Charlie wondered if that were the man’s real name, as well. Silly buggers might as well hand out visiting cards, with spying listed as their occupation. He said: ‘Why?’
‘I believed I was under suspicion.’
‘Why?’ repeated Charlie. He decided his initial impression was correct. There was no nervousness about the man, which there usually was with defectors, caused by natural uncertainty. Novikov appeared actually confident and relaxed.
‘You know I was security cleared to the highest level?’ said the man.
‘Yes.’
‘In the last few weeks I was only allocated low level material, the sort of stuff ordinary clerks could handle. I was not an ordinary clerk.’
And I bet you never let anyone forget it, thought Charlie. He said: ‘But it was only suspicion? You had no actual proof?’
‘If there had been any actual proof I would have been arrested, wouldn’t I?’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Charlie, content for the man to patronize and imagine he was in the commanding role. The sessions with Witherspoon would have been something to witness. He said: ‘So what happened?’
‘One day I was unwelclass="underline" went home early. I found someone in my apartment. He went out a rear window as I opened the door and it was dismissed by the KGB militia as an attempted burglary but I knew it was not.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Precisely because attempted burglaries at the homes of senior KGB cipher clerks are never dismissed,’ said Novikov.
It was a convincing point, accepted Charlie. He said: ‘What do you think it was?’
‘A search, perhaps. Or technicians installing listening devices. Most likely both.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I had an emergency contact system arranged with Major Gale,’ recounted the man. ‘I telephoned him at the embassy from an untraceable call box and said I could not keep our appointment – that was the code phrase, I cannot keep our appointment – and that told him to go to another untraceable call box so that we could speak between the two without the risk of our conversation being intercepted. I said I had to cross at once and he agreed.’
‘The Finnish crossing could not have been arranged just like that,’ challenged Charlie, at once.
‘Mr Witherspoon did not question the point.’
It was automatic for this encounter, like every other, to be recorded: there was actually a simultaneous replay facility to London. If that remark got the careless little prick censured then too bad, decided Charlie. The rules and regulations by which Witherspoon existed were no more than guidelines, like the guidelines in the weapons manuals set out in perfect detail how to fire a bullet but failed to follow through by explaining that a well-placed bullet of sufficient calibre could separate top from bottom. And troublesome though his feet permanently were, Charlie wanted his top to remain in every way attached to his bottom. So all it took was that one careless little prick not recognizing where the trigger was. He said: ‘My name isn’t Witherspoon.’
‘You didn’t tell me your name, reminded Novikov.
‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ agreed Charlie. And stopped.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Novikov said: ‘Is this a hostile interview?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘A proper interview.’
‘Haven’t the others been properly conducted?’
The Russian was very quick, acknowledged Charlie, admiringly. It was wrong to let Novikov put questions to which he had to respond. Charlie said: ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you doubt me, that I made a mistake in crossing to the British. I shall go to the Americans instead,’ announced the Russian.
‘That wasn’t the answer to my question.’
‘I do not wish to answer any more of your questions.’
‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich? What are you frightened of?’
‘Mr Witherspoon does not properly know how to use the Russian patronymic. Nor did the interrogator before him.’
‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich?’ persisted Charlie, objecting to what he thought was an attempted deflection but curious about it just the same.
‘Neither spoke Russian properly, like you do, either,’ said the man. ‘Their inflection was copy-book, language school stuff. From the way you instinctively form a genitive from masculine or neuter I know you lived in Moscow. And as a Muscovite.’
Charlie thought he understood at last. Not as a Muscovite, he thought: with a Muscovite. Darling, beautiful Natalia against whom he’d consciously and for so long closed the door in his mind, because it was a room he could never enter again. It had been the Russian mission, his own supposed defection which he hadn’t known until it was too late to be a prove-yourself-again operation, when he’d met and fallen in love with someone he’d hoped, so desperately hoped, would replace Edith. But who had refused to come back, because of the child of another man. He said: ‘I am not Russian.’
‘What then?’
The questioning had reversed again, Charlie recognized. He said: ‘English.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘There was a time when I knew Russia well,’ conceded Charlie. Was it right for him earlier to have been so critical about Witherspoon and some military attaché in Moscow, disclosing details that should have been disclosed when he was volunteering too much information himself?
‘I will not be tricked.’
‘How can you be tricked?’
‘I never want contact with a single Russian, ever again!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous: you know full well I am not Russian!’ said Charlie. Was Novikov’s anti-Sovietism over-exaggerated? It would not be difficult to imagine so. But then the first principle of defector assessment was imagining nothing but only to proceed on established facts.
‘Why do you doubt me, then?’
‘Why shouldn’t 1?’
‘All the information I have given is the truth.’
‘I hope it is.’
‘Everything I have told you about Major Gale can be checked.’
‘It will be,’ assured Charlie. And would have been already if other people had done their jobs properly.
‘What do you want of me!’
‘An answer to a point I made a long time ago,’ reminded Charlie. ‘How, when you were having to make a panicked move and when travel within the Soviet Union is so closely restricted, could you go at once to the Finnish border?
Novikov smiled, in reluctant admiration. ‘You really have lived in the Soviet Union, haven’t you?’
‘We’ve had that routine,’ said Charlie, refusing another deflection.
‘I had been granted travel permission to visit Leningrad, before the suspicion arose,’ said Novikov.
‘Why?’
‘A vacation.’
‘You were planning a vacation at a time when you believed your people suspected you?’
‘I did not plan it after I believed they suspected me,’ said Novikov. ‘I applied and was granted permission before I became alarmed. It was the ideal opportunity.’
‘Yes it was, wasn’t it?’ agreed Charlie. He’d achieved a great deal already, he decided, contentedly.
‘You think I am a liar!’ erupted Novikov, goaded by Charlie’s sarcasm.
‘I don’t know yet whether you are a liar or not,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re the defector. You have to convince me.’
‘I am telling the truth!’
Impatient with any continued defence, Charlie said: ‘Tell me how you got to the Finnish border.’
‘I was lucky,’ admitted Novikov. ‘The visa to visit Leningrad was already in my internal passport. I did not remind anyone in the cipher department that Friday that I was going on holiday. Nor did I go back to my apartment when I left. I went directly from headquarters to Vnukovo airport, without bothering with luggage. It was late when I arrived in Leningrad: I intended to go to my hotel, the Druzhba on the Ulitza Chapygina, and not move on until the morning but when I approached it I saw militia cars everywhere. There was no one else they could have been looking for. I just ran. The arrangement I had made with Major Gale was to cross into Finland near a place called Lappeeranta: it’s just a few miles inside their border. I caught the train to Vyborg and then walked the rest of the way to the border. My passport was checked on the train. The visa only extended to Leningrad so I knew the alarm would be raised. They almost caught me at the border: I only just got across.’