Here Comes Charlie M

TWENTY-ONE

The man was irritable, decided Johnny. And for the first time he did not appear completely sure of himself. Nervous, almost. The bigger surprise, determined the safebreaker. Because there definitely wasn’t any cause for uncertainty. It had all gone like clockwork, just like the other two. Easier, in fact. Far easier. No dusty, gritty air-conditioning tubes. Or shitty drains. Just a simple entry through the back of the adjoining premises, a quick walk through the antique furniture all marked up at three times its price for the oil-rich Arabs and a neat little hole by the fireplace to bring them right into the main working area.

‘Never been into a private bank before,’ said Johnny, chattily. ‘Very posh.’

‘Doesn’t seem as if they expected anyone to. Not at night, anyway,’ said Snare, straightening up from the alarm system. He hadn’t believed the plans Wilberforce had given him three hours before.

‘What do you mean?’ said Johnny.

Snare reached into the bag, bringing up the aerosol tube of tile fixative and squirting it liberally into the control box, sealing the hammers of the alarms.

‘Must be fifteen years old,’ he judged. ‘They probably still count with an abacus.’

‘Probably,’ concurred Johnny, who didn’t know what an abacus was. The other man was definitely friendlier, he decided happily.

They found a pressure pad beneath the carpet in the manager’s office, three more behind junior executive desks and an electrical eye circuit, triggered when the beam was interrupted, in front of the strongroom and the safety deposit vault.

They were all governed by a control box it took them fifteen minutes to locate in the basement.

‘Kid’s stuff?’ ventured Johnny hopefully.

‘Kid’s stuff,’ agreed Snare.

‘Can’t beat a sock or a biscuit tin in the garden, can you?’ continued Johnny, as the man immobilised the second system.

Snare grunted, without replying. He’d enjoy seeing this cocky little sod in the dock of the Old Bailey, he decided, trying to talk his way out of a fifteen-year sentence. Where, he wondered, would all the bombast and the boasting be then? Where his brains were, he decided. In his silk jockstrap, as useless as everything else.

‘At this rate,’ said Johnny, ‘we’ll be able to retire by the end of the year.’

‘Maybe sooner,’ said Snare, with feeling. Whatever happened, he determined, positively, this would be the last time. No matter how easy they made it for him, with all the plans and wiring systems drawings, it was still dangerous. And he’d suffered enough. Too much. Didn’t he still need special pills, for the headaches? And they’d become more frequent in the last month. Like everything else, something that Wilberforce found easy to forget, in his anxiety to get his head off the block. He wasn’t any more considerate than Cuthbertson. Worse even.

‘Let’s get started,’ he said.

It took Johnny longer than they expected to open the safe in the manager’s office and then Snare wasn’t satisfied with the list of safe deposit box numbers he got from the top shelf.

‘Nothing entered since last week,’ he said almost to himself.

‘What does that matter?’

‘Try the desk.’

That was easier and it was there that Snare found the listing for Charlie.

‘Conceited bastard,’ he said, again a private remark. ‘The conceited bastard.’

‘What?’

Things were very different tonight, decided Johnny. Odd, in fact. It was making him feel uncomfortable.

‘Nothing,’ said Snare. As he had at the Savoy, Charlie had opened an account under his own name.

To get into the safety deposit vault, Johnny drilled out the lock on the protective gate and then filled three holes bored around the safe handle with P-4 to blow a hole big enough to reach inside and manually bring the time clock forward twelve hours, to open the door.

Inside the deposit room, Johnny worked with his steel wire, fashioning the skeleton keys as he worked, giving a little laugh at his own cleverness every time a tray snapped clear and came out on its runners.

‘Lot of documents,’ complained the crook.

‘Perhaps that’s why they don’t bother too much with alarms.’

Snare allowed twelve boxes to be opened before he said, ‘Now 48.’

Obediently Johnny hunched over the container, probing and poking. As the lock clicked back, Snare announced, ‘I’ll do this one.’

Johnny stepped aside, frowning. Definitely unsure of himself, judged Johnny again. He’d built up a conviction about the other man’s infallibility, like a child believing the perfection of a sand sculpture. Now the tide was coming in and Johnny didn’t like to see his imagery crumbling.

Snare was standing up in front of the box, staring down fixedly at a single piece of paper he’d taken from the tray.

‘Any good?’ enquired Johnny.

The other man looked at him unseeingly.

‘Any good?’ repeated the safebreaker.

Snare blinked, like a man awakening.

‘Let’s get out,’ he said.

Johnny stared at him, his own doubts hardening.

‘But we’ve only just begun … there’s dozens more … thousands of pounds …’

‘Finished,’ ruled Snare, abrupt now but completely recovered. ‘We’ve got enough.’

He mirrored Johnny’s look, challengingly.

The safebreaker moved from foot to foot, unsure whether to argue. Finally he spread his hands, overly dismissive.

‘Whatever you say,’ he agreed. Stupid to spoil the arrangement by appearing greedy. They still hadn’t agreed a price with the insurers yet on the Russian stuff and he didn’t want to risk that.

Snare went first through the hole, leading back into the antique shop.

‘You know what?’ said Johnny, trying to reduce the strain and at the same time build up the relationship he was sure he could establish.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know where your information comes from,’ said Johnny. ‘Don’t want to, not necessarily. But I don’t reckon we can ever lose. No way.’

Snare’s apprehensive anger at everything spilled over and he rounded on the safebreaker, face tight so that the scar was etched out vividly.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you piss me off.’

‘What?’ tried Johnny, backing away from the assault.

‘Because you’re full of piss,’ shouted Snare wildly, finding release in the role of the bully. ‘Full of piss.’

‘You’re fucking mad,’ said Johnny, trying to match the obscenity. ‘Absolutely fucking mad.’

Snare stopped the attack, taking the other man’s words.

‘You could be right,’ he said, quietly now. ‘That’s the trouble; you could well be right.’

‘Wanker,’ said Johnny, made miserable by the collapse of yet another relationship.

Charlie, to whom the isolation of detail was automatic, had recognised Snare from his walk the moment the man had left the car and made his way towards the rear of the antique shop. And there he was again, he saw, as Snare left the rear of the building and approached the carefully parked station-wagon. Still the same shoulder-jogging lilt he’d had when he’d strode away in East Berlin, to set the tripwire for the ambush.

‘Like a duck with a frozen bum,’ Charlie told himself, inside the darkened car. The cold had occupied Charlie’s mind for the last two nights. It was going to be a bad winter, he had decided.

