Norrington took a long time to answer. “Nothing specific,” the man said, finally.
“What wasn’t specific?” persisted Charlie, refusing to give up.
“There was something about the languages he could speak-that he was often called upon by other people, in other units, to help them.”
“Did he say which other units?”
The older man shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”
He couldn’t avoid leading, Charlie accepted. “Nothing about military intelligence? Intelligence of any sort?”
“No,” said Norrington, positively.
“Who was Jessica?” demanded Charlie, abandoning one direction for another.
“One of the personal things I mentioned.”
Charlie waited.
“Someone he met in London. There was talk of an engagement. They had a flat, in Pimlico. He had to interpret one night at a reception. Churchill, de Gaulle, a lot of Roosevelt’s staff; America was in the war by late 1943, remember. There was an air raid. When he got back to Pimlico, their block had been destroyed by a land mine. Jessica was one of the ten who died.”
“What about people Simon worked with?” Charlie hurried on. “Did he talk about any in particular? Refer to anyone as a friend?”
Again Norrington took his time. “There were things in the letters, but not until after he went back for the last time that December. I never knew who they were.”
“I want to put some names to you,” said Charlie, taking from his pocket the list from the Berlin group photograph. “I know it was a long time ago, but one might trigger something.”
“I doubt it. But let’s try.”
“Wilson?”
“No.”
“Allison?”
“No.”
“Larisa Krotkov?”
“Russian?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t ever remember him talking of working with Russians.”
“What about using the language?”
“No.”
“Smith?”
“No.”
“Raisa Belous?”
“She’s the woman found in the grave! The Russian woman?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose he must have known her, mustn’t he?”
“You don’t remember his ever mentioning her?”
“No.”
“Bellamy?”
“No.”
“Timpson?”
“No.”
“Dunne?”
“No.”
“Jacobson?”
“No.”
Silence fell between them.
Norrington said, “Who are they?”
“People I believe Simon worked with.”
“Where’d you get the names?”
“America,” said Charlie, which was close enough to the truth. “Some of them were American.”
“He worked with the Russian women, as well?”
“There was a connection. I don’t know what, not yet.” Would he ever? Charlie asked himself.
“I’m sorry,” apologized Norrington. He gestured over his shoulder, toward the two repacked boxes. “I know everything there by heart. If there’d been a hint, I would have recognized it. I was waiting for an obvious Scots name, for ‘Scotty.’” The man paused. “I’ve already spoken to Sir Rupert: told him what I told you, about my time limit.”
“What did he say?”
“That he hoped you’d meet the deadline.”
“So do I,” said Charlie.
“The media release brought the American woman back but not the Englishman?” demanded Nikulin.
“Yes,” said Natalia. There were just the two of them in the chief of staffs office. He’d served tea and sweetmeats.
“And he hasn’t been in contact?”
“Not since the day he left.” It had been a bad mistake for Charlie not to have telephoned Lestov.
“There’s no doubt that the button found in the grave was British?”
“None,” said Natalia, uncomfortably.
“They must know who the second man was: have an identity they want to hide.”
“Possibly.”
“Everyone knows Stalin was a monster, that the regime then is not the government of today. Why don’t we turn the announcement of this new discovery into the finding of the evidence of a second mystery Briton? Put pressure upon them? We could even keep our understanding of cooperation: tell London what we’re going to do, before we do it. And we’d have to tell them direct if their man isn’t here, wouldn’t we?”
Exposing Charlie to every sort of criticism, Natalia thought. How could she manipulate a delay? “I don’t understand how the woman, Larisa Krotkov, can have disappeared so completely.”
“You think you’re being blocked?”
“Yes,” exaggerated Natalia, eagerly.
“Then let’s see if the obstruction extends to the president’s office,” accepted Nikulin.
“Perhaps we should wait until we establish that-and a reason, if it is the case-before moving on the British idea?”
“Not for much longer,” determined the man. “So far we’ve been ahead in virtually everything. That’s how I want us to stay.”
On the other side of Moscow, Fyodor Ivanovich Belous nervously opened the door of his apartment only sufficiently to see it was Vadim Lestov, backed by a three-man squad.
“Don’t be shy, Fyodor Ivanovich,” said the militia colonel. “We’ve come back for a second look.”
29
The telephone was lifted at the first ring. A man’s voice, toneless and nameless, said, “Yes?”
Charlie said, “I understand you’re interested in a Lieutenant Simon Norrington, who died a long time ago a very long way from home.”
“Who is this?”
It would be a dedicated line and number, equipped for instant trace. But there would be no one in place and Charlie had chosen a telephone on the platform of the Euston underground station and estimated it would take them as much as thirty minutes, maybe more, to get anywhere near him. And by then he would have gone, as far as they were concerned, in any of a dozen different directions. “Someone else who’s interested.”
“Are you sure you’ve got the right number?”
