The Steps were jammed with students. It was like the Kop on a cup-tie day, except that most of these faces were turned upwards towards the leader of their revels, who was on the terrace immediately below us leading the chanting through a loud-hailer. The accompaniment came from the beating of fists against dustbin lids, tin boxes, anything that gave out a resonant noise. The crowd was far too large to be contained on the steps and had spilled over into the Piazza di Spagna below. The ‘old barge’ fountain and the flower-sellers’ stalls were small oases of freshness and fragrance in this wilderness of human sweat and frenzy. The traffic in the piazza was at a halt and there were signs of the beginnings of a large police build-up at the head of Via Condotti, the fashionable shopping street running off the square. The precise object of the protest wasn’t clear to me but I sensed a general disapproval of those who were middle-class, middle-aged and rich enough to shop at Gucci’s, whose humble stall in the Via Condotti was within stone’s throwing distance.
The phrase filled me with alarm. Whatever its initial intent, this did not look to me like a gathering about to disperse peaceably. I’d once had the chance of studying the Roman police crowd-dispersal tactics from the safety of a high office window. It had been like sitting in the Imperial Box at the Colosseum.
I looked towards Reilly in a fury of resentment. Perhaps she’d simply come down here to buy herself a new golden knuckleduster at Gucci’s. Perhaps the Brigadier had been sitting in Room 211 at the Cristallo and I could have taken them both at once.
I certainly didn’t want my great revenge trail to end with an eyeful of tear-gas and a headful of baton. I willed her to move and, for once obedient, she turned and began to push her way back through the crowd. One thing about following Reilly through a press like this was that you could keep in touch with her progress just by watching the violent parting of the tightly crushed people ahead. She’d have made a fortune in Rugby League.
She was making straight back past the Obelisk in the centre of the square towards the church. In fact, it began to look as if this must be her destination. A sudden conversion, perhaps? I wondered light-headedly. If so, it looked as if she was going to be disappointed in her search for spiritual solace. The main doors of the building looked firmly and solidly shut. The old days of sanctuary are long past. Nowadays when the Church sees a riot developing on one of its doorsteps, it knows what to do, i.e. ram home the bolts and lock up the silver.
Reilly ignored the main door, however, and went unhesitatingly to a small side doorway and rang a bell. Almost instantly this door opened and she slipped inside. I followed, feeling close to the end of my strength and my patience. I was ready to ring the bell too and go charging in, even if the Pope himself answered it. But when I reached the door, I saw it was slightly ajar.
That should have alerted me. Not that I’ve been trained in the arts of security, but you don’t have to be James Bond to spot a trap when it’s advertised in neon. But all I did was take a firm grip on the Makarov and step inside.
It was a farce. I’d forgotten to take off my sunglasses and it was like putting my head into a sack, an impression reinforced when almost immediately my straw hat was forced down over my forehead, the canvas grip was rammed with disabling force into my plexus and the pistol was plucked from my pocket with a Faginesque ease. Whether it was the Makarov’s muzzle or Reilly’s own that was thrust under my jaw I don’t know, but it made it difficult to obey her instructions when she said, ‘All right, creep, who are you? Why’ve you been following me? Now talk!’
I managed a groan. This seemed to offend her, for she back-handed me across the face, dislodging my hat which I was beginning to fear was permanently jammed and also knocking off my glasses so that I could see again. I looked up at her. I was on my knees like a postulant before the Mother Superior. In that dim religious light I could see astonishment struggling through the mask of her make-up. It struck me that this was possibly the last satisfaction I was every likely to have. I ought to try to produce a good exit line.
I gasped, ‘Yes, Reilly. It’s a true miracle. It’s really me, you lousy bitch!’
Well, I suppose the staircase to Paradise is thronged with souls all morosely rehearsing the elegant witty things they ought to have said on their deathbeds. In the circumstances I felt I did well enough. I closed my eyes and waited for the curtain and the distant ripple of polite divine, or diabolical, applause.
