There was now nothing for it but to follow the road westwards sometimes on the verge, sometimes making circuits through the lanes. Road and rail were alongside each other and we had a chance to inspect the next bridge before committing ourselves. Once across, we took to the hills and wooded valleys on the edge of Dartmoor where no one said more than a polite good-morning to the veiled lady and her groom, though we must have aroused curiosity among villagers who would know that we had not come from any of the big houses in the district. In the evening we went into hiding not far short of Crediton, horses dead tired, ourselves hungry and thirsty. Alwyn risked entering a pub in a village through which we had not passed, returning with cider and sandwiches. The horses had to put up with a stream and woodland grass.
The next day we started at dawn, not caring who saw us out so early for we were now beyond easy explanation. Our bred-in-the-bone country setting was worthless. I couldn’t see my aristocratic little face in a mirror because we hadn’t got one, but I knew very well that I must look like a dusty circus ringmaster impersonating his only equestrienne who was off sick. I said so—a weary crack to improve breakfast-less morale—and Alwyn remembered it. As for him, his bristles were coming along fine, and the last thing he resembled was a smart groom in attendance.
We got away with it partly by using major roads where there were hardly any pedestrians and cars passed us too fast for close inspection. But villages had to be avoided by awkward detours where we cantered past anyone we met. Once we were stopped by a tweedy, squirish gent bursting with officious curiosity and once by a farmer who wanted a chat. On both occasions Alwyn made use of my fantasy, saying sharply: ‘Chipperfield’s Circus. On ahead. Trying to catch up,’ touched his cap and cantered on.
We came down into the valley of the Otter soon after midday, crossing the river by a foot-bridge so that we did not have to pass through the village of Upottery. A compact copse a few hundred yards from road and river provided temporary cover—inadequate but good enough until John Penpole should appear with another saddle and much needed food for men and horses.
For the time being we had broken all contact with the police, and it was at last worthwhile to discuss the future. Alwyn had now no longer any doubt that he must leave the country. In his professional career he had had dealings with Bristol and its port of Avonmouth and considered that he knew the loop-holes of security well enough to bribe a seaman to stow him away or even get a job on a banana boat; but there could be no deciding on our destination until we had news and clothes from Molesworthy. We were also likely to run short of money. Alwyn had a few soaked notes with which he had swum ashore and I had the CIA’s twenty quid for moving my cattle and keeping out of the way.
In the late afternoon we saw Tessa, not John, driving slowly up the valley. She parked close to the river and waited—a solitary figure engaged in the innocent and ecstatic contemplation which was peculiar to the family when considering illegalities. No doubt the pose was so effective because it was half sincere.
We waited to see that she was not followed and then Alwyn went down to her. The bank of the river was safer than many more lonely settings since no one in sight had the least interest in anybody else. A chap was fishing his way upstream without any luck and on the grass was an attractive picnic party, mother and father still dozing after a heavy lunch and their young getting the feel of a strange countryside like any other family band of anthropoids.
Tessa and Alwyn returned to the copse carrying a basket under a load of John’s old clothes and a rug, but no saddle. Anyone curious about them would have assumed that the pair were bound for a camp site higher up the slope. Reluctant to be seen by my Tessa as the bedraggled clown I felt and was, I took off habit and hat and received her with a curtsey in shirt and skirt. She laughed but there was no smile in it. Too obviously, both horses and ourselves were in desperate need of rescue.
While we fell upon the meat and drink in her picnic basket she told us that Molesworthy was again a centre of interest to the police. Neither Eudora nor John dared to make any move beyond ordinary daily routine. She herself was not suspect—perhaps because she had been resident in London and steadily working in an office during nearly the whole period of Alwyn’s disappearance—and she had proved by several pointless journeys that she was not followed.
She and Eudora had decided that very soon questions were going to be asked about the lady and her groom and that we ought to leave the horses and continue on foot.
‘Forrest and the horse-box are at Honiton,’ she said. ‘I shall telephone him as soon as I’m out of the valley and tell him where to find you. He’ll go back by the northern route and unload the horses at the far end of the bracken path tomorrow morning. So he leaves Molesworthy empty and comes back empty. On the way he will go and inspect a hunter which was advertised and won’t buy it. That’s his excuse for the journey.’
‘And Rachel?’ Alwyn asked.
‘I don’t know. But Eudora is quite calm. There’s enough food and drink in the derelict and she’s keeping a close eye on her.’
With Eudora more under suspicion than ever, Alwyn could never take the risk of telephoning or writing; the only news of him they could get for a very long while would be from me after we had separated. Remembering how quick and unsatisfactory had been the former goodbye between the cousins I pretended that I was nervous lest she might have been followed. There was another road running along the top of the ridge from which the whole valley could be watched and I wanted to be sure that no car was waiting there. Alwyn protested that if there was anyone up there he still couldn’t see into the copse, but Tessa gave me an unexpected, unmistakable smile of gratitude. Half of me was jealous of their devotion to each other.
