Moneypenny Diaries: Secret Servant

by Samantha Kate

  I think I caught a glimmer of relief beneath the hauteur. He sat down opposite me and started to talk. ‘When I graduated from KGB college, I was assigned to Section N, the department devoted to running the illegals …’ Hundreds of officers were employed in ‘N’, creating ligenta biografica – invented biographies – for each agent, who would then be sent abroad, in his new guise, to wait for World War Three to break out. In Britain, Boris told me, these agents were known as ‘sleepers’.

  His first job was to sort through biographies which for some reason or another had not been used. It was during this time that he came across a file named ‘Hugh Moneypenny (aka Hugh Sterling)’. It had caught his eye because he had always been an Anglophile and had ambitions to go to England as an illegal himself. ‘I started researching Hugh Moneypenny’s file and became fascinated by him. For a time, I believed I would be able to adopt his name. As you have discovered, he survived the British operation against the Germans. From there, he was taken as a prisoner of war, some years later ending up in Oflag 4C.’

  ‘Colditz,’ I said. He looked a little surprised that I knew.

  ‘There he systematically maintained that his name was Hugh Sterling – in line with his instructions as an intelligence officer. In January 1945, just three months before the Americans liberated the camp, he escaped from Colditz. His absence was concealed by his fellow officers. From the radio reports they listened to illicitly, they must have known the end was near. It was a strange thing to do. He would have been home and happy with his family by summer had he not made that foolish bid for freedom. It would appear that he was trying to head north out of Germany. He spoke the language fluently and was making good progress. In April 1945, however, he had the misfortune to run into an advance troop of the Russian army. They detained him. They refused to believe he was a British officer – he was dressed in German clothes and, when they picked him up, he was speaking German. They thought he was one of Hitler’s spies. They took him first to Berlin and from there to Moscow for further interrogation.’ He paused. ‘Do I have your interest now?’

  He did and he knew it. I took a deep breath and tried to quell my mounting excitement. Boris looked at me.

  ‘My dear Jane, I think you would like me to continue. Am I right?’ I repressed a shudder at his use of my first name and nodded.

  ‘I think you have heard of SMERSH?’ I nodded again. ‘As a suspected spy, your father was under their authority. He was being held at their Moscow headquarters. It was a busy time for SMERSH, however, and their forces were spread thin. On May 20th, 1945, he managed to escape from custody. To this day, no one knows how he did so. It had never happened before and, to the best of my knowledge, never happened again. You can imagine the uproar it caused.’

  I could. In my mind, I had ciné film playing of my father running along those grey Moscow streets, trying to hide from the myriad eyes and ears of Stalin’s secret forces. Although, since discovering that he had been in Colditz, I had tried to numb myself to imaginings of what he must have suffered, my memories of Moscow were too fresh and too chilling to suppress. Boris was watching me closely; I forced myself to appear calm.

  ‘A general alert was sent out from SMERSH to the army and NKVD,1 with your father’s description and instructions to capture him, dead or alive. You understand, they still believed he was a German spy. They were unsuccessful.’ I looked up with surprise and a dawning sense of pride.

  He continued: ‘This is all detailed in his zapiska. From Moscow, he managed to find his way to Leningrad – I have no idea how, since I do not believe he spoke much Russian. He did not stay long, but headed north out of the city towards the Finnish border, along the same route that we took. He might have made it, but for his failing health. He had contracted pneumonia in the prison camp, and had never fully recovered. He found refuge with a family of peasant farmers, who had once worked on the Tsar’s estates. This family looked after him, at considerable risk to themselves. When they were visited by the search parties, they hid him in a well by the pig shed. Unfortunately his health deteriorated and they were too afraid to send for medical assistance. On August 16th, 1945, he died of his illness.’

