by Alan Judd
‘There was never any hurry. I only thought of it when I knew I had to be in this area. You’re working up here now, Janet tells me?’ He regretted the ‘up’ since to anyone looking for cause for resentment it could imply that the centre of gravity, the natural place to be, was in the South.
James seemed not to notice. ‘Supply teaching in a local comp. Tea, coffee?’
This was better than Charles had anticipated. ‘What brings you here, anyway?’ James called from the kitchen.
‘Bear-leading a foreign delegation. Showing them there’s more to Britain than Buckingham Palace.’ Among the papers on the table was a flier about the Greenham Common protest camp.
‘What, walking them round ruined abbeys and all that?’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘Janet said you were visiting some radar installation.’
‘That too.’
They sat in a couple of comfortable well-worn armchairs. James rolled a cigarette, grinning. ‘So, how’s the Establishment?’
‘Still there.’
‘You must be a pillar of it now, in the Foreign Office and all that?’
‘Roof-tile, more like.’
‘Ever thought of doing anything else?’
‘Not seriously, no. I must be unimaginative or unambitious. Public service of some sort always seemed the natural thing. I guess for you too, given what you’re doing?’
‘Bit of difference between teaching children, trying to improve deprived lives, and what you do, propping up the system.’
Charles grinned back. ‘You think there really is a system?’
They knocked the subject back and forth amicably enough at first, like tennis players warming up. James insisted on a worldwide capitalist conspiracy against the have-nots, Charles on the social good of individual freedoms as opposed to the coercion of community. They were interrupted by the phone, which was on the window ledge. James answered it facing out of the window, his back to Charles. The pause between his first ‘hello’ and his second suggested the caller was putting coins in. The conversation was brief, with James’s part confined to a ‘no’, a ‘yes’ and – twice – ‘OK’. He remained facing the window, giving Charles the chance to glance at other papers on the coffee table. One was a price-list from a local commercial-vehicle-hire company, with the handwritten addition of a price for an ‘Iveco 7.5-tonne tail-lift with forklift’. He was still trying to make it out when James put down the phone, without saying goodbye.
James sat again. ‘So what are you going to do after the revolution?’
‘Join the counter-revolution.’
‘If you’re not put up against a wall and shot first, like most of this government will be. Should be.’ He began rolling another cigarette. ‘You know you’re taking a risk with your security clearance, coming here? Special Branch will know. They spy on me.’
‘Do they?’
‘Flat was broken into last month. Must have been them. Clumsy job, nothing was taken. They must have been looking for something.’
‘You really think that?’ The conversation was reverting to a familiar path. As on previous occasions, Charles was inclined at first to assume that James was being facetious, as perhaps he was, but after a while it became apparent that he meant his assertions to be taken seriously. Charles had once told him that he was being preposterous when James claimed he was on an MI5 hit list and likely to be assassinated, but it had made no difference. James’s combination of intelligence and conspiratorial credulity was something Charles had often discussed with Janet who, though critical of her brother, felt obliged to defend him against mockery. He had upset her by arguing that James’s ideological rigidity warped his judgement in all areas of life, making it impossible to take him seriously about anything.
‘I do really think it, yes, I do,’ James said.
His earnestness was such that Charles had to stop himself smiling. ‘What could you have here that Special Branch couldn’t get anywhere else and wanted so badly that they broke in to get it?’
This time James smiled through a cloud of smoke. ‘You don’t think I’m going to tell you, do you?’
Charles changed tack, asking James about his social life, whether he had friends locally or relied on visitors from London, then left before the conversation became too strained. Unable to find a cab, he eventually got a bus that took him not far from the Roast Beef&Frills. He rang the SIS switchboard from the callbox in the foyer, again without getting hold of Hookey or Sue.
Mikolas was sitting where he’d left him, hugging his bag and seemingly comatose, empty bottle and two glasses on the table before him. When his enlarged eyes blinked open, Charles said, ‘Thank you for waiting. We can eat now. I hope you weren’t too bored.’
