Charlie Muffin had A5 security clearance, which is the highest, and the Director’s memorandum to all relevant departments within an hour of their meeting accorded the same classification to the Novikov investigation, designating it an operation of absolute priority. It also named Charlie as the agent in charge of that investigation, which allowed Charlie a moment of satisfaction as well as complete control. Hope to Christ there are a lot more such moments, he thought: and quick. He didn’t mind looking for needles in haystacks but he liked at least to know where the bloody haystack was.
The debriefing so far conducted with the Russian comprised a verbatim transcript of the automatic recordings, presented question and answer. But only Novikov was identified in the file, security precluding the naming of the interrogator even on a document with such restricted circulation. Charlie wondered in passing who the poor sod was: debriefings could take months – were required to take months, to drain the maximum possible from a defector – so there wasn’t a chance in hell of making any money on expenses because Harkness and his abacus squad knew where you were and what you were doing every minute of the day and night.
From the raw debriefing material Charlie compiled his own notes, concentrating only on his specific line of enquiry, aware that others would dissect every additional scrap of information the Russian disclosed. Vladimir Andreevich Novikov claimed to have been born in Riga, to a father killed in the siege of Stalingrad during the Patriotic War and a mother who fell victim to the influenza epidemic that swept Latvia in 1964. He had graduated in 1970 from Riga University with a combined first-class honours degree in electronics and mathematics, which Charlie accepted made almost automatic the approach from the KGB, for the position he was later to occupy. According to Novikov the invitation actually came before the end of his course, his ability already identified by the KGB spotters installed within the university to isolate potential recruits. He had worked for three years in the cipher department at the provincial KGB headquarters, apparently improving upon two internal communication codes and because of such ability was appointed deputy head over five people who were his superiors. His transfer to KGB headquarters in Moscow came in 1980. By which time, according to the question-and-answer sheets, Novikov was already coming to accept that Latvia was not the autonomous republic of the USSR it was always proclaimed – and supposed – to be but a despised Russian colony, although he was sure he always successfully concealed any hint of resentment during the frequent security interviews. In Moscow he married a Latvian girl, from Klaipeda, who was more forcefully nationalistic than he was. She had contact with dissident Latvian groups both in Riga and Moscow and he had become frightened any investigation by the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate – responsible for the country’s internal control – would inevitably discover her links, which would have meant his automatic dismissal and possibly her imprisonment. She had been killed before either could happen. It was a hit and run accident, near the Moskva Bridge, and although he had been a member of the KGB, with supposed influence, the driver had never been arrested and Novikov was convinced the civilian militia hadn’t bothered with a proper investigation because she had been a Latvian, someone who didn’t matter.
‘Latvians are second-class citizens, dispensable,’ was Novikov’s way of expressing it, which struck a cord with Charlie who never forgot how he’d once been considered dispensable. Or forgot, either, the fall-out that had contaminated so much and so many by his fighting back, creating his own personal Hiroshima.
According to the transcript the woman’s death marked the moment of Novikov’s turning traitor to Russia, doing his utmost to cause as much damage as possible to a society he finally regarded as a colonial oppressor, worse than any of the Western colonial oppressors daily criticized within the Soviet Union.
‘The mind of Albert Einstein coupled with the social conscience of Mother Theresa, judged Charlie, aloud, in the emptiness of his refuse-viewed office. Often – and unashamedly – Charlie talked to himself. Sometimes he gave himself the right answers: the right answers were always the most difficult.
Charlie was disappointed in that part of the transcript devoted to the supposed assassination, although he supposed he should not have been, forewarned by the meeting with Sir Alistair Wilson just how little was available. Worse than just little, qualified Charlie: what he had here was positively infinitesimal, the two cables to the Russian embassy in London’s Kensington the only positive, workable facts. Still, something, at least, upon which it was possible to work. Charlie continued on through the paperwork, looking expectantly for the recommendation and then, with equal expectation, for the confirming order, frowning in surprise when he didn’t find it.
