by Craig Thomas
"Sugar?" she asked brightly, disconcertingly.
"Please — one."
She returned with the mugs and sat down.
"How can I be certain?" she repeated immediately. "How can I be certain? Because the two of them quarrelled all the time, whenever they met. Because Aubrey hated Mr Castleford — hated his success, hated his importance, his charm, everything about him, in fact." Massinger sipped his hot coffee after stirring the sugar. There was something pat and even rehearsed about the woman's outburst. Nevertheless, he could not ignore it. He could not even regard it as part of the play in which he was acting for Babbington's benefit; for the traitor's benefit, too. The man in Guernsey had believed it — Miss Dawson did, too. Why? "Aubrey had no respect for the rules, Mr Massinger — but I expect you know that. From past experience, if you're a friend." Massinger merely shrugged. "He was ambitious. He stood in Mr Castleford's shadow. In fact, Mr Castleford referred to him as someone too late to fight who wished the war was still going on. Do you understand that?"
Massinger nodded, studying his coffee. "Yes," he said. Margaret's father — had he been like her? The thought had never occurred to him before, and yet it now seemed crucial to the whole business. If he had been—? "Was he a gentle man?" he asked suddenly, unable to contain the question.
"Mr Castleford? Yes — considerate, kind, appreciative. Charming, of course, ambitious, full of energy… but he would never ride roughshod over anyone… a real gentleman, of the old school. Class, of course — breeding will out, as they say."
The woman seemed to have changed once more, to have revealed unexpected origins and prejudices. She looked up to Castleford, always had done. She was a snob on his behalf, even now. Yet, she made the man seem like Margaret.
What if he had been? How could he have been the kind of man Aubrey could have ignored, or accepted? He would have been the kind of man to awaken jealousies, to have created in Aubrey, perhaps, the dark side of a triangle? Massinger felt breathless with the quick thoughts as they crowded in on him, lay on his chest like weights. He sipped more coffee.
"So — you think he might have been murdered by Kenneth Aubrey?" Massinger asked heavily.
"I most certainly do," she answered vehemently. "Please tell your wife I'm convinced of it. If the knowledge will do her any good. It must be very distressing for her."
"It is, yes." He looked up. "But why would he have done it?"
She was silent for a long time, and then she sighed. "I might as well admit it," she said. "You've no doubt guessed for yourself. I was in love with Robert Castleford. Deeply in love. I was thirty, attractive and efficient. But—"
"He thought of you as someone who worked for him?"
She nodded. A lock of grey hair fell across her forehead where the face powder was visible in the furrows of her brow.
"Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "He never noticed me — in that way. Her, yes, but not me."
"You mean—?"
"Yes. That German woman on the make. Securing her future. She moved fairly rapidly from Aubrey to Mr Castleford — after all, he could do more for her, couldn't he?" Her face was again wizened with malice. Thirty-seven years later, she had no intention of forgiving Clara Elsenreith.
"I see. She was Castleford's mistress, then. You're certain of that? After she had known Aubrey?" Miss Dawson nodded. The lock of hair bobbed vehemently. Her small body was pinched in, hunched with anger, with forever unpurged jealousy. Beware the green-eyed monster…
Yet he could understand it, sense the power of that emotion. He had known it in high school, even in college. He did not imagine he had grown out of it like a species of acne; rather, he had had no cause. But, if someone took Margaret…?
"You're certain?" he asked again. "Certain she was…?"
Miss Dawson nodded once more. "Yes," she repeated, tight-lipped. "Yes. He — he told me about her, about her coming to him."
"Told you?"
Miss Dawson's cheeks flushed. She looked down. "I was eavesdropping. I overheard — he was telling one of his colleagues, a grubby-minded little man who asked him straight out… he told him. Told him he'd taken that woman away from Aubrey, even…" She did not continue. After a while, she said: "I dropped something in the next room. After that, the door was closed and their voices were lower. I didn't hear anything else."
Massinger inhaled. The noise sounded like a windy groan. He studied Miss Dawson's face. He had found the utterly unexpected in a place he had entered with closed eyes, looking for nothing. No more than a stop on an easy journey of deception. He was drawn towards believing Miss Dawson's evidence, even discounting her jealousy, her admiration for Castleford, her dislike for Aubrey and the woman. She had overheard. Castleford had stolen the woman from Aubrey.
