Comrade Charlie

Chapter 42

The car went to Westminster Bridge Road, which was wrong because if the arrest had been proper he should have been taken to a police station with cells, and then Charlie realized how the arrest had been improper from the start. His first — startled — thought was about his theory on how some cases of people disgracing the department had been decisively handled, without recourse to a time-wasting trial. But Harkness wouldn’t deny himself whatever official recognition were possible. Which left only one other explanation. He smiled at Smedley in the elevator sweeping up to the ninth floor and said: ‘Nervous?’

Smedley said:’You don’t impress me, prick!’

‘You don’t impress me, either,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d be nervous, if I were you.’

On this occasion there was no delaying security check and the office that Laura Noland normally occupied was empty. They didn’t go to the Director General’s suite anyway. With Smedley leading they marched towards the minor conference room which Witherspoon had taken over, because it was big enough to accommodate all the waiting people, and all the assembled evidence was there.

Charlie was not immediately interested in all the people there, only one. Sir Alistair Wilson, the Director General, was the only one standing. He did so minimally supported against a chair back: it was the most comfortable way for him because a permanently stiffened leg, badly set after a wartime polo accident, made it difficult for him to sit for any long period. He was whey-faced and much thinner than Charlie remembered, the habitual check suit appearing too large for him.

‘It’s good to see you again, sir,’ said Charlie.

Wilson stared at him across the half-moon table at which two men whom Charlie didn’t know were sitting with Richard Harkness. Wilson did not reply and there was no facial expression whatsoever. Charlie was saddened but realistically accepted he couldn’t expect anything else in the circumstances. At right angles to the half-moon table was another at which Hubert Witherspoon sat, behind several folders and binders. Adjoining him but at a separate table again there was a girl at a stenography machine and a male technician at elaborate but surprisingly old-fashioned tape-recording apparatus. Charlie looked at them both and decided that his guess at why he had been brought to Westminster Bridge Road was right. Smedley positioned himself at the door, like a guard, which Charlie supposed was how the man regarded himself. Abbott, the other interrogator of his mother, released Charlie from the handcuff and went to the door to join the other man.

‘Here we all are then!’ said Charlie brightly. His wrist hurt where the cuff had chafed it, but he refused the Special Branch men the satisfaction of massaging it.

The two unidentified men looked between each other, and Charlie wondered who they were. The obvious surmise was members of the Joint Intelligence Committee. One looked up at the standing Director General and said: ‘Shall we get on then?’

Wilson sat at last, his left leg rigidly out-thrust beneath the table, and Charlie realized the man had been especially summoned to conduct the meeting. Harkness would have manoeuvred that, Charlie guessed: the deputy would want Wilson to supervise the destruction of someone he’d championed. Wilson looked sideways to Harkness, nodded and said: ‘Yes, let’s get on with it.’ Wilson’s voice was frail, like the man.

Harkness jerked to his feet, moving from the table at which the committee sat towards Witherspoon and the neatly stacked folders. A pink shirt and handkerchief, worn with his school tie again, complemented Harkness’ charcoal-grey suit, and the black brogues were brightly polished. Charlie looked at the shoes and was ready to bet they would hurt like a bugger.

‘This department has been penetrated by an agent of the Soviet Union,’ announced Harkness, dramatically. ‘It will need further investigation accurately to say for how long that penetration has been but certainly it has existed since Charles Edward Muffin returned to this country from the Soviet Union and was quite wrongly allowed to remain in this organization…’

It wasn’t just himself on shotgun trial, thought Charlie, looking at Sir Alistair Wilson. Harkness had to be very confident of himself to make such an open and direct attack on the Director General. Charlie was sure now that the other men at the half-moon table were from the Joint Intelligence Committee.

‘… the damage will have been incalculable. Irreparable,’ continued Harkness. ‘The extent of that, too, will require further investigation…’

Charlie reckoned Harkness had waited years for this moment: mouthed the imagined words, maybe practised in front of a mirror.

‘… I have always had the gravest doubts about Muffin’s loyalty, as well as his ability,’ went on Harkness. ‘So much so that some months ago I authorized an internal investigation upon the man, which at the time proved inconclusive. It was not, however, mistaken…’

As rehearsed as he could be, calculated Charlie: the man was even determined to get the apology over the harassment of his mother expunged from the record. Dig on, thought Charlie; dig a great big grave to bury yourself in, asshole.

‘… some weeks ago this department was successful in breaking a new code with which Moscow was communicating with Russian intelligence officers — the KGB — in this country…’ Harkness reached sideways and on cue Witherspoon handed him a piece of paper. ‘The first message gave the location of a dead-letter drop in the Highgate area of London,’ resumed the deputy Director General. ‘It was placed under observation and a man who has subsequently admitted being an agent of the Soviet Union was arrested and is shortly to face trial. Another message led us to a terrorist courier, although unfortunately in that instance the opinion of the Attorney General was that no prosecution could successfully be initiated against the man. He has, however, been placed on the prohibited-aliens list at ports and airports of this country and his identity and photograph circulated to Western counterintelligence agencies…’ Harkness paused, sipping from a waiting glass of water on Witherspoon’s table and Charlie thought: Television courtroom soap opera, circa 1960.

