Quiller Balalaika

'If you holed up somewhere else,' Ferris said slowly, 'then Mr Croder might instruct me to mount a search for you, so that I could send you home after all. Then in the meantime, if this lead of yours paid off, you could signal me and I'd report it to London. That could change Mr Croder's mind too.'

Read it like this: he was prepared to stay in the field in case I needed him, provided he could do it on formal instructions and the pretext that he was mounting a search through my support group. That could put Balalaika right back on track, keep my communications open and provide me with support if things started running hot. But I knew that Croder, despite his conscience, could throw me to the dogs once he was told I'd gone to ground: my DIF had been given instructions to get me home, and if I chose to risk death on the streets of Moscow then it wouldn't be Croder's responsibility.

I told Ferris: 'I can't see him leaving you out here with no executive and no mission.'

'There's a chance.'

'All right. Try.'

The flat of his hand came down softly on the table and he let out a breath. 'Let us pray, then, for Balalaika.' It was the closest, in my experience, Ferris had ever got to showing the slightest emotion.

'Amen.'

But I didn't think there was going to be any dancing in the streets. No control of Croder's stature would take kindly to his executive going to ground on his own decision: it was the ultimate offence, implying distrust and indiscipline.

'I'll give you three days,' Ferris said. 'Unless of course the Chief extends that.'

'I'll signal you.'

Headlights swung across the window again and he watched the wall. Then the lights were doused and a car door slammed and a man came in, stomping the snow off his boots.

'D'you need anything more to eat?' Ferris asked me.

'No.'

'Then we'll go.' He nodded to the man as we made for the door and he followed us out. 'This is Dr Westridge,' Ferris told me, 'from the UK embassy.'

Jolly and red-faced, despite the hour. 'And this is the patient?'

Yes.'

'Let's get into my car,' Westridge said. 'There's all my gear in there.'

'Look,' I said, 'I'm perfectly -'

'Just for the moment,' Ferris cut across me, 'you're under my instructions, so get in.'

Westridge got his bag and opened it. 'Been in the wars a bit, have we?'

'Not really.' God protect me from jolly red-faced men at three-thirty in the morning. 'I need some sleep, that's all.'

'Don't we all! Let's have your wrist.'

Three days. That was generous of Ferris. I could check out my one frail lead in less than twenty-four hours. 'What's that?' I asked Westridge.

He pushed the air out of the syringe. 'Tetanus. Sleeve up, which arm is it to be?'

We took it from there, the knee jerk reaction, flashlight in my eyes, tongue out, blood pressure, 'Still feel a bit skew-whiff, do we?'

'Just need sleep.'

'No giddiness when you stand up? Headache?'

'I feel like shit.'

A breezy chuckle. 'Well that's putting it in a nutshell! Now hold your hand still, you'll just feel a little prick, that's all.' I didn't say anything, didn't feel like jokes. 'Tell me when the numbness sets in,' he said.

Snow drifted across the windscreen. 'Is that it?' I asked Ferris.

'What?' He swung his head to look. 'Yes.'

Mercedes SL-4 E, black, two-door, Moscow plates. 'Got a phone?'

Ferris looked at me and said nothing, looked away. Point taken: did I really think he'd fix me up with transport that didn't have a telephone? He's always good at the touche, however long it takes.

'Gone dead,' I told Westridge.

'That's the stuff. Now hold still. What did you cut your hand on?'

'Glass.'

'Clean glass?'

'Some alcohol around.'

'Good, I've always said Chivas Regal's the best antiseptic. Bar-room brawl, was it?' A gusty laugh. 'Lucky you didn't get into anything worse than that, in this fair city. You hear about Seidov, the banker?'

'Car bomb,' Ferris said, 'I believe.'

'Second in a week, and he was the head of the Moskva Trust.' The curved needle and its thread went in again.

'Known for his defiance of the mafiyosa, it just isn't worth it, pay them and cut your losses. Hurt?'

'What?'

'Still numb, is it?'

'Yes.'

He got out some Band-Aids. 'Any more cuts anywhere, grazes, bruises, joints feel limber?'

'I'm fine.' Got him in focus again.

'That's the stuff! Now go and get some shut-eye, do you the world ofgood.'

When we got out ofhis car Ferris asked me, 'You all right to drive?'

'Yes.'

'Follow you up?'

'There's no need. Look,' I said as Westridge left us standing in a cloud of exhaust gas, 'how will I know if Croder drops me cold and calls you in?'

Ferris looked at me, his eyes amber now under the street light. You'll know,' he said, 'when you signal me and there's no answer.'

13: MARIUS

She danced prettily, Antanova.

I watched her through the pearl-framed opera glasses, alone in the box on the second tier. Her glissades wereenchanting, but she lacked the strength for the grands fetes, her balance wavering a little. In any case it was her face I was interested in.

They're for Sakkas' mistress, I'd told Vishinsky in the hotel. The diamonds.

Antanova?

Yes.

One name to conjure with, in all Moscow. The floor of my new safe-house had been littered with ballet programmes when I'd left there; I'd got them this morning from the Tourist Bureau.

In any case – Vishinsky – he never lets Natalya wear jewellery. To Sakkas she's cattle.

Out of the seven major ballet companies I'd found twelve Antanovas, nine of them in the corps de ballet, three of them soloists, one of them with the first name of Natalya, appearing in Giselle at the Metropolitan.

An entrechat cinque, prettily done. The theatre was overheated, and women with bare shoulders and diamante necklaces were fanning themselves. The performance had been running for an hour.

I'd arrived thirty minutes before curtain-up, taking off my overcoat and leaving it in the Mercedes, going across to the stage door in the overalls I was wearing underneath.