House of the Hanged (28 page)

God, he had wanted to scream at her, to tear into the pettiness of her neuroses when compared with his own predicament. It was partly the shock of it. In all the years they'd known each other he had never been directly targeted by Venetia; he was possibly the only close friend of hers who hadn't been. At least he wouldn't have to go through the tedious process of a drawn-out reconciliation. Tomorrow he would be gone.

This thought prompted him to search out Barnaby. He was easy enough to spot in the crowd, having opted for a light blue Shantang silk suit, which struck a dapper if slightly tropical note. He was at the bar, loading up with more drinks.

‘By God, Tommy, there's nothing to touch the pursuit of pleasure, is there?'

Barnaby was in high spirits because Ilse had just offered him the spare bedroom at her place, ostensibly to spare him the walk back to Villa Martel.

‘That's very considerate of her.'

‘And I fully intend to make my gratitude felt.'

Tom explained that he'd received some bad news from home. His father had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he was leaving tomorrow for England. He was likely to be there for some time, which would mean closing up Villa Martel before he left.

‘Leonard says he's more than happy to have you move in with them.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that. How terrible for you.' He gave Tom's arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Would you like company? We can tear back to Blighty in my car. Come on, why don't we?'

‘What, and have you break off your crusade?'

‘Ilse's not going anywhere. Besides, it might fool her into thinking I'm a dashed good sort.'

He would have done it, too, if Tom had taken him up on the offer.

Many of the guests had long drives ahead of them, and the party began to thin out shortly after midnight. The locals proved far more resilient, as they always did. Leonard, Venetia and Lucy were the first of their gang to leave, despite Lucy's plea to stay on a while longer and walk home with Tom.

‘And how do you propose to do that, my darling, when you can barely stand upright?'

There was truth in Venetia's words; Lucy was looking pleasantly sozzled. Tom was quite prepared to be ignored by Venetia but she not only kissed him goodnight on the cheek, she whispered an apology in his ear as she did so: ‘Forgive me, I'm a hateful old bitch.'

Strangely, this made him feel worse, almost wretched, but the band wasn't ready to down tools yet and he lost himself once more in the mêlée of the dance floor, the spinning solar system of friends. It felt like an hour filched from a fairy tale, unreal, unsettling, more Alice in Wonderland than The Princess and the Pea.

His last dance was with Beatriz, who moved beautifully, betraying her upbringing, the formal dance lessons of her childhood in Barcelona. As with his mother, that privileged world was now a distant memory to her, a leaf from a forgotten chapter, although in the case of Beatriz it was her son and daughter who had cut her adrift, vowing never to see her again. They had accepted the separation from their swaggering bully of a father, but not her decision to then set up home with an attractive blonde Belgian music teacher.

It was the right way to round off the evening. Beatriz's story gave him hope for the future. No amount of dislocation could keep a person from living a full and proper life if they set their mind to it. Not wishing to sour this thought, he said his farewells swiftly, saving Yevgeny and Fanya until last.

‘Thank you both for the most wonderful evening. And good luck.'

Yevgeny froze. Fanya didn't; she gave a little laugh and said, ‘Good luck . . .?'

‘Silly me . . . I meant goodnight.'

He didn't offer his hand to Yevgeny, as he would normally have done, and he didn't plant a kiss on Fanya's bony cheek.

As he made off into the shadows he turned to check that neither of them was making for the house, for the telephone. They weren't, but he did see someone following him.

It was Walter.

‘Are you armed?'

‘Yes,' Tom replied.

‘Let me get my gun. I'll cover your back.'

The prospect of the walk home – down the hill, along the beach and around the headland – had been sitting uncomfortably at the periphery of his thoughts ever since Barnaby had announced that he'd be spending the night with Ilse and Klaus. He certainly wasn't going to turn down the offer of a bodyguard to accompany him.

They both knew the drill. Walter tailed him at a distance, ensuring that they didn't present a lone target. The path down through the trees to the beach was the spot Tom would have chosen for an ambush. There was an abundance of cover and the darkness was almost complete. He held the Beretta at the ready, the safety off, his finger curled around the trigger, his ears straining to pick up the slightest sound.

