by Ted Allbeury
“Any correspondence or files?”
“No. Absolutely nothing. The postman hasn’t made a delivery there since he took over six months ago. His mail must go to the embassy. None of them have much mail even at the Press Centre. And that’s all official stuff from UK sources. Invitations, press releases. That sort of stuff. But there is one thing. He’s got a bird he sees regularly. A real doll. Looks Russian or Italian. Very dark, flashing eyes and rather sultry.”
“Who is she?”
“I haven’t found out anything about her except that she doesn’t live permanently in London. She generally spends the night with Grushko when they meet and she takes the Cardiff train home but I don’t know where she gets off. Once or twice she’s stayed at a flat in Hammersmith after meeting Grushko. I’m checking on whose flat it is.”
“Is she anything more than a girlfriend?”
“I think she is. I’m not sure.”
“Why do you think that?”
“They’re obviously fond of one another. But they look like conspirators.” He laughed. “They seem to talk almost too much and too earnestly for just lovers.”
“What about Maguire-Barton?”
“He’s got a pad in Pimlico. A conversion. Three bedrooms. Quite swish. And it’s paid for by a public relations company. Lobbyists. It’s pretty exhausting following him, he’s a real busy bee. Goes to everything he’s invited to. Especially embassy parties. Mainly eastern bloc ones but to others as well. And what’s even more interesting is that our friend Grushko is nearly always at the communist receptions at the same time. But they never leave together. And …” he paused, smiling, “… the most interesting thing is that Grushko’s girlfriend has been escorted by Maguire-Barton on two occasions. Once to the Italian Embassy and once to the Dutch Embassy. Grushko wasn’t there on either occasion.”
“Anything else?”
“Maguire-Barton has two or three girls he sees regularly. All-night jobs. Sometimes his place, sometimes theirs. Seems to be a lavish spender. I asked for permission to check his bank account but Painter says he needs more grounds before he could authorise it.”
“Have you checked over Maguire-Barton’s file in Archives?”
“It doesn’t go back very far. They’ve not been checking him for long, and before the surveillance started there’s very little if anything of interest to us.”
On the tenth day Chapman followed Maguire-Barton’s taxi to the Embankment on the south side of the river and walked behind him as the MP strolled past County Hall towards the Festival Hall.
Chapman hung back as Maguire-Barton walked into the Festival Hall and across to the cafeteria. He saw him standing with a tray in the short queue for tea and then Chapman saw Grushko sitting at one of the window tables alone.
Grushko and Maguire-Barton sat at separate tables but after ten minutes Grushko stood up, walked to Maguire-Barton’s table and bent over for a light for his cigarette. Smiling his thanks the Russian picked up the folded newspaper from the table beside Maguire-Barton’s arm and walked back to his seat. Maguire-Barton left five minutes later and Chapman followed him back to the flat in Pimlico. It was the first time that they had established a positive and covert connection between the KGB man and the MP. Harris confirmed later that Grushko had met his dark-haired girlfriend at the Golden Egg in Leicester Square. They had gone to the Zoo and then back to his Kensington flat. He left alone at eight o’clock the next morning and later the girl had taken the Cardiff train.
9
The cabin on the SS America was small, with two berths, one over the other, and two small lockers for clothes and hand luggage. But Molody had slipped the steward ten dollars and he had got the cabin to himself. As he sat on the lower berth he wondered why Collins had ordered him to leave the United States within forty-eight hours. The orders came from Moscow and he was to go to London and be prepared to stay there indefinitely. It didn’t seem like a routine posting. He had been doing a good job for Collins in the United States but Collins had seemed tense and apprehensive. He had been given the London address of the Cohens who had apparently already moved to England. But Molody wasn’t a man who indulged in doubts and introspection.
For the first two days he had been mildly seasick but by the third day he had recovered. He spent a lot of his time playing cards with some of the stewards and it was from them he learned about the Overseas Club which provided cheap accommodation in London. He learned too about the various rackets the crewmen ran to augment their earnings, and he realised that there were going to be even more opportunities for earning quick easy money in London than he had had in Canada and New York.
He found the crewmen impressed by his story of his wealthy Canadian father with the huge estate in Vancouver, and he regaled them with stories of how, despite the money his father gave him, he had worked as a cook in a labour camp, as a gold prospector, a long-haul truck driver and a gas-station attendant. By the time the ship docked at Southampton he had added to his legend a nagging wife who he had walked out on. It seemed to go down well and bit by bit he had fabricated a past that explained and fitted his present life and character.
At the Royal Overseas League off St. James’s Street he only added to his story that he had been given a Canadian government grant to study Chinese at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. A far-seeing government was anticipating a relaxation of contacts that could lead to trade with Red China.
