Every spy a traitor, p.2
Every Spy a Traitor, page 2
The waiter returned with a menu and it was a bit awkward as he tried to explain that thank you very much but no, he didn’t want to eat but rather wanted to see what there was to drink, and the waiter shrugged and it was then that he heard the man speak.
Until that moment, he was unaware of the person sitting on the table next to his, so close that their shoulders were almost touching, yet the man hadn’t been there when he arrived and he’d not noticed him take his place.
‘In Paris, they would not expect a gentleman to ask for a menu for a drink, especially if it is not accompanied by a meal. At this time of the day, they would assume you know what you want to drink.’
As he spoke, the man shifted his chair towards him and now, he could see him properly: he was perhaps in his late forties, hard to tell his height but he was slim and had an olive complexion, which suggested he may be from Southern Europe, and he wore a cream suit with a blue-and-white-striped shirt and a dark tie and a white fedora with a wide brim and a band round it, the same colour as his tie. He had a large moustache, the type people sometimes called a walrus moustache, so it appeared he was speaking without moving his lips. He spoke in English with an accent he couldn’t for the life of him place.
‘Thank you. I couldn’t decide what to drink. I didn’t realise asking for a menu would be such a faux pas!’
The man laughed politely.
‘How did you know I was English?’
The man shrugged in a manner to indicate it was obvious. ‘At this time of the day you would be expected to order an aperitif or possibly a white wine. But there are no rules, other than it would be assumed you know what you want… without the assistance of a menu!’
‘Actually, I was wondering whether I’d be committing another faux pas if I were to order a coffee? I’ve had a rather long drive and am going out later and—’
‘In that case’ – the man had now turned his chair round so that they were more or less sitting at the same table – ‘may I suggest coffee and brandy?’
‘In the same cup?’ He tried not to sound too horrified.
The man nodded. ‘Absolutely, though I imagine in London at this time of day you’d have a cup of tea?’ The man laughed loudly.
‘Or a beer!’
The waiter reappeared and the man told him to bring a black coffee with a large Cognac. He was certainly not a native French speaker.
‘That way you can choose how strong to make your drink. It will fortify you for whatever plans you have for tonight.’
‘I’m not sure I do have plans.’
‘I seem to recall you saying you were going out and, in any case, a young man on his own in Paris… it would be a missed opportunity! Voilà, here is your coffee and Cognac. Try it. Pour some brandy into the coffee and if you find it agreeable, add the rest.’
He did find it agreeable and poured all of the Cognac into the coffee. The waiter watched him from the shadows under the cafe’s canopy and when he finished came to ask if he’d like another one. He was undecided and replied maybe he’d just have a coffee first, with milk, please, and when he looked up the man at the next table had gone, as furtively as he’d arrived.
* * *
He left Paris on the Friday morning. It hadn’t been quite the visit he’d hoped it would be. Despite Charlie’s assurances to the contrary, the nightclub in the alley close to Gare Saint Lazare was quite obviously a brothel and certainly wasn’t discreet, so much so that he did wonder whether he’d got the wrong place, though he wasn’t minded to try and find out. There was a certain air of menace in the area around Rue de Naples and Rue du General Foy and when he did finally enter the building with no name he was told he’d need to pay four francs to enter in return for which he’d be entitled to one drink and when he asked what kind of drink he was ignored and he decided that was ridiculous because four francs was the price of a decent dinner in Paris and if that was what they were charging for a drink then he shuddered to think what they’d charge for whatever else they had on offer.
That cast something of a cloud over the rest of his stay. He wandered miserably around the city on the Thursday, regretting his caution of the previous night and even had an early night to prepare for a six o’clock start on the Friday morning.
Lyon was some three hundred and thirty miles south-east and the journey took eight hours, driving for two hours at a time – never at more than sixty miles per hour – before stopping at one of the frequent roadside garages to fill up with petrol and have the tyres, oil and water checked. French mechanics were, he found, altogether more obliging than those in England.
In Lyon he found a pleasant hotel suggested in his Baedeker in the Presqu’île, on a small road close to Place Bellecour and as it was still light after he’d checked in, he went for a stroll and ended up at a pavement cafe on Place des Célestins, in the shadow of the theatre and the neat trees surrounding the small square.
He was sipping a glass of cold bière de Lyon when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘I see you no longer have the taste for coffee and Cognac.’ The voice was familiar, though the accent was more pronounced than when he’d first heard it two evenings ago in Paris. Then it could have been a Spanish or Italian accent. Now it was harsher.
This time the man got up and sat in the chair opposite. He was dressed as in Paris, but looked as if he’d been in a hurry and was breathing heavily and wiping the perspiration from his brow and when he called the waiter over, he asked for a beer too.
‘In weather like this, a cold beer is the ideal drink. Lyon is far closer to the Mediterranean than it is to Paris, you know? People say it is where the south begins.’
‘Are you from France?’
The man sighed as if to indicate it was a long story. ‘Not as such, no. I prefer to describe myself as European.’
‘I never imagined meeting you here: what an extraordinary coincidence, in a country this size!’
