Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

At that moment CNN split their transmission again between the two films, running the courtroom killing of Davidov against the camera pod struggle between Bendall and the NTV cameraman, Vladimir Sakov, for possession of the sniper’s rifle.

And at that moment the awarenesses engulfed Charlie. He was physically chilled, although the shiver was more in frustration at what he’d missed for so long than from the feeling of coldness.

His internal telephone momentarily distracted him but Charlie ignored it, strained forward for a repeat of the comparison betweenthe two films, sure that he was right, sure that he’d seen things properly for the first time-had most certainly for the first time seen what was most important but which he’d consistently overlookedand allowed the scourging personal annoyance. It had been there all the time, like a banner in the breeze, and he’d missed it and it didn’t matter that everyone else had missed it as well: what mattered was that it had taken him so long-too long-and too much still remained unexplained. The rerun began and Charlie looked now at what he knew there was to see, the annoyed chill of belated awareness changing to a warmth of satisfaction as it unarguably showed on the screen. And then he remembered how, momentarily deaf, he’d had to understand what people had said in the court in the initial minutes after the shooting and saw something else he should have recognized. But hadn’t.

London had the film. It would only take an hour, two, three at the outside. The photographic evaluation shouldn’t take any longer. But with an addition, Charlie thought, as his problem with Vasili Gregorovich Isakov finally slotted into its long overdue place. Charlie snatched up the internal telephone on its third demand, talking over Richard Brooking’s demand that he come at once to the chancellery. He would, Charlie promised, when he’d finished liaising with London, which at that moment had the higher priority. He depressed the receiver, to disconnect the protesting diplomat, but left the handset off its cradle to prevent the man intruding a fourth time.

Charlie had the FBI-collected photographs of Vasili Isakov before him for the next rerun-determined against any wrong or misconstrued assumption-and afterwards, quite positive, he gave himself thirty minutes to compose the fax to London to ensure there could be no misunderstanding about what he wanted.

Richard Brooking was tightlipped, white with fury, when Charlie eventually reached the man’s office. Anne Abbott sat quite relaxed on the other side of the desk. Brooking said, “You were specifically told to report to me the moment you entered the embassy.”

“I’m not permitted to report operationally to you, to avoid any awkward diplomatic crossover,” reminded Charlie. “I report to London, which is what I’ve been doing.”

“About what?” insisted Brooking.

“Hasn’t Anne told you?”

Brooking’s face became a mask. “I meant what, precisely, have you discussed with London.”

“Getting everything ass about face for far too long,” admitted Charlie. “But now I think we’re on the right track.” Track was the apposite word, decided Charlie. He still needed a hard, metalled road, preferably stretched out in front in an uninterrupted straight line.

The assembled men sat quietly around the communal table, the identical photographs and transcripts in front of them. Before each place was a photo-analysist’s magnifying glass but only Jocelyn Hamilton had found the need to use it. He kept it in his hand when he looked up and said, “It’s a great pity it took so long to discover.”

“We’ve each of us had it here, practically from day one,” said Patrick Pacey. “A great pity that you didn’t pick it up for us and saved everyone a lot of time.”

“I think it’s a brilliant deduction of Charlie’s,” said Sir Rupert Dean, coming in as a buffer between the two other men. “Everything he suggested has been confirmed.”

“We’re in an even more jurisdictional quagmire than we were before,” warned Jeremy Simpson, the legal advisor. “I’ll need definitive guidance, of course, but with Bendall dead-and the case against him dying with him-I don’t see we’ve any legal claim to remain associated with the investigation.”

The director-general gestured with the Arkadi Noskov’s news agency statement of George Bendall’s bullet caliber defense to murder. “There’s still an unsolved case of conspiracy. I would have thought we have every justification to remain involved, despite Bendall’s death. We don’t even know if there are other Britons involved.”

“I don’t want to know, if there are!” said Patrick Pacey.

No one laughed. Simpson made his own gesture to the material in front of him. “Charlie’s only got one lead and it’s Russian. He hasn’t got the authority to pursue it. And as he points out in today’smessages, there’s a high mortality rate among people who become identified.”

“I propose that Muffin is positively ordered to do nothing-to take no further part in the investigation, even if he’s permitted to do so-until we have the necessary jurisdictional guidance,” said the deputy director. “Of course the court episode is deplorable but objectively it’s the least difficult outcome there could have been for us. Things should be allowed to settle, not be stirred up.”

“As cynical as that is, I think it may well be the government attitude,” said Pacey, uncomfortable at politically having to side with a man with whom he almost invariably disagreed and whom he did not personally like.

“It’s Charlie’s breakthrough,” protested Dean. “I’d like to let him run with it. We still don’t know what the hell it’s all about. Our primary remit is to forewarn the government against the unexpected. We can’t do that putting Charlie on hold.”

“It’s my advice-and my political opinion-that we should,” urged Pacey. “Particularly with the legal uncertainty. We should at least wait until that’s clarified.”

“All right,” agreed the director-general, reluctantly.

“And let’s not give Muffin any excuse for intentionally misunderstanding,” said Hamilton.

Charlie didn’t misunderstood but he discarded the do-nothing instruction after the first reading, intent upon the technical evaluation which confirmed everything he’d asked to be checked. He hesitated, unsure which call to make first, finally deciding upon Natalia’s personal answering machine at Lesnaya. She’d be able to guess just how much there was to do, after what had happened, he dictated. He didn’t know how late he was going to be but it would probably be a good idea to eat without him and if he was very late to go on to bed.

To Anne Abbott Charlie said, “You want to hear just how ass about face it all was?”

“I’ve got Islay malt at the apartment. I checked with the embassy commissary to find out what you preferred.”

“What about a video player?”

“State of the art.”

“Thirty minutes,” accepted Charlie. There was nothing wrong-nothing he should feel guilty about-in his having a drink while he talked these new developments through. And Anne was the most obvious person to do that with, the lawyer who knew every facet of the investigation.

“I could have postponed moving in,” said Olga.

“Everything’s organized and under control,” insisted Zenin. “There was no need. I want to find out what sort of wife I’m going to have.”

“Apart from my clothes there’s not a lot more to bring.”

“The important thing is that you’re here,” said Zenin.

After what seemed to be an eternity of constantly not knowing, Charlie knew this was very definitely wrong; knew that despite every snatched-at justification-and there were official and legal justifications for his choosing Anne with whom to discuss the analyses-it should have all been kept strictly professional, which was how they’d agreed by her rules things should be restored after their return from London. So why had he changed the rules, hinting a situation that shouldn’t arise, certainly not in the insular claustrophobia of an embassy in which everyone knew before it lowered its hind leg when a mouse peed? Self-flattery? he wondered, answering his own question with another: Anne being interested in him while Natalia wasn’t? Not good enough by a million miles, Charlie rejected at once: juvenile, an even worse self-accusation. Or, alternatively, the arrogance that had been the life raft to keep him afloat for so long? Closer but still not sufficient. Adventure happened, as it had with him and Anne, to be taken and enjoyed but as no more than that,a shared adventure to end when it ended, as unexpected adventures always did. Or should do.