"And falls from power," Pavel added as Massinger was on the point of excusing himself. "Like that of your poor friend Aubrey."
He watched Pavel's eyes. Slightly glazed, the pupils enlarged. His trim figure was unsteady, beginning to rock with the current of the alcohol.
"Yes."
"Tears, idle tears," Pavel quoted.
"Quite." Massinger's back felt cold, his mind as icy as the pendants of the chandelier above them. "Maybe we ought to shed tears, even for an enemy?"
Pavel shook his head and spread his arms. Cognac slopped onto his wrist, staining the cuff of his white silk shirt. His face was red. Then he laughed.
"Not one," he said, vehemently. "Not one for him. These people here aren't crying. Why should I — why should we?" He laughed again. "They've abandoned him, haven't they?"
"I'm afraid they have, Pavel." Then Massinger said, quickly and lightly, "But you should mourn him as one of yours — surely?"
Pavel's eyes cleared, hardened into black points. Then he laughed once more, with genuine amusement. "I heard all about his arrest, you know," he said. "From my — colleague in Vienna. My opposite number there tells a most amusing story — quite anecdotal." His features sharpened around his gleaming eyes. Massinger sensed triumph exuded like an odour. His arm waved his glass around the room. Massinger tensed himself for revelation. Pavel was on the point of indiscretion, already certain of Aubrey's fate. "Aubrey has been gathered in like a good harvest," he said. "My colleague saw his face, at the moment of his arrest. Quite, quite crestfallen! It must have been so dreadfully embarrassing for poor Aubrey," he added venomously.
"Yes," Massinger said after a long silence. Why am I doing this? he asked himself. I have abandoned him, too.
Pavel raised his glass once more, and murmured something inaudible. He knows all about it, Massinger recited to himself. He knows. His — the Vienna Rezident was there …? He wanted to shake the truth from the Russian. Instead, he raised his own glass and left Pavel, who seemed complacent at his own indiscretion, unworried. His indifference had to spring from complete and utter confidence. And it was as if he had needed to tell, to boast of it to a man who had been Aubrey's friend… and, as Pavel must know, had abandoned him in company with everyone else. Massinger felt nausea rise into his throat.
If only I could make him talk, make him tell, Massinger thought. If only I could — he knows it's all faked, that it's a set-up — he knows what's going on… The Vienna Rezident saw it all.
He realised that he had left the party, glass in hand, and had walked through the dressing-room into their bedroom. He studied his glass, his reflection in the dressing-table mirrors, and his swirling thoughts, and decided he would not return to the drawing-room immediately. He sighed, and looked at his watch. A masochistic urge prompted him to turn on the portable television on the table opposite the bed. He sat down, hearing the slither of silk beneath his buttocks. Soft lights glowed upon silver brushes, crystal jewellery trays, pale hangings, deep carpet. A late news magazine programme bloomed on the screen.
He could not believe what he saw. Aubrey, in front of a monkey cage. A tall, bulky man standing next to him. Summer, blue sky. A distant, hidden camera.
"… film sold to RTF, the French broadcasting service, which purports to show the head of British Intelligence and his Soviet controller during one of their meetings. The French television service have refused to name the supplier of the film…" Massinger was stunned. He saw his blank face and open mouth in a mirror. An idiot's expressionless features. "… Foreign Office has tonight refused to comment on the veracity or otherwise of the film. We have been unable to confirm the identities of the two men…"
It was Aubrey. Body, head, build, profile, full-face — Aubrey. And the other was Kapustin, no doubt… Teardrop himself. He moved quickly to the television set and switched it off, almost wrenching at the controls. An image of Pavel's satisfied, confident features floated in front of his eyes, then melted and reformed into the features of Sir William, then Babbington and then the others, followed by Aubrey's shrunken, defeated old face. Finally, the professional mask of the driver of the blue Cortina.
They had him now. Aubrey. Tape, film, public exposure, trial by television and newspapers. They had wrecked him. Anger rose like a wave of nausea in Massinger.
He moved into the dressing-room, piled with coats and umbrellas and raincoats and furs and capes. He picked up the telephone swiftly and dialled Peter Shelley's number. The tone summoned, again and again. Massinger perspired impatiently, guiltily. Sir William's face appeared again in front of his eyes, but then he saw Margaret — a multiple image of her face that afternoon, before she left him and Babbington alone, and her face that evening, glowing.
He felt sick with betrayal.
"Come on, come on—!" he urged, as if afraid that the new and unexpected determination would desert him, seep away down the telephone line. "Come on." His head kept swivelling towards the door.
Why, why? he asked himself. Why am I calling?
"Yes?" Shelley answered. He sounded the worse for drink.
"Have you seen the late news programme?" Massinger demanded.
"Yes." Shelley's voice was young and bitter, almost sulky. "What do you want?"
Massinger knew he was poised above a chasm. All he had was an anger caused by some faked film and the smug, insulting, deliberate indiscretions of a KGB Rezident — and threats and bribes. They did not seem to justify this — this commitment. His shame had been revitalised, but, even as he had dialled Shelley's number, bribery and love had reappeared to restrain him. Then he leapt over the chasm.
His old debt to Aubrey gave him some of the energy he needed to make that leap. But anger, pure hot rage, finally drove him. They had threatened him, threatened his future with Margaret, his happiness with her… Babbington and Guest. Threat and bribe. Stick and carrot… and he had been prepared to go along, to begin to forget… and it was a lie! Pavel knew that—! Buried professional instincts, wider loyalties than the personal one to Aubrey, began to surface. He thought of Margaret, hesitated, swallowed, clenched his free hand. Then he said, "I want that file tomorrow."
"Why the sudden change of heart?" Shelley asked haughtily.
"Never mind. Tomorrow, at eleven. Meet me outside— outside the Imperial War Museum — yes?"
"I–I'll have to have the file back by one."
"You will. Just be there, Peter. It's very important."
"Have you heard from Hyde?"
"No — you?"
"No."
"I'll talk to the woman again tomorrow. Now, good night."
The door opened as he put down the receiver. His hand jumped away from it as from an electric current. He automatically adjusted his tie in the cheval-glass before turning. Margaret stood there, with Pavel.
"Pavel wanted to say good night," she announced. The noise of the party swelled through the open door behind them. Her hand was on the Russian's arm like the touch of a fellow-conspirator. Yet it was he who was the real conspirator, the real traitor.
"Good night, Pavel."
"Good night, my friend — good night, and thank you."
Pavel turned away as he approached, poised to be escorted to the door. Then Massinger said, before he could weigh or recall the words: "Not one teardrop, Pavel?"
The KGB Rezident's shoulders stiffened. Then he turned a bland and smiling face to him.