A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (22 page)

‘I’m a GP, not a specialist.’

‘Well, I suppose I’d better find one then.’

The doctor paused. ‘Maybe I can help you.’

She was the most stunning and beautiful woman Catesby had ever seen. She was black, stately and tall – and one of the most respected consultants at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She towered over Catesby – and not just physically. Unlike him and his slithering ilk, she was someone who had devoted her life to relieving human misery. Spies, on the other hand, were the Anopheles mosquitoes of human society.

‘The answer to your first question is no.’ She was sitting in her office chair leaning forward slightly with her hands folded.

Catesby nodded as if he knew more than he did. She had the demeanour, he thought, of a kindly university professor dealing with a clueless undergraduate.

‘SLE is not a rare disease…’

Catesby had twigged that ‘SLE’ was medical shorthand for ‘systemic lupus erythematosus’.

‘…and,’ she continued, ‘I cannot understand why anyone would think it is. SLE is, in fact, quite common.’

‘Even in Europe?’

‘In Northern Europe the rate is about forty per 100,000 people, but much higher among those of African descent. The rate among us is four times the average, 160 per 100,000.’ The consultant paused. ‘Statistically, the person most likely to be diagnosed with
SLE is an African woman of child-bearing age – and the condition is exacerbated by poverty.’

Catesby noticed the woman’s eyes had flashed a hint of anger. She was aware of social inequality.

‘The factors that cause SLE are not just genetic, but also environmental.’

‘But women are much more likely to contract SLE than men?’

The consultant nodded. ‘That is true. Women are eight times more likely to be diagnosed with SLE than men. An SLE prognosis is, however, much worse for a man than a woman.’

‘So men, although less likely to contract SLE, are more likely to die from it when they do?’

‘Correct.’

Catesby was warming to the subject. He began to wish that he had done Medicine rather than Modern Languages with post-grad qualifications in Espionage and Dirty Tricks.

‘One final question,’ he said, ‘how many white men are likely to die of SLE in Britain in a typical year?’

‘That’s a difficult question. SLE is very good at disguising itself as other diseases – and, therefore, it is often not diagnosed as the actual cause of death.’ The consultant paused and looked thoughtful. ‘I would estimate, however, that between 500 and 1,000 white British males die of SLE per annum.’

‘So, it is not a rare cause of death for a white middle-aged male?’

‘Unusual, but not rare.’ She gave Catesby a searching look. ‘Why did you want to know?’

‘Because I…’ Catesby wanted to tell her everything – not just about Gaitskell, but about justice, equality, peace and friendship; about Pasteur, Curie, and Lister; about art and love – but couldn’t find the words.

‘You don’t need to tell me.’

‘Thank you.’

CIA HQ Langley:
28 February 1963

Angleton wasn’t happy with the President. Kennedy was dismissive of the serious situation developing in Britain – and he also had scant regard for TANGO’s warnings. In fact, Kennedy seemed to be sidelining the CIA altogether in preference to advice from his brother and the Harvard coterie. Angleton was a Yale graduate and the rivalry between the two universities went beyond the sports field and into the dark areas of secret loyalties. The most secret part of Angleton’s counter-intelligence empire was SIG, the Special Investigations Group – and the most secret of SIG’s file were the 201s. The 201 files were secret histories of Americans who were either a serious potential danger to the country’s security – or, alternatively, of individuals who could be helpful to SIG. In some cases, the 201 subjects fitted into both categories.

The 201 file that Angleton had on his desk related to a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union – and come back again. The ex-Marine had had a troubled childhood and as a young teenager, owing to threatening behaviour at home and in the classroom, had been sent to a child psychiatrist. The psychiatrist’s report intrigued Angleton:
The subject has a vivid fantasy life turning around the topics of omnipotence and power; through which he tries to compensate for his shortcomings and tendencies.
Angleton was not without self-knowledge and not without knowledge of what others thought of him. He realised that his detractors would say that the psychiatrist’s report could equally have described himself. But they were wrong – otherwise he would have felt ‘the rage of Caliban at seeing his own face in a mirror’.

