Hanley was doubtful, but F.J. seized on the idea immediately, and persuaded Hanley to incorporate it into his plans. By late 1968 the reorganization was complete. D Branch became K Branch, which was split into two separate units KX, which handled all investigative work, and had its own director on the Board, and KY, which was responsible for order of battle and operations, also with its own director. KX incorporated D1 (Investigations) and much of the old D3, and comprised three sections Kl and K2, which were Soviet and satellite investigating sections, K3, which was now a research section cut out of D3, a section servicing the investigation sections, and a new unit, K7, charged with sole responsibility for investigating allegations of penetration of the Intelligence Services. KY comprised K4, order of battle, K5, which was agent running and operations, and K6, which assumed responsibility for all security assessments and compiling the specialist records, ministerial briefings, special indexes, and record collection which previously had been under my control in D3.
Duncum Wagh was the first officer appointed to head K7. He was a good choice - a sensible, levelheaded officer who was always thorough in his reasoning and, once his mind was made up, doubly impressive in justifying his proposed course of action. His career had suffered unduly from his mistake in clearing Houghton after his wife's complaint ten years previously. But solid hard work, some of it on my Moscow Embassy Working Party, had earned him a major chance, and K7 was certainly that. He was supported by a forceful ex-marine officer named John Day. I strongly advised that nobody involved in the penetration issue to date should work in K7.
I had one meeting with Duncum Wagh, and handed over to him everything in my safe which related to FLUENCY - all the records from my own freelance inquiries into Hollis' background, my analyzes of the Lonsdale case, some work on the middling-grade agent It was only when he took them that I realized what a burden those small green combination boxes had been all those years.
"Here," I said, "it's your problem now, thank God!"
I had very little to do with K7 in the early days. Neither Duncum Wagh nor John Day wanted me around, for fear it would prejudice their own freedom of maneuver and credibility, and I understood that. I did introduce John Day to Blunt, and talked again through the whole question of why he had been allowed to leave MI5 by the Russians in 1945. Blunt always thought it was odd.
"I think if they had pressured me, I probably would have stayed on, at least for a bit. I loved the work, and adored Guy Liddell and Dick White, and I expect I could still have pursued my art but they never asked me."
Blunt could shed no light on whether there was already a replacement for him in the office, although he knew that was what concerned us. We showed him the VENONA message with the eight cryptonyms. But they meant nothing to him. The only fragment he had was a lunch he attended with Guy Burgess and Graham Mitchell at the Reform Club. It was clearly another looking-over session, but as to whether Guy had actually made an approach, Blunt claimed he knew nothing. A little later I was told that John Day had interrogated Mitchell at long last, and they were quite satisfied he was in the clear. As I always suspected, it came down to Hollis.
For a long time I heard nothing. Then one day John Day came to see me. He brought with him the first K7 report on high-level penetration. It concluded categorically that Hollis was the best candidate, and recommended his immediate investigation and interrogation.
"I always thought you saw reds under the beds," said John Day after I had read the report, "but I wanted to tell you that I think you were right all along."
This time there was no escape - not for myself, for F.J., or for the man in the black suit playing golf in quiet retirement in the Somerset village of Calcott.
It would have been nice to have crowned my career with a triumph. It would have been nice to have solved the riddle. Better he was innocent than the continuing uncertainty. But the secret world is not so simple, and at the end the shadows remained, as dense as before, shrouding the truth.
One morning in 1969 I made my way up to a small operations room in what had once been the D3 offices. The desk earphones whispered gently as A2 technicians checked the microphones in our safe house in South Audley Street. For them it was another day, another interrogation, but for me it was the final act in a ten-year drama. The brief lay on the table, as big as a thick telephone directory. On the inside front cover was the curious single word "Drat," Hollis' code name. It was issued to me years before, when I was doing my D3 private inquiries, by the small office in B Branch which allocated cover names. I laughed at the time. "Drat" seemed so absurd. I never realized what pain would be associated with it.
Anne Orr-Ewing was an extremely thorough officer who had risen from the Transcription Department to D3 as a research officer before joining K7. The K7 case was substantially the same as my own freelance inquiries of 1965 and 1966. It was more detailed, of course. They had access to Hollis' Record of Service, and had traced and interviewed his contemporaries at Oxford, searched the Shanghai Special Branch records, but no crucial proof had been found. In the end, as always, it came down to a matter of belief.
A small white envelope inviting Hollis back up to the office was sent a few days before the interrogation. The final plans were laid. There was a row, too, of course. We assumed that Hollis would be placed under continuous surveillance during the period of the interrogation, in case, like Blake, he panicked and made a move to contact his Russian controllers, if he had any. But F.J. would have none of it. He gave no reasons, but we could tell by his face that he was immovable. Even Hanley protested about this, pointing out to F.J. that he had not been spared the full works. But F.J. felt he had been backed into a corner in sanctioning the interrogation, and this was a final indignity he was not prepared to impose on his predecessor.
John Day was told to conduct the interview. Anne Orr-Ewing and I were to listen in to provide analysis as the interrogation proceeded. F.J. knew he was too committed on the subject to be a fair choice, and he realized that, after so many years' delay, he had to be seen to be allowing the troops their chance.
A door opened in South Audley Street. Hollis was shown in.
"Where do you want me?" he asked, his familiar voice still strong after all the years.
John Day began to explain the procedure of the interview.
"Yes, I'm familiar with the procedure... but I need pencil and paper, if you please."
I tried to imagine the scene in the room in South Audley Street. I could see Hollis in there, sitting upright. I rather thought he would miss his desk. Of course the pencils would be essential. And he would be wearing his Cheshire cat smile. Would he feel humiliated? I wondered. Or frightened? I somehow doubted it. Emotion was never something I associated with him. I remembered something he always used to say to me.