Page 30 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

Even Charlie, whose energy and curiosity had always seemed boundless, began to look worn.

The purpose of their visit had been to study labour-management methods – particularly the Stakhanovite scheme – but the reality did not match the glossy Soviet propaganda.

The posters showed muscular men and rosy, pretty women performing their tasks with happy smiles, and the text said their output was increasing day by day, thanks to superior Soviet management techniques and the dedication of the loyal workers to the enlightened State that nurtured them.

James began to wonder why the Soviets had let them come, to see for themselves the dirty, dilapidated buildings, the old machinery, the cowed and silent workers; to learn that the Stakhanovite system, far from being an inspiration to free souls to work more efficiently for the sheer love of country, was just another repressive method of getting more work out of weary bodies for the same pay.

And when a manager, ordered to do so by their guide, picked out an employee and commanded her – it was usually a her – to answer the visitors’ questions, his eyes would flit sideways to the government official inevitably standing at the guide’s shoulder, in terror that she might say the wrong thing.

‘I’m ready to go home,’ Charlie said. ‘There is no wonderful new efficient way to work here. It’s just propaganda.’

The following day, their guide did not turn up. Down in the foyer they spent a useless hour trying to get the hotel clerks to understand the problem, to telephone somebody and find out what had happened, and to get them another guide.

‘This is not good,’ Charlie said at last, in an undertone. ‘I’m worried.’

‘He has our passports,’ Fern said. She looked at Charlie with fear in her eyes.

James had turned back to the desk to try a fresh appeal, when the street door opened and a man in a quintessentially government suit came in, followed by four uniformed men – soldiers or armed policemen, he couldn’t be sure which.

‘You will come with us,’ the man in the suit said without preamble.

Fern moved instinctively closer to Charlie, and James edged to her other side. His scalp felt cold where his hair had risen. ‘What’s this about?’ he demanded, trying to sound tough.

‘You have to answer questions,’ the man said. He seemed to be struggling with the English, which was not reassuring. ‘Come, please.’

‘I am an American citizen,’ Charlie said. ‘So is my wife. My secretary is a British citizen. We are here at the invitation of the Soviet Government.’

The man’s face was as blank as a slab of concrete, which it slightly resembled. ‘You will come, please.’

Charlie turned back to the desk, and said urgently, ‘Telephone the American Embassy – do you understand me? Telephone the American Embassy and tell them what has happened here. Do it at once.’ The clerk looked frozen with fright.

Outside there were two black official cars waiting at the kerb with their engines running. Charlie and Fern were bundled into the back of one, James into the other. Bracketed by the armed men, he heard the doors slammed, and wondered if he would ever see home again.

Later in the weekend Basil managed to have a talk with Barbara, up in her bedroom, with Michael.

‘Well,’ she said at length, ‘I think it’s brave of you. I’d much rather live with Aunt Molly and Uncle Vivian than pig it in some horrid rooms, but I suppose it’s different for girls. The important thing is deciding on a suitable job. What sort of job do you want, Bozzy darling?’

‘I don’t want any job, but I have to have one.’

‘I’m sure Freddie could—’

‘In London,’ Basil interrupted hastily.

‘But you’d have to stick at it,’ Barbara said, as if concluding her sentence.

‘You’ve had three different jobs,’ Michael said sensibly. ‘Which one did you like best?’

‘You liked it when you were working for the Bugle , didn’t you?’ Barbara suggested.

‘It wasn’t bad,’ Basil said cautiously, ‘but I can’t go back there.’

‘There are other newspapers,’ said Michael. ‘What about the Clarion ?’

‘That’s of the opposite political persuasion to the Bugle ,’ Basil pointed out.

‘Why should you care? I can’t believe you have any political convictions.’

‘So that’s settled, then,’ Barbara said with satisfaction. ‘You’ll get yourself a job on the Clarion and work hard, and become a great reporter like – like—’ She couldn’t think of the name of any reporter. But then, she didn’t read the newspapers.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Michael said. ‘I like to read the paper when I have time, but I never look to see who’s written it.’

Basil could only laugh. ‘So you’re setting me up for a lifetime of satisfying obscurity, are you?’

