The Run Around

Chapter Twenty

The London passport files are computerized so it took less than half a day for the response to Charlie’s query, an assurance that no British document had been issued to anyone in the name of Klaus Schmidt during the preceding two years. Another bet won, thought Charlie; pity he wasn’t as good with the bloody horses. It was still useful, though, giving him an excuse, albeit slim, to seek a further meeting with the other intelligence chiefs. He wouldn’t give them a reason, of course: just hint at some additional information to keep them curious until they were all in the same room. And there was also what he hoped to achieve from the meeting with the night clerk at the hotel off the Boulevard de la Tour.

The Bellevue was a hotel small enough to miss, lost in a long and continuous block with shops and offices extending either side, the entrance no bigger than that into an ordinary house. There were four steps up into a minute vestibule, where the reception desk fronted the door. A breakfast area was to the right, an alcove of round tables and toadstool-like chairs, with a bar to the left, zinc-topped and dwarfed by the espresso machine that provided the breakfast coffee, and incapable of accommodating more than two tables. The television had to be suspended from a supportive arm, high on the wall, to get it into the place at all. Well chosen, judged Charlie, expertly. Discreetly inconspicuous, a hotel without regulars, none of the staff knowing the guests or guests knowing the staff.

The night clerk was a bonily thin man named Pierre Lubin who tried his best by wearing a dark jacket with dark striped trousers carefully brushed to hide the shine of constant use. The collar was the hard, detachable sort that enabled a shirt to be worn more than once, provided the cuffs were properly reversed.

Lubin smiled in instant recognition when Charlie produced again the photograph and said: ‘Drugs, isn’t it? That’s what the other policeman said.’

Lubin was enjoying the attention, after a lifetime of being ignored, guessed Charlie. He said: ‘The investigation is international; that’s why I’m here from England.’

‘Important then?’

‘Very much so. I’d like you to help me all you can.’

‘Of course,’ offered the man, eagerly.

‘He said his name was Klaus Schmidt?’

‘Yes.’

‘German?’

‘Certainly not Swiss-Deutsch.’

‘Why are you so certain?’

‘I know the accent, of course; the difference.’

‘Definitely German, then?’

Lubin put his head to one side, doubtfully. ‘There was an accent,’ he said. ‘In his German, I mean. A blur in some of the words that I had not encountered before. But it was very precise: very grammatical.’

‘As if it were a learned, carefully studied language you mean? Not his first or natural tongue?’

‘I suppose so,’ said the clerk. ‘Until you mentioned it, I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘He signed a registration card?’

‘Yes.’

‘With an address?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Lubin. ‘The police took it.’

Another demand he could make upon Blom, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Tell me the system of registration?’

‘System?’

‘A guest has to complete a card?’ said Charlie, knowing how it was done from his booking into the Beau Rivage.

‘Yes,’ agreed the clerk.

Knowing the answer again from his own experience, Charlie said: ‘But isn’t it a requirement that the passport number is given and actually lodged, here at reception, at least overnight.’

Lubin trapped his lower lip between his teeth and visibly coloured. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘But you didn’t do that?’

‘No,’ said the man, in further admission.

‘Why not?’

‘It was late when he arrived,’ said Lubin. ‘He complained at having travelled a long way and to be in a hurry to get to his room. And it’s such a time-wasting regulation: I’ve always found it so pointless.’

Until now, the very moment it mattered, thought Charlie. There was nothing to be gained by openly criticizing Lubin. Charlie said: ‘Tell me about him. What he looked like.’

Lubin did so hesitantly, someone anxious to compensate for an acknowledged mistake, determined to leave nothing out. Charlie counted off the descriptive points against those he already knew, slotting one set perfectly into the other. This was the man, thought Charlie; he could smell it! Coming to the most important part of the interview, Charlie said: ‘I want you to take your time, don’t hurry. But tell me what he was carrying.’

Lubin sniggered a laugh, as if he found the question amusing. He said: ‘A suitcase, of course.’

‘Only a suitcase?’

‘Yes.’

‘No briefcase?’

‘No.’

‘A shoulder grip maybe?’

‘Nothing more than a suitcase.’

‘What sort?’

‘The type made from some solid plastic, to prevent any pressure on the clothes.’

