The Bear's Tears (17 page)

"If you say so…"

Aubrey gripped his hands more tightly together in his lap, and
averted his gaze. Castleford's dead face had presented itself to his
imagination in hideous close-up, the blue eyes going blank and glazed,
the head beginning to tilt backwards. The noise of the revolver was in
Aubrey's ears. As his eyes found the carpet near his feet, Castleford's
face, too, fell sideways and the man's body was vividly before him,
stretched on his carpet - so vividly that he was afraid that Eldon,
too, would see it; see the flow of blood from his temple staining the
white shirt-front. He shook his head and the image retreated.

"Something wrong, Sir Kenneth?" Eldon asked.

"Tiredness," Aubrey managed to say.

"You wanted, from the very beginning, to fulfil your own ambitions
in Berlin," Eldon pursued. "You were building your own career, and you
would brook no interference from outside your service. Your ambitions
dictated that even a very senior member of the Commission such as
Castleford was not to be tolerated if he interfered with your work."
None of the observations were interrogative. For Eldon, they were
merely statements of fact.

"If you say so…" Aubrey replied wearily.

"You went about establishing your own network, did you not, within
weeks of arriving in Berlin?"

"Yes."

"Setting out thereby to prove your superiority to brother officers
in SIS? You were not the senior officer there, I take it?"

"Of course not!" Aubrey snapped.

"Then why did you begin to behave in this - cavalier fashion?"
Eldon's hands moved apart in a shrug. "Towards officers more senior and
experienced than yourself," he added darkly.

"Because their networks were suffering from rigor mortis. Most of
them were established during the early days of the occupation of
Berlin. We were finding out less and less, we were catching fewer and
fewer Nazis - we had no real access in the Russian sector…"

"You're suggesting that you had all the right answers -
only
you, no one else?"

"Not that - simply a fresh mind, fresh links." Aubrey looked up at
Eldon. There was only sunlight on the carpet now. "Surely you can
understand how networks become moribund?"

"Perhaps. But you spared no one's feelings, no one's pride, as you
went about this fresh approach of yours. You made yourself deeply
unpopular in intelligence circles at the time."

Aubrey shrugged. "All that summer we were afraid that the Russians
would try something like a blockade of Berlin - we had to pull out all
the stops to try to discover what they meant to do. In fact, they
postponed their intention for two years, until '48."

"And your new networks began to produce results?"

"Not at once. But, slowly - yes, they did."

"Castleford objected, on many occasions, to your high-handed, even
illegal treatment of German nationals, did he not?"

"Yes, he did," Aubrey sighed. "There were a number of cases —"

"Where he reprimanded you for
over-zealous
behaviour? Such
as detaining German nationals without charge - or blackmailing German
nationals into assisting you? Bribery, black-market goods supplied for
favours and information. Castleford objected most strenuously to most
of the methods you used, did he not?"

"He did."

"Increasing the antipathy between you?"

"Naturally. He - got in my way on every possible occasion. I was
looking for Nazis and for Russian agents being funnelled into the other
sectors of the city, then to the West, under the guise of displaced
persons and even German soldiers. There was - little time for niceties."

Eldon's lips pursed in contempt. "Perhaps Castleford thought that
the war was over by the summer of 1946?" he said with heavy irony.

"Perhaps. We simply did not agree as to priorities."

"You were caught by the NKVD in the Russian sector of Berlin in
December of '46?"

"Yes."

"Why were you there?"

Aubrey hesitated for an instant. Stick to your original debriefing,
he instructed himself. Eldon will have seen the reports. Give him what
he expects. He said: "Following a lead - a suspected double in one of
the new networks. Not a very spectacular operation. The double knew I
was coming, apparently, and proved his real loyalties by turning me
over to the NKVD."

Aubrey sat back in his chair. The sunlight on the carpet had reached
the round toes of his black, old-fashioned shoes, lapping at them like
water. A hateful vision of himself as an old man at the seashore who
has slept too long in a deckchair, unaware of the incoming tide,
occurred to him. He dismissed it.

"You were interrogated, of course?"

