Goodbye to an Old Friend Read online

  Adrian smiled. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘we’re not in Scotland.’

  ‘I want to meet them tonight,’ insisted Pavel. ‘I can’t stand another night like I had last night. I must know. They must tell me what’s happening to my family.’

  ‘The man you meet won’t know that,’ warned Adrian.

  ‘He might.’

  ‘I know these meetings,’ said Adrian. ‘They’re almost as routine as the initial request.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ rejected Pavel, his customary annoyance at being challenged emerging. ‘He might know and that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘I still don’t know whether it’s possible,’ said Adrian.

  ‘But there are telephones. Try. It must be tonight.’

  A helicopter did nullify Binns’s fears of the Russians assessing the debriefing spot from travelling time, admitted Adrian. And according to Ebbetts, speed was the major consideration for everything.

  ‘I’ll see,’ he promised, getting up from the padded seat.

  As Adrian left the room, Pavel was staring back at the picture, and he recalled leaving Bennovitch in a similar window-nook three days before, in an identical position, gazing down at another photograph. Everyone carries reminders, thought Adrian. I wonder if Anita has a portrait to remind her of me? No, he decided. If she had any pictures at all, they wouldn’t be for nostalgic reminders. Just for amusement among her new friends.

  Kaganov made a tiny tower with his hands and tilted his chair back on two legs. He smiled, a man knowing inner contentment.

  ‘That was quick,’ he said.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Minevsky.

  ‘We got a reply within eight hours of making the request for access,’ said the chairman.

  Heirar frowned. ‘Only eight hours. I expected to wait at least two days.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Kaganov. ‘So did I.’

  Minevsky chuckled, preparing the others for the joke.

  ‘You haven’t told us what the answer was,’ he said.

  Kaganov joined in the laughter. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Pavel wants to meet someone from the embassy. And he wants the meeting tonight.’

  ‘There!’ said Minevsky, in heavy irony. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t like England after all.’

  Heirar waited for the amusement to subside, and then said, ‘What about Pavel’s son?’

  ‘Georgi?’ queried Kaganov. ‘He’s at Alma Ata. You knew that.’

  He had forgotten. ‘We haven’t moved him yet, then?’ said Heirar, trying to recover.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Kaganov. ‘Not yet.’

  Chapter Eight

  Adrian travelled with Pavel in a chauffeur-driven car, leaving his own vehicle at Pulborough for collection the following day. They went a roundabout route, going east into Kent and then looping back, approaching London from the Maidstone direction.

  It was a bright, sharp night, the stars set into the sky like jewelled buttons.

  Pavel slumped in the seat alongside Adrian, staring up.

  ‘Hundreds of millions of miles away,’ he said softly. ‘Look at them. Some we know about, some we don’t. They just glitter there, the winning posts for a race of giants. I wonder if it really matters who gets there first. Or whether anybody gets there at all.’

  ‘That’s an odd doubt, coming from someone like you,’ said Adrian.

  Pavel looked at him in the darkened car. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I just make it possible. I don’t say whether it should be done.’

  He twisted, looking out through the darkened rear window.

  ‘Are we alone?’

  Adrian remembered his nervousness. ‘No,’ he said, ‘of course not. There are two cars, one in front, one behind. There’s no risk.’

  ‘Very professional,’ said Pavel. ‘I can’t make out either of them.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be much good, if you could, would they?’ remarked Adrian, mildly. He felt hungry and wondered if the canteen would be open when they arrived. Probably not. But there was always that French restaurant near the B.O.A.C. terminal at Victoria. He’d taken Anita there on one of their first dates, trying to impress her with his worldliness, insisting on ordering the meal and the wine in French, like an A-level schoolboy. No, not quite like an A-level schoolboy. His accent was better. Yes, La Bicyclette would be nice. He’d go there, even if the canteen were open. A French meal and a bottle of wine and a headache in the morning and damn them all. In his mind he parodied Ebbetts’s hectoring tones: ‘The condemned man ate a hearty meal, took the bill to put on his expenses and even had a brandy.’ He might even have two brandies.

