‘I didn’t,’ Tom said.
‘A single shot to the back of the head,’ Schneider said. ‘Clear evidence of execution. It would have been so much easier if Frederika hadn’t …’ He hesitated ‘… become upset.’
‘What do you want?’ Tom demanded.
‘What does anybody want? The memoirs.’
‘You were at Tegelerforst?’
Colonel Schneider pushed his pistol against Amelia’s skull, and, when she tried to duck away, ground it harder. ‘I was a child in those days,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m simply here to do a job … Now.’ He indicated Tom’s weapon.
Crouching, Tom put it on the floor.
‘Anything else?’
Taking an expandable cosh he’d also lifted from Henderson, Tom put that on the tiles beside the pistol.
‘Willing to bet her life on my not finding anything else?’
‘There’s this,’ Tom said.
He pulled a lock knife from his jacket.
‘Anything else you’d like to confess? Quite sure?’
Dragging Amelia with him, Schneider let go of her long enough to pat Tom down, keeping his pistol pointed at her the entire time. Stepping back, he gripped her upper arm and dug his thumb into flesh.
‘You followed Henderson here?’ Tom asked.
‘Obviously.’
Schneider kicked Tom’s pistol, cosh and knife under the door of a stall, a slight side-swipe with his foot proving sufficient for each.
‘The memoirs,’ he ordered.
‘Does Marshal Milov know you’re here?’
‘Moscow and Berlin’s interests have diverged.’
‘The arms talks?’
‘Give me the memoirs.’
‘This has to do with the talks?’
‘Of course it does. The American military hate the idea of arms reduction. American Intelligence dislike it too. We need to give them a reason to dig their heels in. Imagine how their press will react on discovering that an esteemed Soviet negotiator used to molest children. And that’s before they’re told one of their own senators backing this deal did the same.’
The colonel stared at Tom, who stared back.
‘It will be enough,’ Schneider said. ‘We’ll make sure it’s enough.’
He held out his hand.
‘I don’t have the memoirs,’ Tom said.
Sighing, Schneider let go of Amelia’s arm, stepped back and aimed his automatic at her knee.
‘Frederika burnt them,’ Tom said. ‘You know that.’
‘Sir Cecil told a friend you had a copy.’
‘He lied. But I have a notebook. Names and dates from the lodge at Reinickendorf-Tegelerforst. French, English, German, American, Russian.’
‘Without his memoir they’re just names.’
‘That’s not true,’ Tom insisted.
‘You’re right. It’s not. They’re suspects. Sir Cecil’s memoirs would give us … Certainty. We like certainty.’
‘At least look …’
Schneider skimmed the notebook, stopping a couple of times, then turned it over. Having examined the ink drawings in the back, he slipped the notebook into his pocket.
‘Someone you know?’ Tom asked.
The man’s gaze hardened. ‘Give me the memoirs.’
‘I don’t have the memoirs,’ Tom said.
‘Then I have no use for you, do I?’ This time, when Schneider raised his pistol, Tom knew he intended to fire.
97
It had been a bad year for butterflies in Kent. A new kind of pesticide was slowing their breeding, an unexplained fire on the Downs had destroyed much of their habitat and the weather had been erratic. The butterfly that landed on drying bracken at twilight stayed only briefly to rest, then rose and flew in search of fresh flowers, better pastures.
The fronds of the bracken grew still as two men passed, talking intently to each other. Twenty minutes it took between patrols. The bracken knew this because it had been timing them. The next pair to come into sight found an olive-skinned beggar woman sitting by a freshly made fire. She looked at them, and saw how the next few seconds would unfold. To them, entirely unexpected.
To her, entirely predictable.
Her hair was filthy and her face unwashed. She did a good job of seeming shocked to see them. Maya hated to say it but she felt almost happy to be back in her rags.
‘Bloody gypsies,’ said one.
‘You,’ the other one said. ‘Get up.’
The old woman stayed seated. She had a metal bowl on her lap and a filthy horse blanket over her legs, which were folded under her.
‘I said get up.’
