Tightrope

by Simon Mawer

  He ignored her question. ‘What else did he give you?’

  She hesitated. What else did he know? What had Absolon told them? She tried to feel the possibilities. ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  She filled the silence. ‘We talked. General things often. We enjoyed each other’s company.’

  ‘Did you make sex with him?’

  Something sour rose in her throat. Kuznetsov’s eyes seemed to see through her dress to the bare flesh beneath. She felt violated, as naked as she had been before her interrogators in Paris, stripped of clothes, stripped of protection, stripped of artifice. She swallowed and breathed in deeply, trying to keep the emotions at bay, trying to let the vomit subside. What more did he know? What had Absolon told them? That was the danger of interrogation – you never knew what other people had already said. ‘We were lovers,’ she admitted. ‘Is that a crime?’

  ‘Perhaps in this case it is. Comrade Absolon is charged with taking part in a sexual relationship with an agent of the British Security Service—’

  ‘I’m not a member of the Security Service.’

  ‘And in the course of this relationship, betraying secrets to the enemies of the Soviet people.’

  ‘That’s not true. I’m not a member of the Security Service and he gave me nothing.’

  One of the more abstruse effects of adrenalin is to slow the passage of time down but not the workings of the mind. Her mind worked quickly now, skating over the facts and the suppositions, the little hints, the suggestions and suspicions. What did Kuznetsov know, and what did he not know? Kriegspiel again. You grope in the dark. You make your moves not knowing whether they’ll work or not. You probe and you try to sense – something insect-like, something bat-like about it – where your opponents pieces lie. Where is the fragile barricade of pawns, where the rooks, where the knights and bishops, and where, above all, is the queen?

  Absolon’s voice still whispered in the ear of her memory. ‘Maybe we haven’t been as clever as we thought. Unless …’

  What was the ‘unless’?

  And then she understood: unless there were a leak from within Fawley’s own organisation. Unless there were a Soviet agent deep inside the Security Service, burrowing away within the bowels of the organisation like a parasitic worm, feeding on snippets of information vital to the Russians, betraying any agent who might be inclined to betray.

  She drew a careful breath and moved forward into the darkness, not knowing what lay ahead, whether any step might incriminate him or her. ‘I’m not a member of the Security Service,’ she repeated. ‘Someone approached me, that’s all. Someone I knew during the war. Do you know what I did in the war, Mr Kuznetsov?’ She looked at him, insisting on an answer.

  Eventually he said, ‘I believe you were an agent of British Special Operations.’

  ‘Exactly. We fought on the same side, didn’t we, you and I, the British and the Russians? The Great Patriotic War, isn’t that what you call it? So, the person who recruited me then got in touch a little while ago. I presume you all know about each other—’

  ‘What is this man’s name?’

  ‘Fawley,’ she said. ‘That’s the name I have always known him by. He suggested that Absolon might be willing to give information. He had no idea about what was happening with my brother but he knew that I was friendly with David Absolon—’

  ‘How did he know this?’

  ‘I presume we were seen together. Anyway, he asked me to make an approach to Absolon and I saw that it might be a good idea if Absolon gave me small stuff to pass back to Fawley. Chicken feed, isn’t that what you call it? I thought that would keep the Security Service off our backs.’ She smiled, perhaps with relief at having made this move without any obvious disaster. ‘Keep us safe from the British intelligence,’ she explained, thinking perhaps that ‘off our backs’ might be too much for the man’s English. ‘Why don’t you ask Absolon? Ask him. I’m sure he’ll confirm what I say. We used my contact with Fawley to protect what we were really doing, which was to pass information from my brother to you. Ask him.’

  There was something in his expression, a small fracture in the mask, a shift of uncertainty in the pale blue eyes. She insisted, sensing the weakness but not yet fully understanding it, trying to lever it open, trying for all she was worth to open up the hairline crack into a fissure. ‘Why don’t you ask Absolon yourself? He betrayed no secrets. I promise you that. I gave him valuable information, and in return he passed me small stuff, intelligence of no real value. As simple as that. He’ll confirm everything I say. Ask him.’

