Kings of Many Castles

11

Olga Ivanova Melnik felt as if she’d been engulfed by a flooded river-the swollen Volga of her Gorky birthplace at the start of the March thaw-swept helplessly along by swirling currents over unseen, snagging rocks. All-or any-of which was totally alien to Olga Melnik’s until now carefully structured and even more carefully disaster-avoided career. She wasn’t, of course, frightened of being sucked down. Olga Melnik wasn’t the sort of person to sink beneath the first ripples of uncertainties. She just needed a momentarybackwater; time briefly to tread water and examine-apportion and equate-everything swamping over her.

Olga accepted, objectively, that she should have anticipated Charlie Muffin’s challenges; been readier, even, for the suggestion that Vera Bendall’s death might not have been an accident. She shouldn’t have needed the difference in the size of the Russian-recovered bullets to be pointed out to her, either. Nor been unprepared for the demand about the bullet casings, none of which had been found. The reason was obvious from the chaos and panic at the scene of the crime, there for everyone to see and understand from at least five different television films, but she should have offered the explanation instead of having the admission drawn from her. But perhaps her greatest embarrassment, close to positive humiliation, had been having to admit not knowing the whereabouts of any of George Bendall’s personal papers the initial militia search squad-her officers! — had removed from the Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment. She’d heard Vera Bendall’s eavesdropped claim within an hour of the stupid bitch making it and let more than another twenty-four elapse without even asking about it!

She would have got around to it eventually, she reassured herself; not eventually, almost at once. Tomorrow, certainly. How could she have been expected to cover everything, the smallest details, in such a short time! It was easy for the motherfucking Englishman, getting everything handed to him on a plate, not having to supervise an entire investigation and think about each and every political implication.

Those political implications-every implication-were too great properly to encompass now, this soon. But the escalation made it logical for Leonid Zenin to share this first interrogation of George Bendall. But that was all it was, the escalation, not any inferred criticism of her oversights. How could it be? The confrontation-the rock jarringly awkward question after awkward question from the motherfucking Englishman-in front of the fortunately limited audience in the American embassy basement hadn’t been recorded. So there was no way Zenin could know. Would ever know. But she couldn’t be caught out again: shouldn’t have been caught out at all.She’d identified Charlie Muffin for-and as-the danger he was from the very beginning. A mistake recognized is another mistake avoided, she reminded herself, calling to mind the appropriate Russian proverb. She felt firm ground underfoot, no longer jostled by conflicting currents.

She was impatient to begin the interrogation and hoped Zenin wasn’t late, standing close to the window and looking up Gospital’naya Ulitza towards the blue domed church of Saints Peter and Paul, the direction from which she expected him to come. He’d sounded pleased, excited even, during the telephone conversation when he’d told her to wait for him and Olga was curious about the crisis committee meeting. Clearly it had gone better for him than hers had for her.

She almost missed Leonid Zenin when he did appear because she’d been looking for an official car and Zenin was on foot, striding past the small commemoration to Peter the Great’s favorite general, Swiss-born Francois Lefort, who was never to know-and doubtless wouldn’t have liked it if he had-that his was going to be the name given to one of the most infamous prisons in Russian history. Olga decided that the bearded militia commandant looked even more impressive in civilian clothes than he did in uniform and felt a pleasant stir of interest, wondering what the obviously athletic body looked like in neither.

She was well away from the window, to avoid hinting any impatience, when Zenin came urgently into the dusty waiting room, smiling as Olga imagined he smiled during their telephone conversation. Despite the white-coated Nicholai Badim beside him Zenin said, “God, what a place! An incentive never to become ill.”

Affronted, the surgeon-administrator said, “Heroes of the Crimea were treated here!”

“Probably in beds that haven’t been changed since,” said Zenin, briskly careless of offense. “What’s the situation with the prisoner!”

“You can have thirty minutes.”

“I wasn’t asking for a time limit. He’s fully conscious?”

“Yes.”

“And fully comprehending?”

“According to Guerguen Semonvich Agayan.”

“What’s Bendall said?”

“Your officers are with him.”

“I meant to you.”

