The Bear's Tears (35 page)

Even the thought that he and Margaret would be as they had been
-
before all this business, before his visit to Aubrey - paled into
insignificance beside the betrayal that Aubrey's probable guilt
represented. Aubrey - of all people, of all crimes, Aubrey
—?

He could not move from the car. Wearily, with limbs weighted
with
the gravity of some huge, malignant planet, he wiped at the clouded
windscreen.

Hyde, he thought, but the thought lost shape, tailed off. Hyde —?

Probably dead.

The traitor —?

Unidentified.

Himself—?

He saw the concepts as words, and they appeared to him as
clearly
and as robbed of significance as if they had flickered onto a computer
screen. And his answers were similarly robbed of importance. They were
the mechanical answers of a computer.

Himself —?

Safe…

Yes, safe. He could cross the crescent, enter his flat, greet
his
wife, eat lunch after a dry sherry, then ring Babbington with a clear,
satisfied conscience.

A few minutes, many words, an honourable draw. Everyone
satisfied.
No shame to him - Aubrey probably had done it, for whatever mad and
jealous reasons.

Margaret would take him back. That was another of Massinger's
certainties.

Then, get out of the car…

He felt weak. The facades of Wilton Crescent beckoned. My
God -
Aubrey had almost managed to destroy everything, everything he had ever
cared for, everything that gave meaning —
A
grey pigeon settled on the windowsill of his drawing-room. Four feet
from it, on the interior wall, two original Turners hung, one above the
other. They had been behind Babbington's head, early on in this
business —

Now, he would possess them again. Possess Margaret, know peace.

Get out of the car.

The pigeon lifted heavily from the windowsill, gained height,
seemed
to become slimmer, more streamlined, rose and flew against the grey sky.

He opened the door and climbed out of the Granada with a fresher
resolve. Yes, all would be well —

He locked the door and began to cross the crescent. He looked up
at
the window of the drawing-room. There was a face - old, rich Miss
Waggoner - at one of the windows of the next flat, and then there was
Margaret's face at the correct and expected window. He could not resist
waving. Her hand fluttered next to her ear, then it touched her mouth
as if she regretted the involuntary action and was remembering the past
week. He waved again, hurrying forward, stick tapping ahead of him. He
did not look down at his feet as he had become accustomed to doing, but
kept his gaze on the window, on her face. Younger lover, much younger,
arriving - he should have bought flowers, wished he had now that the
black moments were past and he had abandoned that guilty old man.

Her eyes flickered away from him, then returned. Her mouth - he
could see it quite clearly, opening into a black round O - seemed to be
trying to warn him —

Noise of a car, fierce acceleration.

Noise of a car, getting nearer, some youthful, trained
part
of his awareness warned him.

He turned his head.

The distinct image of a dark blue Cortina - dark blue
Cortina - and
a stabbing, reluctant pain in his hip. Awareness of the polished handle
of his stick, firmly in his grasp. Awareness of being stranded in the
middle of Wilton Crescent. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten yards.

The blur of a cat racing across the road, disappearing beneath
the
wheels of the Cortina, not even a lurch from the car, nothing but the
scream of the cat. He looked helplessly up at the round dark hole of
Margaret's mouth, knowing she had begun to scream, as if expecting her
in some way to help him, alter his circumstances. Then he hobbled,
lurched, staggered, fell, rolled…

The Cortina's flank bounced away from the stronger coachwork of
a
Rolls. An oncoming small red Renault had swerved into the kerb,
squashing its already blunt nose against the boot of a low sports car.
Massinger lay in the gutter, blood from a graze filling his left eye.
His right eye blurred with tears or sweat as he watched, almost from
beneath the front wheels of the Rolls, the professional face in the
Cortina. Jagged, crumpled bodywork was close enough to his face to be
out of focus.