‘Cunts!’ he erupted angrily, speaking aloud again. Being personally named as the investigatory chief and having the priority designation so clearly set out was going earlier to prove an advantage than he’d imagined. There were going to be more ruffled feathers than in a hen coop at mating time but fuck it: it was fucking that ruffled feathers at mating time anyway.
In addition to the operation’s priority coding, Charlie used the authority of Sir Alistair Wilson’s name in his insistent messages to MI5, Britain’s counter-intelligence service. In further addition he stipulated that the absolute, 24-hour checks extend beyond the Kensington Palace Gardens embassy and the known diplomatic addresses in Edith Road and Kensington’s Earl’s Terrace to include the offices of every accredited Russian journalist and television commentator in London, the Soviet Trade Mission at West Hill, in the Highgate suburb, the Intourist and Aeroflot offices in Regent Street and Piccadilly, the Wheat Council in Charing Cross, into which the KGB had in the past infiltrated agents, and the Russian Narodny Bank, whose premises were in the City’s King William Street. And still remained dissatisfied. According to the Director, Novikov had been across for two months. And the assassination would have undergone planning months prior to that. So why the hell hadn’t the debriefer or those analysing what was being produced taken the most obvious and most elementary precautions!
‘Cunts!’ said Charlie again, more angrily than before.
With his carte blanche authorization, Charlie drew the best car available from the motor pool, a small-bodied Mercedes with a specially adapted turbo-charged engine and absolutely secured radio patch communication, waiting until he cleared the London suburbs and was actually on the motorway before using it to call ahead and confirm his visit to the safe house already warned from Westminster Bridge Road of his impending visit. He took the car effortlessly up to 100 m.p.h., knowing from the special engine it was capable of at least another 50 m.p.h. Would he be able to get a nice second-hand little runner for the sort of overdraft he’d asked for, Charlie wondered, in rare naïvety. He’d never actually bought a vehicle of his own. Edith had always purchased the cars because she had the money. After he’d screwed British and American intelligence and she’d been killed in the vengeance hunt Charlie had refused to touch his wife’s inherited estate, placing it instead in an unbreakable trust for the benefit of a children’s charity that had been one of Edith’s favourites. Be nice to have a little car like this: run out to a country pub on Saturday lunch-times and polish it like everyone else did in England on a Sunday morning. Might be a bit dodgy those nights when all the street lights seemed to join together, though. Or parking it in the roads around his flat, where even the police cars got their radios nicked and offered back for sale. Enjoy it while you can then, he told himself. Charlie fully opened the sun roof, reclined the seat back a further notch, and stared through the tinted glass to enjoy the Sussex countryside. Sir Archibald Willoughby, his first Director, had lived in Sussex. Not here though: on the coast, near Rye. They’d been the great days, under Willoughby. Allowed to roam, under Sir Archibald: make up his own rules. No pissing about over expenses with demands for certifiable receipts. Not that that was the fault of the present Director. Wilson was a good bloke, like Willoughby had been. Just surrounded by pricks, that’s all. Which had been the problem with Willoughby, as well. Odd that there were so many comparisons: even fanatical about rose growing. Harkness’s hobby was probably reciting tables, one twelve is twelve, two twelves are twenty four…. Charlie didn’t have the slightest doubt that the penny-pinching fart wouldn’t let him off the hook without a convincing explanation about those damned receipts: if he couldn’t think of one he supposed he’d have to accept the amounts being cut off, which would be losing out. Charlie didn’t like losing, certainly not fiddled expenses money. Not the biggest problem at the moment. The biggest problem at the moment was trying to find answers when he didn’t even know what the questions were. Or have a clue where to find them.
