Comrade Charlie

said: ‘You can listen. Expertly, the way you’ve been taught. Understand the nuances beyond the flat words.’

‘Listen to whom?’

‘Official ministry delegations, to the West. They are going to increase, in the coming months, under the new order at the Kremlin.’ Berenkov was leaning forward on his desk, intent upon her. Pinpricks of colour came to her face, the way people become flushed when they are excited.

The West! Somewhere she’d never imagined herself ever being able to reach, somewhere where Charlie… Natalia stopped determinedly. Rigidly professional, she said: ‘There are always interpreters…other people from our organization forming part of the support staff as well. I would have no proper or useful role.’

An intelligent objection, accepted Berenkov; the woman was fully controlled now, demure hands in the demure lap of her stern black suit, hair tightly in a bun at the back of her head, in a style he found oddly antiquated. She wore no make-up, either. As if she were dressing down or not bothering with her appearance. ‘We think you would: a very useful role. Interpreters have access at all times and at all levels but as I’ve already told you we don’t expect from you the translations of what is said. The others can provide that. From you we want the analyses, independent of the other various ministry opinions.’

‘Supplied to whom?’ queried Natalia. ‘The ministries? Or here?’

‘Here, of course,’ smiled Berenkov. That had to be the way for any uncertainties in her mind to be satisfactorily allayed.

‘I would be a KGB spy upon the delegations, in fact?’ queried Natalia directly.

Berenkov shook his head. ‘Others form part of every overseas group to ensure proper behaviour: you said so yourself, a few moments ago. All we seek is what I’ve asked for. Independent analysis.’

Natalia supposed that with so many changes happening in Moscow it made practical, understandable sense for the KGB to know first hand as much as possible of such overseas visits, properly to formulate their own forward policies. She wouldn’t have thought it needed a change of leadership before the necessity was realized, however. She said: ‘So I am being officially transferred?’

‘How would you feel about such a move?’ said Berenkov, conveying the impression she had a choice.

‘It is too sudden…too unexpected…for me properly to be able to answer that…’

All the early unease had gone now, assessed Berenkov. She was a woman capable of adapting remarkably quickly. Making it obvious there hadn’t really been a choice at all, Berenkov said: ‘You will begin immediately.’

Recognizing the dismissal, Natalia stood and said: ‘I hope I will fulfil what’s required of me.’

‘I hope that too,’ said Berenkov, in a remark of which she was never to understand the true meaning.

Natalia had completely recovered from all the doubts by the time she left Berenkov’s suite, able to think and rationalize. That initial reaction, immediately associating Charlie with the West, as if there were a chance of her seeing him again, was perhaps natural but in reality quite foolish. There would never be a chance of a reunion. How could there be?

Charlie underwent one routine interrogation and, more expert than his questioners, he guessed within minutes that they were merely going through the required motions and that the investigation had already been resolved. And if it had, in a little over a week, he knew, too, that he’d been correct about the episode at the Hampshire nursing home.

His formal notice to return to Westminster Bridge Road came during the second week but the date for that return was not until the the end of the month, giving the vague semblance of a proper inquiry. Charlie surmised the truth to be that Harkness was trying to delay the inevitable confrontation and considered making contact with Laura to find out what he could. Not fair, he dismissed at once: if he’d succeeded in escalating everything to the level he hoped, he could get Laura fired out of hand for even speaking to him. He could wait, Charlie decided: he had all the time in the world.

‘What’s their explanation?’ demanded the outraged Harkness. In his anger his face had gone from its usual pink to bright red.

‘It’s most unfortunate,’ said Witherspoon, unhappy at being caught in the middle. ‘I briefed them thoroughly but no one expected the story of their being from the Ministry of Pensions to be checked so thoroughly.’

‘The man Muffin is a confounded nuisance; an embarrassment and a nuisance,’ insisted Harkness. ‘Now I’ve got to provide an explanation. Can you imagine that!’

‘A great nuisance,’ agreed Witherspoon.

‘This department – this service – has got to be rid of him!’

‘Yes,’ said Witherspoon in further agreement.

‘And I want your help in achieving it.’

‘Whatever I can do,’ accepted Witherspoon at once. He knew Charlie Muffin laughed at him: despised him even. There would be a great satisfaction in being the one who laughed, for a change.

11

Things happened far more quickly than Natalia Fedova had expected, almost too quickly to allow her properly to think and to encompass all that the change meant to her. Although she could not easily conceive what training or preparation there could be she had still anticipated some period of instruction, but there was none. There was a memorandum from Berenkov officially confirming the decision of their meeting and telling her she would continue to operate from her existing office within the First Chief Directorate. And some Foreign Ministry circular advising her of allowances she could claim, together with a request for accreditation photographs and a personal biography form to complete. Five days after she submitted it, she was assigned her first interpreter-escort role, accompanying a Foreign Ministry delegation to Canberra.

It was fortunately a brief and comparatively simple trip, an exploratory journey to discuss and assess whether an official visit to Australia at Foreign Minister level would be acceptably worthwhile to both countries. Natalia conducted herself with absolute propriety and decorum, guessing herself to be very much on trial. Technically her rank within the KGB – and the fact that she was KGB – put her above the constraints of other, ordinary Soviet ministry officials towards the delegation leaders, but Natalia never took advantage of it. She was polite and considerate to everyone, even the most junior clerks, and showed the proper deference to those in charge. She identified the monitoring KGB officers before the aircraft landed in the Australian capital, a fat, borish Armenian and a younger, confident Moscow-born man. From them there was an attitude of reserved uncertainty but on the fourth day the younger one made the inevitable approach. Natalia’s tempted reaction was to use her rank. Instead she rejected the man without humiliating or embarrassing him. The official interpreter was a man whom Natalia suspected of having KGB links too, because such advantageously placed officials customarily did. She anticipated resentment but there wasn’t any, which she took as further proof of the man’s Dzerzhinsky Square connections and of his having been told how to behave towards her.

Natalia found herself enjoying her role. The official meetings were not difficult to interpret, either verbally or by intention, and after shutting herself away in the Mytninskaya apartment for so long the sudden social change was pleasant, as well. She liked the cocktail parties and the receptions and the dinners. There were limited but interesting tourist outings and three press conferences, each with photocalls from which Natalia instinctively and protectively recoiled until pressured into forming part of the groups.

When she returned to Moscow she was surprised to see the photographs published in Pravda and Izvestia, both with her name printed in full.

Dutifully fulfilling her imagined function, Natalia wrote a comprehensive and annotated report of the visit, with a single-sheet summary in which she judged that although the Australians had been welcoming and friendly she did not believe an official invitation would be forthcoming so close to a general election within the country. It proved to be an accurate assessment.

The North American tour was longer and with a different government group, a perennial Trade Ministry quest for grain sales to supplement another failed Russian harvest. This time there was advanced publicity, a group photograph published in Pravda and again with everyone identified by name.

Natalia conducted herself as carefully as before. This time the sexual advance came from a deputy minister