The Dark Chronicles (2 page)

‘It’s something Slavin said in his interview,’ he explained, seeing my confusion. ‘“In 1945, we recruited a British agent…”’ He waved at the dossier impatiently. I walked back to my armchair, picked up the papers and scanned them until I found the place.

‘“. . . We recruited a British agent in Germany and gave him the code-name
Radnya
.”’ I thought for a moment, trying to see what he was getting at. ‘Radnya is Russian for “kindred”, or “related”. They go in for clever code-names, don’t they – perhaps this means he’s related to the Cambridge gang? Recruited later, but part of the same network?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with the code-name. Have a look at that part in the original, and see if you can spot anything.’

I sat down again and searched for the line in the Cyrillic. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘I think that sentence has been mistranslated.’

‘Deliberately, sir?’ Had he called me out to deepest Hampshire for a rant about the quality of staff in the colonies?

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It’s possible, but I think it’s more likely to have been a slip-up. I wanted to hear your view. It’s the phrase “
tajnaya sekretnaya sluzhba
”. How would you translate that?’

‘Secret service,’ I said. ‘Only…’

He leaned forward slightly. ‘Yes?’

‘Only
tajnaya
and
sekretnaya
both mean secret. A literal translation would be more like “secret secret service”…’

‘Exactly!’ He beamed at me. ‘I suspect the translator thought
that a British agent would by definition have been working for intelligence, so he dropped it. But that is precisely the point. What Slavin seems to have been suggesting is that this chap was a member of a
secret
intelligence agency. And as all intelligence is, by definition, secret, what could that mean?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir,’ I said. I had a feeling he was about to share his own theory. Sure enough, he immediately leaned forward and pinched the knees of his pinstripe trousers, revealing two strips of pale skin above his woollen socks.

‘Back in ’45,’ he said, ‘I was chief of the British army’s headquarters in Lübeck. A couple of months after the war ended, I was walking out of the mess and ran straight into an old friend from my days in Cairo: your father, Lawrence.’

‘Father? You’ve never mentioned this before.’

He coughed into his hand abruptly, which I knew meant he was extremely anxious. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry about that. I know how hard it’s been for you, but I could never find a way to… It’s very delicate, you see.’

My father had last been seen in the bar of White’s in May 1945, just a few days after victory in Europe. Nobody had ever discovered what had happened to him.

‘Did you talk?’ I asked, and Chief raised his head and looked me in the eye.

‘Yes, we talked. He seemed extremely agitated. He asked me to take a walk outside with him, whereupon he told me that he was on a vitally important job – extremely hush-hush. He didn’t divulge any more details, but said that the entire operation had been compromised by a Russian nurse who was working in the Red Cross hospital in Lübeck.’

‘He wanted your help?’

‘Yes,’ he said after a few moments. ‘He asked if I could take some men round to the hospital under cover of darkness, detain the nurse, and have her transported to the War Office’s interrogation centre over in Bad Nenndorf.’

‘That’s quite a favour to ask,’ I said. ‘Did you oblige?’

Chief carefully placed his glass on the nearest side table. ‘Well, I tried. He provided me with a dossier containing her photograph and particulars – her name was Maleva – and I assembled a small team immediately. We took a jeep round to her quarters that same night. Unfortunately, when we arrived we discovered that she was already dead.’

I paused for a moment to take this in.

‘Suicide?’

He shook his head. ‘Shot through the chest. Quite messy. Of course, I got my men out of there as fast as I could. British officers kidnapping a Russian nurse would have been bad enough, but if we’d been caught with murder on our hands there would have been all manner of problems.’ He looked down at his drink a little mournfully. ‘And that was that. I never saw Larry again. I’ve often wondered whether I was the last person to see him.’

‘I’m glad you told me,’ I said. ‘And it sounds like this operation he was on may be the key to his disappearance. But I don’t quite see how it relates to the situation in Nigeria.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I mention? The nurse Slavin’s claiming recruited the double – it’s this same damned Maleva woman!’

