“Will you bring me back a present?”
“Sasha!” corrected Natalia, sharply.
“Maybe if you’re good,” said Charlie. There was a tightness about Natalia but they hadn’t had chance to talk yet. “And being good is going to bed.”
“It’s not time yet,” protested the child.
“It will be when you’ve finished your milk and cleaned your teeth.”
“Not fair,” pouted the girl.
“Bed,” insisted Charlie. “I’ll be back by the weekend. We’ll do something. You choose.”
“The circus!”
“The circus,” agreed Charlie.
Charlie had drinks ready-his Islay malt, her Volnay-when Natalia returned from Sasha’s bedroom.
She said, “You spoil her.”
“That’s what fathers are supposed to do.”
Natalia didn’t smile. “Don’t buy her anything expensive.”
“What would you like?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s tonight’s problem?”
Natalia’s disclosure of a presidential commission was hurried, disjointed, but Charlie let her talk herself out. “I’m being dragged in, deeper and deeper. We’ll be discovered, you and I,” she concluded.
Charlie regarded her for a moment in total bewilderment. “Natalia! It’s a commission into how-and why- things disappeared from old KGB archives! How can that extend to us! You cleared all the records of anything to do with us.”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s not!” She could make monsters from every shadow; sometimes from no shadows at all.
“It’s a risk!” she persisted.
“It’s not.”
“I’m more in the middle-more the object of everyone’s attention-than we ever anticipated. I’ll be seen an an enemy of the KGB successors.”
“Nothing’s changed!” Charlie insisted. But it had, he thought.
“What have you been called back to London for?”
“People wanting to appear to be doing something. It’s called consultation.” He paused. “Do you wish it was for something more permanent?”
“No,” denied Natalia.
Charlie didn’t believe her. He’d been wise not to tell her that Anne Abbott was being recalled with him.
“I didn’t expect things to end like this,” said Olga. That wasn’t true. By the time they’d got to the brandy- French at his insistence-they’d both known they were going to sleep together. There hadn’t even been any conversation about it on their way to his apartment. What she hadn’t expected was the dinner invitation-of course impossible to refuse-or that he’d choose the Mercator, which really did have to be the best French restaurant in Moscow. Most unexpected-and pleasurable-of all was how good he’d been once they’d gone to bed.
“Sorry?”
“Of course not.” His body-and his performance-had been even more athletic that she’d fantasized about, looking down at him approaching the hospital earlier that day. She turned sideways, pleased that he’d kept the light on. “You?”
“Of course not. There’s something I haven’t told you, until now.”
“What?”
“I played your interrogation tape at the Kremlin.”
“To Okulov himself?”
“And Trishin. Their opinion was the same as mine, brilliant. But we decided we don’t want you to question Bendall again until after the British.”
“Why?”
“There might be something they’re holding back we can use to break him.”
“I can break him by myself.”
“We’ll do it this way,” said Zenin.
He hadn’t allowed her to take control in their lovemaking, either, but she hadn’t minded that as much as she did this.
12
Charlie got the jump seat, which jammed his knees beneath his chin so tightly he couldn’t have jumped anywhere, difficult anyway after the exertion of already shuttling between the British and American embassies to ensure they were completely up to date before their encounter with George Bendall. At least, Charlie consoled himself, he was opposite the slender-thighed Anne Abbott and not the fatassed Richard Brooking. They travelled initially unspeaking, the lawyer and the diplomat exchanging transcripts of Olga’s interrogation of Bendall and Charlie’s meeting with the NTV cameraman. As Brooking finished Vladimir Sakov’s account of the gantry struggle he looked uncomfortably to the woman, who’d read it first, and said, “Appalling language!”
“Dreadful,” agreed Charlie. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”
Anne smiled at Charlie. “A lot of openings.”
“We’ll do it as we did with the mother.”
“You lead,” said Anne.
“We need to talk about that,” interjected the head of chancellery.
“About what, exactly?” demanded Charlie. He didn’t want the man buggering things up.
“This is not something I’m accustomed to,” admitted Brooking. “In fact, I haven’t ever done anything like it before.”
“All good for the CV,” said Charlie. “Better to let Anne and I handle it, though, don’t you think?”
“I’ve the ranking authority!”
It was an embassy car, with the ambassador’s chauffeur. Charlie was surprised the pompous prick hadn’t insisted on flying the British pennant from the bonnet masthead. “What’s the book say you’ve got to do.” There’d be a guidance book. There always was.
“Ascertain the full facts. Establish the nationality is genuinely British, obtain the passport number if possible. Offer consular assistance. Obtain all United Kingdom residency details to advise next of kin. Make clear any repatriation advance is a loan that has to be repaid and get the applicant’s signature to that agreement,” quoted the man.
Anne covered her mouth with her hand and looked determinedly out of the window at the glued-together traffic.
Jesus! thought Charlie. “Let’s work our way through all that. London’s already established he’s British, with a British registered birth, although he doesn’t hold a British passport as such. There aren’t any United Kingdom residency details and I don’t think, whatever happens, we’ve got to think about repatriation. Agree with me so far?”
“Yes,” said Brooking.
“Ascertaining all the facts is what Anne and I are here to do, right?”
“Right,” accepted Brooking.
“So there we are!” said Charlie, triumphantly. “All you’ve got to do is offer the consular assistance, tell him Anne and I are it, and leave the rest to us.”
“It doesn’t sound much,” said the man, doubtfully.
“It’s your