The rhythmic hiss of the waves breaking on the shore grew reassuringly louder, and suddenly there was sand beneath his feet and polished moonlight washing around. He opted for the water's edge over the deep shadows shrouding the trees at the back of the beach. Although exposed, the sand was firm and the sea offered an escape. He could disappear into it in a moment.

The Hôtel de la Réserve loomed on his left, dark and silent, brooding over the bay, its long jetty, raised on tall stilts, spanning the beach and thrusting out into the water from the top of the low bluff.

Tom slowed as he approached. There was something beneath the jetty . . . something strange . . . not a rock . . . not a shadow . . . a person sitting on the sand. He was about to level the Beretta when he saw who it was and swiftly tucked the gun away in his pocket.

‘Lucy? What are you doing here?'

‘Waiting for you,' she replied, getting to her feet. Her shoes lay abandoned nearby and she was still wearing her green satin evening dress.

Tom glanced over his shoulder: no sign of Walter behind him on the beach, but he was probably tracking him from the treeline.

‘I had to see you. Leonard says you're leaving tomorrow.'

‘Here . . .' He removed his jacket and slipped it around her bare shoulders.

‘I'm not cold. Actually, I am.'

She pressed herself against him. ‘You should be in bed.'

‘And you should have danced with your goddaughter, knowing you were leaving tomorrow.'

‘I was open to being approached.'

‘No you weren't.' She looked up at him. ‘Why weren't you? I don't understand. Leonard said your father's ill, but I know it's not that. You would have told me at breakfast. It's something else.'

‘It's complicated.'

‘Try me,' she purred. ‘My tutor says I have a first-class brain.'

She wasn't using it now, though, she was using her body. Her hand snaked around his waist, drawing him closer so that her hips pressed against his. He was silenced by the sensation.

‘If we were shipwrecked . . . a desert island . . . just the two of us . . . alone together . . . do you think we would become lovers?'

‘Do you think you might still be a little drunk?'

‘I think we would enjoy being alone together quite a lot.'

Thankfully, a quick glance established that Walter was approaching around the rocks, or he might have been tempted to bow his head towards the lips now presenting themselves to him.

‘Come on, let's get you home.'

‘One kiss. I won't tell anyone.'

‘You won't have to. Walter's here.'

He gave a little tilt of his head, and Lucy turned to look.

‘That's not Walter,' she said.

She was right; it wasn't. The man was Walter's height but a touch broader in the shoulders. He wore an illfitting suit, and as he drew closer he reached inside his jacket and pulled a long-barrelled handgun from its holster.

The Beretta was a pop-gun by comparison, but Tom would still have taken his chances with it if Lucy hadn't been there.

It was the right call. A fleeting look over his shoulder revealed another man, much shorter than the first, closing in on them from behind.

‘Tom, what's going on?'

She was scared now, sobering up fast at the sight of the Beretta in his hand.

He tossed the gun away on to the sand. ‘Don't resist,' he said. ‘Don't scream. Don't do anything.'

After half an hour on the road the mental map Tom had been sketching in his head began to break down. He would have to satisfy himself with the knowledge that the car had travelled west – beyond Le Lavandou, but not quite as far as Hyères – before bearing north. The fact that the driver lost his way several times didn't help. Neither did the heel of the other man's shoe pressing down on his neck, forcing his face to the floor.

He and Lucy had been made to lie down between the seats, side by side, head to toe. They had done everything asked of them unquestioningly, and because of this neither of them had been harmed so far. The heel against his neck hurt like glory, but he knew that if he protested he would do himself no favours. A policy of abject compliance was most likely to lead the two Russians to drop their guard, not that he was thinking about making a move against them. He didn't hold out much hope for himself, but Lucy stood a far better chance of coming through this alive if he didn't aggravate them.

Their abductors were unflustered, professional. On the few occasions the driver took a wrong turn, his small companion in the back showed no irritation. They had obviously been briefed that Tom spoke Russian because they gave away nothing of any significance when they talked – no names, no place names, no indication of their plans.