Unspeaking, the two men entered Snare’s car. There was a momentary pause and in the darkness Charlie could see Snare putting on his safety belt. Probably too late for that, thought Charlie. Snare’s presence had surprised him.

Snare started the car and moved away slowly and almost immediately Charlie pulled out, holding back until they came out alongside the Playboy Club and two cars had intruded themselves between him and the station-wagon, a barrier of protection.

‘As Wilberforce might say, the hunted becomes the hunter,’ he muttered, trying to mock the man’s speech. ‘Now all you’ve got to do is to catch the bloody fox.’

‘They’ve been very smart,’ said Berenkov, admiringly.

‘Yes,’ agreed Kalenin. ‘Very smart indeed.’

He smiled across the table at Valentina.

‘After meals like that, I know I’m a fool to have remained a bachelor,’ he praised her.

The plump woman flushed at the compliment and continued clearing the table.

‘What can you do?’

Kalenin jerked his shoulders.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘To make anything more than diplomatic protests would show them we’ve discovered Charlie’s association with one of the insurers and allow the satisfaction of knowing we won’t be laughing at them any more.’

‘They’ll know that anyway,’ argued Berenkov. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’

‘We still can’t admit it,’ said Kalenin.

‘What about Charlie?’

Again the K.G.B. chief moved uncertainly.

‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous if Charlie were to win?’ suggested Berenkov, expansively.

‘Marvellous,’ agreed Kalenin, wondering at the amount of wine his friend had consumed. ‘But quite unlikely.’

TWENTY-TWO

Charlie drove quite relaxed, allowing another vehicle to come between him and the car he was pursuing, so that when it turned unexpectedly to go down Constitution Hill he was able to follow quite naturally, without any sudden braking which might have sounded to attract the attention of Snare.

Only after they had gone around the Victoria monument in front of Buckingham Palace did Charlie close up, not wanting to be left behind at the traffic lights in Parliament Square. The second set were red. Through the glass of the one separating car, Charlie could see Snare and the other man stiffly upright and apparently not talking.

‘Always an unfriendly sod,’ remembered Charlie.

They went across Westminster Bridge and entered the one-way system. The sudden turn beneath the railway arch, to go into Waterloo station, almost took Charlie by surprise. He only just managed to swerve without tyre squeal, continuing slowly up the long approach and trying to keep a taxi between them. He stopped before the corner, for more taxis to overtake and provide a barrier, so that when he drove into the better-lighted part of the concourse, Snare was already moving off.

Charlie didn’t hurry, wanting to see the car to which the second man went. Parked as it was, the vehicle was obviously not stolen but belonged to him. So he could get the man’s name from the registration.

He went slowly by, memorising the number as he passed, finally speeding up to get into position behind Snare again.

Snare was driving very precisely, Charlie saw, giving every signal and keeping within the speed limit. Rules and regulations, recalled Charlie; the dictum of Snare’s life. Without guidelines to keep within and precedents to follow, Snare had always been uncomfortable. Robbing banks, an open criminal activity, would have been difficult for him, even with the back-up and assistance provided by the department. On the occasions when he’d had to do it, he’d rather enjoyed it, thought Charlie. It was like playing roulette and knowing the ball would always fall on your number. But Snare would have hated it. The word stayed in Charlie’s mind; the emotion that would have provided the necessary incentive, he supposed.

‘He really can’t have liked me very much,’ Charlie smiled to himself. The expression left his face. There couldn’t have been anything very amusing about Snare’s Moscow imprisonment, admitted Charlie. Immediately he balanced the self-criticism. Just as there wasn’t anything amusing at being chosen for assassination at a border crossing; he had no reason to feel guilt over the man in front. Snare’s inability to adjust to the unexpected intruded into his mind. It made the outcome of tonight’s journey almost predictable, he thought; Snare was an advantage he hadn’t expected.

They went around Parliament Square but Snare kept to the south side of Buckingham Palace this time, heading into Pimlico. Traffic thinned as they entered the residential area and Charlie pulled back, losing his cover.

He stopped completely when he saw the tail-lights in front disappear to the left, into an enclosed square. He walked unhurriedly to the side road. The car was halfway along, neatly positioned in its residents’ parking area, the permit prominently displayed. Snare was the sort of man to keep a cinema ticket in his pocket, in case he was challenged coming back from a pee during the interval, thought Charlie.

He waited until he saw the ground-floor lights go on, then returned to the car. He drove into the side road, but continued past Snare’s home, going almost around the tiny park upon which the tall Regency buildings fronted. He stopped opposite Snare’s house, but with the park between them, knowing he was completely concealed.

‘How long?’ wondered Charlie aloud.

It was nearly an hour. Charlie was beginning to fear he had miscalculated Snare’s reaction when the light at which he was staring fixedly suddenly went out and then, seconds later, the door of the house opened. There was the delay while Snare fixed the safety belt and then the car moved off, circling behind to pass within feet of where Charlie waited. He gazed openly through the shaded glass, knowing he would be invisible to the other man. Snare drove bent slightly forward, away from the seat. His back would ache after long journeys, decided Charlie, allowing the man to turn out on to the main road before restarting the engine and pulling out to follow. Even in the darkened car, he had been able to see the scar disfiguring Snare’s face. Charlie wondered how it had happened.

They went directly south, crossing the river over Chelsea Bridge and then, gradually, began taking the roads that would give them a route eastwards.

‘So it is Wilberforce,’ said Charlie. ‘And he still lives at Tenterden.’

He had been to the man’s country home once, Charlie remembered. It had been within a month of Cuthbertson’s appointment and Wilberforce, ass-hole crawling as always, had thrown a party. His role had been that of the jester, recalled Charlie, paraded as a reminder of the stupid anachronisms that Cuthbertson and his team of bright young university-educated, army-trained recruits were going to revitalise. He’d got drunk and told Wilberforce’s wife an obscene story about a short-sighted showgirl and a donkey, expecting her to be shocked. Instead she had started to squeeze his hand and kept asking him to open bottles of a rather inferior Piesporter Goldtropfchen for her, in the kitchen. Should have given her a quick knee-trembler, over the draining board, decided Charlie, in belated regret. She’d worn corsets, though, with little dangly things to support her stockings. And Wilberforce had kept appearing, as if he’d realised the danger.

Even on an open road and as confused as Charlie expected him to be, Snare wasn’t exceeding fifty miles an hour. A fact to remember, decided Charlie. Timing the other man was going to be important tonight.

