Comrade Charlie Read online

  ‘They’re nice girls,’ said Petrin conversationally. ‘Lucky, too. You’re very generous.’ He slid across the table between them a manila packet he took from his pocket.

  Krogh stared down at the envelope, making no attempt to pick it up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Photographs,’ identified Petrin. ‘Photographs of the sales contract in your name for the condo at Malibu and the apartment just over the hill here, in San Francisco. Copies, too, of the purchase agreements for the two VW cars and of the registration details, both in your name. Pictures of Cindy and Barbara, too. With the cars and with you. Quite a few of Barbara without clothes on, posing like she does. Fantastic tits, hasn’t she? And the charge card facilities, in your name, at Saks and Nieman Marcus.’

  Krogh swallowed, trying to get his head in order. Jesus, didn’t they have him! The ever-producing milch cow who’d have to go on delivering as long as they kept milking. He said: ‘You with both of the blackmailing bitches or just one?’

  ‘I’m with neither of them,’ said Petrin. ‘And neither of them has the slightest idea that I know about you.’

  ‘We’ve got to discuss this!’ said Krogh urgently. ‘What sort of money are we talking about here?’

  ‘No money at all,’ said Petrin simply.

  Krogh stared across the small table, not speaking, and Petrin gazed back, not speaking either. Then the American said: ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘The best, for both of us,’ said Petrin. ‘Which for you means getting the cover story in Newsweek and staying just as you are now, the admired and respected chairman and a happily married man with a couple of swingers you can go on nailing whenever you feel like it.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘I want access to all – and copies of – every part of the Star Wars vehicle that you’re making. Everything, you understand? Every bolt, screw, wire and clip. Drawings, specifications, plans…the lot.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Krogh in sagged awareness. ‘Oh Jesus!’

  ‘It’ll work just fine, believe me.’

  ‘No,’ refused Krogh, striving to sound strong. ‘I won’t…can’t…’

  ‘You need to think about it,’ said Petrin, unworried by the refusal. He pushed the envelope further towards Krogh. ‘Take these, please. I’ve got lots more copies. Look at it all and think about the alternatives…the humiliation and the scandal…’ The Russian took from his pocket a card bearing a single telephone number. He said: ‘You call that when you’ve had your think.’

  Reluctantly Krogh picked up both the card and the envelope but then suddenly sniggered. He said: ‘It’s not going to work, you know!’

  ‘Why not, Mr Krogh?’

  ‘We don’t have all the contract. One of the most essential parts of the missile body shell, the reinforced resin carbon fibre, is being moulded quite separately in England!’

  Charlie had set his own burglar alarm system, like he always did, leaving just inside the flat doors carefully arranged letters any intruder would have disarranged – which they weren’t. He still checked the other precautions, doors apparently left ajar, things placed in remembered positions in cupboards and drawers, before finally deciding there’d been no entry while he’d been away.

  The place smelled stale, a locked-up-and-left smell, and he opened windows and squirted an air freshener here and there.

  There was quite a lot of mail in addition to his burglar precautions. There were two separate invitations to have his windows double glazed and a communication from Reader’s Digest assuring him he’d been chosen over millions of others not so lucky for a chance to win £100,000: there was a mystery gift simply for replying.

  His mother’s letter was last, the writing spiky and in places impossible to read, cramped on a sheet torn from a lined exercise book. He tried the parts that did appear intelligible but quickly gave up, because they didn’t really make sense. The matron must have guessed he would have difficulty because she’d enclosed a typewritten note saying she knew he would be pleased to know that after so long his mother was showing protracted periods of lucidity and that the old lady would appreciate a visit. The last had been three months before, she reminded him unnecessarily: his mother frequently asked for him by name. And there could be some changes to his mother’s State pension he might like to hear about.

  Charlie doubted if the recovery were as good as the matron indicated but it would have been nice to think his mother was emerging at last from her closed-off, shuttered world. There was the whole weekend to find out.