“He’s responded to our medical questions.”

“Nothing else?”

“We haven’t asked him anything else.”

“It’s about time someone did then.”

The almost overbearing confidence surprised Olga. In official surroundings, only those in which she’d been with him until now, Zenin had always appeared more subdued.

Striving to achieve some of his dismissed authority, the doctor said, “I’ll check with Guerguen Semonvich. Wait for me here.”

Zenin said, “I’ve come directly from the Kremlin. Okulov’s panicking, everyone’s panicking. They’ve doubled the protection around Yudkin. Many more security people at the Pirogov hospital and they’ll have to shift patients out to make room …” He smiled again. “And there’s going to be a presidential commission into the missing KGB stuff. I suggested it at this morning’s meeting: Okulov ordered it on the spot when the conspiracy was confirmed.”

“The one person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall. I’ve permanently doubled the guard here.” She had to find a way to tell him about the things missing from the Bendall apartment.

“Nothing’s going to happen to him, believe me,” said Zenin. “What’s it like at the American embassy?”

“I don’t know about stepped up internal security. The American ballistics man claims he’d recognized the difference but was waiting for our material.”

“What’s the excuse from our people at Chagino?”

“They hadn’t got around to it yet.”

“After more than two days!”

“They obviously thought they didn’t have to bother.”

“Log it, for it to be dealt with later.”

“I already have.”

“Is the Englishman crowing?”

Olga hesitated. “Not noticeably,” she answered, honestly. Itwould be better if Zenin heard the other embarrassments from her. “He asked about the bullet casings. They were looked for, of course, after the area was cleared. We didn’t find any.”

“Would they have been automatically discharged from the rifle?”

“Apparently.”

“We should have recovered some,” complained Zenin.

“Further evidence of the conspiracy. How well planned it’s all been.” She wished that excuse had come to her in the embassy basement.

“Yes,” accepted Zenin, doubtfully.

It was an acceptable excuse. “There’s something else. You remember Vera Bendall saying militia officers took away her son’s papers, among his other belongings?”

“Yes,” said Zenin, cautiously.

“No written material is recorded among what was taken from Bendall’s apartment. I’ve spoken to the squad that went there first, personally, to all three of them. Each insist there weren’t any documents, nothing written down at all.”

“The woman could have been wrong,” Zenin pointed out.

“Or other people could have got to the apartment before our officers.”

“Was there any indications of a search, ahead of them?”

“They said his room was a mess,” Olga replied, honestly again.

“It should be laid before the commission,” agreed Zenin.

Home clear! decided Olga, as the doctor reentered the room.

“Half an hour,” stipulated the man.

“We’ll see how long it takes,” dismissed Zenin.

The walls of the corridor along which they followed the doctor were stained and in places adorned with uncleared graffiti-“fuck” and “hell hole” appeared several times-and narrowed by bed frames, once by two ancient, boat-shaped perambulators and unrecognizable scraps of metal and frame-like pieces of wood.

Zenin said, “This come up from the Crimea, too?”

The doctor ignored him.

Bendall’s ward was identifiable some way off by the phalanx of guards outside it. Olga said, “Do you want to lead the interrogation?”

“You’re the investigating officer, Olga Ivanova. I’ll sit and listen.”

The feeling she experienced surprised Olga. It wasn’t unease. It was, almost sexually, of anticipation. She didn’t normally feel she had to impress a man. “I’d appreciate your input, if you think it’s necessary.”

“It’ll be there, if it is.”

The protective cordon stiffened, respectfully, at their approach, then parted for them to enter. It was an individual ward, further crowded inside by three more militia officers. Recording apparatus was already assembled. Its operator was late standing when they came into the room. The walls were streaked and discolored but there was no graffiti, at least none that was apparent. The sheets matched the grayness of the blankets, though, which also toned with the doubtful color of the bandages helmeting George Bendall’s head and seeming to extend, unbroken, to the dressings trebling the size of the man’s broken shoulder. A half-circular frame kept the bedding off the shattered leg but he was not connected to any monitors, although a catheter tube ran to a container beneath the bed. There was a perfect spider’s web covering the inside of one of the upperpaned windows, complete with its spread-legged creator, and rivulets of long-past rain had tracked top to bottom patterns through the caked grime. The recording apparatus occupied the only table and its technician had the only chair. Militia-discarded cigarettes pebbled the floor. The cubicle stank, not just of cigarettes but of stale bodies. Maybe, thought Olga, indulging herself, patients from the 1850s really had been here.