"Yes - for three or four days."

"And released?"

"I escaped."

"During your interrogation - which could not have been gentle, by
any standards - you supplied information to the NKVD."

"I did not." Aubrey was suddenly too weary and dispirited to inject
any force into his denial.

"But - you did…"

Aubrey, sensing the clear anticipation in Eldon's voice, the
knowledge of surprise, narrowed his eyes and steeled himself. What —?

"What do you mean?"

"Castleford disappeared the very day you -
escaped -
back
to the British sector," Eldon said. "No one ever saw him again. He
vanished from the face of the earth - utterly and completely. His
remains were eventually found in 1951, during the digging of the
foundations for a new office block, and finally identified by a ring,
his dental record, and a fracture of the leg sustained in a rugby match
at Oxford. Remember, Sir Kenneth?"

Aubrey could not disguise a shudder.

"There was a bullet hole in the skull. His remains were brought
home, and honourably interred. And that was the end of the story -
was
the end…"

"Was?" The skull grinned up from the carpet, from the spot where
Aubrey had seen the dead face minutes earlier. His hands were shaking.

"We now know what happened."

"You know?"

"Read this if you would, Sir Kenneth."

Eldon removed a number of enlarged photographs from his briefcase
and passed them to Aubrey. They goldened in the sunlight, as did
Eldon's hand. Aubrey took them with a premonitory shiver.

"Perhaps you would confirm that this is your signature, Sir
Kenneth?" Eldon murmured.

Aubrey turned to the final print. What kind of transcript had been
photographed? Old, certainly… yes, that was his writing, his signature.
He flicked back through the sheaf of prints, rapidly reading the faded
Russian, the badly-aligned, inexpert typing - question, answer,
question-answer, answer answer answer —

It was an account of his interrogation by the NKVD - and it
purported to be signed by himself as being supplied voluntarily and
freely, for use in evidence at some unspecified future trial.

Fake,
fake
—!

"It is, isn't it?" Eldon prompted. There was almost a purr of
satisfaction in his voice. "That, of course, is part of the
Teardrop
file, supplied by our friends in Washington." He smiled wintrily
beneath the moustache, "Your file. Experts have confirmed the
genuineness of the signature. If your Russian is still as expert as it
once was, you will see that you are represented in the text as having
supplied Castleford's name and his current whereabouts in Berlin to
your interrogator."

Aubrey looked up. "Patently a forgery," he managed to say. His
chest
felt tight. He could hear his racing heartbeat in his ears, feel its
thump in his chest.

"
I see. You will also discover, as you read on, that you
explain
it
was Castleford who operated all your networks, presenting yourself only
as a minion in SIS's organisation. You deliberately suggested to the
NKVD that it was of the utmost importance for them to stop him. Even to
get hold of him. You claim in that document that Castleford was your
senior officer in SIS. You lied so effectively to the NKVD that they
had Robert Castleford murdered as a British agent!" Eldon cleared his
throat, then added quietly: "It was at that point, when you had
betrayed Castleford, that you decided to throw in your lot with the
NKVD and become a Russian agent!"

Aubrey felt choked. He could not speak.

They had him.

The telephone rang and Massinger snatched up the receiver. Ros's
plump hand hovered near his for a moment, and then she stepped away
from him, as if to dissociate herself from the conversation to come.
She gathered the tortoiseshell cat to her large breasts.

"Yes?"

"Massinger?"

"Yes." It was Hyde. He felt flooded with relief. He had spotted
no
tail on his way to Philbeach Gardens, but he wondered at the extent of
his own competence. It had been too long since he had needed those old
skills to be certain he still possessed them.

Hyde was evidently using a call box, yet there was the sound of
music in the background which Massinger strove to identify. A string
quartet - Mozart? "Where are you? Are you safe?" he asked.

"Just. They're getting closer. I'm at a recital, chamber music.
No
one would look for an ignorant Ocker in a place like this."

"You're keeping off the streets?"

"Yes. And away from the bus depots and stations. Last night, it
was
close."

"How close?"

