‘Do you need something to make you sleep?’
‘Pills, you mean?’ Philby shook his head and climbed back under the duvet. ‘I never take pills. And don’t start feeding me any, either. That’s not part of the deal.’
‘Good night,’ said Donaldson, and walked stiffly out. The door locked automatically on the inside.
They left next morning at seven o’clock, driving north again through the same flat forest landscape, broken by misty lakes and great stretches of tundra, like mouldering patches on a white-dappled carpet. After two hours they came to a small town where they stopped at a café, and Hughes fitted on snow-chains. The café was full of leathery-faced men in anoraks and high boots; they looked like woodsmen or hunters. They turned together and watched Donaldson and Philby with suspicious pale blue eyes. Donaldson, assuming his deferential manner, asked Philby what he would like, and Philby said, ‘Schnapps.’ Donaldson gave the order and was told they served only beer. He ordered two coffees and a beer for Philby. A few moments later they were joined by Hughes. Donaldson kept looking at his watch. It was hardly the sort of place where they were likely to be greatly interested in a hijacking over Finland; but they’d remember three well-dressed foreigners asking for hard liquor in the middle of the morning.
A few miles beyond the town they joined a smaller, snow-covered road that led eastwards into the fir-covered mountains. Hughes drove slowly and carefully. There was no traffic, and the snow was getting thicker, with ruts of rock-like ice. The sky had a grey glare that seemed to belong to no time of day. It was still too far south for the Midnight Sun, but the kind of place where day and night pass without variety, like the bleak unbroken landscape. A timeless place. A place as empty and neutral as the rest of Sweden, and even more dull.
Towards noon they crawled through a one-street town with single-storey log houses heavy with snow — and just outside, turned up a steep track round bends that twisted up between the tall endless fir-trees, until Philby felt that familiar cold place in his stomach that he had felt many times before. Duncan Henry Saunders was going to ground.
The house was a wooden chalet with two floors and a garage. The fir-trees grew so close to the door that there was almost no room in which to turn the car. They were let in by an old woman who looked like a witch out of Grimm. Inside it was all stained pine, and so dark that the lights were on, although it was still only mid-afternoon. The rooms were small and full of heavy carved furniture. There were no books, and the only pictures were dim portraits of Christ in rusty metal frames.
Donaldson showed Philby into a room with a four-poster bed. ‘Come down when you’re ready.’
‘I’m ready now,’ said Philby. He left his cases on the bed and followed Donaldson down into a long wooden room. A man turned, with his back to the stove, and held out his hand. ‘Mr Saunders! I’m Thomas. How do you do?’
He was very tall and as bald as an egg. His face was almost translucently white, with a bluish pallor round the eyes. Philby found it difficult to guess his age, though he put him around ten years younger than himself. His voice had the languid self-confidence of a man used to giving orders, though unlike Donaldson there was nothing military about him.
‘I expect you’re ready for a drink?’ he added, and turned to a large open dresser, well-stocked with bottles. Philby asked for whisky, straight, and Thomas poured him a tumbler three-quarters full. It was a gesture of hospitality that Philby was to get used to in the coming weeks.
‘You’ll be staying with us for about a month,’ Thomas went on, as they sat down in the stiff armchairs. ‘The exact time will depend on the progress we make. There is, as you see, very little to distract us. Major Donaldson will be leaving us tomorrow, and then we will have the whole week to ourselves. You should be quite comfortable. And Miss Meedla, our housekeeper, is very discreet. At the end of the week, if things go well, a man will be joining us from London. He will be concentrating on the technical details regarding your past — or rather, Duncan Saunders’ past.’ He gave a slight, deceptive smile. ‘We must make sure that Mr Saunders becomes a man of substance — and not just financially.’
‘When do I get back to Stockholm to confirm the bank accounts?’ said Philby.
Thomas lifted a bald eyebrow. ‘You won’t be requiring any money while you’re here, surely?’
‘The money is simply your earnest of good faith, Mr Thomas. That’s all I’m interested in.’
‘The bank accounts are all in order, I assure you.’
‘But I don’t sign them until you give the nod? In other words, if I don’t cooperate, the accounts are cancelled?’ Philby glanced at Donaldson, who sat empty-handed, staring at the floor. ‘I imagine that if London could fix the accounts in the first place, they can always unfix them?’ He gave them both a slack grin. ‘London seems to have improved since I’ve been away. They can no doubt fix a lot of things. Especially in the wilds of the Swedish-Norwegian border?’
Thomas frowned. It was like the creasing of rice-paper; Philby almost expected the man’s skin to tear. Thomas said: ‘There is really no point in being melodramatic. We promised you a “safe house”, and this is it. I have no intention that it should be anything but safe. Now, Duncan — I shall call
