Black Ice (29 page)

'You can influence her, right? She listens to you. That's why she came  here last night,  which- though  don't take this as a knock- you should've reported to us. That's by the way.'

'I think  he's  right,' Petursson put  in.  'They are  planning some sort of major coup. They think it's possible she will turn to you for guidance.'

They  were probably right. That was why Batty  wanted  me near  her - to use my influence.  And  I was still  left with  the question I'd  put  to Batty.

'What makes them think I'll give her the advice they want?' Petursson gave an embarrassed shrug. 'You say yourself that you're not on anyone's team  .. .'

'I'm not.  I  never  have  been.  If Solrun  wants  to advertise package  holidays  in the Lubianka, let her.'

Petursson stood  there shaking his head. 'The bell only tolls for someone  else, isn't  that  it?'

I was a bit peeved at being quoted  back at myself but I wasn't going  to back out of it. 'That's about  it, yes.'

From  behind  the ramparts of his face, his eyes were on me.

'And  you meant it when you said you don't go to that address in Chelmsford?' Then  added: 'To see your grandmother?'- as if l needed  any explanation about  an address I'd  carried  round  in my memory  since  I was a child.

'I don't see the connection, but yes, actually, I did mean it.'

'I don't think  I'm  too interested in your  grandmother .. .'

Dempsie  began  to say, but he fell silent again as Petursson continued.

'No loyalties,  then, Sam?'

'Except the ones I choose. Personal  ones.'

'Like?'

I tried to lighten  it. 'I could be personal  to anyone who could arrange to look like Solrun. Or even someone who could make a good pepper steak.'

'What we want to know,' Dempsie cut in, 'is what advice you give her if she's  asked  to defect?'

That's a  heavy  word  - 'defect'. When  she'd   talked  about going with  Kirillina, somehow  I hadn't seen it like that.

'It's not  as  though  she's  exactly  a nuclear  physicist  .. .' I began.

'Nuclear  physicists    rate   one   paragraph  in   The  Times,'

Dempsie  said.

Of course,  he was right. In terms of newsprint and television time, outside of Hollywood  a top model was the best you could hope for. If anyone  should've seen that,  it was me- up to my ears in Sexy Eskie stories. But I'd been too close to see Solrun as anything other  than  a woman.

I sauntered over  to the window.  In  the street,  the man  in overalls  was still under  his jacked-up car. It was Hulda who'd noticed  him earlier and said that it was just like an American  to carry  overalls  in case  he broke down.  Didn't he live there?  I asked. Oh no, she knew everyone  who lived in the street. She'd never seen  him  before. And  you could  always  tell Americans: they had  happy faces.

'No  one's  going  to approach me if you  have  your  sneakies crawling all over the place.'

Dempsie   began  to  deny  it  but  my smile  and   Petursson's frown were too much for him.

'There's a lot at  stake,' he said,  flinging  his arms  wide  to show how honest  he was.

'Your  men  have  no business  on our  streets,' the  Icelander said.  'We will do whatever  is necessary.'

'Look,  both of you,'  I said,  turning round  and  resting on the back of Hulda's head-teacher's chair.  'Stop  playing  games.  If you're  right and they do want me, you'll have to let them come. You're going to have to trust  me whether you like it or not.'

I saw  Petursson  confirm  it with  a nod,  and  I watched the American  shake  his head in doubt as he rose to his feet.

'What's he going to tell her?' he said out loud, as he made for the door.  'We still don't know what  he's going to tell her.'

'Neither does he,' Petursson said quietly  to me. 'Does  he?' Half  an  hour  after  they'd  gone  I  went  for a stroll  around town. It was late afternoon, warm and pleasant  now. I got a bag of dried  fish from a stall  and sat and  nibbled  at it.

One   of  the  Vietnamese  kids  came   round,  the  clanging northern words sounding hard  and  wrong coming  from a face you instantly linked with sunshine and suffering. He paused  in front of me and  held out a newspaper. I shook  my head.

'Hallgrimskirkja,' he said.  'Midnight.'

I remembered. It was Palli who said  they used to send  them with grenades. Nothing  changed.

When  I got back, the roadside mechanic had gone.

47

As soon as I drove into the square I saw them. A Range Rover so  we  were  equipped for  rough  country - with  three  heads showing.

