The Secret Families Page 9

  They lay, side by side, on their backs, smoking quietly, their free hands resting on each other and Barbara felt like a young girl again. She stubbed out her cigarette, rolled on top of Philip and mounted him, riding towards a winning-post of pleasure. He had a surprisingly hard and firm body, with good muscle tone. He probably worked on it, she decided. Their love-making had been more intense than sex with Naldo. With Naldo it was always a great, funny game. They laughed a lot and did stupid things. It was true sport with Naldo. This was more like a tender poem and she could not decide which was best. Later she realized that each was as good as the other. They were just different. Like the techniques of Naldo’s job, she thought.

  ‘I haven’t felt like this in years,’ she said after the second time. ‘Damn it, I don’t even feel guilty.’

  ‘You probably will.’ His face was turned from her, and she wondered if he did this often. ‘You know about all that kind of thing, of course?’ She was not really questioning.

  ‘Just one or two illicit incidents. It happens when you’re away from your partner a lot. Happens to men anyway.’

  Barbara wondered if it happened to Naldo, and decided it probably did.

  She liked the way Philip watched her dress, his eyes showing pleasure in the sight of her body naked, and then half-clad.

  ‘So, what do we do?’ she asked. He was getting out of bed and she told him to stay where he was. ‘I can see myself out. Big girl now, you know.’

  ‘If you say so. Look, Barbara, why don’t you give me a ring after Christmas. We can decide then.’

  ‘You’re putting me off,’ she said, unworried that it might even be true.

  ‘No. I could even fall in love with you, given half a chance.’

  ‘Don’t’, she replied seriously. ‘Please don’t. I’m not going to hurt anyone.’

  He nodded and said he was going away for Christmas also. ‘I have to be back in Lavenham tomorrow. I’ll be there until we go. Get in touch after Christmas. If you don’t, then I’ll pester you with phone calls.’

  She got a cab easily, and felt happy all the way home.

  There was something very satisfying about illicit sex. Vi had certainly been right about that. Then another snatch of poetry came into her head, and she smiled to herself. Eliot had not been a bad omen, because Auden had followed on his heels. She muttered the lines to herself, like someone in prayer —

  ‘Love has no position.

  Love’s a way of living.

  One kind of relation

  Possible between

  Any things or persons

  Given one condition.

  The one sine qua non

  Being mutual need.’

  ‘Thank God for you, Wystan Hugh Auden,’ she thought. ‘You’re my little crystal ball, and you always provide the right words. Not like Thomas Stearns Eliot who I can never quite understand.’

  Back in the Hans Crescent Flat, Philip Hornby was running the tapes back, and checking that the cameras behind the copy of Brueghel’s ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ had taken their standard four frames a minute. ‘The things I do for my country,’ he thought. When everything checked, he called Brown and a tape responded. After identifying himself, Hornby said just four words. ‘She’s in the cage.’ Then, after a moment’s pause, he added, ‘I’m going home. You can send in the technical boys to clear up.’

  4

  When he was in London, Herbie Kruger used a small office, tucked away in a side street across from the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The building had four such sets of offices and was generally known as the Annexe. More often than not Herbie worked there alone — with three telephone lines, one a direct patch through to Maitland-Wood’s office. Occasionally they gave him a schpick — a word they all borrowed from the KGB, meaning a novice. Herbie’s schpicks were usually just out of training from Warminster.

  Naldo got into Heathrow at midday, checked his small overnight bag into the luggage room run by Five’s B Division and the Special Branch’s airport security, then called Herbie at the Annexe from a coin box, just to reassure himself that the big German was in town. Herbie answered the phone himself, which meant no schpicks were assigned to him. When they were, Herb always made them answer the telephone.

  Naldo said nothing. He just heard Kruger’s voice and put the telephone down. He then took a taxi to Trafalgar Square and called Barbara from a coin box. She sounded very perky and told him she had got a couple of tickets for Maggie May, at the Adelphi. ‘It got great reviews, and you like Rachel Roberts, Nald. When we saw her in that film you said she had “earthy” qualities, which probably meant something highly sexual.’

  ‘Ah, Rachel Roberts, yes. Good. Be home this afternoon sometime, Barb. Love you.’

