Gerald Seymour

by Traitor's Kiss (b) (epub)

  'You have an hour,' Piatkin said. 'A clear hour.'

  He waved Piatkin away. An hour was sufficient. Yuri Bikov walked to the front entrance of the officers' accommodation block, paused to wipe his feet hard on the outer mat, then checked his boots to see they were free of mud and dirt. The three-storey building was for single men, not officers with families who would have larger units. The doorway was empty, the staircase deserted. Single officers were at their desks or at the training lecture halls—no one saw him enter with his major and his sergeant. He wore the same clothes as those in which he had travelled; had he been seen he would have appeared to be a plumber or an engineer sent to repair one of the quarters' heating systems.

  The files were gutted and could tell him nothing more. He waited on news from Gdansk, but that was a long throw. He had seen the face of Archenko, his prey. The room would tell him more of the man than he could find elsewhere: the secrets of a room were always paramount in an investigation. The deterioration of a submarine's torpedo tube would give him the time he needed. His sergeant inserted a master key. The door creaked open and the silence swam in the block.

  He knelt in the doorway. He searched the floor for a cotton thread, a blond hair or a sliver of see-through adhesive tape. He did not find them. He stepped into the room. His major followed him, his sergeant closed the door and relocked it.

  Bikov went to the centre of the room, and his major and his sergeant stayed back by the door. They would not distract him. He had an hour, he did not need to hurry. A man's room gave insight to his soul. In front of him was a Spartan iron bed, carefully made up, with the sheets and blankets uncreased, the corners exactly folded and the pillow had been punched as if it were new. There was a bedside table on which were a telephone, a notepad and a pencil laid geometrically alongside it, a small alarm clock and a battery radio. Beyond the bedside table was a window with the curtains opened, but the ledge was bare. In front of the window was a bare desk top, with empty drawers, and a small swivel chair.

  Bikov made a quarter-turn. On his left was an easy chair covered with frayed material facing a television set. Beside the chair was a low table on which lay a naval magazine, not dropped down but placed exactly against two of the table's corners. Screwed to the wall, above the television set, was a double-shelved bookcase. From where he stood, Bikov could read the titles: naval manuals in Russian, medieval archaeological history in German. Midway between the bookcase and the end of the wall a single framed photograph hung. It was an enlargement and showed a river in the foreground and a castle of red brick whose outer defensive walls, set with battle towers, dominated a riverbank.

  He turned again.

  The wardrobe's two doors were closed. Next to it was the open entrance to the shower room and toilet, and past it was a hard, upright chair. There were no clothes, uniform or civilian, on the chair, no discarded shoes on the floor. Bikov's own room, wherever he was, was carpeted with dropped clothes, trousers and shirts, underwear and socks. Where there was wall space, beside the wardrobe and the door and above the chair, there was a year's planner chart, a traditional reproduction of a painting of a destroyer flotilla at sea, and nothing else.

  He looked into a corner of the room, where the sink unit was. Across the wall was a work surface that reached to a small electric cooker. Under the sink and the work area were cupboards. Above them were hooks for saucepans and racks for plates, bowls and cups. His lips pursed and his tongue ran against his teeth. Every item was washed up and stowed. No used saucepans in the sink, no rinsed plates or cups left to dry on the draining-board.

  Now Bikov faced the door.

  A greatcoat and a waterproof hung from the hooks on it. There was no furniture against the walls on either side, no more pictures hanging. Bikov spoke. His major and his sergeant knew better than to think he addressed them. He spoke to himself.

