“A clerk,” dismissed Charlie, his script ready in outline at least. He should have prepared Natalia; prepared himself better. Another stupid mistake. Too late now. “I just exchange information between London and here.”
Irena made a sweeping gesture around the apartment. “Clerks don’t live in palaces.”
“There are ways,” He smiled. Would this eventually qualify as another learning curve? He hoped so.
Irena regarded him curiously. “Like what?”
“Always useful, having access to foreign currency.”
Now Irena smiled, although uncertainly. Natalia was looking at him in bewilderment, mouth slightly open. Irena said, “You don’t, do you?”
“You should know how to turn dollars around: the best use of any foreign currency in the financial mess this country’s in.”
He refilled Irena’s empty glass. Natalia shook her head irritably against any more. He left his drink as it was.
With forced indignation, Irena said, “I don’t deal in foreign currency!”
“I don’t believe you,” challenged Charlie, expansively. “You’d be
a fool not to, with the chances you’ve got. We’ve got it made, people like you and me.”
Irena looked at her sister. “Is he telling the truth?”
“I don’t know what he does or what he’s saying,” Natalia, said with a shrug, angrily soft-voiced.
“Aren’t you worried?” It was still a question addressed to Natalia.
“If it’s on a scale to support this place, I suppose I should be.” Natalia was looking intently at Charlie, seeking a lead.
Irena went back to Charlie. “You could be arrested!”
“You show me a Moscow policeman you can’t bribe,” demanded Charlie. “Most of them would sell their mothers for fifty dollars. And I’m on the inside, as a liaison officer. Who’s going to go up against me?”
Irena shook her head in bemusement. “You
are
serious, aren’t you?”
“You shocked?”
“No, of course I’m not shocked! And you’re right, I have sold a few dollars, here and there.”
“Of course you have,” said Charlie. “It’s the system: the way the world goes ’round. The Arbat’s best, I’ve found. A lot of conmen, hunting tourists.” He looked at Natalia. “What about that prime Scotch steak I brought home?”
Natalia hesitated before moving off into the kitchen. Irena waited until her sister had gone before saying, “I knew you and I had a lot in common.”
“And I told you I was in love with Natalia,” he said, hoping she could hear from the kitchen. So far, so good, but this wasn’t the way he wanted the conversation to go. But he’d play this different sort of word game if he had to.
“You don’t seem to be worrying very much about her, doing what you’ve just told me. What about her position?”
Charlie felt the icy fingers run up his back, all the heat of his previous discomfort gone. Why the hell hadn’t he talked to Natalia first? “I don’t understand.”
“Couldn’t she get into trouble if there was a problem you couldn’t bribe your way out of?” suggested the woman.
“Of course not,” said Charlie, with seeming carelessness, flourishing the bottle between the two of them. “I told you: there’s never
going to be a problem. So the question doesn’t arise.”
“There’s still another unanswered question from last time.” Irena smiled.
“You got your answer then.”
“Where’s the danger in a little adventure?”
“In setting out on it.” He was glad to see Natalia emerge from the kitchen: time for him to manipulate the guidance he hadn’t given her.
Natalia said, “Ready when you are.”
Charlie said, “Irena’s worried you’ll be fired if someone blows the whistle on what I’m doing.”
Natalia’s pause, retrieving her wineglass, was far too imperceptible for Irena to notice, although Charlie readily saw it. “I don’t see how it could affect me, even if it did happen.”
It was enough and Charlie felt a sweep of relief. “That’s what I told her.”
“You work for the government, don’t you? You did when …” The woman stumbled to a halt, briefly flustered.
“Pensions!” jeered Natalia. “I’d get a medal for finding money where there hasn’t been any to give out for months!”
Charlie couldn’t believe that until that moment he’d never known Moscow and London used pensions for the same cover! So many learning curves. He said, “See? Nothing can happen to us.”
“I’m fed up with this conversation,” stopped Natalia. “Let’s eat.”
A completely sober Charlie continued playing the genially tipsy host but dropped the bombast, refusing to talk any further about imaginary illegal currency transactions or what his supposed job entailed, switching the conversation instead on to Irena. She responded with air stewardess anecdotes, some genuinely amusing, leading easily into Charlie’s demand about Irena’s love life, to Natalia’s stiff-faced concentration on her food and to Irena’s insistence that she wasn’t involved with anyone in particular. “Still looking for someone who lives in a palace.”
Charlie walked Irena to the street-level door, which she ignored when he opened it.
“I don’t give up when I’ve set my mind to something.”
“You’re going to have to this time.”
“We’ll see. Do I get kissed good night?”
“No.”
