Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel

by Samantha Kate

  As my aunt recalled in her journal of that year, Miss Oster had summoned her into her study after the graduation ceremony. ‘She said she had a position that might suit me. “Your father worked for the Colonial Office in Kenya, did he not?” she asked. When I nodded, she continued, “Very well, this is along similar lines. Remember to wear a hat and gloves. Good luck.”’ My aunt was handed a blue application form to fill in and the time and address of an appointment for the following day. She duly presented herself at a smart terrace house in Victoria. There was no identifying plate on the door, which was attended by an ageing commissionaire in a black uniform with red piping. He called the lift for her, and pushed the button for the fourth floor.

  ‘A middle-aged woman wearing a grey suit and pearls was waiting for me,’ she wrote on 26 June 1953.

  She ushered me into a room and told me to wait for Miss Stega. There were about twenty chairs ranged in rows facing the fireplace; half were occupied by girls of about my age. Most wore low-heeled shoes and subdued lipstick. They came from good backgrounds —you could tell from their faces, from the way they sat, tidily yet with confidence. A few talked to each other with the air of acquaintances rather than friends. Debutantes, probably, but from a very different stable to those who had whooped and danced on the tables of the Muthaiga Club in Nairobi.

  An imposing woman walked through the internal door to stand at a lectern. She introduced herself as Pamela Stega, and explained that each girl had been recommended by ‘someone who knows us and in whom we trust. I don’t know how much was explained to you, but I suspect little,’ she went on to say. ‘You know that you have come for an interview with the Foreign Office. More will be revealed to those of you who are chosen for our training course.’

  My aunt was more amused than bemused by this. Her name was called for an individual interview, and she found herself sitting in a straight-backed chair opposite Miss Stega, who was reading from an open file. ‘She appeared to know a lot about my early life and educational past,’ Jane duly recorded that evening.

  She asked me why I wished to join the Service. I told her that I needed a job, that I wanted to do something interesting and challenging, and that I supposed I wanted to belong to some sort of family. It appeared to satisfy her, as later, when all the interviews were over, mine was among the ten names that she read out and asked to stay behind.

  It was only when the lift gate had clanged shut behind the others that Miss Stega went on. ‘Now, how many of you know what you are doing here?’ she asked. Only one hand was raised. ‘I am about to trust your discretion. I have talked to many young ladies who have come into this very room and I am really wrong. I can sense if they are suited to our particular line of work. If you are to proceed and take up a position in our organisation, then I must warn you now that you are not permitted to tell anyone – not your friends or your family – where you work. For we are a secret intelligence service and any knowledge that leaks out is a weapon in the arsenals of our enemies. That is a considerable responsibility. Before I go on, is there anyone who thinks now that they might be unable to handle that kind of pressure?’

  Two girls, rather shame-faced, stood up and walked out. The rest of us were given a copy of the Official Secrets Act and a few minutes in which to skim through it, after which we were handed a piece of paper to sign, saying that we had understood the Act and agreed to be bound by it. We were instructed to return tomorrow morning. I was filled with excitement as I walked home. It was not only the prospect of an interesting job, but the avenues that it might open for me to find out what had happened to Pa. Surely, if I am going to find a clue to his death, it must be somewhere within the secret service?

  Wednesday, 7th February

  007 came back to work on Monday. I had been looking forward to seeing him, but Ross hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he was in a dreadful state. Beneath the thin veneer of a Jamaican tan he looked grey. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot and seemed almost to be out of focus, and nothing could disguise the tremor in his hands. His whole posture was deflated. Still, he smiled and gave me a hug when I said how sorry I was about Tracy. ‘Me too, Penny,’ he said. ‘Wish you could have met her. Helluva girl. The Old Man wants to see me?’

  He was only in there for ten minutes, but walked out in the same dazed state in which he had entered and left without a goodbye. M buzzed through: ‘Make an appointment for 007 with Molony1 please, Miss Moneypenny.’ It was a positive sign. At least M hasn’t decided on the Shrublands2 route again – I am not sure Rafiki3 would forgive me another quarter’s supply of hand ground wheatgerm and Pettifer’s Treacle.

