Secret Kingdom

by Francis Bennett

  ‘Theoretically, of course you’re right. In this present case, no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’re wholly unprepared for it.’

  Pountney laughed. ‘I hardly think our lack of preparation is a factor in whether or not the Hungarians take to the streets against their oppressors.’

  He could see he had touched Carswell on a raw nerve. He regretted his frivolity.

  ‘There is a widespread belief in Hungary that if they act against their more powerful oppressors the West will come to their aid, that we will not stand by and see them slaughtered by the Soviets. They are quite mistaken. There is no policy to intervene in Hungary on the part of our Government or, as far as I know, any other government. By the time they learn this, the Soviets will have swept the revolution away, and hundreds, possibly thousands of Hungarians will be dead. In the aftermath of the recrimination that will inevitably take place, we will be found guilty of betraying the very people we must encourage if ever there is to be an end to communist domination in these countries.

  ‘Where does this leave you?’

  ‘Dangerously exposed.’ Carswell was attacking his chop with relish, cutting off the meat first and then gnawing the bone. ‘There’d be a search for a scapegoat – there always is after every cock-up. Some of us will be expected to fall on our swords.’

  ‘Merton House would be a sitting target?’

  ‘Yes.’ The Soviets, he went on, had managed the last few months cleverly. They’d distracted us by making a lot of noise about Africa, supporting the nationalist movement in Egypt against Western imperialism and teasing us that they might finance the Aswan Dam project if the Americans pulled out. While all that had been going on, they’d been building up their forces unnoticed in Hungary. ‘Now they’re using this Leman nonsense and the threat of Western aggression as an excuse to bring in further reinforcements to defend their territorial integrity, when we know full well they plan to use these forces against the local population.’

  He disappeared behind his napkin as he bathed his face.

  ‘The Peter report can’t have helped,’ Pountney said, ‘with its allegations that Merton House is a Soviet outpost.’

  ‘Sometimes we oblige our enemies in ways that beggar belief,’ Carswell said.

  ‘If there’s a bloodbath in Hungary, what happens then?’

  ‘That would be the last straw for Merton House. We would have failed on all counts. No intelligence, no warning, no policy. I doubt we could muster enough friends to ensure our survival. In some quarters, we’re not popular.’

  What Pountney was listening to was the desperate confession of a man who wanted to save the reputation of his Department. And himself too? No, Carswell was not a man who put himself first. His loyalty was, as it must always have been, to Merton House.

  ‘You understand my predicament?’

  ‘Only too well,’ Pountney said. ‘I am not sure how I can help.’

  The conversation would never have started if Carswell hadn’t believed that Pountney had some influence that he could bring to bear on the plight of Merton House.

  ‘While Watson-Jones’s investigating committee continues, my operation remains under suspicion of being in Soviet control. Any policy we recommend is suspect too. At a critical time, when we see a crying need to change policy before it’s too late, if it isn’t too late already, we’re suspended from operations. Unable to do a damn thing. Men and women will go to their deaths betrayed by those they thought were their friends. It’s a terrible prospect.’

  He mopped his brow again. He looked suddenly exhausted.

  ‘The only way to unlock this scenario is to get Watson-Jones to give us a clean bill of health.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Pountney said hesitantly.

  ‘My question is, how long before you finish your investigation?’

  Pountney took his time before answering. ‘That’s a difficult one.’

  ‘Lives could depend on this decision.’

  ‘I firmly believe this investigating committee is a pointless exercise because there’s nothing to investigate.’ Pountney smiled ruefully. ‘We’ve proved none of the Peter Group’s allegations so far, and my suspicion is we aren’t going to.’

  ‘Does that mean the process is about to end?’

  ‘I wish it did.’ Pountney picked at a tooth. ‘If I had my way, I’d wrap it up tomorrow. The problem is, David Lander thinks like Watson-Jones on this one, and I know I’m not going to get anywhere if I suggest we end it.’

  ‘Is Lander persuadable?’

