Deep Blue

by Alan Judd

  ‘He’s on private business, sir,’ said Angus.

  ‘Really?’ The ambassador looked sceptical. The whole party stopped. Apart from the Russians there was the head of chancery, the commercial counsellor and members of the British trade delegation. The guard, assuming that Charles should have been part of the party, lifted the tape for him. Charles felt obliged to go through and found himself alongside Federov who, mistaking him for someone important, held out his hand.

  ‘I am Igor Federov.’ His English was slow and heavily accented.

  ‘Charles Thoroughgood.’

  ‘Formerly second secretary at the embassy here,’ said Angus anxiously. ‘Back in London now. He’s here on private business.’ The party moved on as he spoke. He followed without a backward glance at Charles.

  Yvette was flushed and smiling when she opened the door, in Russian fashion standing back to let Charles cross the threshold before shaking hands. The room was palatial, with heavy, richly coloured curtains and drapes and a profusion of armchairs, sofas and flowers. It was suffocatingly warm and smelled of alcohol and coffee. Bottles and clothes were strewn about as after a party. It had not occurred to Charles that they would take a suite.

  ‘Josef sleeps,’ said Yvette.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ll come back later. Do you know if he—’

  ‘This room is beautiful. Would you like vodka?’

  ‘No, thank you, I’ll just—’

  ‘I understand. You want champagne.’ She giggled as she poured some into the nearest glass, which was used. Her hand was unsteady.

  ‘Mr Thoroughgood!’ Josef was out of sight, in the bedroom, his voice a throaty roar.

  ‘Josef wakes,’ said Yvette.

  ‘I come, I come!’ roared Josef. ‘You are beautiful man, Mr Thoroughgood. MI6 is beautiful man. All are beautiful men. We have beautiful day. Wait. I come.’

  In the minute or so before he emerged, Yvette pottered unsteadily about the room, muttering to herself in several languages. She put two red roses in a half-full champagne bottle and placed it carefully in the middle of the sofa. Josef appeared, walking towards Charles as if aboard ship in a head wind and long cross-swell. He was clad in a white bathrobe and smoking the stub of a cigar. His embrace was a concoction of alcohol, tobacco and after-shave.

  ‘Have you spoken to Federov?’ Charles asked, on release.

  Josef sat suddenly on the sofa, upsetting the champagne, which he ignored and Yvette didn’t notice. ‘You ask if I speak to Federov? Yvette, he ask if I speak to Oleg.’

  Yvette paused, holding another bottle and more flowers. ‘You must tell him.’

  Josef looked at Charles with outspread arms and raised eyebrows. ‘My oldest friend, my friend of the camps? Do I speak to him?’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘How can he not speak to Josef, his oldest friend, his friend of the camps?’

  It had become clear to Charles that his role in Josef’s theatre was always to be the straight man. He should show neither impatience nor mockery, but it was hard not to smile. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘He is important man, he is nomenklatura, he has people around him all the time, they are with him, they watch him, he knows state secrets. The French, they want to do deals with him, your British ambassador, he follows him like a dog on heat, eh?’ He laughed. ‘And the Americans, always the Americans. How can he be approached? How can he speak to his old friend Josef? Is not possible.’

  ‘So you haven’t?’

  Josef puffed on his cigar, an emperor on his terrace contemplating the Bay of Naples. Charles was contemplating his explanation to Hookey.

  ‘Yet we speak. More than we speak. We meet, we drink, we embrace, we are friends, like in the camps.’

  ‘What did you say? What did he say?’

  ‘You have no idea what it was like, the camp.’

  ‘How did you meet? Where?’

  ‘Everything was different there.’

  ‘We must leave tomorrow?’ asked Yvette. She stood with a rose in one hand, a bottle in the other.

  ‘You want to hear what he say, what I say? I tell you,’ said Josef.

