‘… There is no log, no file note of this whatsoever. That is directly contrary to procedure,’ cut in Harkness. ‘How much more self-admission are we going to need from this man!’
‘I agree with you,’ said Charlie, before Wilson could speak. ‘I contravened regulations, which I concede was wrong. But by this time other strange things were happening and I considered the course I took justified. As I said, Blackstone clearly called a London number. He spoke briefly, because I saw him. And then hung around the kiosk for about fifteen minutes – when his own house and his own telephone were less than five minutes away – to call again. That was all. I kept him under the closest surveillance for the remainder of a week and at no time did he do anything to arouse the slightest suspicion…’
It was Harkness who broke in again. Intent across the table, believing he was improving his accusations, the deputy Director said: ‘Are you telling us that you’ve let a man you believe to be an agent continue working at an installation where the highest classified work is being carried out? And done nothing about it!’
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I emphatically impressed upon the English project leader that Blackstone under no circumstances should be considered for employment, nor allowed within the restricted area at any time or under any circumstances whatsoever. But never to let him know that he was under any ban: rather that he might be seconded in response to an application he’d made. I also had our Technical Division impose a trace upon the Isle of Wight public kiosk to isolate all London calls made from it…’ He looked across at Witherspoon: ‘If you searched my office you should have come across the report.’
Witherspoon shook his head but to Harkness, who was staring at him furiously. ‘There was just a number. It didn’t mean anything.’
‘Strange things,’ prompted the Director General. ‘You said there were other strange things happening.’
‘I found myself under surveillance,’ announced Charlie. ‘It was very expert – more expert than it had been before – and it was unquestionably professional observation…’ Charlie paused and said: ‘And here I made a serious mistake, the only one I consider a I have made. And from which I hope to recover…’ He looked, pointedly, from Harkness to Witherspoon and then to the Special Branch men. ‘I had been, as you have heard, under constant internal harassment from this department…harassment I had identified and which had been openly acknowledged – an acknowledgement which is on file – to me by the deputy Director General prior to anything he has said here today. I inferred, quite wrongly, that what I had detected was a continuation of that harassment. I decided to run hare to the hounds, to see what more stupidity there was going to be. It was some time before I discovered it wasn’t internal at all. That it was Soviet…’
‘… You didn’t report being targeted by a hostile foreign agency …!’ broke in Harkness.
Charlie virtually ignored the question again, continuing to talk directly to Wilson. ‘I didn’t make the discovery immediately. It was some days after I returned from the Isle of Wight inquiry. I am extremely careful how I leave my flat: setting things that will alert me to an entry. I knew there was an entry – again I thought it was part of the internal investigation – because my door has several locks, one a Yale. But I never set it, because the others compensate: it’s always latched. When I tried to enter my flat one evening the Yale lock had been dropped. There were other things – cabinet and room doors closed which I had left ajar or in positions from which I could recognize if they had been touched, the slight disarrangement of magazines that had been left in a particular order. But I couldn’t, at first, discover why. It was a Sunday when I made a determined search…’ Charlie paused, going to Witherspoon. ‘You might like to take a note of the date, although of course it will be recorded by the official stenographers here. It was August 6…’
Witherspoon hesitated, frowning, and briefly made a notation on a pad in front of him.
‘… I found the cipher pad first,’ resumed Charlie. ‘The door of the cupboard housing the electricity meter was one I had left slightly open and it had been closed when I first discovered the entry. It was much more difficult finding the money: I thought I’d covered the bedroom until I noticed the slight variation between the indentations in the carpet that the leg castors had made. The bed had been put back just a fraction out of alignment to where it had been before…’
Charlie paused, wishing he had water, like Harkness earlier. He said: ‘That’s when I realized who had really established the surveillance which had by now been in place for a considerable amount of time. And realized, too, that it was being directed very personally against me and was not some wider operation. So I decided to go on running hare …’
‘… that would have been entirely wrong: against every regulation,’ interjected the determined Harkness. ‘If it were true – and I do not believe this absurdly concocted story for a minute – it should have been immediately reported to me!’
He’d already concluded that if he handled this confrontation wrongly he was lost, Charlie remembered: that it was all or nothing. Staring straight at Harkness, Charlie said: ‘I did not have then – nor do I have now – any confidence whatsoever in this department properly to investigate what was or is happening. I was the obvious target: I decided to let it continue to run, to try to see at least if a direction or a purpose emerged, before reporting it officially.’
‘That action, like that remark, was quite wrong,’ said Wilson, and Harkness snatched a sideways look of gratitude to the Director General he had earlier criticized.
Shit, thought Charlie. And then another reflection: All or nothing. He said: ‘It would not have been one I would have taken had different circumstances prevailed in this department.’
‘The innuendo in that remark is even more improper,’ said Wilson angrily, turning perceptibly towards a blazing-faced Harkness. ‘I think it calls for an apology to certain people in this room.’
There were several moments of absolute silence, with everyone’s concentration entirely upon Charlie. He swallowed and shuffled slightly on aching feet. Then he said: ‘With respect to yourself, sir, I decline to make any apology to anyone in this room for anything I have so far said or implied.’ There! he thought. Not just irrevocably committed: he’d put the noose around his own neck and had the do-it-yourself trapdoor lever in his hand.
‘We have been very patient…’ began Wilson, but for the first time ever Charlie risked talking over the man: ‘Please!’ he said, knowing he had only the briefest chance to hold them. ‘Just another few minutes…!’ and when Wilson stopped talking, more in further anger than permission, Charlie hurried on: ‘That money over there, the thousand pounds by which such great store is being set as being a Soviet payment to me, is my money.’