by Robert Daws
That day, back in 2005, held more vivid recollections for him than far more recent events. Once more, he felt his apprehension – a feeling apparently not shared by his colleagues gathered in the room with him. Three elderly men, all familiar to Maugham, with distinguished academic careers in the fields of history and politics. His uneasiness now turned to surprise at the brief, curt introductions and the speed at which the Cabinet Secretary had risen and headed off, commanding the others to follow. He recalled again his astonishment at finding himself in a queue of suited bureaucrats descending a narrow staircase, accessed via a small door almost hidden in an alcove in the Cabinet Secretary’s office. Moving down those stairs, behind the large frame of the Cabinet Secretary, Graeme Maugham had felt his heartbeat quicken and his cheeks flush, sensations rarely associated with the work of a civil servant archivist. Although his particular speciality was British secret services operations between and throughout the two world wars, his recent promotion had given him a brief that now encompassed most of the 20th century – Cold War, Northern Ireland and the rest. How this knowledge might be of help to the Cabinet Secretary, he thought as he journeyed towards the cellars, I can’t imagine.
At the bottom of the staircase stood a formidable metal door. Standing beside it, awaiting their arrival, was a uniformed security guard. On a nod from the Cabinet Secretary, the man pulled the door open, allowing the small delegation to enter a large strong room stuffed full of filing cabinets, all crammed with files of varying colours and stacked with large bound bundles of paperwork. On the back wall of the room, an open door revealed another room beyond in a similar state of chaos. The effect of this unexpected sight of multitudinous records temporarily and uncharacteristically robbed Maugham of breath. This experience was, for a professional archivist like him, perhaps the equal of an archaeologist’s first entry into a pharaoh’s tomb, deep in the sun-blasted recesses of the Valley of the Kings.
‘Well, this is it, team,’ the Cabinet Secretary announced abruptly, turning towards them. ‘My secret hoard. Well, not mine, exactly. The secret hoard of my many predecessors. Turns out that this stuff is my dodgy inheritance.’
With this, he laughed. The others followed suit, relieved by his levity and also by the apparent explanation of what they were all supposed to be – a team.
‘This lot represents almost eighty years of Cabinet papers considered “too sensitive for public consumption”,’ the CS continued. ‘It no doubt also contains material my predecessors considered “too arduous to be arsed about”. Such are the pressures of high office. And if this doesn’t get your juices flowing, there’s another hoard of similar immensity awaiting your expert perusals across at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Permanent Under-Secretary’s department will welcome you all with open arms.’
The CS reached for a file resting on an adjacent cabinet, the single motion causing a small cloud of dust to erupt into the air.
‘You’ll have to clear this lot up in more ways than one, I’m afraid,’ the CS said. ‘Getting cleaners to sign the Official Secrets Act is not an easy task these days. So I’d bring some dusters and rubber gloves along with you. All of these papers were considered toxic and top secret when they were hidden away. Your job will be to tell me how toxic they remain. It’s my intention to have all these documents declassified. I want every one released into the public domain. Every document, that is, except the ones you tell me I can’t possibly release. A toxicology report is what I require from you, gentlemen. I’ll leave you down here for a little preliminary sniff around. As for the main body of the work, take as long as you need. Have fun!’
With that, the CS strode from the room and disappeared back up the staircase to address the more serious matters awaiting his attention above. The four men, all steeped in their particular areas of expertise, eyed each other momentarily and then without a word moved swiftly to the cabinets to begin a first reconnaissance of the terrain.
None of them would have guessed, as they carefully began their work, that it would be eleven years before No. 10 finally announced the results of the team’s labours to the public. On a spring day in 2016, more than 900 files were made available to the public. Many of them shed light on embarrassing circumstances and incidents previously deemed to be ‘not in the public interest’. Philandering politicians and members of the Royal family. Cross-dressing civil servants and orgy-inclined diplomats. Church ministers and television personalities with a penchant for underage girls (and boys). All included and meticulously documented.
But by far the most interesting revelations, as far as Maugham was concerned, were those detailing the more unsavoury aspects of British intelligence initiatives. War and peace-time skulduggery laid bare. Bribery, betrayals and double-crosses. State-ordered assassinations, both planned and realised, were now out in the open for all to see. A Pandora’s box had been opened, its fascinating and damning contents given full transparency. Of the files still considered ‘too toxic for release’, there were surprisingly few. In fact, Maugham had kept back only one file from his area of interest, a slim volume found at the bottom of a drab grey filing cabinet. It contained information about intelligence and espionage operations carried out during World War II in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. In particular, information about a single spy used to great effect by British intelligence from 1942 to 1944. It was not particularly ground-breaking information. Brutal and unpleasant reading, but of no real embarrassment to the UK now. Perhaps toxic enough to command a two-page spread about ‘britain’s black ops skeletons’ in the Daily Mail, but little more.
