Red Anger (20 page)

‘You tell I what un was or I’ll set the beasts on ’ee. Coom, me beauties!’ I called. ‘Coom! Coom!’

It must have been near enough to the farmer’s feeding call, for those splendid, obliging bullocks put their heads down and their tails up and came.

‘I’ll shoot,’ he warned me, getting back on the roller.

‘What with?’

He pulled out an automatic—more, I think, to show me that he was armed than with any intention of blazing away at Red Devons.

‘Got a licence for that there?’ I asked.

‘I don’t need a licence. I’m working with your police, I tell you. Ever heard of the CIA?’

I had, but as hardly more than a communist’s bogeyman. At my college we had to endure weekly lectures on international affairs. I remembered one of the pundits telling us of the incredible
cavortings of the CIA in Latin America which, he said, had been more forceful propaganda for socialism than anything the U.S.S.R. had thought up. At the time it sounded to me more like a typically
Romanian dig at the Russians than a statement of fact.

This fellow, however, was no American and I told him so.

‘They train British to do the job for them here.’

‘Duty, like?’

‘Duty.’

‘Communists and such?’

‘And such! And plenty of them.’

‘Well, we ain’t got none ’ere. And if they socialists want my vote they must raise the milk prices. But I’ll ’elp ’ee.’

‘How far does your land go?’ he asked.

‘Down to top o’ creek.’

‘Are you out much after dark?’

‘I ain’t out aafter dark but before light I am. And a good thing too, with ’ee muckin’ about on me land and threatenin’ to shoot me beasts.’

He said he never meant to, that the gun was just for personal protection. By God, I was enjoying myself!

‘Protection ’gin who?’

‘Have you come across any foreigner round here, speaking broken English?’

‘What’s ’is name?’

‘Ionel Petrescu. Sometimes called Willie.’

‘Two other fellas was aaskin’ about ’im some time back. What do ’ee want ’im for? ’E can’t ’elp bein’ a furriner.’

‘When I tell you that he came off the Russian trawler fleet, you’ll guess what we want him for.’

‘Anchor ’em in Goodshelter Creek, like? Not enough waater!’

‘Enough for a small boat at night. Did you ever hear of Alwyn Rory?’

‘’Im that let the spy go?’

‘He knows this coast. I wouldn’t be surprised if he escaped from here.’

‘Naa! They was arl aafter un, but didn’ find un.’

‘What about his aunt and her daughter? Ever see them here?’

‘Mrs. ’illiard? Ah, I’d like to see un ’ere, but ’tis out of ’er country, ’ard-workin’ pack she’s got and they foxes are killin’ of my
lambs. What’s wrong with daughter? Lives in London, don’t she?’

‘She rode down to the creek last night and her horse is still there. What do you think she’s up to?’

‘Same as the rest of ’em. Meetin’ ’er sweet’eart. Where be to if I let ’ee go?’

‘Off to Plymouth.’

‘Comin’ again?’

‘If I do, there’ll be more than one of us.’

‘Not on my land there won’t.’

‘Ten quid any use to you?’

‘I’ll ’ave no Americans frittin’ me beasts like they does on the flicks. I’ll set the police on ’em, I will!’

‘I’ll make it twenty if you move your cattle out of the valley and keep your mouth shut.’

‘’And it over, mister, and we’ll shake on it.’

A generous lot, the CIA agents! That made seventy altogether which I’d had off this chap and Marghiloman. I pocketed his twenty and led him to the gate followed by the ferocious herd. He
said he had a bicycle up on the main road, so I gave him such bucolic and complicated directions how to reach it that he would never suspect I hadn’t the least idea how to reach it
myself.

I rejoined my darling Tessa and sent her back alone to recover her mare in case my benefactor should catch a glimpse of us together. It was now full dawn; one of Alwyn’s peepholes ought to
allow him to see her riding openly home up the Cousin’s Cross track. He could infer that something had gone wrong but that there was no immediate danger.

We arranged that Eudora should meet me on the bracken path about midday. I could walk there openly. The police had probably never heard of Ionel Petrescu and certainly didn’t want him. The
CIA appeared to have fallen back for reorganisation. I had to admit that the instinct proper to very experienced crooks had led them correctly, though starting from preposterous evidence. Petrescu
could afford to laugh at them—or would have done if not too indignant to laugh—but they were dangerously close to the bigger, far more triumphant capture of the traitor whom they
believed to be in Moscow. It was going to be difficult to extricate him, and what to do with Rachel was beyond me.

