5

The aircraft touched down at Charles de Gaulle only ten minutes late; the flight was uneventful, and they sat together reading, seldom speaking. Anna wore a hat, which helped to conceal her distinctive blonde hair and shadowed her face, Nicholas pulled on a cap as they prepared to disembark.

‘Just walk straight through,’ he whispered to her. ‘Go to the front and wait for me. We’ll be picked up. Keep just ahead of me.’

At the turning marked transit passengers, Anna veered to the left, leaving the stream of passengers booked through to New York to go ahead to the transit lounge. She walked on, carrying a small overnight Alitalia bag. Their luggage had been loaded on to the plane. There was no question of collecting it at Paris; Kruger had assured them they would get it back in due time. Anna wore the Romanov crystal brooch under her scarf. She pulled the hat a little down, and hurried forward to the passport control. There was a passport in her bag, a French passport, with her photograph inside it, made out in the name of Madeleine Duplessis, given to Nicholas by Anton when they left for Venice. She handed in her boarding card, walked into the customs hall and through the green area, not turning to see where Nicholas was, and out into the main airport reception hall, following the exit signs. The automatic doors slid back for her and closed behind her; she was outside in the sunshine, waiting. A man came up to her. He wore sunglasses, a sweatshirt and jeans.

‘Taxis this way,’ he said. He didn’t wait for her to answer, he just took the little bag out of her hand and walked away. Anna followed him to a car parked in the general car park. Then she did turn and, to her relief, saw Nicholas threading his way through the cars towards them. The man opened the rear door for her, and climbed into the driving seat. He took off his glasses and she saw that it was Volkov.

‘Where’s the Count, Madame?’

‘He’s coming. I saw him a minute ago. Here he is now –’ she reached for the car door and swung it open for Nicholas to climb in beside her. He squeezed her hand, and spoke to Volkov.

‘No problems, Vladimir. We weren’t checked coming in. Everything went exactly right.’

‘Good,’ Volkov said. ‘I hope you and Madame Yurovskaya enjoyed your trip, Nicholas. I’ve never been to Venice.’

‘It was beautiful,’ Nicholas answered. He clasped her hand between his. ‘You should go there yourself one day.’

‘Old buildings don’t interest me,’ Volkov said. ‘The traffic is like soup; have you seen the papers?’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘We’ve seen them.’

‘He’s going to the Comédie Française tonight,’ Volkov muttered. He had swung out on to the main road, and was absorbed into a stream of cars.

He said something in Russian which sounded ugly to Anna. ‘That face,’ he broke into French again. ‘Photographs of him, grinning and waving like an ape. The television every night – do you know he was clapped for five minutes when he appeared in the visitors’ gallery in the Chamber of Deputies? They’re calling him the new Khrushchev; the soft-line Russian. Jesus Christ!’

He accelerated suddenly, savagely cutting in front of a large green van which hooted furiously at him. He didn’t seem to hear it. In the driving mirror his face was flushed a dull red; though the eyes were masked once more by the sunglasses his mouth was drawn back into an animal-like snarl.

‘Calm yourself,’ Nicholas spoke sharply. ‘And watch your driving. What does it matter what they call him – he’s got another two days to go – he’ll be called something else when we’ve finished with him! How is Anton?’

‘He seems well,’ Volkov said. ‘Those pigs of police came looking for me; and for Maximova and Zepirov. He’d got us all away in plenty of time, though. Look at this hold-up – typical, with one police hog standing in the middle doing nothing – we’ll never get to the Château by seven o’clock!’

Anna turned to Nicholas.

‘I thought we were going to the Auberge St-Julien,’ she said.

‘So did I,’ Nicholas answered. ‘Why the Château, Vladimir?’

‘Anton changed the plan,’ he answered. ‘You’ll both be better hidden there. Someone could recognize you at Elise’s place.’

‘Where are Natalie and Zepirov?’

‘At the Auberge,’ Volkov said. ‘I’m at the Château too. There’s a meeting called for tomorrow. And a last-minute dress rehearsal.’

‘Nicholas?’ Anna turned to question him. He shook his head, and then leaned forward to kiss her gently.

‘Anton will explain it,’ he said. ‘He’ll tell us everything when we arrive.’

The Krugers were waiting for them in the Château library. It was full of roses from Régine’s favourite garden, and the smell was almost overpowering. She came forward, slim and elegant in country clothes, and kissed Anna warmly, reaching up to be embraced by Nicholas. Anton Kruger greeted them both and beamed, looking at them for a moment.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Such happiness! I can feel it, like an aura – How did you like our little retreat from modern life? Isn’t it peaceful and beautiful? Just made for lovers.’ He had his arm around his wife. ‘Isn’t it, my darling?’

‘Now, Anton, don’t remind me how old we are! My dears, come upstairs and you’ll find fresh clothes. I’m afraid we took a liberty, Anna, and went into your apartment one night to get some things for you. And some mail.’

‘Yes,’ Anton Kruger said. ‘Especially the mail. There was a notice of an undelivered cable from America. I had it collected for you. That is upstairs too.’

Anna felt herself change colour. ‘My mother,’ she said. ‘If it’s a cable it has to be from her!’

‘I’m sure it is,’ Kruger said quietly. ‘So please open it and tell us what she says.’

‘Damn her,’ Anna said. ‘Damn her …’

Nicholas had his arms around her. They were alone in the bedroom and the cable had fluttered down to the floor at their feet.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s only what you expected. I don’t mind what she says.’

‘Oh, of course I expected it,’ Anna said. The tears had come so suddenly she had no defence against them. Tears of hot rage and bitter hurt. The childhood wounds burst open again, the insecurity and lack of self-confidence came rushing back, the awful void of having neither love nor support from the primary source. And then, furious with herself, she fought it down and anger won.

It was a disgraceful cable, curt and cruel.

‘Your letter received, plus cable giving news of your marriage. Am confounded by your ability to make a fool of yourself for second time. Inquiries being made at this end into credentials of undoubted charlatan. Arriving Ritz evening of 22nd. Will call you. Mother.’

‘Of course I expected it,’ she said again, ‘But I just hoped for once she might have shown some spark of human feeling or understanding, or love – I wrote her a long letter, Nicholas, I told her all about you and how much I loved you. I really thought that this time she might behave like any normal mother! I’m so sorry, darling. I never meant you to see it. I was just so upset when I read it first.’

He calmed her gently. The contents were no surprise to him. Her reaction was exactly what he had expected it would be. His anger was for the hurt she had inflicted upon Anna. And he would make her pay for that, he said to himself.

If he couldn’t deal with a bully like Sheila Campbell then he was not a Yurovsky with a thousand years of lineage behind him. He didn’t question his own feelings; they bore no relation to the attitude to his French mother, who would have been devastated by a woman like the formidable American politician. It was the arrogance of his grandmother, Countess Zia, the intimate of the Tsarina, the upright, rigidly aristocratic moulder of his early youth who influenced him from the grave. She would have annihilated such a woman with a glance.

‘My love,’ he said. ‘Forget what she says. The only important thing is the date of her arrival. We’ll have to consult Anton. She’ll expect to see us and it is the day after our plan is carried out. That is what matters. Her timing and the plan.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said. ‘Sorry to have such a dreadful mother-in-law for you. But she won’t interfere, I can promise you that. She did it once with Paul and me, but never again. As for seeing me or meeting you, she can go to hell. It was my fault for getting sentimental and writing her that silly letter. Some people never learn. You go downstairs, darling. I’ll tidy my face and come in a minute. God, why couldn’t Régine Kruger have had children, instead of someone like Sheila!’

They had dinner with the Krugers and Volkov. He had changed into a suit, and he looked stiff and uncomfortable. Nicholas told Anna that his grandfather had been a landowner and a member of the minor nobility with estates near St Petersburg. His father too had been a Tsarist officer who had left Russia in 1918. He said very little; unlike Nicholas and Anton, he was dour and without animation except when he showed anger. And anger smouldered in him, a furious suppressed rage that gleamed and glittered at odd moments when his guard was lowered, exactly like the fire of which Anna was reminded as she watched him.

Anton had heard the date of her mother’s arrival and made no comment. She had a feeling that he was satisfied, and couldn’t think why. She felt also that his wife was not quite at her ease. After the emotion of her welcome, she seemed a little forced, as if she were making conversation. Several times Anna caught her watching Anton anxiously, and glancing quickly away to Nicholas and back. She herself didn’t feel hungry; she drank some of the excellent wine and listened to Nicholas and Anton talking, drawn in to describe some incident in Venice as if by design. She felt strongly that she was playing a part in a charade, of which the scene in the dining room was a planned interlude. As soon as the coffee was served, not in the library but at the table, which was customary in French houses, Anton rose with Régine, and wished Volkov goodnight.

It was done with courtesy but firmness. The big Russian kissed Régine’s hand, did the same to Anna, who disliked being touched by him, and went upstairs.

There was a thin pretence that Anton and Nicholas and she were also going to bed, which took them into the hall, and ended in the library, with its powerful scent of roses.

‘Now,’ Anton Kruger said. ‘Now we must talk seriously. Get us some brandy, Nicholas, if you please. Crême de menthe for you, my love?’

Régine shook her head. ‘Brandy tonight,’ she said. ‘I feel I shall need it.’

‘To celebrate,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not to calm the nerves. To drink a toast to our success the day after tomorrow.’

Anton Kruger smiled at him, and then at the two women.

‘Here is the man for the enterprise,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity poor Volkov couldn’t drink with us, but the less he knows beyond his own role, the better. He can’t help being such a fool.’

‘None of that family had any brains,’ Nicholas said. He laughed. It seemed to Anna that he was in a strangely euphoric mood. ‘My grandmother used to say that his father and grandfather were the two stupidest men in Russia. But he has his good points. There’s nothing he wouldn’t risk; he doesn’t know the meaning of fear.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Régine Kruger said.

Anton handed a glass of brandy to Anna. He looked down at her and his face was grave. ‘To our new member,’ he said. ‘Who is also brave but not at all stupid. I think the moment has come when you should be told everything, my dear. And the special part that you can play in it; if you will help us.’

