was under surveillance: he was doing nothing covert, so there was no reason to bother with a pointless exercise. It was a relief to feel as self-assured as he did. He knew everything was going to work out exactly as it should: he’d be back in London very soon, with Marcia. She’d expect a souvenir, he realized abruptly: it would be a mistake if he did not take her back a present. Easily achieved, though, without it becoming an unnecessary interference with what he was in Beijing to achieve. He’d ask Jane Nicholson to shop for him: the sort of cheongsam she’d worn the first night at dinner. He wasn’t sure it was what Marcia would choose for herself, but it was something she could use to lounge around the flat. By now she would have given up her own apartment: knowing her he guessed she would already be making plans for the wedding. One of the first things he’d have to do when he got back was buy her an engagement ring. He wanted it to be something special: whatever she wanted, without giving a damn about the cost.
Samuels was in his office as promised when Gower got back to the embassy. The political officer went with him to the basement security vault, authorizing his access to the officer on duty there. Gower remained inside the vault to examine the package, wanting only to look at the photographs with which he had to force Snow’s departure. The alterations had been expertly done: to Gower’s untrained eye it was impossible to detect any tampering. He replaced them inside the envelope and resealed it, returning everything to the security official and rejoining Samuels in the tiny outer room.
As they walked back up the stairs together, Samuels said: ‘You’ve become a very popular person here. Everyone thinks you’re going to get a lot of improvements made around the place.’
‘I’m embarrassed about it,’ admitted Gower.
‘That’s the only embarrassment we want,’ said the diplomat.
Charlie finally got his confirmation of an affair between Peter Miller and Patricia Elder at precisely eight-thirty on a surprisingly sunny Wednesday morning in early March.
And in addition got far more than he expected.
He was perfectly hidden from the spectacular bordering mansions on the inside of the hedge that surrounds the park, and at that precise moment was finally deciding he’d wasted far too much effort over the past weeks chasing a personal impression that he should at last admit was wrong.
And then they emerged from the private exit of the penthouse.
They were not initially together. Miller came out first, alone, but hesitated after two or three paces, looking back into the still open door and eventually stopping, to wait. Patricia Elder followed. There was a brief conversation, with both consulting their watches, before they began walking together down the outer circle.
Charlie began to smile, knowing that familiar flush of satisfaction at a hunch turning out to be a hundred per cent right, which was always a feeling he savoured, wishing there’d been more of them in a troublesome life.
Almost at once the expression – and the satisfied feeling – faltered and died, never properly forming.
It was the movement of a camera that caught his eye, in an inconspicuous black Ford parked beyond his concealing hedge, less than five yards from where he stood: a camera aimed by one of the two men to take the last photograph of the disappearing Director-General of Britain’s external intelligence service and his deputy as they turned into Chester Gate, to reach Albany Street.
The Ford started up immediately, trying to move in the direction opposite to that taken by the oblivious couple: it had to pause, because of a passing van, conveniently enabling Charlie to take the number.
Charlie remained where he was for several moments before slowly moving off deeper into the park, towards the boating lake. An enquiry agent, hired by a suspicious Lady Ann? Or was it something professionally far more serious? A private detective agency could probably be easily confirmed from the registration number. It was just possible to check the other alternative, too, if a person remained an awkwardly suspicious and genuine bastard who didn’t believe in virgin births, that there was something good in everybody, or in New Realities for the future.
The taxi got Charlie to Notting Hill in fifteen minutes. He ambled into the tree-lined avenue linking the Bayswater Road with Kensington High Street and dominated on either side, with a few exceptions for millionaire residents, by the London embassies of foreign countries. He showed no reaction whatsoever at identifying from the registration he had so recently recorded the black Ford parked neatly among three other vehicles in the forecourt of what had become the Russian, not the Soviet, embassy.
Reaching Kensington, Charlie hesitated on the pavement, thoughts momentarily refusing even to present themselves for consideration. What the fuck was he going to do about that, he asked himself, wishing he knew.
