The Bear's Tears (33 page)

"It's very good of you to take the time to see me," he offered
again
to Miss Dawson's bobbing back. "I realise I must be intruding."

"Must you?" Miss Dawson replied, turning to face him. "What
could
you imagine so occupies me that a visitor would be unwelcome?" Her blue
eyes twinkled. Her dentures were falsely white, but displayed in a
genuine, almost mischievous smile. He wondered whether it would be
wrong, even patronising, to feel regret for her that she had never
married.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

She completed her ministrations at the bird table and came
towards
him. Almost at once, a robin appeared on the table. Two yellow-breasted
tits followed it, dangling at once from the slightly swinging bag of
nuts. A red plastic mesh. Sparrows landed. Miss Dawson turned and
contemplated the scene for a moment like a satisfied Saviour, then
ushered him indoors as if she had only that moment realised it was
snowing and he was bareheaded.

"Coffee - cocoa?" she asked, gesturing him to one of the upright
kitchen chairs. He lowered himself onto it, aware of his hip. Its
aching, its stabs of pain had returned with renewed vigour, it seemed,
since his decision to rehabilitate himself with his wife and
Babbington; as if he wore his conscience in a holster on that hip.

"Coffee would be fine," he said. Miss Dawson had studied his
awkward
movements.

"You should have the operation," she murmured, fussing with a
non-stick saucepan at the stove. "I did - both hips."

"Yes, I should," he replied. The conversation aged him
-something
did, at least. "Maybe after the summer…"

She poured milk into the saucepan. The gas plopped alight. She
removed her gumboots and coat and headscarf, patting her grey hair into
shape. Her eyes were bright and sharp.

"You want to talk about dear Robert Castleford - presumably
because
of the newspapers yesterday?" He nodded. He was wary of the incisive
tone in her voice. "I feel so sorry for your wife," she added like a
warning. "How can I help you?"

He was silent for a moment, then spread his hands on the surface
of
the kitchen table. A check cloth which matched the curtains. Then he
blurted, only partly acting: "I -I have to know the truth. You see, I
have been a friend of - of Kenneth Aubrey for some time - married to
Castleford's daughter, you can imagine my dilemma… ?" He looked up into
her face, which was pursed and narrow and studious.

"I see. You're an American, Mr Massinger?" she asked with what
seemed like keen relevance.

"Yes."

"A dilemma?" She seemed contemptuous. "I don't see why. What
does
your wife say?"

"She - doesn't know what to think."

"You can tell her from me, then, that your friend Kenneth Aubrey
probably - almost certainly - did murder her father!"

Massinger was startled by the wizened, malevolent look on Miss
Dawson's face. It was as if she had thrown off some harmless disguise
with her scarf and boots. Now she was the wicked queen with the
poisoned apple, not the old woman with the sweet voice. Massinger
guessed she had carried some kind of torch for Castleford; one
evidently still burning.

"How - how can you be certain of that?" he asked. "So
certain after all this time?" Miss Dawson had her back to him, lifting
the milk from the stove, pouring it into two round, daubed mugs.

"Sugar?" she asked brightly, disconcertingly.

"Please - one."

She returned with the mugs and sat down.

"How can I be certain?" she repeated immediately. "How can I be
certain? Because the two of them quarrelled all the time, whenever they
met. Because Aubrey hated Mr Castleford - hated his success, hated his
importance, his charm, everything about him, in fact." Massinger sipped
his hot coffee after stirring the sugar. There was something pat and
even rehearsed about the woman's outburst. Nevertheless, he could not
ignore it. He could not even regard it as part of the play in which he
was acting for Babbington's benefit; for the traitor's benefit, too.
The man in Guernsey had believed it - Miss Dawson did, too. Why?
"Aubrey had no respect for the rules, Mr Massinger - but I expect you
know that. From past experience, if you're a friend." Massinger merely
shrugged. "He was ambitious. He stood in Mr Castleford's shadow. In
fact, Mr Castleford referred to him as someone too late to fight who
wished the war was still going on. Do you understand that?"

