‘Yes, I think so. I’ll just let my breakfast digest.’
‘If you’d like to challenge me later, I can tell you that I am good at dominoes, draughts and chess. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon.’
‘I think I’ll choose draughts.’
There were leaves all over the grass, but the wind had calmed and the dog came to lie by Eva’s feet. She murmured in Russian to her, and watched me light a cigarette from the corner of her eye.
‘You are good at not asking questions, but as a journalist you will need to push a bit harder, you know.’
‘I know. I don’t have to write a review of you as well, do I?’
‘Ha, no.’ Eva stroked the dog with her foot. ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea. I am sure that you will find lots to write about because one thing you are is observant.’
I held my breath. She did know me. She knew much more about me than my parents, or anyone else had for years.
‘You have noticed a lot of small things that others haven’t. With a little training you will notice even more. I wanted to be a journalist for a while. I like spotting connections and unravelling coincidences. I want to know everything.’
‘Me too. Now more than ever.’
‘Good. I think you needed Moscow, Ted.’
She was right. I had needed all of this to shake myself from the pit I was in. I had nothing before, but now I had a shot at it all.
She went out for a few hours. I swam, I typed up my tourist view of Moscow, and had a bath. She was back and had made dinner by the time I came down and as we ate we played draughts. She beat me again and again.
‘Another loss, another shot of vodka,’ she said.
I downed my penalty and ate my bread. ‘Maybe I’d have had a better chance with chess.’
‘No one can beat me at chess,’ she said. She sipped her wine, the vodka glass untouched. ‘Have you decided what to do?’
‘I wrote a piece on Moscow.’
‘I noticed the typewriter had moved. I’m glad.’
‘And I would like the chance to train as a journalist.’
‘So, you’d like the certificates?’
I began to doubt myself again.
‘Ted, I wouldn’t have offered this if I didn’t think you were capable. You write well and you are observant, and you care about what you observe. What you might have missed by not going to university is the discipline of applying yourself to research and deadlines, but these apply in your work life. The only thing that concerns me is that people like you get the same run at life as those who are less capable and, yet, more successful as a result of the efforts of other people. And their money, of course.’
‘And I’ll be free to write what I like?’
‘Not necessarily. You will either be employed by a newspaper, who will want you to write certain things in a certain way, or you can be a freelance investigative journalist. The latter means that you will be free to write what you want.’
‘Then, yes. Yes, please.’
She smiled, poured me another vodka and we toasted my decision.
‘Eva, you said my name could be more than one thing. Can you tell me what variations of Nadia are?’
She stroked the dog before answering. ‘There’s Nadusha. That’s quite common.’
‘What about Nadenka?’
‘Yes. That could be a form of Nadia, too. Is this about someone you know?’
‘Maybe. It could be someone you know too.’
She held my gaze.
‘Nadenka Benstrup. She’s Nadia Osipova, isn’t she?’
She leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘I wouldn’t let her know that you’ve discovered this. We remain uncertain about what happened to Joseph North and why.’
‘Why was I given the job? Did they only want me to act as a courier?’
‘I wouldn’t worry about any of that, Ted. However it started, you’ve proved to be much more interesting.’
She held her glass up for a toast and we drank together. I felt informed for the first time since I’d started the job. Everything was falling into place.
I was being collected in the morning. I had packed my bag and put the cash inside my book when Eva knocked on my door.
‘Our last night, and I have one favour to ask of you, Ted. A personal favour. My son, Alexander, has a friend in England who passes messages to him for me. I don’t want to put this in the post. You understand how it is. Could you hand deliver this for me?’
I took the envelope from Eva. ‘Of course.’
‘I have put it in an envelope within another. If you could write your parents’ names and address on the outer envelope, no one will pay any attention when you go through customs.’
I turned the envelope in my hands. ‘So, this is illegal?’
She moved her head from side to side. ‘It is discouraged.’ She held a finger to her lips and I nodded, but I didn’t know why. She also handed me a folded piece of paper. ‘Take this too. Write it inside a cigarette packet and leave the paper here. I still have connections in England, I told you that. This is the address of someone I know who runs a boarding house. When you leave your job, when you start studying, you’ll need to be in the centre of things. It’s near the British Museum and only £6 a week.’
I took the paper. ‘That’s less than I pay now.’
‘I’m sure there will be plenty of options, but just in case you need it,’ she said. ‘Even if you gave up work and went on the dole until your course started, you would still have £5 for living expenses.’
The dole. That’s not something I had ever considered. But why not?
She placed a hand on mine. ‘And, Ted, when the time is ready for me to come home, back to England, will you help me?’
‘If I can, I will.’ I knew that I would. I might not trust her, but I owed Eva.
CHAPTER 36
After a last quick early swim and breakfast, a black car pulled into the driveway beside the house. I picked up my suitcase and followed Eva out to the car. Her dog sat and waited by the back door. Eva said something to the driver, and he pulled out of the driveway. I caught a glimpse of his face in the rear-view mirror. He adjusted it.
My heart began to beat faster. His hair, the grey jacket. This was the man who had been following me. My eyes dropped to my newly polished shoes.