I gave them the time it took me to climb up and down, and in fact I did see a car parked some way back on the upper road. So far as I could tell at the distance the occupants were not engaged in any visible activity, which could mean that they were just sitting. Townsmen on holiday seem very willing to do that—preferably with the windows shut—but a man on the run does not ignore other possibilities.
When I came back Tessa and Alwyn were lazing side by side on a patch of grass leaf-dappled by sunlight. I had the impression that both had somehow managed to look forward beyond danger and exile.
‘We were talking about Adrian Gurney,’ Alwyn said. ‘Eudora and Tessa are going to need him. It’s the end of me, you see.’
I replied that I would do my best and make myself useful. I understood him as meaning a job on the estate, but my voice tailed away. It was impossible. Inevitably there would be local scandal. The relations of Tessa with an obscure employee could not be hidden.
‘I think you should bring yourself up to date in agriculture,’ he went on. ‘A year will be enough considering your childhood and the Romanian training. I have asked Eudora to arrange it. After that you must all three see where your future lies. Not in South Devon. Somewhere in your own country where you are just Adrian Gurney and your father is remembered.’
Possibly I did not look too happy about that either. There would be no Tessa any more.
‘There’s nothing I cannot tell Alwyn,’ she said.
Guilt. Embarrassment. Compared to Tessa I was preposterously old-fashioned. But they were both smiling at me.
‘I have always wanted for her someone who could share her loves that matter,’ Alwyn said, ‘but more down to earth, more able than I to make use of the world. Débrouillard, as the French say.’
I may have answered, being still young, that I didn’t think there was any character much better than his own.
‘In so many things, Willie, I am a coward. I hide from life. You and Tessa do not.’
He was not fair to himself, but there was some truth in what he said. Who else would have run instinctively to the hiding-places of boyhood? Knowing the ways and expectations of policemen—plain or secret—he could appreciate the safety of such a refuge and at the same time ignore discomfort in th
e satisfaction of return to what used to be. But then, revolting against being a mere hunted animal, he would indulge in the burst of energy and rashness which had sent me to Whatcombe Street and laid the trap for Rachel.
‘I approve, and Eudora will blink twice and ask Sack and also approve. I don’t suppose any family has ever known a prospective son-in-law as well as we all know you—if that’s what you both go on wanting, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t.’
A bit fast, all that, in normal society. But there in the valley of the Otter it was hardly normal. She and I knew what we felt and hoped, but what the humiliated admirer of Rachel and the disreputable Ionel Petrescu could say to each other was limited until some catalyst combined us back into our true selves. Alwyn was the catalyst, forced now or never by what she had told him. He was not a man to object to an affair between us; indeed he might have welcomed it. What swung him over the edge to the ‘bless you, my children’ stuff was that he could foresee no quick end to the affair and wanted to give us courage.
I raised and kissed Tessa’s hand. Neither romanticism nor formality. There was Alwyn’s last goodbye to her to come and I was shy of intruding my emotion—a sensitivity which did not belong to the Latin but to the English peasant I am.
When she had driven away with all the clothes of the former groom and lady safely locked in the boot, we sat for some time talking, reluctant to move away from the presence she had left behind.
‘What’s the next move, Willie?’ he asked at last. ‘Down to the Vale of Taunton and then along the coast?’
I suggested sticking to the hills and working our way round to somewhere near Bath, partly because it was the sort of country I knew far better than tumbled Devon which never gave a man a straight run at anything, partly that I distrusted the Somerset lowlands where the ditches and rivers made it hard to get off the roads, and police had only to watch the bridges if they ever had any idea where we were. Walking over the high grass and sleeping in any rough shelter we were most unlikely to draw attention to ourselves.
‘You’ll have to tackle the port alone. I’ll be no more use to you there,’ I said. ‘But meanwhile I can go into pubs, shops, police stations, anywhere. Nobody wants me.’
There must have been some considerable interval between that bold statement and the appearance of the slow-moving car on the valley road, though memory, which dramatises everything, insists there was none. Those two fair children were in the back and the driver was my naval friend from the Russian Embassy. At first sight it seemed incredible. Then I remembered Eudora’s remark that if she were running the KGB she’d get in touch with agent Petrescu pronto. Obviously he had decided, unlike the police, that Tessa’s movements were those most likely to be revealing and had followed her up himself. He must have seen the parked car from the upper road and wondered whom she was visiting.
‘But we’ll be away and gone for good as soon as he stops,’ I said to Alwyn. ‘He hasn’t a hope of finding us.’
‘He knows that. I think he only wants you to see him if you are here.’
‘What for?’
‘In case you have anything to report. No other agent has been in direct touch with Eudora. You told your boat-woman that you would try.’
‘But how does he know I did?’
‘Five hundred pounds would be real money to Petrescu. And like a clever little Romanian he has killed two birds with one stone. It’s an old saying that the way to the daughter is through the mother.’
That pricked my conscience unjustly, though he was only pointing out what the KGB might believe. I replied coldly that I could never have been seen with Tessa by any agent of the KGB and that he was wrong. He paid no attention to this flat statement. He was hot on the trail—an experienced hound following the scent from cell to cell of his own mind.
