Friends and Traitors Read online

  Also by John Lawton

  1963

  Black Out

  Old Flames

  A Little White Death

  Bluffing Mr. Churchill

  Flesh Wounds

  Second Violin

  A Lily of the Field

  Sweet Sunday

  Then We Take Berlin

  The Unfortunate Englishman

  FRIENDS AND TRAITORS

  JOHN LAWTON

  AN INSPECTOR TROY NOVEL

  Copyright © 2017 by John Lawton

  Cover design by Carlos Beltran

  Cover photograph © Popperfoto/Getty

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  FIRST EDITION

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: October 2017

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available for this title.

  ISBN 978-0-8021-2706-8

  eISBN 978-0-8021-8921-9

  Atlantic Monthly Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  groveatlantic.com

  17 18 19 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  for

  Sara Coward

  1948–2017

  … The only toy he cares for is a box of matches; and up the houses and barns and hayricks go, in crackling flames. That was Burgess’s distinguishing mark: the flashing smile of the fire-raiser, full of secret pleasure in mischief and destruction. Even his most loyal friends had no illusion about his favourite toys. Some were affectionate and benevolent people who wanted to help and protect him against this innate viciousness; and some were people who were mischievous and destructive but would not risk their own safety, and found a vicarious gratification in his recklessness.

  —Rebecca West, The New Meaning of Treason, 1965

  A true hero of our time … hip before hipsters, Rolling before the Stones, acid-head before LSD. There was not so much a conspiracy gathered round him as just decay and dissolution. It was the end of a class, of a way of life; something that would be written about … with wonder and perhaps hilarity, but still tinged with sadness, as all endings are.

  —Malcolm Muggeridge, The Infernal Grove, 1973

  All humanity’s misery derives from not being able to sit alone in a quiet room.

  —Pascal, Pensées, 1670

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by John Lawton

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise

  I Burgess

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  II Burgess & Maclean

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  III Voytek

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  IV Gus

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  V Troy

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  VI Wilderness

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Chapter Ninety

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Chapter Ninety-Eight

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred

  Chapter One Hundred One

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Ten

  Chapter One Hundred Eleven

  Chapter One Hundred Twelve

  VII Venetia

  Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

  Chapter One Hundred Fourteen

  Chapter One Hundred Fifteen

  Chapter One Hundred Sixteen

  Chapter One Hundred Seventeen

  Chapter One Hundred Eighteen

  Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-
One

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Five

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Forty

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Five

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Six

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Seven

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Nine

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty-One

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Two

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Three

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four

  Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Five

  Stuff

  Acknowledgments

  Back Cover

  I

  Burgess

  §

  England: 1958

  Someone was following Frederick Troy.

  §1

  Mimram House, Hertfordshire: July 1935.

  He felt foolish. As though he’d rummaged in the dressing-up box and tried on something better suited to his brother.

  The damn thing simply didn’t fit.

  A voice from the doorway. Laconic and softly mocking.

  “You look like a twat, bro.”

  “Sasha, if you can’t be helpful, just fuck off will you?”

  Just as his mother passed by his door.

  “Pourquoi avez-vous appris l’anglais juste pour utiliser tous les gros mots de cette langue?” Why is it that you two learnt English just to use all the worst words it has to offer?

  “Il nous reste une demi-heure avant le dîner. Nos invités vont bientôt arriver. S’il vous plaît, les enfants, s’il vous plaît.” We have half an hour before dinner. Our guests will be arriving soon. Please, children, please.

  With that she was gone. Sasha stayed.

  “As I was saying …”

  “I know I look like a twat. It doesn’t fucking fit. I’ll be Constable Scarecrow, the laughing stock of Hendon.”

  “Or worse … the mascot.”

  Troy was legally too short to be a copper. His father had capitulated to his wish to join the Metropolitan Police Force after much argument, but with good grace, and had pulled strings, of which he had plenty, to get his younger son accepted at Hendon College as a cadet. It had pained him, and pained him doubly. Troy was well aware of that. Eighteen months ago Troy had turned down an Open Exhibition, a lesser form of scholarship, to Christ Church College, Oxford, to work on one of his father’s newspapers as a cub reporter. Like Charles Dickens, he had begun as a court reporter, sitting on the hard benches of magistrates’ courts day after day and recording the fragmentary lives of shoplifters, drunks, and flashers. Then he had graduated to the Old Bailey, to the rank of crime reporter, and after a year of such reporting, his vocation, if such it be, had become apparent to him. He wanted to be a copper. Above all he wanted to be a detective. The uniform was simply a hurdle en route. What he didn’t know was how many hurdles he’d have to jump to get out of uniform.

  This one bagged around his ankles, sagged at the arse, and would have accommodated another slim-ish person at the chest without bursting its silver buttons.

  “It’ll never fucking fit.”

  “Y’know, Freddie … it’s nothing a good tailor couldn’t work wonders with. When do you actually start?”

  “Monday of week after next.”

  “Fine. Whip round to your man in Savile Row and get it tailored.”

  “I doubt very much whether Foulkes and Fransham bother with uniforms.”

