It was very hot in the first-floor room. Sculby and Loshkevoi sat at opposite ends of a long sofa like a couple of colonials who haven’t been formally introduced. In front of them was the fireplace, where a modem gas-fire radiated uncomfortable amounts of heat. Sculby had tried to turn it down but the control was jammed. Heavy velour curtains were drawn across hermetically sealed windows; it was difficult to breathe.
The only light was provided by a single bulb encased in a glass bowl above the sofa, quite inadequate for such a large room. Sculby likened the whole experience to being in the ante-chamber of Hell, not yet dead and not quite burning either.
The door opened to admit Royston and Franklin.
‘Aren’t you hot?’ asked Royston.
Sculby explained. Franklin went to kneel by the gas-fire and after a moment the orange glow abated.
‘Can’t we open a window? It’s stifling in here.’
‘Sorry. Too risky.’
‘You really think he might come in through a first-floor window?’
Loshkevoi turned to look at him with an expression of unmitigated contempt on his face. Royston didn’t even bother to answer.
‘What about the girl?’
Royston was methodically working his way round the room’s outer defences.
‘Nothing more… except would you believe she had the best part of a thousand quid in her handbag? Jesus Christ… expensive, I should bloody well think she was.’ He paused and looked up, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘I wonder if that’s KGB money she had. Ah well…’
‘Is she still here?’
‘No. We called her a taxi.’
‘You might have told me, Michael. I could have gone too.’ Royston sniggered. ‘You don’t think I’d risk you in the same cab with her, do you?’
Sculby was exasperated. ‘Seriously, Michael…’ Loshkevoi stood up and began to pace around the room, hands clasped behind his back. Everyone turned to look at him.
‘Do you have to do that?’ asked Royston sourly, after a while. Loshkevoi stopped in mid-stride and flung himself down on the sofa again.
‘Can’t we have some more light in here?’ he asked. ‘There’s too many shadows in this room. They make me nervous.’
‘Shut up and sit quietly. Now listen…’ Royston was addressing the room at large. ‘You all know the set-up. The outer wall is guarded and floodlit, so Kyril can’t get out. He’s somewhere in the grounds, or possibly the house. Sooner or later he’s going to show. We sit here, patiently, and wait. He has to make the first move and together we outnumber him conclusively, I’d say. So just make yourselves at home and relax, ’cos nobody’s leaving. Here, you two…’ He pointed at Barnes and Franklin. ‘Pull up those chairs by the door, facing each other at an angle… that’s right. Now you can cover the only entrance and exit.’
He rounded on Sculby.
‘You keep to that sofa. You too, Loshkevoi. I’m over here in the corner. If you must talk, keep it low: I want to be able to hear anything that happens in the corridor.’
Royston took a final look round the room, checking that everything was in order. Apparently satisfied, he walked quietly over to the door and opened it, leaving a narrow rectangle through which Sculby, by looking over his shoulder, could see the passage outside.
Royston backed away from the door and retreated to the far corner of the room where he sat down by a low table, half opposite the lawyer. On the table was a phone. Sculby saw him lift the receiver and listen for a few seconds before replacing it on its cradle.
‘Just testing,’ said Royston as he caught Sculby’s eye. ‘The line’s okay.’
Silence fell. During the next few minutes Sculby discovered that he had three problems. He was nervous. He was hungry. And he was bored.
After twenty minutes of silence these problems seemed to have doubled in size. Instead of being nervous he was scared; his stomach ached with emptiness; his mind was darting from topic to topic in nightmare fashion. He cursed his folly in not bringing paperwork to keep himself occupied. Every few seconds his eye flew to his watch. Only half an hour gone. Christ. Perhaps he could sleep. He sat back and closed his eyes to find all three problems still there, only somehow worse for being in darkness. He opened his eyes again.
The room was hardly luxurious. It reminded Sculby of the dayroom in his house at school: all tat and second hand. The carpet was threadbare and stained; the walls were bare of pictures, in the corner stood an old radio, its aerial bent almost double. None of the chairs matched each other or the sofa. One of the curtains had a jagged tear in it. Pinned to the back of the door was a notice typed on yellow Ministry of Defence paper. ‘Warning!’ it said. ‘Extinguish all power before leaving. Silence rules.’ Sculby distracted himself by trying to work out the syntax. Was silence an adjective in this context? Or a noun – in which case should there not be an ‘OK?’ on the end? And why ‘power’? Why not just say ‘light’ like everyone else, and have done with it?
Loshkevoi was sitting forward with his head in his hands, apparently absorbed by something on the floor. Royston reclined in the corner chair, looking vacantly at the ceiling. Sculby looked over his shoulder to see Barnes and Franklin both sitting upright, their faces tense with concentration. The two men had removed their jackets, revealing full shoulder-holsters.
Sculby closed his eyes again and tried to concentrate on a mantra. After a while he drifted into a light doze, pausing apprehensively to see if the Soviet officer with his swinging sword would invade his troubled brain. Nothing happened. Sculby slept.
He awoke what seemed like hours later and at once looked at his watch. It had stopped at five past seven. Other sensations began to make themselves felt. Somewhere nearby voices were being raised in disagreement.
‘I’m telling you, I have to take a crap…’
Loshkevoi was by the door being restrained by Franklin while Barnes looked questioningly at his chief.
‘Can’t it wait?’ snarled Royston.
‘No it can’t. I’m standing on one fucking leg as it is.’
Royston wiped a strand of hair away from his face, which was white with fatigue. You’re not in control, thought Sculby, and then – Oh, God, Michael, don’t give up now…
‘All right, all right. Barnes, you go with him. Franklin, while they’re away you sit in the doorway. And for God’s sake, hurry up.’
‘Get some sandwiches while you’re at it,’ put in Sculby, and was rewarded with a furious look from Royston.
‘Don’t do anything of the kind. Just get on with it as fast as possible and come back here. Now move!’
Sculby swung his legs on to the sofa and rested his head on a cushion. ‘Sorry Michael,’ he murmured. Royston grunted and was about to reply when suddenly the phone rang.
Everyone froze. Royston let it ring five times. Sculby reckoned he was trying to bring himself back under control after the initial shock had worn off. At last he reached out his hand to take the receiver.
‘Yes? Yes, I recognise the voice.’
Royston listened in rapt silence. To Sculby the call seemed to go on for ever. Only once did Royston speak, to say ‘Repeat, please’; he terminated the call by hanging up without saying goodbye to whoever was on the other end. Sculby raised an inquiring eyebrow but Royston steadfastly refused to meet his gaze.
The lawyer was about to close his eyes again when Royston did something which made him decide to stay awake after all. From his coat pocket he took a large, ungainly gun and a box of ammunition from which he proceeded to load the weapon. Both gun and bullets looked enormous. Sculby watched with growing apprehension. Royston’s lack of familiarity with what he was doing became more obvious by the minute, and in their relative positions he looked far more likely to shoot Sculby than any assailant bursting through the half-open door which led to the passage.
Sculby heard a noise behind him and turned. Franklin was standing in the doorway, gun in hand, facing outwards into the corridor. He was listening with all his attention.
‘What is it?’
Sculby stood up and went to stand behind him in the doorway. ‘I don’t know,’ Franklin whispered. ‘I thought I heard a noise. They’d been gone such a long time, I thought I’d take a look.’
He laid his hands on the door, as if to open it further, but as he did so Royston spoke.
‘Stand still,’ was what he said.