It took several moments for Charlie to pick through the obscenities when he spoke to Miriam Bell, not immediately understanding what she was telling him.
“Stop off in London,” Charlie said. “And tell your people you’d like to meet Peters in person, to talk about Harry Dunne and Sir Peter Mason.”
“They going to save my life?”
“They just saved mine. What’s the story with Cartright?”
“He kept on that night we met about how I imagined you really got the money to afford the apartment, so I suggested the name of the man at the Arbat. And then anonymously telephoned the local militia post.”
“I’ll buy dinner when you get here,” promised Charlie.
38
It was scheduled as a tribunal hearing into the civilian arrest of Richard Cartright, but within the first hour of the first day Gerald Williams virtually became a coaccused, with Jocelyn Hamilton and SIS case officer Malcolm Covington only just avoiding an indictment.
Desperately Cartright insisted his Arbat approach-which had not been to a money dealer named Arkadi Orgnev but a posing militia currency investigator-had been part of an investigation into the activities of Charlie Muffin officially authorized by SIS case officer Malcolm Covington, and that he had the Moscow cable to prove it. The dollars he had shown the Russian had not been to trade but to pay for the identification, from a photograph he’d been carrying, of Muffin as a client. He had not known his woman companion, an Aeroflot stewardess, was carrying $430 she’d admitted to the militia she’d intended to sell. Cartright produced a diary of every conversation-and what was discussed-with Gerald Williams and called as a witness his department’s financial director to confirm his having checked Williams’s London conversation with the man about expenses claims, from which he’d assumed he was at liberty to talk to Williams on a combined agency investigation.
Miriam Bell arrived in London that afternoon, took a room on the floor below Charlie’s at the Dorchester and was waiting in the foyer when Charlie got back.
She said, “I’m pissed off. Been here half an hour and haven’t got propositioned once.” And smiled.
“This is London, not Moscow.”
“It shouldn’t make any difference!”
Charlie took her to the Rib Room because he thought she’d like the steaks, which she did. She agreed that Cartright sounded like a prick but didn’t deserve to be dismissed but Williams did. Charlie said that if he’d had any pity, which he didn’t, it would have been pitiful to listen to. Her steak covered half her plate, as his did, and she’d eaten it by the time he finished filling in all the details of the Yakutsk murders.
She said, “Jesus H. Christ! That was an operation and a half! Who d’you think got caught and turned first, Peter Mason or Harry Dunne?”
“I don’t know. Whoever it was immediately shopped the other.”
“Great idea, turning them and maintaining them for so long,” she said, admiringly.
“I wonder if it balanced out the damage they did before they got caught.”
“How am I supposed to know about this?”
“I told them we didn’t cooperate-that I didn’t know what you had. No reason why you shouldn’t have found out about Timpson like I did. Or that there’s a grave in Holland. No reason, either, why you can’t have established a paid source at Lubyanka Square.”
“I’d have had to share a source like that with Sauclass="underline" he’s the Bureau chief. You’ve got a hell of an inside track there.”
“One I’m going to guard with my life.”
“I’d do the same, if I was that lucky.”
“What feedback did you get from Washington?”
“Panic. Demands for a full explanation.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d give it in person, when I saw Peters. I’m not sure this’ll save me, but it’s going to be better than any lay I’ve ever had to make Kenton Peters kiss my ass. Never thought I’d be able to keep the promise to myself. So thanks a whole lot.”
“You think you’ll come back to Moscow if you survive?”
Miriam shook her head. “I don’t want to. If it goes good, I’m going to ask for a reassignment. Somewhere warm and nice: Australia or Spain, maybe.”
Because it was Miriam’s first time in London and she wanted to, Charlie actually compromised to window-shop past Harvey Nicholsand Harrods-deciding to look in both before going back to Moscow, despite Natalia telling him not to buy presents-but they hailed a taxi after about half an hour. They had a nightcap-two, in fact-at the Dorchester Bar, and during the second Miriam said, “You know something?”
“What?”
“I’ve just decided it would spoil things if you and I went to bed together.”
“Yes,” agreed Charlie. “It would.”
“You want to know something else?”
“What?”
“I’ve never felt like that about a guy before. Not sure if it makes you special or what. Special, I think.”
The tribunal lasted a further two days, extended by the determination of everyone involved completely to exonerate themselves. The Foreign Office cited the expense for refusing to recall Raymond McDowell and Colonel John Gallaway from Moscow to recount Charlie’s disparaging conversation, insisting instead upon signed af-fadavits, and Williams produced his carefully amassed examples of unsupported expense claims, which Charlie said he’d already talked about with the director-general, who at once insisted the explanation was totally satisfactory upon his personal authority and forbade any further discussion. Calling Charlie was nothing more than a token gesture to procedure. He said he couldn’t remember the actual disparagement-which the diligent Cartright had produced verbatim, alongside McDowell’s written recollection-but didn’t deny saying any of it. There had been intentionally introduced operational difficulties-to which the investigation of one department upon another had contributed-and he felt his remarks were as justified now as they had been at the time. He was apprehensive that Malcolm Covington might produce a voiceprint of his Waterloo runaround telephone call-sure it was Covington he’d spoken to-but it didn’t happen.
The hearing was impatiently concluded by the middle of the second day. Richard Cartright was assigned to the travel and communications desk at the Vauxball Cross headquarters. Gerald Williams accepted the invitation for early retirement, with his index-linkedpension adjusted to what it would have been had he not left until he was sixty-five. Jocelyn Hamilton and Malcolm Covington had severe reprimands attached to their personnel files.
“All that was ridiculous,” dismissed Sir Rupert. He’d insisted Charlie accompany him from the hearing to his office.
“Totally,” agreed Charlie.
“One has nothing to do-has no effect whatsoever-with the other,” warned the director-general. “I will not, ever again, tolerate your affectation to be the lone vigilante. And don’t patronize me by meekly agreeing. Understand that I mean it.”
“I do,” said Charlie.
“It’s right that I thank you, for what Pacey tells me you’ve achieved for the department. I do so, but reluctantly.”
“Thank you, anyway.”
“Now bugger off back to Moscow.”
It was the first time Miriam Bell had been in the presence of the FBI director, Judge Colin (pronounced Cohlin) Hibbert, who was avuncularly fat and prematurely bald and disappointed at being both. He was also disappointed at the confrontation that had just ended-he hoped-between someone as awesomely influential as Kenton Peters and a woman young enough to be not just his daughter but possibly his granddaughter. He knew from Nathaniel Brindsley that Miriam Bell had told Peters to kiss her ass and from ten years’ previous experience on the bench his verdict was that she’d effectively if not physically made him do just that.
“You were told your participation was over,” Peters continued to argue.