‘You should be at your window,’ Reynolds said quietly.
‘No need.’ The Cossack’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “They’ve stopped firing and gone now back to the trucks — I can hear their voices in the woods. I got two of them, Mr. Reynolds, two of them! I saw them fall in the light of the flare, just before you shouted at me to shoot the flare out.’
‘And you did that too,’ Reynolds acknowledged. That accounted, he realised, for the lack of any more of the pistol flares: a double-edged weapon, it had turned disastrously in Hidas’ hand. ‘You’ve saved us all Tonight.’ He clapped the proud boy on his shoulder, turned to look at Jansci and then stood very still.
Jansci was kneeling on the rough wooden floor, and his wife was in his arms. Her back was to Reynolds, and the first thing he saw was the round, red-ringed hole in her coat, high up below her left shoulder. It was a very small hole, and only a little blood and the stain wasn’t spreading at all. Slowly, Reynolds walked the length of the corridor and sank on his knees beside Jansci. Jansci lifted his white, blood-stained head and looked at him with sightless eyes.
‘Dead?’ Reynolds whispered.
Jansci nodded without speaking.
‘My God!’ Reynolds’ shock showed in every line of his face. ‘Now, now — to die now!’
‘A merciful God, Meechail, and understanding far beyond my deserts. Only this morning, I asked Him why He hadn’t let Catherine die, why He hadn’t made her die. . . . He has forgiven my presumption, He knew far better than I. Catherine was gone, Meechail, gone before the bullet ever touched her.’ Jansci shook his head, a man marvelling at the splendour of it all. ‘Could there be anything more wonderful, Meechail, than to pass from this earth, without pain, at the moment of your greatest happiness? Look! Look at her face — see how she smiles!’
Reynolds shook his head without speaking. There was nothing to say, he could think of nothing to say, his mind was numbed.
‘We are both blessed.’ Jansci was talking, almost rambling to himself, he eased his arms, so that he could look down on his wife’s face and his voice was soft with memory. ‘The years have been kind to her, Meechail, time loved her almost as much as I. Twenty years ago, five and twenty years ago, drifting down the Dnieper on a summer’s night — I see her now as I saw her ‘then. She has not been touched.’ He said something in a tone so low that Reynolds couldn’t catch it, then his voice came more clearly again. ‘You remember her photograph, Meechail, the one you thought did Julia more than justice? Now you can see: it could never have been anyone else.’
‘It could never have been anyone else, Jansci,’ Reynolds echoed. He thought of the photograph of the beautiful, laughing girl and stared down at the dead face in Jansci’s arms, at the thin white hair, the grey face haggard and emaciated as he had never seen a face before, a pitifully wasted face sculpted and graven into the deep lines of premature old age by unimaginable privations and hardships and he felt his eyes go blind. ‘It could never have been anyone else,’ Reynolds repeated. ‘The portrait did her less than justice.’
‘That’s what I said to Catherine, that’s what I always said to her,’ Jansci murmured. He turned away and bent low and Reynolds knew that he wanted to be alone. Reynolds stumbled blindly to his feet, he had to feel for the wall to support and guide him, and walked slowly away, the numbness in his mind slowly giving way first of all to a confusing maelstrom of conflicting thoughts and emotions, then slowly clearing and settling till there was only one thought, one fixed immovable purpose left in his mind. The slow anger that had been smouldering within him all evening now burst into an intense white flame that consumed his mind, his every thought to the exclusion of all else, but there was no trace of this blazing fury within him when he spoke quietly to Sandor. ‘Could I ask you to bring the truck here, please?’ ‘Ira a moment,’ Sandor promised. He gestured at the girl lying on the couch. ‘She is just coming to. We must hurry.’