  I gave a start. He had died a week after my fourteenth birthday. I remember it particularly well. We were still in Kenya and, to celebrate the end of the war, Ma had given me a pony, Tsarvo. I would go for long rides on her into the Maguga forest and on the surrounding farms, in search of giraffes and zebras and impala, which I would race across the plains. Those rides were some of my happiest times, when I felt most free and when Pa felt closest to me. He had taught me how to ride and, before he left, we would go for long rides together, sometimes camping overnight, while Helena stayed at home with Ma. I had kept Tsarvo long after I grew too tall for her, and when we eventually left Kenya, I entrusted her to Moses, the chief syce on our farm, and he, in turn, had taken her with him to Daisy’s. Tsarvo and Pa will be joined for ever in my thoughts at my fourteenth birthday.

  I pulled myself out of that land of childhood dreams when I felt Boris’s eyes on me. ‘It was only after his death that SMERSH discovered your father’s true identity,’ he said. ‘But by then it was too late, and we could not inform the British. Some neighbour of the family he was living with had informed the local NKVD that there was a foreigner on the farm. By the time they got there, your father had been buried. The family was punished – ordered east to the oilfields. Ten years later, they returned to their farm, but they had not forgotten him. They erected the small cross I showed you. It was the father of the peasant you met. I discovered this when I was researching the file, to see if I could use it as my legend. I was desperate then to come to this country. I feared the family might have lied about his death, so I forced them to reveal the grave site. They thought I would punish them for putting up the memorial. I decided to spare them,’ he said, with a return of his customary arrogance.

  ‘Thank you.’ I realised that tears were falling unbidden from my face. After all my hopes and fears, Pa’s last days and weeks had been, if not happy, then at least free. He had not died in custody, nor had he been shot – both possibilities that had been circling my thoughts. He had been trying to get back to us.

  ‘He was known to SMERSH as “The Great Escaper”,’ Boris said. I realised, as I looked up at him through a wall of tears, that he had admired Pa, and that perhaps it was because I was his daughter that Boris had pursued me with such determination. I knew he had told me the truth. For a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to feel sympathy for him. He had indeed fulfilled his side of the bargain.

  I made myself think of R. I tapped my fingers on the desk and, when I spoke again, my voice was steady. ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘you realise that it is not in my power to authorise your release, whatever you tell me about my father? I can make a recommendation, but the final decision rests with my superiors and they aren’t interested in how my father died. They need something more than that – something that will benefit our intelligence activities.’

  He raised one eyebrow and gave me the dubious benefit of one of his attempts at a smile. ‘What might that be, my dear Jane?’

  I swallowed back the revulsion. ‘You tell me and then perhaps we can start to negotiate an extension to your stay here.’

  He shook his head. ‘I cannot,’ he replied – ‘not until I have an assurance from you that I will be protected in this country. Do you not see what a position I am in? My people want me back because they are scared I know something that would be of inestimable value to you. Something, for instance, like the identity of an agent working for your organisation.’

  I drew in breath: this must have been what M was looking for. I couldn’t afford to let Boris know that we suspected an internal mole. I attempted to look sceptical. ‘Do you have information about such a person?’ I asked.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Would you tell me the identity of this person?’

  ‘Possibly – but then again, possibly not. It would be foolish of m
e to give away my best bargaining chip. You would need to assure me first that I could stay here and that I would be protected from my people.’

  I shook my head. ‘That is not within my power to do. If you tell me, however, I promise to do my best.’

  It was his turn to shake his head. ‘Please do not let them send me back there. I will be executed.’

  For the first time, stripped of his veneer of confidence, Boris seemed almost vulnerable.

  ‘I will do what I can,’ I said.

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ I replied, though I knew I had no right to do so, nor any real desire to succeed. I got up to knock on the door, to inform the guard that we were finished.

  As the door began to open, he spoke again: ‘If you do not help me, I will hunt you down wherever you are, for as long as it takes. Then I will take great pleasure in killing you, as I did your “dear friend”.’ He spat out the last words. Without turning around, I walked through the door and down the corridor, where I saw Bill waiting. He looked anxious. ‘Did he tell you?’ he asked. I shook my head and, for the second time in as many months, fell into his arms, sobbing.

