‘That’s the problem,’ I said.
‘The Party will stand firm against that kind of reform,’ said Stinnes.
‘But the economy will continue to decline. And one day the Soviet generals and admirals will encounter resistance to their profligate spending on guns and tanks and ships. The economy won’t be able to afford such luxuries.’
‘Then the military will throw in their lot with the reformers?’ said Stinnes scornfully. ‘Is that your contention?’
‘It’s possible,’ I said.
‘Not in your lifetime,’ said Stinnes, ‘and not in mine.’ He’d been leaning forward, eyes bright and active as he pursued the arguments, but now he sighed and slumped back in the sofa. Suddenly, for a brief moment, I glimpsed a different Stinnes. Was it the heaviness that comes with constant pain? Or was Stinnes regretting the way he’d let me see a glimpse of what he really was?
‘Why do you care, Erich?’ I said. ‘You’re a capitalist now, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ he said. He smiled, but the smile was not reassuring.
From Berwick House I drove straight back to London for a conference that was scheduled for half past five that afternoon. It was a high-powered departmental meeting that had already been going for nearly an hour. I waited in the anteroom and was called in just before six.
The Director-General – wearing one of his baggiest suits – was in the chair. At the table there were Morgan, Frank Harrington, Dicky and Bret Rensselaer. It wasn’t exactly the full complement. The Deputy was attending to private business in Nassau and the Controller Europe was at a meeting in Madrid. Everyone had a glass and there was a jug of ice on the conference table; also the usual selection of booze was arranged on the side table, but everyone seemed to be keeping to Perrier water, except for Frank Harrington who was nursing a large whisky in both hands and looking into it like a gypsy consulting a crystal ball. In deference to the D-G no one was smoking. I could see that this was putting Frank under some strain. He seemed to guess what I was thinking; he smiled and wetted his lips in the way he did when about to light his pipe.
‘Ah…’ said the D-G. Twisting round to see me as Morgan ushered me into the conference room, he knocked his pencil off the table.
‘Samson,’ supplied Morgan. It was one of his duties to remind the D-G of the names of the staff. So was retrieving things the D-G knocked to the floor without noticing.
‘Ah, Samson,’ said the D-G. ‘You’ve just been to talk with our Russian friend. Why don’t you pour yourself a drink.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The fluorescent lights were reflected in the polished table top. I remembered Fiona saying that fluorescent lighting made gin taste ‘funny’. It was of course an insight into her pampered upbringing, a rationalization of why she didn’t want to drink in cheap restaurants, corner bars or offices. And yet I was never able to completely shed the suspicion that her theory might be true. I didn’t let it interfere with my drinking, though.
While I poured myself a stiff gin and tonic I looked round the room. Sir Henry Clevemore seemed to be in good form today. Despite his wrinkled face and heavy jowls, his eyes were clear under those heavy lids, and his voice was firm. His sparse hair had been carefully arranged to make the most of it, and today there was no sign of the trembling that sometimes made him stutter.
I wondered exactly what they’d been talking about. It was unlikely that Bret had been asked any pointed questions at such a gathering; the D-G wouldn’t have Dicky and Morgan along to witness Bret being put through the wringer. If I knew anything about the old man, if things came to the crunch he would stand aside as he had done before. He’d hand the whole business over to Internal Security and let them get their hands dirty. For the old man had a horror of disloyalty and he’d run a mile to get away from any sniff of it.
And certainly Bret showed no sign of strain. He was sitting next to the D-G and being his usual urbane shop-window-dummy self. Dicky was wearing a suede jacket as a sartorial concession to the D-G, Morgan was twitchy, and Frank looked bored. Frank could afford to look bored – he was the only one in the room who would probably remain unaffected if they opened an orange file on Bret. In fact, with Bret put on the back burner, Frank would probably be asked to stay on in Berlin. Knowing Frank and his vociferous requests for retirement, that would mean the offer of a bigger pension and a lot of fringe benefits to keep him happy.
‘Did you record your interrogation?’ Morgan asked me.