‘A happy coincidence, I hope?’
‘But of course.’
‘Then we must not allow the opportunity to be wasted. Come, finish your beer. You know that Lyon is the heart of French gastronomy? I will take you to a proper bouchon, which serves the local cuisine.’
Although he regarded himself as an assertive person, certainly no pushover, he was surprised at how he allowed himself to be led along by the other man, who on the walk to the restaurant said he could call him Emil, which he thought was a funny way of phrasing it, rather than saying ‘my name is Emil’, but then the man was clearly not speaking in his native language so one did have to make allowances and he told him his name and Emil said, yes, he knew, and he wasn’t sure how he knew and mentioned that and Emil said rather quickly that he’d told him so in the cafe on Place des Célestins.
The restaurant was called Le Garet and was a rather informal place, more of a bistro than a restaurant, if the truth be told. But the food was excellent, even if some of the dishes weren’t ones he’d have chosen had he been there by himself, but Emil insisted on ordering. They started with salade Lyonnaise, followed by pike, then a large plate of andouillettes sausage with tripe and dumplings and after that he felt he couldn’t eat another thing, but Emil told him not to be ridiculous, at which point a large lemon tart appeared before them and once that was finished, they were presented with a plate of the local Saint-Félicien cheese. By the time they’d finished the meal they’d also drunk two bottles of Macon Rouge.
Later, he did try to recall just what they spoke about during the meal and it was hard to be precise because Emil had a habit of talking in a discursive manner and it was hard to follow his train of thought, but he was amusing at times with tales of his travels and a terribly risqué story about a woman in Milan and then he spoke at some length about the situation in Europe and how it was a time of turmoil and great change and though he occasionally paused to ask him his point of view, he rarely gave his own opinion and by the end of the evening he realised what an enigmatic character Emil was, appearing so open and clubbable and yet on reflection he knew little about him.
It was eleven o’clock when he said he had to leave because he had a long drive south the next day and Emil nodded and said it had been a pleasure to meet him and he wished him a good evening.
* * *
He left Lyon the following morning and drove as far as Avignon where he spent the Saturday night and arrived in Cannes in time for lunch on the Sunday, as he’d promised.
He was staying at a villa in La Croix des Gardes, owned by the grandparents of his friend Randolph, who’d been in the same college as him at university. They were minor aristocracy – the grandfather more minor than the grandmother – and perfectly pleasant but it was clear that other than joining them for dinner, he was very much on his own, which was tolerable enough as Randolph and a couple of other friends would be arriving later in the week.
On the Tuesday he walked down to the port and had lunch on Quai St Pierre and then walked through the Mount Chevalier district to Square Brougham where he ordered a coffee and Cognac and was amused when the waiter said in this part of France they often called it a caffè corretto and as he drank it he leant back to enjoy the sun, closing his eyes and adjusting the expensive sunglasses he’d bought in Lyon, and was feeling quite at peace and decidedly happy and that was the moment when he became aware of someone sitting next to him and although it took him a moment or two to focus, he somehow sensed it was Emil and the sense of peace and happiness he’d been enjoying now disappeared.
Emil waved the waiter away.
‘What on earth’s going on, Emil? I can put Lyon down to a coincidence, though you never did explain what you were doing in the city, but here in Cannes… have you been following me?’
‘Do you think I have?’
‘I don’t know what to think, but—’
‘Let’s just say that we’ve had our eyes on you since before you arrived in Paris. Before you left London, in fact.’
Despite the sun beating down from a clear blue sky it felt as if a dark cloud had appeared over him. He asked Emil who ‘we’ was, but he waved away the question in the same dismissive manner with which he’d dismissed the waiter and said he’d do very well to listen because it was very important and that was the first moment when he thought about making his excuses and leaving but more than anything else he was intrigued to know what this was all about.
Emil spoke for the next half hour. It was a detailed and unerringly accurate account of his life: where he’d been born and when, his family, his education, his friends and his new job, one which few people knew as much about, for what were obvious reasons.
He did ask Emil what the hell this was all about and started to leave but Emil must have been expecting this because he told him to sit down and listen very carefully because his life may well depend upon it.
‘You were at Oxford University, weren’t you – Oriel College?’
He found himself nodding in reply.
‘During your second term at university – in February 1927 – you attended two meetings of the Chaucer Group, which was a discussion forum for students from across the university who were interested in current affairs. It was also attended by some academics. Although it wasn’t explicit, the group had left-wing leanings without being associated with any political group. You do recall this, I assume?’
He nodded. He sipped his coffee, but it had gone cold, and called the waiter over and asked for a Cognac.
Grand.
‘You participated in the discussions, especially at your second meeting, and after that meeting you were approached by one of the academics, a man called Gilbert. You remember him – you look confused?’
‘It’s rather fanciful for you to seriously think I can remember everyone I met or bumped into at university: it must have run into the hundreds. And you’re talking about when, 1927? Four years ago!’
