The Bear's Tears (66 page)

"Good. Where's Hyde?"

"Who?"

He moved swiftly towards her, and she flinched. "Hyde!" he
barked.
"Where is Hyde?"

"I don't know."

He hit her again. The gobbet of blood in her palm flew into the
grate and sizzled on the logs. She cried out with renewed pain.

"Where is he?"

"Czech - Czechoslovakia…" she sobbed.

"Why?"

"I don't know!"
she
screamed at-him. "He didn't tell
me
anything - just in case this happened!"

Babbington lowered his clenched fist. He seemed satisfied. "What
did
he instruct you to do in his absence?" he asked in a thick voice.
"What?"

Margaret watched him. She must not tell Babbington anything more
—! She had already told him too much, far too much while the blows and
the shouting were in control of her. She glanced guiltily at her
handbag, at her hands, her feet. She hunched into herself, retreating
from Babbington. He would kill Paul and her once he knew everything —

"What did he instruct you to do?
Follow
me? Watch me?"

She was prepared for the questions to continue, yet they still
acted
with the naked shock of icy water, so that she flinched, appeared
guilty, seemed to choke off confession by putting her shaking hand to
her lips.

Babbington snatched at her handbag and tipped the contents onto
the
bright rug in front of the fire. He stirred the compact, the keys, the
hairbrush, the paper handkerchiefs, the purse, with the toe of one
shoe. Then his shoe touched the instruction booklet on how to fit and
use the telephoto lens, and finally the small plastic tub in which the
second roll of film had been contained before she loaded it.

Like a delicate footballer, he kicked the small tub across the
rug
with a flick of his toe, then separated the instruction booklet from
the litter of other objects. He bent and picked them up, his face
gleaming from triumph, suspicion and the firelight. His eyes were hard
when he looked at her after opening and reading the booklet. His big
hand clenched upon the plastic tub, squeezing it.

"What?" he breathed softly. "My, but you have been an industrious
little thing, haven't you." Then his voice hardened once more. "What
was the purpose of your photography, Margaret? Where are your holiday
snaps?"

She remained silent, quivering like a sapling at the first wind
of
an approaching storm. She would not prevent her head from shaking, as
if to defy him.

"What did you photograph?"
he roared at her. She
huddled
into the chair. He grabbed her arms, bruising them, and dragged her
face close to his. She was terrified of the hard chips of light in his
eyes, of the mouth that appeared hungry. "Tell me, Margaret - or he
dies
now. Do you understand me? He dies now!" He flung her dramatically back
into the chair, even as she cried out:

"No —!"

"I give you my word -
now!
"
He snapped his fingers, moved
towards
the door.

"No —!" He did not stop. "I followed you - to a meeting - in the
Belvedere!"

He turned on his heel. She heard his breath sigh out like sexual
release. It was hot, heady in the room; a place for exotic plants,
foetid.

"You have evidence of that meeting?"

She nodded. "Two rolls of film… telephoto lens…"

He moved heavily towards her. "Where are those rolls of film?"

She flinched from his raised hand.

"Posted them —"

He grabbed her chin and jerked her face upwards. His thumb and
forefinger pressed her jaw painfully. "Where are they? When did you
post them?" He shook her face between his fingers like something
utterly fragile and breakable. "Tell me, Margaret.
Tell me!"

She blurted out the name of the
pension
and the time
she
had posted them. He released her chin at once and glanced at his watch.
Then he moved quickly to his desk, snapping on the intercom. He barked
orders into it, ending with: "They won't have been collected yet. Yes,
of course police IDs for you and whoever you take —! And hurry!"

He flicked the switch and turned to her. She felt something
loosen
and slide within her; will, resolve, she could not tell. Perhaps even
hope. She had made a final move in the game. Left herself open to
checkmate. Her hands flitted at her bruised jaw, at her quivering lips.
She'd lost everything, everything —

It had been ridiculous to assume she could alter events.
Ridiculous
from the first. All that mattered, really mattered, had been Paul's
life. And he was alive. Babbington had given him back. She looked up as
Babbington addressed her.

