Doctor Gavrilov (33 page)

That evening she asked Tim to spend the night with her because she was afraid to be alone. He lay on the bed beside her, chastely; if she was aware of his desire she showed no sign of it. The first three nights he shared her bed he made no move towards her but on the fourth, when he put his arms around her and began to caress her, she did not resist him. After a while he said, ‘Is this all right? I don't want…' and she said, ‘Oh yes, please, go on, it's all right, I want to.' He was very tender with her and she seemed to be enjoying it but afterwards she cried. He didn't know whether it was with relief, disappointment, guilt or simply the release of emotion.

In the morning she seemed guilty. She said, over breakfast, ‘Tim, this isn't fair on you. I need you now, I like you, I care for you, but I can't feel anything…'

He tried to reassure her. ‘Look, it doesn't matter. I want to be with you.'

‘But why, Tim? Why me? Look at me… I'm a mess… I feel I'm just making use of you.'

‘Well, I'm quite happy to be used.' He kissed her cheek. He was not alarmed; he had her, now, and thought that it was only a matter of time till she got over this and came to love him. ‘Look, I've got to go to work now… I'll ring you. And I'll do some shopping on the way home.'

The children were due back that morning, but Katie felt she couldn't cope with them. More than anything, she wanted Anna not to know, not until she was absolutely certain; it was still possible that somebody had made Dmitry write the letter or that he had somehow been reprieved. She needed more time; she rang her mother and said that she was still unwell, and begged her to keep the children till the next day.

Alone, she sat and brooded; finally she felt she had to do something. She rang the Russian embassy in London, anonymously, to ask if it would be possible for them to trace her husband, a Russian, in a third country and, if he had died, whether this would have been reported to the embassy there.

The official told her off-handedly that this would probably be possible, but when he asked for the name and further details she was afraid to give them and rang off.

At half past six that evening, just when she was beginning to expect Tim home, two men came to the house. When she opened the door she knew, even before they spoke, that they were Russian; it must have been something to do with their faces or the cut of their clothes. The older man, grey-haired and in his fifties, said he wanted to talk to her about her husband; he was inside the door before she could protest. She followed them into the living room.

The Russian spoke without finesse, with the authority of someone who is used to getting answers. ‘Have you heard from your husband since he went abroad? Has he telephoned you? Do you have any letters?'

‘No.'

‘Please don't lie. We know you telephoned the embassy this morning. Why?'

‘I wanted to know where he was.'

‘It was more than that.'

She turned her back to them. ‘I wanted to know if he was alive. I don't want to talk to you, whoever you are. Please leave me alone. If you don't go I will call the police.'

The younger man, at a nod from his superior, went to the telephone and with a violent jerk pulled the lead out of the socket on the wall. Then he turned to the desk in the corner. It was locked. He asked her for the key and she pointed to the mantelpiece. She watched him take the key and open it and start to go rapidly through the papers, examining each item before discarding it on the floor. Katie, fearing that they would take the house apart, said, ‘There was only one letter. It's upstairs, I'll go and get it.'

‘We'll get it. Where is it?'

‘In the drawer by my bed.'

The younger man went upstairs and she heard him clump across the bedroom floor, and the sound of things being roughly moved around. In a few moments he returned; his superior took the letter from him and read it without any change of expression in his face.

‘You've heard nothing since?'

‘Nothing.' She experienced a moment of inner panic; if she had heard anything she would have said the same thing, to protect him; why should they believe her? What might they do? For a moment she understood what it must feel like to live under a regime of terror; to know that there was no-one she could turn to for protection. Her heart thumped, her mouth went dry, and she glanced repeatedly at her watch; if only Tim would come home, he was due back any minute…

The Russian refolded the letter and thrust it into his inside jacket pocket. Katie watched him with horror. She leapt forward, putting out her hand instinctively, wanting to hold on to this one last thing of Dmitry's. She pleaded, ‘Please, don't take the letter.'

He ignored her, as if she hadn't spoken. ‘What about money? You are still receiving money?'

‘From a bank account in Switzerland.'

‘Let me see.'

Katie fetched the file with her bank statements. She asked, ‘Do you know where he is? Do you know if he is alive?'

The man didn't answer her. As he thumbed through the papers she heard the outer door bang and Tim's footsteps in the hall. The Russian handed her the file, looked up, startled, as Tim came in.

Tim's face blanched with anger. He looked at Katie and then at the two men and demanded, ‘What is this? Who are you?'

‘Tim.' Her voice was low, warning him. The Russian put a card on the table and said, ‘If you do hear from him, call me on this number.'

Tim saw them out. He didn't ask her anything; like her, he must have guessed who they were. Katie was still numb at the loss of the letter; she was trying to work out how they knew.

