‘Does anybody fancy a small portion of gambling tonight?’
It was instantly clear to Theodore that this remark was not to be taken at its face value and that its true meaning must at all costs be kept from the major. A glance at Alexander showed him to favour saying nothing. Victor spoke after a short silence.
‘All right, I’ll give you a game if no one else will.’
‘Are you sure you really feel like a flutter?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Very well, on your own head be it. Alexander, are you going to take a hand?’
‘No thank you, Leo, I have my guest to consider.’
‘He’s more than welcome to join in.’
‘I couldn’t allow it, he has an appalling head for cards.’
‘I suppose we must let him off, then. But you’re with us, Boris?’
‘I’m sorry, I have some things to clear up before the morning.’
‘You always have some confounded excuse. I reckon you’re afraid. Of losing your money.
‘You know it isn’t that,’ said Boris in a hurt voice.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Victor indignantly. ‘The thing is that they don’t gamble in Kursk, and what they don’t do in Kursk must never be done anywhere. That’s it, isn’t it, Boris?’
For a moment Boris’s heavy features showed him to be on the edge of changing his mind. Then he shook his head energetically. ‘No, I must go and work.’
‘Spoil-sport,’ said Victor. ‘Well, it’s just you and me then, Leo.’
The major looked up at that point and said, ‘You may take tea,’ evidently a form of words permitting junior officers to leave the table.
‘Thank you, sir. Good night, sir.’
Leo, Victor and Boris rose, clicked their heels and departed. Theodore had started to follow their example, but Alexander put a hand on his arm, saying they had some wine to finish. After a minute or two Major Yakir and his companion also left and Alexander dismissed the remaining waiter.
‘Well?’ asked Theodore.
‘When it’s really dark, Victor and Leo will go outside and shoot at each other with old-fashioned revolvers.’
‘Shoot at… At what range’?’
‘Oh; thirty metres? Twenty metres? It’s not certain death at any one time – you don’t show yourself, not deliberately at least: you call out and the other man fires at your voice. But they’ll go on till somebody’s killed, one of them or a passer-by.’
‘Where do they do this? The sound of the-’
‘Silencers. I went with them once; I thought it was a joke. It was no joke. There were four of us, me and those two and the other subaltern, the one that’s on duty. The first time I shouted I was standing at the corner of a building in deep shadow. One bullet hit the wall beside me and a splinter cut my cheek and I heard another go past about shoulder-high and less than a metre away. I started running and I didn’t stop till I was back in the mess. If that’s cowardice then I’m a coward.’
Theodore shook his head. ‘Only a fool goes looking for danger.’
‘You may be wondering why they don’t kill somebody every night if the shots they got off at me were average. I was so naive I hadn’t realised that when they put you on your honour to keep stock-still after you’ve shouted you aren’t meant to take it too literally. But when I found out my mistake I didn’t try it again. I’m worried about Boris. He’s just the sort to take it literally for however long is sufficient. Of course they may never talk him into it, his training and temperament are dead against anything of the sort, but he has this obsession about being smart and dashing which Victor works away on. Victor-he’ll be out there soon, blazing away. At least Leo’s sober. Which is worse, I suppose.’
‘Why don’t you tell your major?’
‘They put me on my honour for that as well, before they explained the game. Some game!’
‘Anonymously?’
‘They’d still know it was me. I’m worried about the major too, in a different way. You don’t know him, but he has plenty to say for himself as a rule, and he seems to like all of us, even Leo. Well, you saw him keeping his mouth tight shut, and I don’t know whether you noticed the look he gave me when he said good night, but it wasn’t friendly, whatever else it was.
‘Perhaps he resented having to put up with that guest of his.’
‘Poor Major Yakir,’ said Alexander. ‘He’s always having to return hospitality he never wanted in the first place.’
Just as he finished speaking the door opened abruptly and the man with the birthmark came in and walked straight across the room to where he had been sitting at table. As he moved he spoke in a monotonous voice and with a perceptible accent, Theodore thought Czech or Polish. ‘I am sorry to come bursting in on you like this, gentlemen, but I foolishly left my spectacle-case behind, at least I think I did. Ah yes, here it is under the table by my chair. What a relief. And now I apologise for this intrusion and I leave you in peace and again I wish you good night.’
‘Good night, sir.’
The door shut with some emphasis.
‘Do you think he heard anything?’ asked Theodore.
‘What if he did? Let him fuck his mother.’
‘By all means, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t be the end of him.’
‘What?’ said Alexander rather crossly.
Without answering, Theodore got to his feet, overturned the chair lately occupied by the man in question and began closely examining its legs and the underside of its seat.
‘How romantic.’ Alexander sounded amused now. ‘Enemy agents planting concealed microphones. Or is it time-bombs? It really takes me back. Admit it, Theodore: you made the last part of your journey here by parachute.’
‘It’s no joke, I’m afraid. There is a risk that Vanag’s men are taking an interest in me, a slight one, but it’s there. Well, this thing’s clean.’
‘What about the table?’
‘He didn’t touch the table, I was watching. I’d better check the floor.’ And Theodore went down on his hands and knees and peered at the rug.
Alexander sniggered. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t take this seriously. Hidden microphones in a-’
‘Can you suggest what he was doing if he wasn’t planting something?’
‘Fetching his spectacle-case.’
‘Don’t talk balls.’ Apparently the rug was clean too. ‘All right, fetching something else that wasn’t his spectacle-case.’
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Theodore, frowning and staring.
‘It’s the only other possibility.’
‘But what could he have been fetching?’
‘I don’t know. That’s your department. Why might Vanag’s men be interested in you?’
‘Last night a girl in my section was arrested. I know her because she’s in my section. Nothing more. What she’s supposed to have done, whether she did it, even who arrested her – very likely the ordinary civilian police, not the Directorate at all – everything else: no information. But there is that possibility. Nothing more than that.’
‘I see.’
Theodore produced his pipe and looked at it without friendliness. ‘I must give this up; it’s much too expensive. Are you the junior officer here?’
‘Yes, to Victor by six weeks,’ said Alexander in a serious, literal-minded tone, one he maintained when answering subsequent questions. His manner was that of a witness intent on establishing the truth and altogether without parti pris. If he suspected that some of the information he gave was already known, he betrayed no sign.