The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [40]
‘I’ve heard,’ Gaddis said. Something regretful in the tone of Neame’s recollections caused him to wonder if he and Burgess had been lovers. The old man’s next remark did nothing to lessen this suspicion.
‘Guy was also, of course, a famous philanderer. What Kim was to the girls, Guy was to the boys. And not just pretty little Cambridge undergraduates. He liked rough trade: truck drivers, working men. Couldn’t get enough of that sort of thing.’
‘Do you think he was involved with Eddie?’
Gaddis might as well have asked if Neame himself was gay.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Was Eddie homosexual? He had no children. He never married. I wondered if he was ever romantically involved with Blunt or Burgess?’ He longed to add: ‘Or you, Tom?’ but lacked the courage.
‘How on earth am I supposed to know?’ Neame seemed more embarrassed than angry, as if Gaddis had crossed some threshold of decency.
‘There’s a theory in one of the Blunt biographies that Blunt’s sexuality may have had an influence on his preparedness to betray his country. Homosexuality was illegal in Britain in the 1930s. Therefore any homosexual was, by definition, regarded as a criminal outsider by the state.’
Neame straightened the fabric of his trousers and stared into his lap. ‘That seems a bit far-fetched to me.’ He tried to divert Gaddis with an anecdote. ‘Eddie and I arrived in Guy’s third year. Both of us immediately fell under his spell. It was Guy, for example, who organized the waiters’ strike. Do you know about that?’
‘No.’ Gaddis was lying, but he wanted to hear Neame’s version of events.
‘Quite straightforward, really. At that time, many of the staff who worked behind the scenes at Trinity weren’t paid a salary during the holidays. Guy believed, with some justification, that this was outrageous and, with Eddie’s assistance, persuaded them to down tools.’
‘How did they do that?’
Neame looked annoyed to have been interrupted.
‘Because Guy and Eddie were both, in their different ways, absolutely marvellous with people. Guy could tell you that the sun wasn’t going to come up tomorrow morning and you’d believe him. Eddie was the same. There were any number of reluctant souls among the waiters and kitchen staff but he convinced them not only that it would be in their best interests to strike, but that they would also be in no danger of losing their jobs. He had no guarantee of this, of course, but that was the calibre of the man. If Eddie told you something, you believed him. The whole saga was a rare example of him sticking his head above the parapet. Very few people really knew how central Eddie had been to orchestrating the whole thing.’
‘So who knew the full truth? Burgess? Blunt?’
‘Blunt certainly. He and Guy were inseparable and, as far as I know, on the lookout for recruits all the time. No doubt they tipped off their NKVD controller that Eddie was cut from the right cloth.’
‘That’s all it took? Surely membership of the Party was a pre-requisite for the Russians?’
‘If you say so.’
Gaddis pushed again.
‘Does Eddie write about his recruitment in the document? Does he shed any light on that?’
It was better to refer to the memoirs simply as a document; Gaddis didn’t want to give Neame the impression that he was sitting on material of incalculable value to his investigation.
‘Well, you see, that’s where it gets interesting. The Soviets did a very clever thing, which was probably the reason Eddie was able to survive undetected for as long as he did.’ Another party of tourists, this time Japanese, shuffled past the pew. ‘A gentleman by the name of Arnold Deutsch was tipped off about Eddie by Guy. Have you heard of Deutsch?’
Gaddis had certainly heard of him. Deutsch – known by the codename