by Alan Judd
‘I’d talk about it all night.’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘Yes, but we can’t, Charles. Can we? Sadly. Very sadly. Sweet dreams. ’Night.’
He watched until the door closed on her, then turned and faced the sea. A few minutes later the lights went out behind him, but he remained, leaning in the battlements where she had leant. Farther along the wall, someone lit a cigarette.
6
During a wet rush-hour morning a week or so later a London bus hit a car which hit a drunk, causing traffic to back up in all directions from Notting Hill Gate. Drivers were ill-tempered or wearily resigned, the hunched pedestrians morose and indifferent. Charles sat in the back of a Ford Cortina parked in Pembridge Square, off the Bayswater Road where it led past the Soviet Embassy. The mild exhilaration consequent upon being part of, and apart from, the workaday world, had faded. The Times was now refolded on his lap as he watched congregations of starlings in the bare plane trees. Conversation had lapsed and the only human sounds were the occasional crackling, staccato announcements over the VHF surveillance net, such as ‘Red Four Two off. Out.’ Jim, the driver, rested his arm on the door and stared straight ahead. Sue, in the front passenger seat, read a paperback. Charles opened one of the windows a little. It began to rain again.
Charles no longer paid any attention to the people walking past. At first, everything had been interesting; now, there was only waiting. The high spot of the morning had been when two drab youths had tried fiddling the lock of a newish but dirty and bird-spattered XJ6 Jaguar parked a few cars ahead. They ran off when Jim put his fist on the hooter.
‘Would you have called the police if they’d broken in?’ Charles asked.
Jim grimaced in the mirror. ‘Difficult one, that. On the one hand, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. On the other, we hate seeing the bastards getting away with it. If it was serious we’d tell control to get on to the police and give them descriptions.’
‘You wouldn’t follow them?’
‘Not when we’re on a job like this, no. Unless it was murder or something.’
‘Or they were good-looking,’ said Sue.
An hour and a half later, after the humiliation of his first ever attempt at The Times crossword, a walk in the rain had become an exciting prospect. ‘Any chance of a stretch of legs?’ he asked.
Jim looked at his watch. ‘You two have a cup and smoke. We’ll park round the corner.’
They went to a café with red plastic tables and a notice advertising breakfast all day. Jim parked across the road in sight of it and checked with control via a microphone concealed in the sun-visor. ‘You wired up?’ he asked Sue as she and Charles got out.
She nodded. ‘No need to call, just flash us. We’ll see you.’
They sat in the window with frothy cappuccinos. The background music was non-stop Rod Stewart. She lit a cigarette and Charles, for the sake of doing something different, accepted one. ‘Is surveillance always as exciting as this?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes even more exciting. You can spend a whole week not getting out of the car. Targets drive more than they used to. That’s why everyone’s always keen on a bit of footwork, if there’s any chance of it. Car seats make backache an occupational illness.’
SV, MI5’s surveillance section, appeared to comprise men and women in roughly equal numbers. Some of the men, such as Jim, were ex-soldiers with Northern Irish experience, while some of the women, such as Sue, were long-legged, attractive girls with the accents of Benenden or Roedean. Sue had been to the former, he discovered. When he surmised that she might have failed selection because her appearance would stand out in a crowd she accepted the compliment as a straightforward matter of fact, with no flicker of flirtation. Her blue eyes were curiously flat and expressionless.
‘So long as you’re not a dwarf or an absolute giant,’ she said languidly, ‘looks don’t really matter. You can change them quickly, especially women, headscarves and all that. It’s more a question of attitude and adaptability. The rest is trailing.’
She shared a flat off Sloane Square with two other girls, who thought she helped run her sister’s modelling agency, and did three twelve-hour shifts a week, though she was on call for some of the rest. She had no career ambitions, the pay was reasonable, hours flexible, company congenial and the work sometimes – present appearances apart – exciting.
‘Passes the time till I find someone rich enough to marry me,’ she said.
‘How rich?’
‘Quite seriously rich. Enough for a generous alimony. I suppose he’d have to be foreign or someone in the City. Got any friends there?’
