“I hope,” said Natalia, at once wishing that she hadn’t.
Charlie didn’t pick up on the remark. He said, “Lestov, with whom I always had to liaise anyway, is effectively your deputy?”
“He was the obvious choice,” Natalia pointed out. “Suddenly to have introduced anyone else as an operational controller-apart from his need to be totally rebriefed-would have shown our internal problem. Lestov getting the job can be explained, even if there’s a need to explain, as a promotion. Which he rightly deserved.”
“And which he must get, by title,” insisted Charlie. He hadn’t done enough to reassure her, he decided. He really wasn’t used to worrying about people and protecting people other than himself. It meant a further delay in talking to Natalia about Novikov, too: her involvement in that was the last thing that could be risked with Viskov and Travin still in place and working against her.
“Which you still haven’t told me how we’re going to achieve?” prompted Natalia.
“You are still going to get the camp archives before Travin?”
“I insisted upon it,” confirmed Natalia. “Said I wanted personally to be sure that a search neither Travin nor Viskov judged important was carried out properly.”
“Excellent,” exaggerated Charlie. It would have heaped further humiliation, increasing their determination to hit back.
“I’m waiting!” protested Natalia.
“I already think Colonel Vadim Leonidovich Lestov is a good policeman,” said Charlie. “We’re going to make him better ….” He paused again, remembering Miriam’s lunchtime phrase. “Superman, in fact. And when the great discovery comes from Gulag 98, Petr Pavlovich Travin is going to miss it.”
“What if there isn’t anything to discover about Camp 98?” argued Natalia, raising at last one of her nagging doubts. “We don’t even know that the records of every camp have survived.”
The reason to get Novikov and whatever the man had to Moscow as soon as possible, thought Charlie. “We do know there was a Gulag 98 for special prisoners?”
“Yes?” agreed Natalia, doubtfully.
“None of whom, after fifty-four years, will still be alive today?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Natalia further agreed.
“All we need is a name. I can invent an importance supposedly from an English source,” said Charlie, simply.
“What if there isn’t a surviving file?” pressed Natalia, relentlessly.
“The three bodies were where a special camp once existed, weren’t they?” coaxed Charlie. “The information from England-from me-will still be that it was vital to trace a prisoner there. The failure to locate the file will be Travin’s, won’t it?”
Natalia shook her head. “Sometimes you lose me, Charlie.”
“That’s something I’m never going to do,” he said, using her remark.
She started, at the strident sound of the street-level bell. So did Charlie. Shit! he thought. “I forgot to tell you,” he apologized. “I invited Irena to supper.”
“Why, Charlie?” demanded Natalia, seriously.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you if I find out,” he answered, obscurely. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Trust me.”
Natalia wished Charlie wouldn’t keep asking her to do that.
Irena’s last flight had been to Japan, where there is a theme park dedicated to the cartoon character, and Sasha’s present was a Thomas the Tank T-shirt, complete with a smiling-faced railway engine printed on the front. Sasha, who was still waiting for Charlie, insisted upon putting it on and announced she was going to sleep in it.
“No,” refused Charlie. “You can wear it tomorrow.”
“Shit!” Sasha challenged, in English.
Irena sniggered, turning away.
Charlie said, “I told you that was a silly word. I don’t want you saying it again.”
“Why did you, then?”
“To see whether you would be silly and repeat it,” said Charlie, desperately. “Or whether you were a big girl. So now we know: you’re silly, like the word. And you can’t sleep in the T-shirt.”
“I want Mummy!”
“Take it off and go to sleep.”
Sasha sat in bed with her arms tightly folded, not moving, glaring although not directly at him. Her lips were tightly together, too. Irena said, “I don’t think I want to talk to silly girls. I’ll come back later.”
Sasha’s bottom lip didn’t stay tight. Charlie was hot, sweating, a never-lost man completely lost. It was unthinkable-literally-to slap her. Charlie said, “I’m waiting.”
Sasha said, “I want Mummy.”
Charlie didn’t turn at Natalia’s arrival. Natalia said, “What has Daddy told you to do?”
“He’s not my daddy!” said the child.
“He is and you do what he tells you,” said Natalia. “Take the shirt off.”
Sasha started to pull it over her head and to cry at the same time, pointedly offering it to Natalia, who didn’t reach for it. Charlie held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation Sasha gave it to him. Natalia kissed Sasha and left Charlie in the room with her.
Charlie said, “Do I get a kiss?”
“No,” said Sasha, her voice muffled in the pillow, her body rigid.
“This isn’t much fun, is it?”
There was no reply.
Charlie leaned forward, kissing Sasha’s turned away head. He said,“I am your daddy and I love you very much.” It was a whisper, but he still heard her say, “shit,” before he got to the door.
The two sisters were waiting for him in the smaller lounge, Irena already with the whiskey Natalia had poured for her.
Irena said, “What was that all about?”
“Growing up,” said Charlie. “Sasha and I together.” He still felt hot, disoriented by something he hadn’t known how to handle or control and wished hadn’t happened. How difficult was the rest of the evening going to be?
“It’s a learning curve, I guess,” suggested Irena.
“Maybe I’ve got more to learn than Sasha,” conceded Charlie.
“I certainly have,” simpered Irena. “Learning the man my sister’s involved with is an international detective was a hell of a surprise!” She was wearing one of her second skin outfits, a black catsuit that didn’t show panty or bra ridges because she wasn’t wearing either. “I thought you looked terrific on television.”
“I didn’t,” said Natalia. She was serious, subdued.
“What sort of policeman are you?” persisted the younger woman.
“A clerk,” dismissed Charlie, his script ready in outline at least. He should have prepared Natalia; prepared himself better. Another stupid mistake. Too late now. “I just exchange information between London and here.”
Irena made a sweeping gesture around the apartment. “Clerks don’t live in palaces.”
“There are ways,” He smiled. Would this eventually qualify as another learning curve? He hoped so.
Irena regarded him curiously. “Like what?”
“Always useful, having access to foreign currency.”
Now Irena smiled, although uncertainly. Natalia was looking at him in bewilderment, mouth slightly open. Irena said, “You don’t, do you?”
“You should know how to turn dollars around: the best use of any foreign currency in the financial mess this country’s in.”
He refilled Irena’s empty glass. Natalia shook her head irritably against any more. He left his drink as it was.
With forced indignation, Irena said, “I don’t deal in foreign currency!”
“I don’t believe you,” challenged Charlie, expansively. “You’d bea fool not to, with the chances you’ve got. We’ve got it made, people like you and me.”
Irena looked at her sister. “Is he telling the truth?”
“I don’t know what he does or what he’s saying,” Natalia, said with a shrug, angrily soft-voiced.