‘What colour?’

‘Grey,’ said Lubin. ‘They always seem to be grey.’

‘How large?’

The night clerk extended his arms sideways and then held his right hand palm down, in a measuring gesture approximately four feet by three feet and said: ‘Something like that.’

‘Quite small then?’

‘Enough for maybe one suit, a change of shirt and underwear, perhaps,’ said the man. ‘That’s why I remembered his remark about going on to New York. I thought at the time he seemed to be travelling very light.’

Charlie smiled at the irony of the other man using the word. He said: ‘Who carried the bag to his room, that night when he booked in?’

‘I did,’ said Lubin.

Charlie sighed, relieved: maybe a break at last. He said: ‘How heavy was it?’

Lubin shrugged. ‘Just a suitcase.’

‘Heavy? The sort of weight you’d encountered a lot before? Or light?’ insisted Charlie.

Lubin considered the question, smiling again. ‘Actually,’ he recalled, ‘it was quite light.’

Charlie let go some more held breath. ‘And he didn’t object to you carrying it?’

‘He seemed to expect it,’ said Lubin.

Charlie said: ‘Tell me about his demeanour. How did he treat you?’

‘Treat me?’ Lubin appeared confused by the question.

‘Did you consider him polite?’

Once more Lubin did not react at once. Then he said: ‘He was very direct.’

‘Direct?’ echoed Charlie. ‘Would some people have considered his attitude rude?’

‘Possibly,’ agreed the clerk. Then, with longer reflection, he added: ‘Yes, I suppose he could have been considered rude.’

Already knowing the arrival time of the Swissair flight, Charlie said: ‘What time did he get here, the night he booked in?’

‘It’s difficult to remember accurately,’ qualified Lubin. ‘Nine-thirty, probably nearer to ten o’clock.’

Which would accord close enough with flight 837, Charlie decided. He said: ‘He complained of travelling a long way?’

‘Yes.’

‘But didn’t say from where?’

‘No.’

‘Did he look tired?’

‘Not really. I didn’t think so.’

‘Did he ask for any food?’

‘No.’

‘Is there a room bar?’

Lubin smiled apologetically. ‘The hotel isn’t quite of that standard.’

‘So did he ask for a drink?’

‘No.’

‘Just went directly to his room and stayed there?’

‘On both nights,’ confirmed the man.

‘What about a tip for carrying his bags?’

‘It’s odd that you should ask that,’ said Lubin.

Which was why I posed it, on the off-chance, thought Charlie. Encouragingly he said: ‘What was odd about the tip?’

‘He was very careful about it: gave me exactly fifteen per cent. Counted it out, coin for coin. People don’t often do that, not coin for coin.’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘They don’t, do they?’ Then he said: ‘Tell me, in as few words as possible, how he came across to you: the sort of man, I mean?’

There was a by now familiar pause for consideration. Eventually Lubin said. ‘Ready.’

‘Ready?’ queried Charlie, curious at the man’s expression.

‘Even in a hotel like this there is usually a kind of uncertainty you can detect in a person. They’re away from home, in a place they don’t know, a place they’re unsure of. So there’s an uncertainty. But with him there wasn’t. That’s what I mean by ready. He seemed quite confident: that he could cope with whatever difficulties he might come up against.’

‘He probably believes he can,’ said Charlie, distantly.

‘This drugs business,’ said Lubin, ‘is it very serious? Might it get in the newspapers even?’

‘It’s very serious,’ said Charlie. Again, a remark for his own benefit. He went on: ‘And it should get in the newspapers.’

‘Could I be a witness?’ asked the little clerk at once, his need obvious.

‘If it gets to any sort of case, I’ll see that you’re called,’ offered Charlie.

‘I’d like that,’ said Lubin. ‘Thank you.’

Charlie wrote his name and the 31-02-21 telephone number of the Beau-Rivage on a piece of Bellevue note-paper and said: ‘I want you to make me a promise. If he comes back I want you to call me at this number. Will you do that for me?’

‘Of course,’ undertook Lubin. ‘What about the Swiss authorities?’

‘Did they leave a number for you to call?’

‘No,’ said Lubin.

