It was late the next morning before Kit was back at his desk. The Suffolk trip had left an overflowing in-tray full of non-covert diplomatic stuff. The most bizarre was a note from Jeffers Cauldwell, the cultural attaché, marked urgent. The note consisted of one word: Elvis. ‘Who,’ said Kit aloud, ‘who the fuck is Elvis?’ He was about to phone for an explanation when the door opened and Cauldwell entered – as always, comme il faut. The elderly Ambassador, Aldrich Winthrop, regularly referred to his cultural attaché as the perfect image of a diplomat in terms of appearance and manners. Kit noticed that since being assigned to London Cauldwell had swapped Brooks Brothers charcoal-grey for Bond Street pinstripe. He was also wearing perfectly polished black wing-tips – what the British call brogues. Cauldwell was a dandy, but a tough dandy. He had been a star quarterback in high school and had commanded a PT boat in the Pacific: one that didn’t get cut in half by a Jap destroyer. After the war, Cauldwell went to Harvard and got a degree in English Literature when he wasn’t hanging around with the louche arts crowd in New York. He got to know Tennessee Williams, Jackson Pollock and Ginsberg.
‘Who the fuck,’ said Kit, ‘is Elvis?’
The cultural attaché perched himself on the edge of Kit’s desk and smiled. ‘Are you serious? You really don’t know who Elvis is?’ Cauldwell spoke in a refined Deep South drawl that diphthongised every vowel. The cultural attaché was one of Kit’s oldest friends in the diplomatic service. They had been on the same FSO induction course and worked together in Bonn and Berlin. When Kit was the first to get promoted, Cauldwell told him that it didn’t change a thing: the Cauldwells would always be socially superior because they had owned more black people than Kit’s family had. Kit wasn’t sure that he was being ironic – and it worried him.
‘Elvis,’ repeated Cauldwell.
Kit leaned back, put his fingertips together and thought hard. ‘The name vaguely rings a bell that has white trash reverberations.’ Kit smiled, ‘Is Elvis one of your relatives? Are you trying to get him into West Point?’
‘Very drôle, Kit, very drôle. I actually thought you might be some help, but it looks like the PAO has left you out of the loop. And here was I thinking that you knew everything.’
‘I only know important stuff, not utter drivel – so who is Elvis?’
‘A cultural phenomenon – an androgynous white trash who sings with African rhythms and pumps and grinds with Latino hips. A good enough looking boy in a greaseball sort of way – but inclined, I suspect, to flab. He is, I must admit, a pretty damn good singer, but the important thing about Elvis is his ingénue sexuality. He’s like a male Lolita. The sex he offers isn’t real, but trashy, innocent and almost pre-pubescent. He is obscene in a uniquely American way. The prettiest street urchin in Athens or Tangier could never do an Elvis – those boys are too knowing, too corrupt. And, unlike Elvis, those boys will never make a million – or be on the Ed Sullivan show.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Personally, I don’t think there is one. But the Information Service people are worried about the Elvis image.’ Cauldwell put on his half-frame reading glasses, opened his briefcase and took out a vinyl record. ‘Listen to this when you have a chance – it’s called “Heartbreak Hotel”.’
‘Thanks. I’ll file him in my collection between Elgar and Fauré.’
‘Don’t be a snob, Kit. Elvis is going to be very big – and the honchos at USIS are wetting themselves on how to deal with it. As you know, our job is to push cultural products that give a favourable image of America – like Broadway musicals and all that Doris Day crap. We’ve got to package Elvis in a way that doesn’t offend – and then wrap him in the Stars and Stripes. I wanted some ideas from you.’
‘Why, Jeffers, don’t you guys push our best artists and writers instead of populist stuff.’
‘Don’t be silly. Our best writers and artists are usually insane, alcoholic, drug addicted, politically beyond the pale like Pound – or given to illegal sexual practices.’
‘What about Whitman and Melville?’
‘They’re OK, they’re long dead.’ Cauldwell paused. ‘By the way, are you sure your office isn’t bugged by those assholes in the basement?’
