House of the Hanged (26 page)

Ahead of them, the wild, ridged hills of the Massif des Maures rolled off, wave on darkening wave, into the distance.

‘Interesting,' said Leonard, as Tom guided the car off the metalled surface on to a dirt track.

‘A short-cut,' Tom lied.

He knew that the track petered out after a mile or so, giving way to a rocky footpath which wound its way down into the valley. It was the perfect spot to be alone with Leonard. As the ruts grew deeper and the vegetation pressed in more tightly on both sides, Leonard seemed to sense this.

‘What's going on, Tom?'

‘You were right about Walter. There's more to him than meets the eye.'

‘Would you care to elaborate?'

‘He's with the US Military Intelligence Division.'

It was a moment before Leonard replied. ‘How do you know?'

‘He told me.'

‘And you believed him?'

‘Yes, I believed him. There was no reason not to.'

‘There's always a reason not to.'

‘For God's sake, Leonard, don't be so bloody abstruse!'

‘You're angry.'

‘Yes, I'm angry.'

‘Why?'

‘Because you lied to me. You've been lying to me all along.'

Tom slammed his foot on the brake and the car skidded to a halt at the end of the track. ‘Get out.'

When Leonard didn't react, Tom pulled the Browning from beneath the driver's seat and pointed it at him.

‘You're right,' said Leonard, ‘I haven't been entirely honest with you.'

‘I said get out.'

Tom felt strangely calm as he clambered out of the car, keeping the gun trained on Leonard all the while.

‘Do you want me to raise my hands?' asked Leonard, facetiously. ‘Like this?'

‘No, I want you to take your jacket off.'

Leonard did as requested, tossing it on to the bonnet of the car. There was no thud as it landed, but Tom still felt for a weapon. ‘Now raise your hands and turn around.' He frisked Leonard thoroughly before stepping back.

‘Tom, I can explain.'

‘Go ahead. Tell me about Walter.'

Leonard slowly turned to face him, lowering his hands as he did so. ‘I can't explain that. I didn't know about that.'

‘Then why don't I fill you in?'

Tom spelled out what he'd learned from Walter: that the Americans had recently become aware of concerted Soviet efforts to infiltrate some of their key government departments, and although they didn't yet know the true extent of the penetration by Communist moles, the evidence they'd been able to gather from two recent arrests had led them to a man in Montreal who had provided both of the individuals in question with the fake Canadian passports on which they'd entered the United States. From Montreal the trail then led back across the Atlantic to Paris, to Yevgeny and Fanya. This was why Walter had been tasked with insinuating his way into their circle.

‘You don't seem too surprised.'

‘But I am,' replied Leonard. ‘It's unusual for our American friends to take such a bold initiative alone.'

‘I meant about Yevgeny and Fanya.'

‘No, not entirely surprised.'

‘Walter thinks you've been compromised by them. In fact, he's convinced of it.'

‘I'm pleased to hear it,' said Leonard. ‘If the Americans believe I've gone over to the Soviets then I've done my job well.'

Tom could see what Leonard was intimating: that he, like Walter, was part of some counter-intelligence ploy directed against Yevgeny and Fanya.

‘Don't lie to me!'

‘Calm down, Tom. I'm not lying to you.'

‘But the gambling debts . . . the money you owe Yevgeny . . .'

Leonard looked impressed. ‘My, you
have
been busy behind the scenes, haven't you?'

‘I didn't have much choice.'

‘You've also been theorizing ahead of your data.' This was a particular hobby horse of Leonard's, one he had always ridden hard with his subordinates. ‘Those debts were run up with the personal sanction of Sir Robert Vansittart. They're underwritten by the Foreign Office. We have to make the Soviets think they have a hold on me.'

‘Why should I believe you?'

‘Because it's true. And because it's me. Look at me, Tom. I'm as susceptible to flattery as the next man, but I'm also more sceptical than most. Yevgeny's interest in me rang alarm bells almost from the first. What does a man like that really care about a civil servant? Yes, there's some common ground, but not nearly enough of it to warrant his eagerness for a friendship. I've played a very long game with him, waiting to see when the approach would come. It hasn't yet, but I believe it's close, now that I'm financially beholden to him.'