“We think thirty minutes,” said the psychiatrist.

“I think as long as it takes,” said Zenin.

Olga, concentrating upon the prisoner, saw Bendall’s eyes darting from person to person. When he became aware of her staring at him he abruptly stopped, gazing fixedly up at the ceiling. She said, “Everyone can go now. We need another chair.” The recording technician looked surprised but then shrugged.

The doctor said, “I think I should stay.”

“I’ll stay too,” announced Agayan.

“You won’t,” said Olga.

“No,” agreed Zenin. “Neither of you will. Out!”

“We’ll be directly outside,” insisted Badim.

A chair was chain-passed in from outside by the departing inner squad, one of whom cupped the doctor’s arm. Zenin took the chair and sat just inside the door. Olga realized the militia commandant would not have come into Bendall’s vision: the man would believe she was the only person-the only possible interrogator-in the room. Bendall’s virtually unbroken gaze remained fixed upon the ceiling. Olga glanced up, seeing it was as dirty as everything else.

Looking more towards the recording apparatus Olga said, “George Bendall-alias Georgi Gugin-you are charged with murder and attempted murder. There will be other charges officially proffered at a later date.”

Bendall smiled, turning slightly towards her.

“But you failed,” Olga declared, her tone at once sneering.

The man continued to stare at her, unresponsive.

“The person you killed was an American guard. You’ll still get the death sentence.”

Nothing.

“And we know there are others. They found the perfect idiot in you, didn’t they? That was clever of them.”

A blink. A throat-clearing swallow. The mummified head remained unmoving.

“Your mother’s dead, too. She would have suffered, poor woman.”

There was a spurt of blinking, swallowing. A nearly imperceptible-instantly corrected-head movement towards her.

“The story of your life, isn’t it Georgi? Always failure. Failed father, failed mother, failed son. End result: total, miserable failure.”

“How?” The voice croaked, dry-throated.

Now it was Olga who stayed silent.

“How?”

She allowed her eyes to flick to Zenin. The man was leaning forward with both arms on his knees but not looking directly at her, concentrating entirely upon the words.

“How did she die?”

The crack had been made in the dam; it had to be widened from inside, not out. “Hanged.”

“Shouldn’t have been hanged.”

He’d have lost track of time, believed it to be official punishment. She’d let it go for the moment. “Why not?”

“Didn’t know anything.”

“I thought she did.”

“No!”

“What didn’t she know?” The crack was creaking apart.

“Anything.”

“About what?”

The muscles stood out on Bendall’s jaw, so tightly did he bite his mouth closed.

“Died for nothing then?” Bendall had sealed the crack. And she didn’t know how to prise it open again.

Nothing.

“She knew you hated everything. Didn’t believe you hated her though, after what your father did to her. Bringing her here.”

“Fucking bastard!”

Another weakness in the wall, Olga recognized. “He was the one who should have died, not her.”

There was the faintest of sounds from the doorway, where Zenin shifted in his chair. Bendall gave no indication of hearing anything.

“Should have been him.”

“Did you want to kill him?”

“Yes.” The word hissed out, emotion for the first time.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t.”

This man was her only hope, thought Olga, the only one who could provide a lead. She had to break him. Trick or tilt the already unbalanced mind, however and whichever way she could. British consular protests were irrelevant, if there was a complaint. All she had to concern herself with was getting a Russian conviction in a Russian court and she could get a confession and evidence any way she liked to achieve that. “Frightened of him, were you?”

“No!” It was a shout. Proper anger.

“Of course you were.”

“No!” He jerked his head around to look directly at her for thefirst time, wincing at the pain the movement caused. “Was going to kill him. Died first.”