‘Jane comes.’
‘She came to see you? That was nice of her. Now we can have dinner.’
‘She comes again if I am here. We go to her house.’
‘I don’t think so. She’s busy now.’
‘I wait.’
‘It’s too late, they’re about to close. Jane has to go home to her husband and children. And her parents and his parents. We can have dinner at our hotel. You can tell me about your novel.’
It took a while to move him. Charles’s assertion of imminent closure was not helped by the arrival of taxi-loads of customers, but luckily Mikolas was by then engrossed in his description of his novel. During dinner he explained how dispensing with characters enabled him to evoke the full range and depth of human psychology and directly access the universal spirit of mankind. Charles almost embraced the concierge, who interrupted: ‘Telephone call for Mr Thoroughgood.’
‘Where the hell have you been?’
It could only be Hookey. ‘In Hartlepool with that Greek liaison I was telling you about. I’ve been trying to ring—’
‘Thought you were at the Castle. No one there had a clue where you were. I had to get hold of old Harold. Useless, complete waste of space, always was. Your new controller was no better. Irritated by the mere mention of you, which was some satisfaction. In the end I tracked down your oppo, what’s-his-name . . .’
‘Mike.’
‘Another waste of space. But at least he knew.’
‘He was supposed to be doing it. I was lumbered with it because—’
‘Point is, your friend’s arriving in town first thing tomorrow. Not for his op yet, that’s later. He’s in Paris now. Can’t send you there to meet him again after the debacle last time so I used an industry contact to invite him here to talk to BAE about picking up any crumbs from the table of his deal with the French. My contact’s sticking his neck out for us by getting you into the talks as Foreign Office rep. Foreign Office knows nothing about it, of course. Sort that out afterwards. It’ll be up to you to engineer a minute alone with him to see if there’s any more light he can shed on this Deep Blue thing. Maybe no-go, but worth a try so long as you don’t do anything damn foolish and compromise him. My contact knows nothing of all this, of course. Thinks you’re just there to find out about Soviet aerospace requirements.’
Charles checked that the concierge was involved with another customer, then said quietly, ‘I know what Deep Blue is. I’ve seen it. At least, I’ve seen something called it.’
Hookey listened. ‘Have you told your Gower Street friends?’
‘Not yet, I’ve been trying to.’
‘Make sure they know asap. They may have some idea why the other side want it. Must have plenty of cobalt-60 of their own, more than we have. No idea why they want ours, what they could do with it?’
‘No, but I did wonder if—’
‘You must still meet your friend tomorrow. He may enlighten us. Get the first train down. Meeting’s at ten in my contact’s office, Euston Road. Go to Gower Street first.’
‘But I’m supposed to be with the liaison group.’
‘They can find their own way to the station without you. Tell them you’ve been summoned by the Prime Minister or the Queen or any damn thi
ng. Just make sure you’re there.’ He hung up.
Charles returned to the table. ‘I wish to sleep, please,’ said Mikolas.
‘Good. I mean, so do I, it’s good to sleep.’ He explained that he had been summoned to London early in the morning and would meet them at their London hotel later that day.
‘On the train I write my novel.’
‘Good, splendid.’
The remains of two dinners on trays were outside Adrienne’s room. Charles’s first knock was answered by a firm, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Anatole, it’s me, Charles.’
Anatole wore his towel again. Charles explained. ‘OK,’ said Anatole, and closed the door.
Charles dreamed that night that he was in a barber’s shop being shaved by James, with Sue in the background dressed like the hostesses of the Roast Beef&Frills but in underclothes of pulsating blue. He was reading Mikolas’s novel.
Chapter Sixteen
The 1980s
The meeting was on one of the upper floors of the Euston tower block, above the two occupied by A4, MI5’s surveillance section. It was a short walk from Gower Street where Charles had been to brief Sue.
