Page 50 of The Gathering Storm

‘No, thank you. Too much hard work.’

Michael looked at him pityingly. ‘Hard work is satisfying. What’s leisure unless it’s leisure from something? I should hate to spend all day, every day, doing nothing.’

‘Don’t condemn it till you’ve tried it,’ said Basil.

Afterwards, James could never remember the terrible fear. He remembered the fact of it – he thought he’d never forget it – but not how it felt. At the time it had seemed to go on for days. In truth it was about twenty-four hours.

The Soviets had somehow got it into their heads that they were spies.

‘I’m a production engineer and management consultant,’ Charlie said, to one stony-faced official after another. ‘I developed the Bedaux System of Human Power Measurement. I was invited here by your government to look at labour systems. I have permits from the Departments of Labour, Culture and Tourism.’

‘You are spies,’ was the reply. ‘You came to steal Soviet industrial secrets.’

One thing that seemed to interest them particularly was the fact that he had worked for Kodak. ‘You have secret camera. You send photographs of Soviet factories to America.’

‘I didn’t bring any sort of camera with me on this trip. I was only at Kodak to develop a motion study system. And that was years ago,’ he protested. They thought he had developed a miniature spy camera that could be hidden in the clothing. ‘I was at Kodak solely to streamline their working practices. I had nothing to do with the products. There is no such thing as a spy camera.’

It was infinitely more frightening when they were split up and questioned separately. James had felt protected to an extent by Charlie’s presence. In a room containing only a table with a chair on either side, they left him to wait. The single bare light-bulb overhead flickered periodically. The room smelt of sweat and cigarettes. The sensation of being watched intensified minute by minute until his skin crawled with invisible ants. Hidden cameras? Hidden microphones? He was so terrified of being tortured his brain kept stalling, and his heart fluttered like a hurt bird.

He had a succession of interrogators. They snapped questions at him that he could not answer.

‘I’m Mr Bedaux’s secretary,’ was all he could say. ‘I’m not a spy. I don’t know anything about industry. I’m just a secretary.’

Now and then they switched to Russian, but he could only catch a word or two.

‘Why do you pretend you don’t understand Russian?’

‘I learned some phrases for the trip, that’s all.’

‘Who did you learn from?’

He was just enough in control not to mention Tata’s name. ‘People in Paris, where I live.’

‘Which people?’

He invented desperately. ‘A man called Ivan, who works in a bar.’

‘Which bar?’

‘The Blue Cat. In the boulevard de Clichy.’

‘He sent you here to spy, to steal Soviet secrets.’

It went on. He sweated. He felt light-headed. He lost all sense of time. Was it daylight outside, or dark? But outside was harder all the time to believe in. There was only this – there had only ever been this: this dry-mouthed, gut-shrivelling, unmanning fear. They kept coming back to Ivan, kept asking about cameras, and why he had learned Russian, and what Charlie’s business really did. When they left him alone for a time – he supposed it was to make him more anxious, and it worked – he found himself examining the scratches on the table. Some of them looked like letters. What message were they trying to convey? How long had the author been confined in this room to manage to scratch so deeply? What had they used? What had happened to them?

He’d eaten and drunk nothing for – for however many hours it had been. He felt faint, and confused. Had he said anything to the interrogators that might incriminate him? Anything they might use against Charlie? What were they doing to Fern? Why was this happening?

The door opened, and he stiffened, not as a hero stiffens in resistance but like a beaten dog seeing the stick. A different man came in with the same stony face but an air even more disapproving, more grim. James’s mouth went dry. Was this it?

Behind him came a man in civilian clothes who – oh, Lord, oh, thank God! – was so obviously not Russian, was so obviously from the free and civilised West that he wanted to run to him, clutch him by the lapels, and sob.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Morland,’ he said, in a mellow American voice. His tone was neutral and he didn’t smile, but his eyes were flashing messages at him. James could only suppose they were warnings not to say anything. He would be happy never to say anything to anyone ever again. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been kept so long. My name is McArthur, I’m from the American Embassy. We have a car waiting outside and your friends are on their way down. We had a little trouble straightening all this out, but we can be on our way now.’

McArthur walked briskly, though not briskly enough for James, who wanted to run. They passed to the echo of their own footsteps through the labyrinthine corridors, under the bare lights, past the anonymous doors behind which who knew what horrors were being perpetrated? His senses were stretched to painfulness for a shout from behind to signify a change of mind – a challenge, a clumping of boots, and a detaining hand on the shoulder.

Down flights of steps, and into a large entrance hall, where the armed guards stared at them. But no-one stopped them, and they stepped out into the street. It was daylight. The sky was overcast, the light grey and muted. James could not determine if it was morning or afternoon – and, of course, in June it stayed light until ten or later, so it might even have been evening. Just ahead, at the kerb, was a large black car into which, he saw with vast relief, Charlie and Fern were just climbing. James was squashed into the back with them. Charlie, the always immaculate, smelt of sweat; Fern was white and exhausted-looking and her hair was disordered under her hat. They looked at each other but didn’t speak.

McArthur climbed into the front and the driver set off at speed without waiting for a command. McArthur twisted himself round to address them. ‘We’re getting you straight out of the country. Once the Russkis get suspicious, they don’t give up easily. They’ve let you go for now, but they could easily decide to re-arrest you tomorrow, so we have to get you over the border tonight. I have your passports here.’