by R. J. Dillon
‘You know the procedure, sir,’ the senior of the two called Berry announced, escorting Nick through into the hall.
In a practised routine, almost a ceremony, Berry walked Nick in silence through a beamed hall stacked with artefacts from a different more recent unfought war. Respirators, body bags and boxes of tags lying alongside mobile cleansing stations, stored now Nick supposed, for the next great threat, another colder war perhaps? At a door marked WARDEN Berry applied his keys to the three locks, waving Nick in. Going down a wide set of concrete steps Nick paused at the bottom, again supplying his name and authorisation at a modern bunker door. Stepping through the hatchway, Nick was met by another two Ministry of Defence police officers with their Sig Sauer P230s neatly holstered and not a smile between them.
‘Your archive officer will be along shortly, sir,’ one of them informed Nick, as a vault sized door swung closed.
Nick’s guide to Service history was a sturdy woman named Sabden. In her late forties, she had the archivist’s wary acceptance of outsiders; her thick permed hair speckled grey, her serious reading glasses on a cord around her neck discouraged frivolous enquiries. She wore a thick green hand knitted cardigan over a ruffled blouse, black trousers and wore no-nonsense flat shoes that accentuated her aura of having devoted herself to inflicting order on the chaos of the past.
‘Files?’ she barked, setting off down a corridor with buzzing light tubes matched by the hum of the air-conditioning.
‘Latvian operations between 1970 and 1990,’ Nick said, hurrying on behind, offering a wide chronological span to disguise his main purpose.
At measured intervals branch corridors fed off into different levels and sectors designated alphanumerically, though in places Nick could still make out designations of Second World War provenance.
‘This is available on Chronos,’ she pointed out, turning down another corridor, B12-C4, above a stencilled arrow providing direction to WAR PLANNING.
‘I know,’ said Nick and left it at that. Not wanting to explain that if he searched the electronic database, senior officers would be able to run a check on who had been logged onto the system and what had been accessed. And that thought Nick, posed too much of a risk considering Aubrey-Spencer’s conviction that Moscow had been given open access to the Service’s systems.
Pulling up abruptly at a door marked COMMAND OFFICE, she instructed Nick to wait inside while she went to collect his material. There’d been no attempt to cater for the modern reader; for the large room smelling slightly dank, still contained its Second World War paraphernalia, a telephone exchange down one wall with a teleprinter stationed at the far end. Rows of tables held school chairs with canvas backs and seats; above each table, a green metal shade housing a single bulb, and suspended by chain, a small blackboard detailing each table’s wartime responsibility carefully written in chalk capitals. Nick picking a table at random, and quite unaware of any irony, sat under a blackboard specifying CO-ORDINATED RESPONSE.
In twenty minutes Sabden was back, pushing a trolley stacked with files.
‘Do not detach any sheets, do not lean on the pages and crease them,’ she said irritably. ‘If you require further assistance, I shall be sat over there,’ she added, indicating with a very straight finger, a wooden desk already stocked high with files.
So off Nick went, turning page after page of Latvian operations that somehow had been compromised, curtailed or cut-off before they’d even got going, trawling them all for a reference to the Oktober Projekt. Names of officers some dead, some retired, flooded off the pages. How long he sat there he couldn’t tell, so thoroughly absorbed had he become. And it was at this particular instance, Nick realised, in the solitude of this Second World War bunker as he unwound and recovered the thread of each and every trail, that the Latvian operations underwent a subtle change. Nothing so distinct to put his finger on, no discernible name leaping out at him, a definite direction or single clear fact that screamed ‘fixed’; yet a change nonetheless in how the operations had been handled came through with the sole purpose of burying Operation Windfall.
At that moment he’d a clear impression that he had broken a hidden code, a dissenter who has somehow questioned absolute trust. But while he was amongst these ghosts of previous operations, any feeling of victory, of having an end in sight did not trouble Nick. Only once more did Nick require Sabden’s help; meekly requesting if she could bring him a CO8 file on Juris Valgos, which he knew, as he waited for it to arrive, that it would be very thin as he had compiled it himself. What Nick didn’t expect to find was the number of retrievals its jacket recorded, six in the past month.