"Aubrey was angry?"
"There was a blazing quarrel a few days later. I didn't hear what it was about, but I was told there were threats. Mr Castleford seemed very upset, very worried, during the rest of the day — for days afterwards." She swallowed. "Until the time he disappeared, in fact."
"Aubrey threatened him?"
"Yes."
"Because of the woman?" His voice was urgent. He could not avoid adding: "This is very important to me."
"What else could it have been? Mr Castleford was very, very worried."
Massinger finished his coffee. He felt he must leave, must have time to think. He stood up unceremoniously.
"Thank you for your time," he said. "Thank you for the coffee. I'm sorry to have troubled you."
"Have I helped?" she asked.
"I — don't know," he admitted. "Perhaps you have. Well, goodbye, Miss Dawson— no, don't worry, I'll see myself out. Once again, thank you."
The woman watched him turn away and exit from the kitchen. She listened and, when the front door shut firmly behind him, her body twitched slightly at the noise. She continued to listen, as if for whispers in the air, and nodded when she heard a car start then accelerate away from the cottage.
She sighed, and unbuttoned her cardigan. She untaped the tiny microphone from her waist, and unwound its lead. She smiled as she looked at it and, before laying it on the table, she said: "I hope that was satisfactory? I'm sure he now seriously doubts Aubrey's innocence."
* * *
Sir Andrew Babbington shunted the folded sheaf of German morning newspapers to one side of his desk. Eldon watched the firm, satisfied expression on his superior's features. Most of the German nationals had taken up the story of Gunther Guillaume and 1974 from the previous day's Sunday Times and had treated it fully, speculatively, and with unanimous though veiled accusation of Aubrey for his part in the Guillaume scandal. As Eldon had firmly believed, since Teardrop first broke, Aubrey was the mole in British Intelligence who had tried to warn the East German double agent of his impending arrest. There hadn't been smoke without fire.
"Nothing new, I'm afraid," Babbington commented. "However, it's of minor importance."
"Sir?"
"1974 — not our main concern, Eldon."
"With respect, sir — I really think we should go after it. Full cooperation of the BfV…?" Babbington was already shaking his head. Eldon kept his features expressionless, immobile. On his thighs, his knuckles whitened. Damn it, Babbington simply couldn't see it!
"I don't think so, Eldon. What we might happen to dig up wouldn't be worth the effort, in all probability. No, let's go with what we have, as they say. The last two years, Aubrey's period of real activity. And, for my personal satisfaction and for the sake of Robert Castleford's ghost — find that damned woman who was involved with both of them in Berlin!"
"I would have thought she wasn't our main concern, Sir Andrew," Eldon observed without inflection.
Babbington studied his features, his nostrils closing and dilating with suppressed anger. "No?" he enquired lightly.
"What can she know?"
"Who murdered Robert Castleford, for example?" The sarcasm was evident. Babbington looked immediately at his watch. "I ha
ve to see the Foreign Secretary at eleven." Eldon could see a masked smile lifting the corners of Babbington's mouth. Also present at that meeting would be Sir William Guest as Chairman of JIC and the Home Secretary. That small group of men would ratify the establishment of the new Security and Intelligence Directorate and confirm Babbington as its first Director-General. Babbington was less than an hour from absolute secret power.
Eldon felt no envy for the man; merely a thankfulness that SIS would at last be under the aegis of the security service and no longer a maverick organisation; in future, its work would be properly supervised. And Eldon felt profoundly grateful that they had uncovered Teardrop — Aubrey. The damage he had been able to do was not irreversible, not conclusive in all probability. It might take a year or two, but they would weed out everyone who had worked with him and alter the organisation's structure sufficiently to render his betrayals relatively harmless.
Yes, it was a consummation to be profoundly thankful for.
"Very well. Sir Andrew," he replied. "What about Shelley and Paul Massinger?"
