Dead men and broken hearts

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I was driven back to Glasgow in a grey Rover with red leather seats that, after everything I’d been through, felt better than a woman’s touch. Hopkins explained about Lang and how he had infiltrated the Matyas Network, as the Hungarian emigre organization was known.

Ferenc Lang had skipped out of Hungary at the end of the war and before the Iron Curtain had closed around him. If he hadn’t got out, Hopkins explained, Lang would have faced awkward questions about his Arrow Cross party membership. Then, when the Uprising had started to take shape, Lang had seen an opportunity to cash in on the situation in Hungary and get some of his cronies out amongst the others fleeing the coming Russian crackdown.

‘Does Jock Ferguson know any of this?’ I asked. My voice was drunk-slurry with tiredness.

‘Don’t be naive,’ said Hopkins. ‘Do you really think that you were able to escape police custody without some collaboration?’

‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. So Jock knew you wouldn’t be in the building in Ingram Street?’

‘I told you when we met that it was only a temporary arrangement. By the way, your associate Archie McClelland is in police custody. He assaulted the estate agent, Mr Collins, who is responsible for the building. I don’t know what it is about you, Mr Lennox, but you seem to inspire great loyalty. I just wish the Crown had the same gift.’

‘The charges against Archie… I take it you can make them go away.’

‘I can, and I will. But only if you drop out of sight for a while. And forget what you’ve seen. There’s more going on here than you can begin to understand.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m a very understanding person. Let’s start with Matyas. Why did he side with Ferenc Lang?’

‘He didn’t. Matyas, whom you met, is the genuine article. But his network became infiltrated with Lang’s people.’

‘The chaff in the wheat,’ I said, recalling our conversation in Ingram Street. ‘But Matyas set me up. Him and the girl.’

‘No they didn’t. That day at the station, the day Ellis was murdered in your office, they genuinely thought they were arranging for you to meet Ferenc Lang. Just like Ellis believed he had been summoned to an urgent meeting with you because you had found out what was going on and wanted to help him.’

‘So Magda and Matyas really did get a call at the last minute to tell them Lang couldn’t make it?’

‘Yes. And asking that Magda meet with you to explain. I’m afraid the Matyas network comprises writers and intellectuals. Lang had them believing he was a champion of Hungarian democracy and freedom. I’m afraid they’re simply not equipped for this kind of subterfuge. Nor, frankly, are you.’

‘I did all right,’ I said.

‘With the greatest respect, Lennox, you’re an amateur and you have no idea what is really going on.’

‘Really? Like Lang maybe not being a Hungarian fascist at all but really a Soviet intelligence agent?’

Hopkins smiled. ‘Now why would you think that?’

‘Because I don’t know that Andrew Ellis would have been too perturbed about rabid Hungarian fascists. He had a tough time getting into the army because of his membership of a Hungarian youth organization before the war. My guess is the army wouldn’t worry if he’d been a Boy Scout.’

‘So why, then, was he so opposed to Lang, if your theory is right?’

I fumbled about in my pockets until I found the corner from Ellis’s desk blotter. I handed it to Hopkins. ‘It’s got something to do with this, I think. NTS.’

Hopkins looked at the paper and shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean anything,’ he said, rolling the window down and tossing the paper out.

‘If you say so…’ I said. I closed my eyes and let the motion of the car rock me to sleep.