she was clearly excellent.’
‘You never heard her speak Russian?’
‘No, Peter. I did not.’
‘Not one word?’
‘No.’
‘German?’
‘Once only she spoke German. It was to recite Heine. This is a German poet of the Romantic Period, also a Jew.’
‘In your mind. Now, or maybe when you were listening to her speaking. How would you place her geographically? From what region?’
I had expected him to ponder ostentatiously, but he came straight back:
‘It was my impression that this woman, by her bearing and dark eyes and complexion, also from the cadence of her speech, was from Georgia.’
Dull down, I am urging myself. Be your mediocre professional self.
‘Sergei?’
‘Please, Peter?’
‘What is the date of your planned holiday with Barry?’
‘It will be for all of August. It will be to visit on foot as pilgrims your historic British places of culture and spiritual freedom.’
‘And your university term begins when?’
‘September 24th.’
‘Then why not postpone your holiday until September? Tell him you have an important research project in London.’
‘I cannot do this. Barry will wish only to accompany me.’
But my head is already spinning with alternatives.
‘Then consider this. We send you – just for example – an official letter on, say, Harvard University Physics Faculty notepaper congratulating you on your great work in York. We offer you a two-month summer research fellowship on the Harvard campus in July and August, all expenses paid, and an honorarium. You could show that to Barry, and as soon as you’ve completed your spell in London as Markus Schweizer the two of you can pick up where you left off and have the time of your lives using all those lovely dollars that Harvard will have given you for your research project. Would that play? Well, would it or not?’
‘Provided such a letter is plausible and the honorarium is realistic, it is my belief that Barry would be proud for me,’ he announces.
Some spies are lightweights pretending to be heavyweights. Some are heavyweights despite themselves. Unless my inflamed memory deceives me, Sergei has just promoted himself to the heavyweight class.
*
Seated in the front of the car, we debate as two professionals the sort of replies we will be sending to Anette in Copenhagen: a first draft of the under-text assuring Centre that Sergei will comply with its instructions, then the cover text, which I propose to leave to his erotic imagination, stipulating only that, together with the under-text, I approve it before it is sent.
Having concluded – not least for my own convenience – that Sergei is likely to be more at ease with a female handler, I inform him that he will henceforth be working to Jennifer, aka Florence, on all matters of routine. I undertake to bring Jennifer to York on a get-to-know-you expedition and discuss what cover best befits their future relationship: perhaps not girlfriend, since Jennifer is tall and good-looking and Barry might take offence. I will remain Sergei’s controller, Jennifer will report to me at all stages. And I remember thinking to myself that whatever had got into Florence on the badminton court, here was the gift of a challenging agent operation to restore her morale and test her skills.
At a petrol station on the outskirts of York I invest in two egg-and-cress sandwiches and two bottles of fizzy lemonade. Giles would no doubt have produced a Fortnum’s hamper. When we have finished our picnic and cleaned the crumbs out of the car together, I drop Sergei at a bus stop. He attempts to embrace me. I shake his hand instead. To my surprise it is still early afternoon. I return the hire car to the depot and am lucky to catch a fast train that gets me to London in time to take Prue to our local Indian. Since Office matters are off-limits, our dinner conversation turns on the shameful practices of Big Pharma. Back at home, we watch Channel 4 News on catch-up and on this inconclusive note go to bed, but sleep comes slowly to me.
Florence has still not responded to my phone message. The Treasury sub-committee’s verdict on Rosebud, according to an enigmatic late email from Viv, is ‘due any moment but still pending’. If I do not find these augurs quite as ominous as I might have done, that is because my head is still rejoicing in the improbable chain of connection that Sergei and his Anette have revealed to me. I am reminded of an aphorism of my mentor Bryn Jordan: if you spy for long enough, the show comes round again.
10
Riding on