House of the Hanged (27 page)

He led them far deeper into the monastery than Tom had penetrated during his last visit.

‘How is he?'

‘Better,' replied Prior Guillaume. ‘Talking. Always talking. I don't think he knows we are a silent order.'

‘I'll mention it.'

‘No, please. The silence is not easy for the young novices. It is good they have a reason to speak.'

They found themselves in a dilapidated cloister giving on to an overgrown courtyard.

‘He has told me your story.
Vade in pacem
.' He touched Tom lightly on the arm. ‘I like this story. It is a good story.'

He asked them to wait in the cloister and disappeared through a wooden door.

‘
Vade in pacem
?' enquired Leonard.

‘It's not important.'

The door swung open and Prior Guillaume beckoned them inside. ‘Please . . .'

It was a monk's cell, simply furnished but surprisingly large and light. There was also a crude wooden staircase leading to another room above. A door on the far side of the room opened on to a small garden enclosed by high walls for privacy.

‘He is outside,' said Prior Guillaume. ‘I'll wait for you in the chapel.'

He withdrew, pulling the cell door shut behind him.

Pyotr was seated at a table in the shade, reading, but now rose to his feet to greet them. His head was heavily bandaged and he was wearing a long white linen night-shirt and leather sandals. The last time Tom had seen him he had been dangerously pale, but there was colour in his cheeks now and his eyes were sharp, alert. They darted warily towards Leonard as he pumped Tom's hand.

‘This is Leonard,' explained Tom in French. ‘He's from the Foreign Office.'

‘That was quick,' said Pyotr, acidly.

‘It's not what you think. He's a good friend of mine who just happens to be here on holiday. He might be able to help you.'

Leonard extended his hand. Pyotr shook it guardedly. ‘And what does he want in return?'

‘Nothing,' replied Leonard, also in French.

‘Why do I find that hard to believe?'

‘Because you don't know him,' said Tom.

Pyotr pulled a couple of wooden stools from beneath the table and invited them to sit.

‘Do you have a cigarette?' he pleaded. ‘I'm dying for a cigarette. I suspect Prior Guillaume smokes – I can smell it on his breath – but he swears he doesn't.'

Pyotr savoured the first lungful of smoke before exhaling.

‘How are you feeling?' Tom asked.

‘Better for that.' Pyotr touched the bandage on his head. ‘Father Nicolas is very pleased with himself. Apparently he's a dab hand with a needle and thread.'

Tom smiled. ‘I didn't get a chance to thank you yesterday. You were almost unconscious by the time we arrived here, talking nonsense.'

‘My wife would say there's nothing new in that.'

‘You're married?'

‘Until a year ago. She hated Paris, but grew to hate me more for dragging her there. She returned to Russia.'

Leonard leaned forward. ‘Tom says you have been living in Paris for a few years.'

‘Before you ask, let me say that I'm not going to betray my comrades. What happened is between me and him.' He nodded at Tom. ‘A private affair.'

‘I understand, but if you can think of anything that might help Tom stay alive . . .'

‘I told him yesterday, I don't know anything. I was ordered to come to Le Lavandou and wait for instructions. No reasons were given. They never are.'

‘Does the name Ivan Zakharov mean anything to you?' asked Leonard.

‘General Ivan Zakharov? I know him by reputation, of course. Why?'

‘There's a possibility he's involved.'

‘I can't say.'

‘Can't or won't?'

Tom interceded to defuse the palpable tension springing up between the two men.

‘Pyotr, a couple of days before you arrived here an Italian called Cesare Pozzi tried to kill me.'

‘An Italian?'

‘We've never heard of the NKVD using foreign operatives to do their dirty work.'

‘It's rare.'

‘But it does happen?'

Pyotr nodded. ‘Especially since . . .' He trailed off.

Tom leaned forward. ‘Anything you feel you can offer would be gratefully received.'

