Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

by Brian Freemantle

  The seizure at the apartment house and the bundled drive, with his hands manacled painfully behind him, had been too hurried for him to examine his situation with any detachment. But, alone in his rectangular box smelling of decayed, abandoned paper, Charlie confronted the realization that, after seven years of middle-of-the-night wakefulness and gut-heaving at casual glances, they’d got him. An overwhelming feeling of helplessness settled over him. The muscles in his thighs began jerking in involuntary spasms and he sat down quickly upon the cot, wrapping his arms around his legs. The man … what was his name? Jackson … Jackson had said there’d be a beating. Why not at once? Maybe the standard technique, complete solitude, to let the fear seep in, and make sure there was no sleep to complete the disorientation. Scalpalomine maybe. But why? That was standard procedure to break someone, to erode a false cover or deceit. They knew who he was. And what he’d done. He didn’t have a cover story to destroy: he had no one to protect.

  Charlie rolled sideways onto the bed, keeping his knees in a foetal ball under his chin. He didn’t want anything to happen to Willoughby. Clarissa either. Particularly Clarissa. He tried to put her from his mind and concentrate on his surroundings. Was this what he could expect from now on? An eight foot by twelve existence, with a cot and a bucket, and water dripping down the walls?

  From outside tame the sound of heavy things being shifted and scraped across the floor; twice there were footsteps seemingly right outside and Charlie raised his head apprehensively. Both times they receded. He looked at his wrist, before remembering the watch had gone. A time check was one of the first things to establish, according to the resistance technique: something else he’d forgotten. An hour, Charlie estimated: maybe longer. He closed his eyes against the light. ‘Trust me, Edith. We’ll beat the bastards’. He hadn’t. Not in the end.

  Charlie reckoned it was another hour before they came for him. He managed to swing his legs to the floor before they reached him. There was another man with Jackson. Charlie blinked at them, gritty-eyed even though he hadn’t slept.

  ‘Up,’ said Jackson.

  Charlie rose, grasping at his waistband. The Hush Puppies threatened to fall off and he had to scuff his feet across the floor. The only obvious change in the room beyond was a baize-topped table, positioned near the centre. There was a smaller table alongside and as he got closer Charlie noticed the tape recorder. From a more darkened part of the basement a man came into the light and sat behind the machine. He didn’t bother to look up.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Wilson. He was seated in the centre of the table, clearly the questioner. Naire-Hamilton was to his left.

  Charlie sat.

  The operator started the tape.

  ‘Your name is Charles Muffin?’ said Wilson.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. It had been a long time since he’d heard his Christian name properly.

  ‘You were for eighteen years a Grade 1 operative within the security service of Great Britain?’

  ‘Yes.’ Had it really been as long as that?

  ‘And as such signed an undertaking governed by the Official Secrets Act?’

  ‘Yes.’ Charlie coughed, not wanting his voice to betray any nervousness when he was called upon to respond in any greater detail.

  ‘Did you at some date in 1977, communicate with the Soviet Union?’

  It seemed so damning, put as bluntly as that. ‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

  ‘How?’ demanded Wilson.

  ‘Through Vienna. I made contact with the Soviet embassy.’ His voice remained controlled.

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘A KGB colonel.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Valery Kalenin.’

  ‘Did you know of this man?’

  ‘I knew he was operational head of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezpasnosti.’

  ‘What was the purpose of the meeting?’

  Revenge. To teach arrogant bastards they couldn’t throw him to the dogs, like so much disposable meat. But whichever way he attempted to put it, the explanation would make him what they’d already decided, a traitor. ‘Nine months earlier I had controlled the arrest of a man running a Soviet spy cell in Britain. His name was Alexei Berenkov. During the final stages of that operation we needed documents from East Berlin proving the man’s identity to be Russian. To create a diversion and minimize the risk of the documents being intercepted, the department arranged for my capture. The car they had marked as the one I should have been driving was destroyed. Had I been in it, I would have died.’ Charlie licked his lips. Not bad so far, he thought. ‘I suspected a set-up. An East German who believed I was arranging his crossing into West Berlin drove the car; I returned by U-bahn. The purpose of the Vienna meeting was retribution, against people who had decided I was expendable.’ A bad finish, conceded Charlie.

