Just as her instructor had told her, the brass ferrule, sharpened by years of unintended stropping on the London pavements, pushed through the skin and muscle below the chin, broke through the palate and, entering the brain, killed her aggressor instantly. His hands clenched convulsively round her throat and for a moment dizziness terrified her. But then the big hands relaxed and, still leaning against the wall, Flixe watched the man crumple to his knees and then keel sideways to lie in the wet filth beside three overflowing dustbins.

  Too sick and shivery to move for the moment, she tried hard to remember the rest of the lesson, but she could not think what she should do next. She put a wet hand up to her wet face and rubbed her eyes, as though that might help to clear her mind. It did not. All she could think of was her chief. Suvarov would get her out of this mess somehow.

  For a reason she did not stop to analyse, Flixe could not bear to go back into her flat and tried to remember where she could find a public telephone. There was one, she was sure, in the Underground station, but she could hardly take her umbrella, bent now and bloody, into such a conspicuous place; nor could she leave it behind. Trying to think, she set off in the direction of the station, looking about her as though the familiar red box might appear in her path.

  She found one, of course, right at the end of the dustbin alley and, fumbling her coppers into the slot, dialled the number of Suvarov’s Pall Mall flat. He answered at the second ring and she pressed her thumb on to button ‘A’so hard that the next day she found the joint bruised.

  ‘Peter,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Peter.’

  ‘Yes. Flixe?’

  It came to her irrelevantly that he was almost the only person apart from their parents who never mistook her voice for Gerry’s.

  ‘Peter,’ she said again, unable to produce any of the words that had to be said. His voice sharpened:

  ‘Flixe, what is it?’ Then as she could not answer, he said, much more gently: ‘Where are you? Flixe, you must tell me and I’ll come.’

  Her teeth were now clattering together as though she were standing naked in a hurricane, but she managed at last to speak:

  ‘Telephone box, Phillimore Walk.’ Then she added one word: ‘Hurry.’

  ‘Coming. Hold on.’ He put the receiver down and all she heard was a buzz. Slowly she put her own down and leaned against the grubby wall of the kiosk, noticing for the first time the revolting, acrid smell of stale urine that filled it. Breathing as shallowly as possible, she stood, holding the umbrella with both hands, its ferrule carefully kept off the ground. There she waited until he came.

  He opened the door of the telephone box at last and stood in the poor light looking at her, but he did not speak. She held out the umbrella:

  ‘I used it – as they taught at Naseby House.’

  He took it from her, looked at the point and schooled his face with what she could recognise as considerable effort.

  ‘Show me, Flixe.’

  Standing aside to let her precede him, he kept his eyes directed at her face. She did not look back at him, but walked a pace or so in front of him along the alley until she reached the three dustbins and her victim.

  ‘There.’

  He stood for a moment, looking down at her handiwork. Then he said, without turning round.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him once before. He was Jean-Pierre’s manservant.

  ‘OK. You go on up to the flat, Flixe. I’ll deal with this.’

  ‘No. Not up there. Not the flat,’ she said, gasping, with the first signs of hysteria. Suvarov noted them unsurprised and all he said was:

  ‘OK, then sit on that step. You need to sit down, Flixe.’ He bent down on one knee to search the body, flashing his dimmed torch discreetly to examine the identity card and a bundle of papers he retrieved from the inside pocket of the man’s jacket. Then he stood up again.

  ‘I must telephone. Coming?’

  For answer, Flixe simply stood up and took the hand he held out to her. He gripped it hard, but made no other move or word to comfort her. Together they walked back to the red kiosk and she waited outside, still shivering, until he had finished. She noticed that he had stuffed all the man’s papers in his own pocket. When he came out again, he was not smiling.

  ‘That’s that. You’d better come to Pall Mall,’ he said gravely. ‘They’ll need to ask some questions, but it’ll be simpler if I’m there.’

  He led the way to his small green car and opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in and sat down. He shut the door, walked round the car and got in beside her. She waited for him to switch on the ignition, but he did not. With his gloved hands on the wheel he looked sideways at her and said:

  ‘Tell me.’

