‘The Gare du Nord. Paris. I’ve only got a couple of minutes. I’m catching the night train to Rennes.’
To Rennes?’ Devlin was bewildered. ‘What in the world would you be going there for?’
‘I change trains there for St Malo. I’ll be there at breakfast time. There’s a hydrofoil to Jersey. That’s as good as being in England. Once there, I’m safe. I’ll catch a plane for London. I only had minutes to give them the slip, so it seemed likely the other routes your people supplied would be blocked.’
‘So, you changed your mind. Why?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve realized I like you and I don’t like them. It doesn’t mean I hate my country. Only some of the people in it. I must go.’
‘I’ll contact London,’ Devlin said. ‘Phone me from Rennes, and good luck.’
The line went dead. He stood there, holding the receiver, a slight ironic smile on his face, a kind of wonderment. ‘Would you look at that now?’ he said softly. ‘A girl to take home to your mother and that’s a fact.’
He dialled the Cavendish Square number and it was answered almost at once. ‘Ferguson here.’ He sounded cross.
‘Would you by any chance be sitting in bed watching the old Bogart movie on the television?’ Devlin enquired.
‘Dear God, are you going into the clairvoyance business now?’
‘Well, you can switch it off and get out of bed, you old bastard. The game’s afoot with a vengeance.’
Ferguson’s voice changed. ‘What are you saying?’
That Tanya Voroninova’s done a bunk. She’s just phoned me from the Gare du Nord. Catching the night train to Rennes. Change for St Malo. Hydrofoil to Jersey in the morning. She thought the other routes might be blocked.’
‘Smart girl,’ Ferguson said. ‘They’ll pull every trick in the book to get her back.’
‘She’s going to phone me when she gets to Rennes. I presume, at a guess, that would be about three-thirty or maybe four o’clock.’
Ferguson said, ‘Stay by the phone. I’ll get back to you.’
In his flat, Harry Fox was just about to get into the shower before going to bed when the phone rang. He answered it, cursing. It had been a long day. He needed some sleep.
‘Harry?’
He came alert at once at the sound of Ferguson’s voice. Yes, sir?’
‘Get yourself over here. We’ve got work to do.’
Cussane was working in his study on Sunday’s sermon when the sensor device linked to the apparatus in the attic was activated. By the time he was up there, Devlin was off the phone. He played the tape back, listening intently. When it was finished, he sat there, thinking about the implications which were all bad.
He went down to the study and phoned Cherny direct. When the Professor answered, he said, ‘It’s me. Are you alone?’
‘Yes. Just about to go to bed. Where are you ringing from?’
‘My place. We’ve got bad trouble. Now listen carefully.’
When he was finished, Cherny said, ‘It gets worse. What do you want me to do?’
‘Speak to Lubov now. Tell him to make contact with Belov in Paris at once. They may be able to stop her.’
‘And if not?’
‘Then I’ll have to handle it myself when she gets here. I’ll keep in touch, so stay by the phone.’
He poured himself a whiskey and stood in front of the fire. Strange, but he still saw her as that scrawny little girl in the rain all those years ago.
He raised his glass and said softly, ‘Here’s to you, Tanya Voroninova. Now, let’s see if you can give those bastards a run for their money.’
Within five minutes, Turkin had realized something was badly wrong, had entered the dressing room and discovered the locked toilet door. The silence which was the only answer to his urgent knocking made him break down the door. The empty toilet, the window, told all. He clambered through, dropped into the yard and went into the Rue de Madrid. There was not a sign of her and he went round to the front of the Conservatoire and in through the main entrance, black rage in his heart. His career ruined, his very life on the line now because of that damned woman.