Our Game (8 page)

She was happy to take my point. "And besides, it probably was normal, wasn't it? It may still be. As you say, all Larry has done is disappear."

"Well, there was the reference to Checheyev," I reminded her. "The landlady's description of Larry's foreign visitor fitted him to a T."

At the mention of CC, her grey-green gaze lifted to me inhospitably.

"Did it?" she said, more as a question of herself than of me. "Tell me about him."

"Checheyev T'

"Isn't he a Georgian or something?"

Oh, Larry, I thought, you should be with us now.

"No, I'm afraid he was quite the other thing. He came from the North Caucasus."

"So he was Chechen," she said, with the peculiar dogmatism I was beginning to expect of her.

"Well, nearly but not quite," I said kindly, though I'd half a mind to tell her to go and look at a map. "He's an Ingush. From Ingushetia. Next door to Chechenia but smaller. Chechenia one side, North Ossetia the other. Ingushetia in the middle."

"I see," she said with the same blank stare as before.

"In KGB terms, Checheyev was a one-off. Russians from the old Muslim minorities didn't make the foreign side of the KGB as a rule. They don't make much at all. There are special laws to control them, they're known as blackarses and kept in the provinces. CC broke the mould."

"I see."

"CC was Larry's name for him."

"I see."

I wished she would stop saying that, since it was so patently untrue.

"Blackarse sounds much worse in Russian than in English.

It used to apply only to Central Asian Muslims. In the new spirit of openness it's been extended to include the North

Caucasians."

"I see."

He cut a heroic figure, at least in Larry's eyes. Dashing, cultrued, physical, very much the gorets, and even something wit. After some of the dross Larry had had to put up with over the last sixteen years, Checheyev was a breath of air."

"Gorets?"

"Mountain man. Plural gortsy. He was a good case officer too."

"Really." She consulted her hands.

"Larry likes to idealise people," I explained. "It's part of his eternal immaturity. When they let him down, nothing's bad enough for them. But with CC that never happened."

I had reminded her of something.

"Didn't Larry have some position on the Caucasus?" she asked with disapproval. "I seem to remember we had to call in the Foreign Office so that he could be heard."

"He thought we should be taking a greater interest in the region during the dying days of Soviet power."

"Greater interest how?"

"He saw the North Caucasus as the next powder keg. The next Afghanistan. A string of Bosnias waiting to happen. He felt that the Russians shouldn't be trusted with the region. He hated them interfering. Dividing and ruling. He hated the demonisation of Islam as a substitute for the anti-Communist crusade."

"And do?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Do. What were we in the West supposed to do, in Pettifer's lexicon, to redress our sins?"

I shrugged, perhaps a little rudely. "Stop siding with the old Russian dinosaurs ... insist on a proper respect for small nations ... renounce our love of large political groupings and give more thought to individual minorities ..." I was quoting Larry word for word—the Pettifer Sunday sermons. Like Larry, I could have gone on all day. "Care about the detail. The humanity, which was what we fought the Cold War for in the first place."

"Did we?"

"He did."

"And Checheyev influenced him in this, obviously.”

“Obviously."

Her eyes had scarcely left mine all this time. Now they flashed accusingly. "And did you share this view—you personally?"

"Checheyev's view?"

"This perception of our Western duty."

No, I bloody well didn't, I thought. It was Larry at his worst, stirring up a storm because he was bored. But I didn't say that. "I was a professional, Marjorie. I didn't have the time to share views or reject them. I believed whatever was necessary to the job at the time."

But I had the feeling, as she continued watching me, that she was listening less to my words than to things I hadn't said.

"Anyway, we heard him," she said, as if that absolved us of blame.

"Oh, we heard him, all right. Our analysts heard him. The Foreign Office's expert on Southern Russia heard him. But it wasn't a success."

"Why not?"

"They told him there was no British interest in the area. We'd told him much the same ourselves, but when he heard it from the horse's mouth he lost his temper. He quoted a Mingrelian proverb at them. 'Why do you want light if you're blind?' "

"Did you know Checheyev retired from his service with full honours two years ago?"

