A car drew up in the Celetna. He heard the sound through the drawn curtains. He had heard it subliminally as it moved down the street, coming from Old Town Square, but had fought to ignore it. Now, he couldn't. He heard one of its doors close quietly and moved to the window, lifting the curtain very gently. Two men. Uniforms. Police car. Looking around, then beginning to lift their heads to look up — he dropped the curtain. Routine patrol, diverted to check out Godwin's address — twelve-twenty… no, twelve-thirty. Where? He heard, or imagined, boots on the pavement's rutted slush, and the murmur of voices. He listened. No other cars. A tram clanged over points in the distance.
Where — easy — where, easy for Godwin — where?
And then he knew, as he heard the doorbell ring in the flat below. The flats were too few and cramped to have a concierge. Tenants answered their own bells. But they'd rung the ground floor to confuse and mislead anyone in Godwin's flat.
Godwin had given up. Hyde saw him as he had seen him at that bus-stop in the suburbs. Waiting out the remainder of his crippled existence. He'd never have expected or tried to escape. He would have sat waiting for them whenever they came. No run for the border for Godwin — he'd given up.
Hyde flung the old sofa over on its back as if wrestling with an intruder. He ran his hands along the edges of the sacking covering its base. Blood. A prick of blood on one finger. He heard the street door open, and quiet voices. He sucked his finger, knowing that Godwin had broken a needle that had been too light to perform the task of resewing the sacking to the material of the sofa. Its broken-off end had remained embedded in the frame. And the stitching was less neat, newer. Godwin had really hidden the money — buried it. He ripped the sacking away and the noise hid for a second the sound of boots ascending the stairs. His hand fumbled with horsehair and springs, then withdrew the expected package. He tore the brown paper. Swiss francs, high denomination.
The doorbell rang. A voice immediately called out Godwin's name, using the English prefix Mister. They'd seen lights, they expected someone — perhaps even him. He stood up, shaking with relief, and thrust the package into the inside pocket of the overcoat. He snatched up the pistol from the table, and hurried into the kitchen. Heavy knocking, then the short, ominous silence before forced entry. He climbed into the sink and over the sill, hearing the lock tear free of the door-frame as they entered the flat. His hands gripped the window-frame, and his arms quivered. He tested the frosty tiles with one foot, then stepped out onto the roof. Voices called behind him, but not yet to him, at him.
He scuttled, bent almost double, along the sloping roof, concealing himself in a crouch behind a bulky chimney. Sleet whisked round him, the clouds glowed from the lights of the city. Voices at the window, issuing orders, then the crackle of an R/T as assistance was summoned. Boots clattered on the sill, on the roof. He peered between the chimney-pots.
There were only two of them — until help arrived. He withdrew the pistol from his pocket, feeling its barrel brush against his thigh and side. He shuffled on his knees away from the chimney, saw the policeman's face in light from the kitchen as the man's mouth opened. Hyde fired. The Czech policeman buckled, fell onto his back, scrabbled with dying hands, and then slid down the roof and off, disappearing. Hyde heard the dull concussion as his body landed in drifted snow in the alley at the side of the building. He fired twice more, and the second policeman ducked out of sight.
Hyde, hunched over, scampered cautiously down the roof. When he reached the gutter, he paused to look down. The snow was ghostly, heaped in the alley. He could see a dark shape spreadeagled on a mound some yards away. He crouched, then jumped. Air rushed, his feet sank in, his body was chilled instantly, then he was rolling down a drift. He was winded, still struggling to breathe, as he got to his feet, his teeth chattering, his dark coat patched with lumpy snow.
Ankles? Yes, OK. Breath coming back — he gulped in air, his lungs burned, he exhaled. The second policeman's R/T crackled somewhere out of sight above him, uttering indecipherable orders. Hyde looked up. Nothing. Twelve thirty-three. He possessed the lapping athlete's sense of passing time. Three minutes since he had ripped open the sofa. He ran past the dead policeman towards the end of the alley. A car passed, making him huddle in sudden terror against the wall. It moved away down the street. He listened. A distant siren. He peered round the corner at the door of the house. No one emerged.
He hurried down the street, past the Skoda, observing the empty Celetna ulice. Even the lovers had gone. His breath smoked like signals of desperation. He crossed the street, unlocked the Skoda's door and climbed into the driving seat. The curtains in Godwin's lounge remained undisturbed. The second policeman was playing it safe until help arrived.
Twelve thirty-four. He started the engine. It caught at the second attempt. Driving mirror empty, nothing coming towards him from the Powder Tower. He turned the wheel. Pain back in his hands as the icy cold of the drifted snow faded and allowed feeling to return. He grimaced, watching the mirror and the windscreen, and drove past the police car outside the flat, then immediately turned off the Celetna into a narrow sidestreet. Moments later, a wailing siren sounded behind him, but the mirror remained empty. The windscreen was clouding with the heat and tension he exuded. He turned left, then left once more. A wide boulevard, tall streetlights at regular intervals. Wenceslas Square. People, traffic. He was becoming anonymous.
As he headed for the motorway to Kladno, Karlovy Vary and Cheb — his route to Mytina — he began to think about Aubrey. Once out of immediate danger, self receded. Twelve-fifty. Into a scrubby industrial suburb with few lights and no traffic and an abiding sense of grey, dirty stone and uncleared slush. He could not fend off the growing fear that he was already too late. Babbington must know by now; Babbington wouldn't waste a moment, not a single moment, in disposing of the evidence against himself. He would be too late to save Aubrey's life. His journey to the border was meaningless. Hopeless.
Twelve fifty-nine. Aubrey would be gone before daylight. On his way east, perhaps even dead along with the Massingers. One o'clock. It was too late to save them.
"Where are they, Voronin?"
The question was involuntary. The Russian's features were burned-out in the centre by the retinal image of the light bulb above the narrow cot, into which Aubrey had been staring. Aubrey moved his head. The glowing filament, haloed in yellow-white, moved aside from Voronin's face. The man's sallow complexion was pinked with pleasure. He stood near the door of the tiny cell, watching Aubrey. Aubrey rubbed his eyes. How long had he been staring at the bulb? The retinal image was still as fierce as an eclipse.
"They are being made ready for transit to the airport," Voronin replied.
"How?" Aubrey's voice croaked. His throat was dry and constricted. He cleared it. "How will you smuggle them aboard?"
Voronin shook his head. "That has been taken care of — diplomatic luggage. No one will see them. Absolutely no one."
"But then, no one can be allowed to see them, can they? They are—"
"Never to be seen alive again — yes."
"You've killed them—!" something made him cry; terror or grief he did not know.
Voronin shook his head slowly. "As yet, they are alive."
Aubrey felt the rising guilt choke him. "How — how do they travel?" he asked, fending off other, darker thoughts.
"As part of the luggage of a returning trade mission. It is not a problem. No one searches the transport we use." Voronin smiled, moving forward to stand at the side of the bed. Aubrey was made to feel vulnerable in his shirtsleeves; prone and old. "I remember some scandal in your own country, some years ago. When the American President Carter visited — oh, where was it?"