‘I’ll have a think. So long as you and I have a meal for every one I introduce.’
‘Okay.’ She smiled as she put out her cigarette.
‘Meanwhile, if our friend doesn’t come out to play, we sit here all day?’
‘And half the night, and all tomorrow and the next day and so on if you’re really keen, until he does. Then he’ll probably be with someone or we’ll lose him or we’ll be hauled off on some higher priority as soon as he pokes his nose out of the door.’
Hookey had done his work with MI5. Charles was to show himself to Viktor when Viktor was seeing Claire, but no words were permitted with either, pending the security review of the case.
‘No words,’ Hookey had chuckled, ‘but sign language I leave to you. It wasn’t mentioned.’
They knew from Chef that Viktor was due to leave the Russian Embassy for some part of that day, so a team of four cars and ten surveillants was pulled off from watching the military attachés, who had been particularly active lately.
‘One of their periodic obsessions with government buildings,’ said Sue. ‘Probably in response to some regular reporting requirement, we’re told. They even send a KGB officer out to buy Janes’ Fighting Ships. No doubt they stamp “secret” all over it before sending it back to Moscow.’
When they returned to the car Jim left them to have his cup of tea, after which the three of them sat in it until lunchtime, when each crew took a break in turn. They had to move around the area in order to avoid traffic wardens. Charles wondered how his fellow students were doing on Danish Blue, the extended overseas exercise, for which each had had to work up his own legend. Gerry and Rebecca had so arranged it that no one knew he was not on it; there was some suggestion he might have been going to Reykjavik. A week in Reykjavik was beginning to sound an attractive proposition.
The radio crackled. Sue and Jim went from a comatose state to rapid response while Charles struggled to catch up. Jim started the engine. ‘Just in time,’ he said. ‘That bloody warden’s on his way back.’
Sue noted and quoted numbers and nicknames, her voice procedure quick and precise with no trace of her earlier languor; a league above, Charles reflected, his own rusty army procedure. After a couple of minutes she turned to him. ‘Static Ops report Foxtrot Alpha heading west in the Ford Escort he normally uses. Red Four Two and Three are with him. We and Four are hanging back in case he’s only gone west in order to do a U-turn. OPs also report three of our usual targets leaving at the same time, all mobiles. Could be a ploy to test our responses and frequencies, work out the call-signs we give them and so on. Or it could be that one of them’s genuinely up to something and the others are providing diversionary cover, pulling us in all directions.’
‘Or coincidence,’ said Jim. ‘Your friend Foxtrot Alpha could be visiting the Foreign Office and there could really be Foxtrot Alpha else going on.’
‘How do you know they monitor your signals?’
‘Lyalin told us when he defected, before we kicked out the 105. The Residency used to send people out just to check on their symbols and make sure they’ve still got our frequencies. We’ve got more secure comms since then, all this frequency-hopping and that sort of thing, but you have to assume they’re advancing, too.’
Charles was in mid-question when Sue cut him short. ‘Roger. On our way. Out.’ She tu
rned to Charles. ‘He’s definitely going west. We’re joining the others.’
The rain had stopped but the routes to Shepherd’s Bush and beyond were still busy. “Where is he?’ asked Charles as they approached the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout.
‘On the A40, still going west. You won’t see him, we’re too far back. Three’s on him, Four’s ahead and Two’s – not sure where Two is –’
‘Gone to the dogs at the White City, knowing them,’ said Jim.
‘Given that you want to be put alongside him later,’ Sue continued, ‘we want to keep you out of sight, so we’re hanging right back. If we go near him you’ll have to get down on the floor – there’s a blanket on the seat – but ideally you won’t set eyes on him until you want to get out and be seen. We certainly don’t want him to spot us.’
