Legacy (28 page)

‘There is a growing tendency in this service to count the conscious provision of intelligence as a recruitment. It isn’t. As you should know from your course, an agent may be said to
be properly recruited – and therefore be an agent – only when he or she accepts handover to another case officer, thus accepting that his relationship is with the service, not the
individual. You have done extremely well with your friend but we’re a long way from that, even if you do meet again this side of the Styx.’

They spent the last half hour discussing in detail arrangements for the following week, by the end of which Charles felt drained and sluggish while Hookey continued with undiminished vigour and
clarity. ‘Report to Hugo first thing in the morning, leaving out any reference to Legacy, of course. He can do all the paperwork. He likes that sort of thing. I’ll square MI5 in advance
at the appropriate level so that they’ll know it has a Legacy context. If you think it’s difficult to discuss it without Legacy, put in something else – Lover Boy thinking of
defecting, for example. Point is, there has to be something bureaucratic to account for our continuing concentration on Lover Boy without widening the circle of Legacy knowledge. And I mean first
thing. The rest of your day’s going to be busy, like the rest of your week. I’ll get the duty officer to ring Hugo at sparrow’s fart and get him in. As for the elusive
Beaconsfield cache, MI5 will have to look again. You should go with them. You might have an idea how your father might have thought. I’ll fix it.’He made another note, then clasped his
hands behind his head. ‘Very useful, your resignation. Be hell to pay for all this uncleared, unauthorised activity if you hadn’t. There’ll be moderate hell anyway but not too bad
because you’re the scapegoat. Equally useful, though, that you’re still on the payroll for your final month. Means I can still boss you around, eh?’ When Charles left sometime
after two Hookey relit his pipe and began drafting.

Charles now saw Claire approach across the street, tottering on high heels and wearing a tight, short, white skirt. ‘Darling,’ she said theatrically, attracting the attention of
everyone in the restaurant. She kissed him extravagantly on both cheeks, then dabbed at the resulting lipstick smears with a tiny frilly handkerchief. When they sat she took a mirror from her
handbag and repaired her damaged lipstick while he talked about the menu.

‘I ’eard about this place,’ she said, rounding her mouth in the mirror. ‘I want to try them things that sound like tampax.’

Charles floundered for a while but eventually settled on
empanadas
.

‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Sort of pancakes, aren’t they? And wine?’

‘Naturally. Of course wine. Always wine.’

He had chosen the restaurant to get her off her own ground, to make things feel different and also, in the event of it going wrong, to ensure she was away from people she knew. She was much
livelier than the all but crushed and exhausted woman she had been the night before, although beneath her shovelled-on make-up there was the stretch and strain of ageing, like a taut mask of skin
drawn across her skull. Her eyes had a surface shine that blocked all depth or variety of expression. Her account of her forty minutes with Viktor the night before was anodyne: he was jogging, had
dropped in to tell her he loved her and give her a necklace, would call again before he left, regretted he couldn’t stay longer. She did not mention her money demand or her threat. Nor did
she stop talking.

Charles waited until they were nearing the end of the first bottle. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news for you. Which way d’you want it?’

‘The good, of course. Don’t like bad news.’

‘The good is more money for you, much more. On top of what they’re paying you, they agreed with my suggestion that because of all the good work you’ve done for us they should
lend you the money to go to Cornwall and have the break you wanted. The timing’s right, with Viktor going away – though we’ll come back to him in a minute – and you can have
a nice long break before getting stuck in to his successor, if you’re happy to do that. It’s a five thousand quid, interest-free, no time limit loan and you don’t even have to pay
it back in money. You can pay it in time spent on our behalf with Viktor’s successor. Does that count as good?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Peter, darling, you serious? As long as I like? What about the revenue – won’t they get on to me if it’s government money?’

‘They won’t know anything about it unless from you. If you talk about it, one way or another it’s bound to get back to them. The bad news –’

‘Don’t spoil it now, Pete, I don’t want to know.’