  It took the better part of an hour. Yvette fell asleep on the floor by the window, propped up against the radiator, rose and bottle in her lap. Josef’s account was punctuated by frequent visits to the toilet, after each of which he had to be led like a stubborn pony back to the point where he had left off. It turned out he had spent most of the previous day waiting in the lobby to see or – better – be seen by Federov on his way through. Sustained by alcohol, his vigil was eventually rewarded at about six in the evening when Federov hurried through on his way out, surrounded by the usual bevy of officials. Josef started up to greet him – ‘I was going to shout and embrace before everyone, there was no other possibility to meet’ – but was impeded by the coffee table and its cups and glasses. ‘First they want to throw me out – I insist I am guest – then they clear up and put sticking plaster on my hand. But Federov is gone and I think I am never going to see him. And Yvette tells me, you are never going to meet him, it is impossible. So we eat and have more drink and I am despairing. You know this feeling, Mr Thoroughgood? Like in the camps. But then – please, please, you must drink. I am drinking. It is not polite, Mr Thoroughgood, not to drink, even for English.’

  Charles poured them both more champagne and heard how, later that night, Josef and Yvette were awoken by Federov coming into their room. ‘It was late, after the middle, everyone sleeps except for Federov because he has seen me in the lobby when the table hit me and he find my room number and come to me when all his people are sleeping. And we talk and we laugh and we drink until morning and Yvette is sick and we are friends again. And he will meet you.’

  ‘You mentioned me?’

  ‘He needs medicines, he needs treatment. His heart. He has it in Moscow, of course, special for Party members, but it is better in England. Only in England or America can he be saved, he says. But he does not know how he can be treated in London. It is expensive and he would not be permitted to come to England for that. So I tell him, I – I, Josef – can fix.’ Josef grinned and struck his chest with his fist. ‘I tell him my friend Mr Thoroughgood will fix. He ask if you are good doctor. I tell him you are better, you are MI6. You can command doctors.’

  ‘He agreed to meet me?’

  ‘In England. He is going there tomorrow. I tell him you will find him.’

  ‘But he definitely agreed? He agreed to be in contact with MI6?’

  ‘But he will not spy. He tell me, tell them I will not be spy. No matter, I say, they help you anyway. Is good, eh? Josef does well?’

  ‘More than well, Josef, more than well.’ Charles could imagine the reaction back in Head Office. This constituted an approach to a foreign official, which, if it went wrong, could have serious political consequences. It should have had Foreign Office clearance in advance and, as it had happened in Paris, the approval of the ambassador.

  Josef struggled to his feet. ‘Now we have dinner, you and me. Yvette sleeps. Somewhere where are girls, nice girls.’ He grinned and his eyes disappeared in creases.

  Chapter Seven

  The 1980s

  Hookey got up from his chair and went to the window overlooking Waterloo station. The platforms were packed with evening commuters but there were no trains. He pushed his fists into the pockets of his green cardigan, stretching it. ‘So he has your real name, has been told you’re MI6 and has already been introduced to you by mischance, though he wouldn’t know it was that. He is expecting you to contact him here. The ambassador has expressly forbidden us to go anywhere near him and would undoubtedly be supported by the Foreign Office, which regards him as too big a fish for us to tickle. If it went wrong it could lead to public fuss, loss of any chance of aero contracts, jobs and all the rest of it. The Paris station does not know about the approach and neither does their controller, C/Europe, who will not be pleased. Meanwhile, the access agent you were supposed to have te
rminated has run up a breathtaking bill at the George the Fifth, which I shall have to justify. And, depending on what happens to the case – especially if nothing does – you must be considered Sovbloc Amber, which means probably blown to the Russians. More likely Sovbloc Red, certainly blown. This, of course, restricts your future postings and career. Taken together, it adds up to a bloody great cock-up.’

  Hookey continued addressing the window, his tone more dispassionate than angry. ‘But it’s the kind of cock-up I like.’ He turned back to Charles, grinning. ‘Didn’t Churchill say something to the effect that mistakes made facing the enemy should always be forgiven? Thing is, how to take it forward.’ He began pacing the room.

  ‘He said he won’t spy,’ said Charles.