"Mm." It was evident that Babbington had already made his decision and was simply pretending to muse. "I'm pretty certain that Shelley will be a good boy in future. I think he has been somewhat misled by old loyalties… and of course, Massinger has been subjecting him to pressure." Babbington steepled his fingers, elbows on his desk. "As for Massinger, his conversation with Miss Dawson has left him seriously in doubt. I think we can predict he will drop the matter very soon. He's beginning to believe that Aubrey did the dirty deed, after all."
"You're certain of that, Sir Andrew?"
"No, Eldon, I'm not certain. I simply don't think we need do very much more. There is no need for us to make the whole thing more messy than it is by precipitate action. Massinger doesn't want to lose his wife. Anything that persuades him, or helps to persuade him, that Aubrey is guilty of her father's murder, will be clutched to his bosom only too eagerly. Just let the matter take its course."
"Very well, Sir Andrew. And — Hyde?"
"He must be under cover somewhere — skulking on the Continent like a debtor. He'll come to light eventually. He's no problem. Incidentally, any KGB activity?"
"None."
"They've cut their losses. Abandoned Aubrey to his fate, then?"
"It appears so, Sir Andrew."
"Wise of them, in the event. Very well, Eldon. The DPP would like the papers by midweek. Naturally after they've been seen by the PM and the Attorney-General, in this extraordinary case. Can your department manage that?"
"Yes, Sir Andrew. Sir Kenneth can be formally charged this week."
"Good."
* * *
"You know where he is now?"
"Yes, Comrade Rezident General. He is returning from Oxford at this moment. He is driving—"
"Never mind. Just make sure they don't lose him in London. You presume he is planning to return to the man Hyde's flat?"
"We presume so, Comrade Rezident General."
"Very well. Dispose of him — this morning. As soon and as quietly as possible. Our friend seems to be over-confident as to Massinger's harmlessness. I am not convinced. What he knows already is too dangerous. He might — just might — talk to someone who will believe him. Someone like Colonel Eldon, for example. No, it is too dangerous. Massinger represents too great a threat. They lost Hyde in Vienna — we have found Massinger. We will make certain. Give the order — kill Massinger. I'll sign the authorisation."
"Thank you, Comrade Rezident General—"
"You didn't think I'd leave you holding the baby, did you?"
"I'm sorry, Comrade Rezident General."
"Very well — get on with it. Poor Paul."
"I beg your pardon, Comrade—?"
"Never mind. Just see that it's done."
* * *
Hyde had been jolted by Kabul, alienated. They had approached the capital a little after noon, filtering into the city in small groups, making their rendezvous in one of the city's oldest and most warrenlike bazaars, setting up headquarters in the rear of a rugmaker's shop. Its owner was, apparently, a relative of Mohammed Jan. He bewailed the loss of Jan's sons, dropped the ritual tears, put his resources at the Pathan chieftain's disposal.
After they had eaten fragrant, indigestible nan bread and a rice dish with mutton and raisins, Mohammed Jan and Miandad set out with Hyde to reconnoitre the Soviet embassy buildings. The city was crowded, its poorer suburbs and bazaars timeless, antique. The donkeys and handcarts seemed intruded upon by the few ancient cars, the handful of military vehicles. Veiled women, turbanned men, or men wearing beaded, gold-threaded caps; then, suddenly, the Inter-Continental Hotel and high-rise office blocks. Earth underfoot changed to tar. The contrast stunned Hyde. A rug-vendor, samples of his wares over his shoulder and at his feet on the pavement, stood in front of a department store. Hyde grinned, and Miandad returned his expression.
"Nothing changes," the Pakistani murmured.
The smell of passing donkeys, overladen with petrol fumes. The noise of a passing Russian lorry. Someone getting out of a very long black American sedan in front of the hotel; a man in a well-cut, fur-collared overcoat, a woman in furs. The squeak of cartwheels, the noise of a single-decker bus. Roll-neck women's sweaters in the nearest window of the store.
A car or lorry backfired. Hyde immediately saw Azimov's face in the moment that he had turned and fired the single shot from the pistol. The boy had known — even as he feared, even as he experienced a terror of realisation and was crushed by its weight, he had known. His eyes had retained a kind of calm. If there was forgiveness, even gratitude, Hyde could not trust to it. He might have been inventing it.