  He looked at the dashboard clock glowing ahead of him. They’d be in that comfortable flat now, overlooking the Thames and they’d be drinking brandy, too, Anne probably holding her glass out, registering her dominance, Anita fluttering from the drinks trolley, eager to please, like a newly wed housewife. He paused at the thought. I suppose she is, really, he decided.

  ‘Will we come back tonight?’

  Adrian jumped. ‘What?’

  ‘Will we come back tonight?’ repeated the Russian.

  ‘No. It’s already arranged. We’ll stay in London and then travel down to see Alexandre tomorrow.’

  He hesitated, then added, ‘We’ve decided to take your advice. Tomorrow we’ll travel by helicopter. We decided there was enough time to use the car tonight.’

  It had been Adrian’s idea, when he realized that to stay overnight would mean travelling back in daylight, with more chance of detection.

  They arrived in London just before eleven and Adrian’s intention to have a French meal collapsed with the summons to see Binns in his office. It had been decided that Adrian should not attend the interview with Pavel although the Russian had demanded that he be accompanied.

  The risk of a British debriefing expert, even one about to be fired, being recognized and marked by a member of the Russian embassy had to be avoided.

  The Permanent Secretary nodded curtly and indicated his usual chair and Adrian realized his dismissal had not been reconsidered.

  ‘Not a very edifying meeting this afternoon, was it?’ he said, the stutter jerking the words from him.

  ‘No,’ agreed Adrian.

  ‘We detected little sympathy in some of your remarks.’

  Adrian noted the ‘we’. So Binns had listened with the Prime Minister and others.

  ‘I wasn’t aware I was employed to show sympathy,’ retorted Adrian, disregarding the usual respect. Why the hell should he sit and take criticism from everyone? His thoughts stopped. Why the hell? – that phrase wouldn’t have come to mind a few days ago. But then, neither would the thought of getting drunk on French wine and brandy have appealed, either.

  ‘I thought the only need was speed: milk the man dry and then play international politics with him and Bennovitch, like disposable chess pieces.’

  Binns noticeably winced. Adrian realized that the gap between them was widening at every meeting.

  ‘That is the point,’ agreed the Permanent Secretary, trying to compete. ‘But you don’t seem to be achieving it. What was the result of today’s meeting? Nothing.’

  ‘I acted today under instructions,’ snapped Adrian. He was reddening and stumbling over his words, but curiously, like a man getting drunk for the first time, he found himself enjoying anger. He didn’t have to worry about conforming any more. There was no feeling of sickness now or the need to go to the lavatory.

  Not yet, anyway.

  ‘On your instructions,’ he continued, his voice rising. ‘I told Pavel of the request of his embassy. At your request, I gave him every assistance and he wanted to come immediately, which is why I phoned you from Pulborough and set it up, and why there was no debriefing today. It’s not my way of conducting the debriefing.’

  Binns was sitting with his head lowered and for a long time he did not respond. When he looked up, his face was twisted, as if he were in physical pain.

  ‘It’s split us up, this thing, hasn’
t it?’ he asked, not needing an answer. ‘In less than a week, we’ve become enemies almost. And we were friends. We had a mutual respect that went beyond the job, but now we’re people on either side of a fence. I never thought that would happen.’

  He stopped, for a moment. Then he said, ‘That’s bad, very bad.’

  He sounded extremely sad.

  Adrian’s truculence disappeared. He felt embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry, too,’ he said and meant it. He wished he could have put it better.

  ‘I argued against your dismissal,’ said Binns. ‘No one, no team such as we were can gauge every situation. You’ve brought out nearly everything with Bennovitch and I’m sure, in the end, it would have been a complete debriefing, with nothing undisclosed. You’ve achieved quite a lot with Pavel. I made the points, as strongly as I could, to the P.M.’

  Adrian noted that the impediment had disappeared. Was it possible to recross broken bridges?

  ‘But then there was the meeting …’ went on Binns.

