“Because he’s a true believer, Mrs. Digby. He’s a Communist through and through. He’s not doing it for money, he’s doing it to save the world, and I haven’t got a chance of talking him to our side. You’re the only one who can.”
Iris knit her hands in her lap and stared out the window. The shops passed by—the dour side streets—the war-weary dome of the Coronet cinema on Notting Hill Gate. They started down the hill, poor bombed-out Holland House somewhere to the left, behind its brick walls and overgrown parkland. The air outside was dense and warm, like it wanted to rain but couldn’t, and the atmosphere inside the cab was even more humid. The taxi slowed to turn left down Abbotsbury Road. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, as if to ask Mr. Fox a question. Fox nodded his head, just barely. The taxi turned and trundled down the road.
“I realize you’ve got a lot to think over,” said Fox. “I sympathize with your predicament, I really do. But it’s a fix of his own making, you see? Digby did some extraordinary work for us during the war—saved a lot of men. His record in Switzerland is the stuff of legend. I mean that. But he’s also carried our innermost secrets into the heart of the Soviet government, Stalin himself, and maybe the Soviets were our allies a couple of years ago, but you have to understand, you have to realize that what’s shaping up now is the most fundamental clash of two different ways of life that we’ve seen since classical times.”
“What do you know about classical times?” Iris said bitterly.
“If you knew, Mrs. Digby. If you knew what they’re doing inside that country, it would turn your blood cold. If he doesn’t defect, they’ll kill your husband without a second thought. They will. And they’ll kill you and your children, if they think it’s necessary. And if he does defect as their man, why, you either stay behind in London and never see him again—your children never see their father again—or else you go with him and spend the rest of your life as a citizen of the Soviet Union. And I guarantee, you’ll never set foot outside Russia again.”
Oakwood Court loomed before them. The driver turned right and pulled around the drive to the entrance to number 10. The car stopped.
“You have my card, Mrs. Digby. We’ll be keeping watch in the meantime. But I’d advise you not to wait too long. It’s likely they’ve already made the offer, through Burgess.”
For some reason, Iris felt reluctant to leave the taxi and the warm, confidential voice of Mr. Fox. There was something reassuring about him, thick and rawboned as he was.
She reached for the door handle. It opened without any difficulty.
“Thanks so much for your advice, Mr. Fox,” she said, and climbed out of the taxi.
Later, Iris would realize that she first sensed something amiss in the lobby, because the porter wasn’t there in his usual station. Maybe she thought he was helping another resident with a heavy package or something—maybe she didn’t take conscious note of his absence. What happened next shocked her so deeply, she would only piece together the various memories—start to make sense of them—when the passing of time allowed her to examine them more objectively.
She would remember climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift—not because of some strategic decision but mere animal instinct. She would remember she was a little out of breath by the time she reached the fourth-floor landing, almost nauseated. She would remember the door was ajar, and feeling irritated at Sasha for undoing her careful work in locking it. She would remember realizing, in the next instant, that something wasn’t right. The door wasn’t unlocked, after all—the lock itself was broken—the fresh, splintered wood lay on the floor beneath it.
Still she pushed the door open, because she had to. She couldn’t allow anyone else to discover what lay behind that door before she did. Where did she find this resolve? She would never understand. She heard a whimper just before she saw the bodies on the floor. It came from Sasha, sitting upright against the wall. He held a gun in his trembling hand.
Sprawled on the parquet floor were two men. The first one, in the foyer, she didn’t recognize.
The second, in the hallway—facedown in a pool of blood—was Philip Beauchamp.
Three
If I had the choice between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the courage to betray my country.
—E. M. Forster
Lyudmila
July 1952
Moscow
Lyudmila always arrives early at Moscow Centre, just as soon as she’s dropped off Marina at school. While the headquarters of the Soviet intelligence service is naturally busy at all hours, for some reason there’s a lull between seven and nine in the morning, as the night shift transitions to the day shift, and Lyudmila can pass through the doors and up the stairs (she always takes the stairs) and down the corridors to her office without the friction of other human beings. She can make herself some tea and work quietly, quietly, at her small ugly metal desk in her small ugly room the color of peas, where she can hear herself think.
Marina, of course, is now old enough to make her own way to school. She can take the bus, or she can take the subway. She’s always been one of those competent, independent children, probably because she has no father and no siblings, and also because that’s just her nature—to think for herself. Lyudmila’s grateful for this self-sufficiency, but it makes her uneasy. Sometimes it feels like a powerful bomb that might detonate at any minute, and then where would Lyudmila be?
So she and Marina make their way to school together. Lyudmila watches her daughter swing confidently—too confidently!—through the iron gates and then the doors themselves. Sometimes she hails a friend, which startles Lyudmila. These friends—who are they? How is it possible that Marina daily enters a world to which Lyudmila doesn’t belong? Naturally she’s seen all their parents’ files. She knows their histories intimately. But it’s not the same as friendship. How does Marina trust all these friends? How can she be so worldly and yet so innocent of human nature? It falls to Lyudmila to keep her safe. Lyudmila carries the burden of suspicion for both of them. Today Lyudmila stands a few extra seconds outside the school, even after Marina disappears inside. In a week, the term will end and Marina will go off to youth camp for the first time, and for some reason Lyudmila wants to hold on to this moment, to these last few days of Marina’s last school year before the state starts to pull her away from Lyudmila and turn her into a good Soviet citizen.
Then she turns and makes her way to the familiar concrete block that houses Moscow Centre. Ordinarily she spends this time reviewing the day ahead, sinking her mind into the vast complex machinery of her job, but today—today of all days!—she can’t seem to focus herself on the HAMPTON case, which has obsessed her so exclusively for the past month. Instead she thinks of the day she took Marina to nursery for the first time—the chasm that opened up in her chest at the sight of those round blue uncomprehending eyes watching her go. She remembers how she arrived at her desk that morning to discover the news, delivered in a few spare words on a slip of telegram, that Marina’s father had died of dysentery in the Siberian labor camp to which he had been sentenced, just three days before he was due to be furloughed out to the army in its last-ditch defense of Moscow against the Wehrmacht.