Jim drove swiftly, making it look easy. Red Four Three and Four reported that Foxtrot Alpha was alternately speeding and slowing. This made him a difficult quarry, Sue explained, because anyone wanting to keep him in sight had to do the same, which made them stand out. It was a standard anti-surveillance trick, the sort of thing you did to check whether they were on you when you didn’t mind them realising that’s what you were up to. If you were trying to look innocent, of course, you couldn’t draw attention to yourself in that way. But it was also the sort of thing people did if they were trying to arrive somewhere at a precise time, or if they weren’t sure of their route.
As he left London Viktor did not take the first section of the new M40 but turned off, keeping to the old A40.
‘What’s the next place?’ asked Jim.
‘Beaconsfield,’ said Charles, before Sue could consult her map. ‘I was there recently on an exercise like this.’
‘Perhaps you can guess what he’s up to, then, because it doesn’t make sense, what he’s doing so far.’
‘He doesn’t often drive out of London,’ said Sue. ‘He may not be confident on motorways. Anyway, he can’t go much beyond Beaconsfield or he’ll be over the limit.’
The limit was the thirty-five-mile radius from London beyond which Soviet officials could not travel without permission, imposed in response to a similar restriction on British diplomats in Moscow.
‘He might just get as far as my home, my mother’s house,’ said Charles. ‘Perhaps he’s going to call on me.’ Or perhaps he, or someone else, used to meet my father in Beaconsfield, he thought.
Foxtrot Alpha headed straight into Old Beaconsfield and parked near the tea shop Charles had used. Jim lingered before the town, waiting to be told where to park unseen. They were directed by Red Four Four to a spot by a small garage at the start of the main street, shielded by a white builder’s van. Viktor was out of his car and looking in the window of a ladies’ dress shop. One of the crew of Red Four Two, Julia, was already in the shop, in case he went in. A record of what he bought or, if a post office, where he sent letters, would be made. Two others had him under observation from outside.
The white van drove off. ‘We’re in full view,’ said Jim. ‘Be ready to get on the floor if he comes this way.’
Viktor was about a hundred yards ahead, walking slowly. He wore the suit he had worn when they dined. He crossed the road unhurriedly, looking in their direction but focusing on an approaching coach.
‘He’s either undecided or he’s playing for time or he’s not well,’ said Sue. ‘That’s not his usual walk. He’s usually brisker, more upright. Steps out, lifts his toes more.’
‘Or he’s unhappy,’ added Jim. ‘You can tell if you see a target often enough, even tell if they’ve got a cold sometimes, just by their walk. I’ve not seen much of him. Sue’s seen him more than me.’
Viktor entered an antiques shop after gazing in its window. A woman’s voice on the radio said that she thought she had been spotted and would have to pull out. ‘You go,’ said Jim, going on air himself to tell the others. Sue got swiftly out of the car and, with the aid of headscarf, turned up collar and shopping-bag, instantly became a passing shopper. Her eye was caught by something in the antique shop window and she went in. She did not come out until after Viktor had left and driven off towards New Beaconsfield.
‘Back to you?’ she asked on the radio, while apparently doing something with her bag.
‘Pick you up the other side of the roundabout,’ said Jim.
The other cars went with Viktor but Red Four One took the parallel A355 towards Amersham. ‘I think he’s trying to buy a present,’ said Sue, when she was back. ‘Is it his wife’s birthday? He was interested in all the knick-knacks until he saw the prices. Didn’t speak and left without buying anything, which is less than I did. Look.’ She held up a miniature Spode cup and saucer. ‘Don’t you think that’s sweet?’
‘All right for a thimble of gnat’s pee,’ said Jim. ‘Couldn’t get a decent cuppa out of it.’
‘Not the point, cretin.’
Jim grinned as they cruised the quiet tree-lined roads while Viktor went to a florist in New Beaconsfield. They parked in an avenue off an avenue. Viktor bought roses. ‘Told you,’ said Sue. ‘Wife or girlfriend.’
He then drove out of town in their direction, passing the end of their avenue and crossing the main Amersham Road as if heading for Chalfont St Peter. They remained where they were, listening to reports of his slow progress which, once again, made it appear he was either looking for something or lost. He gave no sign of being aware of surveillance. Next he did a U-turn and left the road for the small, secluded station car park of Seer Green, the halt at which railway, beechwoods and golf course coincided. Red Four Four sought instructions: should they join him at the station in order to see what he did, after which they would have to be withdrawn for the rest of the day, or should they hang back?