Either the woman was deaf or didn’t understand English, because she stayed where she was, although she put down her bowl and planted her hands flat to the earth, as if feeling its power. Even when one of them unhooked a long metal flashlight of the kind usually carried by people who really wanted a club, she remained seated, her dark eyes watching his advance.
It should have been obvious, even to someone deaf or stupid, what was about to happen. And the beggar woman seemed to realize it at the last second, cowering back as the man reached for her.
His grip never closed.
Kicking out, Maya caught his ankle.
As the ex-squaddie went down, she slammed the edge of her bowl into his mouth, forcing open his jaw and breaking it at the hinge. The man’s mouth was too full of blood for him to scream.
The second man should have run.
Instead, he gaped in horror as Maya rolled the first man into the flames. Her attacker had just enough time to realize his head was on fire, before she clubbed him with his flashlight. Scooping embers into her bowl, she flung them into the second man’s face. Stumbling back, he turned to run and died with a Sykes-Fairburn in his back. She was proud of that touch.
If anyone bothered to do a proper autopsy, and personally she doubted it, they’d discover that one of the security detail was killed with a classic English commando dagger. That should give them … Pause for thought was a fine phrase.
One Lord Eddington used.
The poor man had been told his grandson would die horribly if he made any sort of fuss. A call to the house, late at night. Very well spoken, quietly confident. One of us. It had taken Eddington a while to admit those facts. Maya had rather thought it was something like that.
Rolling the body over, she took back her knife.
Ex British Army to judge from his wrist tattoo. So obviously he carried an American-designed gun, built by Belgians. As did the Germans and pretty much every other US ally. It felt better in her hand than either a Makarov or a Tokarev. Not that she’d have dreamt of admitting that.
Grinning, she checked the magazine. The full thirteen rounds. Nine millimetre Parabellum. She’d have preferred .45 but …
Maya was shocked to discover she was enjoying herself.
She was on the side of the angels, and you only had to read the Bible to know that nowhere in there did it say that the angels had to play clean. In fact, if you read the book carefully, you’d discover that they generally played very dirty indeed.
98
At the exact point the lights in the Tierpark lavatory block went out, Tom dragged Amelia to the tiled floor and Schneider’s gun blazed. He felt a bullet scrape his skull and saw a man materialize in the doorway, backlit by moonlight. The newcomer lifted his hand, almost in greeting, and threw …
His blade cut the air and Schneider grunted. Tumbling back, he hit the wall, hand to his chest. Stepping into the room, the newcomer closed the gap and slammed his palm against the hilt, driving the dagger home.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ FitzSymonds said.
99
Shooting the pencil beam towards Tom, FitzSymonds flicked past Amelia and settled it on his victim. Schneider sat bolt upright against the wall, but was quite obviously dead. A puddle of black spread out around him. As Tom watched, the dead man’s shoes twitched and his nervous system began shutting down. ‘Found Hend
erson,’ FitzSymonds said.
‘Dead,’ Tom said.
‘Very,’ FitzSymonds agreed.
‘Fitz, Charlie’s been taken.’
‘So I’ve just heard. It doesn’t look good, Tom. These aren’t nice people. None of us were in those days. So many of the old guard gone. We’ll work something out, though. Trust me.’
It doesn’t look good …
It was all Tom could do not to vomit. He swayed for a second, fighting the shock, and Amelia took his arm, steadying him.
Fitz did a double-take, appearing to notice Tom wasn’t alone for the first time. ‘We haven’t met,’ he said, putting out his hand.
Amelia stepped forward and shook.
‘Harry FitzSymonds,’ Fitz said. ‘You’d better call me Fitz. Everyone else does.’ He ran the torch across her face. ‘Friend of Tom’s?’
‘I’m Sir Cecil’s daughter.’
Fitz sucked his teeth. ‘Are you now.’
His pencil torch, for all its smallness, had been taped either side of the lens to narrow its beam still further. He took a look at Tom’s skull and sucked his teeth again dismissively. ‘Barely scratched.’
‘Let me.’ Amelia cut a strip from a dark-blue roller towel and bound it tight around Tom’s head, putting the nail scissors back in her bag.
FitzSymonds looked impressed.
