A Spy's Life (32 page)

‘Walter, I don’t seem to be getting a reaction here.’

‘What did you expect?’

‘For a start, an explanation for the investigation of my past by you.’

‘That must be perfectly obvious, Bobby,’ he said evenly. ‘You are suspected of having committed serious offences against your country. In due course the authorities will decide what to do with you. It’s out of my hands. I am not an officer of the law.’

Harland looked down and noted the impressions left in the seats of the two sofas by Vigo’s recent visitors. He sat down and brushed his hand over the fabric.

‘That’s all bollocks, Walter. The only thing the authorities knew about the charade the other night at the Cre`che was the call they got from the Secretary-General’s office. I bet you had to do some fast talking to explain
that
to Robin Teckman and the Foreign Secretary. No doubt, they were rather bemused by the call, but I imagine you wriggled out of it. You knew you had to let me go and to pack the place up. You see, I know that wasn’t the Cre`che, Walter. You just borrowed some bloody building to give me a working over.’

Vigo removed his hands from his pockets and walked to one of the antique maps on the wall where he paused in rapt contemplation of a sketchy coastline of northern Europe.

‘And if the Cre`che was a fake,’ continued Harland, ‘Blanchard, Rivers, Griffiths and the others were operating outside the law, and – I’m certain – without the knowledge of the Director of SIS. What is interesting about this is why you have bothered with this elaborate charade. Clearly you aren’t interested in the photographs of Lipnik because nothing as basic as evidence of an appalling crime motivates you. I remember you saying that Griswald had benefited from an unusual source to obtain his evidence. So it must have been the means of communication that interested you and the possibility that Griswald had exchanged something for those images. Am I right?’

Vigo remained immobile, then gestured to the map.

‘You know, it’s thought likely that this very map appears in the background of one of Vermeer’s paintings, which is as good as saying that he owned it. There’s no proof, of course, but it certainly is pleasing to have touched something that he handled. And that’s the point. But if an expert were to come along and prove categorically that the story was myth, the map’s charm would be drastically reduced.’ He turned and studied Harland. ‘It’s the same with the snapshots of this man, Bobby. Your faith in them derives entirely from their recovery from the plane crash, about which, incidentally, you persistently lied to me. But leaving that aside, you have imbued them with a special significance, ignoring the counsel of your more rational self which must have suggested that these photographs could not be crucial evidence against a war criminal, whether alive or dead. For instance, the scene showing him in uniform could equally be interpreted as the excavation of a mass grave. An officer orders his troops to uncover the evidence of another army’s crimes. How about that for an alternative caption?’

If only Vigo knew how that interpretation tempted him.

‘There is the date on the image,’ he replied, ‘and the witness statements which put this man at the scene of the cleansing operation.’

‘Very vague and circumstantial, rather like the provenance of my map. But look, Bobby, why are you concerning yourself with Bosnia? It all happened so long ago. There have always been massacres in the Balkans and there always will be; the people are intractable and murderous by nature. They won’t change, no matter how much aid and intervention is advocated by the do-gooders at the UN.’

Harland had had enough of Vigo’s diversion.

‘This is not about Bosnia, Walter. It’s about the release of intelligence secrets through the broadcast media in Eastern Europe. I know about the code and the way it’s being used against the major intelligence agencies. The reason you were keen to get your hands on these pictures was that you thought they would lead you back to the original source. But that doesn’t alter the fact that these pictures are valuable evidence and – much more important – they were probably the motive behind the crash.’

‘Believe what you like, but I really must be getting on. Is that all you wanted to say?’

‘Of course not. But I am surprised that you take the destruction of two aircraft and the loss of twenty lives so lightly. What I came here for is an assurance that your band of part-timers will not meddle in my affairs or obstruct my inquiry any longer.’

‘Oh, that’s another matter entirely, Bobby.’

‘Well, it’s one that you had better sort out, Walter, because you, Rivers and Blanchard were not acting in any official capacity and I’m quite certain that Robin Teckman would be interested to hear how you have been abusing your position. And what about Miles Morsehead and Tim Lapthorne, your two contenders for the top job at SIS? You deny your ambitions, but I know you too well. You want the power and the standard-issue knighthood. I’m sure they’d like to hear about all this.’

