Comrade Charlie Read online

  ‘What’s it called, when you get extra because you need it?’ she demanded, looking directly at him.

  ‘Extra what, Mum?’

  ‘Pension,’ she said impatiently.

  ‘Is that what the men said, that you were going to get more pension money?’ seized Charlie.

  ‘I think that’s what they meant.’

  ‘Supplementary,’ suggested Charlie.

  ‘That was it!’ said the woman. ‘That was the word. It means extra money, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s what it means.’

  ‘That’s it then: what I’m going to get,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Why didn’t Edith come with you?’

  ‘She’s dead, Mum.’

  ‘Dead? Edith? When?’

  ‘Quite a long time ago.’

  ‘Never knew. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I meant to,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Shame.’ Her eyes closed. She made a tiny attempt to open them but it seemed too difficult. She tried again, even more feebly, and then stopped. Her held-away head went at last against the pillow: so lacquered was her hair that the tight waves flowed on undisturbed.

  Charlie waited several minutes before easing his hand from hers, managing to stand without grating the chair. He checked as he walked, satisfying himself the matron was not in the grounds, relieved that she was in the office when he got there.

  ‘Great improvement, isn’t it?’ the woman demanded at once.

  ‘She’s gone to sleep now,’ said Charlie. ‘She rambled a little.’

  ‘At least she’s talking!’

  ‘About some men,’ said Charlie. ‘Men in a black car.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the matron. ‘Pension people. I told you in my letter.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘So people did come. I thought you were referring to some form or notice or something.’

  ‘Supplementary Benefit,’ smiled the woman. ‘They check from time to time, into everybody’s financial circumstances. To see if there’s any special need.’

  ‘Have other people here been visited?’

  ‘Quite a few, from time to time.’

  ‘By these two particular men?’

  The matron’s face set in a serious expression. Instead of replying she said: ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I’m sure there’s not,’ said Charlie reassuringly. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

  Ms Hewlett did not look completely convinced. She said: ‘These were inspectors I had not seen before. But that has no significance. Quite often the people are different from those who have come before.’

  ‘Two inspectors!’ queried Charlie. ‘Does it always take two inspectors?’

  The woman’s colour began to rise. Again there was a hesitation. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not usually two.’

  ‘They carried identification, of course?’

  ‘They telephoned several days in advance. That’s the normal procedure. Told me they were coming and why. And they quoted your mother’s National Insurance number, the one that’s on her pension book. No one else has access to details like that except people from the Ministry.’

  Was he overreacting, Charlie asked himself. Possibly. But Charlie frequently responded to the antennae of instinct and he thought there was a message here somewhere. He said: ‘Where do such inspectors come from when they carry out these checks? Towns, I mean?’

  ‘It varies,’ said the woman. ‘Salisbury, Andover, Winchester…all over…’

  ‘From what office did the two men come to see my mother?’

  The subsiding colour grew again. ‘They didn’t say.’

  ‘No number? Nowhere you could contact them?’

  ‘They said when they left that she didn’t qualify. That there’d be no need to talk about it again.’

  ‘So that looks like the end of it,’ said Charlie with attempted finality.

  ‘Did they upset her?’ asked the woman. ‘They said they’d like to see her, and she was so much better I thought it would be a treat for her. Visitors. It’s important to them, visitors. I knew they were wasting their time: of course I did. It was your mother I was thinking about, not them.’

  Poor woman, thought Charlie: poor innocent, compassionate, unknowing woman. He said: ‘I’m sure she enjoyed it.’ He didn’t think he’d get into cake with nuts. He added: ‘Did she sign anything?’

  ‘Oh no!’ insisted the woman. ‘Your mother was on the verandah, just like today. And I was outside all the time they were with her. I would have seen.’

  ‘Like I said,’ repeated Charlie. ‘I’m sure it’s all perfectly proper.’

  ‘I know it is,’ insisted the woman.

