He was beyond the reach of the torchbeam. They’d be running along the bank to get ahead of him and light the river again. They would.
So damn tired, and cold.
You quit when you were ahead, Clipper. Best thing you could have done … But heh, Clipper, it was there, it was coming. Not any more. They can’t take that away from …
The water was foul-tasting. It was in his eyes, up his nose and inside his ears. Each time he tried to spit it out, more of the Bug water slopped into Lawson’s mouth.
He thought himself free.
He believed the curse lifted.
The dog sat patient on the floor and watched him. Tadeuz Komiski stepped up on to the seat of the wooden chair and reached for the noose. He felt no fear. Guilt had been purged and a grave would go undisturbed.
The Crow said, ‘It is time. We leave.’
Sak asked, ‘What could have happened? Why didn’t they come?’
‘Do you think it is easy to fight? Go home. Forget you were ever here. Erase from your mind the image of my face. Ask no questions and you will be safe. Talk of this and you will be dead. They did not come, but the struggle stays alive.’
Two cars pulled away from a picnic site on the Lüneburger Heide. One would head for Hamburg, and the first flight in the morning would take a school-laboratory technician back to his home in the West Midlands of Britain. The other would be driven to Cologne and, en route, a device for testing a man-portable nuclear weapon for confirmed and heavy plutonium presence would be discarded in a rubbish bin. Before the next evening a deal prepared carefully and secretively with a hawaldar banker would be cancelled. Cranes would beckon that man and the fierceness of the Gulf’s sun would shine on him.
And later …
LAWSON, Christopher (late of the Diplomatic Service), Drowned in a boating accident while abroad. Aged 61. Beloved husband of Lavinia and father of Harry. Will be sadly missed by all who knew him. Private funeral, but donations may be made to English Heritage (Church Restoration Fund). A memorial service will follow.
It was a summer’s day, pleasantly warm. He had thought it necessary to be there. The church was between the Clapham Road and the Lambeth Road and had an association with the VBX building, he was told by an usher. It was not only appropriate but convenient as it was at most a five-minute walk from that awful green and cream and tinted-glass edifice. He had been late to arrive and had squeezed into a pew near to the back, but he’d been noticed, and he’d heard a little murmur run down the nave. He’d been stared at and identified by pointing fingers. There had been a photograph on a table in front of the altar of the man — he’d never known his name until he was handed the order of the service — who had dragooned him on the narrowboat, and a candle had burned beside it. The service had started with a bizarre touch: a mobile phone had rung and its call jingle had been ‘Deutschland Über Alles’ and there had been a ripple of laughter he’d not understood. Then there had been an address from a big cat and a reading by a young man he’d presumed to be Lawson’s son. Two hymns — ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ — brief prayers and, after a bare half-hour, they spilled out of the church into the sunshine. There were to be sandwiches and drinks in the hall adjoining it, but people seemed reluctant to wander there and milled around. He realized then that two confused queues had formed. One waited to shake the widow’s hand, and her son’s, but the second was near to him. It was as though his queue waited for a man of importance to break the ice.
That man came. ‘You’re Johnny Carrick. I’m Pettigrew, the director. Most in there would have had to swallow their bile for the length of the proceedings. Christopher Lawson was cordially detested by the huge majority of his colleagues, but not by me. Without him, this city or another would be in dire danger. A few hours before he died he spoke on his phone to me and praised you to the hilt. I’ll miss him, not that others will. Anyway, well done. Haystack was one of our better efforts. You didn’t see him in the water, did you? No, I didn’t think you would have. Must press on.’
He recognized the next in line, the young man who had been with Lawson on the narrowboat and whom he had seen under the wall of Warsaw’s old quarter, holding Katie Jennings tightly.
‘I’m Luke Davies. When you made it to the bank, it was me who dragged you out of that bloody river. Sorry and all that about the other side of the coin. I suppose you’ve realized Katie and I are together, and she’s transferred out of that unit you were with. I think it’s the sort of thing that happens in a stress situation — it was, you know, stressful for us. Anyway, the best of luck. I suppose at the end of the day it was a good result. Not that it’ll matter to you but I’ve been promoted on the back of it. Keep safe.’
The next in line had a tangled mess of hair and a cheerful smile.
‘I had the job of pumping your chest, getting all that sewer water from the Bug out of your lungs. Remember, the psychologist, Shrinks? Did you act on my advice, get the counselling bit in? Very important for someone who’s been exposed to the syndrome, as you have. Did you?’
He shook his head. Yes, he remembered being dragged up the bank and having his chest beaten, and then he’d been left while they’d scoured the river’s edge. He looked over the man’s shoulder, like people did at parties when they were searching for a more interesting guest. He was rewarded.
‘Hello, I’m Giles Banham. I was running the crisis desk that night, and was short-handed because we didn’t actually believe it was real. Anyway … Look, this is confidential, Official Secrets and that guff, but you’ve the right to know. Josef Goldmann came fast back to London, then quickly did the flit. We think he’s in Israel, and the word is that his family hate it, and that he’s chucked a pretty considerable bung at the government, and they’ll give him citizenship and protection. The thugs, the two of them, ended up in northern Cyprus and are training the locals in security. Extradition isn’t done from there. Reuven Weissberg made it out of the river, back to Berlin. There’s CCTV of him at his apartment, going in and still looking like a semi-drowned rodent. He was there half an hour and exited with his grandmother — bizarre, but all they had was basic hand baggage, and what looked like a picture wrapped in newspaper. Must have been something important. There was a report that they’d showed up in Moldova, and another that said their refuge was Paraguay, but we don’t have confirmation. The two old men you met on the Bug’s far side we haven’t heard of. The good thing out of it all is, when it suits us, we’ll shove a sanitized part of the file to the FSB, just to cause some keen embarrassment. All of them — Weissberg, Goldmann and the thugs — will spend the rest of their days looking over their shoulders, and being pretty damn careful what they drink and eat. We’ll leave them for a bit in their new homes, then exert some civilized pressure. I expect they’ll turn and answers to our questions will be provided. We’re short of who was the purchaser, who the device would ultimately have been sold to, but we’ll get there, believe me.’
He recalled them all. He saw the hostility of Viktor, the malice of Mikhail. He could hear the respect and gratitude of Josef and Esther Goldmann. He could feel the bear-hug, before the anger, and the warmth of Reuven Weissberg. He could picture the painting of a forest’s trees. An older man with wispy grey hair that had been allowed to grow beyond tidiness came forward.