Because Snare was establishing the speed, it took them almost two hours to reach the Kent village. Impatient now and quite sure of the other man’s destination, Charlie didn’t bother to see him actually enter the drive of Wilberforce’s house.

Instead he made a wide loop at the crossroads, hurrying through the gears to pick up speed and rejoin the road to London.

Three hours to achieve what he wanted, Charlie estimated, smiling at the burbling of the widened exhaust. Sounded like Cuthbertson, he thought, just before one of those filthy coughs he was always making. Charlie laughed aloud, extending the thought. Christ, how Cuthbertson would have choked if he had been in a position to know what was going to happen.

Ruttgers sprawled full length on the coverlet of the hotel bedroom, telephone cupped loosely to his ear, enjoying the admission from the man who had replaced him.

‘Quite obvious,’ Onslow Smith repeated. ‘A meeting between them can be the only point.’

‘And we’re handling it this time,’ Ruttgers reminded him. ‘No more foul-ups by the British.’

He’d made a dirty mark on the counterpane, he saw; he should have taken his shoes off.

‘I’m thinking of discussing the whole thing with the Secretary of State,’ announced Smith.

‘He won’t like it.’

‘He’ll like it less if something happens and he’s not been warned.’

‘Why not wait? We could have the whole thing buttoned up in a day or two.’

‘Maybe,’ conceded Smith. Thank God he had his own people in Ruttger’s support team, to warn him the moment there was any sign of Charlie Muffin. Increasingly Smith was coming to think that Ruttgers saw the whole thing as a personal vendetta, like some Western shoot-out at high noon. He suspected the man didn’t give a damn about the Agency any more.

‘I want you to be careful, Garson,’ he warned. ‘Very careful indeed.’

‘I will be.’

It was too quick, judged Smith. Dismissive almost.

‘I mean it,’ insisted the Director. ‘There must be no chance of our being identified.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Ruttgers.

‘I do worry,’ said Smith. ‘This whole thing is coming unglued.’

‘I’ll keep in touch,’ promised Ruttgers, swinging his legs off the bed to search for a replacement cigarette. ‘Nothing will go wrong.’

‘That’s what Wilberforce was saying, a week ago.’

‘What was in the private bank, by the way?’ enquired Ruttgers, locating a fresh pack of cigarettes.

‘Snare only went in tonight,’ Smith replied. ‘I haven’t heard yet.’

Wilberforce’s dressing gown was very long and full-skirted and made swishing sounds as he strode about the study. Snare sat uneasily on the edge of the chair by the desk, eager for some guidance from his superior.

‘I thought you should see it, right away,’ he said, almost in apology.

‘Quite right,’ said Wilberforce absently. ‘Quite right.’

He paused before a small side table on which drinks were arranged, then appeared to change his mind, returning to the desk.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Snare.

Wilberforce picked up a piece of paper that Snare had taken from the Mayfair safe deposit box and stared down at it, shaking his head.

‘God knows,’ he said. Concern was marked in his voice.

He threw it aside, and Snare retrieved it, examining it with the same intensity as the other man. ‘… “Clap hands, here comes Charlie”’ he recited. He looked back to Wilberforce.

‘It’s like some sort of challenge, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Wilberforce miserably, ‘it’s a challenge.’

At that moment, fifty miles farther north, Charlie Muffin eased a plastic credit card through a basement window, prodded the catch up and two minutes later was standing in the darkened kitchen of Snare’s Pimlico home. Funny, decided Charlie, after all that Snare had been up to in the last few weeks and there wasn’t the slightest attempt at security in his own house. Still, he reflected, the attitude was typical. People always expected misfortune to occur to someone else, never themselves. Carefully he refastened the window and began walking towards the stairs leading upwards. He sniffed, appreciatively. Remains of the last meal still smelt good. Curry, he decided. He wouldn’t have imagined Snare had had time to cook. Probably out of a packet. Remarkable, the value available in supermarkets these days.

TWENTY-THREE

Charlie worked expertly and very quickly. He had been diligently trained by a housebreaker who earned the wartime amnesty for past misdeeds by being parachuted on three separate occasions into Nazi-occupied France and Holland and then stayed on Home Office attachment in peacetime, lecturing on the finer points of his craft to police forces throughout the country.

On the ground floor he moved immediately to the rear, ‘where a door opened on to a small, paved patio and the darkened garden beyond. He opened it, testing to ensure it would not close by its own weight. Satisfied that he had an escape route if the need suddenly arose, he went back into the house, swiftly checking each room in turn, then slowly climbed the stairs, listening for any faint sound of occupation and more carefully now examined the bedrooms. Each was empty. From his examination of the outside, while he had been waiting for Snare earlier in the evening, he knew there was a third storey. He located the stairway at the back of the house and carried out the same precautions in the rooms there. Empty again.

‘Charlie,’ he said, ‘the stars shine upon you.’

And it was about bloody time, he thought.

On the ground floor he began making a detailed search of every room. It was a neat, antiseptically clean house, the furniture and pictures and ornaments arranged more as if for a photograph in a good housekeeping magazine than for living amongst and enjoying. Making constant reference to the time and alert for any sound outside the house that might warn of Snare’s return, Charlie still handled everything cautiously, returning every picture and the contents of every drawer or cupboard to exactly the position he had found it, so his entry would not be instantly apparent.

The study was at the back of the house, overlooking the patio, and Charlie checked all the pictures or wall-covering pieces of furniture intently, seeking the safe. After fifteen minutes, he perched contemplatively on the edge of the desk, frowning. Surely Snare would have a safe? Perhaps the stars weren’t as bright as he had imagined. He rechecked, still found nothing, and even probed beneath the carpet, in case it were floor mounted.

Finally accepting there was no such installation in the room, Charlie turned to the desk. The working place of an orderly, rules-and-regulations man, Charlie decided. The bills in the top drawer were arranged and catalogued for dates of payment. Letters awaiting reply were in the drawer below, also catalogued, and those answered filed with their carbon copies in the one below that. The files were in the deepest shelf, at the very bottom. Charlie started expectantly, but immediately realised there were just household records; Snare actually kept a detailed account book for the car, he saw. Even the amount spent on petrol was carefully listed.

‘Mean bugger,’ judged Charlie.

He found the keys in the left-hand top drawer in which there was a partitioned shelf with small containers. Charlie stared down at them. A man as neat as Snare would arrange them in order of importance, he decided. There were duplicates of house, car and Automobile Association keys and in another tray were what appeared spare sets for luggage or a briefcase. That left four for which there was no obvious identification. They were in the first container.

Charlie quickly tried the remaining drawers, expecting to find at least one of them locked, but all opened smoothly to his touch.

