The Rocket Man (7 page)

‘You would have something to lose,' said Dmitry, ‘If they threatened to harm the baby. Wasn't he in the house?'

Nobody said anything. Then Lieselotte said, ‘Yes of course, why didn't I think of that?' Katie looked at Dmitry, equally shocked. She felt uneasy with the way the conversation was going, feeling that Dmitry, far from reassuring Liese as she had hoped, was only fuelling her misguided suspicions. She thought this last remark was a dreadful, unforgivable thing for him to have said. But then it occurred to her that he came from a society where people might naturally think of such things.

But Lieselotte did not seem to mind this in the least; perhaps she was pleased that somebody took an interest, that she could talk openly about her anxieties rather than listen only to the social niceties. Dmitry looked at the letter for such a long time that Katie began to feel embarrassed. They were both silent, watching him. He stared at the paper, he frowned, he turned it over, he even lifted it and held it up to the light. Katie and Lieselotte looked at one another.

Lieselotte said, ‘It is our notepaper – the watermark shows that, if that's what you were looking at.'

He abruptly folded up the note and handed it back to Lieselotte; she took it and put it back in her bag.

‘I shall never believe it; I shall always have doubts,' she said. ‘The most terrible thing is that I shall never know. If he was under pressure of some kind, if he was murdered, it would be terrible, but perhaps it would be better, at least I wouldn't have to blame myself.'

‘But why do you blame yourself?' asked Katie, putting her hand on her arm, ‘Whatever the reason, it is nothing to do with anything you did.'

‘How do you know what I might have done? You weren't there… I knew something was wrong, I should have done something to help him. I didn't help him, I was angry with him. He was never there, he was working, he was preoccupied, I had to cope with the baby all by myself, I resented it and I let him know that.' Her voice became angry; she turned away from Katie.

Dmitry watched this exchange, uncomprehending, looking to Katie to help him, but she said nothing. Lieselotte glanced at her watch. She said, leaning forward, to Dmitry, in broken English ‘It is so kind of you to agree to see me like this. It has helped me, a little. I know you must not say anything. Thank you.' She stood up. ‘I must go, Katie. No, don't come with me, my sister is waiting. I'll be fine. I'll ring you tomorrow.'

Katie kissed both her cheeks, and watched her cross the café floor, weaving in and out between the tables. To her surprise, Gavrilov also made ready to leave. ‘Katie, I'm sorry, but I have to go – I have a meeting. But please, can we meet again?'

‘I don't know.' She was startled. She had expected to have to fend him off, to explain that she couldn't see him and endanger her marriage, that what had happened between them was not to be repeated, but now she felt bereft at his sudden departure.

‘Tomorrow?'

‘It's Saturday. I have Anna.' Then she said, ‘Yes, perhaps I can leave her for an hour or two with Bob. Can I ring you later?'

He wrote his number on the back of his card and handed it to her. The card had his name in both English and Cyrillic under the IAEA symbol of the atom in a laurel wreath.

Before she left Katie memorised the number, tore up the card into tiny pieces and left them in the ashtray.

Dmitry took the lift straight up to the twentieth floor and strode into his office. His secretary appeared instantly in the doorway, a sheaf of messages in her hand. Hilde was an ideal assistant, knowledgeable and efficient; she was unflappable, and seemed to intuitively understand his moods, never taking things personally. An Austrian with a Russian mother, she spoke both English and Russian fluently. They switched back and forth easily between the two languages.

He told her to hold all but urgent international calls and to leave him undisturbed for half an hour. She opened her mouth as if to protest but seemed to think better of it, putting the heap of messages to one side to give him later.

Gavrilov swivelled his chair round to face his computer screen and hesitated for a moment before logging in. He summoned up a menu and began putting in the series of passwords.

As he waited for the file to be retrieved, he got up and went to the window. He could see the giant Ferris wheel at the Prater and the cold winter sunlight sparkling on the icy waters of the Danube. He lit himself a cigarette; he felt so agitated he could hardly stand still.

Why was it that Hans Müller had inserted into the misspelt name of his lawyer one of the passwords to the file on that last mission to Brazil? It had taken only the addition of two letters. Was it simply a way of explaining that his death was somehow linked to that trip, or was it more specific than that? Was he pointing to some information contained in that file? He had been taking a chance in any event – the probability of someone who knew this ever seeing the letter must have been small. Only a handful of people within the IAEA authorised to see that file would have recognised it.

Dmitry sat at his desk and frowned. He had been disturbed all along by the memory – and it was not altogether clear, because it had been late and he, like Hans Müller and Eduardo Cruz, the second inspector on that trip, had been drinking in the bar – of Müller coming to him on the last night and saying, while Cruz was buying more drinks, ‘There's something I want to talk to you about. Can I come to your room later?' Dmitry had sensed from his attitude that it was something important; he had the sense that Müller wanted to make some kind of confession. But in the event Müller had never come. At the airport, when he had reminded him, Müller had shaken his hand dismissively and said nothing.