  ‘Not unless Watson-Jones is.’

  ‘And you’re telling me he’s not?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Carswell chose trifle from the trolley and added cream. Pountney asked for creme caramel.

  ‘He thinks he’s on to a winner. Exposing a scandal about the Soviet penetration of our Intelligence Service is a political opportunity too good to let go. Bring home the bacon on that one and he can ask for any ministry he wants. Not surprisingly, he’s sticking with it.’

  ‘All right,’ Carswell said. ‘Try another angle. How near the end are you?’

  ‘Not even close. Weeks to go yet. Watson-Jones is taking his time. As he reminds us every day, what matters is getting it right. Future generations won’t thank us for hurrying through, will they?’

  Carswell looked thoughtful. ‘He’s not susceptible to arguments about acting on grounds of humanity?’

  ‘If you can’t vote for it, don’t touch it.’ Pountney shook his head. ‘No, that’s not a word in his political vocabulary.’

  Carswell pushed aside his plate and took out his pipe. Pountney watched him fill the bowl with tobacco from a yellow oilcloth wallet. ‘If what I have told you tonight is correct, and I certainly believe it to be so, you know what this means, don’t you?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘The lives of innocent men and women in Hungary will be sacrificed on the altar of Watson-Jones’s political ambition and we will be responsible for that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If we try to tell him now, at this stage in your process, that unless the investigation clears us quickly he may have blood on his hands, his reply will be that it’s all a Soviet plot put around by those traitors at Merton House.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Pountney said. ‘He will always be right and we will live with the guilt.’

  ‘So, we’re trapped whichever way we turn.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Carswell threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

  4

  Hart first became aware that the Soviets might be romancing him while he was having lunch in a restaurant in Csanyi Street. (He was never absolutely sure it hadn’t begun earlier but if it had, he had failed to take in the signs.) At the other end of the dining room, eating alone and deep in a copy of Pravda, was a thin man with orange hair brushed forward over his forehead. He had a wide Russian face. Why did Hart notice him? He had no idea except that the man fitted his image of what a Russian looked like, and at that point in his career he wasn’t sure that he’d ever set eyes on what Martineau called ‘your real life bastard Sov’.

  In the days that followed, Koliakov (by now Hart had learned his name from someone at the embassy) reappeared at odd moments in his life. No contact was made, no word spoken. Koliakov never looked up, never gave any sign that he was aware of Hart’s presence. He was simply there, wherever Hart happened to be. Was it coincidence? Or was he announcing his existence to Hart, letting him get used to the idea of his being there, risking nothing through hasty action?

  ‘Once the Soviets fix on you as their quarry,’ his instructors at New Maiden had told him, ‘they don’t have second thoughts unless you do something to put them off. They’re careful, methodical people. They do nothing in a hurry. Let them approach you in their own time.’

  By general consent, Koliakov was a reserved, quiet Russian not often seen at diplomatic receptions and not at all well known
outside the Soviet embassy. He appeared to live a solitary life, unremarked and unremarkable, unlike a number of his colleagues whose amatory and alcoholic exploits were well known among the diplomatic community. No one believed his cover of Passport Control Officer.

  ‘He’s KGB all right. God knows, they must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they recruit train-spotters like Koli.’

  Hart tried to convince himself that the romancing was imagined. But Koliakov’s unexpected appearances in his life were now too frequent to be coincidence. He was being stalked. He felt a moment of wild excitement. Why would a KGB officer want to make contact with him? Would he try to recruit him to the Soviet cause? Surely that was highly unlikely. He was too new to have anything the Soviets wanted. Perhaps Koliakov wanted to work with the British. Hart’s excitement verged on delirium. His own Boris. Memories of dull days buried under paperwork vanished. This was more like it. The secret world was starting to live up to expectations.

  The first eye contact was made early one morning on the Erszebet Bridge. Hart didn’t notice Koliakov until he was almost upon him. At the last moment he looked up and their eyes met. Koliakov looked away only when he had made sure that Hart had registered his presence. The first words were spoken on a crowded tram a few days later. Hart was standing, unable to get a seat, when the tram braked suddenly and the passengers were jolted forwards. A man fell against him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Koliakov said in English before getting off.