Charlie left the room and started the search of the first floor. It was easier here, because there was less furniture. In two of the bedrooms, it was actually protected by dust-sheets. Snare’s bedroom was as neat as the study, the shoes not only in racks but enclosed in tiny plastic bags and the clothes carefully arranged in a wardrobe like a colour chart, running from pale, summer-weight material through to the darker, heavier suits.

‘Housemaster would be very proud of you,’ said Charlie.

He found the locked cupboard on the floor above and sighed, relieved. It was specially made, he saw, the doors flush and with two locks, top and bottom. He pulled at the handle. There was no movement. So it was rigid-frame, too. Probably steel.

It took less than a minute to return from the study with the unidentifiable keys. The second fitted the bottom lock and when he retried the first, the top clicked back into place.

Charlie edged away, pulling open the door, and then sighed in open astonishment.

‘Oh, the fools,’ he said. ‘The bloody fools.’

The Fabergé collection was laid out almost as if for inspection, arranged on three shelves. On the floor beneath were the plastic bags in which Snare and Johnny had carried it from the gallery.

The whole point of the entry had been to find something – anything – with which he might have been able to incriminate Snare; a plan of the Brighton bank, for instance. Or maybe some connection with the Tate. But not this. Not the single most damning thing there could possibly be.

Of course the proceeds of the robbery could not have been openly taken into the department, accepted Charlie. But Snare should and could have made his own security arrangements; he’d been inside enough banks in the last month to be a bloody expert. His judgment of those who had taken over the department from Sir Archibald and even survived the Kalenin affair wasn’t, as Edith suspected and of which she had accused him, the biased sniping of someone who had been dismissed as unnecessary, thought Charlie. They were amateurs, like the men who could not accept that Kim Philby was a spy because he’d been to the right school or that there was a risk in Guy Burgess, boozing and male-whoring in every embassy to which he’d been attached.

He packed the jewellery, relocked the cupboard and returned the keys to the desk. He spent fifteen minutes assuring himself that he had replaced everything in the position from which it had originally been moved, then a further ten in one of the spare, unused bedrooms.

Finally he went out the back door, quietly pulling it closed after him, climbed easily over the separating fence at the bottom of the garden and then out through the front gate of the neighbouring house on to the road parallel to that in which Snare lived.

The car was still warm from the drive back from Kent, he found, pausing gratefully before starting the engine.

‘You’re a lucky sod, Charlie,’ he told himself.

‘What about the safebreaker?’ suggested Cuthbertson, matching everyone else’s desperation. ‘Perhaps he followed Snare home?’

Onslow Smith sighed at the confusion that had grown in Wilberforce’s office since his entry.

‘Oh come on!’ he said, rejecting the idea. ‘This is stupid, panic thinking.’

And there was damned good reason to panic, he thought. If he weren’t very careful, this would make the Bay of Pigs and the Allende overthrow in Chile look like a training exercise for Boy Scouts. Which, upon examination, seemed about its right level.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Cuthbertson said defensively, his thick voice showing he knew it was nothing of the sort.

The American picked up the note that had been taken from the Mayfair bank.

‘That’s rubbish and you know it,’ he said, waving the paper towards the ex-Director. ‘We’ve been suckered. Well and truly suckered.’

‘Personal animosity isn’t going to help,’ said Wilberforce, trying to reduce the tension. It had been impossible to sleep after Snare’s visit the previous night and the hollow feeling that had gouged out his stomach at the man’s breakfast telephone call, reporting that the collection was missing, had developed into positive nausea. He’d even tried to be sick, thrusting his finger down his throat in the bathroom adjoining his office, and merely made himself feel worse.

‘I don’t know what will,’ said Smith. ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that you didn’t take any precautions. Jesus!’

‘Would you have stored it in the American embassy?’ threw back Wilberforce.

‘No,’ admitted Smith immediately. ‘I’d have certainly put it in Snare’s house. And then I’d have made damned sure that there were so many people watching that house that a kitchen mouse couldn’t have taken a pee without someone knowing it.’

He was going to get out, decided Smith, suddenly. He was going to withdraw all his men and get to hell out of it, before the smell really started to rise. From now on, Wilberforce was where he’d always wanted to be. On his own.

‘I made a mistake,’ conceded Wilberforce, reluctantly. ‘I’m very sorry.’

The other Director looked crushed, thought Smith, without any pity.

‘Does anyone in your government know what’s been going on?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Wilberforce. ‘And yours?’

‘No.’

‘It’ll be a miracle if it remains a secret,’ said Wilberforce.

‘It is quite obvious that Charlie has taken it,’ said Braley.

‘To return to the insurers?’ queried Cuthbertson.

Wilberforce nodded at the question. ‘Equally obvious,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way he could ensure that Rupert Willoughby wouldn’t be damaged by association. Don’t forget how close he was to Sir Archibald.’

Wilberforce laid aside his worry pipe, looking across the desk encouragingly.

‘The Fabergé collection was always intended to be returned to the Russians, which is now what will undoubtedly happen. So the damage at the moment is still minimal.’

‘But we don’t know where the hell Charlie Muffin is,’ said Snare.

‘But we know how to re-locate him,’ said Wilberforce. ‘There’s got to be some sort of pattern in the woman’s tour. The moment there is any contact, we’ll have him again.’

Smith decided he’d wait until he organised the removal of his own men before letting Wilberforce know what he was doing. Then the son of a bitch could do what he wanted about watching Edith.

‘I’d like to think so,’ said Snare. He felt revulsed that Charlie Muffin had entered his home and actually touched things that he owned. Quite often, he recalled, the man hadn’t bathed every day.

‘Where’s the flaw?’ demanded Wilberforce. No one guessed the depths of his uncertainty, he knew.

Smith shook his head at the other man’s stupidity.

‘The flaw,’ he said, patiently, ‘is what it’s always been – Charlie Muffin.’

TWENTY-FOUR

Quite irrationally, which she even recognised but still could not prevent, Edith had developed a conviction that despite the lengthy list of cities and hotels that Charlie had given, he would have contacted her almost immediately.

She’d actually invoked ridiculous, childlike rituals. If the waiter at dinner were Spanish, then Charlie would telephone before midnight. If the winter coldness broke, turning to rain, then that would be the day she would walk into the car park and find Charlie waiting for her.

The desperation had grown with each day until that morning, just before leaving her Cambridge hotel and starting the drive southward to Crawley, the next town designated, she had had to hold herself rigidly at the bedroom door, fighting against the overwhelming impulse to cry.

