Here Comes Charlie M

EIGHT

Charlie had allowed himself three days before the London meeting. The first two had been taken up travelling to England by as confused a route as possible, going by train from Zurich to Lyons, from there to Paris, backtracking to Auxerre and then returning to Paris to catch the night sleeper to Victoria.

The remaining day had been devoted entirely to watching Rupert Willoughby, following him from his house off Sloane Street to his City office, occupying the secluded table at Sweetings during the man’s business lunch, checking his firm to uncover any possible links to dummy or cover companies the names and addresses of which he might have recognised and then, finally, trailing him in his trendy, smoked-glass mini back from the City to Knightsbridge in the evening. Just like old times, reflected Charlie, welcoming the activity.

It would have needed a team of men to have established absolutely that the man was not under deep surveillance, Charlie accepted. And as Edith had warned, now he was completely on his own.

And so he would always be now, he reflected, content with the protection of the rush-hour crowd in the middle of which he spilled from the Bank underground station on the morning of the appointment.

‘So far, so good,’ he assured himself.

‘Yes,’ agreed a commuter beside him. ‘Much better this morning, wasn’t it? Extra trains at London Bridge, you know.’

‘About time,’ answered Charlie. He’d have to control the habit, he decided. It was embarrassing.

The office of the Lloyd’s underwriters of which, from enquiries he’d already made through the Company Register, Charlie knew Willoughby to be the senior partner, was off Leadenhall Street, high in a converted block with a view of the Bank of England.

Willoughby was already standing when Charlie entered the spacious, oak-panelled office. Immediately he came forward, hands held out like that Sunday in the churchyard. Remarkably like his father, decided Charlie. Even more so than he had realised from their initial encounter.

‘At last,’ greeted the underwriter, leading Charlie to a leather, button-backed chair immediately alongside the desk.

‘At last?’

Willoughby smiled at the quickness of the question, looking down at the man. Thinning, strawish hair, perhaps a hint of blood pressure or even alcohol from the slight purpling around the face and nose and a hunched, maybe apprehensive way of sitting. A very ordinary sort of man; the 8 a.m. traveller on every bus and train. Which proved, decided Willoughby, how deceptive appearances could be.

‘I always hoped you would make contact,’ he said. ‘If you could, that was. My father did, too.’

Very direct, assessed Charlie. Almost as if the man had some knowledge of what had happened.

‘I’ve cancelled everything for today,’ said Willoughby. ‘There’ll be no interruptions.’

Charlie remained silent, sitting forward in the chair. How could Willoughby know? It was impossible. Unless he were involved in the pursuit. And if he were involved, then he wouldn’t be so direct, arousing suspicion. It was a circle of doubt, Charlie recognised, without a beginning or an end.

‘So we finally meet,’ said Willoughby again, as if he couldn’t believe it.

‘There was a previous occasion,’ Charlie reminded him. Willoughby had been at Cambridge, Charlie recalled. Sir Archibald had brought him into the Whitehall office on his way for his first visit to the House of Commons. The boy had acne and seemed disappointed nobody carried a gun.

‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Willoughby. ‘I don’t remember meeting you with my father. But he didn’t take me into the office very often.’

‘No,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Do you know,’ continued Willoughby, leaning back in his chair and looking away from Charlie, ‘in the end those bastards Cuthbertson and Wilberforce actually tried to use something as ridiculous as that against him.’

‘What?’ demanded Charlie, very attentive. The continued openness was disconcerting; almost the professional use of honesty that he had employed to gain a person’s confidence.

‘His taking me into the office,’ explained the underwriter. ‘Claimed it was a breach of security.’

Charlie felt the tension recede. It would be wrong to formulate impressions too soon. But perhaps it hadn’t been a mistake to come, after all.

‘It’s the sort of thing they would have done,’ accepted Charlie. And been right, he thought honestly. But Sir Archibald had always made his own rules; that was one of the reasons why he and Charlie had established such a rapport. And why, in the end, Cuthbertson and Wilberforce had manoeuvred his replacement.

‘You realise he committed suicide, don’t you?’ said Willoughby.

