as promotion is concerned. Or at least he thinks he does. The trouble is all the intrigue and whatnot that he studies has got into his blood. He sees a spy at every corner.’
‘But is he right about not going out with Russian girls?’
‘It’s up to you, old boy. I personally wouldn’t say no to banging a Russian bird. It would be one for the old memoirs.’
‘Then why don’t you go out with one?’
‘Because my wife wouldn’t approve,’ Ansell said gloomily. ‘You must come round to dinner one evening this week. Anne likes a bit of company.’
They were interrupted by the sound of excited voices in the lobby, a rare phenomenon in the British Embassy. Ansell went out to find out what was happening.
When he came back he said: ‘Quite a flap on.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘A Russian tried to defect to the embassy.’
The wife of a diplomat on the way to the embassy to take her husband home to lunch had stopped at traffic lights across the bridge. As she was about to drive away a middle-aged Russian who had been lounging against the railings pulled the door open and sat down beside her. ‘British Embassy,’ he said. ‘British Embassy.’ And handed her a piece of paper with a message scrawled on it in broken English. It was a plea to be given asylum; the secret police were after him and he had a message for Winston Churchill. When she slowed down as if to stop the man became hysterical and mimed the action of cutting his throat.
‘So what did she do?’ Mortimer asked.
‘She got as far as the embassy gates and shouted to the militia outside. They carted him off still clutching his piece of paper.’
‘Poor chap,’ Mortimer said. ‘What do you think will happen to him?’
Ansell put two fingers to his temple. ‘Dosvidaniya,’ he said.
‘Couldn’t she have brought him inside? After all we would have granted him political asylum if he’d jumped ship in London.’
‘Far too risky,’ Ansell said. ‘There would have been a hell of a rumpus. He was obviously as nutty as a fruit cake and in any case how would we have got him out of the country? Apart from that he might have been a phoney sent in so that the Russians could accuse us of subversive activities. No, she did absolutely the right thing. Didn’t panic and used her common-sense. Quite a girl.’
The wife was reported later to have said that the Russian’s breath had upset her more than anything. She was concerned about his fate but what else could she have done?
Hugh Farnworth, the extrovert first secretary in charge of security, passed word around the departments that the incident should be underplayed to the point of extinction. In particular no one should mention it to the Press.
When Ansell drove him home Mortimer wondered if the grey Volga two cars behind was following them. They drove beside the Kremlin wall, turned left at an irritable policeman on point duty, passed the Lenin Library and the Kremlin Hospital. The homeward crowds skipped across the street daring the cars to run them down or waited in resentful huddles at the crossings glowering at the drivers, shuffling their feet towards the tyres. They poured down the metro stations, fought their way into the buses, queued for the evening papers with their predictable headlines. Pale, headscarved women and weary men heading for cramped flats where together they would make the bed and cook the meal and watch television and go to bed and get up and go to their respective jobs.
A big woman carrying a bulging string bag walked in front of the car. Ansell braked. ‘Bloody peasant,’ he said. The woman walked on as if she were crossing an empty field. ‘There’s all hell to pay if you hit one of them. And it’s always your fault. I sometimes think they want to be knocked down by a Western car.’
They turned into Prospect Kalinina where acetylene welders were dripping sparks from the girders of new apartment blocks on to the old tenements below. Over the winding river once more, wispy with mist, past the battlements of the Ukraine Hotel, past the Dom Igrushki toy shop where children gazed at the poor toys in the windows. At the third militiaman along Kutuzovsky Prospect Ansell made a U turn.
They followed a Mercedes and a Peugeot into the car park, ‘I thought about getting a bigger car,’ Ansell said. ‘But what’s the point of getting anything decent? It would only be wrecked by these peasant taxi drivers.’
A group of Cubans in Army battle-dress slouched past.
‘Not as popular as they used to be,’ Ansell said. ‘They reckon Castro’s got a bit too big for his boots.’
‘Why on earth are they dressed up like that?’
‘Heaven knows. Perhaps they’re the only clothes they’ve got. They sleep a dozen to a flat, you know. And they won’t let anybody in. I think they’re just ashamed of the way they live.’
An African parked his car so that it blocked two others. He walked away looking pleased with himself, incongruously elegant in a slim-trousered suit and a snap-brimmed hat.
It was almost dark now, the air smoky and iced and hostile.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ Ansell asked.
‘Nothing very much. I thought I’d write a few letters and have an early night. I haven’t been to bed before one since I arrived.’
‘What about taking in a flick at the American Club with us? If we can get a baby sitter that is.’
‘I didn’t know you had a baby,’ Mortimer said. ‘You don’t look like a father.’
The remark seemed to please Ansell. ‘A little girl,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a film? You might as well be introduced to the American Club. Dreadful place, really. But it serves a purpose. Especially if you’re a bachelor.’ He winked at Mortimer. ‘What about it?’
‘All right,’ Mortimer said. ‘I’ll write my letters now.’
But he didn’t finish the letters because he had a visitor.
He was interrupted by a ring at the door. A loud, drilling ring that startled him. He thought immediately of the warnings about attempts to compromise him.
A slim girl in a grey woollen dress stood at the door. She said breathlessly, ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you and I wouldn’t have dreamed of disturbing you normally but I’ve locked myself out and I wondered if I could use your phone.’
The warnings were lodged in his mind like repetitive advertising. ‘I’m awfully sorry but I don’t know who you are,’ he said. He was ashamed of his clumsiness.
She flushed. ‘I’m from upstairs. I know we haven’t been introduced and I wouldn’t have disturbed you if I hadn’t been desperate.’
An American journalist who lived two floors above Mortimer walked down the stairs. He saluted the girl. ‘Hi there,’ he said.
‘Hallo,’ she said. She turned back to Mortimer. ‘The lifts aren’t working. You’ll get used to that after a while. There’s a man next to us who’s got a heart complaint. He’s terrified