  From his Vauxhall apartment, not from Westminster Bridge Road, Charlie contacted every regional and local pensions office remotely likely to have organized the visit to his mother. None had. He extended the check to the main department building in London and was once more assured there was neither interest in nor consideration of awarding his mother any supplementary pension allowance.

  There was the beginning of fury – but only briefly, because Charlie didn’t allow it. Fear had its benefits; released adrenaline and heightened senses. But not anger or fury. Neither. That sort of emotion was positively counter-productive: obscured the proper reasoning and the correct balances. This time, anyway, his feelings catapulted far beyond fury. Charlie was engulfed by an implacable, vindictive coldness. He’d chosen an existence of constant deceit and constant suspicion, a sinister shape to every shadow, a dangerous meaning to every word. That’s what he gave and that’s what he expected back. A fragile old lady with skin like paper wasn’t any part of that; a fragile old lady in whose twilight life long-ago lovers stayed on as names with indistinct faces, William who became John and who might not have been a real person at all. But they’d made her part of it: sullied her with it. His own people; he was convinced of it being his own people, directed by Harkness. Wrong to move prematurely, though: he had to establish it absolutely. And there was a way: a required, procedural way that would protect him if he were wrong – if he were the target of a hostile pursuit – and raise a stink in all the embarrassing places if he were right. Harkness was going to regret this vendetta.

  Ironically another vendetta was being conceived against Charlie Muffin almost four thousand miles away.

  ‘We’ve got to start all over again,’ announced Alexei Berenkov, who had sought the encounter with Valeri Kalenin. ‘Part of the Star Wars missile is being made in England.’

  Kalenin shrugged philosophically. ‘We’ve done well enough in America,’ he said. ‘This can only be a setback, surely.’

  Berenkov had come to Dzerzhinsky Square intending to suggest to Kalenin that the English involvement provided an opportunity for a further operation, but abruptly he changed his mind. He shouldn’t involve this man who’d risked so much for him. Berenkov knew he could, on his own, evolve the retribution for all the harm that Charlie Muffin had caused and attempted to cause him. With customary confidence Berenkov decided he didn’t need any help or advice in destroying Charlie Muffin, as the man had sought to destroy him. But failed. Berenkov said: ‘I have the same freedom to operate in England as I have in America?’

  ‘Of course,’ confirmed Kalenin at once. ‘Do whatever you consider necessary.’

  Berenkov supposed that, by a fairly substantial stretch of imagination, those words might later be construed as permission for what he had in mind. He began planning that day.

  It was Ann’s birthday, her fortieth, so they had to celebrate although Blackstone couldn’t afford it. He made a reservation at a pub just outside Newport he’d heard talked about at the factory and when they arrived discovered it specialized in seafood. Blackstone couldn’t run to real champagne but Ann seemed thrilled enough with a sparkling imitation. He tried to compensate by ordering quite an expensive white wine to go with their fruits de mer, which included lobster as well as crab and shrimp and some chew
y shellfish neither had had before and didn’t like: Ann was brave enough to say so first and stop eating them. The wine was sugar sweet, a dessert drink, but neither knew and both thought it was very nice.

  Blackstone waited until they reached the pudding before giving Ann her present, a single-strand chain with a solitary pendant pearl. She put it on immediately and kept fingering it, to reassure herself it was there. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  Blackstone, who was in one of his ebullient moods, thought it was, too. Ann, who was dark-haired, still without any grey, had a good skin she didn’t spoil with too much make-up, and the necklace was shown off perfectly against her throat. It had cost far more than he was able to afford. He said: ‘The chain’s eighteen-carat gold. And the man in the shop said it was a cultured pearl.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ she said again. ‘You shouldn’t have spent so much.’

  He shouldn’t, Blackstone knew. He seemed to think of nothing else these days but the expense of running two homes. And it wasn’t as if Ann or Ruth didn’t help. They both worked and each contributed to the housekeeping and neither complained about living in rented accommodation instead of buying their own places, which would well and truly have crippled him financially. Blackstone fought to retain his optimism: at least there was something. Deciding to tell her about it, he said: ‘I’ve applied for a better job.’ He liked impressing both his wives and tried to do so as often as possible. He was a senior tracer at the aerospace factory, although Ann believed him to be a quality control inspector required to tour all their installations in England, which accounted for the time he spent commuting to and from the mainland during the time he spent with Ruth, who trustingly believed the same story.

