The Map

by T. S. Learner

  ‘What is this, a police state?’ the farmer continued.

  ‘Please, Monsieur, we are just doing routine checks, sir,’ the inspector answered, politely.

  ‘Just show us your papers,’ the policeman growled, his blunt irritation galvanising the truculent farmer, who reached into his waistcoat pocket and, after pulling out his papers, held them aloft. The border guard inspected them, then handed them back. The two officials turned to the other passengers: the priest had his documents already in his hand, August noted, as did the matron. Finally they arrived at August, who promptly showed them his US passport. The policeman glanced at his face, then the passport. Time slipped into slow motion as August struggled to stay completely calm.

  The other passengers watched silently. August looked nonchalantly over to the exit, calculating whether he could push past the officers and run to the end of the train to leap off. He glanced at the rushing landscape outside the window, the train must be travelling over sixty miles an hour. He wouldn’t make it. For the second time that day he hoped his departure hadn’t yet been noted by Interpol.

  Standing over him, the border guard studied the name, August E. Winthrop, August E. Winthrop. It didn’t ring any bell. As far he could remember it wasn’t on any file he had – not the Interpol list or the other list, the one he got real money for tracking. He glanced at the American – just another eager tourist wanting to be jolted out of his wealthy complacency, wanting to see the ‘real’ Europe. Fuck the guy, he thought, and fuck his easy life, he probably thought the stupid peasant clothes he was wearing were quaint.

  ‘Purpose of journey?’ the policeman asked, brusquely, in English.

  ‘Fishing. I hear they have great deep-sea fishing off Saint Jean de Luc.’

  The guard sighed, then handed back the passport, without another word, and both officials carried on through the compartment.

  ‘American?’ the priest ventured to August, after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Jimmy Cagney,’ the German boy cracked, in a bad Hollywood accent, and they all burst out laughing.

  Malcolm bit into his Chelsea bun, then upon encountering an unusually hard raisin, worked it out of a hollow tooth with his tongue. It was a chilly morning and as the expenses at Leconfield House did not allow them decent heating, Malcolm still had his Gieves and Hawkes silk scarf wrapped around his neck. Maxine, his secretary, waited impatiently file in hand in front of the heavy Victorian desk that dominated the small office. Ignoring her irritation, Malcolm stared down at the nearly completed Times crossword lying in front of him, then picked up the telephone. ‘Get me D1,’ he instructed the operator. ‘Courtney Young, please.’

  The cheery voice of the head of Soviet counterespionage came on the line.

  ‘My frog has leaped out of the pool,’ Malcolm murmured, cryptically, into the receiver, then waited.

  ‘Spawn will fly,’ Malcolm repeated, echoing the voice at the other end of the line before putting down the receiver. He scribbled the sentence in the margin of the newspaper with a pencil and stared at it. Finally, after breaking into a wide smile, he wrote the correct answer into the crossword, and ran a line down through the letters in triumph. The morning was looking better already.

  ‘Upstairs is outside, he wants to talk to you,’ said Maxine, a sensible cockney girl who disguised a secret disdain for her employer with a motherly bossiness, a pretence she found worked best with the privately educated civil servant. She held out the file as if it contained explosives.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Someone you used to work with – an August E. Winthrop. Upstairs reckons he’s murdered someone,’ she concluded, with grim satisfaction.

  Malcolm’s heart rate quickened. He took the file and immediately began scanning it. A second later he looked up to find Maxine still standing there.

  ‘Well, usher him in and you’d better bring us another tea and another Chelsea bun. Make it one with pink icing, you know Upstairs.’

  ‘This Winthrop fellow, one of yours in the SOE, wasn’t he?’ asked Upstairs, more commonly known as Godfrey Smart, formerly Major Godfrey Smart of the Lancaster Rifles. He settled his substantial bulk into the chair opposite Malcolm’s desk.

  ‘One of our main men on Comet, an excellent soldier, recruited him myself. Knew the man at Oxford.’

  ‘But he does have some unsavoury political beliefs, Marxism and whatnot, and he’s a classicist to boot.’