  And so she did: everything that had happened since Jean-Pierre had told her that he would have to leave London; all the things he had said and done then, and what she had answered; all the thoughts she had had, the evasions she had tried, all the excuses, the doubts and the uncertainties; every horrible thought she had had about Suvarov himself. Throughout, he simply listened. When she finally ran out of things to say she waited for comment or criticism or even accusation, but none came. He turned the key in the dashboard and said:

  ‘Let’s go.’

  He drove fast through the empty, wet streets of Kensington and Knightsbridge, down Constitution Hill, past the Palace and along the Mall, turning up St James’s and parking at last outside the white house where he had his rooms. She had never before crossed his threshold and in the emptiness that had followed her confession she found herself wondering about how he had arranged his life.

  She had begun to shake again, badly, and there was a threatening nausea in her throat that disgusted her.

  ‘Peter,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’ he answered. It was not helpful. Could he not understand that she needed him to tell her that she had not done anything wrong, that she had been trained to kill in case of just such an eventuality, that she had no reason to feel filthy and degraded and bloody? She looked at him, hoping at least to read forgiveness in his dark eyes, but there was only a slightly concerned expression of enquiry. She turned from him and looked instead around the room into which he had brought her.

  There was an austerity about it that surprised her. The walls of books she might have expected, but somehow she had envisaged some of the richness of Jean-Pierre’s flat. Instead she found a certain comfortable shabbiness, an air of self-containment, as though the room had been designed for its owner alone. There was no display, nothing to suggest that he expected anyone else ever to be there with him.

  He told her to put her feet up on the sofa, fetched an eiderdown, presumably from his bedroom, and tucked it round her. Then he went out again and it was nearly ten minutes before he came back with a steaming mug in his hand. He offered it to her and as she smelled the scent of cocoa she almost wept. So, he had understood after all. That someone like Peter Suvarov should trouble to brew a drink like that seemed incongruous; but it was precisely the narcotic that she needed, with all its overtones of nurseries and childhood comfort. She wrapped her hands around the mug’s warmth and managed to smile at him.

  Peter pulled the swivel chair away from the desk and sat in it beside her.

  ‘Flixe, they will have to ask questions to keep the record straight, but they’re in a different class from the ones at the warehouse. They know exactly what has been going on and what is at stake. Nevertheless all I want you to tell them is what happened after you left the flat this evening. Nothing else.’

  ‘You’re going to let Jean-Pierre go?’

  ‘No. But a different lot are dealing with the search for him. And it would only complicate the hunt for the police to be involved. They’ll come later, when he’s found. Can you manage to suppress what’s necessary?’ She shivered and her face paled noticeably as he talked, but when he had finished, she nodded. Then they waited for nearly thirty minutes until the police arrived.

  Watched by two of the three officers, Flixe told them at dictation speed precisely what she had already told Suvarov about what had happened in the alley. The third officer took down what she said while the others listened, never taking their icy eyes off her. Then the most senior of them asked:

  ‘You are certain that his hands were round your neck before you started to struggle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t think he was simply … well, after you for a … as a woman?’

  ‘How delicate you are, Inspector,’ she said, striving for a tone of detachment to equal his. ‘No, I’m certain of that.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, sir,’ he added, turning to Suvarov, ‘I think we’ve everything we need. You’ll be in your office tomorrow, I take it?’

  ‘Yes. And Miss Alderbrook will be there, too.’

  ‘Thanks. Good night, Miss Alderbrook. Sorry we had to trouble you tonight.’

  Flixe nodded her thanks for his apology. Suvarov saw the three men out and then returned. He stood at the end of the sofa and smiled at last.

  ‘Drink, Flixe?’

  ‘No, thank you, Peter.’

  ‘Do you want to get some sleep?’

  ‘Not specially. Why, is there more?’

