by Desmond Cory
“It wasn’t like that. Not like that. No, not like that. Nothing on. Not attractive, no. Not like that.”
“Well, what about me, then? Don’t I attract you?” Moreno’s eyes moved slowly round towards her. Her mouth was twisted slightly, as though in pain; she loosened her bathrobe at the neck as he watched her, touched the creamy skin at the base of her throat with her silvertipped fingers; she saw his eyes follow the movement, then turn as though reluctantly a little farther downwards. There was a second of utter stillness; then he clapped one hand over his mouth as if about to vomit, lurched to his feet and stood doubled up over the table, staring down into the half-empty milk-jug. Then, jerkily but very fast like a badly-managed puppet, he threw himself round the table and towards her. The handbag slithered down from her lap and the Luger pistol raised its ugly black nozzle from alongside her thigh to peer wickedly at Moreno’s belly; he stopped dead for a moment, brows lowered in a frown of sudden perplexity, and in that moment they both heard the click of the closing door. Then Feramontov’s voice. “Put it down, Elsa. Put it down.”
Sunlight trembled along the full length of the blued-steel barrel. Then Elsa’s fingers relaxed; the pistol turned downwards, lay once more on the blue flannel towelling of her bathrobe. Moreno’s breath became suddenly audible in the silence, a succession of deep, shuddering gulps that shook his whole body; then he turned away, and Feramontov stepped aside to let him pass through the door. In his own expression there was something like a distant echo of Moreno’s perplexity. He came slowly forward, hands dangling loosely at his sides. “What exactly were you playing at?”
“He lost his temper,” said Elsa. She laid the Luger down among the cups and plates on the snowy tablecloth, where it looked highly incongruous.
“Yes, he did. That wouldn’t have stopped him, you know.”
“Oh, yes, it would,” said Elsa.
“You’d have killed him?”
“Rather than be killed . . . yes, of course.”
“You were deliberately provoking him,” said Feramontov. He made a statement of it, not a question.
“Not provoking him. Testing him.”
“Testing him?”
“To see if, mentally, he was as unstable as I suspected. A man as unbalanced as he is . . . To my mind, he puts all the rest of us in danger.”
Feramontov sat down. “If you don’t mind my saying so, any such decision is not for you to make. Moreno is being employed by us on Head Office’s recommendation. I assume you’re not calling into question Head Office’s competence to determine such matters?”
Elsa shrugged; adjusted the folds of her collar, which the movement had disarranged. “Decisions also have to be taken in the field.”
“Sometimes. After previous consultation with the executive. I don’t remember your approaching me on the subject.”
“Like Moreno, I don’t believe in wasting time.”
“I certainly wouldn’t have encouraged you in that particular experiment. Moreno may, as you say, have his little psychological failings. Why you should choose to exacerbate them by a vulgar exploitation of sensuality, I can’t imagine. You don’t normally make a practice of wearing a bathrobe with nothing underneath it.”
He reached out casually and jerked the bathrobe open; then hit her equally casually, first with the palm and then with the back of his hand. “In fact I object in principle to your displaying your body to anyone other than myself.”
Elsa sat very still now, without looking at him and without moving, making no attempt either to touch her cheeks or to pull back the bathrobe over her breasts. The impact of the blows had brought tears to her eyes; otherwise, her expression was quite unaltered. “Moreno’s company seems to have had some effect upon you. A pity.”
“A gentle reminder, that’s all, as to who is the boss.”
“But hardly convincing.”
“No?” He reached out his hand, unhurriedly as before, and traced with the ball of his thumb a slow and deliberate line round the full contour of her breast from cleft to nipple. “Just how does one convince you?”
“I know too much about you to be convinced. Herrgott in Himmel,” said Elsa, in a sudden fury of disgust. “Ja, ein kleiner Casar—fur die Damen ein Mann und fur die Manner eine Frau. Do you think that no one’s told me anything about you? Or do you suppose I’ve been pawed round so much I just don’t care any more? That last bit might be true—but there are limits.”
