Quiller KGB

Cell Block D. 26–50.

'Here we are, sir.'

We stopped. The guard went in first, then I followed.

'Scarsdale, here's Mr Ash to see you. Now I'll be waiting outside. You need me for anything, sir, you just give me a call.' His voice lowered to give a semblance of confidence, though the man in the cell could still hear him.

'He’s not violent,' they'd told me in Final Briefing.

That was only an hour ago; I'd come here straight from the Bureau and the car was waiting for me outside.

Shepley had given me Pauling, a dry, thin, former executive who'd been taken off the active list because he'd got too close to the edge a couple of times and it had fried his nerves.

'In fact he's rather mild, though you may find him obstinate. His name's John Bryant Scarsdale and he'd been with MI5 nearly six years before he was caught at Victoria Station with a brown paper shopping bag full of photocopies one night when someone tipped them off.' Pauling was reading from a file. 'Tried at the Old Bailey in November last year, convicted on all nine charges. Lord Lansworth said, and I quote, "It is quite plain to me that you are a dangerous man. You have disclosed the identities of certain British agents working in Moscow, and it has quite probably led to their death or imprisonment. That, of course, is quite apart from the irreparable damage you have done to your country's safety." Unquote. Some of the stuff found at his flat in Croydon was so sensitive that even the Attorney General, who prosecuted the case, didn't have the security clearance to see it.'

Pauling tugged a drawer open and shook a pill from a box and palmed it into his mouth. 'You know what happened, of course, with MI5 a while ago — people complained that they were an upper-class club, and the PM told them to draw recruits from all walks of life. It didn't work with Scarsdale. His father was a factory worker and he didn't feel at ease in the company of what he called «toffs» — now isn't that a lovely old-fashioned word? That's what turned him bolshie, it seems. He told his interrogators that the Soviet system appreciated people like him, with "an honest, working-class background". Do you want to take notes?'

'No. What did they think of him in Moscow?'

'It's rather interesting. He did a specific job for them, which I think was quite valuable. He gave them a list of the known Soviet agents in Britain, so that they'd know who their unknown agents were. But he fumbled the ball on other assignments, and unintentionally got one of their embassy contacts arrested when he was taking a brush pass from Scarsdale in the Piccadilly Hotel. They finally got fed up and tipped us off about him. I — '

'The Bureau?'

'No, the Secret Service. Scarsdale had asked to meet a Soviet agent in Zurich when he was on a cheap tourist trip, and they thought we were trying to plant him on them as a double. That's how he was picked up at Victoria station with a bag full of photocopies: the KGB made a fake rendezvous and never turned up. Now that's about all we've got on him, but — ' the phone rang and he reached for it '- but you can check with Records if you like. Excuse me. Hello? Yes, sir.' He passed me the phone. 'Mr Shepley.'

'Quiller,' I said.

'Yes, I've given some thought to your idea of releasing Major-General Solsky. It's a big risk, but I like your thinking and I'm going to agree to it. You're still of the same mind?'

'Yes. It's going to make our credit good, if we need to cash in.' I didn't tell him that a hostage was even less useful now, because if they got me into a corner I'd be better off vanishing into a safe-house than relying on mutual trust.

'Very well. I'll talk to him personally and tell him why he's being released. Is your clearance going well?'

'Perfectly.'

'Do you want to see me again before you leave?'

'Not really.'

'Then I wish you Godspeed.'

When I put the phone down Pauling handed me a briefing wallet. 'Colonel Viktor Yasolev's personal dossier. About your cover — it'll be watertight, as long as the KGB play straight. They've got a lot of influence, of course, with the East German secret police, but they're still alien overlords and they can't trust the HUA. However, there's a reliable captain in Berlin whose name is Karl Bruger. Your own cover is that of an HUA captain on leave of duty, and you'll pick up your identity papers over there from Cone, who's directing you in the field. If at any time your cover is questioned, Captain Bruger will support you.'

'Fair enough.' Bruger, not Yasolev. That was my own doing: I'd said I didn't want any overt connection with the KGB while I was working the mission.

'Any other business?'

'No.' I'd got all I needed from Clearance.

'Good luck with Scarsdale.'

Short, round-shouldered, his body sunk into prison denims a size too big, standing in a kind of crouch as if he'd just been hit, didn't expect me to shake hands, already seemed to have forgotten the customs of polite society, was waiting for me to speak, his eyes wary.

'How long have you been in?'

He didn't seem to have heard, or perhaps he'd lost track of time and didn't remember. He looked pinched, cold, abandoned.

'Month.'

A month. And it had done this to him.

'How long are you in for?'

His face flinched.

'Thirty years.'

Never make it.

'It's good of you to see me,' I said.

'What?'

He didn't seem to realise he could have refused, that he had any rights at all, any claim even to his own soul. In the middle of life he'd had what amounted to a terrible accident, and it had flung him into this place and left him here, forsaken, while the world went on its way. A dangerous man, the lord chief justice had called him. And his own most ruthless enemy.

'I believe you had some dealings with Hood.'

His breath came out with a jerk as if I'd hit him, and he turned away but left his eyes on me obliquely, watching me from cover. It was so difficult to talk to him that I'd decided to get down to basics, but it'd been too fast.

'I brought you some Mars bars.' I held out the bag. 'They said you're partial, like me.'

He watched the bag as if it had a snake in it. A man had started hinging in one of the cells along the gallery, 'My Wild Irish Rose', I believe it was. Others began shouting at him, and a guard blew a whistle and the man stopped. I wondered why they didn't like it; he had quite a good voice. Perhaps it was too much for them, the thought of a rose, a woman, in a place like this; it could break their hearts.

'Hood?' Scarsdale had turned his head back to look at me full in the face again, a tension in him that I could feel in my nerves.

Very gently I said, 'We want to know where he is.'

In a moment his eyes moved downwards, aware of the paper bag. 'Mars bars?'

'That's right.'

'You brought them for me?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'They said you liked them.'

He took the bag and dropped it onto the bed. 'Are you from the Foreign Office?'

'Yes.'

He turned away suddenly and put his stubby white hands into the pockets of the denims. 'I wouldn't meddle with him if I were you.'

'We just want to know where he is.'

'He's in — ' and he stopped, watching me. 'Why should I tell you that?'

'We might be able to do something in return.'

In a moment, 'Well it'll cost you more than a few Mars Bars.'

There was life coming back into him, a sense of the outside world. I'd given him back his personhood; I wanted something he had.

'If you feel like telling me all you know about Hood, I'll find out what we can do for you.'

'No, it's the other way round. You tell me what you can do for me, then I might give you the information. And I've got a lot.'

'I can't take your word for that. Not with your record.'

It broke him up and he buried his face in his hands and swung to and fro and I thought, shit I'm going too fast again. He'd started to get tough and it had looked as if we could talk business.