See Charlie Run

think of any more questions to ask or any different ways of phrasing those he’d already put to her.

‘I don’t know,’ said Irena, impatiently. ‘How could I know?’

‘You’re not sure, though, are you: you weren’t when you asked about it being the Americans this afternoon?’ It was a bad, repetitive point and it was obvious, to Charlie as he asked it and to Irena, who disdained it.

‘I’m tired,’ she said again, the defensive anger gone. ‘You know about the calls now: what they were for. I want to go to sleep.’

She actually moved, to go back beneath the covers. Not wanting to lose the momentum, Charlie thrust into the shoulder-bag, snatching out the photographs of Yuri Kozlov that had been sent to him from London and throwing them to her, on top of the hotel bills. He said: ‘He’s set you up … you know he has …!’

The insistence was no better than the previous question because it was an accusation Charlie couldn’t support, but the effect was different this time and it wasn’t from anything Charlie said. Irena was staring down at the prints, her throat working, and then she whimpered, a mewing sound without any shape at first but then it formed into a word – ‘No!’ – moaned over and over again. She let the photographs drop and the covers, too, sitting in front of him brassiered but huge-breasted, tears abruptly starting and then coursing down her face. She didn’t try to wipe them or her nose, either, when that began to run. Charlie saw she had a yellow pimple, about to pop, on her left shoulder.

Charlie didn’t know what to do, to discover what had caused the collapse. He got up from where he was and tried to pull the covers up for her, but sitting as she was it wasn’t possible without her holding them and she didn’t try, so they fell down again. Instead he picked up the photographs, searching for what he’d missed and to what she’d reacted, seeing nothing.

Charlie felt out, to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but then pulled back. He said: ‘Irena? What it is, Irena?’

Her voice was too choked for him to hear the word, at first, so he said again: ‘Irena. Tell me, Irena.’

Then he heard the word, although he didn’t immediately understand what it meant.

‘Her!’

He looked at the disordered photographs, but not at Kozlov, remembering something else, the first sight reflection about the woman in the background and then the later realization that it was not Irena.

‘Who is she, Irena?’

The woman sobbed on, not answering for a long time, and when she did speak it was still muffled, so Charlie had to bend closer.

‘Balan. Olga Balan.’

Charlie let her cry on, to take her own time, knowing it – what ever it was – was coming now, and he did reach out to her, edging on to the bed and putting his arm around her. Irena came to him, wanting the comfort, and there was another long period when she didn’t – couldn’t – speak. When she did, the words were halting and stumbled and Charlie had to strain forward, to make sense of what she said. Irena told him who Olga Balan was and about her reputation at the embassy and then, unprompted, she talked at first unintelligibly but later in a way that Charlie could comprehend of someone called Valentina who was or had been – he wasn’t sure – a choreographer at the Bolshoi with whom Yuri had had an affair and for whom he had asked her for a divorce, and of her refusal. And then why.

‘Don’t you think I know what I am!’ she said, coherent now but the sob still in her voice. ‘I know the size I am: that people look at me. And I know that I intimidate and I try not to, and then I realize it’s happening and that I haven’t noticed it and I try harder and it happens again. And I did try, with Yuri. I tried so hard! I stood in front of mirrors and I actually practised with my arms, how not to be overpowering: trying to appear smaller! Can you believe that! And I thought – attempted to think – before I said or did anything when we were alone, so that it didn’t seem that I was trying to dominate, which I know I do because I can’t help it …’ She looked down at herself, shrugging the clothes up to cover her breasts, and Charlie knew why when she said: ‘I did anything he asked … anything … even though some things I didn’t like … tried so hard. Always.’ She turned her head, to look up at Charlie. ‘You know why I said no, when he asked for a divorce? I knew he didn’t love me, before that: maybe never had … I was an easy way, for him to get into the service … always outranked him …’ Irena stopped, realizing she had gone away from her point. ‘Knew I couldn’t marry again, that’s why; that nobody would ask me. Didn’t want to be alone: so frightened, of being quite alone. Wanted so much to keep him … tried so hard … anything he wanted … he said it would be a new life, in the West … anything …’ She started to cry again and Charlie held her and thought poor bitch again, but this time with real pity.

