A Little White Death (52 page)

Rod was hurt. Troy could see that – could hear that. He could not afford to care.

‘Ask me again, Freddie, and be very careful how you phrase it.’

‘Fitz was MI5. I have no doubts about it. I know that he wrote to Wilson, at least twice. I have Wilson’s replies. It took me an age to figure out why Fitz had bothered to write to
him but I know now. It’s my opinion, my professional opinion, that Fitz was covering his back. Letting the powers that be know that he was one of them and that he expected them to get him out
of the mess they had made. I also think that everyone concerned sold him up the river. I think Wilson knew Fitz was MI5 because Fitz told him so. I think Macmillan knew because if he didn’t
it was an appalling dereliction of duty. And I think that they put their heads together and, far from covering Fitz’s back for services rendered, decided to let him go hang. Your party
conspired with the government to handle the Tereshkov affair in such a way as to preserve the status quo. Fitz was framed. Your lot knew this and let it happen. My question is simple, and I will
alter not one syllable of it. How long have you known?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Freddie, I am not one of Wilson’s inner circle – there’re hacks on the
Daily Mirror
know more about the goings-on in the Shadow Cabinet
than I do!’

Rod gathered himself. Something in Troy’s tirade had struck home.

‘You say you’ve got Wilson’s letters to Fitz?’

Troy took the copies from his inside pocket and opened them out for Rod. He held onto the third, left it folded in the palm of his hand and waited while Rod skimmed the first two.

‘They’re standard replies, Freddie. I send out over a hundred a week just like these. The second one isn’t even signed by Wilson. They’re . . . they’re nothing.
Fitz wrote to a lot of people. He tried to ward off prosecution by threatening to tell the truth about Woodbridge. Of course he wrote letters to Wilson. Wilson even brought them up in the debate
about Woodbridge in June. The first letter was about Cuba, he said that quite openly. The second was about . . . well it was about Woodbridge . . . wasn’t it?’

‘I know, I’ve read Hansard. I’ve spent most of the morning at the British Museum. It’s what Wilson doesn’t say that bothers me.’

‘Meaning . . .?’

‘All he does is quote the first letter, Fitz saying, “I was an intermediary.” Wilson inserts the word Soviet, as though Fitz had never used it, but we are meant to believe that
he did. In either letter he could have told Wilson everything about his MI5 connection. And Wilson is careful not to quote directly from the second at all.’

‘Could have, Freddie, could have?’

‘I haven’t seen Fitz’s letters to Wilson. Only Wilson’s answers. But I have read Hansard in its entirety for the day of the Woodbridge debate. Wilson avoids quoting
anything from Fitz wherever possible. There was parliamentary hay to be made by reading those letters out loud. He could have brought the House down, and I am very curious to know why he
didn’t simply cash in and do just that. And I think there’s only one reason why he didn’t.’

Troy paused.

Rod said, ‘Do you want me to guess?’ As though he could not.

Troy held the third letter up between the largest fingers of his left hand, like a ticket tout hawking his wares. Rod took it from him, looking deeply puzzled.

‘What’s this?’

‘Look at the date.’

Rod peered.

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Wilson must have got Fitz’s letter that day. Three days before the Woodbridge debate. He doesn’t mention it at all in the course of that debate. Reading Hansard you’d
end up thinking Fitz had written to him twice; you’d get no hint that Fitz had written to him three times and the third that recently. Fitz was in jail on that day and for quite a few before
it. Took him a while to get bail. The Yard had been round bullying most of his friends, after all. Unless Wilson took a fortnight to answer, Fitz was writing to Wilson from prison. And I’ll
bet you a penny to a pound Wilson’s reply went out within twenty-four hours. That would make it June 13th. Why would Fitz write to Wilson about Woodbridge then? He couldn’t threaten to
expose him. The man had already resigned. There was only one card left to play. Fitz told him about Tereshkov and the plan to turn Tereshkov, told him he was MI5, and if Fitz was working for MI5
there was, there could be, no security issue, only an unholy cock-up. Wilson could have wiped the floor with the government, but he didn’t do it. Instead he pushed at a security issue which
did not exist, when what there was beneath it was an operational issue, and that’s not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. There’s a world of difference between secrets of the
security services and secrets of state. There’s loyalty to the country and there’s plain old watching your arse. Wilson played a colossal red herring. He knew there had been no leak; he
knew Fitz was working for the British not the Russians; even as he speculated on Fitz’s loyalties, he knew Tereshkov was the object not the instigator. And after what he said it was
inevitable there’d be a scapegoat – and it was never going to be Woodbridge, was it?’