His speed was reduced when he had to quit the motorway for the minor road going to Pulborough but he was still ahead of the appointed time so he stopped at a pub promising home cooked food, deciding that if it served anything like he cooked at home he wouldn’t bother. It wasn’t. Instead of his customary Islay malt he chose beer, which was drawn from the wood, and ordered crisply baked bread and fresh pickles and tangy cheese and carried it all out to a table and bench which a craftsman had clearly spent hours fashioning to appear as something that had been knocked up in minutes by a child with a Christmas gift carpentry set. All around geraniums blazed from tubs and window boxes and there was a dovecot for real birds which commuted between it and the thatched roof of the pub. Charlie identified it as just the sort of place to which people drove for those Saturday lunchtime sessions, wearing cravats tucked into checked shirts and cavalry twill trousers and suede shoes and complained that the English cricket selectors didn’t have a damned clue, did they? Charlie stretched his feet out before him. At least he had the suede shoes. And they looked bloody marvellous after the going-over he’d given them, for the meeting with the bank manager. Last another year at least: maybe longer, if he were careful. It was always important to be careful, about his Hush Puppies. Took a long time to break them in properly: had to be moulded, like a sculptor moulded his clay. What was the saying about feet of clay? Charlie couldn’t remember precisely but it didn’t apply to him anyway. His feet usually felt as if he were walking on that other stuff sculptors worked with, hard and sharp.
He used the car radio system to advise the gatehouse of his imminent arrival, so they were waiting for him when he pulled into the driveway of the house, about five miles outside of the town. The first man wore an unidentifiable but official-looking uniform and was posted at what appeared to be the proper gate, a huge and secured affair with a crest on top. His function – apart simply from opening the gate – was to deter casually enquiring or wrongly directed strangers. The real checks came at the guard post out of sight of the road, where the electronic surveillance began and where the guard staff were armed. Charlie presented his documentation and stood obediently for his photograph to be taken and checked by one of those electronic systems not just against the picture on his pass but against the film records to which it was linked in London.
One of the guards, who knew Charlie from other debriefings at other safe houses, nodded to his bank manager’s outfit of the previous day and said: ‘Dressed up for this one, then?’
‘I like to make an effort,’ said Charlie.
He continued slowly up the winding drive, locating some of the electronic checks and cameras and sensors but knowing there were others he missed. The drive was lined either side by thick rhododendron and Charlie regretted they were not in bloom; it would have been quite a sight.
The driveway opened on to a huge gravelled forecourt, with a grassed centrepiece in the middle of which was a fountain with nymphs spitting water at each other. The house was a square, Georgian structure, the front almost completely covered with creeper and ivy. Charlie parked to one side and as he walked towards the carved oak door he wondered what the reaction of the British taxpayer would be to knowing how much they shelled out each year, maintaining places like this. Charlie had carried out defector interviews in at least six, all in different parts of the country but all equally grand and expensive. The need for the Establishment always to be well established, he decided, particularly if some other unsuspecting bloke is picking up the bill. Shit, thought Charlie, reminded too late: he’d forgotten to get a receipt for the pub lunch.
The door opened before he reached it but Hubert Witherspoon did not come forward to meet him.
‘There you are!’ greeted Charlie. ‘I was worried about you: thought you’d done a header wearing your best trainers.’
‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Witherspoon. He was a tall, languid man who had trouble with a flick of hair that strayed permanently over his left eye. He wore an immaculate grey suit, hard-collared shirt and a school tie. Stowe, Charlie recognized.
‘Nothing,’ dismissed Charlie. ‘So you’ve been debriefing?’
‘Took over a month ago. And very successfully,’ insisted the man. ‘I asked who was coming down today but London didn’t reply.’
‘Perhaps they wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘Are you to take over now?’
‘Nope,’ said Charlie. ‘Just the assassination.’
‘London has got all there is on that,’ said Witherspoon, in further insistence. ‘There’s nothing more.’
‘That came out at one of your sessions?’
‘I said it was a successful debrief, didn’t I?’
‘What did you do about it?’
‘Told London immediately, of course.’