Natalia hadn’t moved from the table by the time Charlie returned. Looking steadily at him, she said, “Well!”
“She’s got a situation with Richard Cartright,” said Charlie. “You would have thought she’d have mentioned it, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have expected you to mention to me what the fuck you were doing.”
“Another silly word,” he tried, hopefully.
“Stop it, Charlie!” she refused. “Not telling me was stupid-ridiculous!”
“I didn’t want to rehearse you: make it look too obvious. But I should have said something, I know. Irena arrived before I expected her.”
“She’s not a nice person, Charlie.” She hesitated, looking directly at him. “She’s bound to talk to Cartright about us, isn’t she?”
“So what?” said Charlie, forcing the glibness.
“What if he tells London?”
“Why on earth should he? And what would there be to tell? That I’m living with someone who works for the Russian pension authority?”
“I thought this had been a good day,” said Natalia. “Now I don’t, not any longer.”
“I didn’t do very well with Sasha, did I?”
“It was a point in the relationship waiting to happen.”
“I hope it doesn’t again.”
“So do I,” said Natalia, although not referring to Sasha and Charlie. She’d call Irena, she decided: call her and warn the bitch that there wasn’t going to be a repetition of what had happened with Konstantin. Which wasn’t Natalia doubting Charlie. It was her awareness of her sister’s determination.
“There’s something important I want you to do,” said Charlie.
Natalia listened, her face furrowed into a deep frown. “You want me to check if he officially saw anyone at our Foreign Ministry?”
“No. Just use the name Peters to trace that of the other man. The visa should give us a hotel, shouldn’t it?”
“Miriam said he’d gone.”
“I just want to make sure he has.”
“What could he be here for?”
“I don’t know,” lied Charlie.
When he arrived at Morisa Toreza at eight the following morning, there were already two demands from Sir Rupert Dean on Charlie’s voice mail.
The director-general said, “The name of your man is Simon Norrington. He was the elder son, thirty-one when he died, of Sir William Norrington. The younger brother, Matthew, automatically inherited the title upon the death of his father. And is still alive—”
“What was—” tried Charlie, but Dean talked over him.
“According to the family, Simon Norrington graduated with a Double First in fine art from Oxford University in 1932. He was attached to the War Office from 1940 as liaison with de Gaulle’s Free French forces. He was seconded in 1943 to 140 Provost Company, a specialized unit officially part of the military police, with the rank of lieutenant, to provide the necessary authority for what he had to do—”
“Which was?” tried Charlie again.
“
Listen!
” insisted Dean. “The family believes Simon Norrington died in April 1945 and is buried in a Commonwealth military cemetery in Berlin.”
Charlie sighed at the familiarity of a mountain of questions and a molehill of answer, not knowing the base camp of either. He hoped they wouldn’t be too difficult to locate. “But the body at Yakutsk
was
Simon Norrington?”
“Definitely,” said the director-general. “Sir Matthew personally identified it at the mortuary, not from after-death photographs. Gave us wartime pictures of his brother in his uniform to satisfy ourselves.”
“So who’s in the Berlin grave?”
“We’ve no idea,” said Dean. “We want to exhume it, of course.
We’ve got to get a court order, but the War Graves Commission says Sir Matthew is still legally the recorded next of kin and wants his legally granted authority prior to a court application. And the lawyers are arguing about applying for that in camera, which we’ve got to do to prevent any news leak. The media pressure is bad enough as it is. God knows what it would be like if this became public.”
“What was Simon Norrington’s job after the War Office?”
“Tracing Nazi looted art,” announced Dean.
Mystery upon mystery, or the very slightest clarification? One step at a time, thought Charlie. “Needing a lieutenant’s rank, for the necessary authority?”
“Seems that way. One forty Provost Company was composed mostly of civilian police, with an occasional secondment of Foreign Office people. The police had the investigatory expertise, Norrington was the art expert.”
“How extensive is his War Office record?”
“There isn’t one.”
“What?”
“All this comes from the family.”
“This is bollocks.”
“I don’t like the word, but I agree the sentiment.”
“What I don’t like is that we seem to be all on our own.”
“Neither do I.”
Gulag 98 housed special prisoners, remembered Charlie. Artists and art historians would qualify as intellectuals. It was at least a fit, of sorts. It most definitely took that particular archive beyond guessed-at importance. Initially more so, perhaps, for Natalia than for himself. “Does the family have any idea what Norrington was supposed to be doing in Berlin? What he did anywhere, in fact, after 1943?”