Trying to prolong the conversation, to get the trace. All the buttons would have been pressed, everyone mobilized, waiting for the location. Charlie felt a flicker of nostalgia. “You tell me.” Charlie was timing the call: forty-five seconds so far.
“Where did you get this number?”
“It’s been left with quite a few people, hasn’t it?”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Someone who was as interested in Lieutenant Norrington as we are.” The Burbage identity would have only been on the card given to Sir Matthew and then logged personally against the baronet, the contact pseudonym providing an instant trace to the source.
“I meant the name of the person.”
“I know you did.”
“You seem well informed about certain things.”
A full minute, Charlie noted. It would be a mistake to disclose too much tradecraft. He didn’t try to speak over the loudspeaker announcement of a southbound train terminating at the Oval, which would be automatically recorded by the specially equipped telephone and mislead them to the Northern Line. “And about Lieutenant Norrington in particular.”
“I think we need to meet.”
“So did I.” They might just alert a local police station-the transport police, even-for him to be held without explanation until they arrived. He’d allow himself another thirty seconds.
“Shall I come to you?”
“No. I’ll come to you.” They’d imagine he’d made a mistake.
“Where?”
“Somewhere open, obviously.”
“How about Waterloo station?”
“That’s convenient,” said Charlie, for them to imagine another slip.
“How shall I recognize you?
”
“Tell me how to recognize you.”
There was a pause. “I’ll wear a light fawn raincoat, unbelted. And I carry a closed umbrella as well as a copy of the Evening Standard in the same hand, the left.”
The old ways were still the best, reflected Charlie, nostalgic again. “Whereabouts on the station?”
“Directly opposite platform fifteen.”
“Time?”
“One o’clock.”
“I won’t be late,” lied Charlie.
“Neither will I.”
Charlie cleaned the receiver, which was sure to be checked for fingerprints, with the handkerchief with which he’d been careful toinsert the coins before briefly returning to ground level to cross to Euston Square for the Circle Line. He made it before his feet began to protest. One o’clock gave them two and a half hours to get into position, which was a lot. A big team, then. A high-alert designation. They’d already be swamping the Nothern Line, imagining from his convenience remark that he would use it to reach Waterloo from Euston.
It was immaterial in which direction he went; the only need now to get away from Euston as quickly as possible. The first train to arrive was heading east and he got on, settling himself for the long, circuitous loop to the south. It was only the beginning, but Charlie was pleased with the way it had gone. He would, obviously, go through it entirely, although he was already sure he’d been speaking to an MI6 section controller. He hoped things were going as well at his own headquarters building on the other side of the Thames. Sir Rupert Dean had promised a team and there were only five obvious Britons from their uniforms in the Berlin photograph. Hopefully it would not be difficult to trace any who might still be alive. Charlie would still have preferred to do it himself-trusting no one but himself to do anything properly-but had deferred to the director-general’s argument that the search and the sources were routine and that this had priority. He checked his watch as the train turned south at Liverpool Street: a third of the way in twelve minutes, faster than he’d estimated. Some would already be at Waterloo by now, getting into position, gaining vantage points, borrowing uniforms, parking off-duty taxis that would never ply for hire. How many more, Charlie wondered, were doomed to a day’s travel up and down the Northern Line? And how many more than that would spend an even more frustrating day sitting on each of the intermediary stations between Edgeware and Morden, mentally promising themselves, if they ever discovered his name, the pleasure of slowly castrating with a blunt and rusty penknife the bastard who’d caused them such misery?
Even with the necessary change at the Embankment, Charlie still reached Waterloo with an hour and three-quarters to spare before the appointment he had no intention of keeping. He ambled easily along the concourse, establishing from the indicator board that trains from platform 15 served local suburban stations. Equally casually he bought himself a ticket to Windsor and on his way to the first-floorstation bar purchased a selection of that day’s newspapers. He had to drink standing at the bar for fifteen minutes before a table became vacant at the panoramic window overlooking the concourse itself, immediately checking adjoining tables with the same view for anyone as prepared as himself for a long wait. There wasn’t anyone.
Charlie worked his way through three disappointingly blended scotches, four newspapers-all of which kept the mystery Russian announcement on their front pages-and was sure he’d definitely identified a yellow-jacketed cleaner sweeping the same stretch of the concourse, a station attendant who didn’t seem to know the answer to anyone’s question and a shuffling, bottle-clutching wino as the immediate watchers by twelve forty-five, when the fawn-raincoated man with the Evening Standard and a tightly furled umbrella in his left hand actually emerged from platform 15 on an arriving train and began studiously studying the display board. Almost at once the uniformed station attendant passed close and the sweeper chose a patch by the adjoining platform 14 and Charlie thought again that standards were definitely dropping.
