The Bear's Tears (63 page)

"Lucky to have caught me here, really…" The voice was light,
cultivated, almost a drawl. She could picture a bright young Whitehall
type. One of William's staff - but why?

"This is Margaret Massinger," she announced with mustered
authority
and ease, "It's urgent I speak to Sir William at once —"

"Ah, Mrs Massinger. My apologies. My name is Renfrew, a member
of
Sir William's Cabinet Office staff… he asked me to collect some papers
from his flat - needs to consult them, through me, while he's in
Washington. As a matter of fact, I was just about to leave. But you
said it was urgent, Mrs Massinger. Can I take a message… ?" The
question lay helpfully, easily on the air.

She hesitated. Then: "Can you give me his number in Washington?
Where can I reach him?"

"I'm afraid not. His movements are rather fluid - time-table's
very
crowded, I'm afraid. Look, I tell you what - why not give me your
number? Sir William is bound to contact the Cabinet Office either
tonight or tomorrow -I can ensure that he calls you. What do you say?"

The voice was calm, almost offhand. Helpful.

"Yes," she began. "I'm in Vienna —"

"Vienna? Good heavens! A holiday, Mrs Massinger?"

"Vienna - the number is…"

She paused to study the number printed on the telephone's dial.

"Yes?" the voice said, eagerly. "Yes? Your number in Vienna
is…?"
She was puzzled by the voice. Her further hesitation caused it to speak
again. "Mrs Massinger - please give me your number in Vienna!" It was
an order. Unmistakably so.

"Who are you?" she snapped.

"I told you, Mrs Massinger —" The voice was more angry now.

"Who?"

"One of Sir William's staff—"

"One of - you're one of Babbington's people, aren't you? I know
you
are!"

"Mrs Massinger - please give me your Vienna telephone number —"
The
voice was unpleasant with imminent failure and threat.

"No —!"

She clattered the reciever onto its rest. Her hand was shaking.
She
dropped the earring she had been holding in her right hand, and
scrabbled for it on the worn, dimly-patterned strip of foyer carpet.
When she straightened, the night porter glanced incuriously at her,
then bent his gaze to the newspaper once more. He looked sinister,
dangerous.

She had almost told them —! She could not believe it of herself,
could not believe that Andrew Babbington had someone in Sir William's
flat.

She breathed deeply, raggedly, trying to calm herself. At once,
her
overriding priority returned. It had been growing through dinner,
through the three whiskies she had drunk to occupy the time before she
had thought of reaching Guest via his answering machine.

Paul —

Now she had evidence, and there was no one to see it, she was
like a
machine that had run down. Out of fuel and motive power. Now, she could
only worry, with an increasingly frantic urgency, whether Paul was
still alive.

She had to know. She had to go out again, she had to drive to
Perchtoldsdorf -
she had to see him!
Whatever the cost, she
had to know!

Babbington watched his fingers, remote, detached objects
drumming on
the desk top beside the two oblong black boxes of the audio-encryption
unit and line adaptor connected to the telephone receiver. Kapustin's
voice, despite the complex rearrangements of his words by his own
encryption unit, was only slightly mechanical in sound, only slightly
hazy in enunciation. His tone of reluctance was not robbed of its anger
and command. Babbington, with the utmost clarity, comprehended the
Russian's mood.

He was alone in the room. It was warm, from radiators and the
blazing log fire. A whisky glass, half-filled, rested on the desk near
the high-security encryption unit. To an observer, he might have seemed
at his ease. Yet he was not.

"I am not in favour of
accidents,
"
the Deputy Chairman
announced. "Especially to the woman. Should you be fortunate enough to
capture her. She has connections - Voronin, I believe, warned you of
this. Her death would cause - a
fuss
?"

"I understand that, Kapustin." The room was hot rather than
warm.
His fingers were not remote. They drummed more quickly now, reflecting
his rising anger. "Of course, there is a risk.
Everything
is
a risk. You should have rid yourselves of Petrunin the day this
business appeared on the operations board! As it is - people know,
people suspect… but only a handful of people. They must be
removed. It is the only logical course of action."

