“I’ve been thinking,” said the priest, ‘that it may be time to put up a permanent memorial to our war dead. I thought perhaps a small chapel in their honour, dedicated to the Virgin. Nothing ostentatious. Just a quiet place near the front. Somewhere a widow can light her candle and be left in peace.”
Out of the darkness, muffled footsteps crossed the street and came in
their direction. In another place, at another time, Christopher might
have taken alarm. But it was Sunday and this was
England. Long months of inactivity had lulled his instinct for , danger. The darkness thickened round him, like something solid moving against his flesh.
“How can I be of help, Father? You’ll want a
donation, of course.
I’ll be glad to contribute.”
“Indeed. I’ll be grateful for anything you’re willing to give. But
I wondered if I could ask more of you. You’re a military man yourself.
I’ve heard .. .” he hesitated ‘.. . that you were decorated.”
They were nearing the end of Hencotes. A single light struggled against the dark, laying a yellow film across the firmly packed snow. Christopher stared ahead into the darkness. Who had told the priest?
Not William, he was sure of that. His secret was safe with the boy.
Perhaps Harriet.. .
“Yes,” he said. His breath mingled with that of the priest, white and listless in the clear air, like milk moving in water.
“I’d like to set up a fund,” Father Middleton continued.
“You’re the man at Carfax now, ever since Major Ridley died. There’s your sister, of course. But I’d like a man, a soldier, to head the appeal.”
“I was never a soldier.”
“No. But highly decorated. For valour. I ask no questions. You have military rank.”
“Father, I’m not sure .. .”
The footsteps were upon them now. Two men emerged from the shadows, their faces pallid in the thin light. They were dressed in heavy coats and wore shallow fur hats pulled down well on their heads. The first man had a narrow, sour face and eyes that looked as though he had not slept for nights. His companion was heavier and coarser-featured, with dark stubble on his chin.
, What happened next took only a few seconds, but it was to ; remain etched on Christopher’s memory for the rest of his life. The I thin man nodded at his companion. Both men began to run at once. There was no time to skip or dodge. Christopher felt himself bowled over, then the thin man was on top of him, pressing him into the snow, crushing his chest, making it impossible for him to breathe.
There was a stifled cry. Twisting his head, Christopher saw the heavy
man grab William from behind and begin to pull him, struggling, across the snow. The boy kicked out, trying to escape, but the man was too powerful for him.
Christopher pressed up, freeing his right arm in an attempt to grab for his assailant’s throat and dislodge him. But the man twisted away from him, thrust a hand into the wide pocket of his coat, and brought out a large pistol. Christopher froze as the man raised it and held it against his head.
“I am ordered not to harm you,” the thin man said. His voice was soft, the accent foreign yet hard to place.
“But I do not always obey orders, and I have killed a great many men in my time. I intend to leave here without interference. Do you understand? So please lie still and let us do what we have come here to do. The boy will not be harmed: I promise you.”
William cried out, still struggling with his captor.
“Father! Help me! Help me!”
The thin man cocked the pistol and held it very hard against Christopher’s temple. Beneath him, he felt the snow cold and precise against him, and a stone that stabbed mercilessly into the small of his back.
He had forgotten Father Middleton. The priest, stunned by the suddenness and violence of the attack, had remained standing in the middle of the road, a single arm raised, whether to ward off further attack or to bless his attackers it was not clear. But at the boy’s cry, like a sleeper awakened, he stirred and began to stumble through the dragging snow.
Encumbered by the struggling child, the heavy man was finding it hard to make progress. He almost slipped as William twisted in an effort to throw him off balance. One arm was round the boy’s throat, while the other desperately tried to pin William’s flailing arms to his side.
The priest ran up, arms reaching for the boy’s assailant. He cried out inarticulately, the same voice that had spoken Mass only minutes before, troubled now with fear and a grim rage. His finger’s tore at the man’s arm, dragging him from the boy. The two men slipped and slithered on the wet ground, their feet struggling for some sort of purchase. Suddenly, the heavy man lost his balance and fell, pulling the priest with him.
“Run, William!” Father Middleton shouted.
“Run like hell!”
William hesitated, then turned and ran back in the direction of
the town, in search of help. On the ground, the priest rolled in the snow, fumbling for a grip that would allow him to overpower the kidnapper. He was a rugby player, but the man beneath him was stronger than him and was starting to recover from his fall. The priest got his arm across the big man’s windpipe, hoping to crush the air from his lungs, but as he did so the other man succeeded in bringing up his knee hard into his groin.
Father Middleton grunted and bent with pain. The heavy man squirmed, pushing him away from him, wriggling out from beneath his body. But as he started to get to his feet, the priest recovered his breath and lunged at him in a low tackle, bringing him down heavily into a patch of virgin snow.
Suddenly, something glinted in the lamplight. As the priest threw himself across to pin him down again, the man lifted a knife and brought it up in a smooth arc. The knife-blade shimmered in the light, then disappeared as it entered the priest’s chest. Father Middleton’s body jerked backwards, trying to escape the pain of the blade, but the momentum of his leap kept him moving down on to the hilt. He fell on to the man, tearing the knife from his grasp, throwing blood across his face.
