The Avenue of the Dead (15 page)

That was when Lomax came through the doorway. Davina saw him standing there, reflected in the mirror, where she had been pinioned to watch her own terrified reflection. The attacker saw him seconds later.

‘Hello there,' Lomax said and launched himself from a standing spring. His body struck into them both, and Davina was hurled out of her assailant's grip. There was a crash and a splinter of glass, as the table and mirror smashed under the impact. Lomax sent the knife spinning with a savage blow to the elbow and followed with an uppercut to the jaw, which poleaxed his assailant. As he lay half-dazed on the floor the man pulled a gun out of his waist band. He didn't even have time to aim. Lomax kicked him in the throat. There was a cry and a choked gurgle as the windpipe shattered. He died while Lomax was lifting Davina and carrying her out of the room.

He let her cry for some time. When at last she quietened, he said gently, ‘You'll be all right if I leave you alone now.' It wasn't a question. She nodded, shivered once more and then was calm. ‘Yes. What are you going to do?'

‘Get rid of him. I'll drive the car downtown and leave him in it. There's nothing to connect him with us.'

‘I should have been more careful,' she whispered. ‘What on earth did you put in that toddy?'

Lomax was busy, dragging the dead man across the floor. ‘He's heavier than he looks,' he said grimly.

Davina rose to her feet. ‘I'll help,' she said. ‘Wait, while I put some clothes on.'

Davina went into the street first. It was empty. Washington still slept on a Sunday morning. Lomax pointed out the car, and gave her the keys he had fished out of the dead man's pockets.

She drove the car up to the entrance. Together they supported the body – from a distance he might have looked like a drunk, except for the gruesome way his head lolled – and loaded it into the back seat.

‘I'm coming with you,' said Davina. ‘I don't want to be left alone.'

Fifteen minutes later they boarded a bus, heading back to the apartment. Once they were inside, Davina started to shake again.

‘We were lucky,' he said. ‘He was just a bully boy with a knife. Someone they got hold of in a hurry. If he'd been a Moscow Centre man, things might have been very different. But it proves one thing. They've got Liz and they know about the diary.' He put his arm round her. ‘You were great,' he said. ‘A real trooper, helping me get rid of him. I thought you were going to faint when I brought him out.'

‘I'm not the fainting type,' Davina retorted. ‘Thank God you came back in time.'

He reached out a hand to her face, and turned it towards him. ‘I never thought I'd hear you say anything like that,' he said. ‘I never thought I'd want to do this either.'

It was a long forceful kiss. She couldn't have pushed him away if she'd wanted to. There was one flash of guilt and doubt and then her arms went round his neck and her mouth opened.

After some minutes Lomax released her. They looked at each other in silence. Then he grinned and said, ‘My God, woman, there's nothing “mousey” about you!'

‘This is a mistake. We shouldn't do this. I shouldn't anyway.'

‘Because I caught you in a weak moment? Or because of Sasanov?'

‘Because we've both got a job to do and it isn't the time or the place to start getting involved.'

‘There's no such thing as a proper time and place,' Lomax answered. ‘It happens or it doesn't. And if you're not careful I'll start talking about loving you, and then what will you do?'

‘Colin, I don't know. I've only been in love once. I don't think I could cope with anything like that again.'

‘It wouldn't be like that,' he said. ‘He was him and I'm me. It'll never be the same, but there's no reason why it can't be different.'

She got up. ‘I don't know. I'm not ready to start anything serious.' He stood with her, put both hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. ‘You will be,' he said. ‘And I'll be there. Now, as you nearly got killed for it, let's get down to work on that diary!'

It was the record of a trivial life, devoted to self-indulgence and self-presentation. Trips to the hairdresser in New York, the daily massage, the dressmaker, the lunches with other idle women, the dinners and cocktail parties, and the petulant comments that became more and more frequent as the year advanced. Edward away. Edward in Washington. Edward cancelled return. The decline of their relationship marked by underlinings and comments charting furious rows, suspicions of infidelity on his part, and the recurring theme of making up in bed. And then towards the middle of August two sentences inked and underlined. ‘
Had Edward followed. Certain there is a woman.
' Davina leaned over Colin's shoulder. He reached up and caught her hand. ‘Miserable, isn't it?' she said. ‘You find yourself sympathizing with her. She was always alone – no wonder she got suspicious.'