Pyotr hesitated. ‘Since last year there's a new department of the NKVD in charge of foreign operations. They do things differently.'

‘Any chance we could have the name of this new department?' enquired Leonard.

‘It's not important,' said Tom.

Leonard shot him an exasperated look that said: It bloody well is!

Tom ignored it. ‘Have you decided what you're going to do?'

‘Run . . . disappear,' snorted Pyotr.

‘You can still go back, you know? It's not too late. You can make up some story about crawling away from the crash, finding help . . .'

‘I'm never going back,' said Pyotr, with dark conviction.

Tom pulled an envelope from the inside breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to the Russian. Pyotr examined the contents: a thick bundle of high-denomination French franc notes. He looked up, speechless.

‘I think Spain's your best bet. You should be able to cross the border without papers. There's any number of routes through the Pyrenees at this time of year. If you can get yourself to the British Embassy in Madrid then I'm sure we can provide you with a new passport.'

Tom looked for confirmation of this from Leonard, who nodded his assent.

‘Maybe even a ticket for your passage across the Atlantic.'

Leonard nodded again, with less enthusiasm this time. ‘We might not be able to stretch to first class.'

That amused Pyotr.

‘It didn't seem right to bring your gun in here. There are two cypress trees across from the main gates, a large rock between them. I'll hide it under the rock.'

‘Well, at least you didn't actually give him his gun,' said Leonard sardonically.

They were making their way back through the monastery to the chapel.

‘You know, I've never thought of you as a sentimentalist before,' Leonard continued.

‘He spared my life.'

‘From what you say, he was in a pretty bad way after that smash. Maybe he needed you to get him out of there. Maybe he's still using you now.'

‘Maybe.'

‘How much was in that envelope?'

‘Enough to give him a fighting chance.'

‘Well, I don't trust him.'

‘You don't trust anybody, Leonard.'

‘And it's served me well up till now.'

Tom found himself seizing Leonard by the lapels of his jacket and pinning him against the rough stone wall. ‘What do you know about people like him, people like me?' he snarled. ‘We're the ones who do your bidding. And even then you can't bring yourselves to speak the words, to actually say it . . . nothing to trouble your consciences. You sit at your desks and you pull the strings and the puppets dance. What do you
really
know about people like us?'

He grabbed Leonard's wrist and slapped another envelope into his palm.

‘This is for Prior Guillaume,' he said. ‘You can tell him it's from an old sentimentalist.'

To his credit, Leonard handled the situation impeccably, even when Prior Guillaume at first rejected the money.

‘Thank you, but we have everything we need.'

‘And a few things you don't need,' countered Leonard, glancing heavenwards.

A corner of the chapel roof had been rigged with tarpaulin to stop the rain coming in.

* * *

Tom had held back a single cigarette from the packet he'd left with Pyotr, and the moment Prior Guillaume closed the main gates behind them, he lit it. He then went and recovered Pyotr's handgun from the car and secreted the weapon under the rock between the two cypresses, as promised.

Leonard came and joined him in the tight patch of shade thrown by the trees.

‘You have to disappear.'

‘I know.'

‘I'd already arranged for a couple of our chaps to come down from Paris and keep a discreet eye on you. They'll be here tomorrow, but I'm not sure you should wait.'

‘You mean, leave right now?'

‘Stay out of sight until tomorrow. Then they'll see you safely off.'

‘What, and miss the party?'

Leonard smiled weakly. ‘It's just a party.'

But it wasn't; it was an opportunity to rub shoulders one last time with a host of people he had come to care for. It was a chance to close off this chapter of his life.

They owed much of their victory to Yevgeny's fancy new Citroën, which Walter had been allowed to borrow on the strict condition that he didn't beat Yevgeny's winning time of last year.

The car was low, fast and very agile, and if Walter had been less of a gentleman they could easily have smashed the record. Instead, they had tootled back from the pharmacy in Le Lavandou, the final stop on their circuit. It had been clear from the pharmacist's expression that they weren't the first people that day to turn up in search of three male contraceptives, which suggested that the other teams had opted to head west first.

