The Desolate Garden

by Daniel Kemp

  “I'll count the seconds that we are apart. Can I help you change? Help with your buttons, or, perhaps choosing the dress? Something silky and sultry, I would think?” I had returned to my old self and felt much better for it.

  “No, you can't, and I think tweed and something woollen would be more suitable this evening. I feel a chill in my bones.”

  “If you do feel like disturbing me, please do. Other than that I'll hold my breath and wait for you at breakfast. Do hurry back.”

  Chapter Eight: Where Life Begins

  Peter Trimble teamed up with the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section Six, from the sanity of the outside world in 1978. He was almost 29, and immediately became a sub on the 'Garden File', directly under the supervision of the then 'C' Dicky Blythe-Smith. That file had been opened in 1961 by one of his predecessors, Maurice Cavendish, when irrefutable information was mysteriously intercepted at GCHQ.

  A cryptanalysis of previously used pages, of an intended 'one time pad' encrypted message, pointed at a certain Harold Adriano Russell Philby as being, beyond doubt, the 'third man' in the Burgess Maclean scandal. Stanley, the name used, by the Soviets in these messages, had been nicknamed 'Kim' after the young Indian of Rudyard Kipling's novel, having had been born in the Punjab and spent time in the Indian Civil Service. This was a major breakthrough for the SIS, as one time pad messaging, that is encrypting words and letters into numbers to which an additive key from a 'one time pad' was added, was unbreakable.

  The code had been corrupted by the reuse of entire pages of previously used material, allowing for its decryption. At the time, it was taken to have been an oversight at the Soviet manufactures of their secret communication equipment, or simply a lucky break as can happen in life. No one considered it to have been deliberate, other than Cavendish. Philby had been supplying information to the Russians since before the Second World War but had been cleared of spying charges; even being vindicated by Prime Minister Macmillan in the House of Commons in 1955. He was an acute embarrassment to all in the upper echelons of English society, especially the Intelligence community. Cavendish, either in collusion with the Government or on his own, decided not to use that undeniable evidence and arrest and prosecute Philby; instead he allowed him to escape to the Soviet Union, where he was beyond the reach of journalists and the full exposure of his treason.

  By this action the cryptanalysis was not apparent to the Russians, and project Venona; the name given to this decryption continued into the eighties. More oversights and lucky breaks came the way of SIS. Had Cavendish been clairvoyant, or just plain lucky?

  Set against Stanley's banishment away from the Secret Services, were the unanswered questions over the full and exact damage he had done. The only avenue into that investigation left open to Maurice was the time honoured one of leg work; that of going back and over everything Stanley had done, or everywhere he had been stationed.

  Two separate and seemingly unconnected items were thrown up by 'subs' working out of 'the office.' The first was when the department was situated at 54 The Broadway SW1 in 1963. A bank account, under the name of Stanley Russell, was held at a branch of the Martin's Bank of 63 Long Acre WC2. It was opened on the 14th July 1936 with a deposit of £2.5 million plus change, then another of exactly £2 million in November of the same year, and finally one of £3 million, again with change, in May the following year. There had been no withdrawals. The writing on the application form filled in by Stanley was identical, conclusively, to that of Philby's.

  Lord Edwin Davenport, as British ambassador, had a great deal more to do at the outbreak of war than just the forwarding on of a fellow hereditary peers' letters. He delegated Philby to that task, who was attached to the Embassy in Vienna throughout the early war years, supplying valuable information to the Allies. Edwin had noted down all the details of the three letters. However, it being such a small inconsequential event, it went unnoticed and unrecorded on Stanley's file until Peter Trimble, ferreting around as all good 'subs' are meant to do, unearthed it early in his career, in the Westminster Bridge Road building that then hosted the SIS. This was the second item. Taken apart, as well might they have been done, owing to the fifteen-year gap in their discovery, there was no connection; but put together as Dicky Blythe-Smith did, it added up to one thing, and one thing only. Lord Maudlin Paterson was sending money to a person in Leningrad, and Stanley had intervened in the delivery.

