The Avenue of the Dead (4 page)

‘If she's right,' Davina said after a pause, ‘then Tatischev is running Fleming. He must be, he's at such a high level. She could be in real danger if she's found him out and they know she's talked.'

‘And so could you when they see you together. But only if she's telling the truth. You don't object to being a decoy duck, I hope?'

‘If I get flattened by a runaway truck, you'll know Fleming's working for the KGB, thanks very much.'

He smiled at her. ‘Equally, if this
is
a hysterical fantasy, nobody will take the slightest notice of you.' He waited, his thick white eyebrows raised a little, questioning her courage.

‘When do I leave?' Davina said.

They faced each other across the table; the pretence was over and they were adversaries. James White accepted the challenge.

‘You're doing this for Sasanov,' he stated.

‘As long as you don't think I'm doing it for you.'

‘As you like,' he said. He beckoned to the waiter for the bill. ‘Could you be ready to leave at the end of the week?'

He ignored the bleakness in her face when she replied, ‘I can go tomorrow. I've nothing to keep me.'

‘The end of the week will do,' he said pleasantly. ‘Why don't you go and do some shopping? Washington is quite hot at this time of year. The department will pay.'

‘I don't need any summer clothes,' Davina said. ‘Australia was hotter than Washington. And if I did, I'd prefer to pay for them myself. Thank you for lunch.'

‘Thank you for coming,' he said. ‘We have someone else going out at the same time. A Major Lomax – he'll come down to Marchwood and bring you the ticket and details and introduce himself … Ah, there's a taxi – of course, you've got a car, haven't you, so you don't need a lift. Safe journey. Give Betty and Fergus my best.'

‘You're sure you're not too tired?' John Kidson held his wife's hand and gazed anxiously at her. Charlie laughed. ‘Not a bit – stop fussing, darling. I'm not ill, I've just had a baby!'

She didn't look tired; he thought she was even more beautiful after giving birth, if that was possible. Her long red hair was tied back with a ribbon, her eyes and skin shone with health, and she radiated the smug contentment of the new mother. The child was a boy, born after an easy labour the day before. John Kidson was so happy he didn't know how to cope with it. He had filled the hospital room with out-of-season roses, and rung everyone he could think of to tell them the news. He had spent more money than he could afford on a gold bracelet for Charlie, set with little sapphires. Blue for a boy. She had surprised and delighted him by bursting into tears and saying it was the most precious thing she owned. And then she began to smile and hug him and he felt near to crying himself.

She held on to his hand and squeezed. It really was extraordinary how happy she was with him. Nobody gave the marriage a chance at first. Two husbands behind her, fifteen years younger than John, a spoiled young woman armoured with devastating good looks, and doting parents to support every folly she committed. People had been unkind, and the Grahams themselves had been full of doubts. They were all proved wrong. Much as he loved her, John Kidson was not a slave to his wife. He was too shrewd to give way to his inclination to spoil and pamper her in case he lost her. He gave her the security she had been seeking unconsciously all her life. Captain Graham finally lost his younger daughter to another man, and the wayward Charlie surprised them all by settling down to married life and starting a family.

She lay back on her pillows.

‘He's such a lovely baby,' she sighed. ‘I always thought they were hideous little crinkled monsters, but you know, darling, I think he's beautiful! Do you think he's beautiful?'

‘Yes, in spite of being a hideous little crinkled monster – I'm only teasing, sweetheart. He's a cracking little boy. Everyone's thrilled with him.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘Mummy and Daddy were delighted, weren't they – and poor Davina – I couldn't look at her to start with. She was so good about it, wasn't she? It must have been awful for her, seeing our baby when she'd lost her own. I didn't make too much of it, did I?'

‘No, you didn't,' he assured her. ‘She was all right. She was very happy for you, I could see that.'

‘We're better friends now than we ever were,' Charlie said. ‘We'll never be close, but at least we like each other. I hope this Washington job works out for her. She looks so drained, as if there was nothing inside her.' She turned her head away because her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘I wish she was happy,' she said. ‘Do you think she'll ever get over him?'

