A Very British Ending (Catesby Series)

by Edward Wilson

  Catesby looked at his watch. It was too late for the underground and it was an hour’s walk to the flat in Pimlico. He turned north to Cromwell Road where he was going to have to splash out for a taxi. He hadn’t walked far when he saw them. They were sitting in a stately four-door Austin 8. It was one of the clumsiest surveillance stakeouts that he’d ever seen: two men wearing trilbies sitting smoking in a parked car. Why, Catesby thought, didn’t they just hoist a sign saying MI5 Surveillance Team? But maybe they wanted to be seen. Was it a form of intimidation aimed at him or Frances? Or a warning? Catesby was pretty certain that some of his wife’s bosses wouldn’t be happy about a marital reconciliation. In any case, he wasn’t playing the game and the wine made him bold. Catesby strode over to the car. It was a bit odd, he thought, that they were staked out in an Austin instead of a Humber from the Security Service garage pool in Kennington. Catesby stood next to the passenger side window, which was too fogged up for him to recognise who was inside. He didn’t know what he should say. A brisk ‘fuck off’ seemed most in character. On the other hand, he could turn it into a joke and ask them for a lift to Pimlico to save them the trouble of trailing him. Catesby smiled and tapped on the window.

  As soon as the window began to crack open Catesby knew that something was wrong. It smelled wrong. MI5 ‘watchers’ don’t smoke Gauloises. The driver spoke first, but it wasn’t in English or French – and the words weren’t addressed to Catesby. He was giving an instruction to the man in the passenger seat. Catesby was already sprinting at full stride before the first shot was fired. He heard the car door open. He didn’t look behind, but heard two more shots. Catesby now was weaving and twisting like a hare trying to outwit a lurcher. He heard the driver shout another order. Catesby recognised the language, but didn’t understand it. The car door shut and the engine started.

  Catesby was now on Cromwell Road where there were people and a fair amount of late night traffic. He ducked into the shadows of a passageway next to the Gloucester Road tube station and kept an eye out for the Austin 8. He reckoned they might have given up the chase. He waited until he saw a taxi before stepping into the light. He quickly hailed it looking both ways.

  ‘You sound like you’ve been running,’ said the driver.

  ‘I’m being chased by a jealous husband waving a meat cleaver.’

  ‘Happens to all of us.’

  ‘Listen, I hope you won’t mind, but I’d like to take evasive action to make sure we’re not being followed.’

  Catesby then put the driver through a series of manoeuvres and feints, which he had been trained to do as ‘counter-surveillance’ craft. When they finally arrived in Pimlico, Catesby was almost certain that they hadn’t ‘grown a tail’, but he still asked the driver to drop him off a couple of hundred yards from the flat in Tachbrook Street. He would make his way there via a series of back alleys and ‘choke points’ to make sure he wasn’t being followed – he didn’t want to put Freddie in danger.

  The driver looked at Catesby with suspicious admiration as he accepted the tip and fare. ‘You seem to know your stuff, guv.’

  ‘You have to when you play around.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, Will,’ said Freddie taking Catesby’s jacket. ‘You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

  ‘A blackthorn hedge.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what sort.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to lock and bolt the door behind us?’

  ‘I have to leave it open. Tomasz forgot his key ring.’

  ‘Then at least he won’t lose it while he’s out shagging and getting pissed with his mates.’ Catesby knew that Freddie had made up the story about Tomasz as a pretext for getting him away from his wife. For some reason his sister despised Frances and wanted to keep them apart.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘You lied to me. Didn’t you, Freddie?’

  ‘Would you like something stronger? We’ve got some Spanish brandy.’

  ‘Republican or Fascist?’

  ‘We’ve also got Slivovitz, plum brandy from Czechoslovakia – you might find that more ideologically sound.’

  ‘Not necessarily. You know, for an anti-Communist member of the szlachta, Tomasz has quite a store of East Bloc spirits.’

  Freddie shrugged.

  ‘I think,’ said Catesby, ‘I’ll take my chances with General Franco’s brandy.’

  Freddie smiled. ‘I always suspected you were a class traitor. I’ll get you a glass.’

