Inside Enemy (7 page)

‘I don’t think they did, either.’

‘Was I unreasonable in making them go and get those figures?’

She hesitated. ‘You were quite firm. Particular. They were a bit complacent. Now they know not to be.’

If things became difficult she could be a useful intermediary between him and the board. ‘When you write up the minutes, just say that the directors produced the relevant figures.
Don’t say they were asked and didn’t know them. On mobile phones, just say that a more restrictive policy is under consideration and that DS – director of security – will
announce and implement any changes in due course.’

She looked relieved. ‘I think they were all a bit taken aback by that.’

‘Not as much as I was to see people with phones all over the place. And laptops – Michelle had hers on the desk and referred to it. Though I suppose that’s different if
they’re just locked into our own system.’

A mobile rang. After a moment’s puzzlement he groped in his jacket pocket, switched it off and pushed it across the table. ‘Life. One damn thing after another. Don’t give it
back until I leave the building’.

S
arah was awoken early on the Saturday morning by the bleep of a text but couldn’t remember where she had left her mobile. She stared at the
ceiling while the components of the present reassembled themselves. She had dreamt a kaleidoscope of the Brussels apartment she had shared with Nigel, inhabited in her dream by Miss Sage, the
red-faced, white-haired headmistress of her primary school. Miss Sage had lost her wire-haired fox terrier and they were searching a green Morris Minor belonging to the Foreign Secretary, who was
about to return and drive away.

The present cohered into the fact of Charles sleeping beside her, her husband after all these years, as strange as any dream. They were in their new house in Westminster, possibly with horrors
hidden beneath the new paintwork but nothing that pressingly needed doing. They were properly in now and just needed to make it a home. Books were the problem, boxes and boxes of them stacked in
every room. There just wasn’t the wall space, no matter how ingenious they were with new shelving. They would have to get someone in for that; it was already apparent that it would be no good
relying on Charles.

And it was Saturday, so no work, though she would have to go in for an hour or two on Sunday. Today they were to drive to Sussex to pick up the keys and formally take over the rented cottage.
Some of the books would go there, of course. She looked forward to that, but then remembered that there was no silver lining without a cloud. They were to have dinner with the landlord, Jeremy
Wheeler. She recalled him from when he worked with Nigel as a big, fat and boastful man with a surprisingly attractive – perhaps necessarily quiet – wife. What was her name? She’d
have to ask Charles.

The invitation had come via Katya Chester. Sarah had demurred at first, pleading that the cottage was unfurnished and that they wouldn’t want a late-night drive back to London after
dinner. But they’d then been invited to stay the night, which would be even worse. The last thing either of them wanted at the moment was to spend the weekend as the guests of virtual
strangers, tiptoeing around.

‘We can’t,’ Charles said when she told him. ‘No question. He’s just wrangled his way onto the parliamentary Intelligence Services Committee. It’ll be bad
enough appearing before them with him preening himself as former colleague and now our landlord, without having spent cosy weekends with him. Wouldn’t look good.’

‘Could we not go at all, then? It would be much nicer not to but it’s a bit awkward to say no when he knows we’re down there and have the time.’

‘We could say yes to dinner and spend the night at the cottage.’

‘On what? The floor? It’s completely unfurnished.’ Charles’s lack of domestic awareness could still surprise her. Already he seemed to treat the packing cases as
permanent, sitting or putting things on them without any apparent thought of unpacking.

‘I’ll book a hotel, then.’

‘That will look rather pointed.’

‘It is, with reason. I’ll explain to him.’

‘And is it still up to me to get back to his Snow Queen secretary?’

‘You do that and I’ll do the hotel.’

Rather to her surprise, he did it without a reminder while she, gratifyingly, was able to leave a message for Katya without having to speak to her and be told once again that Mr Mayakovsky was a
very wealthy man and keen to meet her.

Sarah got up and found her phone on a packing case beneath a pile of Charles’s pullovers. The text was from Katya Chester, confirming the arrangements and contact details for Jeremy and
Wendy Wheeler. Wendy, of course, Wendy Wheeler. She must have been in love.

