John Sweeney - The Useful Idiot

“We are aware that Mr Attercliffe has been charged and has appeared in court.”

“What are you doing to help him?”

Ilver let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Mr Jones, we are doing our level best, but you have to understand that this isn’t the Home Counties.”

“Have you been able to see him yet?”

“No. As I said, we will do our very best to secure consular access to Mr Attercliffe.”

“Attercliffe told me that, five days after he gave me the photograph, the Cheka started following him. That is one day after I gave it to you.”

Ilver stared at Jones in silence. A log in the grate dropped, causing a little flurry of sparks to rise up in the hearth. Then, “What are you implying, Mr Jones?”

“I am implying nothing. I am just reporting to you what he told me.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” Ilver stood up, marking that the meeting would be ending imminently. Jones stood up too.

“Listen, Mr Jones. King Charles Street is rather interested in the Soviet reaction to the latest developments in Germany. Not only that, but I have an important meeting with our Russian colleagues and…”

“I’m also here to talk about the famine.”

“What famine?” Ilver’s face grew paler, heightening the impression of his skin drawn back over his skull.

“The famine in the countryside, the famine which is causing the deaths of millions of Russians and Ukrainians right here and now. It’s coming to the city. I stumbled across three beggars who’d frozen to death only the other day.”

“There are beggars in London and Paris too, Mr Jones.”

“But there is no famine. There is here and it’s happening under your very nose.”

“The Soviet side admit there’s some malnutrition but deny these reports of famine and say they are fanciful propaganda dreamt up by far right fanatics. I understand that you yourself were granted a flight with Herr Hitler.”

Jones held in his anger as best he could.

“Mr Ilver, I’m a reporter. That I managed to get a ride on Hitler’s plane does not mean that I am sympathetic to the National Socialist party in Germany. Far from it. I called Herr Hitler as I found him: unimpressive and flabby. But that, sir, is a distraction from the point. I am fully aware of what the Soviet side says about the famine.” He picked up the suitcase. “It’s a lie. It’s a lie from a lie factory.”

“Perhaps you’re losing your objectivity.”

Jones motioned to his suitcase. “We have evidence to prove the famine. In here is a reel of film showing dead men, women and children being transported from the famine area to some mass grave. I can’t speak to the veracity of those images but I do not think they have been fabricated. But the last image I can verify. It is of a mother leaving her dead infant by a Lenin statue in Dnipropetrovsk. I saw this happen with my own eyes. I ask only that you ship this suitcase to my office in London by diplomatic bag.”

Ilver’s eyes darted through the windows to the citadel across the frozen Moskva, then down to the boulevard below. Jones’ eyes followed Ilver’s but he couldn’t make out what he’d been looking at. It was starting to snow.

Ilver turned back to Jones. “Take your film and get out.”

Jones picked up the briefcase and walked down the marble steps, Ilver following him at a distance. The butler appeared with his hat, scarf and overcoat and helped Jones put them on. When the butler opened the front door, Jones stood on the threshold and looked back at Ilver who was standing halfway down the staircase. Jones said nothing and walked out, the embassy door slamming behind him.

Outside, the snow was thickening. Jones took his hat off and carried it in one hand, the briefcase in the other.

The snow came in thick from the north, sweeping across the Moskva river, driving into Jones’ face, half-blinding him. To be accused of being pro-Hitler – his eyes smarted at the thought of it.

Without the protection of his hat, soon his spectacles were matted with snow. Stopping, he put down the suitcase and wiped his glasses with his handkerchief. While he was about it, he wiped his eyes too. Once he could see properly, he could make out, about two hundred yards ahead of him, the limo with the shark’s teeth grille. The opening of the Lenin Dam in Dnipro felt like a thousand years ago – and yet, here it was again, parked by the side of the road, waiting for him. He squinted, slowed down but kept on walking.

His left hand, the one carrying the briefcase, began to burn with the cold. No matter how hard he tried, the thought would not leave him alone: inside that briefcase lay the evidence that could have him shot. Pathetic to carry on walking towards the ZIS – and yet it felt silly, somehow, to turn round and head in the opposite direction.

This was how the nobles of France had met their death during the time of the Revolution, of loftily being carried along in the tumbril, rather than do something to avoid the inevitable. Step by step, he began to slow down.

A rear door of the ZIS opened – and there was Lyushkov, in a black leather coat, cigarette in hand.

A fish truck slid to a stop on the opposite side of the road. Stepping out of the ZIS, Lyushkov studied Jones patiently, cigarette now to his lips.

The driver’s window of the fish truck opened, revealing Fred Beal, and from inside came a low whistle, Let My People Go. Beal lifted his hands from the wheel of the truck, a gesture of impatience.

Jones looked round. There was a wooden barrier down the middle of the road, preventing the ZIS from doing a U-turn. If he ran for the truck, he still had a chance.

A line of limousines was moving fast towards Jones, a police car with a blue flashing light heading the procession. Seizing his opportunity, Jones hurried across the road and ran to the back of the truck, where someone pulled up the tarpaulin just enough for Jones to see through. Flinging his hat and suitcase in first, he vaulted in. As soon as he had landed, a big man in black workers’ overalls banged his fist on the back of the cab and the truck surged forwards before it could be overtaken by the convoy of VIPs.

The back of the truck stank of fish. Jones had landed in a narrow aisle, between stacks of wooden boxes filled with fish and ice.

Big Bill Haywood studied him with his one good eye.

“The British, they didn’t take the reel?”

“No. I was thrown out on my ear.”

“Goddamn limeys.”

“Quite.”

“Who gave you the cold shoulder?”

“Ilver, the commercial attaché.”

“Ilver, eh? We’ll ask around.”

The truck slogged through the traffic, the stacks of fish boxes straining against their tethers.

“Give me the reel. We’ll find another way.”

Jones opened his briefcase, rifled through Evgenia’s lingerie and produced the metal tin. When the truck came to a standstill in traffic, Haywood wrapped it in a sack, then put it in an empty fish box, then unloaded fish and ice from another box on top of it. As he was finishing off, the truck lurched into motion and a huge cod, its mouth gaping open, surfed on the ice towards Jones. His hands now covered in fish slime, Jones picked it up and returned it to the fish box. Haywood then reorganised the stack so that the fish box with the film was at the bottom. Not even the Cheka would think of looking for a film reel in a fish box.

“Nice work,” said Jones, admiringly. “But it’s hopeless, isn’t it?”

“What are you doing in a fish truck, Mr Jones?” Haywood’s tone hardened. As mock-interrogators went, he was good.

“I needed a lift.”

“In a fish truck?”

“It was snowing.”

Haywood grinned. “Not bad. There’s a party tonight at Winnie’s. You’re invited.”