The Factory (17 page)

‘The desk clerk took it to the cultural attaché, after realizing what it was,' said Wiggins. ‘The attaché brought it to me.'

‘Outline the contents, briefly,' ordered Bowles, as their car reached the autoroute that encircles the French capital.

‘It's dated May 1917, and addressed to Tsar Nicholas, although he's referred to as Dear Cousin. There's an offer of British military intervention – we had units with the White Russian Army, you'll remember – and also there's some suggestion of a direct, safe-passage approach, to Lenin himself. There's also a guarantee of sanctuary, in London.'

‘And signed personally by the King?'

‘The entire letter was handwritten. The signature is simply George.'

‘Which is how English royalty sign themselves,' mused Bowles.

The counter clerk, whose name emerged as Patrick Harper, had been suspended from duty and was waiting nervously in Wiggins' office when they arrived. Bowles had the clerk go through the entire encounter with the Grand Duke at his own pace and then took him through it again a second time, relentlessly questioning.

‘Those were his precise words: the other side are after them?'

‘Yes,' confirmed Harper.

‘Didn't you ask him what he meant?'

‘At that stage I thought he was an old crank: we get a lot of them.'

Bowles breathed out irritably. ‘How old was he?'

‘Quite old. In his seventies: maybe in his eighties.'

‘Aristocratic'

‘I suppose so.'

‘And there were definitely more letters?'

‘Quite a bundle. Maybe a dozen. It could have been more. They were held together by a band.'

‘And you let him go?'

‘I didn't realize at the time …' Harper began, but Bowles refused him.

‘You know what you've done today? You've read … held in your hands … an incredible piece of history, a handwritten letter from the King of England in 1917 to Tsar Nicholas, whom the Bolsheviks killed, just one year later. And you let go the man who had God knows how much more. You're a fool, Harper. An absolute bloody fool!'

Samuel Bell consoled himself with the thought that he was not sacrificing Alistair Deedes as he'd sacrificed others in the search for the Soviet mole buried deep within the Factory. It would be unpleasant, harrowing maybe, but there would be no positive prosecution the Russians could bring against the man and so they'd have to release him in the face of British diplomatic pressure, after interrogation. That was all that mattered, the interrogation.

Deedes entered the office quietly. He was a large man, almost as big as the Director General himself. He was wearing a rugby club tie, with a matching blazer badge. The man sat, as invited, and listened with open-mouthed astonishment as Bell disclosed the existence of a Soviet informant within the department who had wrecked at least six British operations.

‘I know who it is,' lied the Director General. ‘I need one final piece of evidence, which you are going to Moscow to collect. That's all you have to do. Go to Moscow, make a meeting with our own informant and bring back what he gives you. Understood?'

‘Understood,' said Deedes.

Bowles had experienced a strange feeling, an impression of awe, handling the royal letter: of being so close to such dramatic and such recent history. He'd been right to criticize the counter clerk as harshly as he had: Harper had been a fool, treating the old man so contemptuously. Thank God it was so easy to repair the damage. He had the Grand Duke's address in the Neuilly suburb, off the Avenue du Roule, from the card the man had left at the embassy. All he had to do was present himself, apologize abjectly for Harper's rude stupidity and recover the rest of the correspondence Ivanov was apparently offering. Bowles, who was fascinated by the Russian revolution, was looking forward to the encounter: how, he wondered, had Ivanov been involved?

An airliner came in low on its way to land, and briefly Bowles looked up at it through the windscreen of the car he was driving to Neuilly. Wiggins, the embassy intelligence man, would be well on his way to London by now, the one precious letter in the briefcase chained to his wrist. Bowles had not the slightest doubt that it was genuine but he still wanted the paper, ink and handwriting examined by experts, to ensure that it was not a forgery or a hoax. Bowles didn't intend to risk the slightest mistake on his first assignment.

