Comrades. . . then who!
The sun blinded him for a moment, and he felt another long trickle of sweat run down his back again under his shirt. . .
And if Genghis Khan didn't know, then how much else didn't he know? And how much were events pushing him, as Roche himself felt pushed by them, to make assumptions, and to act, and to take risks which would normally be rated as unacceptable?
"Are you there?" Genghis Khan's voice was back to normal.
"How did she die?"
A wasp zoomed out of the darkness, gorged on peach-juice and flying somewhat erratically. "Her car ran off the road last night—" Roche ducked to avoid the wasp "—she broke her neck, apparently."
"Were there any witnesses?"
That wasn't the right question. "No."
"What do the police say?"
That wasn't the right question either. "They're not confiding in me. They told Miss Baker it was an accident. The car went off the road and she broke her neck. That's all I know."
"Good! And you haven't reported to Clinton yet?"
The drift of the wrong questions was plain enough. What Genghis Khan wanted was time, not his trusted man's opinions.
"No, not yet. I haven't reported to anyone yet—except you."
dummy5
He shaded his eyes against the glare, and looked intently at nothing. He had given himself a breathing space, but it had been Genghis Khan who had used it to better purpose.
He scrunched away from the van again, glancing over his shoulder at imaginary strangers.
If Genghis Khan knew who had killed Steffy then the Comrades must know about d'Auberon. It was still inexplicable that they hadn't known long ago, but they must know now, and that was why Genghis Khan was here in person.
He reached the far side of the gateway. The children had disappeared, presumably in pursuit of the dog, and there was still nothing else in sight.
He turned round. The immediate question was . . . did the Comrades rate the d'Auberon papers as more important than placing Captain Roche in Sir Eustace Avery's new group? If they did, then Captain Roche would be well-advised to cash in the chips he already possessed, in the hope that they might be enough to buy him safety with the British.
He eyed the van speculatively. Whatever happened to the d'Auberon papers, he could bring Audley in, that was no problem; but then, because Audley wanted to come back, that would hardly count in his favour in any reckoning.
Genghis Khan, on the other hand, might be worth quite a lot; and even Jean-Paul, betrayed to the British, could be traded off to the French in exchange for a bit of badly-needed goodwill.
dummy5
Yet, viewed dispassionately, even together they hardly outweighed half a dozen years' high treason—or insufficiently to ensure that Avery and Clinton wouldn't condemn him to the certain death of remaining in post in Paris as their treble traitor, untrusted and expendable.
In fact, as things stood, if he couldn't deliver those damned d'Auberon papers to the British, then he might be even more well-advised to remain a loyal Comrade, at least for the time being, until another opportunity presented itself. . .
True or false? It only took an instant to test the possibility, and feel it crumble. Over the last few days he had committed himself in his heart too far and too absolutely to turn around again. And he could never go back to where he'd started because the wasting disease within him was very close now to the point where it would become plainly visible to everyone.
Already Jilly and Madame Peyrony had both sensed something wrong, and—
He was aware suddenly that something had cut through the concentration of his fear, just when it was shaking his knees.
It wasn't a sound, it was a movement: it was the van beside him rocking on its springs as its balance changed. And then, following almost instantaneously on the movement, it was also a sound—
Genghis Khan was swearing—explosively, and in Russian—
or maybe it was in Polish, or in some black language unknown to civilised man, or in no language at all, except dummy5
that it was also in the universal language of pain.
Genghis Khan had been stung!
The van steadied and the oaths carried no echo: five seconds or less encompassed the whole disturbance inside it.
But the earth had turned in those five seconds, shrinking the van back from the Joseph Stalin tank it had been in Roche's imagination to just a van again, rather battered and rusty, with worn tyres which left only smooth tracks in the dust; and, in the reduction of the van, the man within it had been diminished also to human proportions.
"Are you okay in there?" Roche inquired. Grunt. Roche hoped devoutly that the sting had been on the tip of Genghis Khan's index finger, where the concentration of nerves would ensure the greatest discomfort. And at the same time he wished the stinging wasp its escape in the darkness, and a safe flight home.
"The point is, things have changed rather, down here, since I last spoke to you." He listened to his own voice critically, and was satisfied with it. "Also . . . I'm beginning to get the impression that you haven't been as helpful as you said you'd be. It's bad enough to be put through the hoop by Sir Eustace Avery and Colonel Clinton, but at least they hinted they were testing me. I did think you were on my side."
Still no reply. But he had burnt his boats now, and that gave dummy5
him bloody-mindedness, if not confidence.
"You told me about Miss Stephanides. And about Bradford and Stein. But you somehow omitted to tell me about Etienne d'Auberon. Or have you never heard of him?"
"Don't be clever with me, Roche. It doesn't suit you." A few moments earlier that would have stopped him in his tracks.
And maybe it wasn't bloody-mindedness any more than it was real confidence— maybe it was the nerveless desperation which lay on the other side of cowardice, long after courage had been exhausted.
"It may not suit me. But you're sitting snug in there—" he mustn't laugh at his own joke "—and I'm out here in the open. And if I'm not clever I'm going to end up in the Tower of London—or somewhere less picturesque. And that suits me even less."
"What do you know about'd'Auberon?" This time there was no delay.
"I know what Sir Eustace Avery wants me to know." Roche fished unashamedly for more information. "Do you still want me to go ahead?"
Genghis Khan digested the question in silence, while Roche observed the two children and the dog reappear in the distance.
"Do you still want me to go ahead?" Roche sharpened his voice to emphasise the question. If Genghis Khan had any lingering doubts about his loyalty, that ought to put them dummy5
finally at rest: it was exactly the sort of question a loyal Comrade should ask, offering a willingness to fail the British, and lose his chances of promotion, on the Comrades' behalf.
"Avery and Clinton expect the man Audley to obtain one of the copies d'Auberon took ... of certain documents—that is correct?" Once again Genghis Khan bypassed half a dozen of the questions Roche had expected.
"That's right." So the Comrades did know all about d'Auberon
—but were considerably less well-informed about Audley!
"What makes them so sure that he can do this for them?" It was slightly disconcerting to hear genuine uncertainty in the man's voice.
"Yes. . . well, there's a bit of a problem there." But at least the questions were coming in the right sequence this time. "It was going to be easy, they thought—"
Easy?"
So they thought. But maybe it wouldn't have been so easy, at that."
"How—easy?" Genghis Khan brushed aside Roche's doubts.
"What was he going to do?"
"He was just going to get them out of his bank—or wherever they were—and hand them over."
"Audley?"