‘Absolutely.’ Kit was certain for two reasons. One, he had the sweepers in on a regular basis. Two, he used his friendship with the marine captain to gain further access to the FBI cupboard to check what and who they were monitoring. But since the captain was soon to be assigned to the DoD Language School at Monterey, Kit would have to be more discreet in the future.
‘That’s good. In my own office I feel like Winston in 1984.’ Cauldwell paused. ‘Listen, Kit, I’ve got to talk to you about something.’
‘Go on.’
‘You know about Henry?’
‘I think I met him in the pub – doesn’t he play violin in some big London orchestra?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Seems like a nice guy.’
‘Well, Kit,’ Cauldwell seemed to be weighing his words, ‘Henry and I have sort of moved in together.’
‘Have you told any one else?’
‘No.’
‘Good. You have to be discreet. There’s nothing wrong with having a flatmate or a lodger – but don’t volunteer the information unless one of the assholes tries to make an issue of it.’ Kit looked closely at Cauldwell. ‘I’ve got an idea, but I don’t suppose you’d go along with it?’
‘What then?’
‘Why don’t you find a girlfriend as camouflage? You wouldn’t have to bed her, you’d only need to take her to a few official functions – and that would stop tongues from wagging.’
‘Oh for Chrissake, Kit, I’m not Hollywood horseflesh, I’m a career diplomat. Give me some dignity. Some of your ideas are really crap.’
‘I’m only looking after your interests. At the moment we’re lucky at this embassy. The Ambassador and the DCM are both civilised and liberal gentlemen, but there’s a cold brutal wind blowing from the other side of the Atlantic. McCarthy wasn’t the finale, he was the prelude.’
‘I know that and I’m grateful for your concern.’
‘Good.’ Kit smiled and winked. ‘Now just suppose, Jeffers, that …’
‘Suppose what?’
‘Suppose you had to do it with a girl. Someone was holding a gun to your head. Who would you choose?’
Cauldwell folded his arms and laughed. ‘Well as far as the female staff of this embassy are concerned, I think I would prefer to take the bullet.’ Cauldwell then paused and looked into the distance as if gazing upon an imaginary picture gallery. ‘If I really had to do it with a woman, I’d choose that sister of yours.’
‘You must be joking, they’re both terrible! Which one did you mean? Caddie? Virginia?’
‘No, neither of those names rings a bell.’
‘I haven’t got any other sisters.’
Cauldwell snapped his fingers. ‘Her name was Jennifer. I met her at one of your dad’s parties in Georgetown – a real beauty, coltish and slim-hipped.’
Kit felt a tremor run down his spine; he wanted to punch Cauldwell in the face. ‘She’s a… she’s not my sister, she’s my cousin.’
‘You seemed very close – in appearance and manner. Some families are like that.’
‘We were very close.’
‘What’s she doing now?’
‘She married an Englishman – they live in Suffolk. So you can forget having a date with her.’
‘You sound almost angry.’
‘I’m just pretending.’
Cauldwell got up as if to leave, then glanced down at a document on the desk.
Kit swiftly covered it with a folder. It was a naval intelligence report on underwater espionage. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Don’t get ratty, Kit, I’ve got a top secret clearance too you know?’
Kit slid the folder down a couple of inches so Cauldwell could read the full classification heading: EYES ONLY + NEED TO KNOW. It meant severely
restricted access regardless of the officer’s security clearance.
‘Shit,’ said Cauldwell, ‘you make me jealous. I wish I had a job like yours.’
Kit hefted a thick wad of documents in his in-tray. ‘Most of this POLCOUNS stuff is mind-numbing – and when do I get invited to film premieres and glamorous soirées?’
‘I wasn’t referring to your diplomatic job.’
Kit frowned and leaned back in his chair. ‘You’re not supposed to know about my other job.’
‘But Kit, everyone knows. It’s an open secret.’
‘OK, but open secrets are still secrets.’
