The Bear's Tears (11 page)

The noise in the room slowly stilled, as if every guest had been
caught in the fine mesh of the melody - or because they wished to
overhear the catalogue of Sir William's bribes.

"And that Royal Commission," Sir William continued, "just the sort
of thing you should be seen to be doing at the moment." He drained his
glass and added: "Schubert - overrated, I'm afraid. Far too flighty for
me." The bellicose laugh moved away with him, into the crowded room.

Massinger finished his wine, and listened. The room applauded as the
song ended, and there were calls for others - Mozart arias which the
singer would be wise not to attempt, Schubert again, Wolf, Victorian
fireside ballards. Massinger propelled himself through his wife's
guests in search of the Aloxe-Corton. A young man hired for the evening
by Stephens, the butler, refilled his glass. He turned towards the
sound of the soprano, now singing a modern pop song.
The way we
were
. She followed Streisand's floating and swooping more than
adequately.

The KGB Rezident at the Soviet embassy was standing in front of him,
smiling and raising a glass of cognac in salute.

"Pavel!" Massinger exclaimed in surprise, almost with pleasure.
Pavel, ostensibly the Russian Cultural Attache, was usually drunk at
social gatherings, and often amusing. Massinger had found him attached,
even bound, to Margaret's musical and cultural set almost from the time
he had met her. Everyone seemed to know his real position. Massinger
believed that Pavel used Margaret's parties and occasions not for
intelligence-gathering but for relaxation, under the pretence to his
masters, no doubt, that important people, people with secrets and with
influence, frequented Margaret's
salon
.

"Paul, my good friend!" Pavel exclaimed thickly. It was evident that
he was drunk again. Yet he was neither aggressive nor morose in his
cups. Only louder; the Russian beneath the Party man.

The girl in the next room caressed past and present without touching
them.

"You're enjoying yourself, Pavel?" Massinger enquired archly,
nodding at the brandy balloon.

"Of course, of course! Your parties are always splendid -splendid!
So good for spying!" He burst into laughter again. His English was
good, cosmopolitan and assured like his slim figure and expensive
clothes. He was urbane, amusing, passionate. His appearance was
deceptive, and Massinger suspected the ambitious Party functionary
beneath the silk shirt and the skin. Pavel drank more cognac, then
passed his glass to the young man. It was generously refilled. More
applause, then immediately another Schubert song, one of overblown
romantic longing.

I have that, Massinger told himself. I have achieved what that song
aches for. The sensation was warming, like drink. Pavel silently
toasted Massinger once more then ostentatiously sniffed the cognac and
sighed with pleasure. And I daren't risk losing it, Massinger added to
himself.

"Did you enjoy the opera?" he asked.

"Enjoy - what is
enjoy
? It is - so pale, so Western, my
friend. I lived it,
lived
it!"

"Good for you."

"And this song is like the opera, mm? So unreal. A romantic dream."
Massinger had forgotten that Pavel spoke German as well as French and
English. "Operas of power interest me more. Like Wagner. Though I trust
you not to report me to the Central Committee for my pro-Nazi
sentiments!" He roared with laughter, creating little whirlpools of
re-assumed conversation as guests were distracted from the singing in
the next room.

"Power - yes," Massinger murmured. Then he saw Margaret at the door,
having detached herself from the party around the piano. Her finger
made circulating motions in the air, and he nodded, smiling. He was
neglecting his duties as host. Escort, he thought, might have been a
more accurate description. Nevertheless —

"And falls from power," Pavel added as Massinger was on the point of
excusing himself. "Like that of your poor friend Aubrey."

He watched Pavel's eyes. Slightly glazed, the pupils enlarged. His
trim figure was unsteady, beginning to rock with the current of the
alcohol.

"Yes."

"Tears, idle tears," Pavel quoted.

"Quite." Massinger's back felt cold, his mind as icy as the pendants
of the chandelier above them. "Maybe we ought to shed tears, even for
an enemy?"

Pavel shook his head and spread his arms. Cognac slopped onto his
wrist, staining the cuff of his white silk shirt. His face was red.
Then he laughed.

