House of the Hanged (30 page)

‘Did he tell you about the money I gave him?'

Irina turned to him. ‘Yes.'

‘Did he tell you how much?'

Pyotr pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Irina. ‘This much.'

Tom could see from the thickness of the envelope that it was the full amount.

‘You bastard,' he spat, with as much venom as he could convey.

Pyotr took a few steps towards him, an amused, sardonic light in his eyes. ‘You're so naïve it's pathetic,' he replied in French.

Tom pushed back his chair and launched himself at Pyotr, catching him off guard and bringing him down. He was vaguely aware of Irina issuing an order not to fire, but all his other senses were devoted to one cause: inflicting as much pain as he possibly could on the man beneath him. He managed to land a couple of sound punches to the face before he was hauled off and hurled aside like a rag doll. A well-placed boot to the midriff left him crippled and curled up on the turf, gasping for breath.

Pyotr pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself down. Pleasingly, there was blood streaming from his nose.

‘Go and get cleaned up,' ordered Irina. ‘You, show him where.'

Pyotr glowered down at Tom then made the sign of the cross over him.

‘
Vade in pacem
,' he said.

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘What it's always meant,' replied Pyotr, spitting on him as he made off with the small Russian.

Tom saw it now.

It was the hand of Leonard at work, pulling the strings.

Pyotr had played his part to perfection. Tom's only worry was that his own performance would now ruin the show.

He glared up at the big Russian standing over him and found himself staring into the muzzle of a revolver pointed directly at his head.

‘Sit down,' said Irina.

He had to banish all nostalgic sentiments. She had made her choice. She was the enemy. But he also needed her alive. He needed to know the name of the orphanage.

The moment he was seated again, he groped for another cigarette, lighting it with a trembling hand which had nothing to do with play-acting.

‘It means “Go in peace”.'

‘I know what it means,' replied Tom. ‘I wanted to know what he
meant
by it.'

The temptation to glance off into the olive trees was unbearable. Were they here? Had they followed the car? Or had Pyotr agreed to handle the situation on his own? Either way, he had to be ready to move at the first sign of trouble.

‘What happens now?' he asked. ‘General Zakharov wants to meet you.'

‘He's coming here?'

‘Italy.'

‘Where?'

‘We'll know when he telephones. It won't be long.'

Tom fought to hold his thoughts in check. Was it too much to ask? The balance of the game had just swung in his favour, but could he really expect to turn the tables entirely on Zakharov and end the matter once and for all in Italy?

‘Irina, you have to let Lucy go.'

‘He wants her too.'

‘Is this what you fought for – a man who can have anything he wants, even an innocent life? What do you think would happen if a British general demanded such a thing for purely personal reasons? He'd be court-martialled and shot, and rightly so.'

‘The British military has more to answer for than one innocent life.'

‘Words, Irina – indoctrination. Your beautiful experiment has become a homicidal mess, and you know it.'

‘Enough!' she snapped, slamming her hand down on the tin tabletop.

The big Russian took a couple of steps closer, and as he did so Tom caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He didn't dare to look but he hadn't been mistaken. A shadow had just flitted between two olive trees beyond the track.

He swiftly spread his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I'm sorry.'

Irina nodded a wary acceptance.

He looked at her, puzzled. Was this really the woman who had ruled both his waking thoughts and his dreams for the past sixteen years, the woman he had sanctified?

She shifted uneasily under his gaze. ‘What are you thinking?'

‘You don't want to know.'

He had to keep her talking though, keep her looking at him, because behind her there were now two men converging on the farmhouse.

It sounded like the crack of a whip, but muted, muffled. The shot had been fired inside the farmhouse.

Something had gone wrong.

As Irina and the big Russian turned, another shot was fired, louder than the last. One of the men moving in on the farmhouse took cover behind an olive tree, clearly visible from where they were sitting.

It was Commissaire Roche.

