They were a tedious two days, and Thomas lightened them by producing a chess-set. The weather was mostly bad, but even when it cleared, Philby was reluctant to go out. He drank heavily; and he talked all the time when he drank, but never about himself or his future plans.
Thomas’s only indication that he was satisfied with their sessions was his announcement, at the end of the week, that the second man would be arriving from London next evening. The rest of that day was spent diagnosing the events which had led up to Philby’s departure from the Soviet Union. It was only then that Thomas, during a full and accurate account of Cayle’s conversation with Hann in the British Embassy in Moscow, described Sergeant Dempster’s attempt on Philby’s life.
‘You’re not out of the fire yet, Duncan — not by a long chalk. Of course, MI5 were acting illegally — quite outside their authorized territory. But that doesn’t mean to say they aren’t getting help, official or unofficial, from the powers on high. And threatening to expose everything you know won’t necessarily help you in the long run. The Establishment’s changed, you know. There’s a lot of new blood come in, and they don’t always have the same standards as the rest of us. You might even say, the Establishment’s become fair game.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But that’s something I expect you understand?’
Philby’s response was enigmatic; but by ten o’clock that night he was dead drunk and had to be carried to bed again by Hughes. Just after midnight he woke up screaming again, and Thomas found him cowering at the bottom of the bed, his silk pyjamas soaked in sweat. He was sober, and Thomas gave him a whisky and hot milk, and left him. But he was worried. This was the same Philby they had cracked in Beirut; but it was no part of Thomas’s plan to crack him again, here in Sweden.
He was even more worried when Hughes volunteered the details of Philby’s previous nightmare, in the hotel on the way from Stockholm. Thomas had thought at first that Philby had been badly shaken by the news of Dempster; but when he thought more carefully about it, he realized that Philby must have anticipated some reaction of this kind. He was too old a hand to think that everyone in the Service would drop him like a chewed bone. Thomas was worried that there was something else on Philby’s mind — something that only exploded in his subconscious, and which even the subtlest interrogation would be unable to uncover.
Philby had been responsible for the deaths of many men; he was a lifelong spy and a traitor twice over, and vain enough to be proud of it. He had also spent nearly half his life in danger of being discovered, by one enemy or another. Yet there was something on his mind that caused him, in this safe house in the depths of neutral Sweden, to wake in the night screaming and covered in sweat. Something about fishes eating mermaids, Hughes had said.
Thomas hoped that Philby was not, in a quiet unobtrusive way, going mad.
The man who came from London was called Robin Horne. He was youngish, smooth-faced, and wore a blue bowtie. There was a discreet arrogance about him as he greeted Philby, without shaking hands. Men like Horne had a job to do, but it didn’t include shaking hands with traitors.
He was very affable with Thomas, and spent some time chatting with him about obscure friends in London, deliberately ignoring Philby; then, almost as an afterthought, he took a plain green folder from his briefcase and said, ‘Oh by the way, Saunders, you’d better start studying this. You’re going to have to know it off by heart.’
The folder contained over a hundred foolscap pages of double-spaced typing: the potted biography of Duncan Henry Saunders, with every detail from his background, including his career — the City of London, when he had punted on copper in Northern Rhodesia and made a quick killing. But he had been slow at reading the African political forecasts; and on 11 November 1965 he had woken up to find a fair slice of his wealth frozen in the new independent state of Rhodesia.
Saunders was today a semi-retired gentleman of means and easy charm, and a good social mixer. He could spend money freely — though not so freely as to attract attention. In Rhodesia, Horne explained, wealthy English expatriates with Exchange Control problems enjoyed a special status; and Duncan Saunders was very much one of the old school of Englishmen: bit of a bastard where the women were concerned, drank a bit too much, gambled a lot, especially at backgammon and on the horses, but a good sort really. Very keen on cricket. And his politics were dimly to the right of centre, with no time for any claptrap about Africa for the Africans. ‘One Man — One Vote — Once’, was Saunders’ stock reply to a silly question.
‘You’re not an intellectual,’ Horne told him, ‘but you’re not stupid either. If you meet someone down there with brains, don’t be afraid to treat him as an equal. There are still a few bright people left in White Africa, and they’re not all in the money markets. But don’t talk too big, or be too reticent. And on no account give the impression you’ve got a shady past. You’re not bent, remember. You’ve had your ups and downs, and the downs have been mostly due to taxation and Labour Governments. As far as local politics are concerned, distrust the Blacks, but don’t hate them. Play everything strictly down the middle, at least for the first few months.’
Thomas was rarely present at these sessions between Philby and Horne. And unlike Thomas, Horne