‘You’re going to tell me you’ve identified Deep Blue,’she said.
‘Well . . .’
‘And it’s a lump of cobalt-60 used to irradiate things with alpha radiation.’ She laughed. ‘You look like a dog that’s lost its bone. Don’t worry, I didn’t work it out for myself. Your Hookey told Director K who told me. And now you’re off to some meeting I’m not allowed to know about to find out what the Russians want to do with it.’
‘Not find out, more likely.’
‘Meanwhile, the Turnips are on the move again. Last night, Mr Turnip made another call to your friend James.’
‘I think I was with him when he took it.’
‘Good. Tell me all in a minute.’
‘I’ve only got a minute.’
‘This time we know what was said. We’ve got a warrant on James’s number. The Turnips are getting a train to Hartlepool tonight to meet James in connection with something they’re planning tomorrow. We’re asking the local Special Branch to put them under surveillance and Director K wants me to go up there to brief them. Hookey says you’re to go as well. To keep an eye on me, I s’pose.’
‘But I’ve only just got back from Hartlepool and I’ve still got these liaison visitors I’m supposed to—’
‘Well, aren’t you just a lucky boy, so much in demand. Someone else wants you, too – got a note here somewhere – yes, C/Europe, Angus something, wants to speak to you urgently. Sounded annoyed that you were coming here first. Here’s his number.’
Angus would have to wait. The meeting was chaired by Hookey’s contact, CEO of a specialist aeronautical electronics company. It comprised his marketing manager, a man introduced as ‘our top boffin’ and Federov plus five other Russians. Like Americans, Russians were always heavily over-represented in international fora. Charles, who had not had time to go home and change, was the only one not wearing a suit. He had been introduced as ‘Foreign Office with a brief from the Board of Trade’ and had solemnly shaken hands with each of the unsmiling Russians. Federov had greeted him with dismissive hauteur, as if doing his host a favour by acknowledging a junior official. During a pause in the CEO’s account of what his company could do for aerospace, coffee and biscuits were replenished and the CEO took Federov to the window, pointing out features of London.
‘We have such things also in Moscow,’ said Federov. He asked for the toilet. The CEO bade the marketing manager escort him.
Charles slipped out of the other door and followed them to the loo, where Federov was in one of the cubicles. Charles joined the marketing manager at the urinal. When they had finished they returned to the corridor to await Federov.
‘I’ll see him back if you like,’ said Charles. The manager left, Charles waited to hear the toilet flush, then went back in. Federov was washing his hands. The other cubicles were empty.
‘How is your health?’
‘I am waiting to hear when is the operation. I have to finish my pills first, which will be after next week.’
‘Last time, you mentioned something called Deep Blue. I think I now know what it is. Do you know why the KGB wants it and what they intend to do with it?’
Federov’s eyes met his in the mirror. ‘Is this why there is this meeting – for you to meet me?’
‘Partly why. There is a serious business purpose.’
‘You know it is very dangerous for me.’
‘We are worried about Deep Blue.’
He turned to face Charles as he dried his hands, clearly angry. ‘I am not your slave. I am not your creature. I help you because you help me. Also because my government is corrupt. The government is the state, the state is Russia, Russia is corrupt. But I am not your creature.’
‘We know that, we never expected you to be. We want a relationship of equals. You advise us when you feel you can, we help you when you need it.’ He did not relish going back to Hookey and confessing that he had lost the case.
‘And if one day I want to bring my family here, to live here, you will still help? You have promised.’
‘We have and we shall.’
Federov continued to stare into Charles’s eyes, before resuming more calmly. ‘This thing, Deep Blue, I don’t know what it is, what they want to do with it. I am not KGB, you know that.’
‘But who told you about it? When? Who else was there? What were the exact words? What was the context?’