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Tom,’ he said.
Tom trained the torch on Schneider as FitzSymonds dipped, slightly gingerly, and removed his blade with a grunt. Taking the torch back, he ran the beam across Schneider’s body and let it settle on the Makarov. That was when Tom noticed that his old boss was wearing black leather gloves. With Fitz, that always meant business.
‘I really am sorry,’ FitzSymonds said. ‘About Charlie.’
Tom’s mouth set into a line of misery.
‘Did you ever hear back from your Russian?’
‘General Rafikov?’
‘No. The one in London. Last thing I heard she was trying to track down a Silver Cloud Coupé. Purple no less. Not having much luck from what I heard.’
‘It was used to take Charlie …’
‘Think she ran into a couple of dead ends …’ FitzSymonds shrugged. ‘Now’s not the time. We can talk about this when we’re alone.’
Looking across, Amelia said, ‘He’s lying.’
‘Amelia,’ Tom said.
‘Trust me. I don’t care if he’s an old friend. He’s lying. He’s lying about the Rolls-Royce. He’s lying about helping.’
‘Really,’ FitzSymonds said.
‘What are you doing here?’ Tom said to him.
‘Saving your life, since you ask. Hers too. Suppose you’d better take Schneider’s Makarov.’
‘Fitz …’
‘Yes, I know. Piece of shit. Nearly got killed in Korea when one jammed on me. All the same, take it.’
Reaching for the weapon, Tom hesitated.
He wanted the notebook from Schneider’s pocket. Only that would tell Fitz he had it. Tell Fitz? When the hell had Tom started to wonder whether or not his old boss could be trusted?
‘Wait,’ Amelia said.
‘He can’t wait,’ FitzSymonds said. ‘This has gone too far. I need to get Tom to the embassy, now. He can’t be found here.’
‘I’ll catch you up then.’
‘You’ll …?’ Tom said.
Amelia shot him a look. ‘Girl stuff,’ she said. ‘I need to use the loo.’
Wild goats shifted uneasily on the concrete slopes of a toy mountain as Tom and Fitz put distance between themselves and the petting zoo. Amelia caught up with them outside an aviary a few minutes later. A poster showed a vulture in a tree staring down at bleached bones.
‘You’re going in the wrong direction,’ she said.
Stopping, FitzSymonds said, ‘Feel free to go in any direction you like.’ Tom watched his face harden. ‘Actually, don’t. You’ll come with us. I’ve no intention of letting Tom be caught because the Stasi take you and you can’t keep your mouth shut under questioning.’ Turning back, he said to Tom, ‘That was good, you know. Back there. It took real guts to bluff with Schneider’s pistol in your face.’
‘It was my face,’ Amelia said.
FitzSymonds ignored her. ‘We need everyone to believe the memoir was burnt.’
‘It was burnt, Fitz.’
FitzSymonds sighed. ‘Tom, this is me. I know Sir Cecil gave them to you. It’s on record. You don’t have to worry about your friend here. She won’t be saying anything.’ There was an edge to his words.
‘Fitz. Listen –’
‘No, you listen. What were your orders?’
‘To bring Sir Cecil back.’
‘Not kill him and take his memoirs?’
Behind him, Tom felt Amelia go very still.
‘Definitely not,’ he said firmly. ‘I was to bring him back to stand trial.’
‘Then you didn’t do a very good job of it, did you?’ FitzSymonds’s voice was suddenly less chummy. ‘Friendship only counts for so much, Tom. I have a job, as you had a job. The difference is I will do mine.’
‘And what is your job?’ Tom asked.
‘This,’ FitzSymonds said.
When he moved it was brutally fast. One second he was glaring at Tom, the next he’d grabbed his wrist and twisted Schneider’s Pistolet Besshumnyy from his grip. When FitzSymonds stepped back, it was to point the Makarov at Tom. There was a moment of shock so absolute Tom could hear his own heart beat.
‘Now. Where have you hidden the memoirs?’
‘Fitz … For God’s sake.’
