“Don’t get your hopes up.”
At Novodevichy, walking the long aisles between the dead. Three tins of Patum Peperium nestling in the pockets of Burgess’s jacket.
“I thought you said you lot were in a mood to forgive?”
“We are. The problem isn’t Washington. It’s London.”
“Bugger.”
“Have you made any approaches to them?”
“No. It’s only been a matter of weeks since the Russians agreed to let us, I mean me and Maclean, go public. Prior to that no one in London officially knew where I was. We held a farce of a press conference, you probably heard about.”
“Of course. It’s what enabled me to approach you without, how shall I put it? … incident.”
“Any approach by me would have been impossible. I was the invisible man.”
“Things may change. In time, things may change. Give it a while and ask. You get nothing if you don’t ask. I can’t ask on your behalf. That really would be an incident.”
“Meanwhile, I could die waiting.”
“We all might die waiting for something. However … I do have some good news. Your friend Tosca got out.”
“Out? You mean defected?”
“I’m not sure I do mean that. She’d been in one of those KGB Little Lubyankas they have dotted all over town for weeks and the spook gossip is she escaped in transit to some other prison. Sometime in the last month.”
“Escaped where?”
“I don’t know. But the only way is west, isn’t it?”