The Envoy (27 page)

The Aldeburgh Festival people had a desk at the Wentworth where you signed in and picked up a name tag. The one reserved for the US Embassy representative was made out for
Counsellor Jeffers Cauldwell, Cultural Attaché, United States Embassy
. Kit explained that his colleague was unable to attend. ‘I’ll have to,’ he said, ‘take my chances incognito. Maybe I’ll be mistaken for someone famous.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ The woman at the sign-in desk was ‘air hair lair’ with slightly bohemian undertones. She wore a
necklace
of chunky amber. ‘No one else is displaying a name tag. The Russians, especially, are a rule onto themselves.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But confidentially, I think this name tag thing is very
un-British
. It’s the sort of thing the Americans do at conventions and such.’ She suddenly paused, then put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I am
so
sorry – how rude of me!’

Kit smiled. ‘You’re absolutely right – it’s almost as bad as chewing gum. They both should be banned.’

The woman smiled wanly and Kit headed towards the drinks table for a glass of lukewarm flat bubbly. The reception, compared to your average diplomatic bash, was a pretty humble affair. The Aldeburgh Festival didn’t have as much money to throw around as national governments. Kit looked around the reception room. There was no one that he knew personally. The only persons he recognised were Benjamin Britten, Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter. Kit sipped the stale non-vintage champagne. Richter and Rostropovich were as handsome as film stars. Britten, on the other hand, was as understated as the Suffolk coast that he loved. The English composer was slightly stooped and might have been mistaken for a clerk in an ironmonger’s.

‘Excuse me.’ There was a voice at Kit’s elbow. He turned to find Natalya Voronova beside him. ‘Are you Jeffers – Henry’s friend?’

‘No,’ said Kit, ‘Jeffers couldn’t come. He asked me to take his place.’

Natalya seemed taken aback. Her voice became more accented. ‘Ah … are you from the embassy too?’

‘Yes.’

‘American?’

‘Of course.’

The cellist glanced around, as if to check for minders or
eavesdroppers
. It was a bad, clumsy move that a professional would never have made. It was obvious that Natalya had no training in intelligence work. ‘I was,’ she said, ‘hoping to meet Jeffers.’

‘He told me you were.’

‘So you know?’

‘I know everything.’

‘Everything?’ Natalya seemed confused.

Kit looked over her shoulder. A Russian was staring in their direction over a champagne glass, but as soon as he saw Kit’s glance he turned away.

‘Where are you staying?’ said Natalya.

‘On my boat.’

‘On …?’ She looked puzzled.

‘On a
boat
, a yacht.’ Kit racked his mind for the Russian
equivalent
, but couldn’t find it. ‘En français, c’est ce que l’on appelle un voilier.’

‘Oh, a boat, one with sails! Is she big?’

‘No, very small – just me alone.’

There was suddenly a lurking presence of other Russians and Kit knew that it was time to disengage and circulate. He didn’t even dare suggest another meeting. As he moved on, Kit saw a pianist whispering in Natalya’s ear. She was shaking her head and frowning. Meanwhile, vodka had appeared. Someone passed Kit a tiny ice-cold glass opaque with frost, and someone else filled it with ice-cold vodka. He noted that the English had started to leave. After two drinks, Kit headed back to the boat.

After rowing back to
Louise
, Kit rigged an anchor light from the forestay. Its purpose was to stop another boat or ship from
running
him down in the dark watches of the night. It probably wasn’t necessary on one of the Aldeburgh Yacht Club’s visitor’s
moorings
, but Kit liked the warm yellow circle of light cast by the
hurricane
lantern. The light also attracted fish that rippled the water around the bows. Kit sat for a while on the foredeck – the music still playing in his head – and wished again that he was something other than what he was. His job was squalid – and it made his life squalid too. What would he say to the Great Inquisitor when He asked, ‘Why, sinner, did you spy, murder, lie, deceive and bear false witness?’ ‘Because I never had piano lessons.’ Somehow, thought Kit, his excuse wouldn’t be good enough. And even that was a lie. There had been a woman – a Frau Niedermann – who gave them lessons when his dad was stationed in Lima. But Frau Niedermann had become ill – she might even have died, for the lessons never resumed. He wished he hadn’t made jokes about her name. And their dentist was a German too. In South America,
all
dentists are German. Kit suddenly felt very tired. He went down below, undressed and brushed his teeth. Then he lit the paraffin lamp in the fore cabin and crawled into his berth. Cosy.

