The Dark Chronicles (40 page)

I grabbed a quick lunch of gristle-laden beef and boiled potatoes in the canteen and then Mary came in with the tickets, and Barnes and I headed for Heathrow.

*

We were booked on a BEA flight out of the newly opened short-haul terminal. As we sat in one of the cafés on the first floor, I wondered how long it would be before the immaculate Conran furniture would be sticky with grease and lollipop stains. At least the coffee already tasted as reassuringly foul as it did in all British airports. A Pakistani cleaner placed our cups and saucers onto his gleaming chrome trolley with a clatter and moved off, his mind elsewhere. Barnes was reading his paperback, smoking one of my Players – he didn’t seem in a rush to buy his own, I’d noticed.

I replaced the dossier in the hold-all by my feet. Its seven pages contained everything the Service had on Arte come Terrore. Part of me had wondered how much Innes had been showboating, but while the evidence against them was mostly circumstantial, it was also fairly overwhelming.

In July 1962, there had been an explosion at St Peter’s in Rome – no one had been injured, but the base of the monument to Clement X had been chipped. Nobody had claimed responsibility for the incident, however, and the investigation had soon dried up. Then, three weeks ago, there had been another bomb scare at the Basilica, and this time two men, Paolo Rivera and Giuseppe di Angelo, had been picked up in the course of routine enquiries. Rivera and di Angelo were suspected by Italian military intelligence of being members of Arte come Terrore: the excerpts from their dossiers that had been shared with the Service showed that both had long histories with Marxist and similar-minded groups. Both had been released without charge, but subsequent investigations had revealed that di Angelo had also been in the area of the Vatican on the day in question in July 1962, and that Rivera had visited London six times in the last year and had attended an ‘International Anarchist Commission’ in Tuscany in August.

The Pope had responded to the bomb scare by calling for calm and the need for brotherhood. So far, it wasn’t being heeded. Since the start of the year, the Italian press had been predicting a wave of industrial action, and it seemed to be coming true, with dozens
of strikes, prison riots and street clashes across the country. Last month had seen a major strike at a tobacco factory near Salerno following rumours that the place would be closed down, and the police had shot and killed one of the strikers, and then a schoolteacher who had been unlucky enough to see it happen. The government had claimed provocateurs from outside the city were trying to foment trouble, while the media had pointed the finger at Maoists and anarchists. But the authorities were still taking the brunt of the blame, and the Communist party had proposed legislation to disarm the police while on public order duty. As a result, there had been strikes against police repression in both Rome and Naples. The Communists’ bill had been due to be debated in Parliament on April 28th, but on the 25th – Liberation Day – there had been the two explosions in Milan that Innes had mentioned in the meeting: one at the Fiat stand at the city’s annual trade fair and another at the bureau de change of a bank in the central railway station. Twenty people had been injured, and the Italians strongly suspected Arte come Terrore’s involvement.

So, the group looked to be both involved in attacks and interested in cathedrals. None of it would stand up in a court of law, perhaps – but it was enough. I looked out at a jet taking off and shivered inwardly. I usually enjoyed flying, but today the idea didn’t appeal at all. As well as the fact that the dossier seemed to confirm that Moscow was trying to kill me through a proxy Italian cell, I was sitting here about to leave the country while Innes was rummaging through the files in Registry with those long pale fingers of his.

And there was the small matter of the tail: the man in the dark green suit and scuffed brown brogues sitting at one of the other tables, reading
Le Monde
a little too intently as he devoured a cheese and ham sandwich. The suit was a size too small for his paunch, which along with its colour gave him a striking resemblance to Toad of Toad Hall. It was the driver of the Anglia that had followed us to Harley Street. I hadn’t seen him on the way here, but he’d evidently managed to follow us.

His presence was precisely why bodyguards tended to be a waste of time in this business. I had no doubt that Barnes was a tough nut, and useful to have on one’s side in a fight, but he was pure muscle, and hadn’t the first idea about surveillance. He wasn’t acting, either, trying to make me think he wasn’t switched on or some game of that sort; I’d watched him for several minutes now, and he hadn’t looked up from his book once. It just wasn’t in his training. He wouldn’t know a Russian spy if his life depended on it.

