It was going to involve a hell of a lot of walking, thought Charlie, remembering his recurrent personal problem. He actually stopped, looking down at his already throbbing feet too tightly enclosed in the shoes that had been provided for him on the night of the escape. And then he realised he was in the country’s biggest store and started to look around with greater attention, seeking the shoe department. There were, in fact, more than one and Charlie went to them all, looking for anything resembling the familiar Hush Puppies and becoming increasingly disappointed. Bloody amazing, he thought. Maybe it was something to do with all the snow they had in the winter but Charlie decided in boots like these, snowshoes wouldn’t have been necessary to cross the drifts. Some looked big enough actually to walk on water! It was going to be an uncomfortable time.
Charlie made an unhurried exit from the store but didn’t immediately leave the area, which again might have marked GUM out as the significant destination. He visited St Basil’s Cathedral and stopped and pretended to admire the monument to Minin and Pozharsky beside it and then went on, ambling down the Razina highway and decided, when he saw it there, to go into the Rossiya Hotel. Charlie’s unthinking intention was to have a drink but then he realised he didn’t have any money and recognised again just how much of a prisoner he remained. He sat instead in the downstairs foyer, preparing his feet for the return walk, getting up after half an hour with the awareness that his feet would never be prepared for any sort of walking.
It took him an increasingly uncomfortable hour to get back to the apartment. He boiled some water, diluted it to the right temperature and gratefully soaked the ache from his feet, savouring the relief and not wanting it to end, so it was almost an hour from his actual return when he went properly into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and saw that in his absence the flat had been entered and restocked. So the surveillance was as active as it had ever been! He supposed the listening devices would have been replaced, too. He grinned and said, loudly ‘Thanks.’ In a cupboard in the main room he found a bottle of vodka, which was an addition to the previous supplies, which Charlie supposed to be an indication of acceptance. ‘Thanks again,’ he said, to the unseen and unknown listeners.
Charlie crossed and traversed again practically every tourist location in the Russian capital. He read the Pravda denunciation of Wainwright and wondered if it were all over anyway but he still kept the appointment at the GUM department store on the appointed Thursday, hoping that he wasn’t presenting himself for arrest and that Berenkov would emerge from the crowd.
He didn’t but he telephoned, actually on the evening that Charlie returned from the store.
‘Wondered if you might like to work?’ said Berenkov.
Charlie felt the jump of excitement. ‘You’re joking!’ he said. ‘I’m practically going out of my mind with boredom.’
‘How would you feel about instructing at a spy school?’
Charlie hesitated, although not from the reservation that Berenkov imagined. Bloody marvellous, thought Charlie, realising the advantages at once. To the Russian he said, ‘That sounds very interesting.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘Yes,’ accepted Charlie. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘It was a great shame, about Wainwright,’ said Wilson.
‘More mentally affected than we suspected,’ agreed Harkness.
‘We’ve made all the arrangements?’
His deputy nodded. ‘He intended to retire to Bognor, apparently. That’s where the funeral has been arranged. The wife died, two years ago. But there’s a mother, in an old people’s home in Brighton: suppose that’s one of the reasons he chose to live nearby. I’ve arranged for his pension to be carried on, so that the fees for the home are paid. Pension people aren’t happy about it: they say it’s establishing a precedent.’
‘Damn the pension people,’ said Wilson. ‘Let me know if there’s a difficulty.’
Harkness nodded and said, ‘I don’t think there will be. What about the funeral?’
The director considered the question. ‘The Soviets will swamp it, of course,’ he predicted.
‘Inevitably, I would think,’ said Harkness.
‘Better for no one important to go then…’ Wilson hesitated. ‘Richardson!’ he suddenly decided. They’ll know about Richardson now.’
‘Might even make them think there was something that Wainwright didn’t tell them, after all,’ said Harkness.
‘Good point,’ nodded Wilson. He paused for several moments and said, ‘Don’t suppose there’s any doubt that he didn’t tell them everything?’
‘None at all, I wouldn’t imagine,’ said Harkness. ‘They’ll expect us to change the code now. Not only because of Wainwright but because they’ll know we’ve detected their alterations, from our listening facilities.’