Every spy a traitor, p.21
Every Spy a Traitor, page 21
‘But something very interesting did happen. The Kremlin is a very secure area: it is extremely difficult to get into, not least for foreigners, and it’s simply not the kind of place where one can just wander around. Branstone said that he always had someone with him and he was also invariably followed by one or two men. However, one day early in May – this is last year, remember – he went for a lunchtime walk and noticed after a while that the man who’d been following him was nowhere to be seen so he decided to head towards the Council of Ministers building, where he spotted a man leaving the building. Branstone said that when the man walked past him there was something familiar about him and he also noticed that he was wearing what he described as British clothing.
‘He followed the man through the Kremlin and towards what is called the Taynitskaya Tower and he went in there after the man and spoke to him in English.’
‘Really, just out of the blue like that?’
‘Indeed so. Branstone says he asked the man – in English – if he knew where one of the other towers was and the man replied – in English – that he didn’t and that he was a stranger there himself. And then he hurried off.’
Phillips continued with the story of how the man seemed so familiar to Austin Branstone – how he recalled having played him at chess at Merton College in Oxford in what he thought was 1930 and how he’d beaten the man with the Scholar’s Mate and the man had reacted very badly and Branstone remembered him as being upper class and slightly older than him and it was possible the man was at another Oxford college.
‘And you say there’s no trace of that event?’
‘None whatsoever, Percy. One can only assume it was an informal tournament, and remember: it was something like eight years ago. Of course, if we had an idea of which other colleges may have been involved, but nothing… we were left with Branstone encountering an Englishman in the Kremlin, which is highly significant.’
‘Which may well be the case, but it doesn’t follow that this Englishman in the Kremlin is therefore this Archie character, does it?’
‘There’s been another development, which I need to tell you about.’ Phillips shuffled awkwardly in his chair and fiddled with his fountain pen. Never a man who looked comfortable, now he looked distinctly ill at ease.
‘Last month, Austin Branstone was in London for a fortnight’s research at the British Library in Bloomsbury. He was staying nearby in Brunswick Square and on the twenty-seventh of July, he was passing Russell Square underground station as a crowd of people were exiting the station. According to Branstone, he’s absolutely certain he recognised the man he encountered in the Kremlin. He also says he was even more convinced that it was indeed the same person he’d played chess against in Oxford in 1930. He followed the man into Russell Square but unfortunately, he got into a taxi, which headed south.’
‘In this direction?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Let’s hope he wasn’t headed here – the last thing we need is a traitor in the War Office!’
There was nervous laughter around the room but Phillips from MI6 wasn’t laughing.
‘Unaccountably, Mr Branstone waited until the following week to contact our man in Cambridge, Paxton at Gonville and Caius.’
‘Why on earth did he leave it so long, did the fool not realise the urgency?’
‘Apparently not, though one should remember the chap’s an academic – he probably did think he was getting on with it. The Monday was a Bank Holiday so he didn’t actually tell Paxton – and therefore, us – until the Tuesday. Paxton contacted us immediately and we instructed Branstone to come down to London the following day.’
‘The Wednesday?’
‘Yes, the third of August. And indeed, we’d recently managed to get our hands on photographs from every college in Oxford for the three years, from 1929 until 1931, and needed to show them to Branstone. The man he saw in Moscow – and outside the station – was almost certainly bound to be amongst them: there was a very good chance he’d finally be able to identify him.’
‘That’s an awful lot of photographs, Phillips!’
‘Over one hundred and twenty.’
‘One hopes it proved fruitful?’
The others noticed Phillips’ head was slightly bowed and his hands clasped on the table as if in prayer and when he spoke it was quieter than before and he was looking down.
‘That’s the awful thing, you see – poor chap never got the chance!’
* * *
Of course Archie had recognised that wretched man when he’d accosted him in the tower in the Kremlin the previous May.
He’d been a damn fool that day and he was furious with himself not only for how he’d reacted but also how he’d behaved prior to it. There he was in the Kremlin, of all places, one of the most guarded and secretive places in the world. He should have taken a good deal more care: replying in English, for a start – such a schoolboy error.
In fact, the idea of leaving the Council of Ministers and wandering off like that was rash in the extreme. He ought to have remained where he was inside the building, but no… he had to stroll off without an apparent care in the world as if he was going for a lunchtime walk around St James’s Park when he was likely a good deal more cautious than he was on that fateful day.
After all, in St James’s Park there were always people one wanted to avoid – disagreeable colleagues, of whom there were plenty, bores from university or, his pet hate, former schoolmates, who seemed to flock around the park as if they were on Lower Field at school.
But there in the Kremlin he couldn’t have behaved more irresponsibly, oblivious to any danger, apparently confident no one could possibly recognise him, so much so that he didn’t even take the simplest of precautions, such as wearing a Russian coat and hat, which would at the very least have enabled him to blend in.
