Making Enemies (28 page)

She begs him not to do this but by now his anger is so aroused that she cannot stop him, he cannot stop himself. He drives on into the countryside, through deserted villages she has never visited before, past a factory, its enormous chimneys raining black silt into the afternoon air so that the buildings, the fields, the trees, even the stagnant water in a small lake are all black. She sees no one, no living being, on this silent drive to wherever it is he is taking her. It is a dead landscape on a desolate planet.

They stop at the edge of a forest. He gets out of the car, puts on a pair of boots and gives her a pair too. He carries a shovel and they set off, one following the other, into the depths of the forest. The air is cold, their footsteps crackle on the floor of pine needles and fir cones and dead branches dried through the icy winter so that they snap with the slightest pressure.

Again there are no signs of life, no birds, no animals racing away into the safety of the shadows. This is a dead land, she thinks, and we are here to meet the dead.

They reach a clearing. Branches, their leaves turned brown, have been dragged into a kind of collapsed tent. Lykowski photographs and then drags away the branches to reveal turned earth, a large mound blacker than its surroundings because it has no covering of pine needles. He takes another photograph.

‘Is this it?’ she asks.

He nods in reply but says nothing. He walks across the mound, carrying his shovel. Then he attacks the earth in a frenzy, throwing it anywhere, digging frantically deeper and deeper. She cannot watch. It is too awful.

‘Look,’ he cries suddenly. ‘Come here.’

‘No.’

‘You must see for yourself.’

He is coming towards her, eyes blazing, anger visible in his stance. She relents. He takes her roughly by the arm and drags her back to where he has been digging.

‘Look there.’

She looks down and is sick at once. There, blackened and rotting, are three human heads – three women, their eyes already empty sockets, scarves still in place around their heads, their open mouths like tears in a sheet of old canvas.

‘There are more,’ he says, angrily. ‘If I were to dig here. Or here. Or here.’

He drives at the earth with his shovel as if the force will split it open and reveal the corpses beneath. There is a terrible smell, a poisonous miasma and she vomits again and again, as she runs away into the trees. She puts her arms around the trunk of a fir tree and sobs. How can he do this to her? She believed him, she did not need proof. Why has he brought her here?

He is shouting at her, his voice hoarse with tears. ‘They did not die in a fire, there are no burns on their bodies or their nightclothes. They died because they were shot in the back. Where we are standing is a killing ground.’

She turns round. He is refilling the hole he has made, covering up the dead once more. He drags back the branches, working with a demented energy as if his life depended upon it.

‘What have we been told?’ he shouts at her. The words echo among the trees and are lost in the depths of the forest. ‘There was an explosion, people died in a fire. That is a lie. Look. Here. They were brought in lorries. Look!’

He points to the tyre marks, evidence frozen until the spring melted the snow but too soon for the rains to wash away the marks, and flowers to push through the earth to conceal the evil of the place.

‘Did you notice that the heads were female? Females bodies side by side. I imagine, if I dug over here, I would find male bodies. Before killing these old people, they separated husbands from wives.’

This at last is the evidence she has been searching for. The apartment building was empty when it exploded. Its occupants had already been forcibly removed, brought to this deserted place, shot and buried secretly. It is not the image of the dead and dying that haunts her, it is the presence of the thin, pale figure of the intelligence
officer at the crime Pavel has uncovered, the man without whose continued protection she is as good as dead.

He walks back towards her. ‘Is this what we have become? Murderers of our own people? These men and women were taken from their beds at gunpoint, our own citizens, innocent of any crime, their only mistake being that they lived in that block. They were driven here like cattle, separated from each other and shot because that was the order that had been given. This is the burial ground of the state’s crimes and we have uncovered their dirty secret.’

She wipes her face and her eyes, the nausea only just under control.

‘Sixty-eight people lie here,’ he says. ‘I have not counted the bodies, but I have stolen the list of residents from the block near D4 and I have counted them. I know their names. Their ages. The numbers of their flats. This is their final resting place, a clearing in a forest that, had it not been for the last confession of a young soldier, might have remained undiscovered for years. There is only one question to ask. Why did it happen? Why?’

He shouts the word
why
, and it reverberates among the branches of the trees. Is it her imagination, or do the stilled branches move in reply to his entreaty? Do they bow out of respect for the terrible scene he has revealed?

She cannot answer him. He has told her nothing new. She has known the truth all along. Not the terrible details he has shown her – she has not recreated the appalling suffering of the last minutes of their lives – but the intolerable injustice of killing innocent people in the middle of the night for no other purpose than to make a political argument that much stronger, to reinforce the lie on which someone’s power is based.

