Once inside the Butley, it was easy to see where to steer. On the left bank was an abandoned brick dock that was crumbling into ruin. According to the chart, there had been a brisk nineteenth-century trade swapping London horse manure for Suffolk wheat and barley. But the river had long since returned to splendid isolation. There was little wind now, but Louise continued to glide upstream on the last of the rising tide. Kit felt the boat was being drawn forward by an invisible thread.
The river seemed in turns desolate, wild and mysterious. A mile from the entrance, the land on both sides of the river rose and became thickly wooded. There was a valley with a grazing herd of roe deer that scattered to cover at the sight of a sail. Kit finally decided to drop anchor when he saw a shed and jetty. Both structures looked long abandoned and deserted. In any case, it was so unexpected – like discovering a hunter’s hut in a wild rainforest.
As soon as the boat was fast and the sails furled, Kit decided to explore. He was happy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had played. Kit cast off the tender and rowed towards the jetty. He noticed a bank thick with mussels, but it was too late in the season to eat them. There were, however, broad beds of samphire. Kit grounded the boat and cut three bundles to add to his supper, then continued to the jetty. He made fast and climbed on to the boards – making sure not to put his foot through a rotten plank.
The shed had been built on an island of marshy land amid a lawn of sea lavender. It was connected to the mainland proper by plank bridges that leapfrogged from islet to islet until they reached the riverbank. What a fantastic hiding place. Kit tried the shed door. There was a padlock, but the clasp was fitted to wood that had turned rotten and hung uselessly against the door frame. He opened the door. Aside from the dust, cobwebs and desiccated wasp nests, it wasn’t in bad repair. There were old cane fishing rods, nets, table, chairs and a tea service. The calico curtains had rotted away to transparent lace. Kit closed his eyes and had a vision of moustached gentlemen in boaters, Edwardian ladies with hoop skirts and high buttoned boots, a flurry of parasols and a bounding Labrador. For a second, he felt a kiss and a loose lock of hair brush his cheek. He reached out, but no one was there – just gull cries and plummeting swallows. None of it was real, only the pain lingered. Kit rowed back to Louise and went for a swim.
Kit cooked a meal of omelette, samphire, fried potatoes and green salad. Afterwards, he sat in the cockpit as the tide ebbed and the boat settled into the mud. He had brought along George Crabbe’s poem ‘The Borough’. Peter Grimes, an Aldeburgh fisherman, had been shunned for suspected murder.
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide …
Kit put down the book and watched a pair of oyster-catchers strut across the exposed mud. Their black and white plumage and the way they swayed on their long legs made Kit think of drunken gents in evening dress. Their braying communal piping sounded like a whole club bellowing, ‘Waiter, more champagne, more champagne …’
That night Kit lay in the forward berth with the hatch cover open so he could watch the wheeling stars. He liked the rough kiss of the wool blankets and the gurgle of water against the hull as the tide rose and refloated the boat. And for the first time, Kit heard the night call of the curlew: curr-leek-leek, curr-leek-leek. It was a plaintive mournful sound and the oyster-catchers didn’t seem to like it much. The oyster-catchers retaliated with their more champagne piping at full throat. This, in turn, brought in more and louder curlew: curr leek-leek-leek, cu-r-r-r-r-leek! Kit didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to stay awake all night listening to England.
Be not afeard this isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
During his first day back in the office Kit stared at his overflowing in-tray. He had begun to hate his job with a passion and wondered how much more he could offload on Perry. Kit remembered visiting George at his office at the Pentagon a few months before his uncle was due to retire. George’s in-tray at the time was even more overflowing. Kit remembered all the documents festooned with red TOP SECRET tags, urgent notices and complex distribution lists that needed initialling and passing on. Kit remembered that George had looked at his watch and said, ‘Gosh, it’s already quarter past four. Time for a drink.’ He then picked up his in-tray and emptied it into the burn bag for the daily incineration. George saw the amazed look on Kit’s face and said, ‘If it’s important enough, it will come round again.’ Then he pulled open a desk drawer and took out two glasses and a bottle of bourbon.