  ‘Love you.’ She did not hesitate. No guilt had haunted her dreams, or the waking morning. Barbara simply felt refreshed and rejuvenated. She wanted Naldo sexually, not to compare, but for reassurance. Yet she had telephoned Philip Hornby that morning. The phone just kept ringing out. Up and away to Lavenham, she thought, and realized that while he had her London number she did not have his in Lavenham. Crafty sod, she smiled.

  It was a little after one o’clock when Naldo arrived at the Annexe.

  ‘Nald, what you doing in this throat of the woods?’

  ‘Neck, Herb. Neck of the woods,’ Naldo prompted.

  ‘Throat. Neck. What’s the difference?’ Herbie gave a wide grin and a wink, suggesting that he had been pulling Naldo’s leg. He opened his arms and gave his old friend, and one-time controller, a huge bear-hug.

  ‘Came to see you, Herb.’

  ‘Talk over old times?’ Kruger tilted an eyebrow.

  ‘Thought we might go out to lunch. You still eat lunch?’

  ‘Do I eat lunch? You take me to Travellers Club, Nald? I like Travellers.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  It was cold outside, and London was bursting at the seams with the pre-Christmas rush. In the street, Naldo hailed a taxi and told Herb he knew a good place in Soho. After lunch, during which Herbie talked food from his half-remembered childhood, Naldo asked if he minded walking back through the park. He did not broach the subject of the Blunt interrogation until they were well out in the open in St James’s Park.

  ‘Need a favour, Herb.’ He was so casual that Kruger only gave a grunt, and Naldo had to repeat the line.

  ‘You? You need favour from me? You’re big league, Nald. I’m only errand boy now.’

  ‘Come off it, Herb. I know what you’re doing in that little broom cupboard they call the Annexe. I’m asking a dangerous favour.’

  ‘Such as?’ They continued to walk, Naldo with his erect near-military bearing, Herbie lumbering along with uncoordinated gait.

  ‘Such as a look at some files.’

  ‘You got files of your own, Nald. What you want with mine?’

  ‘They’re not yours, but they’re highly restricted. I can’t get access. I know you can. I want a peek. You can provide.’

  ‘You asking as a friend? Or is this tricky?’

  ‘Maitland-Wood’s a little tricky.’

  ‘Oh, that all? Old BMW. Ja. OK. Anything, Nald, if it will put back up Maitland-Wood.’

  ‘I want to see the Artist’s inquisition files. Hypermarket.’

  ‘Oh, Mensch!’

  ‘And listen to the tapes if you can get them.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’

  ‘Difficult?’

  ‘Bloody Ambrose Hill have diarrhoea.’ Ambrose Hill was Head of Registry and guardian of many secrets. ‘He’s like he was married to those bloody files. They keep them, and the tapes, in a nuclear shelter, Nald.’

  ‘But you have access.’

  ‘Sure. Yes, sure I have access. But you know they get updated every couple of weeks. They took off one inquisitor and just put a new man in. Can go on into twenty-first century.’ He gave a big sigh. ‘Yes, OK, I have access.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Only in registry. You want to see and hear those things you
do it in safe room — you know, the one right down below registry, with the baffles so there’s no sound-stealing. Nothing. You listen on headphones and you read for limited time only. Hill puts one of the knuckle-draggers outside door, and he spot-checks. I know. Been through it all.’

  ‘For me, Herb — because I’m having problems with BMW — would you take in a camera and a little machine, a tiny recorder? In secret, of course. I need to see, and, if possible, hear a lot of that stuff.’

  ‘There is much, Nald. A great deal. Would I do it?’ Herbie moved his body to and fro, as if to suggest, maybe. ‘I got to have good excuse, Nald. Got to have reason.’

  ‘If a very good reason suddenly came up, would you do it? For me? You know, us against the world. It’s really for poor old Caspar.’

  ‘Haaa.’ Herbie gave him a sidelong, knowing look. ‘You don’t believe all that rubbish about Cas, do you, Nald?’

  ‘What rubbish?’

  ‘Ja, I thought you disbelieved it. Now, you give me a very, but very, good reason and I go play spies for you, OK.’

