The Best of British Crime omnibus (6 page)

‘Why, do you know him?'

‘I'll say I do. I wrote a profile on him when I came through London last year, and did he make a fuss! I believe he thought he could get me fired. He talked of libel and God knows what, but it didn't come to anything, of course. What a prize jerk!'

‘You know he has the room next door – 435?'

‘You don't say! We'll have to organise a pincer movement.' He poured out two more shots of vodka.

I said, ‘How's work been, Jeff?'

He gave me a dirty look. ‘You know damn well how it's been.'

I had to laugh. I'd seen him in London just before he'd left to take up this assignment, and like all good newspapermen he'd been sure that he could do what everyone else had failed to do. He'd had no political illusions, of course, and neither had his paper, but with no personal experience of Moscow he'd simply been unable to believe that working conditions could be quite as bad as they were reputed to be. ‘Don't give me that gloom stuff,' he'd said. ‘You guys just don't know the right approach. I'll soon have Vishinsky eating out of my hand.'

Now he broke into a rueful smile. ‘You were dead right, of course,' he said. ‘They like to have one or two of us kicking around, but they hate our guts, and the way they behave is out of this world. We can't go anywhere, we can't see anything except what's too public to hide, and we can't talk to anyone. I've put a lot of lines out but there hasn't been a nibble. The ordinary Russians are too scared to speak to us. Every request has to be funnelled through the Press Department, and
their
job is plain obstruction. I've been waiting six weeks for VOKS to fix me a visit to a kindergarten. Practically every day I go and bang on Ganilov's table – he's the head of the Press Department now – but he only blinks at me through his thick glasses and says I must be patient. Patient! – can you beat it? It's bloody well hopeless. I'm not sorry I came – it's been a fascinating experience – but as far as the job's concerned I sure won't be sorry to leave.'

I nodded sympathetically. It hadn't taken him long to get the situation sized up. ‘When are you going, Jeff?'

‘That depends on how soon they can squeeze me into a plane, I guess. I applied for my exit permit yesterday.'

‘Pity! Never mind, we'll have fun while we can. By the way, how's the censorship these days?'

He snorted. ‘Practically impenetrable. As far as the censor's concerned this country is perfect and he passes nothing but friendly propaganda, if any. You can't even say that the
corps de ballet
was a shade off colour today! The only pieces I've succeeded in getting through were heavily ironical, and that's always risky.'

‘How right you are! – and that goes for both ends. I'll never forget an ironical piece I filed towards the end of the war, about some spontaneous demonstrations by freedom-loving Persians in favour of Russia taking over their oil. It got away from here all right, but some damn-fool sub at home put a heading “Persian Oil: The Truth at Last!” It taught me a lesson. No, the only thing to do is to collect what material you can and use it later.'

‘Sure – in a couple of paragraphs. You're lucky, of course – you can talk the lingo. I guess that must help a little, if you can find anyone to talk it to. The only words I've picked up aren't any use except in bed. If I want to ask any questions I have to have my secretary go along with me, and directly folk realise I'm a foreigner they shy away as though I were radioactive.'

‘Who is your secretary, Jeff?'

‘I call her Zina – she's got some unpronounceable name. She's quite a character. I reckon she'd be a good secretary if there was anything for her to do except get in the groceries and collect the “hand-outs”. As it is, I guess the only real work she does is to keep tabs on me for the M.V.D.'

The M.V.D were the security police. ‘Those fellows are always changing their name,' I said. ‘In my time they were the N.K.V.D. We used to call them the four-letter boys.'

‘That's still okay with me,' said Jeff. ‘Any four you like!'

I asked him what other newspapermen were in Moscow.

‘Well,' he said, ‘there are the agencies, of course. They're pretty well cut down to skeleton staffs, and there's darned little for them to send. They don't live in the hotel – they've still got their apartments. There's actually one other guy with a room in the hotel; he's British, name of Potts. He's a curious bird. He's supposed to have an assignment from one of your magazines, but he spends all his time doing his own private mass observation. I reckon he's collecting material for an
Enquire Within.
There's John Waterhouse, of course, but he's in a class by himself. And that's about all, except for the Communists and fellow-travellers.'

