The Russia House

'Duff at what?'

'The rockets. They make errors.'

'What sort of errors?'

'All sorts. Magnetic errors. Bias errors, whatever those are. I don't know. That's your job, isn't it?'

But Landau's defensive surliness only emphasised his virtue as a witness.

For where he wished to shine and could not, his failure reassured them, as Walter's airy gesture of relief now testified.

'Well I think he's done terribly well,' he declared as if Landau were nowhere within earshot, flinging up his hands again, this time in a theatrical gesture of conclusion. 'He tells us what he remembers. He doesn't make things up to spin a better tale. You won't do that, will you, Niki?' he added anxiously, uncrossing his legs as if his crotch were nipping him.

'No, sir, you may rest assured.'

'And you haven't? I Mean, because sooner or later we'd find out. Then everything you've given us would lose its lustre.'

'No, sir. It's the way I told it. No more, no less.'

'I'm sure it is,' said Walter to his colleagues in a tone of simple trust as he again sat back. 'The hardest thing in our trade or anybody else's is to say "I believe." Niki's a natural source and rare as hen's teeth. If there were more of him , nobody would need us .'

'This is Joh

Joh

'Niki, first we have to thank you, pal,' Joh

Anyway, Landau's hackles went up in a flash.

'Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?'Joh

'If it's all right by Ned,' said Landau.

'Of course it is,' said Ned.

'So we're at the audio fair that night. Okay, pal?'

'Well, evening really, Joh

'You escort the woman Yekaterina Orlova across the room to the top of the staircase. Where the guards are. You slay goodbye to, her.'

'She's holding my arm.'

'She's holding your arm, great. In front of the guards. You watch her down the stairs. Do you also watch her into the street, pal?'

I had not heard Joh

'Correct,' Landau snapped.

'Right into the street? Pause and think,' he suggested, with the attorney's false expansiveness.

'Into the street and out of my life.'

Joh

Landau's face darkened. Not in embarrassment. In anger. 'I saw her walk down the stairs. I saw her cross the lobby to where the street is. She did not return. So unless somebody has moved the street in the last twenty-four hours, which I grant you under Stalin was always possible.

'Let's go on, shall we?' said Ned.

'See anyone walk out after her?' Joh

'Down the stairs or into the street?'

'Both, pal. Both.'

'No, I didn't. I didn't see her go into the street, did I, because you just told me I didn't. So why don't you answer the questions and I'll ask them?'

While Joh

'I'm at stake too,' said Landau. 'My word's on the line and I don't like having it made a fool of by an American who's not even British.'

Joh

Landau took a tense breath. 'Well then,' he said, and started again. 'We had these two young uniformed policemen hanging about the hotel lobby. Those are the boys who keep the lists of all the Russians who come and go, which is normal. Then upstairs inside the hall we had the nasties. Those are the plainclothes boys. The dawdlers, they call them, the toptuny ,' he added for Joh

'That everyone, pal?'

'As far as I know it is everyone but I'm waiting to be told I'm wrong.'

'Were you not also aware of two ladies of indeterminate age, grey-haired persons who were also present every day of the fair, came early, left late, who also didn't buy, didn't enter negotiations with any of the stand holders or exhibitors, or appear to have any legitimate purpose for attending the fair?'

'You're talking about Gert and Daisy, I suppose.'

'Excuse me?'

'There was two old biddies from the Council of Libraries. They came for the beer. Their main pleasure was whipping brochures off the stands and cadging free handouts. We christened them Pert and Daisy after a certain British radio show popular in the war years and after.'

'It did not occur to you that these ladies might also be performing a surveillance function?'

Ned's powerful hand was already out to restrain Landau but he was too late.

'Joh

Yet again Joh

'I do say so, yes.'

'But you didn't see her the day before? Is that also correct?'

'It is.'

'You also say that you have an eye for a pretty lady.'

'I do, thank you, and may it long remain vigilant.'

'Don't you think you should have noticed her then?'

'I do sometimes miss one,' Landau confessed, colouring again. 'If my back is turned, if I am bent over a desk or relieving myself in the toilet, it is possible my attention may flag for a moment.'

But Joh

'I do.'

'Do you not have an elder sister highly placed in the Polish administration?'

'My sister works in the Polish Health Ministry as a hospital inspector. She is not highly placed and she is past retiring age.'

'Have you at any time directly or indirectly been the witting target of pressure or blackmail by Communist bloc agencies or third parties acting in their behalf?

Landau turned to Ned. 'A what target? My English isn't very good, I'm afraid.'

'Conscious,' said Ned with a warning smile. 'Aware. Knowing.'

'No, I haven't,' said Landau.

'In your travels to Eastern bloc countries, have you been intimate with women of those countries?'

'I've been to bed with some. I haven't been intimate.'

Like a naughty schoolboy Walter let out a squeak of choked laughter, lifting his shoulders to his neck and cupping his hand over his dreadful teeth. But Joh

'Negative.'

'Have you ever sold information to any person of whatever status or profession - newspaper, enquiry agency, police, military - for any purpose, however i

'Negative.'

'And you are not and never have been a member of a Communist party or any peace organisation or group sympathetic to its aims?'

'I'm a British subject,' Landau retorted, thrusting out his little Polish jaw.

'And you have no idea, however vague, however mistily formed, of the overall message contained in the material you handled?'

'I didn't handle it. I passed it on.'

'But you read it along the way.'

'What I could, I read. Some. Then I gave up. As I told you.'

'Why?'

'From a sense of decency, if you want to know. Something which I begin to suspect you,are not troubled by.'

But Joh

'This one,' said Landau suddenly, pointing with his forefinger.

Joh

Landau is undismayed. 'That's the lady. Katya,' he says firmly. 'I'd recognise her anywhere. Katya. She's done her hair up, but it's her. Katya. That's her bag too, plastic.' He continues staring at the photograph. 'And her wedding ring.' For a moment he seems to forget he is not alone. 'I'd do the same for her tomorrow,'he says. 'And the day after.'

Which marked the satisfactory end to Joh

As the days progressed and one enigmatic interview fol lowed another, never the same place twice, never the same people except for Ned, Landau had increasingly the feeling that things were advancing to a climax. In a sound laboratory behind Portland Place, they played him women's voices, Russians speaking Russian and Russians speaking English. But he didn't recognise Katya's. Another day, to his alarm, was devoted to money. Not theirs but Landau's. His bank statements - where the hell did they get them from? His tax returns, salary slips, savings, mortgage, endowment policy, worse than the Inland Revenue.