FitzSymonds swept one hand through his hair, looking old and tired and disappointed. ‘Christ, Tom. Who do you think took your brat? Who do you think set this whole thing up? You give me the memoirs. I return the child. It’s that simple. Otherwise …’
Tom stepped forward.
‘Don’t think I won’t shoot.’
Amelia’s voice was hard. ‘You’ll die if you do.’
In her hand was the Makarov that Tom had last seen kicked under a cubicle in the petting zoo. She held it in two hands, the muzzle pointed straight at FitzSymonds’s head. When the old man began to shift, she grunted.
‘Try me,’ she said.
100
Tom looked in shock from Amelia to the man who’d overseen his training. The man to whom he’d reported for more than a decade; sometimes at Whitehall, at other times in anonymous safe houses in grim suburbs of London or Birmingham, once on the thirty-second floor of a Glasgow tower block.
‘You took Charlie?’
‘I did my duty.’
There was something unexpectedly dark in FitzSymonds’s eyes. A malevolence found behind the eyes of murderers, rapists and fanatics. Something ancient and evil. Pieces began falling into place. ‘All those dead national treasures,’ Tom said. ‘Colonel Foley, Robby Croft, Sir Henry … You organized that. Didn’t you?’
‘At least one of us is still capable of doing his job.’
‘Saving the government embarrassment?’
‘Sir Cecil’s memoirs are only as potent as the number of people in them left alive. Someone had to tidy up.’
‘This is about the arms talks?’
‘Christ, Tom … It’s about Brannon. Why would it be about anything else? Foley taught the man who killed him how to make bombs. Our pet thespian helped perfect his Irish accent. Not only did Cecil Blackburn own the cottage overlooking Windermere, he issued the invitation that got Brannon up there.’
‘And Robby Croft?’
‘The man was a banker, for God’s sake. The operation was far too sensitive to go through our accounts. He funded the entire thing. They were Patroclus, the lot of them. Their cooperation was the price they paid for their lives.’
‘You ordered their deaths.’
‘Situations change.’
‘And the man who killed Brannon?’
FitzSymonds shrugged. ‘Never met him. Never needed to. Brannon’s proclivities wer
e going to get out, you know. A journalist had photographs. We needed to act. It would have been irresponsible not to.’
‘And my father?’ Amelia asked.
FitzSymonds turned his gaze on her. He seemed amused.
‘You killed him, didn’t you?’
‘He shouldn’t have changed his mind.’
The gun in Amelia’s hand was trembling. She still held it with both hands, her arms outstretched. ‘Tom,’ she said. ‘We need to go.’
‘I’m sure he’d rather stay,’ FitzSymonds said. ‘He’ll want to know how his son died.’ He glanced at Tom. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I killed him too.’
‘He’s lying,’ Amelia said.
‘Fox knows I never lie to my friends.’
‘Tom,’ Amelia said, ‘back towards that sign.’
Bialoweiża – Lowland European Bison. Tom glanced behind him and saw that the path split, with one section vanishing into trees. Amelia followed, her aim never faltering.
‘He bled out. I’m sure you know where.’
Tom froze.
‘Don’t rise to it,’ Amelia ordered. ‘Keep moving.’
They reached the trees before FitzSymonds fired. Silenced or not, the pistol sounded loud. The bison stampeded, and wolves began howling to the north of them. ‘Run,’ Amelia said.
The path forked again and Tom chose the least used, hearing Amelia crashing behind him, her breathing jagged. When he slowed to see what was wrong, she pushed past him. Hesitating for a second at a zookeeper’s hut, she stumbled down the side and halted behind it, one hand against the back wall.
‘You okay?’ Tom asked.
She thrust the pistol at him.
Blood stained her side and Amelia touched the patch and winced. ‘It’s not serious,’ she snapped when Tom stepped forward. Twisting away, she reached into her bag for a long cotton scarf.
‘Wait.’ Tom took Amelia’s bag. ‘What else is in there?’
Riffling through it, he found four straws of sugar of the kind that come with coffee in cafés.
‘These’ll do.’
Ripping the top from the first sachet, he patted sugar on the wound, hearing Amelia gasp. He did the same with the next three sachets, handing her the scarf so that she could bind her ribs.
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