The 201 file on the ex-Marine was dynamite. It contained records of the subject’s military training. As an ex-radar operator in the Far East, the former Marine had knowledge of the CIA’s top secret U-2 programme. And yet, upon his return to the United States, the CIA had not interrogated him about whether or not he had passed on intelligence to the Soviet Union. And it would have been the responsibility of Angleton’s section to have done so. But in some cases it is more important to groom
someone and watch them than to harass and frighten them. Angleton thought the ex-Marine could be useful and he opted for the light touch. Part of SIG was a team under the command of a retired US Army officer code-named LN/RIFLE. Their job was to deal with security threats that could not be prosecuted in open legal proceedings owing to the risk of exposing other clandestine operations and issues of high sensitivity. Sometimes the secret intelligence arm of a government has to override that government. Angleton picked up the ex-Marine’s 201 file. It was time to pass it on to LN/RIFLE.

Angleton, morphing once again into mad FURIOSO, sat back, lit a cigarette and poured another JD. The smoke patterns were sinister. Was the President himself a security risk?
Always
fear the worst.

Pimlico, London:
3 March 1963

Catesby hadn’t expected a visit. Particularly on a Sunday morning and from someone who had never been to the flat before. The visitor, wearing a black roll-neck jumper and a leather coat, was perfect Fitzrovia bohemian, just as his city-suited and bowler-hatted weekday self was perfect Whitehall mandarin. He even looked a bit grubby: unshaven and hung-over.

‘Good morning, Henry,’ said Catesby, ‘what a pleasant surprise.’

‘I was on my way to a Duncan Grant exhibition at the Tate – and, as you live so near, I thought you might like to come.’

‘I’d love to.’

The Tate was a quick seven-minute walk from Catesby’s flat. Bone seemed more relaxed and less guarded then he did during the week. But that didn’t mean he was off-duty.

‘Do you know Duncan Grant?’ said Catesby.

‘Slightly.’ There was something in Bone’s voice that was reserved and sly again.

‘He used to live near me in Suffolk,’ continued Catesby. ‘During the Great War he worked on a nearby farm as a conscientious objector.’

‘I know.’

It wasn’t a big exhibition. Most of the paintings were works that hadn’t been shown before. Many were nudes.

‘As you know,’ said Bone as they walked through the gallery, ‘Grant was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but couldn’t be described as one. He was, and remains, far more radical than most critics realise.’

There was one nude of Vanessa Bell, but most were of men – often beautiful young men. Catesby stopped in front of a male nude that was only a torso – the head and lower legs were not visible.

‘I bet,’ said Catesby, ‘that one is a self-portrait. That’s why you can’t identify the sitter.’

‘I don’t think so.’ There was a faint smile on Bone’s face, a smile of nostalgia. He would never admit that he was looking at the body of his younger self. ‘I think your being in the Tate, Henry, is just as much of an honour as your great-great grandfather hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.’

‘Let’s move on,’ said Bone, ‘there are far more interesting paintings.’

After an hour they emerged from the gallery on to the Embankment. The weather was clear, but still bitterly cold. The Thames was in full ebb and a stiff easterly breeze whipped up the river into white horses.

‘The Fournier debriefings,’ said Bone turning up his collar, ‘continue to reveal gems – although in some cases, jewels that we would rather had never existed.’

Catesby sensed an ominous note in Bone’s voice, but, as usual, he knew that Bone wouldn’t unveil the reason for the dark note until he was ready. Bone was a master at keeping people twisting on tenterhooks.

‘Now,’ said Bone, ‘let’s look again at the bright shining gems from Chez Fournier.’

‘The identity of the SIS mole is absolutely priceless.’

‘Do you mean,’ said Bone with a bleak smile, ‘that there is only one mole
chez nous
?’

‘I mean only one mole who was spying for Washington.’

Bone gave another bleak smile. ‘And, by the way, Catesby,
please don’t agree with the Americans when they accuse SIS of being the London branch of Moscow Central. They don’t understand irony – particularly your irony.’

‘I wasn’t being ironic.’

‘Touché. Let’s get back to SM/HOUND.’

‘Totally barking and fanatically right-wing. I’m not surprised that Fournier revealed him as the CIA mole. Was he pushed out?’

‘No, he left of his own volition. He thought Macmillan was dangerously left-wing.’

‘God knows what he would think of a Wilson government.’