  'What is remarkable is that the man, Archenko, hides himself. This is his room, where he is alone and in privacy, and it is clean. Not clean with a broom, a pan and disinfectant, but clean of character. This is not some sudden gesture, the cleansing has not happened overnight because he believes himself to be under surveillance. All the time that he has been watched, which would have first alerted him, he has not worked through this room and taken from it anything that could betray him. It would have been seen. If he had come down the stairs and out through the back or the front and had carried a bag with materials to be disposed of, it would have been seen. The room, I think, has been like this for months or for years, perhaps from the day he arrived here. It would be a clear decision on his part to minimize the property he owns that sends a message of him. The state of the room is an indication—not evidence—of guilt. It is the room of a man who covers himself, who does not wish anything of himself to be observed. This is not a mania for tidiness, it is beyond that. Where are the photographs? There is no picture of any significant person: a grandmother or a mother or a girl, no pictures of friends and fellow officers, of him today or of him in his youth. Even here, in his own room, he guards against outsiders. The room has been sanitized, and I believe that happened from the start of his occupancy. He is not an emotional eunuch. I consider that everything he does is plotted with care. He goes to Malbork Castle inside eastern Poland three or four times a year, and that is permitted because he makes a great play of his near-obsessional interest in medieval castle-building. It is the one interest that his fellow officers and his commander, and the zampolit Piatkin, need to know of. So, he has a photograph that I assume is of Malbork Castle, and books to verify the interest—nothing more. He would know that I, or anyone such as I, whom he will inevitably face in interrogation, would look for family as the first point to talk of. There is no family. He tries not to make it easy for me…for an interrogator. I do not intend to go through the drawers. This is the room of an intelligent man. If we were to dislodge one hair from a drawer top, or from the wardrobe, or the drawers at the kitchen unit, then we arm him, and I do not wish, yet, for him to be alerted. I said that he was intelligent, but I think Viktor Archenko may be, could possibly be, under the delusion that he is clever, cunning, and that would be an error. The room tells me much of him, enough of him.'

  On the way out, Bikov knelt and examined the mat and the carpet again. He heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, iron-shod boots on the concrete. He stood and stepped back, and his sergeant pulled the door shut. The footsteps came on up the stairs. His sergeant fumbled with the master key. Bikov faced the door, that his face should not be seen, as did his major and his sergeant. The footsteps went on by, crossed the landing, going easily, and climbed the next flight.

  Yuri Bikov did not know of the mistake he had made.

  When he had heard them go, the conscript came down from the top landing. He breathed hard. He waited until he heard the snap of the ground-level main entrance door, then followed. Igor Vasiliev thought himself the chosen friend of Captain, second rank, Viktor Archenko. He had been saved from drowning. His machine-gun had been returned to him. He had come to tell his friend, the chief of staff to the fleet commander, when there was next a firing exercise on the range for his platoon, because he hoped his friend would come to see him shoot. Men had been at his friend's door, had been closing it and locking it, and had turned away from him as if to preserve the secrecy of their identity. He did not know the importance of what he had seen, but it frightened him.

  Deep in the water from the weight of her nine hundred tonnes of cargo, the Princess Rose edged up the river in an aisle of cranes and moored ships. They were almost level with the Westerplatte monument on the starboard side, and the new ferry wharves were on the port side.

  Mowbray caught the tang of the sea, close to open water, and clung to a rail as the ship nudged into the river's mouth. He climbed the last set of steps to the bridge and worked his way through the narrow door. He wore a clean shirt, the tie of the Parachute Regiment, not that he had ever jumped but it had been presented to him at a mess thrash in Aldershot, h
is tweed suit, the brogue shoes that had good tread, which Jerry the Pole had polished for him, and a life-jacket. He had insisted upon the life-jacket. In an hour, when they were clear of the harbour and out to sea, and the risks of interception were least, he would send the signal to London, tell Vauxhall Bridge Cross that the operation would run in the morning. He came to the bridge to find the master, whose cabin he had purloined, and vent his annoyance.

  'There's a dog in there.'

  'Where, Mr Mowbray?'

  'In your, my, cabin. There's a bloody dog in there. It scratched the door.'

  'It is our dog; it is Feliks.'

  'I opened the door, it ran in. Looks flea-infested. It's underneath the bed.'

  'The bunk, Mr Mowbray.'

  'Underneath the bed, and it growls.'

  'We love that dog, it brings us luck.'

  'It smells, and we don't need luck. We don't rely on luck, Captain Yaxis, because we are professionals. Get rid of it, please.'