  And then she understood. She sat there before the man called Kuznetsov and everything resolved itself into one simple fact – he couldn’t ask Absolon. Absolon was not in their hands. They’d lost him. He was not in Moscow, not in some dreadful KGB gaol below the Lubyanka, not in a camp somewhere in Siberia. He’d escaped them and gone to ground, like a fox, a bright fox who leaves nothing to chance, not even breathing a word about it to her in the darkness of the cinema, not daring to drop so much as a hint.

  Her mind scurried over the possibilities. She wondered what resources he had. Money, you always needed money. Probably illicit funds quietly stashed away in some Swiss bank account during years of working in Europe, money stashed away for just such an eventuality as this. She knew how loose intelligence agencies could be with funds. She herself had carried hundreds of thousands of francs in a money belt, all of it unaccounted and untraceable. And he’d need a false identity, of course, at least one. Passport, visas, residence permits, bank details, all that kind of thing. One of them in the name of Herr Anton Albrecht.

  The postcard was the one chink of light in the opaque curtain he had drawn around himself.

  Kuznetsov asked, ‘How do you know this? That it was information of no importance?’

  ‘Because that is what Absolon told me.’

  ‘So you only have his word for it?’

  ‘Of course. I was just a courier. A postman doesn’t read the mail, does he? And anyway, if I had done so, I wouldn’t have known its value. I’m not an intelligence analyst. But I’m sure Absolon will confirm everything I have said. I would hate to think he is in any kind of trouble.’

  She glanced at her wristwatch. A present from Alan, a lovely, elegant little golden thing with 21 JEWELS SWISS MADE in minute letters that you could barely read without a magnifying glass. ‘Look, Mr Kuznetsov, I really must be getting home. It’s almost ten o’clock and you really cannot keep me here any longer.’ She smiled. ‘I have been very sympathetic to your cause, I have helped pass invaluable information to one of your agents, but that doesn’t give you the right to detain me against my will. I’ll need a taxi, if you don’t mind, unless you have some other means of spiriting people out of the embassy. I’m sure all comings and goings are carefully monitored by the British Security Service.’

  He attempted one little riposte – ‘You forget, Mrs Walcott, that here you are on Soviet soil; here it is we who decide what happens’ – but she could tell he had no confidence in it.

  ‘Mr Kuznetsov, I hardly think you’ll risk a diplomatic incident for someone like me.’

  Fawley

  An embassy car delivered her home. There was no subterfuge and no pretence. She had been a guest at an official reception and she had felt unwell. Perhaps a little too much fine Russian champagne. The embassy medical staff had dealt with her in the smooth and efficient manner of Soviet medicine – a rest, some aspirin, nothing more was needed – and here she was, being taken back home in complete security. There was even a nurse to accompany her, just in case.

  She let herself into the flat. Alan was already fast asleep. She undressed and washed and slipped into bed beside him, drawing comfort from his presence. She felt an inordinate happiness that she wanted to share with him, but couldn’t. He mumbled and turned and accepted a kiss without waking; but she wanted more than that. She wanted to tell him that Absolon was free. An absurd joy.

  Th
e next day she arranged a meeting with Fawley. The usual way, the usual phone call, the usual taxi taking her to a safe house somewhere in the inner suburbs, Chalk Farm on this occasion. And he was his usual, thoughtful, attentive self, sitting in the bare sitting room with a cup of tea and a plate of digestive biscuits, like a maiden aunt receiving a visit from a favoured niece.

  ‘He called himself Kuznetsov,’ she said.

  Fawley made a wry face. ‘Half of Russia is called—’

  ‘Yes, I know. It means Smith. He told me.’

  ‘But I can get you to look at some photos and identify him, see who he really is. It sounds as though it may even have been the station chief, the rezident. In which case you were mightily honoured.’

  ‘That’s not really the point. The point is, he matters. He’s important, I could tell that. And he said something that worried me.’

