A Very British Ending (Catesby Series)

by Edward Wilson

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave

  When first we practise to deceive

  Allen Dulles wrote an action note in the right column. ZIPPER will become the BND. The Catesby situation suggests that the Burgess and Maclean defections may just be the tip of the iceberg. We all know that Philby is a Soviet spy, but for some asinine reason the Brits won’t do anything about it. It’s the ‘old boy’ network. Dulles paused and gave a wry smile. He wasn’t unaware of the irony of a Dulles complaining about an ‘old boy’ network.

  Dulles continued to the next log entry. It bore an OD/ACID cryptonym, which indicated it was from the State Department and not CIA. OD/SONOF, the new labor attaché in London was hot stuff. The McCarthyite witch-hunters wrongly regarded him with suspicion because he had been a Marxist in his youth, but this background gave him the cover he needed to infiltrate the British trade union movement and the Labour Party. OD/SONOF was a gem.

  OD/SONOF London to DCI. The continued rise of the Bevanite socialist wing of the Labor Party should be a source of serious concern for Washington. We should do everything possible to support Hugh Gaitskell as next leader of the Labor Party. Gaitskell is NOT a socialist and would be a reliable US ally. It was Gaitskell as Chancellor who introduced prescription charges to divert money to UK defense spending. The key dangers of the Bevanites to US interests are:

  1 Nuclear disarmament.

  2 The possibility of Britain’s future withdrawal from NATO.

  3 A British foreign policy that would be at best skeptical of Washington; at worst, hostile.

  4 Decolonisation despite the threat of Communist encroachment.

  5 The Bevanites believe in state control of what they call ‘the commanding heights of the economy’ including nationalization of steel.

  If Hugh Gaitskell becomes leader of the Labour Party all this will be avoided. In many ways, a right-wing Labour prime minister would be preferable to a Conservative one.

  The most likely Bevanite challenger to Gaitskell is SM/OATSHEAF. Everything must be done to undermine OATSHEAF – and elements of the UK Security Service may be complicit in this.

  Dulles wasn’t surprised about the dangers of Britain stepping out of line with US policy, but thought that OD/SONOF might be advised to lower his profile. He had been sent a clipping from the Daily Mirror describing OD/SONOF’s Kensington flat as a ‘salon for Gaitskellites’. He picked up his pen. Excellent work, but beware of being regarded as a spy from the US embassy. Try to keep a more low-key and covert profile. But, by all means, liaise with members of the British Security Service who are sympathetic to undermining SM/OATSHEAF and British socialism in general. We must keep US fingerprints off the weapons involved. The trick is to influence British behavior in ways in which that influence cannot be linked to the USA.

  Would, thought Dulles sitting back and pulling on his pipe, a PB/SUCCESS operation ever have to be mounted in Britain?

  Bonn: March, 1953

  Catesby was proud of what he had done. Getting an agent to whistle another tune wasn’t easy – and it had taken months of repetition and hard work. Some sceptics might say that the agent concerned neither believed nor understood the words he was parroting, but when Catesby looked into one of his eyes – it wasn’t possible to look into both at the same time – he was certain that the agent concerned had true conviction and was a true fan. Catesby had finally worked out why Black Hermann had stopped croaking Deutschland Kaputt. It was because, after 1945, the bird no longer heard his owner – now long dead – muttering those words as he washed glasses behind the bar while artillery shells detonated in the near distance. But Hermann still squawked Scheisse, because he still heard people in the office – both Brits and Germans – using the word every time they mistyped a word or misplaced a file.

