‘Obviously they must have already known where I lived.’
‘You mean they’d been watching you?’
‘I don’t know. Isn’t that your job?’
‘You don’t think you ever saw them before tonight?’
‘No.’
‘You’d think you’d recognise them, wouldn’t you? If they’d been watching you beforehand, I mean. You’d think you’d’ve seen them. Would you recognise them if you saw them again?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t know.’
The WPC took over. ‘Look, I think you might be in shock. It really would be a good idea to come down to the rape centre and let a doctor look you over. You might feel steady enough now, but sometimes these things catch up with you later.’
‘I’m not in shock. I’ll be fine. Really, I’d rather you went out and caught them instead of going on at me about the rape centre. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but we just seem to be losing time –’
‘It’s just that if you came down to the centre, the doctor could check to see if maybe you were raped after all. Whatever you say, you might have lost consciousness, you know.’
‘I told you – I didn’t black out, I haven’t been raped. I’d know if I had been, whether I remembered it or not. And frankly I’ve been poked at enough for one night.’
‘It’d be a lady doctor,’ the policeman said.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake. Go out and catch them.’
‘That’s not going to be easy, miss.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ve not been able to give us much of a description. And it all seems a bit – well – a bit uncertain what’s happened exactly.’
‘Get out of here.’
‘Miss –’
‘Out. Clear off. Since you think I’m wasting your time, clear off. You’ve had a good look. I made the whole thing up.’ She gestured around at the mess. ‘I did all this myself. Don’t forget the bathroom. I did that too. Support your local police. Good night.’
She hustled them to the door and all but pushed them onto the doorstep. She slammed the door in their faces and stood behind it until she heard their footsteps retreat down the path. They were talking quietly but she couldn’t make any of it out. Then the car doors slammed, an engine turned and after a moment she heard the sound of their car pulling away.
She groaned loudly, thankful at last just to be left in peace, then went to the kitchen and began digging out her cleaning things.
36
By morning Knight admitted that there was no decision to be made, and that he’d known as much all along. The decision had been made twenty years ago. Any residual doubt in the matter was eliminated by his need to find out why they were sending for him now. The time had had to come, of course; he’d always accepted that. But they never did these things at random, they always had a reason. Why not a year ago, five years ago, when he would have complied without complaint? Or a year from now, when it would have been too late and he would have dropped completely out of sight? If they were calling in the debt now, then somehow it had to be part of everything else that was going on. That was what made him fearful: because he didn’t understand. If he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t control it.
After breakfast he fetched the atlas from his car and made his way upstairs to the library. In a foul temper by now, he slammed the door shut and flung the book down on the nearest table. It skidded into a stack of books and sent two or three of them to the floor. Somewhere in the eaves the mice scurried off in alarm.
He calmed himself and sat down. He cleared a space among the books, bringing the atlas back within reach; then he took the first advertisement from his pocket and unfolded it on the table.
NASSAU, BAHAMAS
Substantial investor/partner required
for 22–24 apartment development in prime location.
Exceptional profit potential.
Please call our UK offices:
Boyar Properties
01-862-0699
Codes were tools of the trade, just something to get the job done. You saved the complex ones for when you needed them; the rest of the time, when the job was simple, you kept the tools simple too. Especially if you were going to have to carry them in your head for two decades.
He unfolded the second advertisement and pressed it flat alongside the first.
NASSAU, BAHAMAS
Substantial investor/partner required
for 22–24 apartment development in prime location.
Exceptional profit potential.
Please call our UK offices:
Boyar Properties
01-862-1399
Nothing he wanted to know, and everything he needed to know, whether he liked it or not. All in a few lines of newsprint, repeated until he responded to its command.
The atlas was of Greater London; the standard Geographers’ A–Z edition. He opened it and began looking to see where the rendezvous was to be.
*
It grew dark about five o’clock. He waited until six before venturing out, counting himself a fool for not leaving it until later; but he had to make one final check, and the sooner the better.
The station was busy and quiet in waves as each train arrived from London. When he got to the small cobbled square, he stood out of sight in the doorway of the florist’s, now locked for the night, to watch the scene.
A train had just been. A queue had formed for the phone box: men with umbrellas and briefcases waiting to call their wives to come and fetch them. Knight waited until they had all been collected before crossing to the box.
He drew the advertisements from his pocket and dialled 100.
‘Operator, I’ve been trying to reach a London number. It seems to be unobtainable. Could you try it for me please?’
‘What happens when you dial?’
‘I get a high-pitched tone.’
‘What is the number?’
He glanced down at the two pieces of paper. It didn’t matter which one he selected; he read off the digits from the top one.
‘862-1399.’ It was the second advertisement.
‘Hold the line, caller.’
He heard a tumbling series of clicks as she dialled, then the same unobtainable tone that he’d got from the first advertisement.
She tried again.
‘I can check for you if the number’s been reported out of order.’
