‘I’m still on the job, aren’t I?’
Harry’s face was blank. ‘It’s a slight chance, but I think it’s worth it. Write up a full-colour piece on the background to your interview with Sir Roger — how you first met him at Cowes, then short-circuited your visa and played the sick-act, and how you got picked up and taken to Dzerzhinski Square. Write it straight, and don’t worry if it reads like a thriller. Most of your stories do. But leave Philby out of it. And leave out Hann and Dempster and any mention of MI5 or 6. I’m not scared — I just want to stay out of prison.’
‘How long do I have to keep my head down?’ said Cayle.
‘That depends on what happens after Sunday. If the heat stays on, I may have to send you on a slow-burning story like Cambodia or the Middle East again. But my guess is that if Philby wants you, he’ll make contact, through us, within the next month or two. From what he said to you, it sounds as though he not only wants recognition for this one, but instant glory too. He won’t be over-anxious to start recruiting another journalist at this stage. And if we play right by him, he may well come back to you.’
Cayle’s head was growing muzzy with wine and his eyes stung with lack of sleep. The editor ordered coffee and cognac. ‘Any idea where you’ll be staying?’ he added.
‘I’ve got a chum who works for Magnum. He’s got a place down in the Auvergne — converted chateau-cum-farmhouse. And he owes me at least one favour. He married a girl friend of mine.’
‘You can stay with David tonight and get some rest, then start tomorrow. But don’t stay in any hotels. And let the office have a PO number where you can be reached. I don’t want to know the address. Just drop a postcard and sign it “Basil”.’
‘Why Basil?’ Cayle growled.
‘Because I like Basil. In my lighter moments I often think of you, Barry, as a latter-day Basil Seal. I’m an Evelyn Waugh fan.’
‘Like Kim’s a Graham Greene fan,’ Cayle sneered. ‘I think we’re both getting pissed.’
‘I didn’t get much sleep myself last night,’ said Harry, folding his napkin. ‘I’m going to ring David now and tell him to get round to the flat and expect us.’
It was much as the editor had predicted. The story appeared in the first edition on Saturday night, and by early morning had been taken up by every other British Sunday paper, as well as radio and TV. It pushed the faltering mystery-story of the hijacked Troika-Caravelle to the inside pages, and by Monday it was leading most of the Press in the non-Communist world. The Foreign Office issued a pithy statement that neither confirmed nor denied the story, and Moscow was silent.
The editor gave a two-minute interview on BBC News, saying that he was satisfied as to the veracity of the interview, though he declined to divulge Cayle’s immediate whereabouts ‘for professional reasons’. There were some rude off-stage noises about the ethics of quoting the views of a confessed traitor; and at least one iron-ribbed backbencher rose in the House to accuse Cayle and Harry of being stooges of the KGB.
But with nothing to go on but Sir Roger Jameson-Clarke’s diffuse speech to Cayle, a frenzied delight seized Press, politicians and public alike. Philby had been bad enough, but at least he’d been slightly bohemian and a heavy drinker. Blake had been half Jew, half foreigner; and Burgess and Maclean had both been alcoholics and homosexuals. But here was Sir Roger Jameson-Clarke — a frequent visitor to the Palace, the silver-haired, silken-tongued stanchion of the Establishment, and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron Club to boot! It had been bad enough having a Soviet spy in the Athenaeum, but the ‘Squadron’ was unthinkable.
And with the frenzy came the rumours. No name was too high or too revered to escape suspicion, innuendo, even criminal slander. But there were no dramatic resignations; and the men on the Front Bench remained mum, as did the mandarins of Whitehall. And Barry Cayle cooked his food on a primus stove and went for long walks over the rocky hillsides round Rodez, trying to decide whether to get on with the novel which had started it all, or to wait until he heard first from Philby.
But he heard nothing. Every morning he called at the local post office on his way back from the bakery; but apart from a couple of bulky envelopes containing his forwarded mail, which consisted mostly of overdue tax demands and summonses for parking offences, there was one short note from his editor: ‘Patience is a virtue. If you need more money, wire David.’
