'I don't know.'
'Volper? Is his name Volper?'
'I don't know.'
I pushed his head down again and he began struggling. It was like drowning a dog.
Cold. Freezing cold.
Sirens in the night, sounding a dirge, their cadences orchestrated, rising and falling and rising, their echoes wailing across the flat still water. I thought I could see the humped roof of the Mercedes in the shallows near the bank of the river, and they'd see it too before long, the Vopos, so I'd have to hurry because once they found us he'd be taken out of my reach.
'What's your name? Your name?' In English. I'd started in German with him but he hadn't understood.
'Skidder.'
Nickname. 'Listen, I want to know who's running you.'
He didn't answer. I pushed his head down again and felt him struggling under my hands. It's not an exact science, half-drowning a man to make him talk, and even a doctor wouldn't have known exactly when to stop, when to let him snatch another breath. He'd been much stronger, before, when I'd found him swimming towards the bank, and he'd thrown an arm round my neck and forced me below the surface — a big man, he was a big man, and frightened because of the sirens — and I'd had to work on his nerves with knuckle strikes to get him docile.
Struggling like a madman under my hands, not frightened by the sirens any more, frightened of drowning, dying. I let his head break surface and waited until the worst of the choking was finished with.
'Skidder, I want information and you want to live. Is it Horst Volper you work for?'
I think he was trying to nod and it sounded like yes but it could have been his breath hissing as he tried to snatch at it. I would ask him again later. 'Skidder. Who is the target?'
Oh Jesus Christ it was cold in the water here, it was cold enough to kill. He didn't answer so I pushed him down again. God damn his eyes he was wasting my time and freezing me to death. Struggle, then, go on, you'll get the message quicker this way. Five seconds, ten… Up.
Blowing out water, half-choking.
'Who is the target? Come on, who is the target?'
He made a sound.
'What?'
'Gor — chev — '
'Gorbachev? Did you say Gorbachev?'
'Ess,' nodding, 'Ess,' choking up water.
He was getting heavier and I was warned. Our feet were grounded in the shallows so I didn't have his full weight on my hands but he was weakening and I'd have to watch it because this half-drowned hulk could give me the access for Quickstep and perhaps save time, later, lives, later.
'What's the operation, Skidder? Listen, you give me some answers and I'll pull you out and get you to a hospital but if you waste any more of my time by God I'm going to push you under and keep you there, now do you understand that?' Heavy on my hands, now, he was heavy. 'What is the operation?'
The sirens were louder now and I could see headlights slanting across the water as one of the police cars swung in this direction.
'What?'
He'd said something.
I waited but he didn't repeat it so I pushed him down and dragged him up again.
'Come on Skidder, I want information.'
But I wouldn't have to push him down again if it came to that, and I didn't think it'd do much good if he told me what I wanted to know and I got him to a hospital; he was a dead weight on my hands now, with his legs jack-knifing under the water. I was losing alertness myself by this time: the water was freezing the blood, numbing the limbs, and all I could think about was getting out while there was time.
I waited but he didn't say anything more.
'Come on, Skidder!'
Didn't say anything more.
Sirens close now, and headlights along the river, a mobile spotlight throwing a beam across the water, passing over the hump of the Mercedes and coming back, fixing on it and then moving again, sweeping, suddenly dazzling, blinding.
'Skidder!'
Anything more.
There was just the white flare of the light playing on us and his face, Skidder's face close to mine with its eyes open and its mouth hanging slack, his dead weight on my hands, and voices now, voices calling from the top of the bank, a door slamming and a man running, more lights as another car swung from the higher road and pulled up with its siren dying.
Conscious thought slipped into illusion: I was aware of the police cars and the men coming down the bank and the man in my arms and the dark flat surface of the river reaching forever beyond the brilliance of the lights, but they were all unreal, a chimera, and the only reality was this gripping cold, sapping the strength and numbing the mind, turning me into something immovable, an entity that was losing its significance — watch it — and now the beginning of euphoria as the will to move gave way to the comfort of deciding to make no effort — move, for God's sake, move — no more effort, just the feeling of letting go, with the water lapping against my throat now, against my mouth — move move move you're drowning — and a man with a peaked cap and other men, uniforms; 'it's all right, we've got you, hang onto me now' and the bright lights spinning and the man's face watching, watching me from slightly above, nodding, making a note.
'You were pretty far gone, yes, when they found you.'
'Oh Jesus, it was so cold, I tell you.'
Nodding again. 'And you remember being brought in here?'
'Yes. Most of it. I mean there was nothing very specific about it; I knew they'd dragged me out of the river but I was shaking badly and I didn't want to take much notice of anything. Hot drink, beef broth, I think.'
''They did a good job.' He switched off the recorder. forced that man too hard and got nothing from him, or next to nothing, rage, too, about what Cone had done, rage and depression because of a death on my hands, and above all the knowledge that because of all these things I'd left Quickstep to founder out there in the night-dark waters of the river.
9: TEA
Umdrehen auf dein Magen, bitte.'
I turned over onto my stomach and she began again, a huge woman, huge hands, but experienced, feeling the exact degree of pain she was giving, keeping it under control.
'No. Not for a few days.'
Cone was sitting on the edge of the chrome-framed vinyl chair near the bed, the phone in his hand.