The Best of British Crime omnibus (27 page)

There was a busy scene there, too – you'd have thought the whole hotel was on the move. ‘Like Royalty!' exclaimed Katya the chambermaid excitedly, as she swept by with an armful of parcels. The delegation's luggage, it appeared, was being sent ahead to the airport in one big truck and there was the usual air of frenzied chaos that always marked these simple jobs. The vestibule was crowded with hotel staff and M.V.D men and a big farewell committee led by the president of VOKS. Mirnova and Kira were having a frothy conversation with Perdita and Islwyn Thomas. Bolting had just come down with Mrs Clarke. They all stared through me, and I sensed contempt. I was not merely a busybody who tried to interfere – I was a busybody who had interfered without effect. They'd outsmarted me, and they knew it.

There was a lot of coming and going in the next fifteen minutes. The delegates were all restless and tended to form into little knots and then break up and disperse for a while, as though they'd recollected last-minute jobs they'd forgotten to do. I heard Mirnova condoling with a speechless Bolting about his throat and telling him to keep it well wrapped up when he got outside; and a snatch of argument between Thomas and Schofield; and Tranter telling Mrs Clarke that the weather was good for flying. I had a few words with Cressey, and then Mirnova called the delegates together and they all went into a huddle about something. The cars had not yet arrived and Jeff hadn't appeared, so I went up to the second floor to see if Potts had survived the party. He said he'd just been up to bid Jeff
‘Bon voyage.'
His hangover was rather worse than mine, so I only stayed a few minutes. I was just going down again when I remembered that I hadn't given Jeff the letter to my office which he had promised to take with him. It seemed a pity to miss the chance, so I went back to the fourth floor.

The corridor was deserted now. All the delegates' doors stood open, and somewhere a vacuum cleaner was at work. I wondered what on earth Jeff was doing and why he hadn't come down. I put the key in my door and went in. The letter was in a drawer over near the window. The room struck me as cold, and automatically I glanced at the
fortachka
, thinking that one of the maids had opened it. Then I saw something that froze me in my tracks. The seals of the French doors were broken. Someone had been in here!

I could have wept at my lack of foresight. This was the time, above all, when I should have been watchful – this period of confusion before the departure. I'd gone to all that trouble to set a trap, and then I'd been away when it was sprung. The murderer had been in here – he'd come through Mullett's open room, of course. He'd been searching for the trousers, and I'd missed him. Now I should never know his identity.

Deeply chagrined, I turned towards the door. As I did so, something stirred behind the curtain of the bed annexe. For a moment I stood as though paralysed, my pulse racing. God, he was still here! I looked round for a weapon, but it was too late. The curtains parted and I saw the glint of a steel skating boot, the menace of an implacable eye. I gave a hell of a shout and dived for the murderer's legs. We went down by the bed with a fearful crash, dragging half the curtain with us, and struggled wildly in the narrow space. I was fighting mad. I knew that this was the reckoning, and that life itself was at stake. We rolled over on the floor, punching and clawing and still half-entangled in the curtain. Somehow we scrabbled our way through into the bathroom. We were both landing blows, but it was the skating boot I was afraid of. If only I could get that away!

Suddenly the wrist I was clutching was wrenched from my grasp. I lunged at a bloody face and dived out of range of the boot and then as I came up from the floor I hit my head a terrific crack on the underside of the wash basin and everything went blank.

The delegates had been excused even the formality of a call at the airport customs and porters had now begun to load their luggage into the Russian-built DC-3 which was to take them as far as Prague. Jeff Clayton, relieved that Verney had been proved right and that no one had shown any interest in the contents of his bags, was chatting cheerfully to Cressey in the comfortable waiting-room. The rest of the delegates were gathered around Tranter and Perdita, who were drafting a last-minute message to Stalin of a kind which had become practically
de rigueur
for departing delegations.

Presently Mirnova put her head in. ‘You will be taking off in ten minutes,' she announced. She looked around. ‘Oh, Mr Bolting, could you spare a moment? Mr Vassiliev has a little present for you.'

Bolting detached himself from the group and followed her out.

‘That guy sure looks sorry for himself,' said Jeff.