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘But how can that be?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if she was shot in the chest…’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘And it had me stumped for a bit. But SOE had a section for camouflage and make-up techniques – perhaps the Russians had similar expertise.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But what about her pulse? Presumably she wasn’t just lying there with her eyes closed, holding her breath.’

Chief took another sip of liqueur. ‘That had me stumped for longer. In the end I rang Bill Merriweather and asked him how he would have done it.’ Merriweather was our man at Porton Down, the Ministry of Defence’s chemical laboratory – back in ’56, he’d developed a nerve gas to use on Nasser. It would have worked, too. ‘He told me about a discovery someone on his team made a few
years ago. Using a very strong tranquillizer called haloperidol, they found a way to stimulate what he referred to as “a temporary state of death”. The Russians have apparently been using the stuff on uncooperative prisoners for years, but if it’s administered correctly, it can induce catalepsy, which looks like death even to a trained eye. Bill thought there might be other drugs that could produce the same effect.’

‘I see,’ I said, although it all sounded a little fantastic. ‘But I don’t understand why you think this is the same woman Slavin is referring to. He doesn’t mention what name she was going under in 1945…’ I picked up the folder again and found the place on the page. ‘“During and after the war, Irina Grigorieva, currently the assistant third secretary at the embassy here in Lagos, worked as a nurse in the British Zone of Germany. There she fell in love with a British officer, according to her the one true love of her life. She succeeded in recruiting this man into the NKVD…” It doesn’t say which hospital she worked at, and there must have been dozens in the Zone. Lagos Station’s photograph of her is also a little blurred – what makes you so sure she’s this Maleva?’

‘Instinct,’ he said. ‘Instinct and experience. I’ve spent half the afternoon examining her photograph – I can’t be one hundred per cent certain it’s her until I check its counterpart in Registry tomorrow morning, but I’m fairly close to that. It has to be her.’

He was looking at me expectantly. And that was when I saw what had been staring me in the face since he had answered the door. Why he’d called me out here tonight instead of leaving it until tomorrow morning. Why he was drinking more than usual. And why I had to act now.

‘You needn’t worry, sir,’ I said.

His broad face reddened immediately, and I knew I’d hit the mark. ‘Worry? What makes you think I should do that?’

‘You’re quite right about the interview,’ I said. ‘Whoever translated it got it wrong. In the original Russian, Slavin quite clearly states that the double was recruited while involved in some sort of
black operation in Germany at the end of the war. It sounds like he might have been part of Father’s junket and become entangled with this woman. Did Father give you any idea how many people he had out there with him, if any?’

Chief shook his head. ‘He didn’t tell me anything at all about the operation – just that it was vital it continued.’

‘All right. Still, the fact that you were openly working at British headquarters clearly rules you out as the double. I’ll explain the whole thing to Henry as soon as he gets here. When was it you said he was coming over, again?’

‘Henry? Nine.’

I glanced at my watch. It had just gone half eight. Pritchard might even be early, knowing him.

Chief was taking a congratulatory draught of Becherovka: he was in the clear now. He must have read the file this morning and panicked – not that another traitor on his watch would lead to calls for him to resign, but that his being stationed in the British Zone in ’45 might bring him under suspicion of actually
being
the traitor. His position as Head of the Service was no guarantee of protection: Five’s Deputy Head had almost lost his mind after being investigated by other officers in ’66. Even a Chief could be brought down. He had probably spotted the omission in the translation some time during the afternoon. It exonerated him, but he knew it would cut more ice if someone else pointed it out. Of the officers who would be hunting the double agent, I was the only one with good enough Russian to spot it – outside Soviet Section, ‘Tolstoy’ and ‘Turgenev’ were about all anyone could muster. Additionally, I would have good reason to protect him, as he was a family friend and my father had apparently asked for his help. So he had called me in to get his story straight before tomorrow’s meeting. ‘It can’t possibly be Chief,’ I’d tell them. ‘There’s been a translation cock-up.’ Good old Paul.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘Henry won’t be the only one who will need convincing.’

He looked up, alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Osborne and Farraday,’ I said.

