by Iona Whishaw
When he put down the receiver, Darling counted to ten, determined to keep his focus, and then went to the door, opened it, and shouted.
“Ames!”
Oxley did not panic when he learned the car had gone. He could feel his face go opaque, expressionless with steely thought. It could not be long now, anyway, he thought. He tried not to race ahead to the conclusion.
Chapter Twenty-SEVEN
Three weeks earlier
“Look here, Oxley, there’s no getting around the fact that you’ve blotted your copybook here with your insubordination, but you’re a good agent. You can make everything right with this, do you hear? I know you’re not happy about it, but this is extremely important. There’s a good indication that a Russian agent is defecting, and he has the information we need to prevent another absolute debacle like we had with Gouzenko. There’s a good chance he knows every traitor still loose in this country. He was meant to defect to England, but the Soviets may have got wind of it. He apparently has some connection with an ex-British agent living in, God help us, British Columbia, and word is he might try to find her. You’re to go there and collect him and get him safely back to us. Is that clear? And I think at this point a brisk ‘yes, sir’ is all we want from you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ames, I want you to take over the Brodie business. I need to deal with Oxley.”
Ames shifted his weight subtly where he stood in the doorway of Darling’s office. “If I may, sir.”
“Yes, what is it?” First Lane, now Ames.
“Well, I wonder,” he said, slipping all the way into Darling’s office and shutting the door. “I wonder if I should cozy up to Oxley. Take him to the bar, see if I can find anything out from his end. He strikes me, I don’t know, as a little full of himself. I wonder if he’d slip up a bit if I expressed some admiration or envy for his big city background.”
Darling considered this.
“Yes, all right. You can take him to the bar after you meet with him, Ward, and O’Brien to find out where we are. Play dumb, you’ve been away, et cetera. And try to get a feel for where we are. I have a sense Ward has some misgivings about the original search of Taylor’s shop. I don’t think there’s any question we’ve got the right man, but I don’t like loose ends. I can’t make out why a killer wouldn’t get rid of the weapon—or the shirt, for that matter. When you’ve finished, you and O’Brien re-interview Brodie. Maybe he’ll be less cowed with a nice fellow like you.”
“Very funny, sir.” Ames started for the door. “Can I put the tab at the bar on account?”
“Get out, Ames,” Darling said. It was good to have Ames back.
With Ames gone, Darling opened his desk drawer to find the letter that had accompanied the assignment of Oxley to the Nelson Police station. It annoyed him that he himself had just rubber stamped it without any real concern simply because he was short a man and too focused on his own personal business.
Having found the letter, he reached for his phone and then stopped. Perhaps it was the example of Lane going to the Armstrongs’ to use a safer phone than her own might be, or that his own distrust of Oxley had reached alarming proportions. And there was the elephant in the room. That damn radio. It felt artificial to pretend he didn’t know about it, but he knew he’d best wait on Lane. Taking up his jacket and hat, he went downstairs. He expected O’Brien to be manning the desk, but of course, he’d sent Ames off to meet with him.
“Back in an hour,” he said to the quite new Constable Terrell, temporarily assigned to the front desk. He was the first black man to join the Nelson police force, and Darling thought he might make a good addition. He was quiet and efficient, and Darling suspected, better educated than most of the men.
Just as he opened the door, he looked back into the room. The meeting room door was closed, and there was no sign of Oxley. He glanced at the nail where the car keys usually hung. They were gone. Now what was he up to?
“Constable, do you know what’s happened to Oxley?”
Terrell looked at a list in front of him. “Yes, sir. He’s gone out on a complaint from a motel owner just outside of town about some derelict who might not pay his bill.”
“Not a police matter just yet, surely?”
“I know, sir. But Officer Oxley said that the man seemed really agitated, and he thought it best to just go out and calm him down and prevent some sort of brouhaha.”
“Quite right. Thank you, Constable Terrell.”
Aptekar was finding his stay at the Easy Two Motel a strain. There was a kind of sordid hopelessness about the small room with its single-bulb lighting and the empty parking lot indicating next to no visitors in spite of the cheerful sign advertising fishing and boating. Most people travelling to town simply stayed in town, he assumed. Perhaps this place was for summer holiday makers. To keep alert, he had instituted daily walks down to the lake, more of a river here, and along the road used to service the power station nearby.
This time he’d gone the other way, to a small general store to pick up a loaf of bread and a can of spam. Nothing that required cooking. He was climbing up the path toward the road. The motel, on the opposite side, had just become visible, when he saw a car pull up and park in front of the last room.
Aptekar stopped, almost holding his breath. A man in a police uniform got out and looked up and down the length of the building and then began to walk slowly past each room looking into each window, cupping his hands around his face to block out the light. He watched until the man went into the office. The police. What did this mean? The motel owner must have called them. Why? He’d been paying as he went. A day later and it wouldn’t have mattered. Well. He wouldn’t have to stay in that miserable room another night.
“No, you were right to call,” Oxley said. “Can I have a look at his room?”