And the man was unquestionably Russian, despite the paper he was pretending to read. It wasn’t just the cut of his suit; even his face was unmistakably Russian: a pasty complexion from too much potato in the diet, blue-grey pupils glinting through narrow eyelids, a pugilist’s nose and the mouth of a coelacanth. Straight out of Central Casting. He was from one of the northern republics, I thought, Lithuania or Byelorussia. Was he going to try to kill me here, in the airport? He hadn’t tried to do anything on the road, but perhaps he had been waiting for the chance.

I pushed back my chair and told Barnes I was going to the lavatory.

He made to stand up and I stared him down. ‘Right you are, sir,’ he nodded. He went back to Churchill.

I followed the signs to the Gents’ until I was out of sight of Barnes, then headed for the WH Smith stall and took up position behind a stand of paperback thrillers. It was a perfect spot: I could see the whole concourse, so would have ample warning of his approach, and there were two entrances, so I could make my escape whichever way I chose, depending on the direction he came from. I wondered what he would be thinking now. He could either sit it out and hope I would be back shortly, or come and investigate immediately in the fear that I had spotted him and done a runner.

It took him less than a minute. He ambled over, pretending he was looking for a bin to dispose of the wrapper of his sandwich. I slipped out the other exit to the gallery of duty-free shops, stepping into the aisles of alcohol, tobacco and perfume laid out to tempt.
I glanced into a display of Swiss wristwatches to see if I could catch sight of Toadski in the reflection. He was at the same thriller stand at Smith’s I’d just vacated, apparently engrossed in the selection.

I turned and walked into another shop, selling overpriced knitwear. Toadski suddenly lost interest in Margery Allingham and came bumbling out into the gangway. He looked around frantically, trying to see where I had got to, and then he caught sight of me and our eyes met. He looked down, embarrassed, then tried to mask it by glancing at his watch and feigning distress that he was late for his flight. An announcement was being made, and he made a show of listening to it. He started to scurry away, but I leapt in front of him and grabbed him by the arm. A few yards further along there was a door marked S
TAFF
. It was slightly ajar, and I caught a glimpse of a mop handle. I looked around, and saw that the cleaner was still circling the restaurants. I shoved Toadski inside and stepped in after him. There was an overpowering smell of bleach. I grabbed him by the throat and quickly searched his pockets. He was unarmed.

‘What do you want?’ I said. ‘And make it quick.’

He gulped, his Adam’s apple throbbing wildly. I loosened my grip a little.

‘“The chairs… are being brought in… from the garden.”’ His accent wasn’t bad, sort of stockbroker London. But he still looked like he’d just stepped out of the Minsk Players.

‘Why am I a target?’ I snapped at him, but he merely looked at me with glazed eyes and repeated the Auden line.

I removed my hand. He didn’t know anything. He was a messenger, that was all: he had given me the arranged code-phrase for ‘Danger: keep a low profile until further contacted.’

‘Tell Sasha to screw himself,’ I said. The shot had missed me by less than an inch and he thought he could reel me back in by sending this buffoon to tell me I was in danger? What the hell did he take me for? I was going to need a little more information before I turned up for a meet and risked having my head shot off by the next sniper hired for the job.

I pushed Toadski back out of the door, smiled at the Pakistani cleaner as he came rumbling towards us, and smoothed myself down.

*

Barnes was waiting for me outside the lavatories. ‘There you are, sir,’ he said. ‘I was getting worried. Our flight has just been announced.’

‘Thought I’d have a look at the duty-free liquor,’ I said as calmly as I could. My heart was still thumping from the fury I’d released. ‘The prices didn’t seem anything special, though.’

Barnes smiled and we set off for the departure gate.

My heart rate didn’t have much of a chance to recover once we were on the plane: we sat for over an hour while the ground crew worked on a frequently referenced but unspecified technicality. We eventually touched down in Fiumicino at just after seven. The air was still warm on the skin as we trooped across to the terminal building, and despite the circumstances I had to admit that there was something pleasing about being back in Italy. Perhaps it had been the double Scotch I’d had once the plane had finally taken off.

