The Bear's Tears kaaph-4

by Craig Thomas

  "I—" she began. Then: "Where's Paul — Paul's alive, isn't he? You've got Paul here, haven't you?"

  Babbington looked grave. He gestured her to a seat and she, moved nearer the fire to avoid his touch. The armchair invited;! insisted. Her legs seemed without strength. Babbington sat I opposite her.

  "I'm afraid—" he began.

  "No—!" she wailed immediately, then thrust the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth. Her eyes misted. Babbington's gaze glinted. "Oh, no…" she breathed. "No, no, no…"

  "I'm sorry—"

  "He didn't know anything — he couldn't have been any harm to you!" she protested, finding the deception she had planned now available as something to fend off reality. "We didn't know anything! We didn't, I swear we didn't, I swear we didn't know anything, we didn't know…" Her voice subsided into sobbing.

  It was as if she wrenched at the hands of a great clock. Heaving time backwards. If she went on protesting, on and on, Paul would be alive. "We didn't… nothing… nothing…"

  It was difficult to see Babbington's expression when she looked up. She wiped her eyes, and saw that his face was moved only to a clever smile of satisfaction.

  "I'm sorry, Margaret — it won't do." He sighed. "I toyed with the idea. I didn't believe you couldn't know. I hoped it, at first. Believe me. Then I hoped I might delude myself into such a belief… but, all to no avail. I can't escape the truth — you know everything. About Aubrey. About myself."

  She wanted to protest, to stop him. He'd gone too far, too swiftly. There were moves to be made, gambits to deploy. Not this, this nakedness, beyond which Paul's death was utterly real.

  "No," was all she said, dropping the hand she had extended to try to silence him.

  "I'm afraid it has to be, Margaret." His voice was soft, almost a caress. She saw his bulk move from the chair towards her. Slowly, she looked up. Again, it was difficult to see his expression clearly. He cupped her chin in one large hand. "Paul's alive, my dear. Wounded, but alive—"

  "What—?"

  He struck her, then. Her head twisted, her jaw was shot through with pain, her neck burned with the jolt from his closed fist. She heard him walk away, heard the fire grumble and spit like an old man. She touched her jaw, tasted blood in her mouth; spat.

  "He's alive, and will stay alive if you tell me why you're here. Tell me where you've been, what you know, who's with you — and he lives. Understand me?" He turned to her and shouted: "Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, yes—!" She caught the blood that spilled from her open mouth in the palm of her hand. Blood and saliva. She stared at it, horrified, then returned her gaze to his face. He did not seem to regret the violence, or shrink from it.

  "Good. Where's Hyde?"

  "Who?"

  He moved swiftly towards her, and she flinched. "Hyde!" he barked. "Where is Hyde?"

  "I don't know."

  He hit her again. The gobbet of blood in her palm flew into the grate and sizzled on the logs. She cried out with renewed pain.

  "Where is he?"

  "Czech — Czechoslovakia…" she sobbed.

  "Why?"

  "I don't know!" she screamed at-him. "He didn't tell me anything — just in case this happened!"

  Babbington lowered his clenched fist. He seemed satisfied. "What did he instruct you to do in his absence?" he asked in a thick voice. "What?"

  Margaret watched him. She must not tell Babbington anything more—! She had already told him too much, far too much while the blows and the shouting were in control of her. She glanced guiltily at her handbag, at her hands, her feet. She hunched into herself, retreating from Babbington. He would kill Paul and her once he knew everything—

  "What did he instruct you to do? Follow me? Watch me?"

  She was prepared for the questions to continue, yet they still acted with the naked shock of icy water, so that she flinched, appeared guilty, seemed to choke off confession by putting her shaking hand to her lips.

  Babbington snatched at her handbag and tipped the contents onto the bright rug in front of the fire. He stirred the compact, the keys, the hairbrush, the paper handkerchiefs, the purse, with the toe of one shoe. Then his shoe touched the instruction booklet on how to fit and use the telephoto lens, and finally the small plastic tub in which the second roll of film had been contained before she loaded it.