Lucy and Walter had instead made straight for Cavalaire, where, with great initiative (and with an ashtray stolen from the bar in his pocket) Walter had asked the concierge at the Hôtel des Bains where they might be able to hire a whalebone corset for a fancy-dress party. Like concierges the world over, the man had discreetly palmed the proffered banknote, made a couple of telephone calls, and twenty minutes later they had been driving away from the house of a retired staymaker with a turn-of-the-century white silk overbust corset bouncing around on the rear seat of the Citroën. It was a propitious start, two out of the six items in under an hour, and they had never looked back.

Tom and Leonard, on the other hand, had hardly got going before the suspension on Tom's car gave out again. They were the last ones home, limping back from Collobrières with a postcard of Place Victor Hugo and a horseshoe.

‘It was the most perfectly wretched afternoon,' said Leonard. ‘Make mine a very large vermouth-citron, will you, Barnaby.'

Mother was on sparkling form after her time alone with Klaus, who, she was now convinced, was a genius of the first order. ‘And so very funny with it. Surely we can find someone to publish him in English.'

She spoke as if Klaus wasn't there, and kept on and on about it until Tom finally confessed, ‘I've already sent a copy of
The Gardener
to Bob Howard at Jonathan Cape.'

‘Thank you,' said Klaus, surprised, and clearly touched.

‘I didn't want to say, in case nothing came of it.'

This was accompanied by a quick glance at Mother.

‘Jonathan Cape? I would have thought Chatto & Windus was a far better house for him. They did such a fine job with Proust.'

It was pure Mother.

When it came to the presentation of the trophy, Walter insisted that Lucy keep the cup.

‘I couldn't have done it without my map-reader,' he announced, somewhat self-importantly.

Lucy handed the cup straight back. ‘And I couldn't have done it without my chauffeur.'

‘Bravo,' called Ilse.

Walter looked suitably contrite. But it was Tom's quiet smile that gave Lucy the greatest satisfaction.

With the party looming, they lingered on the terrace just long enough to drain the magnum of vintage Champagne which had also gone to the victors. Uncharacteristically, Mother opted to walk back to the house with her while Leonard drove the car round.

Lucy knew what this meant.

Sure enough, as the pathway dropped down through the trees towards the cove Mother asked, ‘Have you always been that abrasive with young men?'

‘You're so predictable.'

‘How tiresome for you, but someone has to say it.'

‘Really? No one else seems to feel the need to.'

‘I'm your mother, and I'm telling you – behaviour like that isn't going to do you any favours when it comes to finding a husband.'

‘My, how very Jane Austen. I had no idea you were so set on marrying me off.'

‘You facetious little beast!'

‘Well, you know what they say: the apple never falls far from the tree.'

Mother stopped dead, her eyes ablaze. ‘How dare you!'

‘No, Mother, how dare
you
! I refuse to be dragged into a fight with you.'

Lucy walked on, only to find her arm seized in a vice-like grip which spun her around.

‘Don't you turn your back on me, young lady!'

Lucy wrenched her arm free. ‘I'm not going to let you ruin my evening! Not when it might be Tom's last!'

Tom had asked her not to say anything, but she blurted it out instinctually, in self-defence, knowing that it would throw Mother off balance.

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

‘He's going away,' said Lucy.

‘Since when?'

‘Since this morning. At least, that's what he told me. He wouldn't say where or why.'

Mother recovered quickly.

‘Oh . . .' she said, with an insinuating smirk, ‘so that's why Lucy's so on edge.'

Yevgeny and Fanya liked to bill their summer party as a low-key affair, but nothing was left to chance. The caterers were shipped in from Cannes, the band from St Tropez, and the harpist (along with her instrument) from Paris. Every year a small army of workmen stood by with a truckload of marquees, should the weather turn suddenly and a summer downpour threaten to spoil the al fresco festivities.

