Brian Freemantle - Dead Men Living

Gerald Williams realized how totally he was committing himself and he was nervous about doing so. He wished he belonged to the sortof club to which Jocelyn Hamilton had taken him, which seemed the proper venue for such discussions, instead of a public restaurant, even one close enough to Westminster to be the favorite of MPs and cabinet minsters. Williams had spotted three and a minister within minutes of his arrival. He filled the time waiting for the deputy director-general’s arrival studying the menu, horrified at the prices. Hamilton was greeted as a regular by the restaurant manager who had initially regarded Williams as an unwelcomed intruder, and on his way to the table Hamilton stopped to talk to the cabinet minister and after that to an MP frequently quoted in newspapers as an espionage expert.

Hamilton finally arrived with flurried apologies for being late and as he was seated told the manager to ensure there’d be that day’s special available. From his study of the menu Williams knew that was lamb chops and ordered the same. He chose Margaux, too, remembering it was what Hamilton had selected entertaining him at the Reform Club.

“What’s all the mystery about?” demanded the department deputy, the moment they were alone.

“Not mystery,” said Williams. “Concern.”

Although Williams had spent a long time sanitizing his account, Hamilton said the moment he’d finished, “You’ve been talking like this to the people across the river!”

“I spoke to my counterpart, Horlick, once: to assure him the expenditure was coming off our budget, not his. Which I consider it should because we’re heading the investigation. With his agreement I talked direct to Cartright in Moscow: didn’t want anyone imagining unlimited expenses. And have done a few times since, to make sure costs remain under control. What I’ve told you has come up in general conversation.”

“It doesn’t sound like general conversation to me,” refused Hamilton. “To me it sounds pretty specific-improper, in fact.”

“I’m prepared to make allowance for that,” said Williams. “I’m far more worried at the greater danger which we’ve talked about too many times to need repeating. This man is openly talking in Moscow of treating us like fools. You saw for yourself what it was like, just days ago. Something’s got to be done!”

“Why are you telling me, like this? Why not officially, to Sir Rupert?”

“Because it is only gossip. And, all right, improper gossip at that. Any case against Muffin has got to be backed by a proper inquiry, supported by fact. Witnesses.”

“So?” persisted the other man.

“I’ve become involved in this by accident. I’m the financial director. I’ve done my bit auditing accounts that virtually prove the money dealing, which amounts to a criminal act. You’re operational. I’m suggesting for the sake of the department-for us all-you ask Cartright’s people to authorize his providing an official account. Factually checking what the hell Muffin’s up to.”

Hamilton sat with the lamb halfway to his mouth, regarding Williams across the table in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I like less the thought of what will happen if we don’t move.”

“I need to think about it very seriously indeed,” said Hamilton.

“The time for thinking is over,” insisted Williams. “Now we’ve got to do something positive.”

Charlie was kept at the embassy cabling the full text of the Russian release to London and afterward answering the queries that came back, which distilled down into contributing nothing new, and Natalia was at Lesnaya when he got home, Sasha already asleep.

There was still the reservation of the previous night-the uncertainty there’d been at the beginning-although not quite so awkward. Charlie told her about the encounter with Vitali Novikov and then showed her the log. While she read it, he made drinks.

When he returned to the main room she said, “This isn’t anything. Just confirmation of what we already believed.”

“I know. I’ve read it a hundred times, trying to find something.” He decided against telling her the nagging feeling that kept pricking at him. There were enough mysteries without the need to invent more.

Natalia said, “What did you tell Novikov?”

“That it won’t affect their residency.”

Natalia looked at her watch. “Let’s see the result of the Russian contribution.”

The Russian announcement was the lead item on all the English-language satellite news programs through which Charlie flicked. Photographs of the recovered art had been issued with the release claiming them as further proof of Raisa Belous’s heroic wartime work keeping Russia’s heritage-particularly actual treasure from the Amber Room-out of Nazi hands. Fyodor Belous was included in the eulogy for returning the safeguarded articles the moment he’d discovered the truth about his mother. CNN and the BBC also carried footage outside Belous’s empty apartment, with reporters quoting official sources suggesting the man was helping the authorities search further for things still hidden. Inevitably every program carried library pictures of the treasures of the Catherine Palace and the other royal residences at Tsarskoe Selo, as well as film of the devastation after the Nazi occupation of the park. Just as inevitably there was speculation that the further lost art that Belous was helping locate was the missing Amber Room itself.

“I tried to get it delayed,” disclosed Natalia.

“Why?” Charlie frowned.

The expression remained as she talked, although more in guilt at his disbelieving her-and at setting the test she was at that moment passing-than at anything else. Charlie was glad Natalia would never know he’d doubted her. He said, “Nikulin was right. Whatever brought about the American decision won’t be influenced by the art announcement: that was only bait in the first place. All that’s going to happen is America refusing to bite and a lot of renewed publicity.”

Natalia offered the log back to Charlie. “You were relying on that, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“What now?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie forced himself to admit. And then, in a rush and without warning, he thought he did. He had sufficient about the mystery English officer, at least, and most of it allowed the pieces to fit.

“What?” demanded Natalia, seeing the expression on Charlie’s face.

Instead of immediately answering, Charlie flicked the televisionback to the permanently running CNN, leaning forward intently to study the pictures of what had been recovered from Belous. And then he told Natalia.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He looked down at the log of Novikov’s father and said, “And it was here, all the time!”

Charlie’s satisfaction ebbed by the following day. Sitting in his shoebox office, surrounded by a squadron of reflectively folded paper airplanes, Charlie acknowledged reluctantly that Natalia was right. His conclusion-even more positively confirmed by examining in detail the Tsarskoe Selo treasure catalogue of Catherine the Great’s palace-didn’t explain America and Russia quite independently closing the investigation down.

And there was only one way to try to prove what he now did know. With no guarantee that he’d succeed and, after Henry Packer, possibly physically dangerous. If he made the attempt and it went wrong by just one millimeter-even excluding the Packer-type risk-he’d be dismissed and withdrawn from Moscow. On top of which he couldn’t discuss it with the director-general, who couldn’t possibly condone it, even if the man’s personal support hadn’t been wavering as much as Charlie knew it was. So he’d be totally disregarding-defying! — the department and going off station without authority, which was very definitely a firing offense.