Kings of Many Castles

“That’s how it will be left on file,” said Anne. “We know-and can prove-he didn’t do it so the consideration is natural justice.”

“You’re the lawyers,” said Charlie. Justice, natural or otherwise, scarcely seemed to fit any of his most pressing considerations. Natalia would hardly be able officially to conclude her enquiry now, although with Davidov dead he couldn’t see how it could be taken any further: how anything could be taken any further. Which was, of course, the intention. The intention? Or Natalia’s intention? It seemed very easy- automatic even-for the suspicion to be part of every thought now.

“I can’t professionally act,” Anne reminded Noskov.

The Russian nodded, understanding her point. “I’ll call you later.”

In the embassy car, Anne said, “I know you told me not to ask where this leaves us but where does this leave us?”

“Beaten,” said Charlie.

“That sounded personal.”

“It is.”

“With Bendall dead-and with the Russians determined that Vera’s death was suicide-there’s nothing more officially for me todo; everything’s down to the Russians,” Anne pointed out. She hesitated. “Isn’t it all over for you, too, Charlie?”

“I don’t like being beaten.”

“Come on, Charlie!”

“I missed something. Two more people are dead.”

“We went through it all,” she said.

“Not properly. I’m going to do it again and again until I find what it is.”

Charlie insisted that Richard Brooking’s demand for an immediate meeting at Protocnyj pereulok could only concern legal matters, which Anne could easily handle by herself, nodding in agreement when she called him a bastard, and actually locked the door of his office against any interruption. He’d been right about the court television, although he hadn’t expected it to be made available so quickly or to every Moscow television channel. It was even on CNN, which used the new footage as an excuse to rerun-sometimes side by side on a split screen-their film of the presidential shooting. Charlie’s initial, total concentration was on the courtroom film, feeling an odd discomfort as his own very clear and visible part of it. He saw himself flinch at the first explosion, his head swivelling between the dock and the gunman. Davidov’s shooting was very quick and accurate, the bucking of his hands the clearer definition between the two shots than the noise itself, which virtually merged into one sound. There didn’t appear to be any separate impact, either, Bendall’s head simply disappearing in one burst. Charlie was turned towards Davidov, facing the camera, when he shouted, able clearly to see his lips form the word, his memory was of calling “No” only once but there were two separate utterances before Davidov was shot by the militiaman.

At that moment CNN split their transmission again between the two films, running the courtroom killing of Davidov against the camera pod struggle between Bendall and the NTV cameraman, Vladimir Sakov, for possession of the sniper’s rifle.

And at that moment the awarenesses engulfed Charlie. He was physically chilled, although the shiver was more in frustration at what he’d missed for so long than from the feeling of coldness.

His internal telephone momentarily distracted him but Charlie ignored it, strained forward for a repeat of the comparison betweenthe two films, sure that he was right, sure that he’d seen things properly for the first time-had most certainly for the first time seen what was most important but which he’d consistently overlookedand allowed the scourging personal annoyance. It had been there all the time, like a banner in the breeze, and he’d missed it and it didn’t matter that everyone else had missed it as well: what mattered was that it had taken him so long-too long-and too much still remained unexplained. The rerun began and Charlie looked now at what he knew there was to see, the annoyed chill of belated awareness changing to a warmth of satisfaction as it unarguably showed on the screen. And then he remembered how, momentarily deaf, he’d had to understand what people had said in the court in the initial minutes after the shooting and saw something else he should have recognized. But hadn’t.

London had the film. It would only take an hour, two, three at the outside. The photographic evaluation shouldn’t take any longer. But with an addition, Charlie thought, as his problem with Vasili Gregorovich Isakov finally slotted into its long overdue place. Charlie snatched up the internal telephone on its third demand, talking over Richard Brooking’s demand that he come at once to the chancellery. He would, Charlie promised, when he’d finished liaising with London, which at that moment had the higher priority. He depressed the receiver, to disconnect the protesting diplomat, but left the handset off its cradle to prevent the man intruding a fourth time.

Charlie had the FBI-collected photographs of Vasili Isakov before him for the next rerun-determined against any wrong or misconstrued assumption-and afterwards, quite positive, he gave himself thirty minutes to compose the fax to London to ensure there could be no misunderstanding about what he wanted.

Richard Brooking was tightlipped, white with fury, when Charlie eventually reached the man’s office. Anne Abbott sat quite relaxed on the other side of the desk. Brooking said, “You were specifically told to report to me the moment you entered the embassy.”

“I’m not permitted to report operationally to you, to avoid any awkward diplomatic crossover,” reminded Charlie. “I report to London, which is what I’ve been doing.”

“About what?” insisted Brooking.

“Hasn’t Anne told you?”

Brooking’s face became a mask. “I meant what, precisely, have you discussed with London.”

“Getting everything ass about face for far too long,” admitted Charlie. “But now I think we’re on the right track.” Track was the apposite word, decided Charlie. He still needed a hard, metalled road, preferably stretched out in front in an uninterrupted straight line.

The assembled men sat quietly around the communal table, the identical photographs and transcripts in front of them. Before each place was a photo-analysist’s magnifying glass but only Jocelyn Hamilton had found the need to use it. He kept it in his hand when he looked up and said, “It’s a great pity it took so long to discover.”

“We’ve each of us had it here, practically from day one,” said Patrick Pacey. “A great pity that you didn’t pick it up for us and saved everyone a lot of time.”

“I think it’s a brilliant deduction of Charlie’s,” said Sir Rupert Dean, coming in as a buffer between the two other men. “Everything he suggested has been confirmed.”

“We’re in an even more jurisdictional quagmire than we were before,” warned Jeremy Simpson, the legal advisor. “I’ll need definitive guidance, of course, but with Bendall dead-and the case against him dying with him-I don’t see we’ve any legal claim to remain associated with the investigation.”

The director-general gestured with the Arkadi Noskov’s news agency statement of George Bendall’s bullet caliber defense to murder. “There’s still an unsolved case of conspiracy. I would have thought we have every justification to remain involved, despite Bendall’s death. We don’t even know if there are other Britons involved.”

“I don’t want to know, if there are!” said Patrick Pacey.

No one laughed. Simpson made his own gesture to the material in front of him. “Charlie’s only got one lead and it’s Russian. He hasn’t got the authority to pursue it. And as he points out in today’smessages, there’s a high mortality rate among people who become identified.”

“I propose that Muffin is positively ordered to do nothing-to take no further part in the investigation, even if he’s permitted to do so-until we have the necessary jurisdictional guidance,” said the deputy director. “Of course the court episode is deplorable but objectively it’s the least difficult outcome there could have been for us. Things should be allowed to settle, not be stirred up.”

“As cynical as that is, I think it may well be the government attitude,” said Pacey, uncomfortable at politically having to side with a man with whom he almost invariably disagreed and whom he did not personally like.

“It’s Charlie’s breakthrough,” protested Dean. “I’d like to let him run with it. We still don’t know what the hell it’s all about. Our primary remit is to forewarn the government against the unexpected. We can’t do that putting Charlie on hold.”

“It’s my advice-and my political opinion-that we should,” urged Pacey. “Particularly with the legal uncertainty.