Shard Calls the Tune Page 4

  *

  Hedge arrived, bad-temperedly, in Malta some hours after Shard had reached Moscow. He still had no knowledge of when Kolotechin would come; questioning had failed to elicit that from Babic, who manifestly didn’t know, and a number of discreet probes carried out by plants in various Communist bloc embassies in Kensington Palace Gardens and elsewhere had failed to bring out anything about Kolotechin’s movements or indeed of any Soviet mission to Malta. This did not increase Hedge’s confidence that Kolotechin really would be arriving in Malta rather than Naples — Babic could be wrong; and when he had taken his leave of the Head of Security, the latter had seemed bored with the whole proceeding, and Hedge had felt slighted by his indifferent manner. After all, Kolotechin was going to be a very big prize indeed — if he could be landed. Hedge, airborne, comforted himself with the thought that someone in Malta would know the facts; Kolotechin could scarcely arrive with a delegation out of the blue, no arrangements made at all. If no one in Malta knew anything about Kolotechin, then presumably he, Hedge, could shift to Naples. It wasn’t far across the Mediterranean, always assuming there was a plane or a boat.

  Along with a load of British and American tourists spending a holiday on the island, Hedge was put down at Luqa airport, whence he was trundled in a deplorable old bus into Valetta. Set down, Hedge summoned a horse-drawn conveyance and instructed the driver to take him to the British High Commission at 7, Anne Street, in Floriana, which was, he found, back on his tracks. He was drawn through a variety of smells, which included that from goats being milked in the streets, and an apparently interminable ringing of church bells. Priests in black robes beneath round flat black hats hurried everywhere, looking earnestly religious and clasping bibles or prayer-books. Hedge sweated and swatted at flies; Malta was devilish hot and the flies were legion and they tickled. He would much rather have been in Naples; though Naples too might well be hot and afflicted with flies, the atmosphere would be much more congenial. Here in Malta, where for so many years — ever since Nelson, in fact — the British Mediterranean Fleet had held sway and many of the bars were still named after past British battleships and cruisers, Hedge felt an interloper in what had once been part of the Empire. He didn’t like that feeling; he belonged to an Empire-minded generation and to him Mr Mintoff was a disaster. No doubt the Russians were coming to prepare the ground for some kind of take-over, or at least to develop a military and naval base with its rockets and missiles poised against the remnants of British power. Hedge mopped at his face, feverishly. Damn the heat! The horse was old and slow, and its progress between the old sandstone buildings created almost no movement of air to cool Hedge. It would be dreadful to think of the Grand Harbour full of wretched Russian ships flaunting the hammer and sickle upon its blood-red ground. The Labour Government in Whitehall should never have sold out all those years ago. However, there was the bright side to look upon, and resolutely Hedge looked upon it. The bright side was, of course, Kolotechin. What a sock in the eye for the Kremlin! And for the rebellious Maltese, too, if they were pinning their hopes on Russia. Malta would not remain popular with Russia for long if it allowed Kolotechin to get away. Which led to a more morose thought; one that had in fact visited Hedge constantly since the change of venue. The Maltese would do their best to prevent Kolotechin leaving their wretched island, and they would have to be outwitted. Of course, that shouldn’t be difficult; they were a stupid lot.

  Hedge reached the High Commission and sought peremptory audience of the High Commissioner, who had been apprised of his coming but not of the reason for it. Unhappy that he had been withdrawn from his evening gin, the High Commissioner was taciturn and grumpy: the Foreign Office was a damned nuisance and better kept at arms’ length and he had heard of Hedge by repute.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, glancing at the clock on the wall opposite.

  “Just a chat, really, Sir Humphrey.”

  “Oh. May one ask what about?”

  Hedge waved an arm. “How the island’s faring now the last of the British forces have pulled out. Economically and so on, you know.”

  “It’s not booming, let’s say. Plenty of the Maltese would like to see us back.”

