She stood up and clung to him, careless of the damage to her hair. ‘Oh Kim! Kim!’
He gently unwrapped her arms, and still holding her round the waist, led her towards the dining-room. ‘I’m famished. This air, Joyce — what a tonic after Moscow — I even walked from the station.’
‘But what kept you?’ she cried. ‘I’ve been waiting since four. I was worried.’
‘My little mouse.’ He squeezed her tightly, guiding her to a table in the corner. ‘I got held up at the last minute. Duty to the Worker State.’
‘Oh I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said, as he evaded a further kiss by pulling out her chair.
The head waiter, hearing them speak English, offered them a Union Jack on a little pedestal from a nearby table; but Kim waved it away. ‘No point in advertising,’ he laughed, and ordered fresh sturgeon, half a bottle of wine for Joyce, and mineral water for himself.
‘You’re being so strong-minded,’ she said.
‘Just keeping a clear head,’ he smiled.
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’m so happy, Kim.’
‘So am I, Joyce. Happier than I’ve been for years.’
They ate to the accompaniment of long speeches in Spanish, broken by noisy applause, from the delegation of brown-suited men at a table along the wall, laid with flags that Philby identified as representing the Democratic Republic of Cuba.
‘Kim, let’s go and live in Cuba!’ she cried suddenly, then paused. His smile was a little slow in coming. ‘Cuba would be all right, wouldn’t it? I mean, it’s a Communist country, isn’t it?’
‘What makes you think I want to leave Moscow, Joyce?’
‘Well — nothing.’ She looked down at her plate. Her face was slightly flushed and under the make-up he could see the lines on her neck. For a moment the conversation sagged like a fallen kite, but he quickly played out more line and had it fluttering up again. He was a master of small-talk, able to make even the most ponderous conversation seem light and easy. It was a virtue that had paid off well in his life, and like all vain men he enjoyed practising his talents even when they weren’t required.
He was helped by a playful interlude during the main course, when a huge ginger cat strolled over to them and began rubbing itself against his leg. He was transported with delight, and even lifted the great creature on to the table and offered it a bite of his sturgeon. To his amusement, the animal merely sniffed at the fish and struggled to be let down.
‘Nothing for the RSPCA to complain about there!’ he cried. ‘God, what a handsome beast.’
He ordered her a second half-bottle of champagne, and a brandy and liqueur chocolates. She had a weak head, and was soon chattering about her schemes for making money out of Lennie’s French employer. ‘It would be lovely to have a nice nest-egg in the West,’ she murmured. ‘It could be transferred from a Swiss bank straight here — at least, to Moscow. We’d be rich, Kim.’
He smiled and patted her hand. If he had grown up in another era than the Cambridge of the Thirties, he thought wryly, he might have made a career out of silly rich women.
But poor Joyce Warburton — she didn’t have a bean to her name; just a lot of random information that she’d no doubt picked up from that scavenger, Lennie Maddox, and which, if pieced together by a discriminating mind, could prove highly damaging, even disastrous. And in a dangerous moment Philby caught himself feeling almost sorry for her.
They stayed until the Cuban delegation had left, and a few locals were finishing their coffee. It was past eleven when he called for the bill. The waiter wanted to know if he would pay with Intourist coupons, but Philby settled in roubles, leaving a generous tip.
Joyce was all for going to bed, but he insisted on a walk by the sea. She agreed reluctantly, and with some surprise.
He was an inveterately lazy man where physical exercise was concerned, always boasting of how he never walked when he could take a taxi.
The night was still warm and the water was as flat as a mirror. They crossed the esplanade, down the stone steps to the short shelving beach where the tide sucked at the pebbles with a sound which he said reminded him of rustling petticoats. They reached a row of skiffs lying on their sides above the tide-mark. ‘Joyce, let’s take one.’
‘But there’s no one to pay,’ she cried. ‘You can’t just take one!’
‘Nonsense. These boats belong to the People — and we’re people, surely?’