  There could, of course, be no question of Harkness disclosing his confident expectation of permanent promotion to anyone, because Harkness was a protectively reserved man, although he was sure he could have trusted Hubert Witherspoon with the secret. Witherspoon was a good and loyal colleague, which was only to be expected. They’d both graduated from Balliol, although at different times: by coincidence they were today both wearing their Oxford school ties. He said: ‘They’re sure?’

  Witherspoon was a languid, superior man who hadn’t conducted the interview but debriefed the men afterwards. He said: ‘It wasn’t easy to make sense of a lot of what she said, apparently. But she definitely didn’t know anything about what he did in Moscow.’

  ‘A pity,’ said Harkness. ‘A great pity.’

  7

  There is a part of the Test valley, near Stockbridge in Hampshire, where the river winds back upon itself, as if it’s lost and can’t find its way, the water sluggish and uncertain. The banks and then the cow meadows are tiered away towards the higher levels, where the trees grow like sparse hair. Near the very top there is a cleft formed by a whim of nature, like a giant footprint, a protected, wrapped-around place to look down upon the view set out for approval below. The nursing home was safe and cosy there, forgotten about like most of the people in it. There were stories that on a clear day it was possible to look across the valley and pick out the distant spire of Salisbury Cathedral proving how tall it was, but Charlie had never seen it and he’d visited his mother on quite a few very clear days. He tried this time and failed: perhaps he wasn’t standing in the right spot.

  He’d telephoned ahead and arranged the most convenient time, so the matron was expecting him. Her name was Hewlett: her signature made it impossible to identify the christian name, apart from the initial letter E, but then she was not a person to be addressed familiarly. She was not particularly tall but very wide. The large and tightly corseted bust was more a prow than a bosom, parting the waves before her, and she always walked with thrust-forward urgency, as if she were late. She invariably wore, like now, a blue uniform of her own design with a crimped and starched headpiece and an expression of fierce severity.

  ‘You said ten,’ she accused at once, loud-voiced. It was fifteen minutes past.

  ‘Bad traffic,’ apologized Charlie, unoffended. She was one of those brusque-mannered women of inordinate love and kindness towards all the old people for whom she cared.

  ‘Your mother is a great deal better, as I told you in my note,’ said the matron at once. ‘She still drifts a little but she’s much more aware than she’s been for a long time.’

  ‘You trying some new treatment or drug?’

  The formidable woman shook her head. ‘It happens. We’ve just got to hope it lasts. I’m glad you were able to come as quickly as you did.’

  So was he, thought Charlie. For more than two years now his mother’s senility had locked her away in a dream world no one could enter. ‘Does she know I’m coming?’

  The matron nodded. ‘She’s had her hair washed. Don’t forget to tell her it looks nice.’

  ‘Any limit on how long I can stay?’

  ‘As long as you like,’ said the woman. ‘Not a lot of relatives come: some of the others will enjoy a different face, as well.’

  Charlie followed the woman, tender to battleship, in a surge through the nursing home. It was a conversion from the long-ago status symbol of a wool millionaire when men became millionaires i
n the wool trade. There had been the minimum of alteration, little more than stairway lifts and door widening for wheelchairs. All the panelling and flooring was the original wood and the huge floor-to-ceiling verandah doors were retained in the drawing rooms, so that the occupants could easily get outside when it was warm enough, which it was today. The place smelled of polish and fresh air, with no trace of old-people, decay or clinical antiseptic anywhere.

  His mother was just outside the furthest room, raised into a sitting position by a back support in a bed equipped with large wheels to make it easier to manoeuvre. Her pure white hair was rigidly waved and she’d arranged the pillows to end at her shoulders so that it did not become disarranged. There was the faintest touch of rouge, giving her cheeks some colour, and a very light lipstick as well. She wore a crocheted bed jacket over a floral-print nightdress and was sitting in calm patience with her hands, black-corded with veins, on the bed before her. She was wearing a wedding ring she’d bought herself when he was about eighteen but which he couldn’t remember her using for quite a while.

  ‘Hello Mum,’ greeted Charlie.

