He read on until he reached the demonic folk-lore, and the old devils of Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt came to occupy their familiar places. Then he threw the newspaper from him and it fluttered heavily to the pale blue velvet carpet. He turned to look at his wife.
"Well?" she said in a tight, strained voice. He sensed the malevolence in her tone.
"Well?" he could only repeat hopelessly.
"It is Aubrey they're talking about, isn't it? Your friend Aubrey?" He could do no more than nod in admission. "To think that he's been here! Here! Sat here with us, with you…!" Evidently, she believed every word of the report.
"Darling…" he began, hoisting himself out of his chair with the aid of his stick. When he looked up, her face wore an appalled expression, as if his movements were some further species of betrayal. "I can't defend him," he said shakily, moving towards her. She seemed to back, away slightly along the sideboard. Her large cuff slid against the crystal of a decanter, and her gold bracelets rattled against the glass. "I can't tell you anything, anything at all…"
"You've known him… for years you've known him—!"
"Not then…"
"He's your friend!"
"Yes."
"He murdered my father!" Her face was young, urchin-like, abandoned.
"They say he betrayed your father to the NKVD… I don't know what to say to you — it's no more than a rumour."
They wanted it known, he reminded himself, and the future became clear to him in a moment of insight; it loomed over him like a cloud — no, more solid than that, like a great stone that would crush him if he could not learn to carry it. "Only a rumour," he repeated huskily. They wanted it known. The Joint Intelligence Committee, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Secretary, even the PM — they've all allowed the witch-hunt. Everyone must want Aubrey's head. Then, he realised the truth… They believe it. They believe Aubrey's guilty… they even believe he's a Russian agent.
He opened his arms. She moved into them with the sullen step of reluctant surrender. Her body heaved with sobs. His neck was wet from her tears. Thirty-five years late, she possessed the emotions of a child or a teenage daughter. Her world, her certainties, had been altered and thrown into shadow.
His eyes roamed the large room. He noticed, as if for the first time, the number of framed photographs of her father that almost littered the walls, the sideboard, the occasional tables. As if the place were some weird kind of roadside shrine to a little-known saint. A portrait of the young Castleford stared down at him from one of the walls. Castleford was sacrosanct. Margaret's mother, of course, had been mostly responsible for the veneration her daughter still felt; the unalloyed, immutable admiration of a child remained with her even now. Especially now—
Margaret had been flung back down some time-tunnel to the moment when Castleford had first disappeared, to the moment he had died.
"There, there…"he breathed, stroking her hair from crown to neck. "There, my darling, my darling…"
"After all this time," she murmured, sniffing. He felt her swallow hard, and then her voice was firmer. "I wasn't prepared for anything like this — his face on the screen, suddenly to know that he had been betrayed, not just murdered, but betrayed deliberately…"
He continued to stroke her hair gently. "I know, I know…" He glanced up, into the mirror behind them. He saw a face that had been quickly, and perhaps permanently aged. Deep lines, hunted eyes. His own features. His hip ached with the premonition of effort. He was unready, it was unfair, grossly unfair.
He knew it was false. All of it. Not Aubrey. Aubrey could not be a Russian agent. Never.
But Margaret…?
He could not answer to the siren-call of that priority, even though his whole heart and body required it of him. Her body was against his, asserting its pre-eminence, but a chilly, clear part of his mind held it at a distance. He had to help Aubrey. At whatever cost, he had to help Aubrey now.
At least, he had to offer…
Hyde finished the last mouthful of Wiener Schnitzel and washed it down with a glass of thin red Austrian wine. The cafe was noisier now, more crowded with regulars interested only in wine and beer and coffee. He was almost the last person to have ordered a meal. Now, his stomach was full and his mind had slowed to a half-amused, cynical walking pace. He could no longer seriously accept the idea of collusion between Kapustin and MI5. It was patently ridiculous, even after only a small carafe of wine. Someone had wanted him dead, yes…
But that had been because it was a set-up. Kapustin's game-plan depended upon getting rid of Hyde. Leaving Aubrey alone to face the music. It was neat, clear, hard-edged in his mind, like a piece of coloured glass. No witnesses, no corroboration for Aubrey from the one man who had been at most of the meetings with Teardrop. Efficiency.
He wiped his lips with the soft paper napkin, studied the remaining few sauteed potatoes, and decided against them. He was replete, calm; certain. He looked at his watch. Just after ten. Almost time to call in, arrange to be picked up by the embassy.
Aubrey was accused of treachery. Kapustin was cast, no doubt, as his control. A clever KGB set-up, one which Aubrey had danced along with for two years. Babbington and MI5 had swallowed the story. Clever; specious, but clever. Aubrey had enough enemies in MI5 and JIC and the Cabinet Office for it to tip the scales against him; a cloud was all they needed, not a prosecution.
He must recover the recording of Aubrey's conversation with Kapustin. It would prove that it was the Russian who was refusing to come over, that Aubrey had been engaged in a proposed defection by Kapustin to the West. He must find it — Vienna Station must find it—
He studied the bill, counted notes onto the table, and then moved towards the back of the cafe and the telephones. Now, he was possessed by an urgent curiosity to discover how clever the KGB had been, to talk to Aubrey and even to Babbington. Also, part of him wanted to see Aubrey wriggle and scratch his way out of his dilemma.
He dialled the Vienna Station number and, when the switchboard answered, he supplied the current code-identification. Almost immediately, he heard Wilkes's voice, breathy and urgent, at the other end of the line.
"Patrick — ? Where have you been, man?" Wilkes exclaimed, his urgency creating a ringing suspicion in Hyde's awareness that was immediately subdued by the man's next words. "The old man's been crying out in his sleep for you! Where the hell did you get to?"
"I — a little local difficulty," Hyde replied, reading the felt-pen graffiti on the mirror in the phone booth. Punk rock, the inevitable swastika, telephone numbers promising sodomites paradise. He closed the door of the booth against a burst of laughter from the cafe. Outside, in hard-and-shadowed lighting, tipsy jollity suggested normality. He had been stupid. Even in danger of his life, he had been stupid.
"He's all right?" he asked.
"Furious — you know him," Wilkes replied confidentially. There was a chuckle in his voice. So normal—
A gale of laughter from the cafe was like a concussion against the glass. A waitress passed the booth in a check apron that matched the row of tablecloths.
"What's going on?"
"Christ — Babbington and his merry men haven't confided in me. They're in a huddle with Aubrey now. All sorts of charges are flying around."