The old man's eyes opened wide with astonishment. There was an outburst of gabbling between him and Romella. Findhorn let it run its course. 'During the war, and just after it, your brother wrote some scientific papers, I mean articles. I know that when he was in America, he sent some of these to you for safe keeping. I am writing a history of that period, and I would very much like to know what became of these documents. Did they reach you?'
The old man said nothing, but his wrinkled face had acquired a tense expression.
Findhorn tried again. 'I don't want to take these papers away. I only need to read them for my historical research. If you have these papers, I would be grateful to read them. In your presence, without removing any. Or if you gave them to the authorities, please let me know where they went.'
Silence. The shepherd might have been mute. He certainly had no talent for disguising his thoughts: suspicion was plainly written over his face.
Findhorn sipped at the liquid. It was a first-class cognac. 'I know it was a very long time ago, but the Bomb was a watershed in the history of the world. Others have changed history with swords and armies, but your brother and his colleagues did it with mathematics and physics. Everything about that time has to be known. Especially I want Lev's contribution to be recorded for posterity, everything he did to be understood. He musn't be allowed to sink into obscurity, eclipsed by Oppenheimer, Teller, Fermi and the rest. His papers have been missing for fifty years and you are the link. For my research, and for the memory of your brother's achievements, I would be grateful to see them. You're the only person alive who can help me.'
The shepherd moved to a dresser and opened a drawer. They waited expectantly. Out came a jar, and a pipe was filled with dark tobacco. He puffed slowly at it, and a blue billowing haze began to drift round the little room. Then he returned to the table and spoke to the driver, who started to shake his head aggressively. A lively conversation followed.
Finally Romella turned to Findhorn: 'The old man says he doesn't possess such documents. He's lying. That fool of a driver is antagonizing him. It's some political thing.'
Findhorn assimilated this, and Romella continued: 'He's also telling us that even if he had them, possession would have been dangerous in the days of the Soviet Union. He'd have been expected to hand them over to the authorities and even then he might have ended up in a gulag. I think he's afraid, his mind is still set in the old ways.'
'He thinks he'll get into trouble if he admits to having them?'
Romella nodded. 'That's my interpretation.' But an angry exchange was going on between Clark Gable and the shepherd. Then the old man was on his feet again. He crossed to the dresser, opened another drawer, and turned with a medal which he laid on the table with a flourish. The driver made a remark, clearly insulting, and the shepherd replied in a withering tone of rage and contempt.
Findhorn sat bewildered, trying to make sense of it. But the bottom line was clear. If the old man had the Petrosian documents, he wasn't about to admit the fact. 'Okay, we're getting nowhere. Forget it.'
'What?'
'We're upsetting him.'
'Excuse me? Fred, would you keep your eye on the ball? Somewhere in this house, within yards of us, is a document which would make the Count of Monte Cristo look like a case for social security. It'll revolutionize the future. And you want to give up on it?'
The shepherd and the driver were now snarling angrily at each other. Findhorn raised his voice over the noise. 'He's scared of the authorities.'
'So let's threaten him with them.'
'He probably thinks we are the authorities and this is a sting. Look, Romella, this is out of control. He just needs reassuring that we're okay people. Let's clear off and try again later without that idiot driver.'
Romella looked at the angry exchange and reluctantly nodded her agreement. She tapped the driver on the shoulder, and said something to the old man in a conciliatory tone.
The driver made some remark to the shepherd which had the effect of further infuriating the old man. Romella said, 'Get out!' sharply in English, and turned to the door.
Clark Gable's driving was jerky and erratic, and he muttered and growled to himself all the way back to the Hotel Dvin. Findhorn felt queasy and decided to skip lunch. Romella agreed with surprising readiness, given the urgency, and Findhorn stretched out on his hotel bed, letting the breeze blow in through the open balcony door.
He had lain on the bed, dozing, for a good hour before a simple but shocking possibility occurred to him. It came in a half-dream, based on an old made-for-TV movie about the Count of Monte Cristo. The half-dream had all the costume pieces and the wigs and the absurd haughty faces of both sexes, but the man playing the Count was a woman, Romella, and Findhorn suddenly opened his eyes and stared at the flies on the ceiling and realized that his travelling companion might not be averse to a little private enterprise followed by a lifestyle which put the Count of Monte Cristo in the shade.
He knocked on Romella's door and had the familiar sinking feeling in his stomach, and he put the hour's delay down to his Calvinistic upbringing, the constant tendency to assume the best of humanity in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
A taxi, hastily summoned at the front desk, took him back out of the city, Findhorn directing from memory. An hour later, turning into the stony track, his heart sank when he saw a small blue car parked beside the shepherd's Skoda. He motioned the driver to stop about fifty yards back from the cottage. The lack of a mutual language gave the driver no means to express his surprise other than by exaggerated eye movements.
It was late afternoon and the little living room now looked dull. A smell of burnt cooking now overlaid the aroma of tobacco. Otherwise the room was much as Findhorn had left it except for a few grey bricks which had been removed from above the stove and were lying on the floor in amongst chips of plaster and dust. The cavity so revealed had about the same dimensions as Findhorn's safety deposit box in Edinburgh. It contained a legal-looking document which to Findhorn looked like a will or property deeds. It also contained a small bundle of banknotes, neatly tied by string. Whoever had raided the cavity had not been interested in the money.
Findhorn picked his way over the man's corpse — the face and tongue were purple and the eyes, bulging from the ligature round his neck, were staring at the ceiling — and found a bread knife in the kitchen. A pot of beans had almost boiled dry and Findhorn switched it off. Back in the living room, he used the knife to cut a small handful of white hair from the shepherd's head. He put this hair in his shirt pocket, used a handkerchief to wipe clean every surface that he had touched. He raised Romella gently from her chair by the elbow.
His first thought had been that she had strangled the man, but he quickly put the absurdity out of his mind. She clutched him for some moments, desperate for secure human contact. He said, 'Better dry your eyes.' Then they were out, Findhorn closing the front door with the handkerchief, and taking her by the hand. The driver was leaning against the side of his car, about halfway through a cigarette.
The American was drinking beer in a quiet corner of the big entrance foyer of the Dvin. Findhorn returned the man's wave, keeping on the move. He took the elevator to the seventh floor with Romella, quickly gathered up his worldly goods. They headed down the stairs just as the elevator door was opening and checked out, retrieving their passports.
They flew back in a shiny new Airbus, the flagship of Armenian Airlines. It had, he knew, a service contract, state-of-the-art navigation, microchips with everything. Canned music soothed him, and the hostesses were smiling and elegant and smelled delicious. His safety belt worked and the toilet door locked.