‘Visitors from the eighth floor,’ Sabden told him, not even raising her head.
Back at his table Nick unwound the treasury tag on the file belonging to ‘Ivars Skriveski’, the Lat he was supposed to have murdered; real name Juris Valgos, codename THORN, logged and recorded by Nick’s own very hand as a potential talent spotter. Slowly Nick went through each of the contact records, personal details and glanced briefly at his own signature at the bottom of each sheet. A paper clip held a number of grainy black and white surveillance photographs together. On each image, taken as standard procedure when a Service agent is resettled, Nick spent the same amount of time. Studying them intently, going over the features of a Latvian who Gav had employed years ago in Riga; Juris Valgos stared blankly back at him, the same look, the same angry eyes he knew from numerous meetings in dingy London bars. There was a second section on friends and relatives and here Nick found the details on Ingrid. Ingrid, how could Nick have forgotten her? Not Russian or Latvian, but a rough and ready escort that he’d only seen from afar during routine surveillance.
In the same way that any historian embarks on a journey into the past, Nick realised that he was not alone; a dialogue between past and present had already been set in motion. All he had to do was listen.
• • •
No one could ignore Andrejs Valgos. Standing behind a row of cellar railings with an assortment of plastic cups and an odd beer can marked extra strength punched through the rusty points, a faded sign was more or less hanging over his head; TWILLER FOR QUALITY MEAT. The ‘F’ and ‘M’ had slipped down, but Valgos didn’t seem bothered by the rearranged message. He had blood on his hands and smears of it on his white butcher’s coat. Pushing solemnly at pieces of discarded market litter with his feet, he struck his final wholesale deal of the afternoon, his bloated face a patchwork of colour and glimpses of past emotions and Nick held back until Valgos’ customer moved off.
‘I want to talk to you about Juris,’ Nick said, watching Valgos’ face rise and stiffen, the muscles in each cheek brace. Valgos stopped writing in a notebook, his reddened hands locked into each other for protection. Stepping forward his weight on his left foot, Andrejs hit Nick with a fierce right hook splitting his lip, spilling Nick to the ground.
That’s okay, Nick thought, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand getting to his feet, I can understand he’s angry, he thinks I’ve murdered his brother.
‘Whatever they told you, I didn’t do it,’ said Nick.
‘I don’t do no more talk. You want talk, you go find my sister she talk about Juris all day. I got business to run, got that.’
‘Juris was murdered on Moscow’s orders,’ said Nick bluntly, not prepared to move, letting the information sink in.
‘Who say?’
‘I do.’
‘Me, I don’t have no involvement with Russians, got that,’ he cried, as if he needed to start by refuting allegations.
‘That’s fine.’
‘If you sure, come into office and we talk.’ Valgos tossed back his dark head and walked off, a plodding shuffle in both feet.
The office was a cabin nailed up out of plywood sheets, proclaiming Twiller & Sons painted unevenly above a door neither of Valgos’ sons would ever walk through. After Nick followed him inside, Valgos hammered a rubber wedge under the door with the heel of a boot.
He dropped his notebook and pencil into separate coat pockets clotted a deeper brown. When he frowned, folds of skin deepened around his nose and to the side of his mouth.
‘Did Juris mention anything about being contacted recently by any of our people, or anyone from overseas?’ Nick asked, propped against a tatty trucker’s map of major trunk routes, his lip throbbing as it swelled. There were no windows and the other walls were crowded with invoices and bills stamped ‘Final Demand’.
Taken off guard Valgos shook his head, everyday he prepared himself for another crushing blow despite Irka, his second wife, going to church each morning to pray nothing more would happen. With Andrejs first wife losing two sons, Irka herself never able to become a mother, she saw everything as a punishment for an unknown family sin and at any moment, God would send another disaster. Valgos accepted her pious reliance on fate, making enough space for religion to take over. What did he mind? Running like a dog in the night, changing addresses, moving to a different country, he lived with the reality in order to accept this world’s candid price as opposed to the mystical promises of the next.
‘Juris never been same since his friends betrayed and murdered,’ said Valgos, reclaiming his composure. ‘I tell you people, the family not interested no more in spying for English.’ He whipped a wad of invoices from a hook and his movement shook the cabin’s wall.
