The Best of British Crime omnibus Page 5

  ‘That’s still okay with me,’ said Jeff. ‘Any four you like!’

  I asked him what other newspapermen were in Moscow.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there are the agencies, of course. They’re pretty well cut down to skeleton staffs, and there’s darned little for them to send. They don’t live in the hotel – they’ve still got their apartments. There’s actually one other guy with a room in the hotel; he’s British, name of Potts. He’s a curious bird. He’s supposed to have an assignment from one of your magazines, but he spends all his time doing his own private mass observation. I reckon he’s collecting material for an Enquire Within. There’s John Waterhouse, of course, but he’s in a class by himself. And that’s about all, except for the Communists and fellow-travellers.’

  ‘Quite a social whirl you must have.’

  ‘I’ll say! There are some weeks when we actually see a new face.’

  ‘What about the embassies?’

  ‘Oh, they’re cut to the bone too – some of the smaller legations have closed down altogether. It’s partly expense, of course, but I reckon a lot of people are getting out while the going’s good, and I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t fancy spending the Third World War as the prisoner of these ginks… ’ He lit a Lucky and blew smoke savagely across the room. ‘No, it’s been about the loneliest assignment I can remember.’

  ‘You must have found a girlfriend… ?’ I began.

  ‘Ah, sure I’ve got a girlfriend, but – hell, you know how it is here. I like picking my own dames, but if you were to choose one out of the crowd here, supposing you could get near one, it’d be like signing her death warrant. And if you don’t you have to take what the system offers. My kid’s not too bad I suppose, and maybe she quite likes me as well as my nylons, but it’s bad enough to be spied on during the day without feeling that someone’s making mental notes about you while you’re in bed.’

  I nodded. ‘Who is she, Jeff? Do I know her, I wonder?’

  ‘You could do. Name of Tanya – one of the VOKS crowd. She works for that smooth operator Mirnova.’

  ‘Oh, Tatiana Mikhailovna! Of course I know her. As a matter of fact she was at the station today, meeting the delegation.’

  ‘She would be. She’s been attached to them as interpreter.’

  ‘She’s attractive.’

  ‘Oh, she’s attractive, all right. She knows her stuff, too.’ He caught my eye and gave a wry smile. ‘Okay, but, don’t say it – I know she’s had practice.’

  ‘Is she living in the hotel?’

  ‘Sure. She’s in 433, the room on the other side of yours.’

  ‘Why don’t you swop with me – then you’ll be right next to her.’

  ‘I can walk that far,’ he said.

  ‘Tanya used to have a twin sister – Kira Mikhailovna. Is she still around?’

  ‘Yes, she’s around. She works at Sovkino – she’s one of the hostesses when they show their lousy propaganda pictures to foreigners. She’s a pleasant kid, too – she looks in here from time to time.’

  ‘You don’t get them mixed up?’

  He laughed. ‘They use different nail varnish.’

  There was a knock on the door, and he called out, ‘Da!’ All the doors were on spring locks, but he’d left his catch fastened back. A waiter came in with a bottle of pink champagne and a bottle of cognac. He glanced across at me as he put his tray down, and then stared as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘Nikolai!’ I said. ‘How are you?’ I got up and he came over and shook hands, beaming with pleasure. ‘I’m glad to see you again, Nikolai. Well, well, so you’re still going strong?’

  ‘The same,’ he said. ‘I have no complaints. And you, Gospodeen Verney? I never thought you’d come back.’

  ‘I couldn’t keep away, Nikolai.’

  ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ said Jeff. ‘I didn’t know you two had a beautiful friendship. I’d better get another glass.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said. I turned to Nikolai. ‘Well, it certainly is nice to see your face again.’ He was looking much more frail than when I’d seen him last – by now he was well on in his sixties, I supposed – but he had the same look of patient sweetness that I remembered. He’d been a servant in a big house-hold in Moscow and his master’s family had been broken up during the Revolution, by death and flight and one thing or another. Nikolai had had to fit himself into the new set-up, and because of his background it had been difficult for him, especially as he’d been fond of the people he’d served. His couldn’t accustom himself to the régime and wanted no part of it, but he’d had a small son on whom all his hopes were set and for the boy’s sake more than for his own safety he’d loyally accepted it. He’d told me all this back in the war, and a lot of other things as well – stories of the old Russia that filled in big gaps in my understanding and were as fascinating as War and Peace.

