The Company of Saints (29 page)

‘No,' he answered. ‘That's why I've got to talk to you. I've thought about ringing you so many times.' He paused. ‘I hoped I'd see my way clear if I gave it time. Davina, I know what I did before. I know saying I'm sorry isn't going to change anything, but can't I start with that?'

‘Of course, you can,' she said quickly. ‘But it isn't necessary now. I don't want you to apologize, Tony, and I don't want you to regret anything. It's over and done with, and we've got a lot of good things to remember.'

‘I keep thinking,' he went on. ‘Did I really explain it to her? Did I make her understand my motives? Davina – will you listen to me once more, and then make up your mind?'

She felt herself stiffen. I don't want to listen, she thought. I've managed to forgive you and even feel sorry for you, but I don't want to hear it again. In case it hurts as much as it did.

‘Tony, please,' she said quietly, ‘you did explain. And I did understand. I've thought about it too, believe me. I know you loved me and you tried to play both ends against the middle. But in my work it isn't possible. It isn't possible to have your cake and eat it. I don't think it's a good idea in general, anyway. But for someone in my position it's unthinkable. So why don't we just let it go at that?'

He looked at her and said slowly, ‘Davina, if you will come back to me, I'll take the consequences. I'll let them go ahead and I'll take my chance. I built my business up once and I can do it again. I'll probably go to jail, but I can face that too, if I've got you to come back to. Will you take me back?'

‘I can't,' Davina answered. ‘I can't be involved with anybody in your position, and you know that perfectly well.'

‘I'm ready to give up everything for you,' he said. ‘All you have to do is resign from your job. Don't you have any love left for me at all?'

It was the question she had been dreading. Easy to be hard-hearted and to hurt him, easy to remind him of how he had cheated and risked ruining her in order to keep what he valued himself. But she didn't want to hurt him. She didn't want to answer, but there was no other way. ‘No, Tony, I'm afraid I haven't. I did love you very much. But I don't any more.'

‘Lomax has moved back in, I hear?'

She felt suddenly angry. ‘Yes, he has. I suppose you heard from your friends in the KGB? They keep tabs on that kind of thing, don't they? But it won't do them any good to know about Colin.'

He didn't look at her. He didn't want her to see his eyes. ‘Is he the reason you can't forgive me, Davina?'

‘No,' she said. ‘If he hadn't come into my life again, I still wouldn't leave my job for you, Tony. I wouldn't be in love with you. That died before I ever saw him again. Don't let's upset each other any more. I don't want to ask you to go, but I think it's the best thing.'

He didn't move for a minute, but sat quite still with his head averted.

‘Would you like a drink?' Davina said.

‘No thanks.' He was back in the hotel in Brussels. The smooth face of his Soviet contact swam before his eyes and the words rang in his head. ‘One of our agents is being interrogated. That bracelet contains an electronic signal that will tell us where they are. It is only effective for a few days. Miss Graham will see the agent and after that it is just a beautiful ornament. All you have to do is put it on her wrist. Nobody will ever know.'

He had offered her everything, even to go to prison, if she would take him back and give him another chance. Even so, he might have resisted, if she hadn't replaced him with Colin Lomax. He got up, slipped the little red box out of his pocket. ‘Davina,' he said. ‘I bought you this. Please try it on before you say anything.'

‘I won't take anything from you, Tony,' she said. ‘I can't.'

He took her left hand in his. ‘You could look at it,' he said. ‘It's not much to ask.' He opened the bracelet and clipped it onto her wrist. It was a series of white and yellow golds links with gold bolts fastening them. A red enamel heart pierced by an arrow hung from it like a charm.

Davina said, ‘It's beautiful, Tony, but I can't accept it.'

He turned away from her. He wanted to get out of the flat. He wanted to convince himself that he was right to do what he had done.

‘You can't get it off,' he said. ‘That's the whole point. It's locked on. So every time you look at it, you'll think of me. Goodbye, Davina.'

He hurried out before she could stop him. The front door banged and she stayed still, listening for the street door to shut behind him.