‘Maurice Gilbert: of course, you remember him. You had two very long meetings, one running into the early hours in his rooms at his college, I’m told. You insisted that despite or possibly because of your privileged background you felt strongly that society is unfair and immoral and you told him no one should be surprised if the oppressed classes – your words – had no alternative but to resort to violent means to bring about a more equal and just society. You told him – and Maurice made contemporaneous notes – how much you admired the Russian revolution and that you felt a proletarian revolution in the United Kingdom would be – and I quote – “justified and desirable”. Ring any bells?’
‘Do you really take seriously the drunken ramblings of a student? I don’t recall this specific conversation, but I may well have flirted with all kinds of politics at university: it probably felt exciting at the time, as if I was doing something daring. No doubt it was exhilarating, like when one’s fox hunting. But it would have been no more than a passing phase. Maybe this Gilbert chap was one of those academics who enjoyed the company of good-looking young men like me, there were plenty of that sort around.’
‘We traditionally take a dim view of intellectuals, especially those from a background as privileged as yours. The Marxist–Leninist view is that socialism will only emerge as a movement of the working class and the involvement of your class is best regarded as bourgeoise interference, as an indulgence, a passing phase – as you yourself put it – before you re-join the oppressor ruling class. Students are a very good example of this.
‘Usually, such students fall by the wayside after a few meetings: they are excited by their brief flirtation with revolutionary politics but soon realise it is not for them, especially if it involves any kind of work or, worse still, interaction with the working class.
‘Maurice Gilbert was very experienced and had a good sense of who fell into such a category and who was worth taking more seriously and according to his notes, he’d never met a student more serious about what he said and more sincere in his beliefs than you. We’ve had our eye on you since then and nothing has altered that view.’
‘Well, jolly good for you, Emil, but as far as I’m concerned this is all a load of nonsense and now I—’
‘You kept in touch with Maurice Gilbert and did as he instructed – that is, to eschew any apparent interest in and involvement with politics and in so far as you expressed any political views, they were ones which firmly reflected the interests of the establishment. In the first term of your second year – I’m told it is called Michaelmas – Maurice asked you to obtain copies of documents your father brought home from work and he supplied you with a special camera for this along with a tool to pick the lock to his study. Over the following twelve months you handed over to Maurice dozens of films, with photographs of a large number of documents. Some were invaluable to us. We were surprised the Foreign Office allowed its senior officials to take such secret material home with them. You showed a degree of commitment we’d never expected and a cool nerve and guile that was most impressive. Maurice always said you were the most promising of his recruits.’
Emil paused and beckoned the waiter over and ordered two Cognacs – large please, of course – and when he said he wasn’t sure he wanted one, Emil told him by the time he’d finished he’d need one.
‘A year after you started to pass on this information to Maurice, he died, didn’t he? Natural causes, according to the post-mortem, and we have no reason to think otherwise: he wasn’t a terribly healthy man, I think the word is obese, eh? I imagine you were worried as were we by what they may find in his room when they cleared it out. We shouldn’t have worried, of course: like most of Maurice’s life, his chaotic and disorganised manner was just a front. He wouldn’t have left anything incriminating in his room. He had a room in a lodging house in the south of the city, which we also had access to – it was how we collected material – and he was meticulous about keeping everything of any importance there. It was all intact, including the latest undeveloped film you’d handed over to him not long before he died. If you did worry, you needn’t have done. After that you heard nothing and probably thought such involvement as you had had gone with Maurice’s death. A lucky escape, you probably thought, eh? But it seems not.’
This was the point at which he could have walked away but instead he remained sitting quite still, possibly looking impassive but feeling cold despite the blazing sun as it became apparent to him that from this moment on, every aspect of his life would be changed: his loyalties and his allegiances, every waking moment preoccupied by caution – no time for relaxation or carefree thoughts.
He could have been angry with himself but quickly realised that would be a wasted emotion. Certainly, it had been a youthful indiscretion, one motivated by a sense of injustice but perhaps more so by a deep resentment of his father and an opportunity to get back at him, as he saw it then.
He nodded and listened carefully as Emil explained what would happen. They were delighted with his new job: after Maurice had died, they’d left him alone to see what happened to him and it had worked out perfectly. In his job he’d be ideally placed to help the Soviet Union and—
‘Hang on, hang on… the Soviet Union is the “we”?’
‘Of course: who did you imagine it would be?’
Emil continued: they would expect little of him for a year or two, perhaps even longer. The plan would be to allow him to rise in the organisation he was about to join without a hint of suspicion around him. When the time was right, he’d be expected to start supplying information and undertaking various tasks.
‘Even if you don’t hear from us for a while, never make the mistake of assuming that we’ve gone away. And should you ever give even the slightest consideration to breaking off relations with us, I’m sure you’ll remember that we have a treasure trove of incriminating material.’
He nodded and said he’d already worked that out for himself, which was why he was still here. He thought it was ironic that he’d always craved a life of excitement and even danger and now he’d most certainly got one. And the cause he was attached to – the Soviet Union – well, it wasn’t a bad one, was it? At least he was on the right side.