  I explained some of this to Jeff while he poured out a third drink. He looked quite disgusted at the thought that he’d been unaware of this rich mine of human interest just under his nose. ‘See what I mean – that’s what comes of not knowing the language. Anyway, here’s to us.’ We all drank each other’s health.

  ‘What about Boris?’ I asked Nikolai – a little diffidently, because in Russia so many unpleasant things could happen to a man in six years, over and above the normal hazards. But it was all right – Nikolai’s son was doing well as a doctor in a Moscow hospital, there were three grandchildren, and everything was wonderful. Nikolai’s dreams had come true. ‘There are many things,’ he said, ‘that I do not like today, but I must admit that in the old times Boris could not have studied medicine. I am glad that he was able to. However bad the world, a doctor can always serve humanity. That is the best thing of all.’ He smiled and set down his glass. ‘Merci, Gospodeen Clayton! Dosvedanie, Gospodeen Verney!’ He inclined his head with grave courtesy and went out with his tray.

  ‘Well, what do you know!’ said Jeff. ‘I always thought he was a nice guy, and Tanya dotes on him, but I never knew he had all that in him.’

  There were fresh footsteps outside and a moment later John Waterhouse appeared, with a man whom I hadn’t seen before. ‘Come right in,’ Jeff called out. ‘Wipe your feet!’

  ‘Champagne, eh?’ said Waterhouse. ‘I hoped we’d be in time for the celebration. Hallo, George, how are you? It’s good to see you again.’ We shook hands warmly. ‘This is Edward Potts – George Verney.’

  Waterhouse hadn’t changed much, except that he was a little greyer. He was a rather dapper man of sixty or so who always wore bow ties. An unashamed poseur, he always contrived – among his colleagues, at least – to give the impression that he was keeping the white man’s flag flying in a country of savages. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, but he affected a slight stoop. He had bright, satirical eyes, and could be extremely charming when it suited him. He’d been a newspaperman in Moscow as long as anyone could remember; he had a comfortable flat somewhere behind the Kremlin, and a servant, and acquaintances in town that he’d known at the time of the Revolution. How he lived was something of a mystery, for though he was still an accredited correspondent he hadn’t sent much news out for years. I had heard that he wrote novels under a pseudonym. There was almost nothing that he didn’t know about Russia, and he was completely cynical about the régime, but he’d somehow managed to rub along without mortally offending the authorities, and, incalculable as ever, they hadn’t bothered to throw him out. Perhaps they regarded him as privileged, like the old court jesters. I’d asked him once why he stayed on when there was so little to do, and he’d said blandly, ‘Art for art’s sake, dear boy,’ and then shot me a bright amused glance. I think it was just that he’d got used to the place – he even travelled on the trams! – and that he hadn’t any interest anywhere else. It was his intention, so he said, to have his ashes scattered on top of Lenin’s mausoleum.

  Potts was an anaemic-looking individual, tall and thin and pale, with sparse hair and glasses a
nd an earnest, donnish manner, and he wore black boots, the largest I’d ever seen. He didn’t look like a newspaperman and he didn’t shake hands like one.

  I couldn’t help thinking back to the days of departed glory, when there had been twenty or thirty correspondents in Moscow, representing the world’s greatest newspapers. Now, apart from the agencies, there were just the four of us, and one of us was soon going, and one of us was Potts!

  Jeff charged the glasses and asked Potts how his mass observation was going.

  ‘Well, you know, it’s most interesting,’ said Potts in a reedy voice. ‘I’ve been outside the hotel today, studying winter clothing habits.’ He fumbled for a notebook. ‘I found that forty-five per cent of the men wore felt boots and fifty-five per cent other kinds of boots. The women were different. Sixty-eight per cent of them wore felt boots. The break-down into age groups may be revealing.’ He gave a dirty little cough. ‘Then forty-eight per cent of the women wore shawls, and fifty-two per cent hats and berets. Seventy-eight per cent of the men wore fur hats, and twenty-two per cent wore caps.’