One shot, through the forehead, knocking the boy's dead body back against the rocks. Keeping the vital, invaluable Soviet military uniform intact, unblemished, without bloodstains. Even as Mohammed Jan had argued, had demanded the boy, Hyde had been unwilling, unable—
Then a Pathan had moved to lay hands on Azimov, at Mohammed Jan's orders, and Hyde had simply turned and fired, almost without taking aim.
"He was my prisoner!" he had raged at the Pathan chieftain. Within the circles of kohl around his dark eyes, Mohammed Jan had acknowledged Hyde's claim with a single flicker of his. eyelids. Then Hyde, calming himself, had explained the necessity of the quick, clean death — the condition of the uniform. Mohammed Jan had accepted his cunning.
As he had accepted his scheme for reaching Petrunin, after listening to what Hyde had learned from the boy. Oh, the boy had been informative. He'd known a lot, remembered a lot, and he told Hyde everything because he was spending the coinage that ensured he would live. He was bribing the Pathan tribesman who spoke Russian and had light eyes and a lighter skin than the others. He had held his letter and the snapshot of his wife against the unmarked breast of his uniform jacket all the time he spoke. Hyde had put it and the letter back inside the battered wallet, appropriating both the private man and the public figure indicated by the ID documents.
"Hyde?" Miandad asked, nudging his arm.
"What—?"
Mohammed Jan was already striding away from them, towards the principal square of Kabul, where the main facade of the Inter-Continental Hotel outfaced high-rise offices and apartment blocks and overlooked the compound of the Soviet embassy.
"We must not loiter," Miandad instructed. Two soldiers with Kalashnikovs on their shoulders took up position on either side of the main doors of the Inter-Continental. Two other guards, now relieved, marched towards a troop transport, then climbed beneath the shelter of its tarpaulin. The lorry roared away, black fumes belching from its exhaust.
"OK."
They trailed after the tall Pathan, crossing the square. There were more cars, many of them Russian, with small, stiff flags on the bonnets of the black saloons. Others, mostly cream or white, still possessed an official appearance. The buses were crowded. The street-lamps were beginning to glare in the afternoon air, and some illuminated neon si
gns gained a bolder glow. Hoardings for consumer products vied with stern governmental portraits and Afghan and Soviet flags.
Flags on the Soviet embassy. Behind high black railings, across a forty-yard width of snow-patched lawn, the low bungalows of the compound were dotted around the white facade of the embassy building. An ugly, modern concrete and glass extension lay alongside the main building like a squat, utilitarian transport ship berthed alongside an elegant, superseded sailing vessel. The extension appeared sufficiently modern to have been completed after the Russian invasion. There was a guard on either side of the main gates and a red and white barrier pole. Ten yards further out into the square stood a large concrete bunker, the guard post.
Hyde lounged against a lamp-post while Mohammed Jan and Miandad began haggling with a rug-vendor who had set up his stall on a small, grassless island amid the traffic, opposite the embassy gates. As they bargained, Hyde knew they would be assessing distances, firing positions, angles, cover. Their knowledge of Kabul and of killing Russians was compendious and successful. For himself, he was for the moment, simply the sightseer. His work lay beyond the black railings, wearing Azimov's uniform. Cars and buses swirled between Hyde and the railings of the embassy. The square was noisy behind him.
The Pathan chieftain had guaranteed to get them out of the city once Hyde had completed the capture of Petrunin. And Hyde had repeated his promise while the adrenalin of Azimov's murder still prompted him. 'I will give you Petrunin, for your justice — damn you, I'll give you Petrunin! You didn't need this poor sod — I'll give you the man himself!' Miandad had not bothered to translate, and Mohammed Jan, without loss of face or dignity, had turned his back on him and descended the slope to the road. Hyde had watched him in a mood that was angry, jumpy and uncertain.
Hyde surreptitiously glanced at the watch concealed by the baggy sleeve of his blouse. Four. The air was darkening. Behind the embassy buildings, where the plain ended and the mountains of the Hindu Kush loomed forty foreshortened miles north of the city, the snow-covered peaks glowed pink while the mountain flanks displayed a dull gleam already dying into darkness. He came at this time usually, the boy had said.