Kit always felt happy spending a night afloat. Somehow he felt safer and more secure than on land. The boat was his own
self-contained
little world. Kit opened a book, but after a few pages he started to fall asleep. He rolled down the wick of the lamp until it went out – and then listened to the sound of wavelets lapping against the hull. He was so near the sea that he could also hear the sough of waves gently breaking on Aldeburgh beach. He
remembered
that there was only a thin strip of shingle isthmus – like a tightrope – that protected the moorings from the full force of the North Sea. Kit soon fell into a sound dreamless sleep.

After what seemed hours, Kit found himself fully awake and staring upwards at the cabin roof. A weak glow from the anchor light penetrated the cabin from the portholes and hatch – enough for him to read his watch: two a.m. He didn’t know what had woken him. There was no wind and the boat was lying calmly with the ebbing tide. Nothing seemed wrong. He lay still and
listened
. Then it began. Something was thumping against the hull – like a log or a body. Kit waited and listened as the object bumped its way along the hull towards the stern. He wondered if it was a small boat that had broken loose from its mooring. If so, he ought to try to recover it. He sat up and started to dress. But then, whatever it was, began to make its way back towards the bow –
against
the tide. It was alive. For a second, Kit froze and felt fear. He remembered Portsmouth Harbour. Had Commander Crabb come back to get him? Or was it Driscoll? Then he heard a voice – and someone knocking on the hull.

‘Hello, can you help me?’

Kit went through the main cabin and outside into the cockpit. He looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. Then the voice again: ‘Hello.’ Finally, in the glow of the anchor light, Kit saw the tips of four fingers, with bright red nails, clinging to the side-deck
coaming.
Someone was trying to climb aboard. Kit looked over the side, but it was too dark to make out a face. ‘Wait a second,’ he said, ‘I’ll get the boarding ladder.’ Kit quickly unlashed the ladder and dropped the steps over the side.

As Natalya Voronova climbed aboard, it became apparent that she was stark naked. She sat in the cockpit dripping and
breathing
hard; her full breasts goose pimpled. ‘Let me get you a towel,’ said Kit, ‘you must be freezing.’ While the woman towelled
herself
dry, Kit put crumpled newspaper and kindling in the little stove. It wasn’t long before the main cabin was a cosy nest with coffee percolating on the spirit cooker and Natalya wrapped in a white towel opposite him. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said.

‘Have some coffee.’ Kit began to feel pretty stupid – as if he were a lounge lizard trying to seduce a woman in his bachelor flat. He wished he hadn’t offered the coffee.

Natalya seemed to sense his discomfort and smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Kit could hear voices shouting from the beach. ‘
Nata-a-a-ly-aa-a-a
.’

‘They’re all drunk,’ she said. ‘I told them I was going for a swim. They must be worried.’

Kit didn’t know how to play it. Something told him she was not trying to defect, but it was important not to turn her away if she was. He began to broach the question. ‘We would be most happy to …’

‘No, I don’t want that.’

‘Want what?’

‘Political asylum.’ Her voice seemed exasperated and annoyed. ‘You must not be mistaken, I’m a loyal Soviet citizen.’ She paused. ‘But my husband is not.’

There was more shouting from the beach.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there isn’t much time. My husband, Viktor Voronov, worked with Zeldovich and Sakharov at Los Arzamas on – I don’t know how to say in English –
Atomnoe Obzhatie
.’ She began to move her hands together as if to crush something.

‘Compression, fusion,’

‘That’s right. It’s what you do to make hydrogen bomb.’ Kit nodded.

‘Early this year my husband come to England, to Harwell – near Oxford.’

Kit had heard of Harwell. It was the nuclear centre where the British did their most advanced research. Aldermaston, by
comparison
, was a nuts-and-bolts engineering shed.

