Red Anger

by Geoffrey Household

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  Red Anger

  Geoffrey Household

  Prologue

  Extract of a letter from Mrs. Eudora Hilliard, dated: New York, June 17th 1974

  Yes, I agree with you. It is now nearly ten years since my nephew disappeared and we can try to clear his name without either of us having much fear of prosecution. But you should write the story, not I. Your tastes and character will carry conviction, and you have, thank God, no enemies—apart from your battles with Marketing Boards of which Tessa writes with a tempestuousness which you are too tolerant to feel yourself.

  Me, I do have enemies who give other names to what I call my pro-American activities. So if I were to write the story of Alwyn’s disgrace and escape it would be suspect from the start. That woman again, they would say!

  You’ll object that there are incidents which you are not all that keen to publicise. I can’t help it. It’s your duty to Alwyn. But it might, I think, be possible to get around the difficulties by presenting our story as fiction and disguising names and places as far as you can. Those who loved Alwyn Rory and served under and over him will see through it at once and at last understand what happened to him and why.

  For the general public he is no longer news. So perhaps you should start with a reminder of the actual facts of the case of Lieutenant Mornix, generally supposed to be living it up in the paradise of the Soviet Union but undoubtedly frying in hell. We don’t have to bother at all with Mornix himself—a traitor, a name, an obliterated ghost leaving behind him the malignancy in which you and Alwyn were caught up.

  Your Government never said exactly what information this guy was selling to the Russians. Alwyn was too loyal a servant of the state to go into details, and even I do not know. But you can explain that it was to do with underwater listening and beacons on the sea bottom—with the possible landing of agents as a sideline—and that it was far more important to find out what the other side wanted to know than to arrest Mornix straightaway. So your Intelligence hand-fed him with stuff they wanted his employers to believe, together with just enough truth to make it all convincing.

  On the day when they were ready to arrest him Mornix vanished. It was the sort of failure that is part of the game—no general ever won all his battles—and nothing would ever have come out if it hadn’t been for a fat slob of an MP trying to embarrass the Government. He asked in the House what action had been taken to explain the continued absence from duty of Lieutenant Mornix, and he got the answer that the police were following the usual routine for tracing a missing person. Then back he came with:

  ‘Is it a fact that Lieutenant Mornix was employed in a secret naval establishment?’

  The Under-Secretary replied that he was employed in H.M.S. Nereid, a shore-based establishment of no particular secrecy and open to the public.

  That was a dam’ silly reply, because next day the news hawks were down at Portland in scores and they found that while the public could certainly stroll round the gardens of H.M.S. Nereid—a large country house, not a ship—that was about all they could do.

  Naturally none of us ever knew what went on behind the scenes in, I guess, agitated meetings of the Cabinet, the head of MI5 and the Ministry of Defence, but the next front-page news was the resignation of a junior minister and the appointment of a Special Tribunal. The public always demands a scapegoat, Willie. One had been found. The other was on the way.

  Here, verbatim, is part of the evidence given by my nephew to the Tribunal sitting in camera. And camera it sure was! Not a word, as you know only too well, ever leaked out. I never showed this transcript to anyone while I was in England, for I didn’t want to spend the rest of my declining years in the Tower of London. You can safely swear you invented it. I believe forty more years must pass before the top secret evidence to the Tribunal is open to historical research.

  Quote this transcript as an introduction to whatever you write! Without it nothing will make sense.

  ‘Mr. Rory, I understand that it was known to your service that Lieutenant Mornix was in the pay of a foreign power?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘And it was your duty to supervise his movements?’

  ‘Yes. But not too closely.’

  ‘So there was always a possibility that he might abscond?’

  ‘My orders were that his suspicions should never be aroused. I therefore took risks which I would not normally have taken.’

  ‘Why were such orders given to you?’

  ‘That question should be put to another branch of Intelligence.’

  ‘It has been stated in evidence that Special Branch had ample evidence justifying the arrest of Lieutenant Mornix when he left H.M.S. Nereid on May 30th. Would you agree?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that you gave instructions that the arrest should be delayed until his return to Portland.’

  ‘I did. I had good reason to believe that his employers required him in person for consultation. If only I could find out whom he met and where, my case was complete.’

  ‘So you alone were in a position to decide whether he should or should not be arrested?’

  ‘To some degree—yes.’

  ‘On arrival in London he was followed?’

  ‘He was, but very discreetly. I have already explained that it was vital that he should have no suspicion.’

  ‘Where in fact did he go?’

  ‘To number Forty-two Whatcombe Street. He had some difficulty in finding the address, suggesting that he had never visited the street before.’

  ‘You think that was the rendezvous with his employers?’

  ‘No. I think it was intended to check the hounds—like a fox going through a flock of sheep.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘My agents were able to watch the house, back and front, till dark, but Mornix never came out. Arrangements were then made with the police to raid the house on suspicion of a drug offence and check the identity of every person in it. He was not there.’

  ‘How do you suppose he left?’

