What worried him most was that he, Wilde, was the one who had effected Borisov’s defection to the West. The thing was, he had been so preoccupied with the primary mission in Germany, that he hadn’t bothered to question the Russian’s true motives. Well, he was beginning to question them now, and he felt uncomfortable.

‘By the way,’ Lydia said, ‘What was that stuff about your beautiful bourgeoise wife?’

‘Oh, that was bloody Borisov taunting me with the Marxists’ old sneering shibboleth about the middle classes. Forget it.’

‘So it was supposed to be an insult? Well, I like bourgeoise. Shakespeare was bourgeois.’

*

Separated by hundreds of miles, a man and a boy walked along unfamiliar streets with very different thoughts in their heads. In the little town of Godmanchester in England, Sergei Borisov strode along with his hands in the pockets of his tweedy trousers, whistling jauntily like a well-fed English countryman.

He went down West Street. Outside the imposing facade of Farm Hall, he stopped and pulled a packet of Du Maurier cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He put one cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a lighter, meanwhile holding the cigarette pack firmly in the other hand, its neat red cover pointing at the house. His finger clicked a little button on the top and the secret camera took a picture.

He moved on and took more pictures, from every angle, nodding in silent greeting to a passing grandmother. He knew that ten German nuclear scientists were held prisoner behind the walls of this house. The Soviet Union needed such men working for them; Hiroshima and Nagasaki had made their acquisition imperative. That was his task; that was why he was here.

In Munich, meanwhile, 700 miles to the south-east, Siegfried Boden negotiated the broken streets in search of work or, at least, a piece of bread. His clothes were torn and tattered from the explosion, but he had regained his hearing and he still had his pistol.

He was alone now. Mutti was dead, so was Hildy and there was no word of Julius. So that left only him. He was the heir and his destiny awaited him. All the while as he walked, a single thought ran through his mind, as if on an endless spool. I am the man now, and I will rise from the ashes.

Chapter 51

Chapter 51

The letter arrived just over two weeks later. It contained the photograph of Wilde with Lilly, Angie and Jerzy, and a two-page letter from Angie.

Dear Tom,