satisfaction.
'Work,' he said.
'I'll go, then.' She hesitated, then: 'Shall I come back — later?'
He wanted to hit her, at least banish her. He nodded.
'Yes, if you want to — ' He would not offer to go to the flat on Kalenin Street — he had to preserve that much. She nodded, reached out as if to touch him, and then dropped her hand.
'Later, we can talk properly,' she said.
The doorbell rang again. He acquiesced with a nod.
To the manager of the Matkailumaja-Turiststation, the only real hotel in Ivalo, they were from the Central Electricity Generating Board, studying the hydro-electric schemes in the Inari region. Philipson, the man the Helsinki Consulate had loaned them, spoke Finnish and established their cover. The staff of the nearby Kirakkakoski power station lived in their own compound, and only came into Ivalo at the week-ends. By the time that happened, Waterford and Davenhill would have left, probably be back in London.
Philipson had a jeep for them, and had stocked it with supplies, had driven north-east out of the town with them, and then watched them as they turned south-east, towards Raja-Jooseppi. Then he turned up his fur collar and headed back to Ivalo. He had little idea of their intention, and small wish to know. It was his role to fend off any awkward enquiries con cerning the presence in the area of two British electricity experts.
They camped the first night off the single road just south of the village of Ruohokangas. Waterford, it seemed to Davenhill, paid little heed to the bitter cold, to the discomforts of travel and pitching camp, to the inadequacy of the food, or to him; while he resented, ever more bitterly, the decision that had placed him there. He had been shunted by Aubrey in the most high-handed way, and made to appear nothing but an errand-boy.
He was cold in his sleeping bag, his teeth chattering, his feet numb. He could hear the steady breathing of the other man, and hated him. He had always found it difficult to resent himself for very long, or indulge in recrimination; but he could, he knew, be satisfyingly viperous towards others. Now, that feeling towards Waterford warmed him, and eventually he drifted into sleep.
In the morning, he awoke aching with cold and senilely stiff. When he moved, his whole body protested. He reached out of the sleeping bag, and his hair was stiff with rime. He sat up, groaning. Light, grey and unwelcoming, was coming from the open tent flap, and he saw Waterford's face grinning at him without humour.
'Your turn to cook breakfast.'
'Push off!' Davenhill snapped, rolling the unzipped flap of the bag away from him, and climbing wearily to his feet. 'You like this, don't you?' he asked, as Waterford allowed him out of the tent. 'This Hollywood stuff- very manly.' His voice was acid; but there was a bile of memory, as if they had shared an unsatisfactory physical act.
Waterford said, 'I thought you were the man's man.'
Davenhill's unlined face narrowed with spite. Then he seemed to control himself, and said softly, 'Is that how you get your kicks? Despising people? It's a sign of weakness, you know.'
Waterford walked away. He had set up the primus, and Davenhill crossed to the jeep and fished out the provisions box. Then, not looking at Waterford again, he began to prepare the breakfast. His mind came free of ice and acid at the smell of the coffee.
They shared the breakfast in silence, then Waterford stowed the tent, and they pulled back on to the road. It had snowed heavily in the last forty-eight hours, and the narrow road was clean of vehicle tracks. The chains on the wheels bit and stuttered at first, then they made better going of it as they entered thicker forest; the snow was light covering over compressed snow-ice. Waterford drove in silent concentration, and Davenhill became enervated by the passage of silent, snow-heavy firs which crowded against the road, a flowing, dark tunnel on either side of them.
'Bloody silly,' he said after perhaps a couple of hours.
Waterford appeared to digest the remark as a piece of vital information, then he replied, 'Any suggestions?'
Davenhill's surprise at the alkaline tone was increased when Waterford halted the jeep. Then he found Waterford looking at him. 'Well?' the older man said. 'Anything to suggest?' There was the edge of contempt again, but controlled.
'Why aren't we stopping — looking?'
'This is the only road, Davenhill. I don't intend being caught, like Folley. So far, there's been nowhere anything big could have left the road. This… 'He waved a hand at the lines of the firs. 'This isn't deep cover, not enough for the kind of thing.. '
Davenhill studied the trees lining the road. Dark and impenetrable they appeared to him.
'God — it's hard to believe in Aubrey's idea out here!'
'It isn't Aubrey's idea, and it isn't hard.' Waterford said drily. 'It's just the way you civilians look at it that makes it hard to believe.' His breath smoked around him. He was big and solid in the driving seat. He still frightened Davenhill who, used as he was to the Foreign Office, and the professional detachment that allowed only glimpses into souls in moments of indiscretion, could see no further than the skin with Waterford.
He was not a type of person he had met before; and his self appeared as hooded as his eyes.
'Well, then?'
'Well what?
'Will we find anything?'
'Who knows?
'That's a pleasant thought to start the day. I — hadn't thought of it like that before.'
'You wouldn't.'
Waterford started the engine, which coughed like a cry in the cold silence. He eased out the dutch, and the jeep skidded, then rolled smoothly forward, the packed surface of the road now rutted tangibly below the skin of snow.
'What are we looking for?' Davenhill asked after a while, 'Not tracks — just a clearing, or a track. Damage to trees — anything.'
'Right.'
It was more than another hour before Waterford stopped the jeep, a look of irritation on his face.
'You and your bloody water!' he snapped. Davenhill smiled disarmingly, and jumped out of the jeep. 'Christ!' Waterford added as he moved away. 'Who's going to see you? I shan't be looking!' Davenhill was already off the road and moving more clumsily through deeper snow.
When he had finished, he moved from behind the tree, and knelt in the snow. With a smile on his face, he fashioned a snowball, looking up to see Waterford with his head averted, and aimed and threw. The ball of snow spattered like a ripe fruit against the side of the jeep. Waterford looked round, brushed some snow from his sleeve, and tossed his head. He appeared as if he might be amused. Davenhill walked towards him. The white gouge in the trunk of a tree almost slipped his gaze.
Then he went back to it.
'Waterford,' he called.
'My mother says I can't come out to play,' Waterford replied.
'Look at this,' Davenhill said firmly, already moving to another tree. A hole in the trunk, a piece of bark plucked away when something was removed. 'Where are we on the map, Waterford?' he asked, his voice still uninflected with excitement. He did not understand, as he moved from tree to tree, what the spike-marks might be. But understood they were man-made, and recent. Snow had been brushed from the places where the wind had fixed it, as if by heavy curtains or a large gloved hand.
Waterford said, close beside him: 'The forest is deeper here — begins to stretch for a couple of miles, maybe more, either side of the road. Trees are thicker, too.'
'What does it mean?' Davenhill said caustically.
'Not much,' Waterford said quietly. 'Perhaps the fixing-points for camouflage nets.'
Davenhill looked at him. 'What?'
'Maybe. But maybe not Russian, anyway. The Finns do have an army, you know.' Davenhill suspected Waterford's habitual sarcasm, but his face was expressionless — except for a thoughtful frown as he peered at the gouge in the tree. Then he bent down, and brushed at the snow, disturbing it.
