Upon his release in 1953, Blake returned to England a hero. He had suffered terribly in captivity and was seen to have survived the worst that communism could throw at him. There is television footage of Blake at Heathrow Airport, modest before the world’s press, a bearded man hiding a terrible secret. For the next eight years, working as an agent of the KGB, he betrayed every secret that passed across his desk, including Anglo-American cooperation on the construction of the Berlin Tunnel. His treachery is considered to have been more damaging even than Philby’s.
Blake was caught more by a process of elimination than by distinguished detective work. SIS summoned him to Broadway Buildings, knowing that they had to extract a confession from him or he would walk free. After three days of fruitless interrogation, in which Blake denied any involvement with the Soviets, the SIS officer in charge of the case played what he knew was his final card.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘we know you’re working for the Russians, and we understand why. You were a prisoner of the Communists, they tortured you. They blackmailed you into betraying SIS. You had no choice.’
This was too much for George.
‘No!’ he shouted, rising from his chair. ‘Nobody tortured me! Nobody blackmailed me! I acted out of a belief in communism.’
There was no financial incentive, he told them, no pressure to approach the KGB.
‘It was quite mechanical,’ he said. ‘It was as if I had ceased to exist.’
The platforms and escalators of Green Park underground station are thick with trapped summer heat. The humidity follows me as I clunk through the ticket barriers and take a flight of stairs up to street level. The tightly packed crowds gradually thin out as I move downhill towards the In and Out Club.
I am casually dressed, in the American style: camel-coloured chinos, a blue button-down shirt, old suede loafers. Some thought has gone into this, some notion of what Katharine would like me to be. I want to give an impression of straightforwardness. I want to remind her of home.
I see Fortner first, about fifty yards farther down the street. He is dressed in an old, baggy linen suit, wearing a white shirt, blue deck shoes, and no tie. At first I am disappointed to see him. There was a possibility that he would still be in Washington, and I had hoped that Katharine would be waiting for me alone. But it was inevitable that Fortner would make it: there’s simply too much at stake for him to stay away.
Katharine is beside him, more tanned than I remember, making gentle bobbing turns on her toes and heels, her hands gently clasped behind her back. She is wearing a plain white T-shirt with loose charcoal trousers and light canvas shoes. The pair of them look as if they have just stepped off a ketch in St. Lucia. They see me now, and Katharine waves enthusiastically, starting to walk in my direction. Fortner lumbers just behind her, his creased pale suit stirring in the breeze.
‘Sorry. Am I late?’
‘Not at all,’ she says. ‘We only just got here ourselves.’
She kisses me. Moisturizer.
‘Good to see ya, Milius,’ says Fortner, giving me a butch, pumping handshake and a wry old smile. But he looks tired underneath the joviality, far off and jet-lagged. Perhaps he came here directly from Heathrow.
‘I like your suit,’ I tell him, though I don’t.
‘Had it for years. Made in Hong Kong by a guy named Fat.’
We start walking towards The Ritz.
‘So it was great that you could make it tonight.’
‘I was glad you rang.’
‘Saul not with you?’
‘He couldn’t come in the end. Sends his apologies. Had to go off at the last minute to shoot an advert.’
I never asked Saul to come along. I don’t know where he is or what he’s up to.
‘That’s too bad. Maybe next time.’ Katharine moves some loose hairs out of her face. ‘Hope you won’t be bored.’
‘Not at all. I’m happy it being just the three of us.’
‘You gotta girlfriend, Milius?’
I don’t mind it too much that Fortner has decided to call me that. It suggests a kind of intimacy.
‘Not at the moment. Too busy. I used to have one but we broke up.’
This is quietly registered by both of them, another fact about me. We continue along the street, the silence lengthening.
‘So where are we heading?’ I ask, trying to break it, trying to stop any sense that we might have nothing to say to one another. I must keep talking to them. I must earn their trust.
‘Good question,’ says Fortner, loudly clapping his hands. It is as if I have woken him up from a nap. ‘Kathy and I have been going to this place for years. We thought we’d show it to you. It’s a small Italian restaurant that’s been owned by the same Florentine family for decades. Maître d’ goes by the name of Tucci.’
‘Sounds great.’
Katharine’s attention has been distracted. There are hampers, golf bags, and elegant skirts on display in the windows of Fortnum & Mason and she has stopped to look at them. I am watching her when Fortner puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘I like this part of town.’ He’s decided to play the avuncular card right away. ‘It’s so…anachronistic, so Merchant Ivory, you know? Round here, an English gentleman can still get his toast done on one side, have an ivory handle attached to his favourite shooting stick, get a barber to file his nails down and rub his neck with cologne. You got your bespoke shirts, your customized suits. Look at all this stuff.’
‘You like that, honey?’ Katharine asks, pointing at a smart two-piece ladies’ outfit in a window.
‘Not a whole lot,’ Fortner replies, his mood abruptly fractious. ‘Why, you wanna get it?’
‘No. Just askin’.’
‘Well, I’m hungry,’ he says. ‘Let’s go eat.’
The restaurant has an outside staircase flaked with dried moss leading down to a basement. Fortner, walking ahead of us, clumps down the steps and through the heavy entrance door. He doesn’t bother holding it open for Katharine. He just wants to get inside and start eating. Katharine and I are left on the threshold and I hold the door open for her, letting her glide past me with a whisper of thanks that is almost conspiratorial.
The restaurant is only half full. There’s a small clearing immediately inside the entrance, where we are met by a paunchy, hair-oiled Italian in late middle-age. Fortner already has his arm wrapped around him, with a big, fulfilled smile all over his face.
‘Here they come now,’ he is saying as we come through the door, his voice hearty and full of good cheer. ‘Tucci, let me introduce you to a young friend of ours, Mr Alec Milius. Very smart guy in the oil business.’
‘Nice to meet you, sir,’ says Tucci, shaking my hand, but he hasn’t even looked at me. His eyes have been fixed on Katharine since she walked in.
‘And your beautiful wife, Mrs. Grice,’ he says. ‘How are you, my dear?’
Katharine bends to meet Tucci’s puckered kiss, offering him a smooth, pale cheek. She doesn’t bother explaining that Grice isn’t her surname.
‘You look as beautiful as ever, madam.’
‘Oh, you’re incorrigible, Tucci. So charming.’
The slimy old bastard leads us downstairs into a dark basement where we are shown