Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“That’s encouraging to hear,” said Charlie. “My embassy will feel that, too. On a personal level I’m sure we’re going to work together extremely well.”

I’m not, thought the woman.

As he was escorted from the building, Charlie decided that Olga Ivanova Melnik was not as good as she imagined herself to be. Perhaps that was why she found the need to have difficulty with blouse buttons. The hidden recording Charlie was sure would have been taken wouldn’t do much for her, either.

Burt Jordan was already waiting at their reserved table when Donald Morrison entered the Arleccino, waving to attract the MI6 man’s attention when he came in off Druzhinnikovskaya Ulitza.

“Sorry I’m late,” apologized Morrison. “Couldn’t get a taxi. Somehow it seemed easier when we were at the old embassy.”

“But now you’ve got air con,” smiled the CIA Rezident. He was a small, compact man made to look permanently doleful by the heavy moustache allowed to droop at either end. He gestured around the restaurant. “Italian OK for you?”

“Fine. I haven’t been here before.”

“The saltimbocca alla Romana’s the speciality.” Jordan poured Valpolicella. “I figured it far better to get together like this, undisturbed. The embassy’s a fucking mad house. How about yours?”

“Pretty calm, considering.” It was unthinkable to tell the other man the virtually non-existent role to which he’d been relegated. He’d accepted the American’s invitation in the hope of learning something with which to impress Charlie Muffin and get involved.

“It’s good everyone’s pulling with the same stroke.”

“I guess it is.”

“I get anything, it’s yours.”

“Likewise.”

When the waiter arrived they both ordered the saltimbocca. Jordan held up the still half full bottle and ordered another.

Jordan said, “So what have you got?”

Morrison shrugged. “Very little. You’ve already got the counter-intelligence stuff from Charlie. It was all internal-even the jail escape-so Bendall was their headache, not ours. When the rumors began that he wanted to come home the instructions to our man here then was to find him and help him back. If he’d had anything worthwhile from working with the KGB here we could have negotiated a little remission in the sentence he would still have had to serve. We couldn’t get a lead. We even had some stories planted in newspapers here when the press got freer after 1991, hinting as much as we could. He never made contact.”

“The KGB wouldn’t have risked him with anything sensitive. They never treated defectors-even foreign nationals who’d worked for them-well or with any respect.”

“Stranger things have happened,” cliched Morrison. “What about you?”

Jordan shook his head. “The Bureau made it a big operation. Thestuff he leaked was from America, mostly Los Alamos. But as far as they discovered Bendall wasn’t part of any cell. He was a solitary spy, a ‘walk in’ to the Soviet embassy in London, passing on stuff he received from us.”

“What about when he got here?”

“Nothing,” said Jordan. “There’d been the Bureau investigation by then, showing he’d worked alone. We didn’t try to find him.”

“You know,” said Morrison. “Despite all the panic and chaos, when it comes down to it there’s not a lot we’re going to be able to do.”

“We’ve still got to make the motions, though. That’s why I thought we should meet like this. My word, about sharing anything I get.”

“Mine too,” said Morrison, enthusiastically. “Well met.”

“It’s murder now, Vera. The death penalty.”

“Yes.”

The acceptance was flat, totally without emotion. Olga Melnik had hoped for more, a collapse even. They were in the same room with the same flowers and there was tea again, with cake. The record light flickered on the unobtrusive tape machine.

“Drink your tea.”

The woman did as she was told, gnawing at a cake between noisy sips. “Can I have my underwear back? And my shoes? It’s really not comfortable without them.”

“It’s regulations,” refused Olga. “What have you remembered?”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“What about Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

“Those were the nights he seemed to stay out most often. Occasionally others, but mostly Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Better, thought Olga, hopefully. “You must have asked him about those nights?”

“I told you, he got angry.”

“Particularly angry when you asked him about those nights?”

“I think so.”

“He never told you, not once? Not even a word? Or a name?”

“No.”

“What about the name of the doctor?”

“I can’t remember.”

“What did you talk about, when he was home?”

“We didn’t, much. We watched television. Sometimes the programs he’d worked on. He made models.”

“Models of what?”

“Cars. Boats. Planes. Things that moved. He liked things that moved.”

“How did he make them? From wood or what?”

“Wood, sometimes, wood that he carved. And kits. The sort that children have.”

“I don’t remember the people who searched your apartment finding any models. It wasn’t in their report.”

“He broke them, as soon as he finished them. Said they were useless to him.”

“What other hobbies did he have?”

“None.”

“What about guns?” She had to improve on the original questioning.

“No … I told you …”

“Did he ever go shooting?”

“He doesn’t have a gun.”

“He could have borrowed one.”

“I don’t know.”

“You are remembering things, aren’t you?”

“I’m trying.”

“Some other people are coming to see you.”

“What other people!” pleaded Vera, immediately alarmed.

“From the British embassy. They want to help, like I want to help. That’s why you’re here, safe from people who might want to hurt you for what you son has done.” It was imperative to get that on record, after the debacle with Charlie Muffin. She hadn’t just underestimated the man, she’d even more badly miscalculated the collaboration that would be imposed upon her.

“Will you be here, with them?”

“No.”

The woman looked down at her sagging bosoms. “Can I have myunderwear back, when they come? And the laces for my shoes?”

“Yes. But you will go on thinking, remembering, won’t you?”

“I’ll try.”

Olga hurried from the prison warning herself that it scarcely provided a lead but it certainly justified going through the statements of the people and acquaintances with whom George Bendall had worked at NTV. And if there was no reference to something-anything-the man regularly did on Tuesday and Thursday nights, they’d all have to be re-interviewed and specifically asked.

“You had no right-no authority-to arrange access to the mother without reference to me!” protested Richard Brooking. “It should have been done diplomatically, through channels. You were specifically warned by Sir Michael himself!”

“Dick,” said Charlie, intentionally using the name abbreviation for its ambiguity. “That’s debatable and I’m not interested in debating it. I’m interested in finding out why a British national apparently tried to kill two presidents and when an opportunity presents itself, like it did today, then I’m going to take it without first asking your permission. You want to protest that to London, then go ahead. And while you’re doing it, ask them how they feel about another British national-albeit one who’s lived here for years-being banged up in a Stalin-era prison without charge.”

“That’s certainly questionable,” agreed Anne Abbott.