Madrigal for Charlie Muffin Read Online Free

important as this get delegated.’
    ‘I hadn’t any intention of delegating anything,’ said Wilson.
    ‘Glad to hear it, dear fellow,’ said Naire-Hamilton. He raised his ever-moving hands against his forehead in a measuring gesture. ‘Up to here with traitors and super-spies,’ he said.
    For some inexplicable reason, the Ministry of Works, which was responsible for government decoration, considered buildings south of the river to be modern, for which Wilson was grateful. There was the obligatory bookcase, with its stuck-together tomes, but otherwise he was spared Naire-Hamilton’s working conditions. There were even two Dora Carrington pictures on the wall. The window view of the river included St Paul’s and the furniture was sufficiently contemporary not to make the television set, on which Wilson sometimes watched afternoon horse racing, appear obtrusive. Since the Calcutta accident, racing was the nearest he got to horses: once they’d been a hobby, like roses.
    Peter Harkness was waiting when Wilson returned from his Whitehall meeting. The deputy intelligence director was an undemonstrative man whose initial training had been as an accountant and who still worried about money. He lived separately but beneath the same Bayswater roof with a wife to whom he had been married for twenty years and wouldn’t consider divorcing because both were practising Catholics. Apart from church on Sundays, when he carried her missal, they were never seen together. She went to old-time dancing Wednesdays and Fridays, and at weekends, apart from church. Harkness sailed his radio-controlled model of the Cutty Sark on the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. Even then he wore a hard-collared shirt and a waistcoat.
    ‘What was the reaction?’ asked Harkness.
    ‘What I expected,’ said Wilson. ‘The instruction is absolute discretion.’
    ‘I thought that went with the job.’
    ‘No arrest or trial.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Harkness heavily.
    ‘It makes good political sense,’
    ‘What about moral sense?’
    ‘Naire-Hamilton’s morals are political.’
    Harkness appeared about to challenge the assertion, but swallowed it back. ‘We’ve still got a lot of phoney messages to go. Shall I withdraw them?’
    ‘No,’ said Wilson at once. ‘People had to be involved at the Foreign Office: if we stop, they’ll know we’ve got a lead. They might even identify it, by a process of elimination. I’m not risking another Philby situation, a protector back here at base.’
    ‘All the Rome personnel files will be processed by tomorrow,’ promised Harkness.
    ‘We might get a lead,’ said Wilson doubtfully. ‘What about the embassy itself?’
    ‘Completely isolated from anything sensitive.’
    Wilson leaned back reflectively in his chair; again the leather patches squeaked rudely. ‘We’ve got an advantage there,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The Summit,’ said the director. ‘We can move a squad into the embassy, as supposed security for the meeting.’
    ‘Any specific instructions?’
    ‘Not yet. It’s isolated, as you say. So there’s no danger any more. The only risk is that our man might get nervous and run; a defection could create the sort of embarrassment Naire-Hamilton is frightened of.’ Wilson swivelled his chair towards the window. Outside, a stacked jet, waiting for Heathrow landing permission, appeared to hover over the Houses of Parliament. ‘What about Hotovy?’ said the director suddenly.
    ‘His two boys are here, in London. But his wife is undergoing some sort of medical treatment in Brno.’
    ‘He won’t cross without her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Damn!’
    ‘He’s been as exposed as hell for six months.’
    ‘How long before she gets back?’
    ‘A week he thinks.’
    ‘There wasn’t another way.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘If his wife’s back within the week, he’s still got a chance.’
    ‘Just a chance,’ agreed Harkness.

3
    Charlie Muffin took the better of his two suits from the cleaner’s bag and