The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  ‘She’s blackmailing His Majesty if you want to put it that way.’

  ‘And Wells’s interest in all of this?’ Irritated by the delay, Black knocked again, a hard, insistent copper’s hammering.

  ‘You can look at it in one of two ways,’ Liddell said, smiling thinly. ‘Either he is doing his duty or getting revenge on Miss Budberg and her friend at the F.O.’

  A servant met their knock and after Liddell produced his warrant card the man took it off into the dark recesses of the house, returning a long moment later. He handed back the warrant card and led Liddell and Black down a long oak-floored corridor fitted with a somewhat tattered but obviously expensive runner. They found Wells in front of a large bay window overlooking the back garden. He was sitting in a comfortable leather armchair with a blanket wrapped around his knees.

  To Black he looked like the complete Edwardian gentleman, wearing a three-piece tweed suit, a stiff-collared white shirt and a four-in-hand tie. The feet poking out from the bottom of the blanket appeared to be very small and fitted with extremely expensive shoes. The eyes behind the thick rimless spectacles seemed bright and lively but the rest of the body was not keeping pace. There were liver spots on the man’s face and the top of his balding skull, dark sagging circles under his eyes and the sagging skin of his face seemed that of a much heartier man.

  ‘You’re here about Moura,’ he said, looking away from the view out the window. At the far end of the garden there was a more modern-looking Mews flat and in between several beds of late vegetables.

  ‘Yes,’ said Liddell.

  ‘Who’s this one? Another troll lurking under Westminster Bridge? Quasimodo swinging about among Big Ben’s little bells?’

  ‘His name is Morris Black, Mr Wells. At one time he was a detective inspector for Scotland Yard. Now he works for another branch of government.’

  ‘Special Branch?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Black answered.

  ‘Well, that’s good. Should leave the bloody Irish alone.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘About Miss Budberg.’

  ‘What about her?’ said Wells. ‘You should be more concerned about that nest of Nazi vipers at Broadcasting House.’

  ‘Let us choose our concerns,’ said Black coldly. ‘It’s our job.’

  ‘You called us about Miss Budberg, sir,’ Liddell reminded gently. ‘Through Mr Beaverbrook.’

  ‘I suppose I did, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Bit of a trollop.’ Wells let out a small, surprisingly feminine laugh. ‘Not Beaverbrook, of course. The countess.’

  ‘She does sound a bit wicked.’ Black smiled. He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Wells was a bit bonkers. Or going senile. There was a faint smell in the room – death tiptoeing in through the shadows.

  ‘Delightfully so on occasion,’ Wells answered, giving Black a wink. ‘Gets the sap running even in a buggered-up old tree such as myself. First diabetes, then this damnable liver thing.’ He pushed out his small lips like he was a pouting child. ‘Not bloody fair, I tell you.’

  It rarely is, Black thought, but he said nothing.

  Liddell nodded. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Why are the two of you standing over me like that?’ said Wells suddenly, his voice flaring imperiously. ‘I’m not the bloody King of Prussia, man! Sit down! Sit down!’ Black and Liddell did as they were told, pulling up a pair of old and very creaky rattan armchairs.

  ‘Miss Budberg?’ said Liddell.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘You reported to Mr Beaverbrook that she was an agent of the NKVD, Soviet State Security, and that she had been for some time.’

  ‘Quite so. At least from the time of her relationship with Gorky. Poor fool that he was. Another one of Stalin’s victims.’

  Black was vaguely aware of the controversy of the playwright’s death seven or eight years before.

  ‘And when was Miss Budberg’s relationship with Comrade Gorky?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘Back when the NKVD was called Cheka: Vserossiya Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya po Bor’be s Kontrrevolyut-siyey i Sabotazhem.’ The writer’s accent was surprisingly fluent.

  ‘All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage,’ Black translated, his accent equally fluent.

  ‘Well done!’ said Wells, his eyes twinkling behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. His small feet did a delighted little tattoo on the floor.

  ‘I thought you were a German Jew,’ said Liddell, surprised at Black’s facility with the language.

