‘I was hoping you were going to tell me?’
‘She’s Ann Fleming, Gaitskell’s mistress. And I must say, Catesby, it is rather bad manners to get invited to a party like this and then try to screw your host’s girlfriend.’
‘Thanks for your advice on etiquette.’
‘Sure.’
‘And congratulations on your promotion.’
Fournier shrugged. ‘I didn’t really want to come here. I wanted to go back to France.’
‘But the French aren’t an unsinkable aircraft carrier.’
‘They certainly weren’t in 1940, but I prefer them to you guys – they don’t bother with hypocrisy and duplicity. Or maybe they’re just lousy at doing them.’
‘You can’t make generalisations about people.’
‘You can if you’re an American.’ Fournier looked closely at Catesby. ‘Why have you been telling fibs?’
‘Because it’s part of my job.’
‘Yeah, but telling fibs is pretty damn stupid when you know you’re going to get found out. And now you’re doing the supercilious smile.’
‘Actually, Kit, I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.’
‘It was an insult to Joe.’
‘Joe who?’
‘Joe You-goddamn-well-know-who: Joe, the labor, without a ‘u’, attaché. You told him you were an old friend of Gaitskell’s and went dancing with him at a jazz club in Manhattan after he became Secretary of the Treasury.’
‘Chancellor.’
‘Or whatever. Anyway, Joe thought you were a Member of Parliament – and maybe even part of the shadow cabinet – and felt he made a damn fool of himself when he asked Gaitskell about you. You owe Joe an apology.’
‘Okay. Let’s find Joe. I’ll apologise – and also give him a lesson on the English sense of humour.’
‘Which isn’t meant to be funny.’
‘Not always, but sometimes.’
‘In any case, let’s forget about Joe, he can take it. He’s a tough guy and a great labor attaché.’
Catesby knew more about Joe than he was going to let on. The problem with the CIA is that they occasionally let people with consciences slip through their recruitment net. One such was Paul, a CIA man who had been acting undercover as US labor attaché in Paris when Catesby met him. After a few Pernods, Paul confided that Washington was ‘paranoid as hell’ about European trade unions coming under Communist influence. He explained that any trade union that wanted CIA money simply needed to smear their rivals as being Communist-controlled. The ‘Commie’ smear tactic worked a treat in Marseilles and turned over the docks to unions with criminal connections who swapped socialism for drug trafficking. Paul also warned him that Joe was a rising star and on his way to England.
‘I bet,’ said Catesby fishing, ‘that Joe is finding the British Trade Union movement a bit difficult. If he goes up North, he might even need an interpreter-translator.’
‘He’s already been – and made a great friend of a Durham miner leader named Sam Watson. We’re not as naive about Britain as you think.’
Catesby smiled inwardly. Watson’s name was on two lists. One had been passed to him by Paul and contained ‘CIA agents of influence’ in the UK. The other was a list of attendees – along with Joe, Gaitskell and Fournier’s predecessor as CIA London Head of Station – at a series of secret meetings at the Russell Hotel. The purpose of the meetings was to discuss ways of expelling the left wing – including Wilson – from the Labour Party. At what point, thought Catesby, does scheming with spies from a foreign country to influence domestic politics become treason?
‘What we’re trying to do,’ said Fournier, ‘is help Britain. We love your country and we want to help make you strong and secure.’
Catesby nodded and hoped that his smile wasn’t supercilious again. The only British thing that Washington cared about was the British defence budget – and, if spending less on health and welfare was the best way to spend more on guns and bombs, so be it.
‘I need another drink,’ said Catesby, ‘I’ll see you later.’
Catesby wandered out of the kitchen into a maelstrom of sumptuous sociability. The house was bursting with refined British voices and urbane British elegance, but the strings were being pulled by American puppeteers. The power strategists in Washington weren’t always as stupid as they seemed. They were grooming the non-socialist pro-American wing of the Labour Party for power – an Oxbridge-led elite that felt comfortable within the traditional ruling circles of Britain. There was no way that Washington was going to let its unsinkable aircraft carrier be taken over by mutineers who wanted to rid its decks of US planes and nuclear weapons.