‘That all?’
‘What else would you expert me to do?’
Not behave like a prat, thought Charlie. It wasn’t worth an argument; be unfair in fact. Instead of replying, Charlie said: ‘Tell me about Novikov.’
‘Everything points to his being genuine,’ said Witherspoon. ‘Handled a lot of important stuff, right up to Kremlin level. And he’s got a damned good recall, so he’s going to be a very productive gold-mine for a long time. Hates Russia, for the reasons set out in the report, so he’s anxious to co-operate. There’s already been a request for access, from the CIA.’
‘I bet there has,’ said Charlie.
‘How long do you think you’ll be?’ asked Witherspoon.
‘How the hell should I know?’ said Charlie. ‘As long as it takes.’
‘Thought I might cut away for a round of golf,’ said Witherspoon. ‘There’s a jolly good course the other side of Pulborough.’
‘You don’t want to sit in?’ asked Charlie, surprised the man entrusted with the overall debrief didn’t want a comparison with Novikov’s replies, against those to another questioner. Charlie would have jumped at the opportunity, in reversed circumstances.
‘I told you, I’ve already covered the assassination,’ said Witherspoon.
‘So you did.’
‘Unless you’d like my assistance, of course.’
‘I’ll manage,’ assured Charlie. Some people were beyond help, he thought.
Vladimir Novikov was waiting in what Charlie supposed was called the drawing room. It was very large and at the side of the house, with huge windows and French doors leading out on to a paved verandah beyond which was a view of lawns and long-ago planted trees whose branches now drooped to the ground, as if they were tired from holding them out for such a long time. An intricately patterned carpet protected most of the wood-tiled floor and the furnishings, two long couches, with six easy chairs, were all chintz-covered. There were flowers on two tables and an expansive arrangement in a fireplace the mantelpiece of which was higher than Charlie’s head. The Russian seemed to fit easily into such surroundings. He was tall, easily more than six feet, and heavy as well, bull-chested and thick around the waist. His size was accentuated by the thick black beard he wore in the style of the Russia he was supposed to despise, flowing to cover his neck and tufted where it had never been trimmed. The suit was clean but appeared worn, shiny at the elbows, the lapels curling inwards from constant wear. His suit had bent like that, until he’d had it cleaned for the bank meeting, recalled Charlie. He guessed it would collapse again, in a few days. It usually did.
The Russian stood, as Charlie moved further into the room, but from the stance Charlie decided it was more a gesture of politeness than nervousness.
‘Mr Witherspoon said I would be seeing someone else today,’ said Novikov.
The man’s voice matched his frame, deep and resonant, but that was not Charlie’s immediate thought. Witherspoon was a bloody fool, disclosing his real identity. Charlie said: ‘Just one or two points. Finer detail, really.’
‘I will do everything I can to help,’ said the Russian.
‘So I have been told,’ said Charlie, gesturing the man back on to the couch he’d been occupying when he entered. For himself he chose one of the easy chairs, slightly to one side.
‘What is it particularly interests you?’ asked Novikov.
Dance around a bit first, thought Charlie. He said: ‘You were making plans to defect, in Moscow?’
‘Yes?’
‘How?’
‘I was leaving that to my control at the British embassy: the military attaché, George Gale. Waiting for him to tell me what to do.’
Charlie wondered if that were the man’s real name, as well. Silly buggers might as well hand out visiting cards, with spying listed as their occupation. He said: ‘Why?’
‘I believed I was under suspicion.’
‘Why?’ repeated Charlie. He decided his initial impression was correct. There was no nervousness about the man, which there usually was with defectors, caused by natural uncertainty. Novikov appeared actually confident and relaxed.
‘You know I was security cleared to the highest level?’ said the man.
‘Yes.’
‘In the last few weeks I was only allocated low level material, the sort of stuff ordinary clerks could handle. I was not an ordinary clerk.’
