‘And Communists?’ she asked.
He smiled a hard close-lipped smile. ‘If they work hard and deny themselves the pleasures of this world, then after they die their children will grow up in paradise,’ said Stinnes. He smiled again.
‘Very good,’ said Gloria admiringly. There wasn’t much left on the plates or dishes that covered the table. I’d already had enough to eat – a little curry goes a long way with me – so she picked up the dish of chicken korma and divided the last of it onto their two plates. Stinnes took the dishes of the rice and the eggplant and, when I declined, divided the food between them.
‘You missed out number five,’ I said, while they were tucking into their final helpings. Both of them looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was there with them. ‘Victory over the flesh. Both Church and Communist state preach that.’
I was serious, but Gloria dismissed it. ‘Very funny,’ she said. She wiped her lips with the napkin. To Stinnes she said, ‘Was the Church very opposed to capitalism? I know it objected to loaning money and collecting interest, but it wasn’t opposed to trading.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Stinnes. ‘The medieval Church preached against any sort of free competition. All craftsmen were forbidden to improve tools or change their methods lest they take advantage of their neighbours. They were forbidden to undersell; goods had to be offered at a fixed price. And the Church objected to advertising, especially if any trader compared his goods with inferior goods offered by another trader at the same price.’
‘It sounds familiar,’ said Gloria. ‘Doesn’t it, Bernard?’ she asked, politely drawing me into the conversation as she looked into a tiny handbag-mirror to see that her lips were wiped clean of curry.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Homo mercator vix aut numquam potest Deo placare – a man who is a merchant will never be able to please God – or please the Party Congress. Or please the Trades Union Congress either.’
‘Poor merchants,’ said Gloria.
‘Yes,’ said Stinnes.
The waiter came over to our table and began clearing the dishes away. He offered us a selection of those very sweet Indian-style desserts, but no one wanted anything but coffee.
Stinnes waited until the table was completely cleared. It was as if this action prompted him to change the conversation: he leaned forward, arms on the table, and said, ‘You were asking about code words…radio codes…two names for one agent.’ He stopped there to give me time to shut him up if I didn’t want Gloria to hear the rest of the conversation.
I told him to go on.
‘I said it was impossible. Or at least unprecedented. But I’ve been thinking about it since then…’
‘And?’ I said after a long pause during which the waiter put the coffee on the table.
‘I told you it was nonsense, but now I think you may be correct. There was a line of intelligence material that I was not permitted to see. It was handled by our radio room, but it went directly to Moscow. None of my staff ever saw it.’
‘Was that unusual?’ I asked.
‘Very unusual, but there seemed no reason to think that we were missing anything very good. I thought it was some Moscow deskman trying to make a name for himself by working on one narrow field of interest. Senior staff in Moscow do that sometimes; then suddenly – choosing their moment carefully – they produce a very thick file of new material and before the cheers die down they get the promotion they’ve had their eye on.’
‘How did you find out about it?’
‘It was kept separate, but it wasn’t given any special high security rating. That might have been a very cunning idea – it didn’t attract so much attention like that. People handling it would just have thought it applied to some boring technical file. How did I come across it? It came onto my desk by accident. It was the second of February of last year. I remember the date because it was my son’s birthday. The decoded transcripts were put on my desk with a pile of other material. I looked through it to see what was there and found this stuff with an agent name I didn’t recognize but a London coding. I thought it must be a mistake. I thought a typing error had given it the five-letter group for London. It’s not often that the typists there make such an error, but it’s not unknown. It was only last week that I remembered it in the light of what you were asking me about agents with two code names. Any use to you?’
‘It might be,’ I said. ‘What else can you remember?’
‘Nothing. Except that it was very long and it seemed to be about some sort of intelligence exercise that your people had carried out in West Germany.’ He looked at me but I gave no reaction. ‘You’d sent your own agents breaking into your data-gathering installations. Some sort of security report and a lot of electronics…I can’t understand electronics, can you?’