Rod sighed. Troy could hear the truth surface like bubbles breaking the meniscus on water.

‘I don’t know for sure. I know nothing with the certainty you seem to desire so. We are stuck with a colossal “if ”. But Fitz did talk to one of Wilson’s narks
– George Wigg. That’s common knowledge, after all. And Wigg talked to Wilson and Brown. Brown said, “Drop it,” but as you rightly surmise Wilson talked to Macmillan. But
what
was told by Fitz to anyone else, and by anyone else to whomsoever, and what of the whatsoever Wilson passed to Macmillan, you cannot prove. Without Fitz’s letters you have no
proof – but you are, as ever, Freddie, trying to prove something to just one person. Me!’

‘Tell me you didn’t
know
.’

‘I didn’t. Not in the sense you mean. Wilson doesn’t tell me a damn thing. The only confirmation I’ve received came from you about an hour and a half ago. I’d heard
that Fitz met with people in the PM’s office, Macmillan eventually admitted that, and it was no secret that Fitz had had a meeting with Wigg. But it’s anybody’s guess what he told
him. I worked it out for myself. Much as you did. I do not think the front bench as a whole knew or knows now. I think it’s confined to Wilson’s kitchen cabinet – to the narks, to
George fucking Wigg and the likes of George fucking Wigg. I was told to keep out of it. I think George Brown was too. God knows, he said bugger all, and that’s rare enough for George. I think
I first knew when I realised we were pussyfooting through it. A nice show of bluster from Wilson – ‘in glorious Technicolor’ as the bastard put it – the predictable
tub-thumping from backbenchers who can’t be silenced, but all of it hollow, short of the mark, leaving the big stones unturned. And people like me who might have asked the awkward questions
told to shut up. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. To be honest, I think the last thing Wilson wanted was a public row with the security services. We’ll be in power any
minute – why would he risk their enmity? He’s paranoid enough on the subject of the spooks as it is. If Fitz told him he was a spook then it would be purest Wilson not to want to know.
And when Fitz killed himself that was an end of it – neat, nasty, but an end. I could never see the man accepting prison. It was the only way out. They had him trussed up like a
turkey.’

‘You could have spoken. The Yard answers to the Home Office. The Home Secretary’s the highest court of appeal within the Metropolitan Police Force. It’s your brief to challenge
the Home Office. You could have defied Wilson. You’d have had no difficulty catching the Speaker’s eye.’

‘In an election year? How do you think it would look if we fell out among ourselves? We’ve only just got over the last row about nuclear disarmament. The Labour Party has an infinite
capacity for shooting itself in the foot. We’re weeks away from an election. This is no time to do it. I had to stand with the party.’

‘So you built your garden wall and let Rome burn.’

‘Freddie, so help me, I’ll thump you—’

‘Anything for power? Has that become the ethos of the Labour Party?’

‘For God’s sake Freddie—’

‘And Fitz?’

‘One can never accept responsibility for another man’s suicide. It was his life and hence his choice and his death. In a sane society, it would be his right.’

Troy spoke softly. ‘His right?’

‘Yes – his right to kill himself if life had become so . . . so . . . intolerable.’

‘How very fashionable. How very liberal. A pink at the edges sentiment if ever I heard one.’ ‘Freddie, I don’t—’ ‘He was murdered!’ The blood
drained from Rod’s face.

‘Murdered by those fuckers in MI5!’

‘Oh Jesus.’

‘Murdered by MI5 while you and your fat-arsed cronies were playing power politics with the striped ties of the Conservative Party. Fitz didn’t kill himself. He was murdered, and he
was murdered because no one in Opposition had the guts or the brains to ask the right questions in the one forum this country has that can’t be silenced.’

‘How?’