The following morning two cars left the Château Grandcour, Kruger’s big silver-grey Mercedes, driven by Volkov, with Anton and Régine in the rear, and a small Citroën with Nicholas driving and Anna beside him. They left separately, with an interval of fifteen minutes between them. The big car shot past them on the road, driven at Volkov’s usual hectic speed. Nicholas parked in the centre of Chartres; it was a Friday morning, and the town was full of visitors and people shopping for the weekend. The great grey stone cathedral rose above them; the towers at the west end so different in design pierced the bright blue sky; the glorious stonework delicate as lace. Nicholas took Anna’s arm as they walked up the steps together. It was a building of breathtaking beauty, a monument to the genius and religious faith of medieval man.

Built to dominate the twelfth century and to act as a focal point in the life of the community, forever reminding them of the majesty of God and the glory due to Him, it served the same purpose still, presiding over the bustle and traffic of modern Chartres, immutable in its own splendour, a great choral symphony of Divine praise in stone and jewel-coloured glass.

The interior was dim, the light diffused into rich reds and blues from the magnificent windows. Anna paused, looking upwards. The Rose Window, one of the wonders of medieval architecture, glowed and glimmered in its stone tracery, unearthly in its height and symmetry, the unique colouring of the stained glass richer than precious stones.

‘He’ll come in through the main door,’ Nicholas whispered. ‘Walk down the central aisle, turn and stand almost where we are now. It’s the best place to see the west windows. Then he’ll be conducted through the cathedral, up to the high altar and round the choir cloister. He’ll be shown the statue of Notre-Dame de Pilier, the Chapelle Ste-Mort and then back down the aisle here and out again. That’s when he’ll be given his bouquet. Just before he gets into the car.’

‘Supposing he throws the flowers out of the window?’ Anna said. ‘I kept worrying about that last night.’

‘He won’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘It would cause offence if that bouquet was thrown away; he’ll hold it and keep it with him till they’re well outside Chartres. There’s Anton and Régine. Don’t stop, there are probably police here already, keeping an eye out. The church will be crawling with them tomorrow. Just walk on and we’ll look round the cathedral, with the other tourists.’

They passed the pews where Anton Kruger and his wife were kneeling in prayer, their heads bent over folded hands. A group of Americans with a guide were making a slow progress up the central aisle. A man was trying to photograph the Rose Window.

‘Why did he choose Chartres,’ Anna murmured. ‘Of all the great cathedrals, why this one?’

‘It was suggested by the French Foreign Office,’ Nicholas said. ‘And it’s near Paris. I suspect Anton has a friend there. He just had to see the great Rose Window, or he would have missed a unique cultural experience. And he’s a great man for culture. He’s bent over backwards to admire everything French since he arrived. Flowers and Russian caviar to the cast at the theatre last night, a banquet at the Russian Embassy tonight – he’s playing to the crowd as if he was Chairman of the Supreme Soviet on a state visit. Once he thought the French wanted to show him Chartres, of course he was going to put it on his itinerary. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was going to be his last piece of stage management before he flew home. But he’ll never get the chance to lay a wreath on that grave. He’ll be thinking about the other graves, all half a million of them, where he helped to bury his own people, and my father.… Do you want to see any more?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Let’s go back. Now that I’ve seen it I’m getting frightened. Frightened to death for you, and the others. Where’s Volkov?’

‘Going through his part with Zepirov. They’re all in position, getting everything worked out to the split second. They’ll be coming to the Château afterwards.’

They walked back down the centre aisle.

Outside the sunshine struck at them, blinding after the rosy dimness of the cathedral. Nicholas walked her round to the main entrance, and there he paused. There was a cobbled square surrounding the cathedral, with crowded streets leading through into the city. Mentally he noted where the Russian car would stop; he narrowed his eyes against the strong light, visualizing Feodor Gusev walking down the steps and stopping to take the posy of flowers that a small girl would run forward and present to him. A small girl who would disappear into the anonymity of the crowd, where her aunt, Natalie Maximova, would be waiting to vanish with her.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he said suddenly to Anna. ‘I can’t believe it’s really going to happen. Tomorrow, at exactly this time. I shall be face to face with him at last.’

He put his arm round her, guiding her back to the little Citroën in its berth the other side of the square. ‘And I shan’t kill him, or let the others hurt him. I’ll do exactly as Anton has planned. If I hadn’t got you, my darling, I don’t think I could do it.’

‘You must,’ Anna said. ‘As Anton said last night, this way he’ll destroy himself.’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said slowly. He switched on the engine, but for a moment he held the car immobile. ‘Then our dead can rest in peace.’

Nicholas slept soundly that night; Anna lay awake beside him, listening to the chimes of the massive clock in the Château hall as it struck the quarter, the half, and then the quarter and the hour itself. Sleep was impossible. The scene that night wouldn’t leave her mind. They had come to the Château one by one; Maximova, with a little girl, who had been fussed over and then sent to bed, Zepirov, looking down-at-heel and anxious, Elise, huge and imperturbable, without her little husband. He was looking after the Auberge. He knew nothing about her other commitment. There was something menacing about Elise; her expression never altered, she was always friendly and cheerful, enclosed behind a wall of secrecy that concealed something that frightened Anna. And Fritz von Bronsart, looking painfully young and nervous. He had gravitated towards Anna as if seeking reassurance. He was a handsome young man, blond and blue eyed; forty years ago he would have typified the Aryan ideal of Hitler’s Germany.

These were the people who stood out, because of the roles they were to play the next morning, or like Elise, because of the force of their personalities. The young German was in a special category. Anna felt that he had no place in the group, that his wrong was too far off in relation to himself. He had given an uncompromising answer to that suggestion.

‘My family’s honour is at stake, Countess. My grandfather has been branded as a war criminal, a man who was given to the Communists because he had committed inhuman crimes. That is a lie. He wasn’t tried for anything, he was just handed over and murdered. It’s my duty to clear his name. Nobody else cares enough to do it except me.’ He had looked at her with a mixture of pride and courage that she found infinitely touching, because it was allied with the anxiety of his youth. ‘I shall have an important role to play later on,’ he announced. ‘Tomorrow I shall just have to wait here.’

‘We’ll wait together,’ Anna said.

They had eaten a cold supper, left for them by the housekeeper, whom Régine had sent off for the weekend. There was very little drinking and no heroics. Anton and Nicholas set the tone. It was serious, cold-blooded, devoid of the Russian emotionalism which Anna detected just beneath the surface with the others. One spark of rhetoric, one extravagant gesture, and they would all have been alight.

Everyone dispersed to their rooms, saying goodnight quietly. Nicholas and Anton Kruger stayed behind; Anna took the hint when Régine left them, and she too went upstairs. When he joined her, they lay in each other’s arms but he didn’t make love. She felt him drift into sleep, and was glad. She hadn’t wanted him to sense how afraid she was for him, and for all of them.

The next morning they gathered in the library. Nicholas stood beside Anton. He wore a plain navy serge suit, with a white shirt and a black tie; he carried a peaked chauffeur’s cap under his arm. And something else stuffed into the soft headpiece of the cap. Zepirov wore faded denim jeans, a cord jacket and sweat shirt. He was unshaven, and his appearance had been altered by a pair of metal-rimmed glasses. Anna knew, because they had discussed the plans last night, that Zepirov was to drive the container lorry. Volkov was smoking, slouched in a chair; he was wearing the uniform of a colonel of gendarmes, with white gloves. There was nothing different about Maximova; she seemed her usual neat self, unobtrusively dressed, with a scarf over her dark hair. She was pale, but her fine eyes were shining. The motherly, grey-haired woman whom Anna had met at the reception before her wedding, and whose name was Olga Jellnik, had arrived that morning. She looked exactly like any other middle-aged, middle-class Frenchwoman who would be driving her car through Chartres on a Saturday morning.

Natalie had spent the previous two days at the Auberge with Elise and Olga Jellnik. They hadn’t discussed what was to happen that day; they had chatted about trivialities, commented upon the sweater Olga was knitting, played the roles of normality for their own benefit. Natalie spent a long time praying before she went to bed. Her mother, whom she remembered very clearly, had brought her up to be devout. Both parents had fled Russia after the Counter Revolution failed, and lived meagrely in Paris, her father eking out a living by giving riding lessons at a school in the Bois de Boulogne; her mother, who was an exquisite needlewoman, helped by dressmaking. They were a close-knit family, who confined themselves exclusively to other Russian émigrés for company, disdaining the hospitality of French friends from old days of opulence, because they couldn’t return it in kind. Her father, a former cavalry officer, was fiercely proud. He never ceased to believe that the Soviets would be overthrown and that they and their friends would one day return to Russia. Natalie, although she went to a convent school close to their two-roomed flat, was brought up to speak Russian and to maintain the old religious and cultural traditions. When her father was captured her mother took her down to Baratina and they stayed together, confident in their belief that the Western Allies would either absorb them into their own forces or resettle them together. Natalie Maximova was seven years old, and her memories of the camp in the early days were happy ones. People were cheerful and kind, there were other children to play with, the soldiers gave her sweets and her parents seemed full of hope. And then the day came when her mother explained very gently to her, and without any tears, that she was going back to Russia with her father, and that she, Natalie, was to stay with their friends the Rasumovskys. Natalie hadn’t understood; she had cried, and she had never forgotten her mother chiding her gently. It was her duty to be brave and to live with the Rasumovskys, because it was her mother’s duty to go and care for her father.

Madame Rasumovsky had taken her that night, and the following week they left the camp. Natalie didn’t understand that either, but it had something to do with being Polish citizens … Years later, when she was working in Paris, she learned through the sensitive grapevine of her fellow Russians, that both her parents had been shot on arrival inside Soviet lines. Natalie had never married; she worked for her living, practised her Orthodox faith, and remained within the circle of her own people united by common ties of language, tradition and tragedy. Olga Jellnik was another of the circle; she had married a fellow Russian who worked in the accounting department in a branch of Galeries Lafayette. He had died of cancer four years earlier, and Olga lived alone. They had no children. Olga was quiet and homely, and passionately fond of knitting; she talked of her dead husband with affection, but there was a portrait of her father and her elder brother which was never without flowers in her sitting room. To her, as to Natalie, the horror of the past was more potent than the life they lived in the present. To Natalie, membership of ‘Return’ was a crusade, with a fervour that was almost religious. To pleasant, placid Olga Jellnik, it was a deep and burning wish for vengeance, which discounted any scruple and shrugged off personal risk.