After five weeks, and in a mood fluctuating between torpor and desperation, he put through a collect-call to his editor. Harry was not over-pleased. Cayle had broken their agreed plan, by which he was always to telephone the private number of the Paris correspondent, who would then call London and arrange for Harry to put through a person-to-person call to Cayle, at the main hotel in Rodez. Harry had explained this was a minor precaution in case the paper’s phones were being tapped, in London, or Paris, or both.
‘Just be a good boy and sit tight,’ said Harry. ‘If your hunch is right, he’ll summon you, don’t worry.’
In the event, it was another two months before the summons came, and in circumstances which even Cayle could not have foreseen.
CHAPTER 22
From his marble perch high above Lake Geneva, Charles Auguste Pol watched the midnight-blue Mercedes 600 slide out of the tunnel of cypress trees and swing round on the gravel forecourt below him, before disappearing into a garage somewhere in the lower reaches of the white mock-Moorish villa.
Pol creaked slowly back and forth in his rocking chair, shaded by a trellis heavy with green grapes. He was loosely wrapped in a massive silk dressing-gown patterned with flame-eating serpents, while on his feet were two tiny pink satin slippers. A bottle of good champagne stood beside him in a silver ice-bucket.
A couple of minutes after the car arrived, he heard footsteps on the patio behind him. He did not turn, but waited until Philby reached a second rocking-chair, then flapped a soft hand at the champagne, his teeth gleaming a roguish welcome: ‘So? Any results?’
Philby sank down with a crackle of wicker. He was no longer wearing his lensless spectacles and his upper lip was again cleanshaven; and although he had put on weight during his stay with Pol, he looked tired and pale. He ignored the champagne.
‘Ah, but of course!’ Pol cried, ‘the Krug is bad for your heart. You’ll have your usual cocktail? Peters!’ His fat fingers made a surprisingly loud snap, and a third man glided out of the shadows of the patio and stood motionless behind the two chairs. He was lean and hard, in a suit the colour of dried mud, with tight curly blond hair and a thin, clean scar down his right cheek.
‘The usual for Mr Philby,’ Pol ordered in French, without moving his head. The blond man turned and walked silently away on his crepe-soled moccasins.
Philby sighed. ‘Well, they’ve bitten — at last.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent. A white BMW outside Geneva. Picked us up outside the old League of Nations Building and stayed with us on the autoroute till Peters managed to lose them just beyond the Nyon intersection.’
‘There was no chance of your making a mistake?’ said Pol.
‘I’d say it was more a question of their making a mistake. And they’d hardly do that with a car like yours.’
‘Did you see them?’
‘Peters recognized one of them from two days ago. He took a polaroid snap of them while they were parked in Vevey.’
Pol cocked an eyebrow: ‘More than one?’
‘Two.’ Philby glanced round as the blond man, Peters, appeared at his side and handed him a thick frosted glass with a straw.
Pol drank some champagne and chuckled; then again, without turning his head, shouted: ‘Peters!’
The blond man remained rigid beside Philby’s chair, his pale eyes staring dully at the lake.
‘The photographs, Peters.’
Peters withdrew, and returned less than a minute later with two buff envelopes. From each he shook a shiny colour photograph showing an identical street scene, taken in poo
r light, with cars parked along the curb facing the camera. Philby studied them both carefully. In each picture the second car along was a white BMW with only half the number-plate visible; but it was enough to see that it was a foreign Zollamt registration. Both pictures also showed two men in the front seat. The driver looked young, sandy-haired, nondescript. Beside him, half-hidden by the car in front, was a broad chunky-faced man in wrap-around dark glasses.
Philby hesitated, compared both pictures together, then handed them across to Pol. ‘I can’t be certain — not without seeing the man in the flesh. The only reference I’ve got is an old mug-shot I once saw in the Zapiski — that’s the KGB central archives. They contain files on over eighteen million foreigners, including all known or suspected enemy agents.’
‘But you think you might recognize this one?’ Pol jabbed his thumb at the top photograph in his lap, indicating the broad man in dark glasses.
