I sat there on the earthen bank, thinking hard. I suppose I should have been annoyed that Denis had taken the Gagarin business into his own hands, but the truth was that my instinct had always been to refuse to help the Prince. Denis had merely translated my feelings into action.
‘I think this all sounds dreadfully dangerous,’ I said seriously. ‘What if our people do discover what is going on, and decide you are a traitor? Won’t they want to shoot you?’
Denis gave one of his old carefree grins. ‘It’s a game, Norma. Just a game. But a game with a very serious point to it. We simply must help the Russians now we have the chance, because if we don’t they may lose, and if they lose, so will we. As for getting caught, the DNI knows what I’m doing and he’ll back me to the hilt if the worst comes to the worst.’
I took a long, deep breath. ‘Is Stewart Menzies involved in this?’ It seemed to me that if the information was going to be of any use to the Russians it had to be coming from London. Denis climbed to his feet and drew me up with him. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that,’ he said, and then after a moment: ‘I really am asking you to take things on trust, aren’t I? Do you mind being involved?’
I took another long, deep breath. ‘Of course I don’t mind being involved,’ I said firmly. ‘I love you, and I trust you, don’t I? So if you are involved, I am involved. It’s as simple as that. Now, what do we do next?’
Denis took my arm and turned us homewards. ‘Makarov wants to meet you, no doubt to assure himself that you really are on their side. I’ve arranged for us both to meet him at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon, at the coffee shop in the Botanical Gardens.’ Then he squeezed my arm. ‘You really are being magnificent about all this, darling. It must be a frightful shock to the system having so much dumped on you without warning. I wouldn’t have dreamed of letting you get involved except there is so much at stake.’ He turned and looked into my eyes. ‘You will tell me if you have second thoughts, won’t you?’
I did have second thoughts. Late that night I woke up, horrified at the course we had embarked upon so lightly. We were about to betray British secrets to the Soviet Union, a country I had been brought up to think of as the epitome of evil. The thought of helping the Soviets was bad enough, but the thought of what might happen to us if we were caught absolutely terrified me. Spies were shot out of hand, I knew that. Denis had said that the DNI would back us up if things went wrong, but I took that with a grain of salt. Surely, if a spy is caught the first rule of espionage is that you deny any connection with him.
I shook Denis awake and we wrapped ourselves in dressing gowns and shared a pot of tea in the kitchen while I explained my fears. ‘I know you think this business is important,’ I said. ‘But I would never forgive myself if things went wrong and I hadn’t at least tried to change your mind. Don’t you see how much there is at stake? What would happen to the children if we were both arrested as spies?’
Denis put his cup down carefully. ‘I know precisely how much is at stake, darling. For us and the children, but also for the Allies. The intelligence we are now getting out of Germany is pure gold. Operational signals about how and when each attack will take place. Information about German dispositions, strengths and weaknesses. We’re giving it to our commanders in North Africa and it’s turning the tide for them. If we can get it to the Russian commanders on the Eastern Front it will do the same for them.’
I didn’t say anything and there was silence in the kitchen for a while. I could hear the wall clock ticking above the sink, and the distant sound of a milk train pulling out of Croydon Station.
Then Denis reached across the table and took my hand. ‘But you are quite right about the children, darling. I do think that perhaps you should stay completely out of this. For their sakes.’
‘And what about you?’ I asked.
Denis gave my hand a little squeeze. ‘Oh, I’ll do my poor best without you,’ he said. Then his smile faded. ‘I really do have no alternative.’
‘Can you work things out with Makarov without my being involved?’ I asked.
Denis nodded slowly. ‘Of course I can,’ he said. ‘I’ll muddle through somehow. I’ll tell Makarov tomorrow that you have changed your mind, but that I want to go ahead anyway because of the money. He is offering a decent amount of cash for each signal I give them, so I’ll pretend I’m the greediest devil on earth.’