‘I don't know,' Kidson answered. ‘Some people only love once in their lives. But she's young and time heals. Getting back to work will help.'

‘It isn't dangerous, is it – this Washington job?'

‘It shouldn't be. Anyway the chief is sending out a minder. Davina will be all right with him around.'

‘Who is it?' Charlie asked. ‘Anyone I know?'

‘No, darling. Ex-major in the SAS. Very tough and very experienced. He joined us after leaving the army. I don't know what his role is going to be in the long term; at the moment he's going to Washington on the embassy staff. I met him a couple of times. I don't think he and Davina will get on. I said so, but you know the chief – he just sits there and smiles and doesn't take a damn bit of notice if it doesn't suit him. Anyway, she couldn't have a better back-up than this fellow, if there is any trouble. I'm going to go home now, darling, and let you have a sleep. I'll be back this evening. Anything you want me to bring you?'

She smiled lazily at him. ‘The latest
Harper's and Queen,
' she said. ‘And the
Nursery World.
' They both laughed and he blew her a kiss as he went out.

‘My name,' the man said, ‘is Lomax. Colin Lomax.'

They shook hands in the hall at Marchwood. He was slightly above average height, dressed in a sweater and faded jeans. He didn't look like a major in anybody's army. He could have come from anywhere and been anything; when he spoke there was an unmistakable Scottish brogue. He had short fair hair and green eyes, a hard mouth that looked uncomfortable smiling. He wore his aggressiveness like after-shave. It hung in the air when he entered the hall, and she was instantly antagonized.

‘Do come in,' she said, and it wasn't a warm invitation. They went into her father's study. He sat in an armchair, very casually, with his arm draped across the back, and stared at her. It wasn't flattering.

‘I've got a lot of bumf for you,' he said. ‘I've left it in the car.'

‘Then perhaps you'd like to go and get it,' Davina said. He didn't move.

‘Do you know Washington well?' The question caught her unawares.

‘I've never been there.'

‘I have. I hated the place.'

‘That's hardly a good way to start your appointment,' she said coldly. ‘Major Lomax, I'd be delighted to offer you a drink or anything else you'd like, but I don't think you should leave confidential papers lying in your car. Would you please get them?'

He got up very slowly. ‘Mr Lomax, if you don't mind. I'm a civilian now. If you think your papers are going to be pinched, Miss Graham, right outside your front door, I'll go and get them. I'd like a whisky and water.'

He was back very quickly. He dropped the envelope on her lap. She set it aside and then got up to pour him a whisky. She could feel him watching her to see if she poured a mean measure. Irritation made her double the quantity. He half lifted himself out of the chair to take the glass, and gave her his ill-fitting smile. ‘That's a healthy drop. I haven't had a drink like that since I left Ireland. Thanks.'

‘When are you going to Washington?' she asked him. The silence was becoming awkward.

‘At the end of the week. Same flight as you.'

‘You're going to the embassy, aren't you?'

‘I'll be working in the visa section, of all the godawful postings.'

Davina stood up. ‘Mr Lomax,' she said. ‘Thank you for bringing me the papers. Now, I've got to read them and do some work. Goodnight.'

He glanced up quickly at her, and she saw an angry gleam in the light eyes. He drained the glass. ‘Thank you for the drink, Miss Graham. I'm sorry if I've delayed you.'

‘That's all right,' she said. ‘I'll see you to the door.' She walked out with him. It was past six and quite dark. He turned to her on the doorstep. ‘I'll meet you in the departure lounge on Friday.'

‘That won't be necessary, Mr Lomax. I'd rather travel alone.'

‘I don't think it's necessary either. But those are my instructions. See you Friday.' He loped off to his car, banged the door and revved up, scattering gravel as he drove away.

Davina shut herself up in the study and began to read the long report on Elizabeth Fleming and her husband. It took over two hours to digest it, and by then she had completely forgotten the obnoxious Mr Lomax. The most important file she left till last. It was the length of a long short story – the kind that used to be included in a Maugham collection. It was the novella of a man's professional life. The man who had hovered in the shadows during her own ordeal by terror in Russia, an influence without a face. The man whose calculated vengeance had caught up with Ivan Sasanov in a quiet residential street in Perth.

