Comrade Charlie Page 4

  The second week was spent in Herefordshire, on a totally secure army base where Charlie lived in barracks and didn’t have a single drink and was disappointed that he didn’t feel any better than he normally did when he woke up in the mornings. Charlie was confident about the language examinations, both written and oral, and felt he’d done well in the three papers of political analysis he was set. He didn’t enjoy the medicals. He had to pee in a lot of bottles and had fingers jabbed up his bum and panted on treadmills and had enough blood drawn for a vampires’ Christmas party. His eyes and ears and nose and throat were peered and poked into and he was attached to machines that blipped and told doctors things from their jumping wavy lines. There were also psychiatric and psychological tests where in the past Charlie had mucked about, quite sure the examiners were dafter than he’d ever be, but now he remained serious and didn’t try to make jokes to risk offending them.

  Charlie felt quite sad in the middle of the third week when the assessment drew to a close and he realized that even being away from the same surroundings as Harkness was practically a holiday. It was an unsettling, sobering reflection because Charlie, who was always scrupulously honest with himself if rarely with anyone else, recognized at once that really was how he felt. Which meant Harkness was getting to him far more insidiously than he’d realized. And that had to stop, right away. He was buggered if he’d let the prick make his life that much of a misery.

  The final session was with someone with whom he’d concluded such visits before, a balding, heavily moustached man named Shearer. He was the Director of the spy school and Charlie was always curious why the man wore a white coat, as if he were a member of the medical section. The time before last they’d played a few games of chess together when all the tests of the day were over, and the man had even kept it on then. Perhaps Shearer didn’t like his role and felt the protective clothing prevented his becoming contaminated.

  ‘Quite a turn-up for the books in every subject this time,’ announced Shearer. ‘You’ve excelled yourself.’ He’d cut himself that morning shaving and it had stained the collar of his check shirt.

  Although he was sure he’d done well it was still good to hear it for a fact. Charlie said: ‘You know me: always try my best.’

  ‘I do know you, so cut the bullshit,’ stopped Shearer. ‘You usually treat all this as a great big joke. Why the sudden seriousness?’

  ‘I’ve always passed,’ insisted Charlie.

  ‘Because you don’t find it as difficult as most because you’re a born cheat and a liar and that’s what good intelligence officers mostly are, born cheats and liars,’ said the Director. ‘And that’s not an answer to my question. I asked why the sudden seriousness?’

  ‘No reason,’ avoided Charlie. Was he a cheat and a liar? Only when he had to be: circumstances forced it on him, more often than not.

  ‘Worried about lasting to collect your pension,’ demanded Shearer with unknowing prescience.

  Not the pension, conceded Charlie, honest again with himself. It was the other bit: the staying on. It was, he supposed, all part of the loneliness. He filled his spare time well enough, at the Festival Hall and the Old Vic and the Barbican. And he went to movies and he read books. But filled was the operative word. There was almost a conscious anxiety completely to occupy one off-duty period until he could go the next morning to Westminster Bridge Road. Charlie thought he was like a pit pony that had spent all its life down an old-fashioned coal mine until it went blind and couldn’t find its way around in any other environment: all he’d ever known, all his working life, was espionage. He wouldn’t know what to do without it. Stirring himself to reply, Charlie said: ‘Never thought of what I do as a pensionable occupation.’

  Shearer moved through the papers assembled on the desk before him and Charlie wondered if he were genuinely reading them or doing it for effect. The Director looked up abruptly and said: ‘One of the blood tests is good for measuring residual alcohol content. You know that?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Charlie uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re a good friend to the whisky distillers.’

  ‘I take a drink or two sometimes,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You take more than a drink or two a lot of the time,’ disputed the man responsible for presenting the final report upon him. ‘You think it’s a problem for you?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Charlie, as forcefully as possible. Harkness was a teetotaller: it was the sort of thing he would seize upon. Medical progress was a bloody nuisance.

