The Kit Aston Mysteries (All Five Books)

by Jack Murray

  Fechin climbed into the front of the car. Daniels, Peel and Serov sat in the back. It was only then that Serov realised they had an additional passenger. He glared at Peel and then looked at Daniels. After a few moments, Daniels explained to Serov, in excellent English, ‘Comrade Bergmann requested that Comrade Peel join us. He is a reporter for the Daily Herald. I’ve read his work. He’s a supporter of the struggle.’

  This calmed Serov momentarily and he reached out to shake the hand of their new companion. In equally good English, he said to the newsman, ‘Pleased to meet you Comrade Peel.’

  ‘Comrade Serov,’ said Peel by way of acknowledgement, impressed by the linguistic abilities of his Russian companions.

  As Serov said nothing else and was clearly in a foul mood, Peel also remained quiet. There was, undeniably, an atmosphere in the car. Serov was fighting an overwhelming impulse to wring Fechin’s neck. As he was driving, he reluctantly accepted it would not be a good idea. Instead, he fantasised about dragging him by the hair into the back of the car and punching him. Finally, unable to contain himself anymore, he said in Russian to Daniels, ‘Would you kindly ask that idiot colleague of yours what he said to the witch?’

  Fechin had spent the last hour thinking of an answer to this. He interrupted Daniels before the big Russian could reply and said in Russian, ‘She was asking if we spoke English. Then when she realised, we could, she wanted to know more about Russia.’

  Serov looked contemptuously to the front and said derisively, ‘What? Like the weather? Or what kind of puppies we keep?’

  Fechin, unable to detect the sarcasm in Serov’s voice, could hardly believe his luck. He nodded his head excitedly, ‘Yes, exactly.’

  Daniels and Serov exchanged looks.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t talk about what our plans were for the day?’ asked Daniels, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  ‘No, do I look stupid?’ said Fechin scornfully.

  To be fair, he did. This was due to a scar that ran from his mouth and curled upward giving him a leer that was could be interpreted, from a distance, as the look of someone untroubled by deep thought. The scar was a result of an unfortunate accident with a bomb from a few years earlier, in his anarchist days, when he was, almost single-handedly, trying to overthrow the Tsar. It led to his flight from Russia.

  Daniels decided to wait until they met up with Bergmann before telling him of the suspicion, which both he and Serov shared, that Fechin’s indiscreet babbling to the not-so-innocent youngster had contributed to Serov’s failure to win. The tactics of Fiona Lawrence gave every impression of someone who knew Serov needed to win, and quickly, to get away. The only possible source was Fechin. Fiona had used this intelligence to devastating effect against Serov which cost him victory.

  Fechin remained silent. He sensed the mood wasn’t so much antagonistic as downright homicidal. Once more, Daniels questioned Bergmann’s wisdom in using Fechin. The lean and loquacious Moscovian presented a stark contrast with the immense and intense Daniels.

  Had Daniels stopped and really thought of it, however, he would have seen the simplicity of Bergmann’s reasoning staring him in the face. Aside from his hatred of all things imperial and his fluency in English, Fechin was genuinely psychotic. The big Ukrainian was beginning to get a glimmer of this by now.

  Bergmann had first unearthed Fechin in early 1917. This was just after the Bolsheviks had really begun to grow in influence. Fechin had given Bergmann a highly selective account of his struggle against the bourgeoisie. Bergmann’s investigations revealed a very different picture. Fechin was, in fact, not only on the run from the forces of law and order, but also from several of the anarchist groups operating in Petrograd at the time, including the Bolsheviks. The true story went something like this.

  Born Valentin Korovin into a middle-class family in Moscow, Korovin, whilst no academic, had managed to earn a place at Moscow University. He read languages, majoring in English and German. The latter was an attempt to align himself more closely with the work of his heroes, Marx, and Engels, and to read their glorious prose in the original. His conversion to Marxism was the defining moment in his life. He resolved during his years at university to become a soldier-scholar. Temperamentally and, intellectually he was more suited to the former than the latter. In an unusual, and almost certainly never repeated, moment of insight, he came to realise this himself. His next problem was how to direct this passion towards the class struggle. Salvation was at hand.

