Legacy

by Alan Judd

  When the waiter had withdrawn he raised his glass. ‘Well done, both of you. We have useful information, some valuable alias documentation and a secret understanding with a young KGB officer. Not yet a recruitment, mind, but if he comes out again and we can get Charles alongside him, then I expect we shall. That depends, of course, on whether Charles decides to leave or stay after what I’m about to tell him.’ He raised his eyebrows at Charles and lifted his glass again. ‘Because the person we should really be toasting, and who would have relished this occasion, is my old and true friend, Stephen Thoroughgood, your father.’

  Charles was nonplussed. Rebecca watched him closely.

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ continued Hookey. ‘You remember I told you I stopped a packet in the war, twice, and after the second one never rejoined my regiment? Well, I was no longer A1 FE – Forward Everywhere – but I managed to wangle myself a secondment to the Intelligence Corps and ended up in a security outfit in Berlin at the end of the war. Which, incidentally, after tortuous to-ings and fro-ings and the good fortune of running into a chap called Biffy Dunderdale – colourful character, now long retired and living in New York, been in the office since the First World War and knew the first chief, Mansfield Cumming – is how I wound up in the office. Anyway, it was when I was in Berlin – what’s this, tea or coffee? Blast. Rebecca, be mother, will you – that I got to know your father. Our supposed allies and fraternal friends, the Russians, were giving us a lot of trouble already. Sort of thing you’ve seen in that document of your father’s I gave you. Well, it happened just as your father described it, though there was a lot else afterwards, and his case officer for many years was the man Igor, whom he wrote about. Impressive man, good operator, excellent case officer really and still is, no doubt, for others. We know a lot about him – habits, career successes and reverses, family and extra-marital life, political beliefs, vulnerability to corruption, loyalties – because the agent–case officer relationship is not only often close but rather more two-way than we case officers like to admit.’ He pointed his knife at Charles. ‘Remember that, if you stay.’

  Hookey ate as he spoke, with frequent pauses. He paused again while the waiter poured more champagne. ‘Half a bottle of bubbly with breakfast every day – proper breakfast, not the sort of thing Rebecca’s picking at – would set us all up, you know. We’d be nicer to each other, days would pass better, work would get done just the same.’ He wiped his mouth and waved at someone through the window. ‘Now, we know all this about Igor and much, much else, because of your father, Charles. No doubt you see now where I’m leading. Yes, he was blackmailed by the Russians in the way he describes, he was unfaithful to your mother – though never again, so far as I know – and he did become a Russian spy. And in his last year he did help them with Legacy – indeed, he was the lynch-pin of the UK end of that operation.’

  ‘You’ve penetrated the KGB and found out about him?’ Charles asked. ‘You’ve known all along?’

  Hookey spoke slowly and clearly, watching where each word fell. ‘We know because he was really our spy. During all those years when they thought he worked solely for them, when they tried and tested and eventually trusted him with some of their most delicate operations, he was a double agent, our double agent. From the start, from day one, the day following their blackmail pitch, your father worked for us.’

  Something coursed through Charles’s skin, a suffusing warmth, like an extra blood supply. He felt he might be blushing.

  ‘He did the sensible thing, you see,’ Hookey continued, ‘unlike some others. He reported it to his commanding officer the next day, came clean, told everything. Always the best thing to do. His commanding officer reported to the local int. and sy. – intelligence and security – detachment. That was me, or part of it was. I met your father later that same day. I liked him and trusted him. Also, what he said tied in with agent reporting we already had about a number of similar honey traps they were trying at the time, one of which fitted your father’s circumstances exactly. So I knew he was being truthful, wasn’t holding anything back. I decided then and there that we should turn this round, play it back at them. It had to be done from the start, you see, to be really effective, because if you got on to it later there were nearly always problems, things you didn’t know, differences the other side noticed, difficulties about getting the right sort of chickenfeed for the agent or whatever. ’Course, to react that fast I had to do it without clearance and seek agreement retrospectively, but that was my problem. Been doing it ever since.’ He chuckled. ‘I became, and was proud to remain, your father’s principal case officer through the decades that followed. Most unusual, even irregular – we don’t usually do these things as thoroughly or as well as the Russians, DA cases especially – but it was one of the very best long-term DA cases that MI5 have ever recorded. I say MI5 because, strictly speaking, it became their case – British official, run on British territory – and they’re very territorial about these things. But de facto control always rested with us, with me. So, when your friend Viktor sprung the surprise on you that he did, telling you about your father, we had to do some quick thinking, eh?’ He grinned.

  ‘Fortunately, I’d already done it, some of it. Everything we knew about Legacy came from your father – he was the delicate source I referred to – and when he died I not only lost a good friend but our radar screens went as blank as the Russians’. The kit they’d given him he’d handed over to us, of course, and after we’d examined it we gave it back to him to conceal when he found a site. Naturally, he’d have consulted us on the site and we would have monitored it. But, as you know, he found it over Christmas and died before he could pass on the location to us, or to the Russians. That’s why we were so anxious to monitor their progress in finding it and see what they were going to put in it. And we were equally anxious to find a source to replace your father, which is where your friend Viktor came in.’