“I guess so. I didn’t think anyone would come out. I just wanted to know what my recourse was if he didn’t pay. I mean he’s paid so far, by the day, but he is a foreigner, and looks hard up and—”
“Listen, you had a good natural instinct to call us. Maybe he’s been paying, but what is he doing here? He’s not on his way somewhere like a good honest citizen would be, is he? He doesn’t have a car, he doesn’t appear to have any plans to go anywhere, isn’t that what you said?”
“I guess there’d be no harm in it.”
The owner led Oxley out of the office and they walked along the gravel driveway to the third room. “This is the room.”
“Well, open it!” Oxley said with impatient sarcasm. “I don’t have all day.”
The owner fitted in the key, turned the lock, and pushed open the door. He was surprised by what he saw, and his misgivings about his own action in calling the police in the first place reached new heights. The bed had been neatly made, a small leather hold-all sat closed on the one chair, and two cans of beans were lined up neatly on the dresser. A can opener and a clean spoon lay beside them. He’d been worried that he might see a vagrant’s room: full of garbage, smelling of dirty clothes, cigarettes, towels on the floor.
“You know, I think it’s going to be all right. I don’t think we should be in here.” He started to back out the door.
“You run along. I won’t be a moment,” Oxley said dismissively. He already had the hold-all in his hand, and he turned it over, dumping the contents on the bed.
The motel owner stood a moment, uncertain what to do, and then went outside. His one concession to his sudden unease was to stay outside the door and not return to his office.
Oxley looked through the small pile of clothes, checking the pockets of the shirts and the one extra pair of pants, feeling the inside of the hold-all for a lining that was loose or someplace papers could be hidden. Annoyed, he left bag and clothes in a tumble on the bed and checked the bathroom. Toothbrush, comb, and toothpowder lined neatly behind the taps on the sink.
He went back into the bedroom and pulled open all of the drawers in the dresser. They were empty. Frustrated now, he went outside and was startled by the manager leaning against the wall right outside the door.
“You call me the minute he comes back. Same number, but you ask for me, do you understand?” Oxley turned and walked back down the parking lot to the car and slammed the door. In the next moment he was out of the car and striding back toward the owner, who was tentatively locking the door of the room. “Listen. This man is a wanted man. This is as close as we’ve gotten to him. Don’t approach him, don’t talk to him. He’s dangerous, and I expect he’s armed. Just call, right?”
At this the owner looked anxiously up and down what suddenly seemed to him to be a lonely stretch of road, and at the looming bank of trees between the motel and the lake.
“Dangerous? No one said . . . okay. Yes. I’ll call.”
“Good fellow.” Oxley gave the owner a slap on the shoulder and returned to his car.
Remembering about the letter, the owner hurried after the policeman. Oxley impatiently rolled down the car window.
“What is it?”
“Just that he asked me about the post office, day before yesterday. Said he had a letter to mail. I offered to send it, but he said the walk would do him good.”
“Did you see the letter?”
“Well, no. But that’s what he said. I did see him go off down the road toward town.”
“Good man. That’s helpful.”
The owner watched the car peel out of the driveway and turn in the direction of Nelson, and then he hurried back to the office. It was just beginning to dawn on him that he would have to stay by his window watching for the return of the man who had been, he reflected now, foreign after all, and far too polite. He had been right to suspect he was up to something. He was glad now he’d phoned the police. He went into the small garage at the back of his own living quarters and pulled out his hunting rifle and a box of cartridges. No harm in having these close by while he waited.
Aptekar watched all the coming and going from his vantage point across the lake, and wished he was close enough to hear what was being said. He sat down, facing the lake below and sighed. He’d be sleeping al fresco tonight.
“Mr. Hunt. You’re a hard man to get hold of,” Lane said. She was sitting in the Armstrong parlour. She had waited to be connected to the British consular office in Vancouver for a considerable time, and then more time was expended waiting for Hunt to be tracked down. She had spent the nearly half hour looking at the titles in the bookshelf opposite from where she was sitting. “This is Lane Winslow.”
“Miss Winslow,” Hunt said, unable to hide the slight lilt of surprise in his voice. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you. I can only assume this means our man has turned up.”
“No, he hasn’t. But something else has, and I thought you ought to know. Or alternatively, I thought you could explain.” For reasons she wasn’t quite sure of, she did not tell Hunt about her note from Aptekar. She would, she reassured herself, but not yet.
“Are you calling from your own phone?”
Lane suppressed an impatient sigh. “No, Mr. Hunt, I am not. Now can I get on with it?” Lane experienced only a slight frisson of guilt at her knowledge that Lucy, the exchange girl in Balfour, could well be listening in. But she wouldn’t be able to make hide nor hair of their conversation, Lane reassured herself. Anyway, there must be times when Lucy did her nails or drank coffee and didn’t pay attention to other people’s phone calls.
“Yes, go on.”
“If you are waiting for this man, Stanimir Aptekar, to turn up, you may not be alone. I suspect my Russian visitor might be too, and there’s a policeman called Oxley, I don’t know his Christian name, who has been recently assigned to the Nelson police force, who may be as well.”
There was a moment’s silence on the line. “Why do you think this?”
