‘She’s your contact, like you thought,’ said Yuri. ‘The English sent her. Come on, we’re in a hurry. Get moving.’
Catherine was about to protest, but she stopped herself from interrupting. Her eyes could not have got any wider, as she took in the scene playing out in front of her.
‘I can’t go today,’ said Anya. ‘I’m not ready.’
‘Why can’t you go?’ said Yuri. ‘What else have you got to do? I am telling you if we don’t go now, this might never happen. You’ll have to trust me.’
‘I’m not feeling well,’ said Anya. ‘I think I am coming down with something. A fever. I was going to tell you. Even tomorrow, I am not sure if I will be able.’
‘But it’s all arranged,’ said Yuri. ‘The English won’t wait any longer. You don’t want to miss the opportunity you have waited so long for. It might not come again. Isn’t that right, Catherine?’
Catherine appeared to be angry with him for engaging her even further in his deception. But she dutifully nodded her head.
Anya stared at her.
‘That one is not my contact,’ she said. ‘Why did you say she is? I am not a fool.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Yuri. ‘I am telling you, she is your contact. And we have to take you now, if you want to go. You don’t look ill to me. You can see a doctor when you get to Longyearbyen.’
Anya still did not move. She seemed unsure what to do. But whatever she was thinking, she was not afraid.
‘She isn’t my contact,’ said Anya. ‘I know she isn’t.’
Yuri shrugged. ‘If you are so sure, then tell me, who is your contact?’
Anya looked away. ‘I don’t know, but it’s not her. Are you going to tell me now?’
‘No,’ said Yuri. ‘Definitely not now.’
He opened the wardrobe and started to pull out Anya’s clothes from the shelves and hangers. He threw each one across the room on to the bed, beside her, and on to the floor at her feet.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, as they piled up around her. ‘Stop.’
‘I’m helping you,’ he replied. ‘It’s too late to call this off.’
Catherine stared at Yuri. He could see she was having trouble holding back her questions.
‘Come on,’ he said, in a loud voice. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I am not going anywhere today,’ said Anya, firmly. ‘I’d like you both to leave.’
‘I am afraid we can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Can we, Catherine? Her bosses have promised to deliver you to your friend. She is expecting you. You don’t want to disappoint her, do you? She has gone to so much trouble to get you back.’
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ said Anya. ‘Please, can you just stop.’
Yuri stopped pulling her things out of the wardrobe and turned around. She looked up at him with watery eyes. A picture of innocence. If he had not known her so well, he might just have believed that face. He had once.
‘Are you the one I’m waiting for?’ said Yuri. ‘That’s what you said to me, remember? Is that what you said to Semyon?’
Yuri saw from her expression that Anya realised she had been caught. Catherine looked back and forth between the two of them, not understanding any of what was going on.
‘You are the one in his notebook, aren’t you?’ said Yuri. ‘Eagle.’
‘What notebook?’ said Anya.
She glanced towards the door, as though she might make a run for it. But Catherine was leaning against it, blocking her way.
‘Before you say anything, please don’t give me another lie,’ said Yuri. ‘I’m not sure I could take it. All right?’
Anya looked him in the eye, then turned away before she spoke.
‘I am not the only one who has lied. Am I?’ she said. ‘He thought Semyon might be my contact. I don’t know why. But that’s why I asked him. I had already waited weeks.’
‘Who are you talking about? Who is “he”?’ asked Yuri.
‘I think you already know the answer to that,’ said Anya. ‘Don’t you?’
Yuri nodded his head, and glanced at Catherine before answering.
‘Timur,’ he said. ‘He was the one who thought the contact might be Semyon.’
Catherine had been an objective observer up to this point, but now he saw her coming to the unwelcome realisation that she was involved after all.
