The Bear's Tears (36 page)

He had to go —

He knew he could not rest if he trusted in a message to Clara.
He
trusted her, but he did not trust himself to find peace of mind without
himself putting the journal on the fire or tearing it into small pieces
and flushing it away; destroying it. He had written the full and true
account of the death of Robert Castleford because his accursed,
punctilious conscience and overweening self-righteousness would not
allow him to leave the truth unrecorded. It had been as if, one day far
ahead, he expected to be asked to account for Castleford's murder - as
now he had been.

But now, now he did not want the truth, had no use for it. The
truth
would be regarded as a lie, his motives overlooked or dismissed. Now,
only the brute fact would have significance. Eldon would say, with
triumph in his tone, "You did do it, then? We knew you had. As for
the rest of it - mere nonsense.
In
your own handwriting, a confession
of murder…
"

He had to see those pages burning or flushing away!
There
was no other way, no help for it. He had to make the journey, escape
from England.

Even that idea pained him; an indigestive, burning pain in his
chest. He, having to escape from his own country,
the country he had loyally served for most of his adult life, in war
and peace, declared war and undeclared war.

He looked at the clock. Almost six. Heavy traffic outside, the
flash
of passing headlights on the ceiling of the darkened room.

Through the window, if he raised himself in his armchair to see
it,
Regent's Park had retreated into darkness. Beyond the park, the lights
of Primrose Hill receded northwards into the distance beneath the
orange-glowing winter sky. The first stars were out, hard and brittle.
The room was warm yet he sat in the chair in his dark overcoat, hat
resting on his lap, as if he could no longer afford his heating bills.

He was ready to leave. He needed only to find the nerve to
begin, to
take the first step. He had prepared for the moment, perhaps ever since
they had confined him to the flat.

Compulsively, without definite purpose but with all his
professional
instincts, he had studied the surveillance teams; their characters,
their routines, their weaknesses… most of all, their growing,
inevitable complacency.

He had encouraged Mrs Grey, much against her will and much to
her
disgust, to begin to supply the various teams with cups of tea, cups of
coffee. Then to warm the pies or fish and chips they had bought. To
provide sandwiches on occasion. To mother them…

Stiffly, angrily, she had learned her part and softened into it.
He,
meanwhile, had watched their change-overs, especially those that came
after dark. Especially this one at six. Every evening he had watched.

Sloppy. Complacent, lazy, sloppy - more so with each passing day
and
night. Only one old man to worry about upstairs… easy, cushy…

Tonight, it was curry from an Indian take-away. Mrs Grey had
chilled
the lager they drank with it, in her fridge. She had just taken it out
to them, enough cans for the two teams, new and old. She would chat, in
a motherly way, for a few moments, acting like a further sedative.
Then, when she judged it safest, sensed the right moment, she would
return to the front door and ring the bell, summoning him to begin his
journey. There would be only a moment when he might slip undetected
across the street to the darker park side of the terrace. Then he might
reach the corner, then the Marylebone Road and the rush-hour and the
taxis… They would not be expecting —

The doorbell sounded, shrill in the silent flat. Aubrey's body
twitched as if electrocuted. His hands grabbed the arms of the chair.
His hat fell to the carpet. Like an automaton, he pushed himself
upright, bent to collect his hat, then moved stiffly to the door. He
did not glance at the furniture, the emperor's new clothes that had
been no more than an illusion, but left the flat almost unseeingly. He
descended to the ground floor. The front door was slightly ajar. He
could see Mrs Grey in the porch, hidden from the surveillance cars by
deep shadow. She turned as his hand touched the latch. Aubrey could
tell, by the startled look on her face and the immediate, worried
frown, that his face must portray wildness and inadequacy. He patted
her hand fumblingly like a very old and senile man. She appeared
unreassured. He brushed past her. She had no idea where he was going,
only abroad, escaping - what she did not know she could not mistakenly
tell.

