Secret Kingdom (35 page)

‘I can’t stop myself,’ he said, choking as he spoke the words. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘If there’s a poison inside you,’ she said, ‘you must let it come out.’

He knew he had been dreaming but he had no recollection of what his dream had been about. He was aware of a feeling of dread, that something awful was about to happen and that his tears were connected with what he feared. Then he remembered. The sights he had seen in his mind were too terrible to reveal to her.

I dreamed you were dead, he wanted to tell her. I was holding you in my arms, trying to warm your body, bring you back to life.

She held him against her. ‘I’m here with you. I’m not going away.’

He felt the living warmth of her body, his head against her breast, her arms round him, protecting him, shielding him from a world he no longer understood.

The police car drew up outside the embassy shortly before four in the afternoon. A uniformed officer got out. He walked round the car to open the passenger door on the driver’s side. A pale, crumpled figure emerged blinking into the sunlight. He was dressed in a shirt and trousers and he carried a brown paper bag. The officer took him by the arm and guided him towards the front door of the embassy. The duty guard came out to meet them. There was a short exchange. The guard escorted the small man into the embassy building. The police officer returned to his car and was driven off. As he did so, he looked at his watch. The handover of the prisoner had taken no more than ninety seconds.

*

The telephone rang in Martineau’s office. ‘Mr Leman’s here, sir. He’s been released,’ Mason said. ‘It’s a bloody miracle, if you ask me.’

Martineau ran down the stairs, followed by Hart. Randall was
already greeting Leman. ‘This is a surprise,’ he said, shaking his hand.

‘For both of us.’

‘Well, you’re back on friendly soil now,’ Randall said. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

Leman looked lost, confused, uncertain what he should do. ‘Do you know why I’ve been freed?’

‘We’re not completely clear, but we’re getting news that Rakosi’s been recalled to Moscow and the new government has declared an amnesty for all political prisoners. Looks like your lucky day, doesn’t it?’ Randall smiled condescendingly. ‘Hugh, would you see that Mr Leman has everything he needs? I think the Counting Room might be coolest at this time of day, don’t you? I’ll join you in a moment.’

*

The Counting Room was dark as the blinds had been pulled down against the morning sun. Hart let them up and afternoon light flooded the room.

‘Is there anything you need?’ he asked ‘You don’t have any cyanide pills, do you?’

‘It’s all right. You’re not in prison now.’

It was the same Leman, no question, the man who’d taught him Russian at Cambridge all those years ago.

‘Will they want to question me?’ Leman asked. He was lost in his own thoughts.

‘Our people? Sure to.’

‘Here or in London?’

‘Probably both.’

‘They filmed my confession,’ Leman said. ‘I don’t know whether you know that.’

‘We’ve seen it. You didn’t imagine the Soviets would keep it under wraps, did you?’

Leman put his head in his hands. ‘What was the reaction?’

‘Hostile.’

‘You don’t think I did it voluntarily, do you?’

‘Look,’ Hart said, ‘you can’t expect people at home to understand what these bastards are like.’

‘They gave me an impossible choice. I had only a few moments to make up my mind. Can you imagine that?’ Leman spoke as if he still could not come to terms with what he had been asked to do.

‘Don’t talk about it now. You ought to try to get some rest.’

‘If people don’t understand why I did it, there’s no point in going on. I’ve nothing left.’

Hart saw the full measure of the man’s misery. Now that the need to survive in prison had been removed, all his self-control was slipping away.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said, suddenly.

Leman looked up at him. ‘Should I?’

‘Cambridge. Years ago. You taught me Russian for a term. Hugh Hart.’

Leman stared at him, as if he was part of another life that he never expected to revisit. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it. Hugh Hart.’

For the first time Leman smiled, as if he was being thawed by the memories of a past they had briefly shared.

She stands on the balcony watching a young girl swimming backstroke, her coach following her progress, a stopwatch in his hand. He keeps pace with her, giving encouragement and instruction. Only a few weeks ago she might have been the swimmer, with Matyas and his shiny-covered black book shouting at her to keep her form, to forget her exhaustion, to give him one last burst, and Alexei standing not far from where she is now, watching her whenever he could.

This is the first time she has returned to the swimming pool since that terrible night. She knows that if she is to have any kind of life she must face up to what has happened, however distressing.

‘Why won’t you see him?’ Julia had asked repeatedly in those first days when she was in hospital. ‘He begs you to change your mind. He’s desperate to see you.’

She had refused then, and she continues to refuse. Julia does not seem to understand that the woman who belonged to Alexei no longer exists. The young girl, the swimmer from Hungary, who lived in the water like a fish and made Osanova, the great Soviet champion, look ordinary, will never be seen again. That was the woman who loved Alexei, but she died that night a few weeks ago in this pool. The woman who stands here now is different. Nothing Alexei can say will change that.