Cressey nodded. ‘He ought to have gone home a week ago, when he wanted to. It's been miserable for him since.' There was a stir among the delegates as Perdita straightened up from the table with a slip of paper in her hand. ‘I think this will do,' she said, and began to read: ‘On leaving the territory of the Soviet Union, we the undersigned wish to thank you, Comrade Stalin, for the hospitality and friendship which has been extended to us. We acclaim the efforts of the Soviet Union to strengthen peace, and we assure you that we will seize every opportunity to acquaint our fellow countrymen with the truth and to foil the plans of the imperialists, seeking to foment a new world war.” Is everyone satisfied with that?' She eyed the delegates in turn, challenging anyone to criticise.

‘You could say “P.S. Sorry about the statue”; Jeff murmured.

Perdita gave him a contemptuous look. ‘Then that's all right. We'd better see what Mr Bolting says.'

Bolting had just returned with a parcel under his arm. He read through the message and nodded. The delegates gathered round the table again to append their signatures. Cressey went across to Perdita and said diffidently, ‘Excuse me, Miss Manning.'

‘What is it?' she asked him, with a touch of impatience.

‘I don't want to sign it.'

There was a short, heated wrangle. Thomas finally suggested that as there wasn't time to bring Cressey to a sense of his responsibilities, the simplest way out of the difficulty would be to say ‘this delegation' instead of ‘we, the undersigned,' and that was agreed to. Mrs Clarke sniffed indignantly, and told Cressey he ought to be ashamed of himself, but Cressey stolidly ignored her.

Schofield said, ‘What's in the parcel, Bolting?'

Bolting bent to his ear. ‘Caviar,' he whispered. ‘A one-pound tin for each of us. Will you tell the others? From VOKS.'

Schofield made the announcement.

‘A most acceptable parting gift,' said Tranter. He caught Jeff's eye. ‘I fear you're not included in this, Mr Clayton.'

‘That's okay – I'm self-supporting,' said Jeff.

Presently Mirnova reappeared. ‘Will you all come along now, please – the plane is ready.'

She led the way out on to the tarmac. The cold, away from the shelter of the building, was breathtaking. Cressey said, ‘Catch me coming here again!' as he hastened across with Jeff. A party of Russians, who were flying as far as Prague, brought up the rear. At the plane, there was a last pause for photographs; then Vassiliev and Mirnova and Kira shook hands all round, and a few moments later the aircraft taxied out to the runway and took off.

As it gained height and turned in a wide circle, Jeff looked down with mixed feelings at the Kremlin's gleaming towers, the frozen line of the Moskva river and the galvanised-iron rooftops of faded maroon. He was wondering if by any chance Tanya was down there, in one of those buildings. He felt for a cigarette and lit it with a set, expressionless face.

When the aircraft ceased to bank, Perdita called across the gangway, ‘Glad to be leaving, Mr Clayton?'

‘You bet I am!'

‘I expected to see your friend Mr Verney at the airport,' she went on. There was a note of mockery in her tone.

‘So did I,' said Jeff gruffly. ‘I guess he was held up.'

‘I'm afraid he's a rather disappointed man. All that clever detective work, and no result!'

‘The odds were too great,' said Jeff. ‘You know that. Anyway, don't kid yourself that you're out of the wood yet. He's tough – he'll be after you.'

‘Surely
you
don't believe that ridiculous story of his?'

‘You'd be surprised,' said Jeff, and turned to the window again. He didn't want to talk to the woman – she was just being a bitch. He didn't want to talk to any of them. He drew his
shuba
more closely round his ears and wished the plane would warm up.

They were flying very low, but there wasn't much to look at. Conifers and bare birches and snow – that was about all. The route seemed to avoid most of the towns. There was little talking, for the noise of engines made conversation an effort. Soon everyone began to doze. After a while Jeff became somnolent and dozed too. There was no better way to pass the time.

They landed somewhere in Poland to refuel, but took off again as soon as the job was done. There would be another machine waiting for the delegation at Prague, and if this good progress were maintained they should be in London that night. People nibbled sandwiches and drank from flasks of coffee which the hotel had thoughtfully provided. The plane droned on.

