The Desolate Garden

by Daniel Kemp

  We spoke about England, music, Michel Jarre, and probably everything under the Moscow moon, but nothing of great significance. He mentioned the tensions in the previous USSR of Chechnya and the Ukraine, and implied that he had a hand in the settlement that had been negotiated. He was the type of person who could talk on any subject and feel comfortable without detailing too much of his knowledge. The only matters of a personal nature he gave away was that his time consuming passion was playing the saxophone. It had been Judo when he was younger, achieving a Sixth Dan Red and White belt, whatever that meant. Later, at the concert, I thought I knew why he had told me that snippet of information!

  “This is my daughter, Katherine. I believe you have already met!” He said, somewhat antagonistically when we bumped into Katherine.

  We had walked the short distance from the hotel into the square where she was waiting, but there was no sign of a Mr Friedal. The company she was with stood aside, somewhat reverentially, when we appeared. Boris, my nickname for the driver, had been behind us and still had the dog. He was excited when he saw Katherine…the dog, I mean. Whatever Boris was feeling was a mystery to me; a man of closed emotions, Mr Boris.”

  I was interrupted again in my disclosure by what I considered an unnecessary remark from Judith, coupled with an observation that carried a sense of apprehension.

  “She had that effect on dogs, then no wonder you were attracted. Forgive me, I just couldn't resist it. On a more serious note, Harry, have you wondered why he would want to give us his daughter? They are the same man, I'm sure of it…the love of dogs and the Judo, they both fit. He's shown you them because he wants help, and he must want his daughter out as well.”

  “Out of what?” I asked.

  “The game, Harry. He's had enough. It's as though he's asking to be brought home, collect the money stashed away somewhere by Maudlin, draw a card to pass jail, and land on Park Lane, if you pardon my Monopoly pun. You didn't happen to ask him about the broken nose and the scar on his chin, did you?”

  “No, I didn't. Should I have done? And, while on the subject, any distinguishing marks elsewhere on his torso?”

  “That's a shame…I never put modesty on your file. Only Korovin was in a car accident early in '81 whilst he was in Lebanon attending a Middle East Studies Group. He lost a girlfriend in it, but got out almost unscathed. Would have been nice to have tied him to that. You did say that he wore a wedding ring, this Sergey of yours?”

  I confirmed this and continued describing the rest of the evening, the concert, the occasional recognition of others, either from Sergey or towards him or Katherine, her departure, and eventually his and mine. We had returned to the National and settled into the Nikki bar. He was the type of man who could speak of everything without ever giving a glimpse of himself. He was more interested in me, which again I found disquieting, and he questioned if it was I who had been sent for his interrogation. In fact, I asked Peter that when I returned to London.

  'No, Harry, that was not the reason for your encounter,' he told me, but did not explain what was. He was built from the same bricks as Sergey, never quite answering a question in an expansive positive way.

  Judith asked what were Goganof's last words on his departure, and I could recall them as if they were spoken to me an hour ago. At the time I put no importance on them, but now she had made a connection to the past, they held significant gravity: I have always felt an affinity towards the English nobility, as though I belong in your House of Lords and not a mere commoner. We should meet again, and discuss our past in depth.

  “Is that what you told Peter, Harry, word for word?” An uneasy Judith asked me. When I replied in the affirmative, I did not hear any anxious voice with more questions, but I saw a concerned face looking into an illusionary space between the zig-zagging lines.

  “Let me run something by you, Harry. It will probably sound silly but indulge me, for a second. Just suppose Peter did not know of Korovin and used your name and title to flush him out…why do you suppose he would do that?”

  “To catch a Russian spy, put a feather in his cap, revenge for what Tanya had passed on to him all good reasons, are they not?”

  “Hmm…plausible.” Another drink and more silence, apart from Mirella Freni and a young Luciano Pavarotti as Mimi and Rodolfo in Puccini's masterpiece.