The girl is hanging on to the side of the pool, looking up as her coach demonstrates with his arms how she can improve her technique. How far away it all seems, those days when she clung to the side and listened to Matyas; memories through a clouded glass. Someone’s else’s life. Someone else’s identity.

‘What about the baby?’ Julia asks. ‘Is that not Alexei’s too?’

What she meant was, how can you refuse to see the father of your child? At first, the doctors had thought she would lose her baby, but she had willed herself to keep it, talking to it in her mind, giving it an identity (she knew it was a girl and she called it Dora), a name, a purpose in her life. If she had no life of her own, then she would make a new life through her daughter.

‘No,’ she says. ‘Dora is all I have left of myself.’

She puts her hand on her stomach and feels the movement beneath the skin.

*

‘There is something I must tell you.’

Julia leans above her and lowers her voice so she cannot be heard by anyone else in the ward.

It is late August, dose to midnight, near the end of the first year of her enforced exile in Moscow. The heatwave is unrelenting. The tarmac melts. The walk of buildings are hot to the touch. The water from the cold taps runs lukewarm. The city bums. She is standing on the balcony that overlooks the swimming pool in the deserted Dynamo Stadium. Below, the water is still and deep blue. Floating on its surface are what look like burning suns, the reflections of the lights which have been left on, and the treelike shadow of the diving board. The air is humid and stifling, thick with the smell of chlorine.

Three naked bodies float face down in the swimming pool where she has swum so often, three young men, none of them more than eighteen, their heads shaven because they are conscripts, their arms tattooed. Their hands and feet have been bound tightly and their throats cut, in each case down to the spinal column, a single movement powerfully delivered from behind. No bloody clouds discolour the water around their necks and shoulders because the lives of these three young men bled away elsewhere. It was sometime after they had been killed that their bodies were pushed into the pool. None of them shows any sign of a struggle. Death was unexpected and instantaneous.

*

She never saw the bodies. All she knows is what Julia told her. She is certain that the men who raped her are dead, that Alexei killed them, that because they are conscripts no one will care that they are dead. Alexei will never be found guilty, probably he will not be
suspected, but she will know, she will know in her heart that the father of her daughter is a murderer. The instinct that made her want him to stay away from her, to have nothing more to do with her, is right. She cannot love a killer, even a man who avenges the terrible thing they did to her.

‘He wants to see you,’ Julia said each time she came to visit her. ‘He doesn’t understand why you refuse.’

‘Never,’ Eva replied. Never, never, never.

He was standing at the window, his back to her, looking out on the deserted street. He must have been there for some time because the sheets on his side of the bed were cold. Had he slept at all? Should she try to comfort him? Did he want to be left alone? His silence left her confused, unsure of herself, unsure of him. Did he still want her? He had done nothing, said nothing, to convince her one way or the other. He seemed frightened to approach her.

The reunion had not been as she had imagined in those lonely moments when she had allowed herself to believe that Joe would come back. The endless waiting in the brightly lit room while he was escorted from his plane to meet his parents; the terrifying presence of the journalists waiting for Joe to appear; the talkative policeman whose efforts at keeping up her spirits only made it worse (‘Don’t worry, miss, we’ll get you away from those hyenas’); the effort of will to resist looking at her watch or counting the seconds, and then Esther opening the door.

‘He keeps asking me, is Anna there? That’s all he says, all the time.’

‘Tell him I’ll see him when he’s ready.’

Then suddenly he was there, standing behind his mother, staring at her, a thin pale figure, so familiar and yet so strange.

‘Anna.’

She reached out and took his hand. How cold it was, how dry the skin.

‘We should make a move now, miss,’ the policeman’s hand was on her elbow, gently guiding her forward, ‘if we’re going to give them the slip.’

Throughout those few agonizing moments, Joe had said nothing,
only her name and that just once. He had not embraced her, kissed her, taken her in his arms. He had not squeezed her hand. As she looked at his diminished figure she knew that his experience had destroyed him, broken his spirit in a way she couldn’t imagine. If he was to return to her, she would have to be very patient.

‘We ought to go,’ she said, taking charge. ‘I’ve arranged for a car; it’s at the back entrance.’

As they were driven away, Joe packed tightly in the back between Esther and Manny, Esther held on to his hand tightly and murmured under her breath. Anna was unable to make out if they were prayers of thanks or imprecations against those who had done this terrible thing to her son. Joe did not speak once on their journey. If she was aware of being an intruder in the car, the emotion became overwhelming when they arrived in Strutton Ground. She made her excuses, said she would come back for Joe later, and left.