That it should happen there, today, was understandable, she supposed. She had read history at Girton and the memories had soaked through her. She had driven along the Huntingdon Road and gazed in, trying to locate her old room. And walked past King’s Chapel, so that she could stand on the tiny, humped bridge to stare down into the icy water of the Backs, too cold even for the ducks, and remember the summer punting of so long ago. And smiled reminiscently at the couples, encompassed in their scarves and undergraduate romances, and envied them their happiness.

And now she was going back to Sussex, which she had already come to hate, even before Charlie had made the drunken mistake there that had begun all the agony. Then again, she thought, her mind slipping away on a familiar path, perhaps it was an omen; perhaps it would be here that it would end, where it had begun. That was it; had to be. Charlie would appear today, with the shy yet cocky I-told-you-so smile that always came when he’d proved himself right, and explain how he’d fooled everyone and they could clear out forever, burying themselves in Switzerland again.

She felt the panic building up and gripped the wheel. Just like the Spanish waiters and the weather, she thought, angrily. Damned ridiculous. Why couldn’t she accept it? Charlie wouldn’t come. Today. Or any other day. It would be a month of aimless journeyings to towns she didn’t want to see until one day there would be a telephone call from Rupert Willoughby, a man she’d never met and probably never would, trying to infuse the proper melancholy into his voice to tell her that Charlie, who had forgotten to kiss her when he left that day in Zürich, hadn’t been clever enough this time and was dead.

She pulled the car into a layby, trying to blink the emotion away. She had to stop it, she knew. She was collapsing under the weight of her own self-induced fear. And Charlie wanted her help, not her collapse. She found it so difficult.

Recovered, she felt her way back into the traffic and reached the timbered George Hotel just before lunch. Despite the determination in the layby, she still searched hopefully around the car park as she pulled in, then again in the foyer as she registered. With difficulty, she focused on the receptionist, realising the girl was repeating a question.

‘I wondered if you would want lunch?’

‘No,’ said Edith, too sharply. ‘No thank you,’ she repeated, embarrassed at her own rudeness.

‘Is anything the matter, madam?’

‘Long drive,’ stumbled Edith. ‘Rather tired.’

She didn’t bother to unpack the suitcases. Instead she stood at the window of her room, staring down unseeingly into Crawley High Street.

‘Hurry up, Charlie,’ she said softly. ‘I need you so very much.’

In the lobby below, the polite receptionist was dealing with an unexpected influx of guests. It was fortunate, she thought, that it was so early in the season, otherwise she would have had difficulty in finding accommodation for them all. There were no wives, so it must be a business conference, she decided. Unusual that she hadn’t heard about it. Probably in Brighton.

And in that town, just twenty miles to the south, Superintendent Law was summoning the sergeant for the second conference of the day.

‘Well?’ demanded the superintendent.

Hardiman shook his head, indicating the files banked up against the wall.

‘Still got about twenty more statements to repeat,’ he said. ‘But so far there’s nothing.’

‘It must be there somewhere,’ said Law, refusing to admit his idea was wrong.

Then you’re the best bugger to find it, thought the sergeant.

‘Odd overnight report,’ he said, trying to move the superintendent past his fixation with the statements.

‘What?’

‘You know we asked the uniformed branch to keep an eye on that financier’s house?’

Law nodded.

‘Copper on last night hadn’t done it before,’ continued Hardiman. ‘Got the impression that there was some sort of separate observation being carried out … mentioned it to his superintendent in case there had been some confusion and we were duplicating …’

‘What about the other policemen, before him?’ demanded Law instantly.

‘I’ve checked,’ said the sergeant, glad he’d anticipated the request. ‘Two others got the same impression. Didn’t mention it because they thought we were doubling up.’

‘Stupid bastards,’ said Law. ‘Have we interviewed him again?’

Hardiman shook his head.

‘Away on business,’ he reminded him. ‘Took the trouble to telephone us.’

He picked up Charlie’s file and the superintendent took it from him, staring down as if he expected a clue he hadn’t appreciated from the statement suddenly to present itself.

‘It’s not much,’ said the sergeant, concerned at the other man’s interest. He hoped Law wouldn’t get too worked up. The constable’s report hadn’t been made overnight. It had been lying around for two days, but Hardiman had forgotten to mention it.

‘Willoughby, Price and Rowledge,’ Law read from the file.

‘They’ve confirmed his association with them,’ said Hardiman. ‘Shall I contact them again?’

Hurriedly Law shook his head.

‘Mustn’t frighten the rabbit,’ he said.

‘What then?’ asked Hardiman. It was almost impossible to guess which way the superintendent’s mind would jump, he thought, annoyed.

‘Let’s try to find out a bit more about him first,’ suggested Law. He paused and the sergeant waited, knowing he hadn’t finished.

‘Remember what he said that first night, when we went to his house?’ prompted Law.

Hardiman looked doubtful.

‘Made some remark about being a financier, even though his passport described him as a clerk.’

‘Why should that be odd?’ asked Hardiman.

‘I don’t know, laddie. I don’t know,’ said the superintendent, patronisingly. ‘Why don’t we check the passport office, to discover if it is?’

Why did Law have to conduct everything like it was a sodding quiz game? wondered Hardiman, walking towards his own office. Sometimes the man really pissed him off.

Involvement had been thrust upon Willoughby and Charlie had anticipated the reluctance that was becoming obvious. He hadn’t expected the underwriter’s argument against the stupidity of vindictiveness. That had surprised him.

To Willoughby, of course, the two were so interlinked as to be practically the same. But to Charlie, they were quite separate. To beat them, as he knew he now had, as well as surviving, had more than justified any risk. And there hadn’t been any; not much, anyway. Almost like rigged roulette, again. Now it was over. And he’d got away with it.

Momentarily he looked away from his search for the turning off Wimbledon Hill Road that Willoughby had named during their argumentative conversation, checking the time. Almost midnight; everything would have happened by this time tomorrow, he thought.

He’d been very fortunate, Charlie thought. The confidence bubbled up. But he’d been clever enough to seize that good fortune and utilise it. Christ, how he’d utilised it.

Despite the force of a Lloyd’s insurers behind it, he had still been surprised at the speed with which Willoughby had obtained John Packer’s address from the car registration. The house was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, a horseshoe indentation between two major roads. Charlie didn’t stop, driving out on to the avenue that backed on to Packer’s property, counting along until he isolated the house between him and the one he was seeking. He parked the car, entered through a tree-lined drive, skirted the darkened building and then smiled, with growing awareness, at the lowness of the fence between it and Packer’s home. The separation between the other adjoining property, from which it would be possible to reach the alternative main road, would be similarly low, he guessed.

