascinating. If there is truth in Cauldwell’s words, he weaves that truth into a cloak of lies to disguise what he’s really doing.’

  Bone laughed. ‘You don’t think he’s a Soviet spy?’

  ‘I’m not sure what he is.’

  »»»»

  It was Catesby’s last day in London. He was only in England on TDY – temporary duty – to help deal with Cauldwell. But now he had to return to Berlin where he was SIS head of station still operating under his feeble cover of Cultural Attaché for Film and Broadcasting. Catesby had a lot of loose ends to tie up before flying back to Templehof. His first stop was Hatchards in Piccadilly. It was the most prestigious bookshop in London and sent books to the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace as well as to Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess in Moscow. As soon as Catesby entered the shop, the manager was at his elbow.

  ‘Would you like a snifter?’

  ‘Thanks, I’d love one.’

  ‘Let’s go to my office.’

  Catesby had first met the Hatchards manager during the war when he had ordered a complete set of À la recherche du temps perdu. At the time, Catesby still had an East Anglian accent and the manager found it difficult to understand why someone who sounded like a Suffolk farm-worker or trawler-boy was ordering the works of Proust in French. He guessed Catesby was buying the books for a more refined and educated fellow officer – and tactfully asked if that were the case. Catesby responded by reciting the opening of Á la recherche from memory and in perfect French.

  They met again ten years later when Henry Bone despatched Catesby to Hatchards to find out what Guy Burgess was reading. The idea was that his choice of books might somehow reveal the identities of other spies. Burgess’s reading preference was mostly recent history. He was also keen on the novels of Anthony Powell, pronounced ‘Pole’, and always ordered the newest as soon as it was published. As a result, Catesby was sent to Somerset to interview Powell at his modestly stately home and found out that Powell was a high and dry Tory who despised Burgess and his ilk. The author, who had married into the English Roman Catholic aristocracy, was amused by Catesby’s name and asked if he had Catholic connections too.

  Catesby sipped the manager’s whisky and looked at the carbon that he had provided of Burgess’s latest book order. As always, the spy’s loyal and long-suffering mother paid for the books and shipping.

  ‘I must say,’ remarked the manager, ‘the number of books ordered has been shrinking.’

  ‘I think the comrade’s drinking doesn’t leave much time for reading. But it’s important that you keep us informed.’

  ‘Do you still read Proust?’

  ‘Not as much as I should.’ Catesby had tried to read Proust again, but he was still haunted by a wartime memory. He had been parachuted into the Limousin in the summer of 1943 with SOE. A year later he saw what had happened at Oradour-sur-Glane. The 190 men of the village were machine-gunned in six different barns. And a little later, the 452 women and children, with the sounds of the machineguns that had murdered the men of the village still ringing in their ears, were gathered up and herded into the church. The doors of the church were then locked and the women and children burned alive. When Catesby tried to read Proust again, he no longer saw la vue de la petite madeleine, but the flames of Oradour. It was his own remembrance of things past. He regarded civilisation as a lie, a narcotic blindfold. Catesby could never forget Oradour-sur-Glane. For months afterwards he hadn’t slept. And years later it still kept him awake in the dark watches twisting in his sheets and waiting for the cold dawn.
<
br />   Catesby finished his whisky, then slipped the carbon of the book order into his coat pocket. ‘Thank you again. It’s very good of you.’

  The manager led Catesby to the shop entrance. As they were shaking hands, Catesby noticed someone out of the corner of his eye. It was a sudden coup de déjà vu, like a Proustian madeleine. She was a stunning woman. He remembered having seen her once before at a meeting of some sort – where even the most reserved of mandarins had stifled wolf whistles and eyed her up.

  ‘Actually,’ said Catesby, ‘I’d like to have a look around before I leave.’

  ‘Please do.’

  Catesby tried not to make it obvious that he was following her. He turned his trilby down to hide his face – and then swivelled his eyes to watch a pair of neatly turned ankles climbing the stairs to the upper level where the art books were kept. The left ankle and its silver bracelet was more than Proust’s symbolic madeleine; it was a whole bank of exploding mental flashbulbs. But, thought Catesby, maybe it was just a coincidence. London is full of nice ankles and bracelets that encircle them. He thought about going upstairs to have a closer look, but didn’t want to make his interest seem too obvious.

  Catesby remained downstairs and flicked through the latest volume of Churchill’s The History of the English Speaking Peoples. He wondered if the public had any idea of how conflicted, complex and vulnerable Churchill was. Catesby then wandered over to the foreign language shelf and picked up a copy of André Malraux’s L’espoir – another man of contradictions. Perhaps, he thought, being torn apart inside and trying not to show it was just part of living in the twentieth century. Catesby noticed a Graham Greene book about Indochina that he had been meaning to read. He liked the title, The Quiet American – apparently a very quiet American – and put it under his arm with the Malraux. He looked at his watch; she was taking a long time. Maybe she had disappeared through a trapdoor in the ceiling and was now running across the roofs of Piccadilly to escape his attention. Catesby continued browsing and stopped at the American shelf. Why oh why was Nabokov there? He was Russian. Catesby picked up Nabokov’s latest and looked at the first page. It was about lights of life and fires in loin. And, almost on cue, there was the tap of heels on stairs as the woman with nice ankles came back down.