by John Lawton
“I need a secure line to MI5 in London.”
“May I ask why?”
“Vienna has a visitor.”
“Stop being coy.”
“Guy Burgess is holed up at the Imperial not half a mile from here.”
“Oh fucking hell!”
Gus reached for the phone.
“Give me a moment, Freddie. Hello … yes … put me through to Leconfield House on the scrambler.”
He put one hand over the mouthpiece.
“Do you want anyone in particular?”
“You’ll get a duty officer, but the man I want is Jordan Younghusband.”
“Hello? Yes … Fforde, Vienna Station here. I have Chief Superintendent Troy for Jordan Younghusband. Yes, yes. I quite understand. Yes, it is rather urgent. Thank you.”
He put the phone down.
“Jordan’s in the building. Somewhere. He’ll call us. Might take a while. I’ll ring down for coffee. You can tell me all about it while we wait.”
Over the next half hour Troy was as frank with Gus as his sense of caution allowed. He did not mention Méret Voytek. He wouldn’t mention Méret Voytek unless he really had to.
“It’s a mess,” said Gus simply.
“Why’s that?”
“Burgess is trouble wherever he goes. If I had a choice about his what d’ye call it? … de-defection … I’d rather he’d shown up in Berlin or Timbuctoo … anywhere but Vienna.”
“Do you know Jordan?”
“Yep.”
“Then we’ll agree, he’s quite capable of handling Guy.”
The phone rang.
Gus listened for a minute and passed the handset to Troy.
“Jordan?”
“Yep.”
“Freddie, what’s up, old son?”
Troy told him. Jordan heard him out without questions.
Then he said, “I’ll need to run this Upstairs. But I’ll be on a plane out as soon as I can. Just hang on to our friend and I’ll take over.”
“Jordan. I’m leaving today. I want nothing to do with this. It’s spook nonsense. Worse, it’s Burgess nonsense.”
“Freddie. When Upstairs hears this there won’t just be ripples, there’ll be a tidal wave. Please, just stay there … till I can get there. Overnight at the most. Honestly. I’ll call you back as soon as it’s clear what happens next.”
He rang off.
“I really don’t want to do this, Gus.”
“All rather depends on one’s sense of obligation, doesn’t it?”
“What, Queen and Country?”
“I was thinking rather more of your obligations to Jordan.”
“And I was trying not to.”
“Tell you what. Let’s give it another half hour, another pot of java, and see if he gets back to us before lunch. We can forget the elephant in the room and just catch up. So much seems to have happened since we last met.”
A pleasanter half hour passed. They rehashed the sins of Sasha, the farce of Troy thinking foreign agents had followed him halfway across Europe only to find them waiting in Vienna, and Troy told Gus enough about Shirley Foxx to bring a twinkle to his eye.
“This could be the real thing, eh, Freddie?”
“Perhaps,” said Troy.
The phone rang.
Gus held it out to Troy.
“Jordan?”
And in a stage whisper, pulling a face, Gus replied, “Onions!”
Oh shit.
“Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can.”
“Good. Stay put!”
“What?”
“I said, stay put. Sit on that bugger, Burgess, till the bloke from Five gets there.”
“No … no … Stan, it’s got fuck all to do with you, me, or Scotland Yard. I’m coming home this afternoon.”
“You’re a serving Met copper. You’ll take orders. And the order is ‘Stay put!’ I will not have this coming back to be laid at our door. Those twats in the Branch lost Burgess in ‘51. I will not have it said that Scotland Yard let Guy Burgess escape … twice!”
The line went dead.
Troy said, “Ouch!”
“Quite.”
“Who would have thought Stanley Onions had a nark inside Leconfield House?”
“I think this calls for an early lunch, don’t you?”
§65
They walked back into the Innere Stadt, to the Café Frauenhuber in Himmelpfortgasse, home in its time to Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.
“Can you imagine a London street named Heaven’s Gate, Freddie? Seems so un-English.”