Fantasy turned to reality again the moment we stepped inside: the queues snaked around the entire Customs area.

‘Doesn’t look too good, sir,’ said Barnes unnecessarily, as a trio of small boys in sailor suits ran straight towards us, shooting each other with toy pistols. We sidestepped them and walked towards the queue that looked the shortest, but as we were taking up position behind an extremely noisy German family, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned and was greeted by a beautiful young woman: a late-period Modigliani in a green blouse and a maxi skirt. She had a badge identifying her as an employee of the Italian airport authority.

‘
Signor
Dark?’

I nodded, and gestured at Barnes to hand her our passports, which he did. She inspected them for a few moments, then handed them back.

‘
Da questa parte, prego
,’ she said.

It had slipped my mind that there were compensations to travelling under diplomatic cover, and that this was one of them: you didn’t have to waste time going through the usual checks. We followed her over to a bench, where our bags were already waiting. She briskly chalked them, before giving us each a chit to sign and handing them over.

‘Enjoy your stay in Italy,’ she said, flashing perfect white teeth, and then her hips were swinging away from us and she was gone.

We walked through to the main concourse and were immediately accosted again, this time by a tall, fair-haired man in a dark blue suit: Charles Severn. He was a little broader round the belly, but otherwise looked much the same as I remembered: a good tan, slightly ruddy, a firm jaw and an open, earnest look about him. The only wrong note was his eyes, which somehow didn’t fit the rest of his face. One expected them to be blue, but instead they were a peculiar grey, like the colour of gunmetal.

‘
Buongiorno
, Paul,’ he said, taking a grip of my hand. ‘Long time no see.’ He gestured that we head towards the exit. ‘We should send a letter to The Trusty Servant,’ he said. ‘“Two Wykehamists held a hot in Rome airport…”’

I groaned inwardly. We had been in the same house at Winchester; he was a few years below me. He had joined the Service after the war, and our paths had crossed a few times over the years, in Istanbul, in Paris, briefly in London. I never much enjoyed encountering him. He was bright and efficient, and generally rather charming, but he could also be very brash. I hated our shared past: the fact that he had stood next to me at Preces, knew the nicknames I had been given and so on. The Trusty Servant was the school paper, and it often featured inane letters from old boys re-enacting ‘hots’, the school game’s surreal brand of scrum, in exotic and therefore supposedly hilarious locations. My pleasure at having made it through Customs so smoothly suddenly evaporated.

We walked out to the thick warmth of the street, where a throng
of recent arrivals were negotiating fares with taxi drivers to take them into the city.

‘You must be Reginald!’ Severn shouted across at Barnes, the first time I’d heard anyone use Barnes’ first name. ‘You were in Nairobi, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir!’ he shouted back. ‘Among other places.’

‘Capital. Wonderful to have you here. I’m afraid my car’s a two-seater so there’s not room for all of us – would you mind too much catching a taxi to the embassy and we’ll meet you there?’

Barnes gave me a questioning glance, and I nodded my assent to the scheme. He asked Severn for the embassy’s address, repeated it back to him, then took my bag from me and headed into the fray of the taxi queue without another word.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Severn, as we crossed the street, now Barnes-less. ‘No pool cars were available. How was the flight? Shame about the delay, but you know what they say: Bastards Eventually Arrive.’ I forced a smile at the stale joke. ‘How are you feeling, by the way? I heard you came down with some awful bug in Nigeria.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Got the all-clear just a few hours ago, in fact.’

‘Quite a turn-up, all that, wasn’t it? I heard they even suspected you of being the double at one point – what on earth were they thinking?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was unfortunate.’

‘Desperately sad news about the Templetons. Although the last time I saw Colin he gave me a bollocking for daring to talk to Vanessa!’

I gave a tight smile: it wasn’t quite how I remembered the incident.

‘And everyone’s very sorry about John, of course,’ he said.

I doubted many out here had known Farraday, and if they had they probably wouldn’t have liked him much. But I noted that Severn’s diplomatic skills appeared to have improved over the years.