Charlie grimaced. “I’ve got one for weddings and funerals.” “There’s a chance for you to wear it,” scored the other man.
“We’ve just been officially informed that the American Secret Serviceman has died.”
“So now it’s murder,” said Charlie, no longer glib.
“There was another message,” continued Brooking. “A formal offer of investigating cooperation from the Russians. There’s the name of the officer you’re to liaise with. A woman …”
Charlie’s hand was quite steady as he reached forward for the note that Brooking was proffering but his stomach dipped. Then he looked down and saw the name of Colonel Olga Ivanova Melnik.
7
It didn’t begin confrontationally. Charlie actually set out to achieve the opposite-to convince her it was ridiculous for them not to discuss the case-by announcing he had brought Peter Bendall’s records back to Lesnaya for her to read and was encouraged when Natalia said she had Vera Bendall’s initial interview for him. She already knew about the meeting Charlie had the following day with Olga Melnik and said the FBI Rezident was also scheduled to meet the senior investigating colonel.
They’d established a routine of undivided, shared time with Sasha whenever it was possible, and the two dossiers remained unread on a lounge table for the hour they spent taking her slowly through an early reader book and discussing what Sasha referred to as going to grown up school. It wasn’t until Natalia went to bathe and settle their daughter that Charlie got to the Vera Bendall interview. He read it twice before setting it aside, slouched with the second Islay malt resting on his chest, his mind more upon Natalia than upon what he’d just read.
He couldn’t make any judgment on that evening’s fifteen-minute conversation so far-although she had given him a head start identifying Peter Bendall the previous night-but he was encouraged by Natalia’s apparently changed attitude. And not just professionally. That, for once, was a secondary consideration. The first need was for their personal erosion to stop. There’d been no thought of sex-thoughts of sex didn’t seem to occur too often to either of them anymore-but he knew Natalia hadn’t been asleep when he’d got into bed the previous night. Not something to challenge her with; he had to be careful not to challenge her about anything while he remained uncertain.
Charlie lifted his glass in invitation when Natalia emerged fromSasha’s bedroom. Natalia shook her head, taking the chair on the far side of the low lounge table. For several moments she stared down at Peter Bendall’s waiting dossier and Charlie wondered if the seeming reluctance to pick it up was the final hesitation at committing herself. Wrong to say anything-to speak at all-he told himself. It was obviously much thicker than the interview and took Natalia longer to read. While she did, he made himself a third drink. That was almost gone, too, by the time she put the manila folder back on the separating table.
“Nothing about the son, apart from his existence,” she said.
“The mother’s disappointing, too, don’t you think?” The question went beyond wanting to keep the conversation going. Natalia was amazingly intuitive, one of the best debriefers he’d ever encountered and he wanted her professional opinion.
She nodded. “I’ve also listened to the actual recording. I don’t get the impression she was lying, holding anything back. But then again I’ve known some very clever liars.” Natalia got up and poured herself a glass of the Volnay Charlie had opened for dinner.
“I offered you a drink,” said Charlie.
“Half an hour ago. I didn’t want one then. Now I do.” Why had she snapped like that! “And no, I wasn’t referring to you as a liar, when we first met.”
Back off, thought Charlie. “So most likely George Bendall’s a mentally unstable loner that no one knows anything about.” In no way did he think himself a hypocrite. At the moment all he had was a suspicion about the sound of the gunshots. If it was confirmed, he’d tell her.
“Not the first high profile murderer to be just that, a total nonentity seeking his fifteen seconds or minutes of fame.”
“But always the worst to try to investigate.”
Natalia shrugged but said nothing. Why did it have to be so difficult for her to reach a compromise when their jobs overlapped! Because of the past: always the past which she could never completely forget no matter how hard she tried or how much she loved him. Charlie was making a very obvious effort. Couldn’t she-shouldn’t she-try harder?
Charlie didn’t want to lose the flow. “We’re talking?”
“Total cooperation is the instruction. You’d have got the transcript from Olga Ivanova tomorrow.”
“Would you have shown it to me, if it hadn’t been officially ordered?”
“Hardly the disclosure of the century, is it?” This wasn’t helping.
“It surely makes our situation easier?”
Natalia shrugged again. “I don’t know. Basically it doesn’t change anything, does it?”
The confrontation had to come, sooner or later. It might as well be now. “Things aren’t going to change, Natalia. This is it, the best it’s going to get. I don’t know anything more I can do to make it better for us … between us. What I do know is that I don’t want everything to collapse and I think it is collapsing …”
“Meaning the concessions have to come from me!” Their relationship was crumbling. And it probably was more her fault than Charlie’s.
“I’m not asking you to make any concessions. I’m asking you to acknowledge the reality … and the difficulty … of our being together.”
“I hardly need reminding of that.”
“You under any pressure?”
“I could be.”
“Don’t close me out as you have been closing me out.”
The same argument, Natalia recognized: the same persuasive logic. And it was logical: Charlie was a better street fighter than she could ever be. “I know you’re right.”
“Then trust me.”
Natalia allowed the pause. “That’s what I’ve got to do.”
“I won’t let you down. I did before but I won’t again.”
“It’s not just the two of us anymore. There’s so much else that could go wrong. Sasha says they’ve been talking at school, about what parents do. Two kids said their fathers were in the militia.”
“What did she say?” Big problems could easily come from innocuous innocence.
“She didn’t know. That’s how the conversation came up. She asked me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That we both worked in big offices, which will do for now. What are we going to tell her when she gets older?”
Charlie wished he had an easy answer:
“I know.”
“It’s not the jobs. It’s the effect of them, perhaps. But not the jobs themselves …” He sniggered, in sudden realization. “We’ve come the full circle, haven’t we? I screwed everything up the first time, by not being totally able to trust you-which was my terrible mistake-and now you can’t trust me …”
“So now it’s my mistake!” she pounced at once, regretting the words as they were uttered.
“No, darling,” insisted Charlie, patiently. “You’re justified. I wasn’t.”
Charlie filled the silence by refilling her glass, which she surrendered without protest. He thought about a fourth whisky but decided to change to wine himself. As he sat down again Natalia said, “You think there’s still a chance we can make it work?”
“Yes,” he said at once. When she didn’t respond, he said, “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure.”