  ‘… and I opposed him,’ finished Adrian. ‘I was impertinent and unconvincing and made myself look stupid. But surely if I’m right, then he’ll admit he’s wrong?’

  Binns laughed aloud, a rare thing, and Adrian noticed a lot of his teeth were bad. Perhaps he was frightened of the dentist.

  ‘Oh,’ said Adrian, accepting the unspoken contradiction. Secretly he still hoped for the miracle, the sudden move that would prove his doubts were correct, even though he was now unsure about them. Now, it seemed, it wouldn’t matter. Ebbetts was never wrong. Never.

  ‘I see Pavel asked to be accompanied,’ said Binns.

  Adrian nodded. ‘We’ll get a full report by morning,’ he said. ‘I know the two men with him.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Adrian looked at the man who had been his friend for fifteen years. If he were to preserve his integrity, he had to be honest.

  ‘I think I was wrong,’ he said.

  Binns jerked up, faced with an answer he hadn’t expected.

  ‘I didn’t …’ he began and stopped.

  ‘I believed there was something wrong about Pavel’s defection,’ continued Adrian. ‘I still do. It’s still too illogical for a man like that. But he’s genuine about his family. I spent six hours with that man today. I’ve never seen anyone more sincerely torn apart by fear of what is going to happen to his wife and children than he is.’

  Binns stared at him. ‘Where does that leave you and your suspicions?’ he asked, finally.

  Adrian felt tears coming and fought them, coughing repeatedly to explain the way he spoke.

  ‘God only knows,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps I’m wrong and Ebbetts is right and I deserve to be replaced because I’m no longer any good.’

  Binns looked away, recognizing the emotion and wanting to spare his assistant. What the hell do men come into this business for, he thought. But Adrian had changed his mind. His doubts were wavering and that was a factor to be considered and so he’d have to tell the Prime Minister. But not now, not tonight. He could wait until the morning. It wouldn’t make any difference now.

  ‘By the way,’ said Binns. ‘There’s been a complaint.’

  Adrian looked at him curiously.

  ‘The maintenance department,’ continued the Permanent Secretary. ‘They say you’ve defaced the window-sill of your office.’

  ‘It’s chocolate,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Chocolate?’

  ‘There was a pigeon. I put chocolate biscuits out for it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ promised Adrian. ‘The pigeon’s gone away.’

  Chapter Nine

  Pavel had been lodged overnight in north London, in a large house on the outskirts of Islington. Adrian collected him at nine and in the back of the curtained Rover they went out along Western Avenue towards Northolt, where the helicopter was waiting.

  Pavel said nothing.

  He hadn’t even spoken when Adrian got to Islington, just given a brief nod of recognition and then allowed himself to be hurried into the vehicle, a man completely resigned to being moved from one spot to another at the will of others. There was no fight in him now, no arrogance or conceit. He was completely drained of everything, everything except his secrets.

  Adrian had been to the office early, studying with Binns the reports of the two men who had attended the meeting between the embassy official and Pavel.

  It was a lengthy, twenty-page typescript, sectioned into question and answer. Adrian read it twice, the second time analysing it sentence by sentence, briefing himself for the later meeting with the scientist.

  Binns had sighed, throwing his copy on the desk.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Adrian had judged, immediately.

  ‘Brilliant?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a document where one man has so successfully left another with a greater sense of his own guilt. That man isn’t just an official at their embassy. He’s a psychiatrist. And a good one.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I felt,’ Binns had replied.

  Adrian had experienced a stir of pleasure, knowing that they’d reached the same conclusion.

  Binns had continued, ‘It was wrong exposing Pavel to that interview, if we want to keep him.’

  ‘You know how I felt about that. And that the meeting with Bennovitch should be postponed,’ Adrian had warned, urgently. ‘If Pavel, after last night, is thrown together with Bennovitch, then it’ll be another day wasted.’

  ‘I know. I’ve already warned the P.M. I said just that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s ordered that the meeting go ahead.’

