The Swiss Spy (9 page)

After lunch, he would teach
Rozalia for
the final hour. Very quickly, he came to appreciate this was the part of the
day he most looked forward to. At first he had seen Rozalia as little more than
a child but, on her own, away from her parents and her sister and brother, she
was more of a young woman. Her thick, long brown hair fell well below her
shoulders and she was constantly sweeping it away from her face. Her skin wasn’t
as pale as her mother’s, but she’d certainly inherited her complexion from her rather
than her father. What she had got from him, though, were dark brown eyes, with
an almost unblinking gaze.

They would spend much of the time in the garden,
wandering around, talking in English but more often than not slipping into
German. Her German was not too bad and she did her best to ignore his attempts
to speak in English. She was, Henry realised, desperately lonely. She had fled
her home country and was now trapped in a house surrounded by high walls. So
she confided in Mr Jarvis, as she called him. He found it hard to do other than
lend a sympathetic ear and assure her if she was patient her life would change
for the better. He told her about life in England and what he had seen of
Europe on his travels.

Call me Roza.

Very well – and do call me William.

What is a short form of William?

Bill, I suppose – or Billy.

Roza preferred Billy, and so she and Billy became
friends. When they did read from books she would sit so close to him that their
bodies touched. Roza had a habit, a mannerism even, of touching his arm and
allowing her fingers to briefly hold him by the wrist. He’d noticed her doing
this to the others too, so he did not imagine she meant any special affection
for him, but once or twice he tried to return the gesture – placing his hand on
top of hers. She would smile and wait until she had once more swept the hair
from her face before gently removing her hand. He knew what Roza wanted more
than anything else was companionship. William’s story was that his mother had
died when he was young and his father had remarried. This struck some kind of
chord with Roza, whose eyes would fill with tears when he told her about being
sent to boarding school at the age of six and how his step-mother did not like
him. Henry worried he may be getting too close to Roza, but then Viktor had
told him to make sure that he became trusted.

He knew that he was developing feelings for Roza,
but he also knew he wasn’t in a position to do anything about them. She would
never be allowed to leave the house without a guard and, at home, there were
always others around. One morning, after he had been there for a month or so,
the downstairs toilet was being repaired and he was told to use the bathroom
upstairs, which he would normally never do. When he opened the bathroom door,
he was met by the sight of Roza, who had just stepped out of the bath. Despite
the steam and the fact that she was mostly covered by a towel he caught a
glimpse of her breasts, smaller than he had imagined them but perfectly shaped,
with locks of her dark, wet hair hanging between them. There was a brief moment
when neither of them said anything or moved, then he said ‘sorry’ and swiftly
shut the door before hurrying downstairs. Neither of them ever said a word
about it, but that afternoon she was even friendlier towards him.

On Sundays – the only day on which he did not go to
the house – Henry would take the bus from Interlaken to Thun, where he would
meet Peter in a park. They would walk while Henry would recount what had
happened during the week and Peter would ask a series of questions,
occasionally pausing to write something in his notebook. Once he took Henry to
a small apartment above a shop in the centre of the town, where Henry was told
to draw detailed plans of the house.

In the middle of August, he arrived in Thun on a
Sunday to be taken straight to the apartment by Peter. When they arrived,
Viktor was waiting with three Frenchmen, who were introduced as Lucien, Claude
and Jean-Marie: the conversation that followed – which lasted well into the
evening – was conducted in French.

‘
Synok
: Peter tells me that sometimes you
and Roza are allowed to leave the house?’ Viktor was sitting directly across a
narrow table from Henry, watching him carefully. Despite the stifling August
heat the Russian was wearing a heavy jacket. The three Frenchmen were lounging
back in their chairs and one of them had a revolver in a shoulder holster.

‘Well, yes and no. Roza has a lot of spirit, she
feels like a caged animal in that house, but her parents won’t allow her to go
into the town, certainly not without a guard. However, behind the house is a
small, private wood, just for the residents of the nearby houses. It has a
fence around it.’

Peter handed a map to Viktor, pointing to a circled
area.

‘Here?’

Henry picked up the map and studied it. ‘Yes, here. You
can get into it from a door set in the garden wall. Her father agreed we can go
for a walk in there, so long as it’s just for a few minutes and we promise not
to leave the wood. The guards have the key: At first they’d come along to let
us out and then in again, but now they don’t bother. I have to collect it from
them and return it afterwards. I am trusted.’

‘And tell me
synok
: when do the housekeepers
leave – is it still in the afternoon?’

‘Yes. They make the lunch then prepare the evening
meal. They’re usually gone by three o’clock.’

The Frenchmen and Peter all asked questions and
Henry must have described the layout of the house a dozen times. Viktor then
outlined his plan. It was clever and audacious and by the time he had finished,
Henry felt quite sick.

***

Two
more weeks.
Viktor had decided that another two weeks would
help ensure William Jarvis was even more trusted by the Yevtushenkos and this
was important, because if they didn’t trust him then the plan wouldn’t work. The
two weeks was also important because Anatoly Yevtushenko’s last trip to Bern
and Zürich had been just a few days previously. The timing had to be right.

The agreed date was the 1st September, a Tuesday. On
the Thursday before that Peter had arrived in Interlaken and rented an
apartment on the east side of the town, close to
Lake Brienz. Henry checked
out of the inn and moved in with Peter.

William Jarvis arrived at the house just before 11 o’clock
on the Tuesday morning. By now the guards were more relaxed with him, even
quite friendly. He went through to the library and had his lessons with
Nadezhda
and
Nikolai. By
the time they went into the dining room for lunch he was feeling sick with
nerves and anticipation. He hardly ate anything, but no-one seemed to notice. He
managed to keep the children distracted by playing ‘I spy’. After lunch he went
to the guard’s room at the front of the house to collect the key. The guard who
spoke the best German handed it to him, with a warning to make sure he locked
it properly.