Most remarkably, the ratio of serving staff (always young and beautiful) to guests was as low as you could ever hope to find. This meant that your glass was never allowed to fall empty and there was never any need to queue for food. You simply had to sit yourself down at one of the many candlelit tables scattered through the trees around the terrace and within moments you would be pounced upon by some discreetly uniformed waiter or waitress who would reel off the available dishes, take your order and then disappear into the darkness. If eight of you happened to sit down together, your food would always arrive at the same time.

This year, the chefs toiling away behind the scenes had outdone themselves:
consommé madrilène
,
pâté de canard de Périgord
,
langoustes
,
soles cardinales
,
poularde en cocotte
, salads, cheeses,
tarte au citron
, and roasted quinces with verjus and vanilla. Served up without ceremony beneath a cloudless Mediterranean night sky, it was a flawless feast, and the perfect send-off for Tom. The irony that it happened to be provided by two people quite possibly bent on his destruction wasn't lost on him.

Yevgeny and Fanya were rarely to be seen together at their party. They circulated independently of each other through the eclectic mix of guests, oiling the wheels. Yevgeny tended to gravitate towards the wealthier types, many of whom were clients, and Tom knew for a fact that he used the event as a showcase for his wares, shipping in works of art from the gallery in Paris and scattering them about the house as though they were part of his private collection. Last year, Tom had witnessed Yevgeny hook and reel in a Norwegian countess with an exquisite Bonnard painting of a nude in a bathtub which Tom had helped him hang on the drawing-room wall just the day before. No doubt the profits from that one transaction had covered the cost of the party many times over.

Tom found himself feeling a strange camaraderie towards his hosts as he watched them go about their business, even a sort of sadness on their behalf. He knew that all this would soon be lost to them, whereas they were still living in sweet ignorance. The moment they were exposed, unmasked as Soviet agents, their world would undergo the most shocking upheaval, and he wondered how they would cope without their freedom and the trappings of their highlife.

Leonard had made this point to him earlier, in response to some embittered comment by Tom about the Russian couple. They had been driving back from Collobrières, and had briefly stopped at the Col du Rayol to admire the view together one last time.

‘Don't take it personally, Tom. They're not so very different to you and me. They're only doing their job. I mean, it's not even as if we're at war with the Soviets. It's a game, and everyone's playing it.'

‘How very magnanimous of you.'

‘All we know is that they were asked to provide a photo of you. It's quite possible they never knew why.'

Tom had managed to carry this charitable thought with him into the evening, although on his arrival it hadn't stopped him wondering if, among the many guests already gathered, there might be a couple of characters who had turned up that morning on the train from Paris with murder in their hearts. Armed with a dry Martini, he had immediately gone in search of Walter, eager to get the business over with early so that he could concentrate on enjoying himself and saying the farewells that only he knew were farewells.

They had strolled off together to a stone bench at the far end of the garden, and in the warm radiance of the sinking sun Tom had filled Walter in on the events of that afternoon, leaving out any mention of Pyotr and the visit to the monastery but putting a convincing case for Leonard's innocence, or rather, the true nature of his involvement with Yevgeny. Walter's reaction had been one of relief tinged with scepticism.

‘You believe him?'

‘I do.'

‘Christ, I really stuck my neck out on this one with the boys back home.'

‘Don't feel too bad. We used to say that intelligence reports couldn't be taken at more than twenty per cent of truth. But you two really need to talk.'

And they had done just that. A short while later Tom had spotted Leonard and Walter seated alone at a table, speaking in confidential tones.

