The Strange Story of Linda Lee (39 page)

With swift steps she walked back to the bookstall and bought a paper. Then she asked the woman who had served her if she could give her a piece of string. The woman willingly produced a piece that had tied up a bundle of newspapers. Thanking her, Linda hurried across to the women’s lavatories. Shutting herself into
one, she wrapped the tell-tale beauty box in the paper, tied it up with the string and made a handle to carry it by. Next, she took off her hat, folded it and pushed it into the pocket of her raincoat. Then she took off what remained of the wig and threw it down the lavatory. Her own brown hair had been firmly plastered down. It took her several minutes to pull it free into rats’-tails, then comb it through again and again until the curls had reappeared. Then she fluffed it out in a great, light bronze halo that framed her head and hung down all round to her shoulders.

She feared that the woman attendant might notice her metamorphosis and, believing her to be a crook, start asking questions. But the woman was talking to a girl who was making up her face, and did not even glance in Linda’s direction as she left the lavatory.

Carrying her parcel in her left hand, she returned to the gate where the queue had been. Everyone had now gone through except a woman with a child. Linda stood behind them for a minute and, turning her head, looked the Russian straight in the face. As he returned her glance he saw only a very pretty girl leaning on a stick who, with her wildly disordered fuzzy hair, looked like a hippie. No flicker of interest came into his eyes. The woman and child moved on. Linda followed and the man on the gate waved her toward the desks of the Immigration officers fifty feet further on.

Her ruse for getting past the Russian had succeeded. But what now? By so drastically altering her appearance she had greatly reduced any likeness she had had to Anna. When she showed the photograph in the passport, they could not help seeing the difference. All the odds seemed against their letting her through.

Mustering all her self-control, with an air of assurance
she handed her passport to a youngish officer, then looked away as though the matter hardly concerned her. Having turned two pages of the passport, he suddenly frowned and said:

‘This passport belongs to someone else. The photo is not of you.’

On the door to the lavatories there had been a dual-language notice:
Ladies—Dames
. That had given Linda an idea. She had not a notion what a Russian’s accent sounded like when speaking English. But on trips abroad with Rowley, she had picked up colloquial French. And when a person who is not French speaks that language, it is far from easy for anyone to detect to what nation he belongs. Knowing that all Canadian officials speak at least some French, Linda stared at him in simulated annoyance and surprise and demanded:

‘
Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire, Monsieur? C’est une photographie de moi-même
.’

‘It is not, Mademoiselle,’ he insisted. ‘The hair of this woman is blonde. Your hair is brown.’

Continuing to use French, Linda replied, ‘But that was taken in Moscow. Since I come here I grow my hair long and have it dyed. You see, in Russia nearly all girls are blonde. As a brunette I shall be a sensation.’

‘But the face is not like yours, Mademoiselle. It is much fatter, and coarser.’

‘Ah!’ Linda laughed. ‘That is how I used to look when I worked on the farm. But since I come to your lovely Canada I work hard to make myself different. In Russia beauty treatment is unknown. But here, yes. I diet. I have the massage. There are the skin lotions. I make myself a lovely girl. When I get home every man wish to sleep with me.’

The young officer suppressed a smile, and Linda
hurried on, ‘Do you not agree? Even in Canada I now receive much admiration. Ask yourself, Monsieur. Had we met in night club, would you not have been tempted to make naughty propositions to me?’

‘Er … well, Mademoiselle …’ He went a little pink about the gills. ‘I wouldn’t like to seem rude by saying “no” to that. But, all the same, I don’t believe this passport was issued to you.’

Linda’s heart sank. In desperation she took another line and pretended sudden anger. ‘Monsieur is being obstructive without reason. It is because you are a bourgeois capitalist. You wish to put spokes in my wheels because I am a citizen of the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics. That I will not tolerate. I am a diplomat and I go to my country on urgent business. You will let me go to my plane or I will report you.’

It was the wrong line. The young man’s expression became stony and he said, ‘There is nothing political in this. I am simply doing what I am paid for, and I’m not letting anyone out of this country whose credentials I regard as suspect. Now I’m going to fetch my chief, and you can abuse me to him to your heart’s content.’

