The Bear's Tears kaaph-4

by Craig Thomas

  Dear Sasha …

  Not Darling Sasha, only the more formal acquaintanceship claimed by Dear — Dear Sir…

  Dear Sasha… Nadia wouldn't even get the letter and the snapshot back — unless they returned them after removing them from his body, not Sasha's stripped and rock-hidden corpse. She would never know exactly what happened. She would, undoubtedly, fear the worst.

  Unnoticed, Mohammed Jan was at his side. Hyde jumped as the Pathan spoke.

  "Your promise?" he asked lightly in very accented English, a parody of Miandad, who appeared on the Pathan's other side.

  "It still holds," Hyde replied.

  "Can you do it?" Miandad asked a moment later, translating now from Mohammed Jan's Pushtu.

  "Can he cause enough confusion, once I've got past the gates?" Hyde replied belligerently, staring into the chieftain's face. "You can operate the rocket launcher — can you hit the embassy from here and kill the guards in that concrete bunker? Can you pin down the Russians for fifteen minutes afterwards? Because if you two can't do what's needed, then all my promises won't be worth a light, will they? Just bear that in mind— I'm the one who's taking the risk, walking in there and relying on you two. Remind Gunga Din of that little fact, will you?"

  Hyde turned away as Miandad began to translate. He itched with nerves, his skin crawling with his increasing tension, with little prickly outbreaks of sweat, even as the temperature dropped towards zero. He knew he would be all right; he'd be able to cope, get through it. He had to, anyway. It would be some kind of compensation, an apologetic risk to prove that he didn't always kill unarmed boys to save them from torture and mutilation.

  Now, Petrunin and the thought and memory of him no longer made him afraid. It was Petrunin, after all, who was really to blame for the boy's death on the chilly, dawn-lit hillside. It was Petrunin who was really to blame for what had happened to Aubrey. It was Petrunin who was really, really to blame for Hyde's danger, for his presence in this alien country, and to blame for the fact that even his own side would kill him if they found him. Thus, he wanted Petrunin very badly.

  The curfew began at ten. Darkness fell before five.

  The black car was escorted by motorcycle outriders with Kalashnikovs across their backs, and by two other black saloons before and behind it. The windows of all three cars were tinted and dark. The cars were heavy, ponderous, armour-plated, even on the underside of the chassis by the look of it, to prevent injury from a rolled grenade or a landmine: It was the arrival, or so it seemed to Hyde of some hated local despot or potentate. It was Petrunin. 'The flagless car,' the boy had said. 'No emblems, nothing. And the outriders.'

  The barrier swung up, the gates opened electronically. With little hesitation or slowing of its speed, the small motorcade swept through into the embassy compound. Hyde watched the cars until they halted outside the ugly extension, then his gaze transferred to the forest of aerials on the roof of the new building, then finally to the windows of the third floor. He counted.

  Petrunin's suite of offices. The boy did not know how many guards, what alarms, what booby-traps. There, once inside the building, he would be alone, on his own, isolated and without assistance.

  "Have you seen enough?" Miandad asked softly. There were flecks of snow in the darkening air. "We have settled our matters."

  Hyde nodded. "Yes, I've seen enough." 'He never sleeps, or so they say,' the boy had told him. 'Bad conscience.' He had even smiled at that. 'He takes pep pills all the time. He can't sleep so he works all night' "Yes, I've seen enough," Hyde repeated. "Let's go."

  * * *

  Massinger stopped the car and switched off the engine. The curve of Wilton Crescent had lost most of its snow. He had parked almost directly opposite his own flat. As he looked up, he almost expected to see Margaret at one of the windows — dining-room, drawing-room, any one of the tall windows.

  He kept his hands on the wheel of the rented Ford Granada, afraid that they would display a tremor he could not control the moment he freed them. It was past midday. He had been driving around central London, simply driving without purpose or destination, in the heavy Monday traffic for perhaps an hour. His mind had been filled with black and bitter recriminations. He blamed Aubrey and, more, he blamed himself. He viewed the past days, since that morning he had first visited Aubrey, as a kind of delirium; something heightened, feverish, unreal. A lost week, a period out of time; days stolen from his life.