Charlie shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t. I was away when he died. It was never directly mentioned, but I inferred it was natural causes …’

Charlie paused.

‘Well …’ he started again, but Willoughby talked over him.

‘Cirrhosis of the liver?’ anticipated the man. ‘Yes, that too. They made him into an alcoholic by the way they treated him. And when he realised what had happened to him, he hoarded some barbiturates and took the whole lot with a bottle of whisky.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie began, then stopped, irritated by the emptiness of the expression. But he was sorry, he thought. There were few people to whom he had ever been close. And Sir Archibald had been one of them.

‘There was a note,’ continued Willoughby, appearing unaware of Charlie’s attempt at sympathy. ‘Several, in fact. The one he left for the police put the fear of Christ up everyone. Spelled everything out … not just what shits Cuthbert son and Wilberforce were in the way they got him fired, but the mistakes they had made as well. He did it quite deliberately because he believed that if they weren’t moved, they’d make a major, serious blunder.’

His feelings, remembered Charlie.

‘The department took the whole thing over,’ continued Willoughby. ‘They have the power, apparently, under the Official Secrets Act. Allows them to do practically anything, to protect the national interest. Squashed the inquest, everything. That’s how the natural causes account got spread about.’

Sir Archibald’s death could only have been a matter of weeks before he had exposed their stupidity and got them captured in Vienna by the Russian commandos, Charlie calculated. What, he wondered, had happened to Cuthbertson? Back where he belonged, probably, fighting long forgotten battles over the brandy and cigars at Boodles. Wilberforce would have survived, he guessed. Wilberforce, with his poofy socks and shirts and that daft habit of breaking pipes into little pieces. Always had been a sneaky bugger, even under Sir Archibald’s control. Yes, he would certainly have hung on, shifting all the blame on to Cuthbertson. Would he still be the second-in-command? Or had he finally got the Directorship for which he had schemed for so long? Always an ambitious man: but without the ability to go with it. If he had remained, then the danger of which Sir Archibald had warned still existed.

‘He asked me to tell you the truth, if ever you contacted me,’ said Willoughby.

‘I don’t …’ frowned Charlie.

‘I told you he wrote several letters. To avoid them being seized by the police, he posted them, on the night he killed himself. He really planned it very carefully. The one to me talked about his fears for the department … he felt very strongly about it, after all those years, and didn’t want it destroyed because incapable men had managed to reach positions of power. And another was devoted almost entirely to you.’

‘Oh.’

‘He told me you’d visited him … just before going away to do something about which you were frightened.’

So he’d realised it, thought Charlie. He’d imagined Sir Archibald too drunk that day he had gone down to Rye and sat in the darkened room and felt the sadness lump in his throat at the collapse of the old man.

‘He appreciated it very much … the fact that you regarded him as a friend.’

It was true, reflected Charlie. That was always how he’d thought of the man under whom he had spent all his operational life.

‘He often talked about you when … when he was Director and we were living together, in London. Boasted about you, in fact. Said you were the best operative he had ever created … that there was practically nothing you couldn’t do …’

The man’s forthrightness was not assumed, decided Charlie, unembarrassed at the flattery. Willoughby would have made a mistake by now, had he had to force the effect. ‘There were times when I was almost jealous of you.’ Willoughby added.

‘I don’t think he’d be very proud now,’ said Charlie, regretting the admission as he spoke. Carelessness again.

Willougby raised his hands in a halting movement.

‘I don’t think I should know,’ he said, quickly. He paused, then added bluntly: ‘The guilt was pretty obvious in the cemetery.’

Justified criticism, accepted Charlie. He wouldn’t have stood a chance if the graveyard had been covered that day.

‘I’ve known for a long time they’ve been looking for you,’ announced Willoughby.

Charlie came forward on his seat again and Willoughby tried to reduce the sudden awkwardness by smiling and leaning back in his own chair.

‘You’ve no need to be concerned,’ he said. He dropped the smile, reinforcing the assurance.

‘How?’ asked Charlie. His feet were beneath the chair, ready to take the weight when he jerked up.