Olga shook her head theatrically, disbelievingly. “Why didn’t you get the others to do it, like they killed your mother.” It was convoluted but got her to where she wanted to be.

The eyes upon her noticeably focused, clearing. “What?”

“Why didn’t you get the others in this with you to kill him, like they killed your mother?” repeated Olga.

“You said she was hanged.”

“Not sentenced, by a court. Strangled. Murdered,” invented Olga.

“She didn’t know!” The denial this time wailed from him.

“They thought she did. The court won’t believe you didn’t know they were going to do that. I don’t believe you didn’t know they were going to do that. You’ll be considered an accomplice.”

“No!” Another wail.

“You’re right to be frightened.”

“Not frightened.”

“They’ll try to kill you, if they can.”

“Not frightened!”

“They would kill you, if they could.”

He was looking at the ceiling again, lips tight together.

Mistaken direction. He wasn’t rambling, either. But then why should he? Mentally deranged people didn’t necessarily ramble. Wrong to have started with that preconception. There was sudden noise from the door, a muffled voice. Olga saw the doctor gesticulating from beyond the wall of security men. Zenin turned at it, too, making waving away motions with his hand.

Olga went back to the embalmed man. “The other sniper was a lot better than you, Georgi. Should have practiced more.”

“No one else.”

The words jolted through Olga. She was aware of Zenin coming further forward on his chair, too. She said, “We know there was. Two different rifles, different bullets.”

“Liar!”

Which way to go! “They couldn’t leave it to you. Knew you weren’t good enough to do it by yourself.”

“Not true.”

“You think you’re a good sniper, Georgi?”

“Trained.” For the first time there was an inflection in the man’s voice, a whisper of pride.

Olga thought she saw a pathway. “You killed people before?”

“A lot.”

“How many?”

“A lot.”

“When was that?”

“In the army.”

“Did you train every day when you were in the army?”

“Course I did. Had to.” Now there was a hint of indignation.

“But you’ve been out of the army a long time now, haven’t you?”

Bendall’s face clouded, in an effort to understand. “Good sniper,” he insisted.

“Do you still train every day, now you’re not in the army?”

The smile was knowing, crafty. “Maybe.”

“You do, don’t you?”

Nothing.

“Who with?”

Nothing.

“Where did you get the rifle?”

The smile remained but he didn’t reply.

“Did you fire as quickly on Wednesday as you did when you trained every day in the army? And since?”

“I’m good.”

“Two shots, over eight seconds? That’s not fast, not for a trained marksman.”

“Less than eight seconds.”

Got it with the wrong correction! snatched Olga, triumphantly. She actually looked at the slowly revolving tape spool. “There were five shots, Georgi. Not two. The other man really did do better than you. Hit our president twice. And the American First Lady. You were rubbish.”

“No one else,” He wasn’t blinking anymore; the eyes were positively drooping now.

“We know there was. You know it, too.”

There was fresh outburst from the corridor outside and Olga saw the doctor and the psychiatrist both arguing with the guards outside. She distinctly heard “enough” and “protest” over the barricading heads and shoulders of Bendall’s protectors and this time Zenin stood up and gestured the two men through. Badim flustered into the room, still protesting, and Olga snapped off the recording just before he got to “outrage.”

Zenin blocked the man just inside the door. “Shut up! We’ve stopped. He’s OK.”

“Stalin’s not in the Kremlin anymore, this isn’t a police state.”

“You want to prove that enlightened opinion, doctor, you just go on shouting and yelling and making too much noise. I’ll even give you your own choice of camp at Kolyma.”

The professional anger seeped from Badim like air from a punctured balloon. “This man is still officially in intensive care!”

Olga saw George Bendall’s eyes were shut, not twitching with feigned sleep. The man’s chest rose and fell, evenly.

“Which is precisely where I want him kept,” said Zenin, looking between the two hospital officials. “If anything goes wrong-if he dies under your intensive care-then neither of you will even get a choice of Kolyma camp. You hear me loud and clear?”

The small, stained-coated surgeon-administrator momentarily remained in eyeball to eyeball confrontation, his mouth and throat working with unspoken words. Finally, pitifully, he said, “You proud of what you do?”