They had taken it for granted they were safe. Or at least she had. Ivan loved his freedom too much to exchange it for guaranteed safety. He knew his own people; he had taken a deliberate risk. But she hadn't known. She had lived her brief three years of happiness until the blast from the car bomb destroyed everything.

Igor Tatischev. To English ears it was a tongue-twisting name, soft sounding. Now Borisov. He had changed it when he took Kaledin's place. Igor Borisov. She opened the file. It was compiled by the experts in the Russian affairs section of the SIS. Everything known about the new chief of Internal Security in the Soviet Union had been collected, analysed, and fed through the computers for cross-checking. He was fifty-one years old, born in a small town some eighty miles from Leningrad. His father was a doctor; his mother had trained as a dentist and worked part-time in the local clinic caring for schoolchildren. He had a younger sister who was married with two children, and lived in the Ukraine. Igor had been a promising student who was selected to go to the special college in Leningrad which trained recruits for the internal and external forces of the KGB. He had proved himself conscientious and able, and was heard of briefly in two overseas appointments, one in Ottawa where he did a spell of duty as a military attaché, and the second time in Cairo, during Nasser's presidency. The name had been changed each time, but the photographs and personal data matched. In both postings he had been a desk operator, an administrator and a co-ordinator. He was not one of the socializing front men used to recruit agents or initiate blackmail. He had surfaced next in Moscow, working with Antonyii Volkov. His path had crossed Davina's indirectly, through Sasanov's persecuted family, and when she herself was arrested he had moved behind the scenes, acting for the director himself; Kaledin, close to retirement, a figure as powerful and as shrouded in legend as the fearful Beria and Shelepin.

The time passed and she sat on in the study, the fire dead in the grate, the ashtray spilling over. There were a few photographs of him taken years ago. They showed a pleasant, round-faced man, fair-complexioned with a snub-nosed, rather commonplace face. Nothing to give a clue to the personality which was so full of contradictions. He had been the right hand of the sadist Volkov; yet he had personally protected Ivan's sick wife. Fedya Sasanov had been the victim of his predecessors' illegal intrigues. Her illness had been accelerated by her experiences in the Siberian transit camp. There she became a secret Christian. The man who had become Borisov had been aware of her association with other Christians. He had allowed her the comfort of a priest when she was dying, and no action was taken against any of her friends. So there was a sense of justice; he must have a conscience and a moral code. She paused, confronted by shuddering personal memories of her own captivity.

She put the file aside; a cold sweat made her hands and face damp. She had trained herself not to think about that episode. The moment passed. She lit a cigarette, looked at her watch. It was past midnight: The study was chilly, and its dead fire and stillness depressed her. She took the file into the cheerful kitchen, made herself coffee and settled down at the table to go on reading. Her mother's labradors nosed round her knee; she patted them and they curled back in their baskets near the Aga and went back to sleep.

This was the worst part, worse than the pang of terror associated with her own ordeal – this was the story of the systematic, detailed planning of Ivan Sasanov's assassination. They had looked for him in the United States; that occupied nearly two years. Then the hunt began in England. They had searched for clues in London among the safe houses and security flats and found nothing. Then they had moved in on Marchwood itself, where her unsuspecting parents lived, and in the debris of daily life in the household, Borisov's agent had found what they were looking for. He had gone through the dustbins before they were collected once a week. God knew who he was or how he slipped into the deserted backyard of the manor, but he had found a torn-up piece of envelope, addressed to Mrs Graham in Davina's handwriting. It had an Australian stamp in the top right-hand corner. She had signed for her belongings when she was arrested in Russia; the fragment of the envelope would have been fed into the Centre computers which would have come back with the answer that the handwriting was the same.

Her parents had promised to burn any communication from her, but they had grown lax as the time passed. Ironically, they probably would have destroyed the letter itself and merely torn up the envelope. So Borisov knew that Sasanov was in Australia. A continent so sparsely populated is an easy place to find a man in hiding.