‘Yes,’ said Anya. ‘Neither of us could understand why the contact had not been in touch with me before then. They were the ones who arranged my trip here. So it was strange. At first we thought something had gone wrong. Then when the boats stopped coming, we thought it must be someone who was already here in Pyramiden. Semyon was working as an informer for Timur, but he didn’t trust him. He said that anyone who was willing to inform for one side is capable of doing it for the other.’
‘So you asked Semyon if he was your contact. And what did he say?’
Anya shook her head. ‘He said yes, he was the one. He misunderstood. He thought I liked him.’
Yuri pictured the little Latvian standing in front of this beautiful woman, thinking all his dreams had come true at once. Of course, he had said yes. He remembered Semyon’s file in Timur’s office. All those reports he had gotten Semyon to do on Pyramiden’s residents. He was looking for the contact, trying to figure out who it might be. The repeated and apparently innocuous conversations between Semyon and Grigory made sense now. Timur had seen something in Grigory that made him suspect him. Or perhaps he had wanted it to be him. The conversations between the two men had revealed nothing, so he had finally turned his gaze full circle on to his own informant.
‘Let me guess, you arranged to meet Semyon at the whaling house,’ said Yuri. ‘Whose idea was it to go there?’
‘How the hell did you know that?’ asked Anya.
‘I know a lot of things, now,’ said Yuri. ‘I am not as stupid as I used to be.’
‘It was his idea, Semyon’s. He said he used to go there sometimes to get away from everyone for a while. I can’t see why. It’s barely standing, and completely freezing.’
‘All right, so you met him there. Then what happened?’
Anya made a face, as though the question brought back unpleasant memories.
‘Then it all went wrong,’ she said. ‘Once we were inside he pushed the door shut, and then he tried to touch me. I told him to stop; that I had no interest in him in that way. He got angry, and started shouting. I said all I wanted from him was his help to get me to the west, as arranged.’
‘I bet he wasn’t expecting that,’ said Yuri.
Anya nodded. ‘No, he wasn’t. He called me names. Said I was a traitor to my country. And worse things than that. He threatened to inform on me to Timur.’
‘But that didn’t scare you, did it?’ asked Yuri. ‘Because Timur already knew all about you, didn’t he?’
Anya did not answer. She caught Catherine’s eye, but they both looked away quickly. The English woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and looked even more confused.
‘Did you tell Semyon that you and Timur were the best of pals?’ asked Yuri. ‘That would have made him keep his hands to himself.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t tell him. If he was not my contact, then I had already told him too much. I just wanted to get out of there. But he wouldn’t let me leave. He said he was going to blackmail me … and not for money. He finally let me out when I promised to meet him again.’
Yuri’s late-night conversation with the Lithuanians made sense now. They’d accused him of being the one that Semyon was trying to blackmail. They had gotten the wrong impression too; that the Latvian had come across some information that would enable him to extort money. But it was sex he was after. Semyon had not made a report to Timur, because he thought he could get Anya into bed by one means or another. Informing on her to the KGB man would have put an end to that possibility. He did not realise the game he was getting involved in was much bigger than that. It cost him h
is life. After hearing Anya’s story, Yuri had even less sympathy for his former assistant.
‘And is that why you killed him?’ said Yuri. ‘Because he was blackmailing you? Or because he knew too much about you, and you were afraid who else he might tell?’
‘I thought that was an accident?’ said Anya, her voice raised in indignation. ‘How could you think that I did something like that?’
Yuri shrugged. Right now he did not know what she was capable of.
‘He was killed,’ said Yuri. ‘I think because of what you told him.’
‘Well, I did not do it,’ said Anya. ‘Thank you for thinking I did.’
‘Timur then,’ said Yuri. ‘Did he do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anya. ‘You will have to ask him that.’
Yuri caught a sharp glance from Catherine. She appeared shaken by the turn in the conversation.
‘Semyon wasn’t a spy,’ said Yuri. ‘He was just an ambitious little shit.’
Anya nodded that she knew this, and she appeared to feel some tinge of guilt over his death. Perhaps she had not drawn the short straw at the school after all, and had volunteered to attend his funeral.