  ‘Why so sure?’

  ‘Drunks get swept up. Caught. I haven’t been swept up. I won’t be.’

  ‘It’s only got to happen once.’

  ‘It won’t,’ insisted Charlie.

  ‘Liver shows no fatty tissue, which it would if the body regarded the intake as excessive,’ mused Shearer. ‘In fact, considering how you abuse yourself, you’re remarkably fit.’

  Something else that was good to know: when he was a kid the teachers said abusing yourself when they meant masturbation. Charlie decided against trying to make a joke of it. ‘I feel fine,’ he said.

  Shearer half raised himself from his chair, so he could look unnecessarily over his desk, then sat down again. ‘Still scuffing about in those preposterous shoes?’

  Charlie gazed down at the Hush Puppies that had expanded and shaped themselves to his feet over months of wear. He wished he hadn’t had to thread new laces: it made them look odd. He guessed it wouldn’t take long for them to age in. He said: ‘Got bad feet.’

  ‘You’ve got flat feet, with a slight bone deformity in the left one, so slight it required an X-ray to show it up,’ corrected Shearer. ‘What you need are the opposite to what you’re wearing. You need proper leather, built up to create a support.’

  ‘Tried it,’ said Charlie, ‘didn’t work.’

  ‘Surveillance people commented about them,’ disclosed Shearer. ‘About the ramshackle way you dressed: said rather than making you fade into the background it marked you out.’

  Charlie became immediately attentive. ‘If that’s so, if I make it so easy, how come they lost me as completely as they did?’ he demanded. He wasn’t having the disgruntled bastards score off him like that.

  ‘Touché!’ acknowledged Shearer.

  ‘And I was able to describe how every one of the people tracking me was dressed!’ reminded Charlie.

  ‘It’s all here,’ accepted Shearer, patting the files. ‘No one is saying you didn’t do well. I already told you that.’

  Charlie recognized, discomfited, that there had been a petulance in his voice, and hoped the other man hadn’t discerned it. He said: ‘Now all I’ve got to do is maintain the standard.’

  ‘Things OK between you and Harkness, now he’s acting Director General?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they be?’ sidestepped Charlie. He’d forgotten how complete the knowledge of the assessors, and particularly the spy school Director, had to be. If one of these people defected the rest of them might as well shut up shop and go home.

  ‘Don’t answer my question with another question,’ rebuked Shearer sharply.

  The whole bloody lot of them were a bunch of schoolmasters, thought Charlie. He said: ‘There’s an adequate working relationship.’

  Shearer nodded, as if he understood more than Charlie had said. ‘He’s requested an assessment be marked for him personally, as well as one going through the normal channels.’

  Charlie stared steadily across the desk at the Director. Not a fussy schoolmaster, he corrected. Why was Shearer telling him? A private Charlie Muffin rule: Never stop anyone being indiscreet if that’s the way the mood takes them. He said: ‘That all?’

  ‘He’s asked for your case history file, as well.’

  The same case history file the prat couldn’t get out of the computer. Which had to mean it was still being denied the man. Why was Shearer telling him? Did Harkness want him to know, to be unsettled by the interest? Charlie said: ‘Such a file is in
Records, at Westminster Bridge Road.’

  ‘I know,’ said Shearer. ‘There’s a procedure for my making it available but because of the medical details it contains there’s a requirement that the subject’s permission be obtained.’

  Thank you Lord for doctors’ confidentiality and Whitehall bureaucracy, thought Charlie: much more of this and he’d have to start observing the regulations himself. He said: ‘The requirement specifically governing this place?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Shearer.

  So it wouldn’t have been in the Westminster Bridge Road rule book, so Harkness wouldn’t know it! Got you again, shithead, decided Charlie. He said: ‘So I could refuse?’

  ‘You have the right,’ agreed the Director.

