Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

I shook my head.

'… four men, two of them in police uniforms…' As she switched the TV off, the master of ceremonies fluttered like a burned moth and collapsed, into a small blue flame that disappeared.

'St Valentine's Day Massacre,' she said. 'Al Capone.' She tore the cellophane off a packet of Kools, took one out and lit it.

'Switch it on again and ask for your ten grand.'

She walked across to the cupboard, found a new bottle of Scotch and poured herself a generous measure. This was a different Red Bancroft to the soft sweet girl I'd fallen in love with. 'Do you realize what kind of priority this investigation has got?' she said.

'Don't talk to me like I'm one of your security guards,' I said.

She drank a little of her drink, paced across the carpet and back, and then rubbed her face as if trying to decide what she wanted to say next. 'I don't know how much you've been told,' she said, which was as good a put-down as I've yet come across, 'but Mrs Bekuv is a K.G.B. officer of field rank. Did you know that?'

'No,' I admitted.

She drank some more whisky. 'You want a drink?' she asked suddenly.

'I helped myself already,' I said indicating the glass of brandy that I'd left on the side table. She nodded.

'When they realized that Bekuv had gone, and that we had him, Moscow panicked. They tried to kill him that night at the party. Then they changed their tactics. Mrs Bekuv was sent after him. Moscow sent her. She was sent to control him, to limit, monitor and modify what he told us.'

'The stabbing,' I said.

'It was good that, wasn't it?' It was as if she took pride in the expertise of her lover. 'She grabbed the sharp edge skilfully enough to cut herself, without doing too much damage to the ligaments. Then she did a couple of deep slash cuts into her coat.'

'A bad cut in the abdomen… four stitches,' I said.

This is a professional,' said Red. 'You don't get field rank in the K.G.B. if you're afraid of.the sight of blood.' She put the glass of whisky to her face and smelled it delicately as one would an expensive perfume.

'And Gerry Hart brought her out and delivered her to us.'

She looked at me with some disdain. 'Gerry Hart has been working for the Russians for at least fifteen years. He's a senior officer in the K.G.B. - you know how they give these people military ranks and medals to make them feel important.'

'So bringing Mrs Bekuv out of Russia was entirely a K.G.B. operation?'

'All the way, baby. All the way.' She tied a knot in the cord of the kimono.

'Does Mann know all this?'

'I've only known it for thirty minutes,' she said.

I heard Mrs Bekuv moving on the floor above us. I said, 'You and… her. Was that something that just happened? Or was that part of the plan?'

'It was the plan,' she said immediately. 'It was the only plan. You and Major Mann chasing here and there across the world were just diversionary. Holding Mrs Bekuv here, and turning her so that she'll break Hart's network, that was the real plan.'

I didn't argue with her; all agents are told that their contribution is the most important part of the plan. I said, 'But why not tell me?'

'We fell in love,' she said. 'You and me — there was no disguising it. At first I wanted to call off everything else but I pulled myself together, and got on with my job. It was then that I discovered the effect that our love affair was having on Mrs Bekuv.'

'You mean Mrs Bekuv was jealous of me?'

'Don't sound so incredulous. Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. She won me away from you, and she was proud of herself for doing it.'

'Well, thanks for the memory,' I said.

Red came closer to me and touched my arm. 'I loved you,' she said. 'I loved you. Remember that, won't you.'

Overhead we heard Mrs Bekuv walk across the floor. 'Just for a time I wanted out of this whole business.'

'Out of this business? Or out of that business?' I moved my head to indicate the upstairs room where Mrs Bekuv was still moving around.

'I'm still not sure,' said Red. She looked me full in the eyes and her voice was calm and level. 'Don't blame the Manns,' she said. 'They wanted the best for both of us.'

'And what was the best for both of us?'

She didn't answer. From upstairs I heard Mrs Bekuv sob bing. It was very quiet, the sort of sobbing that goes on for a long time.

'You got paint on that nice leather coat,' said Red. 'When did you do that?'

'Christmas,' I said. 'It's not paint, it's Mrs Bekuv's blood.'

I picked up the glass of brandy I'd poured, and I drank it in one gulp. Then I picked up my ten-dollar box of fudge and left.

Chapter Nineteen

After the baroque night, a rococo dawn. A boiling sky of turbulent clouds, and a sun that bored a golden tunnel right through it. It needed only a Tiepolo to paint a busty Aurora there, and surround her with naked nymphs and some improbable shepherds.

'What are you looking at?'

'You stay in bed, Professor Bekuv. The doctor says you need a complete rest.'

'This hospital food is terrible. Could you arrange for food to be sent in for me?'

That might be difficult, Professor. You are on maximum security now. The people cooking your food may not be graduates of the cordon bleu, but they are triple-star security cleared.'

'So you think someone might try to poison my food?'

I counted to ten. 'No I don't think anyone will poison your food. It's a routine precaution that always goes with maximum security… people.'

'Prisoners,' said Bekuv. 'You were going to say prisoners.'

'I was going to say patients.'

'No one tells me the truth.'

I turned to face him. I found it difficult to feel sorry for him. The breakfast of which he had complained so bitterly had been entirely eaten. He was now munching expensive black grapes from the fruit-bowl. On the other bedside table his hi-fi controls had been arranged. His condition was a tribute to modern medicine or to the circumspection of his attempt at suicide. Bekuv slotted a cassette into the player. Suddenly four giant loudspeakers, that had been arranged round his bed, filled the little hospital room with the opening bars of the Rosenkavalier waltz.

I walked to the table and switched the music down.

'I want to listen to the music,' said Bekuv. 'I am not feeling well enough to continue talking.'

I looked at him and considered all kinds of responses but I didn't use any of them. 'O.K.,' I said. I went downstairs to talk to Jonathan.

The Strauss music could still be heard. Tell me again about the suicide,' I said.

'He's in good shape, isn't he,' said Jonathan anxiously.

'Are you sure he took an overdose?'

'They pumped him dry and analysed it.'

'You'd better tell me everything that happened just before that.'

'I told you. It was the same routine as every other morning. He got up at six, when the alarm went. He took a shower, shaved and we sat down to breakfast at seven.'