  ‘You know something about accusations against Caspar?’

  Herbie lifted his banana-like hand, tipping it from side to side. ‘Maybe a little. Anyone tries putting shit on Caspar’s memory’ll have to deal with Kruger, ja?’

  ‘Arnie’s in as well.’

  ‘Like they say, the three muscatels.’ Kruger smiled wickedly.

  ‘Musketeers, Herb.’ Naldo was certain the big man played with the language on purpose. ‘You’d do it?’ He turned his head, making eye contact.

  ‘You think I’d pull your pisser, Nald?’

  ‘I think that would depend on who was holding your wrist.’

  Herbie guffawed. ‘No. Serious. If it’s to shut this Caspar rubbish once for all, I do it with pleasure. I also show you what good spy can do. Just give me reason.’

  ‘How about this, then …’ Naldo began to talk. Slowly a huge smile engulfed Big Herbie’s large face. ‘You got a deal,’ he said. ‘You do it and we put one over on Bugger Maitland-Wood, OK? How soon?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Pity you can’t do it this afternoon.’

  ‘No, it’ll take a bit of time, OK? Eight, or half-past, in morning. Be at your office. You’ll hear from someone. Maybe old Bloody Maitland-Wood himself. Better they should ask you. Safer than you going to them with a story. In any case, I’ll have someone drop you a package with the hardware in the morning.’

  ‘What hardware?’

  ‘Camera, and the little tape machine.’

  ‘Can’t use tape, but don’t worry, I got my own. Friend in Japan gives me all the stuff I need.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yea, out of the good of heart. I got pictures of him fucking a young girl. I told him I might show them to his girlfriend in Tokyo who runs very efficient whorehouse. Jealous. Most jealous lady who runs House of the Paradise Gardens. You want introduction to her sometime?’

  ‘Didn’t know you’d been to Tokyo, Herb.’

  ‘You don’t know a lot of things, Nald. I been most places since they pulled me out of Berlin. House of Paradise Gardens gives excellent value. You get nice hot bath and massage thrown in. Even get the wax treatment.’

  ‘What wax treatment?’

  ‘Ahh!’ Herbie put his finger alongside his nose. ‘They have this warm pool. Very warm. Three girls take you in warm pool. Massage you with oils — the girls have no clothes, eh? Then they take you out, put your do-dah on a marble slab. One girl, she go, “Hyee-Yah!” Give it karate chop and the wax pops out of your ears. Good, yes?’ Herbie exploded with mirth. Naldo was still chuckling as he left the Annexe.

  It was not until he got to the top of Whitehall, where it enters Trafalgar Square, that Naldo realized he was the focal point of a whole watcher team. He spotted the two cars and the little white van on his way towards the square. They made two sweeps, as though they wanted him to know they were there. In the square he spotted the cars and four men, in pairs — two of them by one of the lions at the foot of Nelson’s column, two across from him, in Whitehall itself. He went right, dodging the traffic in Northumberland Avenue, and glanced back, over his shoulder. The pair by the lion began to stroll in his direction. Nelson moved, the column falling against scudding clouds. He remembered being frightened of this odd optical illusion as a child. Now, as Naldo slewed right again, making for the Strand and Charing Cross Station, he felt a different kind of fear.

  The thing that really bothered him was that they all worked like Eastern Bloc teams, not your standard everyday, run-of-the-mill Five or SIS watchers. Also the men did not even disguise their intentions. They were all big, burly heavyweights. They looked like the men he thought they were — Boyevaya gruppa, as the Ks called them. A combat gang. Trained killers, expert in the art of abduction.

  Jesus, he thought, a Sov goon squad in the heart of London? This was crazy. They had an unwritten agreement with the Ks. You didn’t wipe out each other’s officers. Defectors, doubles, they were different. They would not kill him, here in the heart of the capital. If this had been Berlin things might be different — but why a hit? Unless someone had sold him to the Sovs. No, it had to be a lift, but why were they making themselves so bloody conspicuous?