  ‘Worried you?’

  She’d considered her options, shuffled them in her mind, dealt them like cards, read them and then dealt them again. How much to tell? What exactly to tell? How to tiptoe through the minefield of truth, half-truth and lies? ‘Kuznetsov made it clear that he knew Absolon had been passing us information.’

  Fawley seemed to think for a moment. ‘How can that be a surprise? They are holding him, aren’t they? He has probably confessed. I regret to tell you that their methods are little different from the Nazis, except that nowadays it is the fashion to use drugs as well as beatings. As you may imagine, it is an exceptional man who stands out against that.’

  ‘But they’re not. Holding him, I mean. They’ve lost him. He’s given them the slip, gone to ground.’

  Was there surprise in Fawley’s expression? Perhaps just the faint curiosity of a man who has seen and heard everything. ‘They’ve lost him? How do you know this?’

  ‘I sensed it from the way Kuznetsov spoke. And it was there in his eyes. Shifty.’

  A small, sceptical smile. ‘Shifty is stock-in-trade, my dear.’

  ‘And Absolon has contacted me.’

  The smile faded. There was a silence in the dull room. Traffic noise could be heard from outside, vehicles on the main road, the bell of an ambulance or a police car going to some emergency. But the real emergency was here, in the narrow confines of this safe house with its drab brown furniture and the reproduction of The Hay Wain on the wall. ‘He has contacted you?’

  She considered her knowledge, parsing it, trying to assess its importance. ‘I received a postcard. I’m sure it’s from him, although he’s using an assumed name. Posted it from somewhere in Germany. And I think he’ll get in touch again.’

  ‘Are you certain it’s from him?’

  She shrugged. ‘As sure as I can be.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Nothing much. “Happy days”, that’s all. It was signed “A”.’

  ‘That could be anything. How do you know it’s from him? Did you recognise the handwriting?’

  ‘I’ve never seen his handwriting. But I just know, that’s all.’

  He repeated her words, like a barrister repeating a witness statement to demonstrate the paucity of it: ‘You just know. But how do you even know that “A” is a he? It could be Anne, couldn’t it? Or Annabel. Or Araminta.’

  ‘Anton, the name was Anton.’

  ‘Someone who remembers you from school in Geneva. Someone you knew in France during the war. Any number of possibilities.’

  ‘Who else would send a card like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Enclosed in an envelope. He’s trying to establish a line of communication, don’t you see?’ She leaned towards him eagerly. ‘The point is, if he has gone to ground somewhere in Europe, if they haven’t got hold of him, then how do they know about the information he gave me to pass on to you?’

  Fawley’s fingers, slightly feminine, soft and white, were now tip to tip, bouncing gently. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Who knew?’ she asked. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it? Who knew that David Absolon was an informant? Me, you … Anyone else? You tell me.’

  A little stiffening of shock. Perhaps outrage. Was heresy being implied? Was sacrilege being committed? ‘My dear Marian—’

  ‘It’s not impossible, is it? Look at those cases that have hit the headlines. Look at Burgess and Maclean. Who tipped them off? The newspapers are saying all sorts of things about a Third Man.’

  Fawley’s smile was forced now, a little rictus of discomfiture. ‘Idle speculation, my dear. I can hardly imagine that any one of my colleagues would be the source of leaked information, if that is what you are implying. And I can assure you that I—’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Well, my dear, I wonder what you do mean?’ My dear. He was angry, petulant, like a schoolmaster let down by a favourite pupil. ‘I’m sure there are other possibilities, within the GRU, for example.’

  ‘But why would he have told anyone on his own side? He would have been betraying himself.’

  ‘Perhaps everything that he gave us was disinformation. The opposition enjoy that kind of thing, playing games, trying to toy with us. Maybe they had it all planned out. Maybe your friend Absolon was not quite the man you took him for. Look, my dear, I think you had better let me have the postcard in question. We can submit it to scientific examination, establish its true provenance. Where did you say it was posted?’