‘No,’ I said. So that was it. The long message couldn’t be anything other than the full report for the PM that resulted from the Cabinet memo. Bret had supervised and signed that report. If Moscow’s copy of the memo had come through Bret’s hands – and I had Mrs Hogarth’s evidence that it did – then it was reasonable to suppose that the full report that followed had also been supplied by Bret. My God, it was shattering, even when I was partly prepared for it. More shattering perhaps because when you begin to be convinced of something, you expect some damned law of averages to start providing a bit of contradictory evidence. Bret. Could it be true?
‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ said Stinnes.
‘It’s that damned dhal,’ I said. ‘It really slows me down.’
Gloria glanced at me. She said nothing, but she began looking through her handbag as if looking for something she’d mislaid. It was her attempt to appear bored by the conversation. Maybe Stinnes was fooled, but I doubt it.
14
The relaxed evening in the curry restaurant with Stinnes brought quick results. By the following Saturday morning I was drinking Bret Rensselaer’s gin and tonics and listening to Bret’s congratulations. The fact that Bret’s congratulations were delivered in a way that could have an inattentive onlooker thinking he was singing his own praises did not distress me. First, because I was accustomed to Bret’s habits and manners, and, secondly, because there were no onlookers.
‘It sure paid off,’ said Bret. ‘Everything I said okay to paid off.’ He was dressed in casual wear: dark open-neck sports shirt and white linen pants. I’d seldom seen Bret wearing anything other than his Savile Row suits, but then I’d seldom been honoured with an invitation to go to his Thames-side mansion in off-duty hours. Bret had his own circle of friends – minor aristocracy, international jet-setters, merchant bankers, and business tycoons. No one from the Department got regular invitations here except perhaps the D-G and the Deputy, and maybe the Cruyers if Bret needed a favour from the German desk. Other than that, the guest list was confined to a few particularly sexy girls from the office who got invited for the weekend to look at Bret’s art collection.
I’d driven from London in dry weather with the sun shining through a gap of blue sky, but now the sky was clouding over and the colour drained from the landscape. From where I sat there was a view across a long lawn, brown after the harsh winter frosts, and then, at the bottom of his garden, the Thames. Here in Berkshire it was just a weedy stream a few yards across. Despite the river’s huge loops, it was difficult to believe that we were in the Thames Valley, a short distance from London’s dockland where oceangoing ships could navigate on these same waters.
Bret walked round the back of the sofa where I was sitting and poured more gin into my glass. It was a large room. Three soft, grey-leather sofas of modern Italian design were arranged round the glass-topped coffee table. There was an unpainted wooden fireplace where a log fire flickered and occasionally filled the room with a puff of wood smoke that made my eyes water. The walls were plain white to provide a background against which Bret’s paintings could be seen at their best. One on each wall: a Bratby portrait, a Peter Blake pop-art bearded lady, a Hockney swimming pool and a woo
d abstract by Tilson over the fireplace. The best of British painters were there. It would have to be British for him; Bret was the sort of Anglophile who took it all seriously. Other than the sofas, the furniture was English, antique and expensive. There was a Regency chest of dark mahogany with a glass-domed skeleton clock on it, and a secretaire-bookcase behind whose glass doors some pieces of Minton porcelain were displayed. No books; all the books were in the library, a room Bret liked to preserve for his own exclusive use.
‘The interrogator is pleased, of course. The D-G is pleased. Dicky Cruyer is pleased. Everyone is pleased, except perhaps the staff at London Debriefing Centre, but the D-G is smoothing things over with them. Some sort of letter congratulating them on their skilful preparation is the sort of thing I thought appropriate.’
Would this be a time when I could start cross-questioning Bret about his apparent involvement with the KGB? I decided not and drank some more gin and tonic. ‘Good,’ I said.
