Madrigal for Charlie Muffin (8 page)

‘Look there, please,’ said one of them politely.

About a hundred and fifty yards along the concourse Hotovy saw his two boys being led into the building. There were three men and a woman with them. They went to the desk handling the Aeroflot flight. Tickets and boarding passes were handed to them without any checking formalities.

‘You’re not going to make a fuss, are you?’ said the man.

‘No,’ said Hotovy.

It was two hours after the Aeroflot departure that Clarissa Willoughby arrived at Heathrow. With the porter trailing her she went straight by the check-in counter for the Nice flight to the ticket desk.

‘I’d like to change my flight,’ she said to the clerk.

The man in the grey suit, still with his umbrella, busied himself among the magazines at the bookstall. He found he read a lot in his line of business.

8

General Kalenin would have preferred more time to assemble the material but he was confident he had forgotten nothing. He arranged it before him on the desk top, checking against the carefully prepared list, for the final scrutiny. The medal ribbon designated a Hero of the Soviet Union and was accompanied by a long official citation made out in Charlie Muffin’s name. There was a Soviet identity card, with a picture of Charlie and an authorization, again with a picture, for admission to the restricted concessionary stores. The passport contained Charlie’s picture and was date-stamped for the relevant countries where the Britons had been killed. There was five thousand dollars in cash and several congratulatory cables, two referring to the assassinations in Delhi and Ankara. The longest document was the briefing about Rome. It ran to two full pages and Kalenin concentrated upon that most of all, because it had to complete the entrapment.

He summoned the courier to take it to the Foreign Ministry for inclusion in that night’s diplomatic pouch to London, shrugging into his topcoat while he waited. He followed the messenger from his office but descended in the private lift directly into the basement where the car was waiting in an area of guaranteed absolute security. The journey to Kutuzovsky Prospect took only minutes and Kalenin dismissed the driver for the evening.

It was one of the largest apartments in the government complex, too big for his solitary needs but awarded to him because of his rank. The size enabled Kalenin to devote an entire room to his hobby. From habit he went immediately to it, staring down at the contoured papier-mâché layout and the positions of the miniature tanks with which he had been recreating the Battle of Kursk in the most recent war game. It was over a fortnight since he’d abandoned it. Normally he would have invited Alexei Berenkov to complete it with him, but had decided against it tonight.

Reminded of his guest, Kalenin went back into the main room and opened two bottles of Aloxe Gorton to let them breathe. Berenkov preferred French to Russian wine and Kalenin enjoyed using his official position to indulge his friend. He lit a low heat beneath the bortsch and added meat and dumplings when it began to steam. He had just completed laying out the caviar and smoked fish when the bell sounded.

Berenkov entered as exuberantly as always, enveloping Kalenin in his burly arms. The only legacy of the man’s British imprisonment was the white hair. The cowed apprehension of his immediate return had disappeared and under Valentina’s care all the weight had been restored. He looked like a bear, thought Kalenin. But elderly and docile, the sort that live in children’s fairy stories.

‘Valentina is sorry,’ said Berenkov, repeating the apology of their telephone conversation earlier in the day. ‘I think Asian flu is the best weapon the Chinese have.’

‘Tell her I hope she’s better soon,’ said Kalenin. ‘But I wanted to talk to you alone anyway.’

For the caviar and fish there was vodka. Before they began eating they touched glasses, toasting Russian-fashion.

‘That sounds intriguing,’ said Berenkov, heaping his plate with fish.

‘It’s Charlie Muffin.’

Berenkov stopped eating, ‘What about him?’ There was a sadness of anticipation in his expression.

Berenkov had the highest security clearance for his appointment as senior lecturer at the spy college on the outskirts of Moscow, so Kalenin recounted in detail the Rome exposure and what he intended to do to save it. Berenkov sat hunched forward, huge hands cupped around his vodka glass, his food temporarily forgotten.

‘He couldn’t have been better for our purpose,’ said Kalenin. Charlie Muffin had been responsible for trapping the other man and Kalenin knew that, during the debriefing which followed, a professional respect had developed between them.

‘How did you find him?’

‘In America, about a year ago,’ said Kalenin. ‘He was involved in the insurance protection of a Tsarist stamp collection. I’ve had him under observation ever since.’