  ‘Your point?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Upstairs retorted, cryptically, ignoring the question, a habit that infuriated Malcolm. ‘Never trust idealists myself – flaky individuals, almost as bad as artists.’ Several crumbs of icing flew from his lips as he spat out the last word, landing unceremoniously on Malcolm’s shirtfront. He brushed them off, silently consoling himself that one day he would inherit Upstairs’s job and it would be him doing the spitting.

  ‘There is no doubt August is a maverick, however his service to the SOE was first class. It is also true he fought in Spain with the International Brigade, but I believe since then he’s been quite bipartisan, if not an outright patriot, to Britain that is.’

  ‘And he’s not homosexual?’

  Malcolm couldn’t help smiling. ‘Quite the contrary.’

  ‘You can never tell with Oxbridge,’ the Sandhurst man muttered, darkly. ‘But then there is so much you can’t tell with Oxbridge.’ It was an oblique reference to the betrayal of Guy Burgess and Maclean, the two MI5 agents, both Cambridge and the latter homosexual, who, since their defections to the Soviet Union, had haunted the corridors of MI5 and MI6 like taunting spectres. Malcolm chose to ignore the comment.

  ‘But you’ve read the file?’ Upstairs insisted.

  ‘I have, actually I knew the victim myself, also from college days. A shocking way to die.’

  ‘A very bloody strange way to die, ritualistic – something your man Winthrop might have the imagination to have dreamed up? It was Classics and Oriental Studies, wasn’t it?’

  ‘So you did research him.’ Something began banging against the back of Malcolm’s mind: his survival instinct. If they’d researched Winthrop they would be researching him. Now he was horribly aware that his past association with August could prove more than a hindrance. Staring at Upstairs’s bulbous red nose, he began to strategise. Was there a way of turning this to his advantage?

  Upstairs droned on. ‘Him and the old professor, turned up some unsavoury bones in the professor’s cupboard – apparently he had an association with that madman Aleister Crowley back in the twenties, admittedly brief through an old girlfriend, and your professor was mentioned in a report on a raid on a mansion in Kent. People dancing around naked in goats’ skins, that kind of thing, which could of course be relevant to the method of murder.’

  ‘Professor Copps a Magus?’ Malcolm, having always regarded his old college associate as somewhat of a bore, was astonished.

  ‘Possibly. Frankly, I wouldn’t give a toss if he turned out to be Mrs Simpson’s secret lesbian lover, but the whole thing has Six’s nose out of joint. Turns out your professor used to do the occasional assignment for them when he was on his archaeological adventures in the Middle East and they’ve decided to take the whole thing personally. They rather fancy your friend Winthrop for it.’

  ‘Winthrop was Copps’s golden boy, I very much doubt it was him.’

  Upstairs belched reflectively. ‘Maybe you don’t know the man as well as you think. One of our watchers sighted a …’ He glanced down at the open file balanced precariously on his lap. ‘… Yolanta Ashivokova leaving his apartment five nights ago, just before Copps’s murder.’

  ‘I told you, he’s a ladies’ man.’

  ‘Is it a yen for the ladies or for the KGB? Yolanta’s a known Russian spy, recently recruited. D Branch have been toying with the idea of turning her. She has a couple of vulnerabilities: single mother, child and mother both on temporary visas awaiting passports. A nice-looking filly, mind you, the man has taste.’

&nbs
p; ‘I highly doubt that Winthrop is a Soviet spy,’ Malcolm interjected, emotionally, then immediately regretted it – really, the general paranoia was setting everyone on edge.

  ‘You do, do you?’ Upstairs looked up from the file, a piercing gaze.

  ‘And how come I wasn’t told about the Ashivokova operation?’ Malcolm countered, nevertheless feeling a little queasy. It was well known there was still another high-placed mole somewhere they hadn’t managed to rat out either in MI5 or MI6 and everyone was under suspicion; the fact that internal information had been withheld from him meant that he too was definitely a suspect. Ignoring the question, Upstairs glanced back down at the file.

