The Bear's Tears

had been a long time before he shook the tail. It was Bedlam. He had volunteered his own incarceration in this insane, dangerous situation.

Massinger entered the museum's doors in search of the photocopier in the Reference Library. In the moment of his disappearing, he was the image of the historian he really was. He fitted the place, would be anonymous and unregarded inside its doors. Yet he was old, he limped… he wasn't an agent, a professional.

Angrily, Shelley started and revved the car's engine. He paused for a few moments, foot hard down as if receiving the engine's determination into his body. He consciously had to use the gears, force himself to drive back towards the gates and Brook Drive. He had to make himself expose the car, leave it parked in the street so that his tail might pick it up again. He had to make himself want to see his tail.

He parked the car and left it, re-entering the Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park towards the museum. He unfolded his copy of The Times on a cold, damp bench and sat on the newspaper. The chill struck through his overcoat and the trousers of his grey suit. He slid into a lounging position, his BMW visible through the railings of the park, and considered Paul Massinger.

Was he frightened, like himself? Frightened and old and weak like Aubrey? The huge weight of class, of social context, of his marriage and friendships. Massinger could lose patronage, friendship of a powerful, beneficial kind — even his identity. He could lose his wife because Aubrey was presumed to have betrayed her father. Shelley, too, could lose everything, take the same losses — his own marriage apart — if he continued this investment in Aubrey's cause.

He wanted to walk away from it. He saw a red Vauxhall almost immediately, hadn't really lost them, then. He feared that Massinger's present mood of resolution could not last and he would be left holding the grenade. Massinger vacillated, saw round things, into and through them. The red Vauxhall passed the gates, wrong car, then. His breath sighed smokily into the cold air. It was possible that Massinger was doing no more than marking time, making the appearance of an effort simply to assuage guilt and for friendship's sake — as he was himself…? Just doing a little bit, looking good, then dropping Aubrey like a live coal when things got rough.

He kicked at a stone in self-disgust. It narrowly missed a pigeon, which fluttered a few feet then settled to inspect the gravel once more.

The red Vauxhall was coming back, slowly. It stopped outside the gates. Shelley drew in his long legs, hunching into the cover of a bush growing beside the bench. He'd first spotted the red car as he crossed Waterloo Bridge, the Vivaldi on the cassette suddenly becoming more chilly, echoing coldly in a vacuous acoustic. He'd tried to shake the Vauxhall through the narrow, terraced, ugly Lambeth and Southwark streets, and then thought he had lost it after he had turned into the coalyard amid the blackened lorries. Now he suspected that there had been two cars, and a radio link.

He watched the red Vauxhall. A man in an overcoat — who? — got out and crossed to inspect the BMW. Almost at once, he turned and nodded to his driver. Then the passenger returned to the Vauxhall, climbed in, and the car pulled away, leaving the smoke of its exhaust to disperse in the chill, windless air. Shelley listened to its engine note retreat, slow, louden, and then stop. Parked. They would wait — who would wait? He shivered.

He had to get the file back to Century House — it was his most urgent priority — because the JIC meeting under Sir William's chairmanship scheduled for tomorrow had been brought forward to that afternoon. Shelley had been caught on the hop.

Who, in the red car who …?

MI5, SIS, KGB…?

He did not know. His body felt feverishly warm beneath his jacket and overcoat. When he had the file back, and had returned to his office, that would be that, wouldn't it? No more need for red Vauxhalls, no more need…

His nose would be clean. Very clean. Twelve-twenty. Come on, Massinger, come on…

There was weakness in Massinger, weakness in himself, too, for that matter. Weakness of the same kind, like cracks hidden behind heavy wallpaper, cracks that went down to the foundations and boded trouble.

Blue Cortina -

Massinger's blue Cortina, his tail—?

The blue Cortina stopped outside the BMW, then pulled forward and away. Shelley shivered violently and stood up, rubbing his arms and the backs of his thighs. He gazed towards the fasade of the War Museum almost with longing. There was no one on the steps. He crunched along the gravel, hands thrust into his pockets. They had him now. Perhaps they did not know why he had met Massinger — perhaps they had not followed the American… But they had him. He was under suspicion, under surveillance. His breath smoked around his head like a gauzy hood. He was breathing harshly, as if afraid or spent. He hadn't recognised any of the faces in the two cars, which meant they were more likely to be MI5 than KGB — Babbington's troops. They had him, then.

Massinger emerged from the doors as he reached the top of the steps. Massinger turned to look back over the railings. He could distinguish the red Vauxhall, but there was no sign of the blue Cortina.

'Finished?' he asked eagerly.

'My God — yes, I've finished.' Shelley snatched the buff envelope which contained the Teardrop transcript, its pages protected by stiff polythene. 'I was careful, Peter. No one will realise it's been copied.' He smiled, but some other emotion removed the expression from his lips almost at once. 'I — just glances, you know. It's incredible. Even talking to Aubrey didn't prepare me for it. Nearly forty years of treachery documented there. Aubrey's being turned in 1946, being woken from his long sleep two years ago, the information he's passed, his promotion and the prospects and plans — dismantling SIS, turning it into… my God, it's so — so convincing!'

'Especially the last two years.'

'But Hyde was there — most of the time he was there.'

'And Aubrey often went off by myself — unlogged. Or he wasn't wired for sound, or he didn't make full reports of his contacts. Who could defend him adequately against this?' Shelley's face was set in a stony, lifeless expression. To Massinger, he looked young, afraid, vulnerable — unreliable.

'Any activity?' he asked, gesturing towards Brook Drive with the gloves he held in one hand.

'The Vauxhall's back with me,' Shelley muttered, then he burst out: 'Christ, I'm shit-scared at having anything to do with this!'

'What do we do?'

'Walk. I — can collect the car later. Lambeth's the nearest tube station in the other direction. OK?'

'OK. Who are they?'

'I — don't know.'

'You suspect—?'

'Babbington's people.'

'Damn — you're sure they're not KGB?'

'Not sure — not sure they are, either. Veering towards MI5.' Shelley's voice was almost inaudible above the crunching of their footsteps on the gravel.

'I thought a great deal about this last night,' Massinger murmured as they passed out of the gates, heading towards the Kennington Road. Massinger recollected Margaret's quietly-breathing form next to him throughout the night. The awareness of it was vivid, almost a physical sensation against his arm and side. The memory pained him deeply. He turned his head, but no red car appeared to be moving.

'And—?' Shelley replied reluctantly, listening to the older man's hard breathing and the tap of his stick on the pavement. Both noises were dispiriting.

'I spoke to Pavel Koslov, the KGB Rezident, last evening.'

'Where?'

'He was at the flat. A social occasion.'

'And?'

They passed an eighteenth-century house with a grand door and an iron balcony to the first and second floors. It appeared aloofly unaware of the neighbouring launderette and Indian restaurant. Shelley seemed distracted by the odours of Tandoori cooking.