Ace of Spies Page 5

  This would have been useless to Rosenblum as it would indicate quite clearly to anyone examining it that he had previously been a citizen of another country and was not British by birth. Furthermore, by adopting this approach, the passport would have been issued under the name Rosenblum, which again would have defeated the whole object of seeking a new identity. Rosenblum therefore needed a British passport in a new name, indicating the holder to have been born in Britain. Obtaining such a passport was motivated purely by the need to provide a new identity in Russia or in Russian-held territory. Although returning to Russia had been on his mind for some while, he certainly had every intention of retaining his British connections and wished, in due course, to adopt the Reilly identity legi-timately under English law by Deed Poll. This was why Margaret included the name Reilly on their marriage record. Should the question ever be raised in the future as to why they wished to adopt the name Reilly, they could fall back on the claim that it was her father’s name and produce the marriage certificate. It was not unusual for Jews either to anglicise their surnames or to change them completely. The story that it came from his father-in-law was therefore a justification or validation for using the name Reilly, not the origin of it.

  Sigmund Rosenblum married Margaret Thomas five months after her husband’s sudden death.

  In terms of manufacturing a new identity, who better to assist than William Melville? Prior to Sigmund and Margaret’s marriage, Melville had found a suitable Irish identity for Rosenblum to use – Sidney Reilly. A comprehensive search through Irish records of birth from their inception in 1864 (when the civil registration of births, deaths and marriages began in Ireland) found only one Sidney Reilly in the whole of Ireland.77 Interestingly, the child died soon after birth. More intriguingly, research conducted during the spring of 2003 into the family tree of William Melville revealed that his first wife Catherine’s maiden name was Reilly. According to family records, her father came from the same Mayo village as Michael Reilly, the father of the deceased infant Sidney.78 The provision of a new identity was not something Melville would have provided for any common-or-garden informer who was simply supplying émigr