  “Ah-ha.” Hedge gave a judicial nod over fingers clasped parsonically before his face. How much to reveal — that was the question. The Head of Security had been non-committal as to how far he should go; not that Sir Humphrey wasn’t to be fully trusted, of course, far from it, he had the complete confidence of the Foreign Office and the government … but one was wise to be careful and all-in-all it would in the current circumstances be better to keep the High Commission out of the taking over of Kolotechin, at any rate unless and until its physical assistance was required, which must be only as a last resort. One would not be popular with the Whitehall powers if one was responsible for getting the High Commission booted out of Malta. So Hedge temporised, and enquired in general terms if the Maltese authorities were known to be courting any foreign countries with a view to obtaining aid of various sorts.

  “They’ve tried a number of Mediterranean countries.”

  “Ah, yes. Others?”

  “By others I suppose you mean Russia.”

  Warmer now! Hedge said, “Well, yes, it’s always a possibility, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps. But I wouldn’t necessarily be told, you know.”

  Hedge cleared his throat. “There are avenues, no doubt —”

  “Avenues?” The High Commissioner gave an unfriendly laugh. “Are you telling me, officially, that I should act the spy?”

  “Oh, most certainly not, most certainly not … nothing was further —”

  “Because that’s not my function. Of course, one does get to hear things. But of their own accord the Maltese are not communicative these days. I’m something of a cipher really … but comfortable.”

  “Yes, quite.” Hedge was seized with a sudden impatience; time was passing and for all he knew Kolotechin might arrive at Luqa at any moment. “But the Russians … if there was a visit planned, a delegation … you’d get to hear?”

  “Oh, I should imagine so, yes.”

  “And you’ve not?”

  “No.”

  Hedge ground his teeth. Damn Babic! The man had very likely got his facts all wrong. What was the transport situation to Naples? Conversation continued, but desultorily, with many glances at the clock on the part of the High Commissioner, who at last was forced to ask if Hedge would care to dine with him at his residence. Hedge thanked him but declined, to the High Commissioner’s relief. He wished, he said, to get the feel of the island and that was best done by going native as it were. He was staying at the Hotel Phoenicia; Sir Humphrey said sardonically that he would find that native all right, but not Maltese native: American.

  “Chock full of tourists with cameras and chewing-gum,” he said. Hedge left the coolness and peace of the High Commission dispiritedly and waylaid another conveyance to take him to the Hotel Phoenicia, where he found the High Commissioner to be only too right. The place — lounges, bars and swimming-pool — swarmed with Americans enjoying themselves loudly, pop, mom and junior, the lot. The clothes, what there were of them, were gaudy; one American with dark glasses and a cigar, which he was chewing rather than smoking, wore bathing trunks of a Union Jack pattern, which was an insult and no doubt intended as such. One woman was briefly topless until she was approached by a Maltese waitress: in Malta, the Church held sway. There was gum everywhere: in rhythmically-moving chops, being blown in filthy balloons from junior’s lips, in dark splodges on the ground, like Piccadilly; the trade mark of the United States, indelible and lasting. Hedge shuddered; a long line of Britain’s admirals and generals must be revolving in their graves. He found, with difficulty, a quiet comer of the bar, right under a shaft of cold air from the forced-draught system, which was probably why it was quiet since draughts in hot climates could lead to stomach upsets, and ordered a small whisky and soda from a waiter. As he sat and gloomed and shudder
ed he became aware of a man on a stool by the bar; a man who was staring at him without appearing to do so and taking a great interest. Something stirred in Hedge’s memory: there was a familiar look but he couldn’t place it. Then the man, who looked like an American but not quite the tourist sort — he was decently dressed in a white double-breasted suit — raised an arm in greeting to some acquaintance across the room and Hedge’s experienced eye caught the unmistakable bulge of a shoulder-holster.

  4

  Shard had been provided with a contact in the British Embassy: a second secretary named Mortimer Moriarty, plump and jovial and not in the least overawed by the grim dead hand of Communism as experienced in its Mecca. “They’re no different from us,” he observed, lighting a cigarette. “Smoke?”

