‘Any change in the situation of the man you’ve got inside the factory here?’
It was a gloating question, decided Losev. Exaggerating again, he said: ‘Now he’s been cleared there’s the possibility of a transfer. Moscow consider him important.’
‘How soon is the transfer to be?’ punctured Petrin at once.
‘There’s no date,’ Losev was forced to admit, discomfited.
‘It would be good to have the insurance of a second source,’ said Petrin objectively.
A waiter advised that their table was ready and both men sat and ordered before picking up the conversation. Petrin asked for the details of travelling to and from the Isle of Wight and what the factory was like, and asked Losev to inform Moscow of his arrivaclass="underline" everything really was politely requested but Losev inferred them as demands and felt further antagonism, giving short, clipped responses. They agreed to communicate daily through the number that Blackstone had, which was to a telephone in the safe house Losev intended setting up as Krogh’s drawing office, and Losev said he would forward any queries from Moscow to Petrin’s hotel using the same route.
Towards the end of the meal Petrin was sure he had not been mistaken about Losev’s initial reserve or about the later hostility. Finally he said: ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Wrong?’
‘I have the impression I’ve offended you in some way.’
‘No,’ denied Losev. ‘I’m not offended about anything. How could I be?’
‘That’s what I couldn’t understand.’
‘Maybe you’re tired after the flight.’
Petrin gazed steadily at the London station chief across the tiny, window-side table. ‘Maybe I am,’ he agreed. Then he said: ‘I don’t think anything should be allowed to endanger what we’ve got to achieve, do you?’
‘That remark is incomprehensible to me.’
‘It means that we should work together,’ said Petrin.
‘I don’t imagine it being any other way,’ said Losev stiffly.
‘Good,’ said Petrin. ‘I wouldn’t like it to be any other way.’
Charlie caught Laura on the pavement outside the office. As soon as she saw him her face opened into a smile but Charlie didn’t smile back. Bluntly he said: ‘I’m going to have to back out of the arrangement we made on Sunday. I’m sorry.’
Laura’s expression faded. She said: ‘Why don’t we rearrange something for another evening?’
‘Maybe not for a little while.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see.’
‘I think it would be best.’
‘I told you a long time ago there wasn’t any danger of it getting out of hand. Not on my part anyway.’
‘I remember,’ said Charlie.
‘Is it anything I’ve done? Or said?’
‘No.’
‘So why?’
‘I just think it’s best, that’s all.’
‘I think I deserve an explanation at least.’
‘I can’t give you one, not yet. Maybe after I get back from holiday.’
‘Or until you want to learn something you can’t get from anyone else!’
He’d deserved that, Charlie accepted. He still wished she hadn’t said it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.
‘Me, too,’ said Laura, turning abruptly and hurrying into the building.
Charlie gave her time to get the lift to the floor high above his office and then followed her in. Would he ever be able to give her an explanation, he wondered.
‘He gave no reason?’ demanded Harkness, who’d been disappointed for weeks with the titbits of gossip Laura passed on.
‘None,’ said the sad-faced girl.
‘Maybe after he gets back from holiday,’ repeated Harkness reflectively. ‘What could that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Laura.
‘But I’m going to try to find out,’ said Harkness positively.
26
Natalia started to prepare herself for England a long time before the scheduled departure date, realizing practically at once the mistake she had made. She should have followed far more closely the lead of the other women on the previous overseas trips and better spent the allowance she received on Western clothes. She could have bought far more than she had that one shopping day in Washington and she hadn’t bothered at all in Australia or Canada. And she was anxious to be chic all the time: chic and cosmopolitan, not insular and dowdy.
Like a child denying that a hoped-for event could ever occur in the fervent belief that the opposite would happen, Natalia told herself as she had since getting her new appointment that there was no chance of her encountering Charlie. All the old arguments paraded through her mind in the weeks leading up to the trip, the fors and the againsts, her own private search for a conclusion different from any she’d reached before. To start with Charlie was an overseas operative, not internal counter-intelligence, so it wouldn’t be his department who monitored the Russian visit, as all Russian visits were monitored. So there was no way he could know of her presence in the country. Except that she had been an internally functioning officer and was now assigned overseas duties, so maybe he would have access. She told herself it would be too much to expect, if on the off-chance he did learn about her, that it would mean anything to him anyway. It had all seemed real – so very real – in Moscow but there was always the doubt that for him it had been anything more than an affair of the moment, a temporary refuge from loneliness. He had, after all, gone back, hadn’t he? Gone back to whom? Charlie had talked of Edith and the way she’d died but there could have been another wife, a woman he hadn’t talked about. Except, she balanced hopefully again, he had pleaded with her to run with him. He wouldn’t have done that if there’d been another woman in England, would he? The pendulum swung back in the other direction, to another familiar reflection: there might not have been a woman then but what about now?
Whatever, Natalia still determined to make herself as attractive as possible, all the time she was there.
She spent days in the vast market place of the GUM store, picking over and rejecting and picking over once more. She went to the Western concessionary outlets available to her as a KGB officer, on Vernadskovo and Gertsana, and couldn’t make up her mind about anything on the first visits so she went a second time. She finally bought another business suit and two dresses and two pairs of shoes. And when she modelled them for herself back at the Mytninskaya apartment Natalia decided she didn’t really like any of them and wondered if she’d be able to shop in London early in the trip, rather than at the end which seemed to be the custom. She considered changing her hairstyle, taking it even shorter, but decided against it because she’d already shortened it from how it had been when she and Charlie were together and she didn’t want to alter herself too much. She experimented in front of the mirror with different make-up, applying more than she customarily did, but rejected any change here and for the same reason.
A fortnight before the departure day she received a scrawled note from Eduard, nothing more than a notification of another leave allocated and that she was to expect him home. The dates he gave clashed with those of her being in London and Natalia was relieved and ashamed at herself for the feeling. She wrote back immediately, saying that she was sorry but that she would be away for the entire period and got a response just as quickly from her son. He said it didn’t matter but that he would still use Mytninskaya: if she were going away she wouldn’t be needing the car, would she, so would she leave the keys somewhere prominent for him to pick up when he got there?