  Adrian had sighed. And he’d be blamed. Whatever went wrong, Ebbetts had already established the scapegoat, the sacrifice to defeat if defeat occurred.

  Adrian had anticipated the mood that Pavel would be in, but the depth of remorse and despair surprised him.

  Adrian, who had visited the British embassy in Moscow and knew the city, smiled out of the car and tried small talk.

  ‘The English traffic,’ he said. ‘Different from what you’re used to.’

  Pavel didn’t even bother to grunt a response.

  ‘We’re going to see Alexandre,’ Adrian persisted. ‘It won’t take long, by helicopter.’

  The car cleared Wembley and picked up speed along the dual carriageway. Adrian relaxed, relieved that the car, an ideal target in the slow-moving traffic, was no longer so vulnerable.

  ‘Alexandre is looking forward to it,’ he pressed on, trying to break down the barrier.

  Slowly Pavel turned to him. He’d stopped crying so much, but his complexion was grey and putty-like. If I touched his face, thought Adrian, the finger-mark would stay.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ said Pavel. His voice was flat and unsure, like a man speaking for the first time after a long illness. ‘I asked him. I kept on asking him and then I pleaded and he looked at me and his face didn’t move, not at all. He just shrugged.’

  Adrian didn’t reply. He’d seen the typescript, the incessant question from the defector repeated over and over again: ‘My family. What’s happened to my family?’

  Adrian expected tears, but Pavel seemed to have progressed beyond that now. He sat in the far corner of the car.

  ‘They’ve arrested them, haven’t they? They’ve arrested them and put them on trial. They’re going to die. They’re going to die because of what I’ve done. I’ve killed them.’

  Adrian sensed the growing hysteria and spoke quickly, anxious to halt it.

  ‘Stop it, Viktor. We don’t know that. You’re guessing.’

  ‘I don’t have to guess. I know.’

  They paused at the gate to the R.A.F. station, identified themselves and then swept into the restricted section, where the Westland Whirlwind waited under guard.

  Again, moving like someone mentally retarded, entirely dependent on others, Pavel
was led from the car, seated and belted into the helicopter and then obediently lowered his head, while the flight sergeant fumbled with the regulation helmet. Adrian had to wear one, too, and sat in the machine feeling stupid and self-conscious.

  The protection prevented conversation and so they sat side by side in the helicopter, just looking down. To prevent Pavel knowing where he was being taken, the helicopter flew directly west, down to Dorset, over the neat fields set out like a giant stamp collection, before turning south out over the Channel, so there were no landmarks, and then retracing its route to the east. It crossed the coast again at Hastings and looped Pulborough to where Bennovitch was being held.

  Pavel struggled from the machine, hobbling with cramp and for the first time Adrian realized how old he was. Fifty-nine, thought Adrian. Fifty-nine and just five days ago he seemed ageless. Now he looked like a senile old man.

  He stood waiting for instructions beneath the helicopter, which drooped, like a huge insect caught in the rain.

  Adrian put an arm around his shoulders and gently propelled him towards the house. The Russian approached docilely, without comment. Adrian felt he would have walked just as unquestioningly away from the house if he had been ordered to, so little interest was he taking in what happened to him.

  As they got nearer, Adrian isolated the elegant room where all his debriefings with the other Russian had taken place and then he saw Bennovitch, his head barely above the window-sill. He was standing quite motionless, still not completely convinced that it was Pavel who was being brought to him.

  When they were very close, Bennovitch’s face cleared and a half smile formed. He tried a hesitant wave, shyly almost, as if he expected to be rejected for what he had done. Pavel made no response and Bennovitch’s face settled into a frown of uncertainty.

  Adrian touched the older Russian’s arm, then gestured towards the window. Pavel’s eyes focused and Bennovitch saw he had been recognized and he smiled again, more hopefully this time.

  Adrian glanced back to his companion, like a father encouraging a reluctant son to acknowledge a birthday aunt. And remained staring at Pavel. Never had he seen such a look of sadness on a man’s face. The look lasted a few seconds, then faded.