But Kit knew that things in London were different. The issues that the Dulles brothers had outlined in Washington were moving to the point where they were going to boil over and burn hands. The Portsmouth operation was still a raw wound too. Prime Minister Eden was pilloried in Parliament and had finally admitted, ‘It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death.’ On the surface, it was an extraordinary and frank confession that dirty tricks had occurred. It was interesting, thought Kit, that Eden had more or less admitted that Crabb was dead. The more he thought about it, the less certain he was that Crabb had perished. Was the Prime Minister laying a false trail? Or, thought Kit, am I deceiving myself to avoid guilt for another death?
Kit opened the daily briefing folder prepared by his own staff. It was a news digest that saved him wasting time reading newspapers. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were splitting up; Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were getting hitched. The American military assistance group in Vietnam had suffered their first death. An airman, Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr, had been murdered by another US serviceman. Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was now a ‘golden record’. French paratroopers had launched a clean-up operation in Algiers by blowing up two buildings in the Casbah. An acquaintance from the French Embassy had recently told Kit that their officers in Algeria had become fond of quoting Abbé Arnaud Amoury, the bishop who led the thirteenth-century crusade against the Albigensians. At the sack of Bézier, a general had asked the Abbé how they could tell the difference between ‘les bons catholiques’ and ‘les hérétiques’. Abbé Arnaud replied, ‘Tuez les tous – kill them all, God will sort them out in heaven.’
Kit flipped through the rest of the news and turned to the confidential briefing pages at the back. Vyacheslav Molotov had been sacked as Soviet Foreign Minister. Kit was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. There were rumours that Molotov had tried to get rid of Khrushchev and that he supported the heresy of a united Germany. Kit continued reading. According to a Pravda article, Molotov hadn’t been fired after all – he had simply been ‘reassigned as Ambassador to Outer Mongolia’. It reminded Kit of one of Vasili’s indiscreet revelations. During a visit to Burma, Khrushchev was given a jungle tour using traditional transport. As they trundled off, Molotov remarked to an aid: ‘Look at that – an elephant riding an elephant.’ A wisecrack too far. Kit decided to go for a walk in the June sunshine – it would be nice to see Vasili again.
Kensington Gardens was full of nannies pushing prams. Kit wondered if the French au pair from the Portsmouth train was among them. He was surprised by how much he wanted to see her again. As Kit continued walking towards the Peter Pan statue, the pram traffic increased. He looked at the circling nannies and tried to spot one that looked French. Then what? ‘Do you know by any chance a Mademoiselle Françoise …’ No, it was a stupid idea. In any case, he found what he was looking for. The chalk mark on the rubbish bin looked fresh. It meant confession time at Brompton Oratory.
Kit spotted Vasili in the Marian side chapel where he had seen him last. Vasili was reading a book and his lips were moving. It looked almost as if he was praying. Kit slid into the pew next to the Russian. Vasili continued to read and to mouth the words. Kit glanced at the book. Despite the Cyrillic letters, he could see that the text was typeset as poetry. Vasili closed the book and said, ‘Pushkin.’
Kit had be
en ready to make some joke about the embassy in Ulan Bator, but sensed that the mood wasn’t appropriate. They shook hands and sat in silence. Finally Vasili said, ‘I often wait here expecting to see you, but you never come. I’ve been told not to ring the embassy any more.’
‘Even from a public phone?’
‘Yes. Since the Portsmouth business, everyone is nervous.’
‘What happened to Crabb?’
Vasili shrugged his shoulders, then said, ‘Let’s go for a drive in the country. I want to see fields and cows – and pretty milkmaids like in the novels of Thomas Hardy.’
‘It’s against the rules.’
‘Well, let’s just go for a walk.’
The two walked north towards Hyde Park. The streets were busy and neither said a word until they were sitting on a bench by the Serpentine watching the ducks. ‘The limpet mines,’ said Vasili, ‘were American ones.’
‘I’m not surprised. You didn’t really think that MI6 would use British mines – it was a false flag op. If anything went wrong, they wanted us to get blamed.’