"Of course."

"Why of course?"

"It was happening by the time we stood Larry down.

Checheyev's departure was a contributing factor to the Top Floor's decision to wrap up the Pettifer operation."

"Had Checheyev been offered another posting?"

"According to him, no. He was resigning."

"Where was he going? According to him."

"Home. He wanted his mountain back. He was tired of being an intellectual and wanted to go back to his tribal roots."

"Or that was his story."

"It's what he told Larry, which is slightly different."

"Why?"

"They liked to think they had a relationship of trust.

Checheyev never lied to him. Or so he said, and Larry believed him."

"Did you?"

"Lie to Larry?"

"Believe Checheyev."

"We never caught him out."

Marjorie Pew placed the thumb and forefinger of her right hand to the bridge of her nose, as if adjusting its position.

"But of course Checheyev wasn't head resident here, was he?" she said, leading me for the benefit of the jury.

Not for the first time, I wondered how much she knew and how much she was depending on my answers. I decided that her technique was a blend of ignorance and cunning; that she was rehearsing me in things she already knew and concealing what she didn't.

"No, he wasn't. The head resident was a man named Zorin. A blackarse could never have made top man in a major Western post. Not even Checheyev."

"Didn't you have dealings with Zorin?"

"You know I did."

"Tell us about them."

"They occurred under the strict orders of the Top Floor. We met every couple of months or so in a safe house.”

“Which one?"

"Trafalgar. In Shepherd Market."

"Over what period?"

"Altogether I suppose we had a dozen meetings. They were recorded, naturally."

"Did you have meetings with Zorin that were not recorded?"

"No, and he brought his own tape recorder along for good measure."

"And the purpose of these meetings?"

I gave her the whole mouthful, exactly as it had read in my brief: "Informal exchanges between our two services on matters of potential mutual interest, to be conducted in the new spirit of cooperation."

"And precisely?"

"Shared headaches. Drugs traffic. Maverick arms pedlars. Bomb-slinging extremists. Cases of major international fraud involving Russian interests. When it began, we were keeping our voices low and not quite telling the Americans. By the time I left, the collaboration was pretty well official."

"Did you form a bond with him?"

"Zorin? Of course. It was my job."

"Has it endured?"

"You mean, are we still in love? If I had had any further dealings with Zorin, I would have reported them to the Office."

"What was your last word of him?"

"He quitted London soon after I did. He said he was taking a dreary desk job in Moscow. I didn't believe him. He didn't expect me to. We had a last drink, and he presented me with his KGB hip flask. I was duly touched. He probably had twenty of them."

She didn't like my being duly touched. "Did you ever discuss Checheyev with him?"

I had given up expressing shock to her. "Of course not. Checheyev was officially cultural and under deep cover, whereas Zorin was declared to us as the diplomat with intelligence responsibility. The last thing I wanted to do was suggest to Zorin that we had rumbled Checheyev. I could have compromised Larry."

"What sort of international fraud did you discuss?"

"Particular cases? None. It was a matter of establishing future links between our investigators and theirs. Bringing honest men together, we called it. Zorin was old school. He yoked like something out of the October Parade."

"I see."

I waited. So did she. But she waited longer. I am back with Zorin for our farewell drink in Shepherd Market. Till now it was always the Office's whisky that we drank. Today it is in Zorin's vodka. Before us on the table stands the shining silver hip flask embellished with the red insignia of his service."

"I am not sure what future we may drink to now, Friend Timothy," he confesses with an uncharacteristic show of humility. "Perhaps you will propose an appropriate toast for us."

So I proposed the Russian word for order, knowing that order, not progress, was what the old Communist soldier loved the best. So order is what we drink to, at our net-curtained second-floor window, while the shoppers come and go below us, and the tarts eye their customers from doorways, and the music shop blasts out its mayhem.

"The questions put to you by the police about Larry's business dealings," Marjorie Pew was saying.

"Yes, Marjorie."

"They didn't jog your memory at all?"

"I assumed the police had got the wrong man as usual. Larry is an infant about business. My section was forever sorting out his tax returns, expenses, overdrafts, and unpaid electricity bills."

