For the Good of the State

by Anthony Price

  ‘Correct—Fred, no less. And he was another animal who dated back to when the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. So he and Basil Cole were by way of being old shipmates. And he knew that in spite of Old King Cole’s heavy-laden cargo of years and empty whisky bottles there was nothing wrong with his brains—they weren’t so much addled as preserved. Which says a lot for the properties of Islay peat.’

  Tom concentrated on the road ahead.

  ‘Also … “ Audley twisted sideways ’ … you know, we’ve always run R & D on a derisory budget, you see. Old Fred liked to recruit people like me, with private incomes—he always said it was partly to save money, and partly so that they could indulge their own esoteric tastes without recourse to some third party. But actually it was so that he could divert our legitimate expenses into his slush fund, is what I know now—‘ He shook his head ’—which I only know now because Jack Butler, who inherited that fund, is a friend of mine … or, a friend of a sort, anyway.‘ Pause. ’Huh!‘ Another pause. ’He was a downy old bird—or half-downy, half-foxy—was Fred! We were always bloody nonplussed by how much he knew … Whereas the truth was that he had this private ”Black Economy“ of his—paying selected pensioners of his own in used banknotes in little brown envelopes, to keep his private files up-to-date, and then feeding our main files with what he wanted us to see. Huh!‘ Another pause. ’That’s not the way Jack plays it now—now they have to come in once or twice a week, and feed the computer—beastly damn thing … But at least we have access to it, even if Jack always knows who’s doing what now, more’s the pity!‘ He half-chuckled, half-grunted. ’Although he still slips ‘em their brown envelopes, just like Fred. And you know why—?’

  Tom didn’t know why. What he knew was that they were at last coming to another scatter of houses in the half-light. ‘Why?’

  ‘Custom and practice, Tom—custom and practice.’ The half-and-half sound was repeated. ‘His father was a printer—Father of the Union Chapel, before he became Composing Room Overseer, and then Head Printer. So Jack’s a union man at heart. And he knows a thing or two about “old Spanish customs”—like little brown envelopes with no names on ’em. Huh!‘

  There was a church coming up—and a public house—Tom strained his eyes to read the badly-illuminated sign outside it. ‘Is this where we turn left, David?’

  ‘What?’ Audley sat up. ‘Yes, of course it is—didn’t I tell you?’

  The turning was narrow and awkward, with the brickwork on each side testifying the failed efforts of those before him who had found it too narrow and awkward. ‘So Basil Cole works part-time for Research and Development—is that it?’

  ‘That’s right. M to R, to be exact.’

  He wasn’t going to make it—not because there wasn’t room, but because there was a black-and-white mongrel dog in the way, sitting in the road.

  ‘M to R?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Fred had four old Moscow-watchers. Dorothy Marshall handles A to F, and Frank Hodgson G to L, and my own Sheila Ellis has S to Z—she feeds me directly now, every Wednesday, does Sheila—’ Audley sat up again ‘—what’s holding you up?’

  There’s a dog in the road—M to R—?‘

  ‘Uh-huh. So including P … Run the bloody animal over, then … So Old King Cole is the expert on Panin—go on, man!’

  Jesus Christ! He revved the engine angrily. ‘But I thought you were the expert on Panin—’ He caught himself too late.

  ‘Did you, now?’ The silky satisfaction in Audley’s voice confirmed his failure. ‘So you’re not just a high-grade minder, then? Not that I ever really thought you were, of course—run the bloody animal over—go on. Audley turned away from him. ’Well, there’s no one on our tail, anyway—at least, not from the other side, whichever side it may be … But you’re here to report back to whoever it may be, anyway—“What the devil is that swine Audley up to?”—but it could hardly be Frobisher … because he can’t be interested in anything I do … can he?‘

  Tom rolled the car forward. Everything Harvey had said was true, and he had betrayed himself. ‘I’m just here to get you to Panin, David … Which I’m not doing very well at the moment, actually. Because we’re ninety minutes behind schedule already—’ The headlights picked out trees and more brickwork ahead ‘—so how far to Basil Cole, then?’

  ‘Not far. But do you have to be present when I exchange confidences with Nikolai Panin? Or do you merely deliver me to some agreed rendezvous?’ Audley waved ahead. ‘Which is it?’