‘In just two days Stinnes has given us enough to break a network that’s operating out of the Ministry of Defence research laboratory at Cambridge. Apparently they’ve known there’s been a leak for months and months, and this will provide a chance to clear that one up.’
‘England?’ I said. ‘Cambridge, England? Hold the phone, Bret – we can’t go into a KGB network operating in Britain. That’s Home Office territory. That’s MI5’s job. They’ll go ape.’
He went to the fire and squatted at it to prod the burning log with his fingertips. It made sparks. Then he wiped his fingers on a paper tissue before sinking into the soft leather opposite me. He smiled his wide, charming, Hollywood smile. It was a calculated gesture to make his explanation more dramatic. Everything he did was calculated, and he liked drama to the point of losing his temper with anyone in sight if the mood took him. ‘We’re legitimately holding Erich Stinnes. The Home Office have responded to the D-G’s notification and agreed that we do some preliminary interrogations so that we can make sure that our own people are in the clear.’
‘You mean hold him while I’m being investigated,’ I said.
‘Of course,’ said Bret. ‘You know perfectly well we’re using you as the excuse. It’s wonderful. Don’t suddenly go temperamental on me, Bernard. It’s just a formality. Hell, do you think they’d let you anywhere near Stinnes if you were really suspect?’
‘I don’t know, Bret. There are some damned funny people in the Department.’
‘You’re in the clear, so forget it.’
‘And you’re going to infiltrate some poor sod into the Cambridge network and try to blow it? You don’t stand a chance. Can’t we investigate it on a formal basis – questioning and so on?’
‘It would take too long. We’ve got to move fast. If we go for a formal investigation, MI5 will take it over when Stinnes is transferred and they’ll make the arrests and get the glory. No, this is urgent. We’ll do it ourselves.’
‘And you’ll get the glory,’ I said.
Bret didn’t take offence. He smiled. ‘Take it easy, Bernard,’ he said mildly. ‘You know me better than that.’ He spoke to the ceiling for he was sitting deep down in the soft cushions of the sofa, his head resting back, and his suede moccasins plonked on the glass-topped table so that he was stretched as straight as a ruler. Outside the sky was getting darker and even the white walls couldn’t stop the room becoming gloomy.
I didn’t pursue that particular line. I didn’t know him better than that. I didn’t know him at all. ‘You’ll have to tell Five,’ I said.
‘I told them last night,’ he said.
‘The night-duty officer on a Friday night? That’s too obvious, Bret. They’ll be hopping mad. When are you putting your man in?’
‘Tonight,’ he said.
‘Tonight!’ I almost snorted my drink down my nose. ‘Who’s running him? Are Operations in on this? Who gave the okay?’
‘Don’t be so jittery, Bernard. It will be all right. The D-G gave me the go-ahead. No, Operations are not a party to the plan; it’s better that they don’t know about it. Secrecy is of paramount importance.’
‘Secrecy is of paramount importance? And you’ve left a message with the night-duty officer at Five? You realize that probationers – kids just down from college – are likely to get weekend duties like that. Whoever he is, he’ll want to cover himself, so now he’s phoning everyone in his contact book and trying to think of more names.’
‘You’re becoming paranoid, Bernard,’ Bret said. He smiled to show me how calm he was remaining. ‘Even if he is an inexperienced kid from college – and I know kids from college are not high on your all-time Hit Parade – the messages he’ll leave with maids, au pair girls and receptionists at country hotels won’t explicitly describe our operation.’
He was a sarcastic bastard. ‘For God’s sake, grow up, Bret,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see that a flurry of activity like that – messages being left in all sorts of non-departmental places for the urgent attention of senior MI5 staff – is enough to compromise your operation?’
‘I don’t agree,’ he said, but he stopped smiling.
‘Some smart newspaper man is likely to get the smell of that one. If that happens, it could blow up in your face.’
‘In my face?’
‘Well, what are those messages going to be saying? They are going to be saying that we’re just about to go blundering into matters that don’t concern us. They’re going to say we’re stealing Five’s jobs from them. And they’ll be right.’