Dmitry turned to the screen and looked through the report on the inspection at Valadares. First the inspectors had checked the ledgers recording in detail the receipt of uranium hexafluoride at the plant, the throughput, and the ratio of product to the unwanted residue or ‘tails', and these were compared with the reports sent to the IAEA. All this appeared to be in order. Seals had been affixed to some of the storage cylinders so that these did not need re-checking and to various valves and flanges to make sure that material could not be drawn off. The seals contain certain unique markings which are photographed and compared with original photographs; any tampering with the seal would show up as a distortion.

They checked the setting up of the cameras which took still shots of the inside of the plant every couple of minutes, making it impossible for any tampering to go unnoticed. Seals were also attached to the camera housings.

Then readings had been taken at various points to measure the uranium hexafluoride samples from the product, feed and tails lines and check that only low enriched uranium was passing through the tubes. Radiation levels were checked, which again would indicate the presence of highly enriched uranium. Then the inspectors had looked at the pipework on top of the cascades. If the centrifuges are connected in parallel more uranium hexafluoride can circulate to a lower degree of enrichment; if in series, enrichment can increase up to the 90 per cent or more needed for weapons-grade uranium.

Dmitry read through the whole file twice. There was nothing wrong with it, no problem or anomaly that he could see. He knew the kind of figures you could expect from a plant this size; he found nothing to ring any alarm bells. He checked the date it had been last updated; it had been 4 January, the Friday before Müller died. It would be possible to check who had made the last changes. He exited from the file and crossed the room, sinking down onto the chair and resting his feet on the low table.

He sat still for a while, deep in thought. Eduardo Cruz had been at the end of his contract with the IAEA. He was now back in Buenos Aires, working for the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission. Dmitry looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock in Buenos Aires; he went to his desk, shuffled through some papers to find the number he had written down, and tapped it out on the phone.

The call took some time to connect. At length a voice answered. The woman took details of who he was and put him through without delay.

‘Ah; my Russian friend,' said Eduardo. ‘What can I do for you? I think of you every time I read about the situation in your dear country. They are rationing vodka, now, I hear. What a mercy for you that you are in Vienna!'

‘They have been rationing vodka for some time,' said Dmitry patiently. ‘But I wanted to ask you something: have you heard anything recently from the IAEA?'

‘No.'

‘Has the DDG not written to you?'

‘I don't know… I have been on annual leave. Perhaps it is somewhere in this huge pile. What is it about?'

Dmitry said, ‘Did you know that Hans Müller committed suicide?'

Cruz did not reply. In the silence that followed, Dmitry could hear the echo of a distant, disembodied voice carrying out some conversation in an indistinguishable tongue beyond the faint hiss and crackle. Then Cruz said, ‘I knew that man wasn't right in the head.'

‘How?' asked Dmitry swiftly. ‘How did you know that?'

‘Oh, just a feeling that one has,' said Cruz. ‘Nothing positive at all. Look, I am shocked by what you tell me. Does anyone know why?'

‘I don't think so. That's why I'm calling. I was wondering whether he said anything to you which could shed light on it. Or if there was anything about the inspection, anything at all, which didn't seem quite usual.'

‘No; no, of course not. If there had been, I would have mentioned it at the time. We spoke about this ourselves, then when I came back, I had a long talk with Haynes. Wait a minute, I have the letter in front of me now. It asks me to write in confidence to the DDG.' Dmitry sensed an uneasiness, a faint hostility even, in his voice.

‘Yes, of course,' said Dmitry. ‘It's just that since I was there… I have been asked all these questions myself, of course.'

‘Of course,' said Cruz. There was another pause. Then they both started speaking together; Dmitry gave way. Cruz went on: ‘I'm afraid I don't know what's in your mind. Are you actually querying the inspection report? If you're thinking that Müller made some mistake or had taken false readings, anything like that, well that's just not possible. We checked everything together on the site you know… That's how it's done.'

‘Yes,' said Dmitry quietly, ‘I know how it's done.'

‘Well,' said Cruz, ‘If I think of anything, I will put it in my letter. Maybe then you will get to hear of it later on.'

Dmitry mumbled ‘Yes of course. Thank you,' and hung up. He sat in silence, twirling his pen. He knew in the instant that he put the receiver down that he had made a bad mistake; as soon as he implied any suspicion about Müller, it implied suspicion about Cruz too. Of course the man had sounded hostile. And supposing something really was going on, he had simply tipped Cruz off. No, he supposed the letter from the DDG would have tipped him off. But then, the DDG would have worded things rather differently. He would have been far more subtle. He would have known how to put it so as not to cause any imaginable offence.

He did not notice Hilde come in; she stood attentively in front of him, a sheaf of papers in her hand, waiting for him to look up. He did so eventually; his eyes gradually focused on her. She said, in Russian, ‘Your half hour is up.'

He met her amused smile with one of his own.

The Belvedere Palace was like a hall of mirrors. It was all white and gold and Katie's shoes rang out loudly on the wooden floor as if asking everyone to turn and stare at her. Wherever she looked she saw images of herself and her Russian lover. Katie, having arranged to meet somewhere public, to give Bob an excuse – ‘Just going to look at the Klimts, darling' – and to protect herself from Dmitry – was now afraid that someone she knew would see them together. And anyway, it was no use. As soon as she saw him she was trembling with desire for him; she wanted only to be alone with him.