Blackstone groped for a handkerchief and made as if to blow his nose, using the pretext to wipe away the build-up of sweat and to delay his answer as long as possible. Stick to the truth as much as possible, he told himself. He said: ‘I want very much to be part of it.’
‘Why?’ demanded Charlie.
‘Secret work is always different: exciting. I like working on challenging projects.’
‘What about the extra money?’
Careful! thought Blackstone. He said: ‘It does carry a higher salary scale. And it’s always nice to earn extra money.’
Charlie lowered his foot back to the floor, moving his toes inside the capacious Hush Puppies. His foot still ached. ‘So!’ he said briskly. ‘You decide to show how conscientious you are. Around the time most other people were going home you enter a classified, secure working area hoping to see the project manager to talk about a transfer. But then you go into a toilet and stay there all the time, so that when you come out Springley has gone home, like everyone else. Making everything completely pointless.’
‘I didn’t have any alternative,’ said Blackstone stubbornly. ‘I was ill.’
‘You didn’t say that before.’
Blackstone’s shirt was glued to his back by sweat and he had consciously to press one hand against the other in his lap to prevent the shake being noticeable. He was gripped by despair, finding it difficult to hold in his mind which answers he’d given to which questions: difficult to get his mind to function at all. He said: ‘It’s not something you talk about, is it?’
‘If you’re asked to explain being on premises where you’ve no right to be I would think it’s something you talk about,’ insisted Charlie.
Blackstone shrugged, not knowing an answer. ‘I didn’t.’ He knew he couldn’t go on much longer. Soon he was going to say something, admit something, and it was all going to be over. Everything. Thirty years: he was going to go to prison for thirty years.
Time for a sharp confrontation, gauged Charlie. He said: ‘You’re very nervous, Henry. If this is all the innocent misunderstanding you say it is, why are you so nervous?’
Blackstone frantically thought he saw an escape. He was engulfed by fear and recognized it as desperate but it was a matter of the lesser against the greater and his mind was blocked by the thought of a lifetime sentence if he admitted what he’d done. He said: ‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you?’
‘Not really,’ said Charlie. ‘Why should that be important?’
‘It’s not, I don’t suppose,’ said Blackstone. ‘But you don’t believe me, do you? So you’re going to go on digging and if you go on digging long enough you’re going to find out, aren’t you?’ He was committed now. There was no going back: lesser against the greater, he tried to convince himself. Nothing could be greater than thirty years.
Here it comes! thought Charlie. He’d have to get Slade in to witness whatever the confession was when it came to be written down. Not time yet, though: the hurdle of the first admission was always the most difficult. Once they started talking they usually found it impossible to stop. He said: ‘What is it I’m going to find out, Henry?’
‘Two wives,’ mumbled Blackstone. ‘I’ve got two wives. Not legally allowed to do that, am I?’
Charlie held back from laughing out loud but it wasn’t easy. ‘Not my line of business,’ he said. A reasonable enough explanation for the nervousness, he acknowledged.
‘You’re not interested in that!’ An uncertain hope came through all the other switchbacking emotions. Surely he wasn’t going to get away with it completely!
Charlie shook his head. ‘Like I said, I’m not a policeman. That’s nothing to do with me.’
‘I thought it would be.’ The man had accepted it! Blackstone decided hopefully.
A time to press hard and a time to behave softly, thought Charlie. Abruptly he announced: ‘I think that’s enough for today.’
‘For today?’
‘There are a few other things I’d like to cover but not today,’ said Charlie. ‘Why don’t we break now? See each other again tomorrow morning.’
He had escaped, accepted Blackstone. Temporarily perhaps, but it was enough, just to get away from the back-and-forth questioning that had his head in a whirl, confusing him, so he couldn’t think. He said: ‘Of course. Whatever you say.’
‘How about ten o’clock?’
Blackstone nodded agreement to the time and said: ‘So you’re not a policeman?’
‘Nope.’
‘Will you tell the police about me?’
‘I told you, I’m not interested,’ repeated Charlie.
For the first time there was a twitch of a smile, like a light clicking on and off. He’d well and truly deflected the other man, like he’d set out to do, determined Blackstone triumphantly. ‘Appreciate it,’ he said. ‘Not as if I’m hurting anyone, is it? I treat them both the same. They’re both happy.’
‘That’s not why I’m here,’ assured Charlie.
He’d won but only just, Blackstone realized objectively as he left the factory. And there was no telling for how long. He needed to talk to someone and there was only one person to whom he could talk. The urge was overwhelming to go to the first public kiosk he could find but Blackstone forced himself to stay calm, waiting until he’d crossed the river and was going inland before stopping at the telephone box he normally used, three miles outside of Newport. It wasn’t Losev who took the call, of course, but Blackstone said at once there was an emergency and that he had to speak to the man with whom he personally dealt, refusing any explanation. It was arranged he should call back in fifteen minutes and when he did the Russian was there, waiting. The dam broke the moment Blackstone was connected. He babbled disjointedly and Losev stopped him and told him to relax, then demanded the account in a controlled, consecutive way. Blackstone managed it but not easily, pumping coins into the pay phone as one time period expired to run into another.
When Blackstone finished the Russian said: ‘Why didn’t you warn me when you were first caught?’
‘I knew I’d got away with it that time.’
‘And now you’ve admitted your bigamy?’
‘I couldn’t think of any other way to get him off my back: I couldn’t think straight.’
‘He’s not going to do anything about it?’
‘He said he wasn’t.’
Losev was furious once more at the renewed difficulties Blackstone’s detection posed for him personally, his mind far ahead of the immediate problems. It meant he couldn’t recover with Moscow as he’d hoped over the incomplete drawing with which the bastard had already tricked him. And that even if Blackstone got through the postponed interrogation he couldn’t risk using the man for a long time. He said: ‘You really think the project manager is looking favourably upon your re-application?’
‘That’s the impression I got. He was very friendly. I don’t know what could happen now.’
So the man still had potential, acknowledged Losev, despite his anger. Too much for him to be disregarded or cast off, which was what Losev would have liked to do. As emphatically as possible he assured Blackstone there was nothing for him to worry about: that the only risk was in the man confessing. All Blackstone had to do was keep his head and he would be safe. ‘Do you think you can do that?’
‘I’ll try,’ said Blackstone, subdued.
‘You’ve got to do it,’ insisted Losev, as forcefully as possible. ‘The only person who can put you in jail is yourself.’
‘Should I keep in touch?’
‘Not for a week or two. Don’t do anything that might attract suspicion or attention,’ ordered Losev.
‘It frightens me to be questioned by someone I know to be an intelligence official, although he looks like a tramp.’