‘… these two episodes are not connected to the matter being inquired into here. I mention them to establish the fact that the communication channel, which the Soviets are unaware of our being able to read, is undoubtedly genuine…’

Harkness continued the theatre by turning to look directly at Charlie at that moment and Charlie smiled and shook his head in a matchingly exaggerated gesture, for no other reason than to off-balance the man, which it did. Harkness blinked and coloured slightly and moved to speak but stopped and then started again. Charlie said: ‘Sorry. Did I put you off?’

There was no flush of anger from Harkness this time. He actually smiled, indicating how assured he was, looking away in contempt. He said: ‘Some weeks ago another message was decoded…’ He looked down to the paper that Witherspoon had earlier handed him. ‘“Reactivate payment by one thousand”,’ he quoted. ‘Please remember, particularly, the wording of that message. It’s important…’

Charlie was inclined intently forward now, no longer complacent or mocking, learning things he didn’t know.

‘… that message was the first of several which initially meant nothing to us,’ said Harkness. ‘There was a reference to King William Street, in the City…’

‘What!’ demanded Charlie loudly.

Harkness was shocked into silence by the outburst. For several moments there was complete silence in the room, and still surprised Harkness repeated: ‘King William Street,’ and then clamped his mouth shut, not having intended to respond to the question.

‘The bastard!’ said Charlie, in quiet conversation with himself. ‘The absolute bastard! But why?’

There was a further silence of which Charlie appeared briefly unaware and he seemed distracted when he looked up at last, to Wilson. He said: ‘I’m sorry,’ and shook his head, as if he were trying to clear it.

‘You’ll be given an opportunity to speak,’ said Wilson.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Charlie, still distracted.

Harkness was uncertain now. He looked questioningly between Wilson and Charlie and then back to Wilson again. The Director General nodded but Harkness fumbled through various slips of paper before starting to talk. ‘As I said, there was a reference to King William Street. An obvious operational instruction, involving something or someone to go south. And then to two equally obvious legend names. Visitor. And Guest…’ Harkness paused, looking towards the group of men at the table. ‘Please remember those words, too. They’re also very material…’

The man took another drink of water. He said: ‘You will be aware of the current Farnborough Air Show. In London at the moment, attending that show, is a Russian delegation. The majority — certainly one person who is extremely important in the context of this inquiry — are staying at the Blair Hotel, in Bayswater. An inter-agency task force, with myself as its head, was authorized to pursue as actively as possible the purpose and meaning of the messages we were intercepting but not understanding. That made available to us the counterintelligence observations upon the Blair Hotel…’ Harkness stopped again, turning once more directly to face Charlie. ‘Those observations included the usual photographs and those phototgraphs showed the occupation in that hotel of Charles Edward Muffin, who was understood to be on leave from this department…’

There was a stir from among the men at the table which Harkness took as something like congratulation for work well done because he nodded his head in what looked like appreciation.

‘As the result of that identification I again initiated a thorough investigation of the man…’ He reached sideways without looking at Witherspoon, who placed in his hand a file that Charlie recognized. ‘… in his office in this very building this was discovered. A file — which was not listed on any register, which regulations I have introduced strictly require — upon one Natalia Nikandrova Fedova. She is a member of the Soviet delegation in this country. She is staying at the Blair Hotel. And it is my contention that she is clearly the person referred to by the legand name Guest… the control, I further contend, of Charles Edward Muffin, whom the records will show spent some time in the Soviet Union and who therefore fits the legend name Visitor…’

Harkness returned the folder and briefly leaned over the table in muffled conversation with Witherspoon. Turning back to the committee Harkness said: ‘I make those contentions on the basis of further evidence. Convinced of an association between this woman and Muffin, I two days ago had a rummage search made of his flat, in Vauxhall…’ Harkness extended his hand, so that the money was quite evident in its envelope. ‘Extremely cleverly hidden, in a cavity behind a bedroom skirting board, was this envelope. It contains one thousand pounds. And I would remind you, gentlemen, of the first message I quoted to you in full: “Reactivate payment by one thousand”.’ Harkness felt out and was handed a key. ‘This — obviously the key to some storage facility of which we are not at the moment sure — was also found in this hiding place…’ There was another quick exchange and the key was traded by Witherspoon for the cipher pad. ‘… taped inside the casing of an electricity meter in the kitchen was this one-time cipher pad. It has been forensically tested and proven beyond doubt to be of Russian manufacture and was unquestionably the method by which Muffin communicated with Moscow …’

Harkness hesitated, looking triumphantly at Charlie, who gazed back at him but without any gesture on this occasion because he was intent upon how the deputy would continue. It was only when Harkness did, saying: ‘It is, I submit to you, the most damning incriminating evidence possible,’ that Charlie smiled.

