shown it to anyone else in the meantime?’
‘No, Peter. I have not. Please look inside the envelope.’
I ignore his request. Does nothing shock him any more? Does his academic standing place him above the ruck of common spies?
‘And while you were developing and decoding and translating, did it not occur to you that you are under standing orders to report any letter or other communication you receive from your Russian controllers instantly to your handling officer—?’
‘But of course. This is what I did exactly, as soon as I had decoded—’
‘—before any further action is taken by you, us or anyone else? Which is why your debriefers took the developing compound from you as soon as you arrived in Edinburgh a year ago? So that you couldn’t do your own developing?’
And when I had waited long enough for my not entirely simulated anger to subside and still received no answer beyond a sigh of forbearance at my ingratitude:
‘What did you do for the compound? Pop into the nearest chemist’s shop and read out a list of the ingredients so that anyone listening would think, ah great, he’s got a secret letter to develop? Maybe there’s a chemist’s shop on the campus. Is there?’
We sit side by side, listening to the rain.
‘Please, Peter. I am not stupid. I took a bus into town. I made purchases at many different chemists. I paid cash, I did not engage in conversations, I was discreet.’
The same self-composure. The same innate superiority. And yes, this man could well be the son and grandson of distinguished Chekists.
*
Only now do I consent to look inside the envelope.
First out, two long letters, the cover letter and the carbon under-text. He had copied or photographed every stage of development and the printouts were there for me to see, neatly ordered and numbered.
Second out, the Danish-stamped envelope with his name and campus address in a girlish Continental hand on the front, and on the back the sender’s name and address: Anette Pedersen, who lives in Number Five on the ground floor of an apartment house in a suburb of Copenhagen.
Third out, the surface text in English, running to six closely written sides in the same girlish hand as the envelope, lauding his sexual prowess in puerile terms and claiming that merely thinking about him was enough to give the writer an orgasm.
Then the raised under-text with column after column of four-figure groups. Then the version in Russian, decoded from his one-time pad.
And finally his own translation of the Russian en clair text into English for my personal benefit as a non-Russian-speaker. I frown at the Russian version, discard it with a gesture of incomprehension, take up his English translation and read it two or three times while Sergei affects contentment and flattens his hands on the dashboard to ease the tension.
‘Moscow say you are to take up residence in London as soon as the summer vacation begins,’ I remark casually. ‘Why do they want you to do that, do you think?’
‘She says,’ he corrects me in a husky voice.
‘Who says?’
‘Anette.’
‘So you’re saying Anette is a real woman. Not just some man in Centre signing himself as a woman?’
‘I know this woman.’
‘The actual woman? Anette. You know her, you’re saying?’
‘Correct, Peter. The same woman who is calling herself Anette for purposes of conspiracy.’
‘And how do you arrive at this extraordinary discovery, may I ask?’
He suppresses a sigh to imply that he is about to enter territory where I am unequipped to follow him.
‘Each week for one hour this woman lectured us at sleeper school for the class of English only. She prepared us for conspiratorial activity in England. She related many interesting case histories to us and gave us much advice and courage for our secret work.’
‘And you’re telling me her name was Anette?’
‘Like all instructors and all students, she had only a work name.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Anastasia.’
‘So not Anette?’
‘It is immaterial.’
I grit my teeth and say nothing. After a while he resumes in the same patronizing tone.
‘Anastasia is a woman of considerable intelligence who is capable also of discussing physics without simplicity. I described her in detail to your debriefers. You appear to be ignorant of this information.’
It was true. He had described Anastasia. Just not in such precise or glowing terms and certainly not as a future correspondent calling herself Anette. As far as the debriefers were concerned she was just another Moscow Centre apparatchik dropping in on sleeper school to burnish her image.
‘And you think the woman who called herself