See Charlie Run

Chapter Twenty-Five

Irena drew her feet up, creating a more positive barrier, the bedclothes still protective, staring at him but not saying anything, and Charlie refused to prompt with a positive question, just staring back. The hotel sighed and breathed around them, but in the room there was a silence noisy between them.

After a long time, Charlie said: ‘Well?’

‘I don’t know what you mean … what you want.’

‘Look at the hotel bills,’ said Charlie, pointing to where they lay, between them.

To pick them up Irena had to reach over the clothing and from the straps Charlie saw she still wore her bra. The woman made as if to study them but Charlie knew it wasn’t necessary for her. He didn’t know enough to ask probing questions, although he was giving the impression he did; the leads had to come from her. He said: ‘That really wasn’t very clever, was it? Careless, in fact.’

‘I still don’t know what you mean … what I’m supposed to have done wrong.’

‘Look again,’ urged Charlie, trying sarcasm. ‘It’s marked with a T, on both accounts. Stands for telephone. The second symbol — still on both accounts — indicates long distance. You’re supposed to be running, Irena: hiding were no one can find you. And all the time you’re making long-distance telephone calls …’ Charlie stopped, intentionally. He — or perhaps the British service — was being set up but he couldn’t work out how, so she had to provide the way to let him understand.

She smiled, an obviously open expression, and it surprised him although Charlie didn’t think it showed. She said: ‘Is that all?’

‘You tell me,’ persisted Charlie. Come on, come on!

‘It was all part of the caution,’ she said. ‘The way Yuri devised to stop anyone tricking us. You. Or the Americans.’

‘Yuri!’ exclaimed Charlie. He had the impression of a very small corner of a very dark curtain being lifted. But not enough.

‘You know how careful Yuri was: how he always knew the Americans would try to cheat; you, too, if you could.’ The woman sat now with her arms comfortably wrapped around her knees, relaxed. ‘He never planned to go across, not at the same time as me. Always he was going to wait, until he knew I was safe … that way he could have forced the Americans to release me: keep to the bargain …’ The smile came again, rehearsed, like the words sounded. ‘He loves me, you see …’

Charlie sat absolutely unmoving, needing to consider it all, analyse it properly: he would have liked hours — days — but he knew he didn’t have either, just a few minutes to think it through and get it right, after so long. And he had been right, that first day in the Director’s office, when he’d said it didn’t make sense: right, too, in the continuous feeling of uncertainty. Which was still there. Bits of the puzzle were beginning to fit together but there were still some pieces missing. The biggest piece was why? Charlie remembered a man named Sampson who called him sir and Harry Lu without an eye and wanted to shout and make demands from the woman but instead, rigidly controlled, he actually managed to smile back at her, encouraging, and said: ‘Tell me about it, Irena. Tell me how it worked.’

‘Very simply,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t liaise through the embassy, of course. Too dangerous. So he took an apartment, a safe house. The telephone there …’ She stopped, nodding towards the hotel accounts with the long-distance calls. ‘That was the contact point …’

Charlie didn’t want to interrupt the flow, but he needed to get the sequence right so he risked it. He said: ‘The day we first met, on the bus: when the Americans were following? You spoke to Yuri then?’

She nodded: ‘That was the arrangement: I’ve just told you.’

‘Where from, that day?’

‘The airport. Osaka.’

Charlie remembered something else from the tourist bus ride. He said: ‘A military plane!’

‘What?’

‘That same day on the bus: when I told you about Osaka you said you thought we’d go out from Tokyo and then you said “A military plane”. Why? Why specifically a military and not a commercial plane?’

For a moment Irena looked uncertain and then she shrugged and said: ‘We had a source, at the airport. We knew about your people coming in. The Americans, too.’

‘When?’ demanded Charlie. ‘When did you know?’

‘The night before.’

The idea came to Charlie and it irritated him because it was stupid and so he dismissed it. Trying to make the question seem as casual as it could be, in the circumstances, Charlie said: ‘How was Yuri, when you spoke to him that time? From Osaka?’

