A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (46 page)
Read A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) Online
Authors: Edward Wilson
Margaret Thatcher becoming prime minister was the beginning of the end for Catesby. He reluctantly continued in post for three years, but finally resigned in complete frustration. The third person Catesby told, after his wife and the DG, was Henry Bone. Bone was living in nervous and edgy retirement – owing partly to Thatcher outing Anthony Blunt as a Soviet Spy.
‘I told you that she was evil.’ Bone spoke from the shadows of a wide-brimmed straw hat. They were drinking gin and tonic in the garden of Bone’s South Kensington home.
‘That’s one explanation,’ said Catesby.
‘What finally made you jump ship?’
‘She sabotaged the Peruvian Peace Plan – but will never admit it.’
‘I can assure you, William, that the cables, documents and logs have either been destroyed or will never see the light of day.’
‘I was, by the way, a hawk when the Argentines invaded. I fully supported sending the Task Force south, but I thought Galtieri would withdraw after a show of face-saving bravado.’
‘So did we all. How were you involved?’
‘I was only on the fringes – a bit of backdoor diplomacy, but mostly liaising with other intelligence agencies.’
‘How did the plan play out? I’m no longer in the loop, you know.’
‘The first version called for Peruvian and US troops to replace the Argentines. But Buenos Aires rejected American troops and London wouldn’t have Peruvians. So back to the drawing board.
Version Two had Mexican, West German and Canadian troops as peacekeepers. My job was largely reassuring the Germans.’
‘Was it really signed, sealed and delivered?’
‘Who knows? As you suggested, the docs are either deep-sixed or in the burn bag.’
‘I’ve heard,’ said Bone, ‘that Galtieri sobered up enough to sign the agreement fourteen hours before she sank the
Belgrano
.’
‘I thought you weren’t in the loop.’
Bone smiled.
‘I was,’ said Catesby, ‘in the West German embassy in DC when I first heard there had been an agreement. I’ll never forget it. It was three o’clock in the morning and we were tired and bleary-eyed. I was looking at maps with the West German military attaché and a Canadian when the Night Duty Officer came into the room. He said there had been a telephone call from the White House saying that Argentina had accepted the Peace Plan and that the Peruvians were relaying the news to the British Foreign Secretary. The military attaché sent for a bottle of Sekt and we toasted the peace.’ Catesby sipped his gin and tonic and stared at a climbing rose. ‘And twelve hours later it all descended into irrecoverable chaos.’
‘As I said, she’s evil.’
There was nothing more to say. The rest, thought Catesby, was history. The first torpedo blew off the ship’s bow. The second torpedo exploded in a stern engine room and knocked out the cruiser’s electrical system. There were agonising screams and cries for help from the sailors who were trapped in the dark below decks – and the first to die. Of the 323 who perished, 200 were under the age of twenty.
Afterwards, Thatcher claimed that news of the Peruvian Peace Plan did not reach Downing Street until three hours after the
Belgrano
was sunk. Catesby knew this was a lie, a total nonsense. He was sure Thatcher had sunk the cruiser to sabotage the Peace Plan. In addition, the
Belgrano
had been carefully staying outside the 200-nautical-mile exclusion zone that Britain had declared around the Falklands. It was, thought Catesby, like saying to someone: ‘If you step over that line, I’m going to punch you.’ And then you punch them even though they didn’t step over the line.
*
A year later, Catesby was watching a BBC TV phone-in when the teacher, Diana Gould, questioned Thatcher about the
Belgrano
sinking. The mood quickly turned bitter and emotional. Once again, Thatcher denied having heard about the Peace Plan and insisted the
Belgrano
was a threat despite being outside the exclusion zone and heading away from the Falklands. Catesby later heard that Denis Thatcher had thrown a wobbly after the interview. He shouted at the programme’s producer that his wife had been stitched up by ‘bloody BBC poofs and Trots’. Catesby was depressed by the story, but not surprised. Britain had become a different place. The genteel veneer was gone. Power had been passed on to a coterie of spivs and saloon bar bores.
Catesby had always enjoyed quiet pleasures. There was now a lot more time to garden, to read and to do up his house. One repair required stripping away the rendering of an exterior wall. The uncovered wattle and daub had last seen the light of day 450 years before. The newly bared wall was patterned by the fingerprints of those who had pressed the daub into the wattle all those centuries before. He tried to put his own fingertips into the shallow depressions – he wanted to connect somehow with that past generation. But Catesby’s fingers wouldn’t fit. The indelible marks in the daub had been made by the fingers of children. Catesby flashed back to an image of himself as a tattered ten-year-old begging herring from the Lowestoft drifters to feed his family. He placed his palm over the finger marks on the wattle and daub.
St James’s Park, London:
June, 1993
It was one of the saddest sights that Catesby had ever seen. The ex-Prime Minister was sitting between two winos on a park bench. The dementia must have really kicked in. He was clueless and babbling. Catesby bribed the winos to leave them alone with a fiver each. He sat down next to ex-Prime Minister.
‘Would you like to go home?’ he said.
‘What, to Huddersfield? No, I’m in the House of Lords today.’
