Finally, after fifty-four years, thought Charlie: hardly soon enough.
“Well?” demanded Sir Matthew Norrington from the doorway.
“Your brother probably does deserve a hero’s recognition,” said Charlie.
“Give it to him, then.”
“I need to talk more,” said Charlie. Always more, he thought.
“Tell me about your brother?” asked Charlie, simply.
“Simon was the golden boy,” declared Norrington, at once and admiringly. “There was nothing he couldn’t do or achieve, usually twice as quickly and twice as well as anybody else. Everything came naturally, easily, to him. Our mother was French, so we grew up bilingual. I stopped there, but Simon didn’t. He was practically as fluent in German and went on from Greek-which he took as part of art history-to more than passable Russian.”
“He spoke German and Russian!” seized Charlie. There was a reassuring foot twinge.
“Both, very well,” confirmed Norrington.
Abruptly recalling what now seemed a long-ago half thought, Charlie said, “What about reading it?”
“Of course,” said Norrington, appearing surprised at the qualification. “He read both as well as he spoke both.”
“He left the War Office at the end of 1943, to join the specialized art unit?”
“Yes.”
“But obviously didn’t go to Europe until after June 1944-after the invasion?”
“Almost immediately after: before the end of June. That was his job, trying to identify the national heritages that had been plundered and trace where they’d gone. He needed quick access to captured Germans, before they were dispersed.”
As fifteen Germans were dispersed to Yakutsk, recalled Charlie. “Did he ever get leave, come home after being posted abroad?”
“Once,” said Norrington. “December 1944. Father had his first heart attack. Simon was in Belgium then, I think. Wherever, hewangled a compassionate trip. Just forty-eight hours.”
“Did you talk about what he was doing?”
“Of course. It upset him, the degree of Nazi looting. It was so complete: whole museums, galleries, stripped.”
Charlie paused, unsure how to phrase his question, hoping for the answer he wanted but not wanting to lead. “What about anything else?”
Norrington, who had resumed his former seat, stared steadily across at Charlie. “You need to explain that.”
“Did you ever get the impression, from anything that Simon said, that his function had been in any way expanded-that he’d been given a role beyond the location and recovery of looted art?”
Norrington took a long time to answer. “Nothing specific,” the man said, finally.
“What wasn’t specific?” persisted Charlie, refusing to give up.
“There was something about the languages he could speak-that he was often called upon by other people, in other units, to help them.”
“Did he say which other units?”
The older man shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”
He couldn’t avoid leading, Charlie accepted. “Nothing about military intelligence? Intelligence of any sort?”
“No,” said Norrington, positively.
“Who was Jessica?” demanded Charlie, abandoning one direction for another.
“One of the personal things I mentioned.”
Charlie waited.
“Someone he met in London. There was talk of an engagement. They had a flat, in Pimlico. He had to interpret one night at a reception. Churchill, de Gaulle, a lot of Roosevelt’s staff; America was in the war by late 1943, remember. There was an air raid. When he got back to Pimlico, their block had been destroyed by a land mine. Jessica was one of the ten who died.”
“What about people Simon worked with?” Charlie hurried on. “Did he talk about any in particular? Refer to anyone as a friend?”
Again Norrington took his time. “There were things in the letters, but not until after he went back for the last time that December. I never knew who they were.”
“I want to put some names to you,” said Charlie, taking from his pocket the list from the Berlin group photograph. “I know it was a long time ago, but one might trigger something.”
“I doubt it. But let’s try.”
“Wilson?”
“No.”
“Allison?”
“No.”
“Larisa Krotkov?”
“Russian?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t ever remember him talking of working with Russians.”
“What about using the language?”
“No.”
“Smith?”
“No.”
“Raisa Belous?”
“She’s the woman found in the grave! The Russian woman?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose he must have known her, mustn’t he?”
“You don’t remember his ever mentioning her?”
“No.”
“Bellamy?”
“No.”
“Timpson?”
“No.”
“Dunne?”
“No.”
“Jacobson?”
“No.”
Silence fell between them.
Norrington said, “Who are they?”
“People I believe Simon worked with.”
“Where’d you get the names?”
“America,” said Charlie, which was close enough to the truth. “Some of them were American.”
“He worked with the Russian women, as well?”
“There was a connection. I don’t know what, not yet.” Would he ever? Charlie asked himself.
“I’m sorry,” apologized Norrington. He gestured over his shoulder, toward the two repacked boxes. “I know everything there by heart. If there’d been a hint, I would have recognized it. I was waiting for an obvious Scots name, for ‘Scotty.’” The man paused. “I’ve already spoken to Sir Rupert: told him what I told you, about my time limit.”
“What did he say?”
“That he hoped you’d meet the deadline.”
“So do I,” said Charlie.
“The media release brought the American woman back but not the Englishman?” demanded Nikulin.
“Yes,” said Natalia. There were just the two of them in the chief of staffs office. He’d served tea and sweetmeats.
“And he hasn’t been in contact?”
“Not since the day he left.” It had been a bad mistake for Charlie not to have telephoned Lestov.
“There’s no doubt that the button found in the grave was British?”
“None,” said Natalia, uncomfortably.
“They must know who the second man was: have an identity they want to hide.”
“Possibly.”
“Everyone knows Stalin was a monster, that the regime then is not the government of today. Why don’t we turn the announcement of this new discovery into the finding of the evidence of a second mystery Briton? Put pressure upon them? We could even keep our understanding of cooperation: tell London what we’re going to do, before we do it. And we’d have to tell them direct if their man isn’t here, wouldn’t we?”
Exposing Charlie to every sort of criticism, Natalia thought. How could she manipulate a delay? “I don’t understand how the woman, Larisa Krotkov, can have disappeared so completely.”
“You think you’re being blocked?”
“Yes,” exaggerated Natalia, eagerly.
“Then let’s see if the obstruction extends to the president’s office,” accepted Nikulin.
“Perhaps we should wait until we establish that-and a reason, if it is the case-before moving on the British idea?”
“Not for much longer,” determined the man. “So far we’ve been ahead in virtually everything. That’s how I want us to stay.”
On the other side of Moscow, Fyodor Ivanovich Belous nervously opened the door of his apartment only sufficiently to see it was Vadim Lestov, backed by a three-man squad.
“Don’t be shy, Fyodor Ivanovich,” said the militia colonel. “We’ve come back for a second look.”