‘How do you know she’s involved?’ he said. Despite the sympathy, he had to know everything.

‘I knew there was someone else, in London,’ insisted Irena. ‘I could tell; women can. Actually asked him. He said no: that he’d forgotten Valentina, too. And when Olga was posted to Tokyo and established the reputation I told you about, I asked him if he’d heard of her anywhere else and he said he hadn’t: that he’d never met her before, either …’ She sighed, a shuddering movement, and said: ‘She was part of it, of course … there were interviews and I know what she was doing now … all the questions of growing suspicion …’ Her voice gagged, with fresh emotion, and she couldn’t speak again for several moments. Then she said: ‘How they cheated me …! Made me perform like some animal, and all the time they were cheating me!’

There was still a lot Charlie didn’t understand: that perhaps she didn’t know either, so she wouldn’t be able to tell him. But there was enough. There were bridges to rebuild, with the Americans. Who didn’t have Yuri Kozlov and weren’t going to get him. And who still wanted Irena, like … like who? When he’d shouted at Irena that Kozlov had set her up, he’d done it to shock her into some reaction, without properly considering the words, but could that be what the man had really done, set out on some convoluted private scheme to get rid of a wife who had refused him a divorce? The other nonsense – what he now accepted as nonsense – of creating supposed separate crossings fitted the scenario, putting him and the Americans in squabbling rivalry, concentrating more upon their own interests than the defection itself. And what happened today fitted, too: it explained why there hadn’t been a squad of grab-back Russians at the Macao church. Except why hadn’t there been more than one shot, from that special gun? And who fired it anyway, if Yuri were still in Tokyo, maintaining the fragile link with … Charlie’s mind stopped at the reflection, looking down at the now quiet woman. There was still an occasional shoulder-juddering sob but she was more fully against his shoulder now, face turned into him, and Charlie thought she might have drifted into some sort of exhausted, uneven sleep.

‘Irena,’ he said, softly. ‘Irena.’

She stirred, looking up to him. Her eyes were very red. ‘What?’

‘The Tokyo number, at the apartment? Will Yuri be there, still?’

She made an uncertain movement. ‘I do not know. How could I?’

Vague thoughts – too vague and too disjointed to be called an idea – began to filter through Charlie’s mind. Intermingled with them was the Director’s remark about losing soldiers and the image of Harry Lu and a very positive realization that whether or not Yuri Kozlov had set his wife up, the man had certainly set him up, and Charlie disliked being made prick of this or any other month even more than he disliked trying to break in a new pair of Hush Puppies. He pulled the photographs towards him, gazing at the beautiful woman whom Irena had identified as the embassy’s KGB security officer, feeling sorry again for Irena slumped against him; it really was unfair competition. As the thoughts began to harden, Charlie decided he would need an example, to convince Yuri Kozlov. Olga Balan? She was obvious, but even more obvious was a better advantage that could be gained if she and Kozlov were working privately together.

‘Who’s the Rezident, in Tokyo?’ he asked Irena.

The woman came away from him again, not immediately answering. Then she said: ‘Why?’

‘There’s a reason, for wanting to know.’

‘Filiatov,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Boris Filiatov.’

‘Is there an arrangement, for contacting Yuri?’

‘It had to be evening, Tokyo time. During the day he had to be at the embassy, to avoid anyone becoming suspicious …’ Irena’s voice trailed. ‘That is what he said: I don’t know any more whether that was the truth …’

‘That much could have been,’ said Charlie. Initially, Charlie realized, he would be playing a poker hand with a lot of the cards face up. But then he realized he couldn’t lose – because he still had Irena – even if Yuri Kozlov called his bluff. Charlie – who’d financed his army National Service with a permanent poker game when he wasn’t organizing his Berlin black market in motor-pool petrol – didn’t just want to win a hand. He wanted the whole,