Elise lurked near the window, her big body a dark mass against the light. She too was remaining at the Château with Anna and Fritz von Bronsart. The Krugers were both smartly dressed: Régine wore a wide-brimmed hat and a spring coat, Anton was soberly dressed as if he were going to Paris. He looked at his watch.

‘It is exactly ten o’clock,’ he said. He spoke to the grey-haired Madame Jellnik. ‘You set off now with Zepirov. The lorry is waiting at the service station. You have the keys?’

‘Yes,’ Zepirov said. He held them up between finger and thumb, and then dropped them into his jacket pocket. ‘Then go, and good luck,’ Anton said. ‘You know exactly what to do and when to do it. Both of you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ the older woman said; she smiled a strained little smile. ‘I’ll come out the moment I see the car headlights flash.’

‘Right, Natalie, get your niece and set off. Buy her an ice cream, walk round the square. Keep those flowers hidden until the last moment. And don’t wait to see anything after she’s presented them; above all, be careful nobody photographs you, keep your face hidden.’

‘God go with you,’ she said softly. ‘Wherever they are, I believe my mother and father are with us today.’ She left the room, and they heard her calling to her niece. ‘Janine? Come on, sweetheart – we’re going shopping and to see the big church …’

‘Well,’ Anton looked round at them and smiled at Anna before he turned to Nicholas. ‘If our driver is ready, I think we’ll leave now. Elise, check that everything is prepared for our guest. Anna, you and Fritz listen to the radio in case there is a news flash. Pray there isn’t one, otherwise we will have failed. And if we haven’t returned by one o’clock at the latest, then take the Renault and drive to Paris. Leave it in the garage near my office block, and disappear. Vanish and stay hidden. Don’t wait here or come to Chartres or try to find out what has happened. You’ll hear soon enough.’

Anna went to him and Régine and kissed them both. She saw Elise and Fritz come and shake hands. She threw her arms round Nicholas and held him close.

‘Be careful,’ she whispered. ‘My darling, for God’s sake be careful.’ She felt his embrace tighten round her quickly, the words murmured in her ear.

‘I love you. But if we don’t come back by one, you’re to go. You promise me?’

‘I promise,’ she whispered, knowing that nothing in the world would make her leave the Château without waiting for him. Then they were gone, and through the window Anna saw Nicholas open the rear door of the big Mercedes limousine, help Régine in, close the door upon Anton, and take the driver’s seat himself. He wore the chauffeur’s cap pulled down. The car moved sedately away from the forecourt and down the short drive to the main road.

‘Well,’ Elise said behind her. ‘This is the day we’ve waited for. It feels quite odd. But they always say the anticipation is the best part. I’m going upstairs to look at the “guest room”.’ She gave a throaty fat woman’s laugh. ‘If you haven’t seen it, come up. I want to make sure he’s comfortable.’

They followed her out into the hall, and back through the rear passages, until they reached a little low door, which opened on to a stone stairway that climbed upwards in a spiral. Anna knew they were climbing one of the short towers at the northeast corner of the main building. It wasn’t very high, but the space was constricting and it was not possible to go up quickly. More difficult still to come down, except a few steps at a time. There was another door at the top of the steps. There was a massive bolt on the outside; it had been recently oiled. The room was lit by two windows, high up in the thick stone wall; it was carpeted and furnished with a bed, a small table, an armchair, an anglepoise lamp; the ceiling had been lowered by a false one, and behind the heavy outer door there was a second door, that fitted flush to the wall. The little windows were securely double glazed, and in the second door there was a seeing eye.

‘So,’ Elise said. ‘It’s been well done, don’t you think? Madame Kruger has a nephew coming to stay who’s a drummer with a pop group. Her builder soundproofed the room so she and his uncle wouldn’t go mad when he was practising – very neat, eh? He can scream his fucking head off in here, and nobody will ever hear him. I’m looking after him, you know.’

The sudden obscenity was so unexpected that it shocked Anna; the expression on Elise’s face was far more shocking than the crude expletive. She moved over to the bed; it was an old-fashioned variety with a brass rail at the head and foot. Elise dug under the single pillow and brought out something metal that glinted as it swung from her hand. It was a pair of handcuffs. She opened one of them with a key, and locked it round the bedrail.

‘If I’d had my way,’ she said, ‘I’d have kept the bastard chained up naked in the cellars. But M. Kruger is a humane man. He doesn’t want him hurt.’

‘Let’s go down,’ Anna said. She felt sickened and disturbed by the woman and the manacle, swinging a little on its own weight. ‘We should listen to the radio.’ She turned and pushed past Fritz von Bronsart. She sensed his discomfort as he came down behind her. Elise stayed on in the room. Anna thrust the word ‘gloating’ out of her mind. She went back to the library and switched on the radio part of a sophisticated record player and cassette recorder that stood near Anton Kruger’s chair. He was passionately fond of classical music, and had a huge collection of records and tapes. Music murmured through from the radio station, punctuated by announcements from the disc jockey, and advertisements. Anna sat down, with the young German pacing up and down.

‘I make it eleven,’ he said suddenly. His voice sounded tense. ‘What does your watch say?’ As if to answer them the big clock in the hall began to chime exactly the same hour.

‘He was due to arrive now,’ Anna said. She forgot about the tower room and the look of sadistic expectation on Elise’s face. All she could think of was the cathedral at Chartres, the square crowded with sightseers, police everywhere, and Feodor Gusev walking up the steps into the interior of the church.

Grigor Malenkov agreed with the French Foreign Ministry’s suggestion that he should visit Chartres privately; he had no time to waste on being lunched by the mayor of the city. He left the Russian Residence in the Rue de Grenelle with one of the Trade secretaries, followed by a very fast Zim carrying four members of his own security force who had travelled with him. French intelligence were responsible for his safety inside the cathedral and in the city itself. The visit had not been publicized; he was looking forward to spending some time wandering round the cathedral. His companion had brought a camera; Malenkov was a student of medieval architecture and an authority on Moscow’s early churches. Even as a young man he had cherished his country’s cultural history. Every building became precious in view of the destruction and desolation resulting from the scorched earth policy during the war.

Russia had lost much of her ancient heritage; he had seen enough rubble and smoking ruins to appreciate beauty and want to preserve it. Its origins, sometimes a source of disapproval to the purists, didn’t concern him. If man had created magnificence in honour of the Christian myth, then it was human genius which it commemorated.

He relaxed in the car, not talking to the rather awed younger man sitting beside him, clutching his camera. The visit was going well; the reaction from the French press and television had been friendly, and the world coverage had been very satisfying. He had projected exactly the image he thought most acceptable; a man of simple honesty allied to intellectual shrewdness, a lover of French culture and with a quality usually lacking in Russian leaders, a quick sense of humour. Comparisons had been made between him and Khrushschev, and Grigor Malenkov was judged the better politician from a Western standpoint. There would be jealousy at home; he accepted that, but he knew his enemies and there were none who frightened him. He had the friendship and the trust of the Chairman, who had blessed the visit and agreed the line it should follow. He had nothing to fear from his own success.

They drove into Chartres, and there were suddenly police directing traffic to make a route for his car, and they swung round into the square facing the cathedral. It was crowded with groups of people, all kept at a discreet distance from the entrance. The sun was hot; he got out when the car stopped, followed by the Trade man, who wasn’t interested in church architecture, his secret service entourage emerging from the second car and discreetly gathering around him. He waved them back, and stood looking up at the enormous façade. It was a pity that the town itself had encroached so close to the church. One needed to appreciate it from a distance. He was met by the Prefect of Chartres; he shook several people by the hand, smiled warmly at them and spoke in perfect French. Then, eagerly, he began to walk up the steps to the cathedral and disappeared inside the great west door.

The Russian Embassy Mercedes waited in the square. The square was rapidly filling up as news spread of the arrival of the Russian statesman. The driver saw a French policeman approaching him and lowered the electric window. The man was a senior officer; he saw the rank of colonel on his uniform. A big man with a typical policeman’s look of belligerence about him.

Volkov bent down to the driver. ‘You’ll have to circle round and come back; we want to keep the route clear. I’ll go with you.’

He hurried round to the other side of the car, opened the passenger door and got inside. He gestured impatiently ahead. ‘Go on, drive on!’ The chauffeur only hesitated for a moment; the habit of obedience to authority was so strong that he had started the engine and moved off within a few seconds.

‘Go round,’ Volkov ordered; they swept forward and round the curve of the square. The man felt something suddenly ram into his side; he swerved slightly in alarm, and then he saw it was a gun. ‘Keep going,’ Volkov said, ‘Do anything funny and I’ll blow your guts out. Turn down here – now!’

The muzzle of the gun jabbed at him viciously – there was murder on the face of the gendarme colonel, and the driver did as he was told. They turned down a busy street full of shoppers and slow-moving cars. For a second the driver’s hand crept to the door handle; a snarl from Volkov brought it back. ‘Left here, and then right!’

Another street, narrower than the one they had left, and a right turn which ended in a cul-de-sac. A big warehouse with the name Kruger Enterprises was on the left. Its massive doors were open. The gun thudded into him for emphasis. ‘In here.’

Semi-darkness swallowed them as the Mercedes slid into the huge shed. The driver half turned to Volkov, terror on his face, but he never asked the question.