  He held me and stroked my hair. ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. We will not give in to his blackmail. There is no way that we will give him asylum. I promise you that. Don’t worry.’

  ‘What if he knows, though? We need to find the mole.’

  ‘It’s a bluff,’ Bill said quickly. ‘He wouldn’t have been privy to that sort of sensitive information. Bookie says it’s impossible. We all agree. Don’t worry – he is going back to face the music.’

  Now I am home, out of that terrible place, I feel both brimful of emotion and strangely empty. Not for the first time, I wish I had someone to confide in. Bill is the only one, but for some reason I don’t want to, as if it would plunge us further into a complex intimacy. Discovering the truth about Pa has been the most extraordinary relief – it is a chapter that I can now close, with some satisfaction. I can think of him at peace by that pretty stream, rather than incarcerated in a prison or in the torture chamber of some rotten organisation. He is dead, and long since mourned. I can now treasure my memories of him, with enjoyment and without anguish.

  That is what I will concentrate on now. I cannot let myself dwell on that last, threatening glimpse of Boris. I will not.

  Monday, 27 th April

  Greville Wynne is back. His plane arrived at Brize Norton early on Sunday morning. It should have been a secret, but someone had tipped off the press, who were waiting at the gates to photograph him. Of course, he couldn’t help but talk to them.

  Boris is in Moscow. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bill admitted this morning that his flight had been long since organised. M, he said, had made the decision to send him back even before I talked to him. Nothing he could have said to me would have made any difference. He would face certain punishment on his return, Bill assured me.

  It was not fear that I was feeling, though – more relief, mixed with a shiver of shame. I didn’t doubt that he had gone to the right place and, for what he did to R, he deserved the worst the KGB had to offer. I just wish I hadn’t given my promise.

  Wednesday, 29th April

  M received a top-secret cable from Dikko Henderson in Tokyo, which I decrypted this morning. He had been sent to South Korea on a mission and returned by boat to Kyushu, Japan’s south island. While there, he thought he might as well pay a visit to Kissy Suzuki on Kuro island. It took him some time to find her. The villagers appeared determined to hide her whereabouts, but he eventually tracked her down to a small house on a hill in the island’s interior. She appeared shocked to see him, but not as surprised as he was when he saw, in her arms, a five-month-old baby boy: ‘WOULD WAGER MY LAST SHIRT WAS BONDSAN NIPPER STOP WHAT ACTION REQUIRED QUERY HENDERSON’.

  I showed it first to Bill, who burst out laughing. ‘Pretty pickle he’s got himself in now,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I’d be surprised if it was his first. Now we can solve the mystery of the memory-inhibiting drugs: they weren’t part of some international plot, just a woman desperate to hold on to her man.’ He laughed. ‘James: how does he do it?’

  ‘What do you think M will do?’ I asked, though I knew what the answer would be.

  ‘Tell Henderson to ignore it. She’s obviously happy enough and James isn’t exactly going to drop his oo, don a dress and return to the pearl-hunters, is he?’

  The image made me smile. I’m sure Bill was right, but still, surely James had the right to know?

  ‘Wouldn’t you want to?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but I’m not James, however much I might want to be.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I found myself saying. ‘Don’t ever change. You’re just right the way you are.’

  His eyes lit up for a moment, before he shook his head a little sadly. ‘Oh, Penny, I wish I was. I wish I was.’ Then he smiled again. ‘Tell you what. Seems to me this young Bond-san needs to be celebrated. James is off to Casablanca tomorrow, but why don’t we dress up and go somewhere swell on Saturday night to toast him with fine champagne and good music?’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ I said. ‘I could do with a bit of fun. I’ll buy a new frock for the occasion.’

  As I went back to my desk, I couldn’t help but feel a buzz of excitement at the thought, but whether it was the prospect of a new dress, or a night out with Bill, I couldn’t say.