‘Very special people!’ she giggled, as he tipped the narrow twin-oared skiff upright and began to slide it down towards the water. His sprained fingers no longer bothered him; and with a smile he remembered that he hadn’t handled an oar since Trinity.
The old woman who came into the waiting-room to open the bar thought at first the man was drunk. He was lying across one of the tables, breathing hard. As soon as she began rattling up the shutters, he woke and came over to her. ‘Koñak,’ he whispered.
From his suit and tie she took him for another erring Muscovite. A middle-aged hooligan, she decided, as she poured a thimble measure of cheap Armenian brandy and held it back while the man counted out twelve kopeks. He swallowed it in a gulp, then returned to the table where he was soon asleep again with his head on his arm. He woke twenty minutes later with a clanging bell on the platform announcing the arrival of the express to Sochi. She watched him lope outside, and mouthed an elaborate Georgian oath as she glimpsed him climbing aboard the first-class sleeping car. These accursed Muscovites, coming down here with their pockets stuffed with roubles, getting drunk and chasing the girls, then riding home in the lap of luxury, while decent folk had to get up before dawn so that these parasites could play.
She was still muttering to herself when the train pulled out. Kim Philby had climbed into the upper berth, too tired even to undress. Except when he was woken to show his ticket, he slept the six hours to Rostov-on-Don.
CHAPTER 14
Cayle woke in a plain wooden room. Beside his head the joins in the planking oozed a syrupy pinesap. There was a single naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, a shuttered window, and a stove like an igloo built of boiled sweets that roared softly in the corner.
He was alone, lying on a bed with a bright woollen blanket over him and a bolster under his head. He was fully dressed, except for his boots; and the tops of his socks and the back of his trousers were damp. His mouth felt as though he were wearing a mask, and when he moved his lips he could feel dried blood flaking off his chin. He tried to sit up and a pain jarred through his neck, making him want to vomit. He lay back, swallowing bile and trying to steady the lurching patterns under his eyelids.
He didn’t hear the door open, and had no idea how long the man had been standing there. He stood close to the bed and said, ‘Feeling better?’
‘Ah shit.’ Cayle made another effort to sit up, and subsided again with the pain. ‘Where the hell — where is this?’
‘Lie still,’ the man said. His face was a pale blur. He turned and left the room, closing the door without a sound.
He’d spoken English, thought Cayle: with no accent. Like the men in the car. In the heart of Mother Russia. And without moving his head, he looked at his watch. 3.17. He tried remembering how long they’d been on the train — one, one and a half hours? — leaving Moscow at eleven. Over four hours ago.
He touched his jacket pocket and felt his wallet in place; he put his hand in and found his passport was there too. If it wasn’t for his bloody neck —
This time he heard the door open, and a second man came in. He was wearing a belted leather coat and he stood for what seemed a long time looking down at Cayle with the dispassion of a doctor doing his rounds. Cayle looked back at him with a swollen smile. ‘Hello, Sergeant. Bit far from your manor, isn’t it?’
Dempster pulled up a chair and sat astride it with his arms resting along the straight wooden back. He lowered his chin on to his hands so that his shoulders were level with his ears, and said, ‘Feel up to answering some questions?’
&
nbsp; ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve!’ Cayle gave up grinning: it was too painful. ‘Suppose I ask you some questions?’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as why a couple of hoodlums from the SB are running loose behind the Curtain, indulging in assault and kidnapping against friendly nationals. I mean, it wouldn’t look good if it ever got out.’
‘It won’t get out,’ said Dempster quietly. ‘I owe you an apology,’ he added, after a pause. ‘There’s been a balls-up.’
‘Oh that’s rich, Sergeant! You mean, you and your mate were planning to snatch the fat Frenchman, and got me instead?’ He was trying to think quickly. It was Philby who had arranged his ticket, he remembered: and had presumably arranged the tickets for Pol and Galina Valisova. And had Cayle’s ticket been bought in Philby’s name? The implications were too vast; they became scrambled in his brain and exploded with a slamming headache. He gripped the sides of the bed and gulped with nausea. ‘Keep going, mate, and they might even give you a job tracing parking tickets.’