‘They remembered the relationship between you and my father,’ recounted Willoughby. ‘I had several visits from their people, about four months after he died …’

‘They would have asked you to have told them, if ever I made contact with you,’ predicted Charlie, the apprehension growing.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Willoughby. ‘They did.’

‘Well?’ Charlie demanded. He’d buggered it, he thought immediately. Edith had been right: he was wrong again.

‘Charlie,’ said Willoughby, coming forward again so that there was less than a yard between them. ‘They reduced my father into a shambling, disgusting old drunk who went to sleep every night puddled in his own urine. And then, effectively, they killed him. I don’t know what you did, but I know it hurt. Is it likely I’m going to turn in someone who did what I’d have given my eye-teeth to have done?’

Charlie was hunched in the chair, still uncertain.

‘It’s been five weeks since your telephone call,’ Willoughby reminded him, realising Charlie’s doubt. He waved his hand towards the window.

‘In five weeks,’ said the underwriter, ‘they would have made plans that guaranteed that once inside this office you’d never be able to get out again. Go on, look out of the window. By now the roads would have been sealed and all the traffic halted.’

Willoughby was right, Charlie realised. He got up, going behind the other man’s chair. Far below, the street was thronged with people and cars.

‘The outer office would have been cleared, too,’ invited the underwriter.

Without replying, Charlie opened the door. The secretary who had greeted him looked up, enquiringly, then smiled.

‘Satisfied?’ asked Willoughby.

Charlie nodded.

‘Tell me something,’ said Willoughby, in sudden curiosity. ‘What would you have done if it had been a trap?’

‘Probably tried to kill you,’ said Charlie. And more than likely failed, he added to himself, remembering his hesitation at personal violence in the cemetery.

Willoughby pulled his lips over his teeth, a nervous gesture.

‘What good would that have done, if you’d been bottled up here?’

‘Kept me alive,’ suggested Charlie. ‘They couldn’t have eliminated me, if I’d committed a public murder.’

Why, wondered Charlie, was he talking like this? It was ridiculous. He waited for the other man to laugh at him.

Willoughby remained blank-faced.

‘And do they want to eliminate you?’

‘I would imagine so.’

Willoughby shook his head in distaste.

‘God, it’s obscene,’ he said.

Charlie frowned. That wasn’t a sincere remark, he judged. The man still thought of it as he had as a boy that day in the office, a sort of game for grown-ups.

‘Consider it,’ Willoughby went on. ‘Two men, sitting here in the middle of London, calmly using words like eliminate instead of planned, premeditated murder.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie. ‘Sometimes it has to happen. Though not as much as you might think …’

He looked at the other man, to see if he were appreciating the words.

‘… thank God,’ he concluded.

‘That was one thing about the service over which my father could never lose his disgust,’ recalled Willoughby. ‘He talked to me a great deal …’

He smiled over the hesitation. ‘Cuthbertson and Wilberforce would say too much — another breach of security. My father believed very strongly in what he did … the need for such a department. But he was always horrified that people occasionally had to die.’

‘I know,’ said Charlie. The remaining doubts were being swept away by the reminiscence. Willoughby would have had to be very close to his father — as close as he had been to him in the department — to know so well the old man’s feelings.

Willoughby sighed, shedding the past.

‘And now I know about you,’ he said, gravely. ‘Whether I wanted to or not.’

‘Only their possible verdict,’ qualified Charlie. ‘Not the cause.’

‘It must have been serious?’

‘It was.’

For a moment, neither spoke. Then Willoughby said: ‘My father often remarked about your honesty. Considered it unusual, in a business so involved in deceit.’

‘You seem to have the same tendency.’

‘My father preferred it.’

‘Yes,’ remembered Charlie. ‘He did.’

It was strange, thought Charlie, what effect the old man had had upon both of them.

The intercom burped and Willoughby nodded briefly into the receiver, smiling up at Charlie when he replaced the earpiece.

‘From your reaction in the cemetery, I thought you’d prefer lunch here, in the seclusion of the office,’ he said. ‘Now I’m sure you would.’

