Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

While Spassky made a flurry of telephone calls, culminating in his personally signing the dispatch note, Natalia sat comparatively relaxed reflecting how glad she was that there was now a sensible exchange between herself and Charlie. Refusing an over-interpretation, she supposed Charlie could have been right the previous night at omissions being caused by the chaos of reorganization. But just as quickly she remembered what he’d also said, about the Bendall family file being actively maintained until the defector’s death, only two years earlier.

“It’s the fault of Archives!” insisted Spassky, as the door closed behind the courier.

“You are ultimately responsible for internal security.” Which she had, without too much difficulty, evaded long before Spassky’s appointment, by cleansing the records of any reference to herself and Charlie Muffin.

“The missing sections could be found,” suggested Spassky, more in hope than conviction.

“Or they could not.” The man was introducing his own doubts now.

“It’s the primary responsibility of Archives,” persisted the man, his mind blocked by one defense.

There was no purpose in her staying any longer. “Has this meeting been recorded, Dimitri Ivanovich?”

“No,” denied the man at once, concentrating upon another cigarette. “Why should you imagine it would be.”

“It was once regular procedure.”

“It isn’t any longer.” He smiled, in recollection. “A lot of memories, at being back?”

“None,” insisted Natalia. She was, in fact, very eager to leave.

There was the ritual exchange of supposed information-together with the ritual offer and refusal of English-and another mutual appraisal.

Physically John Kayley was quite different from Charlie Muffin-much heavier, darker-skinned and with surprisingly long and thick jet-black hair-but Olga Melnik felt a similarity beyond the carelessness of the sagged suit and crumpled, yesterday’s shirt. She was determined against letting this meeting get away from her, as it had done that morning with the Englishman, and felt more confident after the second encounter with Vera Bendall. The brief initial search of the statements of those who’d known George Bendall-or Georgi Gugin-at NTV had failed to discover any significance from his mother’s Tuesday and Thursday recollection.

Kayley was as caught as Charlie had been by the woman’s comparative youthfulness against the seniority of her rank and for the same reason. His first impression was that it wasn’t going to be as easy maneuvring himself into the command role the president was insisting upon and which he’d initially chauvinistically hoped possible when he’d learned the Russian side of the investigation was being headed by a woman. He made a mental note to avoid hinting the sexism, although he wondered in passing if the cleavage valley was being offered for exploration.

“I’d welcome a brief run down in advance of reading what you’ve given me,” he said.

“Bendall himself isn’t yet recovered sufficiently to be interviewed,” responded Olga, much better rehearsed the second time. “There are the two interviews I’ve so far conducted with the mother, who’s in protective custody. She was evasive in the first. She began to break in the second, this morning. I don’t believe Bendall could have done this alone. I think there’s something significant in what you’ll see about his regularly doing something on Tuesday and Thursday …”

“Meetings, do you think?”

“The mother made a point of mentioning it.”

“You think she’s involved?” He took out a packet of his scented cigars. “You mind?”

Olga did, but shook her head. “Perhaps not directly involved. But I think she knows more than she’s telling me at the moment.” Olga now had a very definite intention not just how to control this interview but how, from now on, to handle this bizarre troika. She was actually gratefu-just-that the fortunately separate encounter with the Englishman had gone against her. She was alert now to what she might be up against and had had time completely to evaluate her situation. She had, she acknowledged, become arrogant, judging everyone by the inferior, graft-eroded standards all around her in the Militia. Into which, she decided, neither Charles Edward Muffin nor John Deke Kayley fitted. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that both considered themselves superior-better able, better experienced, better resourced-to supervise the investigation. She wasn’t frightened to compete with either in a one-to-one contest. With the Kremlin insistence upon total transparency, her undermining difficulties would come if the two Westerners combined to take side against her. Her answer-her protection as well as hopefully her advantage-was to play one off against the other to prevent such a combination.

“There would have been archives, on the father.”

“Being assembled.”

Kayley frowned, openly. “Still?”

“I’m expecting them later today.”

“What about all the witnesses?”

Olga nodded towards the mini-barrier of stacked files between them. “All there. Nothing that connects with anything the mother said.” The smell of the strange cigars made her feel vaguely nauseous.

“We’d also like the rifle, for forensic examination.”

“It’s still under tests here. You’ll obviously get the full report.”

“We’d still like physically to see the weapon. And there are the extracted bullets?”

“We’d also like to see the bullets that you have,” countered Olga. Time to get a little harder, judged Kayley. “With our Secret Serviceman’s death, we’ve got an American murdered within Russian jurisdiction by someone who appears still to be British?”

She couldn’t see the point of stating the obvious but she could turn it back upon the man. “Complicated,” she encouraged.

“Objectively-and quite obviously we always have to remain objective-the greater crime, the actual killing, is of an American.” It was going far better than he’d imagined it might.

She shouldn’t make it too easy. “It’s good our three governments have agreed such total cooperation.”

“But we have to decide upon a working structure,” seized Kayley.

“The purpose of this meeting,” announced Olga.

Was she jerking his chain? “How do you see us working operationally?”

She had to be extremely careful of the recording. “Together, I suppose.”

“Charlie Muffin isn’t here.”

Charlie, not Charles, she noted. It was understandable that they’d know each other, but how well, how friendly? “Things still have to be organized, established.”

“When are you seeing him?”

Olga hesitated, in apparent surprise. “I already have, this morning. The British have been granted consular access. That includes the mother, of course.”

Now the hesitation was Kayley’s, tilted momentarily off balance. “In view of what you’ve told me, ahead of my being able to read any of this, I need to talk to her.”

“Of course,” accepted Olga. “But I suppose now there’s a diplomatic consideration. The purpose of consular access is primarily protection, which is after all why I placed her in custody. But she’s not been charged with any crime: can’t be, from anything we’ve got so far …”

“Are you denying me access!” demanded Kayley, overly forceful.

“Of course not! I’m simply suggesting there needs additionally to be some diplomatic consultations … I suppose between your two embassies … or maybe just with Charlie ….” She shrugged. “The sort of problems we’re going to encounter …” She was losing her apprehension of the American. He was going to be far easier to manipulate than the Englishman, although for once she hoped there wasn’t a need for that manipulation to become physical. He probably smelled like his cigars.