  ‘Jews come from nowhere and everywhere,’ said Wells pedantically. ‘Hence the Wandering Jew.’

  ‘Bielozersk, actually. North of Moscow on Lake Bielo. My grandfather took the family to Germany to work in the coalfields but they moved on before the Great War. My grandfather insisted that I learn the language of my roots.’

  ‘Well, good for him!’

  ‘I’d very much like to talk about Miss Budberg if you don’t mind,’ said an exasperated Liddell.

  ‘Is he always this boring?’ Wells asked seriously.

  Black smiled at Liddell. ‘Frequently. But I think he should be indulged in this case.’

  ‘If you insist.’

  ‘When did you discover that she was NKVD?’

  ‘Gorky told me when I visited Petrograd – Leningrad, if you prefer – in 1918. She styled herself as his secretary.’

  ‘Why were you there?’

  ‘Gorky asked me to come, of course. He’d written Beaverbrook saying they were terribly short of food. My luggage was full of butter, if you can believe it.’

  ‘And Miss Budberg?’ Black asked. ‘She had a suitcase full of scones, I presume.’ The man really was a lunatic.

  ‘She said Zinoviev wanted her dead,’ Wells answered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of what she knew through the British Foreign Office representative there. Lockhart. She was having an affair with him as well. On NKVD orders. I tell you, the woman was not far from being a whore.’

  The name Lockhart stopped Black cold. The man Wells was referring to was obviously Robert Bruce Lockhart, who’d written the book Memoirs of a British Agent. It had been made into a popular film of the same name, portraying him as a romantic hero. Lockhart, then, was Liddell’s ‘delicate political situation’ – a man in the upper reaches of the Foreign Office who’d once been entangled with a communist spy.

  ‘What did she know?’ asked Black, pressing on even though a look from Liddell suggested that he should leave well enough alone.

  ‘She knew that it was all fudge and flummery,’ snorted Wells. He reached under his blanket and took out a small leather humidor and an ostrich-covered Dunhill Sport. He took out a stumpy, half-smoked cigar and lit it, blowing happy puffs of aromatic smoke at the bay window.

  ‘Fudge and flummery?’

  ‘All of the king’s supposed hand-wringing about poor cousin Nicky and his unfortunate position.’

  ‘Nicky?’

  ‘The tsar. Nicholas the second. Dear Nicky asked King George for asylum in England. The king refused, although not in so many words. He let his secretary do all the work for him. And the prime minister. He was relieved when he found out they’d all been massacred, believe me.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘Because it’s bloody true. In 1918 this country was as close to a revolution as Russia was. The last thing the king needed was a despot like Nicholas lolling about in Kensington Palace or sharing a bit of borscht at Balmoral. That’s the real reason Lockhart was there.’

  ‘What reason?’

  ‘To botch a rescue attempt so the F.O. and the king could say they’d tried their best. Lockhart was special consul there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In St Petersburg as well as Moscow.’ Wells nodded.

  ‘Miss Budberg informed you of this?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘Indeed. If you read Lockhart’s published diari
es for that time period, or that wretched penny dreadful he wrote, he barely mentions the death of the tsar. Tosses it off as a mere bagatelle.’

  ‘I was always under the impression that he was there to broker some kind of rescue,’ said Liddell.

  ‘That was supposedly the plan. And all poppycock. There were no rescue attempts of any kind. They were marched down into the basement of that house and executed. Shot, then stabbed with bayonets, then covered with some sort of vitriol to disfigure them and finally tossed down a mineshaft. Good old King George! How he cared for his dear cousin!’

  ‘You only have Miss Budberg’s word for this? There’s no real evidence?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘Well, there’s the rub, you see,’ Wells answered. He twirled the wet stump of the cigar in his mouth. ‘There are pictures.’

  ‘A photographer was present?’

  ‘Rather better than that,’ said Wells. ‘According to Moura she was actually in the room when Lenin discussed the possibility of dispatching a cinematographer to Yekaterinburg to document the proceedings. He was quite a film buff, you know. Moura even saw him write out the pass for the man.’

