'I love it. Your powers of self-delusion. The way you put a cosy gloss on murder.'
Matsumo changed the subject. 'The girl who has been with you. She is not just a companion for cold nights.'
'She's been helping me with the diaries.'
'Come, Findhorn-san, she is more than a translator.'
Findhorn shrugged. 'I don't know who she represents. For a while I thought she had sold out to the Celestial Truth.'
'She is dangerous. She will try to steal the secret from both of us. Therefore she too must be disposed of. It is equally demanded by the logic'
'The lady's not disposable.'
Matsumo didn't reply. But then, Findhorn thought, he doesn't have to.
'Of course as a Party member I had privileges, but it wasn't too long before I became completely disillusioned with the system. It was corrupt from top to bottom. The Party finally gave me permission to emigrate to Canada and I took it. I practised there for thirty years, in a little town called Kapuskasing.'
'That explains your excellent English.'
Sachs shook his head sceptically. 'You're too kind. I have a thick German accent. Anyhow, with children grown up and dispersed over three continents, we decided to return here. Misha's surviving family are Bavarian.'
'More potatoes?' They were practically the first words Misha had spoken. A small, rotund, domestic woman, she seemed content to let her husband do all the talking.
Romella smiled and patted her stomach. 'No, thank you.'
'You are too skinny,' Misha scolded.
'I will telephone Lisa now,' said Sachs. 'Forgive me, but you understand that we all preserve each other's privacy. I will explain that you are writing a thesis about German universities in the 1930s and would like to speak with her. I am almost certain she will say no. Please wait here.'
Sachs disappeared into a corridor. Romella waited some minutes. When he came back, the man's face was negative. 'I am sorry. She is very old, like all of us now, and although she still has a sharp mind, she does not want to relive that part of her life. She sends her apologies and wishes you luck with your thesis.'
Romella nodded. Sachs showed surprise at her apparent lack of disappointment and she cursed herself as a lousy actress.
The point of the visit had been achieved. The rest of the meal was spent in inconsequential conversation. She left an hour later, sincerely wishing them every good fortune and leaving an unopened bottle of wine on the table.
The compartment in the train back to the airport was quiet. She took the little van Eck monitor out of her handbag and switched it on. It worked! The number Sachs had dialled came up on the little screen. Romella quickly noted it down, for fear that the unfamiliar device, hastily purchased in the spy shop near Burlington Arcade, would suddenly crash. It was a UK number but she didn't recognize the city.
At Munich airport, she phoned through to International Enquiries. The address was in Lincoln but it wasn't in the name of Lisa Rosen.
Neither was it in the name of Lev Petrosian.
It was, however, in the name of one Len Peterson.
There were no available flights between Kansai and Europe before six-thirty the following morning. Findhorn refused the offer of a lift to Kyoto and instead took the hydro out to the sacred island in Lake Biwa. At the top of a few hundred steps he took in the Buddhist shrine, the burning joss sticks and the breathtaking view. He thought he could see Matsumo's home, sunlight glinting off the windows. Then, with darkness falling, he took the Keihan to Kyoto and wandered the crowded, brilliantly lit streets. More than once, without any visual evidence, he thought he was being followed; but he put the sensation down to his overstressed nervous system.
Away from the centre of town Findhorn followed a crowd and found himself on a path lined with paper lanterns. Yet another shrine, this one small. A mysterious ceremony was taking place, involving chanting priests, flutes, tinkling bells and sonorous drums. Feeling like an alien from another planet, he bought a coke at a stall and made his way back to the hotel.
He sat in a small office while the manager obligingly typed in a password on a computer. There were two new messages on his e-maiclass="underline"
Petrosian is alive and I know where he is. Meet me at Branston Hall, 5 miles out of Lincoln. Romella.
Findhorn's brief burst of elation was abruptly cut short by the second message:
We have a mutual task to accomplish. Reply to this address with a rendezvous. Barbara Drindle.
30
Lev Baruch Petrosian
They found the flat close to the Westgate, near the Toy Museum and within sight of the Castle. Findhorn followed Romella up the stairs, trying not to notice her well-shaped legs. There were three doors leading off the top landing. The right-hand door had a handwritten card in the nameplate holder: L. Peterson. Findhorn and Romella looked at each other. Then Findhorn took a deep breath and knocked.
The delay was so long that it began to seem there was nobody at home. But then there was a noise from inside, and the door was opened by a white-haired woman with deeply wrinkled skin. She was in her eighties, and was a little stooped, but smartly dressed in a grey cardigan and long blue dress. She was wearing a gold necklace. 'Yes?'
'Mrs Peterson? My name is Fred Findhorn, and this is Romella Grigoryan. I wonder if we might have a word with your husband?'
Her voice was frail but clear, well-spoken but with just a hint of some foreign accent. 'You're not the telephone people.'
Findhorn patted his briefcase. 'We want to return some lost property.'
She frowned suspiciously. 'I did not think we had lost anything.'
'It was lost a long time ago.'
There was a hesitation as the woman absorbed this startling information. Then she opened the door further and said, 'You had better come in, then.'
She left them in a large, airy drawing room. The furniture was old but of good quality. There were no photographs. One corner of a bay window looked out over the city, framed by cathedral and castle. The other corner looked across at a flat whose windows were covered with stickers and pennants.
The man who entered the room was also white-haired and wrinkled. He had a grey pullover and rather shapeless flannels. His skin was brown, through heredity rather than suntan, and his eyes were dark and intelligent. He looked at his visitors with curiosity. His voice was quiet and clear, with just a trace of American. 'Sit down, please.' Findhorn and Romella shared a couch.
'Would you like some coffee?' Mrs Peterson asked at the door.
'Yes, thank you,' Romella said for both of them. 'Can I help?'
'I can manage.'
Mr Peterson sat down on a worn armchair opposite the couch Findhorn and Romella were on. 'Lost property, you said?'
It was the moment Findhorn had both dreaded and anticipated. He opened the briefcase at his feet and pulled out the A4 sheets a bundle at a time, placing them on a low coffee table between them. He handed one bundle over at random; he had written '1945' on a transparent cover with a black felt tip pen. 'These are only copies, I'm afraid. But I think I know where the originals are held.'
Mr Peterson took spectacles from a shirt pocket and slowly put them on. He did not immediately open the document. He held it in both hands, looking at the date. His hands seemed a little arthritic. Then he gave Findhorn a long, disconcerting stare, a strange expression on his face. Finally he opened the diary and slowly flicked through the pages.
The sound of a kettle being filled came from the kitchen.
He stopped at a page halfway through the 1945 diary. 'That was some day. I remember it like yesterday: At nine a.m. Louis Slotin begins to assemble the core.' He looked up. 'He was a Canadian. Poor Louis was killed at Los Alamos not long afterwards, doing much the same thing. He put two sub-critical bits of plutonium just a fraction too close. There was a burst of radiation. Very brief, but enough.'