"You don't think that might have been cover."

"Covering what?"

I didn't like her shrug. "Covering hidden money he had acquired and didn't want anyone to know about," she said. "Covering a good business head."

"Absolutely not."

"Is it your theory that Checheyev is in some way linked to Larry's disappearance?"

"It's not my theory; it was what the police seemed to be suggesting."

"So you don't think Checheyev's presence in Bath is of any significance?"

"I don't have an opinion in this, Marjorie; how can I have? Larry and Checheyev were close. I know that. They had a mutual admiration society going. I know that. Whether they still have is quite another question." I saw my chance and took it. "I don't even know when Checheyev's visits to Bath are supposed to have taken place."

But she refused to take the bait. "You don't think it possible Larry and Checheyev have entered into a business arrangement, for instance? Of any kind? Never mind what?"

Wanting someone to share my irritation, I again glanced at Barney, but he was playing possum.

"No. Absolutely not," I said. "As I told the police, several times." And I added, "Out of the question."

"Why?" I did not like being made to repeat myself. "Because Larry never gave a hoot about money and had absolutely no head for business. He called his Office pay his Judas money. He felt bad taking it. He felt—"

"And Checheyev?"

I was getting sick of her interrupting me too. "Checheyev what?"

"Did he have a business head?"

"Absolutely not. He rejected it. Capitalism ... profit ... money as motive—he hated all of it."

"You mean he was above it?"

"Below it. Whatever."

"Too truthful? Too honest? You accept the Larry view of him?"

"It's the pride of the gortsy that money buys nothing in the mountains. Greed makes a man stupid, they say." I was quoting Larry again. "Manhood and honour are all that count. It's probably romantic nonsense, but that was the line he pushed with Larry, and Larry was duly impressed by it." I'd had enough. "I'm not a feature in this, Marjorie. Larry's retired, so's Checheyev, so am I. I thought you should know that Checheyev had visited Larry in Bath and that Larry had disappeared. If you didn't know already. Why is anybody's guess."

"But you're not anybody, are you? You're the expert on the Larry-Checheyev relationship—whether you're retired or not."

"The only experts on that relationship are Larry and Checheyev."

"But didn't you invent it? Control it? Isn't that what you've been doing all these years?"

"Twenty-odd years ago I engineered a relationship between Larry and the KGB head resident of the day. Under my guidance Larry trailed his coat at him, played hard to get, finally said yes, I'll spy for Moscow."

"Go on."

I was going on anyway. I didn't know why she was goading me, and I wasn't sure she knew. But if she wanted a lecture on Larry's case history, she could have it. "First came Brod. After Brod we had Miklov, then Kransky, then Sherpov, then Mislanski, finally Checheyev, and Zorin as boss but Checheyev as Larry's handler. Larry found his own way to each of them. Double agents are chameleons. Good doubles don't act their parts, they live them. They are them. When Larry was with Tim, he was with Tim. When he was with his Soviet controller, he was with his Soviet controller whether I liked it or not. My job was to make sure we were getting the best end of the deal."

"And you were confident that we were."

"In Larry's case, yes, I was."

"And you still are."

"In my retirement, recalling events in tranquility, yes, I still am. With doubles you assume a certain wastage of loyalty. The opposition is always more attractive to them than the home side. That's their nature. They're constant rebels. Larry was a rebel too. But he was our rebel."

"So Larry and his Russian case officers could have got up to anything they liked and you wouldn't have been the wiser."

"Not so."

"Why not?"

"We had collateral."

"From?"

"Other live sources. Audio surveillance. The flat of an intermediary. A restaurant we'd bugged. A car we'd nobbled. Whenever we got microphone coverage, it tallied stitch by stitch with Larry's version. We couldn't fault him. All this stuff's on file, you know."

She gave me a flinty smile and resumed her study of her hands. The momentum seemed to have gone out of her. It occurred to me that she was tired and that it was unfair of me to imagine she could read twenty years' worth of files in one weekend of crisis. She took a breath.