He let go of her hand, and his own hand fell to his side as if
she
had been taking the weight of it. His hand, then arm, then trunk, then
legs, too, became heavy and slow and burdensome. He did not look either
right or left, but crossed the road with a firm, blind, jerky step. He
reached the opposite pavement. When he turned, the facades of the Nash
houses gleamed orange-white in the light of the street-lamps. Aubrey
began to walk away from the parked cars of the two surveillance teams.
Mrs Grey had not even had time to tell him all four men were sitting in
one car, eating. He strode on, a melodramatic actor in his dotage
parodying a blind man's walk.

A woman with a dog spoke to him. He raised his hat without
seeing or
identifying her. There was the noise of a car behind him, but it did
not evoke fear. He merely walked on until he reached the end of the
terrace and turned right towards the Marylebone Road.

Lights, traffic. His legs felt weak, almost without energy,
paralysed. His body had become very heavy now, glutinously restraining
his emotional desire for speed, for flight. He forced his limbs to
move. The noise of the traffic loudened. He reached the Marylebone Road.

Taxi, taxi, taxi —

It was cracking, like a mask upon the skin. As his resolve and
his
will dehydrated, the mask had begun to crack open.

The taxi stopped. "Where to, guv?"

The enquiry was like a gulp of reviving air. He fumbled with the
door handle, murmuring "Victoria" in a choked voice. He almost fell
forward into the taxi's interior, gaining the seat just before his legs
gave away and a hot flush invested his entire body. He sighed, loosened
his overcoat, lay back.

"Traffic's bad this evening," he heard someone say, presumably
the
cab driver, but he had no interest in replying. He merely wanted to
rest now, and allow reaction and weakness their moment, then recover
from them.

He had done it, he told himself. Blundered out of his captivity
like
a child or a blind man. He had done it.

Alison Shelley had become fascinated by the woman who sat
opposite
her in her lounge, still wearing her tweed coat and holding her hat in
her twisting hands. The woman was perhaps ten years older than herself,
distraught, pale from her various and contradictory fears, tired. Yet
she possessed a calm, a sense of certainty, what could only be called
an authority, that Alison envied. Margaret Massinger, by virtue of her
upbringing, wealth and social milieu, had never had the slightest
interest in, or need for, feminism, equality of opportunity, even the
franchise. That much was obvious to her hostess.

She studied, too, her husband as he talked to Margaret
Massinger.
Peter was afraid and kept throwing sly little guilty looks in her
direction, but some covert part of him was intrigued, mystified,
prompted to action. Alison knew that he was on the point of throwing in
his lot with the Massingers and she knew that she, reluctantly, would
do the same with her husband. She would join because she knew his
current sleeplessness and irritability all derived from his
self-contempt and his inability to quell his loyalty.

"There's no other line, Mrs Massinger…" Peter was saying,
spreading
his hands helplessly. "I only wish there were. Your husband has had all
the doors slammed in his face. That's the size of it, I'm afraid."
Shelley looked as lugubriously regretful as a bloodhound.

"That's not a lot of help to Mrs Massinger," Alison observed
quietly, studying her sherry glass and then Margaret's face. Margaret
Massinger seemed grateful for her intervention, perhaps understanding
her motives; granting permission for her husband to involve himself.

Peter Shelley's face was dubious, then his frown cleared. He,
too,
realised the purpose of her interjection, even though he could not act
upon it. He shrugged. "I know it isn't," he said. "But it's also true,
darling."

"Surely there's some way -I—?" Margaret began, lowering her eyes
to
the crumpled hat in her lap as her voice faltered. She was distraught,
and evidently she felt inadequate to counter Shelley's expertise, his
insider's experience. After a moment she added, not looking up: "Paul
can't stay cooped up for ever, Mr Shelley."

"I - don't know what to say," was Shelley's only reply.

"Why can't we talk to Andrew Babbington —?" she blurted.

Shelley paused, then shook his head as he spoke. "We don't
know," he
said softly. "We don't know who it is. And whoever it is might get to
hear - then…" He hurried on gloomily: "We don't have any proof, we
wouldn't be believed."

"What about this man Hyde?"

"God alone knows where he is. He arrived in Pakistan - there's
been
no contact since."

