Legacy

by Alan Judd

  Rebecca went out into the corridor and returned leading a line of ten men and women, several sheepishly grinning. ‘Gentlemen, your agents,’ Gerry announced with a flourish. ‘Come to tell each of you how you performed from the agent’s point of view, no holds barred. Nothing they say will be used in evidence against you’ – he opened his arms and grinned – ‘yet.’

  Charles grabbed an extra chair and pulled it to his desk as the blonde woman approached. She carried an expensive-looking brown leather jacket. Her smile was very slightly crooked, he now noticed. ‘I’m so sorry to have kept you lingering over your tea for so long,’ she said. ‘I was told to give them plenty of time to try out their fancy new cameras. Apparently the one that gave the best results was the old-fashioned briefcase sort used by the man at the table on the far side, opposite you.’

  Charles hadn’t spotted him. She spoke quietly and, against the general hubbub, he had to concentrate on what she was saying. Twice, even before she was seated, she had pushed back her hair. Her accent was educated southern English. ‘You’ve lost your accent,’ he said. ‘And your little girls.’

  ‘My borrowed accent. My husband is A/1, desk officer for London operations. We were in Prague. The children were not borrowed, though. But office wives are, for this sort of thing.’

  ‘It was very convincing.’

  ‘Not to anyone who knows.’

  ‘Do you speak Czech?’

  ‘Shopping Czech – queuing Czech, I should say. Menu Czech.’

  There was a pause, filled by the noise and laughter of the others. The loudest laugh was Gerry’s, as he went from desk to desk. They looked at each other for a moment before speaking. ‘That pianist,’ Charles said.

  ‘I know. It was wonderful. So simple. And so dramatic.’

  Charles knew he should resist staring so directly. She crossed her legs and glanced down at the square toe of her polished brown boot. The leather jacket on her lap creaked softly. ‘I’m Anna,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether I was allowed to know you as anything other than Mrs A/1. I’m Charles Thoroughgood.’

  ‘I know, Gerry briefed us all. I’m supposed to tell you how you did. So embarrassing.’ She smiled again.

  ‘Was I that bad?’

  ‘No, no, you were fine. Very good, very natural. There’s nothing else to say, really. There’d be more if you were bad. No, it’s just – you know – the necessary pretence of these necessary games.’

  ‘Fun, though,’ Charles said, hopefully.

  ‘Oh yes, fun, of course.’

  Gerry shambled over and laid his hand heavily on her shoulder. ‘Eh bien, Anna, how did student F perform?’

  ‘Student F was brilliant, Gerry. Best yet.’

  ‘But he’s only your first.’

  ‘Second.’

  ‘Absolutely, spiffingly, world-championly brilliant? Remembered everything, no muffed lines, no use of his own name, no feet in his own mouth or on your toes?’

  ‘Not a foot wrong anywhere.’

  ‘Great. I still long for you, Anna. You know that?’

  ‘I’m so pleased, Gerry. I thought the wait must have wearied you.’

  ‘Never. Tell Hugo I’ll step into his shoes tomorrow.’

  ‘I think he knows that. You tell him every time you see him.’

  ‘I mean it. Well done, Charles. Don’t forget the write-up.’ Gerry moved on to the next desk.

  ‘So funny to think of Gerry in charge of all you babies,’ she said. ‘He and Hugo joined together. It’s hard to take anyone seriously when you’ve trained with them.’

  Charles thought she was about his own age. ‘You did the course as well, then?’

  ‘No, but we were already married so I used to hear all about it and go to the parties and so on. Then when we got our Sovbloc posting we did the enhanced tradecraft course – spouses, too, you see, and the office pays for all the child-minding – and Gerry was on it because he was going to Warsaw.’

  ‘I didn’t know he’d been in Warsaw.’

  ‘He hasn’t. His marriage broke up. You had to be married for a Sovbloc posting, you see. I’m not sure you do now.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Better get a move on, then, if you want to join the Sovbloc mafia.’ She stood abruptly, as if prompted, and held out her hand. ‘And I’d better get a move on to pick up my children. They’ve had to be kept busy for the office’s benefit, too. It’s nice to have met you. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you for making it easy. They seemed very well behaved.’ He had to repeat himself amidst the scraping of chairs as others stood to go. He wanted to say something else about the pianist, but hesitated too long.

  ‘They won’t be by now.’ She too hesitated as if about to add something, then said ‘ ’Bye’ and walked quickly away.

  Head Office was a 22-storey 1960s office block well situated for terrorist attack. The IRA campaign was a fact of everyday life but Middle Eastern terrorists, spawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict, had recently become active again. As everyone pointed out to everyone else, the building’s proximity to Lambeth North tube made for easy reconnaissance and escape, the petrol station at its foot would enhance secondary conflagration, while the ramp leading down to the underground garage, and the nearness of run-down council flats, might have been designed for a car-bomber. It was, however, a light and cheerful building in which every office faced outwards, though the lifts frequently broke down and carpenters were forever moving walls and doors as offices were enlarged or divided according to the flux and reflux of bureaucratic life.