“Hardly ever,” said the militia commander. “It’s something that has to be done.”

Zenin led the hurried pace to get out of the hospital, trailing Olga with him. Short-breathed she said, “I was almost there! I could have broken him!”

“‘The only person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall,’” Zenin quoted back at her. “You did brilliantly. But we pushed him. Keep him the right side of sanity, we’ll get the others. Push him over, we’ve got what you said he was, a chosen idiot. George Bendall isn’t important. I want the people who manipulated him. The conspirators.”

Minutes, thought Olga, infuriated, in just minutes Bendall wouldhave given them the lead. “The British are invoking their access agreement tomorrow. I want to see him again, before they do.”

“Good idea,” agreed Zenin. They were nearing the exit on to Gospital’naya Ulitza. “I am going back to the Kremlin. They’re waiting.”

“Yes?” she said, curiously.

“We need to talk more. Please wait for me, at headquarters.”

“Of course.”

“I meant what I said, Olga Ivanova. You did brilliantly.”

“I told the militia everything,” said Vladimir Sakov. “I told the Yanks to go to hell. Now I’m telling you. You want to be helped out, I’ll help you.”

A bravado-and vodka-fuelled bully, thought Charlie. But definitely able to fight, from the evidence of the television struggle with George Bendall that the world had watched. The NTV camera room was cluttered with equipment, discarded cups and food containers, cigarette debris and protective outdoor clothing.

Charlie said, “I’ve read what you told the militia.” It had occupied less than one page. The man had been jolted by Bendall, knocking the camera off focus, turned to yell at him and seen the rifle. He’d thought Bendall was going to shoot him and fought him for the gun. No one liked Bendall and Bendall didn’t like anyone in return. He tried not to work with the man.

“So fuck off!” Sakov was lounged in an ancient armchair leaking its stuffing into the rest of the mess, glass in hand, wearing only a sweat-stained singlet hanging over even dirtier jeans. There was a lot more of the crude tattooing along each arm than Charlie had seen on film and Charlie was sure he was right, although he didn’t put the Russian older than thirty-five, despite the near baldness.

He was probably gambling with his front teeth. But Charlie was in no mood to be told to fuck off. He’d ascended floor by floor the former Comecon skyscraper and two smaller towers blocks from which the second gunman could have got an elevated firing position before abandoning the chore to the recognized FBI group outside the fourth possible location. The pain from his feet had reached his knees and was climbing. “You’re not old enough.”

“What?” frowned the man.

“You’re not old enough to have been in a gulag. And those are gulag tattooes, aren’t they?” identified Charlie. “And if you had been you wouldn’t have got this job. Your workbook would have been marked.”

“Smart fucker.” The man lifted a clear, unlabeled bottle Charlie hadn’t seen from beside the chair and added to his glass.

It was the yellow of street-distilled potato vodka, harsher-and stronger-than that sold in shops. All part of the macho image. But the remark was less belligerent. And his teeth were still intact. Charlie said, “Father? Grandfather?”

The man shrugged. “Father.”

“Pretty dramatic testimonial,” said Charlie, in apparent admiration.

“He wasn’t guilty of anything. None of them were.”

Family suffering explained a hostility to authority or officialdom. Continuing the flattery Charlie said, “Still a brave-unusual-thing to do.”

Sakov shrugged, not speaking.

Having eased past the barrier Charlie didn’t want to lose the momentum. “Quite a difference from Georgi. He hated his father.”

“Bastard hated everyone.”

“Can’t imagine that worrying you.”

“It didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you like working with him then?”

“Morose fucker.”

“He drank.”

“Not properly with the rest of us.”

“Not with anyone?”

“Maybe.”

“He did have friends here, didn’t he?” chanced Charlie.

“Vasili Gregorevich, I suppose.” The man made a vague gesture, crossing himself.

A religious gesture? “Vasili Gregorevich who?”

“Isakov,” completed the Russian. “He was a good guy, never understood what it was with him and Gugin. No one did.”

Was, picked out Charlie. “What happened to Vasili Gregorevich?”