  The next thing that Dicky had to decide upon was how to approach the problem of an errant, supposed ex-custodian of a private bank, in which the SIS had a distinct interest. After due deliberation he abandoned protocol, adopting a radical approach rather than the more conservative prudence that the situation may have demanded. He sent the young, inexperienced, Trimble to parley with the aged Lord at Harrogate Hall.

  “I'm sorry to trouble you, my Lord, but I have come to speak to you about some letters you wrote to a Señora Cortez in Leningrad starting in 1936 and then going on for many years,” Peter stoically declared.

  “Yes, young man…and what interest are they of yours?”

  “Well, Sir, we believe that Kim Philby that abomination of a man took some money from those letters for himself.”

  “What money? Was there money in them? What makes you think it was mine?” indignantly he asked. Come on, speak up, man!” he contemptuously demanded of young Peter.

  “Well, nothing really, other than we've found a bank account of his with £7.5 million in. We just wondered if it could be yours, Sir?”

  “Are you accusing me of being a spy, or a fraudster, or both? Make sure that Blythe-Smith is in his office on Monday when I shall walk the ledgers over the bridge to him. Tell him that he should not have sent a boy to do what he could not face himself, and also; to have his apology ready and for good measure, his resignation. I will be speaking to the PM this evening about this.”

  The Director of MI6, as the Secret Intelligence Service is popularly referred to, has only once resigned. If it was a more regular occurrence it would cause an unnecessary furore amongst the servile citizens it is supposed to serve, and this edict was applied to Dicky, who sent a letter of abject apology to Lord Maudlin and attached his report to the Garden File. There it stayed until Peter Trimble assumed the role of 'C' in 2007, and the haunting memory of that ancient meeting was remembered.

  Where the complexity of my father was introspective and self-absorbed, Maudlin's was the opposite; he was an extrovert, gregarious, and in his young days, an utterly carefree man. In some ways, Judith reminded me of his methodical way of thinking and his painstaking attention to detail. He had selected Vienna as his chosen route for his correspondence, with care and deliberation. His inbred suspicion of all things foreign narrowed his options it must be said. However, it was still an inspired choice. The fact that Stanley had intervened was beyond his comprehension or his control. It had been through his foresight that GCHQ had been endowed with the unique facilities that enabled that institution to decipher the code that had lead the SIS to his door! It was in 1946 when he had contacted Meredith Paine, the then 'C,' and proposed the expansive program of improvements to GCHQ capabilities, prompted by his own experiences of gathering information; but he had no fears of any investigation. The secrets were, as he advised me, buried deep.

  The air route for mail was complicated in the late thirties. Through Germany was the direct route; however, the tensions between that country, Britain and the USSR made that choice unreliable. The route via Scandinavia was unusable, due to the unrest, prior to the 'Winter War' between Finland and its unhappy neighbour the USSR. A route through North Africa and the Middle East was feasible, but long in time and therefore capricious. Notwithstanding all these obstructions, the overriding consideration to Maudlin was his inability to write in the Cyrillic alphabet and his well-founded mistrust of some Soviet postal worker being able to read English. So, he settled on Austria as his safest bet; and until that interview, had never known where his money had gone.


  He had no replies from Andrea to muse over for ten long years and had often worried about her welfare, until in September 1946 he received a rerouted letter from her, informing him of her poverty and asking for help.

  He was a learned and erudite man my great-grandfather, gaining his knowledge from wide and expansive fields; not relying solely on his academic lessons for his insight on life. He had been aggrieved that he was the last son and in line for the Standard of Saint George, as he had sought a more adventurous life for himself than that.

