“Which you’ve communicated-discussed-to others?”
The first crack? “Of course,” said Charlie. It wasn’t an actual lie: only the inference that Sir Peter Mason had been connected with it wasn’t true.
“In writing?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re guilty of libel.”
Not the first crack at all! “Which you’d need to take me into a court of law to prosecute,” said Charlie. “You sure you can afford to appear in court, Sir Peter?”
“More, I’m sure, than you, in every meaning of the word ‘afford.’”
Bullying-pompous-but that was all, assessed Charlie. Still far short. “You haven’t called the police.”
“I’m more interested now in the total extent of your aberration. And your libel.”
That was a crack, although again not sufficient. Cleverly outtalking him, in fact, Charlie conceded: the bastard was trying to learn how much he knew. “Was Larisa already dead when they found you and brought you back to the camp infirmary?”
“Larisa who?”
“Larisa Krotkov.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone named Larisa Krotkov. Nor do I know what camp you’re referring to.”
There was no euphoria or satisfaction left. Charlie was hot, perspiring, aware he was losing. “Gulag 98.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“What about Raisa?”
“I did not know Raisa Belous.”
The hardest hit he could think of, Charlie decided. “She’s the woman you killed: shot in the back of the head to go first into thegrave, before Simon Norrington and George Timpson were thrown on top.”
Mason actually jerked back in his chair, his face bloodred, eyes bulged, hands no longer cupped but splayed against the desktop to support himself. His mouth moved several times, but there were no immediate words, and when they finally came they were strained, wheezing from the man. “I will see to it that you are prosecuted! Put away! Your life … everything … is over. Finished.”
He’d been within a hairbreadth, Charlie recognized. He’d rocked the man, had him teetering on the edge, but at the last minute Mason had pulled back, turning the near-collapse into apparent outrage. He had to push again, Charlie acknowledged-push with everything else he had to topple the man on the second attempt. The uncertainty was not being sure just how much there really was left.
Charlie said, “I can’t imagine what it must have been like. No one can. Not surprising that you ran like you did: no one could blame you for wanting to get away. Remarkable that you managed to get so far, although not that they didn’t shoot. They had other, more long-term needs for you, of course. As they had for Harry Dunne. Didn’t stop them from shooting Larisa, though, but then she’d served her purpose, hadn’t she …?” Georgi, he suddenly remembered: how Larisa, in her dying delerium, would have referred by the Russian name to George Timpson, who’d carried the cut-off photograph of them both together. “And Larisa did try to stop George Timpson from getting shot, didn’t she?” he guessed. “Got hit herself doing it … couldn’t be saved …” He nodded to Mason’s hands and the deformed fingers, still splayed on the desk. “Not like your fingers were saved, despite the frostbite. He was a good doctor, wasn’t he? If I hadn’t known he’d had to amputate your earlobe-particularly looked when you opened the door to me today-I wouldn’t have known you’d lost it. I’m sure not many people have, all these years ….”
It didn’t work.
Sir Peter Mason retained his rigidly affronted stance, although his color went and his voice returned to near-normal. “I’ve heard enough-too much-of this absurdity! You’ll leave my house. Immediately. I intend contacting Sir Rupert, at once. To carry out the threats I’ve made, about every report you’ve filed ….” The controlwent, at the end. Color abruptly suffused the man’s face again and he roared, crack-voiced, “GET OUT!” and rose, actually pointing toward the door.
And Charlie did.
Charlie drove obliviously, thoughts in free fall, for several miles before the most essential awareness forced its way to the forefront of his mind. How much-how badly-had he lost?
It didn’t matter that Sir Peter Mason, without any doubt in Charlie’s mind, was the murdering second officer or what the obvious implications were of his having been all his life at the heart of British government. He’d failed to get an admission, and the log of a long-dead doctor was insufficient evidence. What about the rest? He needed a jury, Charlie decided: a tribunal, at least. And there was no way he’d get that now. Mason would have an explanation, no matter how thin.
The man would complain to the director-general. Probably to a lot of other people, as well. There wasn’t a defense against confronting Mason, but Charlie needed to get his explanation-and what little was left-to Sir Rupert Dean first. What was initially indefensible was his being unofficially in England at all, which he knew and the consequences of which he had to accept. By the end of the day he’d doubtless have had confirmed what he already knew them to be, so he could wait until then to call Natalia. Would she give up everything and bring Sasha to live in London? Or would she look upon it as the obvious breaking point that she’d virtually declared during last night’s row?
As always, too many questions with too few answers. The first step-which professionally would be his last-was to get through the encounter with Sir Rupert. So totally upon that was Charlie’s concentration that he wasn’t aware of the siren or of the flashing lights of the police car until it actually came up alongside, with the observer waving him into the roadside. Charlie’s first thought was of Henry Packer.
He kept the window closed and the locks down, pointless though that would have been, until he was satisfied the two uniformed men walking back toward him really were policemen. And not armed. When Charlie finally wound down the window, the observer said, “Every unit in Norfolk is looking for this car and this number. Idon’t know what you’ve done, my son, but it’s upset a lot of important people.”
“I know,” said Charlie. He gave the same reply to the Special Branch officers who greeted him at Norwich police headquarters with the practically identical remark.
“I thought we were going to do some ourselves!” protested Irena.
“Of course not!” said Cartright, irritably. There was a virtual sea of tourists washing around the Arbat and it really was like forcing their way against a fast-running current. He felt more disoriented than discomfited.
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Find a particular man. Ask him to identify the photograph.” He patted the pocket containing the picture of Charlie Muffin, to reassure himself it was still there. There’d be a lot of pickpockets in a crowd like this.
“Why did you want me to come?” demanded Irena, still protesting.
“The man I’m looking for will feel more comfortable with a Russian than with a foreigner.”
“They have some nice jewelry in the foreign outlet store on Ser-ebryany.”
“We’ll look afterwards,” sighed Cartright.
“What’s the name?”
“Arkadi Orgnev. He works around the Buratino.”
“There it is,” she said, pointing to the cafe with the illustrations of Pinocchio after which it was named.
Cartright prompted Irena to ask and they were misdirected to two people before a short, rotund man in a baseball cap, T-shirt and Levi’s jeans was pointed out to them.
“Arkadi Orgnev?” asked Cartright, taking over.
“Maybe,” said the man.
“I think you might be able to help me.”
“How much?”
Cartright pulled the money from his pocket sufficiently for the man to see it was dollars. “Of course, I’m prepared to pay for what I want.”
The man put a whistle in his mouth and blew it and five menmaterialized from the crowd, surrounding them. One was the second person Irena had asked to point out the money-changer.