  Then the Russian disappeared from his life. For ten days Hart looked out for his red-headed shadow but there was no sign of him. He felt denied, rejected, curiously depressed that the process was suspended. Had Koliakov given up on him? Or was this, too, part of the courtship ritual so that he would be more eager when the Russian made his next move? He waited impatiently, feeling he had been cheated of some kind of climax.

  The first meeting took place in a bath. Hart had strained a muscle in his back playing tennis and early on a Sunday morning he cycled over to the Lukacs Baths for a cure. Half an hour’s soaking in the medicinal waters, he was assured by Martineau, would solve the problem. ‘You’ll be back on court in no time, right as rain.’

  He sat in the small pool, up to his neck in warm green water, waiting his turn to let the natural spring spray over his back and work its legendary magic.

  ‘Are you here for your health? Or is this a recreational visit?’ Among the well-built Hungarians Koliakov’s thin freckled body stood out. ‘My name is Koliakov. I am Passport Control Officer at the Soviet embassy. I know you work at the British embassy. So, it seems we have our profession in common.’

  Was there a hint of mockery as he said that? Hart wasn’t sure. But a hand rose from the waters to shake his.

  ‘When we are finished here, Mr Hart,’ Koliakov said, ‘perhaps we may have a drink together? I do not think such an act will bring our two countries to the edge of war, do you?’

  When Hart emerged into the sunlight, the pain in his back showing welcome signs of easing, Koliakov was already seated at a white-painted iron table in the shade of a plane tree. ‘My friend.’ He motioned him over with his arm. ‘Please join me here.’

  Hart sat down. Koliakov pushed a bottle of beer towards him. ‘It is the best they have.’ He shrugged an apology to indicate he was used to better. ‘Tell me, how are you finding life in Budapest?’

  ‘Good,’ Hart said nervously. He was suddenly aware that he had no idea how much he could say to Koliakov.

  ‘You see?’ Koliakov laughed. ‘Living under communism is not so bad, eh? That’s why this Cold War is so absurd. We should all be friends, drink together, live together, sleep together. Isn’t that so?’

  He spoke English fluently, Hart noticed, though with an American accent.

  ‘It’s the politicians,’ Hart said, taking a risk. ‘They ruin our lives.’

  ‘If it weren’t for them,’ Koliakov agreed, shaking his head with an expression of assumed wisdom, ‘the world would be a safer place.’

  Koliakov was younger than he’d imagined, in his late thirties perhaps, with an unlined face, pale skin touched here and there by a fine speckling of light brown freckles.

  ‘Our lives are ruled by politicians,’ Koliakov continued. ‘That is why the East and West are at each other’s throats in every part of the world. Here, Asia, Europe, now possibly Egypt. That makes me angry. Egypt!’ Koliakov leaned towards Hart and lowered his voice. ‘My boss, Danilov, who is a drunken time-serving idiot, told me only this morning that the Politburo has decided to pay for the Egyptian’s Aswan Dam. The Soviet Union in bed with Egypt, I say to myself. Impossible. Do you not agree? But Danilov has close connections with the Kremlin, his wife’s father is a former Minister, and he maintains that the Americans will pull out of negotiations with Nasser. Madness, I think. Of course I say nothing of this at the time. But you and I, we can agree that such an idea is lunacy, can’t we? Why do we want to get involved in Egypt? Our masters are insane. All of them. ‘He raised his glass.’ Let us drink to the victory of sanity in our lifetime.’ He grinned. ‘That should assure us a long life.’

  He talked for some time in the same mocking, subversive vein, never drawing breath, Hart frantically trying to memorize what he said. They parted half an hour later, Koliakov promising that they must meet again to complete their ‘most interesting conversation’.