  ‘There was a continual coming and going of odd types, very hairy and—on such a warm day—half naked except for beads and fringes. I imagine that Lieutenant Mornix put on some such disguise, stood in the porch talking to other tenants and simply walked off with them. Under those circumstances he would be hard to recognise even for an expert. My agents could not stop everyone and check whether whiskers and Afro-American hair style were false.’

  ‘The escape of Mornix seems to have been organised by persons or a person with considerable experience, Mr. Rory.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could such a person have got him out of the country?’

  ‘I doubt it, unless as diplomatic baggage.’

  ‘A rather bulky piece of baggage!’

  ‘Not if divided into manageable pieces.’

  ‘Please be serious, Mr. Rory! Suppose he was assisted by someone with inside knowledge of the security controls?’

  ‘Possible. But I do not believe such a traitor exists in my service.’

  ‘Let us return to Forty-two Whatcombe Street. The lady whom the tribunal has decided to refer to as Miss X owned the house?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Assuming for a moment the unlikely event of a Minister of the Crown frequenting a suspicious character, would her antecedents be automatically investigated by MI5?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say automatically. If there was a definite request, with some prima facie evidence that her contacts were undesirable, she might be discreetly investigated and the Minister warned.’ />
  ‘Was there such a request in the case of Miss X and from whom?’

  ‘There was a request from the CIA.’

  ‘And was she in fact investigated?’

  ‘No. It was considered unnecessary. The lady, her opinions and her contacts were all well known.’

  ‘You were on terms of friendship with the Minister?’

  ‘We belong to the same club and have common interests.’

  ‘Was it you who introduced Miss X to the Minister in the first place?’

  ‘It was. He told me he wanted to know more about the communal living and revolutionary idealism of the younger generation. As Miss X had let the lower flat of her house to such a commune and as she was a woman of good family and high intelligence I suggested he might talk to her.’

  ‘You were aware of the more intimate relationship which developed?’

  ‘From hearsay only. In any case it was a private and normal relationship between a young woman and an older man who found each other mutually attractive. In my opinion the Minister was quite wrong to resign.’

  ‘You still think then that it was nothing more than coincidence that Miss X lived in the very building where Lieutenant Mornix disappeared?’

  ‘The fullest investigation is taking place.’

  ‘Shutting the stable door when the horse has bolted!’

  ‘If you wish. But there is no evidence against her beyond some unconventionality in her politics and choice of friends.’

  ‘In forming your favourable opinion of Miss X had you anything to go on besides your personal acquaintance with her?’

  ‘I had other sources of information.’

  ‘May the Tribunal know what they were?’

  ‘Common friends. I don’t want to drag in names which have nothing to do with the case.’

  ‘Mr. Rory, I am bound to put to you certain questions regarding your personal affairs. I must emphasize that you are fully entitled to refuse to answer them here and now.’

  ‘I will tell the Tribunal to the best of my ability anything it wishes to know.’

  ‘On May 30th, the date of the lieutenant’s escape, your bank account was overdrawn to the extent of £1,560.’

  ‘It may have been.’

  ‘On June 15th the overdraft amounted to nearly £1,900.’

  ‘Probably. I had bought some claret I couldn’t really afford.’

  ‘On June 16th your account stood at £89 in credit.’

  ‘Of course it did not! Well, I mean there must have been a mistake.’

  ‘You received no advice from your bank that a sum of £2,000 had been transferred to your credit?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘It would have been your duty, I presume, to report such a large payment from an unknown source to the Head of your Department?’

  ‘Of course, if I had known it was there.’

  ‘I must ask you again if you did not receive an advice from the bank that it was there.’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean—I might have done.’

  ‘Could you be more precise?’

  ‘Well, I might have thought a letter from the bank was about my overdraft and just stuffed it in a drawer.’

  ‘In any case your bank statement at the end of the month would have shown your account was in credit.’

  ‘I didn’t look at it.’

  ‘Stuffed it in the same drawer, I suppose?’

  ‘Well—I’m afraid—yes. I know it sounds silly but I always do when I’m badly over the overdraft limit.’

  ‘Did you not notice that no cheque of yours was dishonoured?’

  ‘Yes, but I supposed the Manager was being reasonable. He never bothered half as much about my overdraft as I did. And I knew he would telephone me if I had really gone too far and that then I would have to do something.’

  ‘What, for example?’

  ‘Well, there’s always something one can do.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Rory, no doubt there is. Have you any idea where this money came from?’

  ‘Not the least.’

  ‘I am instructed that it was passed through two foreign banks before reaching yours and that the order originated in a numbered account at a Swiss bank. I shall pass you a slip of paper with the number of that account. Please tell the Tribunal if it means anything to you.’

  ‘Good God—why didn’t they pay cash?’

  Willie, that was the impulsive exclamation which sank him. It sounded as if he was regretting that the bribe had not been paid in cash; but the question, in that moment of surprise and prostration, was addressed to himself, not to the Tribunal. What he meant was that if the spy-masters had paid cash in the normal way there would have been no trace of the origin of the payment; therefore they intended it to be traced—not too simply but after weeks of clever investigation.