The big Russian wasn't an option – there was too much ground to cover – so he hurled the table aside and launched himself at Irina. She was pulling a pistol from the pocket of her linen jacket, but he was on her before she could bring it to bear on him, seizing her wrist and twisting her around in front of him as a shield. The big Russian drew a bead on them but couldn't fire for fear of hitting Irina.

Irina managed to toss her pistol aside, unable to use it herself and determined to deny him a weapon. She barked an order and the Russian advanced on them. Tom backed away. It was hopeless, just a matter of time. He glanced frantically behind him, but although the air was now ringing with gunfire there was no sign of any assistance from that quarter. He did the only thing open to him: he stopped retreating and he charged, lifting Irina from her feet.

The big Russian was caught unawares, not prepared for the sudden impact. As he fell backwards Tom released Irina and rolled aside, rising rapidly to his feet and scooping up her discarded pistol. He darted behind a cypress tree as the Russian got off his first shot, taking a piece out of the trunk.

Tom slipped the safety catch forward. He couldn't wait. The farmhouse was under siege and he had to get to Lucy. He rolled left, then immediately right, dropping into a crouch as he did so. The first manoeuvre drew another shot; the second gave him a hairline advantage over the big Russian, who had to adjust his aim to the other side of the tree trunk and down.

Tom put two bullets in his chest. The third was intended as a head shot, but he missed.

Irina didn't hesitate; she lunged for her comrade's weapon.

‘Don't do it, Irina.'

When she ignored him he fired, winging her in the thigh, bringing her down.

He hurried over and recovered the Russian's revolver. The big man lay on his back like a felled oak. He was wearing a perplexed expression, bleeding badly, but still breathing.

He wasn't going anywhere, but Irina might, even with her leg wound.

Tom punched her hard in the temple.

It was good to have the excuse.

He rounded the wing of the farmhouse at a sprint to see Leonard pinned down behind the well-head in the middle of the courtyard. There was another man crouched beside him. It was Walter, which didn't make any sense.

Suddenly, the American was on his feet and running towards Tom, Leonard covering him with a volley of shots directed at a window to the right of the main entrance.

‘The car,' shouted Walter.

The key was in the ignition, and as Walter fired the engine Tom dropped into the passenger seat. They both kept low, Walter flooring the throttle, not bothering to move up through the gears as he swung the vehicle in a wide arc across the courtyard, its engine screaming. A shot from the farmhouse disintegrated the driver's side window. Others punched into the bodywork as the car straightened up, bearing down on the front entrance.

The impact winded Walter against the steering wheel, but the solid wooden doors were breached, one ripped clear of its hinges, the other left hanging limply.

A figure flashed by in front of them across the entrance hall, loosing off a wild shot which shattered the windscreen and showered them both with glass. Tom had a good idea where the little Russian was headed, and he was out of the passenger door in an instant, scrabbling up and over the crumpled bonnet and into the farmhouse.

He couldn't make sense of the pounding at first, but then he remembered that the big man outside with two bullets in his chest had pocketed the key after locking the door on Lucy.

Tom careered around the corner into the corridor just as the door gave way and the Russian lurched into the room.

He was too late. He waited for the gunshot . . . waited . . . waited . . . and then he was there in the doorway.

The Russian was on his hands and knees and Lucy was swinging something in her hands. She was beating him around the head and the back with the wooden strut which Tom had removed from the base of the bed. It wasn't solid enough to do any real damage and the Russian lashed out with his foot, sweeping Lucy's legs from under her, levelling his gun to finish her off as she crashed to the floor.

Tom fired once – a shot to the head – the muzzle flash illuminating the room, freezing the action in a momentary, blinding flash of light.

The Russian didn't collapse; he seemed to deflate, slowly, unwillingly.

Tom wrenched the gun from his twitching fingers and dropped to his knees beside Lucy.

‘It's okay, it's okay, it's me,' he said, stroking her face and smoothing her hair.

‘Tom . . .'

He felt the bite of her fingernails through his shirt when she clung to him.

‘My little hellcat.'

Pyotr was alive, but only just. He lay on the floor of the kitchen, bleeding from a stomach wound.