‘Would you like to go back to the Lords?’
‘Yes, there’s an important debate on the Open University. I’m very proud of that, you know?’
‘You have a lot to be proud of, Lord Wilson – you made Britain a more civilised place.’
‘Are we going back to the Lords?’
‘Yes, let me help you up.’
Catesby could see that Wilson was in no fit state to go back to the House of Lords.
‘I think,’ said Catesby, ‘that we should go home first.’
‘Huddersfield?’
‘No, Lord North Street. I think Mary is making you lunch.’
‘Good idea.’
It wasn’t far to walk. Lady Wilson was surprised to see her husband, but pleased that Catesby had bought him there. Apparently, he had slipped his minders in the Lords and they were very worried too.
It wasn’t much of an act kindness. But, Catesby later thought, it’s probably why he got invited to the funeral.
Saint Mary’s Old Church, Isles of Scilly:
7 June 1995
The morning after the funeral, Catesby got up early. As he got older, he found it difficult to sleep – particularly in the summer light of a June early morning. He found himself wandering back to the grave site and stood for a few seconds paying his personal respects. The churchyard was a riot of green and birdsong and he could hear the gentle sough of the sea. Catesby reached for a tissue and found something else stuffed in his pocket. It was the funeral programme.
The Right Honourable
Lord Wilson of Rievaulx
K.G.O.B.EF.R.S.
James Harold Wilson
1916–1995
It began with the order of service and protocol for the funeral. There was then a list of hymns. The final page was Mary’s poem to her husband. Catesby read it in silence – and hoped no one could see his tears.
My love you have stumbled slowly
On the quiet way to death
And you lie where the wind blows strongly
With a salty spray on its breath
For this men of the island bore you
Down paths where the branches meet
And the only sounds were the crunching grind
Of the gravel beneath their feet
And the sighing slide of the ebbing tide
On the beach where the breakers meet.
It was a very British ending.
Acknowledgements
First of all, most grateful thanks to Lady Mary Wilson of Rievaulx for giving me permission to use her poem which concludes my novel. It is a perfectly balanced poem and one of the most moving elegies of recent times. I would like to point out that Lady Wilson’s poem was not part of the Order of Service at Lord Wilson’s funeral, but was written a number of years later. This book is a work of fiction.
As always, thanks to Julia for her encouragement, understanding and patience.
My agent Maggie Hanbury is the best agent a writer could have. Once again, she has proved a valuable source of guidance and good sense. I would also like to Harriet Poland at the agency for being cheerful, helpful and efficient.
I am very grateful to my publisher, Piers Russell-Cobb, for valuing and trusting me as an author. Our conversations are always enjoyable and extremely useful. And thanks also to Joe Harper at Arcadia Books for his help and enthusiasm.
My editing team, Martin Fletcher and Angeline Rothermundt, are absolutely fantastic. Martin has the intuition of an artist. This is the second time he has breathed life and fluency into my rough draft. Angeline has now polished five of my books into shape. I cannot thank her enough for turning me into a much better author than I was eight years ago.
This was an extremely difficult book to write. The Secret State and the machinations of power are almost impossible to research. Perhaps there are times when a novelist can make better sense of things than a historian. In any case, the following bibliography is from where I started.
Bibliography
Aldrich, Richard J.
The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence.
The Overlook Press, Woodstock and New York, 2002.
belgranoinquiry.com/article-archive/the-peruvian-peace-plan
Bristow, Bill.
My Father the Spy: Deceptions of an MI6 Officer.
WBML ePublishing & Media Company Ltd., Ross-on-Wye, 2012.
Bristow, Desmond with Bill Bristow.
A Game of Moles: The Deceptions of an MI6 Officer.
Little, Brown and Company, London, 1993.
Carter, Miranda.
Anthony Blunt: His Lives.
Macmillan, London, 2001.
Corera, Gordon.
MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service.
Orion Books Ltd, London, 2012.
Davenport-Hines, Richard.
An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo.
William Collins, London, 2013.
Director’s Log – CIA FOIA
Dorrill, Stephen and Ramsay, Robin.
Smear! Wilson and the Secret State.
Grafton, London, 1992.
Kotkin, Stephen.
Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878–1928.
Allen Lane, London, 2014.
Leigh, David.
The Wilson Plot: The Intelligence Services and the Discrediting of a Prime Minister.
William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1988.
Macintyre, Ben.
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
. Bloomsbury, London, 2014.
Peruvian Peace Plan – RNA 10 Area
www.rna-10-area.net/files/peru.pdf
Pimlott, Ben.
Harold Wilson
. Harper Collins, London, 1993.
Watson, Ian.
Riverbank City: A Bremen Canvas.
Blaupause Books, Hamburg, 2013.
Wright, Peter.
Spycatcher
. Viking Penguin, New York, 1987.
Copyright
Arcadia Books Ltd
139 Highlever Road
London W10 6PH
First published by Arcadia Books 2015
Copyright © Edward Wilson 2015
Edward Wilson has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This Ebook edition published in 2015
ISBN 978–1–910050–73–6
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