  Like a delicate footballer, he kicked the small tub across the rug with a flick of his toe, then separated the instruction booklet from the litter of other objects. He bent and picked them up, his face gleaming from triumph, suspicion and the firelight. His eyes were hard when he looked at her after opening and reading the booklet. His big hand clenched upon the plastic tub, squeezing it.

  "What?" he breathed softly. "My, but you have been an industrious little thing, haven't you." Then his voice hardened once more. "What was the purpose of your photography, Margaret? Where are your holiday snaps?"

  She remained silent, quivering like a sapling at the first wind of an approaching storm. She would not prevent her head from shaking, as if to defy him.

  "What did you photograph?" he roared at her. She huddled into the chair. He grabbed her arms, bruising them, and dragged her face close to his. She was terrified of the hard chips of light in his eyes, of the mouth that appeared hungry. "Tell me, Margaret — or he dies now. Do you understand me? He dies now!" He flung her dramatically back into the chair, even as she cried out:

  "No—!"

  "I give you my word — now!" He snapped his fingers, moved towards the door.

  "No—!" He did not stop. "I followed you — to a meeting — in the Belvedere!"

  He turned on his heel. She heard his breath sigh out like sexual release. It was hot, heady in the room; a place for exotic plants, foetid.

  "You have evidence of that meeting?"

  She nodded. "Two rolls of film… telephoto lens…"

  He moved heavily towards her. "Where are those rolls of film?"

  She flinched from his raised hand.

  "Posted them—"

  He grabbed her chin and jerked her face upwards. His thumb and forefinger pressed her jaw painfully. "Where are they? When did you post them?" He shook her face between his fingers like something utterly fragile and breakable. "Tell me, Margaret. Tell me!"

  She blurted out the name of the pension and the time she had posted them. He released her chin at once and glanced at his watch. Then he moved quickly to his desk, snapping on the intercom. He barked orders into it, ending with: "They won't have been collected yet. Yes, of course police IDs for you and whoever you take—! And hurry!"

  He flicked the switch and turned to her. She felt something loosen and slide within her; will, resolve, she could not tell. Perhaps even hope. She had made a final move in the game. Left herself open to checkmate. Her hands flitted at her bruised jaw, at her quivering lips. She'd lost everything, everything—

  It had been ridiculous to assume she could alter events. Ridiculous from the first. All that mattered, really mattered, had been Paul's life. And he was alive. Babbington had given him back. She looked up as Babbington addressed her.

  "Now, you must see your husband, Margaret." He rubbed his hands lightly together, dusting them. "I'm sorry for — well, that's in the past. I had to trick you, even hit you, to save time. I do not have that much to spare. However—" He was buoyant with triumph now, and his cold munificence chilled her more than the streak of sadism and vengeful rage he had earlier shown. " — perhaps now there is a little more time…" He took her arm and helped her from the chair. She felt unreal, a sacklike object being moved. "A pity you know nothing of Hyde's exact whereabouts or his motives — , but I believe you don't know. He's clever enough not to have trusted you." Babbington smiled. They were at the door. She flinched as if anticipating that the dog lurked beyond it. Babbington opened the door. The corridor was empty. "Come," he said. "I'll take you to Paul."

  She clung to that statement, blotting out the scene that preceded it. The voice had
been almost warm, the hand that held her arm supported rather than imprisoned her. She moved into the fragile fiction with each step on the polished floorboards. She felt her body lean against Babbington for support.

  He lied to you then hit you to disorientate you, something announced in her head. You went straight to pieces, to little pieces…

  She bit her tongue, as if she had voiced the words aloud. Her father's face, Aubrey's face, Babbington's face — twisted in cruel satisfaction — Paul's face…

  Grainy picture. The skull separated from its skeleton by a workman's spade. The skull blown open by Aubrey's accidental bullet. She shuddered and pulled away from Babbington.

  "No—" she murmured.

  "But here we are," Babbington announced with mocking breeziness. There was someone else there, an armed guard. "This is Paul's room — open the door." The guard turned a key and threw the door ajar. "A pleasant reunion, Margaret, my dear," Babbington said and thrust her forward. The door closed loudly behind her.

