‘Don’t ever forget what I’ve said, about how you operate in the future?’
‘I won’t,’ promised Charlie. Let’s cross each bridge when we come to it, he thought easily.
‘I mean it,’ warned Wilson. ‘Any more wild independence and I’ll have you out of this department so fast your feet will leave scorch marks!’
‘Trust me,’ invited Charlie.
‘Always the trouble, Charlie. Always the trouble.’
‘I wanted to see you,’ said Laura.
‘Been busy,’ said Charlie. ‘Sorry.’ If she had not actually come to the fifth floor and physically confronted him he would still probably have made an excuse to avoid their meeting – which, he decided, now they were together, was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t they have a drink together?
‘I know bits,’ said Laura. ‘Not a lot. Just bits.’
‘It’s very complicated,’ said Charlie, in attempted dismissal. ‘What’s the financial department like?’
‘Better view,’ said Laura. ‘He’s trying to redesign the expenses claims forms. He wants much more detail.’ The entire department Harkness now controlled was separate from Westminster Bridge Road, across the river and nearer to Whitehall. Refusing to be put off, Laura said: ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘That day in the street, when you told me you didn’t want to keep the date? Did you know then that the Russians had picked you up?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie.
‘So it was to protect me?’
‘It was probably already too late by then,’ apologized Charlie. ‘I wanted to keep you out of it if I could.’
Laura smiled and reached across the wine-bar table, pressing his hand. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘I wish I’d realized sooner,’ said Charlie. ‘I was slow.’
‘I did what you wanted, you know,’ offered Laura. ‘Before that, I mean. I gossiped to Harkness, about you. He seemed to think it was very important.’
‘I’m sorry about that, too,’ said Charlie. ‘Using you like that.’
‘Are you!’ she demanded quizzically.
Charlie smiled back at her. ‘Sort of,’ he said.
‘They say there was a woman involved,’ said the girl. ‘Someone you knew?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie. The rumour mill was very active, he thought.
‘Can you tell me about it?’
Charlie topped up both their glasses from the Montrachet bottle between them. ‘No,’ he said positively. Over, he thought: finished.
‘Oh,’ said Laura, rebuffed.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Charlie.
‘Paul’s asked for a divorce,’ she announced abruptly. ‘His girlfriend is pregnant again. They want to get married.’
‘I’m…’ started Charlie, and stopped. He said: ‘No. It would sound trite.’
‘Thanks anyway.’ She was silent for a moment and then she said: ‘That’s not why I made contact. I mean I didn’t think…’ Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.
‘I didn’t think it was,’ said Charlie.
She smiled at him hesitantly. ‘I’d like to see you sometimes, though. If you’d like to, that is. Nothing serious. No commitment. Just a drink occasionally, like now.’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie doubtfully. They were two lonely people, he thought. Why not?
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ regretted Laura hurriedly.
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Was she beautiful?’
‘I thought so.’
‘Sure you don’t want to talk about it?’
‘Very.’
‘I went over to Fulham last weekend, where Paul and the girl are living. Hung about. Actually saw them. They were taking the first baby out for a walk. One of those pushchairs with wheels that twist in every direction. It’s a little boy, you know, their first baby. Peter. Can’t think why I went there now. They seemed very happy. They were laughing. He had his arm around her.’
Charlie wished desperately he could think of something to say, to help. Maybe he was helping by not saying anything.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘There’s nothing to be sorry about, not to me.’
She smiled at him sadly. ‘You know that photograph that used to upset you, the one of Paul?’
‘Yes.’
‘He took it with him.’
‘Don’t go to Fulham any more,’ advised Charlie.
‘I won’t.’
The bottle between them was empty. Charlie said: ‘Would you like some more?’
‘No,’ refused Laura. ‘I should be getting home.’ She looked directly at him and said: ‘I don’t want you to come back with me.’
‘I wasn’t going to suggest it,’ said Charlie.
‘Just a drink, occasionally.’
‘That would be good.’
‘Life is a bitch, isn’t it!’ She said with sudden vehemence.
‘Every time,’ agreed Charlie.
‘I thought there was going to be improvement, a week ago,’ said the nursing home matron. ‘There were definitely signs of some emergence. But in the end nothing happened.’
Charlie put the chocolates on the woman’s desk and said: ‘Why don’t you have these?’
‘We mustn’t lose hope,’ insisted the woman.
‘I don’t,’ said Charlie. ‘Ever.’ There was something else he was never going to lose, either. The doubt that by feeding things back to Harkness as he had, through Laura, he’d actually caused his mother to be interrogated as she had been: that her remission wasn’t the fault of the Special Branch men but his.
48
‘Exceptional!’ said Valeri Kalenin. ‘Absolutely exceptional!’
‘Thank you,’ said Berenkov. This wasn’t the first praise. Berenkov was accustomed to it, so the attitude was practised, humble deference. But today was particularly important to him. Berenkov was glad their friendship had been restored, the suspicion between them – more Kalenin’s suspicion than his – swept away. He’d been fortunate, Berenkov accepted: incredibly fortunate. But only he knew it: would ever know it. Luck comes to the daring, he thought. He didn’t think he would attempt to be the daring again. To himself – but only to himself – Berenkov conceded that he’d been badly frightened until that last drawing arrived from England in the diplomatic bag.
‘Not my words,’ allowed Kalenin honestly. ‘The opinion of the commendation from the Praesidium itself. We’re secure, Alexei. Secure. And you made us so.’
‘Everyone is being extremely generous,’ said Berenkov, remaining modest. So Kalenin, who’d been prepared to avoid the responsibility, was happy to be sharing the credit. Berenkov felt no resentment.
‘I did not expect Guzins simply to be deported as he was,’ qualified Kalenin. ‘The British made an incredible mistake there. Over the whole affair, in fact.’
Further luck, reflected Berenkov. He said: ‘I expected him to break: make a full incriminating confession.’
‘So all we’ve lost is Petrin.’
‘Always an acceptable sacrifice, like Obyedkov,’ pointed out Berenkov. ‘We can repatriate them, in time.’
‘And we’re permanently rid of Charlie Muffin!’
Berenkov smiled. The newspaper reports of Charlie Muffin’s trial had been brief, dictated by the restrictions of the hearing, but he’d had them all sent to him from London. He said: ‘Ten years. He’ll never be able to endure ten years.’
‘It was still a very great risk, doing what you did,’ said Kalenin soberly.
‘Calculated risk,’ insisted Berenkov.
‘It worried me,’ admitted Kalenin.
Not as much as it worried me, at the very end, thought Berenkov. ‘It worked,’ he said, the conceit creeping through.