When it came to the meal, Tom orchestrated things so that he was sandwiched between Beatriz and Margot. He rarely went more than a few days without seeing them, often dropping in at their farmhouse unannounced whenever he passed by Cap Nègre, but the quick fall of recent events had kept him from their company. As he sat there, enveloped in the warmth of their motherly attentions, he tried to imagine life without them: no more winter walks through the hills with Beatriz and Margot nobly encased in matching tweeds, no more impromptu dinners eaten off laps in front of their roaring fire, no more pots thrown on Beatriz's wheel in the shed, no more duets with Margot at the old harmonium while Beatriz pumped the bellows . . .

A hand settled on Tom's knee beneath the table. ‘What is it, Tomás?' asked Beatriz, leaning close. ‘You look sad.'

‘I think you mean drunk,' countered Margot from his right, in her distinctive Belgian accent.

‘No, he grins like an idiot when he's drunk.'

‘You're right, he does. So what can it be?'

‘Are you having problems with your little friend?'

Hélène was always referred to as his ‘
petite amie
'.

‘You must tell us if you are.'

‘We'd be more than happy to go and have a word with her.'

‘Maybe he
is
drunk – he's grinning like an idiot now.'

It was the thought of Hélène answering her front door to find two leathery sexagenarian lesbians scowling on the threshold.

If there hadn't been others within earshot, Tom might have said more – he wanted to, and maybe one day he would get that opportunity – but he contented himself for now with brushing aside their concerns and broadening out the conversation to include Benoît, Chantal and a lively old boy who talked in cannonades and turned out to be a conductor. There was little chance of involving Barnaby and Ilse; they were far too engrossed in each other to even register their dining companions.

Coffee and
friandises
rounded off the meal, and the moment the band piped up he took his glass of Château d'Yquem and strolled off for a solitary smoke, planting himself on the squat stone wall at the edge of the terrace. The moon was low in the night sky but he could just make out Villa Martel on the far side of the bay, crouched above the cove like a toad over a pond.

Could he ever bring himself to sell the place? It seemed inconceivable. But if forced to, how could he arrange it without leaving a trail for Zakharov to follow? Just how difficult was it to trace the movement of money, even to some distant corner of the globe? And if he asked Benoît to supervise the transaction, would he be endangering his friend's life? Considerations such as these would be ruling his life for the foreseeable future, and he might as well accept that fact now. There was nothing to be gained from pretending otherwise.

Despite the dire turn his life had taken in the past few days, looking down on his property, his tiny slice of the French coast, he was still overwhelmed with a sense of his extraordinary good fortune.

He raised his glass to Great Aunt Constance, whose generosity had enabled him to patch up the tattered shroud of his life. His efforts might have suffered a serious setback, but thanks to her he was still in a position to give Zakharov a good run for his money.

‘Are you ignoring me?'

It was Venetia in her dazzling dress of white satin slashed with blue. The band was playing ‘Honeysuckle Rose' and he hadn't heard her creep up on him.

‘Like the plague,' Tom smiled up at her.

‘Where were you just now?'

‘Oh, you know, lost in the long ago.'

‘Mind if I join you?'

‘Only if you bring some distant memory to the table.' She sat herself down beside him on the wall. ‘Warwick Square, the summer of 1919. Do you remember?'

‘What do
you
think?'

She took her cigarettes from her clutch bag and lit one. ‘We were so young.'

‘You mean, we aren't any longer?' he joked.

‘Some of us carry on as if we still were. Others are more realistic.'

Tom felt his sinews stiffening for battle. He hoped he was wrong. If she came at him now, he was liable to give her both barrels.

‘Lucy tells me you're leaving us.'

That surprised him. He had asked Lucy to keep it to herself.

‘Is it true?' Venetia went on.

‘Yes.'

‘When?'

‘Tomorrow.'

He had a story prepared to explain his sudden departure, one he had hatched with Leonard earlier. It wasn't required.

‘Were you going to tell me?' asked Venetia.

‘Of course.'

‘Well, that's something, I suppose.'

‘Meaning . . .?'

‘Does it have to mean anything?'

‘It usually does.'