‘The car park’s tiny,’ volunteered Charles. ‘I know it from the army. The wooded hill above backs onto the camp. I used to go for runs round here. He might know it, too. There was a Russian Embassy car parked there a while ago when I came through on a train, before the case started. I reported it but never heard anything. Anyone who follows him in will be blown.’
‘It’s not so much blowing a car I’m worried about,’ said Jim. ‘It’s more a question of what you think he’s up to in there and whether he’ll abort if he suspects surveillance or whether you want to try to get alongside him now in case you don’t get a chance later.’
They assumed Charles wanted to speak to Viktor. He did not disillusion them. As they passed the station, Red Four Two cruised the other way. ‘What about that golf club?’ asked Jim. ‘Can we drive into it without being seen from the station?’
‘Possibly, if we’re lucky. Worth a try.’ Jim drew up by the verge.
‘Better if someone foots it,’ said Sue. ‘Courting couples are less suspicious.’ She looked at the wet grass and sodden trees. ‘Except that we’ve all got the wrong clothes and shoes. Unless you’ve brought your wellies and golf clubs, Jim.’
‘Always forget something.’
‘I’m more dressed for it,’ said Charles. He was wearing jeans, blue Guernsey and a sports jacket, albeit with conspicuously polished army veldskoen. ‘I know the country here, all the paths and tracks.’
‘You reckon you can keep out of sight?’ asked Jim. ‘Bit of a risk if you still want to get alongside him later.’
‘It should be possible to keep well back. We can let you know what’s happening if Sue’s wired up.’
‘I’m not going up there in these shoes,’ she said. ‘You’re on your lonesome. Take a flat hat.’ She handed him a green tweed cap from the glove compartment. He had not brought his father’s, having resolved to stop wearing it after what Anna had said.
‘We’ll risk a car in the golf club to cover the entrances and one of us will pick you up when he’s gone,’ said Jim.
‘Suits you,’ said Sue as Charles got out onto the soggy verge. ‘Bring a black Lab next time.’
He crossed the verge and walked quickly through the trees until he could see the car pa
rk. The diplomatic-plated Escort stood out but there was no sign of Viktor, nor of anyone else. He advanced cautiously to the parapet of the railway bridge, his cap pulled well down. A train was coming, so he leant against the brickwork to watch. A black Lab and a stick would have helped. He maintained an imaginary debate with Anna on the subject of walking sticks and pipes. The train came but no one left and no one came on the bare platform.
He cut up the hill through the trees, keeping parallel to the track and stopping every so often to listen. The wet leaves that softened his footfalls would do the same for anyone else’s. Glad of the exercise and with no serious hope of finding Viktor, he determined to walk to the top of the hill. He knew well enough what he would find there.
When he reached it he halted inside the wood, gazing across the open land of the army camp perimeter. There was a rusty, sagging wire fence and a broken stile for the little-used perimeter footpath. Beyond were the goal posts of the sports fields, a few huts and a dilapidated watch-tower, remnants of the camp’s wartime role. The only nearby feature was a neglected firing range for short-range weapons, with sandy butts and a high, pock-marked brick wall.
As Charles watched, Viktor walked out from behind the wall. He wore his bottle-green tracksuit, the trousers now mud-spattered, and looked in Charles’s direction. Charles stood exactly as he was, breathing gently through his nose and trusting to stillness and the trees to protect him. Viktor’s glance was general rather than focused, as if he were trying to get bearings from the stile or estimate distance from the wood. Then he put his hands behind his head and began slowly bending and stretching, dipping from side to side. Next he jogged to the stile some fifteen yards to Charles’s left. Charles knew he would be clearly visible from the track if Viktor turned to look. His only hope lay in continued stillness. He moved neither his head nor his eyes as Viktor squelched down the track and out of sight in his old-fashioned black plimsolls.
