The Ways of the World (22 page)

‘That sounds like a no,’ said Morahan.

Kuroda nodded. ‘It was intended to.’ He looked at Max. ‘You suspect someone heard of Mr Ireton’s offer of information, calculated that Sir Henry was the source and determined to silence him?’

‘Yes.’

Another nod. ‘I agree. You should suspect anyone Mr Ireton discussed the matter with. Including me. Unless, of course, you trust me. Then and then only can you believe me.’ He smiled. ‘Have you any more questions, Mr Maxted?’

‘Just one. When you met my father, did he mention the box of secret documents stolen from the head of the Chinese delegation while he was in Tokyo?’

A slight narrowing of his gaze was the only hint of surprise on Kuroda’s part. And it might not have been surprise at all. ‘No. He did not.’

‘Between ourselves, Masataka,’ said Morahan, ‘did your people steal that box?’

‘If we had, we would not admit it. If we had not, we would know that our denial would not be believed.’

‘That sounds like a yes-no-maybe.’

Kuroda nodded. ‘It was intended to.’

IT WOULD HAVE
been easy for Max to dismiss the meeting with Kuroda as pointless. Certainly, he had learnt little he did not already know. But the strangest thing had nonetheless happened. He found he believed every word Kuroda had said. No responsibility for Sir Henry’s death could be laid at his door.

Morahan seemed to feel the same. ‘For a man who speaks mostly in riddles, he makes himself remarkably plain.’

‘He told no one. I’m sure of it.’

‘Me too.’

‘Who’s next?’

‘Ask Travis. I’m to report to him tomorrow morning at nine. You should join us.’

‘But you know already, don’t you?’

‘It’s Travis’s show. You’ll have to let him run it. Your shadow’s still with us, by the way.’ They were walking south-west along Rue de Monceau. The night was cold and quiet. The wind had dropped. There were few other pedestrians. Glancing back, Max saw only splashes of lamplight and dark shapes between. ‘If you want something done about him, let me know.’

‘What sort of something?’

‘Nothing fatal.’

‘Glad to hear it. I’ll bear your offer in mind.’

‘You do that.’

Morahan took to the Métro at Alma station, leaving Max – and his shadow – to carry on to the Mazarin without him. Irritated by the
assumption Appleby and Morahan seemed to share that he was ill-equipped to deal with such surveillance, Max headed along Rue de Bassano, turned left at the first opportunity and covered thirty yards or so, then spun on his heel and marched smartly back. There was a man, damn it, moving towards him, who adroitly crossed the street and melted into the darkness as Max approached.

‘Going my way?’ Max called after him. ‘Maybe we can walk together.’

There was no response. And there was nothing to see. Max went after him, but all the doorways he checked were empty. The fellow was smart, no question.

Max made his way back to the corner of Rue de Bassano, where he stopped, lit a cigarette and waited for him to reappear. He did not. There was a sound far off that could have been a footfall, then another, resembling a stumble of some kind. Even shadows evidently had to watch their step in the dark. But he did not show himself.

‘Hello?’ Max called, walking slowly towards the sound.

Again, there was no response. Nothing stirred. There were no more footfalls.

Then a door opened a short distance ahead of Max. In a brief spill of light, a portly, heavily clad man emerged, trailing a tiny dog on a lead. The door closed behind them and they pottered off in the direction the sounds had come from.

As Max watched, they proceeded along the street, the man emitting occasional squeaks that were presumably comprehensible to the dog, the dog snuffling occasionally in response. They paused at a lamp-post for the dog to urinate, then moved on. If they passed anyone lurking in a doorway, they did not appear to notice.

‘To hell with this,’ Max muttered, throwing down his cigarette. He headed back once again to Rue de Bassano. And he did not look over his shoulder.

There were two messages waiting for Max at the Mazarin, which was two more than he was expecting. Both surprised him in their different ways. The first he opened was addressed to him in handwriting he recognized as Sam’s.

According to the reception clerk, Sam had left about an hour before, accompanied by a woman he described under questioning as ‘Slavic’. It had to be the young woman from Bukayev’s bookshop. There were simply no other candidates, though how Sam had fallen in with her he could not imagine.

The second message had been telephoned in. It was from Kuroda. The time recorded on it by the clerk suggested he had made the call very shortly after they had parted.