Charlie detected movement behind him and turned to see two waiters setting up a gatelegged table. There were oysters, duck in aspic, cheese, chablis and port. Underwriters lived well, he thought.

Willoughby waited until they had seated themselves at the table and begun to eat before he spoke again.

‘I must satisfy myself about one thing, Charlie,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Whatever you did … was it illegal?’

Charlie examined the question. There couldn’t be a completely honest answer, he decided.

‘Nothing for which I would appear in any English court of law,’ he said. ‘I was just trying to achieve, although in a different way, the sort of changes that your father believed necessary.’

And survive, he thought.

Willoughby smiled.

‘Then you’ve nothing to fear from me,’ he said. ‘The opposite in fact.’

‘Opposite?’

‘In the letter,’ explained Willougby, ‘the one in which he mentioned you so much, my father said he thought they were trying to do to you what they had done to him. He asked that if the opportunity or necessity arose that I should help you in any way I could.’

Charlie finished the oysters and sat fingering his glass, staring down into the wine he had scarcely touched. Trying to do to him what they’d done to Sir Archibald; certainly the drinking had become bad. He’d never considered suicide, though. And didn’t think he ever would.

‘You’ve already helped,’ he said, ‘by saying nothing.’

‘There was something else,’ continued the underwriter.

‘What?’

‘My father was a very rich man,’ said Willoughby. ‘Even after the setlement of the estate and the payment in full of death duties, there was still over three-quarters of a million pounds. He left you?50,000.’

‘Good God!’

Willoughby laughed openly at the astonishment.

Charlie sat shaking his head. Three years ago, he reflected, he was saving the taxi fares from the Wormwood Scrubs debriefings with Alexei Berenkov by walking in the rain with holes in his shoes. Now he had more money than he knew what to do with. Why then, he wondered, did he feel so bloody miserable?

‘I’ve had it for two years on long-term deposit at fourteen per cent,’ added Willoughby. ‘It’ll have increased by quite a few thousand.’

‘I don’t really need it,’ shrugged Charlie.

‘It’s legally yours,’ said Willoughby.

And fairly his, added Charlie. Better even than the American money. He had more than Edith now. The thought lodged in his mind, to become an idea.

The meal over, Willoughby poured the port and leaned back in his chair.

‘Why did you go to the cemetery, Charlie?’ he asked. ‘Surely, it was a dangerous thing to do?’

Charlie nodded.

‘Absolutely insane,’ he agreed.

Willoughby waited.

‘I’d drunk too much,’ Charlie admitted. ‘It was becoming a habit. And I had intended it to be my last visit to England. So I wanted to make just one visit.’

‘They did watch the grave,’ offered Willoughby.

Charlie’s eyes came up, questioningly.

‘Must have been for almost six months,’ expanded the underwriter. ‘I go there about twice a month … learned to recognise them, in the end. They were quite obvious, even to an amateur like me …’

So he’d been lucky, decided Charlie. Bloody lucky.

‘It wasn’t just drink,’ Charlie tried to explain. ‘I’d always wanted to … just couldn’t take the risk, earlier …’

He stopped, looking at Willoughby in sudden realisation.

‘I came here to guarantee my own safety,’ he said. ‘You know, of course, that I could have compromised you …’

There was no artifice in the gesture of dismissal, assessed Charlie. The underwriter definitely regarded it as a game for adults, he decided. But then, how would any outsider regard it otherwise?

‘My distaste for them, Charlie, is far greater than yours. I loved my father.’ Willoughby spoke without any embarrassment.

‘I think we both did.’

‘Are we going to meet again?’ asked Willoughby.

Charlie sat, considering the question. For two years, he thought, he and Edith had been imprisoned, bound together in a bizarre form of solitary confinement by the knowledge of what he had done, able to trust no one. Being able to talk, comparatively freely, to Willoughby, was like having the dungeon door thrown open.

‘It would hardly be fair to you,’ said Charlie.

‘You know how I feel about that.’