  I met Mary for lunch in the park. We had to eat our sandwiches with gloves on. On a winter’s day like this, I envy her sunny halo of perfect blonde hair – it must be a cheering sight in the glass on a dark morning. It is always in February that my equatorial genes start to nag. I feel an almost magnetic pull to the south. February in Maguga,4 the flame-trees in bloom, the days hot and the evenings cool enough to sit outside and watch the fireflies skip over the water-hole. I wonder whether the old acacia is still there? One day soon I must go back – I think, at last, I am ready for it.

  Mary is worried about 007 too. He doesn’t even greet her with his habitual ‘Good morning, Goodnight.’ She says he’s hiding a bottle of whisky in his desk. What should she do? I advised nothing and told her about the appointment with Sir James. ‘He sorted him out after his tussle with Rosa Klebb.5 I’m sure he’ll do the trick this time. Let’s see how he is by the end of the month. In the meantime, why don’t you call May6 and ask how he’s doing at home?’

  Personally, I think he needs distraction – a tricky assignment to get entangled in. Then he wouldn’t have time to think. I’m not sure, however, that M would risk him in this state. Although I would never describe him as a gambler, M always plays by the odds – it is as if he has an internal calculator, primed to assess human risk, and it is only if the odds are in his favour that he will contemplate action. But I am not sure how human frailty stacks up in this particular computation.

  Saturday, 10th February

  Bloody Troop. That man is beyond irritating. He is a nosy, small-minded prig. Yesterday, he sent me a note asking me to come to see him immediately about a ‘vetting matter’. As I rode down in the lift to the fourth floor, my irritation must have been written all over my face; as the door opened, Sergeant Fletcher took his good arm off the controls and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about him, miss. He’s got nothing better to do than make everyone’s life miserable.’ Most people seem to have this reaction when they come into contact with Paymaster Captain Troop. I remember when 007 had to serve on one of M’s Committees of Enquiry into Burgess7 and Maclean,8 under Troop’s chairmanship. I never thought it was possible to hang quite so many colourful adjectives on to one person. After the third day, I was a little concerned that James was about to draw his Beretta and kneecap him. ‘That man is so small-minded, he’d have trouble finding his way around in an ant-hill,’ he told me. ‘Why can’t he stick to counting lavatory paper and keep out of serious business?’

  I knew well what he wanted to talk to me about – that agreement I signed the day I joined the firm, pledging to ‘divulge personal relationships of consequence’. Family members, spouses and other ‘close friends’ fall under that definition. The irony escapes none of us: that despite not being officially permitted to reveal our true occupation to our nearest and dearest, we are nevertheless supposed to offer them up to some sort of vetting-board before we are allowed to become intimate. Most people ignore these rules; we all know the boundaries and few of us trip over them. It was a form of self-regulation; no one is going to sleep with an enemy agent if they can help it – and if they can’t, they’re not going to admit it. Troop, however, is a self-recruited border guard and he feels that his official job description of Head of Admin allows him to pry into our personal relationships – whenever he catches us having them.

  It’s my f
irst experience of this sort of attention from him, and I was not looking forward to it. I knocked on the door of the glorified broom cupboard that serves as his Office and he barked for me to enter. When he didn’t offer me a chair, I sat down anyway. ‘Miss Moneypenny. You are doubtless aware that you are bound to declare your close personal relationships to the Head of Security.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘On the evening of 31st January, I observed you outside this Office with a gentleman who is not employed here. I do not have to remind you, of all people, that the location and purpose of this building is top secret, a matter of national security.’

  ‘I’m sorry Captain Troop. It was an unforeseen occurrence. That gentleman does not know what it is I do here. I can assure you I am very discreet.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I subsequently pulled your file from Records and you have not declared any personal relationships, apart from your sister’ – he consulted a file in front of him – ‘Miss Helena Moneypenny, and a Dr Frieda Greenfield.9 Could you please tell me the name of that gentleman and the exact nature of your relationship with him?’