‘Yes, yes, of course. I see that. But can’t you explain it to them, too?’

‘I thought you’d already discussed it with them,’ I said lightly, raising my glass. It was empty, and I made sure he noticed.

‘What? No, not yet.’ He stood up and walked over to the drinks cabinet. ‘I thought it best to sound you and Henry out first.’

‘Very wise,’ I said, lifting my glass. He poured a generous measure, and as he stepped away I took out the Luger, disengaged the safety, aimed between his eyes and fired in almost the same moment. The kick pushed me into the armchair and I felt one of the springs dig into my back as the crystal shattered on the floor and his body slumped to the ground and the liqueur began to seep into the carpet.

It was very quiet then. I could hear the wind whipping against the trees outside and a joist creaking somewhere in the house. My head was pounding, the blood careering around it. There had been a moment, a fraction of a moment before I had fired, when he had stared into my face and I’d thought he might have understood what was about to happen to him – that he had realized who I was.

I replaced the Luger and stood up. Pritchard was due to arrive in twenty-eight minutes, and I had to clear up the mess and be well away before then.

I set to work.

I reached the farmhouse about an hour before dawn and hammered on the door. After several minutes it opened, and a tall, lean figure with piercing blue eyes peered out at me.

‘
Kann ich Ihnen helfen?
’ he said, in an unmistakably English accent. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time I’d seen him.

‘You’re English,’ I said, searching his face for a reaction but getting none. ‘That
is
good news. I’m afraid I’m lost. I’m looking for the British headquarters at Lübeck.’

‘You
are
lost,’ he said, placing his emphasis equally carefully. ‘It’s a good distance from here. Come in and I can show you on a map.’

It was typical of Father: the war in Europe had been over for two months and there wasn’t a soul for miles around, but he had still insisted on keeping to nonsensical recognition codes with his own son until we were inside the house. As soon as we were, he shook my hand and asked if I had had a safe journey. Barely pausing to listen to my reply, he led me through to a cramped, low-ceilinged room and told me to take a seat. He didn’t ask about Finland, or Mother, or anything else. He had business to attend to.

The area looked as though it had once been a sitting room, judging by the elaborate floral pattern on the wallpaper and armchairs, but it was now inescapably the domain of a military operation, with most of the space given to a row of card tables that had been pushed together and covered in maps and papers. The
room was lit by candles – there was no electricity in the house, and wouldn’t be for several weeks.

Against one of the walls was a dilapidated-looking wardrobe, next to which stood a ramrod-straight officer-type. Despite a neat moustache and severe spectacles, he looked only a few years older than me. I guessed that this was Henry Pritchard, a Scot who had been Father’s second-in-command on several operations early in the war. Father confirmed this, and Pritchard extended a bony hand to shake mine, but said nothing.

Father seated himself in one of the armchairs and I did the same. Pritchard remained standing.

‘The first thing I wish to make clear,’ Father said, ‘is that this job is completely off the books. And I mean completely. Only one living soul outside this room knows what we are doing here, and that’s the Prime Minister. Nothing is on paper, nor will it ever be. This goes with us to the grave, or we shall have done more damage than we are trying to rectify. In the hands of our enemies, this information could create the next war. I gave the PM my word, and I intend to stick to it. Do you understand?’

I glanced over at Pritchard to see if it was some sort of a prank. His face was set like stone. Father didn’t go in for pranks, I reminded myself.

‘I visited him in London a couple of weeks ago,’ Father continued. ‘It wasn’t easy to pull off, but I called in some favours. He gave me ten minutes to outline what I had in mind. He didn’t like it at first. Said it would get out, one way or another, and that that would put us in a terrible position.’ He smiled, the first time I’d seen him do so since arriving. ‘He asked me to leave the building and never come back, actually.’

‘What changed his mind?’

He nodded at Pritchard, who turned to the wardrobe and unlocked it. Inside, someone had placed a shelf where the coat-hangers would normally have been, and on it were several stiff-backed folders. Pritchard took one of these out and handed it to me.