Winston's Spy Read online

  Copyright © 2020 Robert Webber

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 9781838595678

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To my own Russian princess,

  my wife, Alla.

  Contents

  Exordium

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  Exordium

  Alex was drunk to begin with; not so drunk as to be incapable, for that would have been unseemly, so perhaps “tipsy” would be a better description, but, certainly, his wits were not entirely about him.

  The evening had begun well enough. Toby Palmer had thrown a party. The handsome-but-rebellious son of a former guards’ officer had turned his back on the family tradition and joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a trainee pilot. In doing so, he incurred the not inconsiderable wrath of his father, which earned him the dubious distinction of being the first Palmer to have been almost disowned by his family. He was celebrating passing out as top of the intake, with the honour of having won the Harold Blackburn Silver Sword, which was a distinction awarded only to the most outstanding trainee pilots. Even so, Toby’s father had boycotted his son’s passing-out ceremony, along with Toby’s two elder brothers, but Toby’s sister had been present. Toby was one of those carefree-but-brilliant young men who made friends easily in whatever company he kept. The recent addition of a Ronald Colman style moustache had positively improved his attraction to the female of the species, but, sadly, these characteristics and affectations were neither shared nor admired by his father. Toby’s father likened his son’s laid-back demeanour to that of a wastrel, and commented that the facial hair, which Toby thought made himself look dashing, was more suited to a second-rate pimp than an officer in His Majesty’s service, even the RAF.

  Toby’s father was a much-decorated army officer who had served with distinction in the Great War, and who had been pensioned off abruptly shortly afterwards by the regiment that he worshipped. His son’s extravagant and hollow life became the channel through which he could vent his considerable frustrations, so poor Toby enjoyed quite an unhappy relationship with his father.

  Toby’s rebellion against his father’s dictatorial natural order had led previously to the dubious choice of career of a practised social butterfly and professional libertine, which exasperated his father even more. His father had insisted that Toby joined the lower echelons of Martin’s Bank – it was that or face losing his inheritance. Toby hated the job, and he had no intention of developing it into a profession. Therefore, it was of no great surprise that, when the dark clouds over Europe looked like they were evolving into yet another full-blown tempest of bitter national rivalries manifesting as outright war, Toby was one of the first to step forward seeking to join the ranks of His Majesty’s armed forces. However, it was not to his father’s former guards regiment that Toby turned, but to the most junior of the services, which was intended – and very much taken – as a slap in the face to his father’s hopes and aspirations.

  Thus it was that the overindulgences of celebrating Toby’s attainment of passing out were the cause of Alex’s current poor sobriety.

  Alex had intended to take the King’s shilling likewise, and it was at the medical examination that Alex had met Toby. They took to each other instantly, and although ‘acquaintanceship’ would have been a better description of their relationship than friendship, had circumstances been different, a closer relationship could have undoubtedly blossomed. Toby passed his medical examination as “A”, and King George VI accepted him gratefully into service; Alex, however, had been graded “D”, and had ominously been rejected as unfit for military service.

  Unbelievably, the examining doctor had found a problem with his lungs that had not only remained undetected thus far but had never prevented Alex from being a keen cricketer and a competent middle-distance runner at school. Despite Alex’s protestations, the examining doctor, together with a colleague who had been called in to give a second opinion, remained adamant; Alex was both rejected and utterly dejected.

  So, in many personal ways, it was an emotional party that Alex attended; Toby was going off to join a training squadron to prepare for almost-certain war, while Alex’s future was much less certain. Even though Alex had accepted the invitation to attend Toby’s send-off at one of London’s more fashionable venues, he could not resist feeling a pang of envy at Toby’s good fortune.

  Nevertheless, the party was a jolly occasion and thoroughly enjoyed by all, even though the only other member of Toby’s family in attendance was his twenty-one-year-old sister Theodora. She was known extensively as “Teddy” and was the most like Toby out of his three siblings.

  When he arrived at the party, Alex saw Teddy as soon as he walked through the door, and, in that fleeting moment, she noticed Alex. To Alex, Teddy was the most beautiful girl the room; she was certainly not tall, almost what the French would call petite, slim and with a mass of natural strawberry-blonde tresses, which she wore unfashionably long and with defiant pride. Nevertheless, to Alex, she looked exquisitely delicate. She was wearing a light-sapphire-blue party frock that was a shade or two darker than her eyes, and, in appreciating her beauty, Alex’s reticence at attending Toby’s bash dissipated instantly.

  Teddy, having noticed Alex’s attention, carefully avoided making eye contact with him for the rest of the evening, so although no conversation existed between them, a subliminal bond was being formed by those sly glances that neither acknowledged.

