Mightier Than the Sword (The Clifton Chronicles 5)

“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I even want to know.”

“But it might help you win the case.”

“That doesn’t seem likely if Fisher’s involved.”

“And I’ve only been away just over a week,” said Harry as the taxi drew up outside Giles’s home in Smith Square.

When the front door bell rang, Giles quickly answered it, to find his closest friend holding on to his sister with one hand, and the railing with the other, to make sure he didn’t fall over. His two new guards took an arm each and guided him into the house, past the dining room, and up the stairs to the guest bedroom on the first floor. He didn’t reply when Giles said, “Sleep well, old chum,” and closed the door behind him.

By the time Emma had undressed her husband and hung up his suit, she became painfully aware what the inside of a Russian prison cell must smell like, but he was already sound asleep by the time she pulled off his socks.

She crept into the bed beside him, and although she knew he couldn’t hear her, she whispered firmly, “The farthest east I will allow you to travel in future will be Cambridge.” She then switched on the bedside light and continued to read Uncle Joe. It was another hour before she finally discovered why the Russians had gone to such lengths to make sure that no one ever got their hands on the book.

Comrade Stalin’s seventieth birthday was celebrated across the Soviet empire, in a manner that would have impressed a Caesar. No one who hoped to live talked of his retirement. Young men feared early preferment because it often heralded early retirement and, as Stalin seemed determined to hold on to power, any suggestion of mortality meant your funeral, not his.

While I sat at the back of the endless meetings celebrating Stalin’s achievements, I began to form my own plans for a tiny slice of immortality. The publication of my unauthorized biography. But I would have to wait, possibly for years after Stalin’s death, for the right moment to present itself, before I approached a publisher, a brave publisher, who would be willing to consider taking on Uncle Joe.

What I hadn’t anticipated was just how long Stalin would cling on, and he certainly had no intention of releasing the reins of power before the pallbearers had lowered him into the ground, and more than one or two of his enemies remained silent for several days after his death, just in case he rose again.

A great deal has been written about Stalin’s death. The official communiqué, which I translated for the international press, claimed that he died at his desk in the Kremlin after suffering a stroke, and that was the accepted version for many years. Whereas in truth he was staying at his dacha, and after a drunken dinner with his inner circle, which included Lavrenti Beria, his deputy premier and former secret police chief, Nikita Khrushchev, and Georgy Malenkov, he retired to bed, but not before all his guests had left the dacha.

Beria, Malenkov, and Khrushchev all feared for their lives, because they knew Stalin planned to replace them with younger, more loyal lieutenants. After all, that was exactly how each of them had got his own job in the first place.

The following day, Stalin still hadn’t risen by late afternoon and one of his guards, worried that he might be ill, phoned Beria, who dismissed the man’s fears and told him Stalin was probably just sleeping off a hangover. Another hour passed before the guard called Beria again. This time he summoned Khrushchev and Malenkov and they immediately drove over to the dacha.

Beria gave the order to unlock the door of the room in which Stalin had spent the night, and the three of them tentatively entered, to find him lying on the floor, unconscious but still breathing. Khrushchev bent down to check his pulse, when suddenly a muscle twitched. Stalin stared up at Beria and grabbed him by the arm. Khrushchev fell on his knees, placed his hands around Stalin’s throat, and strangled him. Stalin struggled for a few minutes, while Beria and Malenkov held him down.

Once they were convinced he was dead, they left the room, locking the door behind them. Beria immediately issued an order that all of Stalin’s personal guards—sixteen of them—were to be shot, so there could be no witnesses to what had happened. No one was informed of Stalin’s death until the official announcement was made several hours later, the one I translated, which claimed he’d died of a stroke while working at his desk in the Kremlin. In fact he was strangled by Khrushchev and left lying in a pool of his own urine for several hours before his body was removed from the dacha.

For the next fourteen days, Stalin’s body lay in state in the Hall of Columns, dressed in full military uniform, wearing his hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Socialist Labor medals. Beria, Malenkov, and Khrushchev, heads bowed, stood in respectful silence beside the embalmed corpse of their former leader.

These three men were to become the troika who grabbed power in his place, although Stalin hadn’t considered any of them worthy to succeed him, and they knew it. Khrushchev, thought of as no more than a peasant, became secretary of the party. Malenkov, whom Stalin once described as an obese, spineless pen pusher, was appointed prime minister, while the ruthless Beria, whom Stalin regarded as a sordid sex addict, took control of the nation’s security services.

A few months later, in June 1953, Khrushchev had Beria arrested and later, not much later, executed for treason. Within a year, he had removed Malenkov and appointed himself prime minister as well as supreme leader. He only spared Malenkov’s life once he agreed to announce publicly that it was Beria who had murdered Stalin.

Emma fell asleep.

47

WHEN EMMA WOKE the following morning, she found Harry kneeling on the floor, trying to sort out various different bits of paper and arrange them in neat piles: BOAC writing paper, the backs of a dozen first-class menus, and even lavatory paper. She joined him, concentrating on the lavatory paper. Forty minutes later, they had a book.

“What time do we have to be in court?” asked Harry as they made their way downstairs to join Giles and Seb for breakfast.

“Ten, in theory,” said Emma, “but Mr. Trelford doesn’t think the jury will return much before midday.”

Breakfast was the first real meal Harry had eaten for the best part of a week, but despite that, he was surprised how little he could manage. They sat in silence as he regaled them with everything he’d experienced since they’d last seen him. They were introduced to the taxi driver, the old woman in the bookshop, the KGB colonel, the tribunal chairman, the chief prosecutor, the defense attorney, the jury, and, finally, Anatoly Babakov, whom he’d liked and admired. He told them how that truly remarkable man had spent every hour he could stay awake telling Harry his story.

“Won’t he be in considerable danger if the book is published?” suggested Giles.

“The answer must be yes, but he was adamant that Uncle Joe be published before he died, because it would allow his wife to live in comfort for the rest of her life. So once the trial is over, I plan to fly back to the States and hand over the manuscript to Harold Guinzburg. I’ll then travel on to Pittsburgh to see Yelena Babakov, and pass on several messages from her husband,” he added as Big Ben struck the first of ten chimes.

“It can’t be that late,” said Emma, leaping up from the table. “Seb, go and find a cab while your father and I get ready.”

Seb smiled. He wondered when mothers stopped treating their children as if they were perpetually fifteen years old.

Ten minutes later, they were all heading up Whitehall toward the Strand.

“Are you looking forward to being back in the House?” asked Harry as they drove past Downing Street.