A woman in a strapless cocktail dress was walking around with canapés on a tray. Catesby helped himself to a caviar blini – and then made his way to a sideboard where there were pink cocktails with sticks of fruit. Upon closer inspection, he decided to look for wine. Meanwhile someone nibbling an olive on a stick smiled at Catesby and gestured to a bottle of wine in an ice bucket.
Catesby nodded a thank you to the man and refilled his glass. The man, who looked to be in his late forties, was bald and solidly muscled. He looked a lot rougher and harder than the other guests. He came over to Catesby and started speaking French. His French was fluent, but with a strong hint of Central Europe. After sociable small talk about the party, the man’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘May I shake your hand?’
Catesby smiled and shook his hand.
The man continued in a throaty whisper. ‘I want to thank you for what you did – and my people want to thank you too.’
‘Are you sure you’re not mistaking me for someone else?’
‘No. We know who you are, Monsieur Catesby.’
Catesby replied in a guarded tone. ‘What exactly are you thanking me for?’
‘What you did in Bremen.’
Catesby felt his bowels turn with dread. It was a ghost that wouldn’t stay buried.
‘If,’ said the man, ‘you ever want to do something like that again, let us know and we will help you.’
‘What if I’m not in a position to do so?’
‘Then tell us what you know – and we will do it ourselves.’
‘If I ever need your help, how would I contact you?’
‘Go to the grave of Charles Baudelaire in the Montparnasse Cemetery. You will see a likeness of the poet recumbent on his grave. Put a tiny chalk mark on his left big toe – then return to the cemetery at noon on the first Friday of the month. Someone will be there to meet you and will say, “Venge-moi”.’ You will identify yourself by replying, “Demain, aprés-demain et toujours!” Then tell them what you want.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You are our friend.’ The man saluted with his wine glass and drifted off.
Catesby had a good idea who the man worked for, but wasn’t going to make enquiries. Meanwhile, Stuart had turned up again.
‘Who,’ said Stuart, ‘do you see when you look in the mirror?’
‘Sometimes I see a murderer; other times, I see a traitor.’
‘Do you tell them that when you go for positive vetting?’
‘I lie. Everyone lies. The only ones who get caught are the ones who aren’t very good liars.’
‘Is Kim Philby a good liar?’
‘I’m not going to answer that question. What do you think? You knew him at Bletchley.’
‘I used to always say, “There’s something wrong with Philby.” But no one paid any attention – and they still don’t.’ Stuart paused. ‘And I don’t think Philby is a good liar. He doesn’t even try to be convincing. He’s almost bragging about being a liar – like at that press conference last year. It was as if he were saying, “I am lying, so what? What are you going to do about it?”’
Catesby kept a straight face. He wasn’t going to be drawn. Being an SIS officer was walking a tightrope between friends of Philby and friends of Washington. Catesby was neither – and it made him a very lonely man.
‘What do you think of this party?’ asked Catesby.
‘I’m enjoying the food, the drink, the people and the sparkling conversation. But I don’t like it. It’s a bit like that dinner party where the Goths cut the last emperor in half. Where’s your girlfriend?’
‘One of the Goths chased her away.’
‘She has an interesting history – used to be married to a press baron and still has powerful connections in the industry.’
‘Who do you see, Stuart, when you look in the mirror?’
‘I would love to see Spinoza, but I see the collabo the Maquisards executed after I interrogated him. He was, like me, a young intellectual who wanted to be an academic or writer – and movie-star handsome. We’d read the same authors – except he became a Fascist. Who knows?’
‘When we look into a mirror, Stuart, we’ve got to start seeing ourselves – we’re not bad people.’
‘Wouldn’t it,’ said Stuart, ‘be nice if that were true?’