“No,” said Dean. “It seems Norrington was fanatical about art recovery—was determined to restore everything he could to its rightful owners. But the family can’t offer much more than that. We’ve got a mystery twice as big as the one we already had, with even less chance of solving it.”
There wasn’t the frustration there should have been, Charlie determined. The secrecy intention, he guessed. “Have you met the American from Washington? Name’s Peters.”
“Kenton Peters,” filled out Dean. “I’m supposed to be seeing him either today or tomorrow, depending on developments. I gather from the Foreign Office you weren’t helpful.”
“I didn’t think I was supposed to be,” said Charlie, pleased with the character assessment. “What about the other one?”
“What other one?”
“There was someone else with Peters in Moscow. I didn’t get a name.”
“I don’t know anything about another man. And I’m glad you didn’t offer too much.
“The decision’s already been taken that their man is a hero, whatever he was doing or had done,” said Charlie. “They won’t want anything to spoil the story.”
“I know what they want,” said the other man, testily.
Charlie didn’t like the idea of manipulating Sir Rupert Dean, the first of a very long line of directors-general not to look upon him as if he’d crawled out of a primeval swamp. But it was for both their eventual benefits, although perhaps more for his than the director-general’s. Because Charlie was getting a very distinct impression that he was personally being very badly jerked around: His feet ached, which was always a sign. And a very important Charlie Muffin rule was always to be the manipulator, not the manipulated. As far as the director-general was concerned, it was more persuading the man to be receptive to alternative reasoning. “Seems pretty close to our thinking?” Not ours, yours, mentally adjusted Charlie, who hated prearranged plans or decisions that all too often in the past had rebounded dangerously close to his crotch. And this case had every hallmark of being the biggest ball-breaker ever.
“Which is why I’m being included in the Foreign Office discussions,” said Dean. “Coordinated intention.”
Everyone who might conceivably know something saying nothing about anything, one of those anonymous Whitehall gatherings playing verbal pass-the-parcel, guessed Charlie. He very definitely didn’t want—nor intend—to be the parcel. “So our position hasn’t changed?”
“At the moment our position is confused, not just by a gap of fifty years,” qualified Dean. “Sir Matthew has agreed not to make any
public announcement. But naturally he wants to bury his brother properly: there’s a family vault. The Norringtons are a prominent dynasty: Sir Matthew got to be a permanent secretary to the Treasury in the sixties and early seventies. Left early for the city. On a Bank of England committee for a while before being seconded to the IMF in Washington. Came back to directorships of quite a few major companies. Stately home in Hampshire. Married three times with a penchant for actresses, which makes him a favorite with the media. He also gets a lot of coverage for opposing Britain’s entry into the European Monetary Union. The press will have a field day if it all gets out. And they’re already crucifying us.”
“How likely do you think it is that as well as being useful for his art knowledge Simon Norrington might have worked for military intelligence? Or SOE? Or MI6 … ?”
“I’ve already made the list, Charlie. And the inquiries.”
“And then there’s the Ministry of Defense, who took over the War Office. None of which are acknowledging anything but all of which seem hugely interested in what we’re doing.”
“I know,” repeated Dean.
“There’s something you don’t yet know, from here,” said Charlie, preparing the director-general for the disclosure he couldn’t, at the moment, openly make because he wasn’t supposed to know it. “I’m pretty sure the Russians believe like I do that there was another Westerner at the murder.”
“Not based solely on a bullet caliber?” rejected Dean.
“There could be something else I didn’t see. Don’t know about.”
“What makes you think that?” demanded Dean.
“Their man, Lestov, is back from Yakutsk. We’ve already spoken on the telephone,” lied Charlie, easily. “He said he expected the breakthrough to come from England …”
“There has to be a reason for his saying that,” cut in Dean.
Charlie’s pause had been intentional, inviting the interruption. “Of course there has. That’s why I suspect there’s something I don’t know about. And won’t unless I offer something in exchange.”
“I’ve just told you there’s more reason than ever to keep everything under wraps.”
Charlie was disappointed, although Sir Rupert had sounded halfhearted
about it. If you don’t first succeed, try, try again, Charlie told himself. “Are the Americans going to be told who our victim was?”
“I’ll listen to what they have to say first.”
A sudden awareness of what Berlin could mean swept over Charlie, so encompassing that for a few moments he couldn’t totally absorb it. When he did, he decided at once it made as much logic—more, perhaps—as anything else so far. But it was completely unsubstantiated—nothing more than the wildest speculation—and most definitely nothing he could suggest to the already distracted director-general. From whom he still needed to extract far more than he had so far. He couldn’t afford to be sidetracked from the primary consideration of self-protection, which from now on always had to go beyond self to include Natalia and Sasha. Quickly Charlie went on, “Miriam Bell saw the waistband label, expects an identification from it. And their victim carried a photograph I didn’t see her find, either. Apparently it was taken with a girl against a background it might be possible to identify.” A big building, Charlie remembered—as likely to be a museum or an art gallery as a college.