  Aubrey had been the thief of his time. Aubrey the murderer.

  Not that he was convinced… No, he was not convinced, he told himself once more, not nearly convinced. But, he could not rid himself of the suspicion that it was true, might be true, could possibly be true…

  Massinger shook his head like an old, tormented animal smelling the already spilled blood of the herd.

  He knew, with a bleak certainty, that he had begun the process of moving towards a conviction of Aubrey's guilt. And for the moment, relief that it was over, relief that he could take up his life at the point where he had put it down like a parcel — all that was less important than the creeping horror that Aubrey had murdered Margaret's father. Had done, had done it—

  Even the thought that he and Margaret would be as they had been — before all this business, before his visit to Aubrey — paled into insignificance beside the betrayal that Aubrey's probable guilt represented. Aubrey — of all people, of all crimes, Aubrey—?

  He could not move from the car. Wearily, with limbs weighted with the gravity of some huge, malignant planet, he wiped at the clouded windscreen.

  Hyde, he thought, but the thought lost shape, tailed off. Hyde—?

  Probably dead.

  The traitor—?

  Unidentified.

  Himself—?

  He saw the concepts as words, and they appeared to him as clearly and as robbed of significance as if they had flickered onto a computer screen. And his answers were similarly robbed of importance. They were the mechanical answers of a computer.

  Himself—?

  Safe…

  Yes, safe. He could cross the crescent, enter his flat, greet his wife, eat lunch after a dry sherry, then ring Babbington with a clear, satisfied conscience.

  A few minutes, many words, an honourable draw. Everyone satisfied. No shame to him — Aubrey probably had done it, for whatever mad and jealous reasons.

  Margaret would take him back. That was another of Massinger's certainties.

  Then, get out of the car…

  He felt weak. The facades of Wilton Crescent beckoned. My God — Aubrey had almost managed to destroy everything, everything he had ever cared for, everything that gave meaning— A grey pigeon settled on the windowsill of his drawing-room. Four feet from it, on the interior wall, two original Turners hung, one above the other. They had been behind Babbington's head, early on in this business—

  Now, he would possess them again. Possess Margaret, know peace.

  Get out of the car.

  The pigeon lifted heavily from the windowsill, gained height, seemed to become slimmer, more streamlined, rose and flew against the grey sky.

  He opened the door and climbed out of the Granada with a fresher resolve. Yes, all would be well—

  He locked the door and began to cross the crescent. He looked up at the window of the drawing-room. There was a face — old, rich Miss Waggoner — at one of the windows of the next flat, and then there was Margaret's face at the correct and expected window. He could not resist waving. Her hand fluttered next to her ear, then it touched her mouth as if she regretted the involuntary action and was remembering the past week. He waved again, hurrying forward, stick tapping ahead of him. He did not look down at his feet as he had become accustomed to doing, but kept his gaze on the window, on her face. Younger lover, much younger, arriving — he should have bought flowers, wished he had now that the black moments were past and he had abandoned that guilty old man.

  Her eyes flickered away from him, then returned. Her mouth — he cou
ld see it quite clearly, opening into a black round O — seemed to be trying to warn him—

  Noise of a car, fierce acceleration.

  Noise of a car, getting nearer, some youthful, trained part of his awareness warned him.

  He turned his head.

  The distinct image of a dark blue Cortina — dark blue Cortina — and a stabbing, reluctant pain in his hip. Awareness of the polished handle of his stick, firmly in his grasp. Awareness of being stranded in the middle of Wilton Crescent. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten yards.

  The blur of a cat racing across the road, disappearing beneath the wheels of the Cortina, not even a lurch from the car, nothing but the scream of the cat. He looked helplessly up at the round dark hole of Margaret's mouth, knowing she had begun to scream, as if expecting her in some way to help him, alter his circumstances. Then he hobbled, lurched, staggered, fell, rolled…

  The Cortina's flank bounced away from the stronger coachwork of a Rolls. An oncoming small red Renault had swerved into the kerb, squashing its already blunt nose against the boot of a low sports car. Massinger lay in the gutter, blood from a graze filling his left eye. His right eye blurred with tears or sweat as he watched, almost from beneath the front wheels of the Rolls, the professional face in the Cortina. Jagged, crumpled bodywork was close enough to his face to be out of focus.