"Now, you must see your husband, Margaret." He rubbed his hands
lightly together, dusting them. "I'm sorry for - well, that's in the
past. I had to trick you, even hit you, to save time. I do not have
that much to spare. However —" He was buoyant with triumph now, and his
cold munificence chilled her more than the streak of sadism and
vengeful rage he had earlier shown. "— perhaps now there is a little
more time…" He took her arm and helped her from the chair. She felt
unreal, a sacklike object being moved. "A pity you know nothing of
Hyde's exact whereabouts or his motives -, but I believe you
don't know. He's clever enough not to have trusted you." Babbington
smiled. They were at the door. She flinched as if anticipating that the
dog lurked beyond it. Babbington opened the door. The corridor was
empty. "Come," he said. "I'll take you to Paul."

She clung to that statement, blotting out the scene that
preceded
it. The voice had been almost warm, the hand that held her arm
supported rather than imprisoned her. She moved into the fragile
fiction with each step on the polished floorboards. She felt her body
lean against Babbington for support.

He lied to you then hit you to
disorientate you,
something
announced in her head.
You went
straight to pieces, to little
pieces…

She bit her tongue, as if she had voiced the words aloud. Her
father's face, Aubrey's face, Babbington's face - twisted in cruel
satisfaction - Paul's face…

Grainy picture. The skull separated from its skeleton by a
workman's
spade. The skull blown open by Aubrey's accidental bullet. She
shuddered and pulled away from Babbington.

"No —" she murmured.

"But here we are," Babbington announced with mocking breeziness.
There was someone else there, an armed guard. "This is Paul's room -
open the door." The guard turned a key and threw the door ajar. "A
pleasant reunion, Margaret, my dear," Babbington said and thrust her
forward. The door closed loudly behind her.

Massinger looked up distractedly, as if a stranger had burst in
upon
some scene of ordinary domesticity. The paperback remained in his hand.
The small transistor radio they had provided continued to play. It
wasn't food, not the right time for supper, or for the one large Scotch
they served him late in the evening.

What, then —?

He felt the shock of recognition. Beneath it, a further shock of
his
imprisonment was made real to him again. He saw the bruises in the same
moment that he observed the open mouth and wild eyes.

Margaret stood by the door, trembling. Pain stabbed in his thigh
and
hip as he tried to move his injured leg and climb awkwardly from the
low bed. He dropped the novel he was reading and heaved himself to his
feet, tottering erect.

She moved towards him then. The Handel on the radio changed
inappropriately from andante to allegro. Sliding into something that
might have been gay. He was disconcerted. She was murmuring, one word
over and over again, even as he pressed her against him and felt her
whole frame shaking.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…"

He did not understand the need for apology —

And then did, as he brushed her hair, as his hand moved gently
to
her cheek and she winced at the thought of further inflicted pain. She,
too, was a prisoner. She had - yes, she had come to find him. Reckless,
narrow-minded,
single
-minded…

He knew, with a sick certainty, that she had told Babbington
everything she knew.

He lifted her face and kissed her very carefully and softly.
Resenting the stubble that might pain her bruised jaw. She was looking
at him with the face of a child. He sensed her body through the
material of his shirt as his arms enclosed her. The fur jacket was wet
with melted snow. For a moment, he almost wanted to thrust her away. To
make her stand apart from him while he told her what a fool, what a
mistake, what a fatal error…

But, she knew it. All.

She had ceased murmuring her apology and simply clung to him,
her
face against his chest. He looked over her blonde hair at the closed,
locked door of the small room. It was as if he could quite clearly see
the armed guard posted outside. He brushed absently at her hair, even
at the shoulder of the fur coat. Stroking a small animal that could not
be blamed.

