Further along the street there was a good-sized store. Her first purchase there was a cheap suitcase. Next she went to the shoe department. Getting her left leg out of Anna’s long boot was painful, but the easing of its pressure brought her relief, and she left the department in a pair of low-heeled brown shoes. During the following half-hour she bought the thickest woollen pullover she could find, a muffler, a raincoat, a rainproof hat with a brim that turned down all round, a nightdress, dressing gown and slippers, a modest selection of washing and make-up things, a pair of semi-dark glasses, a walking stick with a crook, a pair of scissors, a packet of labels and a Biro.
With the black boots and the things she had bought in the suitcase, she walked back to the car, then drove out again to the country lane where she had first pulled up.
Being unable to afford a thick coat, she had decided to continue wearing Anna’s tunic; but, hidden under the long pullover and with the raincoat over it, she would at least be protected from the wind. Anna’s cloak and cap she put with the boots in the suitcase, then wrote a label for it, giving the flight number and adding, in large letters, OSLO.
Her next concern was her wig. Being blonde, the difference in colour from that in the passport photograph would not show, but it was elaborately dressed in the style favoured by Cherril Chanel, whereas Anna’s hair was straight and cut short in an untidy bob. Taking off the wig, Linda cut off two-thirds of the long hair with the scissors, and tried it several times on her head until she was satisfied from her reflection in the driving mirror that, under the rim of the rain-hat, it looked much as Anna’s hair would have done. Lastly, she touched up her eyebrows and used the lipstick to give her mouth a squarer appearance.
By the time she was finished it was past five o’clock, but she still had over four hours to go until reporting time for her flight and, as the number and description of the stolen car would have been given by the girl to the police, she felt she would stand less risk of the car being spotted if she did not drive through the city until after dark, so she shut her eyes and tried to sleep.
Her mind was much too active with apprehension for her to drop off properly, but she managed to doze at intervals for a couple of hours. By then darkness had fallen, and she was again feeling the cold so badly that she made up her mind to run the gauntlet of the city.
Driving very carefully, for an accident would have been disastrous for her, she passed through Hull, seeing now in front of her the heights of East Ottawa, on which stood the square gothic towers of the Parliament buildings and, rising from them, lofty and narrow against the darkening evening sky, the Peace Tower. Crossing the river she turned left, along a broad highway which she hoped, from her study of the map, was Rideau Street. After a short distance her hope was confirmed, as it curved north-east. Further on it crossed another, smaller river and eventually brought her to Rockcliffe Park. After driving for half a mile through the park, which at that hour was almost deserted, she drove off the road and pulled up among a group of tall trees.
There she slowly ate her supper and drank the Coke, while wishing longingly that she had with her something stronger to fortify her for the big risk she must soon run. But, although she had spun out her picnic meal as long as possible, there was still over an hour to go before reporting time at the airport. The waiting seemed to drag as though every minute were ten and, even when she could have started, she forced herself to wait another twenty minutes, in order to cut the time she would have to hang about the airport as short as possible. At last she made up her mind to start and face whatever fate had in store for her. Ten minutes later, she pulled up in the airport car park.
Before leaving the car, she scribbled with the Biro on the back of the map: So sorry to have deprived you of your car for a few hours, but it was a case of real necessity, then put the map back in the side pocket where the girl would, sooner or later, find it.
Carrying the suitcase in one hand and her beauty box in the other, she walked across to the airport building and entered the great central hall. She had the brim of the rain-hat pulled well down, so that tufts of fair hair showed only covering her ears. Tucked into the raincoat the woollen muffler hid the lower part of her chin—for which the bitter cold was an adequate reason—and she was wearing the tinted glasses which, without being dark enough to arouse suspicion, obscured the colour of her eyes. In the hand that held the beauty box she also carried the stick, leaning heavily upon it with every step she took. That, and her low-heeled shoes, disguised her height, so that at a casual glance she appeared to be no more than Anna’s five foot nine.
