‘Even with a hijacked plane less than fifty miles away and all the hijackers still on the loose?’
‘There will be a lot of confusion,’ Donaldson said smoothly. ‘And even with the journalists’ descriptions they can scarcely close every frontier post.’
They were coming into Lovisa — rows of neat wooden houses with shallow, deeply eaved roofs thick with snow — like a toy town covered in cotton wool. Kim Philby was not quite home again yet, but he’d reached the garden gate and everything so far was spick and span, except for his passport in the name of Fielding.
CHAPTER 18
Ten miles beyond the town they ran into the first police. Two Volvos with spinning blue lights and sirens blaring passed them at a good twenty miles an hour; and a few moments later a convoy of grey vans and an ambulance raced past.
‘How far now to Helsinki?’ Philby asked.
‘Another twenty minutes and we’ll begin to join the city traffic,’ Donaldson replied. Besides the police convoy, they had only seen a couple of cars and a few trucks since leaving Lovisa.
‘It shouldn’t take them m-more than twenty minutes to get to the plane,’ Philby said nervously. ‘And I wouldn’t put it past the Finns to order road-blocks in the centre of the city.’
For the first time Hughes spoke: ‘We’re making a diversion to the port. They can’t block every road.’
‘And anyway,’ said Donaldson, ‘even if Leningrad knows your alias, none of the journalists do.’
Philby was sweating in the heat of the car. ‘I told one of them,’ he said hoarsely. ‘All right, it was bloody silly, but I thought you bastards would have the sense to hand me my new papers at once.’
‘Too bad for you,’ said Donaldson. ‘You can’t blame London for everything.’
Philby was sweating in the heat of the car, and was thinking again of what Miss Galina Valisova had told him about last night on the Red Arrow Express and how the Australian had disappeared. He was sorry he’d had to leave Galina — she was a sweet little thing and he’d been quite fond of her. Pity she hadn’t been able to keep a better eye on the Australian.
‘Have you got something to drink?’ he asked.
‘You’ll have to wait till the ferry,’ said Donaldson.
‘I thought the Swedes were half-dry?’
‘Their ferries aren’t. Now relax.’
Two more police cars sped past. The traffic was beginning to build up now, and they saw the lights of houses dotted about the flat black landscape. Hughes slowed into a suburb and they were stopped twice at traffic lights. The glow of the city lay directly ahead, but Hughes now took a series of turnings to the left, down wide low streets, very clean and almost deserted: then a row of cafés behind misted plate-glass: a building like a great plastic envelope turned inside out: the fairy-lights of ships and the sweep of a prosperous, well-ordered modern port.
At 6.22 p.m., local time — seventy-eight minutes after the plane had touched down — Hughes stopped in front of a bar with a red neon sign in flowing script, Haaklakuukima. He got out leaving the engine running, hurried through the double-doors, and returned a few seconds later with a little man in a black raincoat and leather hat. The two of them got in without ceremony, the newcomer sitting in the back with Donaldson and breathing hard like an asthmatic. Donaldson said: ‘Give me your papers, Mr Fielding.’
Philby reached inside his jacket and noticed that Hughes’ hand was in his side-pocket. They weren’t taking any chances, even now. Pol had been far more courteous.
Philby gave Donaldson a worn calf-skin wallet; at the same time, the little man pulled out a brown envelope. Donaldson took it and sat weighing it in one hand, with Philby’s wallet in the other. ‘Now empty your pockets, Mr Fielding.’ Philby stared at him. ‘Don’t argue,’ said Donaldson; he lifted a polythene bag off the floor and dropped the wallet inside. Philby handed him a collection of keys, matches, an old envelope, notebook, some loose change in kopeks, a Russian fountain-pen.
Donaldson held up the polythene bag and dropped each item in, as though it were some ritual. ‘That’s the lot?’
Philby nodded. Donaldson handed the bag to the little man, who opened the door and got out. Donaldson pulled it shut after him, and Hughes eased the car out again into the traffic. Philby just had time to see the stranger disappear again into the café, clutching the plastic bag to his chest. He wondered if he were planning to sell its contents to the newspapers.
He held out his hand and Donaldson gave him the envelope. Philby slit the gummed flap and shook out a British passport, British and international driving licences, a couple of sealed manila envelopes, a plastic folder full of credit cards, two cheque books, a single cabin-ticket on the Jorgensen line to Stockholm, and a pair of clear-lensed spectacles.
He put on the spectacles and looked at the passport. Its cover had lost most of its gilt and its corners were soft and threadbare. It was made out in the name of Duncan Henry Saunders, British Subject, born Sheffield, Yorks, 20.6.18; Profession, Businessman; Country of Residence, Great Britain; issued by the Foreign Office, 6 Sept. 1968; renewed 11 Sept. 1973, and valid until 6 Sept. 1983. The photograph was of a bespectacled, square-faced man in his middle sixties. Special peculiarities, nil. Only the signature was missing.
Inside were a number of West European entry and exit stamps, together with five Binnekoms and Vertreks from South Africa, and