  “Thanks.” Shard took one and Moriarty flicked his gas lighter. Shard said, “I’d have thought there was a good deal of difference. Hughes-Jones, for instance —”

  “Yes, of course. Leave aside a few things like the Lubyanka, and Siberia, and the secret police. That’s just because they’re Eastern. All those things existed long before Lenin, you know. There’s probably less oppression now than under the Tsars, in fact there definitely is, since in the old St Petersburg days the whole of the proletariat was oppressed as a matter of course. You just have to understand them, that’s all, Mr Shard.”

  “Easier said than done!”

  Moriarty shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Just remember they’re human. They go to bed, make love, get up, go to work, have a drink, take a holiday. On the whole, they’re happy. They still have a class structure, too, very rigid, much more so than ours. Those who aren’t in the top class — doctors, writers, teachers, the Party and the military officers — they accept their lot.”

  “And that’s a hangover from the old days, too?”

  “Yes. And I don’t deny the compulsion to accept, the Party discipline that enforces it, nor the guns that back it. To that extent there’s a difference, certainly. Yet it used to be the same in England, don’t forget. Not guns, but the big stick — the threat of the sack.” Moriarty paused, lay back in his chair behind his desk, and blew a trail of cigarette smoke upward towards a high, ornate ceiling. “Hughes-Jones has vicarious memories of those days, you know. In the thirties, his father was one of the unemployed. As a matter of fact, his father marched from Jarrow — the hunger march.”

  “A Welshman, in Jarrow? How come?”

  Moriarty said, “He’d been a miner in the valleys as a young man, but he got out and moved to the north-east and learned a trade in the Jarrow shipyards.” Once again he paused, staring at Shard. “I don’t know if that’s important.”

  “Should it be?”

  “I hope not.”

  Shard, having in mind the fact that the Russians had been working on Hughes-Jones, asked, “Are you suggesting he may have been converted to Communism after all?”

  “It’s possible,” the diplomat answered. “The seeds could have been there — could have been, I’m not saying they were. What I do say is this: contact’s been maintained with him by the Embassy — I’ve visited him myself by kind permission of the Kremlin — and I’m not too sure he wants to be returned to the UK.”

  “Does he know he’s liable to get the chop after the Foreign Secretary leaves for home?”

  “I’ve put it to him as a possibility — and we don’t know for certain that’ll happen, you realise — and he doesn’t believe it, largely because of past approaches from the Party. He knew his release was coming up, and he’s convinced it was to be a genuine one and that he would be given an apartment in Moscow and found a lecturing job. By the Party, you see. As for me, I was in no position to put our view too strongly — too many listening ears. There was a gaoler present, and obviously there would have been bugs as well.”

  Shard nodded.

  “It was difficult enough to put across the execution possibility, but I managed that, I hope with sufficient circumspection. In any case, the Party would be expecting us to have suspicions. I’m not really worried.”

  “And currently? He’s been released already, I take it?”

  “Yesterday. What’s more, he’s been given his apartment — with telephone, which we can assume is tapped. The rooms’ll be bugged, of course, and the apartment is under constant surveillance.”

  “By the Russians, you mean. How about your people?”

  Moriarty said, “Yes, us too, as discreetly as we know how. And I’m under no illusions about the Russians knowing we’re watching. Life’s like that here.”

  “And you said there was no difference,” Shard remarked sourly.

  Moriarty smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re going to have your work cut out, Mr Shard,” he said, “but time’s short. You have two full days after today, no more. Two days to make your contact and nab your man.”

  “Who may be unwilling to leave.”

  “Right. But leave he has to. That’s come through in cipher from Whitehall. Orders from the Prime Minister in person.” Moriarty opened a drawer in his desk. “I don’t know how you’re going to go about this and I won’t ask because I don’t want to know. We don’t come into it, naturally. We have lily white hands vis-à-vis the Russian authorities. Nor can I offer any help beyond this.” He drew a sheet of paper from the drawer and studied it for a moment. “You know Hughes-Jones is married, of course?”

  Shard nodded.

  “What you may or may not know is that his wife Megan has been having an affair with one Evan Evans, who manages the Pentreteg branch of the Western District Building Society.”

