Martineau. Eva Balassi. Abrasimov.
They were people from another time, another life. He remembered their faces, frozen in the black and white photographs that were included in his book: a youthful Martineau, dressed in white, in his college cricket team in Oxford; Martineau on his wedding day, looking not a day older, with the glacial, elegant Christine by his side, smiling with her face but not her heart; Martineau in fur hat, greatcoat and boots, photographed in front of the railings of some unnamed building in a wintry and desolate post-war Moscow, a stolen moment from his glory days, when single-handedly he ran the Soviet spy ‘Peter the Great’ who for a short but valuable time brought British Intelligence to within a heartbeat of the power in the Kremlin.
Then there was Eva Balassi – beautiful at sixteen, a smiling member of the Hungarian women’s swimming team in a group photograph taken at the Dynamo Stadium in Moscow; Eva with her daughter, Dora, then aged four or five; Eva at the Olympics in London in 1948, shyly holding her gold medal; Eva acting as translator to a British mission to Budapest in a dark coat and hat, the days of her sporting triumphs long behind her, a new mature beauty apparent. No wonder Martineau had fallen for her.
The menacing features of Abrasimov in his general’s uniform looked out from another, taken either on the podium at a May Day parade or at some other official function. Nothing, of course, with which to identify Koliakov or Hart. The secret players in the game remained invisible.
Hold nothing back, Stevens had instructed. In his researches Pountney had uncovered a story he’d wanted to tell. During that last summer before the Revolution, Martineau’s wife had discovered her husband’s infidelity and betrayed him to his bosses at British Intelligence. Martineau’s ‘unreliability’ – ‘How can you trust a man who betrays his wife and sleeps with the enemy at the same time?’ – justified London’s policy of ignoring his telegrams while they got on with trying to deal with Nasser. Somehow Koliakov had got to know of the affair. Pountney had become convinced that the source was a leak from inside Merton House, a Soviet spy who had somehow managed to escape the periodic slaughters of central office staff that the Director General deemed necessary to avert accusations that Merton House concealed a Soviet mole. One night during a drunken dinner at a restaurant in Moscow Square, he had told Hart that he knew.
Days later, Soviet tanks arrived in the streets of Budapest and Martineau had disappeared, last seen, so Pountney understood, marching with the crowd, holding high the Hungarian flag, Eva at his side. Merton House had refused to allow Pountney to make any reference in the book to Martineau’s mysterious end. The idea that one of their own might have gone native was too much to swallow. The story was suppressed, on the instructions of the Foreign Office and Merton House.
‘A well-tried Stalinist practice,’ Pountney had complained bitterly when Hart told him unequivocally that the story had to go, ‘painting someone out of the picture so you can alter history.’
Pountney appealed to Stevens to intervene with Merton House. Those men who had ignored Martineau’s warnings were as much to blame for the thousands of deaths as if they had ordered the killing of the Hungarians themselves. Now they were trying to cover up the truth, using the need for the actions of the Intelligence Service to remain secret to conceal what they had done – or as Pountney maintained, had failed to do. For once Stevens appeared to be powerless. For whatever reason he had temporarily lost his influence. Pountney was forced to bury his indignation.
‘Better you get the larger picture right, that’s what counts,’ Danny Stevens had told him with the pragmatism of a man whose money was invested in what Pountney was writing. Therefore he had settled for a largely fictitious Martineau, whose role in the drama was reduced and who, as the Hungarian uprising ended, had retired from the Intelligence Service to cultivate roses in Broadstairs. There was no mention of Eva or her fate, and the icy Christine Martineau never once came into it.
How like the Soviets we’ve become, Pountney thought. Better to lie than tell the truth. As his anger settled, the idea that Merton House was harbouring a Soviet spy never quite went away.