The gun butt smashed across his throat, shattering the windpipe. He fell backwards choking to death. Volkov got out, put the gun back in his holster, went to the driver’s seat and dragged the dead man out on to the ground. From the shadows of the warehouse, Nicholas Yurovsky walked towards him. He looked down at the corpse and then at Volkov. ‘He’s dead! You fool, Anton said you weren’t to hurt him …’

‘I hit him too hard,’ Volkov said. ‘Never mind him, I’ll put him somewhere. Take the car back, and hurry!’ He checked his watch. ‘It took five minutes to get here.’ Nicholas bent down to the dead man. Blood and froth were seeping out of his mouth. Kruger had said the man was to be knocked out. Volkov had murdered him. The first mistake had been made. He jumped into the car, started it up and reversed out into the side street. ‘Good luck,’ Volkov called after him. Nicholas didn’t answer. He turned back the way they had come, weaving the big car expertly through the traffic, punching his horn imperiously to clear a way. He drove round to the north door of the cathedral and came to a halt in three minutes. Malenkov’s car had been absent for exactly eight minutes. Inside the church itself, Malenkov, standing a little apart from the Prefect of Chartres and his own entourage, stood in the middle of the central aisle, his back to the high altar, lost in contemplation of the stained-glass windows at the western end installed about 1150. In the centre, rising nearly forty feet, was the great window representing the childhood of Christ, each scene in alternating tones of blue and red. The window surmounted by the Virgin in Majesty was flanked by two windows on a lesser scale, but themselves rising nearly thirty feet – and above the incomparable circular Rose Window nearly forty-five feet in diameter and rising to the roof itself. The ancient art of staining glass to produce that density and shade had long been lost. No modern process could compare with it.

To those watching, Grigor Malenkov’s expression was rapt. The total effect was dark and cold, ‘Chartres blue’, broken by shafts of sunlight which bathed him in a sombre spotlight. There was no service at that hour; the visit had been carefully timed to avoid confrontation with the cathedral clergy, who were purposely absent. A few sightseers and worshippers were herded into the side aisles by the police, and a bevy of SDECE in civilian clothes, watching suspiciously. Anton and Régine Kruger were among them, she kneeling beside him, he sitting, turning to watch the Russians.

‘Like an actor on the stage,’ he murmured to her. ‘With the lights playing on him. He’s very changed; the thin murderer has become the fat uncle …’

Régine rose from her knees. Anton was an atheist but she had been praying.

‘Nicholas should be outside,’ she said. ‘It’s nearly eleven-fifteen.’

‘We’ll go and see in a minute,’ Anton said. ‘That is, if we’re allowed to leave before he does. Look, he’s moving on. We’ll go out now.’

He took her arm and they walked back, away from the party of Russians; a gendarme with his accompanying secret service man directed them to the side door. They came out into blinding sunshine, two elderly, wealthy French people, carefully negotiating the steps down to the square. They walked round to the west door, where they were shepherded into the crowd. The black Mercedes was waiting in front of the main entrance. The chauffeur, his face hidden by a cap, sat stiffly in the front seat. Kruger pressed his wife’s arm.

‘It’s Nicholas,’ he said. ‘And I can see Maximova in the crowd. She has the bouquet.’

‘Would you mind if I asked you something?’

Anna turned to Fritz von Bronsart. ‘Of course not.’

He was sitting opposite to her, leaning a little forward, his hands clasped between his knees. ‘Why are you mixed up with us? Is it because you love Nicholas?’

She hesitated. The easy answer wouldn’t do; it was an occasion for truth, a moment when self-knowledge was an essential part of what was happening to them all.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s more than that. I loved Nicholas before I knew anything about his father or his background. At first I didn’t want to believe it; I didn’t want him to be involved, much less do anything about it myself. I had no personal motive at all.’

‘What changed you?’ the young German asked.

‘Anton,’ she answered. ‘He told me what happened to Nicholas’s father and to all the others. He made me see and feel as if I was there. It was extraordinary; it altered everything for me. I suppose I’d resented a lot of things in my life and rebelled in a pretty futile way against them, but I’d never hated before. I hated Feodor Gusev; I wanted those poor people to be revenged. He showed me feelings I didn’t know I had. A sort of thirst for justice. It must sound very melodramatic.’

‘Not at all,’ Fritz said. ‘It was like that for me. My family broke up after the war; my mother divorced my father, we lost our estates, our money, my poor grandmother died.… I was ashamed of being German, ashamed of my father’s war service, the grandson of an executed war criminal. I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged. This must sound very silly to you,’ he glanced at her anxiously. She shook her head. ‘When you are a von Bronsart,’ he said simply, ‘you have to be proud of it. You can’t wipe out generations of family tradition and put nothing in its place. Anton Kruger gave me my identity back. He told me the truth, and he gave me the chance to get rid of the lies and the shame. I told you I had a girlfriend.

‘Her family were Junkers too, but her father was in the SS. She won’t have anything to do with him, or her mother. He was only nineteen, but she feels so bitter about it. I can’t make her understand that it wasn’t all concentration camps and horror on our side. What we’re going to do will show her …’ He lit a cigarette and offered one to her. They smoked quietly for a few moments; the radio sang and chattered in the background.

‘The most important thing,’ he said suddenly, ‘is that nobody’s going to be killed. Anton and Nicholas assured us all of that. I know some of the others wouldn’t mind – but I’m a pacifist. I believe in the sanctity of human life. So does Ilse, my girl.’

‘I’m worried about Elise,’ Anna said. ‘She shouldn’t be left alone with him. There was a look on her face up in that room –’

‘I know,’ he said unhappily. ‘We’ll have to warn Anton and Nicholas. My God, it’s nearly a quarter to twelve! They must be at the rendezvous point by now –’

Anna got up and walked to the window. She knew the place; the turn-off on the N10 road out of Chartres, where Zepirov and Madame Jellnik would be waiting. Waiting for the car with Malenkov in it, driven by Nicholas Yurovsky, with a car full of the KGB security men close behind them.

The library door opened, and Elise stood framed in it. She looked at them and smiled.

‘It won’t be long now,’ she said. ‘And we’ll have him. Come on Countess Yurovskaya, Herr Fritz – don’t look so worried. It’s going well, I feel it in my bones! I’ll get us all a little drink to pass the time. Oh, it’ll be a great moment, I can tell you – when they bring him here and give him to me …’

‘Elise,’ Anna spoke sharply, and the smile faded on the big woman’s face. ‘He’s an old man and you’re not to touch him. Those were Anton’s instructions and the Count’s; if he’s hurt or anything happens to him, the whole plan will go wrong!’

‘I know that,’ Elise said. ‘I shall do what I’m told. I won’t wring his neck or pull his hair out.’ She glared at them, her eyes blazing. ‘I’ll wet-nurse the bastard, feed him his meals, empty his chamber pot, plump up his pillow for the night. That’s understood, Countess, you don’t have to remind me. But if he does anything, if anything goes wrong for us – I’ll kill him. And Anton Kruger knows that. That’s why he’s given me the charge of him. I’ll go and get us our drinks. Excuse me.’

Volkov had changed out of the gendarme’s uniform. There was a cardboard box in a corner of the shed; it contained a dark suit and a peaked cap, similar to the one Nicholas had worn. He rolled up the uniform. The sliding door was tightly shut; he had switched on a single light above the door leading to a flight of stairs and the upper offices. It showed the Krugers’ Mercedes in the far corner. Volkov walked over to it, opened the door and climbed in behind the wheel. He turned the key and the engine started in a gentle hum. He backed the car slowly up to the entrance, taking care to avoid the dead body crumpled on the ground. He got out, opened the boot and stowed the uniform in it. Then he bent down and lifted the dead Russian under the arms; he was immensely strong, but it was a dead weight, and he grunted. He heaved and pushed until he got the trunk over the edge of the boot, doubling the legs up. The man’s cap lay on the floor, and there were marks in the dust. A small pool of bloody saliva gleamed in the mean little yellow light. Volkov was concentrating; nothing must be left behind. He couldn’t come back to put anything right, it had all to be done at once, and time was short. He found a heap of old paper in one corner, and blotted up the little puddle, standing on it till everything was absorbed. He made a fan shape out of more paper and swept the dusty floor area until there were no marks left to show that he had dragged the body. But the patch of wet worried him. He had a vague idea of analysis showing human blood and, cursing, began to search round the inside. The warehouse was a dropping point for some of the big container lorries that operated for the company, exporting furniture from one of the Kruger factories. Volkov was looking for water, but instead he found something else. A can of motor oil. He stood and dribbled a little of it on to the spot where the dead man had spewed out his life. The oil spread, gleaming. It looked natural. It would be splotched and streaked when the shed was next used. Nobody would think it covered traces of anything else. He nodded to himself, satisfied. He threw the cap and the soiled papers into the boot, slammed the lid down and locked it: he switched off the light, slid the door open and backed the car out. There was time to spare after all. He got out, closed the doors, and drove away. He parked the car at the entrance to the cathedral square, and as he did so, he saw Anton and Régine Kruger coming through the crowd towards him. Grigor Malenkov had just appeared in the west door and was shaking hands with the Prefect again, before going down the steps to his car.

‘Aunt Natalie – why do I give the man the flowers?’

Maximova’s little niece pulled at her aunt’s hand. She wanted to hold the bouquet, but her aunt wouldn’t give them to her. They were a little home-made arrangement of flowers, picked from a garden and tied with red ribbon.

‘Because he’s a good man,’ Maximova answered, mindful of people listening, ‘and a friend of France.’ A small group of Communists had gathered and she had managed to get close to them; they began to clap politely as the Soviet party came down the steps. The KGB security men formed a screen around Malenkov, and Maximova’s heart thudded. There was no way the child could get to him. The Krugers, who she knew were in the crowd, must see that it was impossible. And without the flowers, it would all fail.… Nicholas Yurovsky sitting motionless in the seat of the Embassy car, Volkov, who had abducted the real driver, Zepirov in his truck and Olga in the little Citroën.… Without the flowers it would end in a terrible disaster. Her mouth and throat was suddenly dry. He had almost reached the car, and one of the security men was about to open the rear door. Maximova acted instinctively because there was nothing else she could do. She thrust the bouquet into her niece’s hands and pushed her forward.