She pulled at the bracelet. Of course, she remembered reading advertisements for the love-lock bracelet, as it was called. The chic-est thing to give the woman you love. Walden could have thought up the advertisement himself. It could be removed, but only by Carrier's craftsmen. What a stupid, awkward thing for him to do. She turned it round on her wrist and the little red heart gleamed in the electric light. She wondered what Colin Lomax would say when he saw it.

The man code-named Ireland turned his television set over to the BBC news. His mother looked up and said, ‘Why do you want to watch that stuff, Kieran? Your daddy goes mad when he finds you watching them over there!'

‘Mammy,' he said, ‘I like the world news. RTE doesn't tell us anything about what's going on. Who gives a fuck if they're having a strike in Cork? They're always having strikes!'

She said the same thing as she did every day. ‘Don't use that language, Kieran, not round the house. Your daddy'd go mad if he heard you.'

Her son didn't answer. His daddy had been going mad at him and his brothers and sisters ever since he could remember. Should have been a priest, with a pot belly and the collection money in his pocket. Always going mad, he was, about doing this or not doing that, putting the fear of God into them all. Mass and confession, family rosary, holy pictures and oil lamps in front of them in every child's room. ‘Don't do anything to make Our Lady blush,' the crabbed old nun used to warn them at school. He made them all blush not long ago, when he pumped bullets into that old humbug of a Christ look-alike, bawling about peace and loving the Russians. Kieran didn't love anyone. He hated the English as much as he hated his canting bully of a father. The poor witless woman nodding at the fireside, mouthing about daddy this and daddy that, while she let him make a child every year till she was too old to go on – she didn't count. He didn't hate her. He despised her. He hadn't felt sorry for her because she wasn't sorry for him, or the other children when they got the belt and the Bible.

There had been a memorial service in London for Father Marnie. The television showed churchmen and politicians shuffling into a cathedral, eyeing the cameras in case they'd get noticed. And the announcer added that investigations were continuing into the murder. Kieran grinned. They didn't know where to look and they wouldn't ever find him. Daddy wouldn't be going mad about that. He leaned forward and switched back to the Irish channel.

8

‘Colin, I promise you, it won't take long.'

‘Why can't you get someone else to do it? Jim Fraser's going round the bend. And when are you going to go and get that bloody bracelet sawn off?'

Davina sighed. He had made such a fuss when he saw it. She had to repeat the scene with Walden word for word before he was satisfied. He had even tried to prise the links apart himself, but it was impossible.

‘Darling,' she said, ‘I can't trust anyone to look after Poliakov except someone he'll accept as a colleague. He's a temperamental devil, and ten times worse when he's on the wagon. I can build you up as a military expert, and he won't mind having you there working with him. If I send in someone junior he's quite likely to walk out!'

Lomax put his arm round her. ‘All right, stop getting yourself worked up. I'll nanny the old boy for a few days. And what kind of military expert am I supposed to be? Just so I know.'

‘Thank you,' she said and kissed him. ‘You're an expert on guerrilla warfare. He's going to dig right back to the beginning – 1919 onwards. He's really excited about it. I think he's got an idea but he won't put it forward till he can back it up. But Humphrey doesn't believe he'll last the pace, and if he starts on a binge, we've had it. So you have to keep him in line, Colin, just keep him happy and interested and head him off if he wants to go out.'

‘Sweetheart,' he said softly, ‘I know my job, you don't have to spell it out.'

‘I didn't mean to,' she apologized. ‘It's just that I've got a lot on at the moment and we're not making any progress at all with the blasted girl. Humphrey's tried everything, and he's pretty good. She won't budge. She's actually getting him down, I think. I'll have to take it up myself, I can see that, but I don't want to tread on his toes unless I have to. Oh Lord – when it's over, why don't we take a holiday? Together.'

He smiled. ‘I have a business of my own, and what I'm doing now is on holiday time. But – we might slip away for a long weekend somewhere. You look tired.'

‘I'll drive you to the office then,' Davina said. ‘Poliakov's going to start this morning. I think I should drive down to Marchwood on Saturday. I haven't seen my mother for ages. But I don't want to run into Charlie if she's there.'