  *

  Two days later Martineau passed Hart a telegram that had just come in from London. The United States government had announced that it had withdrawn from negotiations with Nasser over the financing of the Aswan Dam. Moscow had immediately stepped in and agreed to provide the funds.

  ‘Now we’ll have the Soviet military swarming all over Africa. God, what a disaster.’

  Hart did not tell him that he had already received this news, though from another source.

  5

  Two days later Dora turned up at the embassy again. Martineau raced down the stairs to see her and they spoke briefly in the street, Dora hanging on tightly to her bicycle. She gave him an address, a date and time and a key. ‘It’s a block of flats a mile from here. You’ll recognize the apartment by the name on the door.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Julia Kovacs.’

  *

  Is this wrong? Tell me.

  She put the key in the lock and went in, fearful that opening the door might release a gale of memories, spinning her fragile emotions helplessly out of control. But nothing happened. No spectral wind knocked her off her feet, no ghosts appeared to taunt her. She stood in the darkened hall, alone and unharmed. It was still the same apartment and she knew her way around it blindfold. Nothing had changed since she had last been here. Except it was lifeless. Abandoned. Unlived-in. There was no energy in the atmosphere because there was no Julia. Her presence and the life she brought, her laugh, her endless wish to share her enthusiasms with you, all these were missing, even the smell of her incessant cigarettes. No danger from the past because nothing of Julia remained.

  Tell me, Julia. Is what I am doing wrong?

  A shaft of light pierced the gloom where the morning sun burst through a gap in the curtains, illuminating a table on which a book lay open and face down. She picked it up. Camus’s La Peste. In the last weeks of her life (though at the time she had no idea that these were the last weeks of her life) Julia had discovered France, existentialism, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Malraux, Camus, the songs of Juliette Greco, and was promoting them as if no one had heard of them before. She had been reading out a passage to Eva on that last evening. No one had touched it since that heartbreaking night.

  *

  In the painful months that followed, she had left the apartment locked. Remembering how it was when Julia was alive gave her a lifeline that helped her cope with the shock of Julia’s disappearance. It meant there was still a chance that something of her was left that she could discover and cherish when finally she did have the strength to open the door and go in. It was an evasion, she knew that
, but necessary if she were to keep her sanity. In the early days there were many occasions when, desperate and tearful, she had stood on the landing outside the door, key in hand. Then her courage had deserted her and she had retreated down the stairs. The flat remained untouched. It had become her own secret shrine to Julia’s memory.

  She justified her decision to enter the flat now because she had at last found a need for it that could be satisfied in no other way. No one knew she had the key. It was as safe a place as she could imagine. If Martineau arrived at the appointed time, then she would know that what she was doing had Julia’s approval. She felt her energy return. Her period of mourning was over. That was what Julia was telling her.

  She pulled the curtains and opened the windows. The sharp light of morning breathed some kind of life into the rooms once more. The apartment was larger than her own, and furnished with a lighter and more distinctive touch. She had always envied Julia’s ability to make anywhere she lived unmistakably her own. She dusted and swept the carpets. She put the flowers she had brought into a vase. She plumped the cushions on the sofa. She left the copy of La Peste where it was, opened at the page Julia had been reading.

  She went into the bedroom. There was a large double bed. Eva had always teased Julia about this. The only mystery in their relationship, the only secrets they never shared, were about Julia’s relationships with men. She took sheets from the cupboard and held them against her cheek for a moment before making the bed, wondering why she was doing this. She wasn’t going to sleep here. But the act was necessary if she was to complete her sense of ownership of the place, however temporary that might be.

  There must be no rooms into which Martineau can’t go.

  That was Julia speaking. When Martineau comes, she was saying, you must hold nothing back. There can be no barriers between you any more. This time he must know everything.

  She smiled to herself. It had always been like this. All her indecisions, her insecurities, all those doubts she had poured out about love, becoming a mother, looking after her parents when they got old, her fights with her brothers, the future of socialism; Julia had always been there to tell her what to do, how to think. It was happening still. Julia had the answers she needed.