  “I see. Does Hughes-Jones know?”

  “Unlikely, I should imagine. It might be worth telling him. He’s very devoted to his wife. I believe he fancies she might join him in Russia.”

  “And it’s believed she won’t?”

  Moriarty smiled blandly. “She’s said to be devoted to Evans the Building Society. Hughes-Jones may well face disappointment when he returns to Wales, but he may decide his presence is required to save the day. You’re free to make what use you can of the information, Mr Shard. Now, a few other matters …”

  *

  Shard left the Embassy under a dead weight of depression and hopelessness. How in God’s name was he ever to make contact with Hughes-Jones who was so diligently watched over? Any approach, either physically or by telephone, must surely lead to the pounce and arrest. The Russians were always efficient at surveillance — there were none better, in fact. They could teach both the Yard and the FO plenty. Shard’s mind darted this way and that, seeking means and solutions. And he had another worry now: according to Moriarty the British Embassy and the Foreign Secretary were standing even farther away from overt involvement than Hedge had led him to expect. Hughes-Jones was not after all to be attached to the official party on its return to Heathrow; Moriarty had passed new orders from on high that he, Shard, was to get the Welshman out of Russia himself, the best and most expeditious way he could. Talk about leaving him on his own; if they got caught, nothing was to rub off on the Embassy or Whitehall. Nothing at all; and those two bastions of the Establishment would take no risks whatsoever.

  On the face of it, the whole thing was impossible, but then so had been virtually all Shard’s past assignments. He gave a wry grin as he walked away along Naberezhnaya Morisa Toreza: a well-worn precept of the British Navy was that the difficult was done at once; the impossible took a little longer. The Foreign Office wasn’t going to lag behind the Navy even though at the moment it faced conditions of fog.

  Walking, Shard kept his sense alert for a tail. That was something you expected in Moscow, especially perhaps if you emerged from the British Embassy; but he failed to identify one. He observed the passing scene: there were not many cars in the street as he’d noted on arrival, but plenty of people moving about their shopping with full baskets. Maybe shortages were a thing of the past now. Shard drifted into an emporium, a large store which could be considered, perhaps, the local equivalent of
Marks and Spencer’s. The place was well stocked and was crowded, and even though the actual variety of wares was not great, the people seemed happy with their purchases, and were relaxed as though thoughts of the secret police were very far away. Leaving the store, Shard walked through to the street where Hughes-Jones’s apartment was — he had been given the address and telephone number by Moriarty — just for a reconnaissance, to get his geography clear in his mind. The street was a good one, fronting onto a well-kept park containing rock gardens bright with plants. But currently that street was in tumult. Uniformed police were in evidence, and they were armed. There was a good deal of shouting, and a surge of a crowd, as though away from the police guns. Shard moved on, but sought the safety of the park. The fracas, he found soon after, was taking place more or less outside the windows of Hughes-Jones’s apartment, which was on the first floor. A face was looking through, a white and very thin face. Hughes-Jones? Could be; the face was not unlike photographs he’d looked at before leaving London. It held a kind of prison pallor. Shard had enough Russian, laboriously acquired since secondment to the Foreign Office, to understand that the row was something to do with Jews. Someone was being arrested, from an apartment next door to Hughes-Jones’s. He was being dragged away now, amid a mounting protest from the crowd, composed it seemed of fellow Jews. A moment later the guns opened; several men and women fell in the roadway, two of them appearing dead with blood gushing from their throats. The crowd dispersed into the park, surrounding Shard. The police remained on guard in the road; stones from the rock garden sped across the bushes, clattering into the road. A few more shots came over at random, but the police made no move into the park, and Shard reckoned he had been given a handy lead. Working fast, he brought out a notebook, scrawled a message on a page, ripped it out, and took up a fair sized chunk of rock. Looking somewhat frantically around, he tore a tough, long-stemmed flower from the earth and bound the sheet of paper as firmly as he knew how to the rock, plaiting the flower-stem to its own part. Then, taking careful aim upon the face that he took to be that of Hughes-Jones, he threw.