Massinger nodded, studying his coffee. "Yes," he said.
Margaret's
father - had he been like her? The thought had never occurred to him
before, and yet it now seemed crucial to the whole business. If he had
been —? "Was he a gentle man?" he asked suddenly, unable to contain the
question.

"Mr Castleford? Yes - considerate, kind, appreciative. Charming,
of
course, ambitious, full of energy… but he would never ride roughshod
over anyone… a real gentleman, of the old school. Class, of course -
breeding will out, as they say."

The woman seemed to have changed once more, to have revealed
unexpected origins and prejudices. She looked up to Castleford, always
had done. She was a snob on his behalf, even now. Yet, she made the man
seem like Margaret.

What if he had been? How could he have been the kind of man
Aubrey
could have ignored, or accepted? He would have been the kind of man to
awaken jealousies, to have created in Aubrey, perhaps, the dark side of
a triangle? Massinger felt breathless with the quick thoughts as they
crowded in on him, lay on his chest like weights. He sipped more coffee.

"So - you think he might have been murdered by Kenneth Aubrey?"
Massinger asked heavily.

"I most certainly do," she answered vehemently. "Please tell
your
wife I'm convinced of it. If the knowledge will do her any good. It
must be very distressing for her."

"It is, yes." He looked up. "But why would he have done it?"

She was silent for a long time, and then she sighed. "I might as
well admit it," she said. "You've no doubt guessed for yourself. I was
in love with Robert Castleford. Deeply in love. I was thirty,
attractive and efficient. But —"

"He thought of you as someone who worked for him?"

She nodded. A lock of grey hair fell across her forehead where
the
face powder was visible in the furrows of her brow.

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "He never noticed me - in that
way.
Her, yes, but not me."

"You mean —?"

"Yes. That German woman on the make. Securing her future. She
moved
fairly rapidly from Aubrey to Mr Castleford - after all, he could do
more for her, couldn't he?" Her face was again wizened with malice.
Thirty-seven years later, she had no intention of forgiving Clara
Elsenreith.

"I see. She was Castleford's mistress, then. You're
certain of that? After she had known Aubrey?" Miss Dawson nodded. The
lock of hair bobbed vehemently. Her small body was pinched in, hunched
with anger, with forever unpurged jealousy. Beware the green-eyed
monster…

Yet he could understand it, sense the power of that emotion. He
had
known it in high school, even in college. He did not imagine he had
grown out of it like a species of acne; rather, he had had no cause.
But, if someone took Margaret… ?

"You're certain?" he asked again. "Certain she was… ?"

Miss Dawson nodded once more. "Yes," she repeated, tight-lipped.
"Yes. He - he told me about her, about her coming to him."

"Told you?"

Miss Dawson's cheeks flushed. She looked down. "I was
eavesdropping.
I overheard - he was telling one of his colleagues, a grubby-minded
little man who asked him straight out… he told him. Told him he'd taken
that woman away from Aubrey, even…" She did not continue. After a
while, she said: "I dropped something in the next room. After that, the
door was closed and their voices were lower. I didn't hear anything
else."

Massinger inhaled. The noise sounded like a windy groan. He
studied
Miss Dawson's face. He had found the utterly unexpected in a place he
had entered with closed eyes, looking for nothing. No more than a stop
on an easy journey of deception. He was drawn towards believing Miss
Dawson's evidence, even discounting her jealousy, her admiration for
Castleford, her dislike for Aubrey and the woman. She had overheard.
Castleford had stolen the woman from Aubrey.

"Aubrey was angry?"

"There was a blazing quarrel a few days later. I didn't hear
what it
was about, but I was told there were threats. Mr Castleford seemed very
upset, very worried, during the rest of the day - for days afterwards."
She swallowed. "Until the time he disappeared, in fact."

"Aubrey threatened him?"

"Yes."

"Because of the woman?" His voice was urgent. He could not avoid
adding: "This is very important to me."

"What else could it have been? Mr Castleford was very, very
worried."

Massinger finished his coffee. He felt he must leave, must have
time
to think. He stood up unceremoniously.

"Thank you for your time," he said. "Thank you for the coffee.
I'm
sorry to have troubled you."

"Have I helped?" she asked.