  They were now past the Westerplatte monument. He lingered on the bridge to give time for the master to call the mate, and for the mate to remove the dog from the cabin. He looked back at the monument, a hideous, angular mess of carved granite blocks with a thin square column topping the plinth. It had no beauty, but a savage strength, and it marked a point of history. Mowbray was a man of history: it governed him.

  She would be there at dawn. He could predict it. Alice would be there, on the high promontory dividing the Motlawa river from the sea, by the monument as the light came. She had history there.

  The Princess Rose chugged into the channel and the swell caught her, but then the ship veered to starboard, slowed and approached a disused quay.

  The master told him the dog had been taken from the cabin, that he had informed the harbour master's office that he was still dissatisfied with the engine's performance, and the pilot had been stood down.

  Rupert Mowbray went below to prepare the signal he would send to London.

  She had taken charge. Locke could see that the men enjoyed her authority. She gave them each a sheet of paper and a pencil. They were in Billy's room high in the Mercure Hotel and Billy had the easy chair, Wickso and Lofty were squatted on the carpet, and Ham had the straight chair at the desk. He thought it childish.

  She read out the questions. 'One: Who was the German commander defending Kaliningrad from the bunker? Two: In what street is the Kosmonaut memorial remembering Leonov and Patzayei, both from Kaliningrad?'

  Locke had done the detailed briefing, as he had been taught to, with the maps, had seen the barely stifled yawns, and had known that he had not carried his audience. She had usurped him. Alice had used the same brief and had chatted through it as if she were a tourist guide. Now he thought she pandered to them.

  'Got those, boys? Moving on…three: What year did Peter the Great visit what is now Kaliningrad? And four: What was the last church dynamited in Kaliningrad, in 1976, to remove the final traces of German culture? Keep scribbling, boys.'

  He had talked to them for an hour, then she had intervened, gone over the same ground in thirty five minutes, and held them. He hadn't. Locke was ignored.

  'Five: What is the name of the restaurant on Sovietsky 19? That's a good easy one.'

  It was effortless and made them laugh. She held them in her hand, as he could not.

  'Six: The cobbles in the streets round Kaliningrad's cathedral were dug up by the Russians—where were they relaid? Didn't you listen to me?'

  He sat on the bed and thought he had no part to play. She diminished him.

  He understood what she did: she bonded with them and relaxed them, made interesting the papers, maps, books they had searched through to learn of Kaliningrad. She made them scratch in their minds for what Locke and she had lectured. They had all been passed over, disgraced, and she wound them back into the family, did not take them for granted, made them feel they were players of importance, and calmed them.

  'Keep going, boys…only another fourteen to do. Seven: Name the ship now moored at the Oceanography Museum that successfully evacuated twenty thousand Germans from Kaliningrad, in several sailings to Denmark? That's the lucky buggers—most weren't. Eight: When Brezhnev wanted to destroy the cathedral, whose tomb saved it? Are we doing all right, boys?'

  Locke pushed himself up from the bed. He wanted out, fast, could not accept more of the humiliation. They fed from her fingers and had yawned at him. Then, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a boutique's little gift bag. She was smiling at them. From it she took out four small boxes. Her smile switched to mock solemn and she gave a box to each of them. 'Go on, yes, open it.'

  Locke realized that none of them knew what they would find. The lids of the boxes were lifted. In each was a pendant of amber stone and a fine gold chain. She blushed. Her fingers were on her own pendant.

  'Wear them when you go across—I'd appreciate that.'

  Billy came to her. 'I wouldn't let all those slobbering blighters do this, ma'am, but this is from all of us—thanks.'

  His coarse hands held her face and he kissed each of her cheeks, and the blush was brighter.

  The clasps were too delicate for them. She moved from Billy to Lofty, then to Ham, unfastened the clasps, hooked the chains, then let the pendants swing on their chests. She got to Wickso, and reached behind his neck.

  'Don't strangle me, ma'am. Oh, and I've a problem,' Wickso said.

  'What is it, Wickso?'

  'It's the photo we've been shown of him. It's not good enough. It's not sharp and the flash has washed the life out of him. What I'm saying, we could walk past him.' Billy was holding up the picture. Ferret lounged in a chair in a room of the Excelsior Hotel, shirtsleeves and tired. Mowbray had taken it. It was the only picture of Ferret in the file.