  ‘I would rather not,’ I replied, already irritated not only by Troop’s manner, but by his complacent assumption that he held some sort of dominion over me.

  ‘I must remind you that under Section 5, Clause 2b of the terms of employment, I am entitled to insist on your telling me.’

  ‘Very well then, his name is Richard Hamilton and he is a friend of mine.’

  ‘A close friend?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Occupation and place of employment?’

  ‘For God’s sake, is this necessary? Yes, I suppose to you it is. He is an architect and he works for Dexter Eldridge Partners on Great Portland Street.’

  Troop sneered a little as he made a note in his small, spidery hand; architects, apparently, trot arm in arm with academics along the bottom of his list of acceptable professions. He then drew a packet of Senior Service cigarettes from his breast pocket, tapped one out and lit it. I made a point of coughing into my handkerchief, which he ignored and ploughed on with his list of questions.

  ‘When did you meet and under what circumstances?’

  ‘Barcelona, in October. It was raining; he offered me half an umbrella.’

  ‘His family?’

  ‘I’ve never met them.’

  ‘Education?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake! Next you’ll be asking for his primary school report card. Is this really necessary?’

  On and on it went until I started fantasising that 007 had shot him. I could have produced some sort of retrospective licence to cover for it. I can’t believe anyone would have mourned his absence; it seems inconceivable that a man like him could have a wife or family. At last, he reached the end of his list. He closed my file. ‘I will be checking these details and you will hear from me in due course,’ he said.

  ‘And until then, I suppose I must refrain from sleeping with him?’

  For once, Troop seemed thrown. He cleared his throat. ‘Please be careful what you say and do not bring him to the Office or its immediate environs again.’

  Any thoughts I might have had of ending the relationship with R – and it is not something I have properly considered – have been put on hold; I would not give Troop the satisfaction.

  Tuesday, 13th February

  M’s words to our Cousins have borne fruit. Yesterday, Scott came back to see the Old Man and to deliver a file entitled ‘Operation Mongoose’. M ordered it to be copied ('Do it yourself please, Miss Moneypenny; Red Star, Top Secret’) and circulated to the ‘Cuba Group’ as it has been named, as well as to the 00 section. ‘Make sure 007 reads his, please. I want him in on these meetings. He is no longer on convalescence leave.’

  Having been in on the birth of the Cuba Group, I was interested to read it. It did not disappoint. As M had suspected, Kennedy was not prepared to live with Castro as a neighbour. He needed to avenge the Bay of Pigs humiliation and was prepared to go to considerable – in my opinion, frequently ludicrous – lengths to do so. In November of last year, they launched Operation Mongoose,10 a creeping campaign of destabilisation aimed at stimulating the anti-Castro Cubans (the same ones, presumably, who failed to stand up and be counted last April) into revolution. This time, the methods would apparently be more ‘subtle’ – if assassinating the President and destroying their crops could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as subtle.11

  Sometimes, I feel as if I’m working on the set of a boy’s adventure yarn. It’s exciting and easy to get completely wrapped up and involved in what we’re doing, but if one was to take a step back on to the side-lines, one could be forgiven for thinking that it all stemmed from the racing imagination of a tuppenny novelist.

  In Operation Bugle Call, for instance – and this is swathed in such impenetrable top secrecy that I can only imagine that they are taking it very seriously – 1,000 balloons are to be dropped over Cuba per month. Between them, they will carry up to 4 million leaflets and a wide variety of ‘novelty items, such as “gusano libre” (the free worm – a twist on the name coined by Castro to describe those opposed to the revolution) badges, toy balloons in the shape of the “gusano libre”, small plastic phonograph records, stickers, etc.’ Could balloons and plastic worms seriously foment a movement capable of overthrowing a larger-than-life revolutionary?