  ‘A different one?’ Ann asked.

  ‘No,’ said Blackstone. ‘Some tie-up with America, a space job. It’s all very hush-hush. There was just a general memorandum inviting applications to become involved.’

  ‘I think you’re ever so clever,’ praised the woman admiringly. ‘Would it mean you didn’t have to travel around so much?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Blackstone, quickly. ‘I’d still have to do that.’ The secret project carried another £1,000 a year and he reckoned he could just about manage on that.

  ‘Go to America, you mean?’

  Blackstone hesitated, recognizing the opportunity. Holidays, manoeuvring sufficient time for both, was always a problem with the dual lives he led: a supposed fortnight’s business trip to the United States would be the ideal excuse. He said: ‘I don’t know yet. Nobody knows anything apart from the senior scientific staff. I would think it’s a strong possibility I’d have to go, if I got it.’ He was glad he’d started the conversation.

  ‘When will you know?’

  ‘Quite soon,’ said Blackstone. ‘There’s a lot of excitement at the factory about it.’

  Ann fingered the necklace again. ‘I think you’re the best husband anyone could have,’ she said.

  ‘And I think you’re the best wife,’ said Blackstone. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’

  The telephone was answered on the second ring but without any identification beyond the single word, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t want to be laughed at: to be humiliated,’ said Krogh. His voice was weak and uneven, someone either on the point of tears or who had already succumbed to them.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ agreed Petrin soothingly.

  ‘Nothing will go wrong, will it…? I mean, it’ll be…?’

  ‘I’ve worked it all out,’ guaranteed Petrin.

  Which he had, observing the universally accepted intelligence maxim that an entrapment achieved has to be consolidated. The Russian dictated the contents and the place of the first handover, in a restaurant in that wharf area of San Francisco converted into a tourist attraction of waterside shops, amusements and exhibitions. Their meeting – and particularly when Krogh handed over the envelope – was extensively photographed by carefully placed KGB technicians. So a record was created of a millionaire American defence contractor passing information to someone who, if renewed or additional pressure were ever needed, could be identified as a KGB operative.

  8

  It should have been a relaxed, contented occasion, but for Berenkov it wasn’t because abruptly – and unusually – he was troubled by doubts about what he intended doing. Not, actually, in initiating the secondary British operation that hopefully was to involve Charlie Muffin but at keeping it, for the moment, from Kalenin.

  Kalenin, who disdained a dacha of his own, had in the past shared a visit to the rambling, bungalowstyle country home of the Berenkovs and this weekend there was a particular reason for his being there because Georgi was home from engineering college. Berenkov was inordinately proud of his stranger son and inclined to over-compensate for the long period they had been apart: the boastfulness – urging him to tell his guardian of examination marks and commendations from his instructors – embarrassed the boy. He was tall and thickly dark-haired, like Berenkov, but avoided this father’s girth: Georgi played centre-field in the college soccer team and had also represented the college in cross-country skiing for two seasons.

  They read and walked in the woods and staged their own chess championship, with a ten-ruble prize, which Kalenin – who had played at Master level – let Georgi win.

  On the Sunday Berenkov and Kalenin sat in reclining chairs on the wood-strip verandah while Valentina and the boy cleared the midday meal. Kalenin said: ‘These are good times: I enjoy them.’

  Berenkov, who used the concessionary facilities to their fullest to maintain the lifestyle he had cultivated in the West, poured French brandy heavily into two goblets and left the bottle uncorked, Russian style, for each to top up as they wished. He said ‘We should make more use of this place.’

  ‘I’m glad Georgi didn’t try to follow you into the service,’ declared the other man. Kalenin regarded Fidel Castro as unpredictable and Cuba therefore a doubtful satellite but the cigars were an unarguable benefit: he kindled one now and exhaled against the glowing tip, threatening brief fire.

