Confessional

Ferguson sat there, staring down at the lists, his face expressionless. After a while, he said, ‘So what you’re saying is that somewhere over there is one mad individual dedicated to keeping the whole rotten mess turning over.’

‘Exactly, except that I don’t think he’s mad. It seems to me he’s simply following sound Marxist-Leninist principles where urban revolution is concerned. Chaos, disorder, fear. All those factors essential to the breakdown of any kind of orderly government.’

‘With the IRA taking the brunt of the smear campaign?’

‘Which makes it less and less likely that the Protestants will ever come to a political agreement with them, or our own government, for that matter.’

‘And ensures that the struggle continues year after year and a solution always recedes before us.’ Ferguson nodded slowly. ‘An interesting theory, Harry, and you believe it?’

He looked up enquiringly. Fox shrugged. ‘The facts were all there in the computer. We never asked the right questions, that’s all. If we had, the pattern would have emerged earlier. It’s been there a long time, sir.’

‘Yes, I think you could very well be right.’ Ferguson sat brooding for a little while longer.

Fox said gently, ‘He exists, sir. He is a fact, I’m sure of it. And there’s something else. Something that could go a long way to explaining the whole thing.’

‘All right, tell me the worst.’

Fox took a further sheet from the file. ‘When you were in Washington the other week, Tony Villiers came back from the Oman.’

‘Yes, I heard something of his adventures there.’

‘In his debriefing, Tony tells an interesting story concerning a Russian Jewish dissident named Viktor Levin whom he brought out with him. A fascinating vignette about a rather unusual KGB training centre in the Ukraine.’

He moved to the fire and lit a cigarette, waiting for Ferguson to finish reading the file. After a while, Ferguson said, ‘Tony Villiers is in the Falklands now, did you know that?’

‘Yes, sir, serving with the SAS behind enemy lines.’

‘And this man, Levin?’

‘A highly gifted engineer. We’ve arranged for one of the Oxford colleges to give him a job. He’s at a safe house in Hampstead at the moment. I’ve taken the liberty of sending for him, sir.’

‘Have you indeed, Harry? What would I do without you?’

‘Manage very well, I should say, sir. Ah, and another thing. The psychologist, Paul Cherny, mentioned in that story. He defected in nineteen seventy-five.’

‘What, to England?’ Ferguson demanded.

‘No, sir – Ireland. Went there for an international conference in July of that year and asked for political asylum. He’s now Professor of Experimental Psychology at Trinity College, Dublin.’

Viktor Levin looked fit and well, still deeply tanned from his time in the Yemen. He wore a grey tweed suit, soft white shirt and blue tie, and black library spectacles that quite changed his appearance. He talked for some time, answering Ferguson’s questions patiently.

During a brief pause he said, ‘Do I presume that you gentlemen believe that the man Kelly, or Cuchulain to give him his codename, is actually active in Ireland? I mean, it’s been twenty-three years.’

‘But that was the whole idea, wasn’t it?’ Fox said. ‘A sleeper to go in deep. To be ready when Ireland exploded. Perhaps he even helped it happen.’

‘And you would appear to be the only person outside his own people who has any idea what he looks like, so we’ll be asking you to look at some pictures. Lots of pictures,’ Ferguson told him.

‘As I say, it’s been a long time,’ Levin said.

‘But he did have a distinctive look to him,’ Fox suggested.

‘That’s true enough, God knows. A face like the Devil himself, when he killed, but of course, you’re not quite right when you say I’m the only one who remembers him. There’s Tanya. Tanya Voroninova.’

‘The young girl whose father played the police inspector who Kelly shot, sir,’ Fox explained.

‘Not so young now. Thirty years old. A lovely girl and you should hear her play the piano,’ Levin told them.

‘You’ve seen her since?’ Ferguson asked.

‘All the time. Let me explain. I made sure they thought I’d seen the error of my ways so I was rehabilitated and sent to work at the University of Moscow. Tanya was adopted by the KGB Colonel, Maslovsky, and his wife who really took to the child.’

‘He’s a general now, sir,’ Fox put in.

‘She turned out to have great talent for piano. When she was twenty, she won the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow.’

‘Just a minute,’ Ferguson said, for classical music was his special joy. ‘Tanya Voroninova, the concert pianist. She did rather well at the Leeds Piano Festival two years ago.’

‘That’s right. Mrs Maslovsky died a month ago. Tanya tours abroad all the time now. With her foster-father a KGB general, she’s looked upon as a good risk.’

‘And you’ve seen her recently?’

‘Six months ago.’

‘And she spoke of the events you’ve described as taking place at Drumore?’

‘Oh, yes. Let me explain. She’s highly intelligent and well balanced, but she’s always had a thing about what happened. It’s as if she has to keep turning it over in her mind. I asked her why once.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘That it was Kelly. She could never forget him because he was so kind to her, and in view of what happened, she couldn’t understand that. She said she often dreamt of him.’

‘Yes, well as she’s in Russia, that isn’t really much help.’ Ferguson got to his feet. ‘Would you mind waiting in the next room a moment, Mr Levin?’

Fox opened the green baize door and the Russian passed through. Ferguson said, ‘A nice man, I like him.’ He walked to the window and looked down into the square below. After a while, he said, ‘We’ve got to root him out, Harry. I don’t think anything we’ve handled has ever been so vital.’

‘I agree.’

‘A strange thing. It would seem to be just as important to the IRA that Cuchulain is exposed as it is to us.’

‘Yes, sir, the thought had occurred to me.’

‘Do you think they’d see it that way?’

‘Perhaps, sir.’ Fox’s stomach was hollow with excitement as if he knew what was coming.

‘All right,’ Ferguson said. ‘God knows, you’ve given enough to Ireland, Harry. Are you willing to risk the other hand?’

‘If you say so, sir.’