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By Root 1401 0

’re right,’ he said. ‘I went too far, old chap. I shouldn’t have been so heavy on AGINCOURT. I confess that I became intrigued by the references in Eddie’s memoirs. He did indeed tap Wilson up at Oxford, but states categorically that he was never a Soviet agent. I just wanted the whole thing double-checked by an expert. Wilson has since been investigated until the cows come home and nobody has ever been able to lay a finger on him.’ Gaddis said nothing. He was enjoying the sight of Neame coming clean. ‘I also wanted to test your limits. I wanted to see how much you would swallow. If I had managed to convince you that Wilson was a Soviet asset without your obtaining any corroborating evidence, who knows what others might have been able to persuade you of, further along the road? I need a man I can rely on, Sam. I need a man who isn’t going to get excited at the first mention of the NKVD. What I have told you is just the beginning. In a sense, you have passed a test. I congratulate you.’

Gaddis was dumbfounded. He summoned a look which he hoped would be suitably contemptuous and closed up the space between them.

‘Look, this isn’t a game, Tom. I’m not doing this for laughs. I don’t want to waste my time fucking about with sat-navs and window cleaners and encrypted emails just to polish your ego. I’m here because I’m convinced that Edward Crane was the sixth Cambridge spy and that you’re the key to finding him. But I won’t stay here a minute longer if I think I’m being manipulated. I won’t risk my reputation on an old man who thinks it’s funny to have academics chasing their tails. So you either convince me that these so-called memoirs exist, prove to me that Edward Crane was the sixth man, or call up Peter and ask him to drive you home. Because our business is done.’

‘Oh, I very much doubt that,’ Neame replied, with a sting of malice, and Gaddis heard the voice of a man who had lived his life outwitting others, who had always been one step ahead of the pack. He stared into the old man’s fixed blue eyes and suddenly, like a bone-deep shudder, felt that Thomas Neame and Edward Crane were the same man. Was this possible? He reeled at the thought of it, heat flooding his neck. The idea had caught him completely off guard and he tried to compose himself by remaining steadfast in the face of Neame’s reply.

‘Try me,’ he said.

Neame grabbed a shallow breath and the pain which had repeatedly jagged across his shoulders in the cathedral suddenly did so again. He winced as he brought a hand up on to his shoulder, clutching the thick tweed of his jacket and rubbing the bone. Gaddis instinctively stood up out of his seat and leaned forward, placing a hand on Neame’s arm. Who was he touching? Neame or Edward Crane?

‘Are you all right?’

Neame was looking down at the table, weighing up his options. Gaddis felt that he could read his thoughts. Should I continue with this man, or find another outlet for my story? But suddenly he spoke.

‘Dick White ordered a full internal vetting of Eddie that was specifically designed to clear him of any suspicious links to Communism.’

Neame had clearly convinced himself that the only way to persuade Gaddis of his legitimacy was to keep talking.

‘It helped that Eddie had never joined the Party,’ he said. ‘His year at Oxford was also carefully recalibrated. Furthermore, there was nothing in the files about his friendship with Burgess at Trinity.’

Gaddis felt that he had no choice but to play along.

‘But it was still a miracle that he managed to survive undetected for so long – on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The Yanks must have smelled a rat. And surely any number of Soviet defectors down the years would have known about ATTILA. Golitsin, for starters.’

Neame enjoyed that one.

‘Of course they did. But it didn’t matter. Golitsin told the Americans about Crane and the Yanks came to us – flustered, to say the least. We put them in the picture about ATTILA’s double-life and Eddie’s name was then erased from the Golitsin transcripts. Exactly the same procedure when Gordievsky came over. “Oh, you know