The Bear's Tears (62 page)

"Fuck off, Godwin," Hyde said quietly, forcefully. "Take your
bloody
self-pity and stuff it." Godwin stared at him, his mouth working
silently, his eyes angry slits in his white face. "You're
alive.
I don't have the time or the range of sympathy to care in what
condition… because if you don't help me and I can't do the necessary,
neither I nor the old man will be anything but dead. Now, if you'd like
to change places, give me your fucking crutches and I'll learn to use
them."

Godwin's jaw dropped. His mouth was a round black hole from
which
eventually emerged in a shocked, small, defeated voice: "Oh, you
bastard - Christ, you bastard," Hyde did not reply, and Godwin turned
his face away. Slowly, his head subsided onto his chest. Hyde listened
to his stertorious breathing, as if the man was labouring up an endless
flight of stairs or a steep hill; surmounting his own self-pity, Hyde
hoped. Eventually, Godwin sniffed loudly.

It was almost dark in the car. The snow lay thickly on the
windscreen and the rear window, and the daylight was fading outside.
There was no one at the bus stop. Traffic had begun to pass them,
leaving Prague for the suburbs. In the headlights of one oncoming
vehicle, Hyde saw bright wetness on Godwin's cheeks.

"OK," Godwin said heavily, nodding. "OK. I'm sorry."

Again, Hyde did not reply. Already, his interest in Godwin's
reaction was diminishing. His words had had the desired effect. It was
difficult to concern himself with anything larger than Aubrey's
survival…

Rare moment of absolute honesty.
His
own survival.
It
was
that which absorbed his attention. Unless that was the case, Aubrey,
Godwin, Massinger and all the others would not survive. The priority of
self might just keep others alive - on this occasion.

"It's not you," Godwin eventually continued. Hyde had to force
himself to attend. Godwin was emerging slowly, like a dragonfly, from
the chrysalis of his disability.

"Yes?" he demanded, almost impatiently.

Godwin's head twitched, then he said: "It's not you I blame - God
knows, not the old man…"

"No," Hyde said carefully. Traffic passed, flowing more strongly
now.

Godwin looked at Hyde for a moment, as if reminding himself of
his
companion's identity. Then he said: "I don't know and I don't care
whether you understand this…" Hyde winced, wanting to stem the flow of
what he sensed was a confession, but he said nothing. "… but I want to
say it." He swallowed, then Hyde heard a dry, chuckling, ironic noise
in Godwin's throat. "You brought back a world I'd had to leave behind.
Fuck you for that."

Hyde turned, surprised. Godwin was looking at him. His cheeks
were
still pale, but dry. His mouth was open in a small, cynical smile.

Hyde nodded. "OK," he said. "Now - where to?"

"What —? Oh, my flat."

"Secure?"

"They leave me alone." His hands slapped his thighs. "Walking
wounded. They accept my cover for the real thing. How could I be SIS,
on crutches?"

"No one else knows I'm here - that I'm expected?"

"No one. Shelley's signal was very specific. What's going on,
Hyde?"

"Babbington - he's Moscow's man. The proofs in the computer."

"Babbington? Bloody hell —"

"He framed the old man… and it was Petrunin's scenario from the
beginning."

"Petrunin told you all this? You trust that bastard?"

"He was dying - and trying to pull the house down around him. He
wasn't lying."

"Who's on our side?"

"Us - just the two of us." Hyde did not mention Margaret Massinger.
There was little or no point. She wouldn't be able to
cope. He knew it would have been better for her had he ordered her to
lie low, merely keep out of sight. She wouldn't last five minutes
trying to tail Babbington and keep that wooden house in Perchtoldsdorf
under surveillance. He had doubted her ability to survive even as he
briefed her, even as they bought the camera and lenses. Thus, he had
been deliberately vague in explaining his own task to her. What she did
not know she could not reveal when they caught and questioned her.
"That's the whole army," he added. "Shelley's already in the bag."

"Christ —" Godwin breathed.

"Are you in?" Hyde asked impatiently. His hands stroked the
steering
wheel. He was tempted to grip it fiercely, to still the tremor he
sensed beginning.

Then Godwin said: "I'm in - it's bloody hopeless, but I'm in."