“I’m sure it does. But there used to be a synagogue of that name in the East End. Bombed out in the Blitz. I was there when it happened.”
“Ah … yes. You told me about that. Don’t think you ever named the place before. Well, it’s not that I’m trying to bring back bad memories for you. But they know me here. If anyone calls for me at the embassy, the embassy will phone here and the waiter will give me the nod.”
The nod came around twelve thirty.
Gus unfolded a note at the table.
“Jordan says he’ll be on a noon plane out of London tomorrow. He’ll call us in the morning if there’s any hold-up. Otherwise, meet him at the airport around three fifteen.”
“And then I can go home?”
“He doesn’t say.”
“Perhaps I could get on the plane as he gets off?”
“Nice try, Freddie, but I think we can assume he wants you to introduce him to Burgess.”
“Why? He can hardly fail to recognise him.”
“Think, Freddie. Although it might pain you, try for a moment to think like a spook. You have been first contact. That matters. Matters hugely.”
“The duckling emerging from the egg?”
“Precisely. The perfect metaphor. You are Guy Burgess’s Mother Duck.”
“Guy Burgess?
—Mother Duck?
—Oh fuck!”
§66
Troy took Burgess to a traditional Viennese restaurant—the Café Landtmann.
They sat in a red booth, a burgundy island in a sea of silver mirrors.
Burgess stuck his nose in the menu.
Troy ordered wine.
“You’ve eaten here before?” Burgess asked.
“A couple of times, yes.”
“What would you recommend?”
“Bangers. Classic Austrian food.”
“Nothing wrong with a good banger.”
“Ask for the sausage plate. They’ll bring you a variety. Try them with black bread and goulash gravy. Think I’ll plump for the trout.”
The wine arrived first. By the time they had bangers and trout in front of them, Burgess had all but finished the first bottle and Troy asked for a second.
He’d always taken Burgess for a bit of a trencherman—his shape alone bespoke a man who liked his grub—but it seemed to Troy that he cut up his food, rather in the American style, nibbled at it, and for the most part just pushed it around his plate. The wine, on the other hand, was necked effortlessly. His lips went slobbery and his eyes had that maudlin look of barely contained misery.
“I do miss England, y’know.”
“Yes. You told me last night. At length.”
“But it occurs to me … I have expectations that may be too high. I mean, it’s been seven years … how much has the old place changed?”
“I can’t answer that. I’m in it … so I don’t really notice it. And of course England may have expectations of you.”
“Doubt that.”
“No, really. Can’t you see your memoirs in the Sunday papers in six parts … Guy Burgess—My Life and Hard Times?”
“Take the piss all you want, Freddie. I shall say fuck all. When I get back to England, England will see a new Guy Burgess.”
“Sober?”
“Silent.”
“Anonymous?”
“Invisible.”
“Discretion?”
“Soul of.”
“No more cottaging? No more gents bogs at Paddington Station?”
“Absolutely not. I’ll stick to Marylebone. But … seriously.”
The pause dragged out. The ever-mobile fork stopped stirring at his rapidly cooling bangers’n’mash. His left hand gripped the stem of his wine glass and for several moments all he did was stare at the tablecloth.
When he looked up the sadness in his eyes was brimming over.
“Seriously. I wonder if I’ll get what I really want.”
“I take it being back in England isn’t the be-all and end-all. Simple though that would be. So, what do you want?”
“I want … I want … I want …”
He paused so meaningfully Troy took it as his cue and prompted.
“Yes?”
“… To be allowed … to be allowed … to fade away.”
At last they’d got there.
Troy knew what Burgess meant, yet the devil had his advocate.
“Anonymous … silent … discreet … all the things you are in Russia. You don’t need to come home for that. If you want to be yesterday’s man, yesterday’s spy, well Russia’s the place, isn’t it? In England, Guy, in England you’ll always be a headline.”