‘Look here,’ he says. His hands are full of spent cartridges he has collected. ‘What more evidence do we need?’

‘Take me away from this place,’ she says.

But Lykowski is busy. He has stripped the bark off two branches and now he is tying one piece to another. He has made a cross. With difficulty he plants one end in the frozen earth and supports it with stones. It is something, a marker of where the dead lie. No one will see it and in time, soon, it will collapse. But they will both know that they have done something, however small; that they have paid their respects.

The downpour which had been threatening since I’d left Strutton Ground broke as I was crossing Horseferry Road, and caught me in full flood. I was dripping wet when I put my head round Miss Pertwee’s door.

‘Oh, Mr Lybrand,’ she said, ‘Mr Maitland’s so sorry. He’s been called away. He said would you mind waiting.’

I was given a cup of tea and offered a digestive biscuit from the famous floral tin. I was either unexpectedly in favour or Miss Pertwee was deeply embarrassed by Colin’s absence. Her treasury of digestive biscuits was famed for being as tightly guarded as her virginity.

Two days before, Colin had given us the ‘good news’ that a small group of senior civil servants had written a confidential policy paper for the Cabinet, arguing that in the light of what we now knew about the present political situation in the Kremlin, and given our own straitened circumstances, it was surely responsible to investigate the possibility of a negotiated nuclear settlement with the Soviets before committing ourselves to building our own bomb.

I was taken aback at the strength of support on our Committee for this course of action. Guy Benton saw it as a vindication of the consistent Foreign Office line that ‘we must not allow ourselves to become captive to the easy characterization of
Homo sovieticus
as our natural enemy’. Arthur Gurney viewed it as a reprieve for his growing opinion that ‘building the bomb cannot be seen as a suitable activity for a civilized society’. Boys-Allen sucked his pipe and nodded while Adrian Gardner, cynical as ever, whispered that Corless was beating us with the stick of our own importance so that we would continue doggedly down ‘the line of investigation Rupert’s career is anchored to’.

‘You’ve been very quiet, Monty. Any comments?’

What could I say? I was as responsible as anyone else round the table for the interpretation of Peter’s intelligence. We had produced a stream of reports on which the conclusions of this Cabinet paper were based. Who would believe me if I said I now thought its recommendations had their origin in the offices of Moscow intelligence?

‘Is the Cabinet likely to endorse this advice?’ I asked, avoiding a direct answer to the question.

‘Reading between the lines,’ Colin said, ‘I think we may assume that secret diplomatic contacts with the Soviets are on the cards, if they haven’t already happened.’

I had asked for this meeting with Colin because of my conviction that Peter’s campaign against Stevens, the explosion in the Moscow laboratory and the reports of the anti-nuclear faction in the Politburo were all scenes in a grand Soviet deception, a more complex drama than any we had come across before, and one that was working its powerful magic on us. How disastrous if the Cabinet were to revise their policy as a result of Soviet manipulation. We were doing the enemy’s work for him.

My first thought had been to go straight to Rupert Corless, but my experience of his lack of sympathy over Krasov deterred me. Better to get Colin on my side before approaching Rupert. I expected Colin to be sceptical initially and reject my theories but he was a fair man, and I knew that if I could get him to listen long enough I had a chance of winning him over. Then we could both tackle Rupert. Together, we might win the day.

Thirty minutes later there was still no sign of Maitland. I put my head round the door again. Miss Pertwee was on the telephone. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

‘It’s Mr Maitland now,’ she whispered. ‘He sends many apologies. He’s so sorry to keep you waiting.’

I was to stay. He was returning, ten minutes at the outside. I sat down again and tried unsuccessfully to finish the crossword Colin had started on his journey into Vauxhall. I heard the tapping of the typewriter and occasionally the dull ring of the telephone. The ever-vigilant Miss Pertwee had left the connecting door open so she could keep an eye on me without moving from her desk. Whatever else might happen, I was not to be allowed to escape before Colin’s return.

The core of my case was that Peter had been turned. This was
supposition on my part but I was increasingly sure that amid so much good information was a secret seam of deception coming directly from sources within Moscow intelligence. SOVINT had probably been misled for months as the web of the Soviet deception was spun ever more tightly around us.

‘Let them think we’re trying to cover up a massive failure in our nuclear programme,’ I could hear the Soviet planners saying. ‘Deceive them into believing we are desperate to negotiate a nuclear standstill. Wait as the divisions in the Western alliance erupt and their bitter arguments slow down their own progress. Then watch their faces as we explode the weapon they thought we could never make and move rapidly on to the superbomb.’

