‘And then he met your father?’
‘Yes. They were both with Vlassov’s men, but they didn’t stay long. The endless, senseless killings sickened them both. These bands used to disguise themselves as Russians, stop and board the Polish trains, make the passengers get out and shoot all who held Communist Party cards — and many of the holders had no option but to have these cards, if they and their families were to survive: or they would move into towns, ferret out the Stakhanovites or would-be Stakhanovites and throw them among the ice blocks of the Vistula. So they left for Czechoslovakia and joined the Slovak partisans in the High Tatra.’
‘I’ve heard of them, even in England,’ Reynolds acknowledged. ‘The fiercest and most independent fighters in Central Europe.’
‘I think Jansci and the Count would agree,’ she said feelingly. ‘But they left very soon. The Slovaks weren’t really interested in fighting for something, they were just interested in fighting, and when things were dull they were just as happy to fight among themselves. So Jansci and the Count came to Hungary — they’ve been here over seven years now, most of the time outside Budapest.’
‘And how long have you been here?’
‘The same time. One of the first things Jansci and the Count did was to come to the Ukraine for us, and they took my mother and me here by way of the Carpathians and the High Tatra. I know what it must sound like, but it was a wonderful journey. It was high summer, the sun shone, they knew everybody, they had friends everywhere. I never saw my mother so happy.’
‘Yes.’ Reynolds steered her away from the topic. “The rest I know. The Count tips off who’s next for the axe and Jansci gets them out. I’ve talked to dozens in England alone who were taken out by Jansci. The strange thing is that none of them hated the Russians. They all want peace, Jansci has talked them all into preaching for peace. He even tried to talk to me!’
‘I told you,’ she said softly. ‘He’s a wonderful man.’ A minute passed in silence, two minutes, then she said suddenly, surprisingly: ‘You’re not married, are you, Mr. Reynolds?’
‘What’s that again?’ Reynolds was startled at the sudden switch.
‘You haven’t a wife, have you, or a sweetheart or any girls at all? And please don’t say “No, and don’t bother applying for the vacancy,” for that would be harsh and cruel and just a little cheap, and I don’t really think you are any of these things.’
‘I never opened my mouth,’ Reynolds protested. ‘As to the question, you guessed the answer. Anybody could. Women and my kind of life are mutually exclusive. Surely you can see that.’
‘I know it,’ she murmured. ‘I also know that two or three times this evening you have turned me away from — from unpleasant subjects. Inhuman monsters just don’t bother about that kind of thing. I’m sorry I called you that, but I’m glad I did, for I found out I was wrong before Jansci and the Count did. You don’t know what it’s like for me — these two — they’re always right, and I’m always wrong. But this time I’m right before them.’
‘I’ve no doubt you know what you’re talking about . . .’ Reynolds began politely.
‘And can’t you just see their expressions when I tell them that I sat for ten minutes Tonight with Mr. Reynolds’ arm around me.’ The voice was demure, with bubbling undertones of laughter. ‘You put it round me when you thought I was crying — and so I was crying,’ she admitted. ‘Your wolf’s clothing is getting a little threadbare, Mr. Reynolds.’
‘Good lord!’ Reynolds was genuinely astonished. For the first time he realised that his arm lay along her shoulders, he could just feel the touch of her hair on the back of his almost numbed hand. He muttered some discomfited apology, and was just starting to lift his arm when he froze into perfect stillness. Then his arm fell back slowly and tightened round her shoulder as he put his lips to her ear.
‘We have company, Julia,’ he murmured.
He looked out of the corner of his eye, and his eye confirmed what his abnormally keen ear had already told him. The snow had stopped, and he could clearly see three people advancing softly towards them. He would have seen them a hundred feet away if his vigilance hadn’t slipped. For the second time that night Julia had been wrong about the policemen, and this time there was no escaping them. That soft-footed advance was her lips lightly across his cheek and hurried away into the darkness. For a full minute Reynolds stood looking after her, long seconds after she had vanished, thoughtfully rubbing his cheek: then he swore softly to himself, and made off in the opposite direction, head bent forward and hat-brim pulled far down against the snow in his eyes.
When Reynolds reached his room in the hotel, unobserved and by way of the fire-escape, it was twenty minutes to ten and he was very cold and very hungry. He switched on the central heating, satisfied himself that no one had been in the room during his absence, then called the manager on the phone. There had been no message for him, no callers. Yes, he would be delighted to provide dinner even at this late hour: the chef was just going to bed, but would consider it an honour to show Mr. Rakosi just what he could do in the way of an impromptu meal. Reynolds rather ungraciously said that speed was of the essence and that the culinary masterpieces could wait till another day.
He finished an excellent meal and the best part of a bottle of Soproni just after eleven o’clock and prepared to depart. Almost an hour, yet, to his appointment, but what had taken only six or seven minutes in the Count’s Mercedes would take far longer by foot, the more so as his route would be wandering and devious. He changed a damp shirt, tie and socks and folded them neatly away, for he did not then know that he was never to see either that room or its contents again, jammed the key in the door, dressed against the winter night and left once more by the fire-escape. As he reached the street, he could hear a telephone ringing faintly, insistently, but he ignored it, the sound could have come from a hundred rooms other than his own.
By the time he had arrived at the street of Jansci’s house it was a few minutes after twelve. Despite the brisk pace he had kept up throughout he was half-frozen, but satisfied enough for all that, he was certain that he had neither been followed nor observed since he had left the hotel. Now, if only the Count still had some of that barack left . . .
The street was deserted and the garage door, when he came to it was, as by arrangement, open. He turned into the darkness of its interior without breaking step, angled confidently across to the corridor door at the other end, and had taken perhaps four paces when the garage was flooded with light at the touch of a switch and the iron doors clanged shut behind him.
Reynolds stood perfectly still, keeping both hands well clear of his clothes, then looked slowly around him. In each corner of the garage, a submachine-gun cradled under his arm, stood a watchful, smiling AVO man, each in his high peaked cap and long, sweeping belted trench-coat. There was no mistaking these men, Reynolds thought dully, there was no mistaking the real thing when you saw it, the coarsened brutality, the leering, expectant sadism of the lowermost dregs of society Which automatically find their ways into the Secret Police of Communist countries the world over.
But it was the fifth man, the little man by the corridor door with the dark, thin, intelligent Jew’s face that caught and held his attention. Even as Reynolds looked at him, he put away and buttoned up his pistol, took two steps forward, smiled and bowed ironically.
‘Captain Michael Reynolds of the British Secret Service, I believe. You are very punctual, and we sincerely appreciate it. We of the AVO do not like to be kept waiting.’
CHAPTER SIX
Without moving, without speaking, Reynolds stood in the middle of the floor. He stood there, it seemed to him, for an eternity of time, while his mind first of all absorbed the shock, then the bitter realisation, then hunted frantically for the reason for this, for the presence of the AVO and the absence of his friends. But it was no eternity, it was probably no more than fifteen seconds altogether, and even as the seconds passed Reynolds let his jaw fall lower and lower in shock while his eyes slowly widened in fear.