  Catesby sat down to a creaking of springs. ‘We need a new sofa.’ The Tachbrook flat was also Catesby’s home when he was in London. It was located in the basement of yet another building owned by Frances’s family. The top floors were lived in by eccentric aunts with artistic and musical connections – a whiff of Bloomsbury in Pimlico. You often heard musical instruments being played through the ceiling.

  Freddie came back with the drinks. ‘I take it for granted that you lied to me,’ said Catesby, ‘so I can rest assured that Tomasz isn’t going to burst through the door wielding an axe.’

  Freddie nodded.

  ‘Good. I’ve already had someone try to kill me this evening.’

  ‘Was it Frances?’

  Catesby smiled. ‘You said that with a real gleam of hope in your eye. No, we were having a loving evening until you telephoned. Don’t pout.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me and treat me like a child.’

  Catesby sipped his brandy. His sister was two years younger than him. They had both experienced the grinding poverty of 1930s Lowestoft – and their politics had been formed by it. There was no one closer to him, but no one that he understood less.

  ‘I’m sorry that I snapped at you.’ Freddie smiled. ‘Did someone really try to kill you?’

  The exhilaration of his brush with death was now wearing off and Catesby had begun to feel numb and empty. It was always like that. Being in battle was always better than the depression that came afterwards. Catesby nodded, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m still trying to put the pieces together.’ Catesby looked at his sister. ‘You’re a better linguist than I am.’

  ‘That’s not true – but I studied harder.’

  ‘Who do you know who speaks Elsässerditsch?’

  ‘No one, but I’ve heard it spoken during a visit to Strasbourg.’

  ‘And it’s only spoken in Alsace?’

  ‘As far as I know – and maybe a tiny corner of Lorraine.’

  Catesby didn’t need further convincing. He was sure the two men in the Austin had been speaking the low German dialect of Alsace. He had heard it before. It was a distinct dialect that couldn’t be mistaken for Swabian or Swiss German.

  ‘Their “no”,’ said Freddie, ‘is something like naan.’

  Catesby nodded.

  ‘Is this something to do with Oradour-sur-Glane?’ asked Freddie.

  ‘They tried to shoot me.’

  ‘What?’

  Catesby briefly explained what had happened, then stared blankly into space. He hadn’t told her everything about Oradour-sur-Glane, but he had confided in his sister more than anyone else. Oradour was a war crime that was tearing France apart. At least a third of the soldiers who had carried out the massacre were not Germans, but Alsatians who had been French citizens before 1940 and became French citizens again after 1945. It was an unhealed wound and the trial of the Alsatians who had been part of the SS battalion at Oradour kept getting delayed. Although Catesby had only seen the aftermath, the French prosecutor had summoned him to be a witness if the trial ever took place. The request had caused consternation at SIS and the British government were trying to assure Catesby’s anonymity.

  ‘They want to shut you up, don’t they, Will?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Catesby did know that a lot of people wanted him dead, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with a French war crimes trial. The art of getting rid of someone was to make it look like
someone else did it for a completely different reason. Catesby wanted to change the subject. ‘Where’s Tomasz?’

  ‘He’s on the nightshift at Bush House.’

  ‘Nothing more dramatic?’

  ‘Sorry, Will.’

  ‘What have you got against Frances?’

  Freddie drank her brandy and tossed her hair back. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘What has Frances got against Tomasz?’

  ‘Can we start answering questions instead of asking them?’

  ‘You first.’

  ‘You’re jealous of Frances. You didn’t want me to get married – you wanted to keep me as a big brother to lean on and to deal with Moeder.’

  ‘What a stupid, silly and egotistical answer.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘But it was an answer. Your turn. Tell me about Frances and Tomasz.’

  ‘She’s spying on him.’

  ‘Personally or professionally?’

  ‘Both. Tomasz is sure that Frances has put him under surveillance – that she opens his mail and that our phone is tapped.’

  ‘Do you want me to check the phone for a bug? I can show you how.’

  Freddie smiled knowingly. ‘Of course you can, Will. But no one can check if a phone is tapped at the GPO exchange.’