"Inches. A coat of varnish."

"But you're all right?"

"I'm still operational, if that's what you mean. But it can't
last
much longer. Vienna Station tried to kill me again last night."

"My God, you're certain? Sorry, yes, you're certain. I - must
come
to Vienna. I'm seeing Shelley later today. He should have some
information for me that could be of use. Tomorrow. I'll arrive
tomorrow."

"A room at the Inter-Continental, then."

"Is there anything else? Anything I should be aware of?"

"No…" Hyde replied relucantly.

"Anything?" Massinger demanded.

"All right - last night, I had to kill one of them. One of ours."

"Damn!"

"It wasn't open to choice."

"I understand. Look, I have a copy of the file on Aubrey - the
frame-up. It looks very bad for him."

"It's bloody worse for me, mate!"

"Yes, I know that, I have a plan, something we might be able to
do
to change things. In Vienna -"

"Christ, mate, all I want to do is get out of Vienna!"

"I'll have papers to make that possible, Hyde. But, perhaps you
won't be able to leave at once."

"Christ —!"

"Look, hold on. This matter is - it's so big, Hyde,
that
we may have to take risks, greater risks than ever, if we're going to
help Aubrey. You understand? It's not simply a question of your life
any longer."

Yes, Mozart. One of the 'Haydn' quartets. A door had opened
somewhere near Hyde and the music had swelled out. The B flat quartet,
the 'Hunt'… door opening… ?

"Hyde? Are you all right?"

"Yes. Don't get jumpy. Just hurry it up, will you?"

"OK. Tomorrow." Aubrey's signature at the bottom of a full
confession, naming Castleford. For a moment, the document he had read
at his club - so that Margaret would have no idea of what he was doing
- was vivid in his mind. Very clever, very tight; noose-like. The
document had taken his breath away, removed for perhaps ten minutes any
facility to believe it a forgery. In Vienna, the Mozart quartet had
ended. He could hear muted applause.

"Tomorrow," he repeated. "The Inter-Continental."

He heard Hyde's exhalation of relief.

"See you."

The connection was broken and the telephone purred. Slowly,
Massinger replaced the receiver, unaware that he was not alone in the
room; unaware of the room.

"Is he all right?" Ros asked.

"Mm - what?" Massinger looked up. The cat nestled against Ros's
breasts like a stole. "Oh, yes. For the time being."

"Can you help him?"

"I think so."

Ros's face was restrained momentarily then a naked and complete
fear
possessed it. "Then for Christ's sake do it!" she wailed.

Massinger turned his back upon the sharp, cruel - and now so
personalised - satire of Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode. His
eyes caught the timeless glances of Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews,
their tranquil security evident to him in a moment, before settling
upon Constable's Salisbury Cathedral, white and green and
blue, colours of an innocence he could not pretend. Room XVI of the
National Gallery was quiet except for the mutterings of a troop of
schoolchildren being shepherded through part of their undesired
heritage.

He and Shelley stood side by side, almost caricatured in their
identical dark overcoats.

"First thing," Shelley said, "Hyde's new papers. They've been
carefully checked. They should remain secure for at least a few days,
perhaps longer." He passed a small flat package to Massinger, who
guiltily hurried it into the breast pocket of his coat. It was as if he
had finally accepted membership of some subversive organisation.
Shelley's face looked pale and strained with worry and lack of sleep.
"Another thing," Shelley added, "there's a recent snap of the Vienna
Rezident - his name is Karel Bayev, by the way - included with Hyde's
papers."

"Thank you, Peter. I've spoken to Hyde."

"How - is he?"

"He's killed one of your people in Vienna."

"God —"

"He had to."

"I see. Are they that close to him?"

"He can't have long."

"We have to have Hyde's testimony."

"I know. But, it won't be enough. We have to have everything."

"I know," Shelley replied glumly.

"Then what do you have for me? Shall we walk?"

They began to patrol the room. Massinger regretted leaving the
impossible cleanliness of Salisbury cathedral, reaching out of the
placid green meadow. Even its illusory peace was something to be
treasured.