The Bear's Tears (46 page)

Snow, snail-tracks once more on the window, long slow barges,
the
steely river - the barge with the washing, and her words at that point,
just before the barge slipped out of sight beneath and beyond the
bridge… ?

Babbington. Sir Andrew Babbington. The Director-General of MI5.

Read the will, he thought. When the body is discovered in the
library and the rich old lady is pronounced murdered, read the will —
Who has most to gain? Who benefits? Who becomes rich?

He smiled. Margaret's sobs and the soft, coaxing words of her
husband no longer impinged upon him. He felt only an impatience to
study the files.

Babbington… read the will, Inspector, read the will…

Sir Kenneth Aubrey could think of nothing other than the
destruction
of the journal in Clara Elsenreith's possession. The idea of its
continued existence was frightening and painful to him, but all other
thought frightened and pained him more. Beyond the destruction of his
confession to Castleford's murder lay nothing. An empty landscape.
Perhaps he could hide with Clara for days, even weeks. After that,
however, there was nothing. Only his disappearance, an act of willed
disguise, anonymity, denial of his former self. He would have to find
somewhere to skulk as Herr Jones, or Monsieur Smith or Signer Smith or
Senor Jones for the rest of his life. He could never be Kenneth Aubrey
again.

One of the Frenchmen who shared his compartment had removed his
shoes and stretched his legs. His socks smelt in the over-warm, dry
atmosphere. The sleeping child in the farthest corner of the
compartment murmured, shifted. Her mother adjusted her arms about her.
The express was less than an hour from Strasbourg. He would be in
Vienna the following day.

The French newspapers carried nothing concerning his
disappearance
from England. Evidently, it had not been made public. There were
stories, of course; peculiar and witty Gallic cruelties regarding
himself, British Intelligence, Britain itself. But nothing of his
current whereabouts. The secrecy did not comfort him. Instead, he saw
it as a signpost on the road towards his inevitable disappearance into
another identity. Already, the press had lost sight of him, and that
was only the beginning. Unlike the traitors, for him there wasn't even
a Moscow where he could arrive in safety and remain himself.

All he was able to do was to destroy the written evidence of his
guilt. There was nothing better or more or greater to hope for. The
early edition of
France-Soir
,
which he had bought in Paris,
lay still opened on his lap. Mitterand was in London to see the PM
concerning the EEC budget and the CAP - again. He could read the
headline and the caption to the photograph suddenly in the brief,
fleeting lights of a country station. The tired familiarity of the
wrangle hurt with a physical sensation of pain in his chest. He - he,
Kenneth Aubrey, might have been calling to brief the PM not an hour
after the talks with Mitterand had ended - or the next day, or the day
after that…

Now, he would never do that again.

He did not love power - no, he resisted that insinuating
accusation
that popped out of the darkness at the back of his mind. No… but it had
been forty-five years since he had begun to serve his country, since he
had begun to be the person he thought himself to be. Now, he had to
relinquish that country, that person.

Brainwashing experiments, he thought suddenly in an irrational,
unnerving way. Suspension of the body from buoyant slings in tepid
water. In no more than days, one was left with a clean sheet. The utter
absence of physical sensation completely erased the personality. No
memory, no opinions, no person. It had begun to happen to him.

The express rattled over points, swayed, then clicked on into
the
winter night. The lights of another country station. A railway employee
- some guard or porter or station-master or signalman - had watched the
train pass. Aubrey recognised that he might become that anonymous man
past whom the world would rush and disappear into the distance.

Tears pricked his tired eyes. Sleep would not come. The odour of
the
Frenchman's socks mingled with that of half-melted sweets from the
opposite corner of the compartment.

Petrunin's eyes opened. They seemed, impossibly, to fall open
rather
than be revealed by the raising of the eyelids. The man's face was
drawn and grey, but the only visible blood on his face was old and dry.
Hyde's breath escaped in a ragged, elongated moan of relief. The noise
of the helicopter had returned and then had faded once more as he had
sat hunched against the man he thought was dead, his head listening for
some betraying heartbeat against the wetness of Petrunin's blouse. It
had almost stopped snowing. Hyde could see the black sticks of the
nearest stunted trees against the whiteness of the ground. But Petrunin
was alive - just.