Whatever he did or knew, he was in uniform for a very special reason
. Miriam’s words. There was the vague outline of a hidden picture beginning to form, thought Charlie, enjoying the pun. Still wrong to be sidetracked, although he was impatient now to think solely about his sudden theory.
“She seems to have been remarkably forthcoming?” queried Dean. “What did you tell her?”
Charlie frowned. “I’m trying to give some idea of what the Americans have—so you’ll know how honest they’re being when you meet. You already know I didn’t give anything back.”
“Point taken,” apologized Dean.
Getting there, Charlie thought, hopefully. “If Sir Matthew Norrington is a media figure, there’s the danger of this leaking.
You
reminded
me
about the media. And I’m sure the Russians have something I don’t.”
“Charlie!” stopped the director-general. “I hear what you’re saying. Understand it, too.”
“There’ll be no way to trace a leak!” protested Charlie.
“Don’t let it be traced to you, from anything you might say to
the Americans or the Russians,” insisted Dean. “Not a millimeter too far, Charlie. One slip, and to preserve this department I’ll push you the rest of the way. That clear?”
“Very,” accepted Charlie. He shouldn’t, he supposed, be offended at the bluntness. Indeed, he supposed he should appreciate it. At least this director-general was honest enough to tell him he was the first and prepared sacrifice. Others hadn’t. And he had the leeway he wanted.
“You have anything else to talk to me about?” asked Dean.
“Are there any details of
how
the Berlin body was identified as that of Simon Norrington?” pressed Charlie. It was a safe enough question, without giving any hint of how his mind was working.
“Not yet.”
“Have we asked for it?”
“We’ve asked for everything.”
Determined to leave the other man’s perception as he wanted it, Charlie said, “The body itself—particularly a recognizable face—would have suffered serious injury. So it could only have been from personal belongings. Which would have been returned to the family. Could we ask Sir Matthew what they were?”
“Maybe you should ask him yourself,” suggested the other man.
“What?” asked Charlie, sharply.
“I’m restricting the number of people who know
all
of what’s going on,” disclosed the other man. “You’re one of the few—certainly the only fully operational officer. I want you to handle it all from now on: here, Germany, America, wherever. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” accepted Charlie, keeping the reluctance from his voice. Very much the trussed and offered sacrifice, he thought. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave Natalia alone in Moscow at this stage of her ministry conflict. Nor—equally to protect her, to continue his life with her and Sasha—could he afford to let anyone else get ahead of him and risk his very future in Russia. Time to start using Charlie Muffin rules, which allowed eye-gouging and crotch-crunching. Allowed every dirty trick ever invented, in fact, providing he inflicted the damage first.
The temptation to be sidetracked, now by the thought of following the investigation outside Russia, was greater than ever, but Charlie
forced the concentration totally upon the idea that had so abruptly occurred to him.
And the more Charlie thought—putting up and then knocking down the counterarguments—the more he became convinced that what had been taken from the Yakutsk bodies had not been stolen to
prevent
identification.
It had been to
provide
it, on the wrong bodies.
Which created practically a mountain range of new questions, this time without even the suggestion of a molehill. Where were the answers to start building one?
If he was right, then there had to be one, possibly two bodies in Berlin cemeteries carrying the identification of the other two Yakutsk victims: they’d died together, so their substitutes would have at least to be buried close to each other, to account for their deaths. From which it followed that the Yakutsk murders were not panicked, spur-of-the-moment killings, but the complete reverse: assassinations so carefully planned they amounted to a very positive and until now successful conspiracy. Neither had it been quick expediency to make a grave almost two meters deep by using grenades. Whoever had done that were local, with local knowledge that the tundra never melted to a depth of two meters. Which it hadn’t, for more than fifty years, until the onset of El Niño.
The logic continued that the local killers had never expected—and certainly never intended—the three victims to be found. If they’d anticipated that possibility,
every
identification would have been removed, possibly even the uniforms.
The key
had
to be Gulag 98, Charlie determined. To open the door to what? Norrington’s function was to trace art looted by the Nazis, about which he was fanatical. Were the special tweezers and magnifying glass that the sight-impaired American carried sufficient to suggest he was an art specialist, too? They were, for the moment, as far as Charlie was concerned. What about the woman: a specialist or an official escort? An unanswerable question for the time being, along with so many others.