  “I don't think your summary can be correct, H. That would mean that all my theories are incorrect. Tanya was, after all, working for the communists and supplied useful gems, and Comrade Korovin was not working for us. I'm sticking to my instincts. There must be another reason…but what it is, I'm not sure.”

  “Well, I can't think of one and I'm tired, Judith. It's not often that you lose a father and a brother within a week; I have a lot to think about apart from all this. I've texted my brother Maurice, the next in line for the bank, but have heard nothing back yet. He won't be eager to return from California permanently, and what he knows of banking can be written on the back of a postage stamp. I'm off to bed so that I'm all bushy-tailed for Trimble in the morning.”

  “Don't speculate on anything tomorrow, Harry. Keep to the point, plain and simple. I'm staying here for a while, to mull things over a bit. I've put your things in your room, second door on the right. You've got all your own facilities in there, so there's no need of us crossing paths in the night, is there?”

  “Absolutely not, Judith. Got anything to munch on in the fridge, or is it empty and barren?”

  “Ha ha. Good night,” she replied. I left the untold story, and I left her there with her red and black book opened, beginning to write.

  I had showered and shaved. It was a habit of mine to shave at night as, being fair-haired, my beard was not noticeable in the morning. I had parted company with Judith early, it was a little after ten, but I was truly tired, and nigh-on starving. I knew that if I had anything else to drink I would be ravenous and my stomach would start churning, an affliction the old get, and not even Pavarotti would muffle the sounds. Judith had thoughtfully, and as it turned out fortunately, laid out a dressing gown, I guessed one that had belonged to her late husband. I was beginning to think about why she would have kept it, and whether I should use it for the morning, when she was knocking on my door.

  “Harry, I need you. Come down immediately, this is no time to sleep.”

  There on the table that I had left no more than fifteen minutes ago, was a hollowed-out rectangle plate on which sat an unedifying sandwich of stale-looking, curled edged, brown bread, with something white and green poking through.

  “I had forgotten your creature comforts, H. Don't look so miserable…it won't harm you. It's goat's cheese and gherkins. That was all that was in the fridge, I'm afraid. Promise I'll buy some provisions tomorrow.” Not even I was that hungry, but I was curious.

  “Was there nothing else he said…did he mention Peter, for example?”

  I was too tired to argue with her and insist on my need of sleep, hoping for pity, which I knew I would not find, and so I reluctantly retook my position in the, still-warm, chair.

  “In a way, yes. He asked who initiated the first contact and who authorised that dead message I left in the church pew. He said it was old school, used by an old friend many moons ago and left to die. When I told him that it was 'C' he said that he had never heard of Trimble but laughed it off, saying sometime he would write his memoirs.”

  “Look, Harry. I know I'm right.” She picked up from where she had left off previously as I, successfully, managed to ignore the culinary delight, but not the glass of Scotch that sat beside it. “In the sixties we decoded a message sent from Soviet intelligence proving beyond doubt that an agent that we believed was not Russian House, was. It was thought to have been a mistake on their part, someone slipped up on the coding but supposing it was deliberate, and Korovin made it happen?”

  “That's a big assumption. Why should he, and how did he make it happen?” I asked.

  “The why is the easiest to explain. He was overawed
by his images of the free world, an English Lord as his father, and a wealthy one. I won't have it that Maudlin never let on to his lover that he was a peer. He might have used a false name on the birth certificate, but he would have flaunted his status in her seduction, would not have been able to hold himself back. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, seems a reasonable deduction, Judith. Go on.”

  “I was going to add that it worked for you the first time with Katherine, seems a shame she gave you the heave-ho the second time around, but I will not be tempted.”

  I allowed her to believe that she had me there, as I hid behind our interpretation of the fifth amendment, and added - 'no comment' to the debate.

  “Right. So there he is, in squalor and chaos, faced with a dying mother. Restrictions on communications are relaxed at the end of the war. Let's say Andrea is still a looker. There's no reason why not she's only 36 in 1946, and one of your lot would have had a discerning eye when it came to women. So, after a while in freezing cold Russia, she wants the warmth of a man. She goes out and gets herself a lover with influence over what can and can't be sent out of Mother Russia. That's when young Romario reaches out to Lord M.

