The Bear's Tears

turned his head so that he could watch the door, so much had Shelley's danger worked on him. The door remained shut. No smoke billowed fom the fire. The breathing went on for a few moments, then: 'Who is that?'

Hyde did not recognise the voice. He held his breath. In his mind, the seconds ticked away. He had been on the telephone for almost twenty minutes arguing with Shelley. Ros was still protesting somewhere in the background. The man who had spoken to him demanded silence.

'Who is that?' he repeated, the softness gone from his tone.

Twenty minutes — all meaningless now. Shelley had been cut off from him, would be taken into custody, interrogated. There might even be evidence in the flat to suggest Shelley's scheme — he couldn't have planned it without maps, notes.

Then the voice said, 'You're interested in a holiday in Czechoslovakia, I gather.' There was self- congratulation in the voice, and Hyde's breath exploded. 'Ah,' the voice said. 'Who is it?'

Shelley had had maps, notes — how much for God's sake — how much? Enough to kill his agent?

He'd called Shelley, Shelley had rung back when Hyde ran out of coins. Now, Shelley was under arrest, and they might even guess it was him on the other end of the line…

'Everything's down the pan,' he heard Shelley announce clearly. His voice sounded hopeless, then Hyde sensed the message in the resignation. Shelley had got rid of almost everything, then…

He clattered the telephone onto its rest, hurting his raw hand, and left the cubicle swiftly. The smoke billowed out from the log fire as he opened the door then slammed it behind him.

The night was cloudy, the moon obscured. The temperature chilled him and he began to walk back towards the car, which he had parked by the bridge, leaving Margaret in the passenger seat. He began to jog slowly for comfort, for the illusion of fitness and freedom, for the paramount illusion of escape. He was enraged with the anger of a trapped animal.

There was nothing he could do except follow Shelley's plan, knowing that, at each turn of the path, they might be there ahead of him, waiting.

He reached the car, startling Margaret as he dragged open the door, climbed heavily into the seat, breathing hard, then slammed the door. He ignored his protesting burns. He glared at her almost wildly, malevolently.

'What does he say?' she asked in an apologetic but firm voice. She had applied some fresh make-up and looked younger. Hyde, however, saw only a greater competence which at once disappeared beneath his stylised view of her as an inconvenience; a dangerous liability.

'Who — Shelley?' She nodded, 'He's just been fucking well arrested — that's the message from London! All right now? You've bloody done for everyone now! Satisfied?'

Even though the movement was awkward, and the blow without real force, Margaret slapped Hyde across the face. 'Don't speak to me like that!' she shouted, a lock of hair falling free across her pale forehead. Anger did not make her beautiful in the lights of an approaching car, only narrow-faced and dangerous. 'Stop blaming me for everything!' she added when the car had passed them. 'Well, did he talk to William?'

'Your esteemed godfather is in Washington for a few days. Just our bloody luck!' His hands banged the dashboard shelf heavily. He winced at the pain. 'Not even you can talk to him at the moment,' he added.

'Blast…' she murmured, staring through the windscreen back towards the hidden house where, for all she knew, her husband might be dying.

Yes, Hyde said to himself. I've already accepted it. It's happened somewhere between the pub and here. He looked carefully, appraisingly at Margaret Massinger. Her perfume was seductively inappropriate in the tense atmosphere of the car. 'What state are you in?' he asked bluntly.

'All right — why?' she retorted, turning her face to him. 'Fine.'

'I — have to find somewhere to leave you… somewhere safe. You'll be on your own, maybe for a few days.' He, too, looked towards the trees that masked the house. Go on, he thought — volunteer.

'Why?' she asked, again staring through the windscreen.

'Something that may work — might help. Shelley's option. I'll have to try it now.'

'And I'd obviously be in the way,' she observed. Then she added: 'But what about this place? If everyone's — confined, then who will you have watching the house?'

Good, he thought. 'There isn't anyone,' he said.

'But they could — could move them,' she said fearfully.

'Maybe.'

She was silent for a few moments, and then, after nodding decisively to herself, she said: 'Then get me a camera, one that takes pictures night and day, and give me this car and find me an anonymous hotel…' She had been looking through the windscreen until that point, and now she turned to him. '… and I'll get you proof that they're in there.'

'You're on,' he said, surprising her.

'You don't object?'

'You're the only girl in the world, right now. We are the entire army. So—' He switched on the ignition. Then he looked very levelly at her. 'Don't get caught,' he instructed. 'If they try moving either or both of them, or there are comings and goings, then get it on film. And make Sir Bloody William listen to you! Even if he's in Timbuctoo, get hold of him and tell him everything you've seen and photographed. Then pray he can stop it before it's too late. If you can't get through to him and can't persuade him to listen to you — you can tail the car they're in until it's pushed over a cliff!'

Margaret's face was unnaturally still as she struggled to control her emotions. She nodded violently, decisively.

'All right,' she said, then more firmly: 'All right.'

PART THREE GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE

Our better part remains

To work in close design by fraud or guile

What force effected not.

— Milton: Paradise Lost, Bk.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: No Country for Old Men

Hyde emerged from the low wooden hut, closing the cover of his Austrian passport on the weekend visa which allowed him entry into Czechoslovakia. Immediately, his eyes sought, and found, the hired Ford and the fur- coated woman standing beside it. He tapped his cold cheek with his passport, then descended the steps towards a dirty, grey Volkswagen Beetle, its roof-rack displaying skis and ski-sticks. Manfred Richer, Hyde's cover-name, was going ski-ing at one of the resorts in the Little Carpathians, north of Bratislava. There were at least a dozen other cars displaying skis in the queue to cross the border at Petrzalka, on the main autobahn between Vienna and Bratislava.

And yet he fought to calm his breathing — sending up little grey, cold puffs of air like distress signals — as he watched Margaret Massinger climb into the Ford, reverse, turn, and head back towards Vienna. He had no sense of her danger, only of his own. He glared at the retreating Ford, then turned his head to stare balefully at the red and white pole and the grey, urgent river beyond.

And the city beyond the river and the bridge. Inside Czechoslovakia.

You've crossed borders before, he told himself as he massaged his gloved hands slowly together. The