  It isn’t easy to teach a mynah bird to say Ipswich Town. The psw is difficult for a bird, but ich – a bit Germanic in any case – and Town were easy. It took a long time, but Hermann finally started gurgling ‘Ipswich Town’ and then shouting it. The problem was it often came out followed by the only other word that Hermann could squawk – and ‘Ipswich Town Scheisse’ wasn’t what Catesby wanted to hear. He was certain there was a saboteur in the office, but he wasn’t going accuse Gerald directly. Catesby soon realised that a mynah bird’s brain doesn’t differentiate between words. As far as the bird was concerned, the three words were just a single sound – and it was sabotage. The trick was to say all the words you wanted at once and eventually the bird would repeat them. It took a few weeks, but soon Hermann was regularly squawking ‘Ipswich Town Wunderbar’. Catesby soon learned that he only had to whisper the phrase to get Hermann going – and Town needed a lot of cheering as they had just lost their fourth match in a row, a humiliating 1–6 defeat to Millwall at home. Catesby was musing how to smuggle Hermann into the North Stand at Portman Road, when he saw Gerald looming above his desk with a loop of key tape from a 5-UCO cipher machine hanging from his forearm.

  ‘That looks important,’ said Catesby. The ponderous 5-UCOs, which consumed lorry loads of key tape, were only used for secret communication.

  ‘I don’t know, sir, I haven’t read it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Catesby unhooked the tape from Gerald’s arm. It was from DIR/W.EUR/SOVBLOC, but as was the protocol never mentioned the holder’s name. The message was brief for the amount of tape consumed. RETURN TO LONDON IMMEDIATELY FOR CONSULTATIONS. Catesby balled up the key tape and stuffed it in the burn bag. Henry Bone never wasted a word or let on to anything even when using the most secure communications. He knew there were eyes everywhere.

  ‘I bet,’ said Gerald, ‘it’s about Stalin’s death and the Sov succession.’

  Catesby nodded. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

  The Soviet ruler had died a fortnight before, but nothing was coming out of Moscow. Catesby’s intuition told him that Bone wanted to talk about something else and that Stalin’s death was convenient cover for his recall.

  Green Park, London: 26 March 1953

  The earliest daffodils had already started to shrivel into yellow parchment – and Ipswich had just lost their fifth match in a row. Things weren’t going well with Catesby’s love life either. Frances was polite and friendly, but she wouldn’t let him stay the night. ‘I don’t want to confuse the twins,’ she said. ‘But what about me?’ said Catesby. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she replied, ‘you’re always confused.’

  It didn’t look like it was a going to be a good spring for Catesby. The daffodils, he thought, said it all: so bright, so early, so full of promise and the first to fade – like a seventeen-year-old turning ninety overnight.

  ‘I wanted fresh air,’ said Bone. ‘And I love spring in London.’

  Catesby nodded and stared at the Georgian terraces that overlooked the park from the east. There were so many windows, so many prying eyes. He wondered why Bone always brought him to Green Park for confidential talks. They must look so conspicuous. Two bowler-hatted civil servants strolling along with perfectly rolled umbrellas, so obviously having a chat about the budget or foreign policy – or espionage – certainly something they couldn’t talk about in front of colleagues in Whitehall. ‘Have you brought me here,’ said Catesby thinking aloud, ‘because you think your office is bugged?’

  ‘My office is not bugged – and no one would dare.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I don’t share my anti-surveillance procedures – and nor should you yours.’ Bone sighed. ‘You have a way, Catesby, of ruining a beautiful spring day with your tedious concerns.’

  ‘It isn’t nice. It’s turning windy and wet – look at those clouds.’

  Bone smiled. ‘You’ve made my point. Let’s sit down.’

  Catesby turned to a bench facing the Georgian terrace.

  ‘That’s a bit foolish, isn’t it,’ said Bone nodding towards the tall houses overlooking the park. ‘You know who lives there, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sit there.’ Bo
ne pointed his brolly at a bench with its back towards a townhouse of four storeys that loomed behind them about a hundred yards away.

  ‘Who lives there?’

  ‘A press baron with a grudge against the Secret Intelligence Service. Imagine a minion with a pair of binoculars who can read lips.’

  ‘Is he one of those who think we’re the London branch of Moscow Central?’

  ‘Very likely. But the reason for his grudge is more personal. One of our former officers went off with the baron’s wife – really was a case of musical beds. She had his baby last year – and he’s just published a novel about an SIS spy.’