‘Well, I’ve got another one here. Perhaps you could try it for me first.’
She sounded weary. ‘What is it?’
‘862-0699.’
‘Hold the line, please.’
Again the tumbling clicks, again the tone.
‘Just one moment, please.’ She put him on hold. He looked around the square, wondering how long he had before the next train was due. The operator’s voice returned.
‘I’m afraid neither of those numbers exists, caller.’
‘Oh? How do you know?’
She was definitely fed up with him now. ‘I checked the list of London exchanges. There isn’t an 862 exchange.’
The advertisements were genuine. He hurried out of the booth just as another train was arriving. Head down, he set off back to the convent and the retreat house.
Back at the library, he seated himself at the table and looked at the advertisements again.
There were three pieces of information, all that was needed for any rendezvous: the date, the time, and the place. The year and the month were in the non-existent exchange, though a real one would have done just as well. The date and the location were in the remaining four digits, which could also have been genuine. He had failed to respond to the first signal, so it had been repeated with an adjustment for the date. The time, using the twenty-four-hour clock to avoid ambiguity, was in the reference to the 22–24 apartment development. The rendezvous was good between ten o’clock and midnight.
As for the place, he took the atlas and opened it at page 99. A page that was half white, showing streets and roa
ds, and half green, parks and open spaces. In red were printed the borough names of Wandsworth and Merton; blue print announced postal regions SW15, SW18, SW19, SW20. Bus routes criss-crossed the page in yellow.
Like every page in the atlas, 99 was sectioned by fine blue grid lines into twenty-four squares, each half a mile wide. Four across the page and six lengthwise. His gaze fell to the exact middle, where the central grid lines intersected. Putney Heath.
He took the advertisements from his pocket, dropped them into the atlas and shut it softly, this time causing no disturbance to the mice.
*
The room in Cricklewood’s Olive Road was in darkness. The woman with the black hair and the crew cut fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on. One corner of the bedsitter became bathed in a ruby-red glow. The light was coming from a bulb on an extension cord that ran from the ceiling light in the centre of the room to dangle from a hook in the corner.
Directly underneath the bulb was a deep sink, and on the draining surface nearby several trays; they contained developing and fixing solutions.
Over the sink an extendable clothes line, the kind that reeled away into a neat tubular mounting, had been opened and stretched across to the other wall. Some items of underwear were tossed over the line at either end, but in the vicinity of the sink a dozen rolls of developed film had been clipped up to dry. They hung in long strips, weighted with bulldog clips to keep them straight.
Over on the table stood a printing frame and a lamp on a stand, and beside them a box of photographic paper.
The black-haired woman crossed to the sink and examined the strips of negatives with the help of a jeweller’s eyeglass. She sought out the tiny line of digits in the bottom of each frame that recorded its date and time of exposure. As she found them she shifted the strips of film about on the clothes line until they were all in sequential order.
Then she unclipped the first strip, took it across to the printing frame and set to work.
37
As Knight left Southfields station that night he paused by a rubbish bin and salvaged the empty wine bottle that had caught his eye in the glare of the street lamp. A policeman standing nearby shot him a warning glance and took a leisurely step towards him. It was more ritual than any serious attempt to apprehend him. Knight slipped the bottle quickly into the mackintosh pocket, gave the bobby a wide berth, and made off along Augustus Road.
He came into Wimbledon Parkside from the northern end of Inner Park Road and turned south, counting his paces under his breath as he shuffled along the wide pavement. He kept the paces as equal in length as he could, folding his fingers into the palm of his hand to mark off the hundreds.
The southern end of the Inner Park Road horseshoe turned out to be 614 paces away. It took him the best part of ten minutes to cover the distance; walking normally, he’d have done it in half the time. He rounded the corner and sat down on the wall that edged the grounds of a mansion block. Parkside was a busy road and traffic whizzed past in a continuous stream, some of it turning off where he sat.
According to page 99, torn from the atlas and folded safely away in his pocket, the horizontal grid line cut across Parkside roughly halfway between the two ends of Inner Park Road. His next task was therefore to double back the way he’d just come, counting again.
As he set off he felt the first spits of rain and pulled his cap down tighter.
At 300 paces he found himself opposite a bus shelter on the other side of the road. He straightened his fingers and stopped counting.
The time was ten thirty. He took the wine bottle from his pocket and staggered into the road, seemingly oblivious to the vehicles that shot past him.
When he reached the opposite pavement he lowered himself into one of the folding seats in the shelter and took stock again. Behind him, immediately after the pavement, lay the heath. It was woodland where he had to penetrate it. Looking out beyond the glare of the street lamps, all he could see was blackness and the thick trunks of what looked like oaks.
As discreetly as he could, he brought the folded map out and peered at it in the sickly light. To arrive at the point where the grid lines intersected, he would have to go roughly the same distance into the heath as he’d just walked from Inner Park Road: 300 paces.