  *

  Consequently, it was not only the mild alcoholic intoxication that supported Alex on his way home after Toby’s celebration but contemplative thoughts of how he might engineer a future meeting with Toby’s sister.

  Accordingly, Alex’s mind was elsewhere and his guard was down as he rounded the corner into Onslow Gardens, the quiet square where
he lived in one of Chelsea’s up-and-coming backwaters. He failed to notice the sleek, black Wolseley motor car parked close to his house, with its engine running, and neither, for that matter, did he spot the dapper gentleman who stepped from the shadows as he approached nor even the gentleman’s colleague who emerged from the driver’s door of the parked car.

  Becoming aware of the others, Alex touched his hat and bade the well-dressed gentleman a cheery, ‘Good evening,’ as the man was about to pass.

  The response, when it came, would typically have caused wariness in Alex, but in his light-headed, exuberant and contemplative state, he failed to see any danger.

  ‘Dobryy vecher, Aleksander Nikolayevich, kak dela? [Good evening, Aleksander Nikolayevich, how are you?]’ said the man in perfect Russian.

  ‘Ya khorosho, a ty? [I’m well, and you?]’ replied Alex equally as fluently in his mother tongue.

  Alex’s evening deteriorated somewhat from that point, as the dapper gentleman stepped aside to allow his driver, if that is what he was, to rush Alex from behind and, in one swift movement, cover Alex’s head with some sort of bag. A sudden tap on the head with a blunt instrument and an insistent push saw Alex sprawling over the rear seat of the Wolseley before being joined by the neat gentleman.

  ‘Pozhaluysta, tovarishch, ne soprotivlyaisya, i vse budet v poryadke, [Please, comrade, do not struggle and everything will be all right,]’ the man confirmed.

  Alex’s earlier nonchalance and light-heartedness evaporated quickly. All he had heard about Russia in the twentieth century – and of how the Bolsheviks dealt with those previously loyal to the tsar – had counted for nothing in the alcoholic haze and intoxicating euphoria of that fabulous evening where he had met a goddess. When confronted by a total stranger, Alex’s stupidity, gullibility and carelessness – in responding to the familiar sounds of the private language that he and his mother shared – was palpable.

  I only have myself to blame, Alex chastised himself, after everything his mother had said to him – nay, drummed into his head – almost since the day when he could understand the simplest of instructions: ‘Do not speak our language outside of our house!’ Yet, here he was, seemingly at the tender mercy of one of the bitterest enemies of his family: one of the dreaded and much-feared Bolsheviks. Alex’s life started to flash through his mind in the same manner that some believe a condemned man’s life flashes through his mind in those precious moments before execution.

  These were the thoughts that enveloped this young man’s brain as Alex slipped from the conscious world into oblivion.

  I

  Aleksander Nikolayevich Karlov had been born into the Russian aristocracy towards the end of August 1917, being the issue of the farewell union between Count Nikolai Aleksandrovich Karlov and his beloved wife, Tatiana Ivanovna, on the eve of his return to his regiment. Nikolai Aleksandrovich never met his son, although Aleksander Nikolayevich came to admire greatly the man that his mother described, with much affection, as a kind and loving husband. He felt sure that there would have been an instant bond should a miracle occur and he met the man who had stolen his mother’s heart. Aleksander knew, however, that this was unlikely as his father had been listed as “missing presumed killed” shortly after returning to the front.

  The heavily pregnant Tatiana Ivanovna was spirited away from a much-troubled St Petersburg in the dog days of July 1917 by family members and loyal friends who were concerned about the state of affairs in tsarist Russia. They believed that mother and child would have a better chance of survival in Sweden should the Bolsheviks ever seize power; there would be little hope for the widow of a loyal Russian noble count and his only son should the worst predictions of the doomsayers come true. Besides, Sweden was not so far away from the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, and it would be easy to return should the Bolshevik threat come to nothing.

  Thus it was that the Countess Tatiana Ivanovna, dressed in the rough clothes of a merchant’s wife, was made as comfortable as possible in a wagon, which was mostly stuffed with products, destined for the new capital of the Grand Duchy: Helsinki.

  The journey was fraught with danger, and the merchant was challenged on three occasions: twice by soldiers loyal to the tsar, and once by a band of armed brigands, whom he took to be Bolsheviks. On each occasion, the merchant offered his wares to the soldiers to induce a swift continuance of their journey, but it still took several days before they crossed the border near Raivola in Karelia, and entered the Grand Duchy of Finland.