As he left her, Linda gave an inward groan. If she could not win over an impressionable young man, it was certain that she would stand little chance with an older one. She glanced toward the gate fifty feet away. The Russian, the nurse and the man who looked like a doctor were still standing there. A man in a loud checked overcoat and with a brightly-coloured band round his hat, looking like an American tourist, came past them at a run and halted, puffing, behind Linda.

At that moment the young officer returned with his grey-haired senior. The latter was holding Anna’s
passport. He gave Linda a quick scrutiny and said, ‘I can’t believe this is a photograph of you, Miss.’

‘It is,’ Linda insisted angrily in French. ‘I know I have changed a lot since it was issued to me in Moscow. But that is as I used to look before I slimmed, let my hair grow and dyed it. As I have said, I’ve been attached to the Soviet Embassy here, and I’m being sent home on an important mission. It’s very urgent. You must let me through.’

The grey-haired man shook his head.

Linda played her last card. It was a desperate bluff. ‘If you don’t believe me, telephone the Soviet Embassy. Describe me as you see me now, and they will confirm that I am Anna Zubarova.’

‘Fur Jesus’ sake!’ exclaimed the man behind Linda. ‘Don’t hold me up while you argue with this woman, or I’ll miss my plane.’

‘And so will I,’ added Linda wrathfully. ‘Telephone my Embassy if you like. But, by the time you have, the flight will have left. Then there will be great hell to pay. If you want a diplomatic incident, you will get it. You are asking for one.’

‘O.K., O.K.!’ said the senior officer, giving Linda a sour look. ‘I won’t hold you here. You can go aboard. Meanwhile, there’ll be time for me to call your Embassy before take-off.’ Then he stamped her passport and that of the man behind her.

Side by side they hurried down the long corridor, the man a few feet ahead, as Linda was still a little lame and, for appearances’ sake, had to continue to use her stick. But he waited a moment to allow her to precede him on to the plane.

The economy class had three seats in a row on one side and two on the other. The gangway seat of the
last pair at the rear of the aircraft was vacant, so Linda decided to take it. The other seat was occupied by a tall, blue-eyed man with neatly-brushed grey hair, who looked to be about sixty. As she was taking off her raincoat and muffler to put them up on the rack, he stood up, smiled at her and said:

‘Wouldn’t you prefer the window seat? It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ve flown the Atlantic so often.’

Her mind was in a turmoil. She had got past the Russian and through Immigration. She was actually on the plane that was due in a few minutes to take off for Europe. But by now the surly senior official would be telephoning her description to the Soviet Embassy. It was beyond all doubt that they would say she was not Anna Zubarova. Linda’s vivid imagination conjured up a picture of herself within a few minutes being ignominiously escorted off the plane. She would probably also be charged with attempting to leave the country under false pretences. In any event, she would still be in Ottawa, with the police, the Russians and The Top’s men all after her.

Only vaguely taking in what the nice-looking, grey-haired man had said, she murmured, ‘Thank you,’ collapsed into the window seat and shut her eyes.

Minutes passed. She heard a slam nearby and opened her eyes. The steward had shut the rear door of the aircraft and was bolting it, but it could easily be opened again. The plane remained stationary. Another five minutes dragged by, then the plane began to move. Slowly it turned out into the runway. There it came to a halt. It could still be detained by a signal from the control tower, and a jeep sent out to take her off. Clenching her hands, her eyes again closed, Linda lay
back, hardly breathing, while suffering agonies. Her mind went back to the awful suspense she had endured in similar circumstances at Heathrow. She had got away then. Would she now? Suddenly the jets roared. The great aircraft rushed forward, lifted and was airborne.

Linda gave a long, deep sigh of relief and sat up. She had won. They would not recall the plane now that it was on its way. The elderly official must have failed to get through to the Soviet Embassy in the limited time at his disposal. She was out of Canada, on her way to Norway. And she had both the papers and plenty of money.

Her companion turned toward her and asked, ‘Are you all right? I was afraid you were feeling ill.’

‘No … no,’ Linda smiled. ‘I’m feeling fine. I could do with a drink, though.’

‘We’ll get one in a minute. They always start at the rear of the aircraft.’ As he spoke, an air hostess came up beside them with her order sheet.

‘Champagne for me,’ he said promptly. Linda nodded. ‘For me, too, please.’