  At the onslaught of the 'War to end all Wars' he had enlisted, against his father's will, in the Royal Horse Artillery and immediately was given the rank of Captain. He saw action on the Western Front, the Sinai Peninsula and in Persia and ended the war as a Colonel. He was commended on four occasions, and wore his awarded Distinguished Service Order and Bar, along with his other campaign medals, with great pride. By 1922 he had retired from the Army, much to the relief of his father and Alfred, the third-youngest brother of the quartet of Paterson sons but not, to their horror, from hostile activities. He volunteered for the Irish War! There, in Ireland, the seed was planted that grew and led to his acquaintance with MA; or, more correctly, Andrea Isadora Mafalda Cortez, who unbeknown to him then, was one year old.

  Maudlin's responsibility lay in the gathering of information of the Irish Republican Armies' intentions and tactics, and in this role he recruited an assembly of men known as the 'Cairo' gang. For three years Maudlin's handling of those seven Protestants, as they went about their trade, was impeccable and faultless…until one day when he made a mistake. He vowed there and then, standing on the street where their bodies lay, never to divulge confidential, intimate secrets to anyone, even if they are, supposedly, on your side!

  “Never trust your friends with confidential information Harry, they will ultimately let you down. Keep it to yourself. Never allow yourself to think that a friend is as reliable as you are in keeping a secret, because they won't be. Just remember that you can only ever rely on yourself, and no one else.” Another snippet of knowledge my great-grandfather gave me, and I was trying to live up to him in keeping the faith.

  Chapter Nine: Snowdrops

  “If it's all the same to you, Harry, I'd like to get out today. I'm a bit of a botanical freak, and I love spring, with its promise of new life. Today looks like it will be lovely. How about the moors? If the crocuses are so wonderful here, I bet the snowdrops, up at that height, are truly marvellous.”

  We were at breakfast on the Sunday and I hadn't heard her return from her night's excursion, but I had broken away from tradition. There seemed little point in having a selection of dishes from which to choose, carried upstairs from the kitchen and presented in the dining room, as she had eaten the same dishes on the mornings of her stay. One slice of dry toast, brown, of which she had left half, a bowl of one shredded wheat with skimmed milk, and then some tinned fruit in their juices. She had decaffeinated coffee, whilst I had tea. As far as my own breakfast was concerned, I was perfectly happy with my normal routine of raiding the refrigerator for delights, and having my tea either in my office, or the estates.

  I found the formality of the first meal of the day wearisome and over indulgent, especially with my own consumption of the last few days. In homes such as mine, it is not unusual to have breakfast served; however as my guest ate so little, I had decided to dispense with that ritual, and had brought Judith's favourites from downstairs to the table. I had also prepared a plate of cold beef, left over from the previous night's dinner, for myself. Cook, with her pleasant habit of cooking too many, always kept the crispiest roasted potatoes left untouched for my snacking, and I had a few of these on my plate as well.

  Judith was surprised and complimentary with the care I had taken over the arrangement of her preferences, but still felt obliged to criticise the contents of my own.

  “You'll die young from high cholesterol poisoning if that's what you pig out on in the mornings. No wonder you're overweight. You could lose a few pounds, especially around your waist. I haven't seen you eat anything healthy since I've been here,” she declared, in a gentle voice solicitously adding. “How are the cows? Have you heard from the vet with his report, yet? That reminds me…your hair could definitely do with a cut. You'd look silly with a pigtail. If you want, I could do it for you? I used to cut an old boyfriend's hair once, made a good job of it too, even if I say so myself. I'm no Nicky Clarke, but neither do I need a basin to put over your head. I'll tidy it up for you.”

  There was no mocking in her speech, no hint of inane criticism or witty indulgence. I thought I detected a sense of fond warm-heartedness that could be easily be taken as affection. All of a sudden, my breakfast table had taken on a different perspective. Had I married this women in my sleeping hours, whilst I had been drugged and stupefied? I quickly glanced at my left hand to see if the ring of captivity had been slipped on, or if the ink from the register had stained my fingers. Where did this concern come from if not from a marital partner?

  “Yes, it would be nice to get away,” was the trite statement I was able to make. I felt as though I was suffocating in the intoxicating air! “By the way, did you have a pleasant night and a peaceful drive?”