  ‘That sure is a scoop,’ said Jeff. He looked at Potts with wonder, as though at a strange animal, but there was no malice in his tone.

  ‘It’s the sort of thing that people like to know about,’ said Potts. ‘Somebody has to do the field work, after all. There are little gems of information that I keep picking up. For instance, about half the people in this city sleep in their underclothes – did you know that, Clayton?’

  ‘I know that half the women sleep in their brassieres,’ said Jeff with a grin, ‘if they get the chance.’

  ‘He hasn’t got around to the other half,’ I said.

  ’A fair sample is sufficient,’ Potts said with complete seriousness. ‘I’ve found something else that may surprise you. Double beds are almost unknown in Russia. There’s no room for them because of the overcrowding.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘they won’t fit in the passages.’ I looked at him curiously. The material he was collecting might be so much lumber, but his initiative was admirable. ‘Of course, you know what’ll happen to you – one of these days you’ll be picked up and charged with espionage. Housing conditions fall under the heading of economic secrets and you can get ten years for extracting that sort of information from Soviet citizens. So can they for giving it.’

  ‘Really?’ Potts looked worried. ‘That seems rather absurd.’

  ‘Everything’s absurd,’ said Waterhouse. ‘Which reminds me, how are the mice, Mr Potts?’

  ‘Very bad indeed,’ said Potts. ‘I estimate that they’ve increased by fifty per cent in the past week.’

  ‘I thought the hotel people lent you a trap,’ said Jeff.

  ‘They did, but they took it away again. They said there was a man on the third floor who also had mice, and that as I’d caught two and he hadn’t caught any, it was only fair he should have a turn. So now I’ve applied for the hotel cat.’

  ’What do you mean, applied?’

  ‘Just what I say. I had to make a written application to the hotel manager in triplicate, and I got a reply on hotel notepaper saying that the application would be sympathetically considered and that if it were approved I’d be issued with a permit.’ He shook his head in perplexity. ‘They are extraordinary people.’

  We hooted with laughter, as much at his expression as at his story. Presently Jeff said, ‘You know the delegation’s here, do you, John?’

  Waterhouse gave him a slightly pained look, as though the suggestion that a piece of news might have escaped him were bad form. Not only did he know of the delegation’s arrival, but it turned out that he knew several of the members quite well. He’d met Schofield in 1942 at the time of the supply mission, and Bolting when he’d been an accounts clerk at the Embassy, and he’d actually travelled to Kuibishev with Mullett in the great evacuation.

  ‘Not a very nice man,’ said Waterhouse regretfully. ‘Dangerous, too. He set a lot of people on the wrong road back in the ‘thirties. There’s a young fellow at the Radio Centre who took Mullett’s advice and came out here to work and has regretted it ever since. Can’t get back now, of course – and I imagine he’s far from being the only one who was led astray. By the way, you know we’re going to be invited to accompany the delegation on its rounds?’

  ‘Invited?’ said Jeff. ‘I didn’t know they had a word for that.’

  ‘They have when they want something, dear boy. They want this delegation to go over with a bang – you can see that by the build-up they’ve given it in their own press and radio. Now they want us to toddle round and pick up the pearls of wisdom that fall from their lips.’

  ‘Yeah? They’ve got a hope! I can just see my Chief’s face if I cabled five hundred well-chosen words on a peace-loving visit to a kolhoz.’

  ‘An emotional view, Mr Clayton. We don’t have to file stories. We shall get some excellent meals.’

  ‘Sure, and have to listen to a lot of hooey,’ said Jeff disgustedly. ‘What about you, George? Are you going to tail along?’

  ‘I think I might,’ I said. ‘I feel as though I’ve read the first chapter of a serial story, and I’d rather like to know what happens next. There’s a friendly type called Cressey I want to keep an eye on for one thing – and the unfriendly ones intrigue me. I don’t see that we can lose anything. You might even get a chance to speak to a Russian.’