  Massinger looked up distractedly, as if a stranger had burst in upon some scene of ordinary domesticity. The paperback remained in his hand. The small transistor radio they had provided continued to play. It wasn't food, not the right time for supper, or for the one large Scotch they served him late in the evening.

  What, then—?

  He felt the shock of recognition. Beneath it, a further shock of his imprisonment was made real to him again. He saw the bruises in the same moment that he observed the open mouth and wild eyes.

  Margaret stood by the door, trembling. Pain stabbed in his thigh and hip as he tried to move his injured leg and climb awkwardly from the low bed. He dropped the novel he was reading and heaved himself to his feet, tottering erect.

  She moved towards him then. The Handel on the radio changed inappropriately from andante to allegro. Sliding into something that might have been gay. He was disconcerted. She was murmuring, one word over and over again, even as he pressed her against him and felt her whole frame shaking.

  "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…"

  He did not understand the need for apology—

  And then did, as he brushed her hair, as his hand moved gently to her cheek and she winced at the thought of further inflicted pain. She, too, was a prisoner. She had — yes, she had come to find him. Reckless, narrow-minded, single-minded…

  He knew, with a sick certainty, that she had told Babbington everything she knew.

  He lifted her face and kissed her very carefully and softly. Resenting the stubble that might pain her bruised jaw. She was looking at him with the face of a child. He sensed her body through the material of his shirt as his arms enclosed her. The fur jacket was wet with melted snow. For a moment, he almost wanted to thrust her away. To make her stand apart from him while he told her what a fool, what a mistake, what a fatal error…

  But, she knew it. All.

  She had ceased murmuring her apology and simply clung to him, her face against his chest. He looked over her blonde hair at the closed, locked door of the small room. It was as if he could quite clearly see the armed guard posted outside. He brushed absently at her hair, even at the shoulder of the fur coat. Stroking a small animal that could not be blamed.

  "It's all right now, it's all right now, my darling," he began softly, gripping her more tightly in the circle of his arms. "It's all right… you're safe. I've been out of my mind with worry about you. It's all right, it's all right…" What she had done, she had done out of love. Killing herself as well as he. He swallowed. "It's all right now, everything's OK…" She was sobbing softly, and swallowed continually. He had to ease her guilt away. "Don't worry. It just got messed up, but — everything you've done, everything you've said or felt, has been honest. Don't blame yourself… it's all right now, all right…"

  He continued to murmur into her hair, stroking her face and shoulder and upper arm gently. "I shouldn't have — my fault, getting you into this mess…" Did he believe that—? Yes, yes. "My, my — stupid, ridiculous shining armour, my — blindness, my stupidity…" He ground the words slowly out. "I had to try and help and I didn't think about you — forgive me for that. I didn't think about you…"

  He continued to stare at the locked door, even as he sensed the desperation of her need for comfort. Her hands eventually opened and stilled against his back, pressing harder and harder, returning his close embrace. She swallowed. He could hear her breathing become more regular, quieter. He continued to stroke her hair and face.

  * * *

  Hyde distracted himself from Godwin's slow, noisy progress onto the escalator by glancing once more at the small picture in his hand. He stepped onto the escalator behind the hoarsely-breathing Godwin, hefting the haversack of tools on his shoulder. The snapshot was small, monochrome — a flashlight picture. Wiring flared behind an opened panel surrounded by darkness. Someone other than Godwin had scribbled with a ballpoint on the surface of the snap. The words in Czech near the bottom and an arrow pointing at one of the cables exposed to the camera.

  The landline which linked the remote stations of the Hradcany's computer room with Moscow Centre.

