David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

Paul opened his mouth to point out the oxymoron then closed it again. He’d taken Valentine’s word on trust and where had that got him? He’d seemed like a gentleman at first blush, insisting that they’d been at school together even though Paul was never quite able to remember him.

‘How,’ Cumming said, ‘will your cousin know that the man approaching him with this proposal isn’t in reality a Bolshevik agent? How will our agent know that the man who claims to be Mikhail Rostov is Mikhail Rostov? Not a Bolshevik agent posing as a Rostov? You see the difficulty. The people we deal with aren’t like us, members of a London club, all our class… Having people who already know one another takes out the risk.’

Not all of it , Paul almost muttered to himself.

‘But I haven’t seen my cousin for thirteen years. I’m not sure I’d know him if I passed him on the street. And how do you know he’ll still recognise me?’

Cumming looked surprised. ‘You’re family, man! Of course you’ll recognise one another.’

Cumming seemed to take a lot at face value. Set more store by family than Paul ever had. And, faced with this overweening confidence, he was at a loss as to how to answer. What was it, arrogance… hubris, Cumming possessed? Whatever it was, it was in danger of it getting Paul killed. But then the alternative was two or three more weeks of scratching around for meals and the price of a drink and then back over to France. And how long could his luck hold out over there?

‘Right!’ Cumming said, rubbing his hands together and obviously taking Paul’s silence for assent. ‘Everything clear? Good man. Plenty of time on the steamer for Hart to brief you on the situation in Russia. He’s been there since before the Revolution and knows our people there.’

‘You have other people there?’ Paul asked.

‘Lockhart in Moscow. Bruce Lockhart. Foreign Office, unofficial capacity. He went out under the auspices of Lord Milner on the cruiser that brought our ambassador and Hart back. He was there before the war and knows the country.’

‘Came home under a cloud,’ Browning added matter-of-factly. ‘A woman, apparently.’

‘Despite those in the Foreign Office still of the opinion that Lenin and Trotsky are German agents,’ Cumming went on, not without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, ‘Lockhart was sent to persuade them not to treat with the Germans. No go, obviously, so now he’s looking into alternatives.

‘What sort of alternatives?’

‘The sort we don’t ask questions about,’ Cumming replied succinctly. ‘And you’re not to contact him under any circumstances. Hart’s your only contact. He knows the Russians and he knows Petrograd, but then so do you.’

Paul opened his mouth to protest. He couldn’t claim to know Petrograd at all. He’d been ten when he’d left and hardly a street urchin, the kind who’d know the city’s back-alleys. He’d come from a good family. Even if the family in question hadn’t exactly cared to acknowledge the fact.

Cumming, though, was ploughing on regardless.

‘And there’s Steveni. He escorted the ambassador and his people to the Finnish border but stayed behind to assess the situation. He could be of help.’

‘Steveni,’ Paul repeated.

‘Best liaise with Hart.’

Paul wondered why this fellow Steveni had to escort the diplomatic corps to the Finnish border with a paragon like Hart on hand. He knew better than to ask, though.

‘Since Trotsky signed Brest-Litovsk the situation has deteriorated significantly,’ Cumming admitted. ‘And now with this Legion business the Bolshevik secret police have started cracking down on the foreigners in the country. Most have been obliged to leave.’ He turned to Browning. ‘There is that journalist we’ve just recruited. In the country for one of the papers. Browning?’

‘S76,’ Browning said. ‘Working for the Daily News. Something of a leftie so he seems above suspicion. He’s even managed to get close to some of the top Bolsheviks. Radek, for one.’

‘Hasn’t he got a name?’ Paul asked.

‘Who?’ asked Cumming.

‘S… whatever.’

‘You don’t need to know names. Not just yet. Leave that to Hart.’

‘And he knows Trotsky as well,’ Browning went on. ‘According to Lockhart he’s having a fling with his secretary.’

‘Lockhart’s secretary?’

‘Trotsky’s.’

‘We haven’t quite made up our minds if that’s good or bad, have we Browning?’ Cumming looked back at Paul. ‘But that’s Moscow, anyway. ‘Petrograd’s another matter. There’s a useful Armenian Jew who goes under an Irish name you’ll probably come across, although we’re never entirely sure where he’s likely to be at any given time. Hart will fill you in on all this, as I said.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Any questions?’

There would have been a lot if Paul had been given the chance to sit in a quiet room for half an hour to formulate them. At that moment, though, only one came to mind.

‘You say you want me to contact my cousin because of his standing within the monarchist faction. But what about his father, my uncle, Ivan Nikolayevich? He worked for the tsar’s interior ministry. Surely he’s likely to have far more contacts than Mikhail.’

‘He’s dead. Haven’t you heard?’

‘No,’ Paul said, shocked ‘I haven’t.’ Nor, presumably, had his mother or else she would have told him.

‘He was killed in the street disturbances. Thought you might have heard. We’ve no details, but since he held a position of some importance in the interior ministry his death might not have been entirely accidental.’

‘What about my aunt and her daughter Sofya?’

‘Can’t help you there, Rostov. Hart might know. I should ask him if I were you.’ He rummaged through the papers on his desk. ‘You’ll be carrying a letter of introduction from Tomáš Masaryk to the officers of the Legion. He’s the leader of the Czechoslovak National Council. As we said earlier, they weren’t keen on getting involved with Russia’s internal politics but Trotsky’s actions have made that inevitable.’ He pushed himself out of his chair and with the help of his stick joined Browning on Paul’s side of the desk.

‘What do you think, Browning, a forty-two?’

Side by side, they seemed to be sizing him up like a pair of undertakers who hadn’t far to go for their next client.

‘Best make it a forty-four,’ Browning said. ‘Nothing worse than being too tight.’

‘There’s a steamer leaving from Yarmouth this evening,’ Cumming told him.

‘This evening ?’

‘Ostensibly, she’s carrying cargo for Copenhagen and Helsingfors. Loading in Hull early Monday morning. There will be other passengers. We thought of just putting you and Hart aboard but Kell decided that that might look a bit obvious. This way she’s an innocent Finnish steamer going about its business.’

‘The train for Yarmouth leaves Liverpool Street Station this afternoon. You’ll need to be on it.’

Paul realised he wouldn’t even have time to visit his mother.

‘Hart will be travelling under the name of Darling. You’ll be on the passenger manifest as Harold Filbert, an agent for a mining company looking to buy Scandinavian pit-props. Good cover, we thought.

‘Harold Filbert and pit-props…’

‘We’ve got papers for you in that name. Once in Helsingfors, Darling — Hart, that is — will contact the people who’ll get you across the border. From there you will make your way to Petrograd where you’ll contact your cousin. Anything you don’t understand?’

There was plenty he didn’t understand but just at that moment he was more preoccupied with the thought of leaving that evening. It was much sooner than he had expected. He would have liked more time to get used to the idea and wondered if there wasn’t still some way of backing out. He could use the money they were offering, it was true, but what was the point of being in funds if one couldn’t spend a few days enjoying the newfound solvency? He’d have liked to go to the theatre, or the music hall…