Sixty years is a long time to look back and realise I should have been more cautious over my involvement with MI6, the government’s secret service. But I was younger then and was only concerned with finding ways to build my new business. I had no idea that offering to do one simple job would be like stepping into quicksand.
Neither did I know that MI6 was already racked with scandals, defections and mistrust.
Books have been written about big name spies like Philby, Burgess and Maclean. The extent of that treachery has never been fully told so perhaps, by writing this, I am exposing yet more inconvenient truths that were silently redacted. Unlike Philby and co, though, I was a total unknown to those who drank tea and shuffled paper in the corridors of power. No-one knew what Major Alex Donaldson was up to whilst drawing his salary and building his pension. No-one knew that Donaldson spent much of his time in a dingy office on the second floor of a block in Regent Street and in a smoky pub called The Feathers in a side street of Victoria.
I never questioned it either because I had no idea how secret Government departments worked. My upbringing had ingrained in me a bizarre sense of respect for those I imagined had greater knowledge and authority. I merely thought this was the way things worked and did as I was told.
What I slowly learned was that Donaldson was only very loosely connected to British Intelligence and, as you will see, it took me a long time to understand what was going on and far too long to do something about it.
I’ve always said it’s never too late to deal with outstanding matters, but things have never gone according to my plans. Until the last few days, that is.
My name’s Oliver Thomas. I’m eighty-six years old but when I was pulled from the passport control line at Heathrow Airport and escorted to an office like a common criminal age didn’t seem to matter.
I was not unduly concerned about being arrested until a dark silhouette stood over me with his back to the window. For reasons you will learn, I have a deep dislike of silhouettes. I was tired and had no wish to look as if I was about to cry, but my spectacles had fallen off and my eyes were sore. The glasses had disappeared beneath the table alongside my black bag and walking stick so how could I have possibly seen the policeman’s face through a stream of tears?
I suppose that growing old means becoming clumsy. I needed the glasses for reading but I could have ditched the walking stick. For a week I’d managed perfectly well without it. Things still bent and did their job.
In fact, a few days ago, I’d even had to run and bend down all at the same time. It was the only way to retrieve the gun I’d dropped.