Raid 42

by Graham Hurley

  ‘And another Englishman? Husketh? Hisketh? Hesketh? Beard? Moustache? Shrimp of a man?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘As far as I know he lives in Lisbon. I flew Haushofer down to meet him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We spent half a day together and I took a good look at him. He likes to think he speaks perfect German. He doesn’t. The man’s a piece of shit. Haushofer, poor fool, thought the world of him.’

  *

  Agent Souk was waiting for Moncrieff at the flying boat pontoon at the Tagus terminal in Lisbon. He tossed the remains of his cigarette into the river and extended a hand.

  ‘Welcome back, mon brave. The Brits have turned travelling light into an art form.’ He offered to carry Moncrieff’s single bag.

  Moncrieff shook his head.

  ‘Schultz?’ he enquired.

  ‘Delayed in Barcelona. Some technical problem with the aircraft. I gather it’s a question of flying spares down from Augsburg. In these situations, happily, Lisbon gives you only one option. The lady’s waiting for you at your hotel. Rest those old bones of yours. Schultz won’t be here for a day or two.’

  They took a taxi from the terminal into the old town. When the driver slowed behind a tram labouring up the steepness of the hill, Moncrieff found himself staring at a sizeable queue outside a pharmacy. Rumpled suits. Overdressed women perspiring in the heat. Kids looking lost.

  ‘Refugees,’ Hesketh murmured. ‘They haven’t got visas yet but they’re determined to lay hands on seasickness tablets before supplies dry up. You’re looking at an act of faith, mon brave. Even if they get a visa the boats are booked up for months ahead.’

  Moncrieff nodded, said nothing. Lisbon, he thought, was where you finally ran out of options. Perched on the very edge of Europe, living God knows how, you could only dream of a passage out.

  The taxi was moving again. Hesketh wanted to know about his fee.

  ‘A thousand? Dollars, of course? US? I trust that meets with everyone’s satisfaction?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Moncrieff grunted. ‘Once Schultz turns up.’

  When they got to the hotel, Hesketh led the way inside. The man behind the reception desk rose to his feet. Hesketh introduced him as the manager.

  ‘Madame is waiting in the restaurant, Senhor,’ the manager was looking at Moncrieff. ‘We’ve given you the table with the view.’

  Moncrieff nodded. Then he asked Hesketh whether he’d booked a room for him.

  ‘I haven’t but under the circumstances I suspect that won’t be necessary. Bon appétit, my friend. And enjoy the food as well.’

  Hesketh left the hotel without a backward glance, sauntering down the street in the bright sunshine, and Moncrieff watched him until he crossed the road and disappeared into the maze of alleys that stretched down towards the water. Then he turned back to the manager, recognising the churning in his stomach. Bella Menzies, he thought. Waiting for him just yards away. Was it wise to risk another meeting? After the spectacular collapse of their last relationship?

  He eyed the street again, knowing it wasn’t too late to walk away, then glanced at the manager.

  ‘The restaurant?’ he enquired.

  ‘Through there, Senhor.’ The manager gestured towards a nearby door. ‘We’ve kept the kitchen open for you, but the chef’s mother has fallen ill. Might you and the lady be ordering soon?’

  The restaurant was empty except for two diners. One of them was a man sitting alone at a table in the far corner, bent over a newspaper and a half-empty glass. Centre parting. Heavy glasses. Well-cut suit. It was hard to judge at first glance, but Moncrieff put him in his late thirties, perhaps a little older. The other figure had to be Bella. She was smoking a cigarette and studying the view.

  Moncrieff picked his way between the tables and stood over her for what seemed an eternity. She must have felt his presence, sensed his approach, but she didn’t move.

  ‘Bella?’

  At last she looked round. The same tilt to her chin. The same frank appraisal in her eyes. Nothing appeared to have changed. Except she looked much, much older.

  ‘Shocked?’ She’d always been able to read his mind.

  ‘Surprised.’