Was I right? Were the events we had so far been unable to explain only understandable as part of a daring Soviet deception? Being right didn’t mean I would carry the day. Rupert had to be persuaded to accept the notion that Peter was no longer his friend but his enemy. Was I deluding myself to imagine that that was possible? Rupert owed Peter the late flowering of his career. Nothing is harder to shift than a vested interest. My confidence, which had not been dampened by my soaking in the sudden shower, began to evaporate.

‘Rupert’s in a flap. I couldn’t get away,’ Colin said twenty minutes later, pipe clamped firmly between his teeth. ‘Sorry.’ He seemed unwilling to talk in front of Miss Pertwee. ‘No calls, Miss Pertwee, please. Mr Lybrand and I have to put our thinking caps on.’

He ushered me into his room, closed the door, sat down at his desk and said: ‘We have a crisis, Monty.’ He opened the file he was clutching. He had clearly forgotten why I was there.

Did the name Watson-Jones ring any bells? He didn’t know much about the man either, but whether we liked it or not, a degree of intimacy was about to be thrust upon us.

The Minister had received a letter from Watson-Jones in which he claimed he had learned from his American contacts that a Soviet intelligence source had given the British information in January that one of our leading scientists was betraying nuclear secrets to the Russians. ‘Watson-Jones’s wife’s American,’ Maitland explained. ‘Her father’s in manufacturing, he’s made millions.’ The British authorities had ignored this warning and failed to investigate the suspect. For months vital secrets had been flowing out of the country. Watson-Jones was not surprisingly – ‘his words’ – shocked at these allegations, and he wanted the Minister’s assurance that none of it was true.

‘There’s a sting in the tail,’ Colin said. ‘He has a dossier he’s offering to share with the Minister. That means this letter’s an opening salvo and there’s more dirt to come.’

‘How the hell does he know about Stevens?’ I asked.

‘No point in speculating,’ Colin said. ‘He knows, that’s all that matters. The Minister is jumping up and down like a scalded cat because, so he told Rupert this morning, the Foreign Office has had secret talks in Moscow and there are encouraging signs that the Soviets may be prepared to discuss some kind of nuclear arrangement. The stakes are high, Monty, and the Minister doesn’t want Watson-Jones rocking the boat. If he’s going out soon, he wants to go out in glory.’

This was a reference to Gaydon’s expected departure from office. He was neither a popular nor an effective Minister. A former railwayman who was owed a small political debt which it would not take long to repay, he was widely expected to go at the next ministerial reshuffle. That couldn’t come soon enough for most of us who had to work for him.

‘Do you think the Soviets are serious?’ I wanted to see if I could push Colin into declaring where he stood. Over the past months in particular, he had used his role as Rupert’s deputy to avoid taking sides. Was this wariness, self-preservation or had he run out of opinions?

‘In my experience, Monty, people believe what they want to believe. Sceptics seldom have a following. They’re usually lone voices, drowned out in the din.’

‘That’s an evasion,’ I said. ‘If you believe all this talk of an opposition to Stalin is nonsense then you should say so as loudly as you can.’

‘The emperor’s new clothes?’ Maitland smiled ruefully. ‘The truth is, Monty, I’ve been in this game too long. I’ve lost my perspective. I don’t know what’s true and what’s not any more.’

‘If in doubt, don’t,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the rule?’

‘What if I’m wrong?’

‘What if you’re not?’

He sucked on his pipe, his face expressionless. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘You’ve not believed in what we’re doing for some time, have you?’ he said.

‘I think we’re being manipulated, Colin. It’s as simple as that.’ I gave him my theory. He listened attentively.

‘If we’re victims of a Soviet deception, then Watson-Jones is right. That puts us in a spot, doesn’t it? How can we subvert our own investigation?’

It wasn’t a question I could answer. I wanted to know how strong Maitland’s position was.

‘Have you had doubts about Peter for long?’ I asked.

‘Months, yes.’

‘Why keep them to yourself?’

‘No evidence. Simple as that. Supposition in plenty. The hard evidence is all against us.’

‘That’s the Soviets being clever,’ I said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘How can I be sure?’ I asked, irritably. But at least I was prepared to be honest about my concerns. I didn’t bury them because I was afraid of upsetting the apple-cart. That silenced Colin for a while.

