or giving that name—came to me I was to go at once with him, with the children. He said we were to take nothing with us, just to lock the door and go as though we were visiting the neighbours next door."
That was the Westphal trademark. For every client everything was laid on, everything prepared. And paid for.
"But not to tell us?"
The delicate hair shook the answer.
"He sent that message to you?"
"No. He told me before he left ... for the last time."
"So you knew he was doing something very dangerous?"
"I knew he was risking his life for us." Sophie swallowed and her neck muscles tightened momentarily. "But I'd known that for some time, Dr. Audley."
"How did you know—if he didn't tell you about it?"
"How does a wife know anything?" Sophie swallowed again.
"The man—the man in London—he said Richard was a good agent, that he was always very careful. But I know even better that ... he was a good man . . . that he was a good husband and a good father. Although he was older he never seemed like it to us—he used to say we had given him a second lease of life. And it was true. . . ."
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The emotions beneath the simple words were on a cruelly tight rein. But what was clear from both (unless she was a marvellously accomplished liar even when there was no need for lies) was that the little carrier of second-class mail, the limping salesman of agricultural machinery, had been a big man to his Rhinemaiden, and that he had impressed her every bit as much as he had impressed Eugenio Narva. And if that didn't fit the pictures in the file it was the pictures that deceived: like the poet said, it was all in the eye of the beholder— the cornflower-blue eye.
"But then he was different. . . ."
No one seemed to want to ask the next question, in the hope that the answer would come unasked.
"He was worried; he was terribly worried each time he went on a sales trip. And when he came back he was so tired—
instead of taking the children out he pretended he was still getting over the flu—he'd just had a nasty bout of it in Moscow—"
"He pretended?" Audley repeated gently.
"He pretended he'd been to the doctor and got some little white pills he took, but he hadn't been at all—when I went to the doctor about Lotte's tonsils I asked him, and he said Richard hadn't been near him in ages. ... He was sick—he wouldn't eat and so he lost weight—but it was worry he was sick with. And I knew it wasn't the business because Frau Krauss told me how well they were doing, and how pleased they were with Richard—she is the sales director's secretary dummy2
—"
Sophie paused, taking a deep breath, as though she felt the reins slipping and needed time to grip them again.
"The lie about the doctor—I thought we had no secrets until then. So I asked him outright: I said if he had something bad on his mind I had a right to share it, just as I shared the good things."
"You thought it was something to do with his work for us?"
"It was what I was always afraid of, yes. But he said it was not that. And then he told me of his meeting with Eugenio—with Signor Narva . . . and of the plans he had for us to come to the West."
"You had talked about escaping before?"
"To the West?" Sophie gave Audley a bitter little smile. "Oh yes, Dr. Audley—we dreamed of it. We dreamed—of one day."
"But he never told you what he was going to give in exchange for his dream?"
Sophie shook her head. "No ... but he said that this time there could be danger. He said it would not be easy, as it was for you. And then he told me what to do when Herr Westphal came for me. That was all."
"Except you weren't to tell us about Westphal, eh?"
Richardson, watching her intently, could not decide how much lay still untold and how much had gone over her dummy2
golden head—she was stunning enough to fog anyone's judgement. But if that when was genuine recall and not a slip of the tongue— when Herr Westphal came—it was the final dead giveaway that Hotzendorff himself hadn't banked on being around for the pick-up.
And even if her memory had played her false, or even if her husband had just been his careful self, preparing for the worst, it still amounted to the same thing. For if he couldn't yet decide about Sophie, whether she was a good liar as well as a good wife, he had decided at last about Little Bird.
After flying for so long in the safety of the woods, Little Bird had broken cover to soar high and free—where the birds of prey were always waiting for little birds. He had known the risk that they would swoop on him, but Sophie made the risk worth while; for someone like her the chance of a few rich years in the sun would be enough for any man. All the theories and countertheories were resolved in her.
"That is true, Dr. Audley." Sophie regarded the big man gravely, as though she understood that the implied rebuke was fair. "But let me say this: my Richard never cheated you—
he always served you honestly."
"I didn't say he didn't."
So Audley had succumbed to her too, or at least he was being gentle to her. For her Richard had undoubtedly placed other men in jeopardy by attempting his private coup, the men of his own delivery network in Russia and in East Germany.
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"I didn't want him to go—do you think I wanted him to go back to Moscow?" Sophie's voice rose. "I begged him not to go back there. But he said it was all too far gone—he had his obligations. All his life he—he had obligations—he never let anyone down. But he said now he was just thinking of us—"
"Sophie, my dear—" Narva took a step towards her, uncertainly.
Poor old Eugenio Narva, thought Richardson, watching the pain and irresolution in the man's face, as out of place on it as flowers on a fortress. His sin had caught him out with this ultimate refinement of cruelty: not just his sense of guilt but the powerful ghost of a self-sacrificing husband lay between him and the woman. Ten billion lire and an infinity of Hail Marys weren't enough to beat that alliance.
"Ha-hmm—professore—"
Somehow little Rat face had entered the room without anyone taking the least bit of notice.
"Professore—" Boselli began nervously.
But then unobtrusiveness was probably another of his skills.
And, come to that, it was hard to imagine those rather timid eyes lining up an automatic—the whole weird deception of the man was remarkable!
"—We—the General has a line cleared to—" the eyes flicked over the others "—a line cleared." So the two names had worked their magic. Moscow was on the line.
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XVI
THE BLEACHED STONES of the dry watercourse were treacherously unstable, as though the last of the winter torrents hadn't been strong enough to settle them firmly into their final positions. Already Boselli had nearly broken his ankle on one, saved only by his stout new country boots.
Unfortunately, the boots were also stiff and uncomfortable, and neither in shape nor colour did they match his city suit.
But then the suit itself had come far down in the world in the last twenty-four hours: it was dusty and rumpled—it looked as though he had slept in it, which was close to the truth—
and there were signs of serious damage to the knees and elbows, the souvenirs of Ostia.
Boselli wondered unhopefully whether he could add the suit to his growing list of expenses. The boots, he had already decided, were a legitimate charge on the state, being the result of a direct command from the General, but for the rest he would have to consult the appropriate schedule. Maria was always very hot on his recovering the most minute expenses, down to the smallest bus fare, insisting on checking them all herself before he submitted them. But he had never before had anything like the bizarre items now entered in his little book, so bizarre that he would never dare show them to her. He would have to pretend he had lost the book, meekly accepting the contempt that the lie would incur.