Judgment on Deltchev

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Pashik lived in a modern apartment house near his office. He had pointed out the place to me on the day I had arrived. I thought now that I could find it without much difficulty. There were no taxis. I walked.

The way there lay through the business quarter, and by that time the streets were mostly empty and still. Earlier that day they had been decorated in preparation for the anniversary parade, and the bright moonlight striking obliquely through the flags overhead cast a multiplicity of shadows that stirred and twisted in the warm breeze. It was like walking through the dark forest of a dream. But I had gone some distance before I became frightened.

It was a very unpleasant sensation. The brandy-engendered resolution with which I had set out seemed to drain suddenly away. I began to shiver uncontrollably and an icy, numbing kind of logic invaded the small corner of my conscious mind now whimpering with the effort required to keep on walking. What I was doing was incredibly foolish. Not three hours ago two men had tried to kill me in the street. I had been very lucky to escape. Now here I was in the streets again, giving them another chance. For obviously they must be waiting for me. Ruthless determination of the kind they possessed would be intensified by failure. They would not fail a second time.

Soon every shadow had become a man with a gun, every doorway the place of an ambush. I kept on simply because I was afraid to go back. I walked now simply because I was afraid to break into a run that might precipitate action. My legs ached with the strain. My shirt clung to my back. I had so completely lost my head that I went on fifty yards past my destination without seeing it. There was a frantic ten seconds on the corner of the Boulevard Sokolovsky while I got my bearings. Then I saw the apartment house from a familiar angle. I ran the fifty yards back.

It was a tall, narrow building with massive ferroconcrete balconies, from the sides of which rusty weather stains drooled down the walls. In the daylight these stains gave the place a tired, unhappy air — you wanted someone to wipe its face for it — but in the moonlight, they were hard shadows that made the balconies seem to project like freakish upper lips. The main entrance doors, ornate affairs of wrought iron and rolled glass, were still open, and the lobby beyond was dimly illuminated by a light from the concierge’s room.

As I stood for a moment or two recovering my breath, I looked back along the street. There were two or three empty cars parked in it, but they had been there already. Nobody had followed me. I went in and pressed the concierge’s bell. Nothing happened. After a minute or so, I went over to the lift. Beside it was a list of the tenants. Pashik was on the fourth floor. The lift did not work, of course. I found the stairs and walked up.

At the moment of deciding to see Pashik that night I had had a clear image of the sort of interview it would be. I had seen him already in bed and asleep when I arrived. In response to my insistent ringing he had at last appeared, a bleary, nightshirted figure (I had been sure he wore nightshirts), fetid and protesting. I had cut through his protests decisively. I had given him no time to build up his defences. I had pelted him with the facts I had discovered and watched his features grow pinched as he realized how much I knew. Then, at last, wearily he had shrugged. ‘Very well. Since you already know so much, Mr Foster, you had better hear the rest.’ And I had sat down to listen.

The reality was somewhat different.

The door to his apartment was at the end of a short passage near the main staircase landing. As I turned into the passage, I saw that the door was ajar and that there were lights in the apartment. I went along the passage and up to the door. Then, with my hand on the bell, I paused. Inside, someone was speaking on the telephone. Or listening rather; there was a series of grunts, then two or three words I did not understand. The voice, however, was not Pashik’s. I hesitated, then rang the bell.

The voice ceased abruptly. There was a movement from within. Then silence. Suddenly the door swung open and clattered gently against a picture on the wall behind it. For a moment the small lobby beyond looked empty. Then I saw. Between the doors of the two rooms facing me was a narrow strip of wall. On the wall was a mirror, and, reflected in it, the face of the man who had pushed the door open with his foot. It was Sibley.

He moved slowly out from the wall just inside the entrance and looked at me. There was a heavy bottle-glass ashtray in his hand. He put it down on the hall table and grinned.

‘Well, Foster dear,’ he said archly. ‘This is a nice surprise! A small world, I always say. Do you always say that? Of course you don’t! Come to see our smelly friend?’

‘Naturally. What are you doing here?’

He looked at me oddly. ‘I’ve come to see him too, and also naturally. Doesn’t seem to be about, though, does he? I’ve looked high and low.’

‘Who were you expecting to have to beat over the head with that ashtray?’

‘Somebody else who shouldn’t be here. Like me. You’re quite a logical visitor, of course. Been here before, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘No.’

He grinned again. ‘I thought not. Come on in and make yourself at home. I was telephoning.’

‘Yes, I heard.’

‘Don’t speak the language though, do you?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not. This way.’