The plot had succeeded. Catesby realised that as soon as he left the Gaitskell’s party in the early hours of the chill morning. The CIA and their British collaborators had won. They had vanquished the socialist wing of the Labour Party and installed their own poodle, Hugh Gaitskell. Washington’s unsinkable aircraft carrier bristling with US nuclear weapons was more safely afloat than ever – a change of government wouldn’t make any difference.
During the years that followed, Catesby remembered Henry Bone’s advice that it was part of an intelligence officer’s job to be ‘politically astute’. He followed the power games of Westminster as closely as he followed those in the Kremlin. Catesby knew that Gaitskell’s becoming Labour leader hadn’t come without a price. He had to appoint Harold Wilson as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to buy peace with the Left of the party. But being Shadow Chancellor didn’t mean that Wilson got invited to the smart cocktail parties at Frognal Gardens. The Gaitskellites snubbed him and even made snide remarks about the Wilsons having flying ducks on the sitting room wall. There were no ducks, flying or otherwise. Catesby knew there weren’t any, because he occasionally visited the family home to fill in Wilson on the latest dirty tricks his enemies in the Security Service were getting up to. The house was warm and tasteful – and totally without pretension. The visits were dangerous for Catesby. His briefing the Shadow Chancellor could be construed as gross misconduct. Not enough to go to jail, but sufficient to get sacked.
The anti-Wilson plot hadn’t been abandoned, but was slowly simmering on the back burner in case he ever came to power – which now seemed increasingly unlikely. But Wilson continued to make enemies who stored up grudges. The Americans were suspicious of his conciliatory line towards the Soviet Union – and suspected the worst. Wilson carried on working for the export-import firm Montague Meyer and made frequent trips to Russia and Eastern Europe. Catesby warned him to watch his back and not to trust the telephones at the company’s office in the Strand. Meanwhile, Wilson had begun to make serious enemies in the City. As Shadow Chancellor, he condemned insider trading and cartels. Big money, as Catesby came to realise, was the worst enemy of all. It could do anything it pleased.
As Catesby got to know Wilson better, he realised they had much in common. Both were grammar school outsiders who had clawed their way up via Oxbridge and government service. But Catesby was more of a chameleon. He was a natural actor and linguist who could put on any voice from posh to proletarian with regional variations – and do the same in French or German. Wilson, on the other hand, stuck to stolid Yorkshire – although he might have cultivated it a bit. The pipe, as Catesby knew, was for public display. In private, Wilson preferred cigars. So, to an extent, he was an actor too. On several occasions, Catesby had heard Wilson’s detractors refer to him as ‘impersonal’. The charge rang a bell, for Catesby often heard it levelled at himself. But, once you got to know him, it wasn’t true of Wilson. Catesby found the politician’s pleasures simple – good food, drink, conversation and the holiday bungalow in the Scilly Isles – but the joy of being around Wilson was his jokes and sparkling wit.
London: January, 1959
Catesby was in serious trouble and his estranged wife was furious. When he went around to Stanhope Gardens to talk about it, Frances dragged him into the small courtyard garden so the children wouldn’t overhear what she had to say.
‘I’m freezing,’ he said, ‘can’t we go back inside?’
‘No, you stand there and listen. You have no idea how difficult it is bringing up teenagers as a single parent with a full-time job.’
‘No problem, I’ll move in and help.’
‘No way are you moving in after what you’ve just done. My son is going through a difficult phase and you’ve made things worse.’
Catesby smiled to smooth things over, but he quickly realised the smile was a mistake.
‘It’s not funny and you shouldn’t have given him the idea that it was. He needs boundaries and guidance. I’m trying to instil some responsibility and sense of discipline – and then you go and undermine it.’
‘How long is the suspension?’
‘A week.’
‘That’s outrageous.’
‘No, it isn’t. We’re lucky he didn’t get excluded – and it is a good school.’
‘I’m glad you sent him to a comprehensive.’
‘But, Will, why did you laugh when he told you the story?’
‘Because it was funny.’
