laconic faces, prevented a sigh, but knew that the time of recrimination had once more arrived. He slipped from the bed and hoped she would not wake.
He sat cross-legged on a padded chair. He could taste the onions from the hot-dog one of the boys had pressed upon him, unable himself to finish it. He belched silently behind his clenched hand. Yes, onions — it recurred more strongly than the wine, than dinner, than the vodka. It was more persistent than the taste of the perfume from her neck and breasts on his tongue and lips.
Onions — recrimination. Both brought back the park and the metro station and the other reminders of her treachery that had assailed him at the ticket-counter so that the clerk's face had changed from puzzlement to nerves before he had recollected himself sufficiently to buy the tickets.
Now, recrimination, guilt, fear all returned like some emotional malaria as she slept. It was an illness which never left him, only remained dormant.
He leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist, studying her.
He lived on the verge of a precipice. He had done so ever since the momentary looks of guilt and fear he had noticed wheri he had answered unexpected telephone calls, looks which had vanished as soon as he put down the receiver and shrugged. And, he reminded himself, he always put it down with the sense that he had been speaking to an American who spoke good but very formal Russian.
He had lived on the cliff edge ever since he began to follow her himself. Ever since he witnessed her make covert contact wih a man who might have been her Case Officer. Ever since he had tailed that Case Officer to a known CIA safe house…
He had been on the edge for six, almost seven months -
She stirred, alarming him, as if surprised in some deep disloyalty of his own. She turned onto her back but did not wake. Her flattened breasts were revealed as her unconscious hand pushed the bedclothes down. It was a strangely erotic exposure; crudely inviting. He studied her unlined, sleeping face; unlined except where the brow was creased even while she slept. He felt tears prick his eyes, and because he could never bring himself to even begin to tell her that he knew, that he wanted to help…
Recrimination, palpable as the taste of onions -
As soon as he had moved into her apartment, he had looked for bugs. He had spent the whole of that moving day checking the telephone, pictures, walls, floorboards, cupboards, wardrobes, bed. His relief at finding no traces of surveillance or bugging had overwhelmed him. As soon as he had straightened from pushing back the last corner of fitted carpet, he had had to rush to the bathroom and vomit into the avocado-coloured toilet.
For weeks after that he had been unable to rest until he had checked the files, checked her office, followed her to discover whether anyone else was following her. He had become like a jealous lover, or like the private investigator such a lover might have employed.
Like a spy -
Gradually, he came to believe that it was only he who knew. There was no evidence, no one was gathering information, no one even suspected.
What she supplied was not state secrets, it was little more than high-grade gossip. Details of the Soviet Union's social services, housing programmes, illnesses, alcoholism — the temperature of Soviet society — which would be useful to them in building their total picture of the Soviet state. Promotions inside the Secretariat and the Politburo and the ministries, glimpses of the working or stumblings of the Soviet economy, matters of that kind -
Almost not like spying at all. Little more than indiscreet gossip, careless talk which was overheard by strangers.
Priabin could make himself believe that. She was not an important agent, hardly an agent at all. Revenge, disgust with the system that preferred weapons to a wheelchair, had made her do it, were her motives. He could understand that. How much the suicide of her husband, in unexplained circumstances years before she met Baranovich and his damned wheelchair, had to do with it, he had no idea. He preferred the motive of revenge. It gave her a certain honest dignity.
Recrimination. He was certain she did not suspect he knew. He blamed, even hated himself for not telling her, for not weaning her away from the addiction, for not saving her. But he dare not risk losing her…
He stood up and crossed the room swiftly to kneel by the bed. Very gently, he kissed each flattened breast, each erect nipple. Then he continued to kneel, as if partaking in a further religious ceremony. He could not let her go, but he could not let her be discovered. He must speak to her -
He could never admit his knowledge -
Angrily, he stood up. She stirred and moaned lightly, half-turning away from him. The glow of the lamp fell on the fine down along her arm. He watched, then walked swiftly into the bathroom. He did not switch on the light because he had no wish to see himself in the long, bevelled mirror. Instead, he fumbled in the poor light that came from the open doorway, found a glass and filled it with tepid water.
Recrimination.
But he would lose her -
His mouth was dry and the taste of onions was making him feel nauseous.
Whispering near the door, as it squeaked shut once more. Gant came awake immediately, shocked that he had dozed, making a vast effort to stop his left arm rising from the bed to display his watch. He breathed in, slowly and deeply, and listened.
Dressing change… who? He was sufficiently propped up by the pillows to see the two figures at the table without lifting his head. Starched cap, long hair tied back. The male nurse had put down his book. Gant saw him nod, then the woman began moving across his line of sight towards — his bed? — no, the bandaged patient, the mummy. Gant relaxed, and immediately the sense of isolation returned. He did not know how he had slept, or for how long. How had he been capable of sleep?
He could see the nurse's back as she bent over the second bed from his own. She had flicked on the overhead light. The mummified head murmured. It might have been a stifled groan. Gant watched crepe bandage being unrolled, stretched upwards by a slim arm in the muted light. Something glinted, and the arm fell. The mummy murmured again in a frightened tone, as if someone intended him harm. Something glinted, and clicked lightly.
More clicking, like the sound of distant hedge-clippers…
Gant felt his body tensing itself without his will. His hands curled and uncurled, his arms lifted slightly, testing their own weight. His body felt compact, less weary. Bruised, though. The drugs had worn off, leaving the pain of his brief, violent beating.
The nurse was murmuring, the mummy seemed to protest. Then her arm stretched again in the light. Then the clicking noise, and something slim and metal gleamed. And, at the moment of realisation, as his thoughts caught up with his body, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor towards the ward, and he moved.
One chance, only one…
He flicked the bedclothes away, rolled, wondered for an instant what strength he had, and then rolled across the next door bed, his right hand reaching for her arm, his body closing with her, knocking the breath out of her. Gleam of the scissors, her frightened mouth and eyes turning to him, the eyes of the mummy and the half-exposed, purple cheek and swollen mouth. Then he dragged the nurse sideways so that they did not topple on the patient, and whirled round -
'Don't — !' he yelled in Russian, feeling his legs buckle but holding the snatched scissors at the girl's throat, the blade imitating a slight downward stabbing motion. 'Don't
The male nurse was on his feet, his hand reaching into his short white coat to where a breast pocket or a shoulder holster would be. Then he was bumped forward as the doors opened behind him.
Gant recognised the man and fought off the weakness that followed his realisation of how late he had left it. He moved forward with the nurse in front of him, even as the doctor was asking what was happening and breaking off in mid-sentence as he understood.
'Over here!' yelled Gant, pushing the reluctant nurse forward. The doctor snapped on the main strip lights, which flickered and then glared on the scene. There were two plain clothed guards with him. A stretcher waited behind them; he could see it through a gap where one of the guards still held the door half-open. 'Move!' His voice