The waiting man’s impatience showed almost at once in constant attention to his watch and head-twisted checks to the station clock. Charlie remained where he was until one-fifteen, abandoning his newspapers when he moved. As he went across to the designated platform, he wondered if the easily spotted group had ever learned the old adage that the most successful way to follow was to be in front. He went on to platform 15 without pausing, settling himself in the rear car to see each person coming onto the platform to board the train after him. Neither the man in the fawn raincoat nor the others he’d isolated did, which he hadn’t really expected so soon. At Vauxhall he explained to the ticket collector he’d changed his mind about going to Windsor and made his way unhurriedly toward the antennae-haired edifice by the river at Vauxhall Cross to get into position himself. He had to wait two hours on an embankment bench, sympathizing afresh with those who would still be buried underground, before he saw the raincoated man coming from the direction of the station. The Waterloo sweeper was with him, but they weren’t talking. Neither looked happy. The two others he’d identified were in the first of two returning taxis.
“So our colleagues across the river are running a rival operation,”accepted Sir Rupert Dean, an hour later. “And you were right. Well done.”
“There’s certainly an operation,” agreed Charlie. “I’d like to know what its purpose is.”
“It’s another blank wall with your names,” said the director-general. “Norrington’s unit was nominally military police: all of your five were, in fact, seconded from civilian forces. Every one of them is dead ….” He paused. “And as far as we know are in their proper graves. I guess that only leaves you with your Americans: and we know that one of them is dead, too, don’t we?”
Charlie felt a sink of disappointment, which almost at once became embarrassment, at his having to concede an oversight so quickly after being congratulated. “Maybe not,” he said. “I left one out. John Parnell wasn’t on my list. He was Norrington’s commanding officer who wrote the letter of condolence. A colonel.”
It took two hours to locate a Colonel John Wesley Parnell on the retired officers’ list, with an address in Rye, in Sussex. The quivering-voiced man answered the phone himself and said if it was important of course he’d see Charlie that night. He’d enjoy the company but apologized for not being able to offer dinner. Charlie said he wouldn’t think of imposing.
As Charlie headed south across the river yet again, this time in the rented car and slowed by evening rush-hour traffic, he thought happily that when you’re on a roll you’re on a roll and it was one of the better feelings. He probably wouldn’t have time to call Natalia, but she’d know there was a working reason, would be pleased to hear tomorrow that at long last there seemed to be some movement. As he had going to and from Sir Matthew Norrington’s Hampshire estate, Charlie drove constantly checking his rearview mirror for any obviously following cars. There weren’t any. Would Henry Packer have been replaced in Moscow? Charlie’s being in London meant Natalia and Sasha were safe, he realized, relieved.
It was a small house, its only attribute, in daylight, a partial view of the distant sea from what had to be the last road from which it would have been possible, the final stop of a lonely widower to genteel poverty. Charlie guessed the grandfather clock with the sticky, heartbeat tick in the hall and a few pieces of silver and engraved glass inthe open-fronted cabinet were all there was left to sell and thought of Fyodor Belous in Moscow. Charlie guessed, too, that the rugs that covered most of the furniture were to hide the splits and escape of their stuffing. It wouldn’t have been difficult to make a prosecution for gross indecency against the anally intrusive chair upon which he was sitting, with some twisted difficulty. Charlie was taking only token sips of the supermarket sherry retired Colonel John Parnell had insisted on serving from a decanter, not because it wasn’t any good but because he didn’t like sherry. He didn’t imagine the old man was eating any dinner that night, either.
Charlie remained silent and unco
mfortable while the old soldier pored over the photographs Charlie produced of the Yakutsk grave, the bodies inside it, the mortuary shots of the corpses and the group copy of the art-recovery squad he’d obtained in Berlin. There were what appeared to be a lot of wartime photographs in the stark room in which they were sitting, but Charlie hadn’t been able to locate any of the people in whom he was interested from where he was sitting.
It was a long time before Parnell finally looked up. “Incredible. Absolutely incredible.” The voice was frail, like the man himself. He was thin and bald, shrunk with age inside an enveloping cardigan heavily and badly darned at both elbows. “Such a good, fine man. Unbelievable.”
Incredible and unbelievable had been the constant interjection during Charlie’s recitation of yet another edited account of the discovery of Lieutenant Simon Norrington’s body.
“You commanded the unit?” began Charlie, gently. “Know everyone in the Berlin photographs?”
“Only commanded the Britons, although I knew George Timpson and Harry Dunne, who everyone called Hank. But I didn’t know either of the women. You say the dark-haired one at the end was found in the grave with Simon? Incredible!”
“I didn’t know the fraternization was quite that close.”
“Neither did I, to tell you the truth. Us and the Americans, certainly. Good working relationship, for our particular job, but then most of them were only token soldiers: really professional policemen and art experts like Norrington and Timpson and Dunne. Surprised I didn’t hear about the women.”
“So you’ve never seen them before? No idea of their names?”
“Afraid not.”
“When do you think that photograph might have been taken?”
“Right at the very end, obviously. We were always at the sharp end: needed to be there before people and what they stole got dispersed. Difficult enough to track stuff down as it was.”
“Can you recognize the building in the background?”
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