‘Quite a social whirl you must have.'

‘I'll say! There are some weeks when we actually see a new face.'

‘What about the embassies?'

‘Oh, they're cut to the bone too – some of the smaller legations have closed down altogether. It's partly expense, of course, but I reckon a lot of people are getting out while the going's good, and I don't blame them. I wouldn't fancy spending the Third World War as the prisoner of these ginks… ' He lit a Lucky and blew smoke savagely across the room. ‘No, it's been about the loneliest assignment I can remember.'

‘You must have found a girlfriend… ?' I began.

‘Ah, sure I've got a girlfriend, but – hell, you know how it is here. I like picking my own dames, but if you were to choose one out of the crowd here, supposing you could get near one, it'd be like signing her death warrant. And if you don't you have to take what the system offers. My kid's not too bad I suppose, and maybe she quite likes me as well as my nylons, but it's bad enough to be spied on during the day without feeling that someone's making mental notes about you while you're in bed.'

I nodded. ‘Who is she, Jeff? Do I know her, I wonder?'

‘You could do. Name of Tanya – one of the VOKS crowd. She works for that smooth operator Mirnova.'

‘Oh, Tatiana Mikhailovna! Of course I know her. As a matter of fact she was at the station today, meeting the delegation.'

‘She would be. She's been attached to them as interpreter.'

‘She's attractive.'

‘Oh, she's attractive, all right. She knows her stuff, too.' He caught my eye and gave a wry smile. ‘Okay, but, don't say it – I know she's had practice.'

‘Is she living in the hotel?'

‘Sure. She's in 433, the room on the other side of yours.'

‘Why don't you swop with me – then you'll be right next to her.'

‘I can walk that far,' he said.

‘Tanya used to have a twin sister – Kira Mikhailovna. Is she still around?'

‘Yes, she's around. She works at Sovkino – she's one of the hostesses when they show their lousy propaganda pictures to foreigners. She's a pleasant kid, too – she looks in here from time to time.'

‘You don't get them mixed up?'

He laughed. ‘They use different nail varnish.'

There was a knock on the door, and he called out,
‘Da!'
All the doors were on spring locks, but he'd left his catch fastened back. A waiter came in with a bottle of pink champagne and a bottle of cognac. He glanced across at me as he put his tray down, and then stared as though he couldn't believe his eyes.

‘Nikolai!' I said. ‘How are you?' I got up and he came over and shook hands, beaming with pleasure. ‘I'm glad to see you again, Nikolai. Well, well, so you're still going strong?'

‘The same,' he said. ‘I have no complaints. And you,
Gospodeen
Verney? I never thought you'd come back.'

‘I couldn't keep away, Nikolai.'

‘Hey, what's going on?' said Jeff. ‘I didn't know you two had a beautiful friendship. I'd better get another glass.'

‘Good idea,' I said. I turned to Nikolai. ‘Well, it certainly is nice to see your face again.' He was looking much more frail than when I'd seen him last – by now he was well on in his sixties, I supposed – but he had the same look of patient sweetness that I remembered. He'd been a servant in a big house-hold in Moscow and his master's family had been broken up during the Revolution, by death and flight and one thing or another. Nikolai had had to fit himself into the new set-up, and because of his background it had been difficult for him, especially as he'd been fond of the people he'd served. His couldn't accustom himself to the régime and wanted no part of it, but he'd had a small son on whom all his hopes were set and for the boy's sake more than for his own safety he'd loyally accepted it. He'd told me all this back in the war, and a lot of other things as well – stories of the old Russia that filled in big gaps in my understanding and were as fascinating as
War and Peace.

I explained some of this to Jeff while he poured out a third drink. He looked quite disgusted at the thought that he'd been unaware of this rich mine of human interest just under his nose. ‘See what I mean – that's what comes of not knowing the language. Anyway, here's to us.' We all drank each other's health.

