The Relic (32 page)

The police had made him and Lucy very comfortable. She'd been treated for shock and the injury to her hands, and she was recovering well. They weren't under arrest, but it was accepted that they wouldn't leave the house.

‘You realize, Mr Volkov, that you've put Her Majesty's Government in a very awkward position?' Freemantle said.

‘I know,' Volkov agreed.

‘You have asked for political asylum at a most sensitive time in our relations with the Soviet government.'

‘I know that, too,' he answered. ‘I'm sorry. But they did try to murder us.'

Freemantle had been shown the photographs of the dead Soviet agents, and the equipment and weaponry found at the watcher's hidden campsite. A serious KGB operation within British territory. That was very awkward, too. The Jersey police had given him graphic details of the ordeal suffered by Lucy Warren, a British subject. Their attitude had been aggressively sympathetic to the Russian and the girl.

‘You are also an illegal immigrant. Miss Warren has committed a serious offence in that respect.'

He saw Volkov flush angrily.

‘She was trying to save my life. Is that a crime in your country?'

Freemantle glanced at his companion.

‘No charges will be brought, Mr Volkov,' Harper said. ‘My colleague was just making a point.'

Volkov looked at them with contempt.

‘There have been enquiries from the Soviet authorities, unofficially, of course, and we have denied all knowledge of you up till now.' Harper continued. ‘We have been considering what line to take, if we do decide to grant your request and admit you to the United Kingdom as a political refugee. It poses a number of problems. You'll attract a lot of media attention.'

Volkov remained silent.

‘Worldwide, in view of your past political activities.'

‘I spent a year in prison,' Volkov pointed out. ‘It wasn't just making speeches.'

‘And five years in exile,' Freemantle remarked.

There was instant antagonism between him and the Russian. He objected to the man's attitude. Britain owed him nothing. He had the government's decision in his briefcase, but he was going to drive a hard bargain.

‘We would need assurances from you, Mr Volkov, that you would not engage in anti-Soviet activities.'

Harper played the emollient role again.

‘That means you refuse interviews and media coverage and avoid criticism of the present Soviet regime. In other words, Mr Volkov, we would offer you a temporary entry visa, but play down any suggestion that you were seeking political asylum. If all went well that visa could be extended and a request for residency would have sympathetic consideration from the Home Office.'

‘So it's your Foreign Office who's objecting to me?' Volkov asked Freemantle.

‘Legally we could have deported you. That's still an option.'

‘Then you
would
get all the media attention,' the Jerseyman spoke up. ‘I don't think it would look good for any of us. And I don't believe that the States here would sanction any action of that sort, sir.' He made the last word sound an insult. ‘We have kept the facts of the case
sub judice
as you asked, but I don't think I could guarantee that, if any force was used against Mr Volkov.'

‘There's no question of force,' Harper interposed. It was clear that he was the senior of the two, and Freemantle was obliged to retract. ‘Is there, Ian? I think you meant it hypothetically, didn't you?'

‘It didn't sound like that to me,' the Jerseyman said.

‘Then I expressed it badly,' Freemantle capitulated. ‘I felt Mr Volkov's attitude was provocative. There is no question of him being deported.' He looked disdainful. ‘What my department is anxious to avoid is embarrassment to the Soviet President at the present time. There are a number of anti-Soviet activists making a nuisance of themselves already.'

James Harper stood up. ‘Perhaps you'd like time to think about it?' he said to Volkov. ‘Your country has made remarkable progress in the last few years. People are enjoying a degree of freedom that was unthinkable before Mikhail Gorbachev. Surely the last thing to do is destabilize the situation and give the hardliners their chance to put the clock back. If you could see this attempt to silence you in that perspective, Mr Volkov, you might take a different view. I understand that one of the participants was your wife. There must have been a personal element in the attack on you and Miss Warren. Why not consider the wider implications? We're at Government House until tomorrow morning. We can call back later.'