25
… wounds on the front …
If my exit line was feeble, Reilly’s response was positively banal.
‘It’s you!’ she exclaimed.
Then another familiar voice added its contribution to the bathos.
‘Miss Reilly! For heaven’s sake, remember where you are! Put that thing away before someone sees it.’
I opened my eyes again. I had adjusted completely now to this new dim light. The Brigadier was standing close, very English and military in a dark blue blazer and grey flannels. Reilly, with what I felt was unbecoming and unladylike reluctance, withdrew the gun from deep inside my thyroid gland and I slowly stood up.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ said the Brigadier piously.
Reilly began to say something but he cut her off imperiously.
‘Not here,’ he said, picking up the grip. ‘This way. This way.’
We set off at a swift march, myself sandwiched between the pair of them like a prisoner under escort. Like, I say! That’s just what I was. I don’t know if prisoners on trial at the Old Bailey ever take in much of the architectural features of that historic building, but I personally have very little recollection of the beauties or lack of them of the Church of Trinità dei Monti. My aesthetic sensors had not time to re-adjust before we diverted through a narrow door between two side-chapels into what looked and smelt like a small vestry.
The Brigadier glanced at his watch and shook his head. ‘We’re very short of time,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a look at you, Mr Swift.’
He opened my jacket and looked with some distaste at the label, then removed my stolen wallet and studied the papers.
‘This will never do,’ he said. Would you mind changing into these, please, Mr Swift?’
These were a lightweight English-made suit, shirt, and shoes. I saw no point in provoking any greater antagonism at that particular moment and began to remove my clothes.
‘We don’t seem to be able to get through a meeting without me undressing,’ I remarked.
‘What happened?’ said the Brigadier to Reilly. ‘You’re an hour late. Our friends have become extremely impatient. I don’t blame them. They suspect a cross.’
‘Where are they?’ asked Reilly, who was more subdued than I’d ever seen her. This upset of plans seemed to have knocked her back a disproportionate amount. Perhaps she was worried about her promotion hopes.
‘They’ve popped out to check on things out there. What has been happening, Miss Reilly?’
‘I don’t know,’ confessed Reilly helplessly. ‘There was no contact so in the end I thought I’d better come here myself in case the plan had been changed. I spotted I was being followed but I’d no idea it was the man himself.’
‘I see. I presume these papers belonged to the man who picked you up in the ambulance, Mr Swift?’
I nodded, fastening my flies.
‘You really must be more careful about the help you hire, Miss Reilly,’ he reproved gently. ‘Your argument that we couldn’t trust a Red Brigade man was valid only if his substitute was perfectly to be trusted.’
‘Red Brigade?’ I said, suddenly alert.
‘That’s right, Mr Swift. Look, no use beating about the bush. You’ve been very useful to us, thanks for that. We’ve stuck to our end of the bargain, you saw your daughter, I’m sorry it all ended so unhappily, but you did see her. Now it’s over. Put these into your pocket, please.’
He handed me my Alexander Evans passport and a wallet. I opened it. It contained money, a lot of papers and a small diary. I began to examine the c
ontents more closely but he shook his head saying, ‘Don’t bother. No time. Ah, signori. Is it all set?’
The door had opened and two young men came in, dressed in their young men’s uniform of T-shirts, jeans and open sandals.
‘You have him?’ said one of them in a voice full of pleasure.
He came across to me, studied my face as though to reassure himself, and then spat right into my eye. Instinctively I swung at him. He blocked, and punched me in the belly. It was clearly target for today.
I doubled up once more, retching. The young fellow looked ready to continue the dialectic but his companion intervened.
The Brigadier said, ‘This is Pietro. I think you knew his sister, Monica. Signori, if you please.’
Pietro’s friend was carrying a zipped-up leather wallet which he now handed over to the Brigadier, who opened it and examined the papers it contained.
‘Excellent,’ he said.
‘Why are you dealing with these animals?’ I croaked.
