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coaxed Charlie. He didn’t just want Harkness to dig a hole for himself; he wanted a damned great pit, preferably with sharpened spikes at the bottom.
    â€˜Not one worthwhile thing emerged from the entire meeting,’ insisted Harkness. Confident enough to try sarcasm, he said: ‘And for whose benefit was the whisky episode!’
    â€˜Mine,’ said Charlie at once. ‘I wanted to break his concentration. It was going so well that I didn’t want to lose anything: it can sometimes happen if a defector becomes too tense.’ He smiled and said: ‘Islay malt is a favourite of mine. His, too, it seems.’
    There were several moments of complete silence in the room. Charlie waited, comfortably relaxed. The roses today were predominantly yellow and heavily scented: Charlie wondered if the block of buildings beyond were Waterloo Station or the County Hall, uncertain whether it were either.
    â€˜Going so well?’ It was Harkness who spoke, his voice edged with uncertainty.
    â€˜And about time,’ said Charlie. ‘I think too many mistakes have already been made. I hope we’re not too late …’ He smiled again, directly at Wilson this time. ‘That’s why I’m glad the Soviet surveillance is being maintained: it is something that should have been in place weeks ago. The biggest mistake of all, in fact.’
    â€˜I said I wanted an explanation,’ complained Wilson. ‘I’m not getting it in a way I can understand.’
    Charlie recognized there was no longer any anger in the man’s voice. He said: ‘There were a number of reasons for my being what you regarded as antagonistic. It is always necessary, in the first place, to regard any defector as a hostile plant—’
    â€˜You’d already been told that in the opinion of other debriefers Novikov was genuine,’ broke in Harkness.
    â€˜I’m not interested in the opinion of other debriefers,’ said Charlie. ‘Only my own. And having read the transcripts of their sessions and seen the oversights and the errors I didn’t think their opinions were worth a damn anyway.’
    â€˜So what is your opinion?’ said Wilson.
    â€˜I’ve asked this morning for some corroboration, from Moscow,’ said Charlie. ‘But provisionally I think he’s OK.’
    â€˜What other reasons were there for your approach?’ demanded Harkness, fully aware of the unspoken criticism of Witherspoon, who was his protégé.
    â€˜Novikov is arrogant,’ said Charlie. ‘Isn’t that obvious from the transcript?’
    â€˜Yes,’ conceded Harkness reluctantly.
    â€˜He’s been handled wrongly, from the start,’ said Charlie. ‘Allowed to dominate the sessions, instead of being dominated himself. I wanted him to know I didn’t trust him: that he had to prove himself. Which he did.’
    â€˜You said mistakes had been made,’ queried Wilson.
    â€˜A lot,’ said Charlie. ‘One of the most serious is the lack of response to the word “catalogue”. It’s not in any of the debriefing guide books, but it is most frequently used by the KGB to cover an agent from their assassination department. Who will be sent in specially. That’s why I mounted the surveillance: I want a comparison between their known operatives and someone we don’t know. If it’s not too late, that is.’
    Wilson nodded and said: ‘If you’re right, I agree. But why couldn’t catalogue refer to the victim?’
    Charlie shook his head against the qualification. ‘Novikov had encountered the description before,’ he reminded. ‘Both times in connection with an assassination. He refused to be absolutely positive, but his belief was that it’s the code for the operative. And I think the debriefing proved that the operation does not just involve England.’
    â€˜Prove?’ demanded