  ‘There is also a connection to both Guy Burgess and Arthur Wynn. The union activist’s been on our radar for months.’

  Now Malcolm was starting to feel really bilious. He made a mental note to avoid the Chelsea buns in future.

  ‘Winthrop was at college with Wynn, so no surprise there. What’s the Burgess connection?’

  ‘Apparently Charles Stanwick, a close friend of Winthrop’s, and a noted homosexual, had a tryst with Burgess when they were fighting in Spain. You are aware that Winthrop has now fled the country?’

  ‘He has?’

  ‘Two days ago. He’s somewhere in France. Got any idea where he might be headed?’

  Malcolm averted his eyes, down to his favourite paperweight, a miniature bronze lion that sat snarling on a corner of the desk. Again, life felt as if it were offering him a great opportunity, seamlessly, organically, the chance to vent a slow and yet unexpected resentment that had built over the years, beginning with August’s cavalier seduction of the woman he would marry to the recent chagrin of realising she still desired the American. But there was something else, something that now had begun to push into his burgeoning headache, an instinct, a smell, the inkling that perhaps August might be KGB after all, and if he was, the possibility Malcolm might even be able to transform his own torpid career into something quite shiny, something his father-in-law could be proud of. For a moment the lion seemed to lash its tail in a restless excitement. Malcolm reached over and picked it up, then looked slowly across at Upstairs.

  ‘Perhaps. It could be Spain, and if so he would be taking a route he knows well, the same route we used for Comet. But I should warn you, he’s a master at disguise, a true transformer. It was one of his great skills when he was working underground for us in France. But let’s wait and see.’

  Upstairs smiled. ‘I wouldn’t leave it that long, dear chap. A little bird in Six told me there’s an unusual number of OGA reps in Madrid. Seems the Yanks are cooking something up with Franco.’

  Startled, Malcolm dropped the lion onto the desk. ‘CIA in Madrid, do we know why?’

  Upstairs found a crumb on his shirt and swatted it away. ‘No, but your man might. Of course, if he has turned, it could look a little embarrassing for the department, especially you, Hully, being his past mentor. We can’t have that, can we? We’ve lost enough credibility with Uncle Sam as it is, don’t want to appear complete morons.’

  Malcolm was now feeling totally nauseous. Upstairs’s tone of voice left no ambiguity – not only was he himself under suspicion, his job was on the line. Damn you, Winthrop, damn you. Upstairs, reading Malcolm’s visible distress with some satisfaction, pushed down on the arms of the chair and manoeuvred his great bulk upwards.

  ‘I’ll leave you to organise that and don’t forget to get that file back down the registry.’ He leaned over to pat Malcolm’s hand – a gesture Malcolm found faintly repugnant. ‘Good chap, I always knew you were a company man.’

  As soon as Upstairs had left the room, Malcolm, after rubbing furiously at his hand with a handkerchief where Upstairs had touched his skin, dialled the surveillance department to organise a sweep of Winthrop’s flat. If he was working for the Soviets, there had to be some evidence he’d left behind, and at the very least they could bug his phone.

  7

  It was after 9 p.m. by the time the local train pulled into Saint Jean de Luc. Shouldering his travel bag, August walked through the narrow streets to the town centre beside the small fishing port. To his left, the dark silhouette of Mount Urgull overlooked the French frontier town like a malevolent guardian, as he followed the line of the harbour. The fishing town was still lively with people, and he strolled down the avenue de Verdun towards the main square – place Louis XIV – where the small port and waterfront lay. Moored fishing boats with their brightly painted hulls bobbed gently in the water, while some were still chugging in from the fishing waters of the Atlantic. Several fishermen dressed in the traditional clothes of the Basque – large floppy black beret, dark trousers and working jackets – hauled nets off the deck of a small tug, watched from across the inlet by the cream villas of Ciboure, their sloping red-tiled roofs and bright red-painted shutters nestling against the hill, dominated by the distinctive stepped outline of the church tower of D’Auvergne.

