The Rocket Man (18 page)

As soon as Nihal had gone out Katie sat down at the table. Dmitry sat opposite her and poured himself a glass of wine.

‘What's the matter?' she asked. ‘You look dreadful.'

‘I don't know… nothing… I've given up smoking.'

‘Have you? I'm glad.' She looked at him. ‘Please tell me, Mitya, what's wrong. Is it because of me?'

‘You? Why should it be? No, of course not. You women always think everything has to do with you.'

Katie was hurt; she stood up and moved away from the table. ‘Why did Nihal do this? I am furious with him. He could have told me you were coming.'

‘And he could have told me.' Dmitry suddenly smiled. ‘Come on, Katie, this is stupid. Since we're here – cheers.' He drank down half the glass. Then he fidgeted nervously with the ashtray on the table. Unconsciously, he took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and opened it. Katie said, ‘Mitya, you just told me you had given up.'

‘What? Oh, yes, of course. Here, take them. I wasn't thinking.' She took the cigarettes and lighter and put them in her bag. Dmitry watched them disappear with an expression close to panic.

Katie said, ‘I'm sorry. I'm no good at this. I shall go mad if I can't see you.'

‘You are seeing me right now.'

She went up to him and sat on his knee, and he put his arm round her shoulder and pulled her close to him. They stayed that way for a long time, in delicious proximity; suddenly everything was all right again. Dmitry fiddled absently with her hair.

Nihal rang the doorbell; Katie got up and let him in.

‘That looks good,' Nihal pronounced, after inspecting the saucepans, and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘Well, it's ready, I should say, except for the rice.' When it was done they sat down at the table; Nihal as always ate with his fingers; Dmitry, and then Katie, followed suit. For the first time that week, Katie was able to eat with enjoyment; Dmitry too began to relax. He poured himself another glass of wine but Katie shook her head.

‘If I get drunk I'll never be able to get home.'

‘It's all right,' said Dmitry, ‘I can run you home.'

So of course she went back to his apartment and went to bed with him. A quality of desperation had entered their love-making, as if they no longer sought to give to one another but tried to take from each other whatever relief could be obtained. Later they lay together in the darkness; distant sounds from the flats above and below came through the walls, but otherwise it was silent. Katie realised she must have fallen asleep, because she woke suddenly with a jolt, feeling wide awake, and, without knowing why, was sure that there was something wrong. Dmitry was sleeping beside her, breathing slowly and evenly; she could hear the alarm clock ticking, the wind blowing in gusts against the windows and the fridge humming in the kitchen. It was very cold. A streetlamp lit the room very faintly through the blinds.

How late was it? Oh God, what would Bob think? She moved to slip out of the bed, but then she heard a sound, and knew at once that somebody else was in the apartment. Quickly she rolled over and shook Dmitry. Something in her manner must have alerted him because he opened his eyes and listened without saying a word. Then he rolled over, pulling her half under the bedclothes and putting a finger over his lips.

They lay like that for a long, long time. Eventually Dmitry sat up, put the light on, and reached for his dressing gown.

‘He's gone,' he said.

‘Who was he?' Katie's heart was still beating fast with fear.

‘I don't know. A very professional burglar.' He got out of bed and went to his desk, and started carefully to check things, moving swiftly and deftly through piles of paper and skimming through the floppy disks on the shelf by the computer. Then he went and checked his briefcase.

‘Have they taken anything?' asked Katie.

‘No. But why come at night? They know the apartment is empty all day.'

Katie sat up, the bedclothes pulled up around her. Now, finally, she was terrified. ‘This wasn't an ordinary sort of burglar, was it?' she said.

‘No… I don't know… probably not.'

‘You have to tell me now, Dmitry. What is it all about? I'm frightened.'

‘If I knew I wouldn't tell you, it's much better that you don't know anything.' He still looked puzzled, uncertain, standing in the middle of the room in a pool of darkness cast by the shadow of the lamp. Then he went over to the telephone and punched out a number.

‘Nihal, it's Mitya,' he said. ‘Yes, I know it's one o'clock. Listen, I have to come over and see you now. No, no, it isn't that. All right then. About half an hour.' He hung up and turned to Katie. ‘I'll drop you home on the way over there. You'd better get dressed.'

Katie pulled on her clothes. She was shivering. She said, ‘Is there nothing you can tell me?'

‘No. Nothing at all. Are you ready? I hope Nihal isn't too angry with me. He sounded pretty fed up about being woken up.'

‘Oh, no, he'll love the drama.'

Dmitry looked at her for a long time with an expression on his face that she could not read at all.

In the car they were silent. The drive took only a couple of minutes; he pulled up just round the corner from her flat and she stepped out. Turning back, she said, ‘We need to talk. Shall I come on Friday? Just for an hour?' He nodded and she turned and ran. Her hand shook so much in the lock on their front door that she couldn't get the door open; Bob opened it for her. He was in his dressing gown and had clearly been waiting up for her. He was furious, a cold, hard fury which frightened her.

‘Where have you been? I tried to ring Nihal but just kept getting his answerphone.'

‘I was there, I'm sorry. He often leaves it on even when he's in.'

‘You could have phoned me, at the least. I've been going crazy, wondering where you were. You've never been out this late before – were you at Nihal's all the time?'