"Why?" Hyde said at once, seeing that the Russian's eyes
remained
unfocused, inward-staring. "What was the reason for it?"

Petrunin was silent for a long time. The wind whispered, puffing
snow under the lee of the overhang. Hyde was numb with cold. Then the
Russian muttered in the remote voice that had become familiar to Hyde:
"I don't - want to be remembered as the butcher of Kabul." It was
uninflected, passionless yet full of self-pity. Hyde had not reached
the place where what remained of Petrunin had retreated. "I don't want
to be remembered as the butcher of Kabul," Petrunin repeated exactly.
Hyde did not think it was even a nickname he had been given. He was
describing the state of his self-knowledge.

"Why?" Hyde shouted. "Why did you need
Teardrop?
"

"I was being used, even then," Petrunin said, disconcerting
Hyde.
"In 1941, during the nine hundred days…" His voice tailed off. Hyde had
no idea what he meant. "Even then, scouting, carrying messages… I was
no more than a boy - thirteen when the war began… they've had me in
their pockets since I was thirteen… since Leningrad…"

Hyde was chilled by this glimpse into Petrunin's past. As little
more than a boy, he had experienced the privations and terrors of the
German siege of Leningrad which had last nine hundred days.

"Yes," he said.

"In their pockets… their man, their thing …"

"But - why?"

Something reminded Hyde to attend to the reality beyond the tiny
huddle of himself and Petrunin. Silence, except for the quiet soughing
of the wind. The snow was still falling, but more lightly. He could not
hear the helicopter's rotors.

Petrunin did not answer his question. Instead, his cold, remote
voice said, "Leningrad…" It was a sigh. Its meaning had become a
talisman for Petrunin which perhaps protected him against memories of
the more recent past. Hyde felt himself totally identified with the
Russian, a fellow-conspirator in a world of enemies. The identification
was so close that Hyde could not envisage the border or foresee his
escape.

"Why?" he asked again softly and without hope of any reply.

"Why?" Petrunin repeated. "Why?" He spoke in English once more,
a
sharper, more amused tone in his voice. "To place him - to place our
man
at the apex, the pinnacle… whenever we wished. When the time…" A slight
cough interrupted Petrunin. His eyes closed as if to eradicate pain.
Hyde looked at him. Only minutes now. Then Petrunin seemed to gather a
new, urgent strength. "The time was right," he announced. "Sir William
was the - the Chairman of JIC, he had your Prime Minister's ear… your
new service, combining intelligence and security, could be set up now
—! The time was right… and sweet…" He coughed, then added: "For our
man…"

Hyde heard only that last phrase, as Petrunin's voice faded like
a
poor radio signal.

Their man. Hyde felt himself shivering uncontrollably.
The
answer was a moment, one more sentence away, and the realisation of its
proximity made him understand his surroundings and his situation more
deeply. Once he had the knowledge, he had to stay alive, get out —

"Who?" he asked, but before he received an answer he had pressed
his
palm against Petrunin's mouth. The Russian's eyes widened. Hyde could
not be certain the Russian could see the soldier moving slowly across
the snow, forty yards from them, clothed in winter combat camouflage,
Kalashnikov carried across his chest, snowshoes lifting and clumping
and flattening the snow.

Hyde felt Petrunin's lips moving against the cold flesh of his
palm.
It might have been the name of the traitor, it might have been a
protest at being gagged. It might have been some last, futile epithet.
Hyde clamped his hand more firmly over Petrunin's mouth as the soldier
continued to pass across their field of vision.

Two more soldiers came out of the stunted trees, bobbing into
view
as they climbed the last of the shallow slope. Both of them, rifles
angled across their white-clad chests, appeared to be walking straight
towards Hyde and Petrunin, able to make out their huddled shapes
beneath the overhang. Petrunin's body slumped against Hyde once more,
almost into an embrace, and Hyde knew the man was still alive because
his lips kept murmuring soundlessly against his palm. His hand was
warmed by the faint breathing of the Russian, but it was a fitful
breeze, threatening to disappear each time it tickled his palm.

