Turner's wan sun struggled in the mist.
"I know."
"Then, do you think you can do it? Why not just bring Hyde out?"
Massinger shook his head, vigorously. "No, Peter. This has to be done. Desperate remedies. We must know what's behind it. Vienna Station is working for someone other than you. Hyde is right about collusion. We don't know friend from enemy. We don't even know if we have any friends."
Shelley shrugged. "Very well. Then you must gain this man's confidence. Pavel Koslov is his closest friend. You speak Russian, Professor — you know Koslov. When you talk to the Vienna Rezident, under pentathol, you must be Koslov." Shelley announced this in the manner of an examination, a test for his companion.
Slowly, Massinger nodded; the abstracted, detached agreement of an academic conceding an argument. "I see that. Very well, if that is what is required."
"But can you do it?" Shelley asked in exasperation.
"I have to, don't I?" Massinger smiled humourlessly. "Quit worrying, Peter. It's our only chance — isn't it?"
"Do you think it's one of their 'House of Cards' scenarios actually being put into operation?"
"It'd have the same effect, maybe, if it succeeded," Massinger replied. "Throw your service into total confusion, sow discord at all levels — I guess that's possible. But it could as easily be a vendetta against Aubrey."
"But our people are helping them to carry it out."
"The last twist of the knife. That's why I have to succeed in being Pavel Koslov. Why I have to get the Rezident to talk to me."
"Couldn't we go to JIC, even the PM, with what we have? With Hyde?"
"I've been warned off once."
"What about Sir William?"
"It was Sir William who warned me off. We wouldn't be believed. Just Aubrey's old friends and colleagues. Interested parties. No, it has to be a fait accompli or nothing." He looked once more at the Turner painting. "Let's walk, Peter. That picture is giving me a chill."
"You're still relying on a lunatic plan, Professor—"
"I know it. But, if we can get at even some of the truth and tape it — then we can go to Sir William, or even the PM, and show them what good little boys we've been on their behalf." His smile was both self-mocking and grim. "There's no other way, Peter. We must have corroboration."
Massinger felt dwarfed by the large Renaissance canvases lining the walls on either side of them as they moved towards the main staircase.
"What can I do while you're in Vienna?" Shelley asked, as if requiring some form of self-assertion between the huge paintings.
"Check Vienna Station — anything, any means. We must know how rotten the barrel is — and whether it's the only rotten barrel in town."
Shelley nodded. He appeared relieved to have been given some task; relieved, too, to be obeying orders. Massinger had become a surrogate Aubrey. The weight of the realisation burdened Massinger, and his feet felt uncertain on the marble steps down to the entrance hall. He felt old, rather tired, very reluctant. Ahead of him lay danger, doubt, and perhaps an unsatisfactory outcome. More than those professional risks, however, his wife lay ahead of him in time. As he envisaged her, she seemed unsubstantial, about to vanish like his own tormenting, betrayed Eurydice. If she even so much as suspected, she would never forgive him. She would not remain with him; she'd leave and never return. He was so certain of that that there was a sharp physical pain in his chest.
He would tell her he had been invited to a Cambridge college for a couple of days by the Master; a former academic rival, a present friend. She would accept that. She had a great deal of committee work during that week; she would be relieved that he, too, would be busy, in company.
The lying had begun. He had taken the road he profoundly wished he could have avoided.
He and Shelley parted on the steps. Across Trafalgar Square, a flock of pigeons rose into the cold sunlight like a grey cloud.
"Be careful," Shelley offered. Then, as if unable to let the matter take its course, he added: "It doesn't seem sufficient!" His protest was deeply felt, almost desperate. "It can't be enough to guarantee success — surely?"
"I don't know, Peter," Massinger replied gravely. "We simply can't sail a better course or grab a bigger stick. We have to do it this way. There isn't a choice. Take care yourself."
The words of each seemed comfortless and empty to the other.
It was almost dark when Massinger reached the house. He let himself into the ground floor hallway, and began climbing the stairs. He had studied Hyde's new papers at the club, had sat at an eighteenth-century writing desk jotting down everything he had been told, and everything he knew and could remember concerning Pavel Koslov. And he had booked his seat on the British Airways morning flight to Vienna, and a room at the Inter-Continental Hotel. The ascent seemed to become steeper as he mounted the stairs, as if a weight of guilt and reluctance pressed against his head and body. Margaret was there, waiting for him. She would have begun preparing dinner; supervising the housekeeper but preparing the sauces and the dessert herself. There was a hard lump in his chest which would not disperse.
He fumbled his key into the latch and pushed open the door. He listened, but there were no noises, no wisps of conversation from the kitchen. He opened the door of the drawing-room.
Margaret and Babbington were both sitting, apart yet somehow subtly united, facing the door. Babbington's face was serious to the point of being forbidding. The man was charged with the electricity and danger of disobeyed authority. He was still wearing his overcoat. Massinger had passed his hat and gloves unnoticed on the hall stand.
Margaret's face was angry. Betrayed, flushed. Her eyes were hard, accusing.
She knew — somehow she knew…
Babbington had told her.
Told what?
He was acutely aware, like some schoolboy pilferer, of the evidence of Hyde's new papers in the breast pocket of his coat.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Into Exile
After the initial shock, it was the tense, unaccustomed silence that struck Massinger. There was so often music in this room; records Margaret might be listening to, Margaret doodling at the piano, even singing—
Music and the idea of it brought back the 'Hunt' quartet over the telephone and the guilty knowledge of Hyde and the palpable bulk of the package.
Then she burst out; "Paul, where have you been?" It was matronly yet somehow desperate. Babbington had introduced her to subtle nightmares. "What's going on, Paul?" she continued. "Andrew's been telling me all sorts…" She looked down, then, her voice trailing into silence. She sensed herself as part of a conspiracy against him. He saw Babbington watching her with what might have been an eager hunger — a suspicion of some former relationship between them stung him inappropriately at that moment — then the man looked up at him. His eyes were satisfied.
"What's the matter, darling?" he asked as soothingly as he could.
Her face had hardened again when she looked up. "You know what's happening!" she accused. "Andrew didn't want to tell me — I made him…" She was ashamed at that. "You're still trying to help that man!"
"My dear," he said, moving towards her. Her knuckles were white against the velvet of the arms of her chair. She was wearing only her engagement ring and narrow gold wedding ring. Babbington's face indicated that he had been sufficiently warned, that the consequences were now of his making. "How can I have been helping him? At the club, at my stockbroker's?" The lies came fluently. He turned to Babbington. "Andrew — would you explain this, please? How have you upset Margaret?"