‘He saw them coming,' he mumbled apologetically. ‘He was too quick for me.'

Walter tore off his own shirt and pressed it to the wound, stemming the flow of blood as best he could.

Commissaire Roche had one of his men bring the car up to the farmhouse and they loaded Pyotr into the back. The nearest hospital was in Hyères. Roche insisted on driving.

‘Call the hospital and tell them we'll be twenty minutes.'

‘Don't let him die.'

‘Just make the call, Mr Nash.'

‘Consider it done, Commissaire.'

After the sudden eruption of violence, there was something surreal about the silence which blew in on the back of Roche's departure. There was certainly no elation, no punching the air in victory. They stood there for a moment in the courtyard, spent shell cartridges glinting at their feet, then Tom led them off around the building to the cluster of cypresses.

The big Russian had expired. Irina was still un conscious, her white cotton slacks now stained a bright crimson above her left knee. Tom checked for a pulse.

‘Who is she?' asked Walter.

‘Irina Bibikov.'

‘You're not serious,' said Leonard. ‘It's her.'

Lucy stared, unbelieving.

‘Sorry to bust in,' said Walter, ‘but who the hell is Irina Bibikov?'

‘Someone I knew a long time ago.'

‘We thought she was dead,' added Leonard.

‘She will be if you don't stop that bleeding.'

Tom was rigging up a tourniquet with the dead Russian's belt when they received a visitor: the local
garde champêtre
on his bicycle. He had been alerted to the gunfire by some residents of the nearby village and had come to investigate, though not with any great enthusiasm. Roche's deputy took the matter in hand, sending the man away with instructions to return with the local doctor as quickly as possible.

Irina still hadn't come round by the time Tom scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the farmhouse, out of the heat.

‘Jeez, you must have really clouted her,' said Walter.

Tom was laying her on the sofa in the parlour when the phone rang.

‘Don't answer it!' he shouted, remembering now that Irina was waiting on a call from General Zakharov.

He was too late. Leonard had already picked up the receiver in the entrance hall. Tom snatched it from him.

‘Who is this?' came a man's voice in Russian, calm and authoritative.

‘General Zakharov, Comrade Bibikov asks that you call back in twenty minutes.'

Twenty minutes to bring Irina around and persuade her to play along. If Zakharov could only be persuaded to keep the rendezvous in Italy, Tom could finish it there.

There was a drawn-out silence on the other end of the line. When the man spoke again, it was in English.

‘She isn't Irina Bibikov any more . . . not since 1919.'

There were to be no long years of unshadowed happiness, free of fear. That realization rendered Tom mute.

Zakharov filled the void. ‘You are a hard man to kill. Don't stop running.'

It was the easy hubris in the voice that spurred him to respond.

‘There's a difference, Zakharov . . . I know where you are. And you'd better hope I don't find you first.'

Zakharov dismissed the threat with an amused grunt.

‘Your brother didn't see it coming, but you will,' said Tom darkly. ‘Because I want you to know it was me.'

The speed with which the line went dead offered a degree of satisfaction.

Less gratifying were the expressions which confronted him when he hung up the receiver. Leonard, Walter and Lucy were all regarding him with an unsettling mix of surprise and concern.

The metamorphosis, he realized, was almost complete.

There was barely anything left to distinguish him from the man he used to be.

Walter dug up a bottle of cheap brandy in the kitchen – ‘To settle my goddamn nerves.'

They drank it out of tea cups, raising a toast to Pyotr and a prayer to God.

Walter made Tom feel the lump on the back of his skull where he'd been clubbed senseless in the trees while trailing Tom home from the party. On coming to, he had hurried to Villa Martel. Finding it deserted, he had then gone and woken up Leonard. Venetia had become hysterical, inconsolable, when it became clear that Lucy was also missing.

Leonard's contact at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs wasn't too pleased about being roused from his bed in the middle of the night. Neither was Commissaire Roche when he received the call from his superior in Paris telling him to hightail it over to Le Rayol with as many men as he could muster.