M. Kuroda asks you to meet him in Parc Monceau – near the west entrance – at 11.15 tomorrow morning.

Max put to the back of his mind the mystery of why Kuroda wanted to meet him again and headed straight out, armed with directions from the clerk, who permitted himself a meaningful twitch of one eyebrow when he described Le Sagittaire as
très animé
.

It was a basement establishment close to the Champs-Elysées, full of noise, smoke and couples of varying ages and races. A band was playing music Appleby would definitely not have approved of, though those dancing to it definitely did. Sagittarius himself was depicted in a vast mural, reflected in an equally vast mirror on the wall facing it. There was a palpable air of permissiveness about the place. Black men were wrapped around white women, white men around black women. Some of the men were old enough to be their partners’ grandfathers. And some of the women, it struck Max, were probably not women at all. Ashley, he felt sure, would have been appalled.

On the far side of the dance floor from the jazz band was a bar and a gathering of tables. Sam waved to Max as he approached. Sam was red-faced and grinning and clearly far from sober. His
companion was, as Max had surmised, the young woman from the bookshop, looking much more glamorous and indeed much more Russian with her black hair flowing over her shoulders. Her skin was even paler than Max remembered, almost white in the lamplight, so much so that the red bow on her black dress looked like a splash of blood.

‘Ah, there you are, sir,’ Sam slurred. ‘Just in time. I’m running out of stories to entertain Nadia with.’

‘Nadia Bukayeva,’ the young woman said, extending a hand she appeared to expect Max to kiss. He was happy to oblige. ‘I could not tell you earlier. Igor Bukayev is my uncle.’

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’ Max sat down, lit a cigarette and engaged Sam in interrogative eye contact.

‘Drop of wine, sir? There’s plenty.’

‘You’ve certainly had plenty, by the look of you.’

‘He is not your batman now, Max,’ said Nadia, reprovingly but genially.

‘He never was, actually.’

‘He says you were a very daring pilot.’

‘Poppycock. I was as cautious as they come. I wouldn’t still be alive otherwise.’

‘That is English modesty, yes?’

‘That’s what it is, right enough,’ said Sam.

A waiter hove to and Max ordered a whisky. ‘Are you a regular here,
mademoiselle
?’ he asked Nadia.

‘Nadia, please. We have become very informal, Sam and I.’ She squeezed Sam’s knee, inducing a blush that was visible even through the flush of wine.

‘Nadia was asking after you when I got back to the hotel, sir. I didn’t think you’d want me to let her just wander off.’

‘So we came here to wait for you,’ said Nadia. ‘And, no, I am not a regular. More … an occasional.’

‘Is it always like this?’

‘Usually livelier.’

‘Really?’ Max glanced around. ‘Livelier than this, eh?’

‘They know how to have fun, don’t they, sir?’ said Sam. ‘There are some sights here I never thought to see.’

‘And in some cases you’re not exactly sure what it is you’re seeing.’

‘Exactly, sir.’

The whisky arrived. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ Sam gulped down a mouthful of wine. ‘It’s been quite a day.’

‘I bet it has.’

‘’Scuse me, sir – Nadia.’ Sam rose unsteadily to his feet and stifled a belch. ‘I’ve got to point Willy at the wall.’ He stumbled off.

‘Who is Willy?’ asked Nadia.

‘No one you know,’ Max murmured, watching Sam navigate his meandering way towards a door beyond the bar.

‘We need to talk, Max.’ Nadia’s voice was suddenly so close to Max’s ear that he jumped in surprise.

He turned to find her staring at him intently. She was more serious now – more like the earnest bookshop assistant he had met earlier. ‘This is hardly the place for a quiet chat, Nadia,’ he pointed out.

‘Can you hear what I’m saying?’ Her lips were nearly touching his ear lobe. She was speaking at normal volume, but the noise around them reduced her words to a whisper that was nonetheless clearly audible.

He nodded. ‘Of course I can hear you.’

‘Then this is the place. No one else will hear. And anyone who sees us will think I am trying to talk you into bed.’

‘But you’re not, are you?’

‘Do you want me to?’