Irena shrugged and said: ‘He was …’ And then she stopped, both the gesture and the sentence.

‘Was what?’ pressed Charlie.

‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘Was what?’ repeated Charlie.

‘I thought he sounded strange; asked him about it. He said there was nothing wrong but perhaps he was nervous,’ remembered the woman.

‘He didn’t say anything about the plane blowing up?’

‘Not then?’

‘When?’

‘Hong Kong,’ said Irena. ‘Harry took me to the Mandarin when the plane wasn’t there and I called …’ She felt out, touching the hotel bill. ‘And Yuri told me what had happened …’ She paused and said: ‘I’ve told you about the bills now. Is this really necessary?’

Instead of answering, Charlie said, angrily: ‘And I missed it!’

‘Missed what?’

‘When I got to the Mandarin you asked a lot of questions, but you kept on about blowing the plane up,’ reminded Charlie. ‘And I already knew Harry hadn’t told you, because I asked him. And I hadn’t, either. Shit!’ Would Harry still be alive, if he’d been more alert? Maybe, like his wife would still be alive if he’d been more alert, all those years ago.

‘Does it matter?’

Charlie opened his mouth to reply but managed to halt the anger once more. Instead he said: ‘Go on. Tell me what Yuri said, when you spoke to him from Hong Kong?’

‘That the destruction of the plane showed how necessary it was, to maintain the arrangement … that it showed what the Americans were prepared to do …’

‘Moving!’ interrupted Charlie again. ‘You knew we were moving on because Harry had already told you. Did you tell Yuri?’

‘Of course,’ said Irena, grimacing as if it were another unnecessary question.

‘What did he say to that?’

‘That we had to go on being careful … that he would go on refusing to make any contact with the Americans until he knew I was safe …’ Irena stopped again and said, in head-lowered recollection: ‘And he called me darling.’

Was the earlier idea so stupid, wondered Charlie. Maybe, but then maybe not. It was still something difficult to believe. He said: ‘How was he going to know that: that you were safe?’

‘The same way.’

‘You were to keep telling him where you were?’

She nodded and then said: ‘The last time from the airport.’

‘So you called from the Hyatt?’

She gave another smile and said: ‘There it is, on the bill.’

Poor birch, thought Charlie: poor, stupid bitch, hearing what she wanted to hear, believing what she wanted to believe. He suddenly remembered the momentary brightness, just before they went out to eat, when she might have imagined she was to be left alone; and then the absurd modesty of getting into bed that night, which he didn’t think now had been modesty at all. He said: ‘What about from here! Have you called to tell him you’re here!’

‘I haven’t been able to, have I?’

Charlie covered the sigh of relief, convinced he was right but recognizing at the same time it was all surmise. Unless there were something more she still hadn’t told him. ‘How many calls?’

She blinked at the demand. ‘I don’t …’

‘From the time you met me, how many calls, to Yuri in Tokyo!’ insisted Charlie.

Irena hesitated, head bent again as she enumerated in her mind. ‘Osaka …’ she said, slowly. Then, gathering conviction: ‘The Mandarin …’ She looked up, satisfied. ‘And from Macao …’

‘Three!’ persisted Charlie. ‘Only three!’

‘Yes!’ she said, her demand matching his. ‘I’ve told you all there is! I want to go to sleep now: I’m tired.’

‘No!’ refused Charlie.

‘What do you mean, no?’

‘You don’t believe it, do you, Irena? Not after what happened today?’

‘You’re not making sense.’

‘A lot hasn’t, until now,’ said Charlie. Bringing in the recall again — the recall upon which he’d always relied so heavily but which this time had failed, too often — Charlie quoted: ‘“It’s got to be the Americans, hasn’t it?”’

She looked steadily at him, pretending not to remember, refusing to speak.

Relentlessly Charlie went on: ‘Your words, Irena. Today. But it hasn’t got to be the Americans, has it? We know — both know — what the Americans want; you, alive. Not in the wreckage of an aircraft or dead against the wall of a church that no longer exists. That’s what doesn’t make sense — never has — their trying to kill you.’