She turned to Tim. ‘They knew I'd called the embassy… but I didn't give my name, I didn't say who it was, what country, anything… how did they know?'

Tim sat next to her and took her hand. ‘It's all right, you didn't give anything away. Obviously, your phone is being tapped.'

She turned and stared at the disconnected phone in disbelief.

‘But if they know… why did they come here? Why take the letter? What is the point?' She felt herself trembling.

Tim stroked her shoulders. ‘Did they threaten you?'

‘Not directly.'

Tim asked her to tell him everything that had been said. They went over it several times. He said, ‘I can't make it out. Of course, they are on to him, but why, it doesn't make sense…' He paused and took her hand. ‘You haven't had any other contact with him, have you?'

‘No – of course not.'

Tim stood and shook his head. ‘I know there's something wrong with this, but I just don't know what it is.'

The following afternoon, Katie's mother rang to say she was setting off with the children. She told Katie she was concerned about Anna. She cried a lot, and resisted sleep; then she had bad dreams and woke up, sobbing and calling out for Mitya. Her mother said that Sasha too had fretted constantly and that it was all too much for her to cope with. When Katie rang off she felt angry and upset; she had to get outside, go for a walk. There was sunshine between the clouds and the air was warm.

At the top of the road, when she turned the corner, she passed the Catholic church. It was an ugly Victorian building which she had walked past many times without ever being tempted to look inside. She saw the door was open, and cautiously looked in; she thought someone might be there preparing for the evening mass. But the church seemed empty.

On impulse she went in and walked over to the statue of the Virgin in the side chapel, where half a dozen candles were burning on a metal stand. The statue was a plaster one, with a silver crown on her head, and a sweet, delicate expression on her face. It was so long since she had prayed, and she did not know what to say. The words came back to her from her school-days, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God… pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.' Was Mitya dead? It was worse because it was not completely final, because there was still the smallest possibility that he was not. How could she bear it? She took a candle and lit it, held it up, said ‘For Mitya,' and when she said this, she could not hold back the tears; they washed down her face and her breath came in great, gasping gulps. Her body was shaking and she knelt down, thrusting her arm into her mouth to block any sounds from escaping. She didn't want to see anyone; she didn't want anyone to try to help her, least of all a priest.

She thought she heard a sound from the back of the church and turned and ran to the entrance. Outside, it was very bright. The sun had come out from behind the clouds and fell warmly across her back. Dizzily, she sat on a low stone wall. A little breeze stirred her hair and a plane passed slowly overhead, etching a long white line across the blue sky. Against the church wall, a late rose bloomed. She felt a moment of complete stillness. Somehow, she knew she could bear it; for the sake of her children, she would have to. In some way, she was comforted. She knew that inside the church the candle would go on burning, a wordless prayer that would continue long after she had left.

Senussi said, ‘Let us walk by the sea.'

It was possible to walk for miles along the beach. They would go in the morning, when the sun was low, and the sand was still cool beneath their feet. Dmitry enjoyed these walks, part of the unvarying routine of his day. He would wake, breakfast, walk, swim, have lunch, then rest; later in the afternoons he would read or play cards with Senussi or one of the men he took to be guards. He began to take a simple pleasure in physical things, in the food, which was very good, in the sensation of the sea and the sun on his skin, in the patterns of light and shadow which the sun cast across the sand and the glinting of the light on the surface of the sea; sometimes he would paddle in the water, or fall asleep in the evening on the beach like a child, lying down in the warm sand.

Dr Senussi would come with him, on his own. Though he looked for signs of surveillance it seemed to Dmitry that they were alone, and that the doctor was taking a tremendous risk, because of course it was possible that he might become violent again or try to get away; but perhaps they trusted the drugs to keep him compliant or knew there was no escape from this place.

He wrote to Katie saying that he had been ill, that he'd had a breakdown but was receiving good treatment. He said as little as he could because he knew the letter would be read by the Libyan intelligence service.

Senussi took the letter and said, ‘I can't promise that it will be posted.'

‘Why not?'

‘It is not up to me. It is for others. It may be thought that you are safer here if certain people think you're dead.'

Dmitry understood at once that this would be in the Libyan's interest. He realised that they wouldn't post the letter and resigned himself to this in silence.

Senussi always tried to talk to him on these walks, to draw him out, but Dmitry resisted. He could not believe that he was talking to him as a therapist, that what he said would not be reported back, to people who might be able to make use of it. Nonetheless Senussi continued to ask questions, always gentle, always respectful. Dmitry had come to like him, to depend on his calming presence; he realised more and more that he was a highly intelligent and sensitive man.