“So why are you here?”
“Mrs. Digby, you know what happened to Nedda Fischer. You know she was his handler. She ran him for years, until Bentley compromised the network and the Soviets dropped contact. That was in early 1946. Now the Soviets are cleaning house. Sometimes they just eliminate a cold agent, nice and clean, like they used to do before the war. But the more useful ones, the more important ones, they can arrange a defection.”
“Defection? You mean to the Soviet Union? To live there?”
“That’s what I mean. From what we understand, that’s what they offered to Miss Fischer. They approached her through Burgess, who’s still connected to Moscow Centre, with some kind of plan to get her to Russia. But she said no. Seems she didn’t like the idea of actually living under communism. She told them no, so they eliminated her, rather than take a chance she’d get picked up by our service, or the British, and reveal what she knew.”
“Look, Mr. Fox, this is a very exciting story you’re telling me. I think it would make a swell spy novel. But it’s fiction, it’s just not true. My husband—”
“Mrs. Digby, we’re headed down Notting Hill Gate. We haven’t got much time. The Soviets approached Miss Fischer, and it’s dollars to doughnuts your husband is next, if they haven’t already made the offer. He’s got one chance to make this right, do you see? We need a man in Moscow. We need to find out the name of the fellow or fellows they’ve got on our inside. And we’ve got to do it outside the service itself, or the operation is compromised before it even begins.”
“I don’t have the least idea what you’re talking about. If all this is true, why don’t you speak to my husband?”
“Because he’s a true believer, Mrs. Digby. He’s a Communist through and through. He’s not doing it for money, he’s doing it to save the world, and I haven’t got a chance of talking him to our side. You’re the only one who can.”
Iris knit her hands in her lap and stared out the window. The shops passed by—the dour side streets—the war-weary dome of the Coronet cinema on Notting Hill Gate. They started down the hill, poor bombed-out Holland House somewhere to the left, behind its brick walls and overgrown parkland. The air outside was dense and warm, like it wanted to rain but couldn’t, and the atmosphere inside the cab was even more humid. The taxi slowed to turn left down Abbotsbury Road. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, as if to ask Mr. Fox a question. Fox nodded his head, just barely. The taxi turned and trundled down the road.
“I realize you’ve got a lot to think over,” said Fox. “I sympathize with your predicament, I really do. But it’s a fix of his own making, you see? Digby did some extraordinary work for us during the war—saved a lot of men. His record in Switzerland is the stuff of legend. I mean that. But he’s also carried our innermost secrets into the heart of the Soviet government, Stalin himself, and maybe the Soviets were our allies a couple of years ago, but you have to understand, you have to realize that what’s shaping up now is the most fundamental clash of two different ways of life that we’ve seen since classical times.”
“What do you know about classical times?” Iris said bitterly.
“If you knew, Mrs. Digby. If you knew what they’re doing inside that country, it would turn your blood cold. If he doesn’t defect, they’ll kill your husband without a second thought. They will. And they’ll kill you and your children, if they think it’s necessary. And if he does defect as their man, why, you either stay behind in London and never see him again—your children never see their father again—or else you go with him and spend the rest of your life as a citizen of the Soviet Union. And I guarantee, you’ll never set foot outside Russia again.”
Oakwood Court loomed before them. The driver turned right and pulled around the drive to the entrance to number 10. The car stopped.
“You have my card, Mrs. Digby. We’ll be keeping watch in the meantime. But I’d advise you not to wait too long. It’s likely they’ve already made the offer, through Burgess.”
For some reason, Iris felt reluctant to leave the taxi and the warm, confidential voice of Mr. Fox. There was something reassuring about him, thick and rawboned as he was.
She reached for the door handle. It opened without any difficulty.
“Thanks so much for your advice, Mr. Fox,” she said, and climbed out of the taxi.
Later, Iris would realize that she first sensed something amiss in the lobby, because the porter wasn’t there in his usual station. Maybe she thought he was helping another resident with a heavy package or something—maybe she didn’t take conscious note of his absence. What happened next shocked her so deeply, she would only piece together the various memories—start to make sense of them—when the passing of time allowed her to examine them more objectively.