Sam nodded, as though the point was fair. He turned to Lenka. He could see sweat glistening on her brow, beads of moisture on her upper lip, trapped in the faint blonde down. ‘We’d better go.’
‘My papers,’ she said.
There was a moment of stasis. Malevolent pondered the matter, tapping Lenka’s identity card in the palm of his hand and looking at the girl. You could see the conflict in his expression – he knew his power over her and his weakness in the face of Sam’s diplomatic status. The radio jabbered something and the operator hastily put his earphones on. Finally Malevolent nodded, passed Lenka’s identity card to the lieutenant, who dutifully handed it back. ‘Comrade Konečková should think herself lucky,’ the lieutenant said.
She was about to reply. She was about to explode with anger at being talked to like that. Sam took her arm. ‘Discretion,’ he murmured, ‘is the better part of valour.’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just walk away.’
Holding her tightly he measured their steps round the armoured car and over to the Mercedes. Sam held the passenger door open for her. By the time he got round to the other side, her anger had abated, along with her fear. He started the engine and screwed round to back the car up the track. ‘I thought they would arrest us,’ she said quietly.
‘They don’t arrest diplomats. Not unless they want to cause an international incident.’
‘Me, then. Why didn’t you just turn away right at the start?’
‘Because I wanted to see for sure.’
‘See what? That soldiers are shits? That if you put a reasonable man in uniform he turns into an ape?’
They reached an opening off the track where he could turn the car. ‘Didn’t you notice?’
‘Notice what?’
‘They’re Russian.’
‘Russian?’
‘You heard what I said. They’re Russian. There’s that Czech officer as a front man but the others were Russian. No insignia on their uniforms, nothing. A Red Army reconnaissance unit of some kind. That guy spoke near-perfect English, but his accent was Russian. Whoever heard of a middle-ranking Russian officer speaking English? He’s GRU.’
‘What’s GRU?’
‘Soviet military intelligence.’ They drove on in silence, bumping over the rough track the way they had come, before turning onto the tarmac road. ‘Where are we going?’ Lenka asked.
‘Back home.’
‘Why?’
‘Got to see a man about a dog.’ He attempted to render it in Czech but met, as he expected, only bewilderment.
‘A dog?’
‘It’s an English saying. Rather old-fashioned. Means I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It’s about the Russians, isn’t it?’ And she nodded an answer to her own question. ‘It’s always the fucking Russians.’
Back in his flat he offered her some records to play. Steffie’s Sergeant Pepper or something by the Incredible String Band. He wasn’t really sure of her taste. Janáček, if that was what she wanted. Or anything from the small collection of classics that he had. Mozart, surely she’d be happy with Mozart. There was the Prague Symphony, or was that too obvious? Then he shut himself in the bathroom to develop the film. It didn’t take long. He was practised at fiddling around in the changing bag, rolling the film onto the spiral by feel, before shutting it away in the developing tank secure from the deadly intrusion of light. Then the solutions, that little bit of alchemy that always fascinated him – developer, fixer, wash, each carefully measured and warmed to 20°C, each procedure timed with the clock brought in from the kitchen. It was the chemistry he had missed out on at school, a few simple chemicals turning blank acetate into tiny negative shadows of past moments: light rendered dark, black painted white. From the sitting room came silence as Lenka changed a record before the blaring trumpets of Janáček’s Sinfonietta broke the peace. He waited while the brass sounded and the clock ticked out the seconds and the developing solutions performed their magic. When the time was up he extracted the film from the tank, unwound it from the spool and hung it over the bath just as Steffie had once hung knickers and stockings. A plastic squeegee took the wash away. He held up the film to the light and examined the negative images: Lenka sitting on the rug; Lenka smoking and laughing; Lenka frowning; Lenka standing naked in the river, white trees in the background, her flesh dark, her buttocks almost black. If you caught the negative at the right angle to the light, you could achieve the small miracle of glimpsing it in reverse, in positive, just as it would be when printed. A ghostly effect that vanished as soon as you changed the angle. He’d print them when he had time, but for the moment he took scissors and cut off the last three frames. These were not for private contemplation. Not for his memories.
‘A stroll in the garden, Harold,’ he suggested on the phone. ‘Got something that might amuse you.’
In the embassy garden, surrounded by the bushes and the trees, Sam passed over the small fragments of film. ‘Some more pictures for you, Harold. Developed it myself this time, but no time to print.’
Harold didn’t deign to look at the negatives, merely sequestered them in his pocket. ‘What do they show?’
‘Nothing particularly exciting, I’m afraid. Not like the Sukhoi I got for you last year. Just an armoured car. But here’s the thing – it’s got no markings and neither had the crew. No unit insignia, no rank badges, nothing. They were trying their best to be Czech, even had a Czechoslovak liaison officer with them. But they were Russian. GRU, I guess. Special forces reconnaissance team. What are they called? Spetsnaz.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Upriver from here.’ He gave the place. He could show him on the map if necessary. ‘They’re here, Harold. Little more than half an hour’s drive away. A nasty bugger speaking almost perfect English—’
‘You spoke with them?’
‘Of course I did. I’m a diplomat. Diplomats speak to people. It’s what we’re good at – in fact it’s almost the only thing we’re good at. And all they saw was a bumbling dip, out for a bit of hokey-pokey with his Czech girlfriend.’
‘That was your cover?’
‘Hardly cover, old chap. The plain and simple truth. By the way, quite unprompted she told me everything about her dalliance with the minister. More innocent victim than Mata Hari. You can rule her out as an agent.’
Harold made a small grunt of scepticism. In the bushes the dog crouched in that strained and slightly self-conscious way they have when relieving themselves. ‘That’s H.E.’s dog, you know that?’ he said. ‘Surely they shouldn’t let it shit in the embassy gardens.’
‘If he’s the ambassador’s dog, I presume he can shit wherever he pleases.’
Harold sniffed disapprovingly. ‘These Russians. How can you be sure?’
‘I’m a Russian specialist. You know that. I know my Tolstoy from my Turgenev, and I certainly know a Russian stoy from a Czech Stůj.’
‘The whole country has been crawling with Red Army. Those so-called spring manoeuvres. Why should your encounter be anything special?’
‘Precisely because the last Soviet units were meant to have returned to base by now. Wasn’t that part of the agreement at Čierna nad Tisou? And because they were pretending not to be Russians. As I said: no unit badges, no insignia, with a Czechoslovak liaison officer positively flaunting his. And the fellow in charge, the fellow I spoke to. Excellent English. You tell me what the chances are of finding a random Russian officer who happens to speak good English. Zero. So, GRU. ’