‘Now, sweetheart – run and give them to him now …’

It was Malenkov, with his eye for effect, who saw the little girl, clutching her home-made posy. He waved his screen of men aside and stepped forward, bending down to take them from her. She looked up at him, confused and shy. He patted her head, smiled; he held the flowers in his left hand. He showed them to the crowd and waved. He turned and stepped into the Mercedes, followed by the Trade secretary. The door was closed, his security men sprinted into their own car, and the little cavalcade moved off. A photographer had caught the incident; it would make a nice exclusive for the local press. Maximova had nearly fainted in those few moments. She rushed out from the crowd, caught her niece by the hand and hurried quickly away. There was no time for anyone to notice her. She disappeared, carrying Janine who couldn’t run quickly enough. In the back of his Mercedes, Anton Kruger picked up his car telephone. He gave a call sign, and on the other side of the city, on the road which led on to the Paris autoroute, Olga Jellnik answered.

‘They’re on their way,’ he said. ‘All goes well.’

There was an excited little laugh in the parked Citroën, which nobody else heard. She pressed her own control button, and said, ‘Good. We’ll be ready.’

Her next call was received by Zepirov in the cabin of the container van.

Zepirov was sweating; he wiped his face with his bare arm, and a smudge of grease streaked across it. The spectacles, filled with plain glass, irritated him. He had found driving the massive lorry very tiring. He had picked it up at the petrol station as Kruger had arranged and driven it slowly, to the infuriated hoots of other drivers, until he reached the intersection on the right-hand side of the N10 road. He had pulled onto the verge and pretended to be asleep. His nerves were so taut that when the telephone hidden in the glove compartment buzzed, he physically jumped upright in his seat.

‘They’re on their way,’ Olga Jellnik’s voice sounded tinny. ‘Everything goes well. I’ll be driving up and stopping just in front of you in a few minutes. The minute I see them I’ll move out and you be ready to pass me.’

‘Understood,’ Zepirov said. His hands were as sweaty as his face; he wiped them on his trousers and took a preparatory grip of the wheel. So far so good. The driver had been exchanged for Nicholas, Volkov had got away and was taking the Krugers out of the city, and Maximova’s niece had given the flowers. It was too good to be true. Zepirov, who had no reason to regard himself as lucky, didn’t believe it could go on without some disaster overtaking them. He had gone to Lausanne on the instructions of his firm, a firm with a connection to the Kruger empire, which was why he had a job at all, and then called in sick the day before.

When it was over he would fly back and report for work next morning. His alibi was safe. If he ever got to the airport.… He thrust the pessimistic thought away.

This time, just once, and because men like Kruger and Yurovsky were in command, fate wouldn’t turn and spit in his eye. He had no faith in his own stars, but he did believe in theirs. He kept his eyes on the driving mirror, and then he saw the little green Citroën coming up behind him. He switched on his engine. The Citroën pulled up in front of him, its nose out on to the main road. He could see Olga leaning forward in her seat, watching that road. It was ridiculous to think of a woman of her age taking part in an operation of such danger and where nerve was so important. She should have been at home with her grandchildren. There was no room in her life for anything but the past and the people connected with it. He had never known a woman so fierce in her desire for vengeance. Except Elise Rodzinskaya.

In the Citroén, Olga Jellnik glanced briefly at the lorry behind her. She had left him plenty of room to swing out. He was sitting alert in his seat. When the moment came, there wouldn’t be much time.

‘Comrade Malenkov, shall I throw those away?’ Malenkov glanced round at the secretary. He was holding the posy, its red ribbon partly untied, with a look of distaste on his face. His expression and the political insensitivity it betrayed annoyed Malenkov. What a clumsy idiot, to suggest throwing the little girl’s flowers out of the window. If such an incident were seen and reported, it would provide ammunition for the opponents of his visit. ‘Child’s gift rejected.’ He could just see the right-wing press seizing on it, trumpeting about insults. He gave the young man a glare. He had just spolit his chances of promotion. Malenkov never forgot or forgave a political misjudgement, however trifling.

‘Certainly not,’ he snapped. ‘Put them on the seat.’

‘There’s some weed in them, Comrade,’ he explained. ‘They have a nasty smell.’

‘Then put them in front with the driver,’ Malenkov said irritably.

Nicholas had heard every word, and as the limp little cluster of cottage flowers dropped over on to the seat beside him, he went cold. There was no partition in the car; he had expected that. The secretary was right; there was a faint smell coming from the posy. Faint now but not for much longer. In less than twenty seconds the pin mechanism activated by Natalie Maximova would have pierced completely through the little plastic capsule and released the Niacyn gas. It was timed for exactly fifteen minutes after activation. After those twenty seconds, he and the two Russians in the back would be unconscious. They were out of sight of the city now, cruising steadily at sixty kilometres down the old road to Paris.

The intersection where Zepirov and Olga Jellnik were waiting was only six kilometres away. He jabbed the electric button and closed his window, and in the same movement he pushed his cap up from his forehead and pulled down the rubber gas mask hidden beneath it. He saw in the driving mirror that his action had been seen, and that Malenkov’s face was frozen in horror, the mouth opening, and that the young man beside him was diving into his coat at the shoulder for a gun. Nicholas threw the flowers back over the front seat, and as he did so, Malenkov began to collapse. He fell back against the seat, his eyes rolling up, and the secretary lolled against him, the gun falling out of his slack hand. Nicholas began to increase speed. He didn’t want a car passing him and seeing the mask over his face. Behind him the passengers were unconscious, and would remain so for at least half an hour after the gas had dispersed. At that moment the Mercedes was full of it, imprisoning it.

His wing mirror showed the Zim with Malenkov’s bodyguard speeding up behind him, keeping two cars’ length away and closing up instantly if anything tried to intervene.

God only knew how little Olga Jellnik would have the nerve. He kept a steady speed, watching the Zim; nothing would be apparent to the car following.

A kilometre ahead, he saw the intersection, and poking out of it, the green snout of the Citroën. He slowed down, dropping speed, and forcing the Zim to do the same. As he approached within half a kilometre of the intersection, he flashed his headlights twice. As he came to the turning itself, he flattened his foot on the accelerator and the Mercedes leaped forward to 120 kilometres an hour.

Kruger’s Mercedes was taking the back roads, speeding recklessly along the narrow lanes, Volkov hunched low in the driver’s seat. Régine put her hand through her husband’s arm to steady herself as she swayed at the corners.

‘Does he have to drive like this?’

‘We can’t risk being even a minute behind the time,’ Anton said. He looked at his watch; his expression was grim. ‘Just pray Olga’s nerve doesn’t crack; I should have got someone younger to do it, but an elderly woman looks more convincing.’

‘She’ll be all right,’ Régine said. ‘She’s as tough as nails; she’d ram them if she had to – Oh, my God, look!’

A farm lorry, loaded with straw, was turning out into the lane ahead of them.

She heard Anton swear fiercely, and at once Volkov’s hand was blasting the horn at it. The lorry, far from coming in to the side to let them pass, moved further into the middle of the road, completely blocking the way. Volkov looked over his shoulder; his face was contorted. ‘The swine is doing it deliberately – I can’t possibly overtake!’

‘Give me the map,’ Anton snapped. ‘Wait, we’re here –’ his finger ran along the maze of country roads; there was no turn-off for another four kilometres. And if they were forced to detour, more precious time would be lost. ‘Stop hooting, you fool!’ he shouted at Volkov. ‘You’re just making it worse. Drop back, so he can see you in the mirror –’

‘We won’t get there,’ Régine said. ‘They’ll stop and we won’t be there –’ He didn’t seem to hear her. He was leaning forward, every muscle tensed, watching the lorry bump and sway in its leisurely way, shedding wisps of straw on the way.

He looked at his watch again. ‘We will be late,’ he said. ‘They’ll just have to wait for us.’

At the moment when Nicholas suddenly accelerated, the driver of the Zim had unconsciously relaxed at the lower speed. He was less aware of the gap that opened so quickly between them than he should have been, and before he could react to close it, a green Citroën drove straight on to the roadway in his path, and stopped.

There was a shout from the men behind him, and he braked, swerving to the right to avoid a collision; as he did so a huge blue and silver container lorry came out of the same turning as the Citroën and took the road. The Embassy Mercedes was completely hidden from their view. There was a woman in the Citroën, a grey-haired woman, wrenching at the wheel, turning the car quickly to follow the lorry. The Russian leaned out of the window and yelled abuse at her; if he hadn’t been going so slowly there would have been an accident. He signalled, indicator flashing, and swung out to overtake the Citroën and the lorry; the little green car immediately did the same, hugging the lane way, hovering by the side of the container and swinging back in indecision, making it impossible for the Zim to get past either of them.

The driver was hooting at her, becoming frantic; she gestured angrily at him in her driving mirror. Their orders were never to let the Mercedes out of view, and it was impossible to overtake the little car and the container at the same time because of oncoming traffic. The senior security officer sitting in the back leaned forward.

‘Call through to the police. This could be trouble … and the next time that old——drops back, go out, and if we hit her, too bad!’

Nicholas saw Zepirov loom up behind him in the lorry; he glanced once into the back. The two men were deeply unconscious. The next right-hand turn-off was coming up; it was only a few kilometres from the one where he had escaped from the Zim. He slowed down, and for a second, the lorry flashed its lights. Olga was holding them up in the rear. Her instruction was to keep them blocked in for another three kilometres. It was unlikely they’d notice the right-hand turning so quickly after the one where they had lost sight of the Mercedes; they would be concentrating on getting past. He swung the car off into the side road, screened by the bulk of Zepirov’s lorry, and sped away. It was exactly twelve o’clock. He knew the route by heart. It was a quiet area, with a few houses scattered in the countryside. The rendezvous point was at a crossroads, deep in agricultural land. He saw nobody and there were no other cars. When he came to the crossroads there was no sign of Kruger’s grey Mercedes. Nicholas pulled into the side of the road. He got out of the car, ripping off the gas mask; his face was sticky with sweat. He wiped it with a handkerchief; he wore leather gloves and they made it awkward to find a cigarette and light it. He stood by the side of the car and inhaled deeply.