‘You tell me and I’ll tell them,’ said Charlie at once. For all the effort the Swiss appeared to be putting into this the bastard could be driving around the streets in a tank with a hammer and sickle on the side and playing the Moscow Top Ten on its tape deck.

‘Is he dangerous?’ demanded Lubin.

‘Very dangerous,’ warned Charlie. ‘If he comes back try as hard as you can to behave quite normally. And don’t call me from any of the phones here, which he might overhear. Use a public kiosk.’

‘It’s very exciting, isn’t it?’ said Lubin, enthusiastically. ‘Just like in the cinema.’

‘Just like that,’ agreed Charlie.

He used a kiosk himself to call the Beau-Rivage, to be told there were no messages, and then immediately redialled Brigadier Blom. There was a protracted delay, but finally the counter-intelligence chief came on to the line, the reluctance clearly obvious in his voice.

‘I think there’s the need for a meeting,’ said Charlie.

‘Of everyone?’ said Blom, gradually.

‘We’ve agreed to liaise completely, haven’t we?’ said Charlie, extending the encouraging carrot.

Blom bit straight into it. ‘How about three o’clock?’ he asked.

‘So there was something already arranged!’ seized Charlie. ‘I must have left the hotel ahead of your call.’

There was a moment of trapped silence from the other end of the line before Blom repeated: ‘Three o’clock,’ and rang off.

Deciding he deserved a small but personal celebration Charlie discovered a bar serving Glenfiddich, ordered a large one and loosened his shoelaces, aware as he did so that they’d soon succumbed to wear again and didn’t look half as posh as they’d been for the bank manager meeting. Which seemed a long time ago. The reference letters would have certainly arrived by now. What would Harkness have done? Almost a silly question, he decided. What about another one, with a more uncertain answer. Glass in hand, Charlie scuffed across to the wall-mounted bar telephone, managing a connection at once to David Levy at the Bristol.

‘Hi!’ greeted Charlie, cheerfully. ‘How’s it going?’

‘This an open line?’

‘I’m in a bar,’ confirmed Charlie.

‘Tried to reach you, about two hours ago,’ said Levy. ‘Didn’t bother with a message.’

‘Been out and about,’ said Charlie.

‘Anyone contacted you?’

‘No.’

‘There’s a meeting at three,’ disclosed Levy. ‘The American wants a daily get-together, whether there’s anything to report or not.’

It appeared at least as if the Israeli were playing honest injun, if that wasn’t too much of an ethnically mixed metaphor. And additionally that there was a lot of heat burning out of Washington. Charlie said: ‘I know. I’m going.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘I called our host.’

‘You weren’t intended to be at the party.’

‘I know just how Cinderella felt,’ said Charlie.

‘Have you got any presents?’

‘Maybe. How about you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘The others?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Could be a dull affair then,’ said Charlie. He’d finished his drink as he telephoned and he gestured for a refill on his way back to his table, where he sat in head-bent concentration, reflecting upon what he’d discovered. Bits, he decided: useful bits but not enough to tell him where to go, with the speed he considered necessary to get there. One positive avenue, at least. He hoped Blom hadn’t regarded that as lightly as the man appeared to be treating so much else and left it uncovered. What else? It certainly seemed Blom and Giles were determined to exclude him. Which was a bugger. But with Levy’s forewarning Charlie thought he could upset that in their laps: definitely cause them as much irritation as they were causing him, which was always important when people tried to piss him about. Charlie greatly admired the credo of America’s Kennedy dynasty, don’t get sore, get even. He usually managed it, although perhaps not on the scale of the Kennedys.

Charlie stopped after the third whisky and only took a half carafe of wine with a lunch of lamb and wild mountain mushrooms, congratulating himself when he left the cafe on remembering to get the all-important bill. He had quite a bunch, back at the hotel, in one of the hotel envelopes. Harkness was going to be pleased with him. No, thought Charlie, in immediate contradiction: Deputy Director Richard Harkness was never going to be pleased with him, not in a million years. Maybe he really did know how Cinderella felt.

For the first time he did not hurry to get to the chrome and glass building on the Rue Saint Victor. If he were going to be the uninvited guest then he was going to make a fittingly grand entrance. Which he did. The three other men were there and Brigadier Blom was actually moving impatiently around the room when Charlie entered.