‘By God, he’s after Rachel, not you!’ he exclaimed at last. ‘Tessa was her loyal friend. Tessa took her to the birthday hut. When the attempt to collar me failed and Rachel vanished, it’s ten to one she would have appealed to Tessa. That’s why Tessa’s car was the one to watch. He wants to get in touch with Rachel urgently. She would know what really happened three nights ago.’
Three nights. It seemed like weeks since the yacht had failed to capture him. The KGB had reacted with the utmost speed, posting a respectable and presentable diplomat at the strategic point of Frogmore and presumably planting some minor agent to keep watch in Molesworthy. But they had not moved so fast as Eudora.
‘You’re sure he’s not after you?’
‘He’d hardly expect me to come down and talk to him. And that’s what he is up to. I recognise it.’
‘Suppose I let him find me instead of Rachel?’
‘Why the devil should you?’
‘Because it was me Tessa came out to meet, not Rachel. As you said, Petrescu has got the daughter and could do with five hundred quid as well.’
‘You’ll never get away with it.’
‘But I can. I’m no mystery. He knows every damn thing about me except that I am Adrian Gurney from Caulby.’
‘It’s the hell of a coincidence from his point of view.’
‘No it isn’t. If he follows Tessa about, he’s quite likely to run into her boyfriend. And that little Romanian friend of her mother is a very possible candidate.’
‘How will you explain what you are doing up the valley of the Otter?’
‘I thought you might tell me that.’
‘What do you want from him?’
‘I want to deliver my report. And we must get him away from here before Forrest arrives with the horse-box.’
That clinched it. Alwyn still doubted if I was a good enough actor, but he had to let me go.
‘Then tell him there are too many police around Molesworthy for your taste—which he must know already—so you took a bus to Honiton and then telephoned Tessa to meet you here. And stick to Russian! For heaven’s sake, don’t forget that you speak little English!’
That was a wise flash of advice. After all the urgent talking of the last few days I could easily have forgotten.
Leaving Alwyn where he was, in cover and with a view of the road, I started to walk up the valley and met the car coming back. It stopped and the driver leaned out of the window as if to ask a question. He recognised me, of course, but not a muscle of eyes or mouth gave it away.
‘Good evening—I mean, good afternoon,’ I said.
He did not bother with the reply but took a quick look up and down the road and told me to get in. We then drove down to the river where Tessa had waited. The boys went off to play on the banks of the Otter. I hoped they wouldn’t fall in. They seemed well accustomed to being turned loose while Daddy talked to strangers.
I gave him my story of being alarmed by police searching for Alwyn Rory and that Tessa had told me of this private spot where we could meet for a long afternoon—which was more credible than that I should have telephoned her. He swallowed the lot and passed immediately to a description of Rachel, asking whether I had seen such a woman or if the Hilliards, Miss or Mrs., had appeared at all agitated. I said they had not.
‘When did you yourself leave Molesworthy?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where were you staying?’
‘Mrs. Hilliard offered me a room over the kennels.’
I translate our conversation into English but none too exactly. Kennels, for example. I did not know the Russian and we got into a thorough muddle over my being sent off to sleep with the dogs.
‘Did you have a talk with her?’
‘Yes. I have the information which a certain lady asked me to find out. When I recognised you and your sons I thought you must be looking for me.’
‘You are not so important as that, Petrescu, What information was it?’
‘The nature of the evidence against Rory, which was so strong that he ran away.’
‘It is no longer required.’
‘But there was question of a reward.’
&n
bsp; ‘It will not be withheld if your information conforms with what we know.’
‘The Special Tribunal discovered that Rory had received a sum of money through a Swiss bank. When the British traced that payment back, it was found that it had been paid from an account known to have been opened by the KGB. He had no defence except a ridiculous story that he didn’t look at his bank statements and had no knowledge of the payment.’
My naval friend made no remark immediately, apparently interested in a rise of trout. Eventually he said:
‘Ionel Petrescu, am I right in thinking that you left your country because you did not like the method of government?’
‘More or less. I wanted freedom.’
‘From what?’
‘Well, police for one thing. A man can’t spit without some blue cap asking him why.’
‘That will not last for ever.’
‘It’s lasted the hell of a time.’
‘And you believed there were no secret police, no dirty tricks in the West, eh?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Then I will open your eyes to what goes on, and when you have realised that the brutalities of government are the same everywhere you will perhaps return to your country and become a useful citizen. We will see you come to no harm. Have you heard of the CIA, Petrescu?’
I replied that I had read about it in newspapers.
‘You know that it operates outside America to protect capitalist interests just as we do, for example, in Romania for the sake of our common defence?’
I was not happy about the way this friendly interrogation was going. All I wanted was to be forgotten by both those bands of trespassers in my country. Some time a return to the identity of Adrian Gurney would ensure that, but meanwhile it seemed to be agreed and settled that I was a KGB agent.
Red Anger Page 17