Charlie realised almost immediately that he would not be able easily to enter the house. Inside each of the lower windows there was actually a reinforced mesh clamped into a separate frame to form a positive barrier, in addition to the special window locks and the small steel bolts that had been fitted in each corner. With such precautions, it was pointless trying the doors, Charlie decided.

‘Pity a few other people hadn’t been as cautious as you, Mr Packer,’ muttered Charlie.

At first Charlie thought the shed might have been built over an old coal-chute, by which he might still have been able to get in, through the cellar. Obedient to his training, he remained unmoving immediately inside the door, first feeling out for any obstruction and then, careful to avoid the reflection showing through the side windows, probing with the pencil-beam torch.

It wasn’t until he’d shifted the sodium chlorate aside, thinking first of its gardening use, and discovered what lay behind that he appreciated its proper significance, squatting before it and all the other explosives, then moving up to the shelves to feel through the detonators and fuses and finally examining the box containing the timing and pressure devices. There were even clocks, to activate them.

‘A regular little bomb factory,’ mused Charlie. ‘So you’re the professional, Mr Packer? The one who’s necessary to make it look right.’

It was the confirmation of the impression that had come to him climbing over the garden fence; the house was ideally positioned, with three easy escape routes against arrest.

Charlie extinguished the torch, re-locked the outhouse and left the garden by the route he had entered. The man had been manipulated enough, he decided.

TWENTY-FIVE

The arrests on the day that George Wilberforce was later to regard as the worst in his life should have been perfectly coordinated, but inevitably there was a mistake.

The information had identified the Kent house and the assumption of the Flying Squad and the Regional Crime Squad was that Wilberforce would be there as well. But it was a week-day and so he was staying in the Eaton Square apartment.

The superintendent who had liaised between the two forces and organised the raid went with just two cars to London, leaving the main police contingent at Tenterden, with instructions to the women police officers that the woman bordering on hysteria should in no circumstances be allowed near a telephone.

During the drive through the early morning traffic they heard by radio that the seizure of Brian Snare had gone perfectly. The man had answered the door in his dressing gown, eyes widening in surprise at the number of police cars effectively sealing the Pimlico square, and was still spluttering his protests when they had found some jewelled eggs and the orb from the Fabergé collection hidden in the spare bedroom of the house.

Wilberforce was dressed when the squad arrived and his reaction was more controlled than they had expected. They refused his demand to use a telephone and when he had tried to insist upon his legal rights, an inspector said ‘Bollocks’ and the superintendent nodded in agreement.

They had left London before Wilberforce spoke again.

‘This is a very big mistake,’ he said.

The superintendent sighed. ‘I’d like ten pounds for every time I’ve been told that as I’ve got my hand on a collar,’ he said. He spoke across Wilberforce, as though the man were quite unimportant.

‘Me too,’ said the inspector.

‘I’ll want your names,’ blustered Wilberforce.

‘Here we go,’ said the inspector. ‘Bet he knows the commander.’

‘I do,’ insisted Wilberforce.

‘The names,’ said the superintendent, bored with the familiar charade, ‘are Superintendent Hebson and Inspector Burt. We do have warrant cards, if you’d care to see them.’

‘I shall hold you personally responsible if the men you’ve left behind at my flat cause any damage,’ said Wilberforce.

‘Of course,’ agreed the superintendent. He was staring through the window, appearing more interested in the countryside.

‘I’m still waiting for a satisfactory explanation,’ said Wilberforce.

The superintendent remained gazing out of the window, so Inspector Burt turned, smiling over the back of the seat.

‘We have reason to believe that you might have information to help us in our enquiries into the theft of the Fabergé collection which was on show at the Tate,’ he said, formally.

‘Oh, my God,’ said Wilberforce.

Hebson turned back into the car at the remark.

‘And it’s still a big mistake, is it?’ he said sarcastically.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Wilberforce.

‘Perhaps you’d like to explain it to me.’

The Director shook his head.

‘You can’t know,’ he said, his voice still clouded. ‘Oh, my God!’

The two policemen exchanged looks.

‘We’re going to, eventually,’ Hebson assured him.

Again Wilberforce shook his head, but this time he turned to the policeman, struggling to compose himself.

‘There must be no announcement about the recovery,’ he said urgently. He gestured to the front of the car. ‘Get on to the radio and say you want a complete publicity blackout.’

‘There’s to be no announcement, until we’re sure we’ve got everything nicely stitched up,’ guaranteed the superintendent, intrigued by the man’s demeanour.

‘Repeat it,’ urged Wilberforce, reaching out and seizing the man’s arm in his anxiety. ‘I insist that you do.’

‘At the moment,’ Hebson reminded him, ‘you’re not in a position to insist upon anything, Mr Wilberforce.’

The policeman had allowed Wilberforce’s wife to dress but she hadn’t applied any make-up. She giggled when she saw her husband enter between the two officers, looking at him hopefully.

‘What is it, George?’ she demanded, shrilly. ‘Where did all that jewellery come from?’

Hebson looked enquiringly at the inspector he had left in charge of the Tenterden house.

‘In the cellar, sir,’ reported the inspector. He nodded towards Wilberforce’s wife. ‘Says she knows nothing about it.’

‘Where?’ asked Wilberforce, dully.

He had expected the inspector to answer, but instead his wife replied, giggling as if inviting him to be as amused as she was.

‘I’d even forgotten we had it,’ she said. ‘Do you remember that rather cheap Piesporter Goldtropfchen we got … must be years ago. It was behind there.’

‘Shall we see?’ invited Hebson.

Wilberforce led the way, shoulders sagged at the complete acceptance of what had happened. At the bottom of the cellar steps he stopped, uncertainly, so it was his wife who guided the party the last few yards towards an archway at the rear of the dank-smelling basement.

‘There!’she announced. In her bewilderment she sounded proud.

The collection had been taken out of the plastic containers and laid out, almost for inspection. In the dull light from the unshaded bulbs, the diamonds, rubies and pearls glittered up, like the bright eyes of limp, unmoving animals.

The woman sniggered.

‘Look,’ she said, to her husband. ‘Look at the way the long coach of that train has been arranged between those two Easter eggs …’

The laughter became more nervous.

‘… it looks like … well, it’s positively rude …’

Hebson looked painfully to the back of the group, to a policewoman.

‘I think we’re going to need a doctor soon,’ he warned. He came back to Wilberforce. ‘Well sir?’ he said.