‘Had him followed,' Lomax remarked. ‘No record of the agency?'

‘I haven't found one,' Davina replied. ‘I checked through the address section and there wasn't anything that fitted. But there wasn't any woman, as you'll see. There, that's when it comes together – that entry in early September when she gets the agency report – what the hell did she do with that, by the way?'

‘God knows,' he muttered. ‘Fleming probably destroyed everything after she died.'

‘She followed him herself,' Davina said in a low voice. ‘What a crazy thing to do.'

The last pages were covered in writing; there were no engagements, just comments and records of Raffaella's shadowing of her husband. She had hired a car and a driver, wore dark glasses and a scarf, and trailed him during the month of September. It was a record of his lies, of appointments that never took place, of meetings with a man at the Lincoln Memorial and visits to a photographic shop. She had written the name down: Washington Cameras. He was not in the least interested in photography and had never owned a camera. She had called in herself once, and found nobody there but a middle-aged man and a girl assistant who couldn't have been the real excuse. The meetings at the Lincoln Memorial were as seemingly pointless as the visits to the camera shop. Having watched from her hired car, Raffaella had once slipped in after him among the crowds. The diary told of her certainty that he was meeting a woman there. Her jealousy had insisted on a woman, even when the private detective reported that he had never been seen with one. And from her place among the wandering crowds of tourists, Raffaella had seen her husband take a seat near the central hall, open a newspaper and sit down. After a few minutes a man sat beside him. He opened a package of sandwiches and began to eat them. Neither spoke; Edward Fleming went on reading his newspaper, the man beside him ate his sandwiches. On this particular day he had told her he was lunching with business clients in New York and would be back on the afternoon shuttle. She watched until he folded his paper, left it on the seat and moved away. From there he returned to his office on Constitution Place. That evening he described in detail his lunch at the Plaza in New York.

The diary didn't offer explanations. It recorded what she had seen and asked the same question over and over again without providing any answer – what is he doing? Is he crazy or am I – none of this makes any sense at all. He lies all the time and he sits on a seat in the Lincoln Memorial and goes to a camera shop on a Thursday. The second time she followed him to the Memorial she noticed that the same man came to eat his sandwich lunch on the seat beside him. Again Fleming left his newspaper behind. She hesitated, hiding among a group of tourists. She saw her husband disappear and then looked back at the seat. The man had finished eating. He picked up the newspaper, folded it into his coat pocket and left.

By now the diary described how Raffaella had started searching his briefcase and his desk when he was asleep. The briefcase was always locked. She stole the key one night and opened it. It was the night before he was due to go to the Lincoln Memorial again. Inside she found a folder headed ‘Research Center Wyoming Falls, Appendix D.' ‘Highly Confidential' was marked on one corner. She hadn't understood what was inside. It was a photocopy of a lot of drawings and technical jargon. She knew that Edward Fleming's company was concerned with the planning and construction of a top security government project in the Wyoming desert. She put everything back. Next day he went to the Lincoln Center when his secretary had told her he had gone to a Senate Committee meeting. Nothing changed in the routine. His discarded newspaper was picked up. That night she opened the briefcase again. The folder was still in it, but empty.

‘What a fool I am,' the writer scrawled. ‘What a crazy fool not to know what he was doing from the start – oh, my God, what can I do? Who can I tell?'

She didn't follow him again. She paid off the driver and the hired car, and drove herself to her weekly session at the beauty parlour. Her brakes failed at the first traffic lights and she was hit by a truck at the intersection. She was very lucky to escape with bruises and a nasty shock. The truck had been going unusually slowly, but even so the impact wrecked the car.

‘He must have found out she was tampering with his keys,' Lomax said. ‘Or following him.'