‘As I said, I wouldn’t like to swear to it,’ said Philby, and took a long drink. ‘But if it’s the man I think it is, he’s called Sergeant Dempster — William Michael Dempster, officially attached to the Special Branch. That’s the section of the British police which deals with political and subversive activities. Unofficially, he’s what you would call a “gorilla”, or a muscle-man for MI5 — the branch of British intelligence engaged in internal counter-espionage.’
‘Which seems to indicate that he’s operating above and beyond the call of duty?’
‘It means,’ said Philby, ‘that they’re scraping the barrel or they’d be using their regular thugs from MI6 — the foreign section of the Secret Service.’
Pol nodded slowly and sipped some champagne. ‘I foresee a small problem. The Mercedes is registered with one of my French shadow-companies. But if this man — this sergeant of the British police — can call on the services of British Intelligence, or at least certain members of it, it will not take him long to track the car down to me. Now don’t misunderstand me — I have no reason to fear the British Secret Service. But I don’t want those clumsy Swiss oafs coming up here and asking all kinds of damnable questions. That’s one reason I bought this place — as a retreat, a haven of peace in an angry world.’
‘One thing I can assure you,’ said Philby: ‘In this case — in my case — British Intelligence are operating with very little rope.’
‘They seem to have given this sergeant of yours plenty of rope,’ Pol murmured.
Philby nodded: ‘And he’s now at the end of that rope. The plan seems to have worked, Charles. Three weeks cooped up here waiting, and now the bastard’s ready to strike. He had his big opportunity back on the Red Arrow Express, and finished up getting lumbered with that damned great Australian journalist. His bosses in Whitehall won’t have been too happy about that. If my guess is right, this’ll be his last chance.’
Pol drained his glass, glanced at his watch, then, with an agility that always amazed Philby, he bounded up on to the balls of his slippered feet and came striding round the chair with arms outstretched. ‘It will be dark in one hour, mon cher. I estimate that if your English friend is to be given his last chance, you should hurry. Peters, have the car ready.’ He turned back to his chair and poured himself another glass of champagne.
‘You’re not coming?’ said Philby.
‘One fish is enough!’ He giggled. ‘Besides, I’m too old for amateur heroics.’ He looked up as Peters, who had already left at Pol’s earlier command, now reappeared in the archway to the patio.
‘Monsieur Pol, there is a telephone call for you from Geneva.’
Pol gave a gesture of dismissal, slopping champagne over his loose sleeve. ‘Tell them to call back.’
‘The gentleman said it was most urgent,’ Peters said, in his pedantic French that betrayed the clipped South African accent.
Pol turned and for the first time looked directly at him. ‘All calls I receive are urgent, Peters. Did this gentleman give his name?’
‘Yes, monsieur. Marmut.’
Pol frowned, then gave Philby a quick beady stare, and without a word waddled away into the darkness of the villa. Philby glanced at Peters. ‘Marmut? Sounds like an Arab name.’
Peters said dully: ‘There are a lot of Arabs in Switzerland, sir. Rich ones, too. They find it a good place to keep their money, now that London’s going bust.’
‘You don’t like the British, do you, Peters?’
Peters turned to him, and for a moment a small dead-eyed smile crossed his face — or perhaps it was just the slightly crooked wince where the scar tissue met. ‘I keep my likes and dislikes to myself, sir.’ He swung on his heel and disappeared through the arch.
Philby stared after him, frowning. His innate sense of rank and authority had been mildly offended at the South African’s manner: for Johann Peters, formerly of the Transvaal Special Police Reserve, was Pol’s chief retainer — a cold, brutal, obedient hireling who was paid to do only what Pol told him. His thoughts and opinions were as inscrutable as his closed, scarred face. Philby found him repulsive.
Pol returned five minutes later, mopping his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief, although the villa was fully air-conditioned. ‘You haven’t left yet?’
‘I was waiting for you,’ said Philby.
Pol gave a mischievous grin. ‘For a man who has lived for so much of his life on the edge of a precipice, you’ve come to need me like a nursemaid! Or perhaps a guardian angel? Now, you must hurry.’