Eva was talking and I tried to follow what she was saying. Maybe this is what I should have asked that afternoon when she was being honest – have you been following me? But maybe she had already been honest about it. She’d said that I already had a codename, and I could have been wrong to take it as a joke.
‘Are you anxious about seeing Christopher?’ she said, a hand on mine.
‘I think I’m just a bit car sick.’
‘Yes, you don’t look well.’
She put the back of her hand to my forehead and spoke to the driver. He opened the glovebox and I put my hand on the door handle thinking, that must be where he keeps his gun. When he slowed down, should I try to leap from the car?
He passed back a small, glass bottle and Eva tipped out two tablets and showed me the label.
‘Aspirin.’
I couldn’t read it. It was in Russian. She emptied them into my hand. I touched their chalky surface and imagined how they would stick in my dry throat.
‘I don’t think I can take these without water.’
Eva spoke to the driver again. For the first time, he spoke back. I could only catch one word, repeated: ‘polkovnik’. His hand went back to the glove box, and the car swerved to the left. Eva barked something, and he straightened up. In his hand was a pocket-sized bottle of vodka. Eva said something that sounded like a rebuke, and he put it away and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Polkovnik.’
‘We’ll get you some water,’ Eva said.
I tried to forget it was Eva who had been following me, or someone close to her. I kept my gaze fixed on the passing trees, then blocks of flats, big mansion buildings, parks, statues, and there was the river. We pas
sed the British embassy, crossed the bridge, and the driver pulled up outside the Rossiya. Eva spoke to him again and he got out of the car. I could see Christopher waiting outside another large, black car. He took a couple of steps towards us, and then waited, watching the driver at the kiosk outside the hotel.
‘Just one moment,’ said Eva, her hand on my arm.
The man in the grey jacket came back from the kiosk with a bottle of clear liquid. He opened Eva’s door, handed it to her and she handed it to me.
‘For the aspirin.’ She untwisted the cap.
I unclenched my hand. The sweat had created a white mush in the centre of my palm. I picked off what I could and glugged the sugary drink. I had expected water.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll be in touch, Ted. You probably won’t want to tell anyone about what we talked about. It will be easier for you that way.’ She patted my hand one last time and gestured for me to leave the car.
‘Goodbye,’ I said. I got out, the driver handed me my suitcase while avoiding my gaze, and I walked over to Christopher. Behind him, I saw Ursula inside the hotel, one hand up to the glass. I lifted a hand to her, and let it fall.
‘Ted,’ Christopher said, ‘good to have you back with us. I’m afraid that your flight leaves soon, so we’ll have to talk on the way to the airport.’ He took my suitcase, placed it in the boot of his car, and got in the back with me.
I looked around for Eva, but her car had gone. I couldn’t see Ursula either. I put my head back on the head rest, closed my eyes and exhaled.
‘Am I really leaving?’
‘Yes, but we need to have a bit of a debrief first. Can you tell me what has happened since Friday?’
‘The hotel gave me a massive bill because they said I hadn’t paid. I got arrested and Eva rescued me.’
‘Why didn’t you call me straight away?’
I opened my eyes and looked at him. ‘The hotel said they’d call you.’
He shifted and looked towards his driver.
‘We’ve had a few issues, but you still should have contacted me the second there was a problem at the hotel. I must say, you don’t look well, Ted. Have you been given anything odd to eat or drink?’
‘I just feel a bit sick today. Car sick. Nerves. I don’t know.’
‘So, what happened after Eva collected you?’
‘She took me to a dacha in Saltykovskaya, next to a lake. I swam, she cooked, we talked. It was good. I had a nice time.’
Christopher sighed. There was something about his expression, that slight sneer, that made me lift my head and sit up a bit straighter.
‘Right. That all sounds very pleasant. Did Mrs Mann offer you anything else? Assistance or information or something like that?’
‘We talked for hours. I suppose that could count as offering information.’
He flashed a fake smile. I was annoying him. I was glad.
‘Did she give you anything to take back to Britain?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Anything.’
I pretended to think. ‘No. No, I can’t think of anything apart from some nice memories. Eva fixed my shoes, too.’
‘You can’t think — Ted, this is a serious matter. From the perspective of the embassy, you have been abducted by a Russian and kept away from your rights as a British citizen. This is not the time to conceal information, no matter how much you dislike me personally.’
‘I don’t dislike you, Christopher.’ I smiled at him.
‘That’s very reassuring.’
So posh, so assured, so confident. I looked at his fitted suit, his polished shoes and thought, I’m really not on the same side as you. I never will be.
‘Could you tell me what you believe Mrs Mann’s interest in you was?’
‘I think that Eva is just interested in people. She saw that I needed help and she helped.’
‘I hear that she was there at the exact moment of your arrest. You didn’t find this suspicious?’
‘Not really. She lives in Moscow, and she works in Moscow.’
‘Ted, I really feel that you should think about whether coincidences like that are truly coincidental or whether they could be stage managed to provide a sense of a link between you and this stranger.’
‘Coincidences are very strange,’ I said. ‘There is this man I keep bumping into which is very suspicious.’
Christopher looked concerned. ‘What is his name?’