  Too many people, already too many people. His hip ached infernally, as if someone had tried to wrench off his leg. His arm and shoulder were bruised against the Rolls — the silver lady had torn the sleeve of his raincoat — and he had grazed his forehead. But he was alive, and—

  The professional face studied him for a moment. The moment elongated, and Massinger began to realise, foggily, that he was not safe, it was not over. The driver's window began to open, rolling down slowly, taking away the superimposition of the white fagade of his flat and leaving only the expressionless face.

  A gun?

  Then the scene was blocked out; someone was kneeling by the front wheel of the Rolls, between his body and the man in the Cortina. A man's knee, a neighbour's voice murmuring something shocked and solicitous. He wanted to warn the man, then felt all energy and tension drain from him as the Cortina's engine revved furiously, the tyres squealed, and the car pulled away round the curve of the crescent.

  He nodded in reply to whatever the man had said. Then he could see again. He watched the neighbour's feet move away. Beyond the cramped perspective of the chassis of the Rolls, he saw the man kneel anxiously, even gravely, by the squashed form of the cat. It was the neighbour's cat, he recognised it now.

  The woman who had been driving the small Renault was complaining to a gathering audience in a high, shrill, enraged voice. Massinger groaned with relief.

  He looked up into Margaret's face as she touched the graze on his forehead. He grabbed feverishly at her hand, holding it to his cheek, pressing his face against her palm. He groaned again, with realisation.

  "What is it — darling, what was happening…?"

  He shook his head. "Help me up, dear." She took some of his weight. He levered himself up on the stick she handed him, jamming it like a vaulting pole into the angle of the gutter. He felt dizzy for a moment, someone unnoticed murmured an enquiry which Margaret fended off. She helped him across the pavement, up the three steps into the house. Someone else had the ground floor, a film producer hardly ever in residence, and the first and second floors belonged to Margaret — to them, he corrected himself.

  He allowed his body to press against her as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Lovers, returning…

  He sighed, cursed in a whisper.

  "Are you hurt?" Margaret asked. "Shall I call Dr Evans?"

  He shook his head. "No. I–I just realised that nothing's changed."

  "Oh, God—!" she breathed fiercely.

  "It wasn't an accident."

  She thrust open the door of the flat. "I — realised that," she announced with difficulty. "Here, take off that raincoat. I'll get some hot water and iodine. Any other damage?" She was a bluff, competent nurse; playing a role with narrow horizons for the sake of a moment's respite.

  She directed him into the drawing-room. "Have some whisky. I won't be a moment." She pressed his hand fiercely, then released it, and disappeared into the bedroom. Massinger looked up the stairs to the second floor and his study, as if needing music more than a drink, but then he went into the drawing-room.

  He clattered the decanter against the glass as he poured a large whisky. He swallowed greedily, coughed, and straightened his aching body against the sideboard. He breathed slowly and deeply a number of times.

  They wouldn't let go. Shelley had been wrong, he had been wrong, to believe the illusion of escape. He knew too much, even though he knew little. He could talk. Someone, eventually, might listen.

  He was safer dead.

  Margaret was at his side. The iodine stung like his thoughts, bringing tears. The whisky warmed his chest and stomach. Minutes later, they were studying each other across a space of carpet, each perched on the edges of their chairs like people in a strange room, peasants who had uncomfortably inherited a palace. Margaret's hands quarrelled with each other in her lap, mirroring some internal struggle. Except for her hands, and a stray lock of blonde hair, she possessed the midday appearance of a woman of her background and wealth; groomed, confident, desirable.

  But vulnerable, now, like himself.

  "I — almost believe—" he began.

  "What happened?" she blurted at the same moment.

  Exchanged smiles turning to worry on her part, lack of resolve on his. She gestured to him to continue. Instead, he answered her question.

  The smell of iodine, suggesting wounds…

  "They tried to kill me."

  "Who — for God's sake, darling, who?" There was no longer any barrier between them. He had come home, but not by the route he had planned.