Eudora was tucked away off the path with some very welcome lunch, her pile of white hair showing among the bracken like the scut of a giant rabbit. She said that she had heard as much of my
story as I had had time to tell Tessa and now wanted the rest of it. Tessa herself was busy at the house making some essential preparations for Alwyn’s escape.

When she had got it all from me, expanded and clarified by her acute questions, she was appalled. My own reaction was British indignation mixed with a Romanian tolerance of normal government
iniquities, but hers was cold anger at this secret interference by her country of birth in the affairs of her country by adoption. That Tessa should have attracted suspicion did not surprise her;
it was too much to expect such an earnest and romantic Agency to understand the contempt with which MI5 regarded parlour revolutionaries. As for me, she understood both her countries well enough to
guess at what happened. MI5 had told their solemn allies that I was of no importance and had not swum ashore from any fishing fleet, skating over my long and unusual life story which alone could
explain the whole thing. And they were dead certain to have been too professionally mysterious, impatient and therefore not believed.

‘But me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Still little violent Eudora, the scourge of Wall Street and the FBI! Willie, let’s sell my story to the papers!
I was Stalin’s
Mistress
—how’s that for a title? What would they think of it here in Devon?’

‘The joke of the century if it wasn’t for Alwyn. But as it is …’

‘As it is, you press a button in the White House and up comes some smirking, fat-bellied bloodhound with a gun in his pants and Eudora’s file all alone on a tea trolley. Willie,
listen to me! Sometimes my Puritan ancestors speak through me! In my day America was terrified lest the masses should be corrupted by communism. And what has happened? It’s not the masses but
the governing class which has been corrupted. The lying of the State—straight from Russia! Conform or be suspected—straight from Russia! The end justifies any means. That’s an old
one, but where did the CIA get it from? Straight from Russia, and the KGB at that! The threat—well, it exists all right, but you meet it proudly with the morals of long civilisation not with
those of the scum of the earth. By God, they are worse than Franco! I’ll bet you that if I went back to Spain he’d ask me to a party and talk horses with me like a Christian gentleman
and wouldn’t even have me searched before I came in.’

I was left gasping by this tirade. If that was the fire and splendour of Eudora’s youth, there must have been a whole cabinet of files on her, not one.

‘And has it occurred to you,’ she went on, ‘that my Kill-a-Commie-for-Christ compatriots will have found out by this afternoon that you were not the nineteenth century farmer
you pretended to be, which wouldn’t have taken in anyone except a nice, clean American boy or some bloody fascist from Surbiton recruited to throw the money around with a nice, clean English
accent?’

‘You think they won’t believe him, Mrs. Hilliard?’

‘I am quite sure of it, Willie. That gang of arrogant thugs is efficient and somebody is talking to the real owner of those bullocks right now. I have to get Alwyn away in broad daylight.
And by the grace of God the South Devon Agricultural Show is tomorrow!’

I waited for her to develop that obscure remark, but got no explanation. She began packing up the picnic basket and looked me over severely.

‘Willie, daughters do their best to deceive their mothers but they make the mistake of trying too hard.’

‘Yes, Mrs. Hilliard.’

‘Yous could have drawn off that skeezicks of the capitalist KGB and let her ride home instead of staying out all night.’

‘Possibly, Mrs. Hilliard.’

‘Are you aware that she is a girl of decided character, and when she knows what she wants she’ll take it?’

‘More or less, Mrs. Hilliard.’

‘Well, don’t let yourself be bullied like that Tommy Bostock. And another thing, Willie! Aren’t you supposed to be an agent of the KGB?’

My mouth was full of rabbit and pigeon pie. I mumbled unhappily that yes, in a sense I was, expecting to be on the receiving end of more of her invective. I did not realize that this accusation
was a complete and deliberate change of subject.

‘Well, here’s their little friend Rachel disappeared. Alwyn’s whereabouts is unknown, but he’s probably not far off. Ionel Petrescu is on the spot ready to do anything
for five hundred quid. If I were running the KGB, which,’ she added savagely, ‘I should sometimes enjoy, I’d get in touch with him pronto.’

I objected that it was only thirty-six hours since Rachel’s post-graduate partner bolted, and he was going to report that the Customs had nearly caught them. The yacht’s master could
only say how the operation failed and that he had got clear away without being questioned.