‘You told me they blew up the plane!’ she fought back.

‘It seemed the only logical conclusion, then,’ admitted Charlie. ‘It doesn’t now, not any longer.’

‘Who then!’

‘You tell me,’ said Charlie. ‘Who else but the Americans?’

‘You’re talking nonsense!’

‘What exactly am I saying that’s nonsense?’ said Charlie.

She shook her head, eyes downcast again.

‘What exactly am I saying that’s nonsense, Irena?’

Still she refused to speak.

‘Today was a professional attempt,’ continued Charlie. ‘Special gun: we both know that. Like we both know that Harry wasn’t the real target: that you were. Who’s the professional trying to kill you, Irena?’

The woman came up, in furious anger. ‘Not Yuri!’ she screamed, and Charlie was glad it was the sort of hotel it was. ‘He loves me,’ Irena raged on. ‘I keep telling you that …’ Her mind snagged on another thought, one she snatched at. More quietly, reasoning with an unarguable point, she said: ‘And it couldn’t have been Yuri, could it? How could he be in Tokyo, talking to me, and be in Macao, as well?’

Charlie didn’t know but wished he did. He was sure he wasn’t wrong, not any longer. He said: ‘If it had been the Americans, they would have grabbed you, wouldn’t they!’

Refusing the logic of one question, Irena clung to the irrefutable logic of her own, a drowning person saved by a passing raft. ‘So would the Russians! Today wasn’t the Russians and it wasn’t Yuri!’

‘Who then?’ said Charlie. It was like a race on a fairground carousel, one bolted-down horse never able to catch up with the bolted-down horse in front: and now the music and the ride were slowing because he couldn’t think of any more questions to ask or any different ways of phrasing those he’d already put to her.

‘I don’t know,’ said Irena, impatiently. ‘How could I know?’

‘You’re not sure, though, are you: you weren’t when you asked about it being the Americans this afternoon?’ It was a bad, repetitive point and it was obvious, to Charlie as he asked it and to Irena, who disdained it.

‘I’m tired,’ she said again, the defensive anger gone. ‘You know about the calls now: what they were for. I want to go to sleep.’

She actually moved, to go back beneath the covers. Not wanting to lose the momentum, Charlie thrust into the shoulder-bag, snatching out the photographs of Yuri Kozlov that had been sent to him from London and throwing them to her, on top of the hotel bills. He said: ‘He’s set you up … you know he has …!’

The insistence was no better than the previous question because it was an accusation Charlie couldn’t support, but the effect was different this time and it wasn’t from anything Charlie said. Irena was staring down at the prints, her throat working, and then she whimpered, a mewing sound without any shape at first but then it formed into a word — ‘No!’ — moaned over and over again. She let the photographs drop and the covers, too, sitting in front of him brassiered but huge-breasted, tears abruptly starting and then coursing down her face. She didn’t try to wipe them or her nose, either, when that began to run. Charlie saw she had a yellow pimple, about to pop, on her left shoulder.

Charlie didn’t know what to do, to discover what had caused the collapse. He got up from where he was and tried to pull the covers up for her, but sitting as she was it wasn’t possible without her holding them and she didn’t try, so they fell down again. Instead he picked up the photographs, searching for what he’d missed and to what she’d reacted, seeing nothing.

Charlie felt out, to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but then pulled back. He said: ‘Irena? What it is, Irena?’

Her voice was too choked for him to hear the word, at first, so he said again: ‘Irena. Tell me, Irena.’

Then he heard the word, although he didn’t immediately understand what it meant.

‘Her!’

He looked at the disordered photographs, but not at Kozlov, remembering something else, the first sight reflection about the woman in the background and then the later realization that it was not Irena.

‘Who is she, Irena?’

The woman sobbed on, not answering for a long time, and when she did speak it was still muffled, so Charlie had to bend closer.