  "I don't know. Whoever believes I know too much."

  "Do you?"

  He shook his head. "I don't think I do. I've met Hyde in Vienna, but he knew nothing except that Vienna Station, in full or in part, is working for the Russians."

  Her eyes seemed to resist the secret world for a moment, then she merely nodded. She wished to be counted in, a convert.

  "Go on."

  "They tried to kill him."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Afghanistan — but I don't know whether he's alive or dead."

  "But-you?"

  "There's someone," he began, "someone high up, in this country's intelligence service, and it isn't Kenneth Aubrey—" He raised his hand to still protest, but there was little reaction to the name on Margaret's face. Her white hands had stopped their fitful quarrel. "Someone who is a Russian agent — someone who's afraid of Hyde and me being on Aubrey's side…" He sighed. "I'll tell you everything I know," he said.

  She listened without interruption. Aubrey, Vienna, Helsinki, Oxfordshire. Once or twice, when the subject of her father appeared like a broken bone through skin, her features winced or pursed. Otherwise she was expressionless, her eyes fixed on Massinger, her fears for him more evident than any other concern. Occasionally, her hands resumed their conflict in her lap, on the light blue and grey of her skirt.

  He announced, after a final pause: "Obviously, they'll kill me unless I can find out who they are. Who he is." Then he sipped at the remainder of his whisky. His throat was dry with speech, and with renewed fear. He had explained it all to her in unemotional terms, with simple clarity. Now, having so carefully and clearly laid out the parts of the puzzle, he saw that it possessed more potency, more ability to frighten than a crowd of vague, unformed premonitions or nightmares.

  It was strange, he thought, that when he told her he had begun to believe Aubrey guilty of Castleford's murder, she had shown little in the way of expression. He had paused to allow her to comment, but she had done no more than wave him on with his narrative. Now, as he waited for her to speak, she studied him for a lo
ng time in silence. Her cheeks seemed blanched beneath the make-up, and there was a small, close-knitted frown above her nose. Then she stood up, crossed to the sideboard, and poured herself a drink. She returned to his chair and stood by it — as she had done a week ago when Alistair Burnet had stunned them with the news of Aubrey's arrest and the accusations against him, and her father's face had filled the television screen.

  She clutched his hand. He did not look up. He felt the tremor running through her grip, and squeezed her fingers. She shook his hand gently. He heard the tumbler touch against her teeth as she drank from it.

  "What do we do, then?" she asked.

  He sighed. She shook his hand gently once more. He was indeed home. But he had returned to find that his home had been transformed into a fortress in his absence. He was no longer alone, but he had brought, close behind him, the enemies he had made so that now they threatened his wife as well as himself.

  * * *

  Using the number of one of Aubrey's credit cards and the telephone of a nearby restaurant, Mrs Grey had bought a change of clothes, underwear, toilet accessories, and a suitcase to contain the purchases. A friend of hers had picked up the clothes and toiletries and the suitcase and left them in a locker at Victoria Station, bringing Mrs Grey the key.

  Now, all he had to do was to place himself in conjunction with his new and unseen luggage. A ticket to Dover was all that was missing from his arrangements — no more than a moment at a booking office window. He had only to slip from the house, find a taxi, get into it, order it to Victoria, collect the suitcase…

  The arrangements revolved again and again in his mind like something worrying him while he was still on the edge of sleep. He could not awaken sufficiently to rid himself of it or solve the puzzle it presented.

  Because such repetition was only a blind, a piece of self-delusion. Beneath it lay the extreme difficulty, the practical impossibility, of leaving his flat unnoticed. Beneath that again in the geology of his fears lay the enormous and still enlarging sense of his imminent black ruin; the despair at the possible discovery of his journal before he could destroy it. Forty-five years of service, almost seventy years of his life, would be reduced to complete and utter ruin. It had been good for that man if he had not been bom, his memory had quoted at him throughout the day. He could not regard such an idea as melodrama, or exaggerated or out of proportion. He realised that his professional ruin would mean that much to him. He would, with foreknowledge of it, have chosen not to begin, not to have existed.