"Not one," he said, vehemently. "Not one for him. These people here
aren't crying. Why should I - why should we?" He laughed again.
"They've abandoned him, haven't they?"

"I'm afraid they have, Pavel." Then Massinger said, quickly and
lightly, "But you should mourn him as one of yours - surely?"

Pavel's eyes cleared, hardened into black points. Then he laughed
once more, with genuine amusement. "I heard all about his arrest, you
know," he said. "From my - colleague in Vienna. My opposite number
there tells a most amusing story - quite anecdotal." His features
sharpened around his gleaming eyes. Massinger sensed triumph exuded
like an odour. His arm waved his glass around the room. Massinger
tensed himself for revelation. Pavel was on the point of indiscretion,
already certain of Aubrey's fate. "Aubrey has been gathered in like a
good harvest," he said. "My colleague saw his face, at the moment of
his
arrest. Quite, quite crestfallen! It must have been so dreadfully
embarrassing for poor Aubrey," he added venomously.

"Yes," Massinger said after a long silence. Why am I doing this? he
asked himself. I have abandoned him, too.

Pavel raised his glass once more, and murmured something inaudible.
He knows all about it, Massinger recited to himself. He knows. His -
the Vienna Rezident was
there
… ? He wanted to shake the
truth from the Russian. Instead, he raised his own glass and left
Pavel, who seemed complacent at his own indiscretion, unworried. His
indifference had to spring from complete and utter confidence. And it
was as if he had needed to tell, to boast of it to a man who had been
Aubrey's friend…
and
, as Pavel must know, had abandoned him
in company with everyone else. Massinger felt nausea rise into his
throat.

If only I could make him talk, make him tell, Massinger thought. If
only I could - he knows it's all faked, that it's a set-up - he knows
what's going on… The Vienna Rezident
saw
it all.

He realised that he had left the party, glass in hand, and had
walked through the dressing-room into their bedroom. He studied his
glass, his reflection in the dressing-table mirrors, and his swirling
thoughts, and decided he would not return to the drawing-room
immediately. He sighed, and looked at his watch. A masochistic urge
prompted him to turn on the portable television on the table opposite
the bed. He sat down, hearing the slither of silk beneath his buttocks.
Soft lights glowed upon silver brushes, crystal jewellery trays, pale
hangings, deep carpet. A late news magazine programme bloomed on the
screen.

He could not believe what he saw. Aubrey, in front of a monkey cage.
A tall, bulky man standing next to him. Summer, blue sky. A distant,
hidden camera.

"… film sold to RTF, the French broadcasting service, which purports
to show the head of British Intelligence and his Soviet controller
during one of their meetings. The French television service have
refused to name the supplier of the film…" Massinger was stunned. He
saw his blank face and open mouth in a mirror. An idiot's
expressionless features. "… Foreign Office has tonight refused to
comment on the veracity or otherwise of the film. We have been unable
to confirm the identities of the two men…"

It was Aubrey. Body, head, build, profile, full-face - Aubrey. And
the other was Kapustin, no doubt…
Teardrop
himself. He moved
quickly to the television set and switched it off, almost wrenching at
the controls. An image of Pavel's satisfied, confident features floated
in front of his eyes, then melted and reformed into the features of Sir
William, then Babbington and then the others, followed by Aubrey's
shrunken, defeated old face. Finally, the professional mask of the
driver of the blue Cortina.

They had him now. Aubrey. Tape, film, public exposure, trial by
television and newspapers. They had wrecked him. Anger rose like a wave
of nausea in Massinger.

He moved into the dressing-room, piled with coats and umbrellas and
raincoats and furs and capes. He picked up the telephone swiftly and
dialled Peter Shelley's number. The tone summoned, again and again.
Massinger perspired impatiently, guiltily. Sir William's face appeared
again in front of his eyes, but then he saw Margaret - a multiple image
of her face that afternoon, before she left him and Babbington alone,
and her face that evening,
glowing
.

He felt sick with betrayal.

"Come on, come on —!" he urged, as if afraid that the new and
unexpected determination would desert him, seep away down the telephone
line. "Come on." His head kept swivelling towards the door.

Why, why? he asked himself. Why am I calling?

