A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (13 page)

‘I don’t share my anti-surveillance procedures – and nor should you yours.’ Bone sighed. ‘You have a way, Catesby, of ruining a beautiful spring day with your tedious concerns.’

‘It isn’t nice. It’s turning windy and wet – look at those clouds.’

Bone smiled. ‘You’ve made my point. Let’s sit down.’

Catesby turned to a bench facing the Georgian terrace.

‘That’s a bit foolish, isn’t it,’ said Bone nodding towards the tall houses overlooking the park. ‘You know who lives there, don’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Sit there.’ Bone pointed his brolly at a bench with its back towards a townhouse of four storeys that loomed behind them about a hundred yards away.

‘Who lives there?’

‘A press baron with a grudge against the Secret Intelligence Service. Imagine a minion with a pair of binoculars who can read lips.’

‘Is he one of those who think we’re the London branch of Moscow Central?’

‘Very likely. But the reason for his grudge is more personal. One of our former officers went off with the baron’s wife – really was a case of musical beds. She had his baby last year – and he’s just published a novel about an SIS spy.’

‘Based on you, Henry?’

Bone laughed. ‘Our surnames are similar, but the resemblance ends there. I was asked to read parts of it to make sure it didn’t contravene the Official Secrets Act – and it didn’t come close.’

‘Was the novel any good?’

‘It’s what the Italians would call
divertente
– but the prose style has the silkiness of an ironic mandarin. The wife, by the way, is a fascinating woman.’ Bone gestured behind him with his thumb at the large Georgian house overlooking the park. ‘She used to live there when she was married to the press baron – husband number two – number one bought it in the war.’

‘Did she like it?’

‘The house? Absolutely not, it’s ghastly – and she knew it. We laughed about it. The exterior, as you probably noticed, reprises the bogus French Renaissance style of the late nineteenth century. The interior isn’t much better. Nothing is symmetrical and sedate. Among the most hideous excesses are the pulvino architraves and a frieze with husk festoons and overly ornate paterae.’

‘Phew, I can see why you don’t want that press baron to read your lips. He’d be furious.’

‘You’re wrong, Catesby. People like that don’t care about aesthetics – or the opinions of those who do. In fact, they despise people like me and Anthony as effete. The divide – and it isn’t a class divide, but a divide within the class itself – begins at boarding
school and continues in later life. Far from being ashamed of their bad taste, they like to flaunt it. It’s the rich bully shouting “fuck you” to the world.’ Bone smiled. ‘But, William, I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know.’

Catesby smiled bleakly.

‘As a Marxist, William, your understanding of class division and conflict has always been perceptive.’

Catesby frowned. When a senior officer of the Secret Intelligence Service refers to you as a Marxist, one might detect the beginnings of an interrogation. For a second, Catesby wondered if Bone might be wired up for recording. He decided to play safe. ‘I am not a Communist and have never been a member of the Communist Party. I have been a member of the Labour Party, but had to give up my membership because it is deemed incompatible with my role as an SIS officer – a rule, by the way, that I consider unfair as well as our being banned from trade union membership.’

‘But you deny being a Marxist?’ There was something sly in Bone’s voice.

Catesby wondered if there was a pile of his undergraduate essays that someone from personnel was sifting through with a prying eye. ‘No one can completely ignore the influence that Marx has had on contemporary thinking. In that context, most people who have been to university – or have ever used the words proletariat, bourgeoisie or class – are to some degree Marxists.’

‘And what about yourself?’

Catesby shrugged. ‘I see Marx as a nineteenth-century proponent of scientific theory. Marx tried to analyse human society using the same scientific method that Darwin applied to natural history. But Marx failed to grasp some of the nuances of class in Britain – subtle nuances of humour and interaction that stop us from ripping each others’ throats out.’ Catesby smiled. ‘But maybe that’s just me being naive and optimistic.’

‘Or you being patriotic?’

‘I don’t like the word.’

‘But I do,’ said Bone. ‘I love this country with a passion – and, if you haven’t noticed that, you realise nothing about me.’

Catesby stared across the park towards Buckingham Palace.

Bone gave a slight head bow and touched the brim of his bowler. ‘And I am a royalist too.’