  He remembered something he had heard in Berlin. The footmen work in pairs. Usually four pairs to a gruppa. Which meant there were another two pairs unaccounted for. Then he saw one of them — a man to the left and another to the right, at the bottom of the street as it entered the Strand. One of them glanced back, saw him and crossed to join his companion. He lifted a rolled newspaper, tapping his shoulder twice, as he ducked the traffic, and Naldo was immediately alert for the sudden squeal of an oncoming car. In Berlin they had called that trick ‘fly-squashing’. A footman would signal with a raised newspaper and a Merc’s fender would suddenly break your back.

  But he reached the Strand safely. The couple had moved along to the left, lingering as though trying to make up their minds whether to traverse the road, towards the railway station, with its old cobbled forecourt, and the cross, ravaged by weather and time — the last of twelve crosses erected by Edward I at the stopping places of Queen Eleanor’s funeral cortege as it made its way from Nottinghamshire to Westminster Abbey. Naldo wondered if this would be his last cross, as he began to follow the crowd of pedestrians released by the traffic lights.

  Again, he glanced back. One of the pairs from Trafalgar Square had come into the Strand, hurrying. The other two men remained in place, but the one with the newspaper was holding it high, straight up like a torch-bearer. You did not need to know about surveillance techniques to work out that the signal was for the final two-man team, and that they were somewhere ahead, near the station itself.

  Naldo reached the forecourt, heading for the main concourse, then ducking into the underground entrance. Once beneath the main station he stood a good chance of losing the team. The underground complex at Charing Cross was difficult — several white-tiled tunnels leading from the main booking hall, plus a set of escalators. You needed a whole army of watchers ahead to cover all the permutations, and these men appeared to be set on wanting him to see them.

  He thought he detected another couple within the booking hall, but lost them a second later as he banged coins into one of the ticket machines and set off, heading towards the tunnel to the right of the escalators. It would be difficult for them to outguess him. At the very last moment he made up his mind and lunged towards the escalator and began the downward ride.

  He was halfway when he saw them, waiting at the bottom. Another pair, loitering between advertisements for Kayser Bondor stockings and the show he was supposed to see that night, Maggie May. He glanced back, wondering if he could jump from the down to the up moving stairway. But there were two more of the same muscular kind on the escalator behind him, and yet another duo still waiting at the top. Boxed and buggered, he thought.

  Naldo shoved his hands into his topcoat pockets. You always h
ad some kind of weapon on you, they taught — a pen, a box of matches. He did not have a damned thing. He could not get at his pen inside his jacket pocket, two layers down. Feet and hands only. He stepped off the escalator and the two hoods at the bottom took a pace towards him.

  FIVE

  1

  Naldo braced himself, stepping back with one foot and positioning his body close to the dividing line between the up and down escalators. The mid-afternoon rush was just starting to build, and people jostled, pushed, even shouldered their way around him. The larger of the two men had a florid complexion, there were blue veins showing on his nose, and his eyes glittered, alert, feigning friendliness. He smelt of garlic, strong tobacco, both almost overpowered by some sickly deodorant. He smiled, as did his friend, then gave a tiny bow, a kind of mock obeisance.

  ‘Please excuse,’ he said, showing a top row of bad teeth. ‘Spasibo — Thank you, please excuse, you are right for National Gallery here, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Naldo heard himself say. ‘Yes, National Gallery. Up there,’ pointing. ‘Cross the Strand, and straight up into Trafalgar Square. National Gallery. Can’t miss it.’ His body was tense, as though waiting for the bullets.

  ‘Can’t miss it. Ah, thank you. Good.’ The hood looked up and shouted in Russian to his colleagues on the down escalator. He used the English for National Gallery and all four of them nodded, smiled and thanked Naldo. The smiles were like those you read about in childhood fairy tales. The smile on the face of the tiger-wolf-crocodile.

  The hoods from the down escalator had now joined them. The other pair stood at the top of the escalator, looking down with eyes like glass. The quartet nodded, and started to move towards the up escalator.

  ‘Again, thank you.’ The florid man gave another little bow. Then, in almost a whisper, ‘You see how easy it is, Mr Railton? Da svedahnya.’ He was gone, not even looking back.

  ‘Yeb vas! — fuck you!’ Naldo had learned to swear in Russian from a well-informed espionage novel.