And I bet you never let anyone forget it, thought Charlie. He said: ‘But it was only suspicion? You had no actual proof?’
‘If there had been any actual proof I would have been arrested, wouldn’t I?’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Charlie, content for the man to patronize and imagine he was in the commanding role. The sessions with Witherspoon would have been something to witness. He said: ‘So what happened?’
‘One day I was unwell: went home early. I found someone in my apartment. He went out a rear window as I opened the door and it was dismissed by the KGB militia as an attempted burglary but I knew it was not.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Precisely because attempted burglaries at the homes of senior KGB cipher clerks are never dismissed,’ said Novikov.
It was a convincing point, accepted Charlie. He said: ‘What do you think it was?’
‘A search, perhaps. Or technicians installing listening devices. Most likely both.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I had an emergency contact system arranged with Major Gale,’ recounted the man. ‘I telephoned him at the embassy from an untraceable call box and said I could not keep our appointment – that was the code phrase, I cannot keep our appointment – and that told him to go to another untraceable call box so that we could speak between the two without the risk of our conversation being intercepted. I said I had to cross at once and he agreed.’
‘The Finnish crossing could not have been arranged just like that,’ challenged Charlie, at once.
‘Mr Witherspoon did not question the point.’
It was automatic for this encounter, like every other, to be recorded: there was actually a simultaneous replay facility to London. If that remark got the careless little prick censured then too bad, decided Charlie. The rules and regulations by which Witherspoon existed were no more than guidelines, like the guidelines in the weapons manuals set out in perfect detail how to fire a bullet but failed to follow through by explaining that a well-placed bullet of sufficient calibre could separate top from bottom. And troublesome though his feet permanently were, Charlie wanted his top to remain in every way attached to his bottom. So all it took was that one careless little prick not recognizing where the trigger was. He said: ‘My name isn’t Witherspoon.’
‘You didn’t tell me your name, reminded Novikov.
‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ agreed Charlie. And stopped.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Novikov said: ‘Is this a hostile interview?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘A proper interview.’
‘Haven’t the others been properly conducted?’
The Russian was very quick, acknowledged Charlie, admiringly. It was wrong to let Novikov put questions to which he had to respond. Charlie said: ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you doubt me, that I made a mistake in crossing to the British. I shall go to the Americans instead,’ announced the Russian.
‘That wasn’t the answer to my question.’
‘I do not wish to answer any more of your questions.’
‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich? What are you frightened of?’
‘Mr Witherspoon does not properly know how to use the Russian patronymic. Nor did the interrogator before him.’
‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich?’ persisted Charlie, objecting to what he thought was an attempted deflection but curious about it just the same.
‘Neither spoke Russian properly, like you do, either,’ said the man. ‘Their inflection was copy-book, language school stuff. From the way you instinctively form a genitive from masculine or neuter I know you lived in Moscow. And as a Muscovite.’
Charlie thought he understood at last. Not as a Muscovite, he thought: with a Muscovite. Darling, beautiful Natalia against whom he’d consciously and for so long closed the door in his mind, because it was a room he could never enter again. It had been the Russian mission, his own supposed defection which he hadn’t known until it was too late to be a prove-yourself-again operation, when he’d met and fallen in love with someone he’d hoped, so desperately hoped, would replace Edith. But who had refused to come back, because of the child of another man. He said: ‘I am not Russian.’
‘What then?’
The questioning had reversed again, Charlie recognized. He said: ‘English.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘There was a time when I knew Russia well,’ conceded Charlie. Was it right for him earlier to have been so critical about Witherspoon and some military attaché in Moscow, disclosing details that should have been disclosed when he was volunteering too much information himself?
‘I will not be tricked.’
‘How can you be tricked?’
‘I never want contact with a single Russian, ever again!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous: you know full well I am not Russian!’ said Charlie. Was Novikov’s anti-Sovietism over-exaggerated? It would not be difficult to imagine so. But then the first principle of defector assessment was imagining nothing but only to proceed on established facts.
