She would convince Babbington that she still hated Aubrey, that she still believed he was a Soviet agent and was guilty of her father's murder. Murderer, traitor, villain, abomination — anything that would persuade Babbington that Paul and she were not dangerous to him, that Paul could be allowed to live…
She would know nothing. Hyde — who was Hyde? She could tell him nothing, she knew nothing… anything that Paul may have said would be no more than delirium, the wildest imaginings, hysteria — anything…
Caused by loss of blood, by his wounds—
Aubrey was unhurt. It had been Paul's blood— But Paul wasn't dead, he was alive and hurt, alive and hurt… He could be saved, if she could play her part to perfection. She could keep him alive for long enough — she had told William where they could be found, where she would be.
If Aubrey had to die, so be it. She must save Paul.
She eased her body from behind the tree. She could see Babbington's grey hair as he sat behind the desk, still making his telephone call. She waited. The patrol would return in a few minutes, the two men preceded by the flickering torch-beam. She need only step out in front of them and pray they did not fire without flicking the torch towards her face. She waited, her teeth chattering, her legs and body weak with anticipation. Yet she felt no renewed desire for concealment. All that was behind her now. She stood just where the spillage of warm light from the window reached her boots, as if waiting for a tide to advance.
Should she even have met Hyde—? Should she even know his name? Perhaps from Paul—? Would Babbington believe her, believe even one word of it—?
He must…
She listened. Footsteps on the gravel; light on the gravel. They were coming—
She mustn't look as if she were waiting for them, she must be caught—!
Cautiously, bent almost double, she crept to Babbington's window. If Paul was dead, she was meekly surrendering… She crushed the rebellious thought. She reached the window, touched the sill with her fingertips and raised her head to look into the room.
Light on her face, light on the gravel around her, footsteps on the gravel—
Snarl of a dog!
Dog — light — gravel — voice. She was frozen with terror. Footsteps running. She listened in horror for the dog's paws beating on the gravel. She heard it growl — footsteps, the noise of heavy boots, running. She waited, frozen, for the dog's attack.
Then she turned her face into the torch's beam. The man who held it laughed with surprise and pleasure. The dog, still restrained by the second man, growled then barked viciously. She glanced away from the torch. Babbington's head had turned. His face seemed white and somehow broken open, as if he were confronted by an accusing ghost. Snow blew against Margaret's cheek, against the window. Babbington appeared shaken from a deep trance by the noise it made, perhaps by the dog's continued barking. Then, slowly and with growing pleasure, he smiled.
And spoke into the telephone, quickly and urgently and with evident triumph on his features. He had seen her held by the man with the torch, his hand gripping her arm.
Her captor spoke: "Good evening, Mrs Massinger. So nice of you to drop in."
She turned her head to stare at the dog's open mouth, its white teeth and pink tongue kept away from her by the strained-tight choke-chain and leash. She sagged with relief and weakness against the man who held her arm.
"Margaret — Massinger's wife, she's here!" Babbington blurted into the telephone, unable to consider disguising his relief and surprised delight. "We've got her! Now, you keep your side of the bargain, Kapustin—!"
"Very well," Kapustin replied at once. "Very well. Ignoring your remarkable good fortune — I shall try to persuade both the President and my Chairman to adopt your plan."
"Excellent—!"
"The scheme will not be popular, but I expect it will be adopted. Yes, I expect so. Have everything ready for tomorrow night. Aubrey and the Massingers. We will dispose of them for you."
Godwin watched the neighbour's thin black cat as he might have watched an enemy. Then, he collected his crutches from either side of his chair and struggled upright, finally shuffling away from the dining-table to the corner of the kitchen. Someone must have brought the brand-name cat food back with them after a London leave, Hyde thought. It wouldn't be on sale in Prague. Godwin unwrapped the tin from a polythene bag that contained its odours and knived chunks of it onto a yellow saucer. Then he placed it on the floor for the cat which had, during his careful preparations, rubbed with a sense of the frantic against the legs that could not sense its body. Occasionally, Godwin looked down at its protestations. And smiled.
Hyde wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The cat, stroked by Godwin — how much pain in that bending to the cat's arched back and erect tail? — had begun to eat. Gulping delicately. Hyde pushed back his own chair with a mounting reluctance. He had to bully Godwin, again. And disliked the work. Godwin had almost solved the problem — but communicating it had a price of anger.
He turned on Hyde with a white face and snapped: "I've worked like a black since I got here — from the moment I got here—!"
He had been preparing the outburst throughout the well-cooked meal, perhaps ever since he had admitted Hyde to his cloistered, lonely rooms. Up thinly-carpeted stairs, the walls pregnant with age and damp, to a loosely-fitting door with English security locks. And the smell of heated, packaged meals and East European vegetables stubbornly cooked, the scent of the neighbour's cat, and the ozone of often used electrical equipment — the in-fi and the desk-top computer. Godwin's thin, eked-out life. Hyde understood, far too well, that only a pair of functioning, fit limbs separated himself from Godwin and his environment.
But Godwin had it, had the answer — part of it, even almost all of it—
"— like a black," Godwin repeated almost apologetically.
"Sure," Hyde replied.
Godwin had been restraining himself for hours; controlling himself, as he taught Hyde familiarity with the Cyrillic keyboard he would eventually encounter; taught him the jargon; educated him in the small-talk of computers and security and the Hradcany. Hyde's knowledge of computer terminals and keyboards was minimal. Godwin seemed determined to make him not only skilled, but educated. Hour upon hour, time after time, until he stopped making mistakes, avoided errors, understood what he was doing. And all that time, Godwin had been building to his over-riding, urgent purpose; this outburst. Hyde prepared himself.
"Yes, like a black!" he stormed, as he plugged in the coffee percolator with the wifely nonchalance of an enforced bachelor. "Do you realise what you and Shelley want from me? Do you?" He ushered Hyde back into the small lounge. The electrical smell was still strong from the keyboard and VDU resting on the old dining-table that Godwin used as a desk. The crutches thumped behind Hyde, the legs shuffled behind them.
Hyde sat down quickly, reducing his own importance. In the kitchen, the percolator plopped. The cat audibly slid food into its gullet. Then began to lap the milk that Godwin had also put down.
"The biggest laugh is, Shelley wants everything for Aubrey — for the old man!" Godwin glared. "For the old, blind, stupid bugger who wanted nothing to do with the thing I offered him!" Godwin's frame leaned towards Hyde. The small keyboard and screen peeped like a hint of revelations to come from behind his crooked elbow. "He put it to one side — do you know what he told me? Do you?" Godwin's body echoed in miniature the movements of a fit body in an easy chair, bobbing forward. "It can't possibly work, Godwin — once we tap in, we've given the game away. That was it. His judgment and the opinion of the tame experts he consulted. He consigned Open Weave to the dustbin without a second thought! And now he wants me to resurrect it to save his skin! What a laugh. What an absolute fucking hoot!"