The Factory by Brian Freemantle Page A

demanded Viktor Lezin. The First Chief Directorate official was a plump, fussy man who had been showing increasing impatience over the time Oleg had taken clearing the Englishman.
    â€˜Only with the photographs,’ conceded Oleg. ‘According to our KGB people at the London embassy, who have been trying to identify agents with whom Davies worked in London, there were five he should have picked out. One of the two he was positive about is dead, the other under our arrest, in Latvia. He was vague about a third, insisting he didn’t know a name, and ignored the other two completely.’
    â€˜What about the compartmenting he talked about?’ picked up Lezin. The dacha debriefings were all recorded and Lezin had studied the transcripts.
    â€˜It’s an explanation, I suppose,’ said Oleg doubtfully.
    â€˜An acceptable one, I would have thought, put against all the material he’s provided us with in the past,’ said Lezin.
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜Yours is the decision,’ said Lezin forcefully. ‘Having considered all the evidence is there sufficient cause to prevent our accepting him?’
    Oleg allowed one of his familiar pauses, although for a different reason this time. Finally he conceded: ‘No, there is not.’
    â€˜Excellent!’ said Lezin enthusiastically.
    â€˜I have a suggestion, though.’
    In Paris, Bell and Ann stayed at the George V hotel and tried to forget all about the problems of the London headquarters. They strolled along the banks of the Seine and he bought her a flower, a rose, and on the first evening they ate on a bateau-mouche, one of the glass-topped boats that at night cruise romantically up and down the floodlighted river. They drove out to the palace at Versailles and on another day took an open carriage ride through the forests of the huge Bois de Boulogne.
    Bell drank, of course. The first night was all right, although he was quite drunk at its end, but on the second, at dinner, he clumsily spilled a wineglass and there was a brief moment of embarrassment. On the third there was an unnecessary argument with a taxi driver whom he accused of overcharging, which the man had, but not sufficient to justify the row.
    At lunch the following day, Ann said: ‘I know it’s difficult for you to love me, as much as I love you. Maybe it’s the hurt of a failed marriage …’ She raised her hand, stopping the denying protest he moved to make. ‘… I accept that. But there’s something you could do, my darling, to prove that you love me a little. Care, at least.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Stop drinking so much. You’re destroying yourself, Sam. You’re probably one of the best Directors General the department has ever had and you’re risking it all … everything … through this damned whisky …’
    Not all through whisky, Bell thought: the department was being put at risk by something far more dangerous than that. He said: ‘I’ll try,’ and meant it.
    Oleg was noncommittal about his being moved, telling Davies that they just felt it was time for a move from the dacha down into the city but refusing outright to say whether it meant Davies had been accepted. Which, in fact, he hadn’t, not completely. Lezin had agreed to the compromise, but reluctantly and upon a strictly imposed time limit.
    â€˜What about the debriefing?’ persisted Davies.
    â€˜I think we’ve finished with that, for the time being,’ said the Russian, noncommittal still.
    â€˜So what am I to do?’
    â€˜Settle in,’ said Oleg vaguely. ‘Improve your Russian: we will make arrangements for you to have a teacher.’
    That surely indicated some sort of acceptance, thought Davies: why then was the other man behaving so awkwardly?
    Davies was taken to an apartment on Ploschchad Street, a conversion of a once imposing mansion. There was just one living room, one bedroom, a very