diplomats that he would alert them to anything professionally relevant. Charlie had actually left the embassy and was making his way past the zoo before he realized that in their totally consuming objectivity he and Anne had parted in the embassy as professionals, making personally disassociated arrangements for the following day, and not as lovers who had explored every sexual depth and height together.
It was at about the same time of the still unembarrassed return that Charlie remembered, too, he hadn’t followed up his embassy arrival message on Natalia’s personal Lesnaya answering machine that he was finally on his way home and by then there wasn’t anyoint in calling. She was at the mansion apartment when he got there. She looked tired, positively careworn, the skirt of her suit creased from several day’s wear. It was still water-pocked from bathing Sasha and her hair was straggled. For the first time Charlie was conscious that although there wasn’t any gray Natalia’s once lustrous auburn hair was fading.
She gestured towards herself and said, “I expected you to call again. Tell me you were on your way.”
“I was … it was a heavy meeting … you look wonderful.”
“I’ve had a heavy day, too. Sasha’s asleep. I didn’t tell her you were coming home in case you were delayed. She’s missed you.” It came out like a read-from-a-card statement.
“What about you?” demanded Charlie.
“What about you?” returned Natalia, in an echo.
“Do you have to ask that?” Bastard, he accused himself.
“It was your question.”
“Yes I missed you. And worried about you. And missed and worried about Sasha, as well.” Double-treble- bastard.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
“This is for you.” It was a diamond bar brooch he’d bought from the don’t-forget jeweller’s shop in the Dorchester foyer.
She stared into the box for several moments. “It’s lovely. And thank you. But I told you not to.”
“I’ll leave Sasha’s beside her bed, to be there when she wakes up.” As he positioned the ribbon-tied package Charlie saw an identical doll already perched on the edge of Sasha’s toy box, one eye collapsed in what looked like a wink. “I forgot. It was from the last trip, wasn’t it? Shit!”
Natalia, who’d come into the bedroom with him, said, “We can say it’s a sister.”
“Or that her father is an idiot!” To what-or involving whom-did that excoriation apply?
“It’s a sister,” insisted Natalia. Why was he so on edge?
The awkwardness between them wasn’t entirely of his making, Charlie tried to assure himself. There was an over-politeness, two people who didn’t know the other very well each anxiously waiting for the other’s lead. He said, “We didn’t kiss hello.”
“No we didn’t, did we?” she agreed. She sounded uninterested.
When they did kiss that was polite, too. Dutiful. Back in the main room he went through the familiar drink making ritual and as he handed Natalia her wine he said, “You’ll have more to talk about than me.”
She did and it was thirty minutes and another drink later before she finished, ending with the decision to arraign Bendall in open court.
“You’ve got the monkey, not the organ grinders!” protested Charlie.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“We haven’t got the real assassins, just their performer.”
“It’s publicly-politically-necessary now that the president has died.”
“Who’s pushed for it to be so quick?”
“The militia, initially. Now the Kremlin’s taken over.”
“We know it wasn’t Bendall’s bullet that killed Yudkin,” reminded Charlie, urgently. “In fact it doesn’t look as if Bendall shot anybody.”
“Doesn’t look like it to whom?” demanded Natalia.
She listened to Charlie’s account as intently as he’d listened to hers. When he finished she said, “I see what you mean.”
“Then make others see!” urged Charlie. “It’s going to be a show trial, like the show trials of the 1930s! But this time not just the outside world but Russia will recognize the staging, recognize that the people responsible aren’t going to be accused. Politically it’ll be a disaster!”
“Yes it will be,” Natalia agreed, in further understanding.
“Argue against it!” insisted Charlie.
“It’s not a decision in which I’m personally involved, have any part of.”
“You’re at the very center of everything!”
“Except this.”
“You’ve got the ear of people! The Federal Prosecutor and Yuri Trishin, for Christ’s sake! Who can be more involved that those two!”
“Maybe it needs rethinking,” Natalia conceded.
“You told me Okulov backed you when you confronted Karelin,” further reminded Charlie. “That strength-his confidence-will be known now wherever it’s necessary to be spread. An empty trial, which this will be, will make Okulov look ridiculous.”
“It’s an independent legal decision.”
“Bollocks!” rejected Charlie. “It’ll be twisted by Okulov’s opponents to be his decision, in his eagerness properly to take over as president.”
Natalia offered her glass, to be refilled again. As Charlie was doing it she said, “We’re talking politics, Russian politics at that. I thought our job-your job particularly-was to solve a crime.”
“Okulov backed
Natalia was silent for several minutes. “I hadn’t thought that far forward.”
“Now we have.”
“You have. I’ll make the point.”
“As strongly as you can,” encouraged Charlie.
“As strongly as I can,” promised Natalia.
They prepared dinner together-starting with the Beluga he’d bought at the airport-and halfway through Charlie realized that the polite reservation had gone. That night though, when he reached out for her, Natalia had turned her back. He changed the gesture into arranging the covering more closely around her before turning, sleeplessly, on to his back. Somewhere he’d professionally missed something, he decided, something that he was sure, even though he didn’t know what or where it could be, was important. Vital even. Then he wondered what Anne was doing and wished he hadn’t.
Arkadi Semenovich Noskov was a huge man, both in height and girth and made to look even bigger by the full, unclipped beard like a black canopy over his chest. The bass profundo voice rumble from low within the barrel chest and Charlie thought the man would have better occupied one of the opera stages Natalia had tried so unsuccessfully to convince him he should enjoy than a courtroom. Charlie hoped that in the theater Noskov had chosen he wouldn’t be called upon to sing too many tragedian lament, although the performancein which Charlie had so far featured that day weren’t encouraging Charlie’s biggest frustration was not being able to disclose the Russian intention to arraign George Bendall, which made largely pointless this first conference with the lawyer. Charlie’s dissatisfaction was compounded by the outcome of every telephone call he’d so far made, in attempted anticipation of the meeting.
The first had been to the incident room and after outlining the British ballistic opinion he said, “The rifle-and the bullets-aren’t any longer at the American embassy. They were withdrawn-physically removed by Olga Melnik- when the militia walked out of the cooperation arrangements. Our ballistics experts will only provide a definitive opinion-testify if called upon to do so-if they can scientifically examine Bendall’s weapon.”
“And it’s not usual for the prosecution to make physical evidence available for defense analyses, either,” rumbled Noskov. “I’m surprised they did, in the first place.” He looked directly at Anne. “And you know from your consultations in London that it’s unlikely they’ll limit themselves to one charge.”
“Which brings us back to mental impairment,” said Anne.
It was Charlie’s cue to recount his London meeting with the Home Office psychiatrist, which he concluded