‘Mr Attridge.’
Christopher turned away from me and looked out of his window. He clenched his hands. I smiled, and then saw the driver watching me in the rear-view mirror. I was feeling better now.
Christopher said nothing else until we pulled up outside Sheremetyevo. The driver got out of the car, and took my suitcase from the boot.
‘If you remember anything on the aeroplane, it would be very useful if you could tell Mr Attridge when you arrive at Heathrow. Our relationship is clearly too damaged for you to trust me, but there are other people you can speak to.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
He took a plane ticket from his inner pocket and a letter. ‘You have your passport, customs declaration and exit visa, I understand. This letter is from Mrs Koskinen. Ursula. I was going to escort you in, but my driver can do that, if you like.’
‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’ I took the letter and put it in my inside pocket, next to Eva’s. ‘You should have been the one to have told me about Joseph North.’
‘It wasn’t for me to say, I’m afraid.’
The driver opened my door.
‘Be careful, Mr Walker,’ Christopher said. ‘We really do have your best interests at heart.’
I closed the door and took my suitcase from the driver. Like the other, he avoided eye contact.
I walked into the terminal, presented my papers and went through to departures. I found a buffet, ordered a coffee and sat down for a cigarette. I watched the people around me, how they talked to each other, any slight physical contact. When I had finished I walked around, and tried to let my thoughts settle. One thought wouldn’t.
I stopped a tired-looking woman in uniform.
‘Excuse me. What is polkovnik?’ I asked.
She looked around and answered quietly, ‘A Polkovnik would be a Colonel. Is there something I can help you with? Are you looking for someone in particular?’
‘No, thank you.’
She nodded and walked away. I strolled across to the plate windows and looked at the planes. Well, I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t already suspect that Eva was KGB.
I wandered away to find the duty free. I had nine quid, after all.
KGB Second Chief Directorate
2nd Department: British Commonwealth
‘FISHERMAN’ FINAL REPORT:
FOR ADDITION TO WALKER FILE
22nd July 1975
As previously discussed, I have expressed the belief that recent changes in our approach to targets should be influenced by a growing understanding of the relationship between the British ‘working’ classes and ‘upper’ classes (inadequate, but generally accepted terms often used within Britain to distinguish those with and without social privileges).
Our work in the preceding years has not taken into account the great shift in social awareness in Britain. Trade Unions are having an impact in their attempt to gain better conditions for physically demanding work within the population. The working classes are pushing for change, and we need to help them achieve a similar parity to that which we have now gained. The tram driver is no lesser a citizen than the politician, and never should be.
In earlier times targets such as ‘Mädchen’ and ‘Söhnchen’ had the potential to succeed politically within the British political system, the former because he had potential and the latter because the British have a baffling yet ongoing tolerance for objectionable rich men. ‘Otto’ was indeed successful in recruiting many young men from privileged backgrounds to serve the Soviets. But what of the t
ime and money invested and wasted on all those other public school boys who achieved nothing? Who, recruited by ‘Klaus’, ‘Hans’ or ‘Uwe’, achieved anything but a drinking habit and a sexually transmitted disease? The exposure of the ‘Cambridge ring’ (as the British call them) has meant that the upper classes closed rank and more diligently patrolled their well-off young.
Acquiring more information directly from Britain suggests we need changes to our approach. The workers may not have access to sensitive information in the traditional way, but they do have access to more forms of information and new ways of getting it. Knowledge is harder to restrict to those born in a particular class, and technological advances will make this even more egalitarian. Our problem has always been how to find individuals to target? The benefit of the university referral method is that politics can be openly discussed, and the referrer soon falls out of contact with the referee. It is difficult to find working class people on a similar cusp of change. But it is possible.
This brings us to the latest target, Walker (codename ‘Fisherman’). Out of interest, we attempted the same dangle as used previously with the story booklet. This was immediately rejected. It may have worked previously not because the target, Hughes (codename ‘Wolfcub’), was more thoughtful, but trained and experienced in analysis, owing to her upbringing. She was also easy to remove from the Moscow situation owing to her social position and obligations. Given a little longer, more could have been achieved. This situation remains unresolved. [See update on ‘Wolfcub’.]
It should be noted that with Walker, the traditional provocation with an attractive female ‘Swallow’ in Bucharest was not effective, and we had no reason to attempt a provocation with a male ‘Raven’. We have noticed this in other cases as well, but not all. The declining success of this technique cannot be due to Britain becoming more prudish, so it may be that the warnings giving by the British service are more effective. At least they still work on the Americans.
Walker required a much fuller understanding of his personality and background once it became clear that he was indeed committed to following up the idea seeded in Bucharest (see Internal Service reports). We then deployed ‘Kingfisher’ to explore his childhood and present situation (notes attached). An examination of the bin in the target’s hotel room proved very useful, signalling a great dislike for the embassy employee detailed to his care. (Additionally, using an operative who does not instantly register in interactions as ‘Russian’ has been very useful. To date, the British have proven very reluctant to extend their warnings to interacting with other ‘Britons’ or those who might appear/sound British, although this could now change.)
The Starlings of Bucharest Page 22