Margaux to go with it. Charlie opened the bottle to breathe, and said: ‘so Paul’s a wine connoisseur?’
Laura was at the separating doorway when he spoke, half turned towards the kitchen. She looked back into the room and then returned further into it, smiling and shaking her head. She stopped directly in front of him and said: ‘Sit down, Charlie Muffin.’
He did as he was told, looking up at her questioningly.
‘From everything I hear and from what I’ve read in reports I probably shouldn’t have looked at, I’m prepared to accept you’re a pretty shit-hot operative, hard as nails and twice as sharp,’ said Laura. ‘But you know something else that you are?’
He didn’t want this conversation, Charlie decided. ‘What?’ he said.
‘You’re a romantic,’ declared Laura. ‘A genuine red roses, pink doves and violin-string romantic. Which you’ll probably deny because you don’t regard it as manly but which I think is lovely. But there’s a risk of it getting in the way between us. I know you’re uncomfortable being in another man’s house and I’m sorry about that, although not as sorry as I was when I discovered how sweet-faced, innocent-looking Paul was cheating on me, because I loved him very much. I suppose I still do, in a way: my problem…’ She swept her arm around the room. ‘He won’t consider leaving me because I’ve got the inherited money to provide all this. And I won’t risk telling him finally to get out because I’ve got this stupid fantasy that he might suddenly change and it’ll be all right again. So at the moment we lead polite but separate lives. And I’m using you, Charlie Muffin. Like we both know you’re using me, for what you want. If you like, we’re both at the moment using each other for protection. So we’re quits. I know this isn’t love: that it won’t be. I’m not even sure I’d want that encumbrance. OK?’
‘Quite a speech,’ said Charlie, nonplussed.
‘I didn’t set out to make one. It just happened.’
‘There’s a lot to discuss.’
‘No there isn’t,’ rejected Laura. ‘It’s all said: no need for any more in-depth conversation. And I’m out of breath, anyway.’
‘I…’
‘…don’t,’ she stopped.
So he didn’t.
The food was superb, the wine excellent and for the first time Charlie felt completely relaxed. When she poured the brandy, afterwards, Laura pointedly put Paul’s photograph in a drawer and said: ‘There! Better?’
‘Much better,’ he said, letting her fit herself against him on the couch as she liked to do.
‘The person who interrogated your mother is named Smedley,’ she announced, her head against his chest. ‘David Smedley. The other one is Philip Abbott.’
‘Thanks.’
‘And Witherspoon is spending a lot of time with Harkness.’
‘You think he was involved?’
‘I don’t know: just that he keeps being called into the office.’
‘He’s Harkness’ protege,’ remembered Charlie.
‘Don’t do anything silly about it. Promise?’
‘Never crossed my mind.’
Later – much later – in bed Charlie said: ‘I don’t think I’m a red roses, pink dove, violin-string romantic’
‘I knew you wouldn’t, but you are,’ insisted the girl.
‘Rubbish.’
‘How many times have you been in love?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Paul’s got a child, a little boy. By a girl he sees, onand-off, in Fulham. I can’t have children. That hurts me worst of all, that he’s had a baby by someone else. He didn’t have to do that, did he?’
‘And you’d still try to make things work!’
‘If Paul asked me to.’
Bloody incredible, thought Charlie. And she
Some girls never understood men.
Harkness lived like a bachelor, although he was not. He had been married for twenty years to a woman as devout a Catholic as himself and although the marriage had irreparably collapsed into non-speaking acrimony there had never been any question of divorce. She lived in isolation on the top floor of the Hampstead house and he occupied the lower half: on Sunday mornings and evenings they attended different churches.
Harkness therefore ate at his club, which he did most evenings, and customarily alone. He did so that night angrily, frustrated that it was taking him so long to be confirmed as Director General. What was necessary, he knew, was a success that could unquestionably be shown to be his: something that would stir the Joint Intelligence Committee into finally making the inevitable decision.
The problem was finding it.
18
The encounter was arranged for the seafront car park where they’d met before but which Losev hadn’t used for a handover yet. It was perfect for today, a very large, open space which it was easy to keep under observation. Losev packed the area with operatives, but didn’t approach it himself until well after the scheduled time and only then when one of his people reported Blackstone was there, quite alone.
The tracer was pacing nervously up near the entrance from the road, hands deep in his raincoat pockets, not visibly carrying anything. It was a hire car again, so Blackstone didn’t recognize it and only came hurrying over when Losev sounded his horn. The Russian leaned across to open the passenger door and Blackstone came in gratefully out of the wind.
‘Wondered where the hell you’d got to,’ Blackstone complained. ‘I’ve been waiting for hours.’
‘Thirty minutes,’ corrected Losev, taking the car on into the car park and stopping as he had on the first occasion, so they could see the island squatted on the horizon. ‘And I had to be sure, didn’t I?’ The Russian’s voice was tight in his fury.
‘Sure of what?’
‘That you’d be by yourself.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
‘Good,’ said Losev. ‘I wouldn’t be very happy if you did.’
‘What are you going on about!’ Blackstone twisted in his seat so that he was looking across the car at the Russian, trying not to show the apprehension bubbling through him.
Losev didn’t reply directly. Instead he said: ‘You brought something for me today, Henry?’ He would very much have liked to hit the man, slapped some sense into his stupid head.
‘Of course,’ said Blackstone, almost proudly. He took from inside his raincoat the envelope containing the second drawing he’d made from his tracing of the backing paper, eagerly handing it across the vehicle.
Losev took it but didn’t open it. ‘What about this one, Henry? Is it complete?’
‘What sort of question is that!’ Blackstone thought the outrage sounded genuine enough: inwardly he was numbed at being caught out and at the fear of losing the money he wanted so much.
‘You know exactly what sort of question it is, Henry. The last drawing you gave me…the drawing for which you got five hundred pounds…didn’t make sense to the experts,’ said Losev calmly. ‘There were some specification details missing.’
Blackstone reckoned there to be four lines he hadn’t been able to read: five at the most. But he was sure he’d concealed the omission by the way he’d re-created the blueprint as an apparent original. He said: ‘I thought it was all there! Believe me I did!’
‘That’s our problem, isn’t it?’ said Losev, still calm but finding it difficult because he’d lost personal credibility
