by Alan Judd
The Escort stayed at its acute angle to the kerb, front end jutting out. Minutes passed. Charles got out and walked back up the street. Viktor’s head was bent over the pages, which he held towards the street light. Charles walked slowly past the Escort, but Viktor did not look up. He stopped with his back against somebody’s gatepost, arms folded, clearly visible.
Viktor leant back in his seat and stared straight ahead, the pages resting in his lap. Charles continued to wait, wishing neither to intervene too promptly nor to miss his chance. Viktor did not move. Charles pushed off from the gatepost, approaching the Escort from behind. The driver’s door opened. Viktor must have been watching in the mirror. Charles stopped.
‘I thought you might like to see how it really happened to my father,’ he said. ‘I turned out all his old papers. He’d hidden it in the loft of my mother’s house. So much for ideological motivation.’
Viktor stared straight ahead. To say more might look like weakness, but to say nothing risked a competition in silence when his aim was to talk. He didn’t know how much time Viktor had. ‘It’s not very safe for you to talk here, like this. We’d be better walking.’
Viktor got out without a word, handing Charles the document and locking his car. Charles led back down the road, away from the direction of the embassy. He handed Viktor the still-undiscarded tweed cap that had belonged to his father, and which he kept in the Rover. ‘You’re less likely to be recognised in this.’
Viktor put it on. ‘Very English.’
‘It was my father’s.’
‘It should not fit me. He was a better man than I am. He had more excuse. He was in love with Ulriche, I think.’
‘You were not with Chantal?’
‘I was in – I was in obsession with her. We did not talk like your father and Ulriche. Then I was in fear and confusion and despair. Now I am in prison.’
‘Why?’
Viktor’s expression beneath the incongruous cap was mocking. ‘That is a question the camp guard asks the prisoners – why are you here to disturb me? Why must I bother with you? What is your offence?’
‘I don’t understand, Viktor. You’ll have to explain.’
‘So there is something the great British Intelligence does not understand? I am proud to be it. When I am in my labour camp and my family is destitute, that will be comfort for me.’
They headed through quiet streets towards Eaton Square. The background traffic of London, the humming of the hive, a reminder of the overwhelming indifference within which the abnormalities of life were lived.
‘You know what she said, of course,’ Viktor continued.
‘No.’
‘You wish to make me tell it to you, for your pleasure?’
‘I don’t know what “it” is.’
Every other uncurtained window in Lowndes Place showed a dinner party in progress. A chauffeur-driven Daimler limousine waited outside one. Viktor paused until they had passed it. ‘I tell you, then. I went this evening to tell her that this may be the last time I can see her. A delegation arrives from Moscow tomorrow which I have to accompany. I may have no time alone between now and my departure in one week. Also, I sense in the climate in the Residency a security cloud, something is going on and I must be more careful. One of the military attachés received a strange telephone call and people have become very formal with me recently. It may be that I am under suspicion. Two of the delegation are not usual trade officials. One of them, Rhykov, was sent to Paris two years ago to bring home a Russian official who was – how do you put this? – showing signs of possible reluctance. They drugged him. Unfortunately, he died because they gave him too much. This is a detail, you understand, not a problem. The other, Krychkov, is more senior. I have met both before. They don’t like each other but I think they don’t like me, either, Rhykov especially. Therefore, I had to tell Chantal that I may not see her again, unless I come to London again, and to give her a little present I had bought for her. A little present for her but a big present for me, you understand. A necklace. Then, when I get – got – there, she was strange with me. I gave her the present and she looked as if it was nothing. But for me it was not nothing, it was a lot, I have been as generous with her as I can but I have little money and she does not understand that. Then, this time, I said, “You should be pleased. At least you should thank me. It is to remind you of me, especially as we may not meet again.” And then she says to me, “I do not need to be reminded of you. I shall always remember because you have deceived me. You are not a Finnish businessman as you told me, you are a Russian official from the embassy, you are KGB. I shall write to your ambassador and tell the newspapers what you have done if you do not give me five thousand pounds for a nice holiday for my children. You must give it to me before you go back.” And then when I tell her this is blackmail she is very angry and says it is what I owe her because I was her lover and a lover is supposed to pay for his mistress and I have paid only enough for her lunch and she has turned down other lovers who would pay her much more because of me.’
Anger silenced Charles. In Eaton Square he led them right, towards Sloane Square. Viktor had been speaking quickly but now resumed more slowly, with his earlier bitterness. ‘But of course you know all this, Charles. She has reported to you. How could she know I was from the Russian Embassy? Now you have told her to do this so you can put pressure on me just like with your father. It is your revenge.’
Charles stopped. ‘Viktor, I give you my word that I – we – are not trying to blackmail you. Chantal did this herself.’
‘But you have talked to her, you have told her who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘You knew she would do this.’
‘I did not. I told her to do nothing of the sort, to put no pressure on you.’
‘But now she has you can use it. You can say you can stop her if I spy for you. If I do not agree, you will let her do it. It means the same for me.’
‘I shall try to stop her. I think I can stop her. But you don’t have to spy for us. Unless you want to.’