The first soldier passed out of sight and his two companions
moved
after him. Their exaggerated steps sifted and fluffed the light snow.
There was no sound of any helicopter. Petrunin was shivering against
him. Ten seconds, fifteen, twenty, a minute… time elongated. Hyde
wanted to cry out, to scream as the nerves tautened all over his body;
as if the cold had left him cramped and maddened with pins-and-needles.
A minute and a half…

They stopped, casting about. Hyde was convinced that he could
see,
with vivid clarity, the slight depressions left by his laboured
footsteps in the snow. He thought he could make out the shallow trough
where he had slithered, dragging the Russian, towards the overhang. It
must be clear to the soldiers —

They moved off, as if half-afraid of being left too far behind
their
companion. Hyde's breathing rushed in his ears. He could hear his
heart, just feel Petrunin's shallow, irregular breathing. Out of sight,
out of sight - go on, go on…

Another few yards, yes, three, two, another step…

They were gone. He heard one of them call after the first
soldier.
He heard the quickening slither of their snowshoes.

Now, the snow beyond the overhang looked smooth and undimpled
except
where they had walked. Gently, as if in apology, Hyde removed his hand
from Petrunin's mouth. The lips were still working soundlessly, not so
much searching for words as for an expression - perhaps a smile.

"Your man?" Hyde asked. "Who is he?"

"Babbington," Petrunin replied after the smallest hesitation.
His
lips found something like acceptance, then the name, finally a smile.
"Babbington!"

"Christ - then it's worked!"

"Of course." The voice was remote again, but in a superior,
Olympian
manner. "Of course."

"Jesus-bloody-Christ," Hyde breathed. "Him?"

"Him."

"When - how long, for Christ's sake —?"

Petrunin waved his hand dismissively, weakly, as if he
considered
Hyde was wasting the little time left with the wrong questions. "A long
story," he murmured. "It always is. Now -what will you do?"

Hyde rubbed his face. "God knows."

Petrunin cackled, and coughed. No blood, but his head lolled as
if
his body were sinking in something; or filling. His whole form lolled.
Ballast shifting, Hyde thought, then: Nothing … I don't
have … not even paper, no tape, no record, nothing…

It was if the Russian could read his thoughts. "You see?" he
asked.
"You have no proof. You have nothing. You cannot even escape, I think…"
He leaned back, as if trying to sink into the rock. His face was
colourless, his eyes, unfocused, studied the rock above their heads.

"Then help me," Hyde replied desperately. "Help me to
screw the bastards. Help me screw the people who want you dead - who've
already done for you." He leaned his head towards Petrunin until their
faces almost touched. He could feel no breath from the Russian warming
his cheek. "Help me. They've killed you. Help me spoil their bloody
game."

"How?" Petrunin asked, and then the realisation of what Hyde had
said gripped him. He was afraid. Even knowing, he had not wished to
hear it pronounced. Hyde had sentenced him. "No —" he spluttered. Blood
poured from his lips, staining his chin, staining Hyde. It felt warm,
ugly and final. Hyde gripped the Russian's arms, almost hugging him
like a lover.

"Come on, you clever, clever bastard - where's the proof? Tell
me
where the proof is and I'll spoil their fucking game for them. Come
on…" He was holding Petrunin now, the man's head against him, mouth
pressed to Hyde's ear. Wet. His chin was resting on Hyde's shoulder.
"Come on," the Australian whispered urgently, afraid of time
unravelling utterly in the next few moments. Only minutes now - less
perhaps…

"It's all on computer - you couldn't get hold of it… only I
could do
that - from - from inside a Soviet embassy…" Hyde groaned. He wanted to
push Petrunin's body away from him in protest, but some instinct made
him hold on. Or perhaps it was merely sympathy. Petrunin, unnoticing
and undeterred, continued to murmur against Hyde's ear. His lips were
frothily wet. Hyde shuddered. His stomach felt hollow with loathing and
disappointment.

Babbington was unassailable - he was British
Intelligence,
just as Aubrey had been. Hyde had nothing. In itself, without proof,
the knowledge was worthless, futile. Babbington was the man in the high
castle; impenetrable. Petrunin continued, as if with some litany of
confession. It was evident, in his remote and inhuman whisper, that he
was mocking Hyde even as he wished him to know and to be able to do
something. Revenge and amusement.