By now, the duel between Olga and the Zim would be over. At the given distance she would drop well back behind the container and allow them to pass. When they did so, they would find no trace of the Mercedes and no turn-off for twenty kilometres.

The police would have been called in by now, and their patrol cars would be converging on the route. Olga would pull into a service station, fill up with petrol, and delay as long as possible in the hope that the pursuit would have long gone ahead of her. If she was stopped, she carried a driving licence in a false name, with an address in Paris. She was to be flustered and tearful, complaining bitterly of the fright she had been given by a strange car trying to pass her on the road without due regard to safety. Zepirov was driving back to Chartres, to park the container in the factory warehouse where Volkov had killed the Russian chauffeur, and then make his way back to Paris and then to Orly and a plane to Switzerland.

Everything had gone as planned. Except that Kruger hadn’t reached the rendezvous, and by now the hunt for the Mercedes must be in full cry. He looked at his watch. Twelve-ten. He heard a car coming down the narrow road behind him, and knew it wasn’t Kruger because of the direction. He couldn’t get into the Mercedes because of the gas, he dared not pretend to be in trouble and hide his face under the bonnet in case the motorist decided to stop and offer help. He threw the cigarette into the hedge, and ran to the rear of the Mercedes. When the little Peugeot 204 with its family of mother, father and three children passed on their way to a visit with their grandmother in the next village, they hardly noticed the chauffeur fumbling about in the boot of the big black car by the side of the road.

Nicholas came back and stood by the side of the car; he checked his watch again. In God’s name, where were the Krugers? He dared not stay too long, because although the place was isolated every street and lane would be searched once it was established that Malenkov had vanished. He went a few yards up the left-hand arm of the crossroads, listening, hoping to hear the car. And then he saw it.

Volkov was driving like a madman, the grey Mercedes hurtled towards Nicholas, and he turned and ran back to the Russian car. The Mercedes stopped with an ugly screech of tyres, just behind it. Kruger and Volkov leaped out; Nicholas had a glimpse of Régine, white-faced in the back.

‘We got held up –’ Anton was already at the rear window, looking in on Malenkov and his companion. He turned to Nicholas.

‘They look dead … it worked all right.’

‘Perfectly,’ Nicholas answered. ‘I almost gave up on you – you’re ten minutes behind the time!’

‘I know, I know, we couldn’t help it. Open the back door, Nicholas. We can’t touch them till we let the gas out.’

Nicholas swung the door open, and also the door to the driver’s seat. He pulled on the gas mask.

‘I’ll pull him out, you be ready to get him into your car. The stuff disperses very quickly in the air. It’ll be safe in a few seconds.’

He reached in and grabbed Malenkov, catching him under the arms; he sagged against him, and his hat fell off. Nicholas heaved and the dead weight of his body slid off the seat. He began to pull him out of the car and on to the roadway. Volkov came to help him; together they manhandled him into a semi-upright position and Volkov lifted him bodily off the ground. They got him to the grey Mercedes and Régine stepped out, holding the door wide. They set him down on the floor, his legs doubled under him, and Nicholas threw a travelling rug on top. He went back, picked up the hat, and found the posy of flowers, wilted and dead, lying on the seat near the Trade secretary. He put them and the hat under the rug.

He pulled off the mask and stuffed it into his pocket.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘Let’s get back to Grandcour!’ Kruger had been staring into the Russian car. ‘Is it safe now?’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll leave the rear window open. There won’t be a trace of anything when they find it. Anton, hurry!’

He saw Kruger lean inside the car; when he came out he had the secretary’s gun in his gloved hand. He didn’t say anything. He walked to his own car, and pulled the rug off Malenkov. He crouched down, and clasped the gun in Malenkov’s right hand for a moment. Then he straightened. Nicholas moved towards him, but he had sidestepped and was leaning into the Embassy car. Nicholas came up behind him as he pressed the gun to the Trade secretary’s temple and shot him through the head. He dropped it on the floor, slammed the door and turned round to face Nicholas.

‘Don’t look so shocked,’ he said calmly. ‘It had to be done. Now no one will know what happened. Our explanation will be believed. You drive; Volkov terrifies Régine.’ He went back, climbed in over Malenkov’s body, seating himself beside his wife and Volkov. Nicholas got behind the wheel and started the car.

‘Drive normally,’ Anton Kruger’s voice said. ‘Remember you’re chauffeuring an elderly lady and gentleman and their friend. And if we’re stopped, I’ll give the explanations.’

‘We have our feet on the swine,’ Volkov said. ‘Isn’t that appropriate?’

Nicholas didn’t answer. The cold-blooded killing of a human being had numbed him with shock. No killing. No bloodshed. That had been Kruger’s promise, the theme of justification which had run through their preparations. Now two men were dead.

Volkov had murdered the driver, and Kruger had killed the secretary. With a gun carrying Malenkov’s fingerprints. He took the back roads, driving in silence. He heard a snatch of laughter from the back, and a quick glimpse showed him Anton Kruger smoking a cigarette and smiling. They turned in at the gates of the Château Grandcour at exactly twelve-forty. No one had stopped them on the way.

Raoul Jumeaux was in his office when the news reached him on the telex. He had been busy with desk work, sucking on his pipe, his mind tuned to extra alertness because of Malenkov’s presence in France, but with no premeditation of disaster. Security was satisfactory and there had been no incidents. A small group of Zionists protesting about the persecution of Soviet Jewry outside the Comédie Française had been hustled away long before the Russians arrived. Thinking of the protest which had been averted by his own foresight and the defection of Nicholas Yurovsky from his friends, Jumeaux had congratulated himself all through the performance. The trip to Chartres cathedral had presented no special problems. It was not publicized, Malenkov’s own bodyguard were in attendance and the route was straightforward. His departure from the Russian Residence had been covered by Jumeaux’s own men, and the car had left at their suggestion by the back entrance. It had carried no Soviet pennant or diplomatic plates. If Malenkov wanted to absorb French medieval culture, then Jumeaux was not worried. His wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier was causing all the anxiety, and the Russian was insisting upon it. Every rooftop and building overlooking the route and the Arc de Triomphe would be thick with police and marksmen. The car carrying him was bullet-proofed and armoured, courtesy of the French government. An escort of motorcycle outriders would cluster round it like flies on a honeycomb, providing a human screen. That was the occasion when some fanatic might try to make his gesture, and Jumeaux focused all his attention and precautions on it.

The visit had been a great success so far. The Russian had presented himself in a favourable light to the press and the public, as a man of moderation with liberal leanings, and government circles were impressed with his sincerity. He desired friendship with France, closer economic and trade links between the two countries, and the usual cultural exchanges to promote goodwill. Détente was sounding a sweet word, and the traditional French love of baiting the mighty Americans was allowed full play.

When his secretary came in with the telex sheet, he was deep in his papers and not pleased at the interruption. One glance at her face and he was on his feet, grabbing the paper from her.

‘Malenkov car disappeared on way back to Paris. Separated from escort on route N10 from Chartres. Car vanished without trace. All forces alerted.’

‘Jesus Christ alive!’ Jumeaux actually yelled aloud. ‘Oh my Christ …’

At that moment his telephone began to ring, and then the second phone, until the office was a cacophony of noise. The Minister of the Interior. The Russian Embassy. The President himself. And then another message, brought by a frantic man from the outer office. Jumeaux, purple in the face, was stuttering down the telephone.

‘They’ve found the car,’ the officer hissed at him. ‘Secretary Sashevsky’s been shot dead, the driver’s vanished and Malenkov’s gone!’

Jumeaux put his hand over the receiver and groaned. The President of France repeated his furious question on the line and for a few seconds there was no answer. Jumeaux sank down on to his chair.

‘I have to tell you,’ his voice was choked, ‘I have to tell you, M. le President, that it is the worst possible news. Comrade Malenkov has been kidnapped. It is a total disaster.’

Anna and Nicholas were alone. He was holding her in his arms, very closely without speaking. They had left the Krugers, with Volkov, Olga Jellnik and Natalie Maximova celebrating, with Fritz and Elise. Kruger had opened champagne and they had all stood together and drunk a toast; it was mid-afternoon and the sun was very hot outside. Upstairs in the tower room, where Malenkov, who had been Feodor Gusev, lay handcuffed to his bed, it was stifling hot. Anna had seen Nicholas signal, and they had slipped away and gone upstairs. She had cried with relief that he was safe, and he had simply held her, stroking her hair.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done it, that he’s actually here – all through the morning I was sick with fright imagining what could go wrong. And nothing did, except Anton being late because of a farm lorry – it’s almost a miracle!’

They had recounted every detail of the story downstairs, congratulating each other, highlighting their own particular dramas. Volkov hadn’t mentioned the murder of the driver, and Kruger said nothing about the passenger in Gusev’s car. There was an atmosphere of euphoria, which was almost hysterical. Everyone congratulated Olga for her performance with the car. Nobody had stopped her and she had driven by the back roads to the Château. They toasted the absent Zepirov, by then on his way to the airport to establish his alibi in Lausanne. It had all gone through without a single mishap. Listening to Anton’s account of their duel with the lorry made everyone laugh in retrospect. Only Nicholas was quiet, almost withdrawn.

‘What’s the matter, my darling?’ Anna asked him. ‘Has something really gone wrong and you didn’t tell us …’ She stood back from him in alarm. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘is that what it is?’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘It all happened exactly as Anton had planned. Except that Volkov murdered the Russian driver. He said it was an accident, but I don’t think he even tried to stun him. It was a deliberate death blow. And Anton – give me a cigarette, darling, there’s one on the table –’ He paused and lit it. She saw that his hand shook slightly. ‘Anton,’ he said at last, ‘didn’t tell the whole of it. There was another man with Gusev. Anton shot him through the head before we left.’

Anna stared at him in horror. ‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘Why did he do that – Oh my God, Nicholas, this is different, this is murder!’

