Free The Swiss Spy by Alex Gerlis Page B

dealt with. But the danger posed by Trotsky
and those of his followers that remain still exists. There are powerful
supporters of Trotsky dispersed around Europe and as long as they are able to
operate, they pose a threat to us, which we cannot tolerate: we cannot put at
risk the achievements of the Revolution. You understand that?’
    Henry nodded.
    ‘So dealing with them is a priority for our service.’
    Henry nodded again: of course .
    A long silence followed, during which Viktor removed
his jacket, loosened his tie and looked at Henry in a quizzical manner, as if
expecting him to say something. Henry shifted in his chair, unsure of how to
react.
    ‘This is where you are going to perform a vital role
for the Service, synok .’
     
    ***
     
    Henry
Hunter spent the first two weeks of July 1931 in a large house on the outskirts
of Neuchâtel, overlooking the lake. He had been told to expect to be away from
Geneva for at least a month, possibly a good deal longer. As far as his mother
and step-father were concerned, the travel agency he’d been working for had
acquired a new branch in St Gallen and, as Henry spoke good Swiss-German, he
was being sent there for a while.
    Viktor accompanied Henry to the house and remained
there for the first two days. Peter, the German who had taken him to Hamburg
for his training the previous year was also present. For two weeks, Peter
helped Henry assume a new identity. Just before the end of the fortnight in
Neuchâtel, Viktor returned and after a couple more days, he finally satisfied
himself Henry had now become William Jarvis.
     According to his much-used British passport,
William Jarvis had been born in Norwich and was, at 26, a few years older than
Henry. After graduating from Cambridge, Jarvis had become a teacher and had
moved to Switzerland for a year thanks to a legacy from a recently deceased and
much-loved uncle. His aim was to travel and do some occasional teaching, should
the opportunity arise.
    That opportunity happily arose in Interlaken.
    ‘They’ve been advertising for an English tutor on
and off for weeks: they’ll be delighted a proper Englishman who also happens to
be a teacher applies,’ Viktor had told him.
    ‘But I’m not a teacher!’
    ‘You don’t need to be. They want someone to improve
their children’s conversational English, that’s all.’
    The night before Henry travelled to Interlaken,
Viktor had given him his final briefing.
    ‘ Anatoly Mikhailovich Yevtushenko.’
The three of them were sat around a finely polished table in the dining room
near Neuchâtel and Viktor
had almost ceremonially placed a photograph of a distinguished looking man in
front of Henry. ‘Anatoly Mikhailovich Yevtushenko, born Kazan in 1884:
bourgeois family, but became active in socialist politics when he was at
university in Moscow. He became a lawyer and was one of the very early members
of the Russian
Social Democratic Labour Party, which you may or may not know was the
forerunner of the Communist Party. He was active in the October Revolution and
began to rise through the ranks of the Party. However, in around 1923 or 1924,
he became a confidant of Trotsky and since then the two have become close. In
1924 Yevtushenko
took up a position in the finance department of the Party. In early
1928, not long after Trotsky was sent on internal exile, Yevtushenko
and his family disappeared while on holiday in Crimea. We lost track of them,
but a few months ago we discovered that they were living in Interlaken.’
    Viktor nodded at Peter, who opened a folder and
produced a series of photographs that he laid out in front of Henry as if
dealing from a deck of cards.
    ‘This is Yevtushenko’s wife, Tatyana Dmitriyevna,’
said Peter. ‘We understand she suffers from a debilitating lung condition, which
may well be the reason why they are living in Interlaken. This is Rozalia
Anatolyevna, she is 17. Nadezhda Anatolyevna is 14 and this is the
son, Nikolai Anatolyevich.
He is