‘Getting served first is not the only good thing about being in a rear seat,’ he went on. ‘If the kite crashes, you stand a better chance of getting out alive. Tail usually breaks off, so you don’t get fried. All the same, I travel first most of the time.’

‘You fly a lot, then?’ Linda asked.

He grinned. ‘I like it, and I can afford to. Part of my pension, you see. I’m a senior B.O.A.C. pilot, recently retired. On all B.O.A.C. routes throughout the world I can fly for only ten per cent of the ordinary fare.’

‘How lovely for you. But this isn’t a B.O.A.C. plane, is it?

‘No. That’s why I’m flying economy. Got to get to Olso in a hurry. My wife is Norwegian. She has been there on a visit to her family, while I’ve been renewing my memories of Canada. Had a cable this morning to say she’d been in a car smash. Not in danger, thank God; but I am naturally anxious to join the old girl as soon as I can.’

‘I do hope you’ll find that it’s nothing serious.’

‘Thanks. By the way, my name’s Matthew Jackson. But people always call me Captain Jacko.’

‘Mine’s …’ Linda hesitated. ‘Mine’s Anna Zubarova.’

He raised his bushy grey eyebrows. ‘That sounds Russian; but surely you’re English, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Linda admitted, seeing no reason why she should any longer conceal the fact.

Their drinks arrived. Linda had forgotten that, as she was not travelling first class, she would have to pay for hers, but Captain Jacko would not let her. With more enthusiasm and happiness than she had felt for weeks, she drank the old toast he gave her, ‘Happy landings.’

Shortly afterwards another air hostess came through the distant curtains separating the first from the economy-class passengers. As she approached, Linda caught her words. She was calling out, ‘Miss Zubarova. Miss Zubarova.’

Linda paled, wondering who could have sent her a message. Perhaps back in Ottawa they had verified the fact that she was travelling on a passport that did not belong to her and radioed the pilot. But surely the plane would not turn back, so what could they do to her? Suddenly the awful thought came into her mind that they might prevent her landing in Oslo and bring
her back to Canada. But there was no alternative to accepting the message. Reluctantly she held up her hand.

The air hostess gave her an airmail letter card, with the name she was passing under scrawled on it, and said, ‘This was handed in up forward just before takeoff. We always have so many things to see to then that I forgot it temporarily. I’m sorry about the delay.’

Acknowledging the apology with a faint smile, Linda took the flimsy, folded paper and tore it open. One glance told her that it must be written in Russian. She stared at it, put it down, then stared at it again. To know what the message was might be terribly important to her. Seeing her worried look, Captain Jacko said:

‘Not bad news, I hope.’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It is in Russian, and I don’t know that language.’

‘Perhaps I can help,’ he offered. ‘In the war we not only sent tanks and guns to Joe Stalin, but also aircraft. That was before I became a pilot. I was a young engineer flight sergeant, and one of the lads sent out to help the Russians assemble our machines after we’d got them uncrated. I was the best part of a year in Murmansk. Had a Russian girl friend. Pretty little piece, and that’s the best way to learn a language. I picked up quite a lot from her.’

Linda hesitated only a moment. Nothing could stop her now from reaching Oslo, but her future safety might depend on how she acted when she got there. Handing over the letter, she said, ‘If you can translate it, I’d be very grateful.’

Getting out a pair of spectacles, he pored over the letter for several minutes, then he muttered, ‘I’m afraid my Russian is pretty rusty, but from what I make of this it seems that you’re in a spot of trouble.’

‘Don’t I know it!’ Linda heaved a sigh. ‘I may as well tell you at once that I got out of Canada on another woman’s passport, pretending I was a Russian, and I’m very anxious to know what they can do about it.’

He gave her an appraising look. ‘The devil you did! Well, this is more or less what the letter says:
Comrade Zubarova. We know you to have succeeded in boarding the aircraft. Tour defection puzzles and distresses us all. Soviet Ambassador will be radioed to meet aircraft at Oslo. You are ordered to hand him papers you carry. Failure to do so will result in disciplining. Sergei Petrovitch, on behalf of Ambassador Chernicov
.

After a short pause, Captain Jacko added, ‘There are some words before “disciplining” that have been partly scratched out. They look like the Russian for your being “liquidated”. I suppose the chappie who wrote this felt that if anyone other than you read this, he might think a threat of murder went a bit too far.’