‘Good day, Charles.’ Philby made his way down a series of marble corridors and shallow winding stairs that opened on to the gravel forecourt. The six-door Mercedes, which reminded Philby of a Stuttgart dentist’s waiting-room on wheels, was parked at the foot of the steps, with Peters at the wheel. Philby got in beside him, and the car sped forward down the narrow road between cypresses towards the Geneva-Lausanne autoroute. As usual he felt no compunction to chat to Peters, who was a fast but highly skilled driver; and for most of the fifteen miles to Vevey he was left to his thoughts.
Not for the first time during the past three weeks in Switzerland, while he had enjoyed Pol’s lavish hospitality — in a calculated attempt to draw the final vengeance of the British Secret Service — had Philby been rankled and perplexed by the fat Frenchman’s conduct. For although the idea offended his natural vanity, Philby had come to realize over these past weeks that he was fascinated by Pol. During a lifetime of nefarious intrigue and treachery Philby had never encountered anyone dimly like him. He was more than impressed, he was mesmerized: and not just by the enormity of the man, or the opulent flamboyance of everything about him, but by the sheer ease and arrogance with which Pol appeared to arrange both his personal life and his private affairs.
At the first intersection on the autoroute, indicating MONTREUX 2 kms, Peters turned off and began a giddy corkscrew drive down the steep ramp leading to the lakeside. Here Philby found himself wondering once again about Pol’s extraordinary background: Anarchist freebooter in Spain where he had ransomed one of Franco’s generals for a hundred political prisoners; sentenced to death in Barcelona and escaped disguised as a priest; highly decorated member of the Resistance who had settled down after the war to run a supermarket for ladies’ undergarments behind the Gare St Lazarre; leader of a clandestine mission for De Gaulle’s Police Parallèl against the OAS in Algeria; later involved in shady gold and opium deals in the Far East; and now comfortably established as an international financier with what he called ‘an excellent tax position overlooking Lake Geneva’.
Reluctantly — and with a familiar sense of frustration — Philby concluded that he and Pol were very much opposite sides of the same coin: vain, devious, extravagant adventurers, with childish ideas that were half-honest, half a sham to cover their playful machinations against authority. Their one obvious difference was that while Pol indulged himself with silk suits and champagne and luxurious limousines, Philby was content with a patched jacket and frayed tie, and whisky out of a tooth-glass. However, Pol’s sustained interest
in Philby was an enigma in itself, unless it could be explained by the Frenchman’s continued commitment to Whitehall. The possibility that Pol had claimed some stake in Philby’s future activities in Africa was something that fired Philby with less than enthusiasm. But Philby had one fatal weakness: he loved adventure; above all, he loved the uncertainty and mystery of adventure; and the more mysterious and uncertain became Charles Pol’s motives and manoeuvres, the more firmly and irrevocably was Philby drawn to him, trapped by him.
Peters had now slowed the Mercedes into the oncoming evening traffic out of Montreux.
Philby said casually: ‘Any idea where we’re looking?’
‘The car I photographed two days ago was parked outside the Hotel du Lac.’ Peters’ eyes remained steadily on the road as he spoke. ‘And if you remember, it was in the same place this morning when it picked us up and followed us on to the auto-route.’
‘Let’s just hope we’re in luck this time,’ said Philby. He spoke with an infectious excitement, like a schoolboy.
Peters drove the length of the street, turned in a square, then started back, very slowly. Several other cars hooted them impatiently, and a big Citroën with French number-plates accelerated past them and cut in dangerously to avoid a truck. Only Peters’ instantaneous reaction saved their off-side wing. Not a muscle in his face moved. After a moment he spoke, dead-pan: ‘It’s behind us. Three — four cars back.’
Philby turned and saw a white BMW 2500 saloon cruising on the outside of the traffic, about fifty yards behind them. ‘Pull up at this tobacconist’s,’ he said.
Peters obeyed, double-parking the huge Mercedes in the full flow of the traffic. Philby ignored the blaring sounds and flashing lights, paused for a moment on the pavement, as though to check that he had his wallet; gave a casual glance back up the street, then entered the shop and bought a packet of Gitanes. When he came out, the traffic had again begun to move, except for the BMW which had pulled into a space six cars back, parked crookedly with its front wheels locked hard left and its engine idling.
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