Maugham had thought long and hard about the file, deciding to keep it out of the mix only at the last minute. His reasons were almost, though not quite, personal. He had known as soon as he had read the file that its contents would be of huge interest to someone he had once met and greatly admired. A man whose story of loss and betrayal had affected Maugham more deeply than anything he had ever heard. With this in mind, the mild-mannered, by-the-book archivist had set about ‘losing’ the file in the hope of delivering it abroad to the old man in the south of Spain who would be grateful beyond words for the information it contained. How truly out of character for me, Maugham had thought as he had secreted the file. It would absolutely finish him if his deception were discovered. But at seventy years old, he no longer cared. This went against everything he had stood for during his long career, but somehow it seemed the right thing to do. As the Airbus 320 touched down at Gibraltar International Airport, Graeme Maugham felt proud that his unremarkable life was about to produce something of real worth.
3
‘And … ACTION!’
On the north side of Grand Casements Square, in the heart of Gibraltar Town, a young woman pulls the collar of her blouse up around her neck. It gives little protection from the chill of the evening air. In her high heels, she has to move carefully across the densely cobbled ground. Two US Army jeeps pass her at speed, the soldiers within them heading towards their garrison and a hot evening meal. Small groups of soldiers and sailors wander aimlessly in search of cheap bars and clubs. Some are pleasure-bent, knowing the coming days could find them in action once more against their Nazi foe. Perhaps realising this, the woman ignores the admiring wolf whistles that follow her and heads towards the meeting place under an arch on the square’s east side. She has no desire to draw any more attention to herself than is absolutely necessary. The sudden flash of a cigarette lighter from beneath the arch alerts her to her contact.
Twenty metres further on, she stands face to face with the man she knows only as Diablo. He is younger than she expected, and sports a scar down the side of his right cheek.
‘You have what I need?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ the woman replies, unable to hide the anxiety in her voice.
‘Well?’
The woman removes an envelope from her bag and hands it to him. As he turns to go, the woman instinctively reaches out and grabs his arm.
‘
How is he?’ she asks.
The man hesitates for a moment, looks around nervously and then pulls the woman to him, kissing her hard on the lips. The woman does not fight him. Pulling back, the man looks into her eyes.
‘He told me to do that. From him, you understand?’
The woman smiles. ‘Yes, I understand.’
‘And … CUT!’
The cry rang out across the square. An order that was echoed by the small army of assistant directors and runners whose job it was to set up and control the complex movie scene and its difficult, busy location …
***
‘We’re going again!’ the director called.
On this command, principal actors and supporting artists alike headed back to their beginners’ marks. Wardrobe assistants and make-up artistes moved forward and checked and double-checked them for the camera before the call of ‘ACTION!’ filled the balmy July night air once more.
Director Jerry Callum-Forbes placed a baseball cap on top of his mass of grey, shoulder-length hair, then pulled its brim down low over his forehead. The glare from a huge light suspended more than twenty metres above the ground on a giant crane had momentarily blinded him. It was all the fiercer for being the only light shining in the square. As a film set in wartime, the lack of street lighting had to be authentic. The giant lamp created a moonlit glow across the square’s cobbled surface. An effect that was perfect, but one achieved at the cost of much negotiation. Traders, residents and local government officials had all finally agreed to turn off street and building lights during the few hours that had been allotted to filming in the town centre.
Despite the late hour, hundreds of people had turned out to catch a possible glimpse of a Hollywood movie star and watch the machinations of film-making in their own backyard. Their presence had required some complicated and sensitive crowd control, a responsibility shared by the film’s crew and the Royal Gibraltar Police. It had also cost a fair bit of money, a point not lost on the film’s producer, Gabriel Isolde. Hunching his narrow shoulders and lighting yet another cigarette, the wiry film-maker paced nervously behind the director’s chair and viewing monitor. The demeanour of the perfectly coiffured and immaculately dressed Gibraltarian was usually one of confidence and calm. Tonight it reflected stress and agitation. Although this was his third film as a producer, the massive pressures and never-ending list of responsibilities seemed only to increase, not lessen. The day had started with him firing his line producer. Until a replacement arrived, that individual’s gruelling duties – preparation, scheduling, co-ordination, payments ad infinitum – would all fall to Isolde. Added to this, he was in his home town under the expectant stares of his family, friends and fellow Gibraltarians. The opportunities to cock up on a huge scale were many and varied. Only an endless supply of caffeine and cigarettes seemed to make the whole situation bearable.
Isolde’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking it out, he could see a text message from Josh Cornwallis, the movie’s young British screenwriter. Josh was supposed to have been there from the start of the night’s filming, but had gone AWOL. His text message read: ‘delayed. urgent business. nothing to worry about. catch you tomorrow.’ Isolde sighed. He didn’t like the sound of that. Josh had a tendency to take off for days on end, disappearing on spur-of-the-moment research trips and what he liked to describe as ‘little adventures’. His timing was definitely out now, his absence taking its place on Isolde’s ever-increasing list of anxieties.
To begin with, they were filming a winter scene in the middle of summer, during the Rock’s busiest tourist period – a big ask. Isolde checked his watch, something he did so often that it had almost become a nervous tic. It was five minutes past one in the morning. With only five-and-a-half hours to go before daybreak and the end of the required darkness, the pressure was on for everyone to get the shots in the can.