‘So I must say I want to and then it will be all right for me?’
‘It will be all right for you anyway. You don’t have to say anything.’
‘Why not?’ He laughed. ‘Charles, this is funny, you know. I mean, it is not, not for me, not at all funny, but objectively speaking, you know.’
Charles smiled. ‘I know.’
‘So why are we here, why are we talking? If you can stop her and you want nothing from me, I can go home.’
‘If you wish.’ Sloane Square was busy, with people spilling out of the Royal Court Theatre. Charles led them across into Kings Road. He wanted to keep walking and talking. At least among crowds they were less likely to stand out. The variegated population of Kings Road was perfect for that. ‘Of course it’s true that there is something we should like from you,’ he said as they passed the Duke of York’s barracks. ‘But only if you want to give it.’
Viktor laughed bitterly again. ‘Charles, you are not talking to a virgin.’
‘Sorry.’
‘There is nothing I want to give you. I do not want to betray my country.’
‘Okay, that’s fine.’
‘But I understand from what you say and the way you speak that you have not resigned? You are still in your service?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am pleased about that. You have done the right thing. You are a professionally serious person again.’
Charles led the way into an Italian café just past Shawfield Street, as if it were what he had been making for. They took a small corner table and, without asking Viktor, he ordered two cappuccinos. Viktor kept his cap on at the table. With that and his tracksuit, he could have been any of a thousand on the Kings Road seeking identity through incongruity.
‘So the Centre lied to you about my father?’ Charles continued.
Viktor shrugged. ‘Not really. No more than they lie to themselves. As I told you, it used to be important to
say that people worked for us for love of the socialist revolution and your father probably agreed with whatever they told him after recruitment. They only left out the beginning in their case summary, that’s all. This is a case of probably eight, ten files. A big lie to you, perhaps, but a small one for them.’
‘What did he do for you? What sort of agent was he?’
‘If you are not blackmailing me, why must I answer such questions?’
‘Do you love the socialist revolution, Viktor?’
He smiled. ‘Listen, Charles, you in the west know much about my country but understand little. We live on different levels simultaneously. Of course I love socialist revolution and of course I am the loyal Communist Party member. At the same time, no one in Russia cares a kopek for the socialist revolution and there are no communists in Russia. Because the Party is the Party, it is not communism. Only in the west do you find real communists. In Russia they would be in labour camps. The Party could not permit them.’
‘But you are happy to continue to serve it.’
‘It is what I was born into. Ask a fish if he is happy to swim in his sea. It doesn’t matter if he is happy or unhappy, if he wants to swim and this is the only sea he has. There may be other seas but he is not in them, he has to swim in this one.’
‘You could change seas. You could stay here. You could defect. KGB officers are always welcome.’ The backwoods of Charles’s mind echoed with Gerry stressing that no Russian official should be propositioned, or in any way urged to defect, without Foreign Office clearance. But they were well beyond that now and, anyway, private citizens could say what they liked to KGB officers. The one category of people who could not freely urge defection upon KGB officers were SIS officers, who were also the one category paid to do so. He was beginning to enjoy his freedom.
Viktor shook his head. ‘Even if I wanted, there is my daughter in Moscow. And I do not want because I love my country, I am a Russian patriot.’
‘You love the country that keeps your daughter hostage?’
‘It is the sea I have to swim in.’
‘And you love the country that crushed the genuine people’s revolution in Czechoslovakia?’
Viktor put his hand to his heart. ‘With my experience here, and with what your father wrote in his diary, how can you think that seeing fault must mean you stop loving?’
‘Brandy? Shall we have brandies?’
‘Why not? I am so late now, it is no difference.’
‘Late from what – another Beaconsfield reconnaissance?’ Viktor’s surprise was obvious. ‘I was there last time. In the woods. I saw you.’
‘Congratulations on your professional skills,’ Viktor said carefully. ‘As you were not there this time, I can tell you it wasn’t Beaconsfield.’
‘Where do your people think you are? How will you explain when you get back?’
‘I will tell them I took extremely elaborate anti-surveillance precautions. They approve of that. That is what I should have been doing when you saw me at Beaconsfield. There must be anti-surveillance before approach to target area. Only I went directly, more or less, as you know, so I would have time to see Chantal afterwards. That tells how unprofessional I have become.’
They toasted each other in brandies, touching glasses. Viktor downed almost all of his immediately, leaving just a taste. Charles ordered two more. Any KGB officer who talked in these terms would talk more, given time. But time was what Charles lacked and, lacking that, he needed a key. Not knowing where the lock was, he couldn’t choose a key to fit. He changed tack, focusing on practicalities. ‘With regard to Chantal, I will see her tomorrow. I shall get the money she needs to go away, make sure she goes and try to ensure that she stays quiet and doesn’t come back for a long time. It’s possible she might do something rash in the meantime but I’ll try and stop that, too. It’s vital that you don’t attempt to see her. Can you give me your word?’
Viktor nodded. ‘It is not possible for me to see her, even if I wanted. Krychkov and Rhykov will be watching me too much. But if your service pays her for me that will put me in your debt for ever.’