  A drunken conversation one Friday night brought Korovin’s first introduction to anarchists. In this case it was a group known as the Mercenaries for Marx. This small group consisted of one former army officer and his two sons, one of whom Korovin had befriended at university.

  He took up active service one year later after graduating with a degree. Surprising his new colleagues, he requested military training and was given it by people probably even less qualified than he.

  Finding an outlet for Korovin’s military zeal proved difficult. His incompetence with a gun became apparent when he winged one of his instructors on the rifle range. In any circumstances this incident would have been frowned upon. However, in this instance, the instructor was the group leader’s son. Thankfully it was only a flesh wound and Korovin was able to claim, albeit unconvincingly, faulty equipment rather than human error.

  However, Korovin’s tendency to injure his own men in friendly fire could not be hidden long and resulted in his expulsion from the group. Working in Moscow with several new recruits, a plan was hatched for a bombing campaign to create as much pre-Christmas mayhem as possible. Train stations were identified as providing the perfect marriage between quantity of people, low security, and maximum disruption. It meant that a problem at one station could create an impact at others out of all proportion to the original input from the anarchists. Even better was the potential of adding hoax bombs in other stations to the mix. This would amplify the confusion and mayhem.

  Christmas of 1915 saw things go badly wrong for Korovin. Three days before Christmas, the ever-eager Korovin volunteered to carry the “real” package into the city centre while three colleagues took hoax bombs to three transport hubs.

  Korovin duly contacted the station to let them know there was a bomb. The evacuation of Moscow Central took place and the bomb was duly uncovered. Diffusing it was unnecessary, Korovin had left a hoax bomb in the station by mistake. Across Moskva river, the real bomb took out the car containing Korovin’s collaborators and a small section of the Borodinsky Bridge.

  Korovin did not wait around in Moscow to learn of his fate from the high command. He took flight and spent a year lying low in Tbilisi. This incident had provided Korovin with a cold dose of reality. Previously he had believed that he would be willing to fight and die to liberate the workers from their chains. The prospect of being killed by fellow anarchists did not figure high in his plans and swiftly disabused him of any notions towards martyrdom. This left him with a dilemma: how best to continue the struggle? The answer became clear and from an unusual source.

  Ireland.

  Odessa was throbbing with quasi-communist groups jockeying for position as instigators of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Some were led by former members of the middle classes keen to bring a sound intellectual energy to the febrile atmosphere of the town. Korovin, now renamed Genady Grabar, arrived there just after Easter 1916. A keen follower of the fight for freedom by Ireland’s patriots against the forces of imperialism, Grabar was particularly inspired by the Irish republican, Patrick Pearse.

  Pearse was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist. His activism extended beyond pamphlets and newspaper editorials. By 1916 he was actively involved in the planning and leading of the Easter Rising. Grabar was more entranced by Pearse’s warrior-poet legend than his early demise at the hands of a British firing squad. Inspired by Pearse’s approach, if not his execution, Grabar appropriated some of the methods used by the deceased IRA
man. The idea grew in his mind, nurtured by reading cheap fiction, of a lone agent, an avenging angel. His vision was one of a mysterious figure, fighting with, but independent of, all strands of communism. He would take anarchism to its logical conclusion through the agency of an unseen, unknown angel of death. He named the avenging angel, “The Sword of Light”, in honour of Patrick Pearse.

  “The Sword of Light” had been the Gaelic League newspaper founded by Pearse. In possession now of a name and a strategy, “The Sword of Light” sought to implement his brand of terror on an unsuspecting bourgeoisie.

  Sadly, Grabar’s career as a lone wolf anarchist was brought to a spectacular end by a combination of flawed thinking and, quite literally, poor execution. The idea was for several men, dressed as postmen, to deliver packages containing a bomb with just a long enough fuse to allow for its reception by the target and the escape of his comrade worker, or tramp, in this case. The plan was simple in conception, deadly of consequence. It required a precision in logistics matched with technical genius in bomb making. Grabar had neither. It resulted in him becoming, by turns both a laughing-stock among the various anarchist groups as well as, once again, a man on the run.