  Reading between the lines – and from Bill’s reports of his conversations with the OM – our position is that we will support the Yanks in intelligence-gathering but, as things currently stand, are unwilling to contribute active assistance to the wetter side of any operation to destabilise the Castro régime. Somehow, I have problems imagining the typing pool being deployed to stuff party packs with toy worms, in order to overthrow a leader who, until a year or so ago, was one of our allies.12 How the battlefield has changed! Still, M wants to be kept abreast of developments, in case Redland13 gets involved in some way. To that end, Agent Scott has been appointed our official liaison officer, with a brief to be transparent.

  Thursday, 15th February

  I think at last I have a promising lead to Pa’s disappearance. M returned from lunch at Blades14 with an Australian named Sydney Cotton, a wartime chum. From the barely perceptible glitter in his left eye, I suspected they had shared a bottle or two of that infernal Infuriator,15 which, according to 007, has more in common with gasoline than with Château Lafite – I tried it once, just to see whether he was exaggerating. As they walked in, M said, as is his habit, ‘Any messages, Miss Moneypenny?’ Cotton stopped short. ‘Moneypenny?’ he asked. ‘Any relation to …’ At which M ushered him into his office. I’m sure it had something to do with Pa. I have always suspected that M must know the truth, but he would never give it up to me. When Cotton left, he smiled at me and I got the sense he was trying to convey sympathy. One gets these sorts of feelings round here; it is as if our antennae are permanently attuned to undercurrents.

  It wasn’t hard to find out where he was staying. With visiting war veterans it’s normally The Senior,16 and indeed one telephone call confirmed this. I cancelled dinner with R. Luckily I had brought my ear-rings and heels with me and I managed to slip them on and get out without the OM seeing me – it wasn’t the moment for another frown at the ‘womanly adornments which distract attention from the task at hand’.17

  I got away on time at six, for a change. I made my way to Piccadilly and found a small café with windows looking on to the club’s entrance. For nearly an hour, I watched a stream of immaculately dressed gentlemen, polished shoes and umbrellas, walk up and down the steps and in and out of the heavy oak outer door. My subject, as I had begun to think of him, would be bound to leave at some point for drinks. They always did.

  It was close on seven when he came out, tipped his hat at the doorman and turned left towards Piccadilly Circus. He wasn’t hard to follow, he must have been a few inches over six feet tall, and he walked with the upright bearing of a soldier. It was fun, back to my training-c
ourse days.18 When he got to the lights of Piccadilly Circus, he turned right and into the American Bar at the Criterion. Perfect. I gave him a few minutes to deposit his coat and umbrella at the door, then followed. He was sitting at the bar with a drink in his hand. I slipped into a booth, as surreptitiously as I could, my back facing his. I ordered a glass of white wine and got out my compact. Angled right, I could see him clearly.

  My chance came when he got up and asked for directions to the gents. I carried my drink to a stool just two away from his and tried to look as if I had just arrived. When he came back to his seat, he glanced at me, then again. ‘Hello, aren’t you Miss Moneypenny?’ he asked, with the unmistakable soft twang of an Australian accent. ‘Why, Commander Cotton, what a coincidence,’ I replied, looking surprised. ‘I came here to meet a friend, but she left a message at the door to say she had to cancel. I couldn’t face the rain quite yet, so I thought I’d treat myself to a drink. I love this old place, don’t you? It was one of my father’s favourites.’

  ‘Ah Hugh, yes. I knew your father, you know. Good man. Terrible shame. Did we ever find out exactly what happened?’

  I felt simultaneous euphoria and disappointment: I was right, he had known Pa, but not, unfortunately, his fate. Still, it was the best lead I’ve had in years and he might yet prove to be a link in the chain to the truth. Gently, I managed to steer the conversation around to his wartime activities. ‘I flew reconnaissance for you guys. Special-ops stuff. Hush-hush, you know. Tell you the truth, I miss it. I’m finding civvie life a bit on the boring side. That’s why I came over here, to catch up with old chums, relive a few adventures.’ He was on his third large whisky and soda that I’d seen and I was about to ask where my father fitted in, when he stood up and excused himself. ‘I’ve got dinner at Blades. Matter of fact another colleague of your father’s. I think he was meant to be on Ruthless with him.’ I was left hanging. Ruthless? What could that be? A ship? An operation?