LITMIR.BIZ

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Stalin’s apparent aberration I had travelled all over Europe winkling out people who might once have had access to secret information that could explain it. Spies in other words; among them former members of Britain’s XX Committee, various branches of America’s OSS, Germany’s RSHA VI (foreign intelligence) and Abwehr and the Soviet Union’s two European espionage organisations known as the Red Orchestra and the Lucy Ring.

      Predictably, most of the agents denied that they had ever been spies. Who wants to admit to a furtive past if he is currently a burgormaster or the chairman of a bank? But a few, mostly the very old whose cloaks of secrecy were now in tatters, did agree that the history books should be rewritten. Watching their reactions to my questions was like peering into coffins and seeing corpses momentarily resuscitated. From each coffin came a dusty whisper: ‘The Judas Code.’ No more. Ageing reflexes belatedly recognised indiscretion, coffin lids snapped back into place.

      Chambers seemed to relax, relieved, I guessed, that I appeared to know nothing more. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I should forget all about it.’ He crossed his legs, revealing black silk socks.

      ‘Why? It was important enough to bring you round here like a dog after a bitch on heat.’

      ‘There are some secrets that are best left undisturbed. For everyone’s sake.’

      ‘You would have to be more explicit than that to convince me.’

      He was about to reply when the phone on the coffee table between us rang, as intrusive as a fire alarm. I reached for the receiver but Chambers beat me to it.

      He gave the telephone number, paused and said: ‘Yes, I inserted the advertisement. Can you help me?’

      As I tried to snatch the receiver Chambers backed away and, with a pickpocket’s agility, plucked the Browning from his pocket and aimed the barrel between my eyes.

      ‘… Yes, my name is Lamont. Can we meet somewhere? … Very well, midday … Yes, I’ll explain then … Thank you for calling …’

      ‘So where are we meeting?’ I asked as he sat down again.

      ‘You are not meeting anyone.’

      ‘Are you in the habit of impersonating people?’

      ‘Not recently. In the past, well yes, it has been known.’ He handled the gun with love, then asked: ‘Do you have a price?’

      ‘They say everyone does.’

      ‘What’s yours?’

      ‘A niche at the top of the best-seller list.’

      ‘Alas the one bribe I can’t offer you because if The Judas Code achieved that distinction it would negate everything I have set out to achieve.’

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘To persuade you to abandon your inquiries.’

      ‘And why would you want to do that?’

      ‘I can’t tell you that. Would £10,000 persuade you that I had good reasons?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘Twenty thousand?’

      ‘I’m going to write the book.’

      He stubbed out his cigarette fastidiously, making sure he didn’t soil his fingers with tar, and stared at me without speaking. In the hall the grandfather clock chimed 9. 30; a pigeon on the windowsill pecked at the glass; I became aware of the hum of the traffic far below.

      Finally he said: ‘If you continue to follow this up I shall kill you.’

      He took a gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it as though shortly he had another appointment to threaten someone with death.

      ‘I’m going to call the police,’ I said.

      ‘Please do so,’ he said. ‘But have the courtesy to wait till I’ve gone.’ He stood up, walked to the window and gazed at the dignified streets below. ‘You have a wife and three children, I believe?’

      ‘You keep them out of this!’

      ‘Don’t worry, I won’t touch them. But they’re very fond of you, aren’t they? Would it be fair to deprive your wife of a husband, your children of a father? Because, please believe me, Mr Lamont, I mean what I say. Try and crack the Judas Code and you’re a dead man.’

      Throat pulsing, the pigeon backed away along the windowsill.

      Perhaps I should have said: ‘I don’t scare that easily,’ but it wouldn’t have been the truth. Instead I said: ‘All right, you’ve had your say, now get out.’

      He shrugged, buttoned his overcoat, walked to the door, said: ‘Please be sensible,’ and was gone.

      I considered calling the police but even if they traced my visitor - I doubted whether his name was Chambers but he couldn’t escape the scar – he would merely deny everything.

      As I was making a cup of instant coffee in the kitchen the phone rang again.

      A man’s voice: ‘If you want to meet Judas go to the lion house at the Zoo at eleven this morning. Be carrying a copy of—’

       ‘The Times?’

      ‘The Telegraph. And appear to be making some notes.’ Click as he cut the connection.

      So I had more than an hour. I shaved and dressed in a blue lightweight and took the antiquated lift to the ground floor where the porter, Mr. Atkins – I had never known his first name – had stood guard ever since I had come to the musty old block ten years ago. He was as permanent as the stone horsemen on the portals and just as worn.

      ‘Good morning, Mr. Atkins.’

      ‘Good morning, Mr. Lamont. Fair to middling this morning.’

      I don’t think he ever left the hallway because the weather was ‘fair to middling’ even if a blizzard was raging outside.

      I walked up Portland Place towards Regent’s Park. An April shower had washed the street, the sun was warm, pretty girls had blossomed overnight. A chic woman in grey waited patiently while her poodle watered a lamp-post; a man in a bowler-hat carrying a briefcase danced down a flight of steps; a nun smiled shyly from beneath her halo; an airliner chalked a white line across the blue sky.

      Faced by all this, Chambers’ lingering menace dissolved; the gun probably hadn’t been loaded anyway.

      I crossed Marylebone Road and the Outer Circle, Nash terraces behind me benign in the sunlight, and walked down the Broad Walk between the chestnut trees.

      Nursemaids were abroad with prams and for a moment I imagined them steering them towards clandestine meetings with red-coated soldiers.

      And that scar—he had probably fallen on to the railings at school.

      Inside the lion house my mood changed. The big cats hopelessly padding up and down their cages, their prison smelling like sour beer. I displayed the Telegraph, took out a notebook and began to make notes. Lions watching the spectators brought there for their delectation …

      The young man in the fawn raincoat said: ‘I’m afraid you won’t meet Judas here.’ His voice and dress were irrefutably English but there was a Slavonic cast to his features; he had grey, questing eyes and was, I guessed, in his late twenties. ‘You see you’ve been followed.’

      My earlier optimism was routed. A lion bared yellow teeth behind its bars; captivity tightened around me.

      ‘Who are you?’

      ‘That doesn’t matter. Just an intermediary. We had to do it this way otherwise …’ He shrugged. ‘… you would never have got your story.’

      ‘How did you know I wanted a story?’

      Without answering, he took my arm. ‘Let’s get out

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