‘Late again!’ he said. ‘Had to re-arrange a couple of things, to get here. Still, better late than never: that’s what I always say.’ He smiled around the table. Only Levy responded, an expression of curious amusement.

‘You said there was a reason for us to meet?’ said Blom, at once.

‘But this meeting had already been arranged, so what you have is probably more important than what I have,’ retreated Charlie, in apparent politeness. ‘After you.’

The redness started in Blom’s face. He looked awkwardly to Giles and said: ‘I believe you have some information?’

‘Negative, I am afraid,’ said the American. ‘Our immigration and FBI people tracked Klaus Schmidt down, in New York. He’s a banker: respectable as hell. Doesn’t even know the Bellevue Hotel.’

‘So Charlie was right?’ said Levy.

It was an unnecessary intrusion, goading, and Charlie wondered why the Israeli was trying to irritate the other two men. Charlie said: ‘And there’s no British passport in that name, either.’

‘A dead end?’ persisted Levy.

To Blom, Charlie said: ‘What about the address.’

‘Address?’ frowned the white-haired man.

‘The man who stayed at the Bellevue put an address on the registration card, which your people apparently took,’ said Charlie. ‘Might be interesting to find out what it was?’

Blom was very red now. He snatched out to one of the three telephones on his desk, gave clipped instructions and slammed the instrument down so hard that it jumped off the rest and he had to put it back on a second time, more gently, further angering himself. He said: ‘So what is it that you’ve discovered!’

‘I thought you should know about there not being any Klaus Schmidt passport,’ said Charlie, refusing to be hurried.

‘Is that all!’

Don’t come the high horse with me, sunshine, thought Charlie. He said: ‘The last time we met the supposed identification of Klaus Schmidt was being hailed as a breakthrough comparable with the discovery of penicillin! Now we’ve got two independent and guaranteed sources proving an attempt to lay a false trail.’

‘Providing, that is, that this whole episode isn’t one wild goose chase,’ fought back Blom.

‘It isn’t,’ insisted Charlie.

‘You got some additional proof?’ asked Giles.

‘I spent a long time with the clerk at the Bellevue,’ said Charlie. ‘The physical description he gives matches that of the man at Primrose Hill, in almost every respect. He further says that the man was direct: the airline staff considered him rude. He arrived at the Bellevue at exactly the time it would have taken him to travel in from the airport, after the arrival of flight 837-’

The jar of the telephone broke in, cutting Charlie off. Blom listened without question to what was said and then put the telephone down, hard again. For a moment he looked back at the three questioning faces and then he said: ‘It was an address in the Eaux Vives district of the city: the Rue de Mairie. A Mercedes salesroom. There is a space upon the registration form for a passport number: the one filled in has no relation to any Swiss-issued passport.’

‘Convinced now that you’ve got a Soviet illegal roaming somewhere in Geneva?’ demanded Charlie.

‘It would seem that something illegal is taking place.’

Didn’t this idiot know that with his head in the sand his arse was exposed? Charlie said: ‘The man at the Bellevue said he was tired, after a long journey. Yet he didn’t ask for anything to eat or drink.’

‘I don’t find that significant,’ dismissed Blom.

‘That night and the second he went directly to his room and stayed there,’ persisted Charlie.

‘There could be a dozen reasons for his doing that,’ argued Giles. He wasn’t as obviously resistant as Blom but he thought it necessary to avoid viewing everything as sinister.

‘How about hiding away as much as possible?’

‘One of the dozen,’ said the American.

‘He made mistakes, trying to appear Swiss-Deutsch,’ said Charlie. ‘The clerk was able from his accent to know immediately that he wasn’t, and also to discern in his German an accent with which he was not familiar. It was the speech of someone perfectly taught, in a classroom. And he didn’t know the coinage. He was very pedantic about counting out the fifteen per cent. Again, someone instructed but not accustomed to living in the West.’

‘Circumstantial again,’ said Blom. ‘All of it.’

Charlie sighed, talking directly to Levy. He said: ‘He carried a small suitcase, that was all. He expected the clerk to carry it to his room for him. And it was very light.’

The Israeli came slightly forward in his seat, smiling again. ‘Really!’ said Levy. ‘That’s interesting.’