As he walked through the Kremlin, he’d ignored all the basic techniques he’d been taught about being followed. They’d impressed on him that rule number one was to check for a tail. And rule number two? Check for a tail. Only then could you start employing the evasion techniques. He’d never bothered to check even once that day, but at least it had proved to be an important lesson. He was meticulous about it now.
He only spotted the man when he was already in the Taynitskaya Tower and that was only because he could hardly miss him. He thought he recognised him even before he spoke and asked whether he knew where one of the other towers was, and like the bloody fool he was he’d replied in English – in English! – that he was afraid he didn’t know because he was a stranger here himself.
The depths of his stupidity were hard to fathom. He’d even said he was ‘afraid’, as if he owed the damned man an apology. Speaking English and admitting he was a stranger here… why didn’t he just go and tell him he was a Soviet spy and would he like his card?
Once he’d got away from the man, he remembered exactly who he was. A chess tournament in Oxford years ago – possibly in his third year, so 1930, and possibly at Merton – and it involved two other colleges plus King’s from Cambridge and he’d been prevailed upon to take part even though he really wasn’t in the mood because he’d been away for a golf weekend, which had rather got out of hand at the nineteenth hole, and he had to get an essay in, which was long overdue, and he was still hungover from the weekend, so he was roped into it if against his will, if the truth be told.
His first game was against a young chap from King’s who he’d taken an instant dislike too, not least because he was clearly what they called a ‘squib’ at school, which described the scholarship boys, usually very clever, but with no interest in sport or much else beyond their books.
This squib had wanted to chat and was trying to be friendly and he really wasn’t in the mood and then the next thing he knew he’d walked into a Scholar’s Mate, which was, of course, quite humiliating and that was exacerbated by the squib sitting there with a broad grin on his spotty face and then he chuckled and said something about ‘bad luck’ and frankly he could have landed him one there and then, but instead just stormed out, which did cause a bit of a scene later because that meant Oriel was a player down.
He rarely forgot a face, particularly that of someone who’d rubbed him up the wrong way.
He had wondered whether he should report the encounter to Nikolai, but very quickly thought better of it. He wasn’t naïve about his Soviet masters: if they found out he’d been seen in the Kremlin by someone who knew him from England then they’d no longer see him as an asset.
And in their eyes, if you weren’t an asset, you were a liability, and he was in little doubt as to what they did to liabilities. He’d decided to do nothing, not least because he doubted the other man would remember who he was.
And for the next fourteen months that’s how it remained. His career was going very well indeed, giving him access to excellent intelligence, and the Soviets were clearly very pleased with him. He was considerably more alert and constantly checked whether he was being followed and over that time developed the skill of checking he wasn’t being tailed or observed without it being at all obvious that he was checking.
And that Wednesday morning in July was a case in point. He’d travelled to Russell Square station because he was due to meet his Soviet contact, which was always a protracted business – changing underground lines, walking, different buses – and he’d told work he was going to be late because he had a dental appointment, but as he left the station he did his first check, surreptitiously scanning the street and that was when he spotted him, unquestionably the same man, and it was obvious he’d seen him because he looked startled. He’d hurried off into Russell Square and took a taxi to work, where he announced his dental appointment had been cancelled.
The next day he’d anticipated the man would be there waiting for him, so he wore a different coat and hat and waited further down the street and sure enough spotted him and it was evident he was only watching people leaving the station, so he didn’t notice him when he followed the man to the British Library and it was the same the following day – the Friday – and this time he watched as the man went to the Readers Desk and signed in.
He waited for half an hour and went up to the Readers Desk and told the man there that a letter should be waiting giving him permission to register as a Reader and the man seemed rather put-upon and said to please give him a moment because such letters were not kept there and that gave him the opportunity to look at that morning’s list and just eight people had signed in so far and he’d been observing it all from across the hall and so could work out which one was the man he’d been watching.
Austin Branstone
King’s College, Cambridge
* * *
That Friday evening he’d met Osip, his Soviet contact, who was furious that his agent had aborted two meetings and there’d been an argument when he’d told him that’s how it was, not everything could go to plan, and there’s been some urgent issues at work and did he really want him to draw attention to himself by being absent?
Osip said probably not, and then he’d handed Osip a film and said that ought to keep Moscow satisfied and Osip told him to keep his voice down and it wasn’t for him to decide what satisfied Moscow and what were these issues at work, because he didn’t seem to be his normal self?
‘What do you mean?’
‘You appear to be agitated.’
‘I’m fine: sometimes the pressure… you know, doing two jobs… But I’ll be fine, there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s the Bank Holiday weekend so we’re in the country and I’ll go for a couple of long walks with the dogs and I’ll be as right as rain next week.’
As right as rain was one way of describing it. He managed to drive to Cambridge on the Sunday, which was a more rushed visit than he’d hoped for, and did necessitate a bit of explanation as his wife had ‘plans’, but it did mean he was well prepared. Branstone was back at the College and he found out where his rooms were.
