Comrade Charlie

20

There was a wariness about Blackstone but not the leaking nervousness of the previous day. He hadn’t known what to expect then, but now he thought he did. He determined not to underestimate the other man because of the way he looked. And not to panic. Blackstone accepted that was what he’d done, blurting out the confession about Ann and Ruth like he had. He regretted that: regretted it bitterly. It had given a reason for his anxiety – he hoped – but he couldn’t be sure what the man would do with the information, so he was vulnerable. But only from that, he tried to convince himself. The Russian had been right about the other business: without an open admission, they had no case against him. That’s all he had to remember: no admission, no case. And not to panic.

Charlie, who’d found a very reasonable pub in which to stay just back from the seafront, savoured a bacon and two eggs breakfast and was enjoying being back in operation after his enforced hibernation, smiled up encouragingly at Blackstone’s entry and said: ‘Here we are again then!’

‘Yes,’ said Blackstone. The man seemed friendlier than the previous day but Blackstone wasn’t going to be fooled by that.

‘Where were we?’ asked Charlie.

‘I don’t know,’ said Blackstone, still cautious. ‘You said you still had some questions.’

‘I probably did,’ said Charlie, as if he couldn’t remember them any more. ‘This is my first time on the Isle of Wight. I like it.’

‘Some people find it claustrophobic,’ allowed Blackstone.

‘Do you?’

‘No. I was born here. It’s not a feeling you get if you’re a born islander.’

‘You got both your homes here?’

Careful! thought Blackstone at once: it appeared to be a way the man had, suddenly slipping in possibly tricky questions. He said: ‘One here, one in Portsmouth, just across the water.’

‘Best of both worlds then?’

‘You’re going to get me prosecuted for it, aren’t you?’

Having jabbed at the man’s weak point, to unsettle him, Charlie ignored the question. Instead he said: ‘Something that I can’t understand about the period you were inside the secure section that second time is how no one saw you. Out of twenty or so people in or around the building, no one saw you?’

No admission, no case, thought Blackstone. ‘I don’t know why either,’ he shrugged.

‘You any idea what the secret project is?’

Blackstone shook his head positively. ‘How could I, if it’s secret? The rumour is that it involves our carbon fibre process but that’s rather obvious: that’s what we specialize in.’

‘Tell me about that,’ invited Charlie.

Blackstone did, without difficulty, feeling quite relaxed with generalities and confident that here he was under no threat. He talked of reinforced resin systems and monoplastics and thermoset processes and guessed the other man was having trouble keeping up with him, which pleased Blackstone because it was good to feel superior for a change. Charlie interjected to ask which of the processes were being used on the secret project and Blackstone evaded the trap easily, saying that he had no way of knowing. Blackstone saw another snare when Charlie asked what process he guessed it would be and actually laughed at the man, saying that he had no way of knowing that, either.

Blackstone’s restored assurance faltered slightly when Charlie insisted on going back over the whole episode again but the hesitation was brief because he guessed the ploy was to jump on any variation from his first account. And he had that word perfect by now and knew when he finished he hadn’t changed his story by a single word.

‘Thanks for your time,’ concluded Charlie politely.

‘That’s it?’

‘Unless you’ve got anything else to tell me?’

‘No,’ said Blackstone at once. ‘Nothing.’

‘Then that’s it,’ agreed Charlie.

‘What happens now?’ asked Blackstone. ‘Do I stay suspended?’

‘I don’t see why you should.’

No admission, no case, thought Blackstone: the feeling of satisfaction, of triumph, surged through him. He’d done it again! Not as easily as before, but he’d come through a second inquiry – with an intelligence officer this time – and got away with it again! He wished he could tell the Russian at once how well he’d done. Blackstone said: ‘Thank you. I’m glad it’s all over.’

‘A silly misunderstanding, like you said,’ suggested Charlie.

‘It’s good to be finally believed.’

‘We’ve always got to be sure,’ said Charlie.

‘Oh, I understand,’ allowed Blackstone generously, positively enjoying himself, genuinely knowing a feeling of superiority over Charlie. ‘That’s how it always should be.’

‘So let’s follow security procedures more closely in the future, shall we?’ grinned Charlie.

‘Don’t worry,’ assured Blackstone, grinning back. ‘I won’t do anything like it again.’

‘I’ll tell the management and security that it’s all settled,’ promised Charlie.

Blackstone rose but stood uncertainly before the desk, wondering whether he should offer to shake hands. Deciding against it he said: ‘I’ll be going then?’

‘Fine,’ said Charlie.

After the man left the room Charlie sat for a long time looking out over the river and sea beyond, flecked with yacht sails and holiday ferries and motor craft, but seeing none of it. At last he shifted, finding his way to the office where the security chief sat strangely upright, as if trying not to wrinkle the immaculately maintained uniform, still hostile from being excluded from the encounters with Blackstone. Charlie patiently provided Slade with the promised report of the interviews and then crossed once more to the security area to speak, independently, with Springley.

Outside again, in the road between the two buildings, the former sergeant major said: ‘So the suspension can be lifted right away?’

‘From this moment,’ agreed Charlie.

‘You going to file a report when you get back to London?’

‘Of course,’ said Charlie. ‘You know all about obeying orders, don’t you?’

‘Don’t forget what I said, will you?’ demanded the man. ‘There’s no danger of any classified information getting into the wrong hands from this establishment.’

‘It’s going to be one of the first points I make,’ assured Charlie.

‘Sorry you had a wasted trip,’ said Slade, mollified at last at the thought of his name featuring in a Whitehall document.