  ‘Don’t be. Another week of this…’ she gestured at the view, ‘… I might be back in shape again.’

  Shape.

  When he’d first met her in Berlin it had been high summer. Bella – tall, athletic, bronzed, fit – had been rowing twice a week on one of the Berlin lakes with a crew of expatriate girls from the foreign embassies. On one occasion, at Bella’s invitation, Moncrieff had joined them. He’d rowed competitively at university and the moment he stepped carefully into the slender racing eight he knew he still had it. A two-kilometre sprint had tested him to the limit but he hadn’t let the pain show and Bella, afterwards, had been delighted.

  ‘You’ve just done my reputation no end of good,’ she’d said. ‘Those girls couldn’t believe how fit you are. They’ve told me you’re welcome any time, Mr Moncrieff. My thoughts entirely.’

  Now, nearly three years later, Moncrieff slipped into the vacant seat across the table. Already, in what felt no time at all, he knew they were at peace with each other. He wanted to know how she was. He wanted to know what she was doing here. And above all he wanted to know about Moscow. She’d told him a certain amount on the phone but he suspected there had to be more.

  Bella shook her head. She had very little to add. Every particle of her being, she said, every cell in her body, had once believed in Communism and on a good day – a really good day – that was still true. The only drawback was the real thing. A winter that seemed never to end. Every second face on the street bloated with moonshine vodka. Endless queues for all the essentials you couldn’t do without. Early March slush, the colour of death. And then the briefest glimpse of the nomenklatura behind the curtained windows as another limousine swept past.

  ‘January in Scotland used to depress me,’ she lit another cigarette. ‘Imagine five months of that.’

  ‘No rowing?’

  ‘Absolutely none. You’d need a sense of humour to fill in all the paperwork and a saw to get through the bloody ice. You know the saddest truth of all? Communism works brilliantly on paper. That’s where Marx and Engels and Lenin and the rest of them got it so right. But there isn’t enough vodka in the world to make Communism work in real life. You can’t live on good intentions. Not properly.’

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘You go home? Back to Moscow?’

  She looked at him. There was warmth in her laughter.

  ‘Home’s quaint. I like that. I have a government flat in a block quite close to the Kremlin. When the wind’s in the east I can hear the bells at night. It’s meant to be a privilege, a thank you, and in a way it is. I have a kitchen bigger than the normal cupboard. I have fully lagged pipes, water that works, a functioning lavatory, free heating when there’s enough fuel for the boiler, and I have neighbours who ration their drinking to a bottle of vodka a day. That, believe me, makes yours truly a very lucky girl. When the summer arrives, like now, I can take the tram out of town to the end of the line. An hour’s walk through the pine woods and there’s a lake I can swim in, and a very nice man called Yuri who sunbathes au naturel and is happy to share his blanket. Yuri, of course, is married but there are times when a girl has pressing needs of her own and Yuri is very happy to take me to his flat when his wife and kids are away and do his bit for international solidarity. I happen to like Yuri. He’s gentler than most Russians. He also cooks like a dream. Far better, frankly, than he fucks. But home? I’m not at all sure.’

  ‘What about the dacha? The one you mentioned on the phone?’

  ‘That was make-believe. A fib. A fantasy. That’s what Communism does to you. Lying becomes a way of life. You start off by lying to other people and you end up kidding yourself. There is no dacha, Tam, and I doubt there ever will be.’r />
  ‘But you have to go back? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Yes, for two reasons. The first is that they’d come and find me and that could have very ugly consequences. My people don’t mind who they hurt and they seem to reserve the really special treatment for their own kind. Trotsky, so I’m told, got off lightly. An ice pick in your head would only be the hors d’oeuvre.’

