The disheveled former university professor nodded Charlie toward a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. On a table alongside was a cloth-covered plate. Dean said, “You won’t have eaten. Jane made sandwiches.”
“That’s very kind,” said Charlie. They were cheese and pickle.
“Her idea, not mine,” said the director-general. “It’s scotch, isn’t it?”
Charlie saw that was what Dean was drinking. “Thank you.”
“I won’t say ‘Cheers,’” refused Dean. “I’m not sure we’ve got anything to be cheerful about.”
“Probably not,” said Charlie.
“I don’t want a full summation,” ordered the older man. “That can wait until tomorrow. I want an explanation for what you told me on the telephone.”
“The department has been set up: all of us,” repeated Charlie. “We’ve never been expected to solve or discover anything-”
“We were told from the outset there would be a cover-up, if it turned out to be embarrassing,” stopped Dean.
“They know what the embarrassment is!” insisted Charlie. “Have from the beginning: not from the finding of the bodies but long before then. And it has been covered up, for God knows how long. The Yakutsk grave was an inconvenience, something never expected to happen. There has had to be the appearance of an investigation, particularly because of all the publicity. But not the sort we thought there was. What we’ve been doing-I’ve been doing-is proving whether or not the cover-up is going to hold-”
The director-general raised his hand. “Stop! Who are ‘they’?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Charlie. “A government department, ministry, but I don’t know which one.”
“Our own people?”
“That’s what I believe. As I believe the moment we find somethingtaking us where we’re not supposed to go, they’ll clean it up before we get there.”
“America?”
“Has to be involved, too,” picked up Charlie. “Again, I don’t know how. Or again, which department or agency.”
“You basing this entirely on some missing cemetery records?”
Charlie offered the Berlin group photograph he’d been allowed to copy at the Document Center. “You’ll recognize the man on the left as the American found in Yakutsk. His name was George Timpson. His phony grave is in a Dutch cemetery. I don’t know why the Netherlands; I was told there aren’t any American war cemeteries in Berlin. Timpson is supposed to have died the same day as Norrington. All evidence of five visits to Timpson’s grave has disappeared, just like those to Norrington.”
“There could be a far more reasonable explanation a lot different-totally different-from what you’re drawing. Don’t forget the number of departments and ministries who’ve got a hand in this.”
“I’m not forgetting that for a moment!” said Charlie, urgently.
“I’m asking why. Okay, a lot of other departments have a legitimate interest. But we’ve been given the investigation. So why’s it stayed as diverse as it has? You’ve shared everything we’ve discovered, right?”
“Right,” agreed Dean, thoughtfully. “Those are my instructions.”
“What’s been reciprocated from here, let alone America?” demanded Charlie. “The only echo we’ve got, as far as I understand, is that all the records and files have either been destroyed or can’t be found ….” He paused, gulping his drink. “If we hadn’t had that scrap of label that took us to Gieves and Hawkes we wouldn’t have got Norrington’s name. And if we hadn’t done that-and got the family through it-we’d be no further forward than the day we began. Because the only information about Norrington has come from his family: we haven’t been offered a single thing from another single supposedly interested or involved department here in England. Or from America. According to the military attache in Berlin, the Ministry of Defense is in uproar because I went to the exhumation: they’re sending in their own investigators. With so many people-countries! — already in on the act, there’s not a chance in hell ofgetting close enough to understand anything-the perfect way to create the perfect confusion.”
Dean leaned forward, adding to Charlie’s glass. “It’s an argument,” he conceded, reluctantly. “The sort of argument that builds unsupported conspiracy theories into accepted fact.”
“I thought the journalists in that hotel dining room were lucky not to be more badly hurt-killed, even-by Henry Packer, didn’t you?”
Dean sighed, nodding. “You’re asking me to trust you over my own operational group: knowingly-consciously-to deceive them!”
“Patrick Pacey is the political officer,” listed Charlie. “His function is to liaise politically with the very departments-and the Intelligence Committee itself-who aren’t reciprocating to us. Jeremy Simpson would have to consider everything legally. Your deputy is your deputy, subservient to you. Gerald Williams is only concerned with finance: wouldn’t normally be part of the group ….” Charlie paused. “All I’m asking for is time-time to work without knowing someone’s going to be ahead of me every step of the way …” Charlie paused, to make his point. “If I’d wanted to deceive them-and you-I could have. You ordered me back, to investigate anywhere I felt it necessary. I’m telling you why I think it’s necessary.”
“How do you intend using this time you’re asking for?”
“I’ve got names, from Berlin. And others, Germans, from the Gulag. I want to establish the connection I’m sure exists. And I want to speak to Norrington’s family. And I want to do it without people knowing in advance that I’m going to: without meeting Packer’s successor.”
When the director-general didn’t speak, Charlie said, “All I’m asking to be allowed to do is work by the same rules as everyone else. And not have to put forward my interpretation that we’re being blocked by our own people.”
“I’m not sure anyone else would have given you as much time to argue that interpretation as I already have,” said the director-general.
Charlie said, “There’s a second interpretation I believe you should consider.”
“What?” demanded Dean.
“Our department-now your department-wasn’t in any way apart of whatever happened, before or after, when these murders were committed.”
Once more Dean did not respond.
“So after fifty years, with an undecided remit and an even more undecided future, we were the obvious choice when the bodies were found, weren’t we?” continued Charlie. “A test for us, desperate to prove ourselves. A test for others-whoever they are-anxious to know if the concealment thus far is good enough to withstand an investigation: remain a mystery forever. But not that anxious. They’ve got the final say before it becomes final. If we get too close, they can misdirect or close it all down, citing without explanation the embarrassment they’ve already insisted to be the primary concern. But to keep everything properly hidden, no one is going to be able to know what the embarrassment is, are they? So there’s an easy answer: we’re made to be seen to fail. Which makes us even more vulnerable to everyone snapping at our heels.”
“That’s pretty convoluted logic,” protested Dean.
“But it is logic, for the environment we live in,” insisted Charlie. “Not even in national archives closed for the next fifty or a hundred years will there be an admission of a secret that’s literally been buried for the last fifty. It’ll be our inability properly to fulfill the investigatory role we’re trying to establish, against all the other competing agencies. How about a second-or even third-agenda? If we don’t get beyond all the obstruction of our own people-quite apart from that of America or Russia-to find out everything, there’s every reason to disband us. We’re set to be the losers, any which way.”