Hyde looked at him. Just for a moment, a younger man glanced
from
behind the bitter, older mask that Godwin wore.

"OK. Which way?"

"Straight on. My flat's in the Old Town. I'll direct you."

"My dear friend, I'm so sorry, so sorry…"

Aubrey patted Massinger's hand as he spoke. It lay like a limp
white
fish on the coverlet, then it enclosed Aubrey's hand slowly.
Massinger's eyes were bright, but empty of fever. His face was puffy
and misshapen with dark, livid bruises that were the colour and texture
of raw offal.

"It's - OK," he murmured, his lips working loosely like those of
someone whose jaw has been deadened in preparation for dental work. His
lips were swollen and split. He shook his head gently. "OK," he
repeated.

"How is the leg?"

"Someone patched it up. There's no bullet in the wound. Hurts
like
hell, Kenneth." He tried to sit more upright in the narrow bed, and
groaned as he moved his injured leg. No doubt, Aubrey thought, the
dressing on his thigh was temporary. A temporary dressing for a
temporary circumstance.

He realised that Babbington had reached a decision, otherwise he
would not have allowed Aubrey and Massinger to meet. There was no
longer any need to keep them apart. What they knew would die with them.
Thus, when Aubrey had surrendered to his hunger and eaten lunch, and
then had asked after Massinger's health, Wilkes had merely grinned and
taken him to the wounded man's room.

One of Massinger's eyes was almost closed with a puffy, raw
swelling. His various cuts had, however, been bathed and disinfected
and covered with plaster.

"I want you to understand, my dear Paul, how - how grateful I am
for
your efforts on my behalf."

Massinger shook his head and tried to grin. "Even though all it
got
me was here and now, uh?" he said. "Don't take it to heart -" He winced
with pain again as he moved, then added: "I couldn't help myself. Thank
God they didn't get Margaret - thank God for that!" Massinger was
almost
blithe.

"Yes, thank goodness," Aubrey breathed, inwardly grateful. He
hoped
the woman would keep her head down, keep out of things - until they
were resolved. Whether she might be able to influence the course of
events in any way… police, William Guest, the press…? No, he thought
decisively, no. She is out of the game. She can do nothing. He cleared
his throat, watching Massinger as he did so. "You - Paul, you realise
what Babbington intends…?" His voice failed him.

Massinger gripped his hand more tightly as he nodded. Then he
said
urgently, "They don't have her, do they? They don't know where she is?"

Aubrey shook his head. Massinger lay back on the pillows as if
exhausted. He murmured something which might have been, "Thank God for
that," once more. Aubrey realised that the man's relief at his wife's
safety anaesthetised him to his own situation.

After a long silence, he said, "You've talked with Babbington?"

"Yes."

"Why - why did he? When?" Then the American opened his eyes. "It
doesn't matter. None of that matters. What's he going to do with us?"

"Moscow, I think." Aubrey nodded. "Yes, Moscow. I'm certain of
it. I
- I'm sorry —"

"Sure. You'll survive, for a little while maybe - but not me. He
has
to bury the bodies, our friend Babbington. Does he have to bury the
bodies!" His eyes studied Aubrey, then slowly became unfocused once
more. He stared at the ceiling, and Aubrey knew the man was staring at
an image of his wife. He murmured again. Again, Aubrey did not catch
the words.

"I'm sorry…"he repeated. Massinger did not appear to hear him;

Thank you - sorry
. There
was nothing else to say. Their
knowledge of each other and of their situation was complete.

Aubrey's past began to press upon him once more. It would mean
little or nothing to Massinger. The gallery of images parading before
him formed his private collection. And each of the scenes angered him.
Every voice, moment, room, person, operation, mission, committee.
Angered him —

His past had been utterly refashioned by Babbington. Everything
- everything!
Completely, utterly changed - made ugly and twisted. That was why he
hated Babbington. Not for the man's own treachery - that feeling had
passed away. No - but because the man had robbed him of, of
reputation —! Of probity.
Othello's
occupation's gone
he
remembered bitterly.

The door opened.

It was Wilkes, who immediately said, "He says you've had long
enough." Aubrey glared at him. "Come on, Sir Kenneth - back to
your own room, if you please." He used the voice of some psychiatric
nurse, mocking him with orders.

