Comrade Charlie

Charlie sighed at the new avenue to nowhere opening up in his mother’s confused mind. He said: ‘That’ll be useful.’

‘What’s it called, when you get extra because you need it?’ she demanded, looking directly at him.

‘Extra what, Mum?’

‘Pension,’ she said impatiently.

‘Is that what the men said, that you were going to get more pension money?’ seized Charlie.

‘I think that’s what they meant.’

‘Supplementary,’ suggested Charlie.

‘That was it!’ said the woman. ‘That was the word. It means extra money, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s what it means.’

‘That’s it then: what I’m going to get,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Why didn’t Edith come with you?’

‘She’s dead, Mum.’

‘Dead? Edith? When?’

‘Quite a long time ago.’

‘Never knew. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I meant to,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Shame.’ Her eyes closed. She made a tiny attempt to open them but it seemed too difficult. She tried again, even more feebly, and then stopped. Her held-away head went at last against the pillow: so lacquered was her hair that the tight waves flowed on undisturbed.

Charlie waited several minutes before easing his hand from hers, managing to stand without grating the chair. He checked as he walked, satisfying himself the matron was not in the grounds, relieved that she was in the office when he got there.

‘Great improvement, isn’t it?’ the woman demanded at once.

‘She’s gone to sleep now,’ said Charlie. ‘She rambled a little.’

‘At least she’s talking!’

‘About some men,’ said Charlie. ‘Men in a black car.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed the matron. ‘Pension people. I told you in my letter.’

Charlie nodded. ‘So people did come. I thought you were referring to some form or notice or something.’

‘Supplementary Benefit,’ smiled the woman. ‘They check from time to time, into everybody’s financial circumstances. To see if there’s any special need.’

‘Have other people here been visited?’

‘Quite a few, from time to time.’

‘By these two particular men?’

The matron’s face set in a serious expression. Instead of replying she said: ‘Is something wrong?’

‘I’m sure there’s not,’ said Charlie reassuringly. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

Ms Hewlett did not look completely convinced. She said: ‘These were inspectors I had not seen before. But that has no significance. Quite often the people are different from those who have come before.’

‘Two inspectors!’ queried Charlie. ‘Does it always take two inspectors?’

The woman’s colour began to rise. Again there was a hesitation. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not usually two.’

‘They carried identification, of course?’

‘They telephoned several days in advance. That’s the normal procedure. Told me they were coming and why. And they quoted your mother’s National Insurance number, the one that’s on her pension book. No one else has access to details like that except people from the Ministry.’

Was he overreacting, Charlie asked himself. Possibly. But Charlie frequently responded to the antennae of instinct and he thought there was a message here somewhere. He said: ‘Where do such inspectors come from when they carry out these checks? Towns, I mean?’

‘It varies,’ said the woman. ‘Salisbury, Andover, Winchester…all over…’

‘From what office did the two men come to see my mother?’

The subsiding colour grew again. ‘They didn’t say.’

‘No number? Nowhere you could contact them?’

‘They said when they left that she didn’t qualify. That there’d be no need to talk about it again.’

‘So that looks like the end of it,’ said Charlie with attempted finality.

‘Did they upset her?’ asked the woman. ‘They said they’d like to see her, and she was so much better I thought it would be a treat for her. Visitors. It’s important to them, visitors. I knew they were wasting their time: of course I did. It was your mother I was thinking about, not them.’

Poor woman, thought Charlie: poor innocent, compassionate, unknowing woman. He said: ‘I’m sure she enjoyed it.’ He didn’t think he’d get into cake with nuts. He added: ‘Did she sign anything?’

‘Oh no!’ insisted the woman. ‘Your mother was on the verandah, just like today. And I was outside all the time they were with her. I would have seen.’

‘Like I said,’ repeated Charlie. ‘I’m sure it’s all perfectly proper.’

‘I know it is,’ insisted the woman.

From his Vauxhall apartment, not from Westminster Bridge Road, Charlie contacted every regional and local pensions office remotely likely to have organized the visit to his mother. None had. He extended the check to the main department building in London and was once more assured there was neither interest in nor consideration of awarding his mother any supplementary pension allowance.

There was the beginning of fury – but only briefly, because Charlie didn’t allow it. Fear had its benefits; released adrenaline and heightened senses. But not anger or fury. Neither. That sort of emotion was positively counter-productive: obscured the proper reasoning and the correct balances. This time, anyway, his feelings catapulted far beyond fury. Charlie was engulfed by an implacable, vindictive coldness. He’d chosen an existence of constant deceit and constant suspicion, a sinister shape to every shadow, a dangerous meaning to every word. That’s what he gave and that’s what he expected back. A fragile old lady with skin like paper wasn’t any part of that; a fragile old lady in whose twilight life long-ago lovers stayed on as names with indistinct faces, William who became John and who might not have been a real person at all. But they’d made her part of it: sullied her with it. His own people; he was convinced of it being his own people, directed by Harkness. Wrong to move prematurely, though: he had to establish it absolutely. And there was a way: a required, procedural way that would protect him if he were wrong – if he were the target of a hostile pursuit – and raise a stink in all the embarrassing places if he were right. Harkness was going to regret this vendetta.

Ironically another vendetta was being conceived against Charlie Muffin almost four thousand miles away.

‘We’ve got to start all over again,’ announced Alexei Berenkov, who had sought the encounter with Valeri Kalenin. ‘Part of the Star Wars missile is being made in England.’

Kalenin shrugged philosophically. ‘We’ve done well enough in America,’ he said. ‘This can only be a setback, surely.’

Berenkov had come to Dzerzhinsky Square intending to suggest to Kalenin that the English involvement provided an opportunity for a further operation, but abruptly he changed his mind. He shouldn’t involve this man who’d risked so much for him. Berenkov knew he could, on his own, evolve the retribution for all the harm that Charlie Muffin had caused and attempted to cause him. With customary confidence Berenkov decided he didn’t need any help or advice in destroying Charlie Muffin, as the man had sought to destroy him. But failed. Berenkov said: ‘I have the same freedom to operate in England as I have in America?’

‘Of course,’ confirmed Kalenin at once. ‘Do whatever you consider necessary.’

Berenkov supposed that, by a fairly substantial stretch of imagination, those words might later be construed as permission for what he had in mind. He began planning that day.

It was Ann’s birthday, her fortieth, so they had to celebrate although Blackstone couldn’t afford it. He made a reservation at a pub just outside Newport he’d heard talked about at the factory and when they arrived discovered it specialized in seafood. Blackstone couldn’t run to real champagne but Ann seemed thrilled enough with a sparkling imitation. He tried to compensate by ordering quite an expensive white wine to go with their fruits de mer, which included lobster as well as crab and shrimp and some chewy shellfish neither had had before and didn’t like: Ann was brave enough to say so first and stop eating them. The wine was