‘Like Lord Boothby and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wife?’
‘Absolutely. And I would keep quiet about that one – we’re not supposed to know.’
‘I’m glad I’m not part of it,’ said Cauldwell. ‘Women have strange tastes.’
Kit felt a tremor pass down his spine.
‘Did you know,’ said Cauldwell, ‘that Boothby is fucking Ronnie Kray too?’
‘Really?’ Kit was genuinely surprised. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve got my agents too.’
‘Maybe we should swap jobs.’
‘By the way,’ said Cauldwell, ‘does cousin Jennifer live anywhere near Aldeburgh?’
‘Fairly near, about ten miles.’
‘That’s interesting, could be very handy.’
‘Why?’
Cauldwell waited and smiled at Kit. ‘It’s in reference to that job of yours we’re not allowed to talk about.’
‘Go on.’
‘You realise that Henry has to travel a lot with the orchestra – Europe, Far East and Russia too. In the music world, they tend to club together according to type of instrument. Brass hang around with brass, woodwinds with woodwinds – and strings, of course, with strings. They all know each other. It’s an intimate world of foreign hotels: loneliness happens and so do indiscretions. Does the name Natalya Voronova mean anything to you?’
‘Should it?’
‘It should. Natalya Voronova is one of the best cellists in the world – and she isn’t very happy.’
‘Why isn’t she happy?’
‘She doesn’t get on with her husband – she doesn’t love him.’
‘Is he a cellist too?’
‘No, he’s a nuclear scientist in Semipalatinsk.’ Cauldwell pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Kit. ‘All the details are in there – including the dates Voronova will be playing at the Aldeburgh Festival.’
‘Thanks.’
Cauldwell walked to the door. ‘By the way, Kit.’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you ever killed anyone with your bare hands?’
‘No.’
‘I have.’
Cauldwell had gone before Kit had the chance to search the cultural attaché’s face for the trace of a joking smile.
Chapter Seven
Kit had taken the train to Portsmouth via Brighton. He shared the compartment with a French au pair who was returning to Nantes for Easter. Kit put on his East End ‘legend’: that he was a Québécois who worked for a shipping firm in London. He was feeling nervous about what he was going to have to do and wanted light relief. In fact, the adrenalin rush of an op always excited him and made him a little silly. Kit had really begun to like being François Laval. As he entertained the au pair with stories of Laval’s life and travels, Kit began to prefer his fictional self to his real self. The escape from self was like an intravenous shot of mood changing drug. Between Brighton and Worthing they caught a glimpse of the sea. Kit offered the au pair a shot of brandy from his hip flask. The drink seemed to widen her eyes and swell her lips. The sea was gleaming in the April sun. Kit started and the girl joined in:
La mer
Qu’on voit danser le long des golfes clairs
A des reflets d’argent, la mer
Des reflets changeants sous la pluie
They embraced and kissed as the train passed through a tunnel. Kit felt her mouth open beneath his: her tongue was groping and hungry. Emboldened Kit began to slip his hand up her dress – there was no resistance – until he felt the damp inviting warmth of her sex. Maybe this was what he really wanted. He was more intoxicated by his disguise than the brandy. For one glorious liberating moment, he was François Laval: a normal man with normal desires.
As the train slowed on the station approach, the au pair smiled and confided that their meeting was a great coincidence. They both had the same first name. Hers was Françoise. Later, as they parted on the platform, she looked at Kit in a strange way. ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘You don’t have a Quebec accent, you have a normal French accent.’ As Kit watched her disappear in the crowd bustling towards the ferry, he felt the fake François Laval fall from his shoulders and turn into dead ash.
It was a short walk from the station to the Sally Port Hotel. Kit had booked two rooms – even though he might only need one. Driscoll was arriving under his own steam in a Humber van. Kit hoped he’d remembered to swap the number plates and would drive carefully: a police check would thwart the whole thing. The plan was to meet in a lorry park late that afternoon. Driscoll would change into his frogman suit in the back of the van – and then Kit would drive him to the King Stairs at least an hour ahead of Crabb and his handler. It was going to be an awkward social situation – like turning up to a dinner party to which you had pointedly not been invited.
