Lestov had easily and professionally followed Natalia’s lead, not needing anything more than the initial prompt to make the same intriguing discovery about the Yakutsk jailing of a former Catherine Palace curator employee. But only Natalia’s insistence that there wereother, previous circumstances of which he was unaware stopped the man from positively arguing her determined conclusion. It had been an impromptu gesture to show Lestov her memorandum recommending his official appointment as her deputy. She hoped ambition-and of being in Nikulin’s presence, only a few meters from the president himself-would prevent the man from voicing any further doubt.
The chief of staff looked up at last, pushing the folder slightly away from him.
“You’ve no doubt it has been deliberately withheld?” demanded the harsh-featured, emotionless man.
“None whatsoever,” said Natalia, pleased with the strength of her own voice.
“There is no proof.”
“Of course not,” she accepted, at once. “I’m asking you to judge it with what you know to have happened since this began. It’s been a campaign of positive, personal obstruction. A permanent vendetta against me. The inquiry itself-the need to protect this government, which was your specific instruction-has been totally and consistently disregarded.” Natalia gestured sideways. “Everything positive we have suggested has been opposed, to erode my authority; the camp search, which from Colonel Lestov’s discovery is proved to have been essential, needed your order to be reintroduced, after its arbitrary cancellation ….” She hesitated, at a prepared accusation. “I actually wonder to which government or country the deputy minister and Petr Pavlovich, who still holds the title of my deputy, are giving their true allegiance.”
“That’s an astonishing allegation!” protested Nikulin, genuinely shocked.
“And one I do not make lightly,” said Natalia. She felt numb, striving to keep control. “I do not believe it’s possible to continue this investigation-to achieve everything it’s necessary to achieve-under these conditions. Which is why I am making this a formal, official complaint.”
Nikulin stared down at the closed folder on his desk for several moments before coming up to Lestov. “Do you feel yourself to have been positively obstructed?”
Natalia felt a fresh jump of apprehension.
“I do not know all the circumstances that have been referred to …” the homicide detective began to hedge.
“Have you had any contact from Petr Pavlovich about Gulag 98?” broke in Natalia.
“No,” said Lestov.
The presidential aide said, “What contact has there been between yourself and Petr Pavlovich?”
“We speak daily,” confirmed Lestov.
“Who calls whom?” seized Natalia, knowing the answer.
“I call him.”
“He has never initiated an approach?” queried Nikulin.
“Not since the rearrangement of responsibility.”
Without explanation Nikulin picked up the telephone, dialing the number himself. It wasn’t until he began to speak that Natalia realized he’d called the deputy interior minister. Natalia’s emotions switchbacked. Momentarily her mind blanked, refusing any thought. Then she heard how Nikulin was speaking and gauged that he was favoring her against the man. Nikulin said nothing about her or her accusation, instead asking about the progress of the investigation and particularly the assembly and search of camp records. And from Nikulin’s next question accepted that, in his determination still to denigrate the idea, Viktor Viskov must have continued to belittle its purpose.
“It’s being carried out, though?” Nikulin was saying. Viskov must have assured him that it was because the chief of staff next said, “Completely up to date? That’s good.”
Nikulin redialed immediately. The conversation with Petr Pavlovich Travin was virtually a repetition of that with the deputy minister, except for Nikulin demanding a second time to be assured that there was no backlog in the prison file examination.
Nikulin replaced the telephone for the second time and Natalia waited, hopefully. With creaking formality the man said, “I’m sure you’re very busy, as I am. Thank you for bringing the matter to my attention.”
Natalia’s numbness wasn’t as bad, but it was still there.
Gerald Williams had always been sure he’d win. It had been his strategy that had been wrong. Which he’d recognized and adjusted. He’d never imagined that in front of embassy witnesses the arrogant bastard would openly infer his intention to question or disobey a definite instruction. Or, better still, boast of currency speculation, a virtual admission of the blatant robbery he was so determined to expose. He’d found the Achilles’ heel in Charlie Muffin’s ridiculous shoes, the weakness with which, finally, he’d bring the man down.
The ideal, mused Williams-the absolute, orgasmic ultimate-would be for the man to be arrested in the act by the Russian authorities.
Williams sat transfixed at his office desk at which he had just concluded his telephone conversation with Richard Cartright, consumed by the idea.
It was a very different and exciting strategy indeed. And such a perfect one. So excited was he by it that on his way home he abandoned his usual train to stop at a Westminster wine bar to buy himself a small glass of sparkling wine, savoring it as if it had been an 1890 Roederer Cristal.
By coincidence there were two other real champagne celebrations that night, both separate and both in Moscow.
“I had lunch with him,” said Boyce.
“And?”
“He complained about the wine, which was Lafite. God, he’s insufferable!”
“I wasn’t asking about the wine.”
“He said we were worrying too much.”
Peters sighed. “You know what I’d like to do?”
“Yes,” said Boyce. “And I’d like to help you do it.”
“Maybe we should and stop thinking of Muffin,” reflected Peters.
23
“You won!” said Charlie.
“We won,” said Natalia.
Charlie waved dismissively, curious at how subdued she was. His news rather than hers, he supposed. “More than won,” he said, topping her qualification. “Travin exiled to the Chertanovo militia station, not even the colonel-in-charge, so far removed it might as well be to Yakutsk itself rather than a Moscow suburb! And Viskov dismissed! You’re safe!”
“Viskov is still a member of the Duma: in parliament.”
“Where he’ll stay, powerless. It’s you who’s got the ear of Nikulin. And more. It would have been the president who sacked Viskov.”
Natalia smiled faintly. “It’s going to take time adjusting to it.” Yet again, she thought. She finally sipped the champagne Charlie had insisted on opening when she’d told him of Nikulin’s late afternoon announcement. Charlie had allowed Sasha a thimble measure before she’d been put to bed demanding to know if she’d get a party for being clever like her mother, which had been Charlie’s explanation for the celebration. He’d said maybe. Natalia’s smile quickly faded now. “How long will you be away?”
“No longer than absolutely necessary,” Charlie promised. He was as satisfied with his afternoon as he was with Natalia’s. The director-general’s announcement of the exhumation of the supposed grave of Simon Norrington had given Charlie a valid reason for going to Berlin, which after a lot more embassy library reading he’d decided was more important, initially, than anywhere else.
“I don’t like doing business this way,” Dean had protested.
“It’s the way everyone else is doing theirs. It was you who warned me at the beginning that this could destroy the department-might even be intended for that purpose.”
“Certainly things haven’t been done properly, but I can’t believe that!”
“I can.”
“You don’t want anyone to know where you’re going?” qualified Dean.
“Not even within our own department.”
“I’ll overlook the impertinence of that, but only just.”