‘Why not?’ said the Brigadier. ‘You had to go, you see that, Mr Swift? In any case, you didn’t have very long to live, so it’s not a very great loss to you, is it?’
I suppose it was a kind of humanitarianism, keeping up that pretence. I opened my mouth to protest but he didn’t give me the chance.
‘We like our operations to be as cost-effective as possible. Ultimately, like all government departments, we have to justify expenditure and make savings, especially in times of economic stringency. The Red Brigade are very keen to see you put underground so, not to beat about the bush, we’ve sold you to them. Not for money, just information about the odd politician and also one or two of their former friends. And between us we’ve concocted a little package of papers and diary notes which will stir up all kinds of hornets’ nests when the police go through your wallet.’
‘And when are they going to do that?’ I asked.
‘Not long,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Shortly there’s going to be a riot out there, viciously put down by a brutal police counter-attack. When the flak dies away, you’ll be found among the other wounded and dying.’
‘With a bullet in me? That should certainly rouse curiosity,’ I said.
‘With your skull fractured,’ said the Brigadier gently. ‘Signori.’
Pietro’s friend had come round behind me and suddenly he dropped a noose of rope over my shoulders and drew it tight, pinioning my arms to my sides. Pietro opened a cupboard and from it produce a long and viciously weighted truncheon.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the Brigadier. ‘It had been our intention that you should be drugged at this point, but as we seem to have lost our medical man …’
Pietro came at me, swinging. I ducked away desperately.
‘Miss Reilly!’ said the Brigadier.
Reilly produced her gun. Or rather my gun. Or rather the ambulance-driver’s Makarov. I might have laughed if I’d been given a last wish. Did they think the threat of being shot was going to make me stand still so they could beat me to death?
I twisted away again. The youth hanging on to the rope drove his knee into my kidneys. Pietro swung the baton high into the air. I think he cried, ‘Monica!’
I’d had trouble with last words, but I saw now I should have gone for simplicity. What more moving way for a lad to die than in church with his sister’s name on his lips? It gets you right here, in the heart. That’s where it got Pietro certainly. He wasn’t exactly bowled over. The 9mm Makarov doesn’t pack that kind of punch. But when a lump of lead of no matter what weight or velocity ventilates your ventricles you stop what you’re doing and sort of fold up.
Pietro’s friend stopped what he was doing too and looked round at Reilly in bewilderment. Any suspicion I’d had that getting Pietro plumb in the metronome was fortuitous disappeared with his friend’s left eye. Or perhaps she was aiming at the right.
I staggered round like a roped steer trying to get rid of the lasso.
The Brigadier said, ‘Miss Reilly, what the hell are you doing?’
He looked extremely cool, I must say, with that unique British Officer-class coolness which allows its possessors to stroll towards the enemy with walking stick in hand and bull-terrier at heel.
Reilly said, ‘Hold very still, Brigadier.’
‘Indeed I shall,’ he replied. He was no fool.
There was a hiatus in the conversation which gave me time to get myself unroped. I checked the two youths for signs of life but it was like checking a couple of lamb chops. They were clearly dead meat. I picked up Pietro’s baton and looked speculatively at the Brigadier. Reilly I’d become ambiguous about, but the Brig was still in the ring.
Reilly said. ‘You too, bucko. Hold still.’
It wasn’t really a declaration of enmity, I decided, but just a time-filler. The poor girl was not completely certain that she was making the right move. I had no doubts.
‘Blow the bastard away and let’s get out of here!’ I urged.
Unoriginal, perhaps, but it came from the heart.
‘What seems to be the problem, Miss Reilly?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘I don’t like the company we’ve been keeping,’ said Reilly.
The Brigadier and I glanced at Pietro and his mate. I think we shared a thought. When Reilly didn’t like the company, she was certainly adept at speeding the guests’ departure.
‘In our work, we can’t be choosey,’ said the Brigadier reasonably.
‘I don’t just mean this scum,’ said Reilly. ‘Though they’re insects. We should stamp on them, not deal with them. I mean the Russians.’