‘Was it an official visit? Did the Kremlin allow him to come?’

‘Of course, but it was very secret. He come to England to discuss
peaceful
use of nuclear, to build power stations for electricity.’

Kit sighed and smiled. Her news wasn’t earth-shattering. Research on controlled fusion for cheap energy was almost declassified. ‘Is that all?’ he said.

‘No, that is not all. My husband never came back.’

‘What?’ Something clicked at the back of Kit’s brain.

‘His friends say the British kidnapped him, but,’ she said, ‘I am sure he defected.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because he was plotting with others.’

‘Plotting to do what?’

‘Viktor is a vulgar man, like a kulak. He dreams of driving Cadillac in California.’

Kit was tempted to say ‘like Igor Stravinsky’, but held his tongue.

‘He and the others wanted to become rich, more rich than
anyone
could imagine – so they do this thing.’

‘What did they do?’

Natalya smiled and let the towel drop off her shoulder. Her body was firm and sensual. ‘I think maybe you prefer drive Cadillac too – or maybe boys.’

‘No.’

‘There isn’t time. I must go back.’

Kit reached forward to brush the damp black hair from her face, then stroked her neck. ‘What did they do, Natalya, please tell me?’

‘Why don’t you ask your British friends?’

Kit ran his fingers down the side of her neck – and paused with his thumb on her voice box. Maybe he should squeeze it out of her. He felt a frisson of excitement. It would be so easy to crush her larynx or pop a vertebra or two. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

‘Because I love my country and am afraid of being a traitor by talking too much. I have only told you what the British already know.’ She touched the fingers Kit had placed on her neck. ‘You want to choke me?’

‘No.’ Kit leaned forward, suddenly breathless and kissed her gently. ‘Keep your secrets.’

‘Thank you.’ Natalya dropped the towel and left the warm fug of the cabin for the chill darkness. Kit watched her climb down the boarding ladder to slip into the dark river without a splash. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘how well do you know the Ninth?’ ‘I know that it was Beethoven’s last symphony and that it ends with a choral section based on Schiller’s
Ode an die Freude
. Why do you ask?’

Kit heard Natalya laughing from the river. She was invisible in the darkness. ‘You obviously know nothing about the Ninth. Goodbye.’ Her strokes gently splashed the water and stirred flashes of phosphorous that followed her as she swam to the shore.

Kit didn’t like the new office toy. It was an intercom that
connected
his desk with his new secretary. It made him feel more like a grey suit ‘chicken and mayonnaise sandwich’ Long Island
commuter
than a US diplomat. He was pretty snooty about business and US corporate ‘style’ – even though most of the world seemed to long for it. Kit looked at the intercom. It was a beige Bakelite box with brown trim containing speakers activated by a single button. He pressed the button and said, ‘Ethel.’

‘Good morning, Counsellor Fournier.’

‘How are you? Have you settled in?’

‘I’m fine, sir, and I have. Thank you for asking. How may I help you?’

Kit cringed and silently swore that he was going to get rid of ‘the fucking thing’. ‘Ethel, could you please ask Mr Perry to come to my office.’

‘Yes, sir.’ There was a pause filled with static. ‘Deputy Counsellor Perry is on his way, sir.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Kit immediately prayed the whisper had been inaudible. ‘Ethel.’

‘Sir.’

Kit was about to say that they should all address each other by their first names, but then realised that this would only embarrass Ethel. ‘Nothing, I was just lost in thought.’

As Perry entered the office, Kit flourished the reports his deputy had prepared on UK dollar reserves, UK oil imports and Anglo-Egyptian relations. ‘Excellent stuff, Tim, exactly what we wanted.’

‘Thank you,’ said Perry. He seemed mildly abashed by the use of his first name. He looked closely at Kit for a second, then added, ‘Sir.’

Kit leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. ‘What was she like?’

‘Ethel?’

‘No, Marilyn. Didn’t you go to the party?’

‘Oh, that. It was great.’

‘So how was she?’

Perry sat down, folded his arms and looked sideways at Kit. ‘You know when you see her close up, in real life, she doesn’t look anything like she does in the movies.’

‘Go on.’