  Thursday, 30th April

  James was on fine form as he swept past my desk on his way to collect his final orders from M. He perched on my chair and gave my bottom a friendly tweak as M opened the door to call him in.

  As he came out, the light was back in his eyes. ‘Come with me, Penny, please. We could make whoopee in the sand dunes.’

  ‘I think you’ve done quite enough of that already,’ I couldn’t resist saying. ‘Isn’t it time you settled down with a nice girl and made lovely little James babies?’

  He pretended to frown. ‘Only if you’re sure you’re ready. I wouldn’t want to force you to give up all this. What would the Old Man do without his Moneypenny?’

  With a final smile, he was out of the door. Dear James, he needs a mother more than a wife, but that’s exactly what he doesn’t want. I fear he’s destined to remain one of life’s bachelors – desired but never contained.

  I found a puzzling document today. It was the minutes of a top-secret meeting held a week ago, in which Boris’s future was debated and decided. There had been a vote at the end. Bookie, Dorothy and Bill had been in favour of sending him directly back to Moscow; X and M had wanted to detain him for further interrogation. Why had Bill lied to me?

  The last page in this diary. I will have to go to Smythson’s tomorrow to buy the next, fresh with the promise of new episodes in a life that could never be called dull. In the last year, I have lost a lover, but gained a brother-in-law and, in Eleanor, a friend. I have also laid my father to rest. Boris, I hope, is out of my life, but Bill seems set on working his way further in. Dinner on Saturday night. We shall have to wait and see.

  Afterword

  I am in Kenya now, staying with my mother’s old schoolfriend on her beautiful game ranch in the lee of Mount Kenya, only an hour’s drive from where Miles Pitman used to live.

  A week after I had walked out of that meeting with the university Department of History – effectively burning my academic boats, perhaps for ever – I received a phone call from Ferdy Macintyre’s secretary at MI6. ‘He wants to see you,’ she told me. ‘Four o’clock today at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.’

  Macintyre was younger than I had expected – perhaps in his late thirties – with floppy blond hair and cutting-edge glasses. He smiled as he stood to shake my hand. ‘Good to meet you, Dr Westbrook. Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’

  I opted for mint tea and settled into an armchair opposite him. There was silence for a minute: I was determined to ensure he made the running. He sat there, looking at me, with a half-smile on his face. Fina
lly he raised his eyebrows a few millimetres and said, ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘That was some months ago,’ I replied. ‘It was you who ordered this meeting, I believe.’

  ‘Requested, not ordered. That’s by the by. I understand that you are editing Jane Moneypenny’s diaries,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I ask what period they tackle?’

  I smiled. ‘You may ask, but I don’t feel inclined to tell you.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Fair enough. In view of our email correspondence, however, might I be correct in surmising that you will be covering the issue of Prenderghast – his trial and so on?’

  I inclined my head.

  ‘You made a request for information about a colleague he may have had within the Office at that period.’

  ‘Yes, I did. You didn’t respond.’

  ‘I apologise. I know you’re keen for your book to be as accurate as possible, but, as you undoubtedly know, its publication is in contravention of the Official Secrets Act. Nevertheless, I thought it would be best to meet and clear up a few things. There was no further penetration of SIS at that time, and I would hate you to waste more of your valuable time searching for it.’

  ‘My time, Mr Macintyre, as you undoubtedly know and probably thanks to you, is not as valuable as it once was. Since I was dismissed from my job, I have been able to devote all my energies to my aunt’s diaries.’

  ‘But you have found no proof of this mythical mole?’

  ‘If, as you claim, it did not exist, how could I have found proof?’

  Macintyre smiled, with what looked like genuine amusement. ‘As you say. I just wanted to ensure that you wouldn’t cause any trouble for yourself by making unwarranted guesses. If you did – and particularly if you were to mention any names – I am bound to inform you that we would have no hesitation in invoking the full powers of the law. The penalties for what would qualify as a Section 5 offence would be six months’ imprisonment and a fine.’