Volkov didn't answer. Then he said, ‘You'll give me a visa if I promise to say nothing to call attention to myself. In other words to stay quietly in the background. Is that what you mean?'

‘Yes. That is exactly what we mean. Please give it careful thought.'

Volkov didn't leave his chair to shake hands with them. He waited till the room was empty before he got to his feet. He watched them out of the window, the Establishment personified, getting into the official car, driving away to their rendezvous with the governor of the island.

Then he went upstairs to Lucy's bedroom.

‘Have they gone?'

She came towards him. He'd wanted her to be present, but that was not allowed.

He nodded.

She looked so pale and frail after that terrible experience.

‘What did they say?' she asked.

He was tempted to lie. But he had never lied to her.

‘They'll give me a temporary visa—with conditions. One of them threatened me with deportation,' He silenced her anxious gasp, ‘No, no my darling, it was only a threat. Our friend, the commissioner, soon stopped that. He's a real friend. They can't send me back, but they can keep me here until after the meeting in London. It's the day after tomorrow.'

Lucy looked up at him. He was over-protective. She insisted she was strong, and recovered mentally as well as physically.

‘What conditions?'

‘No publicity. No statements. Nothing critical of the Russian regime. I can stay in England as a private individual so long as I keep quiet.'

‘You can't do that,' she said. ‘You have the Relic, you can't accept those terms! It would be Geneva all over again!'

‘We could make a life together,' he said slowly. ‘There'd be another opportunity—later, when you're recovered properly. My darling, I can't involve you in any more. I can't stop thinking of what happened—and it was my fault. I brought you into danger. I'm not going to do it again.'

‘Volkov,' Lucy said, ‘Listen to me. I went looking for you. I started this—I put
your
life on the line. And we're going to see it through together. You've got to attend that meeting. When they come back, say you've decided on a quiet life. Agree to everything so long as they fly us out tomorrow and we get to London in time. If you don't you'll have betrayed yourself and everything you believe in. And what that brute did to me will be for nothing.' He drew her close and kissed her.

‘We're together,' she reminded him. ‘That's what we promised after that dreadful day. Promise me. No going back.'

‘I promise. In my heart I hoped you'd say that. I'll lie in my teeth to the “gentlemen” from London. I'll go to the meeting.'

‘And when you get there,' Lucy asked him, ‘what are you going to do?'

‘There are a lot of things I want to say. It won't be the speech I wrote in Geneva. The Ukraine doesn't need a rabble rouser, or a martyr. The people want statesmen, politicians who can get the better of Moscow. That's what I'm going to tell Mischa and the rest of them.'

Freemantle and Harper caught the morning plane back to Heathrow.

‘I never thought he'd give in so tamely,' Harper said, settling into his seat after take-off.

‘I'm not so sure he has,' Freemantle countered. ‘The girl's father was a bloody nuisance even before Perestroika. All these
emigrés
are the same. They love to sabre-rattle, while we have to cope with the mess afterwards. We'll have to keep a sharp eye on them.'

Harper opened his newspaper.

‘There's not a lot we can do about it if he does,' he said.

‘He's really got up your nose, hasn't he Ian? Forget about it. We've got the undertaking signed; we've done our bit.'

They'd been booked in to a hotel in South Kensington. Special Branch reported that they'd done a little shopping and spent their first evening quietly at the hotel. At six the following evening, they left in a taxi and were followed to the Makoff Galleries in St James's Street. There was a private view of pre-Revolutionary photographs and memorabilia.

At ten minutes past eight, the Press and the first television crews gathered outside the galleries. Ian Freemantle was on his way home to Sussex, listening to the car radio when he heard the news. He changed gears with such force that they screeched in protest.

‘The bastard!' he said. ‘I knew we couldn't trust him!'

It happened after they'd been to the theatre and to supper. Peter Müller had chosen a new play and booked a table at an intimate little nightspot where a pianist played sentimental music and couples could inch their way round a tiny square of dance floor. The play was witty and frankly erotic. He noticed how often Eloise laughed, turning to smile at him.