‘Very pretty face, but avoids eye contact, seems very shy. I
suppose
you could say that she has a good figure, but she’s … pretty broad-beamed.’

Kit straightened up. ‘Are you telling me that Marilyn Monroe has a fat ass? For Chrissake, Perry, you’re supposed to be in the
diplomatic
corps.’

Perry looked closely at his boss. He never knew when Kit was joking. ‘I suppose,’ said Perry, ‘that I should have said she wasn’t very skinny.’

‘No, what you
should
have said was that she’s sensuous and womanly – like a Rubens. You ought to go to more art
galleries – it
might take off some of your rough edges.’

The deputy shifted nervously in his seat and began to redden.

‘Sorry, Perry, I was being facetious. None of that stuff matters any more.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Culture. And speaking of culture, what did you think of Arthur Miller?’

‘To be honest, Miller wasn’t very grateful – considering that it was our embassy that laid on the reception.’

‘What did he do? Piss in the punchbowl?’

‘He said that President Eisenhower was in hock to big business and that he was going to vote for Adlai Stevenson in November. He also said that the Secretary of State was a danger to world peace.’

‘He’s allowed to have views. And what was Princess Margaret like?’

‘She smoked a lot.’

‘Right,’ said Kit, ‘thanks for covering that and thanks for these reports.’

Perry walked to the door, then stopped and turned around. ‘By the way, Jeffers Cauldwell has gone AWOL. No one’s seen him since last week.’

‘Really.’ Kit tried to look surprised. ‘Who told you?’

‘The DCM called me into his office. It was kind of weird – he wanted to know if I knew and if you had said anything.’

‘Then what?’

‘He told me to keep my mouth shut.’

‘And you’ve just told me.’

‘But you’re my boss.’

‘Thank you, Tim.’

As soon as Perry closed the door, the demons of paranoia and suspicion began to dance and leap around the office. Kit could almost feel their hot pointy fingers and hear their shrill laughter.

An hour later Kit was summoned to the DCM’s office. Despite the summer heat, Birch was wearing his jacket – like a shield of office. He invited Kit to take a seat, but offered neither
coffee
nor water. There were newly hung photos on the wall behind the DCM. One photograph showed his sons paddling a canoe near their summerhouse in Maine, another was of Birch flanked by President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles. All three men are laughing at a joke that would remain forever private. Pictures like that aren’t just photos. They’re power currency to let your visitors know who they’re talking to. Kit had a few snaps like that himself, but he kept them filed away. It was one of the many games he wouldn’t play.

‘You did a fine job, Kit.’ The DCM’s face was impassive and impossible to read. ‘Maybe too fine.’ Birch slid the 8x10
glossies
out of a buff envelope and put on his half-moon reading glasses to look at them. ‘They certainly don’t leave much to the imagination.’

‘I wanted photo evidence that would stand up to any
accusation
of being doctored. A pair of naked men lying next to each other is fairly easy to fake – the KGB do it all the time. Sexually explicit ones, on the other hand, are impossible to counterfeit.’

Birch put the photos aside and steepled his fingers. ‘In any case, we may no longer need them. Cauldwell and Knowles have disappeared.’

Kit looked at the DCM without blinking. ‘That’s always a danger with an operation like this. The targets’ fear of exposure is so great they run away – it’s a panic reaction. Quite often, they commit
suicide
.’ Kit was surprised how calm and clinical his voice sounded.

‘Do you think Cauldwell’s a suicidal type?’

‘No, I’m also surprised he did a runner. Jeffers is the type of guy who brazens things out. He’s tough.’

Birch made a note on a pad, then said, ‘When Cauldwell didn’t turn up for work, I went around to his apartment with Hauser, the new FBI guy. No one answered the door, so Hauser picked the lock. I was primarily concerned that there might be
classified
documents lying around. So we had a really good search. Nothing. In fact, nothing at all – not even a birthday card or a scribbled phone number on the back of an envelope. Someone had scrubbed the place clean and done a very professional job: upholstery, floorboards, everything. On the other hand, they left his toothbrush and suitcase behind.’

‘Have you informed the police?’