He went through the left-hand door. I hesitated and then followed.

It was a sitting room that had obviously been furnished by the owners of the building. There were built-in cupboards and bookcases and a built-in sofa. There were cube-like easy chairs, glass-topped circular tables, and an oatmeal-coloured rug. You could have seen the same sort of things in any other furnished apartment building in any other European city. The extraordinary thing about this room was the decoration of the walls.

They were covered, every square foot of them, with pages cut from American magazines and stuck on with Scotch tape. There were pictures of filmstars (all women), there were near-nude ‘studies’ of women who were not filmstars and there were artlessly erotic colour drawings of reclining seductresses in lace step-ins. All would have looked quite at home in the room of an adolescent youth. Yet that was the comprehensible part of the display; it was not remarkable that Pashik should have the emotional development of a sixteen-year-old boy. The startling thing was that for every Ann Sheridan, for every sandal-tying beach beauty, for every long-legged houri, there was a precisely arranged frame of advertisement pages. The nearest Betty Grable was surrounded by Buick, Frigidaire, Lux, and American Airlines, all in colour. A sun-tanned blonde glistening with sea water had Coca-Cola, US Steel, Dictaphone, and Lord Calvert whisky. A gauze-veiled brunette with a man’s bedroom slipper in her hand and a speculative eye was framed by Bell Telephones, Metropolitan Life Insurance, General Electric, and Jello. The baffling thing was that the selection and grouping of advertisements seemed quite unrelated to the pictures. There was no wit, no hint of social criticism, in the arrangements. Many of the advertisements were not particularly distinguished as such. It was fantastic.

Sibley had gone back to the telephone. He had said something into it, listened again, and then, with a last word, hung up. He flicked his fingers at the wall as if he were launching a paper pellet.

‘Lots of fun, isn’t it?’

‘Lots. How did you get in?’

‘The concierge has a pass key and is corrupt. Would you like a drink? There must be some about.’ He opened one of the cupboards and peered inside.

‘Do you know Pashik well?’ I said.

‘Would you believe me if I said yes?’

‘No.’

‘Then let’s say that I think I know a bit more about him than you do. Cigars but no drinks,’ he added, producing a box. ‘Cigar?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘No, it’s a drink you need. You’re not looking your usual cheerful self, Foster dear. A bit pinched round the gills and upset. Let’s try this one.’ He went to another cupboard.

‘I take it you’re not afraid of Pashik’s suddenly turning up and finding you here searching his room. That wouldn’t embarrass you?’

‘Not a bit.’

‘Was that why you came? Because you knew he wouldn’t be here?’

He looked up from the cupboard he was searching and shook his head. ‘No, Foster mio,’ he said softly, ‘that wasn’t why. I just wanted a little chat with him. When there was no answer, I had another thought and fetched the concierge. Silly of me, wasn’t it? — but I actually thought our Georghi might be dead.’

‘Why should you think that?’

‘It was just a thought I had.’ He straightened up suddenly with a bottle in his hand. ‘There now! Our old friend plum brandy!’ And then he looked directly at me. ‘You know about Pazar, of course?’

‘What about him?’

‘Tonight’s police statement that they’ve found him shot in a derelict house.’

‘Oh yes, that.’ I tried to make it casual.

He reached down and brought out two glasses. ‘A house in some street with a funny name,’ he said slowly. ‘What was it?’

‘Patriarch Dimo.’ My voice sounded unnatural to me.

‘That’s it. Who told you? Georghi?’

‘Yes. He had the statement.’

He brought the bottle and glasses over and put them on the table. ‘When did you see him?’

‘Oh, earlier on.’

He shook his head. ‘It won’t do, Foster dear,’ he said. ‘No, don’t get cross. I set a little trap and you fell into it, that’s all. That statement was only issued half an hour ago. I was on the phone to the office when you came in. That’s how I know.’ He thrust his head forward. ‘How did you know?’

I was feeling sick again. I sat down.

‘ Did Georghi tell you?’

I shook my head. ‘I found him by accident.’

He whistled softly. ‘My, my! You do get around! What sort of an accident was it that took you to. Patriarch Dimo? The same sort that got you into the Deltchev house?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Doing a little private investigating perhaps?’

‘That’s the idea.’

He shook his head regretfully. ‘Someone must be very cross with you.’

Another wave of sickness came. I drew a deep breath. ‘Then that’s probably why someone’s just tried to kill me,’ I said.

He stared at me expressionlessly for a moment. ‘A joke, Foster dear?’ he said gently. ‘A joke in bad taste?’