Charlie looked expectantly at the American. Giles said: ‘Could be a lot of other explanations, apart from the obvious.’

‘Perhaps someone would like to explain the significance to me,’ complained the Swiss.

‘It means at that time, six days ago, he didn’t have a weapon,’ insisted Charlie. ‘No professional would risk carrying anything on an aircraft, because the electronic security checks are too good. He hadn’t picked it up directly after his arrival, either. The time he got to the hotel fits with the distance from the airport but it doesn’t allow for any detour. But the most positive evidence of all is that he let the clerk carry the case, a case so light that the clerk remembered it. Guns are heavy, noticeably so. No professional would have let the man anywhere near it, if he’d already made a collection.’

‘Diplomatic pouch?’ guessed Levy, more in private conversation with Charlie than in general discussion.

‘It’s the safest against interception, until the moment of hand over,’ agreed Charlie.

‘And then it’s noticeably bulky,’ said Levy.

To the Swiss counter-intelligence chief Charlie said: ‘You maintain Watchers on the Soviet embassy, of course?’

For a moment Blom appeared reluctant to concede a piece of routine trade-craft. Then he said: ‘Of course.’

‘Did you increase the cover, after the alert?’

‘The alert, such as it is, meant that my personnel was stretched,’ complained Blom, imagining criticism.

I offered manpower help,’ reminded Giles.

‘So you didn’t increase!’ demanded Charlie, exasperated.

‘The people deputed to cover the embassy are trained, experienced men who knew how to react,’ said Blom, defensively.

‘Like the trained, experienced men who hadn’t checked the phoney address as a car salesroom until you told them to!’ accused Charlie.

‘Nothing unusual has been reported from the embassy as of midnight last night,’ assured Blom, with pedantic formality.

‘That’s precisely what I’m frightened of,’ said Charlie. ‘That it hasn’t been reported.’

‘Was any special instruction issued after the alert?’ demanded Giles.

‘The men on such specialized duty do not need reminding what that duty is,’ said Blom, still stiff.

‘The Watcher in England had been specially warned,’ reminded Charlie, in sad resignation. ‘And he knew he was sitting right on top of a drop. By the time he was aware of what was happening, it was almost all over.’

‘Perhaps there should have been additional instruction,’ conceded Blom, finally. Throughout his operational life he had been accustomed to the neutrality of Switzerland rarely being challenged — never having had to confront the sort of terrorism and violence that these men appeared to accept almost as a normal part of their day-to-day operational lives — and he was frightened of the speed with which they thought ahead of him because of that experience and the assumptions they seemed so quickly able to make, and most concerned of all at their attitude towards him, which appeared to be increasingly hostile even from the American, whom he had seen as an ally.

‘These reports you talk of?’ questioned Charlie. ‘They’re logs, aren’t they? Recorded entries and departures, against times. With anything unusual isolated?’

‘Yes,’ said Blom.

‘I’d like to see them,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d like access to every twenty-four hour period, from the thirteenth.’

Blom opened his mouth to protest, but before he could speak Levy said: ‘I would like to examine them, as well.’ And the American said: ‘Me too.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Blom. ‘I hope you’ll find it a vindication of my people.’

‘I hope so, too,’ said Giles.

‘I think it would also be a good idea if we had a daily meeting,’ said Charlie, innocently. ‘Say here, at three o’clock every afternoon? To exchange information and ideas, stuff like that.’

Blom looked between Giles and Levy, trying to guess the traitor.

‘I think it would be a good idea as well,’ supported Giles. Damn Langley and their living-in-the-past vindictiveness and hands-off edict against the Englishman. The American decided he couldn’t give a damn how or why the scruffy bastard had screwed the Agency. He meant the promises he’d made in the letter to Barbara, but that didn’t mean neglecting his career. And his career was very much tied up at the moment with whether or not Clayton Anderson left in a blaze of international glory; and that was the only sort of blaze with which Giles intended to be connected. Charlie Muffin was calling too many shots ahead of the rest of them to be ignored. The man had to be brought aboard, not cast adrift.

So the traitor had been Giles, Blom recognized. He would have imagined the Israeli the more likely suspect. He said: ‘If that is the wish of you all.’

‘I think it’s got merit,’ said Levy.