‘Yes. But it wasn’t exactly an interrogation,’ I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the other end of the table to face the D-G. ‘The recording is being transcribed now.’
‘Why wasn’t it an interrogation?’ said Morgan. ‘That was your instruction.’ Morgan brandished the notepad and pencil. He had a new suit – dark grey, almost black, and tight fitting, with white shirt and stiff collar – so that he looked like the ambitious junior newspaper reporter that he’d been not so long before.
I didn’t reply to Morgan. I stared into the D-G’s redrimmed eyes. ‘I went to Berwick House because the senior interrogator was getting nowhere. My task was to find out what the trouble was. I’m not a trained interrogator and I’ve very little experience.’ I spoke loudly, but even so, the D-G cupped his ear.
‘What do you make of him?’ said the D-G. The others were politely holding back, giving the D-G first go at me.
‘He’s sick,’ I said. ‘He seems to be in pain.’
‘Is that the most important thing you discovered?’ asked Morgan, with more than a touch of sarcasm.
‘It’s something you aren’t likely to get from the tape recording,’ I said.
‘But is it of any importance?’ said Morgan.
‘It might be very important,’ I said.
‘Do we have his medical sheet to hand?’ the D-G asked Morgan.
Waiting until after Morgan had registered confusion, Bret answered. ‘He has consistently refused a physical. It didn’t seem worth getting tough with him about it. But we’ve been taking it easy with him just in case.’
The D-G nodded. The D-G, like many of the senior staff, was able to nod without making it a gesture of agreement. It was just a sign that he’d heard.
Encouraged by the D-G, I went quickly through my conversation with Stinnes, giving particular attention to his suggestion that he be allowed to break the Cambridge net.
Bret said, ‘I’d feel uneasy about releasing him in the new hope that he would pull it off on his own.’
‘We’re not achieving much by keeping him where he is,’ said Morgan. He tapped his pencil on the notepad. The way in which Morgan came to such meetings in the role of note taker for the D-G and then spoke to senior staff as an equal annoyed Bret. It annoyed other people too. I wondered if the D-G failed to understand that or simply failed to care. His ability to play one person off against another was legendary. That was the way the Department had always been run.
‘I’m coming under a lot of pressure to transfer him to the Home Office people,’ said the D-G, pronouncing the final words with what was almost a shudder of distaste.
‘I hope you won’t give way to them,’ said Bret. He was very polite, but there was an edge in his voice that implied that the D-G would fall from grace if he succumbed to such pressure.
Dicky had consistently resisted any temptation to become involved with the Stinnes debriefing, but now he said what was in everyone’s mind. ‘I understood that we would hold him for the best part of a year. I understood that the whole idea was to use Stinnes as a way to measure our successes or failures over the past decade. I thought we were going to go through the archives with him.’
Dicky looked at the D-G and Frank Harrington looked at Dicky. Frank Harrington would not emerge shiny bright from any close inspection of the Department’s successes and failures. It was a maxim of the German desk that successes were celebrated in Bonn and rewarded in London, but failures were always buried in Berlin. Berlin was the one job you had to do sometimes, but n
o one had ever built a career upon Berlin.
‘That was the original plan,’ said Morgan. He looked at the D-G to see if he required more prompting.
The D-G said, ‘Yes, that was the original plan but we have had setbacks. More setbacks than you have yet heard about.’ Was that, I wondered, a reference to a pending enquiry for Bret? The D-G spoke very slowly and anyone replying immediately was likely to find himself speaking over him. So we all waited, and sure enough he spoke again. ‘It’s something of a poker game. We have to decide whether to go on with our bluff, trust this Russian, and hope he can deliver the goods that will provide us with a strong bargaining position.’ Another long pause. ‘Or should we cut our losses and turn him over to MI5?’
‘He’s a highly experienced Soviet agent,’ said Frank Harrington. ‘And the KGB is a highly motivated organization. He didn’t get to that position by failing to deliver the goods. If he says he can do it, I think we should take that seriously.’