“Because they are both equipped with radio transmitters. It strains all credulity that this would not be a coincidence.”
“I see.”
“Well, I don’t.”
As Lane had contemplated this state of affairs, she had mentally run through the options. It was possible that Orlova and Oxley were either agents of the Soviets, or precautions put in place by the British. Hunt’s sudden caginess made the latter suspicion take centre stage. “I suppose they are something to do with you? Of course, they are. How else would you have known I had a guest or that I was getting married?”
Another long silence. “Look, Miss Winslow—
“I am looking, Mr. Hunt. In fact, it was my looking that led to me finding the radio my guest has no doubt been using up in the bush somewhere, and the police have discovered a matching radio they are certain belongs to Oxley. I cautioned them to say nothing until I could ascertain what might be going on. I’m familiar with this equipment. I know exactly what kind of range it has and how to use it. But I expect you spent the war behind a desk.”
This was uncalled for, she knew, but her ire at the circumlocutions of her former employers brought up memories.
On the other end of the line, Hunt was considering what would be for the best. If he didn’t tell her, she and the police would continue mucking about and no doubt destroy their one chance to get hold of Aptekar. He had trusted what she presented when they had spoken by the lake, but the director seemed to be ambivalent about her and had implied she might not be trustworthy. He too, in that moment, suppressed a sigh at the infernal compartmentalizing and secrecy of the agency. If he did tell her, could he trust that she had been a good enough agent to do as she was told?
“Mr. Hunt,” Lane said wearily into the phone. “There’s no point in all this secrecy. I’ve had a note from Aptekar with a suggested meeting place tomorrow. If these are your agents, then I’d better know; if they are not, he is in danger. You were right that he would seek me out, though I don’t know why he has, but I’m certain you will agree with me that he needs protection.”
“Oxley is that protection. He’s one of ours. You need to tell him about the meeting.”
“There. Was that so hard?”
“You are an unknown quantity, Miss Winslow.”
“You have no idea. And the countess?”
“Countess?”
“My Russian guest, Orlova.”
“Oxley is running her. She is there as failsafe. In case Aptekar turned up directly to you, she was to contact him. This isn’t a game, Miss Winslow. You must contact Oxley immediately with the details of the meeting. In fact, give them to me now.”
Hunt’s anxiety about Winslow had increased with every question she asked. Was she working with the Russians? Had she even been planning to tell him about Aptekar’s note? Still. She had. And the director had been absolutely clear in his instructions: Aptekar was to be turned over to Oxley.
Lane looked at the note in her hand. Aptekar had said “tell no one.” He had said he would meet her off the steamer that would dock at King’s Cove on Saturday at around noon. Did “no one” include the man who was sent to collect him and keep him safe? Safe from whom? He had clearly been spirited away by the Soviets when he was supposed to meet the British near the Yugoslav border. He had escaped somehow and had made his way here, a journey that must have been harrowing and dangerous. He was feeling vulnerable and untrusting of anyone. Would it be a betrayal to tell Hunt his plans? She, on her own, would not be able to keep him safe if there were Soviet agents looking for him. If she told Hunt the details, he would contact Oxley. Would Oxley then tell Orlova? There would be no point. Orlova was only there as an extra set of eyes. Oxley could swoop in, collect Aptekar, and get him back to England. It seemed unlikely to her that he would involve her. But they were all unknown quantities, weren’t they? Except possibly Hunt. He was the perfect British bureaucrat. The problem with him, she thought, is tha
t he is being directed by Dunn, and he was an altogether too well-known quantity.
“I’ll let you know, Mr. Hunt.” Lane put the phone down and realized she was almost shaking. It had been a decision that came quite unbidden, surprising even her. But she knew it was right. And so was the next thing she would do.
Chapter Twenty-EIGHT
“You’re being a confounded nuisance, Darling.” The man on the other end of the phone was in Ottawa. The line crackled.
“It’s my police station. I’m responsible for the men in it. I have every right to be as much of a nuisance as I want if someone has been planted here for some purpose about which I know nothing.”
“He’s a trained policeman.”
“With a communication device he has been keeping secret from all of us, hampering the work of the department, as a matter of fact, since he replaced the spare tyre with it.”
“Look, I’d like to tell you. I can’t.”
“Good. Well my usual man is back, so I can return yours to you. I’ll go down to the station and dismiss him. My man can take over the murder investigation we’ve got going.”
“Don’t be an ass, Darling. You’re making heavy weather of this. You can’t send him back. If you must know, he’s in the middle of an investigation for us. It’s a matter of national security. There, I’ve said it.”
Darling looked out his living room window at the peaceful city of Nelson lying below him in the golden light and sharp shadows of the autumn sun. Any place less likely to be in the grip of a national security crisis he could not imagine.
“Well, that covers a multitude of sins. Imminent Soviet invasion is it?”
“Look, just trust me. Leave Oxley in place. He’s one of ours. He has a job to do—when he’s done it, he’ll be out of your hair. All I can tell you is that he is after an asset, and when he’s collected him, he’ll be done.”