Charlie looked at the Israeli, trying without success to gauge from the expression on the man’s face what he was thinking. Trying to make it easier for the cornered Blom, Charlie said: ‘We’ve not got a lot of time, after all.’

‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ said Blom.

Never one to let an advantage go, even from a cliche, Charlie said: ‘So we can see those logs right away then?’

There were two Searchers, the senior supervisor a balding, paunchy old-timer named Sam Donnelly, the younger a new entrant still with six months to complete before final graduation. His name was Peter Ball. He was a small, terrier-like man, eager to the point of arrogance, disdainful of advice for the same reason. It was Ball who picked the lock of Charlie’s flat, hot with irritation that the instructing Donnelly was able to isolate the barely visible scratch the wire had made against the Yale edge, halfway down. Ball considered it absurd even to imagine Charlie Muffin would be able to know from it that his apartment had been turned over.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Ball, who always smelled of strong cologne. ‘This is like one of those medieval places where people lived with their animals!’

‘Looks like it could do with a dusting,’ agreed Donnelly, mildly. As the younger man moved forward from the threshold his foot disturbed a letter among the pile that had built up upon the doormat during Charlie’s absence and Donnelly said sharply: ‘Careful, you careless bugger!’

Ball stopped, just beyond the accumulated mail, and said: ‘What the hell’s wrong now!’

‘Stay there!’ ordered Donnelly. ‘Don’t move for a minute. Just listen. This place looks a shithole and maybe it is but this is going to be the best exercise you’ve been on, from the moment you started to try to learn your trade. An expert lives here, someone who’s forgotten more than it’ll take you to memorize in twenty years. So don’t come your usual arrogant crap. Watch and listen and learn.’

Ball stood in front of the other man, face afire, unable to conceive the idea of another six months of the man. ‘So!’ he demanded.

‘So you’ve already missed something,’ said Donnelly. ‘Two things, in fact. You’ve failed, even before you’ve started.’

Ball swallowed, angry now at himself. Unable to think of anything else, he said: ‘What?’

‘What have we just come through?’ demanded the older man.

Ball sighed. ‘The door,’ he said, patiently.

‘From the outside?’

‘Yes.’ Ball’s tone was curious now.

‘What’s unusual about the inside?’

The younger man looked around for the first time, unable to find the answer. ‘There’s nothing unusual about it,’ he said.

‘Look again.’

‘I am looking, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Not hard enough,’ rebuked Donnelly. ‘Charlie Muffin is a senior officer in British external intelligence, someone who’s worked in security all his life. So where’s his security?’

‘No internal locks,’ realized Ball, at last.

‘No internal locks,’ accepted Donnelly. From inside his jacket he took out four rubber wedges of the sort they always put beneath the door of a burgled room to prevent their discovery if they feared the occupant might return but which both knew would not be necessary today, because of Charlie being in Switzerland. ‘Somewhere — probably in the kitchen — you’ll find a set of these, with which Charlie locks himself in at night. Because he knows like you and I know that the only way to open a door secured by these is to break it off at its hinges, by which time he would be ready. What else does it tell you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Ball, more humbled now.

That he’s not bothered about being burgled because there’s nothing here to take. Or more importantly, for us to find.’

‘You mean you aren’t going to bother!’

‘Of course I am going to bother,’ said Donnelly. ‘It’s years since I’ve had a challenge like this. I’m just pointing out the signs to you. And you still haven’t got the second one.’

‘What?’

Donnelly gestured downwards, towards the splayed letters. He said: ‘Which one did you kick?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘You should,’ said the Searcher. ‘Because one — maybe two — of them is a trap and at the moment you’re falling over the edge.’

‘What are you talking about now!’

‘Tell me the date that Charlie Muffin went to Switzerland … went incidentally without even coming back here?’ insisted Donnelly.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted the younger man.

‘You should know,’ lectured Donnelly. ‘It was in the report and it was important. It was the sixteenth.’

‘So?’

‘So get down on your hands and knees,’ ordered Donnelly. ‘The letter you disturbed, incidentally, was the envelope coloured red, the free soap powder offer. But don’t touch that yet. Memorize how every letter is displayed on that mat. And then, one by one, lift it. We’re going to read and photograph every piece that’s there and having examined it all we’re going to put it back precisely as it was. You understand that?’