*

At Moore Street, she had given him something to eat, they had talked about nothing in particular and then he had walked around the house, opening drawers, taking out books, examining the evidence of his previous life. His actions described the agony in his mind. He was rediscovering what he had never expected to see again, reconstructing the elements of his life that he had killed off when he was in prison in order to preserve his sanity. She had left him to it and gone to bed, waiting for him in the dark. Much later, he had crawled in beside her. They did not touch as he lay there, silent and wide awake.

Now he was standing by the window.

You’ll get cold, she wanted to say. She wanted to remind him who she was, to tell him she loved him, that she wanted to take away his pain, relieve his suffering, anything to break the barriers of his experience and bring herself back into his life. But she knew that if she broke the silence, if she made a single move, she would lose him. He had to be left alone to find himself in the way he chose. This now was her test as much as his.

She felt miserable and helpless, but she remained still and silent.

‘I may have been responsible for a young woman’s death. Can you imagine that?’

It was all he told her but it was enough. Even a confession could
not have told her more. He needed her. She was sure of it now. What he was telling her was that she alone could bring him back from the dead. She got out of bed, took his hand in hers and held it tight, praying that the warmth in her body would spread to his.

It was a glorious afternoon, the sun high in a clear blue sky, the outlines of the buildings that Pountney loved so much sharp and hard in the summer air. On days like this, London was a city without compare, its architecture majestic, the spans of its bridges stunning in their boldness, the great river sweeping resolutely through its heart. This was his metropolis; here gathered in one place was everything he believed in and loved, its victories, its sufferings, its humour, its monuments, the spires and domes of its great churches and cathedrals, the music of its pageantry, the noise and bustle of its citizens going about their daily business. For a fleeting moment his heart soared. This was
his
city,
his
country.

‘Sorry I’m late, Gerry. Couldn’t get a cab for love or money.’

Sykes was always late. Harriet claimed he’d been hopeless about time when they were children and he’d never grown out of it. He only understood the time he was in; he had never developed a concept of other people’s time and she’d disapproved that he was allowed to get away with it.

They set off beside the river towards the City.

‘We’ve interviewed Leman,’ Pountney said. ‘He’s told us everything.’

Better to say as little as he could get away with. This time he wanted to establish his authority over Sykes.

‘What do you want with me?’

He was never prepared for Sykes. Somehow (how?) he felt he was always outmanoeuvred, wrong-footed, put on the defensive. It had happened again now.

‘There are some unanswered questions.’

‘Come off it, Gerry. If you asked me out so you can tie up loose ends so you can put a pink bow round the file, find someone else, don’t waste my time. Taxi?’

‘I have a proposition to put to you.’

The taxi pulled up beside Sykes.

‘What?’

‘I want you to publish what Leman has told us. I have the transcripts of the interview with me here.’

Sykes waved the taxi on. ‘Is this official?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You’re taking a risk, aren’t you?’ Sykes was curious. ‘Not like you, is it, Gerry?’

They found a pub and sat in a corner, away from the bar, where it was quiet. Sykes bought himself a packet of Smith’s crisps.

‘Leman confirmed everything you told me some time ago and that Merton House now believes will happen. The process to revolution is unstoppable, despite the arrival of Nagy. He’s seen the size of the Soviet response and he’s certain the suppression of the uprising will be harsh. I know from other sources that Suez has been our preoccupation, not Hungary. I am concerned that if something is not done to change that policy we will be spectators at a slaughter.’

‘Are you thanking me for giving Leman the opportunity to see for himself what Bobby Martineau has been telling you for months?’

‘I’m suggesting you might like to publish what Leman has told us in a last-ditch effort to get us all to see the error of our ways.’

‘Aren’t you taking a risk, breaking the rules? I mean, they’ll be able to guess where I got the information from pretty quickly, won’t they?’

‘I don’t care any more. I am haunted by the thought of people dying because we did nothing to help. Saving a single life would justify what I’m doing. I’m hoping to do better than that.’

*

A bus rumbled by. Around him life was going on as it did every day: people crossing the bridge to Waterloo, tugs and barges on the river, buses and taxis carrying the world on its way; beneath the pavement the rumble of the Underground, in the distance a train pulling out of Blackfriars. Behind them, the great engine of Whitehall was turning.

What would happen when they found out that he’d given information to Sykes? He couldn’t believe the authorities would let it go. There was bound to be a scandal. He could see the headlines.
Senior Civil Servant Disgraced. He grimaced at the absurdity of the old-fashioned term.
Disgraced
. Sacked. Rejected. Well, at least Harriet wouldn’t have to face the prospect of going abroad again.

‘Why do you let Watson-Jones browbeat you all day, Gerry? Don’t pander to him. Tell him what you think. Stand up to him. He’ll respect you for it.’