Too many people, already too many people. His hip ached
infernally,
as if someone had tried to wrench off his leg. His arm and shoulder
were bruised against the Rolls - the silver lady had torn the sleeve of
his raincoat - and he had grazed his forehead. But he was alive, and —

The professional face studied him for a moment. The moment
elongated, and Massinger began to realise, foggily, that he was not
safe, it was not over. The driver's window began to open, rolling down
slowly, taking away the superimposition of the white fagade of his flat
and leaving only the expressionless face.

A gun?

Then the scene was blocked out; someone was kneeling by the
front
wheel of the Rolls, between his body and the man in the Cortina. A
man's knee, a neighbour's voice murmuring something shocked and
solicitous. He wanted to warn the man, then felt all energy and tension
drain from him as the Cortina's engine revved furiously, the tyres
squealed, and the car pulled away round the curve of the crescent.

He nodded in reply to whatever the man had said. Then he could
see
again. He watched the neighbour's feet move away. Beyond the cramped
perspective of the chassis of the Rolls, he saw the man kneel
anxiously, even gravely, by the squashed form of the cat. It was the
neighbour's cat, he recognised it now.

The woman who had been driving the small Renault was complaining
to
a gathering audience in a high, shrill, enraged voice. Massinger
groaned with relief.

He looked up into Margaret's face as she touched the graze on
his
forehead. He grabbed feverishly at her hand, holding it to his cheek,
pressing his face against her palm. He groaned again, with realisation.

"What is it - darling, what was happening…?"

He shook his head. "Help me up, dear." She took some of his
weight.
He levered himself up on the stick she handed him, jamming it like a
vaulting pole into the angle of the gutter. He felt dizzy for a moment,
someone unnoticed murmured an enquiry which Margaret fended off. She
helped him across the pavement, up the three steps into the house.
Someone else had the ground floor, a film producer hardly ever in
residence, and the first and second floors belonged to Margaret - to
them,
he corrected himself.

He allowed his body to press against her as they climbed the
stairs
to the first floor. Lovers, returning…

He sighed, cursed in a whisper.

"Are you hurt?" Margaret asked. "Shall I call Dr Evans?"

He shook his head. "No. I - I just realised that nothing's
changed."

"Oh, God —!" she breathed fiercely.

"It wasn't an accident."

She thrust open the door of the flat. "I - realised that," she
announced with difficulty. "Here, take off that raincoat. I'll get some
hot water and iodine. Any other damage?" She was a bluff, competent
nurse; playing a role with narrow horizons for the sake of a moment's
respite.

She directed him into the drawing-room. "Have some whisky. I
won't
be a moment." She pressed his hand fiercely, then released it, and
disappeared into the bedroom. Massinger looked up the stairs to the
second floor and his study, as if needing music more than a drink, but
then he went into the drawing-room.

He clattered the decanter against the glass as he poured a large
whisky. He swallowed greedily, coughed, and straightened his aching
body against the sideboard. He breathed slowly and deeply a number of
times.

They wouldn't let go. Shelley had been wrong, he had
been
wrong, to believe the illusion of escape. He knew too much, even though
he knew little. He could talk. Someone, eventually, might listen.

He was safer dead.

Margaret was at his side. The iodine stung like his thoughts,
bringing tears. The whisky warmed his chest and stomach. Minutes later,
they were studying each other across a space of carpet, each perched on
the edges of their chairs like people in a strange room, peasants who
had uncomfortably inherited a palace. Margaret's hands quarrelled with
each other in her lap, mirroring some internal struggle. Except for her
hands, and a stray lock of blonde hair, she possessed the midday
appearance of a woman of her background and wealth; groomed, confident,
desirable.

But vulnerable, now, like himself.

"I - almost believe —" he began.

"What happened?" she blurted at the same moment.

Exchanged smiles turning to worry on her part, lack of resolve
on
his. She gestured to him to continue. Instead, he answered her question.

The smell of iodine, suggesting wounds…

"They tried to kill me."

"Who - for God's sake, darling, who?" There was no longer any
barrier between them. He had come home, but not by the route he had
planned.

"I don't know. Whoever believes I know too much."

"Do you?"

He shook his head. "I don't think I do. I've met Hyde in Vienna,
but
he knew nothing except that Vienna Station, in full or in part, is
working for the Russians."