‘We were always going to do that,’ said Ball. ‘What’s so important about the sixteenth?’

‘The postmark,’ said Donnelly. ‘The first thing you do is study the postmark and not just for the point of despatch. You look for the date. Allow three days for any delay.’

‘I don’t understand!’

‘Anything there prior to the thirteenth will be the snares that Charlie has left,’ warned Donnelly. ‘A trained Searcher can go through mail without trace but if he finds it on the mat the assumption is always that it’s arrived after the occupant has left. So there’s no need to replace it as it supposedly fell. There’ll be at least three envelopes among that pile with dates before the thirteenth: they’re the ones that would tell him we’ve been here.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘You got ten pounds.’

‘Yes.’

‘Put it where your mouth is, against my twenty.’

There were in fact four. It took them an hour to go through, using the method in which a split piece of bamboo is slipped sideways inside the flap and the contents slowly wound up like a tiny blind, to be extracted without the flap being unsealed. As he handed over his twenty pounds Ball said: ‘Seems I’m not the only one who’s a bad gambler.’

The repeated demands from Charlie’s bookmaker were two of the uppermost letters. Donnelly said: ‘Three hundred quid isn’t the end of the world.’

‘It is if you haven’t got it,’ said Ball.

‘That’s all there is though,’ reminded the older man.

Ball straightened gratefully from his squatting position on the floor and said: ‘What now?’

‘Don’t relax,’ advised Donnelly. ‘What about that table, for example?’

It was in the centre of the room into which the front door directly led. Beyond it was the television set and pulled close was an easy chair, the seat sagging, the cushions indented from the last person to occupy it. The table had an obvious flap in its top, the lid to some space beneath, and on that flap was a glass serving as a vase for a single flower, a long-dead tulip that had shed its petals in a haphazard pattern around the base. The water in the glass was dark brown with prolonged use. There was a half-empty bottle of Islay malt, the top still off, and a small residue in the bottom of the type of glass handed out at service stations for buying a required amount of petrol. There were two plates. Upon one was a half-eaten piece of bread, beginning to mildew, and on the other the congealed remnants of a fried meal, rock-hard yellow of an egg yolk and the rind of some bacon. There was also something black and solid, which could have been the remains of some mushrooms. The knife and fork were left as they had been put down, discarded across the plate in a rough cross.

‘How on earth can someone live like this!’ exclaimed Ball.

‘You’d be a fool to think he does,’ warned Donnelly. ‘Look at the chair, for instance.’

‘What about it?’

‘There’s no way a human body could make the indentation in the seat as well as in the cushion like that, not at the same time,’ pointed out the Searcher. ‘It’s another trap. If you lifted the cushion, to see if anything were hidden beneath — which is what we’ve got to do, somehow — the indentation would be disturbed. Just as it would in the cushion, if you looked carelessly beneath that.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Ball, with doubtful acceptance. ‘It would, wouldn’t it?’

‘What about the flower?’

Ball sniggered a laugh. ‘Just a dead tulip.’

‘Nothing strike you as unusual about the petals?’

Ball took a long time, before finally shaking his head.

‘Count them,’ instructed Donnelly. ‘There are forty, including the five still actually attached to the stem, On your way to work tomorrow go into a florist’s and ask the name of the tulip with that many petals. It’s another trap, laddie. We’ve got to look to see what’s inside that table and again the temptation would be to imagine he would not know how the petals lay, having been away for some time. He’s put at least ten in specific, memorized spots.’

‘What else?’ said Ball, almost wearily.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Donnelly. ‘But when a person enters a room to find a discarded glass — particularly a glass like that, with just a little drop in the bottom — the instinctive reaction is to pick it up and smell it.’ From his inside pocket Donnelly took an expanding device, like a pair of scissors without any cutting edge, and put the jaws inside the glass, expanding them so he could lift it. ‘He’ll check, for fingerprints when he gets back,’ said Donnelly. ‘And see that?’ He pointed to a ring beneath. ‘It looks as if the glass made it but it’s another marker, to ensure it remains in the same position.’ He replaced the glass and extracted his lifting tool, offering it to the other man. ‘Try the whisky bottle and the cap,’ he suggested. ‘There’ll be rings beneath each.’