“Jesus!” he cried, writhing with pain He reached for the knife handle but his hand had lost all its strength. It slipped on blood and fell against his chest. With his last strength, he traced a clumsy cross over his heart. His hand shook and fell away, his legs jerked, then he became still.
Christopher pressed up against the muzzle of the gun, but a hand pushed hard against his shoulder and forced him down again.
“You bastards!” he shouted.
“You murdering bastards!” But the man with the gun did not relax his grip or move the barrel. A light went on in a window across the street. There was the sound of a sash being raised.
“What’s going on out there?” someone shouted.
“Get the police!” shouted Christopher. But the thin man struck him hard across the cheek and pressed a hand down heavily against his mouth.
He saw the heavy man wipe the blade of his knife on the priest’s cassock and stand up. His face showed no sign of emotion, no hint of regret. He had killed the priest as he might have killed a sheep or a pig, and thought as little of it. Christopher wanted to kill him just as wantonly. At least William had got away. Whatever happened to him now, the boy was safe.
There was a sound of footsteps. Someone was coming up the street.
People had heard their cries: someone was coming to help.
A man stepped out of the shadows, a tall man dressed in a coat and hat like those of the first two men, but of better cut and quality. In front of him, his hands pinned and a cloth tied tightly round his mouth, was William. The man was supporting the boy, forcing him to walk in front of him.
There was a rapid exchange of words in a language Christopher did not recognize. He guessed it might have been Russian, but the men said so little he could not be sure. He opened his mouth to call to William, to reassure the boy somehow that, come what may, someone wo
uld track him down and rescue him. But before the words could reach his lips, the thin man raised the gun and struck him across the temple. The world leapt at him then shrank away again as quickly as it had come.
He did not lose consciousness completely. There was a taste of snow in his mouth and he realized he had rolled over on to his face. As he struggled to move, he heard the sound of car doors slamming and a motor being started. Somewhere in the darkness, voices were calling. He saw lights weaving through the shadows and red blood on the snow and the dark shapes of men and women standing and staring at him. There was a roaring sound, then the headlights of a large car stabbed through the darkness at him. A second later, they were gone and he was in the darkness, sobbing into the bitter snow.
The clock on the Abbey tower chimed six times. It was Tuesday evening, and the market-place, recently filled with people buying geese and turkeys for the coming Festival, was deserted. Snow had begun to fall, gentle and bright against the uncertain halo of a street lamp.
Christopher was growing cold. Winterpole should have been here by now. On the telephone he had said he was taking the midmorning train from King’s Cross to Newcastle, then driving the rest of the way to Hexham. Even allowing for a quick lunch, he should have been here two hours ago.
It was two days now since the attack and William’s kidnap, and still the police had nothing to report. A superintendent had grilled Christopher for hours, asking questions both men knew could not be answered. Scotland Yard had been notified, and an alert put out to watch every port; but nothing had been seen of three foreigners and a boy in a large car. The kidnappers themselves had remained silent: no message, no telephone call, no ransom note. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.
Christopher walked up and down in an effort to keep warm.
Behind him, the coloured windows of the Abbey hung suspended in the blackness, dimly lit patterns from another age. A faint sound of singing could be heard: Evensong was almost over.
Out of the darkness, borne on the cold night air, all the smells of England came to him, whether real or imagined he neither knew nor cared. He smelled dead leaves beneath the snow on the Sele, and below that the fragrance of countless summer days, the odours of leather and resin and polished willow, grass trodden beneath the feet of running batsmen, the green turf cut away at the crease, the naked soil giving up its worms. And flowers in spring, and bonfires in autumn, and the dead rotting in ancient churchyards all winter long.
There was the sound of an engine coming down Priestpopple on to Battle Hill. He heard it turn right into Beaumont Street, heading for the Abbey, and moments later its lights appeared. The car stopped on the corner opposite him and the driver extinguished the lights and the engine. Winterpole had come at last. Winterpole and all he stood for. Christopher shivered and walked across the street. The car door was already open, waiting for him.
There was just enough light from the nearest gas-lamp to confirm what Christopher had already guessed: Winterpole had not changed visibly since they last met. A little greyer on the temples, perhaps, a little tighter around the lips, but otherwise unchanged and unchangeable. As always, he reminded Christopher of nothing so vividly as an undertaker. He dressed in black whatever the season or the time of day, as though in perpetual mourning, though what or whom he mourned for no-one had ever been able to guess.
Briefly, as he entered the car and closed the door, Christopher caught a glimpse of Winterpole’s eyes. Who was it had said, all those years ago, that they were like a doll’s eyes? Perfect, blue, and shining, yet with no more life in them than pieces of cobalt glass.
Splinters in the skin, grown hard over the years. It was rumoured that the only time he had ever been known to smile was when his mother died after a long illness. He had turned up late for a rugger match somewhere.
“Sorry I’m late,” he was reputed to have said, “I’ve just been burying my mother.” And he had smiled.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting in the cold,” he said as soon as Christopher had settled in the soft passenger seat.