  'I'm saying the same, ma'am,' Ham said, and Lofty nodded. 'It doesn't do the business.'

  Well, that wasn't the fault of Gabriel Locke. None of it was his fault. Better if the photograph had stayed in the file, and the file had stayed in the archive. He was drifting to the door. She reached again into her handbag, took out a small leatherbound clip-over picture holder, and tossed it towards Billy. He caught it, and prised open the catch. Locke couldn't see the picture. Billy looked at it. Ham shuffled to him; Wickso and Lofty crawled across the carpet. They stared at the picture-holder, soaked it, then returned to their places.

  Billy said, as he closed the catch and passed it back to Alice, 'That'll do nicely, ma'am. Nice picture—and we'll be glad to wear them. Keep firing, ma'am.'

  Locke was at the door. 'I'll see you all in the morning.'

  Alice was saying, 'OK, back to work. Where were we? Yes. Nine…'

  He closed the door, padded off down the corridor, and took the lift, then walked out into the night. They didn't value him. He was not valued because he, alone, stood against the cowboy culture of the operation.

  Past midnight, and the hotel slept. The man leaned across the reception desk, took the card sheet from his attaché case and showed it to the night porter. He was married to the cousin of the zampolit, Piatkin, a rank lower in the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti than him, but he knew he was spoken well of, and he had commendations. His life in the consulate was dull, his office overlooking Batorego was an empire of tedium, and then, from a clear blue sky, had come the matter of the book of matches and the queries as to who had stayed on three relevant dates at the Excelsior Hotel by the river and the marina. The task entrusted to him was the most sensitive yet given him. He had come the previous evening, late, but a fresh-faced young night porter had been on duty, and the one he trusted had been away from work, out of Gdansk, visiting a sick relative in Torun.

  The last time he had visited the hotel in the dead of night with senior men from the Warsaw embassy, and had greased the night porter's palm, he had been given the names of Roderick Walton and Elizabeth Beresford, resident when it was relevant, and they had taken away a vague description of the elderly Walton. The card paper he took from
his attaché case carried a montage of twenty-four covert photographs of older men. They came from the Lubyanka, had been flown to Warsaw, then couriered to Gdansk. Underneath each photograph was a number. Each one had been taken, long lens, of officers in the British intelligence-gathering service. 'Was Roderick Walton among them?' Had a senior and experienced man of the Service of Great Britain stayed at the Excelsior Hotel each time that Archenko had travelled to the city to negotiate dry-dock facilities? It was why he had joined. They said at the Lubyanka that the war was not finished, was dormant but not over. This was the battleground that mattered, they said in the Lubyanka, not the fucking about in Afghanistan, Chechnya and in the Islamic satellites in the south. The old discipline of ideology might have gone but the suspicion had survived and the lack of trust for those who now came from the West and patronized, slapped backs, stank of talc and lotion and who believed they had ground the Motherland to defeat He showed the photographs; a wad of zlotys lay across them. He had been told in the signal sent to him by courier that if a photograph was identified then evidence was found.

  Locke came into the hotel. In front of him a man in a long raincoat was bent across the reception desk and the night porter was squinting down at something between them. The porter looked up, saw Locke, made an ingratiating smile, recognized him and reached for a key.

  A low light lit the desk but the rest of the hall was in darkness. Locke took the key. The man's face was away from him. He took a step towards the stairs, then hesitated. Did he want a morning paper? In Gdansk there were the Gazeta Morska and the Dziennik Ballycki. Ahead of him was a day of hanging around, waiting; he had no book. Should he order a paper? He turned. Both their heads were down as they studied what was between them. He saw a sheet of photographs, on the desk, and the night porter's finger wavered over one, in the left column, and he heard a little scratched gasp of excitement from Raincoat Man. Then his finger, too, tapped the picture. Locke saw the photograph, saw the swept-back silver hair, the hawk's eyes and the proud chin of Rupert Mowbray, and their fingers. He turned away and padded to the dark corner of the lobby.