“No … noo … nooo … stoppit! You don’t know the pain I’m in. Yes, of course, I’m yesterday’s spy to them. Neither use nor bloody ornament. But anonymous? God, no. They watch everything I do. I can’t take a piss they do not know about.”
“So you want to fade away?”
“To fade away, to be allowed to fade away would be bliss. To be a nobody would be very heaven.”
Troy ordered a third bottle, pushed his own plate away, and suggested the waiter bring the dessert of the day.
“Do you remember when we sat on the roof of my house during the Blitz?”
“‘Course I do. I may be pissed but there’s nothing wrong with my memory.”
Troy felt there might be much wrong with Burgess’s memory but let it pass.
“You thought we should pray, and as we neither of us knew any prayers you sang a hymn.”
“Da da da daah … that one. I think you said it was Haydn. Forgotten the words. But I can hum it. Da da daaah da daaah da dada …”
“Fading is the worldling’s pleasure.”
“Right. I asked you what a worldling was and you told me I was. So … it’s my right to fade away, isn’t it? I’m not one of the whatchermacallit?”
“Zion’s children. Those who know solid joy.”
“Solid joy? The kind you can touch? Absofuckinglootly not. Joy eludes me. I am a worldling fading. I know not joy.”
“Does it really matter where you fade away as long as you fade away?”
“I see. You think coming home’s a mistake?”
“It might be. England expects.”
“Expects what.”
“I don’t know. But it will expect.”
“And if I don’t come home?”
“Stay in Russia. Learn to fit in. Learn the language. Let the country you adopted adopt you.”
Burgess paused again as more wine and two portions of lemon tart arrived. Stared down into his tart accusingly, as though it had sinned against him.
Softly, “I hate Russia. I fucking hate it.”
He looked up.
Troy concluded the tart was blameless. He was probably the one to blame.
“It all smacks of ‘made your bed, so lie in it.’ A cliché I have done so much to earn I should get a royalty every time it’s used. But—it’s easy for you to say, Freddie. You’re one of them, aren’t you? You speak the lingo. You’d fit in. You’d get all the anonymity that I can’t. You could go into a gents and know you’re not being watched. They’d think you were one them … not one of those.”
“Easy”? Troy did not like “easy.” Time to kick back with a few home truths.
“What’s my first language, Guy?”
Burgess looked baffled. Gave the question more drunken thought than it required.
“I s’ppose I should say Russian, but it’s got to be a trick question, hasn’t it? Otherwise you wouldn’t bloody ask. Oh, I dunno. Welsh? Esperanto? Swafuckinghili?”
“My first language is probably French, because it was my mother’s first language. My father was a great advocate of the English language. He said to me, ‘Forget that Russian has twenty words for snow, English has twenty words for penis. How could you not love a language so rich in obscenity?’ And mostly he spoke to his children in English. Russian … Russian was the ambient language of the household, it was on like a light bulb or a radiator. My grandfather spoke it, wrote it, and never learnt a word of English other than ‘fuck off’ and ‘kiss my arse,’ which my father taught him in much the same way you’d teach a parrot to swear. My Russian’s as good as my English but it comes a poor third on that scale, on a scale of identity.”
It was too long a speech. The look on Burgess’s face told Troy he didn’t get it.
“Guy, it’s this simple. I don’t think I’d fit into Khrushchev’s Russia any better than you would. It would be an effort for me. It will be an effort for you. Perhaps one you might make. I would say I have only one advantage.”
“Which is?”
“A personal invitation from Comrade Khrushchev.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve met him. I was bodyguard-cum-interpreter-cum-spy on his English tour in ‘56. Just about the time you and Maclean were surfacing to tell your pack of lies to the western press.”
“Had to tell them something.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We did, we did. If I was to, as you say, surface, then a statement needed to be made, and I needed to surface because I wanted communication with England, which meant the English knowing where I was. I wanted to be able to write to my mother with a return address in the top right-hand corner … I wanted my stuff … I wanted my books … I wanted my harmonium … I wanted …”
The booze was wearing Burgess down rather rapidly. Troy wasn’t sure how long he’d stay awake, and was damn sure he’d need someone to put him to bed.
