by Craig Thomas
Exposed, clearly visible—
She had sought the terrace and the balcony in a terror at her own fears and her amateurishness. Even now, as she walked up and down and warmth and feeling returned to her legs and feet, she hardly dared believe it had worked. Her camera lay like an abandoned weapon on the balustrade. She had succeeded. Two rolls of film with Babbington's face in almost every frame. Once his companion was identified, the process of saving Paul would begin—
She could not believe the ease of it, could not avoid a sense of triumph. Hyde need not have crossed the border, put himself in danger—
Danger. Paul. The blood in the apartment. Paul.
She ran to the camera and snatched it up. The gardens were deserted except for a black, overcoated speck seated on a wooden bench, surrounded by hungry pigeons. An arm moved periodically in a scattering gesture. The tiny spots of grey bobbed and moved, as if conducted by the arm. She ran. She had to talk to her godfather, to Sir William. He had to listen to her.
* * *
Hyde sensed the weight of Godwin's body resting on the two crutches the moment he saw him at the surburban bus stop. The man was wearing a heavy overcoat and a fur hat, and his face was wreathed in a bright tartan scarf. Otherwise, there was no sense of colour or even life about him. He expressed endless patience in his stillness and his slump of weight; a sense of defeat. Hyde steered the car reluctantly towards the lay-by and its small, glassed-in bus shelter. Godwin had, for some reason — perhaps only to be seen more easily by Hyde — chosen to stand in the falling snow. His shoulders in their frozen shrug of acceptance were thickly white. His fur hat, too, was mottled from its normal black to a badger's fur. He stared through the passenger window at Hyde, who tugged on the handbrake and opened the door.
Godwin, seeing him emerge and sensing his purpose, growled: "I don't need help. Is this door unlocked?" His hand was on the passenger door handle. Hyde, already at the bonnet and rounding the Skoda, merely nodded. Godwin's features scowled with rancour, and a hatred of pity and of his disability. Hyde retreated to the driver's side, as if from a wounded animal.
Godwin leaned heavily against the door-frame. He heaved the two crutches — old and heavy, with metal clasps and stout rubber grips — into the rear of the car, then almost fell into the passenger seat. Hyde shuddered, for Godwin and for himself. Godwin lifted his legs into the car and immediately adopted another frozen posture, staring through the windscreen, his fur hat on his lap, leaking snow onto the skirts of his coat and the corduroy trousers that covered his despised legs. On his shoulders, the snow glistened as it began to melt. Hyde slipped into the driving seat with unobtrusive and very conscious leg movements.
As a placatory gesture, Hyde said: "Petrunin's dead." It was crass, but the silence in the car pressed against his temples.
"Did you kill him?" Godwin replied after a short silence. The windscreen in front of his face was already misting, as if the man exuded some violent heat.
"No. His own lot did that for him."
After another and longer silence, Godwin merely said, "My legs don't feel any better."
"Look, Godwin—" Hyde began, but Godwin turned to him. His face was wan, chilly with rage. It was as if he had been waiting at the bus stop for days, perhaps ever since he had been shot, just for Hyde's arrival.
"Christ, Hyde — why does it have to be you?" he spat out. He looked years older. He had lost weight — wasted rather than dieted, it seemed to Hyde. His eyes were darkly stained beneath the small, hard pupils. His hair was thinner, and lank. Hyde avoided glancing at the man's legs. "You and the old man? Why the two of you, of all people?" His lower lip quivered as he finished speaking. Hyde saw the self-pity and could not despise it. "I was burying myself here, nice and quietly. I wasn't forgetting, I was quietly and satisfactorily dying. Turning into a vegetable. Then you—!" His eyes glared at Hyde as he looked up from the wet fur hat in his lap. It looked like some drowned beloved pet, the cause of Godwin's rage and grief.
"Fuck off, Godwin," Hyde said quietly, forcefully. "Take your bloody self-pity and stuff it." Godwin stared at him, his mouth working silently, his eyes angry slits in his white face. "You're alive. I don't have the time or the range of sympathy to care in what condition… because if you don't help me and I can't do the necessary, neither I nor the old man will be anything but dead. Now, if you'd like to change places, give me your fucking crutches and I'll learn to use them."
