We left the cats dreaming about wide open spaces and returned to the sunlight.
‘And now,’ he said as we walked past a polar bear sunning itself beside its pool, ‘I have another assignation for you. But first you’ll have to shake off your tail and make sure that he hasn’t got a back-up.’
I stopped and gazed at the bear, glancing at the same time to my right. The man in the sports jacket was standing about seventy-five yards away consulting a hardbook.
We walked on. ‘One more word of advice,’ he said, ‘don’t use your telephone on Judas business – it’s bound to be bugged. That wasn’t you who answered the phone the first time, was it?’
‘It was a man who says his name is Chambers.’
‘We thought as much. It was he who hired the private detective who’s following us.’
‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’
‘I can’t; Judas can.’
‘And when am I going to meet Judas?’
‘Soon. But, first of all, do you mind telling me just how you intend to use any information you might get hold of?’
‘Write a book. You seemed to know that.’
‘We’ve known about you for a long time, Mr. Lamont. Ever since you started making inquiries. We’ve checked you out and you seem to be an author of integrity …’
‘Don’t forget I write novels. In my particular field it pays to be sensational.’
‘At least you’re being honest. That’s what I want to establish – before you meet Judas – that your book will be honest.’
‘I can give you this assurance: I want to write a book that puts the record straight about the second world war. Our civilisation is shaky enough without being saddled with false premises. There was, for instance, no way Britain could have stood alone in 1940–41 unless something occurred behind the scenes that we know nothing about. The Battle of Britain was a famous victory but it wasn’t sufficient to deter Hitler from calling off the invasion. There was something more behind that decision, just as there was something more behind Stalin’s refusal to believe that Germany was going to attack Russia. Stalin, after all, was a very wily Georgian …’
‘And you’ll stick to the truth? If, that is, you believe what you’re told?’
‘As I said, I’m a novelist. I may use the fictional form to mould the facts into a digestible composition. But, yes, I’ll stick to what I learn. If and when I learn it.’
A flock of schoolchildren shepherded by a harassed woman in brogues passed by, watched from aloft by a giraffe. I turned, ostensibly to watch the children, and spotted the man in the sports jacket.
The young man seemed to accept my assurance. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I wonder,’ he said, slowing down as though he was about to break away, ‘if you realise just what you’re getting into.’
‘When you’re forced into your own flat at gunpoint you get the general idea.’
‘He wasn’t play-acting, you know.’
‘The gun didn’t look like a prop.’
‘Well, so long as you understand …’
I said impatiently: ‘Where can I meet Judas, for God’s sake?’
‘It’s 11.30 now. At Madame Tussaud’s in one hour.’
‘Where at Madame Tussaud’s?’
‘Beside the figure of Winston Churchill.’ Where else? his tone seemed to say. ‘Good luck, I’ll take care of our friend. But it will only be a temporary measure, so take care.’
He turned abruptly and hurried away – straight into the man in the sports jacket. The man fell. I raced past a line of cages and, while the two men untangled themselves, took refuge in Lord Snowdon’s aviary, watched incuriously by a blue and red parrot. There was no sign of the man in the sports jacket.
I emerged cautiously from the aviary and, leaving the jungle squawks behind, made my way to the zoo’s exit. At Camden Town I took an underground train to King’s Cross on the Northern Line and changed on to the Circle Line, alighting at Baker Street.
At 12.25 I entered Madame Tussaud’s Waxwork Exhibition and made my way into the Grand Hall on the ground floor. Churchill, hands clasping the lapels of his suit, chin thrust out belligerently above his bow tie, seemed about to speak. To offer, perhaps, nothing but ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’.
It was exactly 12.30. The voice behind me said: ‘He could tell the story much better than I can. But I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me.’
I turned and came face to face with Judas.
July 11, 1938. A wondrous Sunday in Moscow with memories of winter past and prospects of winter to come melted by the sun. The golden cupolas of the Kremlin floated in a cloudless sky, crowds queued for kvas and icecream and in Gorky Park the air smelled of carnations.
In a forest behind a river beach thirty miles outside the city a blond young man who would one day be asked to take part in the most awesome conspiracy of modern times was courting a black-haired beauty named Anna Petrovna.
If anyone had hinted about his future role to Viktor Golovin he would have dismissed them as a madman. And abruptly at that because it was his nineteenth birthday and he hoped to celebrate it by making love for the first time in his life.
It was a daunting prospect. In the first place he feared his inexperience might be ridiculed; in the second, being a serious young man – his solemn demeanour made the laughter that occasionally transfigured his features into an explosion – he believed that the act of love should involve more than casual pleasure. It should, he reasoned, be a seal of permanency. But did he truly desire permanency with Anna Petrovna? And if he didn’t wasn’t he betraying his beliefs?
Standing under a silver birch where coins of light shifted restlessly on the thin grass he bent and kissed her on the lips and gazed into her eyes, seeking answers. She stared boldly back and gave none. He slipped his arm round her waist and they walked deeper into the forest.
The trouble was that although he loved her there were aspects of her character that angered him. Not only was she supremely self-confident, as any girl desired by half the male students at Moscow University was entitled to be, but she was politically assertive, and dangerously so. She believed that Joseph Stalin had made a travesty of Marxist-Leninism and she wasn’t afraid to say so. But surely love should transcend such considerations.
He glanced down at her; she was small but voluptuously shaped with full breasts that he had caressed for the first time two nights ago, and there was a trace of the gypsy in her, an impression heightened today by her red skirt and white blouse. She was three months older than him and unquestionably far more experienced.
She smiled at him and said: ‘You’re looking very serious, Viktor Golovin. Let’s sit down for a while and I’ll see if I can make you smile.’
She tickled his lips with a blade of grass as he lay back, hands behind his head, and tried not to smile. He could feel the warmth of her body and see the swell of her breasts.
Finally he grinned.
‘That smile,’ she said, ‘is your key.’
‘To what?’
‘To anything you want.’
She