“I came as quickly as I could. The trains are running to time, but the road to Hexham is bad. I was lucky to get through.”
Christopher wiped a half-moon in the condensation on the window by his side and looked out. The lights were going out in the Abbey and the last worshippers were making their way home in silence. After Sunday, people were staying together.
“Yes,” Christopher murmured.
“You were lucky.”
Major Simon Winterpole was the head of British Military Intelligence’s Russian and Far Eastern Section. Since the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, his had become one of the most powerful voices in the country, discreetly but firmly guiding British foreign policy with respect to out-of-the-way places most Ministers had never even heard of. Even before the war, he and Christopher had met regularly to discuss Russian intelligence activities on the northern borders of India.
“How long has it been now, Christopher?” Winterpole asked.
“How long?”
“Since we last met. Since we last spoke.”
Christopher did not have to think. He remembered their last meeting well.
“Five years,” he said.
“At the end of nineteen-fifteen. You came to Delhi after the Benares Conspiracy Trial.”
“So I did. I remember now. A lot has happened since then.”
Christopher did not reply. He hated meeting in the dark like this, like men who had something to hide. Like clandestine lovers.
But Winterpole had insisted. Unlike Christopher, he loved the secretiveness of his trade, the little rituals that set him and his colleagues apart from other men.
“And how long is it now since you left the service?” Winterpole went on.
“A year,” answered Christopher.
“A little more. I thought you might come then. You or someone like you. But no-one came. Just a letter, signed by someone called Philpott. All about the Official Secrets Act. And my pension.”
“We thought you needed time,” said Winterpole.
“Time? Time for what?”
“To mull things over. To get away from things.”
“What was there to mull over? I had made my mind up.”
“Dehra Dun. The war in general. Your wife’s death. Whatever mattered to you. Whatever still matters to you now.”
Several of Christopher’s best agents had died in Dehra Dun because of an administrative blunder by the Delhi Intelligence Bureau, to which he had been attached. He still felt a sense of responsibility for the deaths, though he had been in no way to blame for them.
“I was surprised,” Christopher said at last.
“Surprised?”
“That you let me go so easily. Just that letter. That letter from Philpott; whoever Philpott is.”
Winterpole took a silver cigarette-case from his pocket and snapped it open. He offered a cigarette to Christopher, but he declined. Delicately, Winterpole extracted a single cigarette for himself, closed the case, and put the cigarette between his lips. He paused briefly to light it. Christopher remembered the smell from the old days. The match flared briefly and died.
“How can I help you, Christopher?” Winterpole asked.
“You say your boy was kidnapped. I’m sorry to hear that. And I understand someone was killed; a priest. Have the police discovered anything?”
Christopher shook his head.
“You know they haven’t.”
“Have you no idea at all who was responsible?”
“I was hoping you might tell me that.”
There was a nervous silence. Winterpole drew on his cigarette and exhaled slowly, through the corners of his mouth. The car filled slowly with a perfumed smoke.
“Me? Why should I know anything about this?”
“You didn’t travel all the way from London to tell me you know nothing.
A telegram would have done. A telephone call. A messenger-boy.”
Wi
nterpole said nothing. He was watching the snow fall against the windscreen.
“Let me tell you exactly what happened,” Christopher went on.
Carefully, he described the events of Sunday night. When he had finished, he turned to Winterpole.
“I am not a rich man,” he said.
“In any case, there has been no ransom note. The men who took my son and killed Father Middleton were Russians I’d stake my life on that. If they were, there must be a link with you: whether they are Whites or Reds or some other colour, they could not be in this country without your knowledge. And if you are involved, that establishes a sufficient link with me.”
“I assure you, Christopher, I am not involved.”
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said.
“Perhaps “involved” is not the correct word.
“Connected” is that what I should have said? Or “informed” would that express it better?”
Winterpole was silent. So much depended on how he phrased himself. In this business, the right choice of words was often more important than the right choice of weapon. A man’s life could hang in the balance.
Several lives. Winterpole thought of himself as a general, though his
troops were few and easily wasted. He disposed them like tiny chessmen
on a vast and tilted board, little glass
pawns clinging precariously to the surface: an army of glass, brittle, betrayed, and dreaming.
“I think,” he said slowly, ‘that I may be able to help you. And you, in your turn, may be able to help me.”
“You mean that’s the price I have to pay if I want to see William alive again?”
Winterpole said nothing. He pulled deeply on his cigarette, wound down the window, and tossed it half-smoked into the darkness. Slowly, he wound the window up again. It was suddenly cold in the car.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Have you ever heard of a man called Zamyatin? Nikolai Zamyatin?”
“Zamyatin,” Winterpole began, ‘is probably the most dangerous Bolshevik agent currently operating in the Far East. He’s a leading light in Comintern, the Communist International set up by the party in March last year to co-ordinate the work of worldwide revolution. In Moscow, he is Trotsky’s eminence gnse. In the East, he is almost independent. Without Zamyatin, it’s safe to say there would be no Bolshevik policy in the region. To be honest, if it weren’t for Nikolai Zamyatin, I would sleep a lot more easily in my bed at night.”
The Ninth Buddha Page 2