Godwin's jaw dropped. His mouth was a round black hole from which eventually emerged in a shocked, small, defeated voice: "Oh, you bastard — Christ, you bastard," Hyde did not reply, and Godwin turned his face away. Slowly, his head subsided onto his chest. Hyde listened to his stertorious breathing, as if the man was labouring up an endless flight of stairs or a steep hill; surmounting his own self-pity, Hyde hoped. Eventually, Godwin sniffed loudly.
It was almost dark in the car. The snow lay thickly on the windscreen and the rear window, and the daylight was fading outside. There was no one at the bus stop. Traffic had begun to pass them, leaving Prague for the suburbs. In the headlights of one oncoming vehicle, Hyde saw bright wetness on Godwin's cheeks.
"OK," Godwin said heavily, nodding. "OK. I'm sorry."
Again, Hyde did not reply. Already, his interest in Godwin's reaction was diminishing. His words had had the desired effect. It was difficult to concern himself with anything larger than Aubrey's survival…
Rare moment of absolute honesty. His own survival. It was that which absorbed his attention. Unless that was the case, Aubrey, Godwin, Massinger and all the others would not survive. The priority of self might just keep others alive — on this occasion.
"It's not you," Godwin eventually continued. Hyde had to force himself to attend. Godwin was emerging slowly, like a dragonfly, from the chrysalis of his disability.
"Yes?" he demanded, almost impatiently.
Godwin's head twitched, then he said: "It's not you I blame — God knows, not the old man…"
"No," Hyde said carefully. Traffic passed, flowing more strongly now.
Godwin looked at Hyde for a moment, as if reminding himself of his companion's identity. Then he said: "I don't know and I don't care whether you understand this…" Hyde winced, wanting to stem the flow of what he sensed was a confession, but he said nothing. "… but I want to say it." He swallowed, then Hyde heard a dry, chuckling, ironic noise in Godwin's throat. "You brought back a world I'd had to leave behind. Fuck you for that."
Hyde turned, surprised. Godwin was looking at him. His cheeks were still pale, but dry. His mouth was open in a small, cynical smile.
Hyde nodded. "OK," he said. "Now — where to?"
"What—? Oh, my flat."
"Secure?"
"They leave me alone." His hands slapped his thighs. "Walking wounded. They accept my cover for the real thing. How could I be SIS, on crutches?"
"No one else knows I'm here — that I'm expected?"
"No one. Shelley's signal was very specific. What's going on, Hyde?"
"Babbington — he's Moscow's man. The proofs in the computer."
"Babbington? Bloody hell—"
"He framed the old man… and it was Petrunin's scenario from the beginning."
"Petrunin told you all this? You trust that bastard?"
"He was dying — and trying to pull the house down around him. He wasn't lying."
"Who's on our side?"
"Us — just the two of us." Hyde did not mention Margaret Massinger. There was little or no point. She wouldn't be able to cope. He knew it would have been better for her had he ordered her to lie low, merely keep out of sight. She wouldn't last five minutes trying to tail Babbington and keep that wooden house in Perchtoldsdorf under surveillance. He had doubted her ability to survive even as he briefed her, even as they bought the camera and lenses. Thus, he had been deliberately vague in explaining his own task to her. What she did not know she could not reveal when they caught and questioned her. "That's the whole army," he added.
"Shelley's already in the bag."
"Christ—" Godwin breathed.
"Are you in?" Hyde asked impatiently. His hands stroked the steering wheel. He was tempted to grip it fiercely, to still the tremor he sensed beginning.
Then Godwin said: "I'm in — it's bloody hopeless, but I'm in."
Hyde looked at him. Just for a moment, a younger man glanced from behind the bitter, older mask that Godwin wore.
"OK. Which way?"
"Straight on. My flat's in the Old Town. I'll direct you."
* * *
"My dear friend, I'm so sorry, so sorry…"
Aubrey patted Massinger's hand as he spoke. It lay like a limp white fish on the coverlet, then it enclosed Aubrey's hand slowly. Massinger's eyes were bright, but empty of fever. His face was puffy and misshapen with dark, livid bruises that were the colour and texture of raw offal.