  “Then find another. God knows somebody must tailor uniforms. Think of all those RAF pilots, think of all those Guards officers. Do they go around saggy-baggy? Do they, fuck. Anyway, get it off now and get your black tie and togs on. Ma is right, there’ll be a posse of the old man’s oddities knocking back the gin any minute.”

  “Then close the door.”

  Sasha closed the door.

  “I meant from the other side.”

  She slumped in a chair and Troy realised that she had been knocking back the gin already, that she had, in fact, been holding a large gin and It in her hand all the time, concealed by the door frame, and that she might well be more than a bit pissed.

  “Don’t be silly. We’ve never given toss about nudity.”

  Indeed, they hadn’t, but …

  “We’re not in the nursery any longer.”

  She sipped, gulped her gin, but didn’t move.

  She had a point, Troy knew, they had undressed in front of each other and his other sister, Masha, since childhood. They had only one rule … never comment on what you see. And he wondered why self-consciousness should become paramount at this moment, and he knew the answer. The uniform. It changed everything.

  He stripped down to nothing, Sasha looking at him, then not looking at him, and all the time looking unconcerned, until he reached break point … the fastening of the black tie itself.

  “Still can’t do it on your own, eh?”

  She stood behind him, taller even when she was barefoot, but now she almost towered over him in heels, her hands at his throat, peering around him to see them both in the mirror, deftly knotting the bow tie, whispering about a rabbit down a hole.

  “Oddities?”

  “Eh?”

  “You mentioned the old man’s oddities … his choice of dinner guests. Who’s coming?”

  “Hmm … well. There’s Rosamond Lehmann.”

  “I know that name.”

  “Novelist. Pretty good one actually. Three or four to her name. She’s John’s sister … you know John. Rod was at Cambridge with him. One of the Trinity bright boys.”

  “Will John be coming?”

  “Yep. And then there’s Moura Budberg.”

  “Again? Weird.”

  “Dad seems to enjoy her company.”

  “Ma doesn’t. Moura name-drops all the bloody time.”

  “I think the Baroness Budberg brings a little bit of Russia back to the old man, and, needless to say, Ma doesn’t need or want any little bits of old Russia. And Moura makes for a good guessing game. Is she a Soviet spy or isn’t she?”

  “I can’t see any point in the Soviet Union having spies who tell you they’re spies over the fucking soup course.”

  “And then there’s Harold Macmillan …”

  “And weirder.”

  “Macmillan’s a rebel … you know how the old man loves troublemakers. Mac’s a charmer. A hopeless charmer, a backbencher with about as much chance of cabinet office as our cat.”

  Sasha stepped back.

  “You’re done.”

  So he was. Troy looked in the mirror and could see himself again, something he had not been able to do dressed as a police cadet-cum-clown.

  “If you’d asked me when you were thirteen and spotty if you’d ever be handsome only good manners would have restrained me from saying no, but I will say this, our Fred: for a little ‘un you’re really rather cute.”

  Troy said nothing.

  Sasha reverted to the subject.

  “And then there’s that new bloke he’s got writing book reviews for one magazine or
another … Burgess, Guy Burgess.”

  §2

  Troy looked around and felt lost. Eighteen guests strung out either side of the table. His father at one end, his mother at the other. His elder brother, Rod, sat at his mother’s right hand. Macmillan sat at his father’s right, a rather obvious clue that Alex had an agenda of things he meant to say and meant Macmillan to hear.

  Troy was slightly closer to his father, off-centre, next to his sister Masha, twin of the now completely sozzled Sasha. He wondered if he’d been placed there to keep an eye on Masha or she on him. She’d not appeared for cocktails, but had emerged from her dressing room looking like Greta Garbo or Anna Karenina … black dress, pale skin, and plenty of cleavage. He wondered who she might be tarting at but could spot no likely candidate.

  Centre table was Burgess, on the far side of Masha. She leaned Troy’s way, her lips all but touching his ear.

  “Who’s the new bloke?” she whispered.

  “Guy Burgess.”

  “Hack, novelist, pol?”

  “Hack. I gather the old man’s taken him on. Rod tells me they overlapped at Cambridge.”

  “Funny. Never heard Rod mention him.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Have you seen his fingernails? Looks as though he scrapes dung off a cow’s backside for a living.”

  “Say it a bit louder and he’ll hear you.”

  “Don’t care. I wouldn’t let those fingers up me.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Masha.”

  “Only saying!”

  “Only saying what?”

  It was Burgess, pricking the illusory bubble that Masha had sought to blow around the two of them.

  “That you and Rod were at Cambridge together.”

  “Oh, yes. Not exactly together. I think Rod came down at the end of my first year. And we never quite mixed in the same circles.”

  “Rod tells me you were in Russia a while ago?” Troy said, hoping for and getting the desired effect.

  No other word would have exploded into the room, slicing through all other dinner chit-chat, quite like “Russia.” Facing him were his uncle Nikolai and Baroness Budberg. Within earshot, his father, and, just out of it, his mother. All of them Russian exiles.

  Before Burgess could answer Nikolai leapt in.

  “When?” he asked simply.

  “Last summer. Went Intourist with a Cambridge chum. The quid quotidian—a pound a day to see Moscow. Cheaper than Blackpool or Skegness.”

  “Ah,” said Nikolai. “The fellow travellers’ package.”