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agreed.’
    â€˜The Finnish crossing could not have been arranged just like that,’ challenged Charlie, at once.
    â€˜Mr Witherspoon did not question the point.’
    It was automatic for this encounter, like every other, to be recorded: there was actually a simultaneous replay facility to London. If that remark got the careless little prick censured then too bad, decided Charlie. The rules and regulations by which Witherspoon existed were no more than guidelines, like the guidelines in the weapons manuals set out in perfect detail how to fire a bullet but failed to follow through by explaining that a well-placed bullet of sufficient calibre could separate top from bottom. And troublesome though his feet permanently were, Charlie wanted his top to remain in every way attached to his bottom. So all it took was that one careless little prick not recognizing where the trigger was. He said: ‘My name isn’t Witherspoon.’
    â€˜You didn’t tell me your name, reminded Novikov.
    â€˜No, I didn’t, did I?’ agreed Charlie. And stopped.
    There was a long moment of silence. Then Novikov said: ‘Is this a hostile interview?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜What then?’
    â€˜A proper interview.’
    â€˜Haven’t the others been properly conducted?’
    The Russian was very quick, acknowledged Charlie, admiringly. It was wrong to let Novikov put questions to which he had to respond. Charlie said: ‘What do you think?’
    â€˜I think you doubt me, that I made a mistake in crossing to the British. I shall go to the Americans instead,’ announced the Russian.
    â€˜That wasn’t the answer to my question.’
    â€˜I do not wish to answer any more of your questions.’
    â€˜Why not, Vladimir Andreevich? What are you frightened of?’
    â€˜Mr Witherspoon does not properly know how to use the Russian patronymic. Nor did the interrogator before him.’
    â€˜Why not, Vladimir Andreevich?’ persisted Charlie, objecting to what he thought was an attempted deflection but curious about it just the same.
    â€˜Neither spoke Russian properly, like you do, either,’ said the man. ‘Their inflection was copy-book, language school stuff. From the way you instinctively form a genitive from masculine or neuter I know you lived in Moscow. And as a Muscovite.’
    Charlie thought he understood at last. Not as a Muscovite, he thought: with a Muscovite. Darling, beautiful Natalia against whom he’d consciously and for so long closed the door in his mind, because it was a room he could never enter again. It had been the Russian mission, his own supposed defection which he hadn’t known until it was too late to be a prove-yourself-again operation, when he’d met and fallen in love with someone he’d hoped, so desperately hoped, would replace Edith. But who had refused to come back, because of the child of another man. He said: ‘I am not Russian.’
    â€˜What then?’
    The questioning had reversed again, Charlie recognized. He said: ‘English.’
    â€˜How is that possible?’
    â€˜There was a time when I knew Russia well,’ conceded Charlie. Was it right for him earlier to have been so critical about Witherspoon and some military attaché in Moscow, disclosing details that should have been disclosed when he was volunteering too much information himself?
    â€˜I will not be tricked.’
    â€˜How can you be tricked?’
    â€˜I never want contact with a single Russian, ever again!’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous: you know full well I am not Russian!’ said Charlie. Was Novikov’s anti-Sovietism over-exaggerated? It would not be difficult to imagine so. But then the first principle of defector assessment was imagining nothing but only to proceed on established facts.
    â€˜Why do you doubt me, then?’
    â€˜Why shouldn’t 1?’
    â€˜All the information I have given is the