“Now that I’m here,” the other man said, “you might as well fill me in on our good Dr Markham. The newspaper reports put me in a better mind about him. His Churchill biography, though, was a farrago of the most revolting nonsense. I got as far as his take on the July Crisis, and then threw the book away.”
“Oh, come now, Michael,” Macmillan protested. “He’s not that bad. “He’s just naively patriotic, and, for a half-babu, he doesn’t write a bad sentence. Why not just admit you’re jealous, Michael. After all, his sales, I think, are three or four times those of your Stalin hagiography—and he doesn’t have your advantage of a captive market!”
There was a grunted response to this. But I didn’t hear it for my own sudden sharp inward breath. This brought a savage jab from Krellburger, and I had to stop myself from yelping. But, now it was no longer needed for identification, the two men drifted over towards the fireplace. As Macmillan filled two tumblers from a decanter and topped both up with water, I found myself looking from behind at the long, unkempt hair of what could only be Michael Foot—since his colleagues had disappeared in Moscow, sole leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Foot stubbed his cigarette out with vicious energy and threw himself into the one armchair beside the fire. Ignoring the whisky Macmillan was holding out, he lit another cigarette and stretched out both legs.
“Your call wasn’t exactly convenient,” he snapped. “We’ve a demonstration planned for Monday against the fascist octopus. I should be working on my speech. Still, since I surmised that our joint and several interests might best be served by coming straight down here, I’ll be glad to know what went wrong in New York, and what has gone worse ever since. You did assure me it would all go like clockwork. From what I gather of the resulting triumph, I see I should have put my own people in charge.” He now took the offered tumbler and sipped at its contents. Macmillan pulled up another chair and sat opposite.
“So far as I can tell,” he opened in the mournful voice he used for putting off awkward questions, “the agent put in place by the Rand people was betrayed. Instead, Markham was taken through New York by someone else. This someone else was then able to get the airship to use up its entire fuel on a faster crossing. That meant Markham and his boxes couldn’t be nabbed in Croydon. As for the people you lent me, they made a mess of things at his flat—twice, I might add! And I won’t mention the idiot who followed him onto the train. I have no idea what instructions they were given. But, if that’s a fair sample of what your men can do, I nearly wish I’d gone looking for my own heavy muscle.
“All this, however, is by the bye. What matters is that our Winston sheets are currently being taken off to Germany by a darkie with a bag of money. All very unsatisfactory, you’ll agree. But I can’t think how anyone with that colour face would get far in England without being spotted by your people.”
“But Harold, don’t be shy,” Foot sneered, “Do tell me who is this Someone Else. Since you and Heath control the security services, I was given to suppose we might be reasonably safe. Or is Butler already getting his feet under the table?”
“My guess it’s one of young Powell’s men at the India Office,” came the muttered reply. “What I still don’t understand is how they’ve got the police dancing to their tune.”
“So Enoch Powell is on to us?” Foot cried, jumping up. “Well, that does explain the manhunt! I should have known not to listen to your lunatic scheme. Can you imagine what credit I’ve used up in Moscow to push things along? We’re already riding piggy back on an American fascist conspiracy, and using a courier who, for all he’s a pisspoor historian, has shown a remarkable capacity for staying alive. Now you tell me that spies from the India Office are crawling all over us. If you’ll pardon the vulgarity, Harold, this is a right fucking disaster. I’m more than three quarters inclined to get straight back in that car and get myself tout bloody suite to Moscow. Even in that snake pit, I’ll be better off than with Powell on my back.”
“Come, come, old boy,” Macmillan said in his reassuring voice. “Come, come, dearest Michael. I won’t try glossing over the unfortunate turn that events appear to have taken. But all we have to do is bring the plan forward a little. I know it was agreed for a May detonation. But can things be got ready at your end for next Monday? With Halifax still pottering about in Africa, even Powell can’t move that quickly. For my part, I’m already getting my own people together for Saturday evening.”
“I’m not happy about this,” Foot replied. “It’s plain that everyone is spying on everybody else, and the result stinks.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I should be jumping ship while I can. Then again, what more should I have expected? I believe it was in his The Possessed that Dostoyevsky wrote how, in any conspiracy of three or more people, there would be at least one fanatic, one fool, and one informer. I know what I am. I hope I know what you are. For the rest, I can only trust that you really will be able to work too fast, and under too much protection, for your enemies to put a stop to your little game.”
There was a long silence. Foot lit another cigarette. Macmillan fiddled nervously with his tobacco pouch. I could hear my own breathing. I could almost smell the triumph that Krellburger must have been enjoying, now I couldn’t deny the awful truth about his employer. If he wasn’t lying now to Michael Foot—and I didn’t think he was—everything he’d told me over dinner was a lie. There was no German plot. That Jew Greenspan, who’d been shot in New York, wasn’t working for us. Stanhope, on the other hand, was probably with the Indian Secret Service. It had been Macmillan and Foot who were trying to kill me in my flat and on the railway train.
But why hadn’t Stanhope just taken the Churchill Memorandum when he’d had the chance? What was going on? Who was Krellburger?
Put me behind a desk with a mountain of paper, and I’d make sense of it. Fanciful secondary sources, lying memoirs, bought newspaper stories, speeches, letters, and all the rest—I could sort through these and get at something like the truth. Looking through that slit at the conversation below, and it all just crowded in on me. What was it that Macmillan needed so badly of Foot? It was beyond me. But I tried to clear my mind and turn myself to the immediate conversation. It might make sense later. For the moment, I knew that I had to listen and try to remember all that was said.
Below me, the silence went on and on. Suddenly, Foot laughed. He laughed until his body shook. Macmillan lit his pipe and looked over at the decanters. Still laughing. Foot stretched forward and pushed a poker in the still glowing embers of the fire. He only stopped for a long coughing fit that made me almost think he’d bring up one of his lungs.
“For the past three months,” he gasped, “you’ve been dragging things out. First, it was more time needed to infiltrate and control the Rand people. Then you were insisting on more time once we’d reassembled the document.” He coughed again and clutched his side. “But, if you think you can bring Halifax down next week and get yourself in his shoes, I think I can see to our side of the bargain.” There was now a long coughing fit. “I suppose we can kill the babu once we’ve laid hands on his friend? Unless Powell has given a tissue of lies to the press, he doesn’t sound the sort of creature one should leave hanging about.”