‘There!’ Barbara said. ‘You’ve got such a good way with words, it will be just the right thing for you. Unless,’ she added doubtfully, ‘you’d rather write novels? It does run in the family, after all.’

‘No, thank you. Too much hard work.’

Michael looked at him pityingly. ‘Hard work is satisfying. What’s leisure unless it’s leisure from something? I should hate to spend all day, every day, doing nothing.’

‘Don’t condemn it till you’ve tried it,’ said Basil.

Afterwards, James could never remember the terrible fear. He remembered the fact of it – he thought he’d never forget it – but not how it felt . At the time it had seemed to go on for days. In truth it was about twenty-four hours.

The Soviets had somehow got it into their heads that they were spies.

‘I’m a production engineer and management consultant,’ Charlie said, to one stony-faced official after another.

‘I developed the Bedaux System of Human Power Measurement. I was invited here by your government to look at labour systems. I have permits from the Departments of Labour, Culture and Tourism.’

‘You are spies,’ was the reply. ‘You came to steal Soviet industrial secrets.’

One thing that seemed to interest them particularly was the fact that he had worked for Kodak. ‘You have secret camera. You send photographs of Soviet factories to America.’

‘I didn’t bring any sort of camera with me on this trip.

I was only at Kodak to develop a motion study system.

And that was years ago,’ he protested. They thought he had developed a miniature spy camera that could be hidden in the clothing.

‘I was at Kodak solely to streamline their working practices. I had nothing to do with the products. There is no such thing as a spy camera.’

It was infinitely more frightening when they were split up and questioned separately.

James had felt protected to an extent by Charlie’s presence.

In a room containing only a table with a chair on either side, they left him to wait.

The single bare light-bulb overhead flickered periodically.

The room smelt of sweat and cigarettes. The sensation of being watched intensified minute by minute until his skin crawled with invisible ants.

Hidden cameras? Hidden microphones? He was so terrified of being tortured his brain kept stalling, and his heart fluttered like a hurt bird.

He had a succession of interrogators. They snapped questions at him that he could not answer.

‘I’m Mr Bedaux’s secretary,’ was all he could say. ‘I’m not a spy. I don’t know anything about industry. I’m just a secretary.’

Now and then they switched to Russian, but he could only catch a word or two.

‘Why do you pretend you don’t understand Russian?’

‘I learned some phrases for the trip, that’s all.’

‘Who did you learn from?’

He was just enough in control not to mention Tata’s name. ‘People in Paris, where I live.’

‘Which people?’

He invented desperately. ‘A man called Ivan, who works in a bar.’

‘Which bar?’

‘The Blue Cat. In the boulevard de Clichy.’

‘He sent you here to spy, to steal Soviet secrets.’

It went on. He sweated. He felt light-headed.

He lost all sense of time. Was it daylight outside, or dark?

But outside was harder all the time to believe in.

There was only this – there had only ever been this: this dry-mouthed, gut-shrivelling, unmanning fear.

They kept coming back to Ivan, kept asking about cameras, and why he had learned Russian, and what Charlie’s business really did.

When they left him alone for a time – he supposed it was to make him more anxious, and it worked – he found himself examining the scratches on the table.

Some of them looked like letters. What message were they trying to convey?

How long had the author been confined in this room to manage to scratch so deeply?

What had they used? What had happened to them?

He’d eaten and drunk nothing for – for however many hours it had been. He felt faint, and confused. Had he said anything to the interrogators that might incriminate him? Anything they might use against Charlie? What were they doing to Fern? Why was this happening?

The door opened, and he stiffened, not as a hero stiffens in resistance but like a beaten dog seeing the stick. A different man came in with the same stony face but an air even more disapproving, more grim. James’s mouth went dry. Was this it?

Behind him came a man in civilian clothes who – oh, Lord, oh, thank God! – was so obviously not Russian, was so obviously from the free and civilised West that he wanted to run to him, clutch him by the lapels, and sob.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Morland,’ he said, in a mellow American voice.

His tone was neutral and he didn’t smile, but his eyes were flashing messages at him.

James could only suppose they were warnings not to say anything.

He would be happy never to say anything to anyone ever again.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been kept so long. My name is McArthur, I’m from the American Embassy.

We have a car waiting outside and your friends are on their way down.

We had a little trouble straightening all this out, but we can be on our way now. ’