Charlie M

(6)

Cuthbertson had telephoned ahead, so Snare and Harrison were already waiting in the office when the Director and Wilberforce flurried in from their meeting with the Cabinet. It was the first occasion it had happened and he’d impressed them, Cuthbertson knew. There’d be other meetings at Downing Street, after today.

Cuthbertson was purple-faced with excitement, smiling for no reason, moving around the room without direction, nerves too tight to permit him to sit down.

‘Everyone agrees,’ he announced, generally. He giggled, stupidly. The other three men pretended not to notice.

Since the disaster of the Berenkov debriefing, Cuthbertson had always waited for an independent judgment. With Kalenin, he had insisted on two assessments and then met with the Foreign Secretary before bringing it before the full cabinet. The Prime Minister had been incredibly flattering, remembered Cuthbertson. He felt warm and knew his blood pressure would be dangerously high.

‘This is going to be the sensation of the year … any year,’ insisted Cuthbertson, as if challenging a denial. He looked at the others in the office. Wilberforce probed his pipe. Snare and Harrison nodded agreement.

‘Kalenin didn’t actually say anything about defection, did he?’ queried Snare, selecting a bad moment.

Cuthbertson stared at the man as if he had emitted an offensive smell.

‘Good Lord, man, of course not. But you’ve read the Moscow reports from Colonel Wilcox. He used to be in my regiment … know the man’s integrity as well as I know my own. There can be only one possible interpretation.’

‘So what happens now?’ asked Harrison, pleased at the rebuff to Snare.

‘He’s given us our lead. Now we’ve got to follow it.’

‘How?’ said Snare, anxious to recover.

‘The Queen’s Birthday,’ declared Cuthbertson, quickly, leaning back in his chair and smiling up at the ceiling.

Christ, it was better than soldiering, he thought.

‘There’s going to be a party at the Moscow embassy to celebrate it. And then there’s the Leipzig Fair.’

Snare frowned, but stayed silent. He could easily understand how the General annoyed Charles Muffin, he thought.

‘If Kalenin turns up at either, we’ll get our proof.’

‘I don’t quite see …’ Wilberforce stumbled.

‘Because we’ll be at both places, to speak to him,’ enlarged the Director.

‘Are you sure he’ll go to Leipzig? It’ll be unusual attending a trade affair, surely?’ questioned Harrison.

Irritably, Cuthbertson rummaged in the file, extracting the report from the trade counsellor at the Moscow embassy that had accompanied that of the military attache.

‘… “Trade is important between our two countries”’, quoted the Director. ‘… “I personally hope to see it first hand at this year’s convention … Through trade, there will be peace, not war …”’

He looked up, fixing Harrison, who shifted uncomfortably.

‘… Where’s the Easter trade delegation?’ he demanded, needlessly. ‘Leipzig, of course.’

‘Will we be able to get visas in time?’ smirked Snare.

‘There’s a vacancy on the embassy establishment in Moscow,’ said Cuthbertson, airily. ‘It’ll be easy to get you accredited.’

Colour began to suffuse Snare’s face.

‘So I’m going to Moscow?’ he clarified.

‘Of course,’ said Cuthbertson. ‘And Harrison to East Germany.’

He gazed at Snare. ‘Wilcox is a good man … he’ll cooperate fully,’ predicted the Director.

Neither operative looked enthusiastic.

‘This is going to stamp our control indelibly upon the service,’ continued Cuthbertson. ‘We’ll be the envy of every country in the West … they’ll come to us cap in hand for any crumbs we can spare …’

‘It won’t be easy,’ said Harrison. It would be disastrous if he made a mistake, he thought. Fleetingly the vision of the burning Volkswagen and the body he had thought to be that of Charles Muffin flickered into his mind.

‘Of course it won’t be easy. The Russians will do anything to prevent Kalenin from leaving …’ agreed Cuthbertson. He paused, looking carefully from one to the other. ‘… You’ll have to be bloody careful. Let Kalenin make the running all the time.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

The hope in Snare’s voice was evident to everyone in the room.

