by Alan Judd
‘That’s what he said, more or less.’
Viktor was not only more at ease than the others but evidently at pains to keep a fairly desultory conversation going, in which he was not much helped by his wife. ‘You can see why he went elsewhere,’ said Rebecca. ‘Was she attractive?’
‘Not really, no. Well, presentable and, by comparison, yes, I suppose so.’
‘You never –’
‘No.’
‘– asked him much about his wife.’
‘Perhaps I should’ve.’
Viktor had his back three-quarters to them. He had almost certainly not seen them. There was a reasonable chance he would on the way out, or that it should be fairly easy to arrange in the drawing room over coffee. The signal required eye contact. Charles and Rebecca had to linger over dinner.
‘Not sure you should leave it until afterwards,’ she said. ‘They might not have coffee, might go straight up to their rooms. And we can’t guarantee he’ll look at us on the way out. I think we should take an interest in the pictures.’
There were large, rather sonorous portraits at the far end of the room. They detoured past them when they had finished their meal, pausing before each. ‘There is something of granny in her,’ said Rebecca quite loudly, standing before a heavily jowelled, unhappy looking lady in pink. ‘She always said we were descended but no one’s ever checked.’
‘Wrong side of the blanket, knowing your family,’ said Charles.
‘At least mine had blankets.’ She turned to face the portrait on the far side, looking straight across the Russian tables. ‘There’s a resemblance there, too, you see.’
The Russians looked at her. None paid any attention to him except Viktor, who sat facing them. Charles, his hand in his pocket ready, took out his handkerchief and briefly wiped his nose. ‘I’m not sure that’s the same artist.’
‘Same family, I bet.’ Rebecca stepped adroitly round the tables without waiting for him, her skirt swinging, her eyes on the painting and the Russians’ eyes still mainly on her. Charles followed. As he passed Viktor took out his handkerchief and dabbed his lips. OK to go ahead? Charles had signalled. Go ahead, Viktor had replied.
‘Told you,’ said Rebecca. ‘They’re sisters.’
‘Time for coffee.’ Charles moved off.
Rebecca faced the picture for a moment longer, then turned, glanced directly at Rhykov, smiled slightly, raised her eyebrows as if to suggest helplessness, and followed Charles. Rhykov’s surprise became a mute, embarrassed appeal as he looked at his colleagues to see who had seen. Their expressions were suddenly guarded, awkward. Krychkov stared from him to Rebecca, his features furrowed almost into a parody of suspicious disapproval. Viktor began talking to Krychkov, as if he alone were oblivious. Rhykov looked at his plate and toyed with his food.
They did not take coffee in the drawing room but had it sent upstairs to an elegant and deserted reception room on the first floor. ‘D’you think it was enough?’ asked Charles.
‘I was more worried about overdoing it, making it too obvious. I felt awkward about it, to be honest. Not sure we should go ahead with part two.’ She looked tense.
‘I’m sure you did it brilliantly. Viktor says you have to lay it on with a JCB as far as Krychkov is concerned. Most hints are too subtle.’
‘You’re the case officer.’
Twice Charles went downstairs to reception, from where he could see through glass doors into the drawing room. The first time the Russians were not there but the second time they were. The room was crowded, with most seats taken. He went in and crossed to the newspaper table, in Viktor’s line of sight. From the corner of his eye he saw Viktor take out his handkerchief and dab his lips again. He returned to Rebecca. ‘He says go ahead with part two.’
She took off her jacket, took a scent bottle from her handbag and applied it liberally to her wrists and neck, lifting her dark hair out of the way. ‘I’m going to smell like a brothel. Are you sure this is really necessary?’
‘It was his idea.’
‘I think he’s a bit hung up on tarts.’
Rooms 26 and 27 were in a short corridor of their own but Charles’s room opened onto the carpeted corridor leading to it. He and Rebecca went to it and waited in silence, she in the armchair, he sitting on the bed. Her blouse was cream, her skirt the tartan and pleated one he had seen before. She looked composed now, and slightly playful.