‘No joke.’

‘Where was it?’

‘In that road that runs round the Park.’

‘When?’

‘An hour or two ago.’

‘One man or two?’

‘Two.’

‘One of them couldn’t have been Georghi by any chance?’

‘No.’

He seemed to relax again. ‘Well, well! Poor Foster! No wonder you look peaky. And here I am chattering away instead of pouring the much-needed drink. There.’

I swallowed the drink and sat back for a moment with my eyes closed. I hoped he would believe that I was feeling faint. I had to think and it was difficult. Sibley was Brankovitch’s paid man and already I had given myself away appallingly. Pashik was involved with Aleko and Philip Deltchev in a Brotherhood plot to assassinate Vukashin. The wreckage of that plot was being used to convict the elder Deltchev. Now the dead Pazar, probably murdered by Aleko, had been officially discovered on the eve of the anniversary parade at which Vukashin was to have been assassinated. There was a contrived, bad-third-act feeling about the whole thing; as if…

‘Feeling better?’ said Sibley.

‘Yes, thanks.’ I opened my eyes. He was looking down at me coldly. I had not deceived him. He smiled.

‘What a busy week you’ve had! Have you any idea, I wonder, what you know that makes you worth killing?’

‘None at all.’

He sat down opposite me. ‘Maybe if you were to tell me what you do know, I could make a suggestion about that.’

‘Or perhaps find a way through the censorship with it? By the way, how is your little man at the Propaganda Ministry?’

He drank his drink down and looked at the empty glass as if waiting for someone to fill it. ‘Do I detect a note of bitchiness and distrust, Foster dear?’

‘Yes, you probably do.’

He looked at the bottle and poured himself another. ‘Drink will be the death of me,’ he said. ‘I was tiddly, of course, but it seemed such a good joke at the time. Although, Foster amigo, I won’t deny that I should also have been interested to see what your angle on the affair was going to be.’

‘My angle was and is that your little man in the Propaganda Ministry was Brankovitch.’

He giggled. ‘Who told you they played that trick? Georghi?’

‘Not Georghi.’

He giggled again. ‘Oh dear! Not Georghi, you mean, but someone else whose name you don’t want to mention in case I’m a Ministry spy who might get him into trouble. Oh dear, oh dear! I do see. I played right into your hands, didn’t I? No wonder you were so maddening. The thing was that they’d tried it on me days before. I could send anything I wanted if I knew how. That was the line. It would cost a bit, of course, but that was to make it sound right.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t like being taken for a fool, do you? I was a bit vexed, so I decided to amuse myself. I thought at first of pretending I’d fallen for it and sending a really dreadful story I’d heard about Vukashin’s sex life. Then I sobered up and thought again. In the end all I did was to lift their dialogue and try it on someone else. Georghi was my first customer and I frightened him out of his wits — or he pretended I did. And that was the crazy part of it; because it wasn’t until I saw him looking at me with those big brown eyes of his and got a breath of that subtle perfume that I remembered where I’d seen him before. Do I convince you?’

‘By no means.’

He gazed upwards soulfully. ‘It’s so sad. I can never make the truth sound convincing. Of course, I look so shifty. I should stick to lying, shouldn’t I?’

‘Where was it you saw Pashik before?’

‘Ah, I have your interest. If only I can keep it until the knock-out drops that I slipped into your drink begin to work, all will be well.’

Involuntarily I looked down at my glass.

He grinned. ‘You’re really very tiresome, aren’t you, Foster dear? If I didn’t want badly to know what makes you worth killing, I wouldn’t say another word.’

‘It’s late. I’m very tired. And-’

‘And it’s always so upsetting to be shot at,’ he said quickly. ‘How inconsiderate of me not to remember that!’

‘I wasn’t apologizing.’

‘Of course you weren’t. You were just hoping that I’d cut the cackle. I do understand. These affectations of mine are such a bore. All right. Let’s talk about Georghi Pashik — why he exists and in whose image he is made. What has he told you about himself?’

‘He was expelled from Italy for writing something Mussolini didn’t agree with. He did his military service in Austria. He admires Myrna Loy. The last item I deduced for myself from a picture in his office.’

