Our Game

"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?"