He had telephoned, of course. Eager to establish his health and safety, she had, once worry had been assuaged, allowed their last meeting to flood back, filling the present. She had ordered him home; he had feared she might have spoken to Babbington; the gulf between them had yawned open again. He had put down the receiver with the sensation of a physical pain in his chest and a hard lump in his throat which he was unable to swallow.
'Some smoked ham, darling?' Shelley asked absently. A short, dumpy woman with a thin, moustached, grey- featured husband in tow passed them, her arms laden with the weaponlike shapes of half-a-dozen long French loaves. The tip of one of them had already broken off. She held them protectively to her ample bosom, eyeing the two trolleys malevolently. Massinger turned his aside for her to pass.
'Very well,' Alison replied, tight-lipped. She had accepted the fiction of the shopping expedition, yet her tension was evident. She appeared to blame Massinger for her situation, for Shelley's situation.
Shelley pointed at a large ham. The French delicatessen assistant flung it into a bag, twisted the neck, and then priced the item. Shelley dumped the parcel in Massinger's trolley, and seemed reluctant to leave the hanging rows of sausages, their skins crimped and wrinkled and provocative. Massinger read off the names of dozens of pates in earthenware bowls. There seemed singularly little point in the meeting, as if their tension and urgency had been separately expended and lost during their journeys to Calais, or during the past days when they had been in almost constant telephone contact.
'You think Hyde has any chance?' Shelley asked, reaching up to finger one of the dark, thick sausages. Liver, with herbs. Pate Ardennes, Massinger read automatically. Coarse. Suddenly, he did not feel hungry, because pates became pate-bread-wine and the occasion of picnics. He did not wish to remember them.
'I don't know,' he replied. 'It was some sort of chance — he had to be sent. Besides, it keeps him out of Europe at a period when he's in great danger.'
Shelley's eyes narrowed, then he nodded. 'I just don't see how—' he began.
Massinger's eyes glared. 'Neither do I!' he snapped, his Bostonian accent more pronounced, as if he wished to dissociate himself from Shelley's very English doubt. 'Hyde's a dead man if he's caught — maybe I am, too. Did you ever think of that, Peter Shelley?' His voice was an urgent, hard whisper. 'I'm laying it out for you now, just as it is. Unless Hyde and ourselves can discover who and what is behind this — behind what happened in Vienna and what's happening to Aubrey — then we'll never be safe again. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.'
Shelley's face was smooth with disquiet, youthful and somehow incapable. After a moment, he said reluctantly: 'I still can't see—'
'Look, I want Hyde to kidnap this Russian, Petrunin — I admit that. At the very least, he can be exploring the possibility. These Afghans have raided Kabul before, even the embassy. Miandad knows almost all there is to know about Petrunin — dammit, it could happen! There are moments when the man leaves Kabul, when he's vulnerable. It could happen…' Massinger's whisper tailed off into a doubt of his own. Then he shrugged off the mood, and said in a normal speaking voice: 'It could, Peter. It just could.'
'Perhaps…'
'All right — instead of that, what have you got for me? What do you think? Have you any suggestions to make — the rotten apple, I mean?'
Shelley shook his head.
'Hadn't we better keep moving?' Alison whispered fiercely, as if afraid they would become some kind of target in the next moment. Her body was curiously hunched over her daughter as she sat unconcerned, finishing the last of the chocolate. She had left fingerprints on the glass counter of the delicatessen. Massinger wondered whether Alison Shelley might want to remove them, for safety's sake.
'Yes, perhaps we should,' Massinger replied as soothingly as he could. Alison's features distorted in resentment. Bottles clinked against each other as Massinger pushed his trolley away from the counter. 'But, at least you agree that we're dealing with someone in your service who's helping the Soviets?' he said to Shelley with some asperity. Alison walked a little way ahead of them now, glancing to right and left at the shelves as if they concealed surveillance equipment. Massinger felt sorry for her, dragged into Shelley's world of perpetual mistrust.
'I have to — after your account of Vienna.'
Massinger nodded vigorously. Shelley deposited some tinned mussels in the trolley. 'Good,' Massinger said. 'There is a traitor, and he has to be a senior officer.'
'Yes…' Shelley sounded alarmed.
'It's hell for my wife,' Massinger blurted, perhaps angered by Shelley's reluctance, or because he simply could no longer ignore the imperative of his own future. He wished to be selfish at that moment.
'I'm sorry—?'
'After the whole business in '51 — being told he was murdered, the long pointless investigation, as pointless as the search for him in '46 and '47 — after all that, now to believe that Kenneth murdered him… pointed the NKVD at him, as good as killed him with his own hands…' Massinger's disconnected narrative tailed off into silence. His raincoat still smelt of damp and salt water. He felt bedraggled and defeated.
'Yes — I'm sorry,' Shelley said eventually. 'Yes, I agree with you. There is someone high up who wants Aubrey out of the way and is helping the KGB achieve their object.'
'Then, what do we do?'
'Helsinki — could you manage that? I—' Both of them looked involuntarily at Alison Shelley, a little ahead of them and in the act of rescuing a can of motor oil from her daughter's grasp. The implication was clear to Massinger. His wife was already lost to him, Shelley's was not and he would not lose her if he could prevent it.
Massinger looked at Shelley, who averted his glance, then shrugged.
'Very well,' Massinger said. 'Why Helsinki?'
They followed Alison as she turned right, then paused as she halted almost immediately and began inspecting racks of children's clothes. Her nose seemed to wrinkle with disapproval as she examined the garments, glancing time and again in her daughter's direction.
'There's someone there who might talk to us — to you, if there's anything to talk about. Phillipson used to be station chief in Helsinki, and one of Aubrey's appointments. He was always loyal to the old man. He retired six months ago. He likes Finland and the Finns, so he didn't come home. He's still there, and out of things.'
'Yes?'
'But he organised some of those meetings between Aubrey and Kapustin — the one on film, the one with the soundtrack…?' Shelley's voice was filled with temptation. They moved on again. A dress had been measured against the little girl, and found acceptable. Shelley's daughter was craning round in her seat to keep it in view.
'You mean, if there was any funny business, this Phillipson might at least have suspected it — noticed something out of the way?'
'Exactly. Oh, what about funds?'
'I'll take whatever you have. Credit cards leave traces. I haven't had time to make a transfer.'
'I brought — well, quite a bit. Petty cash, you know…'
'Good. What will you do in the meantime?'
'We need a list of possibles.'
'We do.'
'I can't get access — it'll have to be memory work. It has to be — someone on East Europe Desk doesn't it?' Shelley looked crestfallen; a youngish bank manager whose head office is seriously displeased with him.
'Or higher still,' Massinger said heavily.
'You'll come back to London, after Helsinki?'
'Yes, I think so.' Margaret intruded, and he knew that to return to London was dangerous and inevitable. 'Yes,' he sighed.
'Where will you stay?'
'Hyde's flat,' he replied without hesitation.
'It might work.'
'Hyde thinks it will — temporarily, at least.'
Alison Shelley was absentmindedly loading long French loaves into her trolley. Shelley appeared to be calculating the number of bottles of wine he might add to his present purchases without paying duty. Eventually, he reached for a claret from one of the higher shelves.
