The Alien (24 page)

His stricken audience could not speak, except for Carfax, who said sharply, “Did you say a gun? Let me pass, Colin. I must use your phone.''

He was out of the room in an instant to ring up the local police divisional headquarters with an urgent request to secure the weapon immediately for M.I.5. Afterwards he left the house, without explanation and without taking leave of the others. They could tell Colin what they liked. He had more important matters to see to.

When Carfax was out of the room Stephen said, shakily, “Are you absolutely sure he's – the man is –
dead
?''

Colin nodded.

“It wasn't Boris,'' Stephen went on. “It wasn't Boris.''

“
Not Boris
? Are you out of your mind or am I?''

They began to tell him, all together, so that he had to shout to them to stop and let him hear them one at a time and slowly.

He took it in at last, but when they expected his usual reaction of anger, scorn and sarcasm, he only moved forward very slowly, a stricken man still, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands.

Stephen took Ann by the arm and led her away. They found Ogden in the hall. He had come up to inquire if lunch was to be served at the usual time and how many there would be for it. Stephen opened the study door: the room was empty.

“Mr Carfax has left,'' he said. “We're just off now. Mr. Colin has come in and Mrs. Colin is with him. I'd give them a quarter of an hour or so. He's very tired and they're both upset.''

“Very good, sir.'' Ogden looked him straight in the eyes. “I'd like to say how much Martha and me feel over this. But it's best for Mr Sudenic to go, sir, isn't it?''

Margaret knelt beside Colin, her only concern to comfort and restore him. At first she made no headway. He did not seem to hear her until he lifted his head and said, with great bitterness, “You can't beat those ruthless fanatics with a charade of that sort.''

“But you did beat them, Colin. You've made them believe it really was Boris. They'll accept it. They'll stop hunting for him. If that other man – he was an old servant from their Polish home – if it wasn't those devils who killed him, mistaking him for Boris – then he killed himself, for Boris. You had nothing to do with it. You couldn't have.''

She put her arms round him to draw him close.

“Stop blaming yourself, stop grieving, my darling. We're all so proud of you, so grateful. Because it's you who have saved Boris. You, Colin.''

He knew it was not true, or only partly true, but it was supremely comforting. With hope swelling his heart to bursting point he abandoned himself to her new surprising tenderness.

Boris went aboard the English freighter, Gertrude, at Harwich soon after four o'clock that afternoon. His escort, Bill Phillimore, Ann's brother, dropped him from the second escape car about half a mile from the docks. There was nothing strange in that area in a seaman, dressed in jersey, serge trousers and sea boots, hauling a grip and oilskins from the back seat, thanking the driver in broken English for the lift and trudging off in the direction of the wharves.

As he had left the black brief-case in the car John Carfax had provided, so now he left in Bill's car a naval officer's jacket and cap. Besides these, on the back seat, all covered by a rug, there lay the pedlar's tray of toy spaceships.

The crowd had melted abruptly when the ambulance drove away, but before that Bill himself had faded from the scene, packed away his wares and taken up his station in his car not far from the entrance to the mews behind the Brentwoods' house.

It had all been too easy, Bill thought, as he drove on again after dropping Boris. He turned out of the docks road to work his way back into the town and from the centre took the main road to London. Too easy and all over too soon. Life was going to be pretty drab for the next week or two.

When he reached his ship Boris was told to see the captain at once. The latter, a man in late middle-age, weather-beaten and experienced, eyed him for a few minutes without speaking. Then held out a hand for Boris's papers.

The latter handed them over, the detail of Voliniak's previous voyages, proof of his identity, the hospital certificate of discharge. Only in the case of this document had Boris made any alteration and that merely in the date. He had removed the horizontal part of the seven that indicated the current month of July so that it appeared as if he had left the hospital in January.

The skipper read the certificate, continuing to stare at it while he considered this stalwart crew's illness. ‘Operation for intestinal obstruction'. It meant nothing much to him. Only that the man had been opened up for something wrong with his guts and might have less than efficient belly muscles.

“Fit now?'' he asked. “Lift weights and so on?''

“Yes, sir. Perfect, sir.''

“Long time, isn't it? Did they order this when you left the hospital?''

“They said not to go on ship, not lift weight, eat good food, six months. I do as they say.''

“You'll get good food here,'' the skipper said with a faint grin. “And plenty of hard work.''

“Thank you, sir,'' Boris answered.

The skipper turned to the passport. The measurements and colour details were near enough, Boris knew. He had an answer ready for the captain's next question.

“No beard?'' he asked. “You look quite different without it.''

Boris allowed himself to smile.

“They shave it off at the hospital. Then my wife like me like this, so I not grow again. Now I grow.''

The skipper nodded. He put the papers together and handed them back.

“Why d'you want to sail with me?'' he asked. “We call at Gdynia first off. Stockholm and Copenhagen for cargo on the way back. I took you on because I need a man who speaks Polish. My last chap wouldn't sign on again. Said he didn't feel safe there. What about you?''

“I have my British nationality,'' said Boris, drawing himself up proudly.

“O.K. It's up to you. Report to the bo'sun. We take the tide at nineteen hours. No shore leave for you.''

“Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir.''

Boris turned away. So far all was well. Sergei had told him how to address English ships' officers. This captain had accepted him; there had been no awkward moments. But Carfax must now know what had happened. Just over two hours and a half till they sailed.

The time passed quickly enough, dumping his possessions, meeting his shipmates, carrying out a variety of orders. He knew the work basically, though it was all done in a slightly different way. The atmosphere was easier, more natural than on Russian ships, though the jobs were more efficiently planned and executed and the gear was much more modern. He thought he would enjoy his voyage. His last voyage. He had already made up his mind never to go to sea again.