“Thank you. We will.’ Reynolds turned away and looked at the Cossack. ‘Keep a good watch, Cossack. I will not be long.’ He walked along the corridor, went past Jansci and Catherine without looking at either of them, picked up the automatic carbine that leaned against the wall and passed out through the door, closing it softly behind him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The dark, sluggish waters were ice-cold as the tomb, bun Reynolds didn’t even feel their freezing touch, and though his whole body shuddered involuntarily as he had slid silently into the river, his mind had not even registered the shock. There was no room in his mind for any physical sensation, for any emotion or thought of any kind, except for that one starkly simple, primeval desire, the desire that had sloughed off the tissue veneer of civilisation as if it had never been — that of revenge. Revenge or murder — there was no distinction in Reynolds’ mind at that moment, the absolute fixity of his purpose permitted of none. That frightened boy in Budapest, Jansci’s wife, the incomparable Count — they were all dead. They were dead, primarily, because he, Reynolds, had set foot in Hungary, but he had not been their executioner: only the evil genius of Hidas could be held accountable for that. Hidas had lived too long.
Automatic carbine held high above his head, Reynolds breasted his way through the thin film of crackling ice that stretched out from the far bank, felt his feet touch bottom and scrambled ashore. Stooping, be, filled a spread handkerchief with handfuls of tiny pebbles and sand, tied the corners and was on his way, without even pausing to wring or shake any of the icy water out of his clothes.
He had run two hundred yards down-river before making his crossing, and now he found himself in the perimeter of the wood that curved east and south to the bisecting road where the two trucks were parked. Here, in the shadow of the trees, he could not be seen and the frozen snow on the ground beneath their laden branches was so thin that his stealthy progress could have been heard barely ten feet away. He had slung his automatic carbine now, and the weighted handkerchief in his hand swung gently to and fro as he picked his wary way from tree to tree.
But for all his soft-footed caution, he had covered the ground swiftly, and was alongside the parked trucks within three minutes, peering out from the shelter of a tree. There was no sign of life from either truck, their rear doors were closed, there was no sign of life at all. Reynolds straightened, preparing to glide across the snow to Hidas’ truck, then froze into immobility, rigid against the bole of his tree. A man had moved out from behind the shelter of Hidas’ truck, and was coming directly towards him.
For a moment Reynolds was certain that the man had seen him, then almost at once relaxed. AVO soldiers didn’t go hunting for armed enemies in a dark wood with their gun carried under the crook of one arm and a lighted cigarette in the other hand. The sentry obviously had no suspicions, was just walking around to keep his blood moving in that bitter cold. He passed by within six feet of Reynolds and as he began to move away, Reynolds waited no longer. He took one long step out from the concealing shelter of the tree, his right arm swinging, and just as the man started to whirl round, his mouth open to cry out, the weighted cloth caught him with vicious force at the nape of the neck. Reynolds had time to spare and to catch both the man and his gun and lower them silently to the ground.
He had the carbine in his hand now, and half a dozen steps took him to the front of the brown truck — a truck, Reynolds could see, with its engine hood blown off and motor damaged by the explosion of the Count’s grenade — then he was moving silently across to Hidas’ caravan, his eyes so intently watching the back door that he all but tripped over the crumpled shape lying at his feet on the ground. Reynolds stooped low, and although he knew, even as he stooped, who it was that was lying there, nevertheless the shock of confirmation made him grasp the barrel of his carbine as if he would crush it in his bare hands.
The Count was lying face upwards in the snow, his AVO cap still framing the lean aristocratic face, the chiselled aquiline features even more aloof and remote in death than they had been in life. It was not hard to see how he had died — that burst of machine-gun fire must have torn half his chest away. Like a dog they had shot him down, like a dog they had left him lying there in the darkness of that bitter night, and the gently falling snow was beginning to lie on the cold, dead face. Moved by some strange impulse, Reynolds removed the hated AVO cap, sent it spinning away into the darkness, pulled a handkerchief — a handkerchief stained with the Count’s own blood — from the dead man’s breast pocket and spread it gently across his face. Then he rose and walked to the door of Hidas’ caravan.