"There is the German, too."

"I realise that —"

Snow pattered softly against the window. Babbington turned his
head
to stare at the square of darkness streaked with wriggles of melted
snow, then returned his gaze to the fire. The large Afghan rug in front
of it offered up a tiny, thin trail of smoke
where some spark from the fire had landed. The ascending wisp looked
like incense burning.

"What do you suggest in his case?" There was mockery in
Kapustin's
tone. The wisp of smoke faded. Babbington could not see the tiny hole
the spark must have burned in the rug, but for a moment he imagined his
wife clucking over the damage.

"There is nothing that can be done. At the moment. Except that
the
single bold stroke which I propose will silence him, as it will
everyone else. Aubrey's appearance in Moscow will forestall any further
questions. Surely you understand that much?" His tone was one of
exasperation. Almost helplessly, he continued as if some dam within him
had been breached: "For twenty-eight years you have had my loyalty. You
and the rest of Moscow Centre have waited twenty-eight years for the
present moment! It was your impatience - Nikitin's impatience — that
would not allow Aubrey to remain in his post until he retired and I
succeeded by right. He is an old man, you know —! But no, it
must be
now
, while Guest has
the PM's ear and confidence and
while he supports the idea of SAID and myself as its head.
Very
well —
!
You
dictated
the timing of
Teardrop
-
you
see it through! Don't quibble about disposing of one American and his
well-connected wife!"

Babbington looked at his fingers on the desk. They had ceased to
accompany his rage, and now merely quivered. He touched his fingertips
against the whisky glass, against the smooth black case of the
encryption unit. He felt perspiration prickle his forehead. It was
foolish, but he had been helpless against the outburst. Didn't they
realise what was at stake, for God's sake —? He clenched his free hand
into a fist and waited for Kapustin to speak.

Eventually, the Russian said, "Your anger is understandable. I
agree, with hindsight, that we should have disposed of Petrunin."

"Then make up for it now."

Kapustin was silent again for some time, then he said; "I cannot
decide at once - just to put your mind at rest. This must be discussed."

"Who with? Nikitin? Remind the President of the investment, and
the
dividend, won't you?" His hand now toyed with the whisky glass. The
crystal caught the warmth of the lamps in the room, held the flames of
the fire, miniaturising and fragmenting them.

"There is the problem of the woman. Where is she now?"

Babbington did not hesitate. "I promise you her confinement
within
twenty-four hours. That means you could mount the operation tomorrow
night."

Kapustin seemed only to have been waiting for the moment of
bluff,
for he said at once: "Then you can have your raid, your dramatic rescue
of Aubrey - tomorrow night, providing you have the woman in your hands
before then!"

Babbington's fingers quivered the moment he put down the heavy
crystal glass.

"You mean —?"

"A bargain. Your rescue attempt in exchange for the woman."

"You'll take her and the American to Moscow and dispose of them
there?" His words sounded almost breathless with excitement.

"Providing I can persuade the President of the wisdom of such a
course — persuade him it is necessary to your survival… then yes."
Babbington held back his sigh of relief. "We will dispose of the
Massingers - and parade Aubrey before the cameras."

The sleety snow blew against the window like a handful of gravel
thrown in warning against the pane. Babbington was startled, then very
consciously looked back at the fire, considering what Kapustin had
said; considering, too, his boast concerning the capture of Margaret
Massinger.

Margaret Massinger pressed her body against the bole of the fir
tree. The light from Babbington's window spilled towards her hiding
place like a torch-beam searching for her. She had been able to see his
head turn at the sound of the gust of snow. She ducked aside at once.
He couldn't have seen her, couldn't have…

She could hear her breathing above the nose of the wind. The
snow
blew against her collar, against her woolen beret. Now, she had seen
two of them - Aubrey and Babbington. One behind a desk, using the
telephone, and the other one - the one she could no longer hate -
sitting in an armchair behind barred windows, staring down at his feet;
as immobile as if he had died. She shivered with the cold. Next to
Aubrey's room were more barred windows. The curtains were drawn across
them, the room in darkness. She knew that Paul must be confined there,
and she could not rid herself of the idea that the drawn curtains
indicated death. Her mother had never signalled her mourning because
she would not believe that Robert Castleford was dead - but Margaret
had used that semaphore when her mother died. They had
done
the same thing here, because Paul was dead…