‘Why did they do it? What did these – how do you describe them – crazy or mad…’
‘Crazy.’
‘What did these crazy British secret agents want to achieve?’
‘They wanted to go all the way. They wanted to sabotage détente between Britain and the Soviet Union. They wanted to bring down Eden’s government … I suppose they wouldn’t have minded a military coup.’
‘I see.’ The Russian nodded slowly.
‘Listen, Vasili, rogue agents are a real problem in the West – not just in Britain. The French secret services are even worse – that’s why no French government dares pull out of Algeria. The Secret State breeds monsters who get drunk on power. They think that if they sink an Ordzhonikidze – or burn a Reichstag – they can create a crisis so dire and dangerous that the generals will have to take over. We didn’t only save your ship – we saved the British people as well.’
Vasili looked away, almost embarrassed. ‘You’re not a good actor, Kit. Your lines are too well rehearsed. Try to be more natural and spontaneous.’
Kit looked at the Russian. ‘Why don’t you believe me?’
‘Because the results of the Portsmouth Harbour incident – a wrecked Soviet friendship visit, a broken UK détente policy, a weakened Eden government – are all aims of United States foreign policy.’
Kit breathed deeply. ‘Your problem, Vasili, is that you see conspiracies everywhere. I thought you had enough of that under Stalin.’
‘Do not, my American friend, lecture me on a tragedy that affected me, my family and every Soviet citizen.’ Vasili’s voice was shaking with anger. ‘You have no right, no right …’
Kit looked at the gravel beneath his feet. He felt as significant as a cockroach. ‘I’m sorry.’
Suddenly the Russian was laughing. ‘Why are you sorry?’
‘Listen, Vasili, if you think I’m lying, keep asking Commander Crabb until he confesses.’ Kit was a little ashamed that he was condoning torture, but they were all players.
‘What?’
‘Crabb, the British diver, you captured him, didn’t you?’
‘Crabb’s dead.’
‘Where’s the body?’
‘It’ll turn up – bit by bit.’
Kit felt his head was on fire. He wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. ‘How did you kill him?’
Vasili turned away and looked across the park. The great oaks had finally begun to unfurl their leaves. ‘Commander Crabb’s mission was to examine the ship’s propellers. British Naval Intelligence wanted to know why our cruiser was so fast.’
Kit felt his sweat and blood turn cold. He had heard nothing about a plan to examine the cruiser’s propellers. Why did Vasili know this?
The Russian continued. ‘While Commander Crabb was looking at the propellers, the Ordzhonikidze’s engines were fired up. Then the giant propellers were put in gear – first forwards, then reverse.’
The manner of the diver’s death was horrible, but there was something that shocked Kit even more. ‘How did you know that Crabb was sent to spy on the propellers?’
The Russian didn’t answer. He simply looked across the Serpentine with a face of stone. But Kit didn’t need to know more. The penny had finally dropped; a big bent British penny. It wasn’t the third man or the fourth man – everyone knew about Philby and Blunt – it was the fifth man. That mythical beast bred by paranoia whose existence was denied by all except a few conspiracy crackpots on E Street. Kit looked closely at Vasili. ‘You’ve penetrated the British Secret Service at the highest possible level – and you want me to know it.’
Vasili’s face softened. ‘You are a man, Kit, who loves poetry. That’s the most important secret we share. May I recite you some Pushkin?’
Kit nodded.
Vasili looked across the Serpentine. His eyes glazed over as if the London pond had turned into the vast waters of Lake Ladozhskoye on the outskirts of nineteenth-century St Petersburg. The words came in a melodic flood with sorrow chasing laughter – and ended on a note of dry weary resignation. ‘Now,’ said Vasili in English, ‘I have taken my flute to pieces and returned it to its case.’
A young mother was showing her toddler how to feed scraps of bread to the ducks. The child dropped a piece of bread near the water’s edge. A duck darted forward to grab the bread, the child reached out to stroke the shining feathers and the duck beat a noisy retreat. The toddler looked disappointed and ready to cry. The mother kissed the child and explained the way ducks were – then put the child back in the pushchair and wheeled away.