They heard the lift, then footsteps and low voices, the seamless murmur of Russian. Charles watched through the keyhole as Viktor and Krychkov walked in slow, conspiratorial conversation down the corridor. When they had gone he nodded to her. ‘Give them a minute or two.’
‘What pretext has he used to get Krychkov up here?’
‘He’ll have told him he has worries, something he wants to confess in private. Sort of thing Krychkov can’t resist. He’ll say that his worry is that he thinks he’s being targeted by British special services because he’s seen us – the couple in the dining room – before, more than once. He might even have seen us at one of the functions the delegation has attended. He won’t mention Rhykov but we hope Krychkov will make the connection himself and draw the right, i.e. wrong, conclusion. That’s what they’ll be talking about when you do your bit.’
‘You’re quite, quite sure it’s not overdoing it?’
‘I’m quite sure that Viktor is sure it isn’t. I trust his judgement. He says he knows Krychkov’s type well, that he’s like his father’s friends. His father was a Chekist. He thinks that even if Krychkov suspects Rhykov is being set up by us, it’ll be because we’re seeking revenge for Rhykov’s letting us down in a relationship he hasn’t confessed. He says people like Krychkov got where they did only by being even more unreasonably suspicious than the next man.’
She took a pink envelope from her handbag and sealed it. ‘You’re absolutely sure it’s 27?’
‘Yes. Anyway, you can listen first.’ He checked the corridor. ‘Okay.’
She took off her shoes and slipped out. When she reached the short corridor, which turned off at right angles down two steps, she paused, then stepped carefully down. She tiptoed to number 26, listened to the murmurs within, then bent and slipped the envelope beneath the door of number 27, leaving the corner showing. She straightened, gave two soft knocks on the door, then walked rapidly back to Charles’s room.
‘Well done,’ he whispered.
‘Pity we can’t see if it works.’
‘Listen.’ They heard a door open and indistinct voices. Through the keyhole he saw Krychkov’s head show briefly round the corner. Charles turned and gave her the thumbs up sign. ‘Well done,’ he said again.
‘I’ll have to have another bath to get rid of this scent. It’s overpowering. My clothes will smell of it. So will your room.’
‘I rather like it.’
‘You probably like tartiness, too. Don’t you prefer something more subtle?’
‘I guess I must like the obvious.’
‘How disappointing.’
‘What about a walk along the front? Blow some of it away. So long as we get out without running into any of them.’
‘I’ll get my coat and boots.’
The empty envelope was Viktor’s refinement of Charles’s idea. Charles had suggested a compromising letter but Viktor argued that the absence of any letter was even more compromising. Rhykov would almost certainly open it and his story, if he reported it, of finding it empty would probably not be believed. An empty envelope was more subtly compromising than the more obvious contrivance of a letter of assignation. If he did not report it, he would be judged guilty beyond doubt by Krychkov who, with Viktor, would have seen it beneath the door. Any subsequent assertion that it contained nothing would not be believed. If Krychkov insisted on retrieving it before Rhykov saw it – Viktor would try to persuade him not to – its emptiness would still take on the sinister aspect of a signal.
‘We have to trust him to know his own,’ Charles had argued to Hoo
key.
‘But they can’t always be trusted to get it right, or they’d never get into trouble. Anyway, you must go ahead now it’s set up. Even if it does no positive good in distracting attention from Lover Boy and casting doubt on his accuser, it at least won’t do him any harm.’
The moon showed through broken cloud and a chilly, fretful breeze came off the sea as Charles and Rebecca walked the length of the promenade. ‘His wife didn’t open her mouth except to eat,’ said Charles. ‘Perhaps she’s found out about Claire.’
‘Or she’s too frightened to say anything in front of those gorillas.’
‘Doesn’t look a very cheerful marriage.’
‘Who knows what goes on in a marriage?’ They continued beyond the promenade, trudging along the wet beach to the narrow harbour, a river estuary with a few cottages, sheds and a pub. ‘I think I shall take New York,’ she said.
