Comrade Charlie

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I didn’t have any alternative,’ said Blackstone stubbornly. ‘I was ill.’

  ‘You didn’t say that before.’

  Blackstone’s shirt was glued to his back by sweat and he had consciously to press one hand against the other in his lap to prevent the shake being noticeable. He was gripped by despair, finding it difficult to hold in his mind which answers he’d given to which questions: difficult to get his mind to function at all. He said: ‘It’s not something you talk about, is it?’

  ‘If you’re asked to explain being on premises where you’ve no right to be I would think it’s something you talk about,’ insisted Charlie.

  Blackstone shrugged, not knowing an answer. ‘I didn’t.’ He knew he couldn’t go on much longer. Soon he was going to say something, admit something, and it was all going to be over. Everything. Thirty years: he was going to go to prison for thirty years.

  Time for a sharp confrontation, gauged Charlie. He said: ‘You’re very nervous, Henry. If this is all the innocent misunderstanding you say it is, why are you so nervous?’

  Blackstone frantically thought he saw an escape. He was engulfed by fear and recognized it as desperate but it was a matter of the lesser against the greater and his mind was blocked by the thought of a lifetime sentence if he admitted what he’d done. He said: ‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Charlie. ‘Why should that be important?’

  ‘It’s not, I don’t suppose,’ said Blackstone. ‘But you don’t believe me, do you? So you’re going to go on digging and if you go on digging long enough you’re going to find out, aren’t you?’ He was committed now. There was no going back: lesser against the greater, he tried to convince himself. Nothing could be greater than thirty years.

  Here it comes! thought Charlie. He’d have to get Slade in to witness whatever the confession was when it came to be written down. Not time yet, though: the hurdle of the first admission was always the most difficult. Once they started talking they usually found it impossible to stop. He said: ‘What is it I’m going to find out, Henry?’

  ‘Two wives,’ mumbled Blackstone. ‘I’ve got two wives. Not legally allowed to do that, am I?’

  Charlie held back from laughing out loud but it wasn’t easy. ‘Not my line of business,’ he said. A reasonable enough explanation for the nervousness, he acknowledged.

  ‘You’re not interested in that!’ An uncertain hope came through all the other switchbacking emotions. Surely he wasn’t going to get away with it completely!

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Like I said, I’m not a policeman. That’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I thought it would be.’ The man had accepted it! Blackstone decided hopefully.

  A time to press hard and a time to behave softly, thought Charlie. Abruptly he announced: ‘I think that’s enough for today.’

  ‘For today?’

  ‘There are a few other things I’d like to cover but not today,’ said Charlie. ‘Why don’t we break now? See each other again tomorrow morning.’

  He had escaped, accepted Blackstone. Temporarily perhaps, but it was enough, just to get away from the back-and-forth questioning that had his head in a whirl, confusing him, so he couldn’t think. He said: ‘Of course. Whatever you say.’

  ‘How about ten o’clock?’

  Blackstone nodded agreement to the time and said: ‘So you’re not a policeman?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Will you tell the police about me?’

  ‘I told you, I’m not interested,’ repeated Charlie.

  For the first time there was a twitch of a smile, like a light clicking on and off. He’d well and truly deflected the other man, like he’d set out to do, determined Blackstone triumphantly. ‘Appreciate it,’ he said. ‘Not as if I’m hurting anyone, is it? I treat them both the same. They’re both happy.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ assured Charlie.

  He’d won but only just, Blackstone realized objectively as he left the factory. And there was no telling for how long. He needed to talk to someone and there was only one person to whom he could talk. The urge was overwhelming to go to the first public kiosk he could find but Blackstone forced himself to stay calm, waiting until he’d crossed the river and was going inland before stopping at the telephone box he normally used, three miles outside of Newport. It wasn’t Losev who took the call, of course, but Blackstone said at once there was an emergency and that he had to speak to the man with whom he personally dealt, refusing any explanation. It was arranged he should call back in fifteen minutes and when he did the Russian was there, waiting. The dam broke the moment Blackstone was connected. He babbled disjointedly and Losev stopped him and told him to relax, then demanded the account in a controlled, consecutive way. Blackstone managed it but not easily, pumping coins into the pay phone as one time period expired to run into another.

  When Blackstone finished the Russian said: ‘Why didn’t you warn me when you were first caught?’

  ‘I knew I’d got away with it that time.’

  ‘And now you’ve admitted your bigamy?’

  ‘I couldn’t think of any other way to get him off my back: I couldn’t think straight.’

  ‘He’s not going to do anything about it?’

  ‘He said he wasn’t.’

  Losev was furious once more at the renewed difficulties Blackstone’s detection posed for him personally, his mind far ahead of the immediate problems. It meant he couldn’t recover with Moscow as he’d hoped over the incomplete drawing with which the bastard had already tricked him. And that even if Blackstone got through the postponed interrogation he couldn’t risk using the man for a long time. He said: ‘You really think the project manager is looking favourably upon your re-application?’

  ‘That’s the impression I got. He was very friendly. I don’t know what could happen now.’