‘This isn’t a hot tip on a horse; they’ll be sensible,’ said Bret.
‘It’s going to be all over town,’ I said. ‘You’re putting your man into danger, real danger. Forget it.’
‘MI5 are not going to let newsmen get hold of secrets like this.’
‘You hope they’re not. But this isn’t their secret, it’s ours. What will they care if your Boy Scout comes a cropper? They’ll be delighted. It would teach us a lesson. And why would they be so fussy about newspaper men getting the story? If it made headlines that said we were treading on their territory, it would suit their book.’
‘I’m not sure I want to listen to this any more,’ said Bret huffily. This was Bret getting ready for his knighthood – loyal servant of Her Majesty and all that. ‘I trust MI5 to be just as careful with secret information as we are.’
‘So do I, if it’s their information. But this is not their information. This is a message – a message from you; not a message about one of their operations but about one of ours. What’s more, it was given out on a Friday evening in what is a transparent trick to hamper any efforts they might make to stop us. How can you believe they’ll play it your way and help you score?’
‘It’s too late now,’ said Bret. He took two ice cubes from a container that was painted to look like a side drum from the band of the Grenadier Guards, complete with battle honours, and dropped them into his drink. Bret could make one drink last a long time. It was a trick I’d never mastered. He offered ice to me but I shook my head. ‘It’s all approved and signed for. There’s not going to be any pussyfooting about trying to infiltrate them. There’s an office in Cambridge which contains files on the whole network. It’s coded, Stinnes says, coded to read like normal office files. But that shouldn’t be a big problem. We’re putting a man in there this evening. He’s coming here to meet you.’
‘Beautiful, Bret,’ I said sarcastically. ‘That’s all I need – for your tame gorilla to get a good look at me before he gets rolled in a carpet and shipped to Moscow.’
Bret permitted himself a ghost of a smile. ‘It’s not that kind of operation, Bernard. This is the other side of the job. We’ll be in England. If there’s any interference, we’ll be putting the handcuffs on those bastards, not the other way around.’
I weakened. I should have remained cynical about it, but I weakened because I began to feel that it might prove as simple as Bret Rensselaer said it would be. ‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’
?
??Run him up to Cambridge and play nurse.’ So that was it. I should have guessed that you don’t get invited to Bret’s for nothing. My heart sank into my guts. I felt the way some of those girls must have felt when they realized there were more works of art that lined the stairs all the way to Bret’s bedroom. He saw it in my face. ‘Did you think I was going to try to do it myself?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘If you really think I can do it, Bernard, I’ll try.’ He was restless. He got up again and poured more gin for me. It was only then that I realized that I’d gulped the rest of my drink without even noticing that I’d done so. ‘But I think our man deserves the best help we can find for him. And you’re the best.’
He went back and sat down. I didn’t reply. For a moment we both sat there in that beautiful room thinking our own thoughts. I don’t know what Bret was thinking of, but I was back to trying to decide what his relationship with my wife had been.
At one time I’d felt sure that Fiona and Bret had been lovers. I looked at him. She was right for him, that very beautiful woman from a rich family. She was sophisticated in a way that only wealthy people can be. She had the confidence, stability, and intellect that nature provides for the first-born child.
The suspicion and jealousy of that time, not so long ago, had never gone away, and my feelings coloured everything I had to do with Bret. There was little chance I would ever discover the truth of it, and I was not really and truly sure that I wanted to know. And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Had they been together in this room?
‘I’ll never understand you, Bernard,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re full of anger.’
I felt like saying that that was better than being full of shit, but in fact I didn’t think that of Bret Rensselaer. I’d thought about him a lot over the past few months. First because I thought he was jumping into bed with Fiona, and now because the finger of treason was pointed at him. It all made sense. Put it all together and it made sense. If Bret and Fiona were lovers, then why not co-conspirators too?