"God, isn't there anything you can do?" Alison asked
in a
loud, strained voice. She got up, pacing the room in front of the
glowing fire, her sherry glass catching its lights. "There must be
something, Peter - surely to God? Mr Massinger's life's in danger. He's
hiding in his flat like a criminal. He needs your help!"

"What can I do?" Shelley pleaded, resenting her interruption. He
shifted on his chair almost with the squirm of an accused small boy.

"I can't tell you what to do, Peter…" she continued, now
patrolling
the borders of the lounge like an inexperienced, nervous guard.
Sunday
Times - Insight
. "I don't know
what to suggest…" The newspaper,
remaining untidied from the previous day, lapped over the edges of a
pink-upholstered reproduction chair.
Sunday
Times - Insight.
Alison moved on from the exposed front page. Yesterday's news. She had
pored over the articles more than once, deliberately and evidently, but
after Peter had made his telephone calls he had been reluctant to
discuss it. So she had abandoned the matter. But now there was this,
the peculiar violence of Peter's secret world, brought to their lounge
by —

She realised that Margaret Massinger was watching her
expectantly.
Alison had invited her attention by protest and movement; now she
resented it, realising she had compromised Peter.

"Who else has been betrayed?"
Heavy type, lower case
letters. She had read that, too. She passed the fire, its warmth sudden
against her calves, reminding her upper torso that it was chilly with
indecision, helplessness. Peter was staring glumly through his
interlaced fingers at the carpet in front of the sofa. Sideboard,
standard lamp, door, bookshelves - Peter's English classics and books
on sailing, her own biographical tastes - then the newspaper again. She
had patrolled the room's border once again. '
Who else has been
betrayed?'
she read.

"Peter… ?" she asked slowly.

"Yes?" he replied eagerly, sensing her tone. He had always
admitted
her intuition as a legitimate intellectual activity. He needed
intuition in his work. Aubrey's was the intuition he really admired.

"1974," she announced slowly. Each syllable of the date was
elongated, charged with a good-humoured, almost excited mystery. "That
business in Bonn."

"I know," Shelley said. "What of it?"

"Is it just newspaper talk?" Her hand reached for the paper, but
she
merely rearranged it so that she did not have to read the front page
upside-down. 1974 - Bonn - Gunther Guillaume, Willy Brandt's senior
adviser, the East German spy - rumours of an attempt to warn, even get
him away, by a British officer —

"No, it isn't. Hell of a flap at the time. Everyone was talking
about it at the office today. Aubrey's the prime suspect now, of
course, because he was in Bonn advising the Germans on anti-terrorist
security for the World Cup - after that disaster at the Munich Games…
it's rubbish, of course. But the mud will no doubt stick," he ended
with a sigh.

Alison was standing in front of him. "Was there any truth in it?"

"We never admitted there was - MI5 did a job on us, just as we'd
done a job on our own people. Nothing. Just a trace of woodsmoke, but
definitely no fire." He smiled thinly, then shook his head. "Pity we
can't ask Guillaume, now he's back with his own people."

"Isn't there anyone else?" Alison blurted in disappointment,
half-afraid at the ease with which she had been drawn unresisting into
the secret world. Her relationship with her husband now was as intimate
as lovemaking, yet entirely cerebral. Her body was flushed with
tension. She found she had placed herself beside the chair in which
Margaret Massinger sat.

"To ask?" Shelley pondered. "I doubt it."

"If - if, Peter?" Alison pressed her empty glass
against
her forehead and ran her other hand through her thick hair. "No, just
listen - I think I'm having one of Aubrey's intuitions —" Shelley
smiled involuntarily. "Look, if there was someone in - a British agent
working to help this Guillaume… couldn't he be
the
one who's helping to ruin Aubrey now?" She seemed unconvinced as her
words tailed off.

"Yes… ?" Shelley asked, evidently disappointed.

"You mean, just as they're blaming Mr Aubrey —" A small, pinched
mouth signalled distaste, then Margaret continued: "If you assume his
innocence…" She looked down, divided, then: "
If
you do, then, then - the
someone who could have acted then, in 1974, could be the same one now.
Do you see what we mean, Mr Shelley?"