  Tom put his foot down. ‘They have someone with him. We have someone with you. Those are the agreed terms.’

  ‘Ah! That’s what Fred Clinton termed “Mutual Agreed Internal Distrust”. Which he used to codename “Orleans”, because Joan of Arc was the “Maid of Orleans”—M-A-I-D, you see—?’ He waved again. ‘Keep going.’

  The houses fell away, the headlights catching on the canopy of trees above. ‘But I was told you were the expert on Panin—’

  ‘An expert—but not the expert. Keep going.’

  ‘But you are old—acquaintances?’ Tom conjured up the material on the desk in the study, and added it to what Audley had just said—‘My own Sheila Ellis has S to Z—she feeds me directly every Wednesday’. ‘So you’re not researching him, then?’

  ‘I am not,’ agreed Audley. ‘And, to be exact, I am doubly not researching my … “old acquaintance”, as you put it so diplomatically, Tom.’

  ‘Not far’ was stretching itself. But then, if he had learnt anything this afternoon and evening, it was that Audley seldom meant exactly what he said. ‘“Doubly not”? Is that some sort of algebraic lie, David? “Minus times minus equals plus”?’

  ‘No.’ Audley thought his own thoughts for a moment. ‘Actually … it just means that we’re studying the possible new men in the Kremlin … and in the KGB, which amounts to much the same thing … ’ Suddenly he raised himself again. ‘On the left, about three hundred yards—you’ll see a big copper beech … And a rather chi-chi carved house-name-plate attached to it … No—we’re into the new men, not the geriatrics—the has-beens, whom Comrade Gorbachev is busy kicking upstairs … or downstairs into the cellars, as the case may be.’

  Now he could slow down legitimately. But then he began to remember the pink-stained names in Audley’s cuttings, which had included Chebrikov and Aliev and Lomako, as well as Shevardnadze and his own Shkiriatov. ‘And you’re just studying S to Z, anyway … not Panin?’

  ‘Well … yes, you might say—’ Audley sat up ‘—just there! Do you see it?’

  Tom applied the brake. ‘Not Panin?’ What those cuttings told him was that Audley had never learnt to obey orders exactly: and that was also what Jaggard and Harvey had both said. And now he believed what Harvey had said.

  Audley twisted round to look behind him. ‘Aren’t you going in? Go on—there’s nothing behind, so far as I can see.’

  The driver’s privilege was to drive, or not to drive, as he chose. ‘Not Panin?’

  ‘Not Panin?’ Audley echoed the question as he untwisted himself. ‘You see where I mean?’ He pointed towards the great beech tree illuminated in the headlights. Then he looked at Tom. ‘No, not Panin, as it happens.’

  Tom met the look. ‘Because he’s a geriatric? A has-been?’ He folded his arms deliberately. ‘He must be as old as your Basil Cole.’

  ‘Yes. So he is.’ A freak reflection from the dashboard glinted redly in Audley’s spectacles, as though hinting at fire behind them. ‘But I wasn’t referring to him. He’s a very different kettle of fish, is Nikolai Panin.’ He moved slightly, and the red fire vanished. ‘Basil Cole will tell you.’

  It was the moment to confirm Audley’s perhaps erroneous suspicion that he was more than a superior bodyguard. ‘But I want you to tell me, David.’

  ‘Now you’re being difficult.’

  ‘Not difficult—’

  ‘Obstinate, then—’

  ‘Not obstinate, either.’ Tom switched off the lights. ‘Say … I want
to hear what you have to say about him first—’ He lifted one hand from the other to cut Audley’s reply off ‘—because someone shot at you, David. Not at Basil Cole. Okay?’

  ‘Well … if that’s what you want … ’ There was just enough half-light to convey the shrug of resignation, no more than that. ‘Panin is not about to defect, if that’s what you’re thinking, my lad—not in this age of the world!’

  It would have worried him if he’d thought of it, Tom realized belatedly. Because defection was always a killing matter on the Other Side. But neither Jaggard nor Harvey had even hinted at it; and to be allowed to go so far outside the London radius by his own side laughed that suspicion out of court, in any case.

