‘No. We had arranged a code for our letters, and when the attempt on Papa was made, I heard from him that he was returning. I only saw him once. We met secretly at a place near the station.’
‘Patriarch Dimo 9?’
‘No, another. But he gave me two addresses which I might send letters to. Valmo, Patriarch Dimo 9, was one of them. The other he told me I must use only in case of an extreme emergency if I had to find him.’
‘What was in the letter you gave me?’
‘I begged him to escape to Greece and publish the truth about the conspiracy against Vukashin from there.’
‘What made you decide to come to me?’
She frowned impatiently. ‘Today’s evidence, Herr Foster. Surely you see. The police know everything. Philip and Pazar are the only two left. They must be in hiding somewhere, helpless. Philip can do nothing now even if he wished. It must be done for him.’
I thought hard for a moment or two, then I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that it’s as simple as you believe, Fraulein.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, to begin with, Valmo was the name Pazar was hiding under. When I tried to deliver your letter, I found him dead. He’d been shot through the back of the head and had been there some days.’
‘What happened to my letter?’
‘That was burnt by a man named Aleko who said that he was of the secret police and that his name was Valmo. He also said that your letter was addressed to him and was something to do with the attempt on your father.’ I described Aleko. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’ I added.
She looked utterly bewildered. ‘No, Herr Foster.’
‘What does your brother look like?’
She gave me a description.
I nodded. ‘A young man who looks like that came into Aleko’s apartment while I was there. I only saw him for a moment. Aleko called him Jika.’
She stood up quickly. ‘That is Philip. He likes his friends to call him that. Herr Foster, where is this place?’
‘I don’t know for certain, but I should think that it may be the other address your brother gave you. Have you got it?’
‘Philip made me remember it. He said it was too dangerous to write down.’
‘What is it?’
‘Pashik, Pan-Eurasian Press Service, Serdika Prospek 15,’ she said.
I went to the wardrobe, got out the bottle of plum brandy, and poured myself a big drink.
‘Do you like this stuff?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
‘All right, Fraulein. You’d better go back now. I think I know how to reach your brother.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pashik lived in a modern apartment house near his office. He had pointed out the place to me on the day I had arrived. I thought now that I could find it without much difficulty. There were no taxis. I walked.
The way there lay through the business quarter, and by that time the streets were mostly empty and still. Earlier that day they had been decorated in preparation for the anniversary parade, and the bright moonlight striking obliquely through the flags overhead cast a multiplicity of shadows that stirred and twisted in the warm breeze. It was like walking through the dark forest of a dream. But I had gone some distance before I became frightened.
It was a very unpleasant sensation. The brandy-engendered resolution with which I had set out seemed to drain suddenly away. I began to shiver uncontrollably and an icy, numbing kind of logic invaded the small corner of my conscious mind now whimpering with the effort required to keep on walking. What I was doing was incredibly foolish. Not three hours ago two men had tried to kill me in the street. I had been very lucky to escape. Now here I was in the streets again, giving them another chance. For obviously they must be waiting for me. Ruthless determination of the kind they possessed would be intensified by failure. They would not fail a second time.
Soon every shadow had become a man with a gun, every doorway the place of an ambush. I kept on simply because I was afraid to go back. I walked now simply because I was afraid to break into a run that might precipitate action. My legs ached with the strain. My shirt clung to my back. I had so completely lost my head that I went on fifty yards past my destination without seeing it. There was a frantic ten seconds on the corner of the Boulevard Sokolovsky while I got my bearings. Then I saw the apartment house from a familiar angle. I ran the fifty yards back.
It was a tall, narrow building with massive ferroconcrete balconies, from the sides of which rusty weather stains drooled down the walls. In the daylight these stains gave the place a tired, unhappy air — you wanted someone to wipe its face for it — but in the moonlight, they were hard shadows that made the balconies seem to project like freakish upper lips. The main entrance doors, ornate affairs of wrought iron and rolled glass, were still open, and the lobby beyond was dimly illuminated by a light from the concierge’s room.
As I stood for a moment or two recovering my breath, I looked back along the street. There were two or three empty cars parked in it, but they had been there already. Nobody had followed me. I went in and pressed the concierge’s bell. Nothing happened. After a minute or so, I went over to the lift. Beside it was a list of the tenants. Pashik was on the fourth floor. The lift did not work, of course. I found the stairs and walked up.
At the moment of deciding to see Pashik that night I had had a clear image of the sort of interview it would be. I had seen him already in bed and asleep when I arrived. In response to my insistent ringing he had at last appeared, a bleary, nightshirted figure (I had been sure he wore nightshirts), fetid and protesting. I had cut through his protests decisively. I had given him no time to build up his defences. I had pelted him with the facts I had discovered and watched his features grow pinched as he realized how much I knew. Then, at last, wearily he had shrugged. ‘Very well. Since you already know so much, Mr Foster, you had better hear the rest.’ And I had sat down to listen.
The reality was somewhat different.
The door to his apartment was at the end of a short passage near the main staircase landing. As I turned into the passage, I saw that the door was ajar and that there were lights in the apartment. I went along the passage and up to the door. Then, with my hand on the bell, I paused. Inside, someone was speaking on the telephone. Or listening rather; there was a series of grunts, then two or three words I did not understand. The voice, however, was not Pashik’s. I hesitated, then rang the bell.
The voice ceased abruptly. There was a movement from within. Then silence. Suddenly the door swung open and clattered gently against a picture on the wall behind it. For a moment the small lobby beyond looked empty. Then I saw. Between the doors of the two rooms facing me was a narrow strip of wall. On the wall was a mirror, and, reflected in it, the face of the man who had pushed the door open with his foot. It was Sibley.
He moved slowly out from the wall just inside the entrance and looked at me. There was a heavy bottle-glass ashtray in his hand. He put it down on the hall table and grinned.
‘Well, Foster dear,’ he said archly. ‘This is a nice surprise! A small world, I always say. Do you always say that? Of course you don’t! Come to see our smelly friend?’
‘Naturally. What are you doing here?’
He looked at me oddly. ‘I’ve come to see him too, and also naturally. Doesn’t seem to be about, though, does he? I’ve looked high and low.’
‘Who were you expecting to have to beat over the head with that ashtray?’
‘Somebody else who shouldn’t be here. Like me. You’re quite a logical visitor, of course. Been here before, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘No.’
He grinned again. ‘I thought not. Come on in and make yourself at home. I was telephoning.’
