Yakimov gasped, dismayed. ‘But I haven’t a leu,’ he said.
‘Well, this once,’ said Galpin, ‘I’ll lend you the cash, but you must have money for cables. The international line may be closed down for weeks. Trot along now and see McCann.’
Next morning, as he went to the breakfast room, Yakimov saw Galpin and a Canadian called Screwby coming purposefully from the bar. Suspecting they were on the track of news, he tried to avoid them, but it was too late. Galpin had already seen him.
‘There’s a spectacle in the Chicken Market,’ said Galpin as though Yakimov would be delighted to hear it. ‘We’ll take you in the old Ford.’
Yakimov shied away: ‘Join you later, dear boy. Trifle peckish. Must get a spot of brekker.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Yakimov,’ said Galpin unpleasantly, ‘I’m McCann’s friend. I’ll see him served right. You do your job.’ And, taking Yakimov’s arm, he led him out to the car.
They drove through the Calea Victoriei towards the river Dâmbovita. Yakimov had been put into the uncomfortable back seat. Galpin, apparently satisfied by his submission, talked over his shoulder: ‘You’ve heard, of course, they got the chappies who did it?’
‘Have they, dear boy?’
‘Yah. Iron Guardists, just as I said. A German plot, all right: an excuse to march in and keep order, but they reckoned without the old Russkies. The old Russkies got in their way. The Germans couldn’t march through them. But these Guardist chappies didn’t realise. They thought, when the Germans got here, they’d be the heroes of the new order. No one’d dare touch them. They didn’t even go into hiding. They were picked up before the victim was cold and executed during the night.’
‘But what about the King, dear boy?’
‘What about him?’
‘You said he said he’d get Cǎlinescu.’
‘Oh, that! It’s a complicated story. You know what these Balkan countries are like.’ Galpin broke off to nod out of the car window. ‘Tension’s relaxed,’ he said.
Screwby gave the passers-by a knowing look and agreed that tension was relaxed.
‘Not that most of them wouldn’t rather have the Germans here than the Russians up on the frontier.’ Galpin nodded again. ‘Look at that fat bastard. Got pro-German written all over him.’
Yakimov looked, half expecting to see a duplicate of Goëring, but he saw only the mid-morning Rumanian crowd out for its refection of chocolate and cream cakes. He sighed and murmured: ‘Don’t feel so well. Hollow with hunger,’ but he was ignored.
They crossed the tram-lines and entered the road that sloped down to the river. Galpin parked the car on the quayside and Yakimov saw the enormous winding queue, compacted like gut, that filled the market area. It gave him hope. Even Galpin must think twice of joining it.
‘Dear boy,’ he said, ‘we might wait all day.’
Galpin sharply asked: ‘You’ve got your card, haven’t you? Then follow me.’ He strode authoritatively into the multitude, holding up his card to proclaim his privileged position. No one questioned him. The peasants and workpeople gave way at the sight of him and Screwby and Yakimov followed in his wake.
A square had been cordoned off in the centre of the market place. It was guarded by a dozen or so police lolling about in their dirty sky-blue uniforms. They stood upright at the sight of Galpin. One of them examined his card, pretended to understand it, then began, importantly, to clear a viewpoint. The assassins were revealed.
Yakimov, who disliked not only violence but the effects of violence, hung back till ordered forward by Galpin. With distaste, fearing a loss of appetite, he looked at the bodies.
‘Just been tumbled out of a lorry,’ said Screwby. ‘How many are there? I can see four … five, six, I’d guess.’
They looked like a heap of ragged clothes. The sightseers, kicking at them under the rail, had brought to view a head and a hand. On the head there was a bald spot, like a tonsure. One side of the face was pressed into the ground. The visible eye and nostril were clotted with blood; blood caked the lips together. The hand, growing dark and dry in the hot sun, was stretched out stiffly as though in search of aid. Blood, running down from beneath the sleeve, had stained the cobbles.
Galpin said: ‘That one wasn’t dead when they pitched him out.’
‘How do you know, dear boy?’ Yakimov asked, but received no reply.
Galpin put his foot under the rail and, stirring the heap about, uncovered another face. This one had a deep cut across the left cheek. The mouth was open, black with a vomit of blood.
Galpin and Screwby began scribbling in notebooks. Yakimov had no notebook, but it did not matter. His mind was blank.
Back in the car, he said to Galpin: ‘Dear boy, I’m faint. Wonder if you’ve a hip-flask on you?’
For answer Galpin started up the car and drove at speed to the post office. There they were given forms, but when Galpin presented his story he discovered that once again the stop was down. Nothing could be sent out. This was a relief for Yakimov, who had created five words (‘They caught the assassins and …’). His eyes glazed with effort, he moaned: ‘Not used to this sort of thing. Simply must wet m’whistle.’
‘We’re due at the press luncheon,’ said Galpin. ‘You’ll get all you want there.’
‘But I’m not invited,’ said Yakimov, near tears.
‘You’ve got your card, haven’t you?’ Galpin, his patience exhausted, said. ‘Then, for heaven’s sake, come along.’
With the quivering expectancy of an old horse headed for the stables, Yakimov followed the others into the desolate building which had been recently refurbished as a Ministry. They passed through a tunnelling of china-tiled passages to a room too high for its width, where, sure enough, food was lavishly displayed on a buffet table. The buffet was roped off. Before it stood several rows of hard chairs. It was to these the journalists were conducted.
Most of those present, being in Bucharest temporarily, to cover the assassination, had seated themselves unobtrusively at the back. Only Mortimer Tufton and Inchcape, now British Information officer, were in front. Tufton had placed his stick across the three chairs that separated them. He lifted it and motioned Galpin to sit beside him.
Inchcape sat askew, his legs crossed at the knee, an arm over his chairback and his cheek pressed back by his fingertips. He looked sourly at Yakimov, who took the chair beside him, and said: ‘Something fishy about all this.’
Yakimov, seeing nothing wrong but fearing to betray again his inexperience in the cunning world of journalism, murmured: ‘Quite, dear boy, quite!’ His tone lacked conviction and caused Inchcape to wave an irritable hand at the buffet.
‘Roped off!’ he said. ‘Why? Never saw such a thing before at a public function. These people are nothing if not hospitable. And what are all these damned insolent flunkeys doing here? Are they on guard? Or what?’ In an access of indignation, he jerked round his head and stared at the back rows.
There were, Yakimov now observed, a remarkable number of waiters; and these were smirking together as though involved in a hoax. Yet the food looked real enough. A side table was crowded with bottles of wines and spirits. Thinking he might get himself an apéritif, he motioned the nearest waiter and made a sign that seldom failed. It failed this time. The man, his lips twitching, lifted his face and appeared entranced by the fretted wooden ceiling.
Yakimov shuffled unhappily in his seat. Others shuffled and talked behind him. There were no new arrivals; time was passing; there was no sign of the Minister of Information. Inchcape’s suspicion was extending itself through the room.
Suddenly Galpin said: ‘What’s going on? Not a Boche or a Wop at the party. Nobody here but the friends of plucky little Rumania. And why are we being kept waiting like this?’