‘He was shot by a Special Branch officer who was probably, even if indirectly, working for the spooks. I can prove he did it, and no one in the Yard is arguing with me about it, but I
can’t make the connection to the spooks. I knew Fitz. He would never have touched a gun. He went through the whole of the war without touching a gun. I have a fingerprint from the inside of
the gun that killed him matching that of Chief Inspector Blood. Fitz was run for Five by a bloke called Wallace Curran. Maybe Blood was too, maybe not – but I need to know who he is and where
to find him.’

‘I’m sorry, Freddie, I don’t know the name.’

‘D Branch. MI5. He must be D Branch. D1, the Soviet watchers.’

‘Still don’t know him.’

‘I need to know what he’s up to and how they got to Fitz.’

‘You say that as though you think I’ll know.’

‘No – I don’t, but you did know Tommy Athelnay during the war, didn’t you?’

‘Not well, but yes I knew him. We sat on a few Joint Services committees together. Bored me rigid.’

‘And what was his unit?’

‘Naval Intelligence.’

Rod looked at Troy – disbelief in his eyes. ‘But you’re not telling me you think MI5 were stupid enough to use Tommy to recruit Fitz, are you? The war was one thing –
the
thing, nothing else like it – no one, not even MI5, would be stupid enough to keep an agent like Tommy Athelnay in peacetime. He couldn’t keep a secret from the
cat!’

‘There are daft buggers in the dungeons of Whitehall who haven’t noticed the war is over. Somebody recruited Fitz. Tommy had a good war record; he was known to the spooks; he was one
of them. Why wouldn’t they use him? Tommy took money wherever he could find it. Anything was better than the indignity of work. And as for stupidity, your party was stupid enough to do a deal
with the government, so nothing the spooks do should surprise you. Whatever this is, it goes back quite a while. They picked up on Fitz when Tereshkov became a patient of his. Then they set old
Tommy to recruit him. And when Woodbridge fell into the trap too they didn’t call it off. Now, how stupid can you get? They should have dropped the whole thing then. But they didn’t and
it blew up in their faces. Then they got lucky. Poor old Tommy died. So whatever Fitz said, and he said nothing, he could never call on Tommy; he could never prove the link. MI5 got instant
deniability. An almighty mess suddenly began to look containable. Killing Fitz, faking his suicide, tied up all the loose ends. They got their trial, their scapegoat and then they got the long
silence. What more could a good secret service ask?’

Rod sucked in air as though he was drowning and almost lost what voice he had.

‘You’re certain it was murder.’

‘Rod! Please!’

‘And the girl? Young Clover?’

‘Murdered too, but not by Percy Blood. He had the time but he could not have committed both murders. It was beyond his ability to think them through. He didn’t have the brains to
devise two murders in one day. They were so utterly different in execution. The spooks did that one personally. I know it in my bones.’

‘This Wallace Curran chap?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why, Freddie? What did they gain by killing her?’

‘I don’t know, but they did. Something she knew and Fitz knew and the sisters didn’t.’

‘How did they get Fitz to say nothing at his own trial? He didn’t even take the stand. How did they get him to agree not to call Woodbridge as a witness?’

‘I don’t know that either. He expected something of them. He’d been promised something. Right up to the end, when I tried to tell him he’d go down, he still expected
something, some
deus ex machina
, to whisk him to freedom and safety – and for all I knew, gratitude too. They convinced him he was one them. For Christ’s sake, he convinced
himself. He was the unlikeliest Bohemian there ever was. All he wanted was to have gone to a good school and to belong to the right club. If he could have chosen, he’d have been you, not
Paddy Fitz. It’s likely he didn’t know Curran by his real name. If he had named him, without Tommy to back him up, he might well have looked simply foolish – adding fantasy to
fetish. And there was a good chance the prosecutor could get it laughed out of court. But then foolishness was inherent from the start. Fitz was a fool. A harmless, charming, garrulous fool, who
shut up just when he should have told everything. And the buggers crushed him as though he were no more than a beetle.’

Rod sagged, an oppressive weariness written in his face. Troy began to feel he had all but annihilated his brother.

‘Have you thought of asking Nikolai?’

‘I’ve thought about it. Ten years ago I’d’ve asked him before anyone else, but what would be the point now? He’s been out of it for so long. Buried in his book.
He’s over eighty, for Christ’s sake.’

‘What now? What will you do now?’

‘Now? I’ll knock on every door in London till I find Curran. That’s what I’ll do now.’