Dead Men Living

by Brian Freemantle

  Knowing from Charlie of the soft, late-night knocks on Miriam Bell’s Yakutsk hotel room door, Natalia said, “Who’s cooperated the most, out of the two of them?”

  “Nothing in it,” judged Lestov, at once.

  “So a reevaluation conference is a lie?”

  “Inevitably,” accepted Lestov.

  “What do we do?” Natalia invited.

  “London and Washington have got to think we’ve got more than we have.”

  “Yes,” agreed Natalia, doubtfully.

  “Has there been any response about Larisa Krotkov?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why don’t we use it?” questioned Lestov.

  “Use what, how?” Natalia frowned.

  “Issue a statement, without naming Larisa Krotkov, of a further mysterious connection with Tsarskoe Selo: generate the sort of publicity we did with the photograph of Raisa Belous. Maybe hint it has something to do with a second woman. It’ll bring them back, force them into an exchange.”

  “Yes,” agreed Natalia, needing only to know what the Americans had. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

  In Berlin Charlie eased back in the tiny cubicle that had been made available to him at the former American Document Center, gazing down tired-eyed but briefly euphoric at the photograph included in the comparatively small amount of material devoted to the American OSS period in the city, prior to the CIA. So small, in fact, that it probably shouldn’t have been there at all. And more probably still was unknown to the CIA, which grew from the Office of Strategic Services, or any other Washington department, certainly none overseen by the ubiquitous Kenton Peters.

  Incredibly it was the instant recognition of the girl, not of the heavily bespectacled man, that had first registered with Charlie from the copied scrap Miriam found. But this print was intact, not cut as it had been to fit into the dead American’s pocket in the Yakutsk grave. There were a further seven men and two other girls smiling out at the camera. Charlie’s second instant identification was of a dress-uniformed Simon Norrington, without having to read the captioned name. He didn’t need the caption, either, to pick out Raisa Belous as one of the other two girls.

  There was none of the previous day’s frigidness from the cemetery registration clerk when Charlie shuffled into her office two hours later. She said at once, nervously, “I’m sorry. We still haven’t sorted it out.”

  “I’m sure you’re trying,” soothed Charlie. “I was wondering if you could do me a slightly unofficial favor.”

  “Maybe,” the woman said, doubtfully.

  “You’ve got contacts with your American counterparts in their Battle Monuments Department?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they have their Second World War dead on computer?”

  “Yes,” she said again.

  “To save me time, could you give them a call to see where Lieutenant George Timpson is buried?”

  “Could it help with our problem over the three missing visits?” she asked, anxiously.

  “It very well could,” said Charlie, smoothly. “I like to know about visits to Timpson’s grave, too.”

  The clerk only had to hold for the time it took the American official to check his Arlington, Virginia, register alphabetically. Lieutenant George Timpson had been killed, according to the file, on the same day as Simon Norrington and was supposedly buried in Plot 42 in the American cemetery at Margraten, in the Netherlands. Into the telephone the woman said, “No. We don’t understand it here, either. Of course I’ll let you know.”

  She put the telephone down and said to Charlie, “They don’t have any supporting dockets for the five visits to Timpson’s grave, either. This is incredible.”

  “Something like that,” agreed Charlie.

  She nodded to the telephone. “You won’t tell anyone I did that, will you?”

  “I won’t if you won’t.”

  When Charlie got back to the Kempinski, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Jackson was in the foyer and Charlie decided he’d already learned more from the man’s presence than the military attaché was going to discover from waiting so patiently.

  Charlie parted from the military attaché after an hour and two malts, insisting he was flying directly back to Moscow, and used the public telephones in the lobby to avoid the switchboard. Natalia answered at once, expectantly, hearing Charlie through to the end before bringing him up to date.

  “I agree with Lestov,” said Charlie. “Two people at the same time from Tsarskoe Selo can’t be a coincidence. What’s her name?”

  Charlie’s hesitation at being told lasted so long that Natalia thought they’d been disconnected, calling his name. Charlie said, “Larisa Krotkov is the woman next to Timpson in the photograph I’ve got in front of me right now.”

  Now it was Natalia’s turn to remain silent for several moments. “What about the statement Lestov suggested?”

  “Make it!” said Charlie. “It’s true, isn’t it? But have Lestov get back to Tsarskoe Selo, for anything they might have about her.”

  “He’s already doing that. This make anything clearer to you?”

  “Not yet. What about Novikov and his family?” Could the lead come from whatever the doctor knew?

  “Shouldn’t take any time at all. I’ve approved his application.”

  “Sufficient for me to go to London, though?” He was still unsure whether it would be necessary to go to America, so he decided against mentioning it.

  He was glad he had when Natalia said, “But not for any longer than necessary, remember?”

  The director-general was just as quick personally answering his direct line and, like Natalia, let Charlie talk without interruption.

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “It fits.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Allow me to.”