"It's all right now, it's all right now, my darling," he began
softly, gripping her more tightly in the circle of his arms. "It's all
right… you're safe. I've been out of my mind with worry about you. It's
all right, it's all right…" What she had done, she had done out of
love. Killing herself as well as he. He swallowed. "It's all right now,
everything's OK…" She was sobbing softly, and swallowed continually. He
had to ease her guilt away. "Don't worry. It just got messed up, but -
everything you've done, everything you've said or felt, has been
honest. Don't blame yourself… it's all right now, all right…"

He continued to murmur into her hair, stroking her face and
shoulder
and upper arm gently. "I shouldn't have - my fault, getting you into
this mess…" Did he believe that —? Yes, yes. "My, my - stupid,
ridiculous shining armour, my - blindness, my stupidity…" He ground the
words slowly out. "I had to try and help and I didn't think about you -
forgive me for that. I didn't think about you…"

He continued to stare at the locked door, even as he sensed the
desperation of her need for comfort. Her hands eventually opened and
stilled against his back, pressing harder and harder, returning his
close embrace. She swallowed. He could hear her breathing become more
regular, quieter. He continued to stroke her hair and face.

Hyde distracted himself from Godwin's slow, noisy progress onto
the
escalator by glancing once more at the small picture in his hand. He
stepped onto the escalator behind the hoarsely-breathing Godwin,
hefting the haversack of tools on his shoulder. The snapshot was small,
monochrome - a flashlight picture. Wiring flared behind an opened panel
surrounded by darkness. Someone other than Godwin had scribbled with a
ballpoint on the surface of the snap. The words in Czech near the
bottom and an arrow pointing at one of the cables exposed to the camera.

The landline which linked the remote stations of the Hradcany's
computer room with Moscow Centre.

He slipped the snapshot into the breast pocket of the oily
overalls
he was wearing over corduroy jeans and a check shirt. He had not
shaved. Rubbing the stubble on his chin and cheeks, he reminded himself
of his almost sleepless night. Like rubbing some legendary lamp, he
evoked smoky fragments of the night's information - and quashed them by
concentrating fiercely on his feet as he reached the bottom of the
escalator and stepped off. Godwin readjusted his crutches and leaned
his weight more assuredly on them. There was no time now to consider
the coming afternoon and night…

People brushed past them, moving crowdedly into the warmly-lit
underground concourse of the Mustek metro station. Snow shone wetly on
their shoulders and hats and headscarves as it melted. The mosaics were
stained with muddy footprints as the morning rush-hour crowds moved
through the shop-lined concourse.

"All right?" Hyde muttered in Czech, leaning towards Godwin. Godwin
merely grimaced and nodded.

Hyde adjusted the haversack on the shoulder of his dark-blue
donkey
jacket. Another manual worker on his way to his job. He joined the
orderly procession to the platform, Godwin following him. Hyde felt the
tension rising in him like sap; sensed the lack of reserves in himself
- the lack of sleep that now prevented him from using his intelligence
as if it were some separate part of him. His nerves affected his
ability to think.

Godwin rested on his crutches beside him as they waited for the
metro. One station down the line; Muzeum. At the other end of Wenceslas
Square. Then a walk down a long tunnel to a sealed inspection hatch set
in the wall. The distances came to him as measured paces as he stared
at the track, at three rails, one of them live. A measured distance
alongside a live rail. He could think of it in no other way. He glanced
involuntarily towards the tunnel, where the lights disappeared and the
live rail vanished into ambush. And shuddered.

"You all right?" Godwin hissed.

Hyde nodded violently. "Shut up," he snapped.

Timetables, distances, tools, the snapshot, the imagined noises
of
the tunnel tumbled together in his thoughts. He clenched one hand in
his pocket, the other gripped the strap of the haversack tightly, so
that his knuckles were white. He felt sick, despite the croissants and
rolls and coffee Godwin had made him eat. Self-confidence was a
wafer-thin, puncturable envelope around him, threatened by his
surroundings.

The Russian-built train sighed into the platform on rubber
wheels,
its lights and crowded faces slowing after the moment in which they had
made his head jolt and spin. The crowd moved him forward into the
carriage like a reluctant representative of some complaint they wished
to voice. Godwin lumbered behind him.

The doors closed, the train jerked away from the platform. The
walls
of the tunnel were suddenly close - much too close - behind the row of
faces opposite him. Faces with too little sleep, fed by basic,
unvarying diets, older than they should have been; little make-up on
any but the youngest of the women.