‘In the face of a common foe,’ murmured the Brigadier. ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend … remember?’
‘I remember,’ said Reilly. ‘And the Russians were Billy Bessacarr’s enemy? There’s no disputing that, the way things turned out. But Billy Bessacarr had to be our enemy too, that was the nub of the thing. Well, to be sure, at first I had no difficulty in believing it. The whole Profumo business was ancient history to me. I was just getting into my teens at the time, too young even to get myself a Christine Keeler hair-do, though I recall I was mad for one. But I could well believe there were a great number of very respectable and influential people, now leading worthy, God-fearing lives, who would look very sick if the whole affair was dredged up again. And of course there were security considerations, didn’t you tell me that? People we’d turned around or let the Russians think they’d turned around? Oh, it was all very believable.’
She spoke reflectively, as if really addressing herself, but her gaze and the Makarov remained firmly on her leader.
And where is the difficulty now, Miss Reilly?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘I suppose it started after I got to know the noble lord here. I was surprised. For an egotistical, unbalanced aristo, he didn’t seem such a bad fellow.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ I murmured. She ignored me.
‘I thought that if I really was going to put him in the way of killing his own father, I ought to know just a bit more about the old monster. So I started a bit of quiet research into what was really going on back in 1963. In particular, I dug around and found out what the late Lord Bessacarr had to say when he got to Moscow. No one took much notice of it at the time. He was saying he was innocent, but then, to quote most aptly, considering the background of the affair, “he would, wouldn’t he?” I heard him saying it again on the tape from the Villa Colonna.’
So Pa had been right. We had been bugged while we talked in the bedroom. Not that his care had done the children any good. I felt the surge of grief sweep over me again.
‘So you heard that tape?’ said the Brigadier. ‘I thought Major Krylov, the late Major Krylov, kept it.’
Reilly suddenly grinned.
‘I borrowed it before I left the villa. Not that there was much on it.’
Just a record of a fool finding his father and his daughter when it seemed he had lost them for ever. And then losing them for ever.
‘But
you know what I was thinking now? Suppose the old man didn’t do it. Then who did? Either them or us. If us, no wonder we didn’t want it advertised. If them, why were we so worried? Mind you, if us, why were they so worried? Unless, of course, in some way, them and us were one and the same thing.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the Brigadier. ‘I think I see where this interesting speculation is taking us.’
‘I don’t,’ I burst out. ‘Reilly, if you’re on my side, shoot this sod and let’s get out of here.’
‘Shut up, Lem,’ she said. ‘And it’s not speculation, sir. You see, I’ve read the woman Kim’s confession. Or, at least, old Bessacarr’s account of it.’
That set the Brigadier back, though he only showed it for the briefest flash.
‘How the hell have you managed that?’ I burst out.
‘I looked in the obvious place. Teresa’s flat. Who else did your father trust?’
‘But it was meant for me!’ I protested childishly. ‘How could Teresa …’
‘I didn’t ask Teresa,’ said Reilly. ‘She’s in hospital, remember? So, the question I want to ask you, sir, is, how come our boss, our recently retired boss I should say, was able to give an admitted KGB agent instructions over the phone that night? For that matter, how come our recently retired boss seems to be in sole charge of this operation?’
‘Miss Reilly!’ cried the Brigadier as if the light of understanding had suddenly been switched on in his mind. ‘Now I see your problem. But it’s all quite simple. Unfortunately you didn’t have the clearance to be told, but as you will readily appreciate, the fewer the better. It’s Anthony Blunt all over again, you see. He was spotted years ago. At first the idea was merely the usual one of offering immunity from prosecution in exchange for a full confession. But then, by a master stroke, he was allowed to remain in the department and apparently flourish! He became the greatest double of all time. You can see why the Russians should be as concerned as we are that he shouldn’t be exposed. They’re still completely fooled. But we’re the only winners, please believe that, Miss Reilly.’
Traitor's Blood Page 23
