Comrade Charlie

‘I just wondered,’ said Charlie uncomfortably. He didn’t like making mistakes, ever.

‘Why so serious all of a sudden? You don’t normally let it depress you.’

‘No reason,’ lied Charlie. Shit, he thought: he wasn’t getting the sort of feedback he wanted.

‘This is all pretty solemn for a dirty weekend in the country!’ Laura complained brightly. ‘Can’t we forget the department, just for a little while?’

Charlie made the effort, which wasn’t easy, but Laura seemed content enough. They ate pheasant for dinner and drank their coffee in the chimney inglenook and the bed had an old-fashioned feather mattress into which they sank, like snow. There were fresh eggs for breakfast, which was a reminder of the Isle of Wight which Charlie didn’t need.

Laura gave a mew of disappointment when Charlie suggested returning to London in the morning, so he compromised and stopped for lunch on the way. They still reached Chelsea by mid-afternoon and Laura said why didn’t they lounge about for the rest of the day reading the Sunday papers and why didn’t he stay the night. Charlie said that would have been fine but there were things he had to do, and they made arrangements to get together some time during the week.

Back at the Vauxhall flat Charlie sat thinking for a long time, until it became night and grew completely dark inside the living room. He finally put on the light and said to himself: ‘You’re slipping, my son! And when you slip you end up flat on your ass.’

It was very late before Charlie went to bed because when he finished doing the things he had to do he spent a long time thinking again. In the morning he was late for work, because he stopped for an hour on the way, but Harkness wasn’t looking for him so he was not called upon to explain.

The Soviet observation of Charlie was established as a twenty-four hour rotating duty, nominally under the supervision of a KGB officer named Viktor Nikov. The man was on duty that Sunday night outside Charlie’s flat. He said to his companion: ‘Jobs like this really piss me off.’ He suspected Losev had appointed him because of some personal animosity, although he couldn’t decide the reason.

‘How much longer?’ asked the other man.

‘I wish I knew,’ said Nikov, with feeling.

Because the Blair was the designated hotel for the Russian party there was official justification for Losev’s request to the management for a list of other registrations for the same period.

And Alexei Berenkov felt another flush of euphoria at the news of Charlie’s reservation. Everything was unfolding as he intended it should: absolutely everything!

25

The physical reaction to what he was being forced to do began with Emil Krogh more than a week before his London flight. Some nights he did not sleep at all and on others he was always awake by three in the morning to lie, sweating with unformed fears, until it became light enough for him to get up. And then he was invariably sick, retching over the toilet pan until he couldn’t be sick any more and then dry heaving until his eyes ran and his stomach and chest ached from the empty convulsions. He and Peggy slept in different beds and had their own separate bathrooms, but he still expected his wife to notice something, to make some remark, but she didn’t. She had half suggested that she travel to England with him but he pointedly refused to pick up on the idea and she didn’t press it, which was a small relief, but so small he instantly forgot it.

At Petrin’s insistence they met for a final briefing session in the park again, although nearer the golf course this time. For once the Russian was prompt, arriving practically as soon as Krogh sat down.

‘You’re not looking any better,’ accused Petrin at once.

So today there wasn’t going to be any legsspread relaxation and patronizing crap about the Californian weather. Krogh said: ‘I’m all right.’ For weeks, long before the sleeplessness, he’d tried to imagine a way out, and the previous night, puddled in perspiration, he’d realized that suicide would be an escape: he’d had to get up earlier than usual to be sick.

‘You break down and everything goes,’ warned Petrin.

‘I’m not going to break down. I said I’m OK.’

‘I’m going to London ahead of you,’ announced Petrin. ‘Everything will be ready for you when you arrive.’

‘How do we contact each other?’ asked Krogh dully.

‘Where’s your hotel reservation?’

‘The Connaught.’

‘Just check in and wait. I’ll already be there.’

‘After making sure it’s safe?’ said Krogh, in an attempt at a sneer that failed.

‘Of course after making sure it’s safe: you should be grateful,’ said Petrin. ‘That’s why the way you look concerns me: the only thing you’ve got to be frightened of is yourself.’

‘I keep telling you I’m all right.’ Dear God how he wished that were true: increasingly he felt suspended from reality, like he’d felt sometimes when he was very drunk or when he’d smoked one of the special joints that Cindy rolled. He hadn’t bothered to contact her, not even a telephone call, for nearly three weeks now. He decided not to, before he went to England. Maybe he never would again, just walk away and leave her, forget about the condo and the car. That’s what he wanted to do, walk away and forget about everything and everyone.

‘What do the British say?’

‘That they’re looking forward to meeting me,’ said Krogh reluctantly. That had been another straw he’d attempted to clutch, the hope that the British would refuse to cooperate with him. But the Russian had anticipated his trying to hide that way and warned he would want to see any rejection letter. Which there hadn’t been anyway so Krogh hadn’t tried to lie.

‘What about here?’

Krogh shrugged. ‘Here I make the rules,’ he said. It sounded conceited but wasn’t. He’d announced his intention at the last directors’ meeting and his father-in-law had seized upon it at once and launched into a speech about devotion to work and to the company and he’d gone along with it, thinking: If only they knew, if only they knew.

‘So!’ said Petrin, forcefully. ‘If I’m going to get everything ready I’ve got to know what you want.’

Krogh gave another listless shrug. ‘I don’t really know, until I get there.’

Petrin sighed. ‘The basics,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me what you’re bound to need.’

‘A drawing office, I suppose,’ said Krogh simply. ‘A board. All instruments…’ He turned to the Russian, on the bench beside him. ‘I don’t see how this is going to work!’ he said in weak protest. ‘I could need to make dozens of drawings: I’m not going to be able to absorb and memorize everything in one visit. Not enough to re-create it all!’

Petrin turned too, to stare back at him. ‘You’re going to have to, Emil. And if you can’t memorize it in one visit you’re going to have to go again. And keep going until you do get it all. There’s no choice about this: no choice at all.’

Krogh felt sick again, the familiar sensation, and swallowed against it. He said: ‘That’s all I can think of needing, at the moment. Anything else will have to wait until I get there and see the sort of work involved.’

‘You keep a grip on yourself, you hear?’

It was the tone of voice he’d used towards Joey and Peter when they’d played up as kids, Krogh recognized. But he didn’t feel any resentment: he didn’t feel anything at all. All those sorts of attitude towards the other man – resentment and hatred and contempt – were past now. There was only an emptiness, like a vacuum. There were ways to kill yourself, without pain. Sleeping pills. A length of hose from an exhaust pipe. The idea this time didn’t bring the stomach jump like it had during the night. He said: ‘I’ll see you in London.’

Petrin drove straight from McLaren Park to the airport. He was one of those lucky travellers who found it easy to sleep on aircraft and he did so, soundly. It was a polar flight that landed in England by mid-morning and he arrived feeling completely rested. Any visit to the Soviet embassy was precluded by the known permanent, twenty-