  Although it was less than 350 kilometres between Raivola and Helsinki, Tatiana Ivanovna’s health was worsening as her time became close; while travelling along the old fourteenth-century Kungsvägen (King’s Road), near the town of Loviisa in Finland, the merchant decided that she could go no further. He left his charge with the friendly farmer and his wife who were sheltering them that night, very much worried that he would not be paid for his efforts, as he had failed to deliver the countess to his paymasters in the capital. But her health was so poor that there was little alternative.

  Wholly unconcerned about the whole affair, eventually and reluctantly, Alexander arrived, kicking and screaming, into that turbulent world on 29th August 1917. Lisbet, the farmer’s wife, concluded that Tatiana Ivanovna was in no fit state to continue her journey; the travelling, coupled with the lengthy and painful childbirth, had weakened the countess severely. So, despite the countess’s protestations that she and her son must continue on their journey, the insistence of the farmer’s wife prevailed, and Alexander began his life in a country that was Russia’s most reluctant outpost.

  It was shortly after the Finnish declaration of independence on 15th November 1917 that Alexander Nikolayevich Karlov became a Finn. Predictably, much of the official documentation that had existed before independence had become confused, and it took minimal persuasion for the authorities to accept that the Countess Tatiana Ivanovna was, in fact, Lisbet’s niece who had been staying on the farm since the birth of her son. Tatiana Ivanovna took the Swedish equivalent of her actual name, Tatjana, and Aleksander’s name was changed slightly to Alexander. They were registered in the municipality of Loviisa with the surname Karjala, as it was close enough to their real name and a common enough surname in those parts. It was a name that suggested origins in Karelia, the region oft-disputed between Finland and Russia, and, shortly afterwards, they received their Finnish nationality papers.

  Lisbet and her husband, Edvard Nylund, were both Swedish speaking “Whites”. In the bloody civil war that occurred in the country between January and May 1918, Edvard fought for the White Guard against the uprising of the Reds, distinguishing himself in both the Battle of Viipuri and the Battle of Helsinki. As farmers, their peasant lifestyle was hard and a far cry from the luxuries that Alex’s mother had enjoyed previously at the Romanov court in Russia, but Tatjana and Lisbet set to with the will and determination to run the farm in Edvard’s absence.

  As time progressed, Tatjana became a schoolteacher, and when he was old enough, his mother enrolled Alex at the school where she taught. Alex and his mother moved out of the farm to an apartment in Loviisa, almost adjacent to the school, so that their daily journeys in the mornings and evenings were shorter. Although Alexander was growing up as a Finn, his mother refused to allow him to forget his Russian ancestry, so, despite communicating daily in Finnish with his friends, and Swedish when talking with Lisbet and Edvard, he was taught both Russian and French at home. Russian because it was the language of his homeland and French because it was the international language of diplomacy, as well as the language beloved by the Russian nobility.

  Although Lisbet and Edvard’s farm was a good hour’s walk from the town, Alex and his mother were frequent visitors. The Finnish couple had a deep affection for the countess and her child, and a strong bond developed between the two families. As Alex grew, he adopted Lisbet and Edvard as his honorary aunt and uncle, respectively, and it came as a grea
t shock when Lisbet visited one glorious day, saying that, during their last visit, a suspicious neighbour had raised doubt about the familial ties between Lisbet and Tatjana. After all, the women did not look much alike, and Alex was growing up with a manner of authority that could only have come from his noble birth. How could this agricultural farmer’s wife have such a refined and distinguished-looking niece and great-nephew?

  After much soul-searching and deliberation, and with a heavy heart, Alex’s mother agreed it was time to continue her almost forgotten journey to Sweden. Thus it was a very confused eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy and his mother who packed up their belongings, bade a tearful farewell to Lisbet and Edvard, and left to continue their journey along the King’s Road towards Sweden.

  Part way into their journey, while Tatjana and Alex were staying with a distant relative of the countess in the old capital city of Finland, Turku (known in Swedish as Åbo), a friend suggested that Sweden might not be the welcoming country that they had hoped. With unemployment running at over twelve percent, Sweden was a country in a depression, and the ordinarily benevolent Swedes were taking a harder line against dispossessed refugees seeking asylum, even those from their former protectorate of Finland.

  Someone recommended that they should consider travelling to England, where there was still some sympathy towards those driven out of Russia by the events of 1917, and at Britain’s hesitation in going to the aid of the King George V’s cousin, Tsar Nikolai II. Perhaps there was a feeling of guilt, or maybe it was the British sense of fair play and willingness to help those less fortunate than themselves, but even though Britain was recovering from war and was itself entering the Great Depression, it was still more welcoming than other countries. As much as the countess had misgivings about the state that she felt had let down her beloved tsar in 1917, there appeared little choice. Reluctantly, she agreed that it would be better for them both to go to a country where they could prosper and regain some of the respect that they had lost in the ensuing years following the Russian Revolution.