“Indeed,” said Feramontov, and pulled the bathrobe violently down from her shoulders. Elsa gave a little sigh, leaned forward and chopped with the heel of her hand at his throat; then stood up, pulling the bathrobe about her once more. Feramontov was on his knees, clawing at his shirt collar; in a few moments the blue tinge faded from his face and he stared up at her, his breath still rushing through to his lungs in painful jerks. Expressionless; quite expressionless. “A mistake,” he said. “A serious mistake.”
“Yours? Or mine?”
“Well. Both at fault. Perhaps.” He got up, dusting punctiliously at his trousers. “Go to your room now, Elsa. Stay there. I’ll talk to you later.”
Elsa picked up her handbag, slipped the Luger into it; then left the room. Feramontov stood where he was, his head lowered, breathing slowly and regularly through his nose. Warm air drifted through the porthole, lifted the tiny hairs at the back of his neck; the soft salt-laden air of the Mediterranean. After a while he raised his head, stared at the clock on the imitation mantelpiece to his left. Then, rubbing his neck thoughtfully, he too turned and went out. The steward entered and, whistling, began to clear the breakfast table.
“COFFEE?” said Valera. “Why, yes. With a touch of milk, please. Muy amable.”
Fedora picked up the coffee-pot and poured. Yesterday’s newspaper, folded at the report of Moreno’s escape, lay on the table a couple of feet from Valera’s elbow. Valera had certainly noticed it, but as yet he hadn’t commented on it; for twelve minutes he had done nothing but discuss the general circumstances attendant on Carmen’s murder, and Moreno had so far not been mentioned. Fedora’s patience was not exactly wearing thin, but he was now beginning to wonder if his idea of waiting for the police to make the first move had not been misconceived. The truth was that he had not expected an opponent quite so formidable as Valera. Few Spaniards can play a waiting game with any degree of success, but it was already amply clear that Valera was one of the few. Every one of Fedora’s careful gambits had so far been neatly repulsed, and unless Valera now took the initiative the game seemed certain to end in stalemate. . . . A result that, from Johnny’s viewpoint, would be unsatisfactory.
The truth was, of course, that Johnny needed to know a lot more about Moreno. What he knew of Moreno he knew from hearsay and from vague recollections of office files. A successful double agent in the last war, an operative of Soviet Intelligence afterwards in South America; a highly efficient intriguer in that branch of international relations whose principal weapons are slander and murder; a brilliant executive, a dangerous psychopath, the High Executioner of the Soviet organisation overseas. In short, the nearest thing Russia had to Fedora himself. Eight years back, he had been caught and jailed on a faked-up charge by Franco’s secret police; that had counted as their greatest triumph since the Civil War. Well, and now that he had escaped, nothing seemed more natural than that the Russians should have been waiting for him . . . should even have helped to organise the break, . . . Political prisoners, alone and unaided, hardly ever escaped from Spanish prisons; Moreno was unique, of course, but even he could hardly have achieved the impossible. . . .
“Sugar?” asked Johnny, politely.
“What? Oh yes. Yes, two lumps, if you please.”
Big game, thought Fedora. The biggest of all. But he wasn’t alone in the hunt; that was the trouble. He had certain advantages, but Valera had others. Such a trail as he had to follow was anything but certain; the links between El Anteojo and the Polarlys were very tenuous. Chisels, diving-masks, the element
of coincidence. In themselves, they’d hardly be sufficient But Fedora had an instinct that served him when the hard facts failed, in which at times he was prepared to rely completely. An instinct about people such as Elsa, such as Valera, above all about people such as the big dark-haired man he’d met aboard the yacht. A man he hadn’t been introduced to; who didn’t, perhaps, fit as perfectly as the others into the simple preconceived plan of a scientific expedition. . . .
“You seem to be deep in thought, Sr. Fedora. If you have any theories about the case, I should be interested to hear them.”
Johnny looked up. “Why?”
“I believe that the opinions of the man on the spot are always worth having.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the case, exactly. I was wondering, more, exactly what aspect of it could make it of interest to a member of the secret police.”
