The Judas Code

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 of here, I can’t stand jails. But before you go take a look at the man in the sports jacket with the patched elbows looking at the tigers.’

Casually I glanced towards the tiger cage. The man in question seemed absorbed with the occupant; he was squat, balding, powerfully built, about the same age as Chambers.

We left the cats dreaming about wide open spaces and returned to the sunlight.

‘And now,’ he said as we walked past a polar bear sunning itself beside its pool, ‘I have another assignation for you. But first you’ll have to shake off your tail and make sure that he hasn’t got a back-up.’

I stopped and gazed at the bear, glancing at the same time to my right. The man in the sports jacket was standing about seventy-five yards away consulting a hardbook.

We walked on. ‘One more word of advice,’ he said, ‘don’t use your telephone on Judas business – it’s bound to be bugged. That wasn’t you who answered the phone the first time, was it?’

‘It was a man who says his name is Chambers.’

‘We thought as much. It was he who hired the private detective who’s following us.’

‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’

‘I can’t; Judas can.’

‘And when am I going to meet Judas?’

‘Soon. But, first of all, do you mind telling me just how you intend to use any information you might get hold of?’

‘Write a book. You seemed to know that.’

‘We’ve known about you for a long time, Mr. Lamont. Ever since you started making inquiries. We’ve checked you out and you seem to be an author of integrity …’

‘Don’t forget I write novels. In my particular field it pays to be sensational.’

‘At least you’re being honest. That’s what I want to establish – before you meet Judas – that your book will be honest.’

‘I can give you this assurance: I want to write a book that puts the record straight about the second world war. Our civilisation is shaky enough without being saddled with false premises. There was, for instance, no way Britain could have stood alone in 1940–41 unless something occurred behind the scenes that we know nothing about. The Battle of Britain was a famous victory but it wasn’t sufficient to deter Hitler from calling off the invasion. There was something more behind that decision, just as there was something more behind Stalin’s refusal to believe that Germany was going to attack Russia. Stalin, after all, was a very wily Georgian …’

‘And you’ll stick to the truth? If, that is, you believe what you’re told?’

‘As I said, I’m a novelist. I may use the fictional form to mould the facts into a digestible composition. But, yes, I’ll stick to what I learn. If and when I learn it.’

A flock of schoolchildren shepherded by a harassed woman in brogues passed by, watched from aloft by a giraffe. I turned, ostensibly to watch the children, and spotted the man in the sports jacket.

The young man seemed to accept my assurance. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I wonder,’ he said, slowing down as though he was about to break away, ‘if you realise just what you’re getting into.’

‘When you’re forced into your own flat at gunpoint you get the general idea.’

‘He wasn’t play-acting, you know.’

‘The gun didn’t look like a prop.’

‘Well, so long as you understand …’

I said impatiently: ‘Where can I meet Judas, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s 11.30 now. At Madame Tussaud’s in one hour.’

‘Where at Madame Tussaud’s?’

‘Beside the figure of Winston Churchill.’ Where else? his tone seemed to say. ‘Good luck, I’ll take care of our friend. But it will only be a temporary measure, so take care.’

He turned abruptly and hurried away – straight into the man in the sports jacket. The man fell. I raced past a line of cages and, while the two men untangled themselves, took refuge in Lord Snowdon’s aviary, watched incuriously by a blue and red parrot. There was no sign of the man in the sports jacket.

I emerged cautiously from the aviary and, leaving the jungle squawks behind, made my way to the zoo’s exit. At Camden Town I took an underground train to King’s Cross on the Northern Line and changed on to the Circle Line, alighting at Baker Street.

At 12.25 I entered Madame Tussaud’s Waxwork Exhibition and made my way into the Grand Hall on the ground floor. Churchill, hands clasping the lapels of his suit, chin thrust out belligerently above his bow tie, seemed about to speak. To offer, perhaps, nothing but ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’.

It was exactly 12.30. The voice behind me said: ‘He could tell the story much better than I can. But I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me.’

I turned and came face to face with Judas.

PART ONE (#ulink_37f23f8b-769c-53bf-98f4-e0e03c335fe6)