Free Our Game by John le Carré Page B

official."
    "Did you form a bond with him?"
    "Zorin? Of course. It was my job."
    "Has it endured?"
    "You mean, are we still in love? If I had had any further dealings with Zorin, I would have reported them to the Office."
    "What was your last word of him?"
    "He quitted London soon after I did. He said he was taking a dreary desk job in Moscow. I didn't believe him. He didn't expect me to. We had a last drink, and he presented me with his KGB hip flask. I was duly touched. He probably had twenty of them."
    She didn't like my being duly touched. "Did you ever discuss Checheyev with him?"
    I had given up expressing shock to her. "Of course not. Checheyev was officially cultural and under deep cover, whereas Zorin was declared to us as the diplomat with intelligence responsibility. The last thing I wanted to do was suggest to Zorin that we had rumbled Checheyev. I could have compromised Larry."
    "What sort of international fraud did you discuss?"
    "Particular cases? None. It was a matter of establishing future links between our investigators and theirs. Bringing honest men together, we called it. Zorin was old school. He yoked like something out of the October Parade."
    "I see."
    I waited. So did she. But she waited longer. I am back with Zorin for our farewell drink in Shepherd Market. Till now it was always the Office's whisky that we drank. Today it is in Zorin's vodka. Before us on the table stands the shining silver hip flask embellished with the red insignia of his service."
    "I am not sure what future we may drink to now, Friend Timothy," he confesses with an uncharacteristic show of humility. "Perhaps you will propose an appropriate toast for us."
    So I proposed the Russian word for order, knowing that order, not progress, was what the old Communist soldier loved the best. So order is what we drink to, at our net-curtained second-floor window, while the shoppers come and go below us, and the tarts eye their customers from doorways, and the music shop blasts out its mayhem.
    "The questions put to you by the police about Larry's business dealings," Marjorie Pew was saying.
    "Yes, Marjorie."
    "They didn't jog your memory at all?"
    "I assumed the police had got the wrong man as usual. Larry is an infant about business. My section was forever sorting out his tax returns, expenses, overdrafts, and unpaid electricity bills."
    "You don't think that might have been cover."
    "Covering what?"
    I didn't like her shrug. "Covering hidden money he had acquired and didn't want anyone to know about," she said. "Covering a good business head."
    "Absolutely not."
    "Is it your theory that Checheyev is in some way linked to Larry's disappearance?"
    "It's not my theory; it was what the police seemed to be suggesting."
    "So you don't think Checheyev's presence in Bath is of any significance?"
    "I don't have an opinion in this, Marjorie; how can I have? Larry and Checheyev were close. I know that. They had a mutual admiration society going. I know that. Whether they still have is quite another question." I saw my chance and took it. "I don't even know when Checheyev's visits to Bath are supposed to have taken place."
    But she refused to take the bait. "You don't think it possible Larry and Checheyev have entered into a business arrangement, for instance? Of any kind? Never mind what?"
    Wanting someone to share my irritation, I again glanced at Barney, but he was playing possum.
    "No. Absolutely not," I said. "As I told the police, several times." And I added, "Out of the question."
    "Why?" I did not like being made to repeat myself. "Because Larry never gave a hoot about money and had absolutely no head for business. He called his Office pay his Judas money. He felt bad taking it. He felt—"
    "And Checheyev?"
    I was getting sick of her interrupting me too. "Checheyev what?"
    "Did he have a business head?"
    "Absolutely not. He rejected it. Capitalism ... profit ... money as motive—he hated all of it."
    "You mean he was above it?"
    "Below it.