Vigo spun round from another excursion along the coastline of seventeenth-century Holland. His face was distorted with temper.

‘You seem to have been unhinged by your experience in the police station. A nervous breakdown, they said. Wet your pants, carried from the cell blubbering.’ His tone softened, not with sympathy but menace. ‘Let me make it utterly plain that I am in a position to destroy you, Bobby. Those files from Prague produced grade A material: the real thing. You were a bloody spy for the communists. You’re bang to rights. In these circumstances you would be well advised to shut up and keep your head down. But if you persist in making wild allegations, these discoveries may well find their way into the press and then prosecution will be inevitable. You know how the press never lets go of a thing like this and you can imagine the fun they’ll have with the pictures of the comely Czech seductress. And the recent dramas in your life – a plane crash, shootings, the torture and execution of a flower girl? It’s meat and drink to those people.’

Harland cut him off. ‘Still, your colleagues will be very interested to learn about your little group. Its mere existence will lead them to suppose that you are conspiring against them and the interests of SIS.’ He stopped, placed his fingertips together and levelled his gaze at Vigo to tell the lie. ‘You see, every one of them was filmed coming into this house this morning. Blanchard, Griffiths, Rivers – the lot. I can’t name all of them, but I’m sure it won’t take Sir Robin long. Naturally you will attempt to slide out of this one by giving them a lecture about provenance and the interpretation of images. You will perhaps explain that this is the early-morning meeting of the Incunabula Society, a seance of amateur cryptographers, a confessional meeting of the local AA chapter. The story will be ingenious, I’m sure. But they won’t believe you and moreover they’re unlikely to pursue the crazy allegations that you subsequently make about my past.’

Vigo sat down. He was at least going to deal, thought Harland.

‘Why have you come here?’ His voice showed no sign of anxiety. ‘You’re a clever man, Bobby, but it seems to me that everything you do betrays your guilt. Is that all it is – guilt? Or is there something you really want?’

‘The links – I want the links, Walter. How does Viktor Lipnik tie in with this coded material? What does he have to do with the shooting of Lars Edberg? Why did you make inquiries at the hospital to find out about his condition?’ Harland knew some of the answers but he wanted to see Vigo’s reaction.

Vigo placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward.

‘Lars Edberg,’ he mused. ‘I must say I’m touched by your devotion to him. It really is a fascinating aspect to this whole thing. I fancied I saw him at your sister’s place on the evening of the shooting, but maybe I was mistaken. Possibly it was some friend of your sister’s? Who knows? Who cares? You see, I no longer have the time to ponder your unlikely trysts beside the Thames. My interest has moved on from you, Bobby, which is why I would like you to leave now.’ He stopped and looked away. ‘I imagine you’re still at your sister’s place.’ Another pause. ‘Davina is right – Harriet has very special qualities. You can tell that instantly.’

His massive head turned back to face Harland. In the sunlight which now flooded through the lancet window, Harland noticed that the rims of his eyes were red and that the lower eyelids were drooping a little. It occurred to him for the first time that Vigo was under considerable strain. ‘It would be regrettable if she became mixed up in this.’

‘You’re threatening me, Walter,’ Harland said with surprise. ‘You’re saying that if I send that film to Teckman you cannot be responsible for my sister’s safety. I won’t tolerate that. If anything happens to her or her family, I will kill you. It is as simple as that.’ He felt angry and foolish in the same moment.

They rose together and looked at each other.

‘I will say one thing to you, Bobby. Let this go. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. If you persist, you will endanger other people’s lives.’

Harland heard a woman’s voice call out from the stairs.

‘That’s Davina,’ said Vigo. ‘I think you’d better leave now, don’t you?’ At that moment Davina glided into the room. ‘Bobby was just going,’ he said to his wife’s surprised expression.

Harland nodded awkwardly and brushed past her to the front door. Even as he closed the door behind him he knew that he had made a bad mistake in coming.

19

BOHEMIA

The O’Donnell passport carried Harland into the arrivals hall of Prague airport without a hitch. The Bird had told him to look out for a driver with one of two names displayed on a board. If the name was Blucher, Harland was to walk past the man and catch a cab to the Intercontinental Hotel where he should await further instructions. If he saw the name Schmidt, he was to make himself known and the driver would take him to the meeting place.

