The Desolate Garden

by Daniel Kemp

If I am right, Harry, Maudlin was the best case controller there has ever been. Not only has Paulo escaped detection in his place of work, but his identity has been kept from everyone here and therefore has never been compromised. I don't want to vilify or malign our own Secret Service, but I don't believe Maudlin trusted them. Maybe he shared his sources that he ran in Ireland with them, and that was how the Republicans got wind…who knows. Maybe he was put off by those who were uncovered in the sixties as being tainted bright red. Something did it for him and this is where I'm going to shock you, H, so hang on for dear life.

  I think Tanya was pregnant, and Paulo wanted his father to raise his child here in England as a punishment for what he saw as his mother's abandonment in Leningrad. There's no way that he wanted Tanya and a child to hold him back, and it wasn't for the obvious reasons. He didn't love Tanya when they married; she must have forced it on him, or forced herself on him. One day he, or she maybe not, don't think they were that progressive in those days, so I'll stick with him Paulo fancies a quick leg over and, by hook or by crook, Tanya falls. Now…if either of you two can tell me that, if you were in love with someone who carried your child, you could then leave her in a country when she was unable to speak the language and knew nobody, then never visit or contact them for fifty-four or five years, I would call you a liar. Not even someone who's as wrapped up in himself as you, Harry, would be that callous for so long. Nobody could, therefore he couldn't have loved her in the first place. And if there was no child, then why did Maudlin become involved?” She sat back, drank her coffee, and waited for the response.

  I was the first. “You think it was a boy she had, and that boy grew up to be George, don't you?”

  David came in a distant last, only just qualifying, avoiding elimination by a whisker.

  “Sorry, you almost lost me there. Do you mean George, the valet-cum-secretary living at Eton Square?”

  “Yes, to both of you and there's more. I believe Tanya, is still alive and living in that place I want to visit, about an hour's drive from here in one of your shiny limos, David.”

  “He's not a murderer,” I blurted out.

  “Did I say that? If I did, I can't recall it? Again, I've left you standing. You've have only just put the key in the ignition, and I'm racing down the home straight. I was implying H, and I'm sure David was following, that Paulo's weakness was George. He was discoverable, if someone looked hard enough. Think about it. Who could Paulo trust to pass on his information after Maudlin died? He could hardly write directly, could he? Even with Glasnost, after eighty-five, there wasn't that amount of openness. There was still censorship. I think one of the security agencies might have spotted Box 850 on an envelope!”

  “What sort of stuff has been passed, then?” I asked, naively.

  “Sorry, Harry, we can't go there, I'm afraid. But I can tell you that, not so long ago, some government Ministers were implicated. No stronger than that, but we did take precautions. Recently some questionable scientists applied for visas and, following advice from Garden, they were refused.” David had joined us

  “Not linked to the petrochemical industry, were they?” I asked, less naively, and was right. “That's one hell of a supposition to make based on the strength that he calls me by my first name, Judith. That would make him my…what, exactly? My step-uncle? Don't you think he would have said something down the years…claimed a part of the family silver, surely?” I continued.

  “Step-uncle, yes, I think that sounds right. Probably best to consult a genealogist to be certain.” It was David who ventured a guess and, having now wrenched the conversation away from us two warring factions in front of him, carried on in his assessment.

  “You have to understand that what Elliot, with Phillip and Maudlin before him, were doing at Queen Anne's Gate was not conventional everyday banking. It's common knowledge that Coutts are the Queen's bankers, but that's for the civil list money, vulnerable to hackers and other like-minded nosy people. Your ancestors have handled their personal finances, along with the majority of the other Royal houses of Europe, since its conception. The British Government have also had money invested there for reasons they wished kept from the scrutiny of public auditors. You may have wondered why I handle the file and not 'C' directly; that is because the SIS have interests in the bank's dealings, and there may have been a conflict of interests there.

  This Department was given the responsibility many moons ago, long before my time. It was in 1981 or '82 that we, here, became increasingly concerned. The information about previous and possible future Ministers being sympathetic to the Soviets was particularly unsettling, especially when it came to foreign policy decisions. There was a great deal of damage to repair from a past administration. The allegations about possible future serving Ministers had to be addressed. We couldn't ban them from holding office…after all, we are a democracy, despite what others may think.” There was an almost undistinguishable pause, and although I was not looking directly at him, I sensed a glance in Judith's direction.

  “We had to take precautions both ways, in case this was Moscow mudding the waters, so to speak. Judith was brought in for that purpose and the Garden file, the uppermost secret file we have, opened for glimpses from her eyes only…without causing ripples, you understand. There are very few definitive facts in all of this, and what there is could be discovered by anyone with access to that file or information about your family and its connection to the bank. That's no disrespect to Judith here. She came with the highest recommendations and clearance. She's very good at her job, but others could do the same research and connect Maudlin to a son born in Spain and evacuated to Russia. However, it's questionable if they would be as competent as Judith finding them in Leningrad! You must explain to me fully one day how you did that, perhaps when we have closed this matter.” He turned to Judith and there was a slight bow of the head in recognition of her expertise.