The unexpected inheritance intruded into his mind again, the ill-formed idea hardening. He’d got away from the cemetery. And Willoughby was sincere. He was safe. So now he had to do something to fill the vacuum that had been destroying him. The inheritance and Willoughby’s occupation presented an opportunity from which he couldn’t turn away. It would mean leaving a reserve of money in the Brighton bank, but he’d only agreed to move it because of Edith’s insistence. She’d understand why he’d changed his mind: be glad he’d found something to interest him.

He cleared his throat. Willoughby could always reject it, he decided. And should do, if he had any sense. He was using the other man, Charlie realised. Just as he’d used Gunther Bayer for the ambushed crossing. It didn’t lessen the guilt to admit to himself that he was sometimes a shit, Charlie decided.

‘I’m thinking of asking you to do something that might offend you,’ he warned. ‘Professionally, I mean.’

‘What?’

The question was immediate, without the gap that would have indicated reluctance. The man thought he was being invited to play.

‘The money your father left me … the money I don’t really need.’

‘What about it?’

‘Use it for me.’

‘Use it?’

Charlie nodded.

‘Part of the problem, the drinking I mean, was the absolute boredom,’ he confessed. ‘For almost two years, I’ve done nothing. Atrophied, almost. Can’t I invest that money … more, if it’s not enough, through you?’

Willoughby poured himself some more port.

‘There couldn’t be anything in writing,’ he said, thinking aloud.

‘That doesn’t worry me.’

Willoughby looked up, smiling at the trust.

‘A very silent Lloyd’s underwriter,’ he identified. ‘Breaking every rule in the profession.’

‘So I’d be embarrassing you,’ said Charlie.

Willoughby made an uncaring motion with his hand.

‘I can’t see how,’ he said. ‘The money would be in my name … nothing traceable to you … I was executor of my father’s estate, so it can be transferred without any problem.’

Again the underwriter smiled.

‘And it would create the need for us to meet from time to time, wouldn’t it?’ he said presciently.

‘Yes,’ admitted Charlie. He waited several moments, then added: ‘I’m asking you to take a very big risk.’

‘I know,’ said Willoughby.

‘Greater than I’ve really any right to ask, despite the request of your father.’

‘Yes.’

‘It would be right for you to refuse … sensible to do so, in fact,’ advised Charlie.

‘Yes, it would,’ said Willoughby. After a moment’s pause, he added: ‘But we both know I won’t refuse, don’t we?’

Yes, thought Charlie.

The underwriter stood, proffering his hand.

‘This is the only way we’ll have of binding the agreement,’ he said.

‘It’s sufficient for me,’ said Charlie, shaking the offered hand.

‘Underwriting is sometimes dangerous,’ warned Willoughby.

‘Any more dangerous than what I’ve done so far?’

Willoughby laughed at the sarcasm.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I live a normal life and it’s easy to forget.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Charlie, ‘going to the cemetery wasn’t the mistake I believed it might be.’

‘No,’ reflected Willoughby. ‘I don’t think it was.’

The ambassador turned away from the window and its view of the Moscow skyline, smeared grey by the sleeting rain. Next week, when it snowed, Moscow would look beautiful again, he thought.

Idly, Sir Robert picked up the inventory that had arrived that morning from the Hermitage in Leningrad, comparing it to the list from the Moscow Armoury. The Russians were making available far less of the regalia than he had expected from the agreement he had signed with the Minister of Culture, he saw. Still, at least they were letting some out. He supposed he should be grateful for that.

In London, a man whose hatred of Charlie Muffin was absolute sat in an office adjoining that of George Wilberforce, carefully examining the files obtained through the combined but unsuspecting channels of the Special Branch, Scotland Yard records, the Inland Revenue and the Bank of England and Clearing Houses security sections. A vivid scar disfigured the left side of his face and as he worked his fingers kept straying to it, an habitual movement.

Tonight he was concentrating upon the Special Branch and Scotland Yard dossiers and after two hours one folder remained for detailed consideration on the left of the desk.

‘John Packer,’ he identified, slowly, opening the cover.

He read for a further hour, then pushed it away.

‘From now on,’ he said, staring down at the official police photographs, ‘it’s the big time for you, John Packer …’

He paused.

‘… for a while, anyway,’ he added.