  ‘Of course he did, he has to say that. Especially in front of your agent, he’d be mad to do otherwise. But look at his background. He was condemned to hell but somehow climbed all the way back up to heaven. He can only have done that by being useful to people in power, which will have meant betraying other people in power. A dangerous game, so he’s a risk-taker whose loyalty will always and only have been to the next rung he can reach. He will know that if he meets you there has to be a quid pro quo. That’s how he’s survived, how he’s thrived, the only law he knows. He’ll also know that a clandestine meeting with an officer of a hostile intelligence service would seal his fate forever, if it became known, even if it’s only to discuss last year’s Dutch tulip crop. It’s the agreement to meet that’s the really big step, and he’s taken it. Everything flows from that.’ He glanced again at the window. ‘Something wrong with those damn trains today.’

  ‘It must depend a bit on whether we can get him the treatment he needs.’

  ‘He’ll assume that. People who live under totalitarian regimes in which the organs of state security are all-powerful can never believe that in democracies we keep to the law and have no executive authority. Nor would we – should we – want it. We have to find him a doctor discreetly but we’ll manage that. It’s what we’re good at, finding and fixing things. No, it’s the two river crossings we’ve got to manage.’

  His glance betrayed some pleasure at Charles’s puzzlement. ‘The second is the easier, though still not easy: getting you alongside him without anyone knowing. We’ll need help from SV, surveillance, which in UK ops effectively means using MI5. Which means bringing them in on it. Constitutionally, we should anyway. It’s no bad thing that you’re already helping them out by letting them use your flat as an LP. How’s that going, by the way?’

  ‘They’re still talking about it.’

  ‘They’re good at that. See if you can blow some wind in their sails, get it moving, remind them how helpful you are.’ He sat and wrote something on another solitary blank sheet of paper. ‘Our first river crossing is more heavily defended. By our own side. The Foreign Office will fight tooth and nail over this one, all the way up to the Foreign Secretary and I can’t see him siding with us. Nor is it a big enough case to go to the PM, who’d probably also say no. A full-frontal assault will fail. We need a flanking movement.’

  ‘You mean, not ask—’

  ‘I mean MI5, again. As a joint operation with them this could be cleared through their system, which has more latitude than ours, not least because their DG is the only person with statutory authority for determining what is and is not a threat to national security. That means he can go further than we can before seeking ministerial clearance in order to establish whether or not there are grounds for acting against a threat. John Kent, their Director K Branch under whom this falls, can authorise approaches without prior clearance if he deems it necessary. D’you know him?’

  ‘He talked to our training course. We got the impression he’s rather anti-SIS.’

  Hookey nodded. ‘Yes, but not mortally. Just sometimes rather sceptical about us rushing into things, making exaggerated claims about the likely product, causing trouble which others have to clear up and then getting away with it scot-free. Not always entirely wrongly. I’ll have a chat with him.’

  ‘You think he’ll agree?’

  ‘We were POWs together in Italy. Camp friendships count more than most. Thought you might have learned that.’ Hookey smiled briefly again. ‘Now go and get on with becoming an LP. Give them reason to be grateful.’

  Two hours later, Sue, the MI5 desk officer for Russian Illegals, walked from room to room, inspecting Charles’s flat, sipping tea. ‘Tidy and clean. For a bloke.’

  ‘I haven’t been back long. The tenant had it cleaned. It’ll get worse.’

  ‘It might have to. If you could mess it up a bit, dump some junk around the place to make it easier for Steve and the team to hide their technical clobber.’

  ‘I could probably manage that.’

  He followed her with his own mug of tea. They stood in his bedroom door, staring at the bed, mutually conscious of potential and availability. Janet had left a pair of shoes beneath one of the bedside chairs. He was to see her later.

  ‘Is the layout of the Turnips’ flat the same as this?’ Sue asked. ‘I’m thinking in terms of where the probes should go, where they’re most likely to talk. Bedrooms aren’t usually all that rewarding, despite what people think. Pillow talk doesn’t often involve an exchange of nuclear secrets.’ Her eyes rested for a moment on Janet’s shoes. ‘More the usual things.’

  ‘My girlfriend’s,’ said Charles, ‘not mine.’

  She smiled. ‘Not cheap, either.’ They stood in the hall. ‘There’s a telephone point here but your phone has been moved into the kitchen. No idea whether theirs is the same?’