In her way she was right. Why shouldn’t the great adventures of his heart see the light of day? Was it wrong, once in your life, to want to stand up and be counted? Why hadn’t he recognized that dreaming can be self-deception too? Harriet didn’t understand the demands of conscience, how even the meekest, most apparently submissive of us, have a point where something fundamental rebels. Her whole life was a rebellion against a childhood she felt had been stolen from her by a brother who exploited their parents’ guilt to his own advantage and at her expense. Her resentment was deep, her response to it was a determination to create a world ordered by her own views, where she ruled supreme. He was as much a victim of her delusion as she was herself.

He wouldn’t wait to be sacked. He would do better than that. He would tell Watson-Jones what he had done and offer his resignation. He would take control of his own life.

He looked across the Thames. Only the dereliction on the South Bank disturbed him, dismal buildings languishing grimly in another time. No unity. No grandeur. Nothing to excite the dreamer’s eye. An opportunity missed, a scar not healed, a symbol of indecision that brought him back to earth, torn between a glorious past and an unformed and featureless future.

What dreams could be realized there.

*

‘He wants to see you at once,’ Margaret said. She looked distressed. ‘I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know what to say. He’s been very difficult.’

He knocked on Watson-Jones’s door and went in.

‘There you are, Gerry. Good lunch, I hope? Come and look at this. I think it may interest you.’

He handed Pountney a telegram.

‘Good news, isn’t it? We’ve gone into Suez. We’ll soon teach that little bugger who’s boss.’

That was the moment when Pountney knew he had been betrayed.

‘I understood Dora would be home by now.’ He made it sound as if it was her fault that Dora was late back from school. He was impatient, restless, unused to the world of a sixteen-year-old that that did not respond instantly to his instructions. She registered his discomfort with wry amusement.

‘She’ll be back before long.’

‘I hope so,’ he replied, looking at his watch.

‘Tell me,’ she asked as she poured Abrasimov some whisky, ‘why did Julia come to see you in Moscow?’

If he was surprised by her question, he gave no sign of it.

‘Did Koli tell you about her visit?’

‘He told me where she’d gone, but not why.’

‘She wrote, asking to see me. Her letter was very insistent.’

‘What did she want?’

Abrasimov lit a cigarette. ‘Did Julia never discuss this with you?’

‘She never said a word.’

‘I thought you two were close, like sisters.’

‘That doesn’t mean you tell each other everything. I didn’t discover she’d been to Moscow until long after she was dead.’

‘She was very distressed when I met her, very upset. She told me that you were in danger. She begged me to do what I could for you. She said she did not know where else to turn.’

‘What did she mean, I was in danger?’ She hoped she could conceal her scepticism.

‘You have a formidable enemy in Budapest. Were you unaware of that?’

‘I didn’t think I was important enough to merit enemies.’

‘The deputy head of Soviet intelligence here is Colonel Osanova.’ He drew on his cigarette. ‘Does that tell you what you need to know?’

‘Osanova?’ She hasn’t heard her name in years. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘She joined the KGB when her swimming career came to an end. Some of us believe that she was always in the KGB.’

If Julia knew about Osanova’s presence in Budapest, why hadn’t she told her?

‘What did Julia say?’

‘She’d found out that Osanova had put you under surveillance for more than a year, that she was building a file on you and that in Julia’s judgement it would not be long before you were denounced. Then you would be arrested on false charges and probably executed.’

It was then that she felt her stomach sink. Despite the heat of the afternoon she shivered. She knew what he was going to tell her.

‘What did you do about it?’ she asked.

There was no hesitation in his answer, no change of tone in his voice, no sense of contrition, only the same authority she had always heard, that what he had done was right.

‘A day after I’d seen Julia, I got hold of a military plane, invented some reason to fly to Budapest and located the file. I recognized at once what Osanova was doing. Julia was right. She was fabricating evidence, doctoring the reports, constructing a false case against you. She had sufficient authority that no one would question what she was doing. You would have been arrested. I was sure your arrest would have led to your execution.’

‘You did more than that, didn’t you?’

‘I had a few seconds in which to act. It wasn’t difficult to know what to do. I gave an instruction that your name be changed to Julia’s.’

‘You arranged for her to die.’

‘It was impossible to save both of you. The only question was, which one. You are the mother of my only child. That is how I justify what I did. I saved your life.’

*

‘Does she know I am her father?’

‘No.’

‘You never told her?’

She can see he is shocked that he has to ask the question.

‘No.’

‘Whose name does she carry? Not Balassi’s? You can’t tell me that.’

‘Balassi was good to both of us.’

‘For how long? A year at the most.’

Josef Balassi had passed through her life briefly and she had hardly noticed. They had been married when Dora was one. They had lived together for a few weeks, then he had been sent to Stalingrad and she had never seen him again. She could hardly remember now what he looked like.

‘Do you plan to tell her about me?’

‘No.’ How can you tell your child that her father is a murderer?