  ‘He’s an old Communist—an old Red … from when “Red” meant something more than buying privilege in the Party’s duty-free shops.’ Audley’s voice was scornful out of the shadows of his face. “There aren’t many of them left now—thank God!‘ The half-grunt, half-chuckle came from deep down inside the man again. ’Do you know what an ”Ironside“ is—was, anyway—?‘

  Out of nowhere, in the gathering dusk, Tom realized that he was learning about something from the past at first hand, which was out of his more recent experience. ‘An Ironside?’

  ‘Cromwell’s Ironsides: they fought for what they loved, and loved what they fought for. Or maybe it was the other way round.’ The dark outline of the head, not close-cropped but just short of hair, nodded. ‘Or maybe old Nikolai didn’t love what he knew—I don’t know … But he fought for it all the way from Stalingrad, or whatever they call it now—“Volgograd”, or something? But I’ll lay you even money it’ll be Stalingrad again, one of these days … But from there, anyway, all the bloody way to Berlin, in ’45—and bloody is right; across twenty-five million Russian dead. And I wouldn’t defect after that—not even if I was commanding the Devil’s Armed Forces, with the Hounds of Hell ready to slip!‘ The dark head shook again. ’I remember first checking him in ‘69—staff officer in Khalturin’s division, in Chuikov’s army, all the way to Khrushchev’s Twentieth Congress, and afterwards … It took us one hell of a long time to pin down Nikolai Panin—in fact, I’m not sure that we ever did … But I only studied him because he happened to cross my path, anyway. It was purely accidental—or incidental, if you like. He’s never really been our meat. And we haven’t been his either, so far as I’m aware.’

  The slaughterhouse image reminded Tom too vividly of Beirut realities, the blood and entrails of which were far removed from metaphor. But also it hardly fitted what Jaggard had said. ‘Not your … meat?’

  ‘He’s not a bloody First Directorate man, is what I mean. He doesn’t run networks—doesn’t control illegals, or recruit traitors, or anything like that … ’ Audley trailed off. But then his face came round again. ‘What’s the biggest thing the KGB does—you tell me, Tom? What is it?’

  Answering trick questions was a mug’s game. ‘You tell me, David. I’m just a promoted minder.’

  ‘It’s internal security first.’ Audley hadn’t even wanted an answer. “Then it’s disinformation—fucking up our foreign policy—when we have one … And now it’s also probably pinching our higher technology.‘ The old man sniffed in the darkness. ’I’ve got a cold coming on, damn it!‘ He sniffed again. ’Panin has always been disinformation or internal security—none of your vulgar spying for him!‘ Another sniff. ’The first time I met him, he wasn’t trying to screw us—he was quietly and murderously engaged in making sure that the great Red Army didn’t step out of line. We weren’t worth a damn—we were just there to be deceived and used … Or bribed and used —huh!‘ Grunt-chuckle. ’I did him a favour. So, a few years later, he did me a favour. Which makes us quits, in his book.‘

  And in yours, thought Tom. ‘But he wants to talk to you now.’

  No reply. Which made Tom glance at the dashboard. But he had switched off the lights, so he could only guess how far they were falling behind schedule.

  ‘And he’s an expert on you, David.’

  No reply again, for a moment. ‘Yes. And that’s another thing that worries me.’ Another grunt-chuckle—but this time more grunt than chuckle. “The first time, I studied him and he repaid the compliment. Which is fair enough.‘ Another long breath. ’And we also have some reason to believe that he’s taken a certain non-specialist extra-mural interest in Research and Development ever afterwards. Which is really none of his business.‘

  ‘Yes?’ Audley hadn’t really stopped there, Tom sensed.

  ‘Oh … I rather thought he tried to damage me last year.’ Audley shrugged.

  Tom waited. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh … we lost a man … ’ Audley bridled ‘ … here in England, too.’

  ‘Yes?’ Tom remembered what Jaggard had hinted at.

  ‘Actually, it wasn’t my fault.’

  He would have given good money to see the old man’s face. ‘No?’

  ‘No. Not that it matters whose fault it was.’ Audley was silent for another brief moment. ‘But we did a bit of research afterwards, just to find out who we owed one to, for the future.’

  ‘It wasn’t a suitable case for … reciprocal action?’

  ‘No.’ Audley took up his moment of silence again. ‘He didn’t have red tabs on his lapels. He was just a poor bloody field officer.’ He looked at Tom in the darkness again. ‘If you catch a bullet in the line of duty they won’t avenge you, Tom. If I do … then they will. You better bear that in mind for the next few hours.’