‘Which gives you just time to vanish before the KGB joins the CIA in wanting to put you through the hoops, Willie. Don’t bother about leaving Tessa and me to face the music!
We’re sweet innocents. We have never heard of Alwyn since he escaped to Russia. So there’s no music to face provided he isn’t caught.’

That was a very big ‘provided’. I pointed out that I was the only person concerned in whom British security had no interest—which could be invaluable—and that she and
Tessa needed help to get Alwyn away. I added a comment on what the CIA and KGB could go and do to themselves.

‘Willie, we are not in the hunting field. But if that’s the way you feel—can you ride?’

‘No, I never have.’

‘Well, you’re going to, and side saddle. And you’ve brought it on yourself.’

We went separately down the hill: she to the house, I after a safe interval to John’s cottage. Soon she turned up carrying a vast quantity of dark blue cloth, two top hats and two
veils.

‘We’re getting Alwyn out now,’ she said. ‘It’s one hell of a risk. I’m just gambling that we react quicker than the Great Powers.’

‘But the tide is high.’

‘And right for an afternoon swim. So long as he can slip into the water unobserved, he can cross the creek and no one will think anything of it. Now take off everything but your shirt and
underpants and ma will dress the blushing bride.’

They were two riding habits she had brought which had belonged to the well-built Mrs. Rory, Alwyn’s mother. She was relieved to find that mine had to be padded out with a cushion, and so
the other should not be far out for the broader Alwyn. Top hat, veil and John’s riding boots completed the costume. I fell over the immense skirt as soon as I moved and she showed me how to
gather it up in one hand. Then she made me sit down while she painted and powdered me like a dockside whore.

‘Now, Willie, pay attention! You and Alwyn are going to the South Devon Agricultural Show where you have entered for the Ladies’ Hunters. I daren’t go with you. If I’m
spotted, it could give the game away. So you’re on your own except for my guardian angel. Alwyn can sing falsetto. Let him do the talking if any. You don’t speak English at all. You can
give girlish squeaks in a foreign language if you like. I think you both should be obscure foreigners. Visiting Arabs perhaps. No, they’d have Arab horses. Make it Persian noblewomen! Cousins
of the Shah. Mother and daughter. You still look a bit masculine under your veil, Willie, but never mind that! I guess they have wrong hormones in Persia like anywhere else.’

Speed and decision—that was Eudora, and age had not slowed her down. I have been told that she was too impulsive to be a good Master of Foxhounds, but for her opponents in Spain and
America she must have been fast and elusive as a fly. I’ll bet that file on the tea trolley was more full of attempts to swat her than any actual connection with the target.

Tessa and John had gone ahead two hours earlier with the horses. We loaded the car with Alwyn’s habit and two side saddles, and at the last moment I remembered scissors and a razor for his
beard. Then we shot through Molesworthy and twenty minutes later left the car in the usual screened parking place. Nobody was about. Eudora was prepared to bluff it out if anyone was. All she
dreaded at this point was the police.

During the weeks which Alwyn had spent in the derelict she had worked out a fairly safe method of communication. First she showed herself on the foreshore, her unmistakable figure dreamily
enjoying sunshine on water which reflected the valley green in its own deeper green. As soon as she had given Alwyn time to notice her and made sure that no casual passer-by was immediately
opposite, she retreated into a gap between bushes and hoisted a notice in large letters, black on green. Her message was SWIM NOW.

Meanwhile she sent me up the slope where I found the horses in a clearing, Tessa giggling and John’s grin splitting his face; they had been watching my progress with that damned skirt in
both hands. When we had fetched the side saddles and all other necessaries from the car they put me on Tessa’s quiet mare and arranged my flow of cloth, assuring me that for a beginner side
saddle was much safer than riding astride. So long as I kept my right leg over the pommel and my left under the third pommel I could not fall off. It did indeed seem impossible provided the mare
herself did not fall. How to unlock myself then was beyond me.

Always walk, they told me, and concentrate on keeping the hands low and the body upright; then if I passed anyone at all knowledgeable I would not look utterly ignorant. In an emergency I was
not to trot, which I should find vilely uncomfortable, but canter. They showed me how to communicate with the unfortunate animal—the aids, they called them—but warned me not to try to
be too clever. I could trust my horse to do whatever Alwyn’s did. I should also remember that I would have the hell of a job re-mounting without help, let alone arranging my skirt.