‘Let’s not just consider his ability, Frank,’ I said. ‘It’s not just a matter of whether he can deliver or might fail to do so. We have to worry whether he’s a KGB man still hot and active.’
‘Of course we do,’ said Frank hastily. ‘Only a fool would take him at face value. On the other hand, he’s no damned use to us wrapped in tissue paper and stored away on the shelf.’
‘And in the long term?’ enquired the D-G. I suppose he too realized that Frank couldn’t possibly come out well from a systematic review of our activities, and he was curious to see Frank’s reaction.
‘That’s for the historians,’ said Frank. ‘My concern is last week, this week and next week. The strategy is all yours, Director.’
The D-G smiled at this artful reply. ‘I think we are all of one mind,’ he said, although I had seen little evidence of that. ‘We must go for some sort of compromise.’
‘With Stinnes?’ said Dicky. I never discovered whether it was supposed to be a joke, but Morgan smiled knowingly so perhaps he’d already told Dicky what was coming.
‘A compromise with MI5,’ said the D-G. ‘I’m proposing that they appoint a couple of people to a committee so that we take joint control of the Stinnes debriefing.’
‘And who will be on the committee?’ said Bret.
‘You, Bret, certainly,’ said the D-G. ‘And I was going to have Morgan there to represent me. Would that suit you, Frank?’
‘Yes indeed, sir. It’s an admirable solution,’ said Frank.
‘And what about German Stations?’ said the D-G, looking at Dicky.
‘Yes, but I would like to have Samson back working full time for me. He’s been devoting a lot of time to the Stinnes business, and someone will have to go to Berlin next week.’
‘Of course,’ said the D-G.
Bret said, ‘We might need him from time to time. He was the file officer on the Stinnes enrolment. The committee are sure to want to see him.’
I suppose Bret now expected Dicky to say yes, of course, but Dicky knew how Bret would exploit such a casual agreement and so he didn’t respond. Dicky was going to hold on tight to me. Trying to run his desk all on his own was biting into his social life.
The D-G looked round the table. ‘I’m so glad we’re all agreed,’ he said. He’d obviously made this exact decision before the meeting began. Or Morgan had made it for him.
‘Will Stinnes remain at Berwick House?’ said Bret.
‘Better you work out the details at the first meeting of the whole committee,’ said the D-G. ‘I don’t want them to say we’ve presented them with a fait accompli; it will get things off to a bad start.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Bret. ‘Who will have the chair?’
‘I’ll insist that you do,’ said the D-G, ‘unless you’d prefer not to do it that way. It would limit your voting.’
‘I think I should have the chair,’ said Bret. Bret was at his smoothest now, his elbows on the polished tabletop, his hands loosely clasped so that we could all see his signet ring and the gold wristwatch. It was all coming out well for him so far, but he wasn’t going to enjoy hearing the way Stinnes described him as a blundering amateur when the transcription was sent upstairs. ‘How many of them will there be?’
‘I’ll sound them out,’ said the D-G. ‘Cabinet Office might want a say in it too.’ He looked round the table until he came to me. ‘You’re looking very stern, young man. Have you any comments?’
I looked at Dicky. Whatever he’d told his wife about Bret being a KGB mole, Dicky was not going to stand up and remind the meeting about it. Dicky looked away from me and grew suddenly interested in the D-G. ‘I don’t like it,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ interjected Frank, anxious to head off any chance of me being rude to the old man.
‘They’ll find some damned thing to use against us.’ There was no need to say who. They all knew I didn’t mean Moscow.
‘They’re already well provided with things to use against us,’ said the D-G. He chuckled. ‘It’s time for a compromise. I don’t want to see us in direct conflict with them.’
I said, ‘I still don’t like it.’
The D-G nodded. ‘No one here likes it,’ he said in a soft friendly voice. ‘But we have very little choice.’ He shook his head so hard that his cheeks wobbled. ‘No one here likes it.’
