Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

Chapter Eighteen

After Mann dropped me at the airport I went straight to the car rentals and asked about fast cars. I finally got a Corvette Stingray. While I was waiting for it, I bought a heart-shaped box of chocolate-covered fudge. The old lady behind the counter seemed relieved to get rid of it.

My car was gold with real leather upholstery, a V-eight motor of 200 b.h.p., and once on the highway I put my foot down all the way south. I told myself that I needed a fast car to pay a brief visit to Red and still reach Norfolk in time to phone Mann and convince him I'd taken the plane. But looking back on it, I realize that the flashy car was just one more part of my determination to make Red love me, as desperately as I loved her.

Red Bancroft, Mrs Bekuv and three shifts of heavies were tucked away in a house in the country, not far from St Petersburg, Virginia. It was a dark night, and the place was difficult to find. My headlights picked up a sign that said 'Hook Ups for Trailers and Campers'. There were only two trailers hooked into the power line and I heard the door of the nearest one click as soon as I stopped. A man stepped down. On the other side of the road there was a small sign for 'Pederson's Herb and Fruit Farm — Private'. I parked off the road close to a billboard that advised me 'Next time fly the friendly skies'.

With hardly a word spoken, he took me to the trailer, but not before flashing a torch into the back of my car and checking the boot to be sure I was alone. There were two more of them inside the trailer, big men with heavy woollen zipper jackets and high-laced boots, but their faces were soft and pale, and none of them looked the type who goes camping in the depths of winter. Behind the trailers I saw three cars and a couple of guard dogs secured to a post.

'I suppose it's O.K.,' he said reluctantly. He passed the card and the C.I.A. slips back across the table to me. 'You follow the path — through the yellow gate near the sign. I'll phone the house to tell them.' He switched off the lights before opening the trailer door: he was a careful man.

'Let's make it a surprise,' I said.

He looked at me with interest. Afterwards I wondered how much he knew about what was happening there, but he wasn't the sort of man who makes free with good advice. 'Suit yourself,' he said.

I dropped the car keys on to the table and then stepped down into the mud. It was a long way to the house, but as I got near there was enough light from the upstairs window to help me pick my way along the garden path, and across the apple orchard. The kitchen windows were uncurtained. I peered inside. The kitchen clock was at midnight, and I could see a tray, set with chinaware and flowers, all ready for next morning.

Softly, as if from miles away, I could hear voices, arguing loudly.

The kitchen door was unlocked — with so much security there was no fear of burglars — and I went in. I walked through the hall and into the lounge from which the voices came. There was an abandoned backgammon game in the middle of the carpet, and scatter-cushions on the floor. All was lit by the dusty blue light of the TV, and the voices were those of a TV quiz. There were a couple of chords from an electric organ and a round of applause from the studio audience. '… and, for ten thousand dollars… fingers ready on the buzzers all you nice people… In 1929, Douglas Fairbanks made his first all-talking movie. For this two-part question, I want, first, the name of his female star, and, for the second part, the name of the movie.'

On the air I could smell the mentholated cigarettes that Red smoked. I switched — on the lights — two big Chinese vases with parchment shades — there was no one here. A log fire was dying in the hearth, and near by there was a jug of water and a bowl of melting ice. There was also a whisky bottle and two glasses; all of them empty. The TV contestants were deep in thought. It was during this silence that I heard the groans from upstairs. 'Oh my God!' It was a woman's voice — Katerina Bekuv's, and there was a shrill strangled cry.

I don't know if I made much noise running up the stairs, two at a time; or if I shouted anything, or what I might have said. I can only remember standing in the bedroom doorway and looking at them: I remember how tanned was the nude body of Katerina Bekuv against the pale skin of Red Bancroft, who was kneeling over her. The groans I'd heard were not groans of pain. The scene is burned into my memory: Katerina Bekuv spread-eagled and limp, her head lolling back so that her long blonde hair almost reached the floor. Red tense, straightening her back to sit up and look at me, her eyes wide and fearful. From Katerina came a long orgasmic whisper. I stood there numb.

'Get some clothes on, Ambrose,' I said finally. 'Come downstairs. I want to talk to you.'

When Red Bancroft arrived in the sitting-room she was wearing nothing but a silk kimono, and even that was left untied. Her hair looked more auburn than red under this light and it was still dishevelled. She wore no make-up, and her face looked like that of a young child, but her demeanour was not childlike. She strode across to the TV set. I had been sipping at a measure of brandy and staring at the TV screen with unseeing eyes but now that she was standing there I heard the master of ceremonies say 'One of the most shocking crimes of the decade took place in 1929 in Chicago… Now here's your question…'

'Are you watching this?' she asked with mock politeness.

I shook my head.

'… four men, two of them in police uniforms…' As she switched the TV off, the master of ceremonies fluttered like a burned moth and collapsed, into a small blue flame that disappeared.

'St Valentine's Day Massacre,' she said. 'Al Capone.' She tore the cellophane off a packet of Kools, took one out and lit it.

'Switch it on again and ask for your ten grand.'

She walked across to the cupboard, found a new bottle of Scotch and poured herself a generous measure. This was a different Red Bancroft to the soft sweet girl I'd fallen in love with. 'Do you realize what kind of priority this investigation has got?' she said.

'Don't talk to me like I'm one of your security guards,' I said.

She drank a little of her drink, paced across the carpet and back, and then rubbed her face as if trying to decide what she wanted to say next. 'I don't know how much you've been told,' she said, which was as good a put-down as I've yet come across, 'but Mrs Bekuv is a K.G.B. officer of field rank. Did you know that?'

'No,' I admitted.

She drank some more whisky. 'You want a drink?' she asked suddenly.

'I helped myself already,' I said indicating the glass of brandy that I'd left on the side table. She nodded.

'When they realized that Bekuv had gone, and that we had him, Moscow panicked. They tried to kill him that night at the party. Then they changed their tactics. Mrs Bekuv was sent after him. Moscow sent her. She was sent to control him, to limit, monitor and modify what he told us.'

'The stabbing,' I said.

'It was good that, wasn't it?' It was as if she took pride in the expertise of her lover. 'She grabbed the sharp edge skilfully enough to cut herself, without doing too much damage to the ligaments. Then she did a couple of deep slash cuts into her coat.'

'A bad cut in the abdomen… four stitches,' I said.

This is a professional,' said Red. 'You don't get field rank in the K.G.B. if you're afraid of.the sight of blood.' She put the glass of whisky to her face and smelled it delicately as one would an expensive perfume.

'And Gerry Hart brought her out and delivered her to us.'

She looked at me with some disdain. 'Gerry Hart has been working for the Russians for at least fifteen years. He's a senior officer in the K.G.B. - you know how they give these people military ranks and medals to make them feel important.'

'So bringing Mrs Bekuv out of Russia was entirely a K.G.B. operation?'

'All the way, baby. All the way.' She tied a knot in the cord of the kimono.

'Does Mann know all this?'

'I've only known it for thirty minutes,' she said.

I heard Mrs Bekuv moving on the floor above us. I said, 'You and… her. Was that something that just happened? Or was that part of the plan?'

'It