‘Things OK between you and Harkness, now he’s acting Director General?’
‘Why shouldn’t they be?’ sidestepped Charlie. He’d forgotten how complete the knowledge of the assessors, and particularly the spy school Director, had to be. If one of these people defected the rest of them might as well shut up shop and go home.
‘Don’t answer my question with another question,’ rebuked Shearer sharply.
The whole bloody lot of them were a bunch of schoolmasters, thought Charlie. He said: ‘There’s an adequate working relationship.’
Shearer nodded, as if he understood more than Charlie had said. ‘He’s requested an assessment be marked for him personally, as well as one going through the normal channels.’
Charlie stared steadily across the desk at the Director. Not a fussy schoolmaster, he corrected. Why was Shearer telling him? A private Charlie Muffin rule: Never stop anyone being indiscreet if that’s the way the mood takes them. He said: ‘That all?’
‘He’s asked for your case history file, as well.’
The same case history file the prat couldn’t get out of the computer. Which had to mean it was still being denied the man. Why was Shearer telling him? Did Harkness want him to know, to be unsettled by the interest? Charlie said: ‘Such a file is in Records, at Westminster Bridge Road.’
‘I know,’ said Shearer. ‘There’s a procedure for my making it available but because of the medical details it contains there’s a requirement that the subject’s permission be obtained.’
Thank you Lord for doctors’ confidentiality and Whitehall bureaucracy, thought Charlie: much more of this and he’d have to start observing the regulations himself. He said: ‘The requirement specifically governing this place?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Shearer.
So it wouldn’t have been in the Westminster Bridge Road rule book, so Harkness wouldn’t know it! Got you again, shithead, decided Charlie. He said: ‘So I could refuse?’
‘You have the right,’ agreed the Director.
‘And Harkness would have to be told I’d refused?’
‘Yes.’
So what did the file contain? His illegitimacy, but Charlie didn’t give a sod about anyone knowing that, any more than his mum had: he’d done very well as a kid from all those uncles passing briefly through the house. School records and the fact that he didn’t go to university, which Harkness might regard as indicative of some failing or other but something else Charlie couldn’t give a stuff about. Probably the details of that petrol sale episode during his army service in the fuel supply depot. But the investigation had been inconclusive. And there hadn’t been a formal charge so there was no ammunition there and it was far too long ago anyway. The case histories themselves, every assignment upon which he’d worked. No problem there. Harkness knew, because that was how the man had come to be appointed, how he screwed the previous Director and deputy Director for trying to sacrifice him: he’d been forgiven and re-admitted to the department so there was no mileage for Harkness in stirring those longdead embers. Charlie said: ‘What about the reverse? What if I give my permission now? Would Harkness be told?’
Shearer shrugged. ‘It’s not essentiaclass="underline" we’d just supply the information, as requested.’
‘But you could,’ stressed Charlie. ‘I mean you could, as required by regulations, attach some sort of notification that I’d approved the release of the details? So that he’d know?’
Shearer looked down at his disordered desk so Charlie was not able to see if the man were smiling. The Director was certainly serious-faced when he looked up again. ‘I could do that,’ the man agreed.
‘I don’t see any reason whatsoever why I should object,’ said Charlie.
‘You think the changes apparently going on in Russia are important?’ asked Shearer abruptly.
‘That’s what I said in one of the political papers,’ reminded Charlie. ‘It’s quite a second revolution.’
‘I mean at our level,’ elaborated the school’s Director. ‘You imagine any real difference affecting us and what we do?’
‘Not for a considerable time,’ judged Charlie. ‘The most compelling reason for the Soviet change of course is that their economy is up the spout. They’re practically skint. To become anywhere near efficient they need Western technology and they can’t afford to buy it. So they’ll steal it. Or try to. Which means that the KGB remains as important as it ever was.’
‘That’s what I think,’ said Shearer. ‘I’m glad you believe that, too.’
‘Glad?’ queried Charlie, guessing there had been a purpose to the exchange he hadn’t yet discerned.
‘They’re the people we should be watching out for: regarding as the opposition,’ said Shearer. ‘There shouldn’t be constant in-fighting, within our own service.’
Charlie realized at last why Shearer had shown the confiding friendliness. He said: ‘You will see my agreement to the acting Director General’s request is included, won’t you?’
‘Good luck, whatever’s going on,’ said the other man.
Henry Blackstone considered he had a good life – a bloody good life – apart from that one major problem. Money. He’d been trying to think of something for a while now but hadn’t managed to come up with anything. Thank Christ the horses were running good for him. Bloody silly to imagine that he could rely on the luck lasting, though. He needed desperately to come up with something permanent. If he could, then things would be perfect. He had a job he enjoyed in a part of the country where he liked living, and a loving and gentle wife in Ann. And in Ruth, too. Not so gentle, so placid, maybe, but just as loving. He was a fortunate man.
Apart from the money Blackstone had never had any trouble adjusting to bigamy, not from the very first day of taking a second wife in addition to the first. He loved Ann. And he loved Ruth. Equally and sincerely: well, as sincerely as he ever could.
So, unable to choose, he’d married both, one within eight months of the other.
Blackstone, who was a man of wide emotional swings, from overweening confidence to deep depressions to confidence again, truly believed his way of life made sense: this way everyone was happy. And they were happy. There were times – his superconfident times – when he’d even imagined they would all be able to live in complete harmony under the same roof, one big family. Not that he really thought of suggesting it, letting one know about the other. He knew he would be able to do it, but he wasn’t sure the women would be able to adjust as well. So why risk upsetting an arrangement that was already near perfect, apart from the money?
Blackstone caught the first available car ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, the one he normally got after a weekend on the mainland with Ruth. It would get him to the factory early but that didn’t matter. There was an experimental flexible-hours scheme running at the moment, so he would be able to get home to Ann correspondingly early. He was missing her, after the long weekend.
6
The thought occurred to Emil Krogh at the start of the stockholders’ meeting that this was the moment for which he’d waited for years. They’d cleared with the Pentagon and with NASA what could publicly be said about the Star Wars contract, which was limited but still enough, and Peggy’s father claimed his presidential right to make the official announcement. Peggy was there, of course. And Joey and Peter, so the whole family heard the praise of Krogh’s negotiating skills and the prestige of the award to the company, all cleverly made by the old man with pauses for the applause which always came on schedule. Krogh sat modestly on the raised directors’ dais, head bent most of the time over the table. Coming of age time, he thought, warmed by the reception. He’d earned his appointment as chairman a dozen times, sticking the middle finger to all the snide boss’s son-in-law cracks. But this was the best: the multi-million government award that confirmed the company at the top of Washington’s approval list, guaranteeing jobs and profits for years. And they had to acknowledge it, these directors and top managers and passed-over executives: acknowledge it and applaud and smile and nod to each other and say things like ‘Christ, what a deal!’ and ‘I always knew he could do it’ and ‘What a guy to have as chairman!’