His feet hurt, too, from walking the entire length of the embassy row.
Twenty-nine
The traditional animosity between the respective policing agencies had only minimally lessened since the transfer of the renamed KGB to the control of the Interior Ministry, which also governed the Militia, but Natalia guessed from the tone of his voice that the man to whom she spoke would have travelled out to the Yasenevo suburb if she had asked. She didn’t. The policeman formally introduced himself as Mikhail Stepanovich Kapitsa, a senior investigator in the organized crime division, in the thick, frequently coughing voice of a heavy smoker: twice their telephone conversation was interrupted by the sound of a match scraping into life. The man agreed they could meet at once: it was better to get everything sorted out as soon as possible, didn’t she think?
Natalia hesitated at the moment of departure, aware before knowing the circumstances she could be entering a situation of enormous personal danger, danger far greater than she had so far faced from Fyodor Tudin.
Decisively, still in her own office, she ordered her official, chauffeur-driven Zil. In addition, as she went through the outer secretariat she made a point of recording a visit to Petrovka. The chauffeur was a pool driver with a Georgian accent and a painful-looking boil on a thick neck. Natalia remembered Tudin was Georgian. The man, hand constantly on his horn, insisted on bulldozing down the central road lanes which in the past had been reserved for government vehicles. Anxious to get to Petrovka, she didn’t object.
A uniformed officer escorted her to the second floor. Kapitsa’s office was fugged with the anticipated smoke, an ashtray on a cluttered desk overflowing, a half-burned cigarette smouldering in it. Kapitsa picked it up as he sat. His dark blue suit shone with wear and there was a snow-line of ash over the front. The left lapel had a burn hole that looked ancient, the cloth frayed around its edges.
‘I appreciate your contacting me,’ embarked Natalia cautiously.
The man smiled. His teeth were yellowed by nicotine. ‘We’re closer together now as colleagues than we ever were. But it’s not going to be easy. To be honest, at the moment I can’t think of a way.’
A man of the past, accustomed to deals and arrangements, guessed Natalia. ‘What’s happened?’
Kapitsa nodded, lighting another cigarette from the butt of its predecessor: as an afterthought, he offered the packet to Natalia. She shook her head. Kapitsa said: ‘Organized crime has become a serious problem in Moscow. And greatly increased since the changes that were supposed to provide things that haven’t been available. And still aren’t now, unless you go to a Mafia outlet …’ He shrugged, apologizing in advance. ‘The order has been given, for a major crackdown …’ Another shrug. ‘Market forces can’t fill the shops and we can’t fill the work rosters with enough men to do the job we’re told to do. So the Mafia go on winning: we haven’t – and won’t – get it under control.’
Natalia was curious at the generality. It would be a mistake to hurry him.
‘We do the best we can, of course: we’ve got to. We’re publicly accountable now, not like before.’
Natalia detected the nostalgia: definitely someone immersed in the past and mourning it.
‘Occasionally we get lucky. Like this time. It’s one of the known Mafia families, the Lubertsy. They’re young. Violent. Trade in a lot of drugs brought up from the southern republics: across the Polish border from Italy, too. There were two kilos of heroin and ten kilos of marijuana, all from the south. There was a lot of medicines, as well: to be sold to people who know what they want but can’t get it through hospitals or from their doctors who prescribe it. We’re still carrying out tests but we think the medicines have been adulterated, to stretch the size and value of the shipment …’ The man paused, to light another cigarette. ‘… Adulterated medical drugs kill sometimes, instead of saving lives. Or maim. Certainly aren’t effective, in doing what they’re supposed to do …’
Natalia couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘What’s Eduard’s part in all of this?’
‘Organizer,’ said the man, bluntly. ‘He hasn’t admitted it, but there’s no doubt he was in charge. It was a big load, in total. Four lorries. We don’t know where they originated: no one will say. It was on the Serpukhov