Two weeks later he had a job as a second-hand car salesman in Clapham. He was successful from the first day and although he was only paid commission he was earning reasonable money. But not enough money to justify the flat he took in the White House, a residential hotel in Regent’s Park. But the legend of the wealthy father covered that, and his fellows at the car showrooms were impressed by his constant flow of anecdotes about his life in Canada. He found that, like Collins had said, he already believed his own story. He could bring himself to raging anger at the indignities heaped on him by his imaginary wife and could bring tears to his own eyes as he reluctantly revealed the unhappiness of his childhood. Neglected by his frivolous mother, his wealthy father too often away abroad on business trips.
The advertisement in the Evening Standard offered the opportunity for investors to get into the vending machine business and Molody had telephoned the next morning.
He’d spent an hour with the two men talking about their proposition. They wanted £500 down and he’d be given a small territory to sell machines in. To offices, canteens and clubs. But there was no chance of him having a stake in the business. He had offered up to £1,000 for a five per cent shareholding but they’d refused. Molody was impressed by the two Jaguars in the tatty yard outside. And he was impressed by their refusal of an offer that valued their business at £20,000. There was only one room and the two lock-up garages that housed the vending machines. He got on well with both men, they were amiable rogues, as talkative and confident as he was and they finally gave him the telephone number of a firm that handled juke-boxes.
The man with the juke-boxes was an altogether different sort of man. Big and rough, he was obviously not interested in Molody’s amiable chat. If Molody paid a hundred-pound deposit in cash on each machine he could have up to five. Take it or leave it. There were no exclusive territories and no sales leads. It was all up to him. He paid the deposit on five machines and stood watching as the man counted every note.
In six days of tramping the streets of Clapham Molody had placed seven juke-boxes, and by the end of two months had a regular income of over two hundred pounds a week in cash. An income on which he would pay no tax and was therefore worth more than double what it netted him.
In his journeys he heard of a syndicate in another district selling and renting one-armed bandits that was looking for an additional partner. They were in Peckham, and Molody invested several thousand pounds and became a substantial shareholder and a director.
From the office he set up in Rye Lane Molody worked from earl
y morning until late at night. Gradually his partners let him take over and he became managing director. He was then planning how to make extra profits by setting up a plant to manufacture machines for them to sell. He had already started exporting machines. There was only one condition he laid down and that was that he was to have all weekends free.
The girls who phoned and called for him at the small offices were much admired by his colleagues and when he came in on Mondays looking tired he made no protest when they made their schoolboy jokes about why he always wanted his weekends free.
10
Alongside Portland is the small seaside town of Weymouth. Its harbour has provided safe anchorage for invading Saxons, Romans and Normans. But when it became a favourite resort of George III it became better known for its sandy beach and old-world peace.
The Old Elm Tree public house in Weymouth had Harry Houghton as one of its regulars. Night after night he regaled the other regulars with stories of his war-time exploits. They listened with amusement, exchanging winks, because they were well aware that his tales were often self-contradictory, manning naval guns in Mediterranean convoys at the same time that he had been twenty below zero on an ice-gripped convoy to Murmansk. But with his mottled, red-veined face and his pointed nose he was harmless enough. He was a bullshitter but he livened up the bar-room chat. He was always there promptly at opening time and he seldom left before the bar closed. It was well known that he didn’t get on with his wife.
It was in May 1958 when his wife contacted the probation service in Bournemouth and arranged an interview. Probation officers are reluctant to hear complaints about third parties who have not been put under their control by the courts, and it often turns out that their informants are more in need of help than the alleged offenders. But listening is part of their official therapy.
Mrs. Houghton’s interviewer was a cautious man and he listened without comment to her litany of her husband’s drunkenness, neglect, unfaithfulness, and his determination to get his own back on the Admiralty who had ruined his career prospects. It was an old, old story that had been retailed with variations on the theme hundreds of times in every social service office in the kingdom and when all this seemed to rouse no indignation Mrs. Houghton played her trump card. She claimed that her husband regularly brought home classified documents from the naval bases. When even that brought no response she gave up.
The probation officer thought vaguely of passing the information to naval intelligence but decided against it. The woman was almost certainly lying, from spite against her husband. And if he passed on such information and it turned out to be a pack of lies God knows what repercussions there could be. Actions for defamation, libel and all the rest of it. Anyway, none of her problems concerned the probation service. It was the Marriage Guidance Council she needed or Special Branch. Or, more likely, a psychiatrist.
Ethel Elizabeth Gee was forty-six, and a temporary clerk at the Portland navy base. With small features and a clear complexion she looked younger than her years but very plain. Expecting little or nothing from life, she was surprised and flattered when Harry Houghton started paying court to her. Even when it had matured, their relationship was far short of a romance but in some odd way it satisfied them both. The meek timid woman saw the man as a protector; not quite a hero, but a man who had seen something of the world. He spent money freely, took her on trips to London, and everywhere he went he seemed to get to know people easily and quickly. And for the man, he had a sympathetic listener and a woman who didn’t despise him, who mended his clothes and cared about whether he had eaten enough.
“Call for you, Harry.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know, mate. A fella—he said it was personal.”
Harry Houghton reached across the desk for the receiver and put it to his ear as he scribbled a note on a file.