‘Why do you doubt me, then?’
‘Why shouldn’t 1?’
‘All the information I have given is the truth.’
‘I hope it is.’
‘Everything I have told you about Major Gale can be checked.’
‘It will be,’ assured Charlie. And would have been already if other people had done their jobs properly.
‘What do you want of me!’
‘An answer to a point I made a long time ago,’ reminded Charlie. ‘How, when you were having to make a panicked move and when travel within the Soviet Union is so closely restricted, could you go at once to the Finnish border?
Novikov smiled, in reluctant admiration. ‘You really have lived in the Soviet Union, haven’t you?’
‘We’ve had that routine,’ said Charlie, refusing another deflection.
‘I had been granted travel permission to visit Leningrad, before the suspicion arose,’ said Novikov.
‘Why?’
‘A vacation.’
‘You were planning a vacation at a time when you believed your people suspected you?’
‘I did not plan it after I believed they suspected me,’ said Novikov. ‘I applied and was granted permission before I became alarmed. It was the ideal opportunity.’
‘Yes it was, wasn’t it?’ agreed Charlie. He’d achieved a great deal already, he decided, contentedly.
‘You think I am a liar!’ erupted Novikov, goaded by Charlie’s sarcasm.
‘I don’t know yet whether you are a liar or not,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re the defector. You have to convince me.’
‘I am telling the truth!’
Impatient with any continued defence, Charlie said: ‘Tell me how you got to the Finnish border.’
‘I was lucky,’ admitted Novikov. ‘The visa to visit Leningrad was already in my internal passport. I did not remind anyone in the cipher department that Friday that I was going on holiday. Nor did I go back to my apartment when I left. I went directly from headquarters to Vnukovo airport, without bothering with luggage. It was late when I arrived in Leningrad: I intended to go to my hotel, the Druzhba on the Ulitza Chapygina, and not move on until the morning but when I approached it I saw militia cars everywhere. There was no one else they could have been looking for. I just ran. The arrangement I had made with Major Gale was to cross into Finland near a place called Lappeeranta: it’s just a few miles inside their border. I caught the train to Vyborg and then walked the rest of the way to the border. My passport was checked on the train. The visa only extended to Leningrad so I knew the alarm would be raised. They almost caught me at the border: I only just got across.’
The Director had talked of a pursuit, at the moment of crossing. Charlie said: ‘Wouldn’t you have attracted attention, trying to book into the Druzhba without any luggage?’
‘You’re very careful, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘What about the luggage?’
‘I had my briefcase with me, of course. It was quite large: it would have appeared sufficient.’
Restricted by the clothing shortages in the Soviet Union, people frequently travelled as lightly as that, remaining for days in the same suit, remembered Charlie. Just like he did, in fact. Time to check Witherspoon’s insistence upon the man’s ability for recall. Charlie said: ‘Your memory is good?’
‘It is excellent.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Charlie. ‘When did you start being denied access to the sort of material to which you were accustomed?’
‘August.’
‘The precise date?’
‘I think it was 19 August.’
‘Definitely 19 August? Or approximately 19 August?’
Novikov hesitated. ‘Do you consider it that important?’
‘You did,’ reminded Charlie. ‘It was the first signal you had that they were on to you.’
‘Definitely 19 August.’
‘How can you be so definite?’ pressed Charlie.
‘I protested to the controller. Said there must have been a circulation error, in giving me such inferior communication.’
‘Wasn’t that putting yourself at risk?’
‘When I made the protest I thought it was a mistake: it was not until I was told it was intended for me that I realized the suspicion.’
‘So from 19th August on, everything was low level?’
‘The lowest.’
‘Tell me now about the assassination cables.’
‘There were three.’
‘What was the first: the exact words?’
‘The need is understood that a political, public example has to be set, for the maximum impact,’ quoted Novikov.
‘Just that?’
