disbanded and they were getting ready to leave that he was sorry for the delay but that he hadn’t made up his mind about the application yet.
He’d got away with it! decided Blackstone exultantly. And Springley
There were other prescribed routines which automatically followed such a preliminary inquiry. One was that a report be sent to London, and because it involved the security of such a highly classified overseas project it was channelled to Westminster Bridge Road. The level of classification also required it to be personally studied by the acting Director General.
Richard Harkness decided at once it was an innocent, completely explained event of no importance whatsoever, which was already the conclusion of the inquiry group that had convened the night of the occurrence. But procedure dictated their own investigation be conducted, pointless though it would be in this case.
Harkness knew just the officer for pointless investigations.
The meeting that day was in Berkeley, near the university campus, the sort of crowded and jostled place that Petrin seemed to favour. Emil Krogh arrived on schedule and waited impatiently, moving from foot to foot and gazing up and down the pavement near the designated drug store, wishing the rendezvous were more secluded. The openness worried him and he said so when Petrin finally arrived.
‘I like it this way,’ said the Russian dismissively. He did not, of course, add that such locations made their every meeting and every handover that much easier for the positioned KGB officers to photograph.
19
The head of security at the aerospace factory was named Harry Slade. He had served in the British Army for twenty-five years, honourably retiring with the rank of sergeant major and a regimental photograph signed by all the officers. He wore two lines of campaign ribbons on an immaculate, rigidly pressed black uniform with a profusion of brightly shined buttons, and regarded Charlie Muffin with the distasteful regret of a missed parade-ground challenge. It was an effort, but he managed to avoid automatically calling Charlie ‘sir’. The effort, like the attitude, was obvious but Charlie decided not to confront it: he was working away from Westminster Bridge Road for the first time in months, there would be expenses, the sun was shining and he was feeling generous. Slade confirmed that afternoon’s appointment with Blackstone and showed Charlie the office that had been made available for him, the waiting room to a conference chamber. There were easy chairs as well as a more formal arrangement at a desk and there were fresh flowers in a proper vase and a view of the Medina river from the window. Charlie guessed the place to be three times the size of where he was accustomed to working at Westminster Bridge Road. At Charlie’s insistence the security chief reviewed everything discussed at the inquiry and produced Blackstone’s personnel record and then took Charlie on a tour of the fenced-off, secure section. There Charlie met the project manager, and Springley said he was sure it was all a fuss about nothing and Charlie truthfully said he didn’t mind at all coming down from London to check it out. Under Springley’s guidance he was shown around the workrooms and the communal drawing area and saw how all the blueprints and drawing material were secured at the end of each evening.
‘Personally checked every night by myself,’ chipped in the escorting Slade. ‘There’s no danger of any classified information getting into the wrong hands from this building.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Charlie.
‘I think the whole episode comes down to Blackstone’s dedication to the job,’ said the project manager. ‘He’s applied twice to join the team.’
‘Are you taking him on?’
Springley shrugged. ‘I might, if a vacancy occurs. There’s no room at the moment, but I think there might be in a few weeks.’
Slade appeared surprised when Charlie asked to see where Blackstone normally worked, in the main building, but showed him anyway. Slade seemed affronted when Charlie said he didn’t want the man to sit in on the afternoon’s interview.
‘I expected that you would,’ said the security chief.
Charlie guessed the man would have kept Blackstone standing to attention throughout. He said: ‘I prefer to be on my own.’
‘I need to make a proper report to the company,’ protested Slade. ‘It’s my job.’
‘I’ll tell you what happens,’ promised Charlie. He’d never got on with sergeant majors and certainly didn’t want the intrusion of this one with his judgement already made.
Blackstone was early. The tracer came inquiringly into the room after politely knocking, stopping in the doorway when he saw only Charlie there. He said: ‘I was told to come here?’
‘That’s right,’ said Charlie.
‘Just you?’
‘What did you expect?’
‘I didn’t…I don’t know.’ Which was true and the reason for Blackstone’s vague confusion. He’d prepared himself to be confronted by a group of officials from London, maybe even some sort of panel but not just one person. And most certainly not by this tramp of a man who didn’t look like an official of anything. Blackstone did not now have the confidence of the night he was caught – his feelings were actually on a downturn – but he was sure he didn’t have anything to fear here.
Blackstone was a plump, quick-blinking man. He wore a well-pressed blue suit that Charlie guessed to be his Sunday best, with a crisp white shirt and with his hair combed carefully to cover the place where it was thinning, near his forehead. Charlie nodded across the desk at which he was already sitting and said: ‘Why not take that chair there?’
Blackstone sat as he was told, his hands crossed in front of him in his lap. He said: ‘This is all a silly misunderstanding.’
‘Is it?’ said Charlie mildly. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘I was just trying to be helpful.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ invited Charlie.
‘From when?’ queried Blackstone.
‘From whenever you like,’ said Charlie.
Charlie listened, not looking fully at the other man but with his chair slightly turned, at times even gazing as if something had caught his attention on the river or further out, on the sea. Blackstone initially found the attitude unsettling. Then he decided there was nothing to be unsettled about: the man just wasn’t very good, that was all. His self-assurance began its ascent.
‘Drawing tubes?’ stopped Charlie abruptly, swinging back from the window.
‘What?’ said Blackstone, off-balanced.
‘When you went into the secure section on the second occasion you carried drawing tubes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the way blueprints are sometimes handled. Makes them easy to carry.’
‘Surely the blueprints you’d delivered earlier were already in their own containers?’
Blackstone swallowed. ‘I wasn’t sure whether they still would be. Sometimes they get mislaid: I just decided to be sure.’
‘So those you carried when you were challenged were empty?’
He wasn’t going to be caught that easily, thought Blackstone. He said: ‘No. They held drawings but there would have been room for more.’
‘How far would you say it was, from where you work to the secure area?’ asked Charlie, who’d carefully paced it out.
