Kirov was intrigued by the Englishman’s whimsy and difficult sadness. Normally Lucas stuck to the company of a fellow Briton called Jack Melchior. The latter was an elderly man, the local representative of several British firms, who lived permanently in Moscow to avoid domestic complications caused by an illegal excess of wives. Melchior acted as impresario, introducing his clients to the traitor, displaying Neville Lucas as if he were the star turn in a cabaret. Lucas accepted the introductions with tolerant good humour in return for the cigarettes and the rest, and he would sit at the bar with Melchior on his right hand, answer questions and make easy promises. Lucas looked big and grey like a beached hulk, and Melchior hovered around him with quick, nimble movements like a tug. Jack Melchior was a small man who wore another sort of Englishness, a black blazer and light grey trousers with immaculate creases.
When Kirov entered the bar of the Mezhdunarodnaya, Lucas rolled his head in his direction and waved to a seat. He turned from his company, ordered a drink from the barman, and addressed the newcomer. ‘Hello, Peter — s’cuse me, Fred — how are you?’ His English had a north-eastern lilt that Kirov could never capture.
Jack Melchior put his hand on the shoulder of the third member of their group and said, ‘How about getting the stuff now, Fred, while Neville and Peter have a chat?’
Fred looked doubtful but finally agreed and promised to return in five minutes. ‘You’ll still be here, won’t you?’
‘Of course we shall.’ Melchior hustled him and to his departing back muttered, ‘Pillock.’ To the others he said, ‘How does he expect to do business in this place? By the way, Peter, what’s your poison? Ah, I see Neville’s got you one in — one for me too, Neville, if you’re in the chair. Hey ho, bottoms up!’ He sat back cheerily and straightened the handkerchief that was neatly displayed in his breast pocket, the same pocket that bore a regimental badge which Kirov suspected was as genuine as Scherbatsky’s Chinese Rolex.
‘What are you expecting this time?’ Kirov asked.
Lucas shrugged indifferently. ‘From Fred? I relieved him of his cigarettes last night — Dunhills. Fancy some? No? He’s just gone to get the little medical pack that his firm supplies him with. Not that it’s much use. Mostly laxatives and the other things, the ones that make you stop. I prefer the French packs; I like the liver salts even if they do cause cancer, so they say. Still, there could be a few antibiotics.’
‘You need antibiotics?’
‘Not particularly. But a few extra always come in handy. You know how difficult they are to get, and you can always trade them for something useful. And you, how are you?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘You don’t look it.’ Lucas’s melancholy eyes passed over Kirov’s face.
‘Anyone fancy another?’ said Jack Melchior. ‘Set them up again, Boris, spasibo and chop-chop.’
‘I’m not sleeping well.’
‘No? I’m sure that Fred’s got something for that in his little medical pack. That or a nice warm woman. What is it; can’t sleep or bad dreams? Guilty conscience?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Probably not.’ Lucas assented to be agreeable and he put his lips to his drink thoughtfully.
A man came into the bar and approached Kirov directly. He was forty or so and looked embarrassed in a sweatshirt and jeans that were more relaxed than he was. Kirov guessed at one of the hotel’s MVD operatives. The man said there was a call for Kirov in the lobby.
Kirov excused himself and went to take the call. It was on a phone in the office behind the reception desk, which had been cleared but for a cup of coffee and a smouldering cigarette left by the ghosts. Bogdanov was on the line. He was brief.
‘Gusev just died. Antipov called me — the guy’s on his best behaviour. I’ve sent Tumanov and a couple of the boys to watch the stiff and asked Fomin to get round to the Butyrka and do the autopsy. Are you listening, boss?’
‘I’m listening.’ Kirov was thinking of Gusev: Viktor was finished with his apartment and all his toys, finished with his diamonds for whatever reason he had them. Finished with the woman. He told Bogdanov to keep him posted on the autopsy and returned to the bar.
He found Neville Lucas with his arm around Fred and his free hand holding the Englishman’s medical pack. Both were grinning and Jack Melchior was skipping around in front of them, taking a photograph with Fred’s camera.
‘Something to tell your grandchildren about. How I met a famous spy! Come on, Fred, give us a flash of your dentures.’
Afterwards Fred repossessed the camera. He told Kirov confidingly, ‘The truth is they’re too young to have heard of Neville. My son would remember Neville — at least I think he’d remember him — but not his kids.’ He looked now as if he wished he hadn’t bothered. He studied the camera then slipped the strap over his shoulder. He turned to Lucas and still with the air of having done something slightly foolish offered his hand. ‘Well … must hit the sack. Nice meeting you, Neville. Yes … well … see you again some time.’
‘Again?’ Lucas repeated compassionately. ‘Oh, indubitably!’ He pressed the other man’s hand and added, ‘Be good.’ Then he turned away leaving Fred to become gradually aware of his own non-existence. The visitor stood silent for a few long seconds and then left the bar.
Suddenly Lucas was bright. ‘Bugger off, Jack, will you?’ he said pleasantly to Jack Melchior. ‘Peter and I have some things to talk about.’ Melchior nodded, winked at Kirov and strolled off leaving the tab unpaid.
Kirov placed some money on the bar. ‘What’s the special occasion for inviting me here?’ he asked.
‘Oh, nothing special,’ Lucas answered. ‘Got a car with you?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘l thought we could go to a party. I was feeling tired and a bit in the dumps, so I called my old pal, Peter. Then I remembered that I’d been asked to a party. So why don’t we both go?’
‘You could have asked Jack.’
‘Jack — ah, yes — Jack. But the truth is that if you take the old lad to a party he always ends up getting pissed, which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t start cornering people and telling them about the time he was in the Palestine Police after the war, and before you know where you are he’s doing trimphone impressions. Now I’m scarcely in a position to throw stones — in fact treachery has given me a very forgiving nature— but nobody is that bloody tolerant!’
They drove in Kirov’s blue Volga. Lucas chatted from the passenger seat and ate boiled sweets from a bag he kept in the pocket of his duffel coat.
‘Heard of Yelena Akhmerova, have you?’ he asked.
‘The film star?’
‘The very same. She played the female lead in Iron Harvest. That’s the reason for the party,’ Lucas said. ‘Iron Harvest is entered for the Cannes Film Festival. The critics say it has a chance of picking up a prize, if you believe them.’
‘Perhaps it will.’
For a while they drove in silence. Kirov watched the traffic, the pedestrians, the restaurant queues. Lucas, when he was drunk — ‘Drunk to the point of wisdom, Peter!’ — had once tried to explain to him that there was another Moscow. It had something to do with night and snow, the silences behind words and the meanings behind songs such as ‘Moscow Nights’, which was played every night in the hard-currency bars to the lonely Westerners in their long and melancholy waiting for business. Kirov sometimes tried to make Moscow appear strange to himself, the way that it appeared to Lucas, but couldn’t succeed. Beyond the window glass some soldiers out on a spree gathered in the grey light of a shop to light their cigarettes and barter with a spiv; a group of working girls with heavy boots and fresh complexions giggled and watched a restaurant for famous faces bypassing the queue. I don’t see it, Neville. What is ‘Moscow Nights’?