Wilberforce turned abruptly, trying to regain some command. He pointed to Hebson and Burt.

‘My study,’ he said.

He walked hurriedly back to the cellar steps, leaving his wife to the care of the policewoman.

‘No doubt,’ said Wilberforce, when the three of them had entered the room off the main hallway, ‘you found similar jewellery in the home of a man called Brian Snare!’

‘We did,’ said Hebson, imagining the beginning of a confession.

‘The bastard,’ said Wilberforce, softly.

‘Sir?’ said Burt. He’d taken a notebook from his pocket.

Wilberforce straightened, fingers against the desk. Instinctively, he groped out, picking up a pipe but when he felt into his waistcoat he discovered that in the flurry from the Eaton Square apartment, he’d forgotten to take the tiny container of tools from the dressing table. He stared down at the pipe, as if it were important, then sadly replaced it in the rack.

‘My name,’ he announced, looking back to the men, ‘is George Wilberforce …’

‘We know that, sir,’ said Hebson.

‘And I am the Director of British Intelligence,’ Wilberforce completed.

The confidence fell away from the two detectives like wind suddenly emptying from a sail.

‘Oh,’ said Hebson.

Wilberforce jerked his head towards the telephone.

‘Call your commander,’ he instructed. He took an address book from a desk drawer, selected a page and then offered it to the superintendent. ‘And then the Prime Minister’s office,’ he added. ‘That’s the private number which will get you by the Downing Street exchange. I want his Personal Private Secretary, no one else.’

Hebson hesitated, finally taking the book. He began moving towards the telephone, but then turned to the inspector.

‘Get on to one of the radios,’ he ordered, indiciating the driveway outside. ‘For Christ’s sake screw the lid on this.’

Burt began moving.

‘… and make sure we get a doctor for poor Mrs Wilberforce,’ Hebson shouted after him.

The meeting with the Prime Minister took place the same day. It was originally scheduled for the afternoon, but Smallwood postponed it twice, first for assurances from the Chief Constable of Kent and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that the information could be suppressed and then because of an interview which the Russian ambassador suddenly requested with the Foreign Secretary. It was not until late into the evening that Wilberforce was finally shown into the study overlooking St James’s Park. Smallwood sat behind the desk, stiff formality concealing his apprehension, well trained in the brutality of politics and moving quite calculatingly.

‘There seems little point in saying how sorry I am,’ said Wilberforce.

‘None,’ agreed the Premier.

‘There were some miscalculations,’ admitted the Director.

‘About which I do not want to hear,’ cut in Smallwood. ‘You’ve been made to look ridiculous … utterly ridiculous.’

‘I realise that,’ said Wilberforce.

‘Over fifty policemen were involved in the raids upon you and that other damned man. Fifty policemen! Can you imagine that we’re going to be able to stop something like this leaking out, with that many mouths involved?’

‘We’ve still got the chance of locating him,’ said Wilberforce, unthinkingly. ‘The man responsible, I mean.’

‘Mr Wilberforce,’ said Smallwood, leaning forward on the desk and spacing the words for effect. ‘I don’t think you fully understand me. Or the point of this meeting. From this moment … right at this moment … the whole preposterous matter is concluded. There is to be no further action whatsoever. By anyone. Is that clear?’

The Director did not reply immediately and Smallwood thought he was going to argue.

At last he said: ‘Quite clear.’

‘Nothing,’ retierated Smallwood. ‘By anyone.’

‘I see,’ Wilberforce answered.

Silence came down like a partition between them.

‘No,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I still don’t think you do.’

‘Sir?’ enquired Wilberforce.

Smallwood looked expectantly at him.

‘Don’t you have something to say to me?’ he encouraged.

‘Say to …’ started Wilberforce and then stopped, swallowing.

‘Oh,’ he said, comprehending.

‘There can be no other course, surely?’ said Smallwood. He wanted a scapegoat trussed and oven-ready. Several, in fact.

‘I wish to offer my resignation,’ said Wilberforce. He spoke mechanically, as if he were reading the words from a prepared speech. His hands moved, anxious for activity. He clasped them tightly in his lap.

‘Thank you,’ bustled the Premier. ‘I accept. With regret, of course.’ ‘Of course.’

‘It will have to be in writing,’ said Smallwood.

‘You’ll have it by noon tomorrow,’ promised Wilberforce.

‘I’d like it earlier,’ said Smallwood. ‘Tonight.’

‘But that’s …’ Wilberforce began to protest, then saw the paper that the other man was offering. He scrawled his signature at the bottom of the already typed letter, not bothering to read it.

‘Goodbye, Prime Minister,’ said Wilberforce, striving for dignity.

‘Goodbye,’ said Smallwood.

He suddenly became occupied with some document on his desk and did not bother to look up as the man left the room.

‘Every piece?’ enquired Berenkov.

‘Everything,’ said Kalenin. ‘All returned.’

The burly, white-haired Russian stood up and went to the window of Kalenin’s office. The central heating was keeping the windows free from ice, but the snow was pouched on the roof-tops, like dirty white caps.

‘That would mean they’ve finished with Charlie, then?’

‘Yes,’ agreed the K.G.B. officer.

‘There haven’t been any more leaks?’

‘Not yet’

‘There would have been, surely?’ said Berenkov, hopefully.

‘Alexei,’ said Kalenin, kindly. ‘He must be dead.’

‘Yes,’ Berenkov agreed. ‘He must be.’

He turned into the room.

‘At least the agony will be over for him,’ he said.

TWENTY-SIX

Before assuming overall command of the Agency, Onslow Smith had been administrative director and it was with organisation that he felt happiest. He worked quickly and incisively in the room that had been set aside for him in the American embassy, the master set of papers immediately before him and the subsidiary files in an orderly arrangement at the top of the desk. Braley had arranged it all and done it well, considered Smith. If he could, he’d salvage Braley, he decided. He’d just have to be circumspect about it. And that was exactly what he was going to be about everything, thought Smith. Circumspect. Within twenty-four hours, every single operative involved in the Charlie Muffin fiasco would have been safely airlifted back to the protective anonymity of the C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia.

He looked up from the papers, stopped by a thought. And not one of them compromised. He looked back at the list of names before him, frowning at the number of operatives. All those men operating in the field, he thought. Damned near a miracle, he accepted. He extended the reflection, leaning back in his chair. One lucky; another one unlucky. Poor Wilberforce. He’d been so sure of himself. And in the beginning, the idea had looked pretty good, conceded the American honestly. Dangerous, but still good. They’d just underestimated the victim.