He paused to pinch the sweat from his eyes.

‘People say information is power, but so is disinformation. We'll have an open channel to Stalin. We'll be able to tell the Soviets everything we want them to hear. Think about it . . . they'll have their own man in the British Foreign Office.'

‘And for that you're happy to throw me to the wolves.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Yes you do, Leonard. You've been protecting your baby ever since I told you about Pozzi, trying to persuade me the threat was coming from some other quarter. But it's been the Soviets all along, and Yevgeny and Fanya are up to their necks in it.'

‘You don't know that.'

‘Pozzi had a photo of me hidden in his suitcase. He got it from them.'

Leonard fell silent, digesting the news, his expression similar to that worn by Walter last night on realizing that all his good work might have been in vain.

‘It's over, Leonard. They're directly implicated. The truth about them is out.'

Leonard's response, when it finally came, was telling.

‘Who else have you told?'

‘Already thinking of ways to salvage the situation?'

‘Who else have you told?' demanded Leonard.

‘Walter.'

‘Why on earth would you want to do that?'

‘He seemed like the only person I could trust at the time.'

Leonard conceded the point with a small nod. ‘I should have been more open with you.'

‘And I'm still wondering why you weren't.'

‘Tom, I'm telling you the truth.'

‘No you're not. They're just words. Since when have you cared about the Soviets? I thought Hitler was the devil of the moment.'

‘Don't be fooled by Vansittart's rhetoric, or mine. It's all part of the theatre. Yes, Hitler's a dangerous lunatic, but we're already under attack from the Soviets. They've never understood why the revolution didn't spread beyond their borders. They've never accepted it. And they're doing everything in their power to change that. This is highly confidential, but we've intercepted and deciphered enough Comintern radio transmissions from Moscow to know they're behind the recent subversion in our navy as well as several acts of sabotage at the Devonport dockyard. God only knows what else they're up to.'

When Tom didn't reply, Leonard spread his hands and said, ‘Come on, put the gun down.'

‘I've got a better idea.'

He tossed the Browning to Leonard, who, in his surprise, almost dropped it.

‘If you're lying to me, I'm as good as dead anyway.'

Leonard regarded him with something approaching pity.

‘Do it!' Tom insisted. ‘I don't care any more.'

‘You poor boy,' said Leonard quietly. ‘What's happened to you?'

‘Nothing that two attempts on my life in three days can't explain,' Tom replied bitterly.

It was a trap, the point in the discussion he'd been steering them towards: a passing mention of the second attempt. If Leonard was innocent he would know nothing about it.

‘Two?'

One small word, but it rang like music in Tom's ears.

‘Is it true?' Leonard persisted.

‘Yes, it's true.'

‘So why are you smiling?' Leonard's able brain figured it out before Tom could reply. ‘Oh, I see, I've just passed your test.'

‘Unless you're a damned good actor.'

‘Which I might be.'

‘Which we both know you aren't.'

Leonard released the magazine on the Browning. It was empty. So was the chamber. ‘Very good,' he said. ‘You really weren't sure, were you?'

‘I learned my scepticism from a master.'

Tom settled himself on a rock in the shade and lit a cigarette.

‘What's going on, Leonard? Why do they want me dead?'

‘Zakharov had a younger brother – Ivan. He was fighting for the Bolsheviks in Estonia at the time you . . . well, disposed of his brother in Petrograd. He's still in the military, a general now. It's said he's one of the few people Stalin trusts implicitly . . . which probably means he's not long for this world,' he added wryly.

So that was it. Revenge. A cycle of violence set in motion by Tom in a darkened stairwell sixteen years ago.

‘We can't be certain he's behind it,' Leonard went on, ‘but it's looking that way.'

‘How does he know?'