‘Just that.’
‘Despatched or received?’
‘Despatched.’
‘To whom?’
‘The Politburo: that’s how I came to encode. I was cleared that high.’
‘And that was the first?’
‘Yes.’
‘The word assassination is not there: so how did you know it involved killing?’
‘The message came from Department 8 of Directorate S.’
‘Which is also responsible for sabotage and abduction.’
‘You’re very knowledgeable.’
‘It’s not my knowledge we’re questioning.’
‘There was a marker designation, on the cable.’
‘What’s a marker designation?’
‘It’s like a subject reference.’
‘What was it?’
‘Mokrie,’ said the Russian.
‘Mokrie dela,’ completed Charlie. ‘Do they still refer to assassinations as “wet affairs”?’
‘It’s a bureaucratic institution, with long time rules,’ said the Russian.
‘Aren’t they all?’ said Charlie. ‘Were there any other types of reference?’
‘The word “purple”,’ said Novikov.
‘What does that identify?’ asked Charlie, who knew.
‘The Politburo,’ replied the Russian.
‘I would have expected something else,’ said Charlie.
Novikov smiled. ‘Run Around,’ he said.
‘Numbered?’
Now a nod of admiration accompanied the smile. ‘Four,’ the Russian agreed.
‘Who handled the first three?’
‘I don’t know,’ apologized Novikov. ‘There were five others in the department with clearance that matched mine.’
‘And you could not have asked them,’ said Charlie, a comment more than a question.
‘Any discussion of messages sent or received is absolutely forbidden,’ confirmed Novikov. ‘Suspension and investigation would be automatic.’
Charlie nodded and said: ‘Tell me about the second.’
‘It said, “You will despatch the catalogue,”’ quoted Novikov, again.’
‘The same references?’
‘One addition. The number seventeen.’
‘What did that signify?’
‘The destination of the cable: the rezidentura in London.’
‘What about the other number?’
‘Five.’
‘So you were handling the messages in sequence now,’ said Charlie, excited at the disclosure but not showing it.
‘And I transmitted the cable numbered six, the last one,’ confirmed Novikov once more.
Excellent, thought Charlie. ‘To where?’
‘London again.’
‘What did it say?’
‘“You will wrap the November catalogue”.’
Charlie decided there had been sufficient intensity and that Novikov needed a respite if he were not to become exhausted. He smiled and said: ‘Wonder if we can get a drink around here?’
‘I enjoy very much your Scotch whisky,’ said Novikov.
‘So do I,’ said Charlie.
The man who answered the bell summons was stiffly upright, giving away the previous army service from which all the support staff at safe houses were recruited. He was someone Charlie had not encountered before but immediately agreed there was Islay malt and when he returned with the tray Charlie said they didn’t want to bother him again, so why didn’t he leave the bottle.
‘Here’s to the British taxpayer,’ toasted Charlie.
‘I do not understand,’ said the Russian.
‘Neither would they, if they knew,’ said Charlie.
‘We are making progress?’ asked Novikov. There seemed some concern in the question.
‘I think so,’ said Charlie.
‘You know why I want to hurt Russia?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie.
‘I loved her so much,’ said Novikov, distantly. ‘So very much.’ He drank heavily from his glass and said: ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone you love as completely as I loved Lydia.’
I can, thought Charlie. I lost twice, not once. He wanted Novikov relaxed but not maudlin. He added to both their glasses and said: ‘There are some more things I want you to help me with.’
Novikov’s effort to concentrate again was very obvious. He said: ‘What?’
‘More dates,’ said Charlie. ‘You were cut off on 19 August?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was the date of that last cable, the one numbered six?’
Novikov frowned for a moment, determined upon recall, and then said: ‘August 12.’
‘And the one before that, the first to mention London?’
‘August 5,’ said the Russian, quicker this time.
‘And the first one you encoded was dated 29 July?’ anticipated Charlie.