Kit checked into the Sally Port under the name of Paul Martin. It was best to use simple names for cover legends: ones that didn’t stick in the mind or were easy to pin down. The world was full of Martins and Browns and Wilsons – surname anonymity. In Vietnam it was even better. Eighty-five per cent of the population had the family name of either Nguyen or Trinh – so you knew people by their first names, which weren’t their first names at all, but their last names. A spy needs to know the culture. And in the spy trade, names are the most valuable currency of all – more valuable than nuclear secrets. You might have the recipe for hydrogen bomb cookies, but you can’t bake those cookies unless you have the engineering and industrial base to build the right oven. But names were gold dust – that’s how Burgess and Maclean had done so much damage, they knew the names. And the irony is that no one has more names than a spy.
The window in Kit’s room faced north-west and gave a good view of the harbour. The Ordzhonikidze and two accompanying destroyers had docked that morning. The cruiser was lying alongside South Railway Jetty with her stern facing the harbour entrance. The two destroyers, Sovershenny and Smotryaschy, were rafted beside her like nursing pups. Most of the Ordzhonikidze was hidden from Kit’s view by cranes and warehouses, but her masts and aft gun turrets were visible. Kit took a pair of binoculars out of his travelling bag for a quick look. There was nothing much to see: her rotating radar dishes had been covered with grey tarpaulins. A useless security precaution, for US Navy reconnaissance aircraft had already provided the agency with high resolution photographs of every diode and bolt – and the Russians knew it. The tarpaulins were just theatre props to impress the Brits.
Kit focused the binoculars on South Railway Jetty. He was surprised it hadn’t been cordoned off from the public. Crowds of sightseers were freely strolling along the quay – many strewn with cameras and taking snaps. The Ordzhonikidze had become an instant tourist attraction. Kit shifted the glasses back to the cruiser. A sailor with black hair and a gymnast’s body was waving and blowing kisses to someone on the quay. He wondered if it might be his French au pair. No longer his.
He could almost hear her singing to another man. And why shouldn’t she? Kit felt a pang of jealousy and longing. He wasn’t a proper man; he was nothing more than an eunuch of the State, like the sterile workers in an ant colony. At some point, the State had ceased to be an ideology or even a nation. It was a way of being that consumed – not the ordinary soldiers and sailors, they were free to blow kisses – but the State’s own masters.
Driscoll
was slumped in the driver’s seat of the van reading a tabloid newspaper. The Irishman was wearing a donkey jacket and a flat cap. He looked every inch a genuine English workman. Kit thought, however, that the flat cap wasn’t quite right. Brits of Driscoll’s generation went bareheaded to show off their pomaded quiffs. Kit was carrying a heavy black leather bag. He shifted the bag to his left hand and tapped on the van’s window. Driscoll reached over to open the passenger door.
Kit got in. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yeah.’
Kit looked around the lorry park. The state of the vehicles was a sad reflection of the British economy: some were from the 1920s. There was even an old Thorneycroft lorry with solid tyres and an open cab with a wooden door. The driver was muffled up with scarves and had a pair of goggles dangling from a piece of string. The ancient lorry seemed to be used for hauling coal and the driver’s face was coated with black dust. He was probably waiting to pick up a load from the docks. It reminded Kit of that blustery day with Jennifer on Dunwich beach and the collier beating down to London. A moment of purity. And now he was in a filthy van that reeked of sweat and stale tobacco. Kit watched the Thorneycroft driver unscrew a thermos and pour himself a cup of tea while making furtive glances in their direction. ‘Anyone speak to you?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Driscoll looked at the driver. ‘He gave me a nod, but backed off. The one good thing about Brits is that they keep their distance. They can tell when you don’t want to talk. The Irish don’t care – they’ll talk your leg off even if you’re not listening.’
The Envoy Page 13