On reaching the desk for her flight, she produced both the passport and the ticket. It was, she had noticed, economy class, so evidently, if distinguished Russian scientists went about dressed as chauffeurs, they had to travel in accordance with the role they were playing.
The woman behind the desk checked the ticket with her list, then handed it back with the passport and a boarding card. Linda’s suitcase was well under the allowed weight, but the label caught the woman’s eye and she said, ‘You change aircraft at Oslo, but this will not be transferred to the other plane unless you label it MOSCOW.’
Making her voice as husky as she could, Linda replied, ‘Et is all right. I break journey two night in Oslo.’
An official led her to another counter where she was screened as a precaution against her being a hijacker. Knowing this would happen, she had left the little gas pistol in the car; but, as the beauty box was steel under the blue leather covering, she had to open it. Since it contained only papers and banknotes, she was passed through.
So far, so good. But now she must face the really big hurdle: the Immigration people. At the gate there was a short queue. When she was within thirty feet of the end of it, she halted abruptly and turned about. Standing near the gate were the Russian, another well-dressed man wearing glasses, and a hospital nurse. As the women were passing through the gate the Russian, his head thrust forward, was scrutinising their profiles.
The blood drained from Linda’s face and her pulse was racing. She had failed to take into account the fact that the Russian would know that Anna was booked on the plane leaving for Oslo that night. Naturally he had come there to stop her.
That he had a nurse with him strongly suggested that the other man was a doctor. She had heard of cases of people being carried off against their wills by someone, accompanied by others posing as a doctor and a nurse, who declared that he was a relative of the person they wanted to get hold of and that he, or she, was a mental case escaped from an asylum. The Russian, as an official of the Soviet Embassy, would state that he was responsible for her and insist on her showing Anna’s passport.
He would get a shock when he realised that she was not Anna. But he would immediately assume that Anna, having given her the passport and ticket, had also passed the papers on to her. As she could produce no proof that she was not Anna, he would swear that she was and, just the same, carry her off to the Russian Embassy where she could be searched and ‘grilled’.
Linda cast a quick glance over her shoulder. The Russian was so close to the queue that, even if she kept her face averted, he could not fail to recognise the tuft of blonde hair over her ear, which she had taken such pains to make look like Anna’s.
Perhaps she could pass by staring him straight in the face, so that he would at once realise that she was not Anna. But no! That would not do. She was carrying the blue beauty box. It was too large to conceal under her raincoat. He would recognise it instantly as the one he had fought to get hold of outside the High Commissioner’s that morning.
What could she do? How, in heaven’s name, could she get past him? Beyond the barrier lay Norway, final escape from the Canadian police, those nuclear calculations safe in the hands of the British Ambassador there, and a new life with sixteen hundred pounds in her purse.
For a good three minutes she stood with her back turned to the queue, striving with all her wits to devise a means of getting past the Russ
ian. At last one came to her. But it entailed another risk—that she might not be allowed to board the plane. Should she take it, or leave the airport while the going was good, and try to find a hide-out, or get away from Ottawa?
But, apart from thousand-dollar notes, the things she had bought that afternoon had reduced her ready money from eighty-seven dollars to five. Nowhere, except at a bank, could she change a thousand-dollar note; and by now the Russian might have sent in the numbers of the notes that Anna had taken to the Château Laurier and asked that anyone who tried to change one of them should be detained.
Now she was wanted by the police not only on account of the jewels, but also for having stolen a car. It was certain that the Russians would have their people watching for her at the railway and bus stations. Still worse, there was Gerta, her two thugs and probably a score of other men under The Top’s orders in Ottawa searching hotels and eating-places for her. And if they got her, it would be not prison, but death.
She could not possibly hope to escape for more than a few hours from being recognised and caught by the police, the Russians or the gangsters. She must take the gamble she had thought of. It was the only conceivable chance.