‘Sounds a good idea.’
‘As for what might have kept me here, it was an affair, as you doubtless guessed.’
‘Yes.’
‘With a married man.’
‘Ah.’
‘I finally realised he would never leave his wife.’
‘Some don’t. Office affair?’
‘Fnu snu as far as everyone else is concerned. I only mentioned it because – well, you meet so many girls like me in the office. They get around, have a nice time for a few years, go to lots of places, settle in none, meet lots of people, settle with none – or if they do try there are problems, as with mine. Another posting is always a convenient way out of an affair. And then one day you’re over the hill, you’re an office spinster, one of the old bags, no more postings, only admin jobs and playing bridge with each other or going to concerts in the evenings. They’re nice girls, they’ve got such a lot to offer, but I don’t want to end up one of them. Neither did they, I suppose.’
‘You could leave.’
‘True, but for what? You get bored with secretarial work after a while, even good secretarial work. I suppose it’s the same with any job. But it’s all I’m qualified for and if you’re going to be a secretary then this’ – she shrugged and looked from Charles to the sea and back – ‘is a better way of doing it than most.’
‘Bridge to another branch, get promotion. That’s what Hookey thinks you should do.’
‘Less fun, though.’
‘So you still want fun?’
‘That’s the trouble.’
The breeze had a spiteful edge to it now. Charles regretted not bothering with a coat, though he was in no hurry to end the walk. He was elated, and for most of the day had hardly thought about his father.
‘And you?’ she asked. ‘The lovely Mrs A1? She can’t be very cheerfully married, surely? Not to the awful Hugo.’
‘Is he that bad? An honourable man, in his way. Must have his good points.’ Defending Hugo made him feel as awkward as joining an attack upon him.
‘But you wouldn’t want to be his wife, would you? Anyway, that’s not the point.’
‘Why did you warn me that Anna was a dangerous lady?’
‘Not because I have anything against her. There’s no gossip or anything and I hardly know her myself. But she’s very attractive and gives the impression of not knowing what she wants, while wanting something. Dangerous for you is what I meant.’
‘I like her.’
‘Bit more than that, surely?’ She smiled. ‘Funny we should both have our hearts elsewhere. Or bits of them.’
‘Bits’ was about right, he thought. Anna was right, too: it was easy for him. And his father had been right when he wrote that geography moved more than the magnetic compass needle. Even the short distance from London to Southwold made a difference, he reflected, noticing how Rebecca’s pleated skirt swung beneath her coat as she walked. She was an athletic walker. ‘Convenient if your married man was Mr A1,’ he said.
‘Dream on, petal.’
They were back on the promenade when they saw the other couple coming towards them, both wearing coats, the woman with her collar turned up against the wind and the man with a cap on. Long before they could see their features, they knew who they were, but there was no avoiding them without drawing attention to the fact. The promenade at that point was a raised path above the beach, bounded inland by the garden fences of a handsome, stucco-fronted terrace. The other couple were arm-in-arm; Rebecca slipped her arm through Charles’s. The moment it became necessary to simulate conversation he could think of nothing to say.
‘What?’ said Rebecca as they drew nearer.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t catch what you said.’
‘I – have to confess, it was me sending you all those letters and those flowers. I’ve been obsessed by you since the day we met. I adore you.’
‘I assumed it was you because of the spelling.’
‘Do you forgive me?’
‘So long as you don’t stop now.’
Each couple made way for the other, passing without acknowledgement. The cap Viktor was wearing was Charles’s father’s. It was part of their long-term contact arrangements, intended as a signal at overseas meetings, and wearing it when there was no need seemed dangerously frivolous. On the other hand, that was what you did with a cap. After they had passed Charles risked a glance back. Viktor, without turning, silently raised the cap, while his wife was looking at the sea.
They remained arm-in-arm until the hotel. The drawing room was clear of Russians. He waited in the corridor outside her room while she unlocked the door. ‘At least Dogsbody can stay where he is,’ she whispered, ‘and we don’t have to get up at some ungodly hour.’