  One summer morning in early August 1917, six tramps, dressed as postman, set off at thirty-minute intervals from different parts of Odessa carrying a bomb to an address of a nearby member of the business class. Grabar was so sure of success he had posted anonymous letters to the big Odessa newspapers as well as the local leaders of the groups he sought to align with in the fight to free Russia from the yoke of the aristocracy.

  An early inkling of potential problems with his bombs had nearly ended in disaster for Grabar himself. He had avoided serious injury but was left with an unattractive, leering scar near his mouth. Sadly, the lesson remained unlearned, particularly for the unfortunate individuals who had been duped into helping.

  By midday it was apparent to Grabar that his plan had gone horribly wrong. Three of his bombs had indeed gone off, but in the hands of the hobos carrying them to their target. The other three had failed to go off because, starved of oxygen inside the package, a detail that a more expert bomb maker would surely have considered, the flame had simply died. Just like “The Sword of Light” as it turned out.

  By early evening, “The Sword of Light” was no longer a mysterious unseen slayer. Evening newspapers all over Petrograd proclaimed the name of the vigilante vagabond slayer as one Gennady Grabar. Police had received an anonymous tip off from a lady called Olga on the identity of the killer. As Grabar was to explain to Bergmann afterwards, her treachery had been motivated by a misunderstanding over the remuneration she felt entitled to following a romantic interlude.

  A combination of the October Revolution and meeting Georgy Bergmann was to prove the salvation for the, now, renamed Vassily Fechin. Following the Revolution, Russia was in chaos. To bring control to the anarchy unleashed by the fall of the government required strong leadership backed up by even stronger enforcement of the leader’s wishes. Fechin, now an inhabitant of Petrograd, joined the one organisation likely to overlook the need for employer references in favour of a genuinely unhinged outlook on life.

  The Cheka.

  The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and commonly known as Cheka, was the first of a succession of Soviet secret police organizations. Established in December 1917, Fechin was welcomed with open arms and the slate was wiped clean over his past misdemeanors. As an organisation, Cheka was normally suspicious of using people with anything approaching an education. However, an exception was made in the case of Fechin. This was not just because of his disinhibition towards extreme violence but also because he was fluent in two strategically important languages: English and German.

  Bergmann had also been part of the early intake. Despite not being Russian, his fluency in English, which surpassed even Fechin’s, meant he was accepted quickly by the new organisation. Soon a combination of his obvious leadership skills and linguistic ability resulted in him being given senior responsibilities in counter-espionage. By mid-1919, at his own suggestion, he was reassigned to carry on the revolution in Britain. Fechin followed him and they linked up with another English-speaking Cheka agent, Leon Daniels, who had been posted to Britain some months earlier following his demobilisation from the army.

  Yes, Fechin was very much Bergmann’s boy, reflected Daniels. The last year working with him had only confirmed Daniels in his view of Fechin as both dangerous and stupid in equal measure. As much as he may have wished it, Daniels doubted Bergmann would get rid of Fechin. It was too late now. The operation was about to begin. At the very least he wanted to remind Bergmann of the big risks posed by having a card-carrying imbecile like Fechin given any kind of responsibility. Events were to prove the hefty Cheka agent right.

  Chapter 10

  Two days later, Kit received a telegram from Bergmann inviting him to make the first move by reply. He and Bright were sitting in Kit’s apartment following breakfast, relaxing before their next hospital visit to see Mary. Bright listened as Kit read out the telegram.

  ‘Is having the first move good? I’m not much of a chess player, sadly,’ admitted Bright.

  Kit considered his response for a moment then replied, ‘I can’t quote any statistics, but conventional wisdom suggests white has a slight advantage. A bit like playing rugger on your home ground.’

  ‘Good, so you’re sure to win then,’ said Bright with a grin.

  Kit laughed, ‘If only it were so easy.’