I sat at the kitchen table long after Denis had gone back to bed, toying with my empty teacup and thinking things through all over again. However hard I tried I couldn’t bring myself to believe that the matter was as crucially important as Denis imagined. It was only information we would be handing over, after all. Information might be useful but it surely couldn’t change the course of a war.
But that wasn’t the point, I suddenly realised. The point was that Denis believed that it was important, and so he would go through with it come hell or high water. I sighed when I realised that, because it meant that whether I liked it or not I would have to go through with it too. Side by side with him, as was right and proper.
I didn’t immediately rush in and tell Denis of my change of mind, because if I had he would have thought me the weakest vessel that had ever lived. One may have one’s weaker moments, but one also has one’s pride. So I waited a while until I was sure he was fast asleep, and then I went into our bedroom and shook the blighter wide awake. ‘You didn’t tell me about the money,’ I said accusingly. ‘Did you honestly think I’d let you go off and hog the whole lot for yourself?’
Denis and I lunched in the cafeteria at Myer’s, and did some windowshopping to fill in time. Four o’clock crept towards us on leaden feet, each minute seeming to take an hour. There was nothing worth buying even if we had had any spare money, and the odd shopgirl we questioned treated us for what we were – impecunious window-shoppers. But at long last the waiting was over and it was time to stride out confidently into Collins Street and hail a taxi.
We left the taxi opposite the Cenotaph on St Kilda Road, and wandered through the gardens towards our meeting place. The coffee shop was by the side of an ornamental lake in the centre of the gardens, approached by a path that wound through open lawns. As we strolled arm in arm down the pathway I realised just how well chosen our rendezvous was. From his table, Makarov could watch us all the way. I saw him doing just that. He wore his raincoat despite the warm autumn sunshine, and his soft hat was pulled so low over his face that all one could see was his chin.
If our security was in the hands of this melodramatic oaf, we are in trouble, I thought to myself. But perhaps I was underestimating him, because we were still some distance away when a deep Russian-accented voice suddenly came from the mild-looking man strolling behind us. ‘Comrade Makarov wants you to have your tea by yourselves,’ it said. ‘Do not approach him or speak to him until he joins you at your table.’ And then the man was gone, spearing off across the lawns away from us.
Makarov took his time drinking his tea. Almost an hour passed before he finally folded the newspaper he had been reading and joined us at our table. ‘One must be careful,’ he said pleasantly in English. ‘I had to make sure you didn’t have anyone following you.’
We ordered fresh coffee, and then Makarov turned to me and dropped into Russian. ‘I understand you were born in Astrakhan,’ he said politely. ‘I have never been there myself. Is it a pleasant city?’
‘I left Russia as a baby,’ I said. ‘But my mother has passed on wonderful descriptions of the place to me. She told me that it was the Paris of Central Asia. A beautiful city on a river rich with history. And with a cathedral every bit as beautiful as Notre Dame.’
‘I too have heard that Astrakhan has a French feel,’ Makarov said. ‘Possibly the result of the work of Comrade Richelieu, a Frenchman who I understand redesigned the city in the last century. But I have never heard Astrakhan mentioned in the same breath as Paris.’
‘You must excuse us émigrés if we have romantic memories of our Motherland,’
I said a little stiffly. ‘Do not forget that circumstances have not allowed us to return to Russia since the Bolshevik Revolution.’
Makarov made a graceful gesture. ‘Nothing is more hurtful for a Russian than exile. I do understand that. But it puzzles me just a little, Madam Elliott, that you love Russia even though you left its shores as a small baby, still in your swaddling clothes.’
‘My soul is Russian,’ I said dramatically. ‘In my heart I still live in our land. I read its books, I yearn over its pictures, I play its music on my piano. I dream about it. Mr Makarov, I do not know you well, but I think you are perhaps the kind of man who would understand how I feel.’
I had not lived half my life with my mother and Madam Tanya for nothing.
Makarov nodded gravely, and I think I caught a glimmer of emotion in his dark Russian eyes. ‘Your passion does you great credit,’ he said. ‘As did your refusal to work with the traitor Prince Gagarin and his gang of counterrevolutionary criminals. You know of course that those people are now working hand in glove with the Japanese Kempeitai in Malaya?’