‘Maybe Juris had something to prove, make something right from the past.’
Flinging the sheaf of papers Valgos went for Nick. His chapped hands reaching only as high as Nick’s chest were spread wide pushing at Nick, but couldn’t manage to move him a fraction towards the door.
‘Get out,’ he raged, his hands at his sides. This tough spy could go rot in hell before he would strike him again, stain his pride once more. ‘My family fought the Russians in Latvia, we made sacrifices. You hear that?’ he said bitterly, in a trance. ‘Juris no get involved with them.’
From the file Nick had compiled on Juris he remembered the Valgos family history. One uncle executed by the Russians in 1953, his body put on public display in the marketplace, another uncle had undertaken courier work for the Service, and Andrejs’ first wife was a Service agent, four months pregnant with twin boys when the network was blown and she was tortured and shot in the prison where they’d held Gav Rafford. Andrejs and Juris abandoned everything they possessed, escaping to Britain as émigrés in 1989.
‘Someone must have contacted him,’ suggested Nick. ‘You talked to him everyday, he must have said something,’ said Nick, his hand outstretched in an appeal.
‘Go, get out,’ said Valgos, knocking Nick’s hand sideways.
‘Juris made an easy target and you want to ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen?’
He saw the mention of fidelity sting Valgos who looked blankly for somewhere to sit; a stool or chair, both were outside the arc of his hands. His knees gave and his body sagged. Sinking his elbows onto the lid of a freezer cabinet, he sent a stack of telephone directories skidding onto the bed of a set of scales. Irka you should pray more he thought, your prayers are not getting through. He’d ask her to pick a different saint. Their life destroyed and wasted for no gains.
‘Help me Andrejs, make them hurt for a change, make them know what it is to feel fear.’
‘A chance to make good old wounds? That’s what you think I should do? Against shadows, against people who have no names? You understand nothing, nothing of them and their methods.’ The words came without any control, his face flushed.
‘A chance to prove your brother didn’t die for nothing.’
‘No one wants to listen.’
‘Who contacted him, Andrejs, who contacted Juris?’
‘Since he had big win on lotto two year ago he forgot who he was, where he come from,’ answered Valgos, an empty chaff of a man blown dry by the winds of battles he never stayed to fight. ‘He start believing he is some rich spy like in damn film.’
‘Who was it Andrejs?’
Shaking his head, swallowing hard, Valgos recounted the event for Nick. ‘At our sister’s birthday, a family meal, Juris gets a call on his cell phone, goes outside. When he returns he is white, whiter than a damn ghost. It was Georgs, Juris says. Georgs Lauvas is in London, a representative for a Swiss company, and he has an investment opportunity. I don’t know all details, he were not specific. Georgs Lauvas is traitor, my sister and I tell Juris, you don’t even take a damn toffee off him, nothing. We all said we were pretty damn sure he worked for Russians in Latvia, betrayed people for money. Betrayed members of our family, maybe even my wife. This is Moscow all over again playing their dirty tricks, but Juris won’t listen, gets big ideas, loses his way, thinks he can fool them.’
‘Did they arrange a meeting?’
‘They are swine, they deserve to rot in hell. I said enough, now leave,’ he protested, going to a ledge and stretching for a flask with a grunt. ‘You make me nervous staying here.’ He poured himself a stream of coffee into a mug.
‘Lauvas betrayed Juris, he lured him to his death Andrejs.’
Blowing his coffee, Valgos gave a curt laugh.
‘Sure, me and my sister warned him not to go. We tell him, tell Ingrid that you walking into trouble for sure. Go police, go to Service and tell them Georgs Lauvas is a traitor. Juris laugh, say these people who were meant to represent the law treat him like idiot. Justice is a word that they spit from their lips. A worthless morsel they toss to dog. Juris have no faith in your damn system,’ he said in an appeal to a dozen missing jurors.
‘Ingrid went with him, she went to the meeting with Juris?’ asked Nick, not knowing if this was a question too many.