  The Tribunal allowed him to explain what he meant, and he did it badly and incoherently. When he claimed that the payment was an attempt to discredit him he was asked what the object of that could be, since everything he knew or suspected would already be on record in the files. He was then asked if he could give the name of any responsible person who knew of and could confirm this infantile habit of stuffing his bank statements into a drawer unread.

  He could not, and that was the end. The duty of the Tribunal was to report; it had no power to decide criminal liability. So Alwyn was not immediately arrested. But he was bound to be put on trial with the public spitting at the Black Maria which carried him to court. The escape of Mornix was entirely due to the orders he had given, overruling Special Branch, and the evidence that he had prearranged the visit to Whatcombe Street was convincing.

  You who knew him so well will always understand why he bolted while there was still time. Alwyn had the foolish pride of a man of honour which makes him retreat rather than fight when that honour is questioned. Whether he was right or wrong none of us can say. His behaviour with his bank accounts was unbelievable for a responsible government servant. Officially unbelievable, I mean. Yet sheer, sober, human idiocy is the commonest thing in the world, and during the happy years I lived in England I was continually astounded by the serene eccentricities of my friends and neighbours. No doubt they said the same of me.

  And here is something you don’t know. I remember that when Alwyn was ten years old his mother insisted that he would be a poet—an opinion based on nothing at all but his obstinate belief in fairies. That imagination of his—the readiness to look beyond the factual—must have made him an outstanding security officer, but doesn’t it also account for his refusal to face facts in private life? Money was just one of such facts. He treated it without respect because he loathed it.

  I have of course an ulterior motive in allowing or persuading you to drag this unsavoury business out into the light. You will have read the daily revelations of arrogance, dishonesty and contempt for Law in departments of our government, leaving us without even the illusion that there is honour among thieves. We in America are going through one of our periodical revolutions when we clean out the stables more thoroughly than any other country would ever dare. Because I know that, my pride in my country is unaffected. But now is the time to drive home the lesson that the end never justifies the means.

  THE STATEMENT OF ADRIAN GURNEY

  On that evening of July 1st which decided then and there the course of all my future life I was innocently waiting in my little box of an office for the arrival of my employer to sign the correspondence entrusted to me as personal assistant. There was one letter which I had typed and then signed with my own name, for the persistent exchanges of affection between Councillor Sokes and his latest immature tart were carried on through me. Herbert Sokes, I remember, was in his most poetical mood; he described in enthusiastic detail the charms and timidities which his little darling had artistically displayed during his last visit to London and his expectations for their next meeting. This remarkable correspondence which mixed depravity, fatherliness and even a dash of religion to taste sugges
ted to me that he got as much pleasure from Miss Tacket’s absence as he did from her presence.

  Dangerous letters they would have been if Sokes had put his own name to them, but I willingly obliged him. I was a lost dog, accepting Sokes as master and Caulby as home.

  It was a revolting town, developed by the railway in the eighteen-seventies. Nine-tenths of it was composed of red brick houses, each with three front windows and a door. Gaiety was represented only in the frontage of the pubs, the most palatial being entirely faced by two different shades of mauve tiles; dignity, wherever required, was underlined by Gothic windows of stone or variegated brick. After so much solidity the mass Utopia of the High Street, lined by the glass and concrete of the usual multiple stores, was a relief.

  Caulby was depressing but to be endured, for it meant to me a home and the possibility of a career. I gave it such affection as I could. A very different England it appeared from that which I had known up to the age of twelve, but I was obstinately determined to accept with open arms any and every aspect of my country.

  My father farmed in Wiltshire. He was a man of dreams, almost a mystic in his feeling of union with the earth and with all the unknown cultivators of the past whose rolling green tombs and sacred stones littered parts of his land. They must always have felt their way by trial and error, and so very often did he. Long before maize was common in English gardens he took a chance with it, reckoning that it could be grown well enough in the soft valley of the Kennet and that he could not lose on an acre or two of his own chicken food with an expanding London market as a possible side-line. I never knew what report of miracle corn took him to Romania instead of the United States; it may have been the advice of the vicar whose brother imported caviare. At any rate he returned home after eight weeks with a bushel of seed and a young Romanian wife as well. The maize showed a very small profit and the whirlwind marriage produced me.

  Life, green and pleasant, might have so continued if my adventurous father had not insisted on driving a tractor on too steep a slope where his neighbours would have been content to leave the tussocky grass alone or plough it up with horses. His widow tried to carry on alone. She was a merry, pretty woman, efficient too, and even in the market helped by everyone; but it was as if our too insular livestock would not respond to foreign care. Fowl pest and an outbreak of gid among the sheep finished her, and the sale of the farm hardly did more than pay the debts. She had no other profession and no way of providing for the pair of us, but in Romania there was still a resourceful family which appeared to be easily coping with communism.