‘A convenient coincidence.’

‘The British will be completely convinced.’ Kalenin brought the bortsch and wine to the table. Berenkov poured, sniffing the bouquet appreciatively.

‘What do you think of the plan?’

Berenkov made an uncertain rocking gesture with his hand. ‘It seems good.’

‘Kastanazy is being purged.’ Kalenin needed to confide fully. ‘I expect him to be dismissed any day.’

‘Will you get the seat?’

Kalenin smiled. ‘It’s a possibility.’

Berenkov raised his glass. ‘To your success.’

‘Thank you.’

Berenkov put down the glass and said guardedly. ‘You shouldn’t underestimate Charlie Muffin.’

‘He might have been good once,’ agreed Kalenin. ‘But not any longer: he’s collapsed pretty badly during the last year.’

Berenkov laughed, a short, humourless sound. ‘He was right about the stick,’ he said.

‘Stick?’

‘A remark he made at the last meeting we had, in prison,’ remembered Berenkov. ‘He said he always got the shitty end of the stick.’

Charlie filled the bath with cold water, rolled up his trousers and perched carefully on the edge, easing his feet in with a sigh of relief. Rubber-soled suede wasn’t good for hot weather: and now his feet hurt like buggery. He flexed his toes, thinking of the ride back to Rome.

Had there been a Lancia following? He’d only been aware of it for part of the journey and when he’d slowed it had overtaken naturally enough. But he hadn’t been going fast in the first place, so why had it crawled along behind?

Maybe he was being over-cautious. By going out to Ostia Charlie had avoided any contact with the embassy, so there couldn’t be the slightest chance of detection. He would have to be careful he didn’t imagine danger where none existed.

There was a knock at the door. It came again, more insistently, as he dried his feet. He padded across the room, without bothering to roll down his trousers.

‘Going to the beach?’ said Clarissa Willoughby.

‘Just as soon as I knot my handkerchief,’ said Charlie.

‘You don’t seem pleased to see me.’

‘I’m not sure that I am.’

9

Clarissa sat in the middle of the bed with her knees drawn up beneath her chin, so that her skirt gaped, revealing too much leg. Charlie moved a crumpled shirt from the only chair in the room to sit down, wanting to distance himself from her. Charlie was annoyed. At Clarissa, for being so sure of herself. And at himself, for the excitement he felt.

‘This is stupid,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I do.’

‘It’s fun.’

She meant it, Charlie knew. People like Clarissa did things simply because they were fun. Like boarding aircraft at dawn in the previous night’s party clothes because breakfast at Focquets seemed fun, or like deciding it was fun to look at a friend’s villa in Acapulco right after lunch at San Lorenzo. Clarissa must worry about her passport like he worried about his feet.

‘What about Rupert?’

‘He thinks I’m somewhere off the coast of Menton, on a yacht.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Rupert didn’t seem a problem for you in America. What’s so different now?’

‘Look at me,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m a worn-out old bugger at least ten years older than you. If you took me to the house of any of your friends they wouldn’t let me past the kitchens.’

‘You’re an inverted snob!’

‘Would they?’

‘I don’t intend finding out.’ She looked around her. ‘This is a pretty crappy room, Charlie.’

‘I wasn’t expecting to share it.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes you do.’

‘Isn’t this a bit too much slam, bam, thank you, ma’am?’

‘Being a prissy hypocrite doesn’t suit you.’

‘Flashing your arse doesn’t suit you.’

A flush of anger picked out on her cheeks but she remained smiling. ‘You thought it was a nice enough arse last time.’

This was how it had been in New York. He hadn’t felt so emasculated by the approach then.

‘We’re the same,’ Clarissa continued. ‘Not quite, but almost. That’s why it was so good. And will be again.’

He’d forgotten the disarming way she looked at anyone she was talking to, with those unnaturally pale eyes. He wanted her like hell. And she knew it.

‘Go away Clarissa,’ he said weakly.

‘I’ve had a long journey,’ she said. ‘I’m tired and I want to go to bed.’

‘They’ve probably got rooms.’

‘I’m in one.’

‘Stop it Clarissa!’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘This is like.…’ Charlie waved his hands, as if he were trying to feel for the expression. ‘… it isn’t real.’

