Julia cooked pheasant. Charlie was glad he’d taken Margaux. Quite soon into the meal, she said: ‘Whatever it was, I’m glad it’s over.’
‘What?’ frowned Charlie.
‘You’re like your old self tonight. The last couple of times you haven’t been altogether with me, have you?’
‘Something on my mind,’ admitted Charlie.
‘Anything you can talk about?’
It would have been interesting to discuss it with Julia. Except that it would have disclosed how he had used her, in the very beginning. And might do again in the future: forever trapped by his own double standards. ‘Over, like you said.’
‘How was your mother?’
‘Bright enough.’ He smiled. ‘Told me I’d never get a girl-friend.’
‘Won’t you?’ she asked, not smiling.
Charlie was uncomfortable at the seriousness with which she was looking directly across the table at him. Quickly he said: ‘I’m thinking of asking for an interview with the deputy Director.’
She looked away, breaking the awkwardness. ‘Why?’
‘About time I was assigned someone else, don’t you think?’
She turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘I never got the impression they were going to come through on a conveyor belt.’
Charlie was suddenly struck by a thought quite apart but at the same time closely connected with his uncertainty over the past few days. ‘If there was any change at the office… if Miller and Elder left or were transferred… would you expect your rather special situation to stay as it is there?’
Julia frowned. ‘I wouldn’t think so. Why do you ask?’
A further reason for doing nothing, Charlie accepted. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
Her frown deepened. ‘What is going on?’
‘Nothing,’ he repeated. ‘Honestly.’
Patricia Elder had moved her clothes out gradually as their time together came to an end, so there were only her washing things and make-up left by the last day. At breakfast Miller suggested he go on ahead, leaving her to check everything as she normally did at the end of any period they spent together at the penthouse.
Patricia went through the sprawling apartment room by room, although knowing it wasn’t necessary because she’d removed the traces of her having been there as carefully as she’d removed her clothes, over the preceding days.
She went through the master bedroom last. All Lady Ann’s cosmetics were arranged on the expansive dressing-table, laid out with the precision of instruments upon a surgeon’s operating tray: Miller’s wife was an extraordinarily neat and tidy person, as he was.
The Jean Patou Joy, the perfume Lady Ann always wore, was in the middle of the line, its accustomed place. Patricia preferred Chanel, which was not so heavy. She slotted her bottle in alongside the other perfume: it seemed perfectly to fit the symmetry of the orderly arrangement in which Lady Ann delighted.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Miller, when she got to the office.
‘All fixed,’ said Patricia.
The Russian rezidentura at the London embassy justifiably considered it had achieved a remarkable success with its discovery and proof of a relationship between the head of British external intelligence and his deputy, although accepting with some regret that it would not now be considered so usefully important as it once might have been, in the old days of the KGB.
The rezidentura hoped that success would balance the partial failure with the man named as Charles Edward Muffin, the lead to whom had come from Moscow, which might have indicated particular interest.
The apologetic account to Moscow acknowledged that the guidance of a famous salmon river and a unique fishing club had successfully led to a nursing home in the small Hampshire town of Stockbridge in which an elderly woman with the same name as the man they had to trace was a permanent resident. They had been fortunate locating and so quickly identifying him from the Moscow-supplied photograph. They could offer no reasonable explanation for his having turned so unexpectedly off a motorway on the return journey to London, although later, when the observation was resumed, he had stopped by an emergency telephone, so there might have been problems with the car, which had been hired and not in the name they knew to be his. Against the possibility of the observation having been suspected, the pursuit had been abandoned at that point.
The rezidentura sought further instructions about maintaining surveillance upon the nursing home, for a subsequent visit, although pointing out that the demands of the operation were stretching the London resources to the absolute maximum.
From Moscow Natalia ordered no further time or effort to be expended on this one man: the tracing operation had to concentrate on others.
For the moment – perhaps for a very long time – telling Charlie about his daughter had to wait. She still had to evolve a foolproof way to deal with the problem of Eduard.
Thirty-one
John Gower was sure there was no significance in his waking virtually in the middle of the night, long before dawn: certainly it wasn’t nerves. Very little to be nervous about. Probably still hadn’t recovered from jetlag as well as he’d hoped. Definitely not unsettled by it. The opposite. Gave him a lot of time to think things through, go over what he had to do that day. Scarcely needed a lot of time. All very simple; very straightforward. Everything already sorted out in his mind. Didn’t need what was in the security vault, not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after. Which would mean what London regarded as sensitive being here, in his rooms. No problem. He was positive his rooms hadn’t been searched. Every trap he’d set had remained in place, unsprung. Damned good room-boy. Everything clean as a new pin, laundry perfect and nothing touched. No need to study special maps, for reminders of the drops: he’d already decided where to leave his summons. Only the temple still to find that morning. Just needed the photographs, for when the priest responded. They’d be meaningless, if the room-boy did see them. After today he wouldn’t be going outside the compound, not until the moment he finally left for the airport. And he would have handed them over to Snow long before then.
Everything fitting properly into place, all in the right sequence. Easy. Pity he couldn’t make any recommendations towards the improvements necessary here, when he got back to London. People had trusted him. Didn’t like deceiving them, after they’d been so kind. Hoped they wouldn’t criticize him personally: hoped they’d decide it wasn’t his fault but budgetary restraints and penny-pinching back in London. Might be an idea to prepare the ground. Say something about trying his best but financial approval having to come from higher up. Nicholson was the gossip of the embassy, the man to spread it around. Hope Marcia liked the cheongsam Jane would be buying today. What would Marcia be doing right now, this very minute, thousands of miles away? Planning the wedding, most likely. Wasn’t sure he’d like her going away so much when they were married. Important she had a career of her own, of course. Extra salary would be useful in the beginning, too. Just try to rationalize the travelling. Have to talk to her about it. Be seeing her soon now. Just over a week at the most. Sooner maybe. Christ, he wanted to be with her so much: to get out of this place and back where he understood at least something of what was happening around him. Not nervous, though. Knew what he was doing: what he had to do. Everything in place. Easy. Today was the day. He felt good. Relaxed.