"It's — OK," he murmured, his lips working loosely like those of someone whose jaw has been deadened in preparation for dental work. His lips were swollen and split. He shook his head gently. "OK," he repeated.
"How is the leg?"
"Someone patched it up. There's no bullet in the wound. Hurts like hell, Kenneth." He tried to sit more upright in the narrow bed, and groaned as he moved his injured leg. No doubt, Aubrey thought, the dressing on his thigh was temporary. A temporary dressing for a temporary circumstance.
He realised that Babbington had reached a decision, otherwise he would not have allowed Aubrey and Massinger to meet. There was no longer any need to keep them apart. What they knew would die with them. Thus, when Aubrey had surrendered to his hunger and eaten lunch, and then had asked after Massinger's health, Wilkes had merely grinned and taken him to the wounded man's room.
One of Massinger's eyes was almost closed with a puffy, raw swelling. His various cuts had, however, been bathed and disinfected and covered with plaster.
"I want you to understand, my dear Paul, how — how grateful I am for your efforts on my behalf."
Massinger shook his head and tried to grin. "Even though all it got me was here and now, uh?" he said. "Don't take it to heart — " He winced with pain again as he moved, then added: "I couldn't help myself. Thank God they didn't get Margaret — thank God for that!" Massinger was almost blithe.
"Yes, thank goodness," Aubrey breathed, inwardly grateful. He hoped the woman would keep her head down, keep out of things — until they were resolved. Whether she might be able to influence the course of events in any way… police, William Guest, the press…? No, he thought decisively, no. She is out of the game. She can do nothing. He cleared his throat, watching Massinger as he did so. "You — Paul, you realise what Babbington intends…?" His voice failed him.
Massinger gripped his hand more tightly as he nodded. Then he said urgently, "They don't have her, do they? They don't know where she is?"
Aubrey shook his head. Massinger lay back on the pillows as if exhausted. He murmured something which might have been, "Thank God for that," once more. Aubrey realised that the man's relief at his wife's safety anaesthetised him to his own situation.
After a long silence, he said, "You've talked with Babbington?"
"Yes."
"Why — why did he? When?" Then the American opened his eyes. "It doesn't matter. None of that matters. What's he going to do with us?"
"Moscow, I think." Aubrey nodded. "Yes, Moscow. I'm certain of it. I–I'm sorry—"
"Sure. You'll survive, for a little while maybe — but not me. He has to bury the bodies, our friend Babbington. Does he have to bury the bodies!" His eyes studied Aubrey, then slowly became unfocused once more. He stared at the ceiling, and Aubrey knew the man was staring at an image of his wife. He murmured again. Again, Aubrey did not catch the words.
"I'm sorry…"he repeated. Massinger did not appear to hear him;
Thank you — sorry. There was nothing else to say. Their knowledge of each other and of their situation was complete.
Aubrey's past began to press upon him once more. It would mean little or nothing to Massinger. The gallery of images parading before him formed his private collection. And each of the scenes angered him. Every voice, moment, room, person, operation, mission, committee. Angered him—
His past had been utterly refashioned by Babbington. Everything — everything! Completely, utterly changed — made ugly and twisted. That was why he hated Babbington. Not for the man's own treachery — that feeling had passed away. No — but because the man had robbed him of, of reputation—! Of probity. Othello's occupation's gone he remembered bitterly.
The door opened.
It was Wilkes, who immediately said, "He says you've had long enough." Aubrey glared at him. "Come on, Sir Kenneth — back to your own room, if you please." He used the voice of some psychiatric nurse, mocking him with orders.
Aubrey stood up and released Massinger's hand. It returned to the coverlet; returned, too, to its former, limp-fish state, white and unmoving. Massinger's one open eye winked at him. Aubrey tried to smile.
"Do you need anything?" he asked. Massinger shook his head.
"Hardly worth it, is it?" Wilkes enquired.
"Isn't it?" Aubrey snapped.
"It isn't."
"When?"
"Less than forty-eight hours," Wilkes said. "He has to be back in London within the next two days… look funny otherwise, wouldn't it?"