  A bandstand stood in the middle of the square, which was lined with cafés and bars, as well as the old town hall and the mansion that in 1660 briefly hosted the twenty-two-year-old Sun King and his Spanish bride Marie Theresa.

  Small groups of diners chatted among themselves around the café tables, some stopping to watch August as he walked past. Above him he noticed an old woman in a black shawl lift a lace curtain from the window of a two-storey apartment to stare solemnly out. August tipped his hat respectfully but her face remained expressionless. A cold breeze came off the Atlantic and as he walked by a restaurant with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, he was overwhelmed by a gust of cooking smells: garlic, roasting meats, even fresh coffee, and he realised he hadn’t eaten since late morning. It was all so normal and a million miles away from London.

  Changing trains at Bordeaux had not been a problem. In the bustling town it was easy to blend in with the transient population of traders and visiting locals. Nevertheless, the sense of being followed had intensified. Twice August had swung around convinced he’d spotted the same person – a young thuggish man he remembered from the Calais train – following him. The second time August had turned only to see the same youth greet his girlfriend, then disappear down one of the lanes that led further into the town.

  August had originally learned about Saint Jean de Luc and La Baleine Échouée from a young American airman he visited in a London hospital – the airman was one of the many Allied servicemen shot down in occupied France and had spent time in the small fishing town before being smuggled out by boat via San Sebastián. The twenty-year-old was a farmer’s son from the Midwest and after surviving the perils of Operation Comet had arrived back in England only to be diagnosed with a terrible case of jaundice. During his bedside debriefing he told August about the week he spent hiding in the cellar of the bar, resting a sprained ankle and gathering his strength to make the dangerous ten-hour trek to the village of Sare, then over the Pyrenees, down the riverbeds and secret mountain paths, guided by the local Basque, across the border in the early hours of the morning, past the German border guards on the French side and the Spanish fascists on the Spanish side. In a fever, the airman had described the bar and the nonchalant stoic courage of the owner, whose bravado allowed him to court the local German SS officers while hiding airmen. The American had told August that the bar was on rue de la République, a small street that ran off the square down towards the seafront and the promenade de la Plage. The young airman had described it as a four-storey building with red-painted balconies and shutters, the discreet bar itself located on the ground floor, with a mural of Basque history running over the entrance depicting the whaling of the previous centuries, the whalers’ long narrow boats, rowers straining against the heaving waters of the Atlantic, harpooning the animals by hand, with a bronze miniature whale hanging over the door. ‘Moby Dick,’ he’d finished off saying, having deteriorated into a wide-eyed delirium. ‘Who would have thought, Moby Dick in France.’

  His rescue and escape had been the mos
t exciting thing that had ever happened to the airman, and August had left the hospital wondering how the poor kid would ever adjust back to Milwaukee.

  August turned into rue de la République, a narrow street that had a view of the seafront at the end. A few tourists, mainly French, sat at the tables of the hotel opposite and an accordionist played a mournful tune under a street lamp. The tranquillity of the scene disturbed him. It seemed idyllic, too idyllic. Just beyond, something swinging in lamplight caught his eye. It was the sign for La Baleine Échouée. Relief flooded through him.

  The bar had a low wood-beamed ceiling. The walls were decorated with fishing nets and ceramic plates painted with the ubiquitous Lauburu, and the seats were wooden kegs set around low wooden tables. By the door stood a large birdcage with several canaries twittering softly to each other. Behind the counter was a line of framed photographs of local fishermen posing in front of the small port, staring proudly back at the camera, which dated back to the 1890s. The small Basque flag – the ikurriña – hung down in the middle. Beyond the counter, at the far end of the bar, a jukebox sat like some bizarre altar to the future, its jazzy arches and swirls of colour totally incongruous against the surrounding decor. August recognised it as a Wurlitzer, probably from the early forties. This was what he was looking for.

  A thin bottle-blonde stood behind the counter polishing glasses, her cigarette burning in an ashtray. She looked up at him – she wasn’t bad-looking when she smiled, he noted.