  ‘Good point.’ Catesby kept a straight face. If a UK phone itself was tapped, it was a sign that the person listening in was a foreign spy, a criminal or a jealous lover or spouse. The UK Security Services worked with GPO telephone engineers.

  ‘Frances,’ continued Freddie, ‘is trying to destroy Tomasz and our relationship by putting him under suspicion as a spy – and that is utter nonsense.’

  ‘Why does she want to do this? What’s her motive?’

  Freddie smiled slyly. ‘I think it’s jealousy. Frances has always fancied Tomasz – and can’t bear the thought that someone as lowborn and mousy as myself could have landed him. I’m sure she made a play for him and Tomasz rejected her – and now she wants revenge.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘So my wife doesn’t love me.’

  ‘You’ve just realised that, Will?’

  ‘You’re being especially poisonous this evening.’

  ‘You have every reason to be jealous, Will. Tomasz is far more interesting and attractive than you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I am winding you up a bit.’

  ‘How,’ said Catesby, ‘has Tomasz discovered that he’s under surveillance and suspicion?’

  ‘He says that people have told him that people are asking questions about him?’

  Catesby kept a straight face and hid his annoyance. Bad security. Someone was spying on Tomasz, but it wasn’t Frances.

  Bonn: November, 1951

  Normally, Catesby had two clerical assistants in his office at the British embassy, but Miss Greenwood was off on maternity leave. She was no longer, of course, a Miss. She was now married to a major general who had divorced his wife to start a new family. The former Miss Greenwood, now Lady Laetitia, celebrated her fortieth birthday by having a baby.

  Catesby’s sole remaining office help was Gerald, an ex-RAF engineer who was invaluable. There were fewer hands, but the office atmosphere was a lot lighter. The proudly proletarian Gerald and the posh and prim Miss Greenwood used to circle each other like opposing warships about to do battle. One of Gerald’s duties was accompanying the British Liaison Team tasked with observing Soviet military exercises in East Germany. In the wake of those exercises, Gerald and others surreptitiously collected the fragments of letters, manuals and even codebooks that the Red Army soldiers used as toilet paper. Gerald always proudly bore his intelligence trove back to the office in Bonn. It was, of course, invaluable stuff. He tried, once too often, to show it off to Miss Greenwood.

  Her piercing ‘Fuck off!’ was the loudest noise Catesby had ever heard in the embassy. He later found out that even the Ambassador had heard it.

  There was a long awkward silence before Miss Greenwood began typing again. Catesby looked at Gerald and shook his head. Catesby waited a moment; then said, ‘Miss Greenwood.’

  ‘Yes, Captain Catesby.’ She was the only person in the world who addressed him by his former rank. She stopped typing.

  ‘I apologise. We shouldn’t bring such material into the office.’ Catesby furtively winked at Gerald. He wanted to keep him onside as well, but fully understood Miss Greenwood’s just anger. ‘In future, Gerald, could you photograph and file intelligence of that nature?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then send the originals on to the Americans. We owe the cousins a favour – they do so much for us.’

  After Miss Greenwood went on leave, Catesby was surprised how flawlessly Gerald had taken over her clerical duties. He dealt with routine correspondence efficiently and typed replies in Catesby’s own style for signature – and sometimes forged that too.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’

  ‘How should I address you?’

  ‘Just say what you want to say.’

  ‘You have an invitation to dinner.’ Gerald smiled. ‘And it’s addressed to “Your Excellency” – so maybe my calling you “sir” is too modest.’

  ‘Is it to some arty thing?’ Catesby’s dip cover, third secretary in the cultural attaché’s section, meant he had to go to a lot of concerts and exhibitions.

  ‘I don’t know. The address appears to be a Rhineland Schloss.’

  ‘From a baron, I hope?’

  ‘Indeed it is. Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg. Oddly, he signs his name in Russian. Look.’

  Catesby took the letter and smiled. ‘Have you never heard of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg?’

  ‘No. Is he famous?’