Max smiled, unable to decide whether she was flirting with him or rebuking him. Maybe Sam had had the same problem. ‘I want you to tell me why you came to the hotel to see me.’

‘Because my uncle disappeared last Saturday, Max. Just a few hours after he heard your father was dead. I do not know where he is. I am very worried about him.’

‘You’ve no idea where he might be?’

‘No. I do not even know if he is still alive. But when the news came to him of Sir Henry’s death, he was full of fear. I know that much.’

‘What did he have to be frightened of?’

‘My uncle is a leading member of a secret organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Bolsheviks and the restoration of royalty in Russia.’

‘The Trust.’

‘You have heard of it?’

‘It doesn’t seem to be that big a secret.’

‘No. Probably it is not. Russians talk. It is one of our vices. Sir Henry had information about the Trust that he offered to sell to my uncle. Did you know this?’

Max still found it hard to believe his father had been engaged in such activities, but it seemed he was going to have to accustom himself to the idea. ‘What sort of information?’

‘There is a traitor inside the Trust. The Cheka know our plans before we know them ourselves. We are being destroyed from within. Sir Henry told my uncle he knew who the traitor was. He was given the name by Pierre Dombreux.’

‘But Dombreux was working for the Bolsheviks.’

‘Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was playing a double game. It is a dangerous thing to do.’

‘So it seems.’

‘We must know who the traitor is, Max. Did Sir Henry leave any sort of … record?’

‘Nothing that will help you.’

‘But will you help us, Max? If you discover the name …’

‘I’ll tell you. And you won’t have to pay me for it.’

‘Thank you.’ She bowed her head and rested it on his shoulder. She murmured something into the muffling cloth of his jacket. For a moment, he thought she was crying.

‘Don’t upset yourself.’ He raised her chin gently.

She looked at him with her large, dark soulful eyes. ‘I am afraid, Max. And you also should be afraid.’

Max thought of the note the young Arab had secreted in his pocket and smiled. ‘You’re probably right. But I seem to have lost the knack.’

WHEN HE BELATEDLY
rejoined them, Sam made no effort to deny that he felt dead on his feet. ‘It’s been a long day and no mistake.’

Max insisted on settling the bill and they promptly took their leave of Le Sagittaire.

‘You head back to the Mazarin, Sam,’ Max said once they were outside. ‘I’ll escort Nadia home.’

Ordinarily, Sam would have managed some kind of knowing wink at that. But he really was exhausted. Max suspected much of what he had eaten and drunk in the course of the evening had recently left him by the emergency exit. ‘Righto, sir.’ With that he staggered off.

It was not far to Bukayev’s bookshop. The streets were generally quiet. Snow was gently falling. In Little Russia, it was quieter still and the snow heavier.

‘It is a little like St Petersburg here tonight,’ said Nadia as they approached the shop.

‘You grew up in St Petersburg?’

‘Yes. And I miss it every day.’

‘Do you have any family apart from your uncle?’

‘No. My father and my two brothers were killed in the war. My mother died of a broken heart. Uncle Igor is all I have left.’

‘I hope you’ll hear from him soon.’

‘I hope also. I do not enjoy being alone.’

They stopped at the door of the shop. There was an appeal – an
invitation – in Nadia’s gaze Max could have chosen to pretend he had not noticed. But the warmth and softness of her body were easy to imagine. And he wanted in that instant to do more than imagine them.

‘Will you come in?’

He hesitated, then nodded. And she turned and unlocked the door.

Max was aware that the man Appleby had instructed to tail him had almost certainly followed him from the Mazarin to Le Sagittaire and on to the bookshop. Staying with Nadia was in part an act of defiance: a statement that he did not care what they knew or thought they knew about him. The rest was a simple surrender to the sensuality of the moment. Nadia needed him and he needed her. And the need was urgent.

He left as dawn was breaking. Nadia lay in bed, watching him dress. Neither spoke. Words, after their urgent couplings, seemed wholly redundant. He did not even kiss her goodbye. But in the looks that passed between them they exchanged a fitting farewell.

The snow had stopped overnight and most of it had dissolved into slush. The streets were deserted and Max wondered if his shadow was still with him. He would have had a bone-chilling vigil outside the bookshop if he was. There was no sign of him that Max could detect. But that, he well knew, was hardly decisive.