  ‘Retribution?’ said Wilson.

  ‘The Soviet Union never allows captured spies to endure long imprisonment. They wanted an exchange and I provided people for it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The British and American directors. Kalenin let it be understood he wanted to cross to the West. Both directors went to Austria to receive him. They were taken by Soviet commandos to be held until there was a swap.’

  ‘You knowingly betrayed to a hostile power the identity and whereabouts of the two most senior officials?’ said Wilson.

  ‘An exchange was guaranteed: that was the only reason for their seizure. I knew they wouldn’t be held for more than two or three weeks.’ In a barren room surrounded by impassive men, it sounded a weak plea of mitigation.

  ‘At the end of 1977, after the seizure of your superior officers, you defected to the Soviet Union?’ said Wilson. Charlie stared blankly across the small table at the director.

  ‘We got your London address from your driving documents,’ said Wilson. ‘I’ve had the place entered: we found everything.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Charlie. It sounded fatuous, he realized.

  ‘We know you have killed three British agents during the last ten months. And about your connection with Walsingham.’

  ‘No!’ Charlie stiffened and instantly felt hands on both his shoulders, forcing him back into his chair. ‘I admit what I did in Vienna,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand anything else you’re saying.’

  The asthma banded around his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs.

  It was midnight when the director and the Permanent Under Secretary got to Billington’s office.

  ‘The Italians are furious,’ said the ambassador. ‘I’ve been officially summoned to the Foreign Ministry tomorrow. They want a full explanation.’

  ‘We’d rather it wasn’t given,’ said Naire-Hamilton.

  ‘That’s preposterous,’ said Billington. ‘You’ve trampled all over the scene of a killing, removed bodies and evidence and disregarded absolutely that any Italian sovereignty exists.’

  ‘It was necessary,’ insisted Naire-Hamilton.

  ‘They’ll never accept that.’

  ‘Ask them to expand the meeting tomorrow,’ suggested Wilson. ‘Include their security people. And promise our attendance.’

  ‘You?’ The ambassador appeared surprised.

  ‘It would be easier than briefing you,’ said Wilson. ‘We don’t think the Italians will want a scandal so near the Summit. Any more than we do.’

  ‘You can’t conceal crime,’ protested Billington.

  ‘When it’s necessary you can,’ said Naire-Hamilton easily.

  Trying to force a little calm, Billington looked towards a drinks tray and said, ‘Would you like anything?’

  Both Wilson and Naire-Hamilton chose whisky. The ambassador took nothing. He handed them the drinks and said, ‘On a personal level, I consider I should have been told what was going on.’

  ‘Until we had proof, everyone was suspect.’

  Momentarily Billington’s face clouded. ‘How long had Walsingham been a spy?’

 
‘According to what we’ve already discovered in London from the flat of the man Muffin, a long time. We might learn more when the banks open here tomorrow. Walsingham had what appears to be a safe deposit key on him: his wife insists she knows nothing about it.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s still to be questioned,’ said Wilson. ‘It’s likely she was the link, from her past association.’

  ‘I would have staked my reputation that Walsingham was sound,’ said Billington. ‘Not brilliant, but sound.’

  ‘That’s the sort of impression spies are trained to convey.’

  ‘And the other fellow,’ said Billington. ‘What sort of man commits five murders?’

  ‘A desperate one,’ Wilson replied.

  ‘Not any more,’ said Naire-Hamilton. ‘He’s finished.’ The Permanent Under Secretary looked directly at Wilson. ‘And I mean that,’ he said.

  The empty place at the Politiburo table stood out like a child’s gap-toothed smile. General Kalenin studiously ignored it, concentrating fixedly upon the First Secretary.