He and Roza wandered into the garden, with Roza struggling
to count to 100 in English. That was the way it worked: complete a task such as
counting or naming the days of the week or months of the year and they could go
into the woods as a reward. Roza became marooned in the seventies, but Henry
announced that was good enough. He unlocked the garden door and they spent the
rest of the hour walking. Henry kept glancing around, expecting to see people
hidden amongst the trees or beyond the fence, but it was as deserted and silent
as always, apart from the sound of water rushing on the Aare below them.

‘Are you alright Billy?’

‘Yes thank you Roza, why do you ask?’

‘You’re very quiet.’ She had switched to German now.
‘You keep looking around and you didn’t eat any lunch.’

‘I’m fine thank you Roza. I slept badly last night, that’s
all. Look, you really must speak English. Please try.’

‘Why? What’s the point? We’ll never visit England. We’ll
never leave this house. I am a prison, Billy,’ she said in English.

‘I am a “prisoner”, Roza. That’s what you meant to
say. A prison is a building in which the prisoners are kept. I’m sure you’ll
get to visit England one day.’

They spent much of the hour with Henry doing his
best to sustain some kind of conversation in English. But, as ever, Roza was
wrapped up in her thoughts. When they went back into the garden Henry told Roza
to go on ahead while he made a play of locking the garden door. It appeared
shut, but he kicked a stone against it just in case the wind blew it open. After
he returned the key to the guard’s room, he went into the library, pausing on
the way to remove the bolt on the side door that opened into the garden. His
hands were shaking so much he feared the sound of the bolts being removed
echoed around the house.

They’ll need to move: I told them the guards usually
check the garden door soon after I lock it.

Roza and Nadezhda were in the library. He would hang
around for a few minutes, as he had started to do lately. He could hear Nikolai
playing upstairs and the two local women leaving the house. Anatoly was in his
study and he imagined the mother would be asleep upstairs. From the corner of
his eye he imagined he caught a movement in the garden, but he did not want to
look up. A few moments later and there were some sounds from the front of the
house, nothing too noticeable at first but then it became more of a commotion
and first Nadezhda then Roza looked up. Seconds later there was the sound of
shouting down the hall then three loud popping noises followed by a scream, and
the sound of Anatoly shouting and then scuffling in the hall. The door to the
library burst open. The first person inside was one of the Frenchmen, followed
by Peter and behind him Viktor and another of the Frenchmen frog-marching
Anatoly into the room. The girls screamed and Viktor shouted at them in
Russian, waving his revolver at their father’s head as he did so. The message
was clear:
shut up or I shoot.

Viktor pushed Anatoly into an armchair and gestured
for the girls to sit on the floor. They could hear movement upstairs. ‘Go and
see what’s going on,’ Viktor told Peter in French. Shortly after that one of
the other Frenchmen appeared in the room, dragging Nikolai in with him by his
hair.
Tatyana
followed as if in a trance, with Peter bringing up the rear. Nikolai was shoved
to the floor next to his terrified sisters while their mother was guided to a
chair opposite her husband. Viktor addressed the family in Russian, then in
French told Peter to see what was happening at the front of the house. When he
reappeared it was with the third Frenchman and the two of them were dragging
along one of the guards. He appeared to be badly wounded: he was groaning and
his chest was covered in blood.

‘What about the other two?’ asked Viktor.

‘Dead,’ said the third Frenchman.

‘And him?’ He was nodding at the injured guard.

‘Took one in the chest.’

‘Finish him off.’

The Frenchman had been holding a revolver by his
side. Now he knelt down by the guard and yanked up his head, forcing the barrel
of the gun into his mouth. As he did so, the guard seemed to become fully
conscious, his eyes opening wide, clearly terrified. The three children
screamed and were only silenced when Viktor shouted at them. When the Frenchman
pulled the trigger, the guard’s head slumped. There followed a long silence
then the sobbing of the three children. Tatyana sat very still, clearly in
shock and seemingly unaware of what was going on. Henry noticed Anatoly was
staring at him.

Viktor spoke to the family in Russian, pointing at
Anatoly and waving his pistol around. They all nodded.
We understand
. Then
he spoke in French. ‘I’m going to separate them now.’

He pointed to the three Frenchmen. ‘I’ll take
Anatoly into the study; he and I have much to talk about. One of you will come
into the study with me, the other two had better keep an eye on the rest of the
house – make sure one of you stays in the guardroom, we need to keep an eye on
the front. Peter, you stay in here. William, you too: try to keep the children
distracted. You’ll need this.’

It was only when Viktor handed a revolver to Henry
that it dawned on the family he had betrayed them. From the shocked look on the
faces of the children and the glare of hate on that of the father, Henry
realised that, until that moment, they must have thought he too had been caught
up as a victim in this nightmare.

Anatoly was hauled up by one of the Frenchmen, who
handcuffed his hands behind his back before marching him out of the room. As he
passed Henry, Anatoly stopped and looked Henry straight in the eye before
spitting out ‘
du Bastard
!’

None of the children wanted anything to do with
their tutor. They ignored all his attempts to talk in English.
Nadezhda
spent most of the time quietly sobbing, sitting on the floor by her mother’s
chair. Little Nikolai looked confused and terrified, while Roza stared at him
with blazing eyes. ‘You were the one person I thought understood me, you were
someone I trusted,’ she said in German, in a quiet but angry voice. ‘You know
what will happen to us now, don’t you?’