  27

  Sir Rupert Dean’s Hampstead house adjoined the heath and had an expansive garden of its own, adding to the intended country impression. As he walked up the long, low hedge-lined path, Charlie saw a woman wearing a shapeless gardening hat and gloves among a jungle of large-leafed greenery in a conservatory attached to the right of the house. It was she who answered the door, a trowel still in her hand. The hair beneath the hat was gray and a face that had never known makeup was unlined and tranquil. She smiled as if he were an old friend.

  “He’s expecting you,” she said, when Charlie identified himself. Appearing aware of the trowel, she said, “Repotting xerophytes. They’re not as hardy as everyone thinks they are, you know; you need to be careful.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have a garden,” said Charlie, following her into the house. He wondered if she’d have any use for the now-redundant beekeeper’s hat.

  The room to which she directed Charlie was a true bibliophile’s library. Every available space was shelved from floor to ceiling, but there was no obvious order to their packed-together, one-on-top-of-the-other contents, books of every size hodgepodged unevenly together, waiting to be read or reread, not assembled for wall decoration. Others overflowed onto the floor, forming tiny battlements. Dean sat beneath a bright reading lamp in front of a dead fireplace, its emptiness unsurprisingly filled with a profusion of still more greenery. The book was bastard-sized, the cover print original German.

  The disheveled former university professor nodded Charlie toward a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. On a table alongside was a cloth-covered plate. Dean said, “You won’t have eaten. Jane made sandwiches.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Charlie. They were cheese and pickle.

  “Her idea, not mine,” said the director-general. “It’s scotch, isn’t it?”

  Charlie saw that was what Dean was drinking. “Thank you.”

  “I won’t say ‘Cheers,’” refused Dean. “I’m not sure we’ve got anything to be cheerful about.”

  “Probably not,” said Charlie.

  “I don’t want a full summation,” ordered the older man. “That can wait until
tomorrow. I want an explanation for what you told me on the telephone.”

  “The department has been set up: all of us,” repeated Charlie. “We’ve never been expected to solve or discover anything—”

  “We were told from the outset there would be a cover-up, if it turned out to be embarrassing,” stopped Dean.

  “They know what the embarrassment is!” insisted Charlie. “Have from the beginning: not from the finding of the bodies but long before then. And it has been covered up, for God knows how long. The Yakutsk grave was an inconvenience, something never expected to happen. There has had to be the appearance of an investigation, particularly because of all the publicity. But not the sort we thought there was. What we’ve been doing—I’ve been doing—is proving whether or not the cover-up is going to hold—”

  The director-general raised his hand. “Stop! Who are ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Charlie. “A government department, ministry, but I don’t know which one.”

  “Our own people?”

  “That’s what I believe. As I believe the moment we find something taking us where we’re not supposed to go, they’ll clean it up before we get there.”

  “America?”

  “Has to be involved, too,” picked up Charlie. “Again, I don’t know how. Or again, which department or agency.”

  “You basing this entirely on some missing cemetery records?”

  Charlie offered the Berlin group photograph he’d been allowed to copy at the Document Center. “You’ll recognize the man on the left as the American found in Yakutsk. His name was George Timpson. His phony grave is in a Dutch cemetery. I don’t know why the Netherlands; I was told there aren’t any American war cemeteries in Berlin. Timpson is supposed to have died the same day as Norrington. All evidence of five visits to Timpson’s grave has disappeared, just like those to Norrington.”

  “There could be a far more reasonable explanation a lot different—totally different—from what you’re drawing. Don’t forget the number of departments and ministries who’ve got a hand in this.”

  “I’m not forgetting that for a moment!” said Charlie, urgently.

  “I’m asking why. Okay, a lot of other departments have a legitimate interest. But we’ve been given the investigation. So why’s it stayed as diverse as it has? You’ve shared everything we’ve discovered, right?”

  “Right,” agreed Dean, thoughtfully. “Those are my instructions.”

  “What’s been reciprocated from here, let alone America?” demanded Charlie. “The only echo we’ve got, as far as I understand, is that all the records and files have either been destroyed or can’t be found … .” He paused, gulping his drink. “If we hadn’t had that scrap of label that took us to Gieves and Hawkes we wouldn’t have got Norrington’s name. And if we hadn’t done that—and got the family through it—we’d be no further forward than the day we began. Because the only information about Norrington has come from his family: we haven’t been offered a single thing from another single supposedly interested or involved department here in England. Or from America. According to the military attaché in Berlin, the Ministry of Defense is in uproar because I went to the exhumation: they’re sending in their own investigators. With so many people—countries!—already in on the act, there’s not a chance in hell of getting close enough to understand anything—the perfect way to create the perfect confusion.”

  Dean leaned forward, adding to Charlie’s glass. “It’s an argument,” he conceded, reluctantly. “The sort of argument that builds unsupported conspiracy theories into accepted fact.”

  “I thought the journalists in that hotel dining room were lucky not to be more badly hurt—killed, even—by Henry Packer, didn’t you?”

  Dean sighed, nodding. “You’re asking me to trust you over my own operational group: knowingly—consciously—to deceive them!”