  ‘Based on you, Henry?’

  Bone laughed. ‘Our surnames are similar, but the resemblance ends there. I was asked to read parts of it to make sure it didn’t contravene the Official Secrets Act – and it didn’t come close.’

  ‘Was the novel any good?’

  ‘It’s what the Italians would call divertente – but the prose style has the silkiness of an ironic mandarin. The wife, by the way, is a fascinating woman.’ Bone gestured behind him with his thumb at the large Georgian house overlooking the park. ‘She used to live there when she was married to the press baron – husband number two – number one bought it in the war.’

  ‘Did she like it?’

  ‘The house? Absolutely not, it’s ghastly – and she knew it. We laughed about it. The exterior, as you probably noticed, reprises the bogus French Renaissance style of the late nineteenth century. The interior isn’t much better. Nothing is symmetrical and sedate. Among the most hideous excesses are the pulvino architraves and a frieze with husk festoons and overly ornate paterae.’

  ‘Phew, I can see why you don’t want that press baron to read your lips. He’d be furious.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Catesby. People like that don’t care about aesthetics – or the opinions of those who do. In fact, they despise people like me and Anthony as effete. The divide – and it isn’t a class divide, but a divide within the class itself – begins at boarding school and continues in later life. Far from being ashamed of their bad taste, they like to flaunt it. It’s the rich bully shouting “fuck you” to the world.’ Bone smiled. ‘But, William, I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know.’

  Catesby smiled bleakly.

  ‘As a Marxist, William, your understanding of class division and conflict has always been perceptive.’

  Catesby frowned. When a senior officer of the Secret Intelligence Service refers to you as a Marxist, one might detect the beginnings of an interrogation. For a second, Catesby wondered if Bone might be wired up for recording. He decided to play safe. ‘I am not a Communist and have never been a member of the Communist Party. I have been a member of the Labour Party, but had to give up my membership because it is deemed incompatible with my role as an SIS officer – a rule, by the way, that I consider unfair as well as our being banned from trade union membership.’

  ‘But you deny being a Marxist?’ There was something sly in Bone’s voice.

  Catesby wondered if there was a pile of his undergraduate essays that someone from personnel was sifting through with a prying eye. ‘No one can completely ignore the influence that Marx has had on contemporary thinking. In that context, most people who have been to university – or have ever used the words proletariat, bourgeoisie or class – are to some degree Marxists.’

  ‘And what about yourself?’

  Catesby shrugged. ‘I see Marx as a nineteenth-century proponent of scientific theory. Marx tried to analyse human society using the same scientific method that Darwin applied to natural history. But Marx failed to grasp some of the nuances of class in Britain – subtle nuances of humour and interaction that stop us from ripping each others’ throats out.’ Catesby smiled. ‘But maybe that’s just me being naive and optimistic.’

  ‘Or you being patriotic?’

  ‘I don’t like the word.’

  ‘But I do,’ said Bone. ‘I love this country with a passion – and, if you haven’t noticed that, you realise nothing about me.’

  Catesby stared across the park towards Buckingham Palace.

  Bone gave a slight head bow and touched the brim of his bowler. ‘And I am a royalist too.’

  Catesby bit his tongue. There were many things he could say – especially about Bone’s palace-ensconced friend – but would not. He had once received a report from one of his East German honey-traps transcribing a conversation with a Soviet MGB agent about a certain Entoni Frederik Blant. The MGB agent – spouting vodka-fuelled indiscretion – had angrily referred to ‘Entoni Blant’ as a ‘two-faced shit’. Catesby had passed on the report to Bone who had received it with a satisfied smile. Spying was a far more complex game than chess. It was a game where a red bishop could suddenly change into a white knight – while the pawns, like Catesby, looked on in confusion.

  ‘We must,’ said Bone, ‘stay two steps ahead of them.’