I drove  right  round  the square and  pulled  up behind  them. When  I got out  I took a quick  look around. The  square was deserted, but from open  yellow windows in the houses I could hear people being young and carefree. It was a thousand years since I'd  felt like that.

For  the  first  time  in  my  experience  there  were  no  men working  on  the  new  church. Its  tall  elegant  grey  columns, which look as though  they've  been dripped down from heaven rather than  built up from this end, were black against the light sky.

'In the back,' I heard  Ivan  call out.  I got in.

We'd  got  one  murderer each,  which  seemed  fair  enough. They  were the two non-fishermen that  Petursson had  pointed out  to me that  day on the harbour. The  two men who, with a third, had  called  on Solrun's mother. One  was driving, with Ivan  beside  him,  and  the  other  was  beside  me in  the  back. When  he turned I saw that his right eye was almost closed and he had a fat lip and  a missing  tooth.

'Ah,' I said,  always  keen to communicate, 'Oscar or Palli?'

He gave me a look that  almost  melted  my fillings.

'You're keeping classy company these days,  Ivan.'

He'd  turned  so that  his arm  hung  over the seat.  He looked dishevelled and distraught and  repeatedly kept sweeping  back his lank hair in a troubled way. I wasn't quite sure how sorry I felt for him any more.

'Needs must,' he said.

'I'd like to think you didn't make up the trio when these gents called  on the old lady.'

He did look genuinely appalled at that.  'Sam, my dear  boy, however could you even begin to imagine  that?'

'Christopher Bell, then?'

He pulled  a don't-ask-me face and  gave a deep  sigh at  the same  time. 'Whatever are we doing  mixed up in all this?'

'I can only speak  for myself, Ivan,  and  I'm  not.'

He shook his head rapidly, drawing in his breath  at the same time a gesture of deep distaste. Then  he opened  his eyes wide.

'I mean,  it's  nothing  to do with us really, is it?'

'Not  to do with me, but then,  I'm  not a patriot.'

He bit his bottom lip and jerked  his head to the front. I was almost sorry then. He was a delicate little flower, our Ivan,  and I  suppose he'd  hoped  that  I'd  let him  play  innocent-victims with me. And I thought we'd got well past  that  stage.

'One thing you can  tell me - why me?'

He   turned    back,   his  head   on  one   side,   and   appeared genuinely  surprised.

'Why  you, Sam?  Well,  because  apparently a gentleman in

Whitehall  thought   you  would  be  a  sound   influence  on  the delicious Solrun.  As a matter of interest, were you?'

'I didn't join in. Is she going to defect? Is that  it?'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Dash  for freedom you always call it when they come from East  to West.'

'It is  rather a  one-way  traffic.'  Outside,  the  houses  had slipped  away and  we were heading  out into  the country. The driver  spoke  to the other  man in the  back and  he studied the road  behind,  then answered him. Whatever he said,  it meant there's no one behind.

'That's why our chaps wanted  you there,' Ivan went on. He was choosing his words with care. This was I van being official.

'Whenever we give a press conference  in Moscow of someone who's  run Eastwards, our fellow diurnalists tend  to mock and say it's staged. So we thought, since you were here already, that you might like to act as an independent witness.'

I remembered what the others  had said about  my neutrality. At this moment,  I wasn't sure  I liked it any  more.

'I'm hardly  likely to write it your way, am  I?'

He made a beautiful  gesture  of indifference  with hands, shoulders and every facial muscle.  'You'll  write it in your inimitable style,  as  always,  dear   boy,  but  I  think  you'll  be obliged  to admit  it isn't  fixed. That's all. But,  as you'll  see, we're doing it anyway.'

So that  was why he'd  fed me titbits of information. Oscar's name. The young Russian. Whenever I came to a halt, good old Ivan  was always there  to point me in the right direction. And I'd  followed the  trail  they'd  left me like a faithful  old hound, right  up to this point. At least it wasn't a kill. So far.

As Dempsie  said,  they'd  become the world's  best PR men.

They  even wanted  me to endorse  their  product now.

'How  do you know for certain  that Solrun  will turn  up?' Ivan  turned  again.  'I do  wish  you wouldn't talk  to me as though  I'm  responsible for the whole thing.'

'You're not?'

His face sagged and, side-glancing at the driver,  he mouthed: 'You  know how I hate all this.'

I still wanted  an answer.  'I was under  the impression she'd gone missing.'