  ‘Did she tell you his name?’

  ‘Certainly. Alexander Mikhailovitch Levitsky.’

  ‘He shot the film?’

  ‘He did. A ten-minute reel.’ Wells smiled. ‘There’s always been a smelly one about the possibility that Lockhart was actually on the scene. Watched the murders himself.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Liddell scoffed. ‘Lockhart was imprisoned. We had to trade him for some fellow named Litvinov here in London. If the NKVD had a film like that they would have made use of it. It would have proved their case against Lockhart and dreadfully embarrassed the crown.’

  ‘To what end, sir?’ Wells shrugged. ‘They were different times, young fellow. And I don’t think Lenin would like to have seen himself publicly portrayed as a savage executioner. Not at that point in the revolution. It was all a bit dicey then. Anyone’s game. It’s all moot, of course, since Lenin never received the film.’

  ‘Miss Budberg told you this?’

  ‘Yes. According to her it turned out that this man Levitsky was a Trotskyite.’

  ‘He gave the film to Trotsky?’

  ‘It would seem that he didn’t give it to anyone, not then at least. He was last seen with a group of refugees boarding an American tramp steamer in Vladivostok.’

  ‘Heading where?’

  ‘San Francisco.’

  ‘Something of a cold trail. Twenty-three years. Not a terribly reliable source either.’

  ‘Why would she lie?’ asked Wells.

  Liddell grimaced. ‘To foment exactly this sort of intrigue, especially now that the Soviets have suddenly become our allies in the face of the German invasion.’

  ‘A hole card,’ murmured Black.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Wells.

  ‘An Americanism from their Wild West,’ Black explained. ‘The hidden card in a game of stud poker or blackjack – what we call vingt-et-un. A secret that can win or lose the game.’

  Liddell nodded. ‘Give us what we want out of this alliance or we’ll reveal your nasty secret.’

  ‘Something like that,’ Black agreed.

  Wells gave a puff on his cigar. ‘You’re all being much too complicated. Moura’s just being her bitchy self, believe me.’

  A few minutes later the two men left the house on Hanover Terrace, crossing over to the park and walking down towards Baker Street. To their left, on the far side of the lake, was the circular court of the Royal Botanical Society. To the right, rising over the rooftops, was the ornate, smoky presence of Marylebone Station.

  ‘He’s crackers, you know,’ said Black.

  ‘A little. Eccentric’s more the word. He’s a dying old man.’

  ‘He’s a dying old man who’s trying to tell you something and you can bet that other people already know it,’ Black responded.

  ‘Such as?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘If there’s film of the assassination of the tsar’s entire family making it public would be an unmitigated disaster,’ said Black emphatically. ‘We have the Americans poised to join the war. What do you think all those America First types will do when they discover that George the Fifth was an accessory to the mass murder of part of his own family? Have you ever seen pictures of them together? They look like brothers.’

  ‘I’ve been instructed to find the film,’ Liddell said.

  ‘You knew about the film before you talked to Wells?’ asked Black. ‘That was all for my benefit?’

  ‘We knew there was some kind of evidence. We both needed to know what you’d be looking for before we sent you off.’

  ‘Sent me off?’

  ‘Yes. You’re going to America. There will be a Sunderland awaiting your pleasure at dawn tomorrow in Southampton.’

  ‘And if I don’t want to take the assignment?’ He was a fan of the Yanks, especially their Old West. At least in concept. He was sceptical about the reality. On the other hand it would get him out of Beaulieu and a life of utter ennui.

  ‘You’ll be classified as a security risk. You can sit out the rest of the war reading your books about Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hitchcock in that Shepherd’s Market flat you keep.’

  ‘Hickok,’ said Black. ‘It’s Wild Bill Hickok. And you are a right bastard, Liddell.’

  ‘Quite so. A right bastard who’s just following orders, old son.’

  ‘The motto of the whole war: “Just following orders.”’

  ‘So what’s the answer going to be?’