‘Balan. Olga Balan.’

Charlie let her cry on, to take her own time, knowing it — what ever it was — was coming now, and he did reach out to her, edging on to the bed and putting his arm around her. Irena came to him, wanting the comfort, and there was another long period when she didn’t — couldn’t — speak. When she did, the words were halting and stumbled and Charlie had to strain forward, to make sense of what she said. Irena told him who Olga Balan was and about her reputation at the embassy and then, unprompted, she talked at first unintelligibly but later in a way that Charlie could comprehend of someone called Valentina who was or had been — he wasn’t sure — a choreographer at the Bolshoi with whom Yuri had had an affair and for whom he had asked her for a divorce, and of her refusal. And then why.

‘Don’t you think I know what I am!’ she said, coherent now but the sob still in her voice. ‘I know the size I am: that people look at me. And I know that I intimidate and I try not to, and then I realize it’s happening and that I haven’t noticed it and I try harder and it happens again. And I did try, with Yuri. I tried so hard! I stood in front of mirrors and I actually practised with my arms, how not to be overpowering: trying to appear smaller! Can you believe that! And I thought — attempted to think — before I said or did anything when we were alone, so that it didn’t seem that I was trying to dominate, which I know I do because I can’t help it …’ She looked down at herself, shrugging the clothes up to cover her breasts, and Charlie knew why when she said: ‘I did anything he asked … anything … even though some things I didn’t like … tried so hard. Always.’ She turned her head, to look up at Charlie. ‘You know why I said no, when he asked for a divorce? I knew he didn’t love me, before that: maybe never had … I was an easy way, for him to get into the service … always outranked him …’ Irena stopped, realizing she had gone away from her point. ‘Knew I couldn’t marry again, that’s why; that nobody would ask me. Didn’t want to be alone: so frightened, of being quite alone. Wanted so much to keep him … tried so hard … anything he wanted … he said it would be a new life, in the West … anything …’ She started to cry again and Charlie held her and thought poor bitch again, but this time with real pity.

‘How do you know she’s involved?’ he said. Despite the sympathy, he had to know everything.

‘I knew there was someone else, in London,’ insisted Irena. ‘I could tell; women can. Actually asked him. He said no: that he’d forgotten Valentina, too. And when Olga was posted to Tokyo and established the reputation I told you about, I asked him if he’d heard of her anywhere else and he said he hadn’t: that he’d never met her before, either …’ She sighed, a shuddering movement, and said: ‘She was part of it, of course … there were interviews and I know what she was doing now … all the questions of growing suspicion …’ Her voice gagged, with fresh emotion, and she couldn’t speak again for several moments. Then she said: ‘How they cheated me …! Made me perform like some animal, and all the time they were cheating me!’

There was still a lot Charlie didn’t understand: that perhaps she didn’t know either, so she wouldn’t be able to tell him. But there was enough. There were bridges to rebuild, with the Americans. Who didn’t have Yuri Kozlov and weren’t going to get him. And who still wanted Irena, like … like who? When he’d shouted at Irena that Kozlov had set her up, he’d done it to shock her into some reaction, without properly considering the words, but could that be what the man had really done, set out on some convoluted private scheme to get rid of a wife who had refused him a divorce? The other nonsense — what he now accepted as nonsense — of creating supposed separate crossings fitted the scenario, putting him and the Americans in squabbling rivalry, concentrating more upon their own interests than the defection itself. And what happened today fitted, too: it explained why there hadn’t been a squad of grab-back Russians at the Macao church. Except why hadn’t there been more than one shot, from that special gun? And who fired it anyway, if Yuri were still in Tokyo, maintaining the fragile link with … Charlie’s mind stopped at the reflection, looking down at the now quiet woman. There was still an occasional shoulder-juddering sob but she was more fully against his shoulder now, face turned into him, and Charlie thought she might have drifted into some sort of exhausted, uneven sleep.

‘Irena,’ he said, softly. ‘Irena.’