  This contributed to the building’s rabbit-warren feel, which was enhanced by the fact that each floor tended to be occupied by those working in the same area or controllerate, with most offices small and individual rather than open-plan. The to-ing and fro-ing that this involved, and the ease with which everyone could be discreetly indiscreet, contributed to each floor developing its own atmosphere. As in the Foreign Office, it was traditional to enter closed doors without knocking, though it was a serious security breach to leave unlocked any empty office with papers out. It was known to the overseas stations as Gloom Hall.

  Students under training had little cause to visit it, so Charles welcomed the excuse. HO was the repository of secrets, the seat of mysteries, the source of power, mother and father to stations throughout the world, of which the curious display of aerials on the roof were the only outward reminder. Also, it seemed always to be sunlit and filled with attractive girls who knew things forbidden to the students.

  C/Sovbloc and his empire were on the twelfth floor. The controller was a stocky, closely-packed man with a beaky nose, iron-grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses. His speech was precise and rapid and his blue-grey eyes rested with disconcerting immobility on whomever addressed him. He gave an impression of contained energy, with nothing wasted or superfluous, and he had a formidable reputation for operational achievement, discipline and discretion. His suits were discreetly expensive and the toe-caps of his Oxford shoes had a military polish. He was rumoured to have equal seniority with the Chief, in terms of grade, and to have taken no leave for more years than anyone could remember. He was known as Hookey.

  The twelfth floor was quieter than others, particularly floors such as the African or South American which tended to take on aspects of the areas they dealt with. Too many of the Sovbloc offices were occupied by the custodians of great – it was assumed – secrets, and too many of the doors were kept closed for there to be any obvious liveliness. Hookey was said to have forbidden any officer to have readable papers on his desk in the presence of anyone who had no right to see them. Even the outer office occupied by his secretary was closed, which was probably unique in the building. His inner office was in the corner overlooking Waterloo Station.

  Controllers’ secretaries were reputedly dragons, there to protect controllers and secrets and keep distractions and trivia at bay. But C
/Sov/sec, a bespectacled woman in her forties who wore a sensible tweed skirt, smiled and breathed no fire when Charles introduced himself. ‘Hookey is expecting you. Please sit down.’ The chair she indicated was one from which he could see nothing of what was on her desk. She stood in C/Sovbloc’s room with the door open so that she could see him the whole time.

  When ushered in Charles had to resist the levitational impulse of his right arm, due not only to the slow growing out of army habits but also to the sense of authority emanating from the brisk figure beyond the polished desk. There was nothing on the desk save three telephones, black, grey and red, a buff file and a notepad, both of which Hookey closed as Charles entered. They shook hands.

  ‘Tea, coffee?’ asked Hookey.

  ‘Tea, thank you.’ His reply felt unfinished without ‘sir’.

  Hookey asked his secretary, Maureen, for two teas and closed the door. ‘Who was your commanding officer in the army?’

  ‘Peter Wallace. I believe he’s now a full colonel in the MOD.’

  ‘He is. Interesting appointment.’

  Charles was never quite sure how to react to mention of his former CO, whose name provoked varied responses. ‘Not a natural one for him, I’d have thought.’ He smiled.

  ‘Not natural, perhaps, but people sometimes succeed surprisingly well at what does not come naturally to them. It’s a question of application. Because it doesn’t feel natural, they try harder, and so do better. Have you ever noticed that?’

  Put as a question, it still felt like a rebuke. Charles was easily made to feel guilty where the CO, as he still thought of him, was concerned. He was a man he both admired and judged hard, much as he suspected he might have his late father, had he known him under similar circumstances. Indeed, he remembered his father defending the CO against his no doubt intemperate attacks when home on leave. ‘He’s right even when he’s wrong because he’s the CO and you’re a subaltern,’ his father would say with irritating finality. ‘You’re a soldier and a soldier’s duty is to do his duty, and that’s that.’ Charles was the serving soldier, but his father’s war record inhibited him in such arguments.

  When Maureen brought in the teas Hookey asked her to ask A1 to look in in five minutes. The door closed, he leant forward with his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped and his cup and saucer planted carefully before him as if forming an evidential object. His grey-blue eyes, so far from being windows on the soul, gave the impression of having no time for such frivolity.

  ‘When you were at Oxford, before the army, you knew a Russian postgraduate student, Viktor Ivanovich Koslov, who was there for a year. The Russians permit few students to study in the west and those who do are closely monitored. It was not clear why Koslov, who was neither a scientist seeking militarily useful information nor, as far as we knew, an intelligence officer seeking recruits, was permitted. Undoubtedly, though, he would have had some sort of intelligence brief, if only to report on students and others he knew, such as yourself. You did not know him well but you were friendly enough when you came across him, much as you might have been with anyone else in your college to whom you were not close but who was sufficiently personable. You reported your acquaintance fairly fully during your positive vetting interviews before joining the service. Your longest conversation with Koslov was when one day you walked back from the schools building with him and into hall for lunch.’

