The Other Side of Silence

“Look, we all know that there’s an easy way to prove who’s telling the truth here,” I said. “We should both agree to write down two names at the same time. Then you can decide for yourself what her real intentions are here, gentlemen. To help, or to hinder. If these names are not under some suspicion in the British secret service, then I’ll be the one facing a midnight boat trip, not her. I’ve already put up my hands to everything of which I’ve been accused. So, I’ve nothing at all to lose, have I? Can this beautiful lady honestly say the same?”

The monk handed me a pencil and a sheet of paper. “Very well,” he said. “I’m going to do what she’s been urging me to do for several minutes. To call your bluff. Write it down, Gunther. Write down the names. But woe betide you if you’re wrong, my German friend.”

“With pleasure.”

I tore the sheet of paper in half, wrote the name JOHN CAIRNCROSS, and handed it to the monk.

“This first man has already confessed to being a Soviet spy,” I said. “However, his name is not yet known outside of MI6. So I couldn’t possibly have known about him unless someone in the HVA had told me. Agreed?”

The monk read the name and passed it to one of his colleagues.

I prepared to write the second name, uncertain now of how to spell it. English has such peculiar, idiosyncratic spellings. The Christian name was short and obvious. But the surname was something else, like a type of felt hat beloved of English gentlemen. If I made a muck of it I was a dead man, without question. For a second or two I considered beginning the name with an “F” but changed my mind and, praying that Maugham had not mentioned to the spymasters my having listened to the conversation of Sinclair and Reilly while I was up on the roof, I wrote it with a “Ph,” like Philip. When I finished, I handed the paper back to the monk. On it was written the name KIM PHILBY.

“I suspect,” I said, “that restoring the reputation of this second man was, perhaps, what this operation was always all about.”

The monk looked at the name without betraying a flicker of recognition and then showed it to his two colleagues, whose reactions were equally gnomic.

“Now then, Miss French, I wonder if you’d mind doing the same as Herr Gunther,” said the monk, handing her the pencil and another piece of paper. “Take your time. But write down the names of anyone who was spying for the KGB in MI6, if you can.”

Anne stared at me for a moment with tight-lipped malevolence. Her early cool demeanor was gone; she’d even started biting her thumbnail.

“I already told you,” she said evenly. “Are you deaf? I don’t know the name of any Soviet agents in MI6.” She tossed the pencil away and crushed the paper into a ball, which she now threw at me. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, can I? He’s lying. Neither of us knows the name of any Soviet agents in MI6.”

“Anne French ought to be the one person you people can trust because she’s already betrayed the HVA’s Hollis operation to you,” I said. “And, of course, it’s perfectly understandable that you should trust her. Christ, I know I would. Anyone would. At great personal risk she’s told you everything about Othello and in considerable detail. That’s undeniable. Did you hear me deny it for very long? No. I’ve confirmed it and so has Harold Hennig. Well, more or less. But if I have supplied the names of two men who’ve been Soviet agents in MI6 and she says she can’t, then where does that leave your opinion of her? And of me? Clearly she’s demonstrated her loyalty to her own country and to you, and yet she says she knows nothing at all about any Soviet agents in MI6. It’s puzzling.” I looked at her and smiled kindly. “You might as well tell them, Anne. I really don’t think that either one of those names is going to be such a surprise to them.”

“Fuck you,” she hissed.

“You already did, sweetheart. In bed. Several times. And then in here. But do let me know if I’ve forgotten somewhere else.”

THIRTY-TWO

The thugs from Portsmouth took me back to the red room, only this time they didn’t chain my hand to the radiator, or leave the light on, or even hit me, for which I was grateful. So I wandered round the room for a while, for the exercise, stood at the window, opened it, and then pushed at the louvered shutters. I was glad of the fresh air, but the shutters themselves didn’t shift a centimeter, not even with all my weight against the center gap. It was dark outside and I had no idea what time it was. I could hear and smell the sea and I longed to be outside. I felt sick and terribly tired. My jaw still ached and I was longing for a bath.

“Be careful what you wish for, Gunther,” I said to myself. “They might take you for a bath in the sea. The kind of bath for which you won’t need any soap. Just a pair of concrete overshoes.”