Lying there, squeezed in beside Lucy on the floor, clasping her hand to comfort her, there was no ignoring the probability that Walter had betrayed him, steering him into the trap. He was still working back through all his dealings with the American, searching for the signs he'd missed, when the road surface suddenly deteriorated.

They were bumping along a track, or possibly over a field. Either way, their journey was almost ended and the evident remoteness of their destination didn't bode well for their prospects. Tom pictured a moonlit oak wood and a shovel being pulled from the boot of the car and thrust into his hands.

He decided it was time to speak. ‘Leave her out of this. She's the daughter of an important British Foreign Office official. You can use her.'

The heel pressed deeper into his neck.

When the car finally pulled to a halt both Russians got out and waited for them to extricate themselves from the vehicle. There was no oak wood and no shovel but there was moonlight, just enough to pick out the low mass of a farmhouse set in a grove of bony olive trees.

It was a large building arranged around three sides of a dirt courtyard, at the centre of which stood a stone well-head. The house was locked, shuttered, and in contrast to the still warmth of the night, there was a close, cold odour to the interior, suggesting that it hadn't been properly aired in a good while.

The Russians made no mistakes, working in expert unison as they moved through the house, the taller one leading the way while the other kept his gun trained on Tom from behind. They never once allowed themselves to fall within his range. When they reached the room, the big man in front pushed open the door then retreated, wagging them inside with his revolver.

The swathe of electric light from the corridor revealed two single beds in opposite corners of a beamed room devoid of all other furniture.

‘We have orders to kill you if you even try to escape,' said the small Russian.

He had a curiously sensitive face, with large, doleful eyes, but the words were all the more menacing for being delivered in such a bland and businesslike fashion.

Tom's jacket was tossed to the floor and the door was pulled shut, plunging them into darkness.

Tom reached for Lucy, drawing her close.

‘Good girl . . . for not reacting.'

‘Who are they? What do they want?'

He could hear the fear in her voice, and she was all a-shiver in his arms, not from the cold but the ordeal.

‘They want me,' said Tom.

‘Why? What have you done?'

‘Did . . . a long time ago.'

When he released her, she called desperately, ‘Don't go.'

‘It's okay, I'm right here.'

He groped for his jacket on the floor. His cigarettes were still in the pocket along with his lighter, which he sparked into life. He made a quick tour of the room, trying the electric light switch before noticing that there was no bulb in the overhead light. Both windows were securely barred and there was nothing beneath the beds, which were made up for use.

He asked Lucy to hold the lighter while he yanked free one of the wooden slats supporting the mattress. As weapons went, it was better than nothing, though not by much.

‘Cigarette?'

‘Definitely,' Lucy replied.

They sat beside each other on the bed, not speaking at first, just smoking. She didn't push him to explain; she knew he would when he was ready.

‘There's a lot you don't know about me . . . a lot you wouldn't like . . . a lot
I
don't like.'

He had struggled to find a way to say it to Hélène, and had ended up giving her a doctored version of the truth, just enough to persuade her to leave. This was worse, far worse. This was Lucy. Of all the people in his life she was quite possibly the one with the highest opinion of him, which meant she had the furthest to fall. He was also fearful for himself, though, because hers was the only opinion which had ever truly mattered to him, and he was about to destroy it.

Sensing his hesitancy, she said, ‘Tom, if things are as bad as I think they are then now's the time for some plain-speaking.'

He gave a short laugh.

‘What?'

‘Dear, sweet Lucy. Ever since I've known you you've knocked me for six with the things you say.'

‘Don't change the subject.'

He didn't know where to start, so he picked a point in the story and launched himself in.

‘Your first night here, when you couldn't sleep . . . that wasn't Hector you saw me burying at sea.'

She listened in silence, and he surprised himself by the details he revealed to her. He told her how he had ruthlessly shepherded the Italian assassin off the edge of the railway cutting, and how he had then seized the dying man by the throat and threatened to kill his mother if he didn't offer up a name. He told her everything, sparing neither of them, and when he was finished she said quietly, ‘Go on.'