*
Pountney parked the car outside his flat in Maida Vale. He looked at his watch. Well after one. The lights were out. Margaret would have been asleep for a couple of hours at least. He’d enter the flat, have a bath and creep into bed. If he disturbed her at all, she’d smile sleepily at him, whisper some endearment and turn over. How he used to hate coming home after working late in King Charles Street to find a tell-tale strip of light visible under the bedroom door, knowing that Harriet was there awake, waiting to question him. Who had he seen? Where had he gone? What had he said? What a fool he’d been, putting up with that for so many years. Thank God he’d face no midnight interrogation, only the warmth of a sweet welcome, a long kiss and open arms.
4
Candles. That was her first impression. Lighted candles were everywhere, on the mantelpiece, on the sideboard (on which a bottle of claret, glowing blood red, was being allowed to breathe) and in the middle of the table, two elegantly twisted silver candlesticks with endless swirling branches made the china on the white tablecloth blaze as if it was on fire.
‘Marion. Come in.’ Michael Scott took her shawl. ‘It’s just us. I hope that’s all right?’ He had his back to her as he wrestled with a cork. She watched him deftly pour champagne into a long glass. ‘I always think an evening à deux is the best way of reviving one’s flagging spirits after a long day facing the young, don’t you? I do find youth so exhausting.’
He made it sound as if he did this every day. There was champagne, smoked salmon, something simmering enticingly on a steam warmer, two pots of crème brûlée – the college kitchen’s speciality – a bowl of fruit and nuts, grapes and a silver grape-cutter, and an alarming array of glasses. Marion Blackwell had stepped into the private world of the middle-aged academic with no dependants and the means to indulge his tastes. He had created in his rooms an intimate haven into which he could escape whenever he chose. How different it all was from the contemporary bleakness of her own small room, to which she had added a few cushions and a couple of prints without denting its institutional anonymity. No wonder Michael Scott and his cronies clung tenaciously to the life they had made for themselves, obstinately resisting demands from their younger colleagues that the college be brought up to date.
‘Tell me about your pictures.’ She recognised a Duncan Grant still life and a bright Julian Trevelyan seascape. There was one she couldn’t place. ‘Is that a Nicholson landscape?’
‘One of his earlier paintings, done before the fall.’ Michael Scott sounded surprised. She knew he wanted to ask her how she recognised it, and she delighted in his frustration at not being able to breach good manners and question her.
‘The fall?’
‘When he still painted what he saw, before he went all abstract and interior and became the critics’ darling. I’ve never liked his lines and shapes, all so rigid and geometrical – God knows where they’re meant to lead you.’
She knew she was meant to admire his collection, and it was no hardship to oblige. Recognising the quality of his taste was a test she had to pass – why, she had no idea, except that she knew he would think better of her if she was able to identify at least a few of the artists represented in the room. What else would she be tested on before the evening was over? How she held her knife? Whether she drank claret with fish? She had to pass with flying colours, because she wanted him to change his mind about who she was, which was why she had so readily accepted his unexpected invitation to dinner.
‘Beautiful images are lost on the young, don’t you find?’ His expansive gesture took in all the pictures on the walls. ‘They’re too impatient to absorb anything old-fashioned. They always want to move on to the next fad. That’s why the real quality’s to be found in my house in Cornwall. You must come down one day, Marion, and see for yourself.’
There was a certain notoriety about the house in R
ock. She’d picked up stories about the all-male reading parties which gathered there during the long vacation; the games of canasta and whist that Michael Scott had to be allowed to win; the wonderful wines that he dispensed so liberally to his undergraduates; and then the infamous nude bathing. Could that be true? She couldn’t imagine Michael Scott’s soft, plump body skipping over the sands with nothing on. Perhaps he preferred to stand at the water’s edge, fully clothed, and watch his boys cavorting. She didn’t believe for a moment that he was serious about the invitation.
‘I see you have something of an eye, Marion. One can learn the names of artists. What one can never learn is taste. That gift is given to you from birth.’