Harland immediately spotted a young man by a coffee stand in a worn sheepskin jacket. He was holding a board, but the name was hidden by his hand. As Harland approached, the man raised the board up to display the name Schmidt, smiled imperceptibly and led him to the car park. Outside it was damp and snow lay on the ground. Harland noticed a metallic smell in the air that he associated with the uninhibited mining and smelting of the old Eastern Europe.

In a short time they were heading along the Vltava River. He tried to get his bearings. At the back of his mind he was orienting himself so that he knew the direction of an area named Dejvice where he was held the first night of his arrest in the StB building. The date was Friday, 17 November 1989, a propitious but bloody day which came to mark the beginning of the Velvet Revolution. Harland didn’t learn the importance of the events he witnessed until long afterwards.

Harland looked out across the river to the Old Town Hall and remembered Griswald going off to meet his contact. There had been little for Harland to do so he had spent much of the day sightseeing in the Old Town. As the day wore on it became obvious that something was brewing. Every so often he would come across furtive groups of students passing leaflets to each other, then melting away into side streets as the plainclothes security police arrived. A young woman in a white knitted hat had pressed a flyer into his hand, announcing a march in memory of Jan Opletal, a student who’d been killed by the Nazis a little over fifty years before. They talked for a short time. Harland said that it seemed downright perverse that while the world held its breath to see whether the East German uprising would spread to Czechoslovakia, the students were preparing to commemorate an obscure martyr of the Nazi era. She replied that it was a symbolic protest against the regime. In the two decades since the Russian invasion and the collapse of the Prague Spring, it had become second nature to the Czechs to make their protests metaphorically – at one remove.

Harland was much more alert to the movement of security forces than the students and, as dusk gathered that afternoon, he noticed the discreet arrival of troops dressed in khaki and red berets. It transpired that these were members of the Division for Special Purposes, an anti-terrorist group that had been infiltrated into the city to set a trap. A few hours later they would wade into the students, causing hundreds of casualties. When the fleeing students banged on the doors along Narodni Street to be let in, their fellow Czechs were too frightened to open up.

He had been tempted to stay and see what happened, but he decided to make himself scarce and returned to the ill-lit room where he and Griswald had camped out for a day and a night. Five StB men and three uniformed policemen were waiting for him. They were convinced that he had been sent by foreign powers to ferment revolution on the streets. The leaflet in his pocket about that evening’s demonstration didn’t help his denial. He was taken to StB headquarters and questioned. The next morning, as open dissent began to break out among all classes and professions in Prague, and Václav Havel hurried back from his retreat at Hradecek to lead the revolution, Harland was handed over to three men who took him to a villa. Time rushed forward for the Czechs but for Harland it went into reverse – back to the Stalinist purges.

All of that was very near the surface now. Harland made a conscious effort to think of something else.

The driver took a sharp right, away from the sweep of the Vltava, and rattled down a cobbled side street. As they waited at some lights, he turned round and handed Harland a monochrome tourist map of Prague Castle. Harland unfolded the map and examined it, remembering that before he was arrested he had planned to come up to the ancient citadel which overlooks Prague. In the second courtyard he found a red circle marking an object in the centre, which the key told him was a fountain.

They tore up the final few hundred yards to a deserted square in front of the castle. There the snow streamed across the headlights almost horizontally. Harland paid off the driver who responded by making a shooing motion with his hands to indicate that he should go through the gateway in front of the castle. It was bitterly cold. He passed between two sentries who did not seem to notice him and stole into the great, dark precincts of the castle. The fountain was ahead of him in the first courtyard, but not a soul was to be seen. Some way off he heard the stamp of more guards marching to their watch. He walked gingerly across new snow and passed under a second archway to find he had run slap-bang up against the west front of St Vitus’s Cathedral. The façade rose up before him with the effect of a photographic negative, the snow picking out the details of the carvings. He looked up for a moment, then retraced his steps back to the fountain, followed by three guards in blue greatcoats and high fur collars who had appeared from the direction of the Old Royal Palace. From nowhere a tall figure had materialised by the fountain and was tracing a circle in the snow with his feet, as he talked animatedly on a phone. He raised a hand in acknowledgement of Harland and finished the conversation.