‘So who the hell recruited Comrades Burgess, Maclean and Philby in the first place?’ said Cayle. ‘Who was able to pick them out all those years ago back at Cambridge — recognize just the right characteristics, the right weaknesses, the right neuroses and sense of social guilt that combined to turn three young English gentlemen into life-long traitors? Whoever that person was — or is — must have had one hell of an insight into the British social structure!’
For a moment Hennison’s eyes lifted and met Cayle’s; and they held in that moment an expression of distinct unease. When he spoke, his words were muted and slightly rushed: ‘Yes, but you must remember that Communism was very much in vogue in the Thirties, particularly among students. A lot of them joined the Party, and some of them may even have been introduced to Soviet agents in England who may in turn have tried to recruit them for espionage purposes. How many of them took the final jump we shall probably never know. But my own opinion is that Burgess, Maclean and Philby were exceptional cases.’
Cayle gave him a tired grin: ‘Oh, they were exceptional all right, Mr Hennison! Those three boys were long-term penetration agents. When they signed on, it was for the duration. They gave themselves up, body and soul, to Stalin’s Utopia, and stuck to her right through the Terror and the mock trials, the Nazi-Soviet pact and the attack on Finland, when most card-carrying members and fellow-travellers were turning their backs on the CP and searching their hearts like a bunch of guilty schoolgirls.
‘Only not Comrades Burgess, Maclean and Philby. They stayed the course. They stayed as full-time employees of the OGPU and the NKVD, organs of mass murder which didn’t think twice about knocking off doubtful foreign agents, even outside Russia. Yet the weird thing is, the Russkies apparently regarded these three British oddballs as reliable — which is pretty strange, when you consider that all three were experienced piss-artists, and two of them roaring queens! In fact, none of them seems to have had even the first qualification for a job like espionage, where discretion counts pretty high. And you know what they say about a spy in the field? That he’s like a test-pilot or a professional boxer — after seven years he’s burnt out. Yet Burgess and Maclean kept at it for twenty years, and Kim Philby for more than thirty! That must have taken one hell of a lot of control.’ He paused. ‘Who was that controller, Mr Hennison?’
Hennison’s eyes were again lowered, his features smooth and colourless. The only trace of emotion was a hand that plucked steadily at the sleeve of his jacket.
‘I’m not just talking about the man who first recruited the three of them back in Cambridge,’ Cayle went on: ‘I’m talking about the one who “ran” them. Is he still alive? Still around? Does he have a nice big office in Whitehall and a cushy armchair in White’s? And who are his cronies? His associates? His fellow-conspirators who kept quiet for all those years, and were able to kick over the traces when the going got rough?’
Hennison peered up at him now with a weak smile. ‘Even if there were some truth in your theory, most of the people concerned would be retired by now, or dead.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Cayle. ‘Given the fact that they’d be only a few years older than Kim, they’d still be in their sixties or early seventies. And top Civil Servants rarely retire completely. Unlike politicians, there are no voters to kick them out.’
‘What facts have you got?’
‘The facts are gone. Buried. Destroyed by Philby’s co-conspirators.’
‘You sound very sure. Have you tried talking to retired members of the FO? Or even old MI6? There are quite a few disgruntled people about who might be prepared to talk — especially with a whisky or two inside them.’
Cayle shook his head. ‘You’d never get near the people who really know the truth. Trying to get a straight answer out of your average British Civil Servant is about as easy as listening for a snake to fart.’
‘Have you any particular theory about who this person might be?’ Hennison asked slowly.
‘My bet is, it must have been someone very close to the three of them. Someone who knew and understood each of them perfectly. Someone able to keep them on the rails. A sort of glorified friend — father — schoolmaster — priest — professor. He also had to be someone powerful enough to cover up for them when the crunch came. And in the case of Kim Philby, he even got the whole British Secret Service to cover up! Because one thing’s for sure. That “someone” was no bullet-headed apparatchik. He was — and probably still is — someone on the inside, and very high up. What’s more, he almost certainly wasn’t alone. It would have needed a full professional team to run a spy network like that. Otherwise, if one accepts your comfortable theory about Burgess, Maclean and Philby being exceptional cases, they’d have been rumbled long ago.’
‘They were, finally.’
‘Yes,’ said Cayle. ‘And what happened? They scarpered — just as they were supposed to.’
Hennison had not moved.
Cayle continued: ‘We know that Kim was the Third Man who tipped off Burgess and Maclean before they skipped in 1951. But now let’s look at what happened to Kim. In 1962 he was still sunning himself in Beirut as the Middle East correspondent for the Observer and the Economist — to whom he’d been obligingly recommended by his old chums in the FO. Then suddenly the roof fell in. A high-ranking Polish Intelligence officer defected to the West. The first thing that happened was the arrest of George Blake, who was jailed for forty-two years, before he miraculously escaped and popped