Sakov looked surprised at the question. “Dead.”

Charlie felt a stir of satisfaction. “Dead how?”

“An accident. His car got hit by a train on the level crossing near Timiryazev Park. That’s where he lived, near the park.”

Association with George Bendall seemed to bring with it a high mortality rate, reflected Charlie. “When was that?”

“A few months back. Four, five maybe.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Don’t know. Tried to race the train, that’s what they said.”

“Who said?”

“People here. Talk. You know.”

“What did Vasili do here?”

“Senior cameraman, like me. That’s what I am now-why I got the White House position-since Vasili Gregorevich died.”

“They were good friends?”

“Couldn’t understand it,” repeated Sakov. He lifted the bottle again. “You want a drink? Private stuff. Good.”

Charlie had never refused a drink in his life and wasn’t going to now, because it marked his acceptance, but he mentally apologized to his liver. The Russian poured almost three fingers into an already print-smeared tumbler, added yet again to his own and said, “To the witches being kindly ones.”

Charlie touched glasses to the traditional Russian toast, wishing the witches had been kinder when he was tramping pointlessly around the high rises. The liquid burned and went down his throat like a clenched fist. “They work together a lot, Vasili and Georgi?”

“Permanent team, most of the time.”

“Is that usual?”

“Suited everyone else.”

“Did they know each other, before Georgi started working here? I heard someone helped Georgi get a job? Vasili maybe?”

“That’s the story I heard. I never asked.”

Charlie wetted his lips with the drink. It stung. “There a favorite bar everyone drinks in around here?”

“Elena’s, on Tehnicskij.”

“Did Georgi and Vasili use it?”

Sakov took his time. “Sometimes.”

“They spent time together outside of work, then?”

“Seemed to.”

“What about Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

The Russian looked blankly at Charlie. “What?”

“His mother said Georgi used to do something every Tuesday and Thursday but she didn’t know what it was.”

Sakov shook his head. “Neither do I.”

“How’d it come about that Georgi was your gofer on the day of the shooting?”

“Rostered, I guess.”

“He didn’t ask for it particularly?”

“Not that I heard. You’re not drinking?”

Charlie brought the glass to his lips again. “You didn’t like working with him?”

“I already told you that.”

“Why didn’t you ask for a roster change?”

“It wasn’t that bad! He fetched and carried OK.”

“How many days ahead were the rosters fixed?”

“A week. This was regarded as a big job.”

“He brought the rifle up to the gantry in an equipment bag?”

“That’s what they say.”

“You decide what equipment you want?”

“Of course.”

“What was it supposed to be?”

“Spare tripod stand.”

“You didn’t check it?”

“I told you, he did the job OK. You told him what you wanted and he did it.”

“So that’s what happened? You told him what you needed and left him to get it ready?”

“Yes. Nothing wrong with that!” The belligerence was back.

“Nothing wrong at all,” agreed Charlie, quickly. “How many trips did he need, to get everything up?”

“Two. He took the camera and mount up first and put down a line to gather up the leads. Then went back for the rest of the stuff.”

“What about security checks?”

The man shook his head. “We had our identity discs, of course.But we arrived in an NTV van. The security people saw us: knew who we were.”

Charlie sighed. “He would have got the rifle up on the second trip?”

“Yes.”

“What did he have to do, when you were filming?”

“Keep out of my way until I asked for something.”

“Tell me what happened, from the time you heard the cavalcade was coming.”

“Got the warning from the scanner … from other cameras along the route … Picked the cars up as soon as they crossed the Kalininskij bridge on to Krasnopresnenskaja nabereznaja. Tracked them all the way to the White House. Refocused, for the tight shots, as they got out of the car. Saw the president go. The blood splashes. Then the fucker went into me. That’s when I saw the gun. He was bringing it towards me, I thought, so I grabbed at it …”

“I saw the fight,” broke in Charlie. “What did he say, when you were fighting. You were saying things, both of you? I saw you!”