  ‘It can wait. No, actually, I don’t think it can: I have to ask. Are you afraid of what will happen when he’s caught?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope not.’ She pushed her hair back behind her ears with both hands and screwed up her eyes for a moment. ‘Yes, I am. After what he arranged to have done to Ming, I could never bear to see or speak to him again. How could I? But … there was once so much … Whatever I tell myself about him, I can’t quite wipe the memory of it all away. Thank God I don’t have to decide any more whether to go to him or send him away.’ He was quiet for so long that she had to look at him again.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me. Nor is keeping you up. I’ll wake you with breakfast in the morning.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Peter—’ There was an urgency in her voice that stopped him, but he didn’t turn. ‘Peter.’ Flixe threw back the eiderdown and got off the sofa to walk to his side. She wanted him to take her in his arms, tell her how brave she had been, kiss her, tell her she was forgiven, that he loved her, that the past three years could be forgotten, that she had done everything he had asked of her and would be asked for no more, that she could rest and be herself again.

  ‘Peter.’ Her voice sounded petulant and childish in her own ears.

  ‘Felicity, you should sleep,’ he said, turning back at last. They were standing very close and she could almost hear the blood beating in his heart. She knew that he must understand what she needed, because he always understood and knew everything. Then she felt his hands on her shoulders and her eyelids closed in relief. Now, everything would be all right. She leaned towards him.

  The strength in his hands astonished her as he held her upright. She straightened up and, despising herself, murmured:

  ‘Sorry. It’s all been a bit too much for me.’

  ‘I know. But that isn’t the way. And this isn’t the time, Flixe.’ His voice was very kind, but it was not kindness that she wanted from him then.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He was as good as his word and she woke the next morning to the clinking of china and the familiar, depressing smell of ersatz coffee. She sat up, pushing the hair and the sleep out of her eyes, mildly embarrassed to be seen in such an uncontrolled state, but grateful for the matter-of-factness of Suvarov’s voice and smile.

  ‘I let you sleep as long as I could,’ he said. ‘But there’s not much time for hanging about. We ought to leave in twenty minutes. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘Yes, for the office. I know you’ve only got trousers with you, but that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘So you did mean it. I wondered if it had been a slip of the tongue when you said I’d be there with you. Why?’

  ‘You can hardly go on playing the siren of Kensington now.…’

  ‘No. I know. But what’ll I do at the office?’

  ‘I was going to add, before you interrupted, that we can use your brains and your experience in the analysts’room. I’ll explain to the architecture committee. Hurry up with that breakfast now.’

  Flixe was silent. All her life she had sought and aroused admiration for her looks, her vivacity and her ability to charm people out of themselves. Never before had anyone said he wanted her for her brains. She had to cling hard to the memory of Peter’s coolness when she had tried to reach him the night before in order to stop herself from blurting out there and then that she loved him and would do or be anything he wanted of her.

  ‘How much do they know about me?’ she asked twenty-five minutes later as he led the way across St James’s Park.

  ‘I’ve told them nothing. Eynsham knows that you’ve been working for me, and Gerry knows whatever you’ve told her, but that’s all. Why? Are you embarrassed?’ He looked sideways and was surprised to see that her pale face was suffused with unaccustomed colour.

  ‘Yes, absurd isn’t it?’ She said, trying to sound amused. ‘After the last three years, who’d have thought I could feel as prim as this? Almost like the village spinster. It’s a vile sensation.’

  ‘I expect it will pass. Don’t think about it. It’s probably a natural reaction. Come on. Ah, Bates, here is Miss Alderbrook who’ll be working with the analysts. Make out a pass for her, will you?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Morning, miss.’

  ‘Good morning,’ answered Flixe and followed her chief up the staircase, whose elegance, she noticed, was hardly diminished by the chipped and dirty paint. They went up two flights and he pushed open a door, saying as he did so:

  ‘Here’s our newest recruit – Felicity Alderbrook. Find her a chair, someone, and, Antoine, will you give her a job?’

  ‘Sure, Peter.’

