‘What about Shelapin? He’s the most likely.’
‘Aleksai had him rearrested. He denied knowing anything about it. Said he didn’t fight kids. He and his people are being kept under surveillance. And know it.’
‘The Agayans group then? Their man died.’
‘The same. Total denials. Surveillance there, too.’ Natalia was regaining control although she was wringing her hands in her lap. ‘Whoever it was knew you had a daughter.’
‘No one can explain that.’
Charlie wasn’t prepared to try, not yet, although he thought he could: the threat against Sasha had hardened a lot of the beliefs with which he’d returned from Berlin. ‘They’d rung off, when Popov took the phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the voice?’
‘A man.’
‘You can guess ages from voices.’
Natalia shook her head. ‘I wasn’t rational, Charlie! He said Sasha was going to lose her face!’
Charlie was aloof, icily calm, all emotions suspended. ‘Accent?’
‘Russian.’
‘Not a republic? Or a region?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t want what you think! I want what you know!’ he said, brutally.
‘Russian.’ She wasn’t sure.
‘Disguised?’
‘I think so. It was distant, as if he were standing away from the mouthpiece. Or had something over it.’
‘A private phone? Or did coins drop?’
‘No coins dropped. I’ve been through all this!’
‘Go through it again, for me. Did he refer to you by name?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You can’t remember?’
‘Not really.’
‘What can you remember?’
‘Only about her face!’
She was tilting back towards hysteria. ‘How were the words said?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘All at once, without a pause: as if they were written down or rehearsed? Or with pauses, as if he was waiting for you to say something?’
‘All at once.’
Getting there, thought Charlie. ‘How?’ he repeated. ‘Quickly: hurried? Or slowly? Measured?’
She nodded at his choice of definitions. ‘Measured.’
‘As if he was reading from something written down?’
Natalia frowned at the question. ‘He could have been reading it, I suppose. No one asked me that before. Is it important?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. What about background, from his end? Any noises?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘No, I’m not sure! I thought it might be you. I wasn’t listening for noises in the background. Then when he started to talk I wasn’t thinking about anything!’
‘A lot of people were upset – destroyed even – by the investigation,’ he tried, uncomfortable with the effort as he made it. ‘It could be empty harassment.’
‘I’m going to quit, Charlie!’ she announced. ‘I thought the job was the way to protect Sasha, but it’s not, not any more. It’s made her a target. I certainly don’t need the money and Aleksai’s asked me again to marry him. He’ll look after us: protect Sasha.’
‘I don’t think Sasha will actually be attacked.’
She frowned along the bench at him. ‘You can’t say that!’
‘It was obvious that protection would be put into place. At once. If they’d seriously intended to hurt her they’d have attacked her first. You wouldn’t have been given a warning. Sasha’s disfigurement would have been the warning.’
‘You really believe that?’ she demanded again.
No, he thought. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It’s over now, with the German arrests. We know what was lost.’ She was recovering, the words slow and considered.
‘Yes.’ Charlie said, doubtfully.
‘There’s no need for our arrangement, not any more.’
‘She’s my daughter!’
Natalia bit her lip. ‘I meant about work.’
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.
‘I’m frightened, Charlie. Terribly frightened. I can’t afford to make a single mistake. About anything. It would be a mistake for us to go on like this, behind Aleksai’s back. Even though there’s nothing in it. It’s still cheating him. Which isn’t fair. He’s a good man. He loves me.’
He wasn’t totally sure she’d lost all feeling for him, although perhaps love was hoping too much, but he definitely couldn’t lose the special contact: it was more important now than ever. How far could he go to convince her? Hardly any way at all. Too much was still conjecture, sufficient for him but not enough to convince anyone else. ‘There still might be more to learn about Pizhma and Kirs Charlie hesitated as the thought came to him, despising himself for considering it but knowing he was going to use it just the same. ‘That’s why the threat came against Sasha. I don’t think she’ll be attacked but I can’t be sure. How long do you want Sasha going to school in an armoured convoy? One year? Two? Until she goes to high school? It doesn’t matter if you quit. Aleksai will still be where he is: maybe he’ll even be promoted, into your job. He’d be their danger then, not you. And Sasha will be his weakness: his pressure.’
Natalia regarded him blankly, wide-eyed. ‘What can I do?’
‘Go on helping me!’
‘… But you’re moving on from Pizhma? This entrapment idea…’
‘It’s through the entrapment that I might be able to understand what happened at Pizhma. And at Kirs.’
‘How? I don’t follow…’
‘Fedor Mitrov, the Dolgoprudnaya man,’ half lied Charlie. ‘The Germans have agreed a deal, in return for his guiding me to the right people here in Moscow.’
‘The Militia are adamant Silin died in a gang battle. Died grotesquely… and his wife.’ She shuddered.
‘He was killed because he knew who the Kirs and Pizhma organizers were. And who the customers were, for what was stolen.’
Natalia held his eyes for several moments. ‘Are you being completely honest with me? Completely honest about Sasha’s life?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie, meeting her gaze.
‘Dear God, it must end soon!’ said Natalia, despairingly.
‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie. ‘Very soon. Will you go on helping?’
‘What choice do I have?’
Hillary moved into Lesnaya the same week with three suitcases, a poster of Robert Frost (‘the best American poet ever’) and a long-lashed rabbit doll whose name – Lysistrata – she insisted was only a joke. Charlie said he was glad because he had a lot of fighting still to do, which prompted Hillary to doubt she had any function left: the German business seemed to have wrapped everything up and Washington had barred her from seeking participation before that. She was expecting a recall any day and was surprised it hadn’t already come: it was over a week since she’d sent her complete analysis of how much plutonium 239 there would have been in the lost ten containers and what its bomb-making capability would have been. She’d guessed at twenty-five bombs, possibly twenty-seven of warhead size. Another guess, based largely on previous German interceptions, was that the material could have fetched as much as $25,000,000. Hillary’s withdrawal remark reminded Charlie to ask Rupert Dean to press Washington to let her remain in Moscow. The Director-General guaranteed at once that it wouldn’t be a problem, which it didn’t turn out to be. And that despite Hillary’s warning that the US Head of Chancellery had protested it was unthinkable she move in with him at Lesnaya, which she hadn’t made any secret of doing because she hadn’t seen why she should. They both agreed that Heads of Chancellery were universal pains in the ass.
Charlie didn’t expect the casual reaction from Lyneham and Kestler to Hillary’s change of address. Lyneham begrudgingly handed over the money he’d lost betting against the sting acceptance and said he would have moved in with Charlie rather than live in the compound shithole if he’d known rooms were available. Kestler said Charlie was a lucky son-of-a-bitch. Lyneham also said it was the biggest scandal inside the embassy for years and Hillary had balls. He’d had to tell Washington, because she was attached to his Bureau office, but there hadn’t been a headquarters protest, which was something else Charlie hadn’t expected.