Harkness’ voice was hoarse, being strained into a croak by the length of time he had been talking, but he pressed on, buoyed by the triumph of the moment and determined to omit nothing. ‘I would have liked to pursue this investigation further before arresting the man,’ he said. ‘I felt, however, that this was impossible for two reasons. Two days from now the Soviet delegation, including Natalia Fedova — this man’s control — returns to the Soviet Union…’ The familiar demanding hand reached out and Witherspoon offered another slip of paper. ‘… and because of this, a message intercepted less than two hours ago. It reads: “King William Street filled”.’ Harkness gulped from his water-glass and said: ‘I consider that this is overwhelmingly sufficient to justify the continued detention of Charles Edward Muffin, pending the further investigation I have intimated…an investigation for which I also seek the authority, on suspicion of activities detrimental to the State, of Natalia Nikandrova Fedova…’

Harkness finished, swallowing, but remained where he was in front of the evidence table for a few moments before walking back to join the men to whom he had been talking.

To Charlie, Harkness looked exhausted and probably was, but he was also flushed with elation. Charlie stood, waiting for permission from Wilson, feeling the throb developing in his feet, particularly the right one, near the ankle, and wished they’d let him sit. Another thing it was impossible to expect, he supposed, like getting any friendly reaction from the Director General.

‘Well?’ asked Wilson. There was a sad resignation in his voice.

‘Is that it!’ exclaimed Charlie. He made it intentionally discourteous, speaking not to the Director General but to Harkness.

The deputy director shifted uncomfortably, not expecting questioning, and looked to Wilson for guidance. Wilson said: ‘Well, is it?’ and Charlie guessed that Harkness regretted the earlier attack upon the older man.

‘As I have made clear, the investigation is continuing,’ maintained Harkness stiffly.

Charlie gave an exaggerated sigh, shook his head and said: ‘Incredible! Absolutely incredible!’

‘I’ll not have play-acting,’ warned Wilson. ‘If you have something to say, hurry up and say it.’

‘I have a lot to say, sir,’ responded Charlie politely. ‘And I ask you to bear with me because there is something going on that I don’t fully understand, not yet. But which I’ve got to: we’ve got to.’

‘You’ll have all the time you want,’ assured Wilson, the sadness still in his voice. ‘I want to understand it, too.’

Charlie half turned, to look at the two Special Branch men by the door, and then back to Harkness. Charlie said: ‘And it is going to be important that the investigation from now on is handled correctly and professionally. Not in the naive and amateurish way it appears to have been conducted so far…’

He hesitated, looking back to the guarded door where the two policemen were standing tight-faced and red with fury. There would have been an interruption anyway because from the table Harkness said: ‘I must protest at this! I have presented what I consider sufficient evidence for this man to be detained in custody pending charge under the Official Secrets Act and I urge that this be done. And that this farce stop!’

‘You’ve presented nothing!’ challenged Charlie, pleased at the way Harkness’ protest enabled him to expose the man’s obvious incompetence. Charlie glanced contemptuously back at the Special Branch couple and said: ‘If I were an agent of a hostile power, which incidentally I am not nor have I ever been, do you know what I’d be doing now? Laughing at you. Laughing at you, like I would have been laughing all the way here in the car because I would have already known how weak your case was: how you didn’t have one, in fact. Goliath over there made a big show at the hotel of waving a piece of paper and claiming it to be a warrant for my arrest. But cocked it up by referring to “the appropriate section” of the Official Secrets Act and not specifying the section, which he is required to do by law. A professionally trained agent, like I have been professionally trained but which some people here apparently haven’t, although they should have been, would have realized at once what’s happened. You’ve got a set of circumstances, most of which you haven’t got a clue about, and you’re hoping like hell for a confession, an explanation so that you’ll at last understand. Right!’

‘I refute that absolutely…’ started Harkness but Charlie refused the man the escape: now, maybe not completeling today but certainly starting today, was the win-or-lose confrontation between himself and this carping, manoeuvring bastard. And Charlie didn’t intend to lose. He said: ‘So where’s the warrant! Where’s a proper warrant signed by a magistrate satisfied by evidence already laid before him that there is evidence to justify my arrest?’

Harkness shifted, looking to Witherspoon and then the two men by the door as if expecting rescue from them, and said: ‘Under internal regulations governing the conduct of this department I have every authority to seize and detain an officer I suspect of being an agent of a hostile power.’

Got him, thought Charlie, satisfied at the admission. He said ‘But we weren’t talking about internal regulations governing the department, were we? We were talking about claims of legal warrants and hopes of full confessions and of hostile agents laughing at you.’

‘There is authority under internal regulations,’ came in Wilson. ‘An exaggeration may have been made, but isn’t it rather academic?’

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ argued Charlie relentlessly. ‘I think it indicates the slapdash, inefficient way this inquiry has been conducted: the sort of slapdash, inefficient way that can’t be allowed to continue.’

Wilson’s head dropped over the table, so that it was impossible to see the expression on his face: Charlie regretted that he couldn’t. Wilson said: ‘Point noted. Proceed.’

In what order should he proceed? wondered Charlie. The overriding essential was to prove his innocence. And there could still be a hitch in the way he’d set out to establish that. He said: ‘What was the date of transmission of the message about reactivating by payment of one thousand?’