At Prague airport, which they reached shortly after two o' clock, there was a small reception committee, appropriate to the brevity of the stay. A minor banquet had been prepared in the airport building, but it fell rather flat. Cressey announced that he wasn't feeling up to any more celebrations and sat in the lounge with Bolting, whose throat permitted him to take nothing more than a glass of warm milk. Jeff sat on a stool at the bar, drinking Pilsener and flirting with the barmaid. Excitement had begun to grip him. In a few hours now he'd be out of all this – over the Curtain – out of reach. It was hard to wait.

Just before three o'clock the banquet broke up, and they were all conducted out to the Czech plane which would fly them direct to Northolt. The Russians had gone about their business and there were no fresh passengers.

The delegates were drowsier than ever now and time passed unnoticed except by Jeff. It grew dark. Somewhere there was another refuelling stop, a rather bumpy one, and Mrs Clarke showed signs of nervousness until Schofield reassured her. No one got out. Perdita and Islwyn Thomas were settled comfortably in adjoining seats with a rug over their knees. Tranter was sitting alone by the door, apparently lost in thought. Jeff wondered what new instructions he'd received from Moscow now that his pose could no longer be sustained. Bolting was almost buried under a rug and nothing of him was visible but the top of his fur hat and the ringed hand that held the rug in place.

As the plane gathered speed for the last take-off, Cressey turned and smiled at Jeff. ‘Not long now, Mr Clayton!'

Jeff grinned, and held up two fingers, crossed. ‘It's the last lap that always scares me, Joe.' He didn't look scared, though – he looked as though he might become separately airborne with excitement at any moment.

Repeatedly he gazed out of the window, wondering where they were and trying to make out what sort of weather they were flying through. There was cloud from time to time but the ceiling was high – there was no meteorological reason why they shouldn't make it. He smoked a couple of cigarettes in quick succession. If only he could skip the next hour or two! The tension became unbearable. He tried reading, as some of the others had begun to do, but he couldn't concentrate. He tried counting up to a thousand and then starting all over again.
Anything
to take his mind off the interminable minutes. The plane could so easily be recalled. As long as it was in the air, it belonged to Prague, to Moscow. Every time one of the crew came out into the saloon, his pulse gave an uncontrollable leap of apprehension.

Suddenly there were no more lights from the ground. The aircraft was over the sea – this was really the last lap. Shortly after nine o'clock the great incandescence of London began to glow in the sky ahead. A stir ran through the delegates. The radio operator stuck his nose out. ‘Ten minutes,' he said with a friendly smile.

Jeff felt a drop of moisture trickle down his spine. They were losing height now. He stubbed out his cigarette and groped for his seat belt. There were lights everywhere below – he could almost lean on them as the plane banked for its circuit. The runway swung beneath them. The passengers became suddenly quiet. The plane straightened out, dropped a little, and touched. It bumped once, then rumbled steadily along the concrete. There was a collective exhalation of breath. As it taxied up to the airport building, Jeff unfastened his belt and stood up. The engines roared, and died.

He stepped out into the gangway. ‘Okay, George,' he said, ‘you can come out of that cocoon.'

I threw off the rug and the fur coat, the hat and the balaclava, and the horn-rimmed glasses that had given me a hell of a headache. ‘Hallo, folks!' I said.

It was quite an entrance. For a second, everyone just stared. Then Mrs Clarke gave a loud scream. Perdita turned very white and clutched Thomas's arm and Schofield said ‘Good God!' As for Cressey I thought his bottom jaw was going to drop right off.

The pilot came through with his crew. ‘Anything wrong?' he asked.

‘Nothing,' said Jeff curtly. ‘We'll be out in a moment.'

It was Tranter who recovered himself first. ‘What
is
all this? What the hell have you been up to, Verney? Where's Bolting?'

‘As far as we know,' said Jeff, ‘he's lying in Verney's room at the Astoria with a hole in his head. Unless they've found him, of course.'

‘You mean – he's dead?'

‘I guess not. I had to hit him with a skating-boot, but he'll probably recover. His skull isn't as thin as Mullett's was.' Almost as an afterthought he added, ‘Bolting killed Mullett, you know.'