  ‘You think so?’ Jeff put down his glass. ‘Bud,’ he said, ‘you’ve got me really excited.’

  Chapter Three

  Next morning, after breakfast, I tried to draw up some sort of a plan of work. I had no expectation that the Press Department would give me any assistance, but the usual motions had to be gone through, if only for the record. Besides, you could never be absolutely certain. Russia’s relations with Britain at that moment were perhaps just one shade less bitter than her relations with the United States, and the Soviet Foreign Office was quite capable of marking the difference by a modest show of favouritism. Soviet officialdom could be incredibly small-minded at times. I hadn’t forgotten how, during the war, the assumed postponement of the Second Front had coincided with a sharp curtailment of theatre tickets and other small concessions to correspondents.

  Anyhow, just on the off-chance I drew up a careful list of requirements. I wanted to see someone at two or three of the Ministries; to be given some figures about housing, wages, prices, and taxation; and to visit a number of institutions. It was routine stuff – the sort of thing that every incoming newspaperman asked for. I also made a private note of things I intended to do, irrespective of official sanction. I was pretty sure I could still move around in shops and markets, parks and places of entertainment, without being spotted as a foreigner, and you could learn quite a bit from casual conversations. I also had one or two old addresses that I thought I might telephone later on. It seemed unlikely that I should succeed in renewing past contacts, but again the attempt had to be made.

  Having prepared the ground for what in any western country could have been a fruitful tour of duty, I went off to pay my respects to the Ambassador. He gave me a glass of excellent sherry and I gave him a description of the delegation, which seemed to cause him some wry amusement. Then I went on to see the head of the Soviet Press Department and collect my press card.

  I’d taken the precaution of ringing up beforehand and making a firm appointment, but there were wearisome formalities to be gone through before I could even enter the Foreign Office building. It was necessary to call at a neighbouring ‘security’ building and get a temporary pass from a shaven-headed, steely-eyed man who worked behind a grille, and there was a queue of about twenty intimidated Russians already lined up there, patiently waiting on the bureaucrat’s pleasure. Bracing myself, I marched to the head of the queue, apologised to the man who stood there, and rapped sharply on the grille, which had a board across it. ‘Shaven-head’ whipped the board away, stared at me much as the workhouse master must have looked at Oliver Twist, and told
me curtly to fall in line. When he put the board back I rapped on it again, and some extremely nerve-racking exchanges followed. In the end, after claiming a close, personal acquaintance with the whole of the Politburo and losing my temper in a highly undignified fashion, I got the pass. It was a routine I’d always hated, but it was unavoidable unless you were prepared to stand about for half a day, as the Russians were.

  When I was finally shown up to the Press Department, Ganilov kept me waiting for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was routine, too – one of the thousand and one small things calculated to induce in any normal newspaperman a sense of intolerable exasperation. I sat down in the familiar press room, now peopled with only the spirits of the past, and wondered how I’d ever managed to endure two years of it. What a fund of goodwill towards Russia, I reflected, had drained away over the years in that unsympathetic annexe.

  Ganilov came out at last, and extended a clammy hand. He was a big, ungainly man of forty or so, with a mop of black hair, hunched shoulders and peering eyes distorted by thick lenses so that you couldn’t see his expression or have the least idea what he was thinking. He led the way into his well-appointed room, indicated one of two leather chairs, and offered me a cardboard-tipped cigarette. He asked me in excellent English if I’d had a good trip, said that he was glad I’d decided to pay another visit to the Soviet Union, and indicated that he’d be pleased to place all the usual facilities at my disposal.

  He was completely deadpan, and so was I. I produced the list I’d prepared and he put the paper close to his eyes, his pink lips moving as he read, and then he sat for a while nibbling his finger-ends.

  ‘It’s a little difficult just now,’ he said. ‘You see, everyone is very busy. The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing for the spring sowing, the Housing Commission has just launched a new programme… Yes, it will be difficult. However, I will certainly do what is possible. Meanwhile… ’ he reached for a typed sheet… ‘you are invited to accompany Mr Mullett and his delegation on their visits. As you will see, they propose to cover a great deal of ground. For the foreign press, this is a unique opportunity.’