By the time the questioning began Blackstone was, incredibly, in one of his upswing moods, relaxed and relatively unworried. As he spoke he thought it was just like telling the truth. He produced his temporary security access authorization, which was agreed by them all to be valid. Blackstone’s instruction to deliver the Ariane fin design was confirmed by his superior and Blackstone insisted his return that evening had been the action of a conscientious employee attempting to retrieve documents non-classified and therefore insufficiently important to require a positive collection directive: if he were wrong about that then he was sorry. He’d only been trying to do his job. And here Blackstone introduced a further explanation he had mentally rehearsed while he waited for the examination to begin. He’d also hoped, he conceded in apparent admission, that he might personally encounter Robert Springley, from whom he still awaited a reply to his renewed application to be part of the project team. Again, Blackstone asserted, the action of a perhaps overly keen, conscientious worker. The absentminded, white-haired project leader at once confirmed such a reply was outstanding.
The drawings tubes he had been carrying were examined and found only to contain additional Ariane material, and a thorough check of the room in which he had been detained showed nothing interfered with and nothing missing.
Throughout Blackstone became increasingly aware that the examination was being conducted internally, without any outside police involvement, which had to be a good sign. And he didn’t regard as ominous being told to hold himself in readiness for a fuller inquiry, pending which he would be formally upon suspension, because if they’d really believed him to be doing something wrong they wouldn’t have allowed him off the premises in the first place. The most encouraging thing of all was the smiling farewell from Springley himself, who said when the inquiry had disbanded and they were getting ready to leave that he was sorry for the delay but that he hadn’t made up his mind about the application yet.
He’d got away with it! decided Blackstone exultantly. And Springley was considering him. There certainly wasn’t any cause to ring the emergency number in London and alert the man he knew as Mr Stranger, which he further knew wasn’t the man’s real name at all.
There were other prescribed routines which automatically followed such a preliminary inquiry. One was that a report be sent to London, and because it involved the security of such a highly classified overseas project it was channelled to Westminster Bridge Road. The level of classification also required it to be personally studied by the acting Director General.
Richard Harkness decided at once it was an innocent, completely explained event of no importance whatsoever, which was already the conclusion of the inquiry group that had convened the night of the occurrence. But procedure dictated their own investigation be conducted, pointless though it would be in this case.
Harkness knew just the officer for pointless investigations.
The meeting that day was in Berkeley, near the university campus, the sort of crowded and jostled place that Petrin seemed to favour. Emil Krogh arrived on schedule and waited impatiently, moving from foot to foot and gazing up and down the pavement near the designated drug store, wishing the rendezvous were more secluded. The openness worried him and he said so when Petrin finally arrived.
‘I like it this way,’ said the Russian dismissively. He did not, of course, add that such locations made their every meeting and every handover that much easier for the positioned KGB officers to photograph.
19
The head of security at the aerospace factory was named Harry Slade. He had served in the British Army for twenty-five years, honourably retiring with the rank of sergeant major and a regimental photograph signed by all the officers. He wore two lines of campaign ribbons on an immaculate, rigidly pressed black uniform with a profusion of brightly shined buttons, and regarded Charlie Muffin with the distasteful regret of a missed parade-ground challenge. It was an effort, but he managed to avoid automatically calling Charlie ‘sir’. The effort, like the attitude, was obvious but Charlie decided not to confront it: he was working away from Westminster Bridge Road for the first time in months, there would be expenses, the sun was shining and he was feeling generous. Slade confirmed that afternoon’s appointment with Blackstone and showed Charlie the office that had been made available for him, the waiting room to a conference chamber. There were easy chairs as well as a more formal arrangement at a desk and there were fresh flowers in a proper vase and a view of the Medina river from the window. Charlie guessed the place to be three times the size of where he was accustomed to working at Westminster Bridge Road. At Charlie’s insistence the security chief reviewed everything discussed at the inquiry and produced Blackstone’s personnel record and then took Charlie on a tour of the fenced-off, secure section. There Charlie met the project manager, and Springley said he was sure it was all a fuss about nothing and Charlie truthfully said he didn’t mind at all coming down from London to check it out. Under Springley’s guidance he was shown around the workrooms and the communal drawing area and saw how all the blueprints and drawing material were secured at the end of each evening.
‘Personally checked every night by myself,’ chipped in the escorting Slade. ‘There’s no danger of any classified information getting into the wrong hands from this building.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Charlie.
‘I think the whole episode comes down to Blackstone’s dedication to the job,’ said the project manager. ‘He’s applied twice to join the team.’
‘Are you taking him on?’
Springley shrugged. ‘I might, if a vacancy occurs. There’s no room at the moment, but I think there might be in a few weeks.’
Slade appeared surprised when Charlie asked to see where Blackstone normally worked, in the main building, but showed him anyway. Slade seemed affronted when Charlie said he didn’t want the man to sit in on the afternoon’s interview.
‘I expected that you would,’ said the security chief.
Charlie guessed the man would have kept Blackstone standing to attention throughout. He said: ‘I prefer to be on my own.’
‘I need to make a proper report to the company,’ protested Slade. ‘It’s my job.’
‘I’ll tell you what happens,’ promised Charlie. He’d never got on with sergeant majors and certainly didn’t want the intrusion of this one with his judgement already made.
Blackstone was early. The tracer came inquiringly into the room after politely knocking, stopping in the doorway when he saw only Charlie there. He said: ‘I was told to come here?’
‘That’s right,’ said Charlie.
‘Just you?’
‘What did you expect?’
‘I didn’t…I don’t know.’ Which was true and the reason for Blackstone’s vague confusion. He’d prepared himself to be confronted by a group of officials from London, maybe even some sort of panel but not just one person. And most certainly not by this tramp of a man who didn’t look like an official of anything. Blackstone did not now have the confidence of the night he was caught – his feelings were actually on a downturn – but he was sure he didn’t have anything to fear here.
Blackstone was a plump, quick-blinking man. He wore a well-pressed blue suit that Charlie guessed to be his Sunday best, with a crisp white shirt and with his hair combed carefully to cover the place where it was thinning, near his forehead. Charlie nodded across the desk at which he was already sitting and said: ‘Why not take that chair there?’