‘Don’t start getting cheeky again, Cayle. Not out here, we’re too far behind the lines.’
‘Too far for what? Knocking me off and burying me somewhere peaceful under the pine-trees?’
For a long half-minute Dempster just sat and stared at him. ‘You were almost right, Cayle,’ he said at last. ‘We didn’t want you. We wanted Philby. According to our sources, he was booked on the same train, same compartment.’
‘I should change your sources.’
‘Working out here isn’t easy,’ Dempster said patiently. ‘We budget for a certain margin of wastage. Such as you.’
‘Thanks. What do you want?’
‘Everything you know — beginning with those few points we wanted clearing up in London, before you bolted. A mistake, that — on our part. I should have asked you to surrender your passport.’
‘And if I hadn’t?’
Dempster shrugged. ‘You’re familiar with Section Six of the Official Secrets Act? Conspiracy to commit an offence under the Act. I could have got you for covering up about your meeting with Jameson-Clarke.’
‘You may think so. But not the big boys. Not the men with the quiet ties who run your Majesty’s bloody Britannic Government while warming their arses round the old club fire. They’re not stupid, Dempster. They’d never have sent you out here to start playing rough. I wonder who did?’
There was another pause, while Dempster just looked at him. Finally he said: ‘Let me tell you something, Cayle. Just because you’ve walked into what looks to you like an important story, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re important. You’re not. You’re dispensable, chum. Remember that.’ He sunk his chin still lower and began sucking the knuckle of his broad flat thumb. ‘Let’s start again with that lunch at the Ritz.’
For almost an hour, although it seemed much longer, Cayle talked. He told everything from the beginning, and Dempster listened without moving, almost without speaking, except to elucidate some small detail. He took no notes, made no threats. But if he believed Cayle, and was satisfied, he showed no sign of it. He showed no sign of anything — no surprise, no curiosity — and at the end of it, all he said was, ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
‘I’d like to get the hell out,’ said Cayle.
Dempster nodded and stood up. ‘Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to detain you.’
‘Except that I’m out here in the flaming boondocks! I haven’t even got my bloody anorak, or my boots.’
‘You’ve got your passport and money,’ Dempster said, turning to the door. ‘You’ll make it.’ He went out and the door closed.
Like hell I’ll make it, thought Cayle. He lay back and stared at the naked bulb. For the first time he realized how warm it was in the room; his neck and armpits were damp with sweat. He began to regret that he hadn’t taken Dempster up on his offer of a glass of water.
It was very quiet, except for the stove. He kicked off the blanket and carefully stood up. His body seemed very heavy, and he felt slightly drunk. He walked across the room in his stockinged feet and tried the door. It opened. Beyond was a pine-wood passage with a door on either side, and at the end a third larger door with black iron hinges and a Yale-type lock.
He moved softly on the balls of his feet until he was level with the two side-doors, and listened. Nothing. He tried the one on the left, but it was locked; so was the door on the right, except that it had a lock with a sliding catch. He put his thumb under it and pressed, very gently. It slid back with a well-oiled click. The only light came from the room he’d just left, and what he could see ahead looked like a passage leading into darkness. The walls seemed to be made of some coarse rendering, with no doors. He came to a corner, turned, and started down another length of empty corridor. His hands were trembling; he took a slow, deep breath. At the end was a pair of steel doors with folding bars clamped across them, like an emergency exit in a cinema. He grabbed both bars and leaned his whole weight against them. There was a clang and a rush of icy air that left him breathless.
The door had ploughed back at least six inches of fresh snow. Beyond was a broad street with dark windows opposite rising eight floors high. It was still dark, except for pricks of streetlighting stretching at long intervals into the distance. The wide troughs from the snowploughs had been covered with a recent fall, and along the snow-packed pavements was the occasional hump of a half-buried car.