‘We can’t help that. We are not your people and Chantal is not Ulriche, to be ordered off-stage when it suits us. This is a free country, more or less.’
‘Poor Ulriche. Rich Ulriche, perhaps. Or dead Ulriche. I wonder what happened to her.’
‘Maybe you could look her up in the file when you get back to the Centre. Let me know sometime.’
‘So we have to stay in touch, do we? We have to have contact arrangements. This is the price, Charles?’
‘No contact arrangements,’ said Charles emphatically, ‘no price. But it would be sensible, from your point of view, that we agree a mechanism for you to signal if, during your remaining week, you decide you are under suspicion and you want to jump ship – change sea – after all. Of course you don’t want and of course there’s your wife and daughter but if you’re disgraced they’re disgraced anyway and they’ll see no less of you if you stay here than if you go back and do twenty-five years hard labour. And there’s always the remote chance they’ll be let out. Twenty-five years hard is about the going rate, isn’t it, for those they go easy on? Penkovsky was shot, of course.’
‘Actually, Penkovsky was hanged, quite slowly. It was filmed. Sometimes they show it to recruits in GRU, to remind them of consequences. But he was a big important spy. He did enormous damage. I am not a spy. I have done no damage.’
‘If it suits them to believe you. There may be political reasons why it would suit them to have a big spy case, a show trial with confessions beaten out of you and your wife forced to give evidence against you by threats against your daughter so that they can once again demonstrate the iniquity of western special services.’ He could see that his words were hitting home, and he had a fleeting vision of Hookey in his position. Hookey would not pause, as he had, but would press on. ‘It’s not just a question of one sea or another, Viktor. There isn’t a moral equivalence. Ours has no end of junk and rubbish and rottenness in it but the one you’re in is deliberately nasty, polluted and polluting. It spawns and swallows Ulriche and thousands like her. One way or another, your own little girl is going to have to make the sort of choices you make, or that Ulriche made. She too is going to grow up in a system where a love affair can be treason. They’re hard choices – and we have it easy, I know – but they are choices. You’re lucky you have them. Most of your compatriots don’t.’
‘Your father must have thought his love affair was treason.’
‘My father was wrong. It wasn’t. It was just against the rules. But what he did afterwards was wrong.’ Viktor’s pale features were taut. Charles felt that the case had never been more in his control. It would have been a natural moment to ease off, to relax things and perhaps move on together in harmony; but if ever he was going to go for it, he should go now. ‘You may be in trouble, you may not, but every minute you’ve spent with me this evening makes it more likely that you will be. If there’s even half a chance that you are, you should agree signalling arrangements so you can tell us whether you’re okay about going back, or whether you want to talk, or whether you’re being taken back and you want to jump ship. If the latter, we’d have to intervene and grab you. It would be a major incident and we do it only if you and I agree a mechanism in advance. And there is a price. For this, on top of keeping Chantal quiet, there has to be a price.’ He was not at all sure that, even with the price, the office would agree. Foreign Office clearance would have to be sought retrospectively, which was always a problem. There would be fuss. Everything he said was unauthorised and he had no power of delivery. But if the price was high enough, and paid, there was a chance.
‘So, Charles, blackmail after all,’ said Viktor quietly.
‘No blackmail, Viktor. We will keep Chantal quiet anyway, whether you agree anything or whether you don’t. I can’t say you will never hear from us again but you will certainly never hear in circumstances that could compro
mise you. If you come abroad again, we would probably try and talk to you, to see if you have changed your mind. But if you choose to make no arrangement now, you can walk away tonight and go back to Moscow under no threat from us. If you want us to be prepared to help you, though, there is a price. That is not blackmail.’
Viktor sat back, his second brandy untouched. ‘What price?’
‘One question and one promise. You answer the question honestly and you keep the promise.’ Viktor said nothing. Charles gazed at the colourful, talkative, youthful crowd in the café. The profile of one of the women was slightly familiar.
‘What is your question?’ Viktor asked quietly.
‘Look around you.’ Charles nodded at the other customers. ‘There are young people enjoying themselves like this in every city of the world, even in Moscow. And in several of those cities, or near them, your people are planning to leave your nasledstvo, ultimately so that these people could be threatened with incineration or with having their water poisoned or whatever. Operation Legacy is being prepared here, in London, now. You know the sort of tactics it’s there to support. You are part of it. I don’t want you to give me any details, any identifications of your people or agents. I just want to know whether you have found and prepared your sites, your arms caches or whatever they are, or whether you are still looking. That’s all.’
‘And the promise?’
‘That if you ever hear in future of any sites, prepared, planned or filled, you will let me know, no matter where in the world you are, for the rest of your life, even in your old age in Moscow. And that we agree a system of covert communication here and now.’
‘I can agree these things but how will you know I am telling the truth?’
‘I shall have to trust you, as you have to trust me with Chantal.’
Viktor stared as if searching Charles’s features for his own decision. ‘I have a condition. That this agreement is between us personally. I am not your service’s agent. I am not going to spy for them. But this thing – yes, this thing is important for you, so I will tell you.’ He sat forward with his elbows on the table. ‘It will not be easy for you personally, Charles.’