  He slipped the snapshot into the breast pocket of the oily overalls he was wearing over corduroy jeans and a check shirt. He had not shaved. Rubbing the stubble on his chin and cheeks, he reminded himself of his almost sleepless night. Like rubbing some legendary lamp, he evoked smoky fragments of the night's information — and quashed them by concentrating fiercely on his feet as he reached the bottom of the escalator and stepped off. Godwin readjusted his crutches and leaned his weight more assuredly on them. There was no time now to consider the coming afternoon and night…

  People brushed past them, moving crowdedly into the warmly-lit underground concourse of the Mustek metro station. Snow shone wetly on their shoulders and hats and headscarves as it melted. The mosaics were stained with muddy footprints as the morning rush-hour crowds moved through the shop-lined concourse.

  "All right?" Hyde muttered in Czech, leaning towards Godwin. Godwin merely grimaced and nodded.

  Hyde adjusted the haversack on the shoulder of his dark-blue donkey jacket. Another manual worker on his way to his job. He joined the orderly procession to the platform, Godwin following him. Hyde felt the tension rising in him like sap; sensed the lack of reserves in himself — the lack of sleep that now prevented him from using his intelligence as if it were some separate part of him. His nerves affected his ability to think.

  Godwin rested on his crutches beside him as they waited for the metro. One station down the line; Muzeum. At the other end of Wenceslas Square. Then a walk down a long tunnel to a sealed inspection hatch set in the wall. The distances came to him as measured paces as he stared at the track, at three rails, one of them live. A measured distance alongside a live rail. He could think of it in no other way. He glanced involuntarily towards the tunnel, where the lights disappeared and the live rail vanished into ambush. And shuddered.

  "You all right?" Godwin hissed.

  Hyde nodded violently. "Shut up," he snapped.

  Timetables, distances, tools, the snapshot, the imagined noises of the tunnel tumbled together in his thoughts. He clenched one hand in his pocket, the other gripped the strap of the haversack tightly, so that his knuckles were white. He felt sick, despite the croissants and rolls and coffee Godwin had made him eat. Self-confidence was a wafer-thin, puncturable envelope around him, threatened by his surroundings.

  The Russian-built train sighed into the platform on rubber wheels, its lights and crowded faces slowing after the moment in which they had made his head jolt and spin. The crowd moved him forward into the carriage like a reluctant representative of some complaint they wished to voice. Godwin lumbered behind him.

  The doors closed, the train jerked away from the platform. The walls of the tunnel were suddenly close — much too close — behind the row of faces opposite him. Faces with too little sleep, fed by basic, unvarying diets, older than they should have been; little make-up on any
but the youngest of the women.

  The light again, and the train slowing, coming to rest. Doors opening, Muzeum emblazoned on the hoardingless walls. Clean cream tiles, the face of Dvorak and other bearded Czechs from pre-history. The crowd moved him out of the carriage, Godwin behind him. Now, he resented their pressure against his back.

  The platform emptied. The train rushed away. Hyde followed it with his eyes. He envisaged his body flattened against the tunnel wall, curving with the shape of its huge tube as a train rushed towards him, too close to the wall—

  "What is it?" Godwin whispered hoarsely. The platform was almost empty. Two uniformed railwaymen, a cleaner with mop and bucket, perhaps a dozen passengers filtering along the platform.

  "All right," he said thickly. Nodding. "All right."

  Beginning to be all right, he told himself as Godwin studied his pale, unshaven face. Beginning to be… Noticing people, eyes, distances—

  "OK," Godwin said at last, as if telepathically aware of Hyde's returning resolution. "Let's go…" He began to stump away along the platform — now more crowded, where were the two uniforms? One there, the other vanished. Hyde followed and caught up with Godwin, absorbing the scene. The tunnel slowly-enlarged as they approached it. "Distance?"

  "Four hundred yards."

  "Cable?"

  "Third from top."

  "Sequence?"

  "Panel off — drill out lock… say three or four minutes… induction coil — next train — flip-flop transistor and battery, clock… before the next train."

  "OK. That's it. Set the timer for eight." Hyde nodded. They had reached the end of the platform. Hyde glanced at the clock. A minute to the next train. The platform had filled. He could see no one in uniform. No one was looking in their direction. In his imagination, he saw his feet treading carefully in the pools of light from his torch, saw the hatch, the working of the drill, the rigging of the induction coil — then nodded again.