‘Did you really believe it was an accident?’ asked Yuri. ‘It was a pretty convenient one for you if it was.’
Anya shrugged. ‘It seemed strange to me at the time, all right. But everyone said it had happened that way, so I thought that it must have.’
‘Trust your instincts,’ said Yuri. ‘You will get into less trouble that way. I am trying to learn the same lesson. And then you thought your contact might be me. Let me guess – because I sabotaged my own system to keep my job.’
Anya nodded, and he thought he saw a flash of remorse in her eyes.
‘It was Timur’s idea. I just did what he told me to do. But with you, I thought he might be right. I’d seen you looking at me for weeks, like you had something to say to me. You even came into my classroom to fix something that wasn’t broken.’
Yuri could see how they had gotten the wrong idea. It seemed he was not so different from Semyon after all; he was just trying to get her into bed too. He paused, trying to put all the pieces together. They still did not make sense.
‘How long did it take you to figure out I was not your contact either?’ asked Yuri.
‘Not long. You made it pretty clear what you were after. Timur still believed it might be you, even though I told him I was sure you weren’t the one. He made me put a listening device in your room. We have been giving him a good show for all these months.’
Catherine started coughing on the other side of the room.
‘Where is it?’ asked Yuri. ‘The microphone.’
‘In your radio,’ she said. ‘It’s still there. Unless he took it. Then you said that the contact had spoken with you. Timur was angry with me because I couldn’t find out who it was. But I said it was fine, that we should go ahead as planned. It did not matter that I never met him or her, whoever they are. As long as we got what we needed.’
‘And did you?’ asked Yuri. ‘Did you get what you needed?’
Anya looked up at him with a cold look in her eyes.
‘It seems that way,’ she said. ‘I am waiting to hear. We have given them enough time.’
‘Hear what?’ asked Yuri.
Anya almost answered him but then decided not to.
‘You never had any intention of going, did you?’ he said. ‘All this time, you have just been stringing me along. I thought you wanted to be with her. Taisia. Was that not the whole point of all this? I don’t understand why you came all this way if you were not going to go through with it.’
Anya shook her head. ‘It was not a lie between you and me. I know you don’t believe that right now. But it’s true.’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’
‘She left me,’ said Anya. ‘Abandoned me, without one thought. Left my career in ruins. She took my whole life away. Everything. Then five years later she remembers I’m alive, and says “Sorry, I want to be with you after all.” I don’t want to be with her. I hate her.’
‘So it was all an act,’ said Yuri. ‘All of it. The tears. The drinking. The suicide attempt.’
‘No,’ said Anya. ‘Most of those things were real. I have nothing to go back to. I thought I had come here for nothing.’
‘But you had, hadn’t you?’ said Yuri. ‘If you weren’t going to leave, then coming here was a waste of time. Why bother making her think you were going to join her in England? Was it just so you could stand her up at the altar? Is that all? I’m sorry, but I don’t see the point. And what has Timur got to do with it? Why was he helping you to defect?’
Anya had a smug smile on her face. Then an idea came to Yuri, and he thought he had finally figured it out.
‘They want you to go, and be an agent for them in England,’ said Yuri. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’
Anya shook her head, and appeared to be bored with his lack of speed.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They want the same thing I want. You really still don’t get it?’
Yuri caught Catherine’s eye. She was none the wiser either.
‘A little village, six miles from Oxford,’ said Anya. ‘A white cottage, yellow roses in the front garden, a river in the back.’
‘Oh no,’ said Yuri.
He had arranged the radio call between them not knowing that Anya was looking for a way to kill her. He wondered if he could stop it now somehow. But there was no way for him to do it.
‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find her,’ said Anya. ‘Maybe they already have. They have been looking ever since I spoke to her. You know what they do to traitors.’
‘Keep her here!’ Yuri said to Catherine as he ran out the door. ‘Don’t let her leave.’