‘Look at the political dilemma,’ he said eventually. ‘No bomb, and we can remake the country economically. The blueprints have been ready since 1943. Rebuild our industries. Stake our claim as an economic power. Jettison the ties with the Empire – it’s history now. Earn our place at the top table not just through our military power, our nuclear bomb, but through our economic performance. What’s the other side of the coin? Divert massive energies and resources we don’t possess into building this dangerous weapon. Starve the country of what it needs but take our place in the game with the other nuclear players. What do we do, Monty? What do we do?’

I could tell he hadn’t finished by the way he was puffing at his pipe.

‘Look down the tunnel into the future. Go left and we emerge into sunlight. Go right and we’re stuck in the gloom. Maybe we’re being offered an olive branch. Maybe we have to grasp it. It would be irresponsible not to do so. We have to reach for it, even if it turns out to be nothing at all. Politically, we don’t have a choice.’

‘Watson-Jones wants blood,’ I said, ‘and we’re to do his bidding.’

‘We have to protect our Minister’s interests.’

‘Even though Watson-Jones might be right.’

‘Watson-Jones is raising serious questions about Gaydon’s competence,’ Colin said. ‘Those questions have to be stifled at birth. Rupert’s certain he wouldn’t have bothered to write to the Minister in the first place unless he had Stevens’s name up his sleeve.’

‘But why? What can he possibly hope to gain by denouncing Stevens as a traitor?’

‘His motive remains a mystery,’ Colin said. ‘Unless it’s the traditional self-importance of the ambitious MP.’

A year or two before Rupert had told me, in an unexpected burst of confidence, that as a young man Colin Maitland had wanted to be an MP. Repeated failure to be selected had bred in this moderate man a hearty distaste for the members of the club he had failed to join.

‘Suppose he names Stevens. What happens then?’

‘There’s a procedure to follow. We’d suspend Stevens and there’d be an investigation.’

‘The police?’

‘Not if we could help it. We’d want our people to conduct the enquiry, but you never know. Scotland Yard could be brought in.’

‘What’s the effect of suspension on Stevens?’ I asked.

‘Devastating,’ Colin said. ‘He’d be removed from anything to do with our nuclear programme. The enquiry would take weeks, possibly longer. Things wouldn’t come to a halt, but they’d slow down dramatically.’

‘What would be the effect on our programme?’

‘Conservatively, I’d say it would put back our bomb by at least a year. Under the scenario we’ve been discussing, there’d be smiling faces in the Kremlin if that happened.’

‘That’s what’s baffling me,’ I said. ‘Watson-Jones is rabidly anti-Soviet. You’ve only got to read that awful tract he finances to see that, and the rumour is he doesn’t think the newsletter goes far enough. Yet here he is, apparently playing into Soviet hands. I don’t understand it.’

‘Unless.’ Colin took his pipe out of his mouth and examined the bowl with the perplexed look of the dedicated pipe-smoker. How was it that such a good pipe had suddenly gone out?

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless he doesn’t understand what he’s doing.’

‘He can’t be that stupid, Colin.’

‘There’s always a danger we’re attributing motives where none exist. I said the same to Rupert and he took your view. But suppose this information suddenly fell into his hands and the letter is a knee-jerk reaction? What then?’

‘I’d take him behind the bike sheds and let him know what’s what,’ I said.

‘If scaring him into silence has been tried, and I’m not saying it has, the tactic doesn’t appear to have worked.’

‘Then we’ve got to try harder,’ I said. ‘If he won’t listen willingly, he’ll have to be made to listen. Someone’s got to speak to him or one of his people.’

‘Your friend works for him, doesn’t he?’

‘I can’t ask any more favours, Colin. Why can’t you talk to Charlie Faulkner?’

‘Charlie’s dying, Monty. He’s out of it. No influence any more.’

‘How can I ask Danny Stevens to ask his employer not to denounce his father as a spy? It’s impossible, Colin, and you know it is.’

Maitland accepted that, nodding silently at me and pulling at his pipe. ‘So where does that leave us?’

‘Where we came in half an hour ago.’

‘No further forward.’ He looked gloomy. ‘I’ll go back to Rupert. He won’t like it. Someone will have to take Watson-Jones to one side and tell him to shut up. I’d be surprised if he did. But it’s all we can do.’

We never got to speak to Watson-Jones. I got a telephone call from one of our watchers in Cambridge shortly before lunch to say that Stevens had disappeared. One moment, he assured me, he’d been there, the next he’d vanished into thin air. By seven that evening we’d had reports that someone answering Stevens’s description had been spotted on a cross-Channel ferry and by midnight we’d caught up with him in Brussels. I thought we would pull him in at once but Rupert was against the idea.