Her eyes seemed to resist the secret world for a moment, then
she
merely nodded. She wished to be counted in, a convert.

"Go on."

"They tried to kill him."

"Where is he now?"

"Afghanistan - but I don't know whether he's alive or dead."

"But-you?"

"There's someone," he began, "someone high up, in this country's
intelligence service, and it isn't Kenneth Aubrey —" He raised his hand
to still protest, but there was little reaction to the name on
Margaret's face. Her white hands had stopped their fitful quarrel.
"Someone who is a Russian agent - someone who's afraid of Hyde and me
being on Aubrey's side…" He sighed. "I'll tell you everything I know,"
he said.

She listened without interruption. Aubrey, Vienna, Helsinki,
Oxfordshire. Once or twice, when the subject of her father appeared
like a broken bone through skin, her features winced or pursed.
Otherwise she was expressionless, her eyes fixed on Massinger, her
fears for him more evident than any other concern. Occasionally, her
hands resumed their conflict in her lap, on the light blue and grey of
her skirt.

He announced, after a final pause: "Obviously, they'll kill me
unless I can find out who they are. Who he is." Then he
sipped at the remainder of his whisky. His throat was dry with speech,
and with renewed fear. He had explained it all to her in unemotional
terms, with simple clarity. Now, having so carefully and clearly laid
out the parts of the puzzle, he saw that it possessed more potency,
more ability to frighten than a crowd of vague, unformed premonitions
or nightmares.

It was strange, he thought, that when he told her he had begun
to
believe Aubrey guilty of Castleford's murder, she had shown little in
the way of expression. He had paused to allow her to comment, but she
had done no more than wave him on with his narrative. Now, as he waited
for her to speak, she studied him for a long time in silence. Her
cheeks seemed blanched beneath the make-up, and there was a small,
close-knitted frown above her nose. Then she stood up, crossed to the
sideboard, and poured herself a drink. She returned to his chair and
stood by it - as she had done a week ago when Alistair Burnet had
stunned them with the news of Aubrey's arrest and the accusations
against him, and her father's face had filled the television screen.

She clutched his hand. He did not look up. He felt the tremor
running through her grip, and squeezed her fingers. She shook his hand
gently. He heard the tumbler touch against her teeth as she drank from
it.

"What do we do, then?" she asked.

He sighed. She shook his hand gently once more. He was indeed
home.
But he had returned to find that his home had been transformed into a
fortress in his absence. He was no longer alone, but he had brought,
close behind him, the enemies he had made so that now they threatened
his wife as well as himself.

Using the number of one of Aubrey's credit cards and the
telephone
of a nearby restaurant, Mrs Grey had bought a change of clothes,
underwear, toilet accessories, and a suitcase to contain the purchases.
A friend of hers had picked up the clothes and toiletries and the
suitcase and left them in a locker at Victoria Station, bringing Mrs
Grey the key.

Now, all he had to do was to place himself in conjunction with
his
new and unseen luggage. A ticket to Dover was all that was missing from
his arrangements - no more than a moment at a booking office window. He
had only to slip from the house, find a taxi, get into it, order it to
Victoria, collect the suitcase…

The arrangements revolved again and again in his mind like
something
worrying him while he was still on the edge of sleep. He could not
awaken sufficiently to rid himself of it or solve the puzzle it
presented.

Because such repetition was only a blind, a piece of
self-delusion.
Beneath it lay the extreme difficulty, the practical impossibility, of
leaving his flat unnoticed. Beneath that again in the geology of his
fears lay the enormous and still enlarging sense of his imminent black
ruin; the despair at the possible discovery of his journal before he
could destroy it. Forty-five years of service, almost seventy years of
his life, would be reduced to complete and utter ruin. It had been
good for that man if he had not been bom, his memory had quoted at
him throughout the day. He could not regard such an idea as melodrama,
or exaggerated or out of proportion. He realised that his professional
ruin would mean that much to him. He would, with foreknowledge of it,
have chosen not to begin, not to have existed.