Harkness hesitated, looking across the room to Witherspoon and his dossier-cluttered table. The deputy director said: ‘Mr Witherspoon, upon my instructions, was nominally in charge of the day-to-day running of the investigation and has the evidence before him. Could I suggest to the committee that Mr Witherspoon responds to the questions?’

The asshole! thought Charlie. Already Harkness was trying to back away from the responsibility and off-load the mistakes and oversights on to someone else. Charlie looked at the angularly tall man. He wasn’t languid and self-assured today. Witherspoon was red-faced, like the policemen, moving his hands nervously among the files, not able to find what he wanted and becoming more flustered. At last he said: ‘The twenty-sixth.’

The relief warmed through Charlie. ‘You’re sure of that?’ he insisted.

‘Positive,’ replied Witherspoon. ‘I had already been appointed case officer of the communication intercepts. I logged the date personally.’

‘Transmitted from Moscow to the Soviet embassy here in Kensington Palace Gardens?’

‘That was where our technical division located the receiver.’

Charlie went back to Harkness, determined against the man evading any culpability. ‘And it is your contention that the message was a signal for me to receive, somewhen between the twenty-sixth and your rummage search of my apartment three or four days ago, a payment of one thousand pounds from some KGB officer at the Soviet embassy? The thousand pounds subsequently discovered in a hiding place in my apartment?’

‘It’s the only possible, damning conclusion,’ said Harkness.

‘It’s damning, all right,’ agreed Charlie. Looking at Witherspoon he said: ‘The cipher pad concealed elsewhere was subjected to forensic examination?’

‘Which proved it to be of Russian manufacture,’ confirmed the man.

‘What about the money?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did that show?’

‘A substantial number of fingerprints which, when compared to yours on your service and personnel file, proved to be identical.’

Harkness smiled sideways along the table at the other men and said: ‘I’m sorry. That was a fact I omitted earlier.’

Still addressing Witherspoon, Charlie said: ‘Anything else?’

‘There was another set of fingerprints. It has so far been impossible to match them with anyone in our existing files of hostile East bloc personnel…’ Wanting to impress with his thoroughness, Witherspoon added: ‘Every record upon our files is being checked: those of friendly Allied countries as well. You’ll understand it is a very large undertaking.’

‘Staggering, I would imagine,’ said Charlie. ‘But I wouldn’t think she works for any hostile East bloc government. I thought she was a nice little girl.’

‘What!’ asked Harkness, dry-throated again.

‘Sally Dickenson,’ said Charlie. ‘That was what was on the name-plate, at least. Like I said, nice little girl. Bites her fingernails, though.’

‘Charlie, you’re not making sense,’ protested Wilson.

‘I will, sir. I will,’ promised Charlie. Wilson had used his first name, he isolated. ‘Nothing else?’ he demanded from Witherspoon.

Witherspoon’s confusion was increasing. He stared imploringly towards Harkness and then down at his files and then back up at Charlie. He shook his head and said unevenly: ‘No. No, nothing.’

‘Let’s try some letters and figures,’ suggested Charlie. ‘How about B77 345113 and B78 345114 and B79 235115 and so on.’

Witherspoon shook his head, baffled. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Then look at the forensic report!’ said Charlie remorselessly. ‘They’re experts. They don’t make the sort of mistakes that you do. There is something else, isn’t there? There’s got to be because it’s standard procedure when any sum of money likely to be used as evidence is counted. It’s got to be counted. And each note recorded by number, hasn’t it!’

‘Oh yes. Yes, I’m sorry,’ agreed Witherspoon at once. ‘I didn’t think you meant that…I didn’t…’

‘No,’ seized Charlie. ‘You didn’t think, did you! No one’s thought, from the very beginning.’

‘What’s this proving, except your undeniable guilt?’ intruded Harkness in a weak attempt to help his protege.

Charlie chose to ignore the question, openly showing his contempt. ‘So!’ he pressed on. ‘The numbers of the notes are listed, aren’t they? And they’re consecutive, aren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ said Witherspoon. ‘Yes, they are.’

‘Are we soon getting to the point of this?’ sighed Wilson.

‘Please, sir!’ pleaded Charlie. ‘Not long now. Just let me have a few more minutes.’

‘A very few more minutes,’ cautioned Wilson.

Charlie turned back to Harkness. ‘Some time ago — months ago, in fact — you made me the subject of an official internal inquiry?’

‘I have already referred to that. And given my reasons for initiating it.’

‘There was a period of surveillance?’

‘Naturally.’

Charlie had to turn, to encompass Smedley and Abbott, before coming back to the deputy director. ‘My mother, who is senile and confined to a nursing home, was even subjected to interrogation?’

Harkness couldn’t withstand Charlie’s unblinking stare. The deputy director looked away and said: ‘There was considered proper reason.’

‘Considered by whom?’

‘Do I really have to undergo this sort of questioning!’ protested Harkness.

‘I’d appreciate your cooperation,’ said Wilson. ‘There appears to be a great deal here that needs explanation.’

‘Considered by me,’ admitted Harkness.

‘Why?’ persisted Charlie.