“I don’t remember, not properly …” Sakov cupped a hand to each ear. “I still had the cans on at first, to the scanner. Then they got knocked off. We were swearing. Calling each other cunts. I think I said what the fuck was he doing and he said it was right. That he had to. He said he’d kill me, to get me out of the way. Tried to turn the gun. I couldn’t hear much when the helicopter came over, only to get away from him but I couldn’t. When I tried, he started to turn the gun.”

“How many shots did you hear?”

“None.” He cupped his hands to his ears again. “I told you I had earphones on, to the scanner.”

“Did you know Georgi was trained as a sniper, in the army?”

Sakov snorted, disbelievingly. “No.”

“Did he ever talk to you about himself … about the army … what he did in his spare time …?”

Sakov shook his head. “Didn’t even know his father was a spy until I read it in the papers.”

Bendall would have absorbed the language from the age of four, remembered Charlie. “What about politically. Did he talk about hatingthe new regime … the Americans … anything particular?”

“No.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

“Because he’s fucking mad … useless.”

Mad maybe, thought Charlie. But not useless.

“Is it a long way away?”

Not by Russian distances but Sasha would probably think it was. “Yes. A long way,” said Charlie.

“Do you have to go by aeroplane?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be gone a long time?”

“No more than two days.”

“Will you bring me back a present?”

“Sasha!” corrected Natalia, sharply.

“Maybe if you’re good,” said Charlie. There was a tightness about Natalia but they hadn’t had chance to talk yet. “And being good is going to bed.”

“It’s not time yet,” protested the child.

“It will be when you’ve finished your milk and cleaned your teeth.”

“Not fair,” pouted the girl.

“Bed,” insisted Charlie. “I’ll be back by the weekend. We’ll do something. You choose.”

“The circus!”

“The circus,” agreed Charlie.

Charlie had drinks ready-his Islay malt, her Volnay-when Natalia returned from Sasha’s bedroom.

She said, “You spoil her.”

“That’s what fathers are supposed to do.”

Natalia didn’t smile. “Don’t buy her anything expensive.”

“What would you like?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s tonight’s problem?”

Natalia’s disclosure of a presidential commission was hurried, disjointed, but Charlie let her talk herself out. “I’m being dragged in, deeper and deeper. We’ll be discovered, you and I,” she concluded.

Charlie regarded her for a moment in total bewilderment. “Natalia! It’s a commission into how-and why-things disappeared from old KGB archives! How can that extend to us! You cleared all the records of anything to do with us.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s not!” She could make monsters from every shadow; sometimes from no shadows at all.

“It’s a risk!” she persisted.

“It’s not.”

“I’m more in the middle-more the object of everyone’s attention-than we ever anticipated. I’ll be seen an an enemy of the KGB successors.”

“Nothing’s changed!” Charlie insisted. But it had, he thought.

“What have you been called back to London for?”

“People wanting to appear to be doing something. It’s called consultation.” He paused. “Do you wish it was for something more permanent?”

“No,” denied Natalia.

Charlie didn’t believe her. He’d been wise not to tell her that Anne Abbott was being recalled with him.

“I didn’t expect things to end like this,” said Olga. That wasn’t true. By the time they’d got to the brandy-French at his insistence-they’d both known they were going to sleep together. There hadn’t even been any conversation about it on their way to his apartment. What she hadn’t expected was the dinner invitation-of course impossible to refuse-or that he’d choose the Mercator, which really did have to be the best French restaurant in Moscow. Most unexpected-and pleasurable-of all was how good he’d been once they’d gone to bed.

“Sorry?”

“Of course not.” His body-and his performance-had been even more athletic that she’d fantasized about, looking down at him approaching the hospital earlier that day. She turned sideways, pleased that he’d kept the light on. “You?”

“Of course not. There’s something I haven’t told you, until now.”

“What?”

“I played your interrogation tape at the Kremlin.”

“To Okulov himself?”

“And Trishin. Their opinion was the same as mine, brilliant. But we decided we don’t want you to question Bendall again until after the British.”

“Why?”

“There might be something they’re holding back we can use to break him.”

“I can break him by myself.”

“We’ll do it this way,” said Zenin.

He hadn’t allowed her to take control in their lovemaking, either, but she hadn’t minded that as much as she did this.