  So the man still had potential, acknowledged Losev, despite his anger. Too much for him to be disregarded or cast off, which was what Losev would have liked to do. As emphatically as possible he assured Blackstone there was nothing for him to worry about: that the only risk was in the man confessing. All Blackstone had to do was keep his head and he would be safe. ‘Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Blackstone, subdued.

  ‘You’ve got to do it,’ insisted Losev, as forcefully as possible. ‘The only person who can put you in jail is yourself.’

  ‘Should I keep in touch?’

  ‘Not for a week or two. Don’t do anything that might attract suspicion or attention,’ ordered Losev.

  ‘It frightens me to be questioned by someone I know to be an intelligence official, although he looks like a tramp.’

  It worried Losev, too. Which was why the Soviet station chief rushed a surveillance squad to the Isle of Wight overnight, to be in position when Charlie went into the interrogation room that Blackstone had identified during his terrified call. They succeeded in getting a total of five photographs of Charlie. Losev was a very diligent as well as a very ambitious intelligence officer. He made the routine comparison at once with the dossier that Berenkov had sent from Moscow weeks before. And realized that while he might have encountered a setback with one assignment he had succeeded in another. He’d identified the whereabouts of someone called Charlie Muffin.

  Which an hour later, in Moscow, Berenkov regarded as very important indeed.

  ‘This isn’t like it used to be, is it?’ asked Barbara. ‘Not like it’s supposed to be?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Krogh, glad she had initiated the conversation.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She’d tried hard to make it work for him that night, but it hadn’t. She sat at the side of the bed now, voluptuous and full breasted, wearing a diaphanous cover that secured at the neck with a tie and ended just short of her crotch. Her hair was unsecured, falling to her shoulders.

  ‘One of those things, I guess,’ said Krogh.

  ‘I never think these sort of
situations should end badly: people saying things that hurt.’

  ‘I don’t think that either,’ agreed Krogh. It was all happening remarkably easily. Thank Christ something was, at last.

  Barbara gestured around the San Francisco apartment. ‘This is your place: I know that.’

  ‘Take as long as you want. No hurry.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You need any money?’

  ‘I guess the apartment agents will want a deposit. They often do.’

  ‘Five thousand OK?’

  ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘I should be going.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Take care.’

  ‘You, too.’

  ‘I will,’ assured Krogh. ‘I really will.’

  20

  There was a wariness about Blackstone but not the leaking nervousness of the previous day. He hadn’t known what to expect then, but now he thought he did. He determined not to underestimate the other man because of the way he looked. And not to panic. Blackstone accepted that was what he’d done, blurting out the confession about Ann and Ruth like he had. He regretted that: regretted it bitterly. It had given a reason for his anxiety – he hoped – but he couldn’t be sure what the man would do with the information, so he was vulnerable. But only from that, he tried to convince himself. The Russian had been right about the other business: without an open admission, they had no case against him. That’s all he had to remember: no admission, no case. And not to panic.

  Charlie, who’d found a very reasonable pub in which to stay just back from the seafront, savoured a bacon and two eggs breakfast and was enjoying being back in operation after his enforced hibernation, smiled up encouragingly at Blackstone’s entry and said: ‘Here we are again then!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blackstone. The man seemed friendlier than the previous day but Blackstone wasn’t going to be fooled by that.

  ‘Where were we?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Blackstone, still cautious. ‘You said you still had some questions.’

  ‘I probably did,’ said Charlie, as if he couldn’t remember them any more. ‘This is my first time on the Isle of Wight. I like it.’

  ‘Some people find it claustrophobic,’ allowed Blackstone.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. I was born here. It’s not a feeling you get if you’re a born islander.’

  ‘You got both your homes here?’

  Careful! thought Blackstone at once: it appeared to be a way the man had, suddenly slipping in possibly tricky questions. He said: ‘One here, one in Portsmouth, just across the water.’

  ‘Best of both worlds then?’

  ‘You’re going to get me prosecuted for it, aren’t you?’

  Having jabbed at the man’s weak point, to unsettle him, Charlie ignored the question. Instead he said: ‘Something that I can’t understand about the period you were inside the secure section that second time is how no one saw you. Out of twenty or so people in or around the building, no one saw you?’

  No admission, no case, thought Blackstone. ‘I don’t know why either,’ he shrugged.

  ‘You any idea what the secret project is?’

  Blackstone shook his head positively. ‘How could I, if it’s secret? The rumour is that it involves our carbon fibre process but that’s rather obvious: that’s what we specialize in.’

  ‘Tell me about that,’ invited Charlie.

  Blackstone did, without difficulty, feeling quite relaxed with generalities and confident that here he was under no threat. He talked of reinforced resin systems and monoplastics and thermoset processes and guessed the other man was having trouble keeping up with him, which pleased Blackstone because it was good to feel superior for a change. Charlie interjected to ask which of the processes were being used on the secret project and Blackstone evaded the trap easily, saying that he had no way of knowing. Blackstone saw another snare when Charlie asked what process he guessed it would be and actually laughed at the man, saying that he had no way of knowing that, either.