‘I have always been suspicious of your time in Moscow, although you were supposed to be on assignment on behalf of this department, and you were subsequently allowed to return to it. To which I have already made reference. It was conceivable you might have discussed something of that visit — something incriminating — with your mother.’

‘What!’ exclaimed Charlie, genuinely astonished. ‘The possibility of my discussing anything — incriminating or otherwise — with a mentally confused person is utterly inconceivable!’

‘I subsequently acknowledged that it was perhaps excessive,’ reminded Harkness. ‘Very little else has proved to be.’

Charlie was conscious of Wilson’s shift of impatience. Quickly he said to Witherspoon, ‘You have among those folders the results of my most recent assessment examinations?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pull out just one marking for me,’ asked Charlie. ‘What was the adjudication for surveillance and observation, both detected and performed?’

‘Really!’ Wilson protested.

‘In a very few moments I will be talking about a Soviet agent who does exist,’ stopped Charlie.

‘Reply to the question,’ the Director General ordered Witherspoon urgently.

‘Your rating for both is graded as excellent. Ninety-five per cent for detected surveillance, ninety-four for that which you conducted.’

Had he missed anything? wondered Charlie. He didn’t think so, not at this stage. There would always be time to pick up and elaborate later. He faced the committee and the frowning Director General and said: ‘When I finished the assessment course I was almost at once assigned to an inquiry upon the Isle of Wight, at a factory engaged on a joint development project with a Californian firm. The work is connected with the American Strategic Defence Initiative, Star Wars. A man named Blackstone, who is officially employed as a tracer although not on the secret project, had been found in suspicious circumstances. A company inquiry had already dismissed the matter as having no security risk. I was not satisfied, for reasons I shall make clear at the eventual prosecution…’

‘… Prosecution!’ broke in Harkness. ‘You told me — your report says — that the man was beyond suspicion.’

‘No I did not,’ corrected Charlie. ‘Read the file. I said that during the time I observed him he did not behave in a suspicious manner. There were things that made me curious, however. His attitude swung between extremes. He confessed to being a bigamist — which I admit did initially throw me in the wrong direction — but then, when I’d apparently accepted it as an explanation for his nervousness, never mentioned it again. He should have kept on about my reporting him to the police, for the crime. But he didn’t. I even protracted the interview on the last day, to give him the opportunity. He didn’t take it. And that second day he was much more confident. There were small discrepancies, too. He said he didn’t know the sort of work going on, for instance, when it had been generally reported…’ Charlie paused, smiling but in mockery towards Harkness. ‘That’s why I decided to stay on. I got to thinking: What is the most important thing a bigamist needs? And decided it was money. Which would make him an ideal target in a situation where there were secrets that the Russians might be interested in. So I watched. Like I said, there was nothing positively suspicious. But there was an episode with a telephone. It was a public kiosk, quite close to his home, yet he used it and not his own, so very close. I could not get near enough to identify the number he called but I could certainly see that he started from the bottom and the very top of the dial, so it had to be a London number prefixed by zero one. He followed by seven more digits, which further indicates it was a London connection…’

‘… There is no log, no file note of this whatsoever. That is directly contrary to procedure,’ cut in Harkness. ‘How much more self-admission are we going to need from this man!’

‘I agree with you,’ said Charlie, before Wilson could speak. ‘I contravened regulations, which I concede was wrong. But by this time other strange things were happening and I considered the course I took justified. As I said, Blackstone clearly called a London number. He spoke briefly, because I saw him. And then hung around the kiosk for about fifteen minutes — when his own house and his own telephone were less than five minutes away — to call again. That was all. I kept him under the closest surveillance for the remainder of a week and at no time did he do anything to arouse the slightest suspicion…’

It was Harkness who broke in again. Intent across the table, believing he was improving his accusations, the deputy Director said: ‘Are you telling us that you’ve let a man you believe to be an agent continue working at an installation where the highest classified work is being carried out? And done nothing about it!’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I emphatically impressed upon the English project leader that Blackstone under no circumstances should be considered for employment, nor allowed within the restricted area at any time or under any circumstances whatsoever. But never to let him know that he was under any ban: rather that he might be seconded in response to an application he’d made. I also had our Technical Division impose a trace upon the Isle of Wight public kiosk to isolate all London calls made from it…’ He looked across at Witherspoon: ‘If you searched my office you should have come across the report.’

Witherspoon shook his head but to Harkness, who was staring at him furiously. ‘There was just a number. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘Strange things,’ prompted the Director General. ‘You said there were other strange things happening.’

‘I found myself under surveillance,’ announced Charlie. ‘It was very expert — more expert than it had been before — and it was unquestionably professional observation…’ Charlie paused and said: ‘And here I made a serious mistake, the only one I consider a I have made. And from which I hope to recover…’ He looked, pointedly, from Harkness to Witherspoon and then to the Special Branch men. ‘I had been, as you have heard, under constant internal harassment from this department…harassment I had identified and which had been openly acknowledged — an acknowledgement which is on file — to me by the deputy Director General prior to anything he has said here today. I inferred, quite wrongly, that what I had detected was a continuation of that harassment. I decided to run hare to the hounds, to see what more stupidity there was going to be. It was some time before I discovered it wasn’t internal at all. That it was Soviet…’

‘… You didn’t report being targeted by a hostile foreign agency …!’ broke in Harkness.