  ‘Hello Charlie,’ she said, in immediate recognition. It was the first occasion for a long time that she’d known him. He kissed her, aware of a furtive audience on the verandah and further away, from groups on the lawns.

  Charlie offered the box he carried and said: ‘Chocolates. Plain. The sort you like.’

  ‘Hard centres? I do like hard centres.’

  ‘At least half,’ promised Charlie. He’d forgotten about that.

  ‘I’ll give the soft ones away to the silly old buggers who haven’t got any teeth.’

  His mother didn’t have many herself but she was proud of what there were. There was a chair considerately near the bed. Charlie pulled it closer and as he sat she extended her hand, to be held. Again it was in full view of everyone. Charlie said: ‘How are you, then?’

  ‘Going into Salisbury on the bus on Friday,’ said his mother, who had been bedridden for almost a year. ‘Do some shopping.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said Charlie easily.

  ‘With George.’

  ‘George?’

  His mother made a vague gesture towards a group of mostly men near a grey fir, on a far lawn. ‘George,’ she said. ‘Only just arrived. He likes me.’

  ‘Careful you don’t get into trouble,’ warned Charlie.

  ‘I need company, with your father gone and all.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ said Charlie. The skin of his mother’s hand felt thin, like paper.

  ‘He was very fond of you, your dad. Remember when he used to take you fishing, on that river down there? And to football matches?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Charlie, to whom none of it had ever happened.

  ‘William,’ said the old lady, producing a name like a rabbit out of a hat. ‘Always William: never Bill. Nice man. Worked on the railways.’ She began to pick with her free hand at the cellophane wrapping of the chocolate box and Charlie helped her, opening it fully. She touched several with a wavering finger, as if she were counting, before finally making her choice. ‘Those others didn’t bring any chocolates,’ she said.

  Charlie looked out at a group of old people by the drooping fir tree, curious if there really were anyone called George. He said: ‘Matron says she’s very pleased with you. How you’re getting on.’

  ‘Tells lies,’ his mother insisted at once. ‘She doesn’t like me. Hits me for not eating cake with nuts in and you know I don’t like cake with nuts in. Told you in my letter.’

  ‘I don’t remember that bit,’ said Charlie.

  ‘They said they’d tell her but I don’t think they did. How’s Edith?’

  ‘Edith’s dead, Mum.’

  She chose another chocolate, nodding in recollection. ‘I remember now,’ she said. ‘Never knew anyone die of flu before.’

  ‘Flu that became pneumonia,’ said Charlie. He was surprised she recalled the explanation he’d produced, instead of the numbing truth: that Edith had been blasted apart in mistake for him by a trigger-happy mob from the CIA avenging their Director he’d disgraced, along with his own, for being prepared to sacrifice him on a border crossing during the Berenkov pursuit. Charlie said: ‘Quite a while ago now.’

  ‘Liked Edith. Posh but she never had any side to her. Never looked down on me. Often wondered what she saw in a scruffy bugger like you.’

  So had he, since she’d been dead, reflected Charlie. He knew a lot had in the department before that and certainly when they’d got married. Inconceivable, old boy. I mean, lovely girl like Edith! General’s daughter, would you believe! Double First at Cambridge, head of Research. And that threadbare little oik who shouldn’t have been allowed office space in the first place. I mean! Inconceivable! Charlie said, with deep feeling: ‘I miss her.’ He missed Natalia, too. Maybe more so because he believed Natalia was still alive in Moscow, although he didn’t know absolutely. And never would know.

  ‘The men asked about her,’ said the woman. ‘I tell you some thing! Edith wouldn’t have let you go around like that. Look at you! Bloody tramp. You never wore shoes like that when I was responsible for you. John wouldn’t have allowed it. Heart of gold, your dad. Very proud of you, John was. Good to me, too.’

  Muddled about some things. What about others? He stroked her hand and said: ‘What men, Mum?’

  ‘Told you,’ she said with ancient belligerence. ‘Didn’t bring any chocolates. I didn’t like them. Kept asking me questions…’ She plucked out a chocolate shaped in a half moon and said: ‘I can’t find that on the chart that tells you what they are. Is it a hard or a soft one?’