  Maudlin sends his thoroughbred stallion to the rescue, carrying more money, and this time it gets through, influential postman and all that. Not beyond the realms of possibility, is it?” It was my time for interrupting, as she raised her glass towards me, expecting a reply.

  “That money he sent in 1936 never was received in Russia, then. What makes you say that?”

  “The agent I was referring to in that decoded message was Kim Philby, of Cambridge notoriety. He got his grubby hands on it. Syphoned it away for a rainy day but never got it before we cottoned on to him. In the Treasury vaults by now, I should think, paying for more wasted lives and buying prestige for this country in some deprived worthless spot on the globe. Anyway, back to my rantings. Romario can't manage alone, so enlists Tanya's help in the caring thing for Mummy. Or, maybe she's his sweetheart? I don't think that, though otherwise, why let her go? No! The first one's right, I bet. Whatever. He tells her that, in return, he will help her escape to the benevolent Maudlin. How am I doing…still with me, H?” No recognition in my direction this time, and I had no chance of replying, as she continued in her appraisal.

  “He tells his bosses that he's planted Tanya under our radar. With that, and the money that Maudlin keeps giving him, he buys his way up the tree. As to how he alters that code…I'm not sure, but he knew about the system. That's obvious. He gave Tanya and Maudlin a pad to work from, christened Tanya, Mother, in honour of his departed one, then plied his comrades with worthless information purportedly from her. If she was really working for them, then that means so was Maudlin, and I don't believe that there was any person more English in England.

  Maudlin, having dabbed his finger in the elixir of espionage in Ireland, I would think that you've heard all that story, thinks he would like to taste the ambrosia again, so runs the now renamed Romario himself using Tanya as his cover. Eventually, Paulo drops the spy tag and resorts to what he knows best. That's lying on a different stage, one where every player seeks power and self-gratification, that of politics. That's what that badge represented; a member of the old Politburo. It was his way of telling us that was where he was from. I don't believe that any of those three were parts of a Russian doll…no way, do I. I'll tell you that story I was going to now, so sit back and listen, Harry, and see if you can make sense of it.”

  Chapter Fifteen: Garden Twine and Garden Stakes

  “Preceding that intercepted code in 1961 by five months, George Blake, a Danish Jew who worked for the SOE from 1940, who you previously glossed over and Henry Houghton a Royal Navel Master-at-Arms and one-time worker at a secret underwater testing establishment, were exposed by the defecting head of the Polish Military Counter Intelligence, as Soviet agents passing our valuables on to the Reds.

  Special Branch arrested about seven others the same day, including a very high flyer indeed. A man who went by the name of Gordon Lonsdale, but that was not his real name…it was Konon Trofimovich Molony, a Soviet military officer. What has all this got to do with our Paulo Korovin, you are about to ask? Well, I'm going to tell you.”

  Judith was a little drunk by now, having, like me, had nothing to eat since breakfast, but she was holding it together well, although she was slightly less lucid than normal. Whether that was purely due to the drink or her blatant excitement in being able to elucidate on her theory to a captive audience, I again would not pass comment as to the cause. It would paint her in a poor light, and that would not be fair. Mimi had died and Rodolfo had sung his last lament, but Judith was trilling on, resembling a curled-up canary perched in her chair.

  “Our young Korovin was posted to Warsaw in 1960 as was Houghton except he was ours, of course, Houghton I mean. With Paulo the our is more maternal, not factual, you understand.”

  “Would you prefer to finish this in the morning, Judith? It may make more sense then,” I suggested, in an avuncular manner.

  “No, I deem it better that you hear it tonight smelly breath and all. Houghton was attached to our Embassy the our there I mean literally. Anyhow, he got himself noticed by the civil police. The first time was when he beat up his wife in a public car park outside a restaurant, but he was in the Embassy car, so pleaded diplomatic immunity and got away with it. The next time, he was caught dealing in coffee on the black market, to which he had no immunity. He was cautioned for the coffee, which I presume was confiscated, and used as a remedy for all the vodka those communists are supposed to put away. Anyhow, three days later he was caught again trading; this time in medical drugs, all apparently to pay for his excessive drinking habit. He didn't have a kind Daddy like me…I digress.