They drove down to Battle later that morning, a journey made leisurely by the A21. The polite young man in the letting agent’s had the keys and remaining paperwork ready. ‘Your
landlord’s almost next door. In the memorial hall, holding his monthly surgery. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you dropped in. He seems anxious to meet you.’

‘We’ll be seeing him tonight,’ said Sarah. ‘He’s invited us to dinner, which is very nice. We have his address but don’t know where it is. It must be very
near here, isn’t it?’

‘The Old Court House. Five minutes’ walk. Up the high street and first right. A big house about a hundred and fifty yards on the left.’ He grinned. ‘Nicest property in
the town. It must be – we sold it to him.’

The cottage was in Brightling, a hamlet high in the Weald about five or six miles out of town. It was a pretty stone cottage, about three hundred years old, with a tiled roof in need of
attention.

‘It’s prettier than I remembered,’ she said, as they stood inside the gate. ‘But this garden is going to take some work.’

‘Not quite the Cotswold stone you’re used to.’

‘No but it’s stone, which is good enough. And you can see the sea from that end bedroom.’

‘Smaller than I remembered,’ he said, pacing the tiled floor. ‘Not much room for guests, which is good. Probably catches the wind in the winter, too, which is also
good.’

‘You can have it to yourself if you’re going to be such a misery.’

Upstairs was cheerful and light. ‘I think I could love it,’ she said. ‘So long as you keep it warm. I suppose that great open hearth downstairs is hideously
inefficient?’

‘Cosy on a winter’s eve with the wind rattling the windows and the draughts whistling round your chilblained feet.’

‘Any sign of chilblains and I’m back to London.’

They unpacked cleaning things, kitchen things and toiletries from her car then drove to the nearest pub for lunch. ‘Remind me why you have to see this man,’ she said.

Charles had exercised his prerogative as Chief to tell her about Viktor, who lived a few miles away.

‘If he can help stop these wretched power cuts that would be a really good start for you, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘Not that there’ve been any today, so far as we
know. You must be having an effect already.’

‘It goes wider than that. Whoever’s doing it is getting into government systems.’

‘Do I have to come? Is he expecting me?’

‘Haven’t been able to get hold of him. No answer from his phone. I’ve left messages. If he’s not there I’ll leave a note. But if he is, I’m sure he’d
like to meet you. He likes attractive women.’

‘Better not disappoint him, then. I’d sooner get on and clean the cottage.’

Promising he wouldn’t be long, would either leave a note or stay just for tea, Charles set off for Bodiam in her car.

It was an easy drive, using her satnav. He didn’t really approve of them, feeling he should always know where he was on ground and on map, but it meant he could think on the way. He began
well enough, recalling his first meetings with Viktor in London, then the fallow period when Viktor was back in Moscow, then his re-emergence in Africa and confirmation that he was serious about
spying for MI6. Finally, their last meeting in a palatial room in the Hotel Sacher, Vienna, while Charles was notionally attending one of those forgettable disarmament conferences. They had met
earlier that day, and Charles was about to check out when Viktor triggered the signal for an emergency second meeting.

‘I have twenty minutes,’ he said, looking unusually pale and serious. In those days he had a moustache. He was often jokey, usually at Charles’s expense, but this time there was no joshing. ‘There is a problem. Not a problem with me. With
you. MI6 has a problem.’

In intelligence officer parlance this meant only one thing. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. It’s new, the case has just begun. Could he know about me? You must catch him before he finds out.’

They were standing facing each other. Charles crossed the room and locked the door. Viktor ignored his invitation to sit. Charles sat himself at the desk and tore a sheet from his notebook. The
hard surface of the desk would not record the imprint of soft pencil. He pointed at the chair again. ‘Sit down and tell me what you’ve heard.’

Viktor looked for a moment as if he might walk out. He glanced at his watch, then abruptly sat.

‘Tell me,’ repeated Charles.

Viktor stared at the portrait above the bed of a 1930s or ’40s Sacher, a handsome woman wearing Austrian costume. He addressed her. ‘There was a meeting two days ago in Prague of
heads of services for all the Warsaw Pact. Marcus Wolf, the head of East German foreign intelligence, visited us today on the way back. He is an old friend of Guk, our Resident. They served
together somewhere. When they were alone he congratulated Guk on the recent success against the British – those were his words. They were speaking in Guk’s office outside the safe
speech room. I heard them because I was still inside, collecting papers after our morning briefing, and they didn’t know there was anyone there. It was careless of them. Guk should not have
allowed Wolf into the Residency and Wolf should not have spoken like that outside the safe speech room. They were going to lunch with the ambassador and I stayed still till they had
gone.’