So he did. He spelled out everything that had happened to him in the past few days, and his efforts to make sense of it. He only broke off three times, twice to light more cigarettes for them both, the third time when he was telling her about Petrograd. She knew nothing about Irina or his failed attempt to free her, and when he reached the point in the story when he'd heard of Irina's death, he suddenly faltered.

They were only words, but he found himself transported back there to that apartment stuffed with the incongruous trappings of a lost age. He saw Paul Dukes poking nervously at the logs on the fire with the toe of his boot, then turning and breaking the news to him.

He wanted to be strong for Lucy, but the iron hand of the past clawed at his insides. She held him tight while he cried. She held him tighter, and even cried a little herself, when he told her about the child Irina had been carrying.

‘I'm so sorry . . . no one told me.'

‘I didn't want you to know,' he said.

‘You're such an idiot.'

‘What good would it have done? And if you knew, I would have had to tell you the rest of it.'

As before, he didn't hold back any of the unsavoury details about the revenge he'd taken on Zakharov, describing it exactly as it had happened, as well as the sweet satisfaction he'd experienced.

By now it was very late, and Lucy suggested they lie down. They kicked off their shoes and pulled the sheet and blanket over themselves. They lay there on their sides, Lucy tucked in behind him while he talked to the room.

He wasn't sure if she was listening – she didn't react – but he needed to say it anyway, to purge himself. It was, he realized, his final confession: a catalogue of his worst sins. He began with his killing of the guide who had tried to sell him out to the Soviets when he was fleeing the country, and he went on to detail some of the more shocking things he had done while working for the Secret Intelligence Service abroad under the guise of ‘cultural attaché'. He tried to leave Leonard out of it, not wishing to tar him with the same brush. Besides, more often than not he had acted entirely on his own initiative.

He told her far more than he had ever told anyone, laying himself bare to her, methodically listing the deeds which had pushed him to the brink of insanity.

At a certain point Lucy said, ‘Ssshhhh . . . I think that's enough for now.'

She sounded completely unruffled by his rambling litany of self-hatred. She even stroked his forehead, like a mother soothing a child.

‘Zakharov's brother's coming for me. It's the only reason I'm still alive – he must have decided to settle the score himself – but I promise I'll do everything I can for you.'

She kissed the back of his neck. ‘I know you will,' she said sleepily.

He didn't want to sleep – time was too precious to fritter away on unconsciousness – but with the warmth of her lean body against his back and her arm draped over him, he felt as though he were enveloped in a dream, and soon he was.

He had no sense of how long he was under, but he was drawn slowly back to wakefulness by the sound of her quiet sobbing. She was still pressed tightly against him, and he could feel the ebb and flow of her breath at his neck.

When he twisted to face her she clung to him.

‘What a perfectly hateful situation,' she croaked. ‘I don't want to die . . . I'm only just becoming acquainted with myself.'

Tom found himself smiling at her words. ‘I'm not going to let you die.'

He reached up, smoothing away her tears with his thumb.

They lay there in the darkness, sightless, nose to nose, listening to each other's breathing. And when Lucy gently pressed her lips to his, he didn't resist.

He had always teased her about her pointed little tongue – ‘as dainty as a kitten's' – but there was nothing dainty about the way it now worked its way between his lips, delving, searching for his.

‘One kiss,' she had said down at the beach. They must have been thinking the same thing, because they stretched it out for a minute or more before they finally drew apart.

Lucy stroked his face and ran her fingers through his hair. ‘I knew I was right.'

‘What's that?' he replied, drugged by the experience.

‘About the desert island.'

They laughed and held each other close.

He didn't hear them enter the room. He was woken by the beam of a torch trained on his face from a few feet away. His left arm was trapped, wrapped around Lucy, but he raised his right hand to block the glare.

He was quite ready to be hauled from the bed, but nothing happened. Nothing was even said. The light was extinguished, and, judging from the sound of the footfalls, two people then crossed the room and left by the door.

For a moment he thought they'd forgotten to lock it, but then he heard the key turning.

Lucy stirred against him. ‘What is it?' she asked groggily.

‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.'

She did. He didn't.

Tom smiled, in spite of himself.