Not seeming to care how many more questions Nick had lined up, Valgos nodded. ‘He take her damn everywhere,’ said Valgos, crossing himself in protection from the foolishness of his brother. ‘Damn whore hung round Juris even more since he won money.’ He drank off the coffee and slew the dregs across the floor. ‘He take her everywhere, show her good time, buying her presents, car, even that damn place in Bayswater. I told him she no good, but Juris don’t listen, he say to me he will provide enough for me to retire. I tell him I work for a living, I earn my money and damn pride. He even damn well took her to meet Georgs Lauvas, thought she would impress him. I told him, you stupid twice over. He say, no risk, and I no see him again.’
The tension had all fizzled out and Valgos knew the omens; the tremble in your arms, a weakness climbing through your legs as the past and present merged. Screwing the cup on the flask he jerked his head in approving nods.
‘Georgs Lauvas fooled us all, pretended he was one of us, believed in freedom. He could have talked blossom out on the trees in the middle of winter for all anyone cared so we trusted him. My first wife and sons gone, phantoms.’ He held up his hands in pain, in acknowledgement.
‘Juris didn’t die in vain, I give you my word Andrejs.’
‘You want Andrejs’ trust too? Go, I’ve nothing left to give. Don’t come again, I have nothing more to say. You stay away.’
‘I promise.’ As he turned to leave, Nick saw Andrejs’ eyes flinch and thought you understand, you know too, we all have to visit the dead once in a while before we can get on with living.
Eleven
Following Up a Lead
London, November
Downstream from Greenwich between abandoned wharves, a thriving car dismantlers yard jutted out into the Thames. From across a potholed road Nick weary from a night without sleep, watched the skeleton of a Ford clamped in the powerful hydraulic grabs of a crane lift from a stack of gutted cars then swing towards a crusher. Ringed by a high razor wire topped fence there were steel sheets welded to the yard’s gates. Someone had dribbled CHEAP PARTS AND CAR SALVAGE across the rusting steel in yellow paint. In a neater hand, an additional edict: ALL CALLERS MUST REPORT TO THE GENERAL OFFICE.
The general office was a small Portakabin in an outer compound. Flanked on either side by a dozen freight containers, grey daubs of p
rimer ran in rashes down their dented and scratched doors and panels, each container labelled according to its salvaged contents, beginning with GEAR BOXES. A full-length counter too high for anyone to lean on was unattended, a doorbell screwed off-centre to its stained Formica surface. Nick pressed for attention, a bell clanging out across the yard and river bringing a woman in her twenties, her blonde hair coiled as tight as springs down to her shoulders. She looked Nick over from behind her counter; surrounded by laminated parts catalogues, boxed sets of spanners, car manuals, a computer, and cash register. All of them liberally smeared in grease. A string of calendars of naked women ran behind the counter and she didn’t mind any comparisons made.
‘Retail or trade?’ Her voice seesawed in estuary Essex. ‘If you’re bringing a vehicle in, you’ll need your logbook,’ she continued as though she’d been programmed.
‘I’m looking for a white van, came in to be scrapped, only I think I left some tools inside,’ said Nick, pushing a scrap of paper bearing the van’s original licence plate to her. ‘Company van, Borrowdale & Son, Electrical Contractors.’ The details supplied by Rossan.
She sucked the tip of a biro not believing a word, kicked up a smile that was anything but sweet and drifted to her computer. ‘I’ll check,’ she offered, hitting the keyboard as though it needed punishing. ‘Sorry, we’ve no record of that vehicle,’ she said after a five second search.
To Nick’s right a door designated PRIVATE and STAFF ONLY. ‘Maybe I’d better look,’ he said, going for the door.
‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ she yelled as Nick stepped into an inner compound, the noise from the crushing plant louder.
Ignoring stacks of cars Nick moved down narrow clinker tracks, a heavy smell of stale oil in the air; picking out a section of the yard where commercial vehicles were stripped and gutted. Winding up and down the tracks Nick concentrated his search on recent arrivals that hadn’t been drained of fuel, oil and other noxious substances. Nick worked his way through an assorted collection of tippers, JCBs, trucks, forklifts, vans and other wrecks with their window glass intact. And there tucked carefully beside a road sweeper, a Hapag Lloyd freight container that no one had bothered to label.
