He felt weak. The facades of Wilton Crescent beckoned. My God — Aubrey had almost managed to destroy everything, everything he had ever cared for, everything that gave meaning— A grey pigeon settled on the windowsill of his drawing-room. Four feet from it, on the interior wall, two original Turners hung, one above the other. They had been behind Babbington's head, early on in this business—
Now, he would possess them again. Possess Margaret, know peace.
Get out of the car.
The pigeon lifted heavily from the windowsill, gained height, seemed to become slimmer, more streamlined, rose and flew against the grey sky.
He opened the door and climbed out of the Granada with a fresher resolve. Yes, all would be well—
He locked the door and began to cross the crescent. He looked up at the window of the drawing-room. There was a face — old, rich Miss Waggoner — at one of the windows of the next flat, and then there was Margaret's face at the correct and expected window. He could not resist waving. Her hand fluttered next to her ear, then it touched her mouth as if she regretted the involuntary action and was remembering the past week. He waved again, hurrying forward, stick tapping ahead of him. He did not look down at his feet as he had become accustomed to doing, but kept his gaze on the window, on her face. Younger lover, much younger, arriving — he should have bought flowers, wished he had now that the black moments were past and he had abandoned that guilty old man.
Her eyes flickered away from him, then returned. Her mouth — he could see it quite clearly, opening into a black round O — seemed to be trying to warn him—
Noise of a car, fierce acceleration.
Noise of a car, getting nearer, some youthful, trained part of his awareness warned him.
He turned his head.
The distinct image of a dark blue Cortina — dark blue Cortina — and a stabbing, reluctant pain in his hip. Awareness of the polished handle of his stick, firmly in his grasp. Awareness of being stranded in the middle of Wilton Crescent. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten yards.
The blur of a cat racing across the road, disappearing beneath the wheels of the Cortina, not even a lurch from the car, nothing but the scream of the cat. He looked helplessly up at the round dark hole of Margaret's mouth, knowing she had begun to scream, as if expecting her in some way to help him, alter his circumstances. Then he hobbled, lurched, staggered, fell, rolled…
The Cortina's flank bounced away from the stronger coachwork of a Rolls. An oncoming small red Renault had swerved into the kerb, squashing its already blunt nose against the boot of a low sports car. Massinger lay in the gutter, blood from a graze filling his left eye. His right eye blurred with tears or sweat as he watched, almost from beneath the front wheels of the Rolls, the professional face in the Cortina. Jagged, crumpled bodywork was close enough to his face to be out of focus.
Too many people, already too many people. His hip ached infernally, as if someone had tried to wrench off his leg. His arm and shoulder were bruised against the Rolls — the silver lady had torn the sleeve of his raincoat — and he had grazed his forehead. But he was alive, and—
The professional face studied him for a moment. The moment elongated, and Massinger began to realise, foggily, that he was not safe, it was not over. The driver's window began to open, rolling down slowly, taking away the superimposition of the white fagade of his flat and leaving only the expressionless face.
A gun?
Then the scene was blocked out; someone was kneeling by the front wheel of the Rolls, between his body and the man in the Cortina. A man's knee, a neighbour's voice murmuring something shocked and solicitous. He wanted to warn the man, then felt all energy and tension drain from him as the Cortina's engine revved furiously, the tyres squealed, and the car pulled away round the curve of the crescent.
He nodded in reply to whatever the man had said. Then he could see again. He watched the neighbour's feet move away. Beyond the cramped perspective of the chassis of the Rolls, he saw the man kneel anxiously, even gravely, by the squashed form of the cat. It was the neighbour's cat, he recognised it now.
The woman who had been driving the small Renault was complaining to a gathering audience in a high, shrill, enraged voice. Massinger groaned with relief.
He looked up into Margaret's face as she touched the graze on his forehead. He grabbed feverishly at her hand, holding it to his cheek, pressing his face against her palm. He groaned again, with realisation.
'What is it — darling, what was happening…?'
He shook his head. 'Help me up, dear.' She took some of his weight. He levered himself up on the stick she handed him, jamming it like a vaulting pole into the angle of the gutter. He felt dizzy for a moment, someone unnoticed murmured an enquiry which Margaret fended off. She helped him across the pavement, up the three steps into the house. Someone else had the ground floor, a film producer hardly ever in residence, and the first and second floors belonged to Margaret — to them, he corrected himself.
He allowed his body to press against her as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Lovers, returning…
He sighed, cursed in a whisper.
'Are you hurt?' Margaret asked. 'Shall I call Dr Evans?'
He shook his head. 'No. I–I just realised that nothing's changed.'
'Oh, God—!' she breathed fiercely.
'It wasn't an accident.'
She thrust open the door of the flat. 'I — realised that,' she announced with difficulty. 'Here, take off that raincoat. I'll get some hot water and iodine. Any other damage?' She was a bluff, competent nurse; playing a role with narrow horizons for the sake of a moment's respite.
She directed him into the drawing-room. 'Have some whisky. I won't be a moment.' She pressed his hand fiercely, then released it, and disappeared into the bedroom. Massinger looked up the stairs to the second floor and his study, as if needing music more than a drink, but then he went into the drawing-room.
He clattered the decanter against the glass as he poured a large whisky. He swallowed greedily, coughed, and straightened his aching body against the sideboard. He breathed slowly and deeply a number of times.
They wouldn't let go. Shelley had been wrong, he had been wrong, to believe the illusion of escape. He knew too much, even though he knew little. He could talk. Someone, eventually, might listen.
He was safer dead.
Margaret was at his side. The iodine stung like his thoughts, bringing tears. The whisky warmed his chest and stomach. Minutes later, they were studying each other across a space of carpet, each perched on the edges of their chairs like people in a strange room, peasants who had uncomfortably inherited a palace. Margaret's hands quarrelled with each other in her lap, mirroring some internal struggle. Except for her hands, and a stray lock of blonde hair, she possessed the midday appearance of a woman of her background and wealth; groomed, confident, desirable.
But vulnerable, now, like himself.
'I — almost believe—' he began.
'What happened?' she blurted at the same moment.
Exchanged smiles turning to worry on her part, lack of resolve on his. She gestured to him to continue. Instead, he answered her question.
The smell of iodine, suggesting wounds…
'They tried to kill me.'
'Who — for God's sake, darling, who?' There was no longer any barrier between them. He had come home, but not by the route he had planned.
'I don't know. Whoever believes I know too much.'
'Do you?'
He shook his head. 'I don't think I do. I've met Hyde in Vienna, but he knew nothing except that Vienna Station, in full or in part, is working for the Russians.'
Her eyes seemed to resist the secret world for a moment, then she merely nodded. She wished to be counted in, a convert.
'Go on.'
'They tried to kill him.'
'Where is he now?'
'Afghanistan — but I don't know whether he's alive or dead.'