Ball did and there were.

‘Now the plate,’ ordered Donnelly. ‘Use the tool like pliers: it works. Be careful not to disturb the knife and fork, though.’

There was a ring beneath the plate and Ball said: ‘I suppose the knife and fork were particularly placed?’

‘Of course,’ said Donnelly. ‘The bed will be unmade, when we get to the bedroom. It’s much more difficult to search an unmade bed and leave it exactly as it was than it is to turn over one that’s neat and tidy. Watch the pillow indentations, too. And any discarded clothes: there’re sure to be some. Don’t think the pile of washing up in the kitchen sink is slovenliness, either. Or that what’s thrown in any of the bins or wastepaper baskets has actually been thrown. Be careful of any disarranged curtain or covering. Re-position any books precisely as you find them. Newspapers and magazines, too. And be careful about screws.’

‘Screws?’

‘We’ll need to look in the back of the television set and the radio: behind some cabinets and closets, probably,’ reminded the older man. ‘Don’t dare let the screwdriver slip, to score the screw head. And make sure when you re-fasten that the cross-mark on the screw head is left in the same position as it was when you undid it.’

‘Nobody’s that careful!’ protested Ball.

‘Just do as I say,’ ordered Donnelly.

The bed was unmade and there were clothes scattered on the floor, the sink was stacked with dirt-rimmed cups and glasses and plates and the dustbins and waste baskets were full. It took nine hours of uninterrupted searching and they were exhausted when they finished, despite which Donnelly insisted on a check of everything that had been disturbed, to ensure it had been undetectably replaced.

‘I can’t get over the books on the shelves!’ said Ball, as they drove away. ‘Goethe and Pushkin were in the original. And the Robert Frost were first editions! All that and then at least a year’s supply of Playboy!’

‘He’s a surprise a minute,’ agreed Donnelly.

‘You really think he’ll spot the entry scratch?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What about the rest of the search?’

‘There’s no way we’ll ever know, is there?’

‘I guess I owe you an apology.’

‘Forget it,’ dismissed Donnelly.

‘Where the hell did you learn so much!’ demanded the younger man, admiringly.

‘Charlie Muffin taught me,’ said Donnelly.

It was a full meeting of the committee, with Mikhail Lvov there as well as Berenkov and the KGB chairman.

‘A copy-book collection?’ demanded Lvov. The confident head of the assassination division regarded Zenin’s uninterrupted visit to the Bern embassy as a complete vindication of his insistence that the Run Around operation should be continued and was making absolutely sure that others more important in the Kremlin came to the same conclusion.

‘There was never any doubt about Zenin’s professionalism,’ said Berenkov. ‘The man is brilliant.’

‘Sufficiently brilliant to defeat two of the special groups of Watchers whom you sent to guard the embassy!’ said Lvov.

Kalenin and Berenkov viewed differently the open challenge. Berenkov hadn’t until that moment imagined the other man to be the clearly emerging internal threat that he was. Kalenin decided to sit back and let the dispute take its course: he was quite sure about his own ability to survive. He hoped Berenkov was up to it.

‘Brilliant,’ conceded Berenkov, cautiously. The better fighter was always careful at the beginning of a contest to study the footwork of his opponent.

‘On one side if not the other,’ said Lvov. ‘Little point, really, in bothering to send them at all. Certainly no purpose whatsoever in retaining them there, now that Zenin has made the pick-up.’

‘What are your views upon bringing them back, Comrade Berenkov?’ asked the KGB chairman, formally.

‘I think they should be kept there for a while longer,’ said Berenkov. He was curious at Lvov’s response.

‘But for what purpose!’ demanded the assassination chief. ‘They can take no active or useful part, any more. Not that they took an active or useful part before.’

A tendency for over-confidence, gauged Berenkov. He said: ‘Let’s just consider it insurance.’

‘Against what!’ demanded Lvov.

‘What one always insures against,’ replied Berenkov, ‘the unexpected disaster.’

‘There is going to be no unexpected disaster,’ said Lvov.

‘I hope not,’ said Kalenin.

‘Not in Switzerland at least,’ said Lvov, exceeding himself.

Neither Kalenin nor Berenkov responded, each busy with their own thoughts.