  ‘And the other reason?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else to go. Can you imagine little me turning up at St James’s Street? Trying to make my peace with the brethren? After everything I’ve done? After making you all look such fools? Such amateurs? And then there’s my beloved stepdad, all that investment he made in me. Time. Money. Trust. Can you picture the moment I knock on his door and step back into that nice tidy life of his? It won’t happen. Because it can’t happen. I learned good manners very early on and I know when a girl should say no. So I won’t be going back. Probably ever.’

  Moncrieff nodded, eyeing his empty glass.

  ‘You said “amateur”,’ he murmured.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, you said you made us look so amateur. What exactly did you mean?’

  ‘You’re taking this stuff personally? Is that what I’m hearing?’ Bella was picking at a cuticle on one of her nails.

  ‘Just a little. I work for the brethren and I’m glad to, if you want the truth. Amateur? Are you serious?’

  ‘That was ’38,’ she said defensively, ‘before you all sharpened up.’

  ‘You mean before I joined?’

  ‘Yes. Back then it was a game. You know how I got into Intelligence. I could speak a couple of languages. I was a game girl. I had the right connections, the right pedigree, even the right fucking accent. I knew how to behave on social occasions and I was very, very good with certain kinds of men, chiefly Germans. That’s not difficult, by the way. All you have to do is watch them at work, at play, at the restaurant table, even with their wives and kids. You smile. You drop a conversational curtsey. You play the helpless female. You seed just enough mischief to make the poor darlings believe they might be in with a chance. And then you go home and write down everything they’ve told you.’

  ‘And send it to London?’

  ‘Moscow. That was the thrill. Sometimes it felt better than sex.’

  ‘Betrayal? Treason? You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes, even when you turned up. Don’t get me wrong. I loved you. You were very different and I adored that. You were also, and you’ll hate this, sweetly innocent. Our world hadn’t corrupted you, not then. You were this tall ex-Marine who spoke mysteriously wonderful German and in your own interests you needed a bit of a steer, someone to guide you around Berlin, someone to point out the nastier bars you should try and avoid. And that someone was me.’

  ‘And now? You think it’s got to me? Your world? You think I’m tainted?’

  ‘I don’t know. Except I understand you’re very well thought of in Moscow and that doesn’t happen by accident. You must like the job. Because the job certainly likes you. So… can I buy you a drink? Do the rules allow that?’

  A waiter brought a bottle of Marqués de Riscal Rioja. Bella insisted on pouring.

  ‘Your little friend’s choice,’ she tipped her glass, ‘and a good one. He’s a con man, by the way, but you’d know that already. Quite a decent con man, quite accomplished, amusing too but still a con man. You’re going to tell me this city’s full of them but there’s no need because he’s told me already. In a way I suppose that makes him unusual. Not just a con man but proud of it.’

  ‘He told me you shared a couple of bottles of Krug.’

  ‘Champagne? He’s lying. I’d have said yes, by the way, but it never happened.’

  ‘Did you invite him up to your room?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Was he after an invitation? Emphatically, yes. He’s honest in that respect, too. And he didn’t sulk when I said no. Do you pay him lots of money? Be honest.’

  ‘Yes. Far too much.’

  ‘And is he worth it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Give me a couple of days and I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Ahhh…’ she smiled. ‘You think I’m some kind of prospect? Is that why you’ve come? You think I’m going to tell you more about Moscow than the state of the plumbing in that flat of mine?’

  Moncrieff ducked his head and took a sip of the wine. For the first time it occurred to him that she might know nothing about Schultz’s impending arrival.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, touching his glass to hers.

  ‘That means nothing. That means less than nothing. What it also means is that there’s something else in the wind, something else that might have brought you down here. Am I allowed a clue? Just one?’

  The waiter was back. The kitchen, he said, had enquired whether they might be eating. Moncrieff reached for the menu. Bella caught his hand.

  ‘Later,’ she said. ‘We’ll eat later.’

  Moncrieff began to protest but she pulled him to his feet. The other diner in the restaurant looked briefly up, offered a faint smile, and then folded his newspaper as they made their way past his table.