"Yes?" Shelley answered. He sounded the worse for drink.

"Have you seen the late news programme?" Massinger demanded.

"Yes." Shelley's voice was young and bitter, almost sulky. "What do
you want?"

Massinger knew he was poised above a chasm. All he had was an anger
caused by some faked film and the smug, insulting, deliberate
indiscretions of a KGB Rezident - and threats and bribes. They did not
seem to justify this - this
commitment
. His shame had been
revitalised, but, even as he had dialled Shelley's number, bribery and
love had reappeared to restrain him. Then he leapt over the chasm.

His old debt to Aubrey gave him some of the energy he needed to make
that leap. But anger, pure hot rage, finally drove him. They had
threatened
him
, threatened his future with Margaret, his happiness with her…
Babbington and Guest. Threat and bribe. Stick and carrot… and he had
been prepared to go along, to begin to forget…
and it was a lie
!
Pavel knew that —! Buried professional instincts, wider loyalties than
the personal one to Aubrey, began to surface. He thought of Margaret,
hesitated, swallowed, clenched his free hand. Then he said, "I want
that file tomorrow."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Shelley asked haughtily.

"Never mind. Tomorrow, at eleven. Meet me outside — outside the
Imperial War Museum - yes?"

"I - I'll have to have the file back by one."

"You will. Just be there, Peter. It's very important."

"Have you heard from Hyde?"

"No - you?"

"No."

"I'll talk to the woman again tomorrow. Now, good night."

The door opened as he put down the receiver. His hand jumped away
from it as from an electric current. He automatically adjusted his tie
in the cheval-glass before turning. Margaret stood there, with Pavel.

"Pavel wanted to say good night," she announced. The noise of the
party swelled through the open door behind them. Her hand was on the
Russian's arm like the touch of a fellow-conspirator. Yet it was he who
was the real conspirator, the real traitor.

"Good night, Pavel."

"Good night, my friend - good night, and thank you."

Pavel turned away as he approached, poised to be escorted to the
door. Then Massinger said, before he could weigh or recall the words:
"Not one teardrop, Pavel?"

The KGB Rezident's shoulders stiffened. Then he turned a bland and
smiling face to him.

"Perhaps just one," he said. There was an amusement in his eyes.
Then he laughed. "No, I really must be going." He held out his hand.
"Take care, my friend." The warning was precise. "Take good care of
yourself. Good night, Margaret."

His handshake was firm and hot. He pecked Margaret's cheek, and was
gone. Massinger closed the door behind him. The noise of the party
loudened. His head had begun to beat. Impulsively, he put his arms
around Margaret and pulled her to him, holding her tightly against him.

Eventually, she pulled gently away, smiling.
Glowing
, he
thought once more with black, ashy bitterness.

"Back to the party for you," she instructed humorously. "You're
becoming much too self-indulgent."

She took his hand, and led him back towards the drawing-room.

God, he thought with the fervency of prayer, don't let me hurt her.
Don't let me lose her - don't let me hurt or lose her…

"Hyde?"

The word seemed to hang somewhere in the air between London and
Vienna. The static and distance seemed like eavesdroppers. Paul
Massinger hunched over the telephone receiver in the woman's flat as if
to conceal his voice and movements from prying ears and eyes.

The call from the woman, Ros, had come while he was shaving. The
dressing-room extension had been nearest; the receiver of betrayals. He
had picked it up fumblingly with a wet hand, the mouthpiece immediately
whitened by his shaving foam. He had been aware, like a fear along his
spine, of Margaret's still-sleeping presence in the bedroom. The call
had not woken her.

The woman had persuaded Hyde to talk to Massinger, when could he
come… ? Would ten —? Hyde seemed nervous, on edge, wanted to talk to
him urgently… He had swallowed all betrayals, all fears, and agreed to
come to Earl's Court before ten.

… to sit in a large room decorated in deep warm colours, the walls
of which were hung with prints of Australian landscapes, often bleached
and bleak, his body already half-turned to the telephone beside the
sofa, anticipating the call.

He had seen no blue Cortina; he had seen no other tail. They had
accepted his surrender, they did not guess at this renewed rebellion.
Betrayal…