Catesby thought the chemistry teacher had handled the situation badly. Okay, his stepson had been messing around in the lab, but that was no reason for the teacher to have reacted the way he did. The teacher had prodded Catesby’s stepson with a ruler and shouted, ‘There’s an idiot on the end of this ruler!’ And the stepson had replied, ‘Which end?’ When he told his stepdad what had happened, Catesby had laughed out loud. Which, he now realised, was probably not the right response. Catesby then made things worse by praising his stepson for being witty and standing up to authority.
‘Sometimes,’ said Frances, ‘I think the rumours about you might be true.’
‘Which rumours, that I’m a Soviet spy?’
‘No, William, I don’t think the Russians would have you – they would find you too immature.’
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘Because it’s impossible to take you seriously. No, you’re not a Sov mole; you’re an adolescent revolutionary. You shouldn’t be at Broadway Buildings, you should be marching up and down Oxford Street handing out “Ban the Bomb” leaflets.’
‘I think we should ban the bomb, don’t you?’
Frances shrugged.
‘Sorry, do you want me to have a word with your son?’
‘No, he likes you the way you are.’
The last three years had been a difficult time for Catesby personally. He and Frances had continued to drift apart, but they were still friends and sometimes lovers – even though they had both been unfaithful. During an operation aimed at penetrating East German intelligence and getting rid of a double agent, Catesby had an affair with an East German artist. He had almost fallen in love with the woman, but she was killed in the operation – and guilt replaced love.
Another personal tragedy involved the fate of Catesby’s sister, Freddie. She had been sacked from her job as a translator at GCHQ, but Freddie was lucky not to get a long prison sentence. Catesby had long suspected Tomasz, Freddie’s lover, of being an East Bloc Romeo agent. Tomasz was too good to be true – and too handsome and charming for his sister. It was heartbreaking, but Freddie’s mad passion for Tomasz had led her to pass on secret information. When Catesby found evidence of what she had been doing, he destroyed it. In the end it didn’t matter because Freddie was arrested in any case – and then released because a trial would ‘not be in the public interest’. Even though Catesby had risked his career and freedom to protect his sister, she never forgave him for betraying Tomasz.
In the end, Catesby realised that Bone had be
en manipulating all the players – like a cat tossing a mouse from paw to paw. Tomasz’s death was convenient and cleared the air for all concerned.
Whether or not Bone had killed Tomasz to protect British interests or to protect his own interests was a question still to be answered. But Bone knew where all the bodies were buried – and Catesby could point to a few fresh graves as well. Bone’s unwavering belief in Kim Philby as a ‘triple agent’ remained a sore point between them. It might have been a genuine belief – or an alibi. Catesby had a view, but kept quiet about it. Bone’s secrets were safe with Catesby – as were Catesby’s with Bone. The terms of the insurance policy were simple: ‘If you grass me, I’ll grass you’.
Meanwhile, despite setbacks in his personal life, Catesby’s career prospered and the promotions came as regular as spring blossom. One of Catesby’s most successful operations had been a sting that busted a nuclear spy ring. The op also trapped Kit Fournier and turned him into a British agent and prisoner. Catesby had always known of Fournier’s dark incestuous secret – and used it to entrap him. The Americans were glad to see the back of Fournier – and accepted the myth that he was missing and probably dead. Fournier’s imprisonment on a remote South Atlantic Island became an SIS legend, but also its most closely held secret.
1 January 1963
It was brutally cold and the roads blocked with snow. Catesby had bought a cottage in a Suffolk village, which was his rural hideaway. It wasn’t too far from where his mother lived in Lowestoft – but not too near either. He needed a bolthole in the countryside he knew and loved – and now he was stuck in that bolthole. Catesby had spent Christmas with his sister and mother and Boxing Day with his estranged wife’s family. Then it happened. It was already cold, but the Arctic finally said, ‘Fuck you, Suffolk’. It was Thursday afternoon, 27 December.
A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) Page 13
