Kalenin summoned him – officially instead of socially – before the cryptologists had broken the code, needing the benefit of Berenkov’s experience in England, an experience no one else in the ministry possessed. The chairman showed Berenkov the meaningless interceptions but because they were meaningless Berenkov merely glanced at them, putting them aside on his friend’s desk.
‘Not a code we know?’ he said.
Kalenin shook his head. ‘And one that’s being difficult: it’s even defying computor analysis at the moment.’
‘Then it’s important,’ judged Berenkov, confirming the opinion Kalenin had already reached.
‘How good are the British?’ demanded Kalenin.
Berenkov shrugged. ‘Don’t forget I’ve been away for a long time,’ he reminded. ‘Almost two years in prison and then back here for two years. Cuthbertson was the Director, during the end of my time. A fool and shown up to be one.’
‘Sir Alistair Wilson is the successor,’ said Kalenin.
Berenkov shook his head. ‘Don’t know of him,’ he said. ‘I’ve always felt that Cuthbertson and his crowd were an aberration, a mistake that occasionally arises in any service, because it can’t after all be avoided. For all the supposed expertise of the CIA, I’ve always had more respect for the British service.’
Kalenin shuffled through the intercepted messages. ‘Twenty,’ he said.
‘Important,’ repeated Berenkov. ‘There’s someone here in Moscow, a spy we don’t know about, shifting an enormous amount of information to which the British attach the utmost priority and importance.’
‘Where?’ demanded Kalenin, simply.
‘We’ll break the code, of course. Eventually,’ said Berenkov.
‘Of course,’ agreed Kalenin.
‘Then we need to work backwards,’ said Berenkov, the superb professional. ‘Knowing what the messages contain will only give us some indication of the damage. It won’t – unless we’re very lucky – quickly identify the source and that’s what we need: a way of stopping the flow quickly.’
‘We don’t have anyone in place in British intelligence, not any more?’
‘It was Sampson who warned us,’ remembered Berenkov. ‘Said he suspected there was someone here. I was making arrangements anyway to get him out. This makes his release even more important. Once there’s a transcription he might be able to indicate a direction.’
‘Get him out as soon as possible,’ ordered Kalenin. He paused. ‘Try to embarrass the British doing it, too.’
Chapter Six
The pressure stopped. Not immediately, because the hostile screws like Hickley and Butterworth were initially suspicious and Prudell and the other landing bosses were uncertain, too, at Charlie’s adjustment. And Charlie didn’t find it easy, not at first. Or even later. It was difficult not to show, by unspoken insolence, what assholes he thought some of the screws were. And let Prudell and the other bullies know he still wasn’t scared of them. The adjustment was a conscious, forced effort, something he was not able to forget, not for a moment, in case in that moment his real attitude came to the surface and they saw through the charade that it was. But the relief was terrific, so good that he had to remain aware of that, as well, to prevent himself slipping into the institutionalised demeanour of acceptance. The library job was bigger than Charlie thought it to be, upon his arrival from the hospital, the actual transfer from the limited room in which it had been housed into a bigger area, further along the corridor. Although Hargrave retained the nominal title of librarian it was soon obvious that Sampson had taken over and because of Sampson’s relationship with the prison officers, even the bastards, they were able to work at their own pace, providing books were available and by maintaining the service, which wasn’t really difficult, Sampson was able to convince any officer who did query the work-rate that keeping the library open slowed the move. Although Charlie made and rigidly maintained the adjustment, he was also aware that the changed response of others to him was in some measure due to his obviously changed relationship with Sampson. Which was as difficult for him as everything else. It made sense for them to behave towards each other as they were but the thought of existing under Sampson’s protection and patronage was one that really pissed Charlie off. He accepted it though – with gut churning reluctance – because there was nothing else he could do. Another helplessness of where he was, doing what he was. And he could never forget that. Because Sampson knew anyway, Charlie openly kept the daily record of his imprisonment, the morning ritual before every day began, even slop-out.
Sampson’s radio became very important, as important as the calendar count. It was a positive, tangible link with outside, something through which Charlie was able to feel that he was not completely cut off and isolated. Sampson was as generous with it as he had been with the hospital whisky – and he still supplied that, too, although Charlie bought his share – rarely imposing his preference for programmes over Charlie’s choice, appearing as eager as Charlie for the current affairs and talk series. They even found they liked the same music.
It took six weeks to move the library because Sampson evolved a way of even further delaying the work by insisting upon a complete re-indexing. But after six weeks even the most gullible of the prison officers were becoming impatient.
‘Heard where you’re going?’ Sampson asked. It was a Thursday and they knew that the following day was the very last that Charlie could expect to remain on library secondment.
Charlie shook his head. ‘Maybe administration.’ By lying about a non-existent pain in his broken arm and saying he still found difficulty in gripping with his hand, Charlie had managed to get a hospital report insisting he should be excused from any heavy work so he hoped to avoid the workshops, even though they would probably be safe now.
Sampson, who was lying on his bunk and looking up at the ceiling, said, ‘I tried to stop you coming back here, you know?’
Charlie frowned across the cell. ‘What?’
‘Tried to stop you coming back here,’ repeated Sampson. ‘After your release from the hospital.’
‘What the hell for?’ demanded Charlie. He felt a stomach-lurch of uncertainty, at the thought of the collapse of their fragile relationship and the physical reaction angered him because he recognised that despite all his efforts to remain aware of what was happening, he had come to rely upon it and didn’t want it to end and go back like it had been before.
Sampson did not immediately respond. Instead he swung up into a sitting position on his bunk, groped to the supports beneath where he hid the whisky and poured into both their mugs. Then he said, ‘Because of the risk.’
‘What risk?’
‘My risk,’ said Sampson.
‘You’re not making sense.’
‘You weren’t, before you went into hospital,’ said the other man. ‘Now you are.’
Charlie sipped the drink, looking warily over the mug at Sampson. ‘I still don’t understand.’
Sampson jerked his head towards the table and Charlie’s carefully annotated calendar. ‘Twelve years, three weeks and two days’ he said. ‘You think you can last another twelve years, three weeks and two days in here, Charlie?’
Charlie drank more deeply this time, not wanting to confront the question. Another indication of becoming institutionalised, he thought, ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘I do,’ said Sampson. ‘I think you’ll go mad. Or try to kill yourself, to get it all over.’
Charlie couldn’t imagine attempting suicide because nothing had ever got that bad. But he wasn’t sure. ‘There’s parole,’ he said.