‘
Aye, there's the rub
. Who knew? You, me, Sinclair, the members of the Secret Service Committee.' Leonard waved a fly from his face. ‘We think we might have narrowed it down to a leak within the SIS, a Soviet mole, someone instructed to access your file.'

‘Who?'

‘Sinclair's working on it, closing the net. The files of retired agents are stored off-site, which helps.'

That would explain the brush-off Tom had received when he'd telephoned earlier. The Secret Intelligence Service had shut up shop while they searched for the traitor in their midst.

The weight of his suspicions about Leonard might have been lifted, but another dead load had replaced it immediately. He could feel it pressing down on him; he could see his future fading out of focus, blurring into oblivion.

For General Ivan Zakharov this was personal, a question of honour. He would never let up, not until he'd avenged his brother's murder. Life as Tom knew it was over. Le Rayol was over. As long as Zakharov was alive Tom would have a sentence hanging over him.

‘You've done us an enormous service.'

‘Have I?' Tom replied, distractedly. Whatever it was, it was meagre consolation.

‘Think about it. It's the reason they wanted it to appear as though you'd died of natural causes. Making a show of your death would have alerted us. They were protecting their source. If you hadn't killed Pozzi we would never have known they'd infiltrated the SIS. Now we do.'

‘Why Pozzi? Why send an Italian to do their dirty work?'

Leonard came and sat beside him. ‘I can only imagine they wanted to put as much distance as possible between you and them.'

Even from Leonard's lips, it had a faintly hollow ring. ‘Well, as from yesterday afternoon it's a policy they've abandoned.'

‘Tell me what happened.'

Tom flicked his cigarette away into the dust.

‘I can do better than that,' he said.

From a distance, the Chartreuse de la Verne looked like an ocean liner tossed on an angry green sea. The ancient monastery lay to the east of Collobrières, occupying the upper reaches of a narrow spur lost in a tumble of hills smothered in chestnut forests. Its location spoke volumes about the order of monks who had chosen this remote spot as their home back in the twelfth century. Unlike the Benedictines and the Cistercians, the Carthusians wished to have little or no contact with the outside world, choosing instead to lead simple, ascetic, silent lives. In effect, the Chartreuse de la Verne was a community of hermits who rarely gathered together to worship, and whose meals were passed to them through a hatch in their cell doors by lay brothers.

Times had changed, and so had the Chartreuse. Ravaged by fire, rebuilt, abandoned, it was now occupied by a bare handful of monks who had restored one small part of the sprawling complex to serve their immediate needs, while doing their level best to stem the decay elsewhere, stripping back ivy, shoring up walls and patching roofs. They dreamed of a time when the monastery would be returned to its full and former medieval glory.

Tom had heard all of this from the mouth of Prior Guillaume during his last visit, when handing Pyotr over to their care. They hadn't hesitated to take the Russian in, and Prior Guillaume had shown no curiosity whatsoever as to the cause or circumstances of Pyotr's injuries. The fact that one of God's creatures was in need of succour was reason enough to open their arms to him.

The main entrance to the monastery bore witness to a violent era when even men of God had to defend themselves against attack. It might just as well have been the entrance to a castle or a prison, with large wooden doors set in a high, blank wall over one hundred yards long. The only clue to what lay behind this forbidding façade was the marble statue in the niche above the doors: Mary cradling the Baby Jesus on her hip.

This time, it took even longer for someone to respond to Tom's hammerings. He and Leonard stood out there for almost ten minutes beneath the tawny, sun-baked stonework, and were on the point of resorting to the car horn when they heard a voice.

‘Who is it?'

‘It's me – Thomas.'

‘Are you alone?' said Prior Guillaume, switching to English.

‘I've brought a friend.'

‘Another invalid?'

Prior Guillaume had a sense of humour.

‘Not this time.'

The prior was Belgian by birth, a short man with a sallow complexion and large pouches beneath his eyes. Despite his considerable age, he had a full head of white hair shorn close to a frosty furze which made him look like he'd been dipped in flour. He didn't walk so much as glide along, almost as if he were wearing roller skates beneath his hooded white habit.