"God, Wilkes—!" Aubrey hesitated, his mouth open. He had no idea what he had intended to say.
"Come on," Wilkes ordered.
Aubrey passed through the door without glancing back at Massinger. In the corridor, as Wilkes closed the door, it was as if someone had switched on a powerful light and shone it directly into his eyes. He was dazzled by his illuminated past. Each separate memory stung and hurt. He swayed with the shock of their impact.
Zimmermann and he, face to face — his first captured German officer… those first interviews in the small, bare upstairs flat somewhere off the Strand, only months after he had come down from Oxford… the diplomatic service, he had thought, and had then felt a deep and abiding delight when they had indicated the secret world, intelligence work—
Berlin, after the war — Castleford's face intruded, still alive, smiling… come back like a ghost, to gloat. Aubrey dismissed him in the rush of images. Reams of paper and files passing across a desk beneath hands which he recognised as his own. The hands aged as he watched, as if his whole adult life were passing in moments — the speeded-up film of some flower's life-cycle… the files became more important, more secret—
"You all right?" Wilkes asked. Aubrey hardly heard him, as memory shifted like ballast in his head and he staggered. Wilkes held his arm to keep him upright.
A man of probity. There were moments of ruthlessness, of utter disregard for the lives in his hands. But he had attempted to be a man of probity in the secret world. Othello's occupation's gone—
Hands upon a desk. Faces across a table. Men with secrets to yield, men to be dismantled or repaired. A dozen languages, a thousand small rooms for the breaking of will, resolve, courage—
Aubrey shook his head, shook off Wilkes's supporting hand, and walked as quickly as he could the length of the corridor. He entered his room and Wilkes locked the door behind him. When the man's footsteps had faded, Aubrey began rubbing at his damp eyes with the creased sleeve of his soiled shirt.
* * *
There was no telephone in her room at the pension. She had to use the pay phone near the cramped reception desk. The foyer was empty except for the night porter, who sat reading the evening paper, his head framed by pigeon-holes and hanging keys. His uniform collar was open at the neck. A half-drunk glass of beer and a sandwich of smoked sausage on a paper plate rested on the desk. Margaret turned her head into the hair-dryer globe of clear plastic that enclosed the telephone.
She dialled the international code for London, then Sir William Guest's home number. Hyde had told her William was in Washington… it was stupid to try his number.
Yet his answering machine might disclose the means of reaching him in the States. How else could she reach him? She tugged anxiously at the looped cord of the telephone as she waited for the connection, envisaging the comfortable, panelled study in which the number was ringing. Sir William maintained a flat in Albany, just as his father had once done. As a child, she had been overawed by the dark, heavy panelling, the grimy, looming paintings. Whenever her father had taken her there, she remembered Sir William had acted the part of a jolly, generous relative. Yet he expected good manners, long silences, then adult replies to his questions. Sir William had awed her.
"Come on, come on," she breathed. She glanced round at the night porter. He refolded the newspaper and continued to read. "Come on — oh, please, come on—!"
The tone stopped abruptly. No one answered the telephone, but she sensed a listener.
"William?" she asked hesitantly.
"Who is that, please?" a polite, assured, unfamiliar voice enquired.
"Who is speaking?" she asked, surprised. "Where is Mrs Carson?" Then, more insistently: "Who are you?"
"Mrs Carson — oh, Sir William's housekeeper. I'm sorry, she's away for a few days. As is Sir William."
"Then who are you? How do you come to be in William's flat?"
"Lucky to have caught me here, really…" The voice was light, cultivated, almost a drawl. She could picture a bright young Whitehall type. One of William's staff — but why?
"This is Margaret Massinger," she announced with mustered authority and ease, "It's urgent I speak to Sir William at once—"
"Ah, Mrs Massinger. My apologies. My name is Renfrew, a member of Sir William's Cabinet Office staff… he asked me to collect some papers from his flat — needs to consult them, through me, while he's in Washington. As a matter of fact, I was just about to leave. But you said it was urgent, Mrs Massinger. Can I take a message…?" The question lay helpfully, easily on the air.