‘I did not know that,’ I said truthfully. I had almost called him ‘Comrade’ but bit the word off just in time. This was not the time to overplay my hand. ‘I want you to know that I am no friend of those who are running Russia now,’ I said, hardening my voice. ‘I am still an Orlov. But at least you Communists are fighting to defend our sacred land. It is for that reason that I have urged my husband to help you. He told me that messages pass through his hands that would assist your commanders on the battlefield, and I have convinced him that he should pass them on to you.’
‘So your husband has told me,’ Makarov said glancing at Denis. ‘He has also suggested that payment might be in order, because you have a large family to keep and you are living on a lieutenant’s modest wage. My Government has agreed to make such payments, once our people at Moscow Central have assessed the value of the material he gives us.’
I waved the question of money aside. ‘One thing I ask you personally, Mr Makarov. Please protect my husband in this dangerous business. He is a good man, and he is learning to love Russia as I do. If he mentioned money it is only because he loves me deeply, and does not like to see me without the means to live life in the way I have been used to.’
I liked Seman Makarov, and as far as one could in the circumstances I trusted him. I judged him a Russian patriot first, and a good Communist second. He was also a simple man. I don’t mean an unintelligent man, because he was certainly intelligent, but a simple man in that he accepted much at face value. Such men find it hard to dissemble.
We switched to English so that Denis could join in our conversation, and we talked on until the afternoon began to fade into evening. There was no shaking of hands or other outward ceremony, but it was decided: Denis would betray his country’s secrets, both out of respect for my patriotism and for money.
Denis and I sat in an empty carriage on the way home to Croydon and so were able to talk quite freely. It was a good thing too, because I was so chuffed by my performance that I couldn’t shut up. I boasted, and posed, tilting my hat over my eyes in the approved style, and then gave Denis a word-for-word description of my conversation with Makarov. ‘He is quite intelligent, you know,’ I said. ‘When he asked me what I thought of Astrakhan I could so easily have gilded the lily and implied I’d lived in Russia for years. He would have had me then, because he knew precisely how old I was when I left Astrakhan.’ I gave a little theatrical laugh. ‘You must admit I do make a very fine secret agent.’
I could see that Denis was pleased. He sat opposite me, his long legs comfortably crossed, a quiet smile on his face. ‘You have every right to be proud of yourself, darling. That really was a terrific performance. At one point you almost had Makarov in tears.’
The train passed through the empty Springwood station, with Croydon the next stop. Suddenly, quite unaccountably, I felt frightened and moved to sit beside Denis. ‘Are we in any danger?’ I asked.
Denis didn’t answer but he put his arm around me and drew me towards him. Beyond our joint reflection on the carriage window, the countryside slid past, dark and unknowable.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Denis began work as personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence on a cold, wet winter’s day, and I saw him off with a feeling of dread. It had occurred to me during the night that our meeting with Makarov might have been a ‘sting’, a set-up designed to catch a potential spy before he could establish himself at the heart of Naval Intelligence. If it had been, they would surely arrest Denis the moment he walked in. This might be the last time I would see him as a free man, and I embraced him long and hard on our small front porch. ‘Please take care,’ I said finally, lifting my head and looking up into those beloved blue-grey eyes.
‘I’m only going to catch a train,’ Denis rebuked me gently. ‘As far as I know that’s a pretty safe procedure these days.’
It was a long day. I had hoped that Denis might ring and tell me everything was all right but he didn’t. So I cleaned the house, and baked some bread, and took Shirley and the children into Croydon with me to do some shopping. But the time still dragged, and when I looked at my watch for the umpteenth time to find it was only three o’clock I linked my hands across my breast in anguish.
‘Anything wrong, Mrs Elliott?’ Shirley asked. ‘You’ve been jittery all day.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I suppose I’m used to Denis being at home,’ I said.
‘I must be missing him.’