‘Happens all the time: think what a disaster it would be if they weren’t wasted trips!’

But he didn’t return immediately to London. Charlie Muffin was a man who reacted to hunches and instincts, which had invariably stood him in good stead in the past, although it would have been an exaggeration to describe his feeling quite so strongly on this occasion. At best, he felt a general unease. Whatever – hunch, instinct or unease – he considered it sufficient to stay on a while longer where the sun was still shining, the air was fresh and he got two fresh eggs for breakfast every morning, without even asking for them. And by so doing to impose upon Henry Blackstone, self-confessed bigamist and selfadmitted security rule bender, a period of intense but undetected surveillance.

It proved a frustrating and even more unsettling exercise.

He followed Blackstone to and from his Newport home and he learned about the Monday night at the cinema and the darts night on Thursday. He decided Ann was an attractive-enough-looking housewife, although quite heavily overweight, who appeared content with her limited existence, which upon reflection the majority of housewives appeared to be. Using the authority of London headquarters he had Blackstone’s bank statements and financial affairs accessed just as efficiently and thoroughly as the Russians before him, and uncovered the man’s straitened circumstances. And was in a position to acknowledge – more quickly than the Russians at a comparable stage of their separate surveillance – that Blackstone’s shortage of money was caused by the drain of maintaining the two admitted households. But there were no indicative, tell-tale deposits in any financial account to show by as much as a penny the slightest additional, welcome income beyond that which the man received as a senior-grade tracer at an Isle of Wight aeronautics factory. Blackstone drank lager beer, on draught, not bottled. He preferred the colour blue, in the clothes he wore. He didn’t smoke. He had an account at a betting shop. He didn’t read a regular newspaper. He had no close male friends. He was, in fact, such a boring man that Charlie reckoned he had to have a prick like a baby’s arm with an apple in its hand to keep one wife happy, let alone two, no matter how mundanely content they were.

But the sensation of unease wouldn’t go. Rather, it increased and as the days passed Charlie encountered other feelings, like irritation and anger. Yet Blackstone did nothing nor behaved in the slightest way suspiciously, which worsened Charlie’s irritation and anger.

Charlie allowed a full week to elapse before contacting Westminster Bridge Road. It was an open and therefore insecure telephone link, because it couldn’t be anything else from where Charlie was operating and Charlie intended doing nothing beyond reporting an intention to return to the clerk whose sole function it was to receive inexplicable messages from people he could never ask to be more explicit. But there was a note against Charlie’s code designation which meant he had to be routed through to the acting Director General.

‘What in heaven’s name do you imagine you’ve been doing!’

Charlie wondered if the man ever regretted the self-imposed discipline of not allowing himself to swear. Conscious of the restrictions of their communication method, Charlie said: ‘Working. What else?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know. You’ve been gone a week.’

‘I’ve been routed through to you,’ reminded Charlie, not interested in Harkness’ empty posturing, which was all it could be when they were speaking like this.

‘Is there any cause for concern?’

Charlie hesitated, wondering how Harkness would react to a reply about uneasy, instinctive feelings. He said: ‘No.’

‘So your holiday is over!’ said Harkness. ‘Get back here!’

‘The weather’s been terrific,’ said Charlie, indulging himself and careless of upsetting the other man. ‘High seventies every day.’

‘I said get back!’

‘I’ve already logged the intention to do just that.’

Charlie managed the hydrofoil that left ahead of the evening rush hour, remembering as he sat down Blackstone’s remark about people finding the island claustrophobic and deciding it was true. Pleasant though the visit had been, Charlie was looking forward to getting back to the mainland. Maybe there he wouldn’t feel so hemmed in.

There were six seats available, after Charlie had taken his. Four were very quickly filled by part of the KGB squad that, upon Berenkov’s adamant instructions from Moscow, had maintained an unremitting surveillance upon Charlie Muffin from the moment of his being indentified as Henry Blackstone’s intelligence interrogator.

Like many men of supreme confidence Alexei Berenkov was also an emotional one, and briefly his eyes actually clouded at the cable from London announcing the detection of Charlie Muffin. It was all so perfect! So absolutely and completely perfect. It gave him Charlie Muffin, which was what he’d set out to accomplish. But of practically matching importance it had occurred in circumstances that provided the ideal opportunity at last to tell Kalenin. To stop deceiving the man. Not completely true, Berenkov qualified. There would still be minimal deception in the manner in which he presented the discovery, but very minimal. At least his friend would know. A further benefit from the circumstances was that Kalenin couldn’t abort the pursuit, either.

Berenkov sought and gained a meeting with Kalenin in central Moscow that same day, late in the afternoon. The bearded First Deputy sat solemnfaced and unspeaking while Berenkov recounted the identification and then said: ‘So we can’t risk immediately using – even trying to use – the man Blackstone. And without the British material, we’ve failed.’

‘I’ve already decided upon another way,’ promised Berenkov.

‘Charlie Muffin’s involvement worries me,’ said Kalenin, who knew the man from the Berenkov repatriation and from the later phoney defection to Russia. ‘It worries me a lot.’

‘I’ve decided how to resolve that, as well,’ said Berenkov.

‘Kill him, you mean?’ said Kalenin dispassionately.

‘Oh no,’ said Berenkov at once. ‘To kill him now would attract precisely the sort of attention we don’t want. I’ve got something planned for Charlie Muffin that will be far worse than death.’

‘This isn’t a personal vendetta, is it?’ queried Kalenin with sudden prescience.

‘Of course not!’ denied Berenkov.