Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

Janet smiled, enjoying herself.

‘At first,’ she explained, ‘he intrigued me … he was so different from any man I’d encountered before … more masculine, I suppose …’

She paused, preparing her shock.

‘… and actually,’ she went on, alert for the old man’s reactions, ‘he’s really quite remarkable in bed.’

Cuthbertson’s face went redder than normal and he gazed down at his desk to avoid her look.

‘Do you love him?’ he asked, still not looking at her.

‘Of course not,’ said Janet, astonished at the question.

‘Good,’ said the Director, coming back to her.

Janet frowned, waiting.

‘I’ve involved him in the most vital operation in which he’s ever been engaged …’

‘… The Russian thing that killed Harrison?’

Cuthbertson nodded, apprehensively, but his goddaughter showed no feeling.

‘It is imperative that he succeeds,’ he said simply.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ demanded the girl.

‘Because from this moment on I want to know everything that the man does during every minute of his existence. I’ve got him under constant surveillance … and I want to know your pillow talk as well.’

Janet grinned at the expression: he must have got it from a women’s magazine, she supposed, the sort they read in Cheltenham.

‘… ask him the odd question … he’ll need to relax with someone … find out how he feels …’

Imperceptibly, he glanced at his watch. The electronic division would have completely bugged her flat by now, he estimated. Particularly the bedroom; some of what they heard would be unsettling, he thought, looking at the girl. Imagine, he recalled, he’d once held her in his arms in a baby’s shawl!

‘I know how he feels,’ reported Janet. She hesitated, then went on: ‘He resents your appointment … and the people you’ve brought in with you … the department is something to which he is deeply committed. Actually, I think it’s the only thing for which he has any real feeling.’

The Director sat nodding, accepting her assessment.

‘So he’ll do his best?’

‘For the department … not for you.’

Cuthbertson shrugged. ‘I still want to know how he feels about this assignment.’

‘You want me to spy on him?’ asked the girl.

Cuthbertson nodded. ‘Will you do it?’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed, after a few seconds. ‘It all seems a bit daft, really.’

‘Good girl,’ praised Cuthbertson. ‘Oh,’ he suddenly remembered, ‘two more things.’

The girl sat, waiting.

‘Get those expenses back that I cut,’ he instructed. ‘I’m restoring them. And take a note for the Minister …’ He paused, assembling his words, then dictated the memorandum of praise for Charlie Muffin’s handling of the Berenkov affair. He had the girl read it back, then said: ‘One final paragraph.’

‘In fact,’ he dictated, ‘Charles Muffin was one of my most able and eager workers in the very difficult capture of Alexei Berenkov, which I initiated and headed.’

He smiled across the desk. ‘That’ll do,’ he dismissed, contentedly.

‘What you’re asking me to do is in the nature of an assignment, isn’t it?’ asked Janet, remaining seated.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, curiously.

‘So there’ll be some expenses, won’t there? Good expenses?’

He paused, momentarily.

‘Yes,’ he accepted, sadly. ‘There’ll be liberal expenses.’

Later, after she’d typed the memorandum, Janet sat back in her chair in the outer office and smiled down at her lover’s name.

‘Everyone in the world is trying to screw you, Charlie Muffin,’ she said, softly.

‘Poor Charlie,’ she added.

In other circumstances, decided Charlie, as the coach left Sheremetyevo airport and picked up the Moscow road, he’d have enjoyed the experience. Perhaps he and Edith would be able to take one of the weekend holidays, some time. Then again, perhaps not.

His method of getting to Moscow had been simple and he was confident that neither Cuthbertson nor the C.I.A., who surrounded their activities with mystique and confusion, would realise how it had been done.

He’d simply gone to the Soviet-authorised travel agency in South London, knowing they issued the Intourist coupons for Russian vacations, and bought himself a?56 weekend package tour to the Russian capital.

The visa had taken a week and he’d had a pleasant flight out with a clerk from Maidenhead on his first trip abroad (‘I read in a travel magazine that you need bath plugs; you can borrow mine if you like’) and fifteen members of a ladies’ luncheon club from Chelmsford fervently anxious to experience romance without actual seduction (‘there’s such excitement about forbidden places, don’t you think?’).

By now Cuthbertson would have discovered he’d left England, decided Charlie, gazing out at the Soviet woodland.

The observation in London had been rather obvious and easy to evade. He glanced at his watch: the men outside the Dulwich house, which he’d left under a clearly visible pile of cleaning in the Porsche driven by Edith, would probably still be assuring Cuthbertson he hadn’t left.

Would Cuthbertson approach Edith directly? he wondered. Unlikely, decided Charlie. But if the Director did summon his wife, Charlie was confident Edith would have no difficulty convincing the former soldier that when she had left on her cleaning expedition, Charlie had been inside the house. Edith had always found it easy to lie, he thought, reflectively.

Which was different from Janet, he thought. Her sudden interest in the operation (‘I know what happened to Harrison; isn’t it natural I should worry about you?’) had amused him. Poor Janet, he thought. He wondered what incentive Cuthbertson had offered. Money, probably. She was a greedy girl.

The coach crossed the river and then pulled along the Moskva embankment towards the Rossiya hotel. Charlie disembarked as instructed by the officious Intourist guide and stood patiently for thirty-five minutes to be allocated a room, assuring the Maidenhead clerk when he finally collected his key, that he wouldn’t forget the bath-plug offer.

There was still twenty-four hours before Kalenin was supposed to appear in Neskuchny Sad, so Charlie continued to be the tourist, prompt for the regimented mealtimes, always waiting for the coaches taking them in their pre-paid tours, diligent in his purchases of souvenirs. He’d surprise Janet, he decided, by taking her Beluga caviar.

I should feel nervous, he thought, during the interminable wait for dinner on Saturday night. Almost immediately, he corrected the thought. Not yet. So far there was nothing about which to be apprehensive. But there would be, soon, he knew. Then he would need the control of which he had always been so confident.

He was able to avoid the Sunday morning tour with less difficulty than he had expected, placating the Russian woman with the promise that he would be ready for the Basil Church and Lenin’s tomb in the afternoon, then happily watching the Maidenhead clerk depart in close conversation with the secretary of the ladies’ luncheon club who appeared likely to admit access to forbidden places.

‘To work,’ Charlie told himself, stepping out on to the embankment. He touched his jacket, in needless reassurance: the pocket recorder that he had checked and rewound lay snugly against his hip, quite comfortably.

It would be a long walk, he realised, striding out towards the Karmeni Bridge. But it would be safer to travel on foot, he knew. It was a fine, clear morning and he found the exercise stimulating; if it all goes wrong, he thought, wryly, then the only exercise he would know for the rest of his life would be the sort that Berenkov was getting in Wormwood Scrubs.