  “I think you should indeed follow up on your enquires in Radlett, and by all means take a car. I'll ring down now, and arrange it.”

  “There is one last thing I would like to say.” The irrepressible Judith took her chance to grab the last word. “I'd like to answer Harry's question about the family silver, David, if that's all right?” He nodded his approval to her intervention.

  “Suppose George doesn't know that Maudlin was his granddaddy, Harry? Maudlin wouldn't have said, how could he without upsetting the whole apple cart? Auntie Loti couldn't tell him, at least while he was still around, and it would appear that she hasn't said anything since. Maybe that's what Maudlin meant when he told you to bury a secret deep. He'd sworn Loti to secrecy, frightened her somehow…let's go and find out, eh?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Lime Trees

  The natural beauty of the lime trees that lined the avenue where the wife of Maudlin's illegitimate son once lived, was not reflected by the houses shadowed by their majestic spreading branches. We had taken the diversion simply to satisfy my curiosity, but it was not gratification that I found hidden there; only more unanswered frustrations. The sterile concrete forecourts that at one time, presumably, were complemented by those trees, now provided barren space on which row after row of vehicles were displayed. It was not a scene that I had imagined or had hoped for.

  On very few occasions I had felt sorrow in my life. At Maudlin's funeral was one time, when it was for others rather than myself, and at Phillip's, when again, the full measure of that emotion escaped me. Nevertheless it was there. Perhaps, felt more by those mourners who wore it gravely on their faces as I listened to their grief. I had the misfortune of attending three more funerals before the one that had hit me the hardest and showed me what real wretchedness felt like…that of my mother's. I had arranged everything for that day, not wanting, or inviting, my father's participation. As I sat there, next to Judith, in the Ministry car, filled with morbid grey thoughts that matched the skies, I realised that I had wrongly blamed him for her passing. Although I accepted death as an end to mortal li
fe I did not accept it as her ultimate end.

  Today, in raking over the past, I had travelled part of the route that his and my brother's body would take on their return home to the place of their burial. The desolation of what must have been a better area when Maudlin choose this part of Hertfordshire as home to his grandson, had struck me with the misery that I had managed to avoid through, perhaps, my entire life. I despaired for Tanya and early George if it had always been so, but reason dictated otherwise. There hadn't been the same number of cars in those days that necessitated such grey, concrete provisions, and people took pride in where they lived. Rows of coloured plastic bins were never needed, and councils tended verges and swept pavements not like today, in this part of the changed world.

  When Alice died, I had managed to keep my feelings hidden through the days of preparations leading up to her entombment, as there had been so much to organise and occupy my mind. Her family was vast and widespread. There were eight brothers and sisters with fourteen grandchildren scattered around the globe, all of which I had not only to contact, but first find out where they all were. I enlisted the help of my own sisters and brothers in this endeavour, but they, like me, had never been acquainted with each and every one of mother's family. I searched address books in hope of enlightenment, but against no name was there a note of relationship. I delved into everything I could think of, and again came up short. She had often spoken, with pride, of the numbers in her family, but never committed them to paper. Frustrated, I wondered why.

  I tried to remember who it was that suggested her widowed sister Evelyn as the saviour in my quest, as it was to her that I turned and finally the grief inside me was released. I have no answer as to why, in her presence, I bawled my eyes out like a child, but I wished I did. It would have answered many questions that I had hidden away, somewhere out of reach. I had spent many hours with her late husband, and respected him highly. Perhaps that was the reason. Maybe it was because she had been the one I remembered beside my mother's bed the most, or maybe it was just her manner in submitting to the inevitable that was collapsing her world and about to collapse mine.

  “You've shouldered the responsibility for too long, Harry. You should have let Elliot help although I agree with you, he would have been useless in this matter. A mind always distracted by something or other. Why haven't you let him do some of the arrangements?” she argued gently as I made excuses, never revealing the reasons for the blame that I had showered on him.

  This disappointing place from which now, belatedly, Tanya had escaped, had caused me to visit that part of me that closed doors on the irretrievable past. I began to feel the loss of those that I should have been more understanding of and closer to.

  “Let's get going, shall we?” I addressed my accuser and instigator of that egotistic label, who sat beside me. Judith had been right and I wrong, in asking for this diversion.

  The depression had not fully left me on our arrival at Leighton House Lodge, advertised as a Luxury Residential Retreat masquerading, in all its grandeur, as the last place for those with less time to live with self-respect than the rest of us. I had expected very little from this Tuesday's afternoon drive north of London. I had not, however, anticipated the neglect I had seen at number 108, the address that Judith had discovered as being owned by Loti Martins. It was the last semi-detached house in the road and possibly the most dilapidated, although its overgrown and uncared-for front garden covered most of its ignominy. The property had been empty for over two years, with the 'For Sale' sign seeming to have taken root, sprouting red flowers that resembled the camellia bush some distance beyond, under a laburnum tree whose branches brushed against the windows.

  During the journey I had quizzed Judith on how she had obtained the address of the house. Now I wished that I could believe she had made a mistake, but knew that desire would not be granted.