‘Am I allowed to come along?'

The car turned down Birdcage Walk. ‘You know you are – they always adored you. “Why don't you marry that nice major of yours?” They were on and on about you, Colin. I could have screamed at times.' She laughed at him. ‘Just the right type, my father used to say. Splendid chap. Marvellous decoration.'

‘Shut up,' Lomax said. ‘Pay attention to the road. Your father was dead right as it happens. You should marry me, and I am a splendid chap. So we'll go down on Saturday. And if Charlie's there, too bad. Why should you care?'

‘Because she blames me,' Davina said. ‘I told you. She blames me for ruining her life. It upsets me, and I can't afford that at the moment.'

‘It's strange,' he said after a moment. ‘She's a worthless, selfish female, without a tenth of your intelligence, but she's always been able to put you down. It's time you grew out of it, Davina. I'll come with you, and if she starts being difficult, you stand up to her.'

‘And upset Mother? No, Colin. If Charlie's down there, I'll go another time.' She turned the car into the cul-de-sac. He looked at her without saying anything.

‘Oh, all right,' she burst out. ‘All right, I am a coward about it. I'll go to Marchwood on Saturday whether she's there or not!'

Lomax leaned over and opened the car door for her. ‘I'll go and babysit your Russian,' he said. ‘And on Friday we'll both go to Carrier and get lover-boy's memento taken off. I don't want your family thinking I'd give you a vulgar thing like that.'

Borisov went up in the private lift to the top floor. He was met by Zerkhov's wife. She looked as if she had been crying. ‘Come in, Igor Igorovitch,' she said, and took him by the hand. He saw the three doctors who attended the ruler of Russia, standing like white-coated phantoms in the background. He didn't speak to them. Madame Zerkhova led him by the hand into the bedroom. Side by side they approached the bed. Borisov stood looking down at his friend and protector.

He had shrunk, the flesh falling away from the skull, leaving the eyes hollowed and leaden.

‘Go close,' she said. ‘He finds it hard to speak.'

Borisov leaned down. He caught the sour whiff of the sick man's breath. Sick and soon to die. ‘My son,' the voice cracked. ‘I'm finished. You must … make your move … your enemies … your enemy.'

Borisov clasped the chilly hand that lay on the cover. It was slack and lifeless. ‘I know my enemies,' he said. ‘And I won't let them destroy what you have built for Russia.'

He felt a touch on his shoulder. It was Zerkhov's wife. The tears were running down her cheeks. ‘That's what he wanted,' she said. ‘Now he'll die in peace. Sit with me.'

Three hours later Borisov came out of the bedroom. The senior doctor came towards him. ‘It's time we examined Comrade Zerkhov before his next medication.'

Borisov stared at him and the man stepped back. ‘No medication is needed,' he said. ‘The President is sleeping peacefully and is not to be disturbed. You will stay here until he wakes.'

He took the lift to Zerkhov's office. The staff on duty didn't dare refuse him its facilities. Within the hour the special military arm of the KGB was in control of the President's private apartments and the communications leading out of it. The doctors and nurse in attendance were not allowed to leave or to telephone. They were to wait, they were told in Borisov's words, for the President to wake from his sleep before they went into his room. For the next thirty-six hours, it was vital to Igor Borisov that no one in Russia outside his own organization should know that Zerkhov was dead.

Hélène Blond hadn't slept. Every night for the past week she had been tortured by the nightmare. The monitors showed her waking, switching the light on, sitting up obviously distressed and calming herself by deep breathing. But she didn't talk in her sleep or give a clue as to what woke her night after night. In the day she battled with the gaunt interrogator, with his greenish skin and skull-like face, going on and on in a voice as maddening as a dripping tap.

‘Who were the other students you became friends with at the institute?'

‘There weren't any I liked.'

‘Why didn't you tell your best friend, Louise Duvalier, about the place?'

‘Why should I? She didn't need help.'

‘But she was your best friend?'

‘Yes.'