He reached out, pulling a file nearer and then opened it at a picture of Charlie Muffin. He stared down at the image, running his finger along the edge of the photograph. Once, he remembered, the idea had been half-formed in his mind that perhaps he might possibly meet the man who had caused so much damage. But now it would never happen; Charlie would always remain a slightly out of focus impression and a bad memory. A very bad memory.

The telephone jarred into the room. The American Air Force transporter had arrived at London airport from Mildenhall; as they were being processed under diplomatic passports, bypassing completely the main passenger section and all the usual formalities, departure for Washington was scheduled within three hours.

Smith sighed, replacing the receiver. With a flourish betraying his rising confidence, he drew a line through the main list of operatives. Perfect, he decided. Like everything he organised.

Smith watched the seconds flicker by on the digital clock on the desk, waiting for ten o’clock to register. When it did, he put another line through the team that had been operatin Zürich. Because there were only five men, he’d felt it safe for them to fly direct from Switzerland to America on a scheduled flight: it was leaving on time, he knew from the confirmation he’d already received. So, too, were the couriers he had sent by road to ensure the withdrawal from the Brighton house and the Crawley hotel.

Charlie, who had been watching the George since just after dawn and had actually caught sight of Edith’s drawn, unsmiling face through the breakfast room window, saw the messenger arrive and the trained attention to detail marked the significance.

‘How many Ivy League suits are there in Crawley at this time of the year?’ Charlie asked himself.

Quite a few, he thought, watching the sudden exodus of men. The newcomer urged them into various cars, then pushed towards the driver of each an apparent written sheet of instructions. The newcomer left first, heading north. The other cars followed at five-minute intervals, to avoid attracting attention. Charlie waited until the last vehicle pulled out and then started his own engine.

‘Better make sure,’ he advised himself.

Once clear of the town, the cars had slowed, so by the time they reached the motorway, they were travelling in loose convoy. Charlie kept them comfortably in sight, glad of the flow of traffic he knew would conceal his pursuit.

It was not until they had continued past Gatwick airport’ but then looped off, on to the Leatherhead road, to avoid the congestion of London to join the M-4, that Charlie realised they were heading for London airport, not the city. So the clothes had identified them as Americans. It had been a joint operation, he guessed, an operation being abandoned with all the panic that Willoughby had inferred at the strained meeting between the Russians and the government officials when the Fabergé collection had been returned. Now it was all over, the underwriter’s attitude was changing again to friendship, he reflected.

Because of the increased volume of cars as they neared London airport, Charlie had to move closer than he really wanted, but it meant he was close enough not to be confused when, instead of becoming part of the crocodile slowly funnelling beneath the tunnel into the airport complex, the cavalcade swung off the roundabout and picked up one of the roads skirting the airport.

In a greater hurry than he had imagined, decided Charlie, slowing in recognition. They were going towards the north side of the airport, to the private section. The arrival had obviously been communicated ahead by radio in one of the cars. From the buildings swarmed not only airport security men, but American marines as well. They patterned out, sealing the area for a radius of three hundred yards.

Charlie pulled quickly into a car park reserved for the airport staff, then got out of the car, straining to focus the aircraft in the distance. He got final confirmation of the thoughts that had begun when he had seen the men move out of the hotel from the U.S. military plane drawn up close to one of the V.I.P. buildings, its dirty-khaki colouring merging with the surroundings.

He saw the cars stop and the occupants start to emerge, filing into one of the buildings. American military staff began loading the baggage directly into the aircraft hold.

‘Complete diplomatic clearance,’ mused Charlie, then stopped, identifying the figure in apparent command of the aircraft boarding.

So William Braley had been involved, as well as Snare. He smiled at the realisation; everyone who had had reason to hate him most. Good motivation, Charlie accepted.

He’d admired Braley, Charlie remembered. A complete and thorough professional. He was one of the people about whom Charlie felt most regret at what had happened in Vienna.

He sighed. A necessary casualty of survival, he decided. But still sad.

He got back into the mini and started back towards the roundabout from which he could rejoin the motorway.

‘You did it, Charlie,’ he congratulated himself. ‘You beat them.’

Superintendent Law would seize the credit, realised Hardiman. And it had really been his idea. But when the time came for the commendations and the celebration drinks, the poor sod who’d had all the work would be forgotten.

Law looked up enquiringly as the sergeant entered the room.

‘Well?’ he asked.

Hardiman smiled down at the seated man.

‘Remember you told me to check that financier’s passport?’

‘Of course.’

‘Nothing wrong with it … at first glance.’

‘Then what?’

‘So I looked further. Checked out the birth certificate, with government records …’

Law began to smile, in anticipation.

‘According to them, no such person exists,’ concluded the sergeant. ‘So I put the certificate through to forensic. It’s a forgery.’

‘Well done, laddie,’ praised the superintendent. ‘Well done.’

He stood up, taking Charlie’s file from those stacked against the wall.

‘Routine,’ he said softly. ‘That’s what does it, every time.’

It had taken long enough, thought Hardiman.

‘Still not back at the house yet?’ Law enquired, expectantly.

‘Not yet.’

Law frowned at a sudden thought.

‘What about that report from uniformed, their belief there was some sort of observation?’

‘Checked on my way here,’ said Hardiman. ‘Not there any more.’

‘Which leaves us with the London firm of underwriters,’ said Law. ‘I think it’s time we checked to see how deeply they investigate their people.’

Onslow Smith looked down contentedly at the file lying before him. Through everything now there was a curt red ink mark: every entry erased. He deserved the comfort of the separate military aircraft that he had arranged for himself, he decided. And it would have been quite wrong anyway to have travelled back with the rest of the team.

He put the documents into the briefcase with the combination lock and placed it alongside the other sealed file holders that would all be taken by courier to the airport for transportation back to America and then oblivion in the C.I.A. archives. In a separate container was the money Wilberforce had insisted on returning. The money would probably upset their computer, he thought; it had already been written off. Just like Wilberforce. Poor bugger.

The telephone surprised him and he stared at it, hesitating before lifting the receiver. He smiled, immediately recognising Braley’s voice.

‘All aboard?’ enquired Smith, cheerily.

‘Not quite,’ said the man and for the first time Smith realised the apprehension from the other end.

‘What do you mean, not quite?’

‘I’m sorry I’ve left it so late,’ said Braley. ‘I wanted to be sure, so I carried out a complete check …’

‘For Christ’s sake, what is it?’ demanded Smith.

‘Ruttgers isn’t here.’