“Aren’t you worried?” It was still a question addressed to Natalia.
“If it’s on a scale to support this place, I suppose I should be.” Natalia was looking intently at Charlie, seeking a lead.
Irena went back to Charlie. “You could be arrested!”
“You show me a Moscow policeman you can’t bribe,” demanded Charlie. “Most of them would sell their mothers for fifty dollars. And I’m on the inside, as a liaison officer. Who’s going to go up against me?”
Irena shook her head in bemusement. “You are serious, aren’t you?”
“You shocked?”
“No, of course I’m not shocked! And you’re right, I have sold a few dollars, here and there.”
“Of course you have,” said Charlie. “It’s the system: the way the world goes ’round. The Arbat’s best, I’ve found. A lot of conmen, hunting tourists.” He looked at Natalia. “What about that prime Scotch steak I brought home?”
Natalia hesitated before moving off into the kitchen. Irena waited until her sister had gone before saying, “I knew you and I had a lot in common.”
“And I told you I was in love with Natalia,” he said, hoping she could hear from the kitchen. So far, so good, but this wasn’t the way he wanted the conversation to go. But he’d play this different sort of word game if he had to.
“You don’t seem to be worrying very much about her, doing what you’ve just told me. What about her position?”
Charlie felt the icy fingers run up his back, all the heat of his previous discomfort gone. Why the hell hadn’t he talked to Natalia first? “I don’t understand.”
“Couldn’t she get into trouble if there was a problem you couldn’t bribe your way out of?” suggested the woman.
“Of course not,” said Charlie, with seeming carelessness, flourishing the bottle between the two of them. “I told you: there’s nevergoing to be a problem. So the question doesn’t arise.”
“There’s still another unanswered question from last time.” Irena smiled.
“You got your answer then.”
“Where’s the danger in a little adventure?”
“In setting out on it.” He was glad to see Natalia emerge from the kitchen: time for him to manipulate the guidance he hadn’t given her.
Natalia said, “Ready when you are.”
Charlie said, “Irena’s worried you’ll be fired if someone blows the whistle on what I’m doing.”
Natalia’s pause, retrieving her wineglass, was far too imperceptible for Irena to notice, although Charlie readily saw it. “I don’t see how it could affect me, even if it did happen.”
It was enough and Charlie felt a sweep of relief. “That’s what I told her.”
“You work for the government, don’t you? You did when …” The woman stumbled to a halt, briefly flustered.
“Pensions!” jeered Natalia. “I’d get a medal for finding money where there hasn’t been any to give out for months!”
Charlie couldn’t believe that until that moment he’d never known Moscow and London used pensions for the same cover! So many learning curves. He said, “See? Nothing can happen to us.”
“I’m fed up with this conversation,” stopped Natalia. “Let’s eat.”
A completely sober Charlie continued playing the genially tipsy host but dropped the bombast, refusing to talk any further about imaginary illegal currency transactions or what his supposed job entailed, switching the conversation instead on to Irena. She responded with air stewardess anecdotes, some genuinely amusing, leading easily into Charlie’s demand about Irena’s love life, to Natalia’s stiff-faced concentration on her food and to Irena’s insistence that she wasn’t involved with anyone in particular. “Still looking for someone who lives in a palace.”
Charlie walked Irena to the street-level door, which she ignored when he opened it.
“I don’t give up when I’ve set my mind to something.”
“You’re going to have to this time.”
“We’ll see. Do I get kissed good night?”
“No.”
Natalia hadn’t moved from the table by the time Charlie returned. Looking steadily at him, she said, “Well!”
“She’s got a situation with Richard Cartright,” said Charlie. “You would have thought she’d have mentioned it, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have expected you to mention to me what the fuck you were doing.”
“Another silly word,” he tried, hopefully.
“Stop it, Charlie!” she refused. “Not telling me was stupid-ridiculous!”
“I didn’t want to rehearse you: make it look too obvious. But I should have said something, I know. Irena arrived before I expected her.”
“She’s not a nice person, Charlie.” She hesitated, looking directly at him. “She’s bound to talk to Cartright about us, isn’t she?”
“So what?” said Charlie, forcing the glibness.
“What if he tells London?”
“Why on earth should he? And what would there be to tell? That I’m living with someone who works for the Russian pension authority?”
“I thought this had been a good day,” said Natalia. “Now I don’t, not any longer.”
“I didn’t do very well with Sasha, did I?”
“It was a point in the relationship waiting to happen.”
“I hope it doesn’t again.”
“So do I,” said Natalia, although not referring to Sasha and Charlie. She’d call Irena, she decided: call her and warn the bitch that there wasn’t going to be a repetition of what had happened with Konstantin. Which wasn’t Natalia doubting Charlie. It was her awareness of her sister’s determination.
“There’s something important I want you to do,” said Charlie.
Natalia listened, her face furrowed into a deep frown. “You want me to check if he officially saw anyone at our Foreign Ministry?”
“No. Just use the name Peters to trace that of the other man. The visa should give us a hotel, shouldn’t it?”
“Miriam said he’d gone.”
“I just want to make sure he has.”
“What could he be here for?”
“I don’t know,” lied Charlie.
When he arrived at Morisa Toreza at eight the following morning, there were already two demands from Sir Rupert Dean on Charlie’s voice mail.
The director-general said, “The name of your man is Simon Norrington. He was the elder son, thirty-one when he died, of Sir William Norrington. The younger brother, Matthew, automatically inherited the title upon the death of his father. And is still alive-”
“What was-” tried Charlie, but Dean talked over him.
“According to the family, Simon Norrington graduated with a Double First in fine art from Oxford University in 1932. He was attached to the War Office from 1940 as liaison with de Gaulle’s Free French forces. He was seconded in 1943 to 140 Provost Company, a specialized unit officially part of the military police, with the rank of lieutenant, to provide the necessary authority for what he had to do-”
“Which was?” tried Charlie again.
“Listen!” insisted Dean. “The family believes Simon Norrington died in April 1945 and is buried in a Commonwealth military cemetery in Berlin.”
20
Charlie sighed at the familiarity of a mountain of questions and a molehill of answer, not knowing the base camp of either. He hoped they wouldn’t be too difficult to locate. “But the body at Yakutsk was Simon Norrington?”
“Definitely,” said the director-general. “Sir Matthew personally identified it at the mortuary, not from after-death photographs. Gave us wartime pictures of his brother in his uniform to satisfy ourselves.”
“So who’s in the Berlin grave?”
“We’ve no idea,” said Dean. “We want to exhume it, of course.We’ve got to get a court order, but the War Graves Commission says Sir Matthew is still legally the recorded next of kin and wants his legally granted authority prior to a court application. And the lawyers are arguing about applying for that in camera, which we’ve got to do to prevent any news leak. The media pressure is bad enough as it is. God knows what it would be like if this became public.”