At one moment he bent close and whispered, ‘I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was going to be so naughty.'

‘It's delicious,' she murmured.

Müller's wife was involved with a charity meeting and couldn't come with them. Their dinner at the Hofburg had been a great success, but instinctively Müller knew Eloise wasn't ready. She was still conscious of her widowhood, still loyal to Adolph's memory. But he could feel the sexual restlessness in her, and the constant moistening of her lips with the tip of her tongue made him sweat with desire.

He was going to have her that night, he knew it. He thought she probably knew it, too. The play set the mood for the slow piano music and the body contact as they circled, hardly moving, their cheeks close together, his pelvis pushed forward till their groins were touching. She must feel him through her thin dress.

At her door he asked her softly, making his voice very low, ‘May I come in?'

He discovered that she wanted him to be strong and insistent, to take command of her. Once only, as he abandoned her wet mouth for her throat and neck, did Eloise protest.

‘We shouldn't,' she murmured.

‘Adolph wouldn't mind,' Müller said. ‘He'd want you to be happy.'

It was better than he'd imagined. He lay in Adolph's bed and made love to her until he was drained and slack. But he didn't sleep. When she dozed off he woke her with powerful caresses, demanding that she service him. She was imaginative. She surprised and delighted him. She filled him with fresh energy and at last he exhausted her.

There was no sham about her when she slept. She lay back with her mouth open and snored. Müller whispered to her. He stroked her. She didn't move. The rhythmic ugly breathing didn't check even for a second. She slept as if she was drugged. Carefully he got out of bed. He drew on his trousers and slipped on surgical gloves. He paused by the bedroom door and waited, listening. She was not going to wake till the morning.

He had made this journey in his imagination many times. The long corridor leading to the ballroom. He had brought a pencil torch with him; the tiny spotlight was enough. He moved on, barefoot without a sound.

There was the first consul table, the bluejohn vase, its ormolu mounts gleaming in the beam of light. The third gilded flower head on the left of the larger carving. He pressed it cautiously and it moved under his finger. The second consul table, its vase, its carved flowers. To the right this time. Again the slight depression as he touched the flower.

One more to go. And there it was. The bronze elephant clock, its trunk rising lewdly in the torch light, its clockface in the centre of the gilded howdah. He had steady hands, but they were sticky with sweat in the tight gloves. With a tentative finger he moved the minute hand. The clock chimed. He jumped back. He'd forgotten the chime. It sounded so loud in the heavy silence. He shone his torch on the ballroom door and turned the handle. It opened. He closed it behind him. He didn't dare switch on the lighting system. There was a security guard on patrol outside the house. The insurance company had won that battle.

He followed the spot of light until he was in front of the cabinet and the treasures inside it sparkled as the beam played over them. It was never locked, because Brückner liked to open it at will and handle his possessions. He loved the feel of the Fabergé animals. He was fond of saying so to Müller.

He lifted out the clock and the calendar. They fitted into each of his pockets. He took a deep breath. Now, everything in reverse. The clock set to twelve-thirty. Another nerve-tingling chime, but this time he was prepared for it. Third gilded flower on the left of the consul table going back, third flower on the right of the next one.

The room was alarmed again. The theft wouldn't be discovered until someone went into the ballroom. That could be weeks. He crept back to the bedroom, peeled off the gloves, transferred the little objects to his jacket. She hadn't moved. He stepped out of his trousers and joined her in the bed.

He couldn't leave the house before she woke: he wanted it to be a memorable leave-taking.

‘I'm going to fly to Kiev and meet him,' Viktor Rakovsky said. ‘I'm to welcome him home. That's the official line.'

No action had been taken against Viktor. Not even a rebuke. Dimitri Volkov, followed by a planeload of media from all over the world was on his way back to the capital of the Ukraine. Viktor was clever, but not as clever as the master tactician who was directing him. Volkov must be walking in to a subtle trap, a political embrace that would eventually crush him.