He left work early on the Tuesday and took the four-thirty from Liverpool Street and was in Cambridge by six thirty and hoped he wasn’t cutting things too fine but nevertheless decided against taking a taxi, so he walked up to King’s College, skirting round the college to the lawns at the rear and then through the Back Gate, the gown he’d brought with him enabling him to enter and move around the place with the confidence of someone who felt he owned the place, which a distant branch of his wife’s family did.
Austin Branstone’s rooms were in Bodley’s Court. It was a quarter past seven when he arrived at the foot of his stairwell and he knew he needed to move fast. From now on people would notice him.
* * *
Austin Branstone couldn’t decide whether to go to Hall for dinner or to stay in his room and work. The meeting with Paxton at Gonville and Caius that day had rather thrown him: Paxton had torn him off a strip or two and said waiting so long to tell him about seeing the man outside the station was ‘inexplicable’ and now he had to travel to London the next day to explain himself and his carefully made plans had been thrown into disarray.
There was a knock on the door and he sighed because he really wasn’t in a mood to be disturbed and this was probably Babcock wondering if he was ready to go down to Hall and he’d have to make his excuses.
He called out ‘hang on’ and opened the door and for a moment he assumed it was Babcock because he was wearing a gown and was a similar height and build to his colleague.
But that was Branstone’s last ever rational thought. The figure barged into the room, clasping a gloved hand over his mouth, and with his body weight propelled him across the room and bundled him onto the bed, pinning him to it.
Branstone could barely breathe and it felt as if the man was crushing him and in his terrified state he wondered if this was one of these awful sexual assaults of which there’d been a spate involving undergraduates the previous year. Then the scarf the man had round his face slipped and the face appeared in front of him and Branstone was gripped by a fear so powerful he lost the ability to move.
It was the same man he’d seen in the Kremlin and outside the station last week and the very same man he’d beaten at chess in 1930.
The man said nothing. He was much stronger than Branstone and had his hand over his mouth, but Branstone wouldn’t stop squirming, even when he felt the sharp pain in his side and, at first, he was unsure what caused it but then he saw the knife, a surprisingly short blade, and the man appeared to be smiling as if he was enjoying this. Branstone’s last thought was that with some luck Babcock would hear all the commotion and knock on his door any minute and it would all be over.
* * *
When it was over, Archie sat on the bed for a while to catch his breath. A look of sheer horror was frozen on Branstone’s face and that was quite disconcerting so he hauled him under the covers and then tidied things up, though in fact it wasn’t too bad. It had been quick and efficient, thirty seconds at the very most from entering the room to Branstone dead. He had wondered about the knife, but the Soviets had impressed on him how reliable they were.
And silent.
He removed the gloves, washed his hands and face in the small sink and checked there were no visible signs of blood anywhere on his clothing.
He’d slip out through the Queen’s Lane exit and hopefully be in good time for the last train to London.
All things considered, he thought he’d handled the whole business quite well.
It hadn’t been pleasant but nor was it quite as awful as he’d feared.
And it was one less thing to worry about.
* * *
‘And they found Branstone’s body the next morning, you say?’
A sense of deep shock now mixed with the oppressive heat in the basement of the War Office. ‘Around mid-morning: no one missed him that evening because it’s the holidays and dinners are less formal and it was only when he didn’t turn up in London that we alerted Paxton and he went over to King’s. Apparently, the door was locked. Messy business.’ Phillips shook his head. He still couldn’t quite believe it.
‘And no sign of who killed him?’
‘Very few people around. The porter seems to recall a man in a gown walking through Back Gate but that hardly narrows it down; it would have been suspicious had he not been wearing a gown. But nothing more than that.’
‘Fingerprints?’
Phillips shook his head.
‘Sounds as if it was a professional job.’
No one else said a word for a while. They’d turned the ceiling fan off because it was so noisy and now the room was deathly silent and the atmosphere sombre and unbearably hot. Eventually Simpkin from MI5 spoke.
‘Are you suggesting that the traitor, the man in Moscow Banks was told about, is the same as the man in the Kremlin who Branstone also saw outside the station – and who possibly killed him or caused him to be killed?’
‘I’m not certain,’ said Phillips, ‘but my gut feeling is that they’re one and the same. I hope so.’
‘Really? Why on earth do you hope so?’ It was the man from Special Branch, sounding incredulous.
‘If I may presume to answer on your behalf, Phillips?’ Percy Burton looked worried. ‘Because if it’s not the same person then the likelihood is we have two traitors, do we not? And for what it’s worth, I agree with Phillips – my instinct, too, is that it is the same person. I believe that the case of Branstone most probably corroborates what Banks was told in Moscow. We have a high-level traitor operating in London and we need to make it our priority to find him.’
‘I would ask that we all put aside whatever rivalries we have and commit to finding this man. We need to make him our top priority.’
‘And this codename, Phillips: Archie. I trust there’s no clue there?’
Phillips assured them this was the first thing they’d checked out and no one in the Service with the name Archie or Archibald was a suspect.