The Grand Duke's home was rather as the counter clerk had described the man himself, fading and slightly frayed former grandeur. It was in a very narrow cul-de-sac off the Avenue du Roule, a warren of apartments reached from a central courtyard around which the rambling, crumbling house was built. Bowles guessed the apartments were more impressive and expensive the higher they went: the Grand Duke Ivanov's home was in the basement. There was a place for a name plate beside the door but the holder was empty. He knocked, softly at first, and then, when there was no reply, more loudly. There was still no response. Bowles pressed his ear to the door. There was no sound.

He climbed back up to the ground level and found the concierge's office under a central archway.

‘Gone,' said the woman shortly when Bowles inquired. ‘Left this morning.' She was fat and old and dressed entirely in black.

‘Gone where?'

The concierge shrugged. ‘They didn't say.'

‘You're expecting them back, though?' asked Bowles with hopeful expectancy.

‘They carried suitcases: both him and the Duchess.'

‘Have you any address at all: somewhere they might stay with friends?' pressed Bowles.

The woman shook her head. ‘The previous people asked that,' she said.

‘Previous people?'

‘Two men, in a black diplomatic car. The accents were Russian. I can recognize it, from knowing the Grand Duke.'

The other side are after them,
remembered Bowles.

Wiggins reached him at the embassy, from the Factory in London. The experts had no doubt whatsoever: the letter of King George V was unquestionably genuine. The Curator of the Royal Archives had confirmed it.

Paris became the favourite European city for refugees from the Russian revolution in 1917. Most of the original emigrés had died since settling there but their children and younger relations remained, creating community after community and a host of societies and clubs and meeting places.

As Bowles set out on his search for the old man he discovered that the Grand Duke Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ivanov was known to all of them: by some he seemed to be regarded almost as a Tsar-in-exile. There was a tone of respect in every voice and some people to whom Bowles spoke actually referred to the man as His Highness. Without exception, all at first were hostile to any inquiry, creating a protective silence around Ivanov and his wife. Bowles was never impatient, never aggressive. His approach was invariably the same. The Grand Duke had contacted the British embassy. They wanted to talk, to discuss the reason for that. If there were a problem involving the Grand Duke, they were prepared to help. They were friends. Each encounter – in crowded, smoke-filled clubs adorned with photographs of the long-dead Tsar or in bars where people nostalgically sang sad folk songs or sometimes, even, in crowded, cheap apartments – ended with Bowles leaving a card of his own, with the request that the number be passed on in the hope of reaching Ivanov and persuading the old man to call.

Throughout Bowles remained in Paris, to be immediately available if Ivanov responded to the search that he had to know, from the closeness of the exiled Russian community, was being conducted for him. There was secure communication, between Bowles and the Director General, through the embassy. Samuel Bell talked of intense government and royal pressure to recover whatever Ivanov possessed: both feared that in his anxiety to get his Russian relation to the safety of England, King George might have been indiscreet or undiplomatic and that public revelation of the letters could be highly embarrassing.

‘I don't know what else I can do that I haven't already done,' said Bowles during one of their telephone conversations.

‘We've got to recover that correspondence,' insisted the Director General. ‘It's imperative: I don't care how it's done.'

It was a month before the Grand Duke Ivanov called the number Bowles had distributed throughout the Russian community.

‘I appreciate very much your calling,' said Bowles.

‘It's too late,' said Ivanov. ‘Everything's gone.'

‘You're sending young Deedes into Moscow?'

The Director General looked up at his deputy's question. Jeremy Thurlow knew something was wrong deep within the department: Bell wondered how long it would be before the man bypassed him, going directly to someone in higher authority to demand an internal inquiry. Bell said: ‘Yes, that's right.'

‘I thought we might have discussed it first,' complained the deputy.

Bell was curious if the other man had ambitions to succeed him as Director General: he'd never given any indication but Bell guessed the man probably did. ‘It's pretty low-level stuff. Collecting some material.'

‘What sort of material?' persisted Thurlow.

‘Some indication of how the Russians have become so well informed about us lately,' said the Director General, refusing to be specific.

‘Deedes is being pretty open about the trip, around the department,' said the deputy.

Because I told him to be, thought Bell: the snare he'd devised this time had several levels. ‘Do you think that's unwise?'

