He passed within a foot of the BMW and noticed its twin spotlights and an aerial the size of a fishing-rod sprouting from its rear wing. He recognized the driver from Peters’ photographs: a sallow freckled face, and wearing string-backed driving gloves that rested on the wheel. The man beside him had on a blue beret, black leather jacket, and wrap-around glasses with reflecting silver lenses. There was a map spread across his knees, but he was looking out at the street. Philby came close enough to notice the lumps of muscle under the man’s cheekbones, and to see that the map was a large-scale one of the Vevey-Montreux area. Then the man moved his head a fraction, and Philby caught a double-glimpse of himself in the reflecting lenses, before walking on.
Twenty yards up the street he stopped at a newsagent’s and bought a Daily Telegraph, then sauntered back, unfolding the paper and glancing at the headline ‘Big Security Shake-up in Whitehall’. Neither the Mercedes nor the BMW had moved. He walked straight past the BMW without glancing at it this time, and could still hear its engine running. When he reached the Mercedes he refolded the paper and climbed in beside Peters. ‘It’s the same two you photographed. Let’s go.’
Peters hesitated. ‘Is it the British policeman you were talking about, sir?’
Philby nodded but said nothing. Peters had started the engine and now pulled leisurely out into a break in the traffic. He drove at a measured pace, gathering speed only as the road widened out of town, back towards the autoroute. For a moment there was no sign of the BMW. Philby began looking out for it, when Peters, again with uncharacteristic familiarity, said, ‘Better not turn round, sir. No point in alerting them unnecessarily.’
From then on Philby relaxed, noticing the clean ashtray, the polished dashboard, the stiff blond hairs at the back of Peters’ neck. They passed a roundabout and Peters touched the accelerator. At the turn up to the autoroute Philby instinctively began to fasten his seatbelt; and as they swung round the first bend he now caught a glimpse of the BMW, about two hundred yards behind. He was almost beginning to enjoy himself. Only one thing bothered him. He said: ‘By the way, Peters, they’ve got a bloody strong radio on that car.’
‘I shouldn’t worry too much about that, sir. It probably means they’re operating with just one car, and keeping in touch with a base in Montreux. I don’t think there’ll be much opposition.’
Philby grunted, and again said nothing. He was both relieved and slightly irritated by the South African’s remark. Yet he had to concede that Peters’ reasoning seemed sound. The fact that the hard-liners in MI5 — or whatever establishment they now drew their pensions from — were using Sergeant Dempster for the second time, suggested that it was a relatively local and limited operation, which in turn meant that Dempster’s bosses must be getting desperate. Philby smiled to himself. No wonder Sergeant Dempster had had so little trouble getting out of Russia! Why pay two men to do the job of one?
They’d reached the intersection, and Peters slowed to allow two cars to pass on the inside lane, long enough to fasten his own seatbelt — something, Philby noted, that he had never seen him do before, even while driving well above the speed limit on the crowded autoroute in from Lausanne. At the same time, the South African turned to him and said, ‘Sit well back, sir.’
The engine gave a low roar and they leapt into the fast lane. Peters switched on the lights and Philby could see the needle on the speedometer creeping round the dial to 130 — 150 — 170… The dusk was deepening and the lake was a pool of mist on their right with the lights of Montreux winking up at them from about three miles ahead.
The needle was quivering just about 200 as they flashed past the blue and white sign to Montreux Est. The traffic was beginning to pull into the slow right-hand lane, and Philby caught a glimpse of two points of light in the near-side wing mirror; but it was too far to see if they belonged to the BMW. A series of diagonal yellow lines now raced towards them as the fast lane began to narrow, and a sign loomed up showing two tapering vertical white bars with a red stroke across the middle. It was the end of the autoroute.
Philby knew this stretch of Switzerland fairly well, from studying Pol’s Michelin map on their several gastronomic excursions into the surrounding French countryside. He remembered the double dotted red line that showed the proposed extension of the autoroute west to Martigny, then up to the Simplon Pass and into Italy.
He was thinking of the map that he’d seen on Dempster’s lap less than half an hour ago, and wondering that if it was detailed and up-to-date enough, it could well mark the exact position of the road’s progress, when a row of luminous orange marker-cones swept out of the half-light, directing them on to the main road round Montreux.
Peters had reduced speed, but only to 140 kmh. There was a slight bump as the Mercedes’ front wheels struck the beacons, scattering three of them into the side of the road. In the same moment Peters switched the headlamps on full, and Philby could see the metalled surface ending about a hundred yards ahead at a row of red and white oil-drums which blocked most of the road. Beyond stretched the broad white curve of the unfinished chalk road with the edges straggling off into yellow clay.
Peters flicked the wheel and they missed the nearest oil-drum with a swaying swoosh; then came a loud rumbling vibration and the speedometer needle dropped to