What is also given to you at birth, if you’re lucky, she thought, are means, and Michael Scott had those means. Every spring he ‘fled’ to Venice: ‘Such a delight to know that whatever happens in the rest of the world, at least there is one place where nothing changes, everything is just as it was the last time you saw it, even if it has sunk a millimetre or two further into the mud.’ Then, the moment the summer term was over, ‘I scoot off to Tangiers to recharge my batteries after the torments and tyrannies of yet another academic year. God knows why one does it, but one does.’ Perhaps his financial security explained the chronic non-production that marked his more than thirty years at Cambridge – few articles, fewer books, only the occasional newspaper or journal review and an undistinguished record as a lecturer.
To Marion’s delight, the dinner was exquisitely cooked, the wines as delicious as she had imagined they would be and Michael himself a wonderful raconteur, with a gift for mimicry she hadn’t anticipated. It was a one-man show and she was his perfect audience, laughing at his scandalous stories of the college before and during his time as he brought to life a galaxy of colourful and eccentric dons. He was doing his best to lower her guard – she knew what he was up to all right – but the knowledge made it no easier to resist him.
It was after the nuts and a delicious Tokay, as he was pouring the coffee, that without warning he changed tack. By this time her defences were almost down.
‘This business with Andrei Berlin,’ he began. The unbidden guest at the feast had been brought to life, and Marion resented his intrusion. Why did Michael have to spoil what up to now had been a wonderful evening? She felt as if the cold point of a silver dagger was being pushed carefully and precisely between her shoulder blades. ‘It’s made waves in a few high places. You’re probably not aware of that. How could you be? That’s why we thought it was time you were brought in on our little secret.’
‘Waves? Gracious, Michael. Where? Do tell.’ Now wasn’t the moment to undermine his image of her.
‘Whitehall, dear. Where else?’ He lit a cigarette and placed it in an ebony cigarette holder. ‘Over the years.’ he said, looking pleased with himself, ‘I think I can claim to have established a certain usefulness to my masters. Nothing grandiose, merely running the odd errand, dropping a quiet word in the appropriate ear from time to time, keeping one’s eyes peeled for the unusual. Always wearing a number of hats.’
Very special hats, she was sure.
‘When summoned to perform a duty by the powers that be, one obliges if one can. One picks up secrets as the spoils of war, of course, but over the years one has learned to keep mum. Why do I heed the call, you might ask, when there is no reward? An over-developed sense of duty, at least by today’s standards, and the desire, occasionally, to belong to a world larger than all this.’ The sweep of his hand indicated, she presumed, the college and the university. ‘Another perspective is so essential, don’t you agree, if one is to keep one’s sanity at Cambridge?’
Get on with it, she wanted to say. Don’t try to impress me with your allusions to friends in high places and your secret tasks. Don’t intimidate me with your pictures and your silver and your wine. Get back to the point, Michael. Explain the mystery. Tell me why you brought me here.
‘You were going to tell me about making waves.’
‘So I was.’ He fidgeted unnecessarily with his cigarette holder. ‘I received a telephone call the other day to tip me off that there was some disquiet at a high level – well, let me be frank about this, Marion, at a very high level – about your invitation to our Russian friend. Who is this woman? I was asked. Why’s she so keen on having her Soviet pen pal visit these shores? Is she a red? Ought we to know more about her? There were other points, of course, but that was the gist of it.’
‘How did you reply?’ She was genuinely curious.
‘I’m not very good at being brave, Marion. No thumb-screws were called for, you understand – when you’ve been around for as long as I have, there are always private pressures, weak points that aren’t secret any more. I said Berlin was your idea, and that as far as I knew no one had put you up to it, that I’d tried to stop you but I’d been outvoted. Apart from that, I couldn’t help. You’ll have to forgive me, Marion.’
Was this the purpose of dinner? To ask for forgiveness for shopping her to his powerful friends in order to soften her up, and then jump on her when she was least expecting it? What a manipulative bastard Michael Scott could be. Instead of scoffing his smoked salmon, she should have thrown it in his face.
‘Is that it?’