Chapter 22
YURI RACED FROM Paris, along the wooden walkway, to the administration building. He was going so fast that he skidded on ice at a corner and almost fell down on to the ground. He managed to right himself in time, and kept on going. He passed Igor on the way, but ignored the man’s outstretched hand completely. Later, he would tell him that Timur had killed Semyon. It was unlikely he would be too surprised by that news. Knowing would not make much difference. Timur would never pay for the crime.
The sight of Yuri running down the administration building corridors drew a lot of attention from the clerical staff but there was no time for secrecy now. He burst into Grigory’s office without knocking, and slammed the door behind him.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Grigory.
Yuri did not answer. He marched straight to the window, and looked out to see if anyone had followed him. He could not see anyone, but they knew. And not just Timur. This scheme to trap Taisia was way above his pay grade. It must have been set up well before Anya began her journey to Pyramiden. Yuri had been used as a pawn in a bigger game, and they had known everything, all along. Because Anya had been telling them.
But she did not know about Grigory. She couldn’t. And suddenly he regretted coming here. If someone was watching him, perhaps he had led them straight to the inside man they were looking for. That’s why they were still walking around free. An assassin had been dispatched to England to settle their vendetta against the betrayer, Taisia. But they wanted the contact too. Little did they know he was not much of a catch.
‘Men are on their way to kill Anya’s friend, if they haven’t already,’ said Yuri.
He saw the blood draining from Grigory’s face. He had been right about not getting involved, thought Yuri. Always trust your instincts. Always. He should have walked away from Anya too, at the first sign of trouble.
‘That’s what this was all about,’ he continued. ‘From the beginning. They were after Taisia. Anya was too. She never had any intention of going to join her in the west. And when they send word that she’s dead, Timur will be coming for you. We don’t have much time. You have to get out of here. Now!’
‘How do you know all this?’ asked Grigory. ‘Tell me.
Is this another of your conspiracy theories?’
‘No! There’s no time for explanations,’ said Yuri. ‘You’re going to have to trust me on this one, if you want to stay alive. I presume you would like to do that?’
Grigory didn’t budge. Instead, he sat there looking confused.
‘Let’s go,’ said Yuri. ‘Come on.’
‘I can’t just—’ Grigory was saying, before his mouth stopped in mid-motion.
‘He’s a clever boy, actually,’ said Timur.
Yuri turned to see Timur standing in the doorway with his revolver trained on both of them. Once again, Yuri felt like the amateur that he was. Timur had tailed him all the way here without him noticing. They had waited patiently for him to give away the identity of Anya’s contact. And of course, he had, because he was a fool.
‘Too clever for your own good, Yuri. Should have stuck to your pipes. But then women always were your weakness. And you, Grigory, I had a feeling about you. And so close to retirement too. What a pity.’
‘I don’t imagine all this was your idea?’ said Yuri.
‘Not exactly. The plan came from Moscow, after Anya contacted them. But I’ll be taking my share of the credit, don’t you worry,’ said Timur, smiling. ‘Locating an important defector, and catching a veteran double agent, all in one week. I expect I’ll be transferred back home within the month, with Brezhnev himself pinning the medals on my chest. It’ll be a firing squad for you, Grigory, most likely. And as for you, Yuri, what are we going to do with you? A one-way ticket to Gorky perhaps, or worse, back to your old job at those uranium mines.’
‘You killed Semyon,’ said Yuri. ‘Didn’t you?’
Timur smiled. ‘Poor little Semyon had no idea what he was dealing with. At first I thought he was the double agent. You know, trying to get you fired and get himself promoted. Standard spy tactic. You can see how I got confused. When Anya told me he was threatening to blackmail her, well I didn’t need that. He was going to mess everything up. I followed him down the mine shaft that night. He thought we were having a meeting. It only took one hit with a lump hammer, and my Latvian problem was solved.’
‘And you pulled the ventilation unit down afterwards,’ said Yuri. ‘And tried to blame it on me.’
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