He looked at the nearest car, and thought: Find if it’s unlocked, open the bonnet, cross the wires. He’d learnt the trick as a kid back in Blue Water. It was a cinch, even in ninety degrees in the shade — all you had to worry about was the sweat getting in your eyes.
His face was numb, his feet were like great sacks dragging through the snow. He reached some steps and a heavy door, locked, with no bell. Opposite were two cars. He stumbled sideways and leaned against the first one, his naked hand fumbling under the snow for the door-handle. He found it, but it didn’t move. He tried the next car, and sank on to his knees. The snow had a thick feathery feeling; it wasn’t wet or even cold. He reached up and his fingers tightened round a bar of burning metal. He heard a humming sound growing into the steady beat of snow-tyres. Then a hush: the mutter of an engine, a door slamming, the shuffle of boots and steaming white breath. A hand shaking his shoulder, another pulling him to his feet. He was held by leather gloves and there were faces framed in ear-flaps, and voices, quiet and unhurried, as his feet left the ground and his back and buttocks bumped against something hard. Doors slammed again, it was warm, and the ground began to move.
He put his hands down to steady himself and felt nothing. A draught of hot air touched him, lulled him, his head sliding sideways and resting on metal. The metal drummed against his head with a painless rhythm. There was a jolt, a shout, a crash of doors, and he was half dragged, half carried, down steps and across a strip of concrete, through swing-doors into an aching light. His legs were stretched out, his socks peeled off his bloodless feet. A woman in a white coat felt his wrist; someone else loosened his belt, pulled down his trousers, wrapped his legs in a blanket, and he was lifted on to a trolley covered with a rubber sheet. He felt a sharp ache above the elbow, and saw the woman in the white coat pressing down the plunger of the hypodermic, as his mouth filled with a thick bitter-sweet taste.
Drugs, he thought: the new science of torture. He yelled and yanked his arm free, feeling the needle snap off in the muscle. The woman spoke angrily, and hands grabbed his shoulders and forced his head back on to the rubber sheet.
A man’s voice began speaking his name, spelling the letters out in Russian, as the needle went in again and he listened to the words, ‘Passport’, ‘Aeroflot’, ‘Londra’, fading as the trolley began to move and a warm fuzziness crept up from his toes. He was walking on the ceiling, trying to step over the strip-lighting and the green-painted girders. But the effort was too much; his head lolled sideways and rolled away into emptiness.
CHAPTER 15
&
nbsp; Cayle heard a short scream, a splash, a series of thumps, then silence.
He was lying in a narrow white-tiled cell with a spy-hole in the green metal door. They had removed his underpants, and he lay naked between the clammy rubber and a rough linen sheet frayed with laundering. It was an iron bed high off the ground and had pairs of leather straps hanging loose on either side. On the floor were duckboards over a sluice hole, and the air was warm and stale with disinfectant.
He got up cautiously, testing his fingers and toes. They had a dull disconnected feeling. He balanced himself against the bed and managed the three steps to the door. There was no handle. He shouted, ‘Hello!’ and was answered by howls and groans, as he began to beat his fists against the door. There was a rapid padding of feet outside, and the door swung inwards, knocking him back against the bed.
A short square man in a white cap and smock, like a butcher, looked at him for a moment, then stepped forward and pulled the door shut with a slam. From somewhere close came a thin ululating wail, followed by a snatch of song.
A couple of minutes later the door opened again. The orderly in the smock stood aside, and a tall man wearing a suit and tie came in. He paused to put on a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, then said in English: ‘What is it you want, please?’
‘I want to know where the hell I am!’
‘This is a night station for alcoholics,’ the man replied.
‘I’m not a bloody alcoholic!’ Cayle roared.
The man studied him through his spectacles and said, ‘It is necessary to explain why you were in the street without shoes or sufficient clothes, at four o’clock in the morning, in a temperature of more than thirteen degrees below zero. You are fortunate you did not lose certain of your extremities.’
‘I wasn’t drunk,’ said Cayle.
The man gave a slight shrug. ‘You will wait here until your case is investigated.’
Gentleman Traitor Page 14