  Something in the narrow interstices of the conversation disturbed her, some fractional imperfection in the bland smoothness of his words. ‘I didn’t. It was posted in southern Germany. Munich. But I don’t have it any longer. I destroyed it.’

  ‘What a pity. And the return address?’

  ‘Poste restante at the central post office.’

  ‘And how did it reach you?’

  She lied. It was easy to lie. You keep something in reserve, always something in reserve. It’s like having money in the bank – you never know when you might need it. ‘At the Peace Union. The only address he knew, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you reply?’

  ‘I sent a note suggesting he might be mistaken.’

  A comforting smile. ‘Let’s see if he sends another missive, shall we? In our world it’s always better to wait and see. Festina lente, that’s the watchword. If it turns out you are right, then we’ll see what to do. Maybe we can bring him in from the cold, offer him warmth, safety, a new life, a new identity in Canada or wherever he pleases. In return for what he knows.’

  Festina lente. He sounded like her father.

  In the taxi she lit a cigarette and drew in calming smoke. She was no stranger to fear. She knew the whole spectrum, from anxiety to terror. Fear had been her bedfellow for years, fear and memory of fear, the one playing on the other, impregnating it and engendering panic. ‘Fear is useful,’ the psychiatrist had explained. ‘Fear keeps us out of harm’s way. But panic is useless.’

  She wouldn’t panic. She’d allow fear to determine what she would do but she’d not let panic in, not panic with its surge of irrationality, its upswell of unreason. In that direction chaos lay. She smoked and watch the houses pass by outside the cab. London enveloped her, a place of fog and rain where the outlines were blurred and the shapes of buildings blended back into the cloud. Bombsites were like the ruins of some ancient civilisation, conjuring up mythic memories in the minds of the survivors squatting in the ruins. Lights glistened in the tarmac even at noon, even as she made her way to Ned’s flat or to the Underground or to the cinema where she watched films alone during her lunch break and wondered about Absolon. She wouldn’t panic but she began to understand what she might do.

  Museum

  Ordinary days, waiting. Humdrum work at the office, evenings spent at home watching, for the first time, television. One evening there was a dinner party for some of Alan’s business colleagues during which she played the dutiful wife; on another, an evening lecture to attend, and a piano recital at the Wigmore Hall. And during these days, she began to notice them. The
y weren’t there all the time, just at crucial moments of her day. Men in fawn raincoats and trilby hats, men in dark coats and bowler hats, men in overalls carrying bags of plumbing gear, men in vans and cars parked on the opposite side of the street, always men. Watching. They knew where she worked and they knew where she lived. They were watching her.

  She told no one. Fear crept up on her and condemned her to silence. But then, she told herself, this wasn’t Paris during the occupation, was it? It was London in peacetime. So when she saw them watching, from across the street from the Peace Union offices, in a black Ford V8 car she crossed the road and tapped on the window. The man inside looked startled but wound the window down. He had a sallow, impoverished face.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but you don’t happen to have a light, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  She held up a cigarette. ‘A light.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. A light.’ The tones of the East End. A quick fumble in his pocket and there was a lighter, the little flame flickering in the breeze. She leaned forward into the warm fug within the car and drew the flame into her cigarette. ‘Thank you.’ She blew smoke away, her hand on the window frame. ‘You waiting for someone?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. Waiting.’

  ‘Because this is a no parking zone.’

  He looked round anxiously. ‘Right. Thanks for the information.’

  In a few minutes he drove away. It was a triumph of a kind. Small, but distinct. They wouldn’t be able to use him again. Or the car.

  Back in the Peace Union all was as normal: Mr Roper in his office, arguing on the phone with someone, Peter working downstairs in the library, Miss Miller going through the mail. ‘They’re doing it again, damn them,’ Miss Miller said, more to herself than to anyone else. It was the ‘damn them’ that awoke Marian’s interest. ‘Damn’ explored the limits of Miss Miller’s expletives. Sometimes she said ‘blast’. ‘Damn’ was extreme.