Catesby bit his tongue. There were many things he could say – especially about Bone’s palace-ensconced friend – but would not. He had once received a report from one of his East German honey-traps transcribing a conversation with a Soviet MGB agent about a certain Entoni Frederik Blant. The MGB agent – spouting vodka-fuelled indiscretion – had angrily referred to ‘Entoni Blant’ as a ‘two-faced shit’. Catesby had passed on the report to Bone who had received it with a satisfied smile. Spying was a far more complex game than chess. It was a game where a red bishop could suddenly change into a white knight – while the pawns, like Catesby, looked on in confusion.

‘We must,’ said Bone, ‘stay two steps ahead of them.’

Catesby didn’t need to ask who ‘them’ were. On one level, ‘them’ were those who posed a danger to Bone and his friends. On a more idealistic level, ‘them’ were the forces who wanted to turn Britain – a country that Bone genuinely loved – into something ugly and unrefined. Despite their deep personal differences, at some point the ideal Britains of Catesby and Bone overlapped. There was friction between them, but they were allies – in what was probably a lost cause.

Bone looked closely at Catesby. ‘The funeral, by the way, is next Tuesday at Windsor and I’ve been asked to represent SIS.’

The Queen’s grandmother had just died. Catesby had only known Queen Mary from news photos and cinema clips. She had struck him as austere. ‘Will the coronation be postponed?’

‘No, it’s going ahead as planned on the second of June – but that’s still top secret.’

‘Are you going to be invited?’

‘I would think so.’

‘I bet the Sovs will be there too.’

‘Only the Ambassador – it’s diplomatic protocol.’

‘But none of the Romanovs?’

‘Your attempts at droll humour, Catesby, always fall flat.’

‘But I think the Sov Ambassador would rather talk about them than Stalin’s successor.’

Bone smiled. ‘Now that, Catesby, was funny. But we’ve got sidetracked.’

‘You haven’t brought me here to talk about funerals and coronations.’

Bone shook his head and stared at the ground. ‘Things appear calmer than they are, but the pot is slowly boiling. We always think that Britain is different – more stable – than other countries. But we might be wrong.’ Bone paused. ‘Treason usually, but not always, comes from the right wing. It happened in Italy in 1922. We saw what began in Germany with the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923; it happened in Lisbon in 1926; in Spain in 1936. Perhaps I’m talking drivel and nonsense.’

Catesby nodded.

‘Humour me, William. If you were staging a
coup d’état
in our green and pleasant land, how would you do it?’

Catesby smiled. ‘The first thing I would do would be to put a bullet in your head – and then in my own.’

‘That’s very flattering – and then what?’

Catesby tilted his head towards the press baron’s mansion. ‘And then I’d get him and others like him on the side of the coup plotters. I wouldn’t do it through force or threats; I’d do it through flattery and persuasion – and also their self-interest in terms of money and gongs. I’d make the press barons feel that they were medieval barons – real players carving up and controlling Britain.’

‘And what would you, Catesby, a mid-ranking intelligence officer on £1,500 per annum, have to offer someone as grand and rich as a press baron?’

‘Something that money can’t buy – or shouldn’t be able to buy – Her Majesty’s most closely guarded State Secrets.’

‘Precisely. Secrets are gold bullion – and intelligence officers are, relatively speaking, paupers compared to the press barons. It’s an institutional weakness, a fatal weakness. Which is why any officer who violates the Official Secrets Act should be hung, drawn and quartered. Don’t you agree?’

Catesby nodded.

‘The Security Service is out of control – and so are we.’ Bone
smiled. ‘At least, we don’t have to worry about budget cuts – any minister who dares make such a suggestion will be covertly briefed against and smeared.’ Bone looked at Catesby and laughed. ‘And you think we need a trade union?’

Catesby shrugged.

‘Secrets are currency, William – and we control the exchange rate. Why are you laughing?’

‘Thank you for destroying my naive illusions.’

‘You’ve never had any illusions. Back to the coup – what next, William?’

‘The Americans. The plotters would need Yank money and Yank glamour to support the coup.’

‘What about US Marines?’

‘Absolutely unnecessary and it would be a mistake. British people would never accept foreign troops patrolling our towns. The plotters would need our military on their side.’