She felt childlike, locked out of some loved place, alone in the
windblown, snowy dark. Her eyes were wet, her cheeks numb with cold.
She wanted to be,
had
to be,
inside —

She had to know. Nothing else mattered. She had fulfilled her
obligations to Aubrey, to Hyde. Now, she could choose. Everything else,
all other considerations, had dropped from her as she had placed the
two rolls of film, in their padded bag, in the postbox in the foyer of
the
pension.
Her aunt in Bath
would receive the undeveloped
film with precise and definite instructions to deliver them by hand to
William in London. The old lady would go up by train, the whole journey
spent horrified at the prospect of spending time in William's company;
in the company of the man and his awful cigars.

Nevertheless, Sir William would receive the films. And he would
act.
He would read her note, see the film, and act. Babbington would be
stopped. She had done her duty.

She had to believe that now, shivering with cold and desperate
to be
discovered in the grounds of the lodge. Just as she had to believe that
Paul was not dead and that she could somehow be reunited with him
simply by an act of surrender.

Curtains drawn across the windows. Paul was dead -
alive
—!

She would convince Babbington that she still hated Aubrey, that
she
still believed he was a Soviet agent and was guilty of her father's
murder. Murderer, traitor, villain, abomination - anything that would
persuade Babbington that Paul and she were not dangerous to him, that
Paul could be allowed to live…

She would know nothing. Hyde - who was Hyde? She could tell him
nothing, she knew nothing… anything that Paul may have said would be no
more than delirium, the wildest imaginings, hysteria - anything…

Caused by loss of blood, by his wounds —

Aubrey was unhurt. It had been Paul's blood — But Paul wasn't
dead,
he was alive and hurt, alive and hurt… He could be saved, if she could
play her part to perfection. She could keep him alive for long enough -
she had told William where they could be found, where she would be.

If Aubrey had to die, so be it. She must save Paul.

She eased her body from behind the tree. She could see
Babbington's
grey hair as he sat behind the desk, still making his telephone call.
She waited. The patrol would return in a few minutes, the two men
preceded by the flickering torch-beam. She need only step out in front
of them and pray they did not fire without flicking the torch towards
her face. She waited, her teeth chattering, her legs and body weak with
anticipation. Yet she felt no renewed desire for concealment. All that
was behind her now. She stood just where the spillage of warm light
from the window reached her boots, as if waiting for a tide to advance.

Should she even have met Hyde —? Should she even know his name?
Perhaps from Paul —? Would Babbington believe her, believe even one
word of it —?

He must…

She listened. Footsteps on the gravel; light on the gravel. They
were coming —

She mustn't look as if she were waiting for them, she must be
caught
—!

Cautiously, bent almost double, she crept to Babbington's
window.
If
Paul was dead, she was meekly surrendering
… She crushed the
rebellious thought. She reached the window, touched the sill with her
fingertips and raised her head to look into the room.

Light on her face, light on the gravel around her, footsteps on
the
gravel —

Snarl of a dog!

Dog - light - gravel - voice. She was frozen with terror.
Footsteps
running. She listened in horror for the dog's paws beating on the
gravel. She heard it growl - footsteps, the noise of heavy boots,
running. She waited, frozen, for the dog's attack.

Then she turned her face into the torch's beam. The man who held
it
laughed with surprise and pleasure. The dog, still restrained by the
second man, growled then barked viciously. She glanced away from the
torch. Babbington's head had turned. His face seemed white and somehow
broken open, as if he were confronted by an accusing ghost. Snow blew
against Margaret's cheek, against the window. Babbington appeared
shaken from a deep trance by the noise it made, perhaps by the dog's
continued barking. Then, slowly and with growing pleasure, he smiled.