‘What the fuck are we waiting for?’ Jerry hissed into his walkie-talkie. The rasp of the Scotsman’s voice sounded even fiercer than usual.
Across the square, first assistant director Tommy Danes lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth and replied to his director’s question in a calm and reassuring manner. ‘Just waiting for final checks on Miss Novacs. Sixty seconds, if you’d be so kind, guv?’
The lack of reply from Jerry meant that the director had decided to chomp on his cigar for the next minute instead of having a hissy fit. Tommy was feeling the heat, but his thirty years in the business had taught him that the gentle touch led to better results. He turned to watch the film’s make-up designer, Tani Levitt, working her brush with professional ease over the face of one of the best-known and most beautiful women in the world. Julia Novacs, movie star and idol to millions, stood a few paces to Tommy’s left, her hair, make-up and costume making her appear like a ghost from the 1940s, her face a picture of concentration as she waited to begin the scene once more.
‘How we doing, luv?’ Tommy gently asked Tani.
‘We’re cool,’ Tani replied, giving one last look at her work.
‘Thanks, Tani. Thank you, Miss Novacs. We’re ready to go again if you are.’
The actress stared ahead into the distance, unwilling to break character.
Taking this as an affirmative, Tommy raised his walkie-talkie to his mouth once more. ‘Okay, everyone. Set to go again?’ He waited a few moments for any possible negative feedback from around the square. None came. ‘Okay, guv,’ he broadcast to Jerry. ‘We’re all clear. On your word.’
From across the square, Jerry’s voice bellowed once more: ‘Let’s shoot this mother!’
Smiling, Tommy calmly gave the order.
‘And … ACTION!’
4
A few kilometres north of the Gibraltar peninsula, in the ancient Spanish town of San Roque, Josh Cornwallis was waiting in the shadows of the church of Santa María La Coronada in the Plaza de la Iglesia. Across from him was the white frontage of the old Palacio de los Gobernadores, now the home of the Municipal Art Gallery. Adjacent to the stone seat on which he was sitting was the Bar El Varal, its lights still on behind closed doors and blinds. Some late-night brandy’s being drunk, Josh thought. Apart from whoever was in the bar, he was, as far as he could discern, alone in the centre of the town. The tall, olive-skinned and strikingly handsome young man had arrived half an hour earlier than the appointed time, eager not to miss a contact he was desperate to meet. Who the contact was, he had no idea, but their importance to the story he had been researching for the last five years was paramount.
Josh was both baffled and flattered that that story was now being made into a movie entitled Queen of Diamonds, a romance based on the supposed operations of a female spy operating in Gibraltar during World War II. The spy’s real identity had never been discovered, but her exploits, thanks to Josh’s discoveries, were now slowly coming to light. The tangle of fact and myth surrounding her had proved a most attractive proposition for a screenplay, a tale of espionage and treachery set on the Rock in the darkest days of the war. Although his script had taken much artistic licence with the truth, its basis, as far as he had ascertained through lengthy, methodical research, was as accurate as the limited facts allowed.
Five years earlier, the young screenwriter had been developing a film story based on the life of another legendary female spy, the self-named ‘Queen of Hearts’. This brave thirty-year-old had offered her services to British intelligence officers based in Gibraltar in the early years of the war. Wife of the master of one of the harbours along the Bay of Gibraltar, she had helped foil the devastating ‘human torpedo’ attacks made by Italian commando frogmen on Allied shipping in the port of Gibraltar.
While on an early research trip to the Rock, Josh had received an anonymous handwritten letter. It had informed him of another woman agent recruited to British intelligence during the same period. No records had been released concerning this operative, and all knowledge of her was denied by the Ministry of Defence and Secret Intelligence Service. However, a further series
of handwritten notes had given him information and a codename – ‘Queen of Diamonds’. Only part of the information had proved verifiable at first, but it was enough for one old-time intelligence insider to say it had a ‘whiff of truth about it’. Over a two-year period, Josh had accumulated enough intelligence – officially unconfirmed – to link the female spy with several successful secret British operations. Two national newspaper articles and a Wikipedia entry had brought both Josh and the mysterious espionage operative to public attention. With growing faith in his material, Josh had set about writing a screenplay based on his findings.
A chance meeting with Gabriel Isolde at a friend’s party had led to a working and personal relationship with the passionate Gibraltar-born film producer. Isolde had taken the young man under his wing, even giving him the basement flat of his London house to live in, rent free. Now, three years later, everything had come together, their film fully financed and on location.
Principal photography had begun in the morning two days before, on the Rock’s Eastern Beach, and tonight a large-scale night-shoot was taking place in the centre of Gibraltar Town itself.
The film was low budget by Hollywood standards, funded by a myriad of investors, broadcasters and financial institutions. A classic Euro-blend of art-house quality and tax-break investment, it still boasted a budget of several million pounds and had attracted Hollywood A-lister, Julia Novacs, to the leading role.
It had been a swift rise to prominence for the twenty-nine-year-old English writer, which had drawn much attention from the media. There had even been talk in the gossip columns of an affair between himself and the film’s leading lady. Such rumours were not entirely unfounded.