  ‘It was never considered, by either of us,’ said Berenkov. What he was planning in England amounted to deceiving this man, Berenkov thought uncomfortably.

  As he sipped his brandy Kalenin twisted towards the dacha, from which they could discern the sounds of Georgi and Valentina although not what they were saying. Kalenin said: ‘I envy you, Alexei. Having a complete family.’

  He was complete, accepted Berenkov: he had everything he could possibly want, would ever want. With the awareness came another sink of unease, at the thought of losing it. So rare was uncertainty to the man that Berenkov became impatient with it, hurrying more brandy into his glass. He said: ‘I know my good fortune.’

  ‘Guard it carefully,’ cautioned Kalenin.

  It was almost as if the man suspected what he was about to do and was warning him against it. Berenkov said: ‘You’re attaching too much importance to the changes.’

  ‘This is different than before,’ insisted Kalenin. ‘This is a genuine upheaval.’

  ‘Any Russian leader needs two things,’ Berenkov argued back. ‘The support of the military and the support of the KGB. And they know it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said the doubtful Kalenin. ‘For both our sakes.’

  There is a period between the season changes in Moscow when in the late afternoon the river valley fills up with mist, cloaking the buildings, and when they drove down from the Lenin Hills it was like going into some milky, untroubled sea where there were never any storms. At Kutuzovsky Prospekt Kalenin and Georgi embraced and Kalenin said he was a fine boy. Back in the apartment, Berenkov and Valentina helped Georgi to pack and both drove him to Kazan station and waited on the platform until the train departed.

  In the car on the way back Valentina said: ‘I thought Kalenin was quiet this weekend.’

  ‘He worries too much,’ dismissed Berenkov.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Everything,
’ said Berenkov. He was glad the weekend was over: the doubts weren’t with him any more, out of Kalenin’s company.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong between you, is there?’ asked the woman curiously.

  Berenkov risked frowning across the car at her. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘What could there be?’

  ‘Just an impression,’ said Valentina. ‘I thought you were quiet, too.’

  At the apartment they decided they did not want to eat again but Berenkov opened wine, a heavy Georgian red. He drank looking across the room at the wife from whom he had been apart for so much of their married life, thinking back to that afternoon’s conversation about envy and good fortune. Valentina was still beautiful, Berenkov decided: not young-girl beautiful, flush-cheeked and pert breasted, but maturely so, settled. It was an odd word but it fitted because that was how he felt: settled and contented, a very satisfied man. He said: ‘I love you very much.’

  Valentina, who had always remained faithful during their parting but sometimes wondered if Berenkov, who was a sexual man, had done the same, said: ‘I love you, too.’

  The following day Berenkov sent in the diplomatic bag to London the entire file that had been established and maintained upon Charlie Muffin, from the moment of the Moscow episode, with instructions that the maximum effort be made to locate the man.

  Natalia Nikandrova Fedova believed most of the time that she had completely recovered, as a person who has been ill convinces themselves that they are better with the passing of time; but as a convalescent still feels an occasional twist of pain so she had bad moments, like tonight.

  Certainly she had escaped any material punishment, which had been her greatest fear. Charlie’s, too. She’d undergone fairly intensive interrogation but she knew the ways of such interviews (if she didn’t, who did?) and they hadn’t caught her out, not even Kalenin himself when he’d led the questioning. And after so long they had to be satisfied. If they hadn’t been satisfied she wouldn’t have been allowed to continue as a KGB debriefer and most definitely not been promoted, as she had been six months earlier, to the rank of full major. Or still be permitted the single occupancy of the two-bedroom apartment, with separate bathroom and kitchen, just off Mytninskaya, particularly now that Eduard was hardly ever home any more. Eduard was another indication of their full trust, Natalia recognized, expertly: if there’d been the slightest doubt about her loyalty Eduard would not have gone unhindered along the privileged, KGB-sponsored route to the officer-grooming military academy.