With swift steps she walked back to the bookstall and bought a paper. Then she asked the woman who had served her if she could give her a piece of string. The woman willingly produced a piece that had tied up a bundle of newspapers. Thanking her, Linda hurried across to the women’s lavatories. Shutting herself into one, she wrapped the tell-tale beauty box in the paper, tied it up with the string and made a handle to carry it by. Next, she took off her hat, folded it and pushed it into the pocket of her raincoat. Then she took off what remained of the wig and threw it down the lavatory. Her own brown hair had been firmly plastered down. It took her several minutes to pull it free into rats’-tails, then comb it through again and again until the curls had reappeared. Then she fluffed it out in a great, light bronze halo that framed her head and hung down all round to her shoulders.
She feared that the woman attendant might notice her metamorphosis and, believing her to be a crook, start asking questions. But the woman was talking to a girl who was making up her face, and did not even glance in Linda’s direction as she left the lavatory.
Carrying her parcel in her left hand, she returned to the gate where the queue had been. Everyone had now gone through except a woman with a child. Linda stood behind them for a minute and, turning her head, looked the Russian straight in the face. As he returned her glance he saw only a very pretty girl leaning on a stick who, with her wildly disordered fuzzy hair, looked like a hippie. No flicker of interest came into his eyes. The woman and child moved on. Linda followed and the man on the gate waved her toward the desks of the Immigration officers fifty feet further on.
Her ruse for getting past the Russian had succeeded. But what now? By so drastically altering her appearance she had greatly reduced any likeness she had had to Anna. When she showed the photograph in the passport, they could not help seeing the difference. All the odds seemed against their letting her through.
Mustering all her self-control, with an air of assurance she handed her passport to a youngish officer, then looked away as though the matter hardly concerned her. Having turned two pages of the passport, he suddenly frowned and said:
‘This passport belongs to someone else. The photo is not of you.’
On the door to the lavatories there had been a dual-language notice: Ladies—Dames. That had given Linda an idea. She had not a notion what a Russian’s accent sounded like when speaking English. But on trips abroad with Rowley, she had picked up colloquial French. And when a person who is not French speaks that language, it is far from easy for anyone to detect to what nation he belongs. Knowing that all Canadian officials speak at least some French, Linda stared at him in simulated annoyance and surprise and demanded:
‘Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire, Monsieur? C’est une photographie de moi-même.’
‘It is not, Mademoiselle,’ he insisted. ‘The hair of this woman is blonde. Your hair is brown.’
Continuing to use French, Linda replied, ‘But that was taken in Moscow. Since I come here I grow my hair long and have it dyed. You see, in Russia nearly all girls are blonde. As a brunette I shall be a sensation.’
‘But the face is not like yours, Mademoiselle. It is much fatter, and coarser.’
‘Ah!’ Linda laughed. ‘That is how I used to look when I worked on the farm. But since I come to your lovely Canada I work hard to make myself different. In Russia beauty treatment is unknown. But here, yes. I diet. I have the massage. There are the skin lotions. I make myself a lovely girl. When I get home every man wish to sleep with me.’
The young officer suppressed a smile, and Linda hurried on, ‘Do you not agree? Even in Canada I now receive much admiration. Ask yourself, Monsieur. Had we met in night club, would you not have been tempted to make naughty propositions to me?’
‘Er … well, Mademoiselle …’ He went a little pink about the gills. ‘I wouldn’t like to seem rude by saying “no” to that. But, all the same, I don’t believe this passport was issued to you.’
Linda’s heart sank. In desperation she took another line and pretended sudden anger. ‘Monsieur is being obstructive without reason. It is because you are a bourgeois capitalist. You wish to put spokes in my wheels because I am a citizen of the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics. That I will not tolerate. I am a diplomat and I go to my country on urgent business. You will let me go to my plane or I will report you.’
