Cayle said, ‘The Metropol — Room 246.’
‘I’ll c-c-call you.’ Philby took the book from Cayle’s hand and walked briskly away towards the entrance. His companion waited a full ten seconds before letting go of Cayle’s arm, then also hurried off to join the last of the crowd shuffling through the doors. Cayle got outside in time to see the two of them get into a black Volga saloon which accelerated away with a growl of snow tyres.
Cayle was in good spirits. It had been an inspired shot in the dark: the Second Test was being played in the West Indies, and he knew that one of Philby’s great passions was to follow the score each day in The Times. He no doubt felt that it would offend against protocol to have the paper delivered to his office in Dzerzhinski Square, and to have had it sent direct to his flat would have meant revealing his address to London.
Meanwhile, Philby knew Cayle’s hotel and room number; and there was nothing to do but wait.
Cayle was getting into the bath that evening when the telephone rang.
‘Barry? How’s things?’
Cayle scowled. ‘Hello Lennie. And how’s the wheeling and dealing?’
‘Marking time, old boy. The Frenchie’s delayed in Switzerland and it looks as if I’ve got to cool my heels for a few days. How ’bout a drinkie?’
Cayle had no wish to spend the evening with Leonard Maddox; but there was something about the events of the past twenty-four hours that suggested that his meeting with the man had not been entirely fortuitous. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the office — Hotel Intourist, just across the way. I can be with you in a couple o’ shakes. Downstairs bar — all right?’
‘All right,’ said Cayle, and hung up.
He didn’t hurry. Half an hour later he found Lennie Maddox waiting patiently in a dark corner of the foreign-currency bar, under a blaring loudspeaker. Maddox waved at him and mouthed wordlessly into the music. No need to worry about ‘bugs’, Cayle thought, as he sat down; and wondered if Maddox had chosen the spot on purpose.
‘Enjoying yerself?’ Maddox shouted, pushing his face close to Cayle’s to make himself heard.
‘Does anyone enjoy themselves in Moscow?’ said Cayle; and Maddox’s lips drew back in a soundless laugh.
‘Well, there are ways! But then o’ course, you’re here to work? Must be a damned tricky place, Moscow, for a journalist. I mean, if you stumble on a really good story, the chances are a ninety-nine per cent cert it’s something hush-hush?’
‘Like the aircraft deal you and your French boss are pulling off?’
Maddox had turned and was energetically ordering two double whiskies. ‘No, I wasn’t exactly thinking of that,’ he said; then cocked his head sideways and put a hand on Cayle’s arm. ‘Know what I think, Barry? I think you’re on to a story already.’
‘And what would that be?’
Maddox squeezed his arm, and his fingers felt very hard. ‘Don’t think me nosey, but a chap like you would hardly come all the way to Moscow just to go to the Bolshoi. So what’s the game?’
‘I like to live dangerously, Lennie. I like to sit in dark corners and watch nasty things crawl out from under the carpet.’
Maddox gulped his drink. ‘You’re not referring to me, are you?’ And Cayle noticed that the man’s fingers had clenched into a fist.
‘I’ve got no opinions about you, Lennie. And no illusions either. I know you’re after something. You picked me up on the plane yesterday and now you’re wetting your pants to find out what I’m doing in Moscow.’
Maddox had tilted his head back and was stroking his acne-raw neck. ‘Tell you what,’ he said suddenly. ‘How about a bit o’ nosh? There’s a very good joint round the corner — place called the “Ararat”. Just the right atmosphere for a friendly chat.’ He stood up and started towards the door; Cayle followed without protest. As he had said, Maddox was after something, and Cayle felt professionally bound to find out what it was.
The restaurant was fairly crowded, but the waiter found them a table under a crude mural of Mount Ararat, with its twin peaks rising out of a wreath of cloud. The same image was printed in white on the front and back of the waiters’ blue T-shirts. Maddox insisted on doing the ordering, which included blinis, shashlik, raw herrings, and Caucasian red wine. He was odiously cheerful and talked incessantly. By the second course he was happily laying into Britain again, describing her as a nation of snobs and parasites, and seemed to assume that Cayle, as an Australian, was in full agreement.
‘I’ll tell you something, Barry,’ he was saying as the waiter cleared away the shashlik. ‘In some ways I wouldn’t mind settling here. A lot o’ people have done it — and some pretty funny ones at that. Westerners, I mean. You know what they call ’em here? They call ’em the “Grey Men” — because they live in a kind o’ limbo, neither Western nor Russian. Most of ’em are fellow-travellers from way back before the war — the ones who somehow escaped the Purges and managed to find themselves cosy jobs here, usually with Radio Moscow or the Foreign Languages Publishing House. Nowadays they’re mostly too old to go back to their own countries, even if their countries would have them. They couldn’t get jobs, for a start — at least, nothing like as well paid as they’ve got here.’
‘Look,’ said Cayle, ‘I’m not a bloody bitch on heat! Stop sniffing around and come to the point. All this about you wanting to settle down here’s a load of balls. Unless, of course, your job with the rich French Marxist is turning sour?’
‘What makes you think that?’ Maddox said quickly.
Cayle grinned, as the waiter arrived with a multicoloured ice-cream which he began