Charlie virtually ignored the question again, continuing to talk directly to Wilson. ‘I didn’t make the discovery immediately. It was some days after I returned from the Isle of Wight inquiry. I am extremely careful how I leave my flat: setting things that will alert me to an entry. I knew there was an entry — again I thought it was part of the internal investigation — because my door has several locks, one a Yale. But I never set it, because the others compensate: it’s always latched. When I tried to enter my flat one evening the Yale lock had been dropped. There were other things — cabinet and room doors closed which I had left ajar or in positions from which I could recognize if they had been touched, the slight disarrangement of magazines that had been left in a particular order. But I couldn’t, at first, discover why. It was a Sunday when I made a determined search…’ Charlie paused, going to Witherspoon. ‘You might like to take a note of the date, although of course it will be recorded by the official stenographers here. It was August 6…’

Witherspoon hesitated, frowning, and briefly made a notation on a pad in front of him.

‘… I found the cipher pad first,’ resumed Charlie. ‘The door of the cupboard housing the electricity meter was one I had left slightly open and it had been closed when I first discovered the entry. It was much more difficult finding the money: I thought I’d covered the bedroom until I noticed the slight variation between the indentations in the carpet that the leg castors had made. The bed had been put back just a fraction out of alignment to where it had been before…’

Charlie paused, wishing he had water, like Harkness earlier. He said: ‘That’s when I realized who had really established the surveillance which had by now been in place for a considerable amount of time. And realized, too, that it was being directed very personally against me and was not some wider operation. So I decided to go on running hare …’

‘… that would have been entirely wrong: against every regulation,’ interjected the determined Harkness. ‘If it were true — and I do not believe this absurdly concocted story for a minute — it should have been immediately reported to me!’

He’d already concluded that if he handled this confrontation wrongly he was lost, Charlie remembered: that it was all or nothing. Staring straight at Harkness, Charlie said: ‘I did not have then — nor do I have now — any confidence whatsoever in this department properly to investigate what was or is happening. I was the obvious target: I decided to let it continue to run, to try to see at least if a direction or a purpose emerged, before reporting it officially.’

‘That action, like that remark, was quite wrong,’ said Wilson, and Harkness snatched a sideways look of gratitude to the Director General he had earlier criticized.

Shit, thought Charlie. And then another reflection: All or nothing. He said: ‘It would not have been one I would have taken had different circumstances prevailed in this department.’

‘The innuendo in that remark is even more improper,’ said Wilson angrily, turning perceptibly towards a blazing-faced Harkness. ‘I think it calls for an apology to certain people in this room.’

There were several moments of absolute silence, with everyone’s concentration entirely upon Charlie. He swallowed and shuffled slightly on aching feet. Then he said: ‘With respect to yourself, sir, I decline to make any apology to anyone in this room for anything I have so far said or implied.’ There! he thought. Not just irrevocably committed: he’d put the noose around his own neck and had the do-it-yourself trapdoor lever in his hand.

‘We have been very patient…’ began Wilson, but for the first time ever Charlie risked talking over the man: ‘Please!’ he said, knowing he had only the briefest chance to hold them. ‘Just another few minutes…!’ and when Wilson stopped talking, more in further anger than permission, Charlie hurried on: ‘That money over there, the thousand pounds by which such great store is being set as being a Soviet payment to me, is my money.’

‘What!’ demanded Wilson, no longer angry.

He’d saved himself but he was still hanging on by his fingertips, Charlie calculated. ‘There was a thousand pounds in that cavity, when I discovered it,’ explained Charlie. ‘A plant, like everything else has been planted. Not knowing — still not knowing even now — why it was being done, it was blatantly obvious I had to take what precautions I could to avoid any further mistakes. I made the discovery, as I have said, on August 6th, a Sunday. On the morning of Monday, August 7th, I took the thousand pounds and three of the top sheets off the cipher pad to my bank. It’s the Barclays branch just across Vauxhall Bridge, on Millbank. I deposited it with an assistant manager, named Frederick Snelgrove, with written authority that it should be released upon demand to Sir Alistair Wilson. I then withdrew, in consecutively numbered notes from the cashier Sally Dickenson, whose fingerprints are on those notes, one thousand pounds from my own account. I had those numbers recorded and that record is also part of the provably dated deposit.’

Charlie stopped, hopefully, Nobody spoke. He said: ‘No one seems to have realized the significance! All this was done on August 7th. The message — “Reactivate payment by one thousand” — was not sent from Moscow until August 26th, according to your evidence: nineteen days after, I had already found the thousand pounds, switched it and made arrangements that any investigation — any after, proper investigation — would lead to its being eventually released to the Director General of this department.’