She stirred, looking up to him. Her eyes were very red. ‘What?’

‘The Tokyo number, at the apartment? Will Yuri be there, still?’

She made an uncertain movement. ‘I do not know. How could I?’

Vague thoughts — too vague and too disjointed to be called an idea — began to filter through Charlie’s mind. Intermingled with them was the Director’s remark about losing soldiers and the image of Harry Lu and a very positive realization that whether or not Yuri Kozlov had set his wife up, the man had certainly set him up, and Charlie disliked being made prick of this or any other month even more than he disliked trying to break in a new pair of Hush Puppies. He pulled the photographs towards him, gazing at the beautiful woman whom Irena had identified as the embassy’s KGB security officer, feeling sorry again for Irena slumped against him; it really was unfair competition. As the thoughts began to harden, Charlie decided he would need an example, to convince Yuri Kozlov. Olga Balan? She was obvious, but even more obvious was a better advantage that could be gained if she and Kozlov were working privately together.

‘Who’s the Rezident, in Tokyo?’ he asked Irena.

The woman came away from him again, not immediately answering. Then she said: ‘Why?’

‘There’s a reason, for wanting to know.’

‘Filiatov,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Boris Filiatov.’

‘Is there an arrangement, for contacting Yuri?’

‘It had to be evening, Tokyo time. During the day he had to be at the embassy, to avoid anyone becoming suspicious …’ Irena’s voice trailed. ‘That is what he said: I don’t know any more whether that was the truth …’

‘That much could have been,’ said Charlie. Initially, Charlie realized, he would be playing a poker hand with a lot of the cards face up. But then he realized he couldn’t lose — because he still had Irena — even if Yuri Kozlov called his bluff. Charlie — who’d financed his army National Service with a permanent poker game when he wasn’t organizing his Berlin black market in motor-pool petrol — didn’t just want to win a hand. He wanted the whole, over-bargained pot. And he was going to gamble like hell, to get it. Didn’t like to be a prick.

A sound came at the door and Charlie was momentarily as startled as Irena, forgetting Cartright’s promise to relieve him during the night. The other man came curiously into the room, frowning at Irena’s obvious distress and the dishevelled, littered bed and at Charlie, who realized for the first time that there was a large wet patch on the front of his shirt, where she’d cried against him.

‘It’s been Truth and Consequences time,’ said Charlie, obscurely. ‘I know a lot of the truth now …’

Irena came in, before he could finish. ‘And I know what the consequence is,’ she finished. And started to cry again.

Misunderstanding the cause of the woman’s distress, Cartright said: ‘I think I’ve come up with another way of getting out.’

All in all it was turning out to be a pretty productive night, thought Charlie.

Sir Alistair Wilson stumped into the office and Harkness knew at once how angry the Director was and thought that although it had taken long enough, it had finally happened. He remembered wondering — although not precisely when — how long Wilson’s loyalty would last, once Charlie Muffin was positively caught out. He’d never imagined — hoped — it was going to be quite so complete as this: despise the man as he did, Harkness had still believed Charlie Muffin possessed more native cunning than to make quite so many mistakes.

‘Bad?’ prompted the deputy.

‘Bloody awful,’ said Wilson. ‘A full session of the Intelligence Committee. Actually chaired by the Prime Minister. Foreign Secretary moaning about the issuing of passports and entry documents, Army Minister insisting upon an enquiry into the plane crash and Electronic Intelligence demanding what right we’ve got to use their facilities like a public telephone box. And I had to sit and take it because I know bugger all about what’s going on: not even if anything is going on.’

‘I warned you about the confounded man’s arrogance: the insubordination,’ reminded Harkness.

Wilson ignored the direct invitation. ‘Where is the bloody man!’ he said, getting up from his desk to find more comfort for the stiff leg.

‘I briefed Cartright very fully,’ said Harkness.

‘It had better be a good explanation!’ said Wilson. ‘It had better be the best explanation that Charlie Muffin has ever given, for anything he’s ever done in his awkward, bloody life.’