He sat down on the bed, looking ahead of him, turning the cigarette over in his fingers. ‘I should have expected it,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t leave a witness alive to tell how it was done. But I didn’t think of it, Anna. I didn’t see that killing anyone who went with Gusev was inevitable. I was just shaken, that’s all. He took the gun and shot the man as if he was swatting a mosquito. He didn’t lift an eyebrow over it.’

She came and sat beside him. He held her hand. ‘It was the most terrible thing to see,’ he said slowly. ‘He was just lying there unconscious, helpless, and Anton killed him. I can’t see it in perspective yet. If it had been Gusev himself, when the moment came, I couldn’t have done that.’

‘Thank God,’ Anna said quietly. ‘My darling, I don’t know what to say …’

‘I’ve been saying it all to myself ever since it happened,’ he said. ‘He had no choice, the success of our story depended on keeping the details a secret. He killed the enemy.… I’ve no right to judge him. He had to make the decision and do what had to be done. Think of my father and what people like the dead man did to him, and are doing to millions of people in Russia today. They don’t have any scruples, do they?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But that’s why we mustn’t be like them. I’m worried about something else. I don’t think Elise should be left to look after him. I’m afraid she’ll ill-treat him.’

‘She’s dangerous, and she’s full of hate,’ Nicholas said. ‘She and Volkov. He was coming round when I left the tower room. I’ll go up and look in. And don’t worry; she won’t dare do anything.’

‘When you carried him up,’ Anna said. ‘He looked so old. I’d never thought of him as an old man.’

‘I think of him as my father’s torturer,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think of the year they kept him in the Lubyanka, breaking him in mind and body until they hanged him. I don’t see Gusev in terms of anything human. But I’ll keep a watch on Elise. Do you want to come up with me?’

Anna hesitated. There was a repugnance about that soundproofed room, with the bed and the handcuffs. And confined there, the perpetrator of a monstrous crime. She had a dread of seeing Gusev, of hearing him speak. Nicholas wanted her to come. The confrontation would be traumatic for him. He too had to face it, and she understood that he had chosen the moment when only she was with him.

‘We’ll go,’ she said. ‘We’d better see if he’s all right.’

Gusev had a headache. The inside of his skull was full of hammers, pounding at the frail shell that housed his brain; his eyes stung and watered. He wiped them with his free hand. He felt less nauseated than when he first awoke; the initial shock of finding himself tethered to a bed in a strange room had given way to taut apprehension. Fear cleared his head; he sat up, awkwardly, and looked round him absorbing every detail of his surroundings. He recognized the insulation as soundproofing, and the sight of cloud passing the little window told him he was high up. From the circular shape of the walls he guessed himself to be imprisoned in a tower. And the preparations to receive him had been thorough. The soundproofing, the double door, the glazing of the window. Whoever had got him was very efficient.

The first idea was the most obvious. He was being held to ransom and this was a terrorist coup, probably organized by the same group which had kidnapped the oil sheikhs and held them captive in a hotel, successfully escaping with a huge sum of money. In that case, he had no reason to fear. If he was the prisoner of the legendary Carlos, then no harm would come to him. His surroundings supported this. He was confined without undue discomfort. That alone indicated captors of sophistication and confidence. He leaned back against the iron bedrail. He was thirsty, and there was a carafe of water and a glass on the table beside him. He tried to get to it, but it proved to be out of reach. He worked his tongue in his mouth, trying to produce saliva. He stretched again, trying to pull the table towards him, and only succeeded in half slipping down off the bed, suspended painfully by his tethered wrist. It took a few minutes of effort, while the pain in his head became unbearable, before he had regained his position. He forced his mind away from the water, closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself. They wouldn’t be recognizable, of course; they would wear hoods or masks, to prevent identification when he was released. He imagined the world-wide furore his disappearance must be causing. It was entirely possible that the French would rescue him. He rather hoped they wouldn’t try. His chance of safety lay in negotiation. He opened his eyes sharply, every nerve stretched at the sound of the inner door opening. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Two people had come into the room and were walking towards him. A man and a woman. No disguise, no stocking masks or hoods, not even dark glasses. For a moment they stared at each other. Gusev croaked, his mouth and throat parched.

‘Who are you? Where am I?’ He spoke in Russian.

Nicholas looked at the dishevelled old man on the bed, his eyes narrowed in frightened anticipation, grey-faced and sickly, and found it difficult to speak. He felt physically nauseated with disgust and loathing. The little dark eyes probed at him, filled with visible terror and bright with cunning. ‘Who are you?’

‘Do you need anything?’ Nicholas asked him. The old man started, hearing Russian spoken by a Russian.

‘Water,’ he rasped. ‘I’m thirsty. I’m sick.’

‘What’s he saying?’ Anna whispered. ‘He looks dreadful.’

‘He wants water,’ Nicholas said to her. ‘Give him some.’

She crossed over to the table, poured some water and handed him the glass. He drank it greedily, and held it out again. She refilled it.

‘Move the table nearer,’ Nicholas said. ‘It’s been put out of reach.’ They glanced at each other quickly; the same thought was in their minds. Elise had arranged the room. If they hadn’t come up Gusev would have been tortured with thirst for hours. Anna went back and stood beside Nicholas. She didn’t want to look at Gusev; he spoke again and she couldn’t understand, because he spoke in Russian.

‘Tell me where I am,’ he said to Nicholas. ‘And who you are.’

‘I can tell you nothing,’ Nicholas answered. ‘Except my name. Yurovsky.’

Gusev showed no reaction. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘Food will be brought to you later.’ He turned and opened the door for Anna. They went out, and he shot the bolts on the heavy outer door. They climbed down the awkward stairs, and at the bottom Nicholas turned to her. ‘We’d better go down and join Anton. We should watch the television news.’

‘What was he saying?’

‘Asking questions. I didn’t answer them, but I told him my name. He can work out what that means for himself.’

‘How did you feel, seeing him?’ She asked the question anxiously.

‘Sick,’ Nicholas said. ‘He made me feel sick to my stomach. I just wanted to get out of the room. I used to think of what I’d do and say when we were face to face. I thought I’d want to beat the life out of him. But it wasn’t like that at all. I just felt disgusted.’

Anna put her arm through his. ‘We’ll be going back to Paris soon, my love,’ she said gently. ‘We’ll have too much to do to think about him there. My mother is arriving on Monday.’

‘I’ve got to talk to Anton alone,’ Nicholas said. ‘You were right about Elise. I don’t want him hurt or tormented. We’re not going to sink to his level.’ They went into the library to find Anton and the other members of ‘Return’ grouped around the television set. The news was just beginning.

The first thing Jumeaux did, after the order for a general search was given, was to have the homes of every known member of ‘Return’ raided by the police. This was part of a massive swoop on all known anti-Soviet organizations, the Zionists heading the list. A number of people were arrested; Zepirov’s wife and children were in their small flat in the suburbs of St Martin. A telephone call to the hotel in Lausanne established Zepirov’s alibi. Natalie Maximova’s flat-mate said she had telephoned and would be returning the next morning. Volkov was missing, and the concierge at Nicholas’s apartment confirmed that Nicholas had not been seen since his wedding. The same information was given by the concierge in the house on the Avenue Gabriel. Madame Martin had left after her marriage and was in America. She was expected back with her husband on Monday.

Jumeaux put out a nationwide call for the arrest of Vladimir Volkov, but without any confidence in the result. The Russian would be found, drunk in some hole, as he had been before; Jumeaux didn’t believe that he was connected with Gusev’s disappearance.

The whole operation had been expertly planned. The disappearance of the car was inexplicable unless the Soviet driver was a party to the abduction. Except for the body of the secretary, Sashevsky, there were no signs of violence or a struggle where the Mercedes had been found. Someone had come forward and reported seeing the car standing by the roadside, with a man, presumably the chauffeur, looking in the boot. The driver of the family car concerned said that he had the impression of two people sitting in the back. There was no third person or other vehicle visible on that road for miles. Jumeaux sent an assistant round to his home for an overnight bag, and drove straight down to the police headquarters which had been set up in Chartres. By four o’clock he was standing on the road, looking at the exact spot where the Russian Embassy car had been found. The whole road had been cordoned off by police, and a white chalk mark enclosed the area where the Mercedes had stood. Police with dogs were searching the ditches and the roadway. There was a second chalked oblong about five yards away from the first. The inspector in charge showed Jumeaux a small patch of oil at the front of it.

‘There was a second car, just behind the Russians,’ he said. ‘We found faint tyre marks and this oil patch. From the distance between the front and back wheels we’ve established a rough size for the vehicle. It seems to be substantial; big for a private car, not big enough for a commercial job. More like a limousine. This must have been where the transfer took place.’

‘Footprints?’ Jumeaux asked.

‘Too many,’ the inspector said. ‘When the Mercedes was found there was a scramble to get here. But I had everything inside and outside fingerprinted.’

‘I want to see Sashevsky’s body,’ Jumeaux said. ‘And then an analysis of everything found in the car. Ashtrays, down between the seats, fibres, anything possible. And I’ll get the fingerprints of Sashevsky, the driver and Malenkov checked out with the Embassy. If there’s one print that doesn’t tally, we may have something. Let’s go.’

The mortuary smelled of damp and formaldehyde; it was a smell Jumeaux knew well. He and the inspector followed the mortuary attendant into a dismal room lined with refrigerated cabinets. It was mostly used for road accidents awaiting identification. The attendant told them there were only three bodies in the place.

He showed them Sashevsky lying naked and purpling, an identity tag attached to his wrist. There was a bullet hole in his left temple, surrounded by black powder burns. The expression on his face was peaceful, his eyes were closed. There was no rictus of fear about the open mouth. Jumeaux studied this.

‘Point blank,’ he said. ‘Whoever killed him was right up close. Anything in his hands?’

‘It’s all in the office,’ the inspector said. ‘I think they found something.’

He told the attendant to put the corpse away. It slid out of sight, covered by a sheet. He spoke to Jumeaux as they turned away.

‘The Russians want him delivered to them,’ he said. ‘They’ve been raising hell since we found the car.’