‘It’s real enough for me.’

‘Perhaps I haven’t had the practice.’

‘You’re being a bore. You were never that, Charlie.’

‘I was never raped, either.’

‘I was once: it was fun.’

‘Jesus!’ said Charlie.

‘I never knew his name. He was a chauffeur, in Spain. Being raped is a common female fantasy, you know?’

Clarissa rolled off the bed on the opposite side from him and said. ‘Help me with the covers, Charlie.’

He hesitated. Then he got up from the chair and pulled them back on his side. She came over to him. ‘And now unzip me.’

When the dress parted he saw she was not wearing a bra. She faced him as the dress fell to her feet and her hardnippled breasts pushed up for attention. She reached for him and pulled his face to her. ‘You didn’t kiss me when I came in,’ she said.

He did now, biting at her and she came back at him, just as anxiously. She brought her head back, panting and said, ‘See! Just the same.’

‘You make it seem as if you’re trying to prove something.’

‘Come to bed and prove something to me,’ she said.

For Charlie it had been a long time and he was nervous, so he finished too quickly. She let him rest, holding him against her breast and gently stroking his head. Then she pushed him down and said, ‘Now do it properly.’

He coaxed her gently, with his hands and mouth, holding back until she was almost ready before pushing into her. She strained up to meet him, head taut back for the groan that went on and on. When she spoke, the words quivered. ‘
That
was properly,’ she said.

He turned onto his side, but didn’t part from her and she held him tightly, to make sure he didn’t.

‘No point in all that posturing, was there?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Guilty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry?’

‘No.’

‘Neither am I,’ she said. ‘But then I knew I wouldn’t be.’

‘What about all those animals you were supposed to be looking after?’

‘I’ve found a hobby I like better,’ she said.

Sir Alistair Wilson stood before the easels, comparing the photographs of Henry Walsingham and Richard Semingford. Ordinary, unremarkable people, he thought. But spies and traitors always looked like ordinary people, with mortgages and bills and kids at school and cars that went wrong.

The director turned at Harkness’s entry.

‘The replies are in,’ announced the deputy, before he sat down. ‘Thrown up a couple of things about Semingford.’

‘What?’

‘He’s overdrawn, by about five hundred pounds. And there’s an affair.’

‘Don’t these damned people ever think of blackmail before they take their trousers down?’ said Wilson. ‘Who is she?’

‘Lady Billington’s secretary, a girl named Jane Williams.’

‘Background?’

‘Admiral’s daughter, from Devonport. Unmarried. Excellent grades in her civil service examinations.’

‘How old?’

‘Thirty.’

‘How old is Semingford?’

‘Forty-two.’

‘The middle-aged wish to be young again: that’s familiar too,’ said the director. ‘What about the security man?’

‘Walsingham’s financial affairs seem okay.’

‘And the Australian inquiry?’

‘Jill Walsingham’s mother had a hysterectomy,’ reported Harkness. As an afterthought, he added, ‘It appears to have been successful.’

‘Semingford’s the most likely then?’

‘I’ve told the people in Rome to concentrate upon him,’ said Harkness. ‘But it’s not much, is it?’

The other man’s caution was justified, conceded Wilson. ‘Not really,’ he agreed.

‘Going to tell Naire-Hamilton?’

‘No,’ said Wilson. ‘I’ll wait until there’s something firmer.’ He looked back at the photographs. ‘It’s taking longer than I expected.’

‘It’s only been three days.’ Harkness was surprised at the remark. ‘And this is how it’s got to be done, if they want discretion.’

‘I know,’ said Wilson. ‘I’d just like a more positive development.’

‘There is one.’

Wilson looked up.

‘Hotovy didn’t make his contact point. There were backup rendezvous spots, for succeeding days. He hasn’t shown at any of them.’

‘What have you done?’

‘Put the Czech embassy and all the residences under observation, since dawn. He’s not been seen. Or the kids.’

‘What about the wife?’

‘Still no sign that she’s returned from Brno.’

‘He’s gone then.’

‘He was genuine,’ said Harkness.

‘If he’d crossed at once, he’d have been all right.’

‘It would have been a hell of a coup, to have got him.’

‘So it will be to get the bastard in Rome,’ said Wilson.