Brian Freemantle - Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

The half-smile came again. ‘This is a joke, isn’t it?’ Clarissa said.

‘Do you know this man?’ Wilson pointed to Charlie.

‘Of course,’ she snorted. Willoughby intercepted her look towards Charlie and the pain showed immediately.

‘How?’

‘What do you mean, how?’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘He was employed by my husband.’

‘Was there an occasion when you were together in New York?’

Clarissa’s eyes flickered back to Charlie again before she replied. ‘Yes.’

Willoughby was intent upon his wife, oblivious to everything else in the room.

‘When?’

‘Is this important?’.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s a Soviet spy,’ said Wilson bluntly. ‘He’s also a murderer.’

‘Don’t be so utterly absurd.’

‘We have proof,’ said Wilson. ‘When did you arrive in New York last year?’

‘8 June.’

‘When did you encounter Charles Muffin?’

‘The same day. We stayed at the same hotel.’

‘What about the day after that?’

‘There was a reception for the exhibition,’ said Clarissa. ‘We were all there.’

‘Could he have left the reception? Gone to Washington for instance?’

‘No,’ said Clarissa. ‘After the reception we had dinner. About eight of us.’

‘And the following day, the 10th,’ said Wilson. ‘Could he have flown to Washington that day?’

‘We were together throughout 10 June,’ said Clarissa, looking back to Charlie. ‘I remember it very well.’

‘Where exactly?’

‘Mostly in bed,’ she said. ‘We were together the entire day. And night.’

Jane Williams came back from the table in front of the chaise longue, where she had freshened Lady Billington’s gin, and side by side they looked down at the jewellery boxes which were stacked in a neat wall, like building blocks in a nursery. ‘I never thought you’d get them back so quickly. Or intact,’ said the secretary.

‘No,’ said Lady Billington.

‘Did you?’

The ambassador’s wife shrugged. ‘Didn’t really think about it.’

Jane looked at her curiously. ‘Weren’t you really worried?’ she said. ‘I mean, to have lost all that…’

‘No,’ said Lady Billington. ‘I really wasn’t; I wish I had been. It makes me feel a freak,’ she sipped her drink. ‘Do you know the only feeling I have?’

‘What?’

‘Sadness that for some reason I don’t understand someone had to die over them.’

‘Isn’t it difficult to feel sad, after what Walsingham did?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Lady Billington. ‘But he was a human being, whatever he’d done.’

They were still breathless after the lovemaking and Jane Williams lay with her head against Semingford’s chest. He was moving his hand gently up and down her back and she realized, pleased, that he would want to make love again soon.

‘I’ve had a reply from London,’ said Semingford. ‘About the pension. If I cashed it in, I’d have three thousand pounds after settling the overdraft.’

‘Which isn’t good enough for anything much, is it?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Lady Billington says she feels like a freak, not being concerned about the jewellery.’

‘She sounds it.’

‘And that she feels sorry for Walsingham.’

She felt him pull away from her. ‘What?’

‘I know: that’s what she said.’

‘Was she drunk?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘They’re moving heaven and earth to keep it quiet,’ said Semingford. ‘The Italians have agreed to cooperate.’

‘It’s difficult to imagine Walsingham doing it, isn’t it?’

‘It’s funny,’ said Semingford. ‘Two days ago, before any of us knew, it was Henry. Now everyone’s calling him Walsingham.’

‘Wonder what it’s like to be a spy?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ said Semingford, moving his hand between her legs.

In Rome, as in other embassies Sir Alistair Wilson had used, the communications centre was a room within a room, an inner shell fastened to the outer wall by a series of tubular struts from above and below, as well as from the sides. The inner compartment had been created by security workmen, guaranteeing that no monitoring device could have been built in. Access was across a drawbridge-type walkway which pulled up once the room was occupied. Cipher machines, like experimental typewriters, were banked against the left wall. At the back, a huge radio dominated the room, a pilot’s cockpit of twitching dials and level measures. To the right were the security-cleared telex machines. The telephones were on a narrow bench to the left. There were three, all designated different colours. The white fed directly into Downing Street, equipped both here and at the other end with matching voice modulators which scrambled the conversation into unintelligible static unless it was cleared through a corrective device. This programme was changed weekly.

To remove the need for a cipher clerk, Naire-Hamilton had chosen the telephone. Before making the connection, he and Wilson had written out a full account and then attached notations to a master sheet, to ensure that the Permanent Under Secretary omitted nothing. He made the report with only occasional interruptions from London and by the time he’d finished his voice was hoarse and strained. There was a sheen of perspiration on his face when he finally replaced the telephone.

‘He isn’t happy,’ he said.

‘What the hell does he want?’

‘He thinks the Italians got too much: that we allowed ourselves to be pressured.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘But easily said from the comfort of Downing Street.’

‘What are the instructions?’

Naire-Hamilton hesitated. ‘To terminate everything,’ he said. ‘He wants us out by tomorrow.’

‘I think we should continue the debriefing.’

‘To what purpose, for God’s sake!’

‘Why did Walsingham have the wrong date?’

‘A simple enough mistake.’

‘Men who keep records, like Walsingham and Muffin, don’t make simple mistakes.’

‘I’m fed up to the back teeth with sitting in that dungeon staring at that fellow holding up his trousers like some damned scarecrow,’ said Naire-Hamilton.

‘One more session,’ said Wilson urgently.

Jackson handed Charlie his belt as he entered the room. Seeing the start of apprehension, the supervisor smiled and said, ‘Not yet. They’re pissed off seeing you standing there as if you’ve shit yourself.’

Still without laces, Charlie had to shuffle once more into the interrogation room. The arrangement was as before, with no chair for him to sit on. Without the necessity of supporting his trousers, Charlie stood with feet apart with his hands clasped loosely behind his back. It was the sort of insolent at-ease that had driven the parade sergeants mad. Wilson didn’t like it either.

‘How long had you been the liaison between Moscow and Walsingham?’ said the director.

‘I was never the liaison. Until the day at the villa, I’d never set eyes on him.’

Wilson was handed something from the folder. ‘This will be exhibit 10,’ he said towards the recording machine. He offered it to Charlie. ‘Who is this?’

‘Who do you think?’ said Charlie. It must have been taken by a hidden camera: it looked like a London street but he couldn’t be sure.

‘I want the deposition to show that this photograph of Charles Muffin was recovered from the safe deposit box in the name of Henry Walsingham. Attached to it were instructions, upon identification, for the contact meeting in Washington. Those instructions were dated February of last year.’