delusion for the dying man, drugged by his wound. 'You're right, sir — peasants, all of them.'
There was a long silence, then he heard Petrunin's remote, quiet voice. 'You want to know, don't you?' he said. 'Hyde? You're here to find out — aren't you?'
'Yes,' Hyde could not help admitting. Somehow, the proximity of Petrunin's death disarmed him.
Petrunin laughed; coughed, so that Hyde plucked up the piece of cloth at once; continued to laugh. His amusement seemed as deep as his bitterness, as deep as his inhumanity.
'Why not?' he said finally. 'Why not?' Then, after a long pause: 'Why not indeed?'
Hyde glanced up at the overhang of the rock as if at the sky. His hands clenched at his sides with the relief of tension.
'It had to be your idea,' he said. 'So bloody devious.'
'You didn't know — you found out, but you didn't guess?'
'No.'
'Good. But yes, it was my idea. I created
'Why?'
'Why? Because the time was right, that's why. Aubrey was head of the service — the time was right. For everyone in Moscow Centre, the time was right. And sweet…' The tone of Petrunin's voice was thin and faint, like the distant sounds of a boy treble rising from a hidden choir. Unearthly. Yet there was a satisfaction that even his closeness to death could not diminish. His scheme had ended Aubrey's career in disgrace. Petrunin's revenge was complete. The high faint tone of the voice was like a long amen. Petrunin seemed at peace.
'But — just for revenge? You created it just for Aubrey's disgrace?' Hyde's words resonated with disappointment.
'Not Aubrey — sweet, though. Anyone. The Director-General of the time… there were other scenarios… but the best, the best belonged to Aubrey. Everything fitted… and 1946 was a bonus. Oh, I was an avid reader of Aubrey's biography. I know more about him than anyone on earth — even himself, perhaps. Sweet…'
'Why? What was the real reason?' Hyde persisted. The curtain of snow seemed lighter now, almost transparent. Petrunin was silent for a long time. Hyde felt very cold, especially numbed in his left arm and shoulder. Then he realised that it was Petrunin's weight leaning against his side. The man's eyes were closed, his jaw was slack, and his lips hung open amid the stripes and stains of the smeared, dried blood. Hyde groaned aloud; almost a wail. He shook the body by the shoulders, but Petrunin's eyelids did not flicker.
Then Hyde heard the distant noise of a helicopter.
Wolfgang Zimmermann felt a curious gratitude that Margaret Massinger seemed so willing to immerse herself in the sheafs of reports and surveillance digests he had given her. He was aware that the woman was somehow keeping herself in check, as if turning her past lightly page by page, an album of old photographs to which she gave hardly any of her attention; someone else's snapshots, another person's history. She seemed determined that the work should occupy her.
Zimmermann felt that Margaret understood he did not believe Aubrey to be innocent of the death of her father. He had struggled to conceal the truth of his guesses and suspicions when she questioned him about Disch, but the woman was perceptive, keen-eyed for proof of Aubrey's guilt. He did not think he had masked his intuitions sufficiently to deceive her. He did not wish to believe Aubrey guilty, but Castleford's execution as a closet Nazi helping war criminals to escape did not contradict his knowledge of Aubrey's character. He surreptitiously glanced at his watch. They had been working for almost two hours since lunch, and Massinger still had not returned. Zimmermann almost dreaded his arrival.
Margaret saw, from the corner of her eye, Zimmermann's tiny movements as he turned his wrist to check his watch. She did not look up. Paul — what had Paul learned? Was he afraid to come back? Did he know—? She ground her teeth, certain that the noise was audible, and pressed all thought of her father into the back of her mind. Most of the time — especially whenever she reminded herself of the danger that threatened Paul — she was able to believe that concern over the truth of her father's death had become less important to her. But, at moments when she was off-guard, as when Zimmermann consulted his watch, it leapt at her with unabated strength. Yet she had to suppress it, had to—
'I — excuse me, Wolf…' Zimmermann looked up and smiled. Her German was grammatical, stiff, well- learned, and recently unused. 'I–I've made a list of what you could call — absences without leave during the period from February to April '74. There are a lot of them.'
She stretched forward, arm extended. Zimmermann, too, leaned towards the coffee-table, and took the sheet of notepaper. He inspected it, nodding and shaking his head in turn. Then he looked up.
'I agree. It is a poor comment on the protection we offered our guests. Yes, I'm afraid there was a great deal of time unaccounted for by SIS personnel during those weeks.' He sighed. 'A pity — whether we can check very much of it after so much time, I'm not sure.' He pondered, then asked: 'Do you detect a pattern here?'
Margaret shook her head. 'Some were greater offenders than others — I've starred their names. Mostly night-times are unaccounted for.' She smiled. 'Might it mean anything?'
'Possibly. We must try.'
'And you? Have you found anything?' Her gaze was direct, almost fierce. Guiltily, he glanced down at the heap of files balanced on his lap. He had kept Aubrey's material for his own examination — his movements, contacts, debriefing, subsequent debriefmgs of those assigned to his protection from the BfV. In it, as he had expected, he had found nothing. He shook his head gently, wisely. Margaret's features pursed at the patronising mannerism.
'No, I have not. I did not expect to,' Zimmermann said coldly in response to her expression. The woman's suspicions were suddenly irritating, stupid. 'What may or may not have happened in 1946 has nothing to do with 1974, or with now,' he said pedantically. 'I am certain of that. There is nothing here to link Aubrey with Guillaume or anyone else.'
'Do you say that only because you are in his debt, Herr Zimmermann?'
'I do not,' he replied angrily. 'I am in his debt, greatly so. That is true. But it is not true to make it an accusation. Do you forget that you and your husband are perhaps both in danger? He certainly is. The man is here somewhere, in this maze, in all this old paper. Your father is dead — he had been dead for almost forty years… your husband is alive.'
Margaret's face had reddened. She clenched her hands in her lap. 'You don't have to lecture me, Herr Zimmermann.'
'My apologies.'
'I–I'm sorry…it — it's just that it's so hard to help the man who might have killed my father—!'
'Then help your husband!'
'Very well! What do you want me to do?'
Zimmermann stood up, clutching the sheaf of files in both hands. He threw them onto the sofa beside her. 'Here! You think that man killed your father — you find something against him. I can't! The reason I can't is that there is nothing to find.' Zimmermann was visibly trembling as he stood in front of her. She confronted a passion for truth as fierce as her own.
She disregarded the files on Aubrey. 'I'm sorry — I'll carry on with — with my own work, here…'
'As you wish,' Zimmermann observed coldly, turning away from her and walking to the window. The snow had stopped, but more threatened from the heavy sky. Zimmermann was angry with himself for losing his temper. Margaret Massinger was under a great strain.
He almost turned to apologise, but could not. Better to leave her, for the moment, to recover herself. He heard her shuffling through papers, and knew that she would not now look, even glance, at the Aubrey material. In a moment, he should get back to it—
Where was Massinger?
He prevented himself from looking once more at his watch. It was already beginning to get dark outside. The barges were like long black slugs on the grey path of the Rhine. No, there was one with washing hung out even in this dreary, freezing weather — a line of it like naval signals of greeting or distress.
Where was Massinger?