Aubrey stood up and released Massinger's hand. It returned to
the
coverlet; returned, too, to its former, limp-fish state, white and
unmoving. Massinger's one open eye winked at him. Aubrey tried to smile.

"Do you need anything?" he asked. Massinger shook his head.

"Hardly worth it, is it?" Wilkes enquired.

"Isn't it?" Aubrey snapped.

"It isn't."

"When?"

"Less than forty-eight hours," Wilkes said. "He has to be back
in
London within the next two days… look funny otherwise, wouldn't it?"

"God, Wilkes —!" Aubrey hesitated, his mouth open. He had no
idea
what he had intended to say.

"Come on," Wilkes ordered.

Aubrey passed through the door without glancing back at
Massinger.
In the corridor, as Wilkes closed the door, it was as if someone had
switched on a powerful light and shone it directly into his eyes. He
was dazzled by his illuminated past. Each separate memory stung and
hurt. He swayed with the shock of their impact.

Zimmermann and he, face to face - his first captured German
officer…
those first interviews in the small, bare upstairs flat somewhere off
the Strand, only months after he had come down from Oxford… the
diplomatic service, he had thought, and had then felt a deep and
abiding delight when they had indicated the secret world, intelligence
work —

Berlin, after the war - Castleford's face intruded, still alive,
smiling… come back like a ghost, to gloat. Aubrey dismissed him in the
rush of images. Reams of paper and files passing across a desk beneath
hands which he recognised as his own. The hands aged as he watched, as
if his whole adult life were passing in moments - the speeded-up film
of some flower's life-cycle… the files became more important, more
secret —

"You all right?" Wilkes asked. Aubrey hardly heard him, as
memory
shifted like ballast in his head and he staggered. Wilkes held his arm
to keep him upright.

A man of probity. There were moments of ruthlessness, of utter
disregard for the lives in his hands. But he had attempted to be a man
of probity in the secret world.
Othello's
occupation's gone —

Hands upon a desk. Faces across a table. Men with secrets to
yield,
men to be dismantled or repaired. A dozen languages, a thousand small
rooms for the breaking of will, resolve, courage —

Aubrey shook his head, shook off Wilkes's supporting hand, and
walked as quickly as he could the length of the corridor. He entered
his room and Wilkes locked the door behind him. When the man's
footsteps had faded, Aubrey began rubbing at his damp eyes with the
creased sleeve of his soiled shirt.

There was no telephone in her room at the
pension
. She
had
to use the pay phone near the cramped reception desk. The foyer was
empty except for the night porter, who sat reading the evening paper,
his head framed by pigeon-holes and hanging keys. His uniform collar
was open at the neck. A half-drunk glass of beer and a sandwich of
smoked sausage on a paper plate rested on the desk. Margaret turned her
head into the hair-dryer globe of clear plastic that enclosed the
telephone.

She dialled the international code for London, then Sir William
Guest's home number. Hyde had told her William was in Washington… it
was stupid to try his number. Yet his answering machine might disclose
the means of reaching him in the States. How else could she reach him?
She tugged anxiously at the looped cord of the telephone as she waited
for the connection, envisaging the comfortable, panelled study in which
the number was ringing. Sir William maintained a flat in Albany, just
as his father had once done. As a child, she had been overawed by the
dark, heavy panelling, the grimy, looming paintings. Whenever her
father had taken her there, she remembered Sir William had acted the
part of a jolly, generous relative. Yet he expected good manners, long
silences, then adult replies to his questions. Sir William had awed her.

"Come on, come on," she breathed. She glanced round at the night
porter. He refolded the newspaper and continued to read. "Come on - oh,
please, come on —!"

The tone stopped abruptly. No one answered the telephone, but
she
sensed a listener.

"William?" she asked hesitantly.

"Who is that, please?" a polite, assured, unfamiliar voice
enquired.

"Who is speaking?" she asked, surprised. "Where is Mrs Carson?"
Then, more insistently: "Who are you?"

"Mrs Carson - oh, Sir William's housekeeper. I'm sorry, she's
away
for a few days. As is Sir William."

"Then who are you? How do you come to be in William's flat?"