'Apparently, she had. She was in one of those summer-house things. Everyone  was looking for her, including your  tattooed friend and his exotic visitor. We were all ready for this press conference  when I flew in, then she did a runner which led to any  number of frayed  nerves  all  round, as  I  dare  say  you noticed.  However,  she turned  up.'

'Last  night?'

'Yes, last night. Apparently she was hoping that an old chum would throw  her a lifeline but he declined.'

I was trying  to work out who that  could  be when  I saw the watchful look on his face, and suddenly  I knew. He meant me. I wanted  to ask him how he knew she'd  been to see me, and what he meant  by it, but he cut off my thoughts.

'Don't worry,  we know  all  about  her  late-night call.  You rather  muffed your  chance  there,  I think.  So she returned to Kolai, our handsome prince. No doubt someone will give him a biscuit.'

'Wasn't he .. .' I didn't trust  myself to ask  him about  my part.  'Wasn't there a time when he was supposed to be coming West?'

It was a silly question  and it showed all over his face.

'Really?   I  should   be  most  surprised  if  Kolai's  superior

officers encouraged too much of that line of thinking.' He even managed a small laugh.

Piece by piece, it all began to slot together.  Poor old Oscar gets pulled  out  by the Americans to avoid diplomatic embarrassment. Heartbreaker Nikolai is put in by the Russians  to fill the gap.  He offers to defect to demonstrate his sincerity,  then asks her to do the same instead.

Then, in case she's in any doubt, the Russians provoke Oscar into  returning on  a  half-mad   mission  to  find  his daughter. Oscar  was the ferret  they'd  put in to frighten  her into the net. No wonder  the  Russians  had  the  best  ballet.  The  choreography was perfect.

The  only  remaining puzzle  was why  Ivan  thought  Solrun had  appealed to me for help. The  rest of his information  was uncannily good- that  was a puzzle in itself- so how could he get that so wrong? Muffed my chance. That  was what he'd said. I  didn't  understand. Why  did  he  think  that   I  might  stop playing  Switzerland, abandon  my  neutral  status  and  try  to drag  her back? Surely  he knew me better  than  that.  Unless he knew something I didn't.

'There's something else  I  have  to  tell you.'  This  time  he didn't turn  round.   I found  myself studying the  back of his scrawny  neck.

'What's that?'

'It's not .. .' I could see him plucking at his fingers. 'It's not something that  makes me terribly  proud  actually. I'd  like you to know that.'

The   driver   was  whistling   through   his  teeth   with  some country   music  on  the  car  radio.   The   one  beside  me  was fingering  his swollen lip. All I could see was Ivan's neck. My heart was bouncing  against  my ribs.

'Tell  me, then.'

'Well,  have a care before you speak out of place, Sam   As a friend,  I suggest you simply watch the proceedings. No more.'

'Why?' One  blank word.

'For  Sally's  sake.'

'Sally?'

'They've arranged ... someone's  holding  her in London.  If

you do anything to make yourself unpopular ...'

He was fast, I'll give him that. The gorilla next to me had my hands before  they  had  Ivan's neck,  but  not  by  much.  He slammed me back in the seat, smacked  me once on the side of the jaw, then  held me there.  I didn't mind.

Ivan   was  cowering   forward   to  get  out  of  my  reach.  He needn't have worried. The  urge to kill him went as swiftly as it came.  All I wanted  now was to hear  the explanation.

'Don't worry,  Sam.  It'll  be perfectly all right.  It's  all under control. They're holding her, that's all. And when this has gone off successfully, as it will, the word will go back and  she'll  be released. Not a hair of her head  ...'

My mind was spinning but I was beginning to grasp it. 'Just to make sure  I don't foul things  up for them  tonight?'

'Yes,  that's all.'  He was almost  pleading.  'I mean  you can imagine  how I feel about  this, can't  you, old dear?  You know how I love the wondrous Sally.'

I thought of all the drinks and dinners we'd had and how I'd laughed  at his limp jokes about  cricket. Friends. Yes, we'd been good friends. No doubt about  that.  I heard  the catch in his voice and  saw his sad  wet eyes.

'You   disgusting  bastard,  Ivan,   you   must've  told   them. That's the only way they could know what a good arm-twister that  would  be.'

'I swear  I didn't, Sam. On  my life. Insurance, they said. It's only  insurance. Do  please  remember that  nothing at  all will happen to her. She is perfectly safe.'

I stared out of the window. I couldn't bear to see his face. The