  ‘Can’t stop, Flixe, I’m afraid, but you’re in good hands, I’ll send Gerry down for you later.’

  He left and Flixe turned to face the group of men into whose close-knit little world she had just been propelled. There was silence for a moment or two, not accusing, she thought, but certainly critical. It was broken by an exceedingly good-looking RNVR officer with very bright grey-blue eyes and smooth fair hair.

  ‘You have to be Gerry’s sister,’ he said, smiling and shaking her hand. ‘I’ve never seen two girls so alike in my life.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she answered, smiling back. ‘In the old days we were often mistaken for each other. Where should I sit?’

  ‘I should take the desk to the right of the window. It belonged to one of our traitors.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mike. Be fair. Michel merely joined the Free French, mademoiselle: hardly a betrayal since we’re all on the same side.’ Mike laughed easily and sat down again at his desk, picking up a pencil as he spoke.

  ‘Well, near enough the same side, I suppose. We both want the Jerries beaten. But I’ll bet he told them every little thing they wanted to know about what goes on here. And I imagine they wanted to know quite a lot.’

  ‘My name is Philippe,’ the Frenchman went on smoothly, as though Mike had not interrupted. He held out his hand and Flixe shook it, aware of an instinctive distaste for the sound of his accent.

  Sandy, the middle-aged Scottish lawyer, introduced himself and then Eynsham came across the room with a flat manila folder.

  ‘How’s your French?’ he asked.

  ‘Fairly fluent,’ answered Flixe, liking the kindness of his brown eyes and the gentleness of his New England voice.

  ‘Good. We need these translated and the others are all a bit busy just now.’

  ‘OK. Is there a dictionary I can use if I get stuck?’

  ‘In the bookshelf.’ He jerked his head towards a handsome old walnut bureau bookcase to the left of the fireplace.

  ‘Thanks. Oh, where does Gerry work?’ Flixe asked as she sat down.

  ‘Upstairs with the boss. We only see her when we’re being summoned to the presence, eh, Mike?’

  The naval officer grinned, and Flixe was aware of a stinging jealousy of the kind she had not felt for years. It was so sharp that it brought her a frighteningly vivid picture of one Sunday afternoon in her childhood. She must have been about six at the time. Her father had just been posted to somewhere on Salisbury plain and there had been a long celebratory family lunch. Then Major (as he was at the time) Alderbrook retired to his den, telling the two girls that they could bring their sewing and sit there with him. Gerry sat closeted with him until tea time, but Flixe was banished almost at once as too fidgety. She had not thought of the afternoon since and was surprised at the way the memory burned.

  Upstairs Suvarov was running through the post with Gerry. When she had handed over the last letter with the various papers he would need in order to answer it, he said:

  ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve brought your sister in. She’ll be working downstairs from now on.’

  ‘Ming? Peter, surely she’s not up to that yet. You told me the doctor said she needed plenty of time to recuperate.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Gerry. Ming is still with Diana. I promised that I’d tell you when the doctor says she can come back to London. No, it’s Flixe who’s here.’

  ‘D’you mean that you’ve got them all then, all the bastards who did that to Ming?’

  ‘Most of them. And it’s got too dangerous to leave Flixe out there any longer. She’ll be getting a new flat, too. No, don’t ask why. And please don’t ask her.’

  ‘I’m not sure that you need to tell me how to behave to my sister,’ she said, both offended and annoyed that yet again he should have come between her and Flixe.

  ‘A matter of security, my dear, not inter-family courtesies.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said shortly and went back to her desk to start again on the apparently endless task of collating, rewriting and organising the data from downstairs.

  Later, when he asked her to go down to fetch Flixe and Eynsham, Gerry obediently shut her papers in their folders and did as he asked. At the door of the analysts’room she was presented with a picture that made her insides lurch as though she were in a lift that was plummeting out of control down an infinite lift shaft. Flixe was sitting at a desk in the window, with the sun shining directly on and through her fine, pale-gold hair, and Mike was standing behind her leaning one arm on her desk, laughing at her.

 

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