  They came out through Clarence Gate and walked down Upper Baker Street to the Underground entrance. ‘I’ll go,’ said Black. He disappeared into the Underground station.

  Liddell smiled. ‘Never doubted it for a minute.’ He took out his pipe, lit it and continued on down Baker Street.

  * * *

  Anatoli Borisovich Gorsky, alias Boris Gromov and sometimes known as Henry by the covert agents he controlled, sat in the attic radio room of the Soviet embassy on Chesham Place in Belgravia and worked on the message he was about to send to Moscow Centre. Gorsky was fundamentally a very unattractive man, short with upswept reddish hair that was already receding even though he was only in his early thirties, small eyes turned owlish by the thick lenses and plain black Bakelite frames of his glasses and a double chin that predicted more of the same as the years rolled by. Gorsky had been a relatively low-level functionary in the NKVD for years before the war but he had been promoted by attrition during the 1938 purges. What he lacked in real judgement he made up for in dogged perseverance and bullying. Every single agent he controlled in the field loathed him. Nevertheless, he produced results. His use of the Budberg woman had been a stroke of genius, putting the cat among the pigeons, and perhaps blowing a warm breath on embers long thought cold. Information from Vassili Zarubin, his opposite number in Washington, suggested that the Americans were now curious enough to take the bait as well. Gorsky blinked behind his heavy glasses and smiled. He sat up and stretched, taking a moment to carefully extract a Kreml from its package, twisting the end closed before lighting it with a rather nice Ronson he’d picked up at Burlington Arcade. He took a deep inhalation of the harsh tobacco, coughed for a moment and then inhaled again. This time he let the smoke out in slow steady streams through his pursed lips and nostrils. Why shouldn’t the British and the Americans help to find Levitsky’s long-lost secret? After all, with the Nazis at the gates of Moscow, weren’t they all allies now?

  Chapter Three

  Thursday, November 20, 1941

  Southampton, England

  It was barely dawn as the train reached Southampton and, as he had all the way down from London, Black had a compartment to himself. He wasn’t particularly happy with the way the assignment had been foisted on him but he was secretly pleased to be away from the cloistered confines of the SOE training school at Beaulieu Abbey. He knew that his work teaching interrogation methods had rea
l value but his skills as a detective – his greatest skills – were lying fallow. He was in a backwater and both the war and his life were passing him by.

  He was also thrilled to be going to America at last. From childhood he had been fascinated with the place, especially its rough-and-ready, insistently violent history. Above and beyond that there was the possibility of reuniting with Katherine, the only woman other than Fay ever to have touched his heart. Nothing explicit had been said during the Queer Jack investigation the year before but she was almost certainly working with Donovan’s fledgling intelligence-gathering organisation in Washington, the same organisation Liddell had instructed him to cooperate with through this Stephenson fellow’s group, British Security Coordination in New York.

  Even with the compartment window shut against the chilly air Black could smell the sea as the train slowly clattered into the dock area. It rolled past the huge customs sheds of the piers, the loading cranes and the berthed liners, their once colourful livery now a uniform grey as they were transformed into hospital ships and troop carriers for the war raging in Africa. He shook his head, thinking of that. A skin of ice on the ponds and streams here and the blazing heat of Africa not so very far away.

  The train came to a complete halt in front of a modern-looking building with a sign that read IMPERIAL HOUSE. The building had a faintly nautical cast to it, enhanced by its dazzling camouflage paint. This had clearly once been the Imperial Airways terminal for the short-lived transatlantic passenger service.

  Grabbing his single suitcase and a bulging folio containing the mass of briefing documents Liddell had given him to read on the long journey, Black shrugged on his overcoat and left the train. Its wheels shrieked as it shunted backwards almost immediately and he was jarred to find that he was the only passenger who had exited the train. He crossed the narrow concrete platform, even more aware of the salty tang of the ocean, and pushed through the glass doors of Imperial House. The building was empty except for one young man in RAF uniform sporting the single wing and crown WAG insignia of a wireless operator–air gunner. He saluted as Black approached and then stepped forward to relieve him of his bags.