Cuthbertson opened the other file on his desk, containing the report of Harrison’s death.
‘Let’s see how Snare gets on,’ he said, guardedly.
‘Over six months have passed since Comrade General Berenkov was sentenced,’ recorded Kastanazy, gazing over his desk at Kalenin.
‘Yes,’ said the K.G.B. officer.
‘Most of yesterday’s Praesidium meeting was devoted to discussing the affair.’
‘Yes,’ said the General.
‘Please understand, Comrade Kalenin, that the patience of everyone is growing increasingly shorter.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the General.
Had Kastanazy purposely dropped his rank? he wondered.
(9)
Snare hated Moscow, he decided. It was claustrophobic and petty-minded and inefficient and irritating. He had attended the Bolshoi and been unmoved, the State Circus and been bored and the Armoury and been unimpressed with the Romanov jewellery, even the Fabergé clocks. The body of Lenin, enclosed behind glass in that mausoleum, was not, he had concluded, the embalmed body at all, but a waxwork. And a bad wax-work at that. He’d seen better at Madame Tussaud’s, when he’d taken his young nephew for an Easter outing. The child had wet himself, he remembered, distastefully, and made the car smell.
The flattery of being lionised as a new face in an embassy starved of outside contact had worn off now and he pitied the diplomats and secretaries whose constant opening gambit was to refer to his thoughtfulness in bringing as gifts from London, Heinz baked beans, Walls pork sausages and Fortnum & Mason Guinness cake. It had been Muffin’s advice, recalled Snare. Just the sort of sycophantic rubbish in which the man would have indulged, a gesture to make people like him.
He’d spent several evenings with the Director’s friend, Colonel Wilcox, and rehearsed their approach if Kalenin attended the official function. But even Wilcox had erected a barrier, afraid any mistake could create an embarrassing diplomatic incident. So no one liked him, decided Snare. He didn’t give a damn. Thank Christ, he thought, gazing out of the embassy window, that the stupid party was tonight and he could start thinking of his return to London. It was raining heavily, smearing the houses and roads with a dull, grey colour. It was hardly surprising, he thought, that the Russians seemed so miserable.
The interest of the Americans slightly worried him. They knew who he was, he accepted. That absurdly tall man who kept talking about basket-ball, moving his hands in a flapping motion as if he were bouncing a ball against the ground, was definitely an Agency man. Snare groped for the man’s name, but had forgotten it. Odd how sportsmen liked to boast their chosen recreation, he considered. Harrison was always driving imaginary golf balls with his reversed umbrella.
Someone in the British embassy must have disclosed his identity, he thought. When he got back to London, he’d complain to Sir Henry Cuthbertson and get an investigation ordered. Bloody diplomats were all the same: trying to show off their knowledge, gossiping their secrets.
The fact that he was known to be an operative didn’t matter, he rationalised. They’d be expecting him to do something befitting his role and all he had to do was attend an embassy party and, if Kalenin were there, carry on where Harrison had left the conversation in East Germany.
And because no one, apart from the British, knew what that conversation was, then all he would appear to be doing was behaving in a normal, social manner.
The thought of achieving his mission while they all watched, unaware of what was happening, amused him. It would have been pleasant, letting them know afterwards how stupid they had been. But probably dangerous. He sighed, abandoning the idea.
Snare turned away from the window, taking from the desk immediately behind it the coded report that had come from Whitehall three weeks earlier giving a complete account of Harrison’s meeting with the General.
Harrison had done bloody well, congratulated Snare. When he got back to London, he’d take the man out for a celebration meal, to l’Étoile or l’Épicure. Some decent food would be welcome after what he had endured for the past month, when he’d been lucky enough to get any service at all in a hotel or restaurant.
Carefully, he traced the responses that Kalenin had given in Leipzig. There could be no doubt, he agreed, turning to Cuthbertson’s assessment, that the General was a potential defector. The East German encounter had shown him the pathway, thought Snare. But it was still going to be difficult if Kalenin turned up, discovering the undoubted conditions that the man would impose. Secretly he hoped Kalenin wouldn’t appear: then he could just go home. Yes, he thought, it would be better if Kalenin didn’t attend. Because whatever he achieved tonight, if anything at all, would be secondary to Harrison’s initial success. It was bloody unfair, thought Snare, irritably, that the other man had just got six days in East Germany and all the glory and he’d been stuck in Moscow for four weeks and had to perform the most difficult part of the whole operation.
He descended early to the ballroom, arriving with the first of the British party. He spoke briefly to the ambassador and Colonel Wilcox, discussed the quality of the Cambridge eight with the cultural attaché who had been his senior at King’s and had got a rowing blue, and then edged away, to be alone. Being disliked had its advantages, he thought: no one bothered to follow.
The American contingent arrived early and there were more of them than Snare had expected. What an appalling life, sympathised Snare, playing follow-my-leader from one embassy gathering to another, repeating the same conversations like a litany and attempting to keep sane. Almost immediately behind the Americans, the rest of the diplomatic corps arrived, crushing into the entrance and slowly funnelling past the hosts towards the drinks tray and tables of canapés. Whatever did these people, all of whom had seen each other in the last week and to which absolutely nothing had happened in the interim, find to talk about? wondered the Briton.
At the far end of the chandeliered room, an orchestra was attempting Gilbert and Sullivan and Snare was reminded of the amateur musical society at his prep school.
‘Hi.’
Snare turned to the fat man who had appeared at his elbow. He seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in his breathing.
‘Braley,’ the man introduced. ‘American embassy.’
Another C.I.A. man? wondered the Briton.
‘Hello,’ he returned, minimally.
‘Could be a good party.’
Snare looked at him, but didn’t bother to reply.
‘Not seen you before. Been in Washington on leave, myself.’
‘I envy you,’ said Snare, with feeling.
‘Don’t you like Moscow?’
‘No.’
‘How long will you be stationed here?’
‘As briefly as possible,’ said Snare.
Christ, thought Braley. And the man was supposed to have diplomatic cover: hadn’t anyone briefed him?
‘Believe you’ve met my colleague, Jim Cox?’ said Braley, brightly.
Snare looked at the second American and nodded. He wasn’t practising his basket approach tonight, Snare saw. What had really offended him about Cox, a thin-faced, urgent-demeanoured man who did callisthenics every morning and jogged, according to his own confession, for an hour in the U.S. embassy compound in the afternoon, was the discovery that the price he was offering Snare for the duty-free, embassy-issued Scotch would have only allowed a profit of twenty pence a bottle. The offence was not monetary, but the knowledge that others in the embassy would have learned about it and laughed at him for being gullible, particularly after the apparent well-travelled act of bringing in the beans and sausages. Everyone would know now that it wasn’t his idea, but somebody else’s. They’d probably guess Charlie Muffin, he thought; in his first few days in the Soviet capital, there had been several friendly enquiries about the bloody man.