gazing up at me. On the bedhead of my four-poster, a benign Virgin Mary presides over copulating angels. Is Arkady regretting that he allowed me back into his tormented life for thirty minutes? Is he deciding I am better dead after all? He has lived more lives than I ever shall. He has finished up with none. Soft footsteps up and down the corridor. I have an additional room for my bodyguard but no bodyguard to put in it. I have no weapon except my room key, some loose English change and a middle-aged body that is no match for one of theirs.
As big as you? Maybe bigger. Who gives a shit? … Sleep with her, you never wake up … Nobody dreams any more, hear me?
12
Moscow has spoken. Arkady has spoken. I have spoken and been heard. Dom Trench has torn up his letter to the disciplinary committee. London General has reimbursed my travel expenses, but questioned my use of a taxi to the lakeside hotel in Karlovy Vary. It seems there was a bus I could have taken. Russia department under the temporary leadership of Guy Brammel has declared the Pitchfork case active and immediate. His master, Bryn Jordan, has signalled his assent from Washington and kept to himself whatever thoughts he may have about a certain officer’s unscripted visit to a toxic former agent. The notion of a traitor of Arkady’s stature in our midst has caused an appropriate fluttering of Whitehall’s dovecotes. Agent Pitchfork, installed in a two-room ground-floor apartment in the northern reaches of inner London, has received no fewer than three encoded under-texts from his notional Danish inamorata Anette, and their contents send a thrill through the Haven that instantly transmits itself to Dom Trench, Russia department and Operations Directorate in ascending order:
‘It is God’s vindication, Peter,’ Sergei whispers to me in an awestruck voice. ‘Maybe it is His wish that I shall be only a very small player in a great operation of which I must be otherwise ignorant. It is immaterial to me. I wish only to prove my good heart.’
Reluctant to shake off old suspicions, nonetheless, Percy Price’s watchers maintain counter-surveillance-lite on him on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, 2.00–6.00 p.m, which is the most Percy can currently afford. Sergei has also asked his minder Denise whether, if he is granted British citizenship, she will accept his hand in marriage. Denise suspects that Barry has found another and that Sergei, rather than admit this to himself, has decided he is straight. The prospects of a union are however slim. Denise is a lesbian and has a wife.
Moscow Centre’s carbon under-texts endorse Sergei’s choice of lodgings and demand further detailed information on the two remaining selected North London districts, thereby confirming the perfectionist Anette’s taste for over-organization. Particular reference is made to public parks, pedestrian and vehicular access, opening and closing times, the presence or otherwise of wardens, rangers and ‘vigilant elements’. The location of park benches, gazebos, bandstands and parking availability are also points of great interest. Signals intelligence has confirmed an unusual swell of traffic in and out of Moscow Centre’s Northern department.
Since my return from Karlovy Vary my relations with Dom Trench are enjoying a predictable honeymoon, even if Russia department has discreetly relieved him of his authority in all matters relating to Stardust, the random codename thrown up by Head Office’s computer to cover the exploitation of data passing between Moscow Centre and Source Pitchfork. But Dom, convinced as ever that rejection is just around the next corner, remains determinedly exalted by the notion that my reports bear our joint symbols. He is aware of his dependence on me and unnerved by it, which I find quietly pleasing.
*
I had promised to get back to Florence but in the euphoria of the moment I had put it off. The enforced lull while we wait for decisive instructions from Moscow Centre offers as good a moment as any to repair my discourtesy. Prue is visiting an ailing sister in the country. She expects to be away for the weekend. I call her to check. Her plans haven’t changed. I don’t call Florence from the Haven, or on my Office mobile. I go home, eat a cold steak-and-kidney pie, down a couple of Scotches, then, arming myself with small change, stroll up the road to one of Battersea’s last-remaining phone boxes and dial the last number she gave me. I am expecting another machine but instead get Florence out of breath.
‘Hang on,’