‘We have geese in Siberia that come to England for the winter and smaller birds too called,’ Vasili paused and pursed his lips to make sure he got the pronunciation right, ‘waxwings.’
‘How do you know these things?’
‘Sometimes I come here with a bird book to learn the names. Birds and animals are far more cosmopolitan than we are. At Stalingrad rats would eat dead German for breakfast, dead Russian for lunch and dead Romanian for supper – they were far better fed than the soldiers. Humans aren’t very clever, considering the size of their brains.’
Kit decided that Vasili sounded more profound in Russian than in English. The spell was broken. There was a dry American side to Kit that had little time for philosophical platitudes – unless they were his own. He suddenly wanted to bring their meeting to a close. ‘Have you anything else to tell me?’
Vasili took a deep breath. He seemed to be shaking his head.
Kit knew that something was wrong. It was a cool day, but beads of sweat were forming on Vasili’s brow. ‘Are you all right? Would you like a drink?’
‘No, Kit, I’m not all right.’ The Russian paused. ‘Remember the story I told you about Boris having to go to the Lubyanka? It’s something like that. “The good news, Vasili, is that you feel better today than you will tomorrow.”’
It suddenly occurred to Kit that his Russian counterpart might be making a pitch for defecting or turning double. Handling that sort of thing was the trickiest task in the business. He remembered his training: keep listening, stay open and always be available. Kit counted to a hundred; he made to get up to leave, then said, ‘I can help you.’
Vasili looked closely at Kit and laughed, then leaned close to his ear and whispered, ‘It’s not what you fucking think – defectors are weak assholes. They’ll never be happy anywhere.’
Kit stayed silent. There was something about Vasili that was uncanny. It was as if the Russian could see straight into his mind. It gave him the creeps. It was like playing chess with one of those masters who knew every move you were going to make before you had even thought about it.
‘No, Kit, I’m worried because I’ve got to tell you something that no one must know about – not even Khrushchev or Bulganin.’ Vasili paused and looked at the ground. ‘It’s my decision – and it’s the decision of a loyal Soviet citizen. But if it goes wrong, I’ll be call
ed back to Dzerzhinsky Square – the first stop on the way to Donskoi crematorium. That reminds me, did I ever tell you how they executed my old boss, Lavrenty Beria?’
Kit shook his head even though he knew the story.
‘There is a big wall lined with thick wooden planks – birch.’ Vasili smiled. ‘You have to be careful shooting in a concrete cellar – the bullets, they could bounce around and hit a guard or witness. We are a careful people. There’s a big hook bolted to this wooden wall – like you hang a carcass on in a butcher shop. This is where they bring Beria. He has his hands tied behind his back. There’s extra rope hanging down from the knot tied around his hands. The rope reaches to the backs of his knees and makes him look like a monkey with a long tail. They use this to tie him to the hook. Beria begins to speak, “Let me talk to Georgy.” He meant Malenkov. He kept writing to Malenkov during the trial begging mercy and forgiveness. He knew the letters would make Malenkov cry – and they did. But Beria just won’t shut up – so Roman Rudenko wraps a towel around his head to stop him talking. You can still see the towel moving over his lips and hear muffled sounds coming out. Rudenko pulls the towel tighter and the lips stop moving. Then General Batitsky aims his pistol at Beria’s forehead – but just before he pulls the trigger, the towel slips down over Beria’s right eye. For a second or two, that eye is staring all over the place like a trapped animal looking for a way out. There isn’t a way out. Finally, the eye seemed to grow so large that Batitsky thought it was going to pop straight out of Beria’s head. It was looking straight at the gun barrel when the general pulled the trigger.’
‘I don’t want that to happen to you.’ Kit was surprised by how much he really meant it.
Vasili smiled. ‘It’s the way the system works. I can’t complain – my chief knows I’m meeting you. Of course, if it goes wrong he will deny all knowledge. The chief said this to my face – he laughed and slapped me on the back as he told me.’
The Envoy Page 18