The reactions were mixed, throughout the room. The two unidentified men — who looked like clones of all the Whitehall mandarins Charlie had ever encountered — were bent sideways towards each other in whispered conversation. Sir Alistair Wilson was staring at him with obvious curiosity but with no other indication of what he was thinking. Harkness had a finger sideways to his mouth, gnawing at it in concentration, trying to absorb what Charlie had said. Witherspoon was scurrying through his documentation, seeking something. It was time to finish, while he was marginally ahead, decided Charlie. He said: ‘There have been other things added to the bank deposit since that initial date. There is a long list of vehicle registration numbers, which I believe to have been used by various Soviet observation teams, particularly since I moved into the delegation hotel in Bayswater. I have not had the facility, away from this department, to check out the ownership for those registrations. I would suspect they are hired. Tracing the hiring back will, I hope, give us the names of some Soviet front companies which we might not at the moment be aware are being used by the KGB…’

He smiled back towards the rigid-faced Smedley. ‘… And there are also the numbers of our own people who have been in such painfully obvious position over the past three or four days. Three Fords, a Vauxhall and a Fiat…As I have already suggested, the investigation has been appallingly amateurish…’

‘Anything else?’ cut off Wilson. There was no longer any anger in the frail voice.

‘I hope there will be when I know what was in the King William Street drop,’ said Charlie. He turned to Harkness. ‘So what was it?’

Harkness’ hand came only partially away from his mouth. ‘There still needs to be further investigation to discover its whereabouts,’ the man conceded.

‘What!’ said Charlie. Confident now, he slightly overstressed the incredulity. ‘You mean you don’t even know where it is yet!’

‘It will be found,’ insisted Harkness.

‘And I thought it was something else you’d just omitted to say,’ said Charlie in disbelief. He turned to Witherspoon but with a positive body movement to include Smedley and Abbott. ‘Who tossed my flat?’

There was no immediate response. Then Witherspoon breathed in heavily and squared his shoulders and said: ‘It was done under my supervision.’

Charlie gestured to the other two men. ‘By those two.’

Witherspoon nodded.

‘And what did you find?’

‘You have already heard what we found.’

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Charlie. He hadn’t imagined it was going to be this easy to exact the retribution for the harm he believed Smedley and Abott had caused his mother. He said: ‘So you missed the micro-dot!’

There was a throat movement from Witherspoon, and Smedley’s colour heightened. There was what might have been a groan from Wilson, but the sound was hardly audible and Charlie might have been mistaken.

Charlie began to look back to the assembled inquiry team but then hesitated. He said: ‘No one has yet said here, in this room, what sort of code it is. it’s a variable number-for-letter system: that’s what the micro-dot says. That’s right, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Witherspoon.

‘And that message, the one that identifies King William Street. Was that all it said?’

From the look that passed between Harkness and Witherspoon Charlie didn’t need the answer, but it came anyway. ‘No,’ said the man.

‘What’s missing?’

It was Harkness who spoke, once more trying to take the pressure off his protege. ‘Some numbers which, at the moment, the cryptologists cannot decipher.’

‘They didn’t need to,’ sighed Charlie. He wouldn’t allow them any respite, any let-up on their exposure: they’d sought utterly to destroy him, were still intent upon destroying him. He said: ‘The key was already there if you’d correctly looked for it. Somewhere in the grouping the figures one and five and zero feature, don’t they?’

Witherspoon hurried back to his message folder. ‘At the end.’

‘Three digits, out of a grouping of nine?’ demanded Charlie. To Wilson he said: ‘The grouping of nine was on the micro-dot: it’s listed in the bank package for you. Could I ask you to cast your mind back to King William Street, sir?’

‘Good God!’ said Wilson, in recollection at last.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘Berenkov wanted me to know he’d planned whatever it is that’s going on. Which is arrogant, but then he always was an arrogant man. It was probably his only failing.’

‘I can’t follow this,’ protested one of the unidentified men. He had a pronounced Welsh accent.

‘A number of years ago,’ said Charlie. ‘I was responsible for the arrest and jailing of an extremely successful Soviet illegal, a trained KGB officer who was infiltrated into this country and who for several years ran a series of spy cells throughout Europe. At 150 King William Street, in the City of London, there is a privately owned safe-custody facility: clearing banks used to offer the service as a safe deposit box but very few do now. A number of private firms have filled the gap. Quite unknown by the company who own it, he used King William Street as a safe cut-out, a dead letter box to pass material between himself and KGB officers attached to the embassy here in London, without there ever being a requirement for them openly — or incriminatingly — to meet…’ He glanced at Witherspoon. ‘This investigation of me that you masterminded? Didn’t you check my operational file: everything I’d ever done?’

There was a despairing head movement of confirmation and Charlie felt not a jot of pity for the man. Charlie said: ‘It’s all there, in the Berenkov case file. And if you’d worked out that 150 King William Street was the address then I would have hoped that even you could have guessed at the other numbers not being part of the code at all. But the number of the facility itself.’

There was a new briskness to Wilson’s voice when he said: ‘It’s just past six o’clock: it’ll be closed.’