‘She must be his spiritual mum, don’t you think? All right, here it is. Technically, a stateless person. Born in the Trentino, of Macedonian Greek parents who were themselves of doubtful national status. He takes Hungarian nationality. Treaty of Trianon muddle. He does his military service in Austria. He goes eventually to Paris and works for Havas as a messenger. Intelligent, ambitious, a worker. He writes odd pieces. He gets on. Eventually they give him a job in the Rome office. He gets important. Then he’s expelled, which is all very difficult because he’s married an Italian girl and the squadristi make it hot for her family. He has a lot of trouble squaring things. After a bit his wife dies and he returns here to the home of his forefathers with very peculiar ideas about the way the world ought to be run.’

‘What sort of ideas?’

‘I’m coming to that. Well, the war breaks out and in 1940 Georghi skips to Cairo. For a time he’s on a newspaper there, then he decides that it’s time to do a little war work and gets taken on as an interpreter by the British. Later on, when the United States Middle East contingent arrives, he is transferred to them. In 1945 he turns up in an American Civil Affairs unit in Germany.’

‘Still as an interpreter?’

‘Still as an interpreter. Only by now he has a bastard sort of uniform and is working in a DP camp near Munich. He worked under an American Major named Macready. I had business there, and that’s where I first saw Georghi and got to know about him.’

‘What was your business?’

‘Intelligence — the British lot.’ He caught a glance I gave him. ‘Oh dear me, no! Not any more. I was just the wartime variety, uniform and everything. I was liaising with an American who was on the same job as me — checking up on the bad boys who’d gone to earth in the DP camps and then digging them out — and it was this man who told me about Georghi. Another drink?’

‘I think I will.’

‘That’s good. There’s another bottle in there if we run short or if Georghi comes home. All right, then. We go back to the time Georghi went over to the Americans in Cairo. Almost the first thing that happened was that he was sent up to a small hill town in the Lebanon with a Lieutenant, a Tech Sergeant, and an enlisted man. The job was to operate a radio station monitoring an intelligence network operating in the Balkans. I believe there was some short-wave oddity that determined their position, but that’s not important. The thing was that our Georghi was stuck out in the wilderness for nearly a year with three Americans who didn’t like it either and talked about home. I don’t know anything about the Sergeant and the enlisted man, but the Lieutenant was a radio engineer named Kromak and he came from Passaic, Jersey. Do you know the Lebanon?’

I shook my head.

‘In the evenings the sky is like wine and the shadows falling across the terraces have purple edges to them. Overhead, vines — grape and other things with big flowers and a wonderful smell. Everything is very still and warm and soft. It’s the kind of atmosphere in which myths are born and the pictures in your mind’s eye seem more real than the chair you’re sitting on. I wax lyrical, you see. However, the point is that Lieutenant Kromak talked about Passaic, New Jersey, and read aloud his wife’s letters while Georghi listened. He heard about Molly’s graduation and Michael’s camp counsellor, about Sue’s new baby and the seeding of the front lawn. He heard about the new refrigerator and the shortage of gasoline, about his friend Pete Staal, the dentist, and the Rotary Anns. He heard about the mouse in the cedar closet and the new screens that had been bought for the porch. And when the weekly letter was exhausted, the reminiscences would begin. “Pete Staal, Pete Staal,” Kromak would say dreamily, “a good dentist and a lovable son-of-a-bitch, but what a crazy guy! I remember the night Kitty and me, the Deckers, and the Staals went to Rossi’s — that’s an Italian restaurant at the far end of Franklin Street — and had ravioli. Ever had ravioli? At Rossi’s they make the best ravioli in the world. Well, we didn’t want to take two cars, so we rode down in mine. A Dodge I had then. Well, right after we’d eaten, Helen said she wanted to go over to the Nutley Field Club. That made Pete mad and he said that if she was going to Nutley he was going to fly down to Wilmington to see his mother. Of course, he knew what Helen really wanted — to see Marie and Dane Schaeffer — I told you about them, remember? Well…” And on he went while Georghi listened and drank it in. Do you know Passaic, New Jersey?’

‘No.’

‘Chemical plants and some light industry and the homes of the people who have to work there. But to Georghi Pashik, looking through the eyes of Lieutenant Kromak, who wanted so much to be back with the wife and kids, it must have represented a paradise of domestic security and gracious living. You know how it is? Lots of quite intelligent Europeans have fantastic notions about the way most Americans live. Sitting on that terrace in a Lebanon hill town, poor, unhappy, exiled Georghi must have been a pushover for the American way of life. Just to put it in terms of food — reason might tell him that the ravioli he’d get in Rossi’s on Franklin Street, Passaic, would not be as good as he’d eaten already in Rome and Florence, but Rossi’s ravioli had become the desirable ones. They had the approval of those legendary figures the Staals, the Deckers, and the Schaeffers, and that was what mattered. He began to understand why the Americans didn’t like the Lebanese they came in contact with. Lebanese standards of sanitation and behaviour are not those of Passaic, New Jersey. Georghi heard local ways that he had accepted or failed even to notice condemned quite angrily. He was troubled and began to question himself. You see what was happening, of course? Along with his dream of Passaic, New Jersey, he was beginning to acquire an American conscience.’