“Ah, well, now,” said Valera, and shook his index finger from side to side almost playfully. “That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”
He chuckled to himself and drank some more coffee. He was feeling fairly confident, because he now knew what the Judge had meant when he had said that Fedora had been angry inside; Fedora, he could see, was angry still. Nothing showed in his face or in his posture, but the anger was emanating from him as heat from a radiator or cold from a block of ice. The latter was the better comparison, though. Because Fedora’s anger was a cold anger, a freezing anger, a kind of controlled and creeping deadliness; something like the kind of anger that Acuña had shown on hearing of Juan Guerrero’s death. And although there was nothing of impatience about it, Valera knew that by some small degree that anger would make his task easier for him; he could, if it came to the point, sit Fedora out; obtain what he needed to know with a minimum of concessions. Already, of course, he knew what formerly he had only guessed—that Fedora had somehow divined who had done the murder: that open newspaper could have no other explanation; it was a hint, an invitation to discussion, and Valera appreciated the subtlety of it. The present position, however, left him no room for subtleties. Subtleties were Acuña’s stock-in-trade; as an executive officer, Valera had to approach such Gordian knots with a naked sword. A pity, in some ways. But there it was.
“I understand,” he said, “that you yourself have some experience of Intelligence work. And so you can appreciate my problem. Normally, one bargains only with equals. Otherwise, of course, one stands to lose.”
Fedora watched him closely, relaxed and yet not quite relaxed, one brown hand resting lightly on the tablecloth. “Bargains?” he repeated. His voice was gentle.
“In Intelligence work, information is often a great deal more valuable than money.”
Fedora nodded. He understood. “Yes, that’s true. Sometimes it can only be bought with other information.”
“Although sometimes a price is offered that is very reasonable.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Fedora, and smiled. So did Valera.
“You speak and understand Spanish very well, Sr. Fedora. It’s a pleasure to meet a foreigner who manages our language so skilfully. Even though, according to our files, you’re not quite a foreigner. Your father was of Spanish origin, I believe?”
“That’s right,” said Johnny. “He was killed in the Civil War.”
“Quite so. You would not, I suppose, have a grudge against the Spanish police on that account?”
“It happened a long time ago.”
“That is our attitude, precisely. Nowadays we rarely bother people who have . . . let’s say unfortunate political relationships dating from that unhappy period. I shouldn’t like to feel that any such factor might be hindering our speaking frankly to one another.”
“Although,” said Johnny, “it must be difficult for you to consider such people as . . . equals.”
“I see you follow me perfectly, Sr. Fedora.”
“Perfectly. And that being the case,” said Johnny, “I see no reason why—whatever happens—there should be any hard feelings between us, either way.”
“Nothing but feelings of mutual respect.”
“Some more coffee?”
“No, thank you. I must be going. I must make an early report to my superior.” Valera got up from the table, bowed infinitesimally from the waist. “I have also to conduct an interview or two aboard the Polarlys. Alibis, after all, must be confirmed. A matter of routine, of course—we can’t very well hold up their harbour clearance for more than an hour or two, and I gather they are anxious to be away.” He picked up his hat, placed it tenderly upon his head and, no less tenderly, smiled in Fedora’s direction. “I’m sure I shall be seeing you again very shortly.”
He nodded pleasantly to Trout, who was sitting in the armchair by the window fanning himself with a paperbacked novel; then to Fedora. “Please don’t trouble to see me out.”
“No trouble,” said Fedora.
Trout heard them go out into the hall, then the front door open and close. He sat up, dropping his Penguin into his lap, and drummed with his fingers on the arm of the chair. After a short pause, Fedora came back.
“You bit off a bit more than you could chew there, Johnny.”
Fedora was sucking the back of his hand abstractedly. “I know,” he said indistinctly. “It’s a bastard.”
“They know more than you thought they did. It even sounds as though they know about the Polarlys. No wonder it’s no deal.”
“Damn it,” said Johnny. “Yes, but . . . damn it. We can’t just let them hang us out to dry like that.”