‘He will be a problem. JJ,’ said Bone using the initials by which HOUND was generally known in SIS, ‘has already linked up with a few very right-wing groups.’

‘What’s he doing for money?’

‘He’s topping up his pension as a consultant to a merchant bank.’

‘Passing on secrets that could be useful for insider trading?’

‘I’d rather not comment.’

Catesby remembered a vile and embarrassing rant that JJ had delivered in the senior officers’ canteen in the bowels of Broadway Buildings the year before he retired. JJ later printed it off as a pamphlet, a sort of farewell letter. Catesby had kept a copy. At the centre of JJ’s rant were accusations of ‘moral degeneracy’. JJ had somehow linked homosexuality with non-white immigration and Communist infiltration to explain Britain’s decline into lawlessness and corruption. It was, according to JJ, the role of the spy to put things right by covert action to override the failures of parliament, diplomats and priests. An old hand from the Middle East and Africa P section had leaned over to Catesby and whispered, ‘We all need a jolly good spanking. Your place or mine?’

‘Another of Fournier’s jewels,’ continued Bone, ‘is the identity of SM/DOGGED.’

‘But we always knew it was him.’ Catesby had long suspected that Ferret was leaking information to the CIA and selected members of the press.

‘But we now know there is also a close bond between DOGGED and FURIOSO.’

‘Angleton.’

‘I prefer calling him FURIOSO. It also turns out that FURIOSO suspected Fournier long before we did – but then again, he suspects everyone. I am sure that FURIOSO’s bosses realise there are mental problems, but they seem powerless to do anything about it. He is dangerous.’

Catesby suspected that there was a transatlantic battle going on between Bone and Angleton, but he wasn’t going to mention it.

Bone stared across the river towards Vauxhall. ‘I used to scull and row past here. The school used to keep the boats at Putney – and, I believe, still do. There’s nothing like a vigorous row on a cold clear spring morning. Do you know the difference, Catesby, between sculling and rowing?’

‘You scull with two oars, one in each hand. You row with both hands on one oar.’

‘Good. You love boats, don’t you?’

Catesby nodded.

‘The problem with spying,’ said Bone, ‘is that we’re almost always rowing and not sculling. We’re not in control of the boat. We hope the other oars are pulling in the same direction, but we can never be sure. And if something – or someone – goes wrong, we all sink.’

Catesby reminded silent. He pretended to be entranced by the river, but he was really thinking about Bone. Could he be the rogue oarsman?

‘The wretched EMPUSA,’ continued Bone, ‘appeared on the scene long after Fournier was out of the loop. Sadly, he can’t give us any background – but one can deduce that EMPUSA’s theatrical ravings have found an appreciative audience in paranoid FURIOSO.’

Catesby detected a defensive note in Bone’s voice and manner.

‘Do you know,’ said Bone, ‘that EMPUSA is coming to London for a debriefing?’

‘I had heard rumours.’

‘The situation has to be handled with delicacy – politeness and not even a hint of a wry smile.’

‘On the other hand,’ said Catesby, ‘provoking him could bring forth even more bizarre accusations.’

‘But that would make us look as if we had something to hide – and we were trying to cover up by provoking him to get him angry and irrational.’

‘We’ll play it your way, Henry.’

‘But we might not even get invited to the debrief.’ Bone stopped walking and looked at Catesby. ‘But there is one more thing – and it concerns you directly.’

Catesby braced himself against the cold wind.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Bone, ‘why Fournier didn’t mention this sooner. Perhaps, he thought no one would believe him – and it does seem bizarre.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ lied Catesby, ‘what he was talking about.’

Bone took a deep breath. ‘Fournier claims that you murdered a Nazi war criminal in Bremen in May 1951. The victim was a PAPERCLIP German the Americans wanted to ratline to South America. Fournier said his plan was to swap the war criminal for information about Harold Wilson and his sending Rolls-Royce jet engines to the Soviet Union. The Americans, as Fournier now realises, got the wrong end of the stick about Wilson and the engines.’

‘But that doesn’t make any difference if you want to smear someone.’

‘That’s another matter. Let’s get back to you, William. Fournier says that you refused to give him any insider information about Wilson, presumably because you didn’t have any?’

Catesby nodded.