“I understand, Colonel Andreyev.”
Andreyev said blandly, “Good, good! Then we shall make a start, and hope not to keep you here for too long.” The Russian leaned back in his chair; Shaw could no longer see even his outline, and the voice seemed to float out at him from space, the blank space behind the light. Andreyev asked, softly now, “Will you please explain what you are doing in Russia, Mr Cane?”
Shaw shrugged. “Don’t you know that already?”
“I wish for you to say for yourself, Mr Cane.”
“I’m a tourist, that’s all. You know I was aboard that coach — after all, that’s how I came to be parted from my papers.”
“Yes,” Andreyev said silkily, “I do know that — naturally. I wish for your assurance that you came to Russia for no other purpose than for a holiday. Tourist… this is a term capable of a very wide interpretation.”
Shaw said, “You have that assurance.”
“Good! And your name?”
“You know that too. Cane… Stephen Edward Jessop Cane—”
“This is your true baptismal name?”
“It is—”
“You have no aliases?”
“None, but if I were a spy you wouldn’t really expect me to tell you, would you?”
Andreyev laughed. “I should perhaps ask you to bear in mind that this conversation is being recorded on tape. Any lies now will rebound later. Perhaps I should also point out that I am a member of the KGB — the Committee of State Security — and not merely the MVD. Now — what had you to do with the crash in which two of our men were killed?”
Steadily Shaw, who had been rocked to find he was confronted with the KGB, said, “Nothing whatever. If you doubt my word you can ask any of the other passengers.”
“Naturally this will be done. For now, I wish to hear the story of the crash, and of events leading up to it, in your own words. I wish a very full description with nothing left out, Mr Cane.”
Shaw obliged. Andreyev seemed satisfied with his statement. By now, the Russian would have had the story telephoned through from Minsk and so would be in a position to make his own running check of many of the details. When Shaw had finished, there was silence from behind the fight and then, suddenly and brusquely, Andreyev changed his approach, his manner becoming threatening and hostile. “Why did you leave the coach and run away?” he demanded.
“I left the coach for obvious reasons,” Shaw snapped back at him. “Would you, if you were capable of movement, hang around in a smashed up vehicle that for all you knew might go up in flames at any minute? Wouldn’t you want to get out of a possible death-trap?”
“It is not I who have to answer that,” Andreyev pointed out. “You are the one under interrogation. What I or anyone else would do is not evidence. Why then did you not give yourself up when our troops began the search?”
“I was muzzy from a crack on the head,” Shaw said patiently. “Miss MacKinlay was hurt too — you can see for yourself she’s got a pretty nasty bruise on her forehead. Once I was in the open I found myself stumbling about in the dark, off the road. It was sheer instinct that got me out of the coach, I think. Anyway, the next thing I remember much about was the arrival of a police car, and some lorries… and the shooting started. I’m still not quite clear as to the sequence of events. Anyway, I was scared and I suppose I panicked. I didn’t want to get in line with those bullets, Colonel Andreyev… and I had an idea, too, that I might be blamed in some way for the crash—”
“Why?”
“Well, certainly not because I had anything to do with it, as I’ve told you. Just because I was one of the party. For all I knew I could be the only one left alive — or rather, Miss Mac-Kinlay and I might be the last two. I thought we might be made to carry the can, if you follow my meaning. I told you — I panicked!” Shaw was sweating, acting up hard. “I can’t analyze my reasons, Colonel. I can see now that I should have perhaps called out, and given myself up, but that wasn’t the way I saw it then.”
“It would have been wiser, yes,” Andreyev agreed. He paused and there were sounds of a drawer being opened. “Now, Mr Cane. We have your passport… in order to establish that you are indeed who you say you are, you will now answer some personal questions. Your passport tells me you are a civil servant.” The disembodied voice seemed to batter now at Shaw’s tired brain. “What department of the Civil Service?”
“Ministry of Defence. Navy accounts Division.”
“Section?”
“Officers’ pensions.”
“The name of your section leader?”
“I’m in the executive grade. I have section leaders under me.” He was thankful for an exhaustive briefing on Cane.
“Their names?”
“Carter, Harrington, Nasmith, Clutterbuck, Walsh—”
“Your next superior?”
“Hawthorne, Mr John Hawthorne.”
“This will all be checked through our London agencies, Mr Cane. You are married, or single?”
“Married, as you can—”
“Your wife’s name?”
“Ethel… Ethel Mary.”
“Children?”
“One girl, May.”
“Address?”
“167, Derrickford Way, Twickenham, Middlesex.”
“Have you at any time been asked to carry out special duties for your Government?”
“By special duties,” Shaw asked, “Do you mean spying?”
“You may choose your own word, Mr Cane.”
“Then the answer’s no, never.”
“Not even,” came the insistent voice, “to report back on what you have seen dining holidays abroad… for instance, inside the Soviet Union?”
Shaw shook his head. “Certainly not. I’ve never been in Russia before anyhow, Colonel Andreyev. I told you — this is just a holiday. I assure you there are absolutely no strings attached.”
“What was your reason for coming to Russia?”
This, Shaw thought, is where I came in… He said with some heat, “If you mean why choose to come to Russia for a holiday I would agree there are more hospitable countries in the world! But it so happens I’m interested in Russia, as, in fact, many of us in the West are. Your country’s always in the news — in fact it makes a good deal of the news, doesn’t it?” He lifted his arms. “There’s a feeling of… history in the making. Besides, it appeals to me to see the Communist world in action, on its own ground.”
“Yes, I see.” There was a long pause after that; the only sounds to break the heavy silence were the slight shuffling of the MVD troopers’ feet in the background, the sound of their breathing, the creak of leather belts. Andreyev himself was still invisible and totally silent behind the concealing light, the light that was sending shafts of pain now through Shaw’s inflamed eyes. Then Andreyev said, “Very well, Mr Cane. Now we shall delve a little deeper into your personal history. First of all, tell me the names of your parents and grandparents…”
It went on for another four hours.
Question after question, each hard on the heels of the one before. Questions about family, home and friends, about relations, about Ethel Mary Cane’s relations and connections. The date, time, and place of their wedding, how long they had been engaged, where was the child bom. Questions, apparently at random in the middle of all this and in between chunks of Turkish delight, about his work and the people he worked with, about his contacts with higher permanent officials and with junior members of the Government. There were also other questions — ones about his interests and pastimes and what books he read — things that didn’t appear to Shaw, as an experienced agent, to have the remotest bearing on the actual matter in hand. But he was growing more and more apprehensive as the time dragged past, for somewhere in the top-security files of the Soviet Union, there must be a very full dossier on the activities of Commander Esmonde Shaw, formerly of the old Naval Intelligence Division, together with an ample physical description — and maybe even photographs. Agents could never be certain they hadn’t been photographed by men or women with miniature cameras concealed about their persons. If this probing went on much longer, then certain things might begin to emerge and certain similarities between Stephen Cane and Esmonde Shaw might be remarked upon…