"I - don't know," he admitted. "Perhaps you have. Well, goodbye,
Miss Dawson — no, don't worry, I'll see myself out. Once again, thank
you."

The woman watched him turn away and exit from the kitchen. She
listened and, when the front door shut firmly behind him, her body
twitched slightly at the noise. She continued to listen, as if for
whispers in the air, and nodded when she heard a car start then
accelerate away from the cottage.

She sighed, and unbuttoned her cardigan. She untaped the tiny
microphone from her waist, and unwound its lead. She smiled as she
looked at it and, before laying it on the table, she said: "I hope that
was satisfactory? I'm sure he now seriously doubts Aubrey's innocence."

Sir Andrew Babbington shunted the folded sheaf of German morning
newspapers to one side of his desk. Eldon watched the firm, satisfied
expression on his superior's features. Most of the German nationals had
taken up the story of Gunther Guillaume and 1974 from the previous
day's Sunday Times and had treated it fully, speculatively,
and with unanimous though veiled accusation of Aubrey for his part in
the Guillaume scandal. As Eldon had firmly believed, since
Teardrop
first broke, Aubrey was the mole in British Intelligence who had tried
to warn the East German double agent of his impending arrest. There
hadn't been smoke without fire.

"Nothing new, I'm afraid," Babbington commented. "However, it's
of
minor importance."

"Sir?"

"1974 - not our main concern, Eldon."

"With respect, sir - I really think we should go after it. Full
cooperation of the BfV… ?" Babbington was already shaking his head.
Eldon kept his features expressionless, immobile. On his thighs, his
knuckles whitened. Damn it, Babbington simply couldn't see it!

"I don't think so, Eldon. What we might happen to dig up
wouldn't be
worth the effort, in all probability. No, let's go with what we have,
as they say. The last two years, Aubrey's period of real
activity. And, for my personal satisfaction and for the sake of Robert
Castleford's ghost - find that damned woman who was involved with both
of them in Berlin!"

"I would have thought she wasn't our main concern, Sir Andrew,"
Eldon observed without inflection.

Babbington studied his features, his nostrils closing and
dilating
with suppressed anger. "No?" he enquired lightly.

"What can she know?"

"Who murdered Robert Castleford, for example?" The sarcasm was
evident. Babbington looked immediately at his watch. "I have to see the
Foreign Secretary at eleven." Eldon could see a masked smile lifting
the corners of Babbington's mouth. Also present at that meeting would
be Sir William Guest as Chairman of JIC and the Home Secretary. That
small group of men would ratify the establishment of the new Security
and Intelligence Directorate and confirm Babbington as its first
Director-General. Babbington was less than an hour from absolute secret
power.

Eldon felt no envy for the man; merely a thankfulness that SIS
would
at last be under the aegis of the security service and no longer a
maverick organisation; in future, its work would be properly
supervised. And Eldon felt profoundly grateful that they had uncovered
Teardrop
- Aubrey. The damage he had been able to do was not irreversible,
not conclusive in all probability. It might take a year or two, but
they would weed out everyone who had worked with him and alter the
organisation's structure sufficiently to render his betrayals
relatively harmless.

Yes, it was a consummation to be profoundly thankful for.

"Very well. Sir Andrew," he replied. "What about Shelley and
Paul
Massinger?"

"Mm." It was evident that Babbington had already made his
decision
and was simply pretending to muse. "I'm pretty certain that Shelley
will be a good boy in future. I think he has been somewhat misled by
old loyalties… and of course, Massinger has been subjecting him to
pressure." Babbington steepled his fingers, elbows on his desk. "As for
Massinger, his conversation with Miss Dawson has left him seriously in
doubt. I think we can predict he will drop the matter very soon. He's
beginning to believe that Aubrey did the dirty deed, after all."

"You're certain of that, Sir Andrew?"

"No, Eldon, I'm not certain. I simply don't think we need do
very
much more. There is no need for us to make the whole thing more messy
than it is by precipitate action. Massinger doesn't want to lose his
wife. Anything that persuades him, or helps to persuade him, that
Aubrey is guilty of her father's murder, will be clutched to his bosom
only too eagerly. Just let the matter take its course."