  They took the Rioja up to her room. Bella had been right about the view. The gleaming waters of the Tagus filled the window. Look left, and the river was full of shipping. Look right, and you could glimpse the open ocean.

  Moncrieff turned away from the window. Bella was stepping out of her dress.

  ‘This is what the Soviets like to call perestroika,’ she said. ‘It means no promises, no regrets, no ties, nothing. Do you think you could cope with that, Mr Moncrieff? A chance to check everything works the way it should? The way it used to?’

  Moncrieff was looking at her. There was something emotionless, something almost dispassionate about the way she’d framed this invitation. She was still striking – full breasts, flat belly and the longest legs he’d ever seen on any woman – but the warmth in her smile had gone and she seemed to find comfort in the very absence of anything remotely intimate.

  ‘Do I frighten you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, a little. But I suspect that’s me.’

  ‘You frighten yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because once I let you too close.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You hurt me. I told you on the phone. In my life that only happens once.’

  ‘And yet here we are. Again. At your invitation.’

  ‘Indeed. And if you need it there’s another bottle, and another, and another, until your little friend is running out for more.’ She paused. She was naked now. ‘You’re not taking your clothes off.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You want me to help you?’

  ‘I want you to tell me why you’re doing this. And where it leads next.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because what happened in Berlin hurt me, too, believe it or not.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I never knew. I never even suspected it. You seemed so…’ she frowned, ‘… remote.’

  ‘Someone had just tried to kill me. Very slowly.’

  ‘I know. But that wasn’t my fault.’ She took a step closer. ‘What if I told you it won’t happen again?’

  ‘We won’t go to bed, you mean?’

  ‘No. That you won’t get hurt.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘I don’t know. Truly, I haven’t a clue. But if the little bird tells me anything it’s that we owe it a try.’

  ‘Owe who?’

  ‘Each other.’

  ‘A try?’

  ‘This.’ She stepped closer still. She put her glass carefully to one side and then cupped his long face in her hands. She began to kiss him, sliding the warmth of her tongue between his teeth.

  ‘This will work,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’

  *r />
  It did. Long afterwards, back in England, Moncrieff remembered the moment when she woke him up, hours later, dusk at the window and the siren of a departing freighter echoing across the city. They made love again, less urgently this time, and then she lay beside him, her face on his chest, just the way she used to. The reserve, the caution, had gone, melted away, and in its place was the woman he’d missed so badly when he’d returned to the Glebe House after deportation from Berlin. She was soft, playful, gently mischievous. She reached across and lifted the phone and ordered the promised second bottle and when the waiter arrived at the door with the wine and a plate of tapas she wrapped herself in a bath towel and tipped him with a $5 note she found in Moncrieff’s trousers.

  ‘He’ll remember that forever,’ Moncrieff was laughing.

  ‘Five dollars?’

  ‘You.’

  She opened the bottle and re-joined him in bed. Another toast, this time to Lisbon. Then she propped herself on one elbow, exactly the way she used to in Berlin, and smiled down at him.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ she said. ‘But a girl forgets.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The invasion date. When will the Germans march east?’

  They talked long into the night. When he pleaded ignorance over Hitler’s intentions she told him it didn’t matter. She said the coming invasion was common knowledge in certain circles in Moscow though Stalin himself had discounted the rumours. For reasons no one could fathom he appeared to retain the absurd belief that Hitler was a man of his word.

  ‘The generals are on their knees for reinforcements,’ she said, ‘but Our Leader ignores them. That makes them very unhappy but protesting would make them unhappier still. The last crop of generals got purged a couple of years ago. Purging is code for an early grave.’

  ‘So you expect an invasion?’

  ‘Of course. Uncle Joe’s in for a big shock. The rest of us expect the Germans at the gates of Moscow in time for Christmas. Whether we let them in or not is a different issue, though I’ve noticed that most Russians tend to be fatalists. Maybe it’s the serf mentality, I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Que sera…’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’