After that I tried to act more normally. I did a little bit of gardening, took a rest – lying stiff as a plank on my bed for a compulsory half-hour – and then affected a bored yawn as I told Shirley I was going for a walk. I walked for nearly an hour, timing my arrival home for precisely ten minutes after the six o’clock train.
To find that Denis had not been on it.
So the comedy went on. I prepared dinner with one ear out for the sound of the seven o’clock train, then told the children bedtime stories while I listened for the eight- thirty’s arrival.
But still no Denis.
By now I was frantic. It was completely unlike Denis to leave me in limbo like this. He would surely have called even if there had been a crisis at work, so I could only assume that he hadn’t contacted me because he couldn’t. Finally the children were asleep, Shirley had gone out to the cinema, and I could sit in front of the clock in the kitchen openly wringing my hands and thinking the worst.
Which was that Denis was in gaol, and that they would soon be coming for me as an accessory to treason.
Just after ten o’clock a car pulled up outside and I heard men talking on our porch. I gave my hair a quick brush, and then opened the front door with a pleasant smile on my face and a firm conviction that I would be behind bars before the night was over.
‘It’s entirely my fault, Mrs Elesmere-Elliott,’ a deep voice boomed. ‘I know it’s late but we simply couldn’t get away. So I’ve tried to make up by bringing your man home to you in my car.’
It was so wonderful that I felt like crying. I hugged Denis and held out my hand to Commander Long. ‘It is not too late at all, Commander. And thank you for driving Denis home.’
‘No hug? No kiss? The price of age and rank, I suppose.’
I flung my arms around the man and hugged him. ‘I thought being forward to a commander might be a shooting offence.
Commander Long was a big man in every sense of the word. He was physically large, surrounded by the quiet aura that some big men can radiate. And I was to find over the coming years that his personality matched his physical size – he had a breadth of understanding and a depth of compassion that earned him total loyalty from his people. ‘NIDites’, as members of the Naval Intelligence Division called themselves, placed him on a special pedestal and were to a man prepared to die for him.
But of course all I saw that night was a decent and caring man who held my husband’s life in his capable han
ds. And I breathed easier.
My work as a Russian secret agent began within a couple of weeks. Denis brought home a sheaf of signals, flimsy bits of paper stamped ‘Top Secret’. We set up a powerful lamp in our bedroom, and Denis photographed them when everyone was in bed, using a tiny camera no bigger than a cigarette lighter.
My job was to drop off the tiny rolls of undeveloped film at pre-arranged ‘dead-letter boxes’ in Melbourne, and after the first few times it became almost second nature to me. I’d arrange something in town such as tea with Aunt Batten or a shopping trip to Myer’s, then dress up to the nines and take the train to Flinders Street station. On those days I’d kiss the children goodbye with special fervour, wondering whether it would be the last time I’d see them as a free woman. But by the time I was strolling down Swanston Street, anonymous in the late-morning crowd, I’d feel almost invincible. Denis had taught me a series of moves designed to ensure I wasn’t being followed, and I’d carry them out with confidence and aplomb. I’d turn suddenly in the street and walk back in the opposite direction, watching out for anyone hesitating or turning with me. I’d stop in front of a shop window and study the reflections of those around me, looking for anyone who was taking an interest in me. Or I’d suddenly jump into a passing taxi and take it on a half-mile run. Once I was absolutely certain I wasn’t being followed, I’d find a public phone and ring the number Denis had given me to memorise. When it answered I’d give our code word, ‘Elli’, and smile at the flurry on the other end of the line. Clearly, ‘Elli’ was an agent of considerable importance.
Denis had arranged a series of dead-letter boxes with Makarov, and given each an identifying letter of the alphabet. I’d nominate the nearest, then it was a matter of a moment to wander to the spot and casually drop off the unexposed film, usually tucked into an empty matchbox or something equally mundane. The dead-letter boxes themselves were the most casual things imaginable – a hole in a tree in Treasury Gardens, an unused letter box outside an empty building, even a hollow space between two blocks in a sandstone wall.
In the Mouth of the Tiger Page 62