  They both sat in front of Kit’s chess board. Looking at it for a moment Kit then moved his King’s pawn two places forward. Bright studied the board for a moment, then knocked over his black King to indicate resignation.

  ‘You win. That was devilishly clever, old boy,’ smiled Bright.

  Kit laughed as did Miller, who was looking on.

  ‘You had him there, sir,’ said Miller, ‘I could see mate in twenty moves.’

  ‘You must show me your game plan, Harry, I had mate in twenty-three,’ smiled Kit.

  ‘You really are out of practice, Kit,’ responded Bright.

  Kit turned to Miller and said, ‘Sorry about this Harry but there’s going to be a bit of too-ing and fro-ing over the next few days. Would you mind going to the telegram office. The message is d4. Stop.’

  In fact, Miller was delighted with this piece of news.

  ‘I think I can remember that sir,’ before adding hopefully, ‘I can wait for a reply if you like.’

  Kit thought for a moment, then replied, ‘Probably not. We don’t know how close they are to an office. It may be a while before they get the message. We’ll judge this as the game progresses.’

  Settling back in his armchair, Kit picked up a Daily Herald which Ratcliff had sent to him with an article circled written by Billy Peel. Kit read through the short article and then looked up at Bright and showed him the newspaper.

  ‘Do you read the Herald very often?’

  Bright laughed, ‘Not really my sort of thing. Didn’t have you down for a socialist.’

  Kit grinned, ‘I’m not completely unsympathetic to these issues, you know. It may seem hypocritical given this,’ he gestured around the room, ‘I accept inequality exists, but it doesn’t mean I like it. If I can do anything to give people a chance to improve their lot I will. Anyway, there’s an interesting article on my opponent in yesterday’s paper.’

  Kit threw the paper over to Bright. After a few moments Bright looked up.

  ‘Sounds like an interesting fellow. Doesn’t mince his words about Britain and the Civil War in Russia. Are we really fighting a proxy war in Russia?’

  ‘I don’t doubt we’re making mischief, but I really have no idea just how much.’

  Bright continued to read the interview, ‘Doesn’t strike me as the happiest of chaps. Seems angry about everything.’

  ‘Intense, I would say, more than angry. I don’t think I ever saw so much as a smile when I played him.’ Kit was silent for a
few moments as something appeared to cross his mind. ‘I must find out more about this chap, Peel. He mentions our match. I wonder if he intends covering it for the Daily Herald. I can just imagine the tenor of the reporting he’ll give our match.’

  ‘I’ll say. Reading this it sounds like he gets his salary from Lenin himself.’

  Kit nodded in agreement.

  ‘Yes, it looks like he’s going to be siding with our Russian friend. To be fair to Peel, he doesn’t have a go at me personally. His gripe is with the class system and my title more than anything. He’s using it to counterpoint Serov’s more humble origins. It’s interesting that he picked up on how the Russians will see this as an important propaganda tool. This is something my old commander thought also.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Just a feeling. If the rest of the article hadn’t been so full of rhetoric about class struggle, I might have taken it as a veiled warning,’ replied Kit.

  ‘But you were aware of this,’ pointed out Bright.

  ‘True. But Peel wasn’t to know that. Anyway, maybe it’s my imagination. Right, are you ready? Harry can drop you off at the hospital.’

  ‘Oh? Where will you be?’ inquired Bright, a little surprised.

  ‘I’ll be along soon,’ said Kit reaching for his overcoat. ‘I want to see Spunky. See what he says about all of this.’ He pointed towards the newspaper article.

  -

  Spunky Stevens sat with his feet up on the desk puffing contentedly on his pipe. He gazed outside his window which overlooked Holland Park. He liked the new offices for the view, but much preferred his old office in Whitehall. Pressure to reduce costs had meant relocating the Special Intelligence Services offices the previous month.

  As disappointed as he was to be away from the centre of things, his office on the second floor allowed Spunky to indulge himself, in quieter moments, by looking at the array of young ladies going for a walk in the park. On more than one occasion he had scurried out of his office to make their acquaintance. A knock at the door interrupted the thoughts of Spunky. The door opened, and he found himself looking up at Kit.