Novikov frowned, head to one side. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘How did you know?’
‘I guessed,’ lied Charlie. ‘Something more about that second cable, the one mentioning catalogue? Had you ever before encoded messages from Department 8 of Directorate S?’
‘Twice, both times before Lydia was killed.’
‘With mokrie as a reference?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was the word “catalogue” used?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Novikov.
Thank God and the fairies for bureaucratic rigidity, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Do you know what it signifies?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Russian, in careful qualification.
‘What do you guess it to signify?’
‘The operative,’ said Novikov.
Charlie nodded. ‘That’s what I think, too,’ he said. ‘One last thing: you worked from Dzerzhinsky Square?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Novikov.
‘But the cipher division is not general, is it?’
‘I’ve never suggested it was.’
‘I think other people made wrong assumptions,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s compartmented?’
‘Of course. Everything is. That is the system.’
Charlie nodded again, in agreement. ‘So for which department of the First Chief Directorate did you work?’
‘The Third,’ agreed Novikov.
Charlie sat back, satisfied, refilling both their glasses. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It had to be that, didn’t it?’
‘Is it significant?’
‘Who knows?’ said Charlie.
‘Do you play chess?’
‘No,’ said Charlie.
‘I’m surprised,’ said the Russian. ‘I would have thought with a mind like yours that you would have done. I was going to suggest a game, if we met again.’
‘Maybe darts,’ said Charlie.
‘Darts?’
‘It’s an English game. Played in pubs.’
‘Maybe I could learn.’
‘Be quicker than me trying to learn chess,’ said Charlie.
‘I don’t think that is necessarily so,’ said Novikov.
Charlie encountered Hubert Witherspoon in the entrance hall, a cavernous place of wood-panelled walls around a black and white marbled floor. The man’s face was flushed with his recent exertion and for once his hair was stuck down, still wet from the shower.
‘I got a hole-in-one and two birdies,’ announced Witherspoon, triumphantly.
‘Terrific,’ said Charlie.
‘That hole-in-one cost me a fortune in the bar afterwards. It’s a tradition to treat everyone, you know.’
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I didn’t know.’
Witherspoon nodded in the direction of the drawing room and said: ‘Nothing I hadn’t got, was there?’
Jesus! thought Charlie. He said: ‘Hardly a thing.’
‘Wasted journey then?’
Caught by Witherspoon’s complaint at having to buy drinks in the club-house and remembering the forgotten lunchtime receipt, Charlie said: ‘You wouldn’t by chance have a spare restaurant bill from anywhere around here, would you?’
Witherspoon’s face coloured. He said: ‘You don’t imagine I am going to get caught up in your petty little deceits, do you!’
‘No,’ said Charlie, wearily, ‘of course not.’
When he got to the Mercedes Charlie found the red communication light burning, indicating a priority summons. He was patched directly through to the Director’s office and recognized Alison Bing’s strained-through-a-sieve voice at once.
‘The bomb’s gone off right beneath you,’ said the Director’s secretary. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be enough pieces to bury.’
Arrival security – Special Branch and immigration and Customs checks – at all the Scottish fishing ports is ridiculously inefficient, so lamentable that the KGB regard them as open doorways into Europe.
Vasili Nikolaevich Zenin arrived at Ullapool on a Russian trawler but did not go ashore that first night, letting the genuine Russian seamen attract what little attention there might be. He went with them the second day, but not to drink. In a pub lavatory he stripped off the sweater and leggings that covered his suit, for one of the seamen to carry back to the trawler, and caught a meandering bus to Glasgow, arriving in time for the overnight sleeper to London.
He collected the waiting suitcase from the left luggage locker at King’s Cross station and went directly to the Ennis Hotel, in Bayswater.
‘You have a reservation for me: the name’s Smale,’ he said.
‘Travelled far, Mr Smale?’ asked the girl, politely.
‘A long way,’ said Zenin, which was so very true.