‘Yes, he cooked an excellent curry. I'm sorry – I said I was sorry.' Katie went into the bathroom, anxious to avoid him. Then, amazed at her duplicity, she called out through the half open door, ‘He wanted me to hear all his tapes, you know, those ragas he's so mad about. They went on for hours, please, don't be angry.' She stepped into the shower and stood there, letting the hot water run over her face, soothing her and removing the evidence of her tears even as they flowed.

When she came out she had composed herself. She walked into the bedroom, wrapped in her towel. Bob was sitting on the bed.

‘Did you go to bed with him?'

‘Who?' Katie was so startled she couldn't think.

‘Nihal.'

‘No.' She almost laughed with relief; she looked him straight in the eye and saw that he believed her. She knew that this was the time to tell him the truth, but she couldn't do it. She was afraid of his anger, and besides, she was afraid of the situation with Dmitry; things were more complicated than she had thought, and she needed time to think. Then, as if a malevolent spirit had come into her mind, she remembered something. ‘It was our wedding anniversary on Monday.'

Bob stared at her, stunned. ‘Is that what's been eating you today? Why didn't you say?'

‘I kept waiting for you to remember and you didn't.'

All the anger went out of Bob in an instant. He said, ‘God, honey, I'm sorry.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Yes, it does; of course it does. For once I was here, and then –' he banged his forehead with his hand. ‘We'll go out, on Friday. Ask Marianne to babysit.'

Katie towelled her hair, thinking of what she had said to Dmitry.

‘No, not Friday – I have the Montessori parents' committee.'

‘Well then, Saturday.'

‘All right.'

Getting into bed and turning off the light, Katie let Bob cuddle up to her but did not encourage him to make love. She could not believe that she had lied so easily. But she had got herself into a real muddle; she was involved with a Russian nuclear scientist, rather naively thinking that things had changed, and realised now that this might not be the case. No doubt he knew many things that Western intelligence would be only too delighted to know… she had no idea what might be going on. She lay in the dark, trying to breathe slowly and evenly so that Bob would think she was sleeping, but her eyes remained open, staring into the darkness.

‘You can tell me what it's all about in the morning,' said Nihal grumpily as he let Dmitry in. ‘You can sleep in here – set the alarm if you want to.' The spare room was stuffy from stale cigarette smoke and Dmitry left the window open slightly before going to sleep. He was woken suddenly by the window blowing open in a gust of wind and banging against the bookshelves. Two or three books came down with a thud; Dmitry called out with fear and flung himself to the floor. Nihal was standing in the doorway in an instant, a sarong tied round his waist, his hair standing comically on end.

‘What on earth is going on?'

Dmitry said, ‘For God's sake. There's someone on the balcony.'

It was very quiet in the room, so quiet that Dmitry could even hear his watch ticking. Nihal shook his head and went to peer out of the window.

‘Is there anybody there?'

‘No.'

Dmitry relaxed visibly. He got up from the floor and went to look himself. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked for any signs that someone might have been there and any obvious way of reaching the balcony, but found none. Nihal said, ‘I'll get you some coffee. It's nearly six. It doesn't look as if either of us are destined to have any more sleep tonight. You'd better tell me what has happened.'

Nihal made coffee and they sat and looked at one another. Dmitry told him about the intruder.

‘So you also think you're being followed?' asked Nihal. ‘This is to do with the rocket man as well, you think?' Dmitry didn't reply to the question and asked Nihal if he had found anything out about Liliana's background. Nihal had asked a contact at the Brazilian Embassy and also knew a journalist in Brazil whom he had telephoned but he hadn't heard anything yet. They discussed the situation from every angle. The break-in at Dmitry's apartment was very odd. There were three possibilities; that they were looking for something they thought he would always carry on him; that it was a warning; even, and this was Dmitry's suggestion, that they had wanted to kill him but hadn't done so because Katie was there with him. Nihal didn't ask him who he meant by ‘they'.

Dmitry was very concerned about Nihal; but Nihal shrugged. Somehow he couldn't really believe that he would come to any harm. After all, Richter had seen him quite openly, almost everything he had was from Richter himself or from published sources. Nihal asked him if he had told Katie and he said he hadn't, that he didn't want her to know; he was absolutely firm about that. They agreed it would be better not to meet from now on as they might have put one another in danger.
North-South
wouldn't run Nihal's article for another week. Perhaps he should lie low. But, as he pointed out, it was too late now;
North-South
had the story. In any case he was going to the UN environment preparatory conference in Stockholm which would keep him out of the way for a few days.

Nihal decided to tell Dmitry about the incident with the car. He did so in a joking way, but the expression on Dmitry's face rather took the fun out of it. ‘The trouble is,' said Nihal, ‘I can't very well go to the police – it sounds so crazy. What do I say to them? I have been in touch with this rocket man…' he giggled. He realised that they had both half unconsciously adopted this label, as if Richter's name was too dangerous to be spoken out loud.

Dmitry stared at him, unsmiling. ‘You should take this thing seriously, Nihal.'

Nihal was silent for a long time. He lit another cigarette, gave one to Dmitry, who took it gratefully. Then Nihal asked, ‘What will you do? Will you go to the police?'