  “Patrick Pacey is the political officer,” listed Charlie. “His function is to liaise politically with the very departments—and the Intelligence Committee itself—who aren’t reciprocating to us. Jeremy Simpson would have to consider everything legally. Your deputy is your deputy, subservient to you. Gerald Williams is only concerned with finance: wouldn’t normally be part of the group … .” Charlie paused. “All I’m asking for is time—time to work without knowing someone’s going to be ahead of me every step of the way …” Charlie paused, to make his point. “If I’d wanted to deceive them—and you—I could have. You ordered me back, to investigate anywhere I felt it necessary. I’m telling you why I think it’s necessary.”

  “How do you intend using this time you’re asking for?”

  “I’ve got names, from Berlin. And others, Germans, from the Gulag. I want to establish the connection I’m sure exists. And I want to speak to Norrington’s family. And I want to do it without people knowing in advance that I’m going to: without meeting Packer’s successor.”

  When the director-general didn’t speak, Charlie said, “All I’m asking to be allowed to do is work by the same rules as everyone else. And not have to put forward my interpretation that we’re being blocked by our own people.”

  “I’m not sure anyone else would have given you as much time to argue that interpretation as I already have,” said the director-general.

  Charlie said, “There’s a second interpretation I believe you should consider.”

  “What?” demanded Dean.

  “Our department—now your department—wasn’t in any way a part of whatever happened, before or after, when these murders were committed.”

  Once more Dean did not respond.

  “So after fifty years, with an undecided remit and an even more undecided future, we were the obvious choice when the bodies were found, weren’t we?” continued Charlie. “A test for us, desperate to prove ourselves. A test for others—whoever they are—anxious to know if the concealment thus far is good enough to withstand an investigation: remain a mystery forever. But not that anxious. They’ve got the final say before it becomes final. If we get too close, they can misdirect or close it all down, citing without explanation the embarrassment they’ve already insisted to be the primary concern. But to keep everything properly hidden, no one is going to be able to know what the embarrassment is, are they? So there’s an easy answer: we’re made to be seen to fail. Which makes us even more vulnerable to everyone snapping at our heels.”

  “That’s pretty convoluted logic,” protested Dean.

  “But it is logic, for the environment we live in,” insisted Charlie. “Not even in national archives closed for the next fifty or a hundred years will there be an admission of a secret that’s literally been buried for the last fifty. It’ll be our inability properly to fulfill the investigatory role we’re trying to establish, against all the other competing agencies. How about a second—or even third—agenda? If we don’t get beyond all the obstruction of our own people—quite apart from that of America or Russia—to find out everything, there’s every reason to disband us. We’re set to be the losers, any which way.”

  There was a further long silence, this time for the incredulous director-general to find the words. He eventually said, “You have any more conspiracy theories? Or is this the last?”

  “That’s it,” said Charlie. “Our only protection is to find out everything. Only by knowing it all can we defend ourselves.” But more importantly defend myself and Natalia and Sasha, although not in that order or priority.

  “I’m compromised, aren’t I? By having agreed to meet you like this?”

  “No,” said Charlie. “This meeting never took place.”

  “Would you swear to that, under oath, if this evening was ever discovered and put before a tribunal inquiry?”

  “Yes,” said Charlie, at once. “If it’s morally—and philosophically—right for a wartime general knowingly to sacrifice the lives of eight hundred men to save those of eight thousand, isn’t it morally—and philosophically—right to tell a small lie to establish a
more important truth?”

  “No!” refused the other man, just as quickly. “Your morality and your philosophy don’t work. Any more than your logic.”

  “They do if I discover that truth,” insisted Charlie. “That’s what’s going to keep us in existence.” And me in Moscow, he thought.

  “What happens if you fail to discover it?”

  “I won’t.” Because I can’t, Charlie mentally added.

  “You haven’t eaten your sandwiches,” said the older man.

  “They’re very good,” Charlie said politely, beginning at last.

  “The pickle’s homemade,” said Dean. “Jane does her own. She likes growing things.”

  “I can’t get anything like this in Moscow.”

  “Perhaps she could find you a pot, before you leave.”

  “That would be very kind.”

  “Don’t ever imagine that this evening has established any special, back-channel situation between us, will you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Never take my inexperience for softheartedness.”

  After more than a week of being starved of any apparent progress, the Moscow announcement of a further although unspecified development caused the renewed media uproar that Vadim Lestov had predicted.

  “Having finally returned to give us an explanation, you can’t explain it!” attacked Gerald Williams, eagerly and at once. He’d definitely made his mind up: anything he could do to show up the man’s inability would all contribute to what he intended at the end.

  Cunt, thought Charlie. The seating arrangements put him at the bottom of the table, with the control group pincering him from either side, which Charlie supposed would be the composition of the sort of tribunal Sir Rupert Dean had talked about the previous night. To which he’d said he’d have no difficulty lying under oath, Charlie remembered. Doing just that without an oath, he said, “Not about today’s announcement, no. But as it has been announced, I’ll obviously be told, won’t I?”