‘They can’t have him,’ Jumeaux answered. ‘Not till we’ve had that bullet out and seen what sort of gun it came from. I’ll deal with the Embassy.’

The inspector had put his own office at Jumeaux’s disposal. A team of men from SDECE were already installed in the police headquarters. Jumeaux went into the office, called for coffee, and settled behind the inspector’s desk. Two telephone calls interrupted him. One from the Foreign Office, asking for the latest developments, and an angry exchange with the Political Secretary at the Soviet Embassy, demanding, on behalf of the Ambassador, that the body of Sashevsky be returned to Russian keeping. Jumeaux refused politely, and when the argument continued, excused himself and suggested that the Foreign Office should be contacted. He disliked his fellow civil servants in that department, and had no scruples in loading the problem on to them. The autopsy on the murdered Russian would take place that evening. He should have the ballistics report the same night. He turned to the sheaf of reports on his desk, and three envelopes, one of them large and heavy.

He opened that first. It contained a Smith and Wesson .38 automatic. He held it by the muzzle in a handkerchief; the ballistics boys would know in a very short time if it had been fired. He rang, and had the gun sent along to them. The second envelope was small. It contained fluff, an old cigarette end, crushed flat, a little ash in a tiny plastic triangle, and a woman’s kirbygrip. It was marked ‘found in car interior’. The third and last envelope was smaller than its fellows. He opened it carefully, and shook it over a piece of tissue paper. A single withered little object fluttered out. It was the head of a flower. A little yellow flower, crushed and bruised by the dead man’s clenched hand. When the hand opened in death, it had been found stuck to the palm. Jumeaux picked it up with tweezers and looked at it. Then he replaced it in the envelope. The telephone rang on his desk and he picked it up. Paris on the line. He straightened instinctively in his chair when the caller announced himself. They had spoken before, just after the disappearance of Malenkov had been flashed through. The exchange had been furious, menacing. The military title of colonel covered the caller’s true identity. It was a name that exercised real terror among his subordinates, a name that by-passed all normal channels of authority in France. The head of SDECE spoke down the telephone, and Jumeaux’s jaw began to sag in disbelief.

‘But it’s not possible,’ he said. ‘It can’t be …’

The brusque voice interrupted him. ‘That’s our information from the Americans,’ it said. ‘They got the call about an hour ago. It could be a hoax, but it’s impossible to check. Certainly the caller was a Russian; their operator who was called to the line was definite about that. Let’s just hope it’s genuine. It’ll get us all off the hook if it is. So go easy, Jumeaux. Don’t rush anything. It’d be the biggest coup for our side since the war.’

Jumeaux replaced the receiver. He had forgotten about his precious pipe in the agitation of the past few hours. Now he searched for it, needing its solace.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. And yet already the pieces of the puzzle that seemed most ill-assorted were beginning to fit. There was a knock on the door. One of his men came in.

‘The Soviet Embassy telexed these through, sir,’ he said. ‘And ballistics say the gun was fired. I’ve brought the fingerprint record found on the Mercedes’ interior and coachwork. And on the gun.’

Jumeaux took the papers from him. ‘Good,’ he said. He lit his pipe and sucked at it hard. The taste of the strong tobacco was comforting. He spread out the reports on the desk in front him. The ballistics boys had been quick. One bullet had been fired from the gun within the last twelve hours. He knew without waiting for the autopsy that it had been used to kill Sashevsky. He began checking the fingerprints. There were dozens of them, blurred and intermingled, the record of God knew how many people who had used that car. Passengers, drivers, mechanics; but all Russians whose prints could be checked. It would take time, but it was possible to match up everyone with a known Embassy official or employee. He glanced immediately at the prints found on the gun. There were two sets. He puffed at his pipe again to draw it, and studied the separate sheet bearing the fingerprints of the Soviet chauffeur and Sashevsky. As he had expected, Malenkov’s were not recorded, or had not been made available. He checked them against those found on the gun, and Sashevsky’s were clear. There was a clear impression of a thumb and middle finger which belonged to someone else. Jumeaux began to compare them very carefully with the multitude of fingerprints his men had exposed inside the car. He found one that matched. Then two more; a good impression on the inside door handle, on the opposite side from where Sashevsky had been found. The same hand had held the gun. Jumeaux placed the papers together, shuffling them into place. The pieces were fitting. The second set of prints on the gun did not belong to the vanished driver. Whoever had killed Sashevsky, it wasn’t him. He used the inter-office phone, and was put through to the Soviet Embassy. He spoke to the same Second Secretary whom he had re-routed to the Foreign Office. He was extremely courteous and apologetic, and promised to have Sashevsky’s body delivered later that night. He stressed the urgency of identifying the different fingerprints found in the car, and asked that tests be made of the rooms occupied by Comrade Malenkov, so that his could be identified. He was assured that this would be done. Then Jumeaux sat back. They hadn’t heard at the Embassy yet. And for the moment it would be kept very quiet. It was being treated as a hoax, but he knew that his chief, the dreaded Colonel, was inclined to believe it. He wanted to believe it himself. Only an hour ago, a call had come through to the American Embassy in Paris. The caller had announced himself as Grigor Malenkov, and asked for an assurance of political asylum from the United States. He had claimed to be in hiding and would telephone again.

‘It’s just as well,’ Elise said, ‘that you don’t keep dogs, M. Kruger. We don’t want anything digging him up.’ She leaned on a spade, breathing heavily. Volkov stood beside her, his spade standing upright in a mound of soft earth. Anton looked at the woman and nodded. It had taken three of them to bury the Russian driver. The grave was in the woodland which surrounded the Château, where the earth was soft and friable with centuries of rotted leaf mould. They were sweating and dirty; they had dug very deep and it had taken two hours of sustained work to make the grave big enough and to fill it in afterwards.

‘That German puppy should have helped,’ Volkov grumbled. ‘Him and his scruples – did you hear the fuss he made over the shooting of Sashevsky? I nearly punched his head for him!’

‘That’s why I didn’t tell him about the driver,’ Anton said. ‘He’s young and he doesn’t like killing. It’s a reaction to his past. A lot of Germans feel like he does. Don’t be intolerant of the boy. He’ll be brave enough when his turn comes.’

Elise looked at him, she wiped her sweating face with her sleeve. ‘He keeps asking about Gusev,’ she said. ‘I caught him sneaking up there this morning. I sent him off pretty quick! I don’t trust that one – he’s a softhead – typical Germans, either they’re crying their eyes out or they’re stringing you up with piano wire!’

Kruger turned and they began to walk slowly back.

‘Fritz didn’t see it first hand,’ he said slowly. ‘Not like we did. It’s different for us. It’s a good thing the young generation values human life; people with that boy’s attitude are needed in the world if it’s ever going to improve. Better the Germany of Fritz von Bronsart, than the Baader-Meinhof!’

‘I can’t philosophize,’ Elise said. ‘I just know what I feel. I know how they dragged my father away to his death, and how I cried and screamed while my bitch of a mother held me back. Killing one of them could never worry me.’

‘We’ll go in the back way,’ Anton said. ‘Wash very carefully, make sure there’s no earth or dirt left anywhere. Leave the spades in the gardener’s shed here, wipe the soil off them.’

He went up to the rear of the Château and slipped in through the back entrance along the stone passages leading to the kitchen quarters. He kicked off his shoes. There was mud and old leaves sticking to them. That didn’t matter. He often went for walks through his woods. He heard the cook and the housekeeper talking, and paused, putting his head round the door.

‘Ah, Louise, something smells good.’

‘Coq au vin, monsieur,’ the cook told him. The housekeeper, a widow in her forties, had been with them ten years. She lived with her thirteen-year-old son in a cottage on the estate. The cook had her house in the village; her husband and son worked in the gardens, and her daughter-in-law helped clean the Château with another woman from Grandcour.

They were quite accustomed to the influx of guests at the Château; the Krugers often had friends to stay. It was a jolly gathering this time; they spent a lot of time talking and watching television, and Madame Kruger was much relieved because the nephew who was going to be a pop musician and played the drums all day had decided not to visit them.

‘Marie, our guests will be leaving by the end of the week,’ he said. ‘Madame and I are going to Paris for a few days. So you can close up the house and take a rest. It’s been a busy time for you with so many people to look after.’

The housekeeper denied it quickly. She didn’t mind having people, so long as they weren’t too demanding, and she had grown accustomed to the Krugers’ generosity and courtesy; equally she knew that the highest standards were expected in return.

‘It’s no trouble to any of us,’ she said. ‘Louise has made you a bombe surprise for tonight.’

‘My favourite!’ Anton exlaimed. ‘Thank you. I’ve had a long walk; Marie, would you be kind enough to bring tea to the library?’

He went out leaving them content. Gusev was fed twice a day. At six in the morning before the staff came in, and at ten at night, when they had gone. All traces were cleared away, and the food was kept to the basics so that nothing would be missed. Eggs, bread, cheese, a mug of soup at night. Everything disposable.

He had gone upstairs once since Gusev arrived, and looked at him through the seeing eye in the inner door. He had been sprawled on the bed asleep, his mouth gaping; Kruger stayed for some time, just watching him. He didn’t go into the room. He wouldn’t confront him until they all did. Elise reported that he never spoke to her. He kept completely silent, and seemed to be very much afraid.

Anton found Régine in the hall; she was arranging flowers on one of the tables, standing back to see the effect. A remarkable woman, cool-headed and calm, playing the hostess to their fellow conspirators as if they were no more than guests enjoying a week in the country. She saw him and smiled. Love had never cooled between them; it had scarcely fluctuated. He came and put his arm round her.

‘Everything all right?’ They had put the dead man in a wheelbarrow the night before and taken him into the woods. She had found the tarpaulin to cover him.

‘Yes, sweetheart. All done.’

‘Nicholas rang. Anna’s mother is arriving on Monday; Rousselle’s message will be waiting for her. He’s seeing her that night. He’ll ring and let us know what happens.’

‘Good,’ Anton said. ‘I thought Jacques would find her interesting. It’s so useful to have friends –’ He squeezed her gently and they both laughed.