‘Which just might be to our benefit,’ suggested Charlie. ‘They’ll have monitored the drop, after filling it. Because they’ll want to know we’ve understood what they want us to. At the moment they’ll think we haven’t understood…’ Charlie allowed the glance towards Harkness. ‘Which until now we haven’t, have we?’

‘You think the company will cooperate?’ asked Wilson.

‘They did with Berenkov: they allowed us afterhours access then.’

It had suddenly become a planning discussion between two men, Charlie and the Director General, and Harkness flustered to intervene.

‘There are other considerations!’ he insisted. ‘What about this man form the Isle of Wight factory? Blackstone? He should be arrested immediately.’

‘No!’ said Charlie, practically shouting. ‘I was picked up on the Isle of Wight: and Blackstone has an access telephone contact. For all we know there’s a timed system: an automatic alert if he does not call. Blackstone is neutralized: leave him.’

‘I don’t think you’re in any position to say what will or will not be done!’ rejected Harkness.

‘He’ll be left,’ decided Wilson curtly.

Harkness actually flinched at being so obviously overruled. Trying to recover, he said: ‘There’s more I want explaining. What has Muffin been doing for almost a week at a hotel housing a Soviet delegation? And what is the connection between him and Natalia Nikandrova Fedova?’

It was Charlie’s turn to create the awkward silence: although he should have been prepared, he wasn’t, because he hadn’t been able to think of any way to prepare himself. With absolute honesty he said: ‘I went to the hotel for personal reasons, to make contact with the woman.’

‘What’s she got to do with all this other business?’ demanded Harkness, not properly thinking out his question.

‘At the moment I don’t know,’ admitted Charlie, in further honesty.

‘That isn’t a proper answer!’ protested Harkness.

‘I think the proper answers have got to come in the proper sequence,’ intruded Wilson, urgent again. ‘Which for far too long they haven’t been doing. I want to find out — and find out quickly — what’s in King William Street. Everything else can wait. We’re going to recess but nobody goes anywhere. We’re staying here, all of us, until this is completely resolved.’

No one actually did attempt to move anywhere in those first few moments. Witherspoon was the first to stir, getting uncertainly to his feet and bringing his binders together in some sort of clearing up tidiness.

‘Hubert!’ said Charlie.

Witherspoon looked up, apprehensively questioning.

‘The correct answer was “fools”,’ said Charlie.

‘What?’ gaped the man, in utter bewilderment.

‘That crossword clue you filled in when you came poking around my office a long time ago: the one about life being a walking shadow, from Macbeth. You wrote “idiot” but the correct answer was “fools”…either would have fitted perfectly here, though, don’t you think?’

The atmosphere became much better inside the Kensington house and for obvious reason. It was Petrin who brought it about, his bored impatience finally coming to a head. He set out quietly, genuinely not wishing to foment a fresh dispute between himself and Losev, not because he was frightened of the man but because the perpetual arguments were very much part of his boredom. From apparently casual conversation with the photographer he learned there were only three outstanding drawings remaining to be copied in the absolute detail with which Zazulin was working. Continuing the query further, he discovered that Yuri Guzins had six drawings he still needed to go through with Krogh. And the American finally conceded that he was working on the last reproduction.

‘So!’ seized Petrin at once. ‘We can finish!’

‘What!’ It was Zazulin who spoke, expressing the surprise of everyone.

‘Finish,’ repeated Petrin. ‘If we work on now — don’t stop — we could get everything done. End it.’

‘I’ve got a lot…’ started Guzins, but Petrin refused him. ‘Nothing that you couldn’t get through with Emil if you stayed at it. He’s practically completed the last of the original drawings: there’s nothing to interrupt or distract the two of you now.’

‘Maybe I could do it,’ conceded Guzins reluctantly.

‘What about you, Emil? You prepared to carry on, to clear everything up?’

‘Really finish!’

Petrin paused. Still not the time to mention the one replacement drawing that was still needed. ‘Really finish,’ he said.

‘I’ll work for as long as is necessary,’ guaranteed Krogh sincerely.

‘I could certainly get all the photographs finished,’ guaranteed Zazulin. ‘I didn’t know we were coming so near to the end of the original drawings.’

Predictably Losev felt cheated by being beaten to the suggestion by Petrin but even the London rezident was anxious for it to end now. To Zazulin he said: ‘Could you finish in time to get a shipment to Moscow?’

‘I think so.’

‘Not the held-back cassette!’ insisted Guzins at once. ‘I must see an original: have an opportunity of discussing it with Krogh. The references on the photographs must accord to the drawings.’

‘All right!’ said Petrin. ‘Don’t worry! That’s how it will be done.’

‘Have you told Krogh yet there’s a duplicate for him to complete?’ asked Guzins. As always — as it always had to be for the monolingual Guzins — the conversation was in Russian.

‘Not yet,’ admitted Petrin. ‘Let’s wrap everything else up first.’

Which was what they did. There was a lot to occur elsewhere in an intervening period but in Kensington they worked on until everything was completed. And Zazulin did meet his commitment: he finished in time for all his photographic rolls to be included in that night’s diplomatic pouch to Moscow. Only one cassette was held back in London, that of the drawing that the unknowing Krogh had still to make again.