  ‘And Harkness would have to be told I’d refused?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So what did the file contain? His illegitimacy, but Charlie didn’t give a sod about anyone knowing that, any more than his mum had: he’d done very well as a kid from all those uncles passing briefly through the house. School records and the fact that he didn’t go to university, which Harkness might regard as indicative of some failing or other but something else Charlie couldn’t give a stuff about. Probably the details of that petrol sale episode during his army service in the fuel supply depot. But the investigation had been inconclusive. And there hadn’t been a formal charge so there was no ammunition there and it was far too long ago anyway. The case histories themselves, every assignment upon which he’d worked. No problem there. Harkness knew, because that was how the man had come to be appointed, how he screwed the previous Director and deputy Director for trying to sacrifice him: he’d been forgiven and re-admitted to the department so there was no mileage for Harkness in stirring those longdead embers. Charlie said: ‘What about the reverse? What if I give my permission now? Would Harkness be told?’

  Shearer shrugged. ‘It’s not essential: we’d just supply the information, as requested.’

  ‘But you could,’ stressed Charlie. ‘I mean you could, as required by regulations, attach some sort of notification that I’d approved the release of the details? So that he’d know?’

  Shearer looked down at his disordered desk so Charlie was not able to see if the man were smiling. The Director was certainly serious-faced when he looked up again. ‘I could do that,’ the man agreed.

  ‘I don’t see any reason whatsoever why I should object,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You think the changes apparently going on in Russia are important?’ asked Shearer abruptly.

  ‘That’s what I said in one of the political papers,’ reminded Charlie. ‘It’s quite a second revolution.’

  ‘I mean at our level,’ elaborated the school’s Director. ‘You imagine any real difference affecting us and what we do?’

  ‘Not for a considerable time,’ judged Charlie. ‘The most compelling reason for the Soviet change of course is that their economy is up the spout. They’re practically skint. To become anywhere near efficient they need Western technology and they can’t afford to buy it. So they’ll steal it. Or try to. Which means that the KGB remains as important as it ever was.’

  ‘That’s what I think,’ said Shearer. ‘I’m glad you believe that, too.’

  ‘Glad?’ queried Charlie, guessing there had been a purpose to the exchange he hadn’t yet discerned.

  ‘They’re the people we should be watching out for: regarding as the opposition,’ said Shearer. ‘There shouldn’t be constant in-fighting, within our own service.’

  Charlie realized at last why Shearer had shown the confiding friendliness. He said: ‘You will see my agreement to the acting Director General’s request is included, won’t you?’

  ‘Good luck, whatever’s going on,’ said the other man.

  Henry Blackstone considered he had a good life – a bloody good life – apart from that one major problem. Money. He’d been trying to think of something for a while now but hadn’t managed to come up with anything. Thank Christ the horses were running good for him. Bloody silly to imagine that he could rely on the luck lasting, though. He needed desperately to come up with something permanent. If he could, then things would be perfect. He had a job he enjoyed in a part of the country where he liked living, and a loving and gentle wife in Ann. And in Ruth, too. Not so gentle, so placid, maybe, but just as loving. He was a fortunate man.

  Apart from the money Blackstone had never had any trouble adjusting to bigamy, not from the very first day of taking a second wife in addition to the first. He loved Ann. And he loved Ruth. Equally and sincerely: well, as sincerely as he ever could.

  So, unable to choose, he’d married both, one within eight months of the other.

  Blackstone, who was a man of wide emotional swings, from overweening confidence to deep depressions to confidence again, truly believed his way of life made sense: this way everyone was happy. And they were happy. There were times – his superconfident times – when he’d even imagined they would all be able to live in complete harmony under the same roof, one big family. Not that he really thought of suggesting it, letting one know about the other. He knew he would be able to do it, but he wasn’t sure the women would be able to adjust as well. So why risk upsetting an arrangement that was already near perfect, apart from the money?