  Charles remembered the pale, quiet man with sandy hair and freckles, fluent but careful English and amiable but guarded manner. He seemed solitary without being obviously lonely; Charles could not remember who, if any, his friends were. He was doubtless more mature than most undergraduates yet had about him an apparent naïveté that led people to treat him as if he were in fact less mature, and in need of looking after. Hookey gave the impression of knowing more about him than was in Charles’s PV reporting.

  ‘You probably don’t know that Koslov is now in London, at the Soviet Embassy, where he is one of the second secretaries. He’s been here some time and his posting is due to end soon. So far as the records show, he is straight MFA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Neither his pattern of behaviour nor his traces in our own or MI5 records suggest any reason to identify him as KGB. It would be very unusual, too, for anyone who had spent such a period in the west to become an intelligence officer, unless he had exceptional influence. Nevertheless, I have my own private doubts, the reasons for which I won’t go into now. Suffice it to say, that I am very interested in Mr Koslov.’

  Hookey sipped his tea.

  ‘What no doubt you also know is that it is difficult for us to operate in our own names in this country, since our Foreign Office cover when in London is normally not sufficient to withstand operational exposure, as in theory it should be when we’re attached to embassies abroad. Also, the Foreign Office is wary of the embarrassment that could arise from own-name operations against foreign diplomats serving in London. Under normal circumstances, therefore, we could not consider using you in any operation against Koslov here in the UK. Ironically, because we could do so anywhere else in the world, including Moscow – but not in the very place where it is most natural for you to be. But never mind that.’ Hookey’s lips suggested a smile, for the first time. ‘Circumstances are not quite normal. Firstly, we are even more interested in what the Russians are doing here than we were, especially as we believe they are reconstructing their operational base in this country following the expulsion of the 105 intelligence officers – actually, 104, we got one wrong – a couple of years ago. Secondly, we are very interested in Koslov himself. He is married and accompanied by his wife, Tanya, as they have to be for postings here. Also, as usual, they have had to leave their child behind in Moscow, as a hostage.’ Hookey pronounced the last word very distinctly. ‘According to surveillance and standard intercepts on the embassy, it seems a reasonably successful marriage, at least if lack of open hostilities and the fact of survival mean success in marriage.’ Again, there was a suggestion of a smile. ‘Except for one thing: Koslov has a relationship with a prostitute. This is of course highly unusual in a Soviet official serving in a hostile western country. Koslov knows the penalties but has visited the same woman at least twice. She lives in Belgravia and he was first seen visiting her by an off-duty member of MI5 surveillance who happened to recognise him. She thought he was acting oddly, so prolonged her shopping and followed him to the prostitute’s door, got close enough to see which bell he pressed and reported it. MI5 put him under surveillance for the next two weeks – they thought he might have been up to something professionally as opposed to privately nefarious – but with no result, and no indication that he suspected or looked for surveillance. They concluded he was either very professional, or very lazy, or very clean. Then, on the evening of the last day they could spare for him, he visited the lady again, whom by this time they had identified.’

  Hookey returned to his tea, obviously expecting no response yet. The window behind him offered a view of rush-hour trains creeping reluctantly in and out of Waterloo. ‘The case – as it is already being termed, though it isn’t one yet – has been much discussed, as you might imagine. Traces on Koslov showed up your acquaintance and we concluded that, if there is to be a case, it should be built on that, provided you are willing.’ Maureen put her head round the door to say that A1 was waiting. Hookey nodded. ‘Bring him in.’

  A1 was a balding, energetic, forty-ish man who wore a double-breasted suit with a red lining which flashed as he turned. His handshake was pointedly firm and his smile as welcoming as if he had known Charles of old and greatly enjoyed meeting him again. The neat triangle of handkerchief in his top pocket matched his spotted tie.

  ‘Hugo March,’ he said, holding on to Charles’s hand and standing very close.

  ‘I’ve just met your wife.’ The statement, though factual, felt like a deceit because of what Charles did not add.

  ‘Ah.’ Hugo’s eyebrows lifted and his mouth opened wide, but he said no more and they sat down
.

  ‘Hugo has details of the prostitute,’ Hookey continued, with no preliminaries. ‘Obviously, we need to talk to her in order to discover what’s going on and whether she would help us recruit Koslov.’

  ‘Lover Boy,’ interjected Hugo. ‘He has a code-name now.’

  Hookey’s slight nod conveyed acceptance without approval. ‘His behaviour is that of a risk-taker who is willing to break the rules. That does not mean he is disloyal or disaffected, but it is a necessary condition if ever he is to spy for us. We need to establish whether his behaviour has any significance beyond the personal. Whether or not it does, we want him to know that we know about it. Because of his background, he would naturally assume that we would use the information to blackmail him –’

  Hugo March’s laugh was more of a bark. ‘Too right.’

  ‘– which of course we would not,’ continued Hookey quietly, looking at Charles. ‘This service does not use blackmail, partly because most of us would find it repugnant and partly because, unless you control the environment within which your target operates, as in a totalitarian state, it is rarely effective for long and is never a guarantee of loyalty. The analogy often used is that we would not push a man off a ski-slope in order to break his leg, but we like to keep close behind him so that if he does fall we can offer help, and then make it easy for him to repay us, if he wishes.’