He allowed 20 paces for the road and took his count from there as he set off through the damp carpet of leaf mould behind the shelter. He kept the wine bottle well in view for the benefit of anyone who might be watching.
The woodland was difficult going, made all the harder by the darkness. He’d brought no torch because he knew that he wouldn’t risk using it. So it was a question of feeling the lie of the ground beneath his feet, step by tentative step.
There was no shortage of obstacles: tree roots to stumble on, brambles that snagged at the legs of his corduroys, a stream that he almost slid into, and bushes and low boughs that whipped his face. He discovered to his relief that there were flattened paths through the undergrowth if he was patient and felt for them. But they zigzagged back and forth, running off at a different angle or dog-legging each time they crossed a riding track or stream; to make use of them he was obliged to abandon all attempts to stick to a straight line, instead making the best adjustments he could to his count. And the rain felt like it might be setting in for the night.
As far as he could gauge with any accuracy, he’d come about 250 paces from Parkside, although he’d probably covered half that again, when the woodland began to open out and then ended entirely. The mature trees that had shut out the sky gave way to saplings and smaller shrubs. The ground felt spongier than before and he realised that he was probably walking on low-growing gorse or heather. He had never lost the subdued hum of traffic but now, across the far side of the heath, he saw the glow of headlamps and carriageway lights on the A3. To his right the sky was orange with the lights of the busy Tibbets Corner roundabout.
As if it had been waiting for him to leave cover, the rain got going in earnest. The drizzle became a shower, then a relentless downpour. He swore aloud and looked around for cover; there was none.
A flash lit the sky; he was able to count to nine before the thunderclap followed. He retreated to the edge of the woodland and crouched under a deformed oak. But it was bare of foliage and the rain hammered down on him anyway; after a few minutes he realised that he was also catching a steady trickle from the branches themselves.
Partly because of the lightning and partly because of the drips, he gave the oak up as a bad job and returned to the open heathland.
Already the gorse was awash; the grubby trainers that he’d exchanged for his Oxfords might as well have been tissue paper for all the success they were having in keeping his feet dry. The rest of him was faring no better. Rain poured down his neck, into his eyes, through his matted beard.
Another flash; this time the thunder came after a count of six. His apprehension grew. Surely by now he wasn’t more than a few yards from his destination. Ten o’clock to midnight, both advertisements had said. He couldn’t read his watch in the darkness but it must be eleven by now. It was good form for the control to be in position from the opening of the rendezvous window. After all, it was he who set the rules; the least he could do was stick to them himself. Surely the man could see or hear him by this time. They’d probably sent some desk colonel from Yasyenevo who hadn’t done this kind of thing in years if at all or who was too petrified –
Knight froze as the gun barrel nuzzled the nape of his neck. He closed his eyes. An image appeared there at once, apparently irrelevant but compelling. It was one of the persistent details from the retreat-house crucifixes: a punctured side. Another followed it: blood pouring over a forehead from its crown of thorns.
‘Welcome, comrade.’ The voice behind him was quiet and assured. It wasn’t the voice of an incompetent or nervous man.
Knight drew a sharp breath and held it. The tang of the freshly soaked earth filled his lungs. Even over the rush and roar of the rain that voice see
med to echo in his eardrums. He knew it. He knew that voice. But so long ago; he was sure it was from so long ago … He pushed the crucifixion images aside and searched frantically through others that he summoned up: faces, gestures, events, conversations, anything that could give the voice its context.
The muzzle shifted up towards his skull an inch; he tipped his head back in protest and the gun’s forward sight dug into the soft fold of scalp at the base of the bone.
‘Please forgive this unfriendly precaution,’ the voice went on, in perfect English. ‘Unorthodox, I admit. I wasn’t sure if it really was you, Boyar. I’m still not. You don’t look quite as I expected.’
Now he had the face to fit the voice. No stiff-necked colonel. Perfect English? Yes, and why shouldn’t it be? He himself had taught it to this man. That summer, twenty years ago. He opened his eyes and stared at the night.
‘You?’ he said. His mouth was dry.
From behind him, a soft laugh. ‘Yes. I. It’s been a long time, yes?’
Uninvited, Knight slowly began to turn around. Streams of rain poured over the tattered peak of his cap as he brought his head level again. The gun remained pointing at him, grazing the layer of beard on his cheek now, but the man made no move to stop him.
The lightning flashed again. Knight’s eyes strained to see through the curtain of rain. And there for an instant as the lightning flashed, floating like a pale ghost against the dark trees, was the face he’d conjured up.
One, two, three, he counted silently; then the thunder rolled. The storm was almost overhead now.
Nikolai Vasiliyevich Serov brought the Makarov pistol down, wiped the rain off its barrel and returned it to its holster inside the black leather greatcoat.
‘Shall we find somewhere drier than this to talk, Boyar?’ he suggested. ‘I underestimated your English weather. It’s every bit as bad as you always said it was.’
Patriots Page 32
