Run Around Read Free

hobby was growing roses at his Hampshire home and so at least their perfume pervaded the room: there were bowls of delicate Pink Parfait on a side table and the drop front of a bookcase and a vase of deep red Lilli Marlene on the desk. Wilson stood as Charlie entered, because a permanently stiffened leg from a polo accident made it uncomfortable for him to sit for any period. He wedged himself against a windowsill shiny from his use, nodding Charlie towards a chair already set beside the desk. Richard Harkness sat in another, directly opposite, a fussily neat, striped-suited man, pearl-coloured pocket handkerchief matching his pearl-coloured tie, pastel-pink socks co-ordinated with his pastel-pink shirt. Charlie was prepared to bet that Harkness could have negotiated a £10,000 overdraft in about five minutes flat. But not in the office of a manager who didn’t serve even cheap sherry. Harkness’s scene would have been the panelled dining room or library of one of those clubs in Pall Mall or St James’s where all the servants were at least a hundred years old and your father put your name down for membership before announcing the birth in The Times .
    â€˜Your shirt collar is undone,’ complained Harkness, at once.
    â€˜A pin stuck in my neck,’ said Charlie, in poor explanation.
    â€˜What!’
    Before Charlie could respond, Wilson said impatiently: ‘My collar’s undone, too,’ which it was. He went on: ‘Got an unusual one for you this time, Charlie.’
    Weren’t they all? thought Charlie, wearily. He said: ‘What is it?’
    â€˜For almost three years we’ve had a source directly inside the headquarters of the KGB itself, in Dzerzhinsky Square,’ disclosed Wilson. ‘Name’s Vladimir Novikov. He was the senior supervisor in the cipher section: security cleared to handle things up to and including Politburo level.’
    That wasn’t unusual, acknowledged Charlie: that was sensational. ‘ Was ?’ he queried, isolating the operative word.
    â€˜He was getting jumpy, so we agreed to his defection,’ nodded the Director. ‘Then he became convinced he was under active investigation so he ran, crossing at the Finnish border. Seems he was right because there was certainly a chase.’
    â€˜When?’ asked Charlie.
    â€˜Two months ago,’ came in Harkness.
    The timing meant other people were conducting the debriefing, realized Charlie, relieved. He had a special reason for not liking debriefings. ‘How good is his information?’ he said.
    â€˜That’s why you’re here,’ said Wilson. ‘I know it’s early days, but so far everything he’s said checks out absolutely one hundred per cent.’
    â€˜So?’ queried Charlie, warily.
    â€˜Something was being organized, just before he came over. Something very big.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜A major international, political assassination,’ announced the Director, simply. ‘It looks as if Britain is involved.’
    â€˜Who?’ asked Charlie.
    â€˜He doesn’t know.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜He doesn’t know.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜He doesn’t know.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜He doesn’t know.’
    â€˜Who’s the assassin?’
    â€˜He doesn’t know.’
    â€˜What do you expect me to do?’
    Wilson looked at Charlie curiously, as if he were surprised by the reaction. ‘Find out who is to be killed and stop it happening, of course.’
    Fuck me, thought Charlie. But then people usually did. Or tried to, at least.
    Characteristically, Alexei Berenkov was an ebullient, flamboyant man but he was subdued now because the defector had ultimately been his responsibility, as head of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. The demeanour of Mikhail Lvov was equally controlled but then the commander of Department 8 of Directorate S which plans and carries out ordered