Comrade Charlie

Chapter 30

It was a hotel clinging by its fingertips to the middle range of the package-tour market, reconciled to the number of couples named Smith who booked in for one night and left earlier in the morning, and wary of a health inspection swoop on the kitchens because you couldn’t keep cockroaches completely from hotel kitchens, could you?

The foyer was a brave attempt at something it was not. There was an imitation marble floor of yellowy amber and the motif was continued with two imitation marble pillars in a matching colour. At various strategic points there were tall plants with large leaves which went well with the marble effect and just got away with conveying an interior garden atmosphere. The reception area was quite small and to the right of the double-fronted glass doors: behind the reception clerk all the rooms were itemized by open cubbyholes into which the keys fitted with their number tags hanging down, to show whether they were occupied or not, and which Charlie marked right away as a burglar’s dream. There was a sitting area to the left, a couch and a set of chairs with ornately carved legs and arms and with upholstery featuring French pastoral scenes of pomaded men and crinolined women unaware of the rumbling tumbrils of revolution. It was the sort of brocade material Charlie had seen on genuine antiques and looked quite good when slightly frayed, which this was.

The clerk, a smiling girl, wondered if he were on holiday and Charlie agreed he was and she asked if he knew London well and Charlie said well enough. She gestured to some unseen desk behind a potted plant and said it was manned between ten and four every weekday to get theatre tickets or tour trips and Charlie promised to remember.

He was given room 35 and taken to it by an elderly porter whose false teeth didn’t fit and who therefore lisped when he talked. On the way up in a hicupping, metal-grilled lift Charlie patiently went through the here-for-a-holiday, first-time-in-London ritual. The old man showed him how to operate the television and opened the bathroom door to prove the room had one and said if there were anything at all Charlie wanted he only had to ask. Charlie thanked the man and tipped him two pounds because he invariably found hotel porters useful allies to have.

The room was small but adequate. There was a double bed at one side of which was a tray with a kettle and a selection of tea, coffee and powdered milk sachets for a do-it-yourself breakfast drink, a built-in clothes closet, a low table bordered with two easy chairs and the already identified television had a dial device for in-house movies. One was described as adult viewing and didn’t become available until after 10 p.m. Charlie guessed the management had got a job lot with the fake marble tiles because the bathroom was a replica of the lobby. The bath was clean, there were enough towels and there was a tray of soaps and shampoo and conditioner in their individual packets. He was going to be quite comfortable, Charlie decided.

He unpacked and with instinctive professionalism set out to explore his surroundings. He followed the signs and discovered his room was conveniently positioned near the fire escape. It was an internal system, a back-stairs spiral of bare concrete steps with a metal hand rail. Charlie pushed through the door on his floor and descended the three flights to find where it emerged, out into the open. It was on to a tiny rear car park, where the dustbins were kept as well as vehicles. There was an alley leading from the front of the hotel, towards the park, but another feeder road for service lorries ran at right angles, as well: Charlie guessed the feeder road supplied several other hotels in the area.

It would have been convenient to have emerged through the fire door on the ground level but it would have made the clerk or the porter curious, so Charlie limped back up the three flights to use the public, rickety lift: by the time he’d been up and then down his legs as well as his feet ached, and Charlie felt the need to restore himself.

The bar was on the same side as the reception area but further back into the hotel, past more plants and the theatre ticket desk he now located. Charlie, not only a man of quick impressions but a degreeholding judge of hostelries, liked it at once. The colour scheme was predominantly restful red, with hunting scenes and prints of eighteenth-century London around the walls. The bar itself looked as if it were made from aged and heavy wood, which was probably plastic imitation like the outside tiles but Charlie thought it worked well enough. It was along the inner wall and impressively stocked with little-known brand-name scotch, which Charlie always considered a good sign. There were a few bar stools, a spread of tables and some benched seats.

Charlie expertly chose the corner stool, right against the wall, from which he had an immediate view of anyone entering but from whom he would not be easily seen until they got their bearings. He ordered an Islay malt and the barman said he didn’t want ice or water did he and Charlie agreed that he didn’t and was further impressed. A barman who knew how properly to serve Islay malt and was able instantly to discern someone else who did as well was no newcomer to his trade. And practised hotel barmen were even better allies than porters because as well as proficiency with drinks they were usually proficient with gossip. The barman, whose name emerged as John and who, from the bracelets and the neckchain, was a lover of gold, let Charlie lead the conversation, which was another indication of experience and which Charlie started to do after the second drink. The man started to volunteer what Charlie sought by the time of the third drink, prompted by Charlie disclosing how long he intended staying.

‘It’s going to be interesting for you then,’ said the man.

‘How’s that?’ asked Charlie ingenuously.

‘Got a special party arriving.’

‘Special?’

‘A group of Russians. Here for the Farnborough Air Show.’

‘In this very hotel!’ exclaimed Charlie, suitably impressed.

The barman nodded and smiled, content with the reaction. ‘Practically taken over an entire floor.’

‘That must create a headache for you all, an important group like that?’ lured Charlie.

There was another nod. ‘We’ve had a lot of Russians from the embassy, making sure everything is going to be all right. All the staff have been checked.’

‘You personally?’

‘Sure.’

‘You mind that?’

A shrug this time. ‘Not really. Unusual experience, really.’

‘Practically an entire floor, you say?’

The man responded as Charlie hoped he would. ‘The sixth,’ he confirmed. ‘And those rooms that aren’t occupied have to stay empty while the party is here.’

‘All rather exciting,’ said Charlie. Would the restrictions the Russians imposed mean the sealing of the entire floor?

‘I suppose so,’ said the barman, a seen-it-all-before remark. ‘You’d better get here early at night if you want a place to sit.’

‘I will,’ assured Charlie.

In the Soviet car outside Viktor Nikov, whose tour of personal observation it was, said bitterly: ‘Drinking! He sits in the bar drinking and we sit here, with nothing!’

It was almost two months from their last being together, that weekend at the dacha, when Valentina finally raised it. They were making plans to go again, during another of Georgi’s college breaks, and Valentina asked if Kalenin were coming and Berenkov admitted that he had not invited the man.

‘Are you going to?’ she demanded. Throughout the years that Berenkov’s overseas postings had kept them apart Valentina had developed a peremptory independence unusual for the wife of an intelligence officer.

‘I don’t think so,’ shrugged Berenkov.

‘Why not?’ She was a big woman, blonde and strong-featured. Impatient and uninterested in dieting she was putting her faith in tight corsetry and accepted that it was not really working.

‘I don’t think he’d welcome an invitation, at the moment.’

‘So there is a difficulty between you?’ seized Valentina, recalling her impression of quietness from the last dacha visit.

‘It’s not serious,’ said Berenkov. I hope, he thought.

‘Can you talk about it?’

‘No,’ refused Berenkov shortly, retreating at last behind the expected security-consciousness of his job.

‘Who’s right?’

Berenkov laughed, unoffended at his wife’s directness. ‘It’s not like that. It’s just different viewpoints.’

‘Nothing could ever happen to us, could it?’ asked the woman, with sudden concern. ‘Nothing to upset the life we now have, I mean.’

Berenkov laughed at her again, in reassurance this time. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask a thing like that?’

Valentina shook her head, refusing the question. ‘I wouldn’t want anything to upset the way we are now,’ she said.