  ‘Infamous, I should say – and very dead.’ Catesby went over to a bookcase and found a history of the civil war that tore Russia apart after the Bolshevik Revolution. He turned to the appropriate page and handed the book to Gerald.

  ‘It sounds,’ said Gerald, ‘that he was a bad guy.’

  Catesby shrugged. ‘We shouldn’t make moral judgements in our business.’

  ‘But you always do.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘That’s top secret.’

  Catesby decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to drive a British Humber emblazoned with Corps Diplomatique number plates to the castle. His section had access to a few German cars with ordinary plates. Catesby chose a rather grand Opel Kapitän six-cylinder saloon – the sort of car a bloated black market profiteer would have wrangled for calling on an ex-SS general who wanted to fence a looted work of art. A lot of the reborn Germany stank. At times, Catesby thought the gallows at Nuremberg and Hamelin hadn’t been busy enough. On one occasion, just after the Hamburg Ravensbrück trial, he had met Albert Pierrepoint in the Officers’ Mess at Celle. Pierrepoint went on to swing 202 German war criminals – and that day had just executed three women; the oldest sixty-one, the youngest twenty-seven. The hangman sipped his whisky and looked at Catesby. ‘It doesn’t make any difference, you know?’

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘Hanging them. It doesn’t deter people.’

  ‘But it punishes them.’

  ‘It certainly does that.’

  The road to the castle was winding and when it turned east there were stunning views of the Rhine reflecting the full moon. It was deliciously spooky and a bit corny. The builders of Rhineland castles didn’t aim at subtlety and understatement. It was, Catesby thought, the very opposite of his native East Anglia. When the castle finally silhouetted itself against the darker night sky, Catesby counted five turrets. There was also a wall with battlements.

  The final approach was across a drawbridge that spanned a deep gully. There was a gatehouse that guarded entry to the outer bailey. A cast-iron gate with spikes had been winched up and Catesby tried not to imagine it crashing through the roof of the Opel Kapitän and impaling him like a kebab. As he drove into the bailey he spotted a Rolls-Royce and decided to park next to
it.

  As soon as he got out of the car, Catesby heard muffled footsteps approaching – a swishing sound, as if the person were wearing velvet boots. A slight figure appeared out of the shadows wearing a calf-length leather tunic with a high collar and wide cup-shaped sleeves. The dress, thought Catesby, seemed somehow Asian – and the face, when illuminated by the moon, was that of a young East Asian woman. Catesby greeted her in English, ‘Good evening.’

  The woman answered in German. Her accent, in total contradiction to her appearance, was very upper-class East Prussian. She shook hands, bowed and silently clicked her soft boots.

  ‘Do you live here?’ said Catesby.

  ‘I am staying here for the moment, but I don’t know for how long.’

  ‘Was it you who invited me here this evening?’

  ‘No, it was my uncle. I must tell you about him before you go up.’ She stirred nervously and reached into a deep hidden pocket. ‘But you will be safe.’ She extended her palm. It bore a dark flat needle-shaped object about two inches long. ‘I took the precaution of removing the firing pin from his pistol. But I don’t think he would have used it in any case.’

  ‘How very kind.’

  ‘My uncle is mad, but doesn’t always seem so. Follow me closely – it’s easy to get lost here. A visitor recently died when he stepped on to a staircase that wasn’t there.’

  The dining room was high Gothic with add-ons. The fireplace was marble with a carved lintel depicting a primal battle between beasts, demons and naked men. The panelling and chairs were carved oak – with more laughing demons. It reminded Catesby of the pew ends at Blythburgh Church that had escaped being vandalised by Cromwell’s soldiers. The room was dominated by two life-size oil paintings. One was of Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg wearing the imperial Russian St George’s Cross for Bravery. He had won the medal for leading Cossack cavalry charges against German troops in 1915–1916. The Tsar had personally presented him the medal. The other oil painting depicted Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra and their son, Alexei Nikolaevich, translated to heaven and wearing the hallows of sainted martyrs. Catesby rightly surmised that he was the only atheist socialist in the room – but he still deplored what the Bolsheviks had done to the Tsar and his family. And yet, Catesby realised, he was a murderer too. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t done it.