He wasn’t quite correct. Behind his lifted glass of Perrier water Morgan was loving every minute of it. He was stepping from office boy to an operational role without the twenty years of experience that usually went with such moves. It was only a matter of time before Morgan would be running the whole Department.
20
‘Unmarried men are the best friends, the best masters, and the best servants,’ said Tessa Kosinski, my sister-in-law. She was undoing the wire to open a bottle of champagne, careful of her long painted fingernails. She flicked a piece of gold foil from her fingers and swore softly.
‘Don’t shake the bottle or it will go everywhere,’ I said. She smiled and without a word handed the bottle to me. ‘Who said that? Was it George?’
‘No, Francis Bacon, silly. Why do you always think I’m totally ignorant? I may not have had Fi’s brilliant career at Oxford, but I’m not an untutored fool.’ Her fair hair was perfect, as if she’d just come from the hairdresser, her pink dress revealed her bare shoulders, and she was wearing a gold necklace and a wristwatch glittering with diamonds. She was waiting for George to come home, and then they were going to the theatre and on to a party at the house of a Greek shipping magnate. That’s the sort of life they led.
‘I know you’re not, Tessa. It’s just that it sounded like something George might say.’ She was bright when she wanted to be. She knew that I was trying to get the conversation round to the subject of her men friends, but she deftly avoided it. The champagne wasn’t so easy to open. I twisted the cork and, despite my warning to her, gave the bottle a little shake to help. The champagne opened with a loud bang.
‘George is becoming a religious fanatic since we moved here,’ she said. She watched me pouring the champagne and said nothing when some spilled over onto the polished table.
‘How did moving here affect him?’ I put the bottle back into the silver bucket.
‘We’re so near the church now. Mass every morning without fail, darling – surely that’s rather overwrought?’
‘I’ve learned not to comment on other people’s religion,’ I said cautiously.
‘And he’s become awfully friendly with a bishop. You know what a snob George is and he’s so easily flattered.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Now, now.’ She grinned. ‘I flatter George sometimes. I think he’s very clever at business and I’m always telling him so.’
‘What’s wrong with being friends with a bishop?’ I asked.
‘Nothing at all; he’s an amusing old rogue. He sits up drinking George’s best brandy and discussing the nuances of theology.’
‘That’s not being a fanatic,’ I said.
‘Even the bishop says that George is zealous. He says he must be trying to compensate for the lives of his two uncles.’
‘I thought his uncles were both priests.’
‘The bishop knows that; he was joking, darling. Sometimes you’re as slow on the uptake as poor old George.’
‘Well, I think George is a good husband,’ I said, preparing the ground for the subject of her infidelities.
‘So do I. He’s wonderful.’ She got up and looked round the room in which we were sitting. ‘And look what he’s done with this flat. It was a shambles when we first came to look at it. Most of the furniture was chosen by George. He loves going to the auctions and trying to get a bargain. All I did was to buy some of the fabrics and the carpets.’
‘It’s a superb result, Tessa,’ I said. The cream-coloured sofas and the pale carpet contrasted with the jungle of tropical plants that filled the corner near the far window. The lights were recessed into the ceiling to produce a pink shadowless illumination throughout the whole room. The result was expensive looking and yet austere. It was not exactly what one would expect to be the taste of George, the flashily dressed cockney millionaire. The whole flat was perfect and glossy, like a double-page spread in House & Garden. But it was lifeless too. I lived in rooms that bore the imprint of two young children: plastic toys in the bath, odd shoes in the hall, stains on the carpet, and dents in the paintwork. It was nothing less than tragic that George and Tessa had never had children. George desperately wanted to be a father, and Tessa doted on my two kids. Instead, they had this forbiddingly tranquil home in that bleak exclusive part of London – Mayfair. I’m not sure that either of them really belonged there.
‘Give me another drink,’ said Tessa. She had this preposterous idea that champagne was the only alcohol that would not make her fat. She was like a small child in some matters, and although he grumbled about her behaviour, George indulged her in such ridiculous notions. He was to blame for what he didn’t like in her, for to some extent he had created this exasperating creature.