  He was sent home to England, but not before the Polish Security Services had turned him with offers of his own vodka brewery. He had opened the floodgates at Portland, selling our underwater secret warfare things, that then went floating off up the Channel and down the Volga on their way to Moscow. Does the Volga flow through Moscow, Harry? No matter…what the…oops! Nearly said a naughty word! Better not drink anymore…I can get a touch lewd when I'm in my cups.

  Blake was a different kettle of fish, all told. He was one of theirs and one of ours…worked us both. He worked for us up to when he got captured in North Korea during the war over there. Hated the Americans, despised their indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population. He was banged up for years with nothing to read, so read Karl Marx numero uno in Waterstone's in Pyongyang at the time, then turned Marxist and started to sell us out on his release.

  Both these two, Houghton and Blake, were handled in London by Mr Gordon Lonsdale, aka Trofimovich, who traded not only in our secrets, but slot-machines in pubs and clubs the length and breath…I mean breadth, don't I? of London. Let me in my inebriated state tie it up for you, before I either make a fool of myself or fall asleep.

  The head of the Counter Intel in Poland who came over to our side, and whose name I cannot begin to pronounce, got himself posted to their Consular here in town. He saw our twinkling lights and got carried away…I call him Leonard, okay? Leonard had a fetish that apparently his wife did not share, nor could completely indulge him in. He swung both ways, batted left and right-handed, couldn't make up his mind which sex he preferred. Liked it kinky, tied up with all leather and whips, mask and gags. You're drooling again, H… it's not me I'm talking about, it's dear old Leonard!”

  “I can assure you that I was not, as you put it, drooling, Judith. I was following your every word avidly, with my full attention.”

  “Don't interrupt me, or I'll fall off my chair and make a spectacle of myself. I've stopped drinking and now I'm sober. See? I can touch my nose with my eyes closed…well, almost.” She made a vain attempt, ending up with a red-enamelled finger nail stabbed into her cheekbone.

  “Where was I? Ah, yes, bondage! Well, Leonard got trapped in the shit of a honeypot, and ask me
who set him up for it.” There was a pause in her oratory, and when I made no reply, she asked again.

  “Go on, ask me!” Another pause, as I deliberately declined to indulge her, preferring to watch her unease as she wriggled in her discomfort. “Please, I need to pee…oh sod you, then! Wait here. I shall return, as General MacArthur said.”

  “Who was it, then?” I shouted after her fleeing figure.

  “It was Maudlin, you oaf!”

  I heard the sound of running water then the faint cry of surrender as Judith declared her intentions of retiring for the night; however, there was still time for a last command.

  “You're due at the 'Box' at eleven. Don't speculate, Harry, be factual, and don't wake me if I'm not up.”

  “What about your dog?” I enquired, trying to punish her further.

  “What dog? I've disowned him for the night.”

  “Your neighbour will not think much of you in the morning.”

  “F to the lot of you-let me sleep!”

  I sat for a long while, running it through my mind, I had forgotten my own previous tiredness, stimulated by Judith's revelations and the not so far-fetched conclusions she had made. If it hadn't been Paulo Korovin who had told Maudlin of the Poles' predilection, then how did he know? It's not something you ask a complete stranger, is it? Like to come to a stake party…I mean stake as in 'tied-up'?

  As far as the coded message was concerned, she had provided no cast-iron evidence, nor even any unsubstantiated. But it did have a degree of plausibility, a high one, so why not believe that Paulo was behind the message? If he had sold us Blake and the Portland Spy Circle, then why not Philby? All of a sudden, the credibility of Paulo working against the interests of his adopted homeland became more believable and probable. I needed to know more, and perhaps Peter Trimble in his office at Vauxhall could fill in some missing details.