“Houghton. Who is it?”
“I’ve got news of Kristina for you, Mr. Houghton.” The voice was soft and had a slight foreign accent.
“Who are you?”
“A friend of Kristina. She asked me to talk to you.”
“Is she coming over then?”
“Maybe we should meet and I can give you her news.”
“Where do you want to meet?”
“I suggest you come up to London and we meet outside Drury Lane theatre on Saturday next. About twelve o’clock mid-day.”
“How shall I recognise you?”
“I’ll recognise you, Harry. Don’t worry.”
And the caller hung up. Houghton reached for his mug of tea. It was cold but he sipped it slowly as he thought about the call. Kristina had always said that she wanted to get out of Poland and come to England. It would complicate things but by God it would be worth it to have a girl like that to show off to his friends.
He found it hard to concentrate on his work for the next two days. And in the evenings when he and Ethel were decorating the empty cottage that he had bought in Portland he wondered how she’d take it when the time came. She was a dignified woman so she’d probably not make a fuss. And that bitch Peggy would have finished divorcing him and it would be one in the eye for her when she heard he’d got a pretty young girl as his new wife.
Houghton stood in front of the theatre looking at the front page of the early edition of the Evening Standard. There was a picture of the President of Italy in London on a State visit. He looked up from the paper. There were plenty of people about but nobody who seemed to be looking for someone. He turned to the stop-press. Chelsea were playing at home. He’d just be able to make it to Stamford Bridge if the chap on the phone didn’t turn up.
And then a hand touched his arm. “Glad to meet you, Harry.”
The man was tall. Younger than he had expected.
“Glad to meet you too.”
“Where can we have a coffee and talk?”
“There’s a place round the corner.”
“You lead the way, my friend.”
When the waitress had brought the tea and coffee and the buttered toast Houghton couldn’t wait any longer.
“How is she? How’s Krissie?”
“She’s got problems, Harry. She needs your help.”
“I’m nothing to do with the embassy now you know.”
“I know that, comrade.”
“What’s the problem anyway?”
“She’s got problems with the police. They know about the drugs and the black market. It’s a very serious offence you know in Poland.”
“Who says she did such things?”
The man smiled. “They’ve got statements from the buyers. Dates. Places. And she’s confessed, so they have a clear court case.”
“How can I do anything?”
“Well, Harry, she feels she’s only in this mess because she wanted to help you. She thinks that the police might be more lenient if you co-operated.”
“Co-operated. How?”
“There are things the authorities would like to know. If you helped them I’m sure things would go better for Kristina.”
“There’s nothing I can tell them that Kris couldn’t tell them. I just brought the stuff over.”
“I’m not thinking of that business, Harry, I’m thinking about your present work. There are small bits of information that we should like to know.”
Houghton looked at the man’s face. “You mean tell you things about Portland?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t do that. I’m not allowed to. You ought to know that.”
The man shrugged. “It could be very bad for you if you don’t, Harry. Bad for your ladyfriend too.”
“You mean they’d …”
The man held up his hand. “Let’s not talk about that. We both know the facts of life. And nothing will happen if you co-operate.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The man shook his head, dismissively. “In future when we are to meet you will receive a brochure in the mail offering you a Hoover vacuum cleaner. When
you receive this you will phone this number and ask for Andrew.” He pushed a scrap of paper across the table. “When you phone you say your name and you will be given a time and date. Nothing more. No talk. At the time and on the day given you go to a public house called the Toby Jug. You already know it, don’t you.”
Houghton nodded. “Yes.”
“Anything else, my friend?”
“What the hell do I get out of all this?”
The man reached inside his jacket for his wallet and below the table he counted out eight one pound notes, folded them over and then passed them over the table to Houghton. “That’s for your expenses, Harry.”
The man stood up, put a pound note on the table alongside the bill, gave Houghton a brief cold smile and left.
It was beginning to snow as Houghton walked into Covent Garden, and he walked down into the Strand and across to Charing Cross Station and changed trains at Waterloo.
The train was almost empty and he sat alone in the second-class carriage thinking about the man. They were bluffing of course. They could play their games in Russia and Poland but not in England. He would ignore the whole thing. Put it out of his mind and forget it. He picked up his copy of Reveille and leafed through, glancing at the pictures. At no time did it occur to him to report the matter to the police or the security officer at Portland. It was just a try-on that hadn’t worked.
And as the days went by he did forget about the meeting and the threats. And he was all the more shocked when a month later he got a brochure through the post offering a special deal on Hoover vacuum cleaners. He was shocked but not scared. He hadn’t enough imagination to be scared. But he phoned the number the following day and he was given a time and a date.
The man came into the Toby Jug five minutes after Houghton sat down at one of the tables. He wasted no time after he had ordered two beers.
“What have you brought?”
Houghton passed him half a dozen back copies of the Hampshire Telegraph and Post. He pointed to one of the back pages, to a regular column headed “Naval and Dockyard Notes.”