  ‘There’s no justice in this world.’ But it did make horrible sense, thought Tom sadly: in Lebanon, the biblical eye-for-an-eye payment had reduced local life to a murderous all-comers chaos.

  ‘Never was, and never will be,’ agreed Audley. ‘But we’ve got long memories in Research and Development—like old Fred Clinton used to say, “the baked meats of revenge are best eaten cold”. So … we’ve got a name: or two on the red side of our tablet now, anyway. And we’ll dish the buggers one day, you can depend on it.’ He sniffed. ‘Killing isn’t our style, we don’t have the resources for it, never mind the permission. But there are others we can use who think quite differently—the French, for example—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘But you’re making me digress. Because, the point is that I got Old King Cole to check up on Panin then, because he’s the resident Panin-watcher—right?’

  ‘“M to R”, you mean?’

  ‘Just so—M to R, right!’ Audley nodded in the darkness. ‘And he said that so far old Nikolai was still busy keeping an eye on his own side … That he might have given the First Directorate a bit of advice, as a consultant, but nothing more.’ He sniffed. ‘Actually, to be heart-breakingly honest, he rather put me in my place, did Basil Cole. Huh!’

  ‘Oh?’ It took an effort to imagine such an occurrence. But the lightly self-mocking admission both established Cole as someone to be reckoned with and accounted for Audley’s present action satisfactorily. ‘How?’

  ‘He said that Panin had bigger fish to fry than me, in his own home frying-pan. And he also said that I wasn’t part of the man’s job—just his hobby.’ Another sniff.

  ‘Somehow I find that neither flattering nor reassuring, you know.’ Then he sat up suddenly. ‘But now I’ll make the old swine eat his words: he can tell us why Nikolai Andrievich is poaching in my coverts again after all these years. Right?’ He rapped the dashboard sharply. ‘So not another word, not another question—in with you.’

  Tom engaged the gear, and turned the big car cautiously past the huge beech tree into an overgrown rhododendron drive, still thick with unswept winter leaves.

  They were still a long way from Panin, but he felt better now. Or, anyway, he understood why Audley was doing what he was doing, even if it also suggested that Jaggard was unaware of a real Panin-expert in their midst, who knew more about the Russian than Audley did. But then (to be fair to Jaggard) Cole might have acquired his expertise in retirement service for Research and Development, not in his previous existence.


  The headlights picked up the red reflectors of a parked car, and then Tudor black-and-white half-timbering.

  ‘Pull round to the left,’ said Audley.

  More piles of decaying leaves; and the house wasn’t genuine Tudor, but minor stockbroker’s mock-Tudor, with only just enough room for him to squeeze the Ministry Rover past the elderly Ford which was jammed against its garage doors beside the darkened house. (And he had learnt something about the arcane workings of R & D, too; about which Harvey had been half-scornful, yet oddly envious: that killing wasn’t their style, but that they had long memories when there was a name to enter in the ledger of unpaid accounts.)

  ‘It doesn’t look as though anyone’s home, David.’ He scanned the unimpressive house again: its most notable attribute was the circle of huge beech trees which surrounded it, embracing it with their enormous limbs and cutting out what was left of the last faint remnants of daylight above them.

  ‘It wouldn’t—the sitting room’s at the back.’ Audley opened his door. ‘He’ll be in, don’t worry—he never goes out.’ He started to get out, but then stopped. ‘He’s somewhere inside a five-year drink-driving disqualification … not that I’ve ever noticed any difference in him, drunk or sober.’ He started to move again, and then stopped again. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Tom—drunk or sober, he’s good, believe you me. Fawcett was a fool for retiring him, and old Fred Clinton was nobody’s fool—I wish I’d known the game he was playing, years back, in fact—’ Then he grunted, and did at last lever himself out of the car.

  Tom switched off the lights, and for an instant it was prematurely night. Then the half-light seeped back through the beech trees, slightly reassuring him, with Beirut as well as this afternoon in mind: this was close country, with no high-rise buildings or distant ridges allowing long shots; and neither the Russian nor the American-Israeli night-sight image intensifiers were much use in these conditions, if he had not been quite as clever and careful in shaking off any pursuit as he thought he had been.