Federov waited for footsteps in the corridor to fade. ‘It was at the Central Committee last month, not in the meeting but afterwards at lunch. I was with Lipinski. You know him? He is KGB, First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence, like your MI6. His desk officer for Britain and Scandinavia department brings him a message, which he reads, and afterwards he smiles, and says, “We are making trouble for England, for the English government. We will kidnap their Deep Blue and give them headache, big headache.” I ask what is Deep Blue, and he laughs and says, “Don’t worry, you will read about it. It will be news, big news. Bad news for England.” That is all I know.’
Charles nodded. They shook hands again. ‘Thank you, Igor. You must get back to the meeting. We won’t go together. I’ll come later.’
Federov was in no hurry. ‘Now I have something I must ask you. The camp where I was prisoner, the camp where I knew Josef. I have been back. It is empty now, closed, there are only the old guards there. They are the real prisoners now. One day I will write book about the camp but first I would like photographs of it. Does MI6 have some? Can you get them for me, please?’
Charles doubted it but thought there might be some in an archive somewhere, Amnesty International, perhaps, or the Americans. The Americans had photographed pretty well everything. ‘I’ll look for it. We have the camp number, Josef told us. You will ring me when you come out for your operation?’
‘I will ring. But please, please.’ He half smiled. ‘No more invented invitations, Charles.’
Later, back in Century House, Charles climbed the stairs to his office to write up the meeting for Hookey, hoping by ignoring the lifts to avoid Angus Copplestone, whose office was near them. He would leave a message for Angus, anticipating that, like most people, he would lunch out or in the twentieth-floor restaurant. Angus had lost no opportunity to lunch out in Paris, usually with visitors or colleagues who might be useful to him. Charles hoped to be on his way back to Hartlepool by the time Angus tried to contact him.
But Angus appeared in his doorway. ‘Charles, nice to see you at last. Have you got a moment?’ He didn’t wait for a response.
Charles followed him. Angus asked him to shut the connecting door to his secretary’s office but did not invite him to sit. His pale face was perhaps a little paler than usual. It struck Charles that Angus might relish the encounter no more than he did. He decided to take the initiative by being conciliatory. ‘I’m so
rry to have been so elusive. I was in Hartlepool with the Greek liaison visitors and then was called back in connection with the Sovbloc operation I’ve been helping with. I should have made sure more people knew where I was.’
‘Presumably the same operation that led to your fracas in Paris? And meanwhile, have you any idea where the liaison visitors you’re supposedly looking after actually are?’
‘They should be on the train on their way back from Hartlepool.’
‘So you simply left them there, you abandoned them? On C/Sovbloc’s bidding?’ His tone was the familiar resentful one of those not involved in Sovbloc operations. ‘Makes a change from the demands of your personal life, I suppose. You’re aware, of course, that your visitors were due at the Greek Embassy for lunch today?’
Charles remembered as Angus said it. He had failed to remind himself of the final day’s programme. ‘I was but I’d forgotten. I apologise. Are they not there?’
‘They are not. Nor have they checked in to their London hotel. The Greek Ambassador has been on to the Foreign Office and the military attaché on to me. My secretary rang your Hartlepool hotel only to find that two of them are still in bed and the other checked out hours ago but no one knows where to. It’s a complete mess and a serious embarrassment and it’s your fault, Thoroughgood.’
The use of surname in a service in which all but the Chief were called by their first names, and in which people were asked rather than ordered to act, was a mark of grave displeasure. ‘Again, I apologise. I hadn’t planned to return without them, as you know, They knew which train they were booked on and I told them I would catch up with them today. But I failed to check the programme.’
‘Nor did you tell anyone.’
‘Both Harold and Mike were away.’ He didn’t know whether Harold was actually away but his evasions were sufficiently habitual to amount to the same thing. ‘I should have thought to ring you. I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact, I have to return to Hartlepool tonight, on the same operation. I’ll find them if they haven’t turned up by then.’
‘They’re probably on their way back now. Someone else will have to see them off tomorrow. I may have to do it myself. This won’t be forgotten, Thoroughgood.’