‘They’re leaving before breakfast.’
‘Good. ’Night.’
Charles experienced an unwelcome sensation of anticlimax. ‘Might seem a bit odd to the hotel that we’re in separate rooms, don’t you think? Unrealistic, unnatural, unlikely? Bad for cover? I was wondering whether there was anything we ought to do about it.’
She raised her eyebrows, smiled and closed the door.
Later that night Charles was awoken from an uneasy sleep by a knock at his own door. He wrapped a towel round himself and opened it, thinking it might be Rebecca. It was Viktor, dressed in jeans and a jumper. He came in without a word while Charles locked the door.
‘I had to ask for your room number,’ Viktor said. ‘It was a risk but we go early so no one will hear about it.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘Only good things, so please do not look so worried.’ He threw Charles’s clothes from the armchair to the bed before he sat. ‘You will need these.’
He talked as Charles dressed. The smile and envelope had worked. Krychkov had greedily snapped up the bait, convinced that Rebecca was an agent of the organs of British state security who had lured Rhykov into a clandestine relationship. Charles, in whom he had shown remarkably little interest, was her minder. The envelope, which he was sure was from her because of her scent in the corridor, they had left untouched. Rhykov must have found it when he went to bed but had not reported it. He would be interrogated about it on return to Moscow; they would get it out of him.
‘All that is necessary to make his guilt certain is for your girlfriend’s knickers to be found in his suitcase. She will oblige, I hope? She is your girlfriend, Charles? I am disappointed she is not here with you.’
‘Where does Tanya think you are?’
‘She is asleep. Anyway, I leave a note saying I have gone for walk in the moon along the beach. She knows I am mad. She is used to it.’
‘Why am I getting dressed?’
‘Because I have discovered something, a big thing for you. The reason the delegation is here. And tonight we have to do something. It is our only chance.’
Viktor spoke rapidly, excitement adding facetiousness to his tone so that he sounded on the edge of laughter. Charles was wary, but his story was persuasive. Krychkov, cheered by the prospect of Rhykov’s downfall, had become expansive, telling
Viktor that Operation Legacy was the reason for the change in itinerary. He also felt confident in Viktor now, following his finding the Beaconsfield cache. There was, he said, a second arms cache, this one at Southwold, filled many years ago by an agent who was not Builder, Charles’s father. It was operational and was to be emptied at first light the following morning by an agent unknown to the Residency, run from Moscow by the Illegals directorate. This agent did not know where the cache was and was to have been told by short-wave transmission but there were problems with his receiver, so the Centre had got a message to him via someone from a Russian timber ship in King’s Lynn. The message told him that instructions would be left in a DLB in Southwold, which was to be filled by Rhykov.
‘Where is it?’ asked Charles.
Viktor raised his hands. ‘I don’t know, I cannot help. Somewhere in the town because Rhykov filled it not long after we arrived when he went for a walk by himself. The agent was to empty it this evening. We have missed him. But’ – he laughed – ‘what do you think, Charles?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Guess. What has victorious Viktor done?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Krychkov was so pleased to think that Rhykov perhaps is a traitor that he took me to his room again when he was going to bed and told me what I have said and got out his vodka. We drank. And again we drank. He thinks the operation might go wrong if Rhykov is a traitor and if it does it will prove it, he thinks. And then he has to go to the toilet because he is getting an old man and must often go there. And when he is in the toilet I see the wallet in his jacket pocket which I recognise is a wallet issued by the Centre with a secret part in it. I know this because I have used one. We have to hand them back afterwards but Krychkov is too mean and too important to buy his own so he keeps his all the time. So when he is pissing, which takes a long time because he is getting old, I looked inside it. In the secret part are the instructions for the cache. Because I am a well-trained KGB officer, I remember them. Afterwards, I go to Gents’ downstairs by the bar and write down what I remember.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘It is here. We can find it and empty it before the agent if we go now. Then there is no mystery operation and Rhykov is blamed and Viktor, perhaps, is still a free man.’