  Blackstone caught the first available car ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, the one he normally got after a weekend on the mainland with Ruth. It would get him to the factory early but that didn’t matter. There was an experimental flexible-hours scheme running at the moment, so he would be able to get home to Ann correspondingly early. He was missing her, after the long weekend.

  6

  The thought occurred to Emil Krogh at the start of the stockholders’ meeting that this was the moment for which he’d waited for years. They’d cleared with the Pentagon and with NASA what could publicly be said about the Star Wars contract, which was limited but still enough, and Peggy’s father claimed his presidential right to make the official announcement. Peggy was there, of course. And Joey and Peter, so the whole family heard the praise of Krogh’s negotiating skills and the prestige of the award to the company, all cleverly made by the old man with pauses for the applause which always came on schedule. Krogh sat modestly on the raised directors’ dais, head bent most of the time over the table. Coming of age time, he thought, warmed by the reception. He’d earned his appointment as chairman a dozen times, sticking the middle finger to all the snide boss’s son-in-law cracks. But this was the best: the multi-million government award that confirmed the company at the top of Washington’s approval list, guaranteeing jobs and profits for years. And they had to acknowledge it, these directors and top managers and passed-over executives: acknowledge it and applaud and smile and nod to each other and say things like ‘Christ, what a deal!’ and ‘I always knew he could do it’ and ‘What a guy to have as chairman!’

  Krogh caught Peggy’s eye when he looked up one time. She was flushed and smiling but her face was slightly broken up, as if she were going to cry. Pride, he knew. Like Joey and Peter were looking proudly at him, although not near tears. It was a fantastic feeling.

  He kept his own speech fittingly modest and got the loudest applause when he declared that year’s eight per cent dividend increase with the forecast that it would double if not go higher in the immediately succeeding years. A man named Freidham, whom Krogh knew to be one of his strongest critics, had to give the speech of congratulations, which was a particularly good moment.

  The national media had been invited, even international magazines like Time and Newsweek and the television majors like CBS and NBC and ABC, so a press conference was convened. His father-in-law was a bad performer in front of cameras and lights so Krogh led here, carefully remaining within the Washington-imposed limits but going along with self-answering questions like ‘new American era in space’ and ‘nothing like it since Kennedy said reach for the stars’.

  The stockholders’ meeting had been held in one of the confe
rence rooms at the Fairmont and a private room reserved for the celebration lunch afterwards. Peggy sat next to him and whispered how marvellous it all was and there were toasts in imported champagne. Krogh let himself relax but remained sober because he had an insecure person’s fear of ever losing control. He played his own private, little kid’s game by constantly smiling at Freidham and his coterie, so that they had to smile back as if they admired him.

  Krogh announced that he intended going back to the plant, which gave him an hour for Barbara to prove how grateful she was for the new car, blue again, and Peter agreed to drive his mother home to the Monterey estate. Krogh promised to get back early for the family dinner that Peggy wanted to give him with both sons and daughters-in-law and the grandchildren, as well.

  He stood in the looped forecourt of the hotel, gesturing them off ahead of him, and was turning to call for his own limousine when he became conscious of someone close beside him.

  ‘Mr Krogh?’ said a voice politely.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder if I might talk with you?’

  One of the journalists, Krogh guessed: a patient guy who’d hung around all this time to try to improve upon his story. ‘Sure,’ said Krogh, staying modest. ‘What about?’

  ‘Cindy,’ said Alexandr Petrin. ‘And Barbara.’

  Petrin insisted they sit in the huge lobby, a cavern of a place, full of people some of whom recognized him from all the fuss of the morning and smiled and Krogh had to smile back and try to appear unconcerned when what he really wanted to do was throw up and maybe the other thing or even both. Not that there would have been anything there because a huge hand had reached in and scooped out his guts so all that was left was a numb emptiness. He wanted a drink, just liquid, not necessarily booze, but he didn’t think he could get anything here in the lobby: he was too frightened to try, anyway.