It was a huge, modern building – American in style almost – actually bordering the ring road. From the rear he saw the driver radio their approach, so a man was waiting when the vehicle pulled up, not at the main entrance but at a side door. The man, who was slight and bespectacled and wore a civilian suit, not any kind of uniform, opened the door from the outside and said, in English, ‘You are to come with me.’
At an inner desk the escort produced an identity pass and led Charlie, unspeaking like the driver, along an encircling corridor to a bank of elevators, selecting the sixth floor.
‘If I lived in Moscow, the weather would not matter,’ Charlie said to the man, just for the hell of it.
The man looked back expressionless, without replying. He led out on to the upper floor and produced his pass again, twice, to get them through two more check points.
The door at which he stopped was unmarked, either by name or number. He knocked, opened the door immediately but just sufficient for him to look around, for fuller permission to enter and then stood back, ushering Charlie through.
Charlie started to enter the room and then stopped, in abrupt surprise. It was quite a spacious office, with a view of the circular highway outside. There were flowers on a low table and one wall was lined with books. His debriefer sat at an uncluttered desk, smiling a greeting. And was a woman.
The escape and the shooting created an outcry in England. After three days of persistent demands the prime minister agreed to a commission of enquiry. The dead policeman was identified as a single man, a probationary constable, without parents, any immediate family or even close girlfriends and the human interest coverage in the newspapers switched to the battered prison officer, who posed for photographs at the urging of the Prison Officers’ Association demanding better protection for its members from his hospital bed, surrounded by his worried looking family. Wilson was twice summoned to Downing Street, personally to brief the Prime Minister before House of Commons question time.
Harkness was waiting when the Director returned after the second visit, conscious at once of the anger in the usually urbane man.
‘Judged a disaster,’ said Wilson. ‘A ridiculous disaster.’
‘We expected that,’ reminded Harkness.
‘But not quite the degree of public reaction,’ said Wilson. He sat at his desk, leg out stiffly before him.
‘What about the governor?’ said Harkness.
‘No positive commitment but I managed to get a stay of execution,’ said the Director. ‘Until after the enquiry, at least. But not to have the damned thing in camera, which I wanted. Newspapers wouldn’t stand for it, I was told.’
‘Who runs the country, the Government or newspapers?’ said Harkness, in unaccustomed bitterness.
‘Sometimes I wonder,’ said Wilson.
‘Do you think the Russians will make them available in Moscow? They have with defectors in the past.’
The Director pursed his lips, doubtfully. ‘Not with the shooting,’ he said. ‘If they’d simply escaped, yes. But they’d be parading murderers and admitting to harbouring them. So no, I don’t expect any press conferences.’
‘So we sit the storm out and wait upon Charlie Muffin,’ said Harkness.
‘Yes,’ agreed Wilson. ‘For the moment everything depends upon Charlie Muffin.’
Chapter Eleven
About thirty-five, guessed Charlie: maybe younger, but he doubted it. Black hair, without any attempt at style, loose to her shoulders and no make-up that he could discern. Freckles around her nose and practical, sensible spectacles, heavy rimmed. Nice teeth, shown by the smile. Grey dress, tunic fashion but not a uniform: because she was sitting behind the desk he could only see the top half but the dress was quite tight and the top half would definitely be worth seeing. Women – and sex – had been of necessity rigidly excluded from any thoughts in prison and he’d hardly had time since. Charlie decided he’d very much like to break the celibacy of the last few years with her. And then he remembered where he was and what he was doing – or supposed to be doing – and realised prison rules still applied.
‘Please,’ she said, still smiling and holding her hand out in invitation towards the chair slightly to the side of her neat, orderly desk. As he sat, she said, ‘Welcome to Moscow.’
‘People keep saying things like that,’ said Charlie. There was hardly any accent in her voice, which was quite deep. He tried to make casual the look around the office, to locate the likely positioning of the cameras and recording devices. Some would unquestionably be in place and the seat to which he’d been directed was clearly positioned for a reason. There were too many possible positions and he decided the examination was pointless.
‘This is only a formality, you understand?’
Liar, thought Charlie. He said, ‘I understand.’
She took up a pen, looked down at an open folder and said, ‘I don’t know anything about you, other than your name.’
Liar again, thought Charlie. The KGB index was a legend, a computerised record far more detailed than any comparable system in any Western service. He’d have been on it for years and his file would have been heavily annotated after the affair with the English Director. It wouldn’t have been erased after his capture and imprisonment, either; nothing was ever removed from the Moscow index. She might be attractive but she wasn’t much good. She should have known he’d be aware of the Soviet system.
‘I don’t even know yours,’ he said. If they were debriefing him with someone as inexperienced as this he wasn’t regarded as anyone of importance. Which meant what he was supposed to do was going to be bloody difficult. Charlie didn’t like being regarded as someone past importance. Careful, he thought; he was beginning to think like Sampson.
The woman frowned momentarily at the clumsy flirtation, then smiled again. ‘Fedova,’ she said. ‘Natalia Nikandrova Fedova.’
‘Do I call you Comrade or Natalia?’
‘I don’t think you call me anything but rather remember this is an official meeting,’ she said.
Charlie thought she had to force the stiffness into her voice. He said, ‘But only a formality.’
‘I have a file to complete,’ she said, tapping the paper in front of her.
Like he’d already decided, a clerk, thought Charlie. He said, ‘Charles Edward Muffin – Charlie to friends. Born Elstree, England. Mother Joan, a cook. Father unknown. Entered British service from grammar school through immediate postwar exigency, when they were short and recruitment was easy. Active field agent until five years ago. Realised I was being set up by my own service as a decoy during an entrapment operation involving your own General Berenkov, who for many years ran an active cell in London and whose arrest I led. So I taught the bastards a lesson and made it possible for your people to seize the British Director – who should never have been Director anyway – and arrange an exchange for Berenkov…’ Charlie paused, aware of the carelessness of the recital. He said, ‘Most – if not all – of which should be in that folder in front of you because I know the sort of records you keep and I was, after all, personally involved with Berenkov and with your current chairman, General Kalenin…’
Natalia showed no reaction whatever to his impatience. She said, ‘What happened then?’
Then I had four miserable years on the run and never a day went by without my realising what a bloody fool I’d been, thought Charlie. He said, ‘At first I stayed in England, because I knew there would be a hunt and they wouldn’t have expected me to do that. Seaside towns, where there are always lots of visitors, so strangers aren’t unusual. Then Europe, holiday places again, never staying anywhere too long…’