  Hookey poured the rest of the bottle. ‘Seems a pity to stop here but I suppose another would be overdoing it. Not yet eight thirty, after all. Now, I won’t claim the gift of prophecy but when our traces on Viktor showed that you knew him, and with my hunch that he had a supporting role in Legacy, I thought it possible – just possible – they might do something along the lines of what they did. It is not unprecedented. And if they did I thought it possible – no more than that – we might be able to use Viktor’s affair to turn it back on them in rather pleasing parallel with your father’s case. Important differences, of course, and no blackmail by us. Not directly, anyway. But I knew if I said anything to anyone about this there’d be flutterings in the hen coops for ever and a day and nothing would get done. So I just let it run and waited. And it all worked out, as you know.

  ‘Except that your resignation was never a part of my planning, you’ll be pleased to hear, and when that came up I had to decide whether to tell you all or whether to let you resign in ignorance, taking the chance of being able to salvage things later. I chose the latter partly because your resignation actually made things easier, bureaucratically, partly because I hoped that, being your father’s son, you would remain loyal and helpful – as you have – and partly because I feared you might not play your part with Viktor with sufficient conviction if you knew that’s all it was, playing a part. Not that I expected you to blurt out anything you shouldn’t have but if you were to establish the sort of relationship with him that you have there needed to be a genuine emotional engagement on both sides, not just the simulacrum of one. We can all feign emotion, of course, but it’s deeply wearing after a while, dries out your heart. Believe me, I’ve done it. And from all we knew of Viktor, for him to like and trust you enough to entrust his life and future to you by accepting your help, he had to feel that you had been put through the wringer just as he had.

  ‘Meanwhile, knowledge of your resignation made things so much easier internally and with MI5, with their worries about the tart and her minister and about our knowledge of Legacy coming
to light. They were much happier that you should live the rest of your life thinking your father was under investigation and that we should make no attempt to recruit Viktor, for fear of revealing anything. Fortunately, everyone lost sight of the fact that your letter never reached Personnel.’ Hookey took Charles’s letter from under his seat and handed it to him. ‘You can tear it up or keep it as a memento or what you will, but if you still want to submit it you’ll have to stick it in the bloody post.’

  Charles bristled with questions born of relief, surprise and a quite unexpected anger that grew in proportion to his relief. ‘You knew, all the time?’ he asked, superfluously, because he wanted to hear it said.

  Rebecca smiled encouragement but Hookey was unsmiling. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You –’

  ‘Put you through the wringer, rather, as I said.’

  ‘Does my mother know about it?’

  ‘He never told her, given the way it started. But she knew he had working contacts with intelligence and security people. She just didn’t know about the extracurricular bits. He was an extremely conscientious agent, your dad, very hard-working. I think partly he felt it was in expiation for the beginning, though he didn’t need to. It was very understandable. Lots of people had experiences like that and he did the right thing. But I think he always felt guilty with regard to your mother.’

  There was much that Charles wanted to say, if only he knew what it was. ‘What happened to Ulriche?’ he asked. It wasn’t quite that, but it would do for the time being.

  ‘I’ve a feeling your father did talk to Igor about that, when they got to know each other. It’s in one of the early volumes of the file. You can read them all if you like. I’ll tell Maureen to let you have it. It’s a very long file. Come and talk again then, if you’re still with us.’ He held up his hand for the bill. ‘I very much hope you will be. Will you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Too soon to say, eh? Bit of a shock. I can see that.’ Hookey paid the bill. There was no softening of his briskness. ‘Got to take my wife into Norwich. Which reminds me. In my case it was the dunes in Walberswick, other side of the harbour, while on leave from battle school. Thought it was the only chance I might ever get. There’s rather a good pub there, by the way. In fact, it was one of the barmaids who took pity on me. Excellent mussels for lunch if you fancy walking off your breakfast. Go along the beach to Dunwich. And stay here the rest of the weekend. I think the Queen can stretch to that.’ He stood and put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. ‘Do your very best to persuade him, my dear, but if he won’t listen, don’t worry. I’m sure Viktor would be happy for you to take Charles’s place.’ He nodded at Charles, grinned and went.

  They sat in silence for a while. ‘Did you know?’ asked Charles.

  She shook her head. ‘Not the whole story, and not until just before you came in. He said, “Charles is in for a surprise. His father was a DA working for us all along. He should be relieved and he will be when he gets used to it, but he might be angry at my deception. We might lose him.”’

  ‘Did you know he was here, that he was coming this morning?’

  ‘He said he probably would. Told me not to tell you.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Like laughing or smashing the place up. Well, no, not quite like that. It’s hard to say.’ He stopped and made himself smile. ‘Anyway, no room for personal indulgence in our business, Viktor would say. Or Hookey.’

  She put her hand on his arm. ‘What do you think you’ll do?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  She went out after breakfast while Charles made notes for his write-up of the night before. There was relief in the process of writing and recording. He would have to do two versions, the full one for Hookey and one that excluded Legacy for Hugo. It took longer than he thought; much of his mind was elsewhere.

  Later he found her sitting on one of half a dozen ancient cannon that faced the sea. She was smoking another cigarette. ‘You look like a Senior Service advert.’

  ‘Peter Stuyvesant, please. Bit more glam.’ She gazed at the sparkling sea. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Have you made your decision?’

  ‘Yes, I have. And the hotel couldn’t extend us. Our rooms are fully booked. Then while I was at the desk someone rang in to cancel one of the larger rooms at the front. But it’s a double, I’m afraid.’

  She took another pull on her cigarette, exhaling slowly. ‘Trust you did the right thing.’

  ‘I think so.’