  Blackstone’s restored assurance faltered slightly when Charlie insisted on going back over the whole episode again but the hesitation was brief because he guessed the ploy was to jump on any variation from his first account. And he had that word perfect by now and knew when he finished he hadn’t changed his story by a single word.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ concluded Charlie politely.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got anything else to tell me?’

  ‘No,’ said Blackstone at once. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then that’s it,’ agreed Charlie.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Blackstone. ‘Do I stay suspended?’

  ‘I don’t see why you should.’

  No admission, no case, thought Blackstone: the feeling of satisfaction, of triumph, surged through him. He’d done it again! Not as easily as before, but he’d come through a second inquiry – with an intelligence officer this time – and got away with it again! He wished he could tell the Russian at once how well he’d done. Blackstone said: ‘Thank you. I’m glad it’s all over.’

  ‘A silly misunderstanding, like you said,’ suggested Charlie.

  ‘It’s good to be finally believed.’

  ‘We’ve always got to be sure,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh, I understand,’ allowed Blackstone generously, positively enjoying himself, genuinely knowing a feeling of superiority over Charlie. ‘That’s how it always should be.’

  ‘So let’s follow security procedures more closely in the future, shall we?’ grinned Charlie.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ assured Blackstone, grinning back. ‘I won’t do anything like it again.’

  ‘I’ll tell the management and security that it’s all settled,’ promised Charlie.

  Blackstone rose but stood uncertainly before the desk, wondering whether he should offer to shake hands. Deciding against it he said: ‘I’ll be going then?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Charlie.

  After the man left the room Charlie sat for a long time looking out over the river and sea beyond, flecked with yacht sails and holiday ferries and motor craft, but seeing none of it. At last he shifted, finding his way to the office where the security chief sat strangely upright, as if trying not to wrinkle the immaculately maintained uniform, still hostile from being excluded from the encounters with Blackstone. Charlie patiently provided Slade with the promised report of the interviews and then crossed once more to the security area to speak, independently, with Springley.

  Outside again, in the road between the two buildings, the former sergeant major said: ‘So the suspension can be lifted right away?’

  ‘From this moment,’ agreed Charlie.

  ‘You going to file a report when you get back to London?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Charlie. ‘You know all about obeying orders, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t forget what I said, will you?’ demanded the man. ‘There’s no danger of any classified information getting into the wrong hands from this establishment.’

  ‘It’s going to be one of the first points I make,’ assured Charlie.

  ‘Sorry you had a wasted trip,’ said Slade, mollified at last at the thought of his name featuring in a Whitehall document.

  ‘Happens all the time: think what a disaster it would be if they weren’t wasted trips!’

  But he didn’t return immediately to London. Charlie Muffin was a man who reacted to hunches and instincts, which had invariably stood him in good stead in the past, although it would have been an exaggeration to describe his feeling quite so strongly on this occasion. At best, he felt a general unease. Whatever – hunch, instinct or unease – he considered it sufficient to stay on a while longer where the sun was still shining, the air was fresh and he got two fresh eggs for breakfast every morning, without even asking for them. And by so doing to impose upon Henry Blackstone, self-confessed bigamist and selfadmitted security rule bender, a period of intense but
undetected surveillance.

  It proved a frustrating and even more unsettling exercise.

  He followed Blackstone to and from his Newport home and he learned about the Monday night at the cinema and the darts night on Thursday. He decided Ann was an attractive-enough-looking housewife, although quite heavily overweight, who appeared content with her limited existence, which upon reflection the majority of housewives appeared to be. Using the authority of London headquarters he had Blackstone’s bank statements and financial affairs accessed just as efficiently and thoroughly as the Russians before him, and uncovered the man’s straitened circumstances. And was in a position to acknowledge – more quickly than the Russians at a comparable stage of their separate surveillance – that Blackstone’s shortage of money was caused by the drain of maintaining the two admitted households. But there were no indicative, tell-tale deposits in any financial account to show by as much as a penny the slightest additional, welcome income beyond that which the man received as a senior-grade tracer at an Isle of Wight aeronautics factory. Blackstone drank lager beer, on draught, not bottled. He preferred the colour blue, in the clothes he wore. He didn’t smoke. He had an account at a betting shop. He didn’t read a regular newspaper. He had no close male friends. He was, in fact, such a boring man that Charlie reckoned he had to have a prick like a baby’s arm with an apple in its hand to keep one wife happy, let alone two, no matter how mundanely content they were.

  But the sensation of unease wouldn’t go. Rather, it increased and as the days passed Charlie encountered other feelings, like irritation and anger. Yet Blackstone did nothing nor behaved in the slightest way suspiciously, which worsened Charlie’s irritation and anger.

  Charlie allowed a full week to elapse before contacting Westminster Bridge Road. It was an open and therefore insecure telephone link, because it couldn’t be anything else from where Charlie was operating and Charlie intended doing nothing beyond reporting an intention to return to the clerk whose sole function it was to receive inexplicable messages from people he could never ask to be more explicit. But there was a note against Charlie’s code designation which meant he had to be routed through to the acting Director General.