‘No, I got the Ambassador to have a word with the British Foreign Secretary. We’re claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction over Cauldwell’s apartment and his disappearance. The Brits aren’t too happy about it, but it is part of the international
diplomatic
protocol.’

‘How do you know that Knowles is missing too?’

‘It’s in the press.’

‘Could be messy if they link him to Jeffers.’

‘Very, but I’m more worried about other things – like who turned over the apartment.’

‘What about Cauldwell and Knowles?’

‘Cauldwell is irrelevant, just an arts world gadfly. You’re
something
of an arts man yourself, aren’t you?’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘I like books and paintings – it gives you a perspective.’

‘I don’t know how you find the time. In any case, of the two, Knowles is the one who concerns me. Can you find out all you can about him?’

‘Yes.’ Kit stood up to leave. He wasn’t sure that he should be taking orders from Birch. The DCM outranked him in the
diplomatic
hierarchy, but not – as far as Kit knew – on the intelligence side. ‘Can I ask you something, sir?’

‘Shoot.’

‘Am I still Chief of Station?’

Birch smiled. ‘You’re still on the same pay grade.’

The basic facts about Henry Knowles were easy to find from press cuttings and documents in the public domain. He was born in Berkhamstead to an upper middle-class family. He could
sight-read
music by the age of five and was a prodigy on both strings and keyboard. When he was eleven, Henry won a violin and piano scholarship to Wells Cathedral School. He then went on to Balliol College, Oxford where he read PPE – Philosophy, Politics and Economics – and took a double first. Henry was offered jobs with the Treasury, several merchant banks, the Foreign Office (and presumably MI6), but turned them down to become a violinist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Meanwhile, he remained an active member of the Labour Party and had a seat on the National Executive. A true Renaissance man.

None of this struck Kit as terribly unusual. Jan Paderewski, the greatest piano virtuoso of his generation, became Prime Minister of Poland. But that was a passionate time in Polish
history:
it wasn’t what you expected in 1950s England. Had Henry Knowles dreamed of becoming Prime Minister of Britain? If so, thought Kit, his little picture-taking session would have made him – and his country – forever a hostage of whoever had the negatives.

Kit was surprised, but not disappointed that they had run away. Sexual blackmail was the sleaziest trick in the espionage textbook. Kit liked the idea of meeting them in twenty or thirty years time in a mellow village in the south of France or Italy – where the locals shared knowing winks about their relationship but liked them all the same. Or maybe the bodies just hadn’t turned up yet?

Kit needed to find out more than he could from press cuttings and concert programmes. He walked downstairs to the top secret archive vault. The stuff involved was too sensitive to keep in his own office safe – even though he had compiled much of it himself. It was a comprehensive list of the entire British Labour Party that rank-ordered its members from left-wingers like Aneurin Bevan, whom Allen Dulles described as ‘the most dangerous extremist in Britain’, to the anti-communist right of the party led by Hugh Gaitskell. The file contained a secret that no one must ever know: the extent to which the right wing of the Labour Party worked closely with MI5 and the CIA to undermine their own members on the left.

Kit sat at a bare desk and went through the file under the eyes of a marine guard. He was allowed to take notes, provided the notes remained in the vault. It was more practical to commit names and facts to memory. The stuff was dynamite. It contained the names of Labour politicians who received money from the CCF, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA front organisation aimed at spreading anti-communist propaganda. The
demonising
of communism was the Apostle’s Creed of US foreign policy. It wasn’t a free discussion of ideas. It was lavishly funded
psychological
warfare to achieve the military-diplomatic-financial goals of the United States. Kit tried not to laugh as he read through the CCF file. Once you knew who was pulling the strings, it was all so fucking obvious.

Kit skimmed the list of names to decide who was the best
candidate
to quiz about Henry Knowles. There was one name which stood out above the rest. It belonged to a backbench Labour MP who was even to the right of Gaitskell. The MP, owing to his love of fine wine and food, was codenamed Bacchus. Kit had met him a few times before at seminars and press conferences. In fact, Bacchus had entered politics from a background in newspapers – where, as a journalist, he had been notorious for accepting covert funding from the Congress for Cultural Freedom.