He paused for a moment to swallow another drink and fill my glass.

‘How much are you embroidering this story?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Not much. But the man who told me was an American and he could reproduce that Kromak stuff so you’d think you were really listening to him. I just give you the bits I remember and fill in the rest. The effect’s the same, though. Anyway, after nearly a year of the American Way and Purpose according to Lieutenant Kromak, Georghi was shifted back to Cairo. Americans again, only this time the high priest was a dairy chemist from Minnesota and the dream was in a slightly higher income bracket. Georghi read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Gettysburg Address. After that there was a filling-station proprietor from Oakland, California. He was followed by an insurance man from Hagerstown, Maryland. Then came 1944 and the surrender negotiations between Deltchev and the Anglo-American representatives. There was a British military mission operating with the partisans in Macedonia at that time. They controlled quite a large area and had a landing strip, so it wasn’t too difficult to arrange the meetings. The Anglo-Americans flew in from Foggia. Deltchev travelled overland somehow. They met in a village schoolroom. Georghi was one of the interpreters. It was after the second meeting that Georghi’s little cap went over the windmill.’

‘Wait a minute. Had he known Deltchev before?’

‘Known of him, that’s all. Well now, we get to the second meeting. They had their meeting all right, but storms delayed their return and they had to wait for twenty-four hours in the village. The atmosphere of the negotiations had been quite friendly and the wait produced a lot of general conversation about conditions inside the country, the problems, what was to be done about them, and so on. The man who told me this was on that trip. Anyway, one of the subjects discussed was the Officer Corps Brotherhood. Deltchev was very frank about the problem and the difficulties of dealing with it. Some of his revelations, in fact, were deeply shocking to the Anglo-American brass and they didn’t hesitate to tell him so. Deltchev must have wished he hadn’t mentioned the thing. But that night Georghi went to see him privately. It must have been a curious meeting. After extracting from Deltchev a lot of secrecy and immunity pledges, Georghi revealed that he was a member of the Officer Corps Brotherhood, had been one since he had returned to the land of his fathers from Italy in ’37. I told you he’d had peculiar ideas then about the way things ought to be. He’d expressed them by joining the Brotherhood. But now, he told Deltchev, all that was changed. He’d seen the light of Western democracy — all the way from Passaic, New Jersey, to Hagerstown, Maryland, he might have added — and wanted to make reparation. The long and short of it was that the Provisional Government’s big clean-up of the Brotherhood was made possible because Georghi turned stool pigeon.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because the man who told me was the officer Deltchev went to for a check-up on Georghi. The old man’s first idea, of course, had been that Georghi was either an agent provocateur or crazy. So he was very careful. But after the next meeting he had another talk with Georghi and a plan was made.’ Sibley grinned. ‘You know, Georghi did a very brave thing really, when you come to think of it. He could have stayed safely with the Americans. Instead he asked them to lend him to Deltchev and came back here. The risk was really appalling, when you think. For all he knew, the Brotherhood might have already condemned him as a traitor. He’d not stayed to collaborate. He’d been in the service of a foreign army. And now he’d turned up again, safe and sound at a time when for a civilian the journey from Athens was all but impossible. However, he took the risk and got away with it. I suppose that outside this place the Brotherhood’s intelligence system didn’t operate, and in all the confusion nobody bothered to ask many questions. Georghi rejoined his cell and the game began. There were ten Brothers to a cell. Georghi would turn in the names of seven of them to Deltchev. Then the three survivors, Georghi among them, would attach themselves to another cell and in the next cell purge the survivors of the first one would go with the rest. All except Georghi. He was the permanent survivor. But because of the secret way the Brotherhood was organized, nobody could know how many purges our man had survived. He always arrived with the credentials and code words of the cell just betrayed and he’d always see that those who came with him were at the top of his next list. So there was never anyone to say that where he went disaster followed. It was always the first time with him. But still risky. After a time the word got round that there was treachery, and the remainder of the Brotherhood disintegrated. As a safety measure, Georghi had himself arrested on suspicion and then released. He’d done all he could. Deltchev had him quietly shipped back to the Americans. That’s when I met him.’