Venetia drew on her cigarette, exhaling slowly before speaking. ‘I don't know, Tom . . . you're more of a son to my husband than my own boys are, and more of a father to my daughter than my husband is. I suppose I'm wondering where I fit in.'

He knew what he should say, but he couldn't bring himself to shower her with the words of comfort she sought.

‘Anywhere you want to fit, Venetia, which seems to be nowhere right now.'

She skewered him with a long look. ‘I wouldn't take that from anyone else.'

‘I'm flattered.'

‘No you're not. And you shouldn't be. It means you don't get to me in the way that others do.'

‘I'm not trying to get to you,' he sighed. ‘I'm concerned for you.'

‘My, how very pompous of you. Something about splinters and planks springs to mind.'

Venetia had settled on her course. There was only one direction they were headed in, and it wasn't a place he wished to go.

‘I think we should end this conversation now.'

‘Why, afraid of a few home truths, are we?'

‘I'm going to join the party,' he said as evenly as he could, rising to leave.

‘Just be sure to leave my daughter alone.'

‘Excuse me?' he said sharply, turning back.

‘Don't think I didn't see you the other day down at the cove, holding hands and staring into each other's eyes like long-lost lovers. It's not dignified, and it's certainly no way for a man your age to be carrying on with a young girl.'

He was tempted to point out that there was less of an age gap between Lucy and him than Leonard and her, but she would only have taken it as proof of his intentions towards Lucy.

‘If you really want to know, we were talking about Hector.'

‘Is that so?' Venetia replied, sceptically.

‘Lucy had seen me burying him at sea the night before.'

He assumed this would be enough to stop her in her tracks.

‘I'm sorry . . . about Hector. But I stand by what I said. I'm not the only one who finds your behaviour towards her unnatural.'

‘I assume you're talking about Barnaby.'

‘Why, has he said something?'

‘Oh yes – quite a bit, as it happens.'

He laid on the knowing tone with a trowel, but Venetia ignored it.

‘Actually, I was referring to Dr Feinstein.'

‘Oh, please . . .' he scoffed. Was she really about to quote her Freudian psychoanalyst at him?

‘Why are you so keen to dismiss a man you've never met?'

‘Because I hardly think a man I've never met is in any position to pass judgement on me.'

‘Don't be so defensive. He wasn't passing judgement, merely making an observation.'

‘Well, let's hear it, if only to see what you get for your money.'

That annoyed her, which was satisfying.

Dr Feinstein's theory, in a nutshell, was this: that Lucy was now the same age as Irina had been at the time of her death, and that Tom's feelings for Lucy were inextricably bound up with the feelings of guilt he carried about his failure to rescue Irina in Petrograd all those years ago.

‘Utter tripe. And you can have that from me for free.'

‘I think there's truth in what he says.'

‘Well, that's good for him, or you wouldn't keep going back for more of his nonsense.'

‘It's very telling that you're so threatened by him.'

‘I'm not threatened by him, I'm angry with him. Look what he's done to you.'

‘I feel better than I have in years.'

‘And there's the real tragedy of it, Venetia. I, I, I . . . You're so utterly absorbed in yourself that there's no space for the rest of us. We're all just pillows for you to punch into.'

He didn't wait for her to get off a reply.

‘Excuse me if I withdraw beyond your range for now.'

It took him a good twenty minutes and two stiff drinks to calm down. The dancing helped, the slow tightening of intimacy which came with friends and music. Lucy was there, swaying like a reed in the breeze just beyond the clutches of a tall young man with a goatee beard who was clearly set on monopolizing her. Tom would normally have stepped in and asked her for the next dance, but he feared Venetia's reaction. Lucy was set to suffer enough already without him rubbing her mother's face in it. He had fully expected Venetia to make an immediate scene, demanding to be taken home by Leonard, and dragging Lucy along with her. The fact that she hadn't was a bonus not worth jeopardizing.