“Both. Mostly from an office near GUM but sometimes from the apartment.”
“So KGB people came to the apartment sometimes?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did George ever meet them?”
“He would have been there when they came.”
“How did George get on with his father?”
“Not very well. They argued.”
“What about?”
“Everything. George said it was Peter’s fault that we were here.”
“What about you and George? How do you get on?”
“Quite well, except for when he gets angry.”
“What does he do when he gets angry?”
“I told you, he fights.”
“You mean he’s violent.”
“Yes.”
“Has he ever hit you?”
“No. I’ve thought he was going to, sometimes. But he hasn’t.”
“Why didn’t your husband take Russian citizenship? He chose communism, after all.”
“No,” denied the faded woman, strength in her voice for the first time. “He didn’t do what he did for political ideology. He was ashamed of what he’d done-helped do-developing the West’s nuclear capability. He gave it away to make things even.”
Olga supposed there was some rationale in the convoluted justification. “But he used a Russian name?”
“No. That was George. He said he didn’t want to have the name Bendall. He chose Gugin.”
“Did George ever fight with his father?”
Vera Bendall looked down into her lap. “Sometimes. In the end George was bigger, stronger, than Peter.”
Olga Melnik had expected more-a lot more-and the irritation was a combination of frustration and disappointment. She couldn’t believe-didn’t want to believe-the Bendalls’ story could be as banal as this. “I’m not satisfied, Vera. Not at all satisfied.”
“Please,” implored the woman. “I’ve answered everything I can. I just don’t know!”
“His friends, Vera. You’ve got to remember who his friends were. He must have said something, sometime. Given you some idea where he went. That’s what you’ve got to remember and tell me … And the name of the doctor?”
Vera Bendall looked down at her drooped breasts. “Can I havemy underwear back … my laces and belt. It’s uncomfortable …”
“You’re not going home, Vera. You’re going to stay here, until you help me properly. Stay downstairs, in the cell that doesn’t have a window … where a lot of other people have stayed, before you …”
“No … please …” begged the woman.
“Think, Vera. You’ve got to think very hard. Remember what I want to know and then tell me.”
Charlie assembled video footage from America’s NBC and CBS, Britain’s BBC, Canada’s CBS and Moscow’s NTV to compare with CNN’s unique and unparalled film. And worked with total concentration to parallel it, second for second, frame by frame. He did so muffled in earphones, stopwatch in hand, well aware even then he was not technically qualified to reach any conclusion. Which, being Charlie, he did. He was right: one hundred and one percent, fuck the doubters, diamond-hard right. The copies-the copies upon copies which Anne Abbott had protested to be illegal-were already in the diplomatic bag on their way to London for the scientifically provable tests Charlie specified but he was already personally sure he didn’t need their confirmation.
What he wasn’t so personally sure about was where in the name of Christ and His dog his conviction complicated an investigation already more than complicated enough.
As totally absorbed and externally soundproofed as he was, Charlie was initially, briefly, unaware of Anne Abbott easing herself beside him, physically starting at her touch on his arm.
“Shit, you frightened me!” admitted Charlie, who didn’t like admitting fear or being startled. He depressed the remote control to stop the transmission as he took off the earphones.
“I’ve been looking for you!”
“What is it?”
Anne frowned at the obvious irritation. “I was hoping for an update.”
“What’s yours?” There hadn’t been any contact messages from Donald Morrison or the head of chancellery when he’d got back from the American embassy.
“I’m to arrange legal representation-be part of whatever is set up-when we’re allowed consular access.”
“Has it been asked for?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Brooking’s already made the application. Maybe he had the same trouble finding you as I did.”
“Maybe,” dismissed Charlie.
“You got anything I should know about?”
Friend or foe? wondered Charlie, wearied that he had to pose the question. She’d have to be the first to know, if he were technically proved correct. He explained what he wanted her to listen for in advance of handing over the sound-enhancing earphones and gave her his clipboard and stopwatch, for her to make her own time comparisons.
Anne Abbott stopped after only twenty five minutes-only a third of the time Charlie had taken-and looked to him in astonishment. “You could be right!”
“So?”
“So I don’t know what to say.”
Olga Melnik snapped off the tape recording of her insufficient encounter with Vera Bendall and for several minutes the room was silent apart from the rewind whirr.
General Leonid Zenin said, “No one can be that unknowing. She’s lying.”
“She’s of a type,” balanced Olga. “A permanent victim.”
“You believe her!”
“Not yet.” On the recording her interview had sounded worse-unproductive, unprofessional-than she’d personally admitted it to be at the time.
“What have you done?”
“Asked the military for his army records, particularly medical. And the official reason-the papers-for his discharge. There’s a team at NTV. He must have friends-acquaintances-there.” Olga paused, regarding the tightly-bearded, hard-bodied man with whom she decided it might be pleasurable to ascend bedroom stairs. “Therewas certainly KGB control, after the father defected.”
“Of course there was,” said Zenin, who had told Olga of the emergency committee meeting. “That’s why it doesn’t make sense for Spassky to say they can’t find files. In his time Peter Bendall would have been important.”
There was another silence, longer than the first. Olga said, “You’re surely not …?”
“It’s a question I’m going to ask if records aren’t found,” anticipated Zenin. “Spassky is KGB. Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov, already predicted to follow Yudkin as president, is former KGB. And the Federal Security Service-which is responsible for presidential protection-is nothing more than a convenient cosmetic name change, like all the others since Dzerzhinsky.”
Olga felt a stir of unease. “We could be personally destroyed, trying to prove that … by even making the accusation.”
“I wouldn’t be making an accusation,” insisted Zenin. “I’d be asking for an investigation into missing dossiers.”
“Even if we could prove it, it wouldn’t be politically acceptable.”
“It would prevent us, the militia, being accused of any negligence or culpability.”
“I suppose it would,” agreed Olga, although doubtfully.
“What are you going to do about the Bendall woman?”
“Keep her as terrified as she is. She could still have her uses.”
“So could the Britons and the Americans who’ve got to be officially involved.”
6
It was performed as a political necessity, like so much else. Both Walter Anandale and Irena Yudkin wore deep black and posed for the Washington White House’s official stills photographer against identifiably different backgrounds described in the accompanying caption as adjoining the emergency wards of their respective spouses,which neither were. Both Russian and American surgeons refused to allow the most minimal disturbance so close, which the protection services of both countries also argued against. The setting was, in fact, in the same room a block away from either victim, with a fifteen-minute interval to switch the medical equipment backdrop to make it look different. There were other stills of the American president and the Russian First Lady in an adjoining lounge, with Anandale holding Irena’s hand, each consoling the other. Irena had frequently to use the handkerchief she kept in her free hand and Anandale was drawn and gaunt faced and had earlier dismissed the suggestion of camera make-up. The photocall was posed. Their visible, genuine anxiety was not.