‘But why didn’t you recognize him at once?’

‘He had a moustache then and, as I told you, a uniform. As a matter of fact, he was so American it was difficult to believe that he’d never been out of Europe. His boss in Germany, Colonel Macready, was the last of the prophets as far as Georghi was concerned. He came from Texas. You know that seersucker suit Georghi wears? Macready gave it to Georghi as a going-away present. It came from a department store in Houston. It was also a kind of consolation prize. Georghi had tried every way he could to get a quota number for America, but it was no good. So he came back here and claimed his reward.’ He paused.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, just think. Four or five years ago he came back here without a penny to his name. Now he’s got this place, which I can tell you is quite expensive by local standards, and an established press agency with a dollar income. How did he do it?’

‘He’s quite efficient.’

‘But no genius. Besides, the Pan-Eurasian was a going concern long before the war.’

‘You know the answer?’

‘Yes. I did a bit of checking up. The Pan-Eurasian was originally a French company incorporated in Monaco. It took a bit of doing, but I managed to find out all about it through our Paris office. I got word today from them. Like a little surprise?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right, then. All the shares in the Pan-Eurasian Press Service were purchased in 1946 from the French syndicate that owned them. Forty-nine per cent of them are in the name of Georghi Pashik. All of them were bought with a draft signed by the person who owns the other fifty-one per cent.’ He stopped and grinned again.

‘Well, who is it?’

‘Madame Deltchev.’

My mind turned a somersault. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure? Of course I’m sure.’

‘She’d be a nominee, of course.’

He laughed. ‘Nominee? That woman? Don’t be silly. She ran Papa Deltchev as if he were a family business. And if you’ve fallen for that holier-than-thou line of hers, you’d better think again. I’m a newspaper reporter, Foster, dear, and I’ve met some very tough ladies and gentlemen, but that one is up near the top of the list. When I was here two years ago, she was running the country. If there were any nominees around they were her husband and that secretary of his, Petlarov. She did the thinking. She wrote the speeches. She made the policy. Do you think that dried-up little lawyer could have got to power on his own? Not on your life! The only thing he ever did without consulting her was to make a damn-fool radio speech that virtually handed over the whole country to the People’s Party. Papa Deltchev? Don’t make me laugh! They’re not trying a man in that courtroom. It’s a legend they’re after and I bet she’s still fighting like a steer to preserve it. Why shouldn’t she? It’s her work. She’s the only Deltchev they’re sitting in judgment on.’

I shook my head. ‘Oh no, she isn’t.’

He stared. ‘No?’

‘No. You may be right about her husband, but she didn’t control all the Deltchevs.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Her son, Philip. He’s a member of the Brotherhood. He was recruited by Pazar. And he’s the Deltchev who was the leader of the conspiracy against Vukashin. You see, they’re using the evidence against the son to convict the father and they know it.’

Sibley stared at me, his face sagging.

‘What’s more,’ I went on dully, ‘the conspiracy is still in existence. And Philip Deltchev is still alive. I carried a letter from his sister, Katerina, to him. The address was Patriarch Dimo 9 and instead of Philip I found Pazar shot through the back of the head. Then Pashik turned up. Where he is in this I don’t know. But he turned up and took me to see a man named Aleko, who says he is of the secret police, but isn’t. In fact he’s a professional assassin who makes a habit of shooting people through the back of the head. He seemed to be in charge of the whole affair. Philip Deltchev was there under the name of Jika. The Patriarch Dimo thing was explained to me as part of a cunning police trap to catch the man who tried to kill Deltchev before he was arrested. I pretended to accept that and agreed not to make any further visits to the Deltchev house. Of course, they didn’t want me to ask Katerina any questions. Pashik warned me privately too.’

‘But, all the same, you went?’ Sibley’s face was the colour of dirty chalk.

‘Yes.’

‘And you wonder why they tried to kill you?’

‘Not any more. Of course, if the fact that Philip Deltchev was the Deltchev of the evidence were known it would make the trial look rather silly.’

He jumped up.

‘Rather silly!’ His voice rose. ‘You poor bloody fool! Don’t you know anything about this country? Don’t you see what’s happened? The People’s Party has taken over the whole conspiracy. Aleko’s their man, not the Brotherhood’s, and he’s going to do the shooting. Young Deltchev’s only the scapegoat.’

‘Scapegoat for what?’

‘For tomorrow’s assassination, you nitwit! Don’t you see? It’s Judgment Day! The People’s Party is going to liquidate its boss, Vukashin!’