The marriage of Henry George Blackstone, a tracer, to Ruth Emerson, a spinster of the parish of Emsworth, in Hampshire, was recorded at Portsmouth Register Office on 6 May 1975. The marriage of Henry George Blackstone, a tracer, to Ann Crouch, a computer operator of the parish of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, was shown to have taken place at Newport Register Office on 9 January 1976. The KGB researcher had only two floors to go to complete his investigation, idly reflecting as he went from one section of the building to the other on the shortness of grief in the event of Ruth Blackstone, née Emerson, genuinely having died after such a tragically brief union. It took him less than an hour in the department listing the country’s deaths to establish, however, that Ruth hadn’t died. And that Blackstone was the bigamist he already suspected the man to be.
Although the evidence looked conclusive, Losev did not immediately try to use it, displaying unusual restraint by instead concentrating all the KGB surveillance solely upon Blackstone. The Russian was becoming disappointed by the discovery of a mundane existence of Monday-night cinema and Thursday-night darts at the pub nearest to Blackstone’s Newport home, but on the Friday was glad that he’d waited. Because that night, instead of going from the East Cowes factory to the home he’d made with Ann, Blackstone caught the Portsmouthbound ferry, bought a cheap spray of flowers from a street stall and was with Ruth in Anglesea Terrace by six thirty. And from there, the following Monday, began commuting to the island for the period he was allowing himself to be with his first wife.
Losev was never completely to know the fortunate coincidence of his actual approach to Blackstone: not how the fingers-crossed five-horse accumulator upon which Blackstone’s weekend outing with Ruth depended had failed on the same day that the man had been officially informed he was not getting the hoped-for transfer to the better-paying Star Wars project as part of Springley’s team. Losev learned soon enough about the work rejection, though: a lot of tight-lipped complaints about lack of appreciation and years of service given for bugger all and how some people didn’t deserve loyalty.
Losev had manouevred the conversation on the ferry going to Portsmouth and timed the inquiry about what Blackstone did, with chosen precision, just before the ship docked. The Russian feigned perfectly the surprise at hearing that Blackstone was an industrial tracer and said wasn’t that a coincidence and wasn’t the world a small place and did Blackstone know how difficult it was to find reliable industrial tracers, which the bemused Blackstone said he didn’t.
Losev suggested a drink at a pub called the Keppel’s Head, named after an admiral and practically on the quay against which they moored, and Blackstone looked at his watch and said all right but he only had time for one. Losev allowed Blackstone to bring the conversation back to the shortage of tracers and what, exactly, it was he wanted tracing. Losev was intentionally vague, talking generally of creating manufacturing drawings and blueprints from engineers’ specification notes and Blackstone shook his head and sniggered and agreed that it was coincidentally a small world because that was exactly the sort of work he did all the time.
‘Ever do any freelance work?’ asked Losev ingenuously.
‘Freelance work?’
‘That’s all I’m looking for at the moment.’ said Losev. ‘Someone reliable I can trust to take the load off my permanent draughtsmen and tracers; we’ve got so much work on we don’t know which way to turn.’
‘Maybe I could take something on,’ said Blackstone, in what he foolishly imagined to be an opening bargaining ploy.
‘You’re not serious!’ said the obviously delighted Losev.
‘Why not?’ shrugged Blackstone, not wanting to appear as desperately eager as he was. ‘You want a tracer. I’m a tracer. Why don’t we give it a try?’
‘You wouldn’t know how grateful I’d be: how much of a relief it would be.’
‘We’d come to some financial arrangement, of course?’
‘Of course,’ agreed Losev enthusiastically. He smiled, nudging the other man. ‘And a proper financial arrangement. Cash. No nonsense with income tax or anything like that. You interested?’
Blackstone was so excited he did not immediately trust himself to speak, so he sipped his beer to cover the gap. Then he said: ‘I wouldn’t mind giving it a go.’
‘Could we meet here again, say, tomorrow night, for me to give you the specification notes?’
‘Sure,’ agreed Blackstone. He had to ask, to get it finalized! He said: ‘What sort of money are we talking about here?’
‘This is a rush job, very important to me,’ said Losev. ‘You get a set of drawings back to me by the weekend and I’ve got a good chance of securing a contract that’s going to make me a very happy man. So you do that for me and there’s five hundred pounds in your pocket, no questions asked.’
Blackstone hid behind his beer glass again. Finally he managed: ‘Here this time tomorrow night then?’
‘I can’t believe how lucky we are to have met,’ said Losev.
‘Neither can I,’ said Blackstone, deeply sincere. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Stranger,’ said Losev, reciting the Moscow-dictated legend name. ‘Mr Stranger.’
Legend name for Petrin, in San Francisco, was Friend. Both had been selected by Alexei Berenkov with much forethought.
Berenkov had the summons hand-delivered to Natalia in her office three floors below him in the First Chief Directorate headquarters on the Moscow ring road, knowing she would be there to receive it because he’d made himself responsible for her movements.
Natalia sat for several moments held by the shock, the words blurring before her, then becoming clear, then bluring again. It had finally come, she decided at once: the demand she’d feared every day since Charlie’s departure.
Natalia, who’d observed her religion even before the Gorbachev relaxations made church attendance easier, thought: Oh God! Dear God, please help me!
10
Berenkov stood politely as the woman entered his office and went halfway across the room to greet her, escorting her to the overly ornate visitors’ chair he’d moved specially, to bring her closer to his desk, not to its front but to one side. That was the extent of the relaxation: there was a less official area of chairs and couches to one side, near the window, but Berenkov decided it would have been going too far.
‘Welcome, Natalia Nikandrova,’ said Berenkov. ‘Welcome indeed.’
‘Comrade General,’ responded Natalia. Her voice was higher than it should have been but he would expect some apprehension at the personal interview. She put her hand up to the thick-rimmed spectacles before she realized she was doing it and stopped the nervous gesture; it would have seemed like a fatuous wave. Why this clumsy, artificial politeness? Where were the escorting guards and the stenographer, to note the interrogation for later production as evidence at a trial?
‘There has not been the opportunity before for me to congratulate you upon your promotion.’
Nor the need, thought Natalia, further bewildered. Unable to think of anything better, she said: ‘Thank you, Comrade General.’ There was an approach taught like this at the training academy: the soft, beguiling beginning, lulling into a sense of misleading security. Everything was undoubtedly being recorded by hidden microphones so she supposed there was no necessity for official stenographers.
‘Well deserved,’ said Berenkov. Truthfully he added: ‘I’ve spent time considering your entire career. It is extremely commendable.’
She and Charlie had tried to prepare for an encounter like this. It was imperative, Charlie had insisted, that she remain unshakable in her story of never imagining he intended to return to the West until the very day she’d denounced him. She could go as far as admitting their affair – which she had done to Kalenin – but insist it was contrived by her, without any real affection, to trick him into some indiscretion to confirm her growing suspicion of his loyalty to Moscow. Survive, Charlie had repeated again and again: Think of nothing except surviving. Cautiously, stiffly, she said: ‘I am gratified you should think so, Comrade General.’