emanating from the brisk
figure beyond the polished desk. There was nothing on the desk save three telephones, black, grey and red, a buff file and a notepad, both of which Hookey closed as Charles entered. They shook
hands.
‘Tea, coffee?’ asked Hookey.
‘Tea, thank you.’ His reply felt unfinished without ‘sir’.
Hookey asked his secretary, Maureen, for two teas and closed the door. ‘Who was your commanding officer in the army?’
‘Peter Wallace. I believe he’s now a full colonel in the MOD.’
‘He is. Interesting appointment.’
Charles was never quite sure how to react to mention of his former CO, whose name provoked varied responses. ‘Not a natural one for him, I’d have thought.’ He smiled.
‘Not natural, perhaps, but people sometimes succeed surprisingly well at what does not come naturally to them. It’s a question of application. Because it doesn’t feel natural,
they try harder, and so do better. Have you ever noticed that?’
Put as a question, it still felt like a rebuke. Charles was easily made to feel guilty where the CO, as he still thought of him, was concerned. He was a man he both admired and judged hard, much
as he suspected he might have his late father, had he known him under similar circumstances. Indeed, he remembered his father defending the CO against his no doubt intemperate attacks when home on
leave. ‘He’s right even when he’s wrong because he’s the CO and you’re a subaltern,’ his father would say with irritating finality. ‘You’re a soldier
and a soldier’s duty is to do his duty, and that’s that.’ Charles was the serving soldier, but his father’s war record inhibited him in such arguments.
When Maureen brought in the teas Hookey asked her to ask A1 to look in in five minutes. The door closed, he leant forward with his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped and his cup and saucer
planted carefully before him as if forming an evidential object. His grey-blue eyes, so far from being windows on the soul, gave the impression of having no time for such frivolity.
‘When you were at Oxford, before the army, you knew a Russian postgraduate student, Viktor Ivanovich Koslov, who was there for a year. The Russians permit few students to study in the west
and those who do are closely monitored. It was not clear why Koslov, who was neither a scientist seeking militarily useful information nor, as far as we knew, an intelligence officer seeking
recruits, was permitted. Undoubtedly, though, he would have had some sort of intelligence brief, if only to report on students and others he knew, such as yourself. You did not know him well but
you were friendly enough when you came across him, much as you might have been with anyone else in your college to whom you were not close but who was sufficiently personable. You reported your
acquaintance fairly fully during your positive vetting interviews before joining the service. Your longest conversation with Koslov was when one day you walked back from the schools building with
him and into hall for lunch.’
Charles remembered the pale, quiet man with sandy hair and freckles, fluent but careful English and amiable but guarded manner. He seemed solitary without being obviously lonely; Charles could
not remember who, if any, his friends were. He was doubtless more mature than most undergraduates yet had about him an apparent naïveté that led people to treat him as if he were in
fact less mature, and in need of looking after. Hookey gave the impression of knowing more about him than was in Charles’s PV reporting.
‘You probably don’t know that Koslov is now in London, at the Soviet Embassy, where he is one of the second secretaries. He’s been here some time and his posting is due to end
soon. So far as the records show, he is straight MFA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Neither his pattern of behaviour nor his traces in our own or MI5 records suggest any reason to identify
him as KGB. It
figure beyond the polished desk. There was nothing on the desk save three telephones, black, grey and red, a buff file and a notepad, both of which Hookey closed as Charles entered. They shook
hands.
‘Tea, coffee?’ asked Hookey.
‘Tea, thank you.’ His reply felt unfinished without ‘sir’.
Hookey asked his secretary, Maureen, for two teas and closed the door. ‘Who was your commanding officer in the army?’
‘Peter Wallace. I believe he’s now a full colonel in the MOD.’
‘He is. Interesting appointment.’
Charles was never quite sure how to react to mention of his former CO, whose name provoked varied responses. ‘Not a natural one for him, I’d have thought.’ He smiled.
‘Not natural, perhaps, but people sometimes succeed surprisingly well at what does not come naturally to them. It’s a question of application. Because it doesn’t feel natural,
they try harder, and so do better. Have you ever noticed that?’
Put as a question, it still felt like a rebuke. Charles was easily made to feel guilty where the CO, as he still thought of him, was concerned. He was a man he both admired and judged hard, much
as he suspected he might have his late father, had he known him under similar circumstances. Indeed, he remembered his father defending the CO against his no doubt intemperate attacks when home on
leave. ‘He’s right even when he’s wrong because he’s the CO and you’re a subaltern,’ his father would say with irritating finality. ‘You’re a soldier
and a soldier’s duty is to do his duty, and that’s that.’ Charles was the serving soldier, but his father’s war record inhibited him in such arguments.
When Maureen brought in the teas Hookey asked her to ask A1 to look in in five minutes. The door closed, he leant forward with his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped and his cup and saucer
planted carefully before him as if forming an evidential object. His grey-blue eyes, so far from being windows on the soul, gave the impression of having no time for such frivolity.
‘When you were at Oxford, before the army, you knew a Russian postgraduate student, Viktor Ivanovich Koslov, who was there for a year. The Russians permit few students to study in the west
and those who do are closely monitored. It was not clear why Koslov, who was neither a scientist seeking militarily useful information nor, as far as we knew, an intelligence officer seeking
recruits, was permitted. Undoubtedly, though, he would have had some sort of intelligence brief, if only to report on students and others he knew, such as yourself. You did not know him well but
you were friendly enough when you came across him, much as you might have been with anyone else in your college to whom you were not close but who was sufficiently personable. You reported your
acquaintance fairly fully during your positive vetting interviews before joining the service. Your longest conversation with Koslov was when one day you walked back from the schools building with
him and into hall for lunch.’
Charles remembered the pale, quiet man with sandy hair and freckles, fluent but careful English and amiable but guarded manner. He seemed solitary without being obviously lonely; Charles could
not remember who, if any, his friends were. He was doubtless more mature than most undergraduates yet had about him an apparent naïveté that led people to treat him as if he were in
fact less mature, and in need of looking after. Hookey gave the impression of knowing more about him than was in Charles’s PV reporting.
‘You probably don’t know that Koslov is now in London, at the Soviet Embassy, where he is one of the second secretaries. He’s been here some time and his posting is due to end
soon. So far as the records show, he is straight MFA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Neither his pattern of behaviour nor his traces in our own or MI5 records suggest any reason to identify
him as KGB. It
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