“You heard what he said. About as polite a threat as ever I’ve heard, but that’s what it was. If you don’t come across with what you know, he’ll have you jugged. He’d do it, too. He’s got all the cards.”
“He knows more than we do, all right,” said Johnny, sitting down once more at the table; even at that moment of stress, his actions were remarkably composed. “All the same, we must know something that he doesn’t. Or he wouldn’t bother about us at all.”
“Or he may just think we know something he doesn’t I mean—he knows so much he may even have expected it.”
“Expected what?”
“Expected Moreno to come here and collect whatever it was he did collect. Maybe the police even let him escape. To give him a chance to. . . . See what I’m getting at?” Fedora took his knuckles out of his mouth and stared at Trout. “My God, Tiddler. That’s bloody nearly bright of you.”
“Well, and then, don’t you see, he’d wonder what the hell we were doing here. Two ex-operatives of British Intelligence. . . . He just wouldn’t believe it could be coincidence. We wouldn’t in his place, would we? It looks as if we were camped down here waiting for it to happen.”
“That puts us in a spot,” said Johnny. “One hell of a spot.”
“We are in a spot.”
“If you’re right.”
“I am right. Don’t you think so?”
“It makes solid sense from the ground up. No wonder he wouldn’t play dicey.”
“We have to get out of here,” said Trout. “Or he’ll jug us for sure. Even if we tell the truth now, he may not believe it.”
Fedora got up abruptly, walked quickly over to the piano-stool. “Don’t start playing now,” said Trout, with some show of irritation. “I mean, this thing’s getting serious. We have to do some fast thinking.”
Johnny shrugged and began to play, the notes forming themselves slowly, like rising bubbles, under his fingers. “I know it’s getting serious. He hasn’t gone away.”
“Gone away?”
“Valera hasn’t. The car hasn’t driven off. He’s sitting in it, he’s talking to his superior like he said—on the telephone. Ten to one says he’s getting official approval for a precautionary arrest.”
Trout got to his feet; turned towards the window, then back to Fedora. “And what are we going to do? Just sit here?”
“I’m going to sit here. While he hears the piano, he’ll think we’re both still here. Go on, Tiddler. Get moving.�
�� Trout looked disgusted. “What’s this? Heroics, at your time of life? Get off that burning deck, Casabianca.”
“Oh balls,” said Fedora, looking up savagely. “I don’t have to tell you, do I? This is something that Macfarlane at Gib. ought to know about—you’ve got to get there and pretty damned quick, He’ll know what it is Moreno got out of that blasted pool; maybe he’ll be in time to do something about it and maybe he won’t, it all depends on you. It’s only an hour to Gib. if you squeeze on the gas; you ought to get fifteen minutes’ start on Valera and that’ll have to be enough. Go on. Get moving.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, me. It may be for years and it may be for ever. But this thing is bigger than both of us. Get moving, will you?”
“I hope to hell it is,” said Trout, going to the side door. “That’s all.”
The door closed behind him. Fedora bent down over the keyboard, settling down with studious determination on one of the more imposing passages from the first movement of the Emperor. Wonderful music, that; wonderfully loud. Loud enough, perhaps, to mask the sound of a car starting up a hundred yards away behind the house. At any rate, Fedora hoped so. He bounced his hands vindictively up and down on the keys, banging out great rolling chords with bags of sostenuto, real Gieseking stuff. Drops of sweat began to gather on his forehead. . . .
VALERA was talking to his superior, but not on the telephone. Johnny had, in part, underestimated Acuña; Acuña was in the car. Acuña, in fact, was the driver. He sat slumped at the steering-wheel with his grey cotton jacket unbuttoned at the neck and a brown-paper cigarette, stained with saliva, dangling nonchalantly from the corner of his mouth; indistinguishable in outward appearance from any other disillusioned chofer madrileho. He listened with an air of refined boredom to what Valera was saying, leaning forward once to spit with commendable accuracy out of the window. “You seem,” he said in the end, “to have concentrated rather exclusively on Fedora.”