‘They don’t let go that easily, Marion.’ A light laugh. ‘Once they have their teeth in you, they’re always greedy for more.’
‘That explains the presence of two men with beards who have taken to following me wherever I go. What a shame. I thought they were admirers.’
‘This is no laughing matter, Marion. These are powerful people.’
‘If you’re threatening me, Michael, with your hints that your friends are after my blood, I’m not much impressed. I’ve never believed in bogeymen, and I’m too old to start now. If you’re trying to shake me, I have to tell you, I’m not shaken. Do you know why? I’m not important enough to worry anyone. I’m a woman academic, and women academics don’t make waves. We’re so insignificant we hardly trouble the radar. Sorry, Michael. If you’re trying to frighten me, you’ll have to do better than that.’
‘I am trying to be helpful, Marion. You must see that.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, Michael, please. Let’s have a little honesty between us, shall we?’
‘You’re reading me all wrong. Truly, you are.’
His voice had changed. That certainty that had entertained her had slunk away, to be replaced by a less formidable Michael. He had feet of clay after all.
‘I hardly think so,’ she said, sensing her ascendancy. ‘Berlin is an academic like us. He teaches students. He researches in libraries. Occasionally he comes to the West and gives lectures on erudite subjects of limited appeal. He’s not head of the KGB, nor a member of the Politburo. He matters to the life of his nation as much as you or I to ours, Michael, which frankly isn’t a great deal. Don’t exaggerate his importance because you were voted down.’
‘He’s a Russian. We’re not getting on too well with the Russians at the moment.’
‘When do we ever?’
‘The present political climate doesn’t give you pause for thought, Marion? You surprise me.’
‘Why should it? This isn’t Whitehall, and it’s certainly not West Berlin. This is Cambridge, a small university way out in the Fens, miles from anywhere, in case you’d forgotten.’
Michael Scott ejected the end of his cigarette from its holder and stubbed it out in the ashtray. ‘The message from my friends is that, when Dr Berlin reaches Britain, they would like to have a quiet word with him.’
‘Over my dead body. While he’s here, he’s mine and that’s an end to it.’ So that was what the evening was about. Mystery solved. The telephone call, the candles, the silver, the champagne – and there she was, thinking naively that Michael Scott had invited her because he wanted to kiss and make up. ‘Sound her out,’ his anonymous Whitehall friends must have said. ‘See if she’ll bite.’ What a fraud Michael was, what a bastard! She felt a
ngry and cheated.
‘He’s coming to Cambridge because we’ve asked him to give a series of lectures. When he’s done, he’ll go home to Moscow again, and that’s all.’
‘My friends think a quiet chat over a cup of tea might be useful.’ She recognised a new insistence in Michael Scott’s voice. Perhaps his friends in Whitehall had put him under pressure.
‘I can guess how they define useful, Michael, and I don’t like it. I’m not sorry to tell you that the answer’s no. Berlin’s agreed to come because I invited him on the committee’s behalf. That’s all there is to it. If Berlin thought for a moment that my invitation was a front for your seedy friends to whip him away to one of their country houses for a long interrogation session that could do him all sorts of harm when he returns home, he would never have agreed. He accepted because he trusts me, and I’m not going to do anything to betray that trust.’
‘Is that your last word on the matter, Marion?’
‘Yes, Michael, it is, and I hope it’s loud enough to reach Whitehall either on its own or with assisted passage.’
Scott got up and poured himself some more brandy. ‘Are you sure you won’t?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Part of me sympathises with you, Marion. You may not believe that at this moment, but I assure you it’s true. It would be wrong to betray Dr Berlin’s trust. I admire you for that. But the other part of me, the part that is wise in the ways of the world and does not let my heart run its affairs, that part of me knows you are making a serious mistake. This is an opportunity we must take. These are dangerous times we live in. Berlin may have valuable information. Look upon it as force majeure, against which the likes of you and I have no defence – how can we? – and close your eyes. Then you won’t see it happening.’
‘I said no, Michael.’
Dr Berlin Page 23