‘The bad news is that Viktor’s successor, if it’s who we think it is, has a bit of a reputation as a bedroom romper. Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure, but
probably like those men you were telling me about. There was some trouble during his last posting with a girl in Mexico City, though nothing was ever proved. In fact, I’m not sure she was
ever found. The CIA are still looking for her, so we might hear more and it may not turn out as bad as it sounded. Interesting to see what you think when you meet him.’

She nodded.

‘More seriously, though, is what’s happened to Viktor himself. Apparently his own people had him under surveillance for most of yesterday, though we’re not sure whether they
were with him on his run when he called on you. Might have been, might not. Anyway, he didn’t follow his usual routine this morning and the switchboard aren’t putting any calls through
to him. The only time he’s been seen he was with a couple of security narks, minders who’ve just flown in from Moscow. They must have discovered something about him, whether that
he’s been seeing you or not, we don’t know, but it could well be. Some of them were seen in Belgravia this morning, though not in your street. Could be coincidence or could be that they
only have a description, no name or address.’

‘You mean they’re after me?’ Credulous fear kept her eyes wide and her mouth open. ‘What would they do?’

Charles shrugged. Her anxiety was so palpable that he felt briefly sorry for her; she was outside the service, someone to be used and carefully manipulated, then gently left when her usefulness
was finished. An outsider. An outsider was what he was becoming. What she had tried to do to Viktor, however, and could still do, leant effortless conviction to his lie. ‘Don’t know.
Probably just identify you as part of their interrogation of him. But you never know with these people. It’s just as well you’re going away for a while anyway. No harm in lying low for
a bit.’

A naked man with a beard walked into the restaurant. There was laughter, a wolf whistle and some ragged cheering and clapping. He walked past their table to the far end, turned and walked back
and out. Claire, who had lit a cigarette, watched him with unseeing eyes. ‘How soon do I have to go? When can you get the five thousand?’

‘I’ve got it with me, in cash. Plus what’s owed you. If you want to play safe start for Cornwall tonight.’ He wasn’t sure whether she was so preoccupied that she
hadn’t seen the man or whether, for her, naked strange men were such an everyday occurrence that their appearance in public lacked the novelty it held for others. ‘Did you see that
man?’

‘London’s full of nutters. Glad to be out of it, to be honest.’

Charles nodded. Just as people went on eating their
empanadas
despite the naked man, so in Whitehall Operation Legacy would take its place among other papers filling the in-trays of
bureaucrats. It would not disrupt weekends, golf, school sports days or dinner parties – except, perhaps, Hookey’s. It was incongruity, he decided, rather than unreality that the naked
man symbolised, the incongruity of everyday. Espionage was like that. He was developing a taste for it.

The money was in a parcel in a Marks & Spencers plastic bag. He got her to sign for it while they were still at the table. They parted in the street outside, she with a flurry of kisses and
fervour, promising to return to London as soon as she could and to be in touch without fail, he with cautious assurances that all would probably be well, that the office would keep an eye on what
the Russians were up to, that they weren’t allowed to travel as far as Cornwall without permission and that he looked forward to hearing her impressions of the notorious bedroom romper, when
she got into action with him. Pretence was mutual and successful.

Charles had imagined he would begin job-hunting the following week, but couldn’t yet believe in himself doing anything else. The very idea of a CV was repugnant. CVs were inevitably
dishonest and he disliked that sort of self-promotion. Perhaps he would try to transfer to the Foreign Office, if they would have him, which was doubtful. He didn’t really want to do it and
they would probably detect that. Without actually becoming bitter, he felt increasingly disaffected from everything. One morning he slept late, another he did not shave. He lunched with a couple of
old friends, one from Oxford who was now an ambitious barrister, another from the army now doing well in the Treasury. He could barely manage that pretence of enthusiasm that is usually sufficient
to engender its reality. Always before in life there had been something to go on to, but now all that kept him moving was his determination to get at the truth about his father, and that was not a
welcoming prospect. Spasms of anger gave way to troughs of despair, which in turn gave way to a longing to talk to him, to have him there, to argue with him, to seek from him the reassurance that
was no longer possible. He maintained a separate, consoling imaginary dialogue with Anna, too, but there was no future there, either. He advertised the Rover in
Exchange & Mart
.