“What was wrong with telling them the truth?”
“Every bloody thing. Betrayal. Too many people still to betray. Names not to be named. Who’s the third man? All that kind of crap. The press never seem to relent. Who’s the third man? Who’s the third man? Do they honestly expect me to name names?”
“No. Not you. Somebody, not you.”
“Who’s the third man? Who’s the third man? Bloody hell … who was the first man?”
“I rather think you were.”
“Why? Because me name begins with B? Do we take our spies in alphabetical order, like calling the bloody register in a prep school? Arkengarthdale? Present, sir. Arseworthy? Present, sir. Burgess? Defected, sir. Six of the best when the boy gets back! Ah well, you can always rely on the alphabet, never lets you down.”
“And Maclean would be number two?”
“Would he really? Maclean’s a shit? A turd? A number two! Well, whaddya know? Go on, then, ask me who was number three.”
“Fine,” said Troy. Let’s play the game. “Who’s on thoid?”
“Thoid?”
“Abbott and Costello.”
“Fuck me, are they spies too? No, the third man was Philby.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“Lowest form of wit, y’know … sarcasm.”
“Was there a fourth man?”
“I thought you said some other bugger would be the one to name names?”
“Humour me.”
“No, you humour me. You … you sc … sc … scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
“You don’t think asking me to get you home is a big enough scratch? Guy, it will leave scars. And I’ve quite enough of those already.”
Burgess swigged more wine. Looked huffy in a drunken sort of way. Then the glass went down with a clunk, and he snapped out a single word: “Blunt.”
>
He paused, breathed in deeply, as though gathering energy and girding loin.
“If ya must know. Blunt. Blunt, bloody Blunt.”
His voice dropped to a growl of a whisper.
“D’ye know Anthony is second cousin to the Queen!”
A moment’s reflection set in.
“Or was it the old Queen? Queen Mary? Whatever. Talk about fuckin’ treason. It’s a bit like selling your virgin sister to the gyppos.”
“And the fifth …”
Troy knew he’d answer this. It was too obvious to both of them for Burgess to want to duck it. Whether he could tease him past a fifth, to the unknown sixth, Troy did not know. He could but try.
“Charlie. My ole pal … your ole pal, your ole school chum … Charlie Leigh-Hunt. Good ole Charlie. I do miss him. The best boozing companion a man could have … unless totty hove into view of course, then he was off up some tart’s skirt like a rat up a wotsit.”
Burgess was woozy now, his eyes swam like goldfish in a dirty bowl.
“I hesitate,” Troy said without hesitation, “to ask if there’s a sixth man.”
“Sixth man? Siiiiixth maaaaan?”
He put as many syllables into the phrase as Edith Evans had put into “haaaanndbaaag?”
“Sixth man? Nosey parker … nosey parker … b … b … b … bub … bub …”
And with that he fell face down into his lemon tart.
Rain stopped play.
§67
London: The Palace of Westminster
There were perks to being on the front bench, even in opposition. One perk of Rod Troy being Shadow Home Secretary was an office he didn’t have to share with anyone. Not a fellow MP, not a Parliamentary Private Secretary. Rod had a Parliamentary Private Secretary, housed somewhere down the corridor and off to the left a bit. Occasionally he got lost trying to find him.
It was always better if the PPS found him.
When Rod got into his office around nine fifteen, Iain Stuart-Bell, who had been his PPS since 1956, was waiting for him.
An affable young man, only just thirty, who’d been one of the youngest MPs elected in ‘55—handsome, tall, always slightly nervous, and with an engaging, disarming Dundee accent. One day, and not that far off, when the war no longer mattered and “what did you do in the war?” would be a question no longer asked, men like Iain would run Britain. It was their turn. All he had to do was hang on to his seat.