‘Yes,' said Thurlow. In open challenge he added: ‘I think everything in this department … morale, security, efficiency, everything … is collapsing into a complete disaster.'

The meeting was at the Neuilly apartment to which Bowles had first gone. Like a lot of the Russian homes Bowles had visited, it was a shrine to the past. There were several icons on the wall and a bright brass samovar, the traditional urn in which the Russians brew tea. But mostly there were photographs – dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. All were of the last Russian royal family, in palaces and at balls and on lake and river trips. There were pictures of the Tsar in every conceivable uniform and sometimes not, just in the loose peasant smock and trousers that the man had enjoyed wearing when he was relaxing. As he studied the gallery, Bowles isolated quite a few pictures of the Tsar and Tsarina aboard a yacht with King George V during a visit to England long before the revolution. There were also some of the Tsar with a person who looked like Grand Duke Ivanov, but Bowles was uncertain. The age made it impossible anyway.

The Grand Duke and Duchess appeared to have dressed for the meeting. He was immaculate in black, she in a long white afternoon dress, buttoned high to the neck. They offered tea, although not from the samovar, which Bowles accepted. He waited to be invited before sitting, wanting to accord them the respect they might once have had. When he began talking he first apologized for the old man's treatment at the embassy.

Ivanov waved his hand dismissively. ‘It was hurtful, but as it's turned out perhaps fortunate.'

‘You had other letters, sir,' prompted Bowles. ‘A large bundle, the clerk remembers.'

Ivanov nodded. ‘Gone,' he said shortly.

Bowles felt a stomach dip of apprehension:
the other side are after them,
he thought. ‘How?' he asked. ‘How have they gone?'

‘I had no choice!' said the old man defensively. ‘Anyone would have done what I did!'

‘Tell me,' coaxed Bowles.

Instead of replying directly Ivanov pointed to the photographs featuring the Tsar and the man in whom Bowles thought there was a resemblance. ‘My father,' said Ivanov, solving the uncertainty. ‘Ours was once one of the most famous and powerful families in Russia. Not just courtiers to the Tsars: confidants, friends. Most of the court ran, when the revolution happened. Not my father. He sent me and my mother here to safety, but he stayed: was close to the Tsar throughout his imprisonment, before they took him away to be killed …'

Ivanov trailed to a halt, head forward on his chest, and Bowles thought how frail he looked. Abruptly he resumed: ‘My father guessed what was going to happen. Pleaded with the Tsar to try to escape but his heir, the Tsarevich Alexei, was too ill. And then there was the Tsarina and all the daughters: too many to get away. But the Tsar ordered my father to go. To sneak away and try to guide the White Russian army to where they were being held, at Ekaterinburg, so they could all be rescued. My father did not want to go but the Tsar ordered it …'

Once more Ivanov stopped talking. Bowles was desperate to interrupt, to ask questions, but knew it would be a mistake to break the narrative.

‘… The Tsar gave my father things,' resumed the old man. ‘Mementos … some jewellery, to finance our life here. And the letters. My father always thought the Tsar knew what was going to happen and entrusted him with the correspondence to stop it being seized …'

‘Your father escaped?' asked Bowles, risking a question at last.

Ivanov nodded again. ‘And made his way to the White Russian army. It was too late, of course. By the time he reached them, the Tsar was dead. The Tsarevich, too. My father got here, eventually. Lived here all our lives, except when the Nazis came, during the last war.'

‘The letters,' reminded Bowles.

‘There were a lot, between the Tsar and your King,' said the Grand Duke. ‘Copies of what the King had written to Lenin, too. The King offered to ransom our entire royal family, finance the revolution, for their freedom. Which wasn't all he offered. Lenin was fighting the Germans, too, don't forget. The King talked of finding a way to supply arms to the Bolsheviks: there was even a suggestion it might be possible secretly to send army units, to fight alongside Lenin's soldiers.'

Bowles felt physically hot at the thought of the uproar such revelations would cause if they were ever made public. He said: ‘This was the correspondence you wanted to hand in to our embassy?'