  ‘An overwhelming success, Comrade General.’

  It was fitting to be modest. ‘It will be several days,’ said Kalenin, ‘before we can be completely sure.’

  Zemskov frowned at the reservation. ‘How long?’ he said, wanting specifics.

  ‘Two or three days.’

  ‘We’ll look forward to the meeting.’

  And so would he, thought Kalenin; he’d wear his medals for the ceremony.

  The butler, in dressing gown and pyjamas, tried to prevent their entry but the security men were accustomed to delaying tactics, bustling him aside the moment the door was opened into the Eaton Square apartment. Two took the stairs while another two waited for the lift. The fifth man insisted the butler take him through the servants’ quarters and up the back stairs.

  Rupert Willoughby awoke startled to find his bedroom full of men. ‘What the …?’

  ‘Rupert Willoughby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve a warrant for your arrest, under the Treason Act,’ said one of them.

  ‘Treason?’

  ‘We’d like you to get dressed and come with us.’

  ‘I want to ring my solicitors.’

  A security man moved the telephone away from the underwriter. The one holding the warrant said, ‘Later. Just come with us now.’

  26

  They hadn’t allowed him any water to wash or shave. Charlie had peed in the bucket and knew that the smell of the room clung to him. Jackson beckoned him from the doorway. Charlie got up slowly from the bed, stretching the cramp from his back. He’d spent the night hunched against the wall, knees beneath his chin, and felt lightheaded from sleeplessness. Charlie clutched at his unsupported clothing and shuffled out into the interrogation room. The arrangements were the same as before, except that there was a second man, in horn-rimmed glasses, at the recording table. He was seated behind a box file. But there was no chair for Charlie this time. Bastards, he thought. He stood with his legs apart, trying to keep his trousers up that way; they bagged at the waist.

  ‘We’ll discuss your defection,’ said Wilson, as if there had only been a few minutes’ interruption.

  ‘There was no defection,’ said Charlie.

  ‘At the end of 1977 you went to the Soviet Union,’

  ‘I did not.’

  Wilson put out his hand and from the box file the bespectacled man produced a small wallet. Wilson leaned forward across the table and said, ‘Is that your photograph?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie curiously.

  Wilson turned towards the recording equipment. ‘Exhibit 1 that Charles Muffin has identified containing his photograph is an identity document, according him the rank of major in the KGB and establishing entry into the Soviet Union in November 1977.’

  ‘This is nonsense.’

  ‘We found everything in your flat,’ said the director. ‘And Walsingham’s on-demand safe deposit box here in Rome. If he hadn’t panicked, you’d have got away with it. He would have been dead, but you’d still have been free.’

  Wilson was handed something else from the document box and held it up for Charlie. ‘Is that your photograph attached to this card?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Careful, he thought: he’d let the irritation show.

  Again Wilson turned to the side table. ‘Let the record show that Muffin has just acknowledged his photograph on the official authorization to concessions in certain restricted Moscow stores. It will be exhibit 2.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ demanded Charlie. ‘You know it’s not true.’

  Wilson ignored the protest. ‘Do you know what these are?’ He held up some sort of decoration in his hand. With it was a long, official-looking form. Charlie saw the writing was Cyrillic.

  ‘I’ve never seen either before in my life,’ said Charlie. He tried to reject the panic sweeping through him.

  Once more Wilson spoke to his right. ‘Exhibit 3 is the official decoration of the Hero of the Soviet Union, with a citation commending Charles Muffin for outstanding work on behalf of the security service of the Soviet Union.’

  ‘It’s not true!’ said Charlie desperately. ‘It’s complete invention.’

  Naire-Hamilton cupped his hand to Wilson. The director listened, and then said to Charlie, ‘There’s no point in extending this, is there? Why not admit it?’