‘Then you’ll stay in Moscow for a few months until we can withdraw you without it being too obvious. And Harrison can come out when the Fair is over.’

‘If nothing happens,’ enthused Harrison, later, as the two operatives sat in the office formerly occupied by Charlie Muffin, ‘think of all the wonderful ballet you’ll be able to see. I hear the Bolshoi are marvellous.’

Snare stayed gazing out of the window into Whitehall. At least those killed in the war had a public monument, he thought, looking at the Cenotaph.

‘I don’t like ballet,’ he said, bitterly.

Back in Cuthbertson’s office, Janet carried in the carefully brewed Earl Grey tea, placing the transparent bone china cups gently alongside the Director and Wilberforce, then returned within minutes with two plates, each containing four chocolate digestive biscuits.

She stood, waiting.

‘What is it?’ demanded Cuthbertson, impatiently.

‘I thought you might have forgotten,’ offered Janet. ‘Mr Muffin returned this morning. He’s been in the office, all day.’

‘Oh Christ!’ said Cuthbertson. He stared at Wilberforce, deciding to delegate. Muffin wasn’t important any more.

‘You see him,’ he ordered the second man.

‘What shall I tell him to do?’

Cuthbertson shrugged, dismissively, taking care to break his biscuits so that no crumbs fell away from the plate.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, consumed by the Kalenin development. ‘Let him see Berenkov again.’

‘So Muffin isn’t to be demoted?’ probed Wilberforce, anxious to avoid being blamed for another mistake.

The Director paused, tea-cup to his lips.

‘Of course he is,’ he snapped, definitely. Even though the man had been right, showing them the way to uncover three other members of Berenkov’s system, Cuthbertson didn’t intend admitting the error.

‘But for God’s sake, man, consider the priority,’ he insisted. ‘The last thing that matters is somebody as unimportant as Muffin. Kalenin is the only consideration now.’

Charlie lay exhausted in the darkness, feeling the sweat dry coldly upon him. He hooked his feet under the slippery sheet, trying to drag it over him, finally unclasping his hands from behind his head to complete the task. He didn’t like silk bed-linen, he decided.

‘So he won’t even see me?’ he said.

‘He’s very busy,’ defended Janet, loyally, intrigued by the self-pity in Charlie’s voice. She hoped he wasn’t going to become a bore: she’d almost decided to take him to a party the coming Saturday, to show him to her friends.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Charlie turning to her. In the darkness, she wouldn’t detect his attention.

‘There’s a hell of a flap,’ reported the girl. ‘We’re trying to get Snare a visa for Moscow. And Harrison into East Germany under Department of Trade cover for the Leipzig Fair.’

‘Why?’

‘Cuthbertson thinks some General or Colonel or something wants to defect from Russia.’

‘Who?’

‘He won’t identify him. Even the memorandum to the Prime Minister refers to the man by code.’

Charlie smiled in the darkness. The bloody fools.

‘You’ll be annoyed tomorrow, Charlie,’ predicted the girl, suddenly.

He waited.

‘Remember the last time you saw Berenkov … the day your shoes leaked …?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cuthbertson has cut the taxi fare off your expenses. He dictated a memo today, saying you’d obviously walked.’

The girl went silent, expecting an angry reaction. Instead she detected him laughing and smiled, too. Charlie was such an unpredictable man, she thought, fondly. She would take him to Jennifer’s 21st.

‘I did miss you, Charlie.’

‘Yes,’ he said, distantly, his mind on other things.

‘Charlie.’

‘What?’

‘Make love to me again … the way I like it …’

The trouble with her preference, thought Charlie, pushing the sheet away, was that he always got cramp in his legs.

He sighed. And it was going to be a cold walk home, he thought. He’d been relying on those expenses: now he couldn’t afford a taxi.