Bone stared into the distance. ‘We have to take risks. If others ignore the Official Secrets Act, so do we.’ Bone paused. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to tell him?’

Catesby hadn’t a clue who Bone was talking about, but nodded agreement.

Bone reached into his coat pocket and handed Catesby a thick envelope fastened by string. ‘Don’t look now. But when you do, you will find documents and photos that neither of us should have.’

‘What should I do with them?’

‘Show them to him – but don’t let him keep them. Bring them back to me.’

Hampstead Garden Suburb:
Saturday, 28 March 1953

A well-polished Oxford Morris saloon was parked outside the house gleaming in the cold late-morning sun. It was a quiet tree-lined street. Catesby looked at the house. It was just as perfect and pristine as the car. He couldn’t take it all in and decided to keep walking. He had never been to this part of London before – and it seemed wrong to call it London. It was something else.

Never before had Catesby felt such a complete alien. He knew city; he knew countryside. He had been in posh houses and squalid houses – but this was something completely different. It was every clerk’s and skilled worker’s dream of an English heaven. It was a garden suburb. Catesby continued walking until he came to a park with playing fields, tennis courts and a cricket pavilion. A football game was in progress and two couples were playing doubles. This, Catesby knew, was what the people wanted and deserved. But very few of them were going to get it. The place was indeed seductive – and a different Catesby in a different century might have been happy there. But today Catesby felt like a cuckoo invading a perfect English nest. He knew, of course, that the parent birds of the garden suburb were too polite and friendly to attack him with sharp beaks. Instead, they would invite him in for tea and engage him in witty conversation – a much more lethal way of dealing with him than sharp beaks. Catesby turned around and retraced his steps to the house with the Oxford Morris saloon. He had a job to do.

The woman who answered the door was very pretty and tidy looking. The thing that most impressed Catesby was the warmth of her smile. She didn’t ask who he was or why he was there, just ‘Good morning.’ He could hear two children in the background.

Catesby took off his trilby and tried a warm smile, but it was a facial expression that didn’t come natural to him. He fingered the brim of his trilby and looked down. He wished that he was a million miles away. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you on a Saturday morning, but … I’m from the Foreign Office.’ It was technically true. SIS was under the jurisdiction of the FO, just as MI5 was under the Home Office.

‘Please come in. Let me take your coat – and hat.’ She quickly had both. ‘Would you like tea – or coffee?’

‘No, thank you. I’ll…’ Catesby had already been led into a lounge with lace antimacassars on the armchairs and an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece.

‘Please take a seat, I’ll tell my husband you’re here.’

As Catesby sat down, a shy boy of about four put his head around the door. He was wearing a Russian fur cap that was too big for him. An older boy’s voice summoned him, ‘Giles, come back here.’

A minute later there were quick footsteps and the ex-minister appeared in the door. ‘Nice to see you again.’ The voice was just as Yorkshire in private as it was in public.

Catesby looked up. They had met before, but Catesby was surprised that Wilson remembered.

‘We met at conference in 1945. You were still in uniform and had been given an unwinnable seat to contest.’

Catesby smiled. The ex-minister was renowned for his remarkable memory. ‘And it was even more unwinnable after I took it on.’

‘Mary tells me you’re now with Foreign Office.’

‘Yes, but in a rather specialist branch.’

Wilson gave Catesby a knowing look. It was obvious he knew who he was – and probably remembered seeing him with Bone in the BOT staff canteen. ‘Why don’t you come into my study so we can have a talk?’

The ex-minister’s study was lined with shelves full of documents and books on economics. The window overlooked rear gardens with hedges. The neighbourhood ethos seemed very communal. There were no fences or tall light-blocking hedges. Everything was open and non-threatening. Mary and their two sons came in and out of the study at will. When Catesby heard footsteps on the stairs, he simply covered up the documents he had brought with him and talked about something else. The thing that most impressed Catesby about Wilson was his calmness. Nothing he said shocked him. The machinations of the Security Service
and CIA against him seemed no more threatening than a football bounding over the garden hedge. In fact, Catesby was the far more nervous of the two. He looked on as Wilson once again picked up a photograph of himself and a woman near a bridge over the Moscow River.