  “Don't want to discuss it, Harry. Boring as being at a nun's convention discussing the virtues of contraception. Do you think we could have an hour's ride together straight after this? Nothing too strenuous with all that floating around inside you of course. I'll be kind!”

  Again, where I would have made some clever remark about 'a ride together,' I didn't. I was lost and incapable it seemed, of regaining my sanity.

  “Why not?” I replied, thinking it was better than 'you wash, I'll dry' which any moment soon would be my suggestion. I should have said that the report from the vet had indeed shown some infection in the herd, and that I must lend a hand in the inoculations, but I didn't. I made things worse.

  “The only thing is, I really must be at St Michael's, our local church, by ten-thirty. As the new Earl it's my duty to attend on the first Sunday of each month. This one is special, anyway. It is to commemorate my father, and I'll be expected to say a few words. Would you like to come?” I insanely asked, still caught, unexplainably, in her dazzling headlights.

  Overnight I had become the doting, dutiful husband of a malnourished refugee rescued from the Third World. Better stay clear of the hot roasted spuds at the Spy Glass after church, I thought, as I struggled to free myself from this malaise.

  “There was something I was meaning to ask you, Harry. I hope you don't mind…it's a bit personal.”

  In the trancelike state that I was in, I doubted that I could have kept any private matter from her, and I was not mistaken.

  “Ask away, Judith, do.”

  “Well, you smell in the mornings. There's a whiff of chlorine in the air when you're around. You don't use it as a deodorant, do you?”

  “Funnily, no. I swim every morning, spend a good hour or so in the pool. I have done since I was a child.”

  “You've been holding out on me, H! Have you got a pool here?” She was on her fruit course and almost dropped both fork and spoon, holding on to them at the cost of her half eaten toast, which fell, plate as well, noisily to the wooden floor.

  I was helpless, caught with my trousers down at my ankles. I had been trying to keep the pool strictly to myself, but I was caught in her hypnotic presence and was unable to escape.

  “Hadn't I mentioned it?” Bedazzled I replied. “No, I hadn't had I, must have slipped my mind. I promise I'll show you after breakfast and sort you out a costume to wear. There are steam rooms there, a sauna and heated relaxing loungers. Help yourself.”

  Another time I would have substituted 'a couple of handkerchiefs' for the word costume, but that seemed an age away. I attended church alone; whilst Judith enjoyed my secret. However, by the time of my return I had regained my senses.

  It was a six mile drive to the part of the North York Moors National Par
k nearest my favourite pub, and I hung on for grim life for every inch of that journey, as she hurled her car into every blind corner with seemingly reckless disregard for everything. When we had ridden out, earlier, she had shown no signs of this kamikaze trait, being comfortable and judicious, canny and perceptive. We had done the schooling jumps then ventured out across the estate. I had not removed some of the gallops from the racing stable days, and along these she had shown good riding skills in her posture and balance, beating me easily in a pretend race. I was heavy now, in my fortieth year, having given up on almost all sport, since a complicated knee injury I had sustained whilst playing rugby for the Army had curtailed my participation.

  I played the occasional round of golf, if the arthritis in my knee allowed at a nearby course, or took some part in the annual estate cricket match in which to vent my anger. Other than that, and the occasional ride with my swim each day, there was nothing in which I could exert myself. I had always been heavily built; it was in the family genes. In my youth this had been to no disadvantage, having never been bullied nor ostracised at schools.

  Apparently I was everyone's 'best pal' if house-mates were threatened with any the 'Seniors' pranks, and at Eton there were many. One such was the variation of the 'Wall Game' where there was no ball and goals were often scored, unlike in the real thing. Every Ascension Day, after the conventional event, 'Oppidans', the Seniors, would suspend first year King's Scholars, called 'fags' over the curved wall and drop them, spread-eagled, into the mud below. A goal was scored each time a 'fag' rolled over in that mud before being able to extradite himself from the all-clinging morass!