  Charles shook his head. ‘Why does it make a difference where the phone is if you’re tapping it?’

  ‘We’re not just doing that. Steve and his merry men turn phones into microphones so they pick up everything in the room whether or not they’re being used.’

  ‘I could do a recce, knock on their door with a bottle, neighbourly greeting of new neighbours, and hope to be invited in.’

  ‘That would be helpful, but not while I’m here. Better they didn’t see me.’

  She told him more about the Turnips. ‘The Melburys, I should call them, otherwise you’ll be calling them Turnip to their faces.’ They had registered for VAT although their turnover was well below the level at which they had to and they bought very little on which they could claim it. They had made two two-night trips to Holland in the past month. ‘What would be really useful is if you could discover in advance when they’re next going away. Then we could do a break-in and put the probes in through your floors without risk of them hearing.’

  ‘You have keys that would fit?’

  ‘We make them. But we could do with a spare set of yours for when we need access to your flat. Unless they’re already on loan to the lady of the shoes, of course.’ She smiled.

  ‘In the tea caddy on the kitchen shelf. Help yourself while I get changed.’

  They left the flat together, she to a hen party on the South Bank, he to a curry with Janet in Kennington, around the corner from the house she shared. Sue was talking about her friend who was giving the party when, on the flight of stairs below the Turnip flat, they ran into a couple who could only be them. They were short, round and middle-aged, he wearing a blue cotton jacket and tie, she slacks and a fawn raincoat over a high-necked sweater. They were both slightly breathless. Charles introduced himself.

  The man responded promptly, with a firm handshake. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir. Stephen Melbury, Diane Melbury.’

  Diane’s handshake was also firm. It was the natural point at which to introduce Sue but Charles skipped over it. ‘Are you from America?’

  ‘Canada,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, we’re used to people thinking we’re American over here.’

  ‘We must get together for a drink. Meanwhile, you must let me know if I make too much noise over your head.’

  She laughed. ‘Not a peep so far. In fact, we thought your flat was empty.’

&nbs
p; They stood aside to let Charles and Sue pass. ‘Drop in any time, Mr Thoroughgood,’ said Stephen Melbury. ‘Any time.’

  When they were outside Sue said, ‘Just what I didn’t want. Means I can’t join in on any surveillance of them, which is usually the fun bit. Hope they didn’t think it odd, your not introducing me.’

  ‘I assumed you wouldn’t want it. I’ll give them the impression you’re one of many.’

  ‘That’ll go down well with your smart-shoe lady.’

  Chapter Eight

  The Present

  Age and child-bearing had caused Sue to put on weight over the years but she was big-boned and carried it well. She sat back and again surveyed the surroundings. It was early evening and diners were fortifying themselves with drinks before dinner. ‘God, Thoroughgood, how did you worm your way into a club like this? Or does it come with the job?’

  ‘Sadly not. Nothing does except arguments about money and a car and driver strictly for official duties only. I joined years ago. Needed somewhere to keep me off the streets.’

  ‘Like hell you did. That lovely flat in the Boltons. What happened to it?’

  ‘Sold on marriage.’

  ‘Married too, of course. I heard all about that. And Chief of MI6. Not sure which looked least likely when I knew you. Jammy sod.’ She smiled with the licence of former intimacy.

  ‘It was Jam I wanted to talk to you about.’

  She frowned as the waiter handed her a second glass of club dry white. ‘You’ve got me there, I’m afraid.’

  They had not seen each other for twenty or so years. Charles had to remind her of the Turnips, the case that had begun their acquaintanceship. The friendship formed then petered out when she remarried and left MI5 to have children, rejoining later when the children were older. But by then she and Charles were in different spheres and had not come across each other until he rang her that morning.

  ‘Of course, yes,’ she interrupted as he explained. ‘The far-left brother of your girlfriend. Don’t think I ever met him, did I? But you did, I remember your write-up. Janet, wasn’t it, your girlfriend? Good taste in shoes. Did your relationship recover or was it a permanent casualty of the Turnip operation?’