It was the wrong line. The young man’s expression became stony and he said, ‘There is nothing political in this. I am simply doing what I am paid for, and I’m not letting anyone out of this country whose credentials I regard as suspect. Now I’m going to fetch my chief, and you can abuse me to him to your heart’s content.’
As he left her, Linda gave an inward groan. If she could not win over an impressionable young man, it was certain that she would stand little chance with an older one. She glanced toward the gate fifty feet away. The Russian, the nurse and the man who looked like a doctor were still standing there. A man in a loud checked overcoat and with a brightly-coloured band round his hat, looking like an American tourist, came past them at a run and halted, puffing, behind Linda.
At that moment the young officer returned with his grey-haired senior. The latter was holding Anna’s passport. He gave Linda a quick scrutiny and said, ‘I can’t believe this is a photograph of you, Miss.’
‘It is,’ Linda insisted angrily in French. ‘I know I have changed a lot since it was issued to me in Moscow. But that is as I used to look before I slimmed, let my hair grow and dyed it. As I have said, I’ve been attached to the Soviet Embassy here, and I’m being sent home on an important mission. It’s very urgent. You must let me through.’
The grey-haired man shook his head.
Linda played her last card. It was a desperate bluff. ‘If you don’t believe me, telephone the Soviet Embassy. Describe me as you see me now, and they will confirm that I am Anna Zubarova.’
‘Fur Jesus’ sake!’ exclaimed the man behind Linda. ‘Don’t hold me up while you argue with this woman, or I’ll miss my plane.’
‘And so will I,’ added Linda wrathfully. ‘Telephone my Embassy if you like. But, by the time you have, the flight will have left. Then there will be great hell to pay. If you want a diplomatic incident, you will get it. You are asking for one.’
‘O.K., O.K.!’ said the senior officer, giving Linda a sour look. ‘I won’t hold you here. You can go aboard. Meanwhile, there’ll be time for me to call your Embassy before take-off.’ Then he stamped her passport and that of the man behind her.
Side by side they hurried down the long corridor, the man a few feet ahead, as Linda was still a little lame and, for appearances’ sake, had to continue to use her stick. But he waited a moment to allow her to precede him on to the plane.
The economy class had three seats in a row on one side and
two on the other. The gangway seat of the last pair at the rear of the aircraft was vacant, so Linda decided to take it. The other seat was occupied by a tall, blue-eyed man with neatly-brushed grey hair, who looked to be about sixty. As she was taking off her raincoat and muffler to put them up on the rack, he stood up, smiled at her and said:
‘Wouldn’t you prefer the window seat? It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ve flown the Atlantic so often.’
Her mind was in a turmoil. She had got past the Russian and through Immigration. She was actually on the plane that was due in a few minutes to take off for Europe. But by now the surly senior official would be telephoning her description to the Soviet Embassy. It was beyond all doubt that they would say she was not Anna Zubarova. Linda’s vivid imagination conjured up a picture of herself within a few minutes being ignominiously escorted off the plane. She would probably also be charged with attempting to leave the country under false pretences. In any event, she would still be in Ottawa, with the police, the Russians and The Top’s men all after her.
Only vaguely taking in what the nice-looking, grey-haired man had said, she murmured, ‘Thank you,’ collapsed into the window seat and shut her eyes.
Minutes passed. She heard a slam nearby and opened her eyes. The steward had shut the rear door of the aircraft and was bolting it, but it could easily be opened again. The plane remained stationary. Another five minutes dragged by, then the plane began to move. Slowly it turned out into the runway. There it came to a halt. It could still be detained by a signal from the control tower, and a jeep sent out to take her off. Clenching her hands, her eyes again closed, Linda lay back, hardly breathing, while suffering agonies. Her mind went back to the awful suspense she had endured in similar circumstances at Heathrow. She had got away then. Would she now? Suddenly the jets roared. The great aircraft rushed forward, lifted and was airborne.
The Strange Story of Linda Lee Page 30