‘No names or dates or indications of where or how? Or what sort of success?’

‘Of course, all of that. I was forgetting.’ He waited for Charles to hold up his hands. ‘No, but they continued to talk as they left the room. I didn’t hear everything. I
heard Guk ask, “He is definitely MI6?” Wolf said, “Yes, now. We know about him. Everything he’s said checks out. A pity you’ve just been posted here, otherwise you
could have become his core officer and got the glory.” Guk asked, “Can he get over here again or are they running him in London?” I didn’t hear Wolf’s reply. He said
something but they must have been going through the door then.’

Charles went back over it twice in the minutes remaining. Later, in the Vienna MI6 station, he sat at the cipher machine himself and sent a DEYOU – decipher yourself – telegram to
C/Sovbloc in London, confirming that the main meeting had been successful and adding that there had been another to discuss possible developments. He would brief C/Sovbloc and DCIS – director
of counter-intelligence and security – on return, knowing that the mention of DCIS would indicate that there was something serious. He then committed his notes to memory, shredded and
incinerated them.

The investigation ran for months, an invisible stream beneath the thick ice with which Matthew Abrahams, DCIS, covered all his secret work. Charles was occasionally called in to be questioned or
to comment, but otherwise never discussed the case with anyone or had any idea how it was progressing until summoned again to Matthew’s spacious corner office in Century House.

He arrived to find Frank Heathfield also there, a tubby, florid, genial man with sandy hair going white. He had spent most of his career in security posts and now, on the verge of retirement, he
was listed as DCIS/res – research. It was a usefully unspecific title.

Matthew waited for Charles to close the door. ‘We’ve got coffee, knowing your habits.’

Frank smiled. ‘Sign of a long meeting.’

Matthew gave a sinuous account of the investigation, illustrating the layered links of each element with movements of his slender hands. He and Charles had worked together more than once and
Charles had learned never to expect to know everything that Matthew was involved in. But in this case, it soon became clear, he was being brought into the citadel.

‘We started,’ said Matthew, ‘with the assumption that your friend reportedly accurately and that what he heard was true. It told us that someone from the Office has made
contact with the Russians, that he – and it is a he – is now based in London, that he passed information that checked out and that all this happened not long before Guk arrived in
Vienna. Guk arrived five months ago, so the contact was probably not long before that. We assume – a bit of a jump, this – that something had made the volunteer known to the Russians
before he joined the Office. Or, at least, that they knew what he was doing before he joined. That seemed the most likely explanation for Wolf’s saying that he was in MI6 ‘now’.
Of course, meanings change in translation so it will be important, next time you meet your friend, to ask him to write it down in Russian. But meanwhile we’ll keep it as a working
assumption.’

The two of them, with no-one else informed apart from the Chief and Sonia, Matthew’s secretary, had trawled through staff records and recent postings home. Personal files were scoured for
indications of resentment or disaffection. Using the assumption about ‘now’, they narrowed the search to four men whose previous employment might have brought them to Russian attention.
One had transferred from MI5, one from the Army, one from the Foreign Office and one had visited Moscow as an academic.

‘We thought they were unlikely to have identified the former MI5 officer because he was not exposed to the Russians,’ said Matthew. ‘Then we had information from the CIA to the
effect that one of the subjects discussed at the Warsaw Pact heads of service meeting in Prague was new intelligence – you don’t need to know what – that only a handful of people
in this service know about. Of course, rather more than a handful of people in the CIA know about it too but for our purposes we checked all four candidates to see whether any of them were
indoctrinated into that particular case. One of them is, the one who had visited Moscow as a student. We’re going to interview him and I’d like you to sit on the panel because you know
him quite well. If you feel awkward about it we won’t include you. But if you are there it will make it trickier for him if he’s hiding anything because he’ll be fighting on two
fronts, as it were.’