  ‘It’s soft,’ said Charlie. ‘That square shape is a hard one.’ Charlie had the impression of a distant warning, a far-away bell almost too muted properly to distinguish. He smoothed his mother’s hand some more and said coaxingly: ‘These men: was that the new man who likes you? And a friend of his, perhaps?’

  The woman splayed her hand with the wedding ring Charlie had noticed when he first arrived. ‘George gave me that,’ she said. ‘That is how I know he likes me. Calls me Judith. I don’t know why but that’s what he calls me. Judith.’ Her name was Mary.

  ‘Was it, Mum? Was George one of them?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded suspiciously.

  ‘I want to know about these men who didn’t bring you chocolates or complain to matron about the cake with nuts.’

  She looked suddenly, sharply, at him like a disturbed bird. ‘Course it wasn’t George, you silly sod. They were visitors, like you…’ She smiled, showing the real teeth she possessed. ‘No one’s had more visitors than me, not for weeks! Matron said, so there!’

  ‘Who were they?’ said Charlie. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, making it all sound casual.

  ‘Men were always fond of me,’ she said, drifting off. ‘Popular. That’s what I was. Always enjoyed a good laugh.’

  ‘Have they been before?’

  ‘Course not. They’re important. Official. Told me. From a Ministry…something like that…’

  The bells were louder now, easier to hear. ‘What did they want?’

  ‘All sorts of things. Asked about Edith…you… lots of things I can’t think of now…’ She suddenly tightened her fingers upon his. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong, have you? Been up to thieving or something like that.’

  ‘No, Mum,’ said Charlie gently. ‘I haven’t been thieving. How many were there?’

  ‘Two,’ she said at once. ‘Dressed nice. Not like you, scruffy bugger. They wrote things down.’

  The matron, Ms Hewlett, had written about pension changes in her letter. He was abruptly anxious to talk to the woman. He said: ‘How did they speak?’

  She giggled, engulfing him in chocolate breath. ‘Like every else speaks, of course!’

  ‘I mean how did they sound? Did they sound English or foreign?’

  She frowned and Charlie thought how unlined his mother’s
face normally was, apart from this momentary effort at recall. ‘Properly,’ she decided. ‘Not foreign.’

  There were always fantasies about men who liked her but he’d never known her maintain a pretence as consistently as this before. He said: ‘Did they tell you they’d come back again?’

  The frown stayed. ‘You haven’t told me you like my hair.’

  ‘I was going to,’ said Charlie, irritated at forgetting. ‘It looks good. You’re very pretty.’

  ‘Went into Salisbury yesterday to get it done.’

  ‘On the bus?’ anticipated Charlie, deciding momentarily to break the single-track questions.

  ‘Don’t need to go by bus,’ she said. ‘George drives me, in his car. He’s got a car, you know? You can’t see it, though. It’s around the back of the house, in a garage. It’s green and it’s got a radio.’

  ‘Did they have a car, the men who came to see you?’

  The old woman nodded. ‘Black. It had lots of things to make a radio work.’

  Two aerials: would the second have been for a telephone or a two-way radio? ‘What about them coming back?’ repeated Charlie.

  Once more there was the furrowed-brow effort at recollection, then a shrug. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Try and help me, Mum,’ pleaded Charlie. ‘Try to think of something they said, the way they said it. Just one thing.’

  ‘Is this a hard centre?’

  It was an oblong shape described on the chart as a praline surprise. ‘It should be,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You couldn’t get chocolate during the war, you know? I could, though. I knew this American army sergeant…’ Her face twisted. ‘…Can’t remember his name right now. Hershey bars, they were called. You remember all that chocolate when you were young?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ said Charlie, who didn’t. He looked around, trying to locate the matron.

  ‘Not bitter chocolate, though. I like bitter chocolate best,’ said the woman. She suddenly brightened. ‘I might get more money!’ she announced.

  Charlie sighed at the new avenue to nowhere opening up in his mother’s confused mind. He said: ‘That’ll be useful.’