  Catesby didn’t need to ask who ‘them’ were. On one level, ‘them’ were those who posed a danger to Bone and his friends. On a more idealistic level, ‘them’ were the forces who wanted to turn Britain – a country that Bone genuinely loved – into something ugly and unrefined. Despite their deep personal differences, at some point the ideal Britains of Catesby and Bone overlapped. There was friction between them, but they were allies – in what was probably a lost cause.

  Bone looked closely at Catesby. ‘The funeral, by the way, is next Tuesday at Windsor and I’ve been asked to represent SIS.’

  The Queen’s grandmother had just died. Catesby had only known Queen Mary from news photos and cinema clips. She had struck him as austere. ‘Will the coronation be postponed?’

  ‘No, it’s going ahead as planned on the second of June – but that’s still top secret.’

  ‘Are you going to be invited?’

  ‘I would think so.’

  ‘I bet the Sovs will be there too.’

  ‘Only the Ambassador – it’s diplomatic protocol.’

  ‘But none of the Romanovs?’

  ‘Your attempts at droll humour, Catesby, always fall flat.’

  ‘But I think the Sov Ambassador would rather talk about them than Stalin’s successor.’

  Bone smiled. ‘Now that, Catesby, was funny. But we’ve got sidetracked.’

  ‘You haven’t brought me here to talk about funerals and coronations.’

  Bone shook his head and stared at the ground. ‘Things appear calmer than they are, but the pot is slowly boiling. We always think that Britain is different – more stable – than other countries. But we might be wrong.’ Bone paused. ‘Treason usually, but not always, comes from the right wing. It happened in Italy in 1922. We saw what began in Germany with the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923; it happened in Lisbon in 1926; in Spain in 1936. Perhaps I’m talking drivel and nonsense.’

  Catesby nodded.

  ‘Humour me, William. If you were staging a coup d’état in our green and pleasant land, how would you do it?’

  Catesby smiled. ‘The first thing I would do would be to put a bullet in your head – and then in my own.’

  ‘That’s very flattering – and then what?’

  Catesby tilted his head towards the press baron’s mansion. ‘And then I’d get him and others like him on the side of the coup plotters. I wouldn’t do it through force or threats; I’d do it through flattery and persuasion – and also their self-interest in terms of money and gongs. I’d make the press barons feel that they were medieval barons – real players carving up and controlling Britain.’

  ‘And what would you, Catesby, a mid-ranking intelligence officer on £1,500 per annum, have to offer someone as grand and rich as a press baron?’

  ‘Something that money can’t buy – or shouldn’t be able to buy – Her Majesty’s most closely guarded State Secrets.’

  ‘Precisely. Secrets are gold bullion – and intelligence officers are, relatively speaking, paupers compared to the press barons. It’s an institution
al weakness, a fatal weakness. Which is why any officer who violates the Official Secrets Act should be hung, drawn and quartered. Don’t you agree?’

  Catesby nodded.

  ‘The Security Service is out of control – and so are we.’ Bone smiled. ‘At least, we don’t have to worry about budget cuts – any minister who dares make such a suggestion will be covertly briefed against and smeared.’ Bone looked at Catesby and laughed. ‘And you think we need a trade union?’

  Catesby shrugged.

  ‘Secrets are currency, William – and we control the exchange rate. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Thank you for destroying my naive illusions.’

  ‘You’ve never had any illusions. Back to the coup – what next, William?’

  ‘The Americans. The plotters would need Yank money and Yank glamour to support the coup.’

  ‘What about US Marines?’

  ‘Absolutely unnecessary and it would be a mistake. British people would never accept foreign troops patrolling our towns. The plotters would need our military on their side.’

  Bone stared into the distance. ‘We have to take risks. If others ignore the Official Secrets Act, so do we.’ Bone paused. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to tell him?’

  Catesby hadn’t a clue who Bone was talking about, but nodded agreement.

  Bone reached into his coat pocket and handed Catesby a thick envelope fastened by string. ‘Don’t look now. But when you do, you will find documents and photos that neither of us should have.’

  ‘What should I do with them?’