  ‘My name is Charlie Muffin,’ he recited, in a name, rank and serial number monotone. ‘In 1977 I disclosed to the Soviet Union the whereabouts in Vienna of the British and American intelligence directors, for personal reasons. That is all I have ever done. At no time beyond that have I had any contact with Russia.…’ He stared straight at Naire-Hamilton. ‘I have killed no one.’

  ‘What’s that?’ demanded Wilson.

  ‘A Canadian passport,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Take it.’

  Charlie held onto his trousers with his left hand and felt out with his right.

  ‘What’s the entry stamp, on page thirty-six?’

  Charlie turned the pages awkwardly, supporting the document against his chest. ‘Delhi,’ he said.

  ‘Did you, on 14 April, two days after the admission into India recorded on that date stamp, kill a British intelligence agent named Walter Thomison?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What’s the entry on page twenty-eight?’

  Charlie fumbled through. ‘Ankara.’

  ‘Did you, on 27 August, one day after your arrival in Turkey, assassinate Rupert Bullock, a British intelligence agent attached to the embassy there?’

  ‘This is a farce.…’

  ‘Page forty-four,’ stipulated Wilson.

  Dully Charlie turned the pages. ‘Bangkok.’

  ‘Did you, on 3 October, four days after your arrival, shoot Peter Weighill, who had been identified to you as an intelligence operative working out of the British embassy in Thailand?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. His mind was misted by the accusations being made against him.

  ‘Do you recognize these?’ demanded the director, offering a fan spread of paper.

  Charlie sighed. ‘No,’ he said.

  Wilson went to the note table. ‘This will be itemized as exhibit 5, the passport being exhibit 4,’ he said. ‘It consists of congratulatory cables, two signed personally by General Kalenin, commending Charlie Muffin on the success of his assassination of British agents attached to embassies in the three countries in which the Canadian passport numbered 18756 shows he had access.’

  He’d let them play themselves out. There was nothing else he could do.

  ‘Let the deposition show we are discussing what I shall identify as exhibit 6,’ said Wilson. He offered it to Charlie. It was long, running to two pages and on flimsy paper that Charlie remembered from intelligence briefings. ‘Do you know this?’

  ‘No.’

  Wilson sat back, holding it loosely before him. ‘It’s your instruction sheet.’

 
‘What instruction sheet?’

  ‘Telling you what to do here,’ said Wilson. ‘Telling you that Henry Walsingham, a spy like you, had panicked after the caution from Moscow that he was under suspicion and intended organizing a robbery on the ambassador’s safe, believing information incriminating him was being held there.…’ Wilson broke off. ‘You were brilliant, getting to that safe as you did to find it wasn’t so. Didn’t Walsingham believe you when you told him there was nothing there?’

  ‘Walsingham wasn’t a spy.’

  Wilson waved the paper. ‘The instructions make it clear you were to kill him, because he’d become unstable. You had to improvise when the robbery went ahead, didn’t you?’

  ‘Like everything else alleged today, this is complete nonsense,’ said Charlie. He spoke towards the recorder: if they were going to get the bullshit on tape, his denials were going to be there too.

  ‘You knew Walsingham, didn’t you: you were his control?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ve proof,’ said Wilson. ‘We found the key, to the safe deposit box. It’s all there.’

  ‘I met Henry Walsingham the day after the robbery, at the ambassador’s villa at Ostia. I had never met him before.’

  Wilson reached for the document.

  ‘Exhibit 7 will be listed as the Soviet message indicating initial control contact with Charlie Muffin,’ he said. ‘It contains a notation in Walsingham’s handwriting confirming that the meeting took place on 10 June last year in Washington.’

  Relief surged through Charlie. ‘What was that date?’

  ‘10 June!’

  ‘No!’ said Charlie triumphantly. ‘And now it’s in the record there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  As Charlie through of Willough by there was a kaleidoscope of imagery, of his meeting in the underwriter’s office and then, intrusively, of a grey-suited man reading a magazine in the waiting room; the same grey-suited man who fell into step behind Clarissa as she walked past the Trevi fountain.