At seven o'clock precisely they cast off and left the dockside. In a couple of hours' time they were out in the North Sea with the light fading and the stars coming out and a half-moon rising from the faint clouds on the horizon ahead. When Boris went off watch he found several evening newspapers lying about the fo' castle. He read the first accounts of Sergei's death.

He lay in his bunk but could not sleep. Grief shook him and remorse and fury with that blind, obstinate, stupid unknown man, so careless of life he had fired at a mackintosh and hat he recognized, without making sure of the identity of the man who wore them.

But it was he, not Sergei, who had suggested they should exchange their outer garments that morning when they met at Notting Hill Gate. In the public lavatory they had each put down his own and taken up the other's. This simplest of disguises had been successful as far as Colin was concerned (the paper mentioned his presence at the hospital), but fatal to Sergei.

The devils! They must have used a silencer. But the fault – the ultimate fault, was his own.

He would not allow himself to believe in the possibility that Sergei had taken his own life. The man knew he was dying of cancer, but he had said several times that he hoped to spend a few more months in his home with the wife and family he loved. He, Boris, had taken away this last happiness. He would never be able to forgive himself for that.

During his next watch on deck Boris became calmer. Every hour took him farther from the immediate danger, the unrelenting pursuit he had suffered almost from the first day of his return to England. He had hoped for too much in his memories of that peaceful, law-abiding island. It was no longer peaceful, but heaving with social change, no longer law-abiding, but racked with crime and open cynical disregard of former moral, even intellectual, standards. And yet all the noisy, self-glorifying, self-exhibiting crew were less frightening than the frozen former leaders of public and private behaviour, who confused their ignorance with loyalty and confessed their prejudices, their ultimate indifference, with a smile. He had no regrets at leaving. The gulf between his life and theirs, his experience and theirs, his hopes and fears and theirs, was too wide.

But he still grieved for Sergei and for his part in the man's death. It followed a pattern that seemed to pursue him over and over again. Did he lack foresight, imagination, reasonable care? Why did others always suffer, against his passionate wish, against his true love? Often, on night watches as
Gertrude
made her deliberate way across the North Sea, through the shoal-infested channels into the Baltic and along the shores of North Germany, he put his head down, unseen, on the rail and wept for the ills he had done and could never remedy.

By the time the ship reached Gdynia, Boris had surmounted the sharpness of his self-punishment. He knew what he would do on landing. His English clothes would bring him sufficient currency in the black market to buy his railway ticket. In his grip he also had a duffle coat that he would exchange for some form of casual native dress, tunic, shirt, whatever the peasants now wore. It shocked him to think that he did not know even such elementary things about his native land. From the railway station where he would get off he would set out to walk. After that his future would shape itself. Bearded again, with the Polish identity Carfax had given him and another new name, Boris Sudenic would disappear for ever.

Before he left the ship on the shore leave from which he would not return, he asked to see the captain and alone with him in his cabin handed him an open letter and said, “If I may ask you, please sir, to read this.''

“A letter to your wife? You want me to read it?''

“Please. And take it to post in England, not in Poland. There is the censorship.''

The skipper was used to odd requests, so he did not argue but took the letter from the envelope. It stated simply,
‘Sergei Voliniak, suffering from incurable cancer, will not return to England to distress still more his dear wife. He wishes to die in his beloved Poland.'

The skipper looked up at the vigorous bearded figure standing so quietly before him. He simply said, “You're leaving us then, Voliniak?''

“Yes, sir.''

“I could keep you on board. Forbid a last shore leave before we sail tomorrow.''

“I would swim there.''

The captain ignored this defiance which he knew was complete.

“It will be impossible to replace you here in Poland.''

“In Sweden, sir, it will be easy. That is not far.''

A flash of annoyance lit the skipper's blue eyes. “Perhaps you'd like to suggest a few names.''

Boris was silent. After a second or two the skipper handed him back the letter and envelope, which was addressed to Carfax.

“Better seal it yourself,'' he said. “I'll post it in Harwich.''

When he had it back he put it down on his table and held out his hand.

“Good luck,'' he said. “Whoever you are.''

Boris thanked him. He had complete confidence in this man; he knew his letter would be posted and that the captain would never disclose to anyone any part of their conversation.

In the evening, two days later, in the heart of Poland, Boris walked away from the railway into a land he knew and loved, whose people he understood, whose language he spoke, whose present conditions he meant to accept and in whose future, however it might develop, he meant to share.

The captain posted Boris's letter as he had promised. When he read it, Carfax at once arranged to go down to Reading, taking the letter with him. It would not surprise Mrs. Voliniak, he knew, for he had, immediately on learning of her husband's death and Boris's fresh disappearance, taken steps to prevent any inquiry and unwanted publicity by informing the widow that her husband wanted her to know he had gone to sea again. This, Carfax calculated, would keep her quiet until he had further news to offer her and could lead her, unspectacularly, to accept the fact of his death. All thoroughly unethical, he knew, but entirely necessary.

Mrs. Voliniak took the letter and Carfax's explanations, limited to the voyage of the
Gertrude
, very quietly. She cried a little, but said she had suspected it from the time he left her, only a couple of days out of hospital, to go and see a friend in London.

“I knew at the time it was phoney,'' she said. “He took his sea clothes with him, I found out afterwards. That spoke for itself. They told me at the hospital he hadn't more than a month or two to live. It's my belief he guessed it himself from the start. Cancer patients often do, don't they?''

“Yes,'' Carfax answered.

“I don't blame him,'' she went on. “It was to spare me and the children partly, as he says. We were happy enough together, though he was away a lot, of course. But he never really settled down in England. Foreigners don't, do they?''

“Sometimes they do,'' Carfax said. “Not very often.''