‘Or both,' Davina countered. Fleming had been tender and considerate; Raffaella noted how he brought her flowers and fussed over her and threatened to sue the garage which had last serviced her car, but the suspicion flared when she called the garage and discovered he hadn't contacted them at all to complain about the brakes. Worst of all, Fleming had made efforts to mend the marriage which his wife hadn't been able to resist. He had resumed a passionate sex life, which had always been his weapon, and became the loving husband as well as the lover. She loved him and wanted to believe in him – the diary recorded that only too clearly. But she was afraid, and the fear wouldn't be stilled. He was some kind of traitor, a spy. And she had nearly been killed in a car with faulty brakes soon after finding it out. ‘What can I do?' The cry leapt out of the little brown book. ‘We are going to my house in Cuernevaca next week – he is so loving to me now, he talks about our second honeymoon in Mexico – I love him so much, I'd forgive him for anything … But I am so afraid, and the fear won't go away …'

That was the last entry. Davina closed the diary. ‘They went to Cuernevaca,' she said. ‘She owned a summer house there. Six weeks later it went up like a torch and she was burnt to death. A couple of Mexican servants died with her.'

Lomax said slowly, ‘It ties up now, doesn't it? He's a KGB man all right, and he murdered his wife because she found out. Now this comes into the second wife's possession. He can't find it, and he knows what's in it would hang him masthead high. He'd like to kill her too, but he daren't because she's got the diary as insurance.'

‘So in the end he calls in the KGB,' Davina suggested. ‘She tells them she's given it to me.'

‘By now,' Lomax said, ‘he'll be sweating blood.'

‘It's nothing to what he'll sweat when our people have finished with him,' Davina said. ‘But that doesn't help Liz. God, Colin, I think we'd better take this over to the embassy and see the ambassador. I don't think we should hang about checking the facts – they can be checked later. The main thing is to get Fleming into the embassy. Then we can present him with this.' She picked up the diary. ‘I'm going to nail that swine if it's the last thing I do!'

‘Why should I go to the embassy? What has this got to do with them?' Edward Fleming faced Davina angrily. He looked exhausted, his skin a muddy colour, deep circles under his eyes. He couldn't sit still. He kept pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets and taking them out again.

‘And what the hell has it got to do with you two, come to that?' It was the question Davina had been expecting; its vehemence was a splendid piece of acting, she decided.

‘I think you know what it has to do with me. I hope it won't involve Mr Lomax.'

‘You're supposed to be Elizabeth's friend,' Fleming's voice rose. ‘She's disappeared – you were the last people to see her – you come here with a veiled threat – what the
hell
are you, Miss Graham?'

‘I'm a civil servant,' she answered. ‘And Mr Lomax is my assistant.'

‘And I'm not very civil,' Lomax remarked. ‘So I'd accept that invitation, Mr Fleming, and save yourself a lot of trouble.'

He swung round on Lomax, clenching his fists. Lomax raised his head and looked at him. He didn't move. Fleming's hands opened and he turned away. ‘I see,' he muttered. ‘You'll regret this. So will your government.'

Lomax stepped to the door. One hand was hooked into his pocket. ‘Shall we go, Mr Fleming? We don't want to keep the ambassador waiting.' They drove to Massachusetts Avenue and parked in the forecourt. They went up to an office on the first floor. Outside, Lomax drew back. ‘You won't be needing me. It's going to be very friendly from now on.'

Sir Arthur Moore came from behind his desk to meet Edward Fleming. He held out his hand and said pleasantly, ‘It's good of you to come, Edward. Do sit down, won't you? Davina will get us a drink.'

Humphrey Grant's telephone rang. He was a shallow sleeper and he had switched on the bedside light and lifted the receiver before it had rung three times. His watch was on the night table, along with a glass of water, his spectacles and a detective story he was in the middle of reading. It was four a.m. The line from Washington was better than usual. Sir Arthur Moore spoke first. Grant said, ‘Yes.' several times and sat bolt upright in bed. Then he heard Davina's voice.

‘He's cracked – but not in the way we expected. We need someone to come over and get to grips with him. I can't do any more. He doesn't like me very much at the moment. Also someone got into our apartment and tried to get the diary back this morning. So that clinches the fact that Liz has been snatched and interrogated by the KGB.'