‘What about Boris?' I asked Nikolai – a little diffidently, because in Russia so many unpleasant things could happen to a man in six years, over and above the normal hazards. But it was all right – Nikolai's son was doing well as a doctor in a Moscow hospital, there were three grandchildren, and everything was wonderful. Nikolai's dreams had come true. ‘There are many things,' he said, ‘that I do not like today, but I must admit that in the old times Boris could not have studied medicine. I am glad that he was able to. However bad the world, a doctor can always serve humanity. That is the best thing of all.' He smiled and set down his glass.
‘Merci, Gospodeen
Clayton!
Dosvedanie, Gospodeen
Verney!' He inclined his head with grave courtesy and went out with his tray.

‘Well, what do you know!' said Jeff. ‘I always thought he was a nice guy, and Tanya dotes on him, but I never knew he had all that in him.'

There were fresh footsteps outside and a moment later John Waterhouse appeared, with a man whom I hadn't seen before. ‘Come right in,' Jeff called out. ‘Wipe your feet!'

‘Champagne, eh?' said Waterhouse. ‘I hoped we'd be in time for the celebration. Hallo, George, how are you? It's good to see you again.' We shook hands warmly. ‘This is Edward Potts – George Verney.'

Waterhouse hadn't changed much, except that he was a little greyer. He was a rather dapper man of sixty or so who always wore bow ties. An unashamed
poseur,
he always contrived – among his colleagues, at least – to give the impression that he was keeping the white man's flag flying in a country of savages. He wasn't exceptionally tall, but he affected a slight stoop. He had bright, satirical eyes, and could be extremely charming when it suited him. He'd been a newspaperman in Moscow as long as anyone could remember; he had a comfortable flat somewhere behind the Kremlin, and a servant, and acquaintances in town that he'd known at the time of the Revolution. How he lived was something of a mystery, for though he was still an accredited correspondent he hadn't sent much news out for years. I had heard that he wrote novels under a pseudonym. There was almost nothing that he didn't know about Russia, and he was completely cynical about the régime, but he'd somehow managed to rub along without mortally offending the authorities, and, incalculable as ever, they hadn't bothered to throw him out. Perhaps they regarded him as privileged, like the old court jesters. I'd asked him once why he stayed on when there was so little to do, and he'd said blandly, ‘Art for art's sake, dear boy,' and then shot me a bright amused glance. I think it was just that he'd got used to the place – he even travelled on the trams! – and that he hadn't any interest anywhere else. It was his intention, so he said, to have his ashes scattered on top of Lenin's mausoleum.

Potts was an anaemic-looking individual, tall and thin and pale, with sparse hair and glasses and an earnest, donnish manner, and he wore black boots, the largest I'd ever seen. He didn't look like a newspaperman and he didn't shake hands like one.

I couldn't help thinking back to the days of departed glory, when there had been twenty or thirty correspondents in Moscow, representing the world's greatest newspapers. Now, apart from the agencies, there were just the four of us, and one of us was soon going, and one of us was Potts!

Jeff charged the glasses and asked Potts how his mass observation was going.

‘Well, you know, it's most interesting,' said Potts in a reedy voice. ‘I've been outside the hotel today, studying winter clothing habits.' He fumbled for a notebook. ‘I found that forty-five per cent of the men wore felt boots and fifty-five per cent other kinds of boots. The women were different. Sixty-eight per cent of them wore felt boots. The break-down into age groups may be revealing.' He gave a dirty little cough. ‘Then forty-eight per cent of the women wore shawls, and fifty-two per cent hats and berets. Seventy-eight per cent of the men wore fur hats, and twenty-two per cent wore caps.'

‘That sure is a scoop,' said Jeff. He looked at Potts with wonder, as though at a strange animal, but there was no malice in his tone.

‘It's the sort of thing that people like to know about,' said Potts. ‘Somebody has to do the field work, after all. There are little gems of information that I keep picking up. For instance, about half the people in this city sleep in their underclothes – did you know that, Clayton?'

‘I know that half the women sleep in their brassieres,' said Jeff with a grin, ‘if they get the chance.'

‘He hasn't got around to the other half,' I said.