The Trinity Six Read Free Page B

Christ, if Health and Safety had allowed it, he’d have brought a dead rat and a dog in, as well. That, after all, was what the citizens of Leningrad survived on as the Germans tightened the noose: grasses and bark; leather shoes boiled down for sustenance; the flesh of vermin and dogs. Cannibalism was also rife. Children would disappear. Limbs would mysteriously be removed from corpses left to freeze in the street. The meat pies on sale in the markets of war-torn Leningrad could contain anything from horse flesh to human being.
    But tonight he kept things simple. Tonight Dr Gaddis spoke about Platov’s aunt and first cousin surviving three years in a German concentration camp in the Baltics. He related how, on one occasion, Platov’s mother had passed out from hunger only to wake up while she was being taken to a cemetery by men who had assumed she was dead. Towards eight o’clock, he read a short extract from the new book about Platov’s early years in the KGB and, by eight fifteen, people were applauding and he was taking questions from the floor, trying to make the case that Russia was reverting to totalitarianism and all the time wondering how to persuade the girl in the knee-high boots to join his party for dinner.
    In the end, he didn’t need to. As the launch was beginning to thin out, she approached him at the makeshift bar and held out her hand.
    ‘Holly Levette.’
    ‘Sam.’ Her hand was slim and warm and had rings all over it. She was about twenty-eight with huge blue eyes. ‘You were the one who was late.’
    A smile of what looked like genuine embarrassment. Her right cheek had a little scar on the bone which he liked. ‘Sorry, I was held up on the Tube. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.’
    They moved away from the bar.
    ‘Not at all.’ He was trying to work out what she did for a living. Something in the arts, something creative. ‘Have we met before?’
    ‘No, no. I just read your article in the Guardian and knew that you were speaking tonight. I have something that I thought you might be interested in.’
    They had found themselves in a small clearing in the Travel section. In his peripheral vision, Gaddis could sense somebody trying to catch his eye.
    ‘What kind of something?’
    ‘Well, my mother has just died.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
    It didn’t look as though Holly Levette needed much comforting.
    ‘Her name was Katya Levette. Before her death she was working on a book about the history of the KGB. A lot of her information came from sources in British and Russian intelligence. I don’t want her papers to go to waste. All that hard work, all those interviews. I wondered whether you might like to have a look at her research, see if there’s any value in it?’
    It could have been a trap, of course. A mischievous source in MI6 or the Russian FSB looking to use a mid-level British historian for purposes of propaganda. After all, why come all the way to the bookshop? Why not just phone him at UCL or send an email to his website? But the chances of a honey-trap were slim. If the spooks wanted a scandal, if they wanted headlines, they would have gone for Beevor or Sebag Montefiore, for Andrew or West. Besides, Gaddis would be able to tell in five minutes if the documents were genuine. He’d spent half his life in the museums of London, Moscow and St Petersburg. He was a citizen of the historical archive.
    ‘Sure, I could take a look at them. You’re kind to think of me. Where are the papers?’
    ‘At my flat in Chelsea.’
    And suddenly the tone of the conversation shifted. Suddenly Holly Levette was looking at Dr Sam Gaddis in the way that mischievous female students sometimes look at attractive, fortysomething bachelor academics when they are up to no good. As if her flat in Chelsea promised more than just dust-gathering notebooks on the KGB.
    ‘Your flat in Chelsea,’ Sam repeated. He caught the smell of her perfume as he drank more wine. ‘I should probably take