Throughout it all, one part of his mind followed the itinerary of the Soviet delegation to the International Maritime Organisation, which Viktor was accompanying. There was surveillance on
Viktor day and night whether he was on the streets or off them, in meetings, at home in bed, eating or interpreting. Every step he took outside Soviet premises was observed, every opportunity he
had to signal distress closely monitored. The system he and Charles had devised was a traditional one involving chalk marks or stickers that closely resembled, Viktor had confided, the emergency
contact procedure agreed with Charles’s father.

‘It has the virtues of simplicity and flexibility,’ Hookey had conceded, ‘but lacks plausibility for Lover Boy’s precise circumstances this week. Where does he get his
bit of chalk without anyone knowing and why does he carry it around in his pocket? Easy enough for an agent in your father’s position but less so for a KGB officer operating from within a
watchful residency. However, if he suggested it, he must think he can get away with it.’

Viktor sent no signal indicating greater danger. The signal to him that the ploy with Claire had worked – a sticker in one of the glass panes of the telephone box nearest the main entrance
to the embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, easily visible from car or on foot – was made, and remained in place all week. There was nothing more for Charles to do but that did not prevent
Hugo summoning him to review progress, as he put it. There were various contingencies involving fake car accidents, police roadside checks, prearranged slip-away points and, if things became
desperate, bomb warnings, all designed to enable Viktor to escape anyone to whom he wasn’t actually handcuffed. His wife, Tanya, was the main complication; he had no way of knowing in advance
whether she would want to defect with him. He suspected not, because of their daughter, but didn’t dare discuss it with her. The signals had to indicate that she was joining him, if she
chose, but she would have only minutes to make up her mind and take in the instructions.

‘I know it’s all set up but I think it’s worthwhile checking every nut and bolt of the arrangements daily in case we see scope for modification or find we haven’t screwed
everything down,’ Hugo said more than once, pleased with his metaphor. ‘I’m talking to MI5 all the time and of course it’s their resources that are being stretched over
this. They’ve had to reduce coverage of some high priority targets to maintain this round-the-clock business that you and Lover Boy cooked up between you. Of course, he’s used to KGB SV
resources, which are massive, whereas you’re just inexperienced. I’ve explained that to MI5. Not surprisingly, they were pretty unhappy about your contacts with Mata Hari, given their
firm request that we steer clear of her until they establish the truth of this ministerial business of hers. Very unhappy, actually. But I took Hookey’s line that you were out of control,
having resigned. They weren’t very happy about that either, to be honest. Blackens your name, rather. What’s more, it makes my life difficult, not knowing how to categorise you so far
as expenses and the money you drew to pay Mata Hari are concerned. If you’re still in the service it’s one set of forms, if you’re not it’s one of several others depending
on how we describe you. If we call you an agent I’ll have to open an agent file for you. If we call you a registered contact it’s something else again. Bloody nuisance. Anna sends love,
by the way, and wants to know if you’ve found a job yet.’

‘There hasn’t been much time.’

‘Better get on with it. Are you growing a beard?’

‘No, I just haven’t shaved.’ Charles was wearing jeans and no tie. He sensed, and enjoyed, Hugo’s disapproval. Hookey, when they met briefly, ignored it, and was brisk
and business-like.

‘An MI5 search team is going out to Beaconsfield this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ve told them to take you. Maureen’s arranged for them to pick you up at your flat.
She’ll tell you what time.’

They picked him up in a Cortina estate; two men, Mick and Jeff, both short and wearing jackets and ties. Mick was from London, Jeff from Leeds. They were pleased.

‘Haven’t had a decent rummage for ages,’ said Jeff. ‘Been all breaking and entry stuff recently.’

‘Last week’s go at this place weren’t a proper search,’ said Mick. ‘They told us the wrong bloody area, sent us poking about the officers’ mess and all that.
You reckon it’s out on the perimeter?’