  “It was easy, Harry. I've an old school friend who's the head buyer for Fortnum's. I've always been one to keep in touch with old school chums… never know when they might come in handy. Turns out George is in the habit of sending presents of one kind or another, when he can't find the time to take them himself. I got all the information from her.”

  The drive through the gates of the Retreat resembled, on a smaller scale, the wide expanse of manicured grass at Harrogate Hall, but the happiness I felt at home was impossible to be replicated or imagined here, in order to dispel the torment that troubled me. What was there to find here of benefit, if George was to be implicated in the murders, or if Loti was married to my step-something Paulo? How could that knowledge compare to where Maudlin had left them? Was there an advantage in knowing that? Not to me, I doubted.

  * * *

  She was seventy-four, the matron told us, and I am ashamed to say that momentarily I wished that she had added 'senile and suffering from dementia' but she did not. The opposite, apparently, was true. “She's in good health and spirits and used to visitors…she is a very popular person, and a pleasure to have here.” A part of me was relieved to hear that she had fared well, despite all of what Judith suspected and what I had witnessed. The rest of me, however, held on tightly to the apprehension that weighed me down.

  “Follow me…I'll take you to her. She will be surprised that she has such important visitors as yourselves. I'm not sure that we have ever had a Lord here before and, of course, I've told no one, as you requested.” It was Judith who replied Thank you.

  As we trailed behind her, all my trepidation seemed to hit me at once. There was nowhere to hide from the truth. Was Maudlin a user of people for his own good, a sham who had fooled me, somebody not worthy of Judith's praise and my own admiration? Or, was he that knight in glistening armour I so wished he was? Was George capable of deception for forty years and, if so, could he really have killed my father and brother? Was I the next one, because of the way Maudlin had treated him and Loti? Was it as simple as that?

  “Hello Loti, these people have come to see you. Lord Harry Paterson and his wife, Lady Judith. They would like to speak to you in private, if that's all right. Would you be so kind, ladies?”

  The matron of the home stood motionless, her right arm extended towards the door we had just come from, ushering away the other residents seated in the conservatory, all dressed in white with their lawn bowls in carriers at their feet. I was wondering if they had finished their game or had not even started, due to the rain that had been on and off throughout our drive. The overhead clouds threatened more when the lightning strike of my married status was thunderously announced. A part of me enjoyed it, the part that enjoyed subterfuge and deception…what else did you expect me to say?

  A tall, thin, dark-haired woman, with a black headband holding back her untidy tousled hair, rose somewhat awkwardly from near the centre of the gathered group. She looked sheepishly towards me and quietly said. “I'm pleased to meet you, Lord and Lady Paterson. I'm Loti Martins. It's not about my son George, is it? He's all right, isn't he?” she gently asked, with a heavy frown. A perfectly innocent thing to ask if you were unaware of the facts behind this visit. However, Judith had been right. It was no longer a theory and that gave the reason for us being here a whole new perspective.

  The source from whom all knowledge sprung had no sympathetic disposition that day, and was not in the mood for idle chitchat. In the short time that it took for the forlorn, disappointed and inquisitive bowlers to leave, Judith had selected her tactics; a full-on frontal assault, covered on one flank by the fantasy of peerage, and the other by fear of repatriation. Her only saving grace was that she had waited until we were alone.

  “Your son is fine…he is not the primary reason for our visit. You are Tanya Malonovna Kuznetsoka. Your marriage to Paulo Sergeyovitch Korovin, and also, your subsequent defection from the Soviet Union into the arms of Lord Maudlin Paterson in 1956, are the reasons for our being here. Would you like to explain what transpired to make that happen! When you have finished, we would appreciate if you filled in the deta
ils of what you and George have been up to in all those years. The future of both of you remaining in this country depends on it!” The barriers were breached and we were through the first defences. I wondered what both of them held in reserve.

  She would, I guessed, have been an attractive girl and, indeed, woman as she had matured. Now the lines around her forehead and mouth rejected those looks, but could not deny what once, must have been. She stood upright and proud, every inch shouting determination and resilience. Maybe Judith had been wrong in her assumption that it had been Paulo's impulse alone that had led to George's conception. The women who stood before us was more than capable to decide on her own life's direction. She was smiling. A grin, that not only lightened those heavy lines on her face and made her brown eyes twinkle, but made me smile in return, as if we had both discovered something pleasant and satisfying to share.

  “It would seem that you are right. There is much we must speak of, but the idea of sending me back to Russia is not one of them. Perhaps the first should be an explanation of who exactly you are, as I know that Lord Paterson here is not married. I have followed the family history for many years, sir, and know you are still single. If I was younger I would propose, and not take no for an answer! Your full title now, I believe, should be Earl of Harrogate, the same as Maudlin was when I arrived. Another veritable catch for a lucky woman. I have always imagined you were like your great-grandfather Maudlin in that way.

  He had a harem of women around him, always a different one on his arm when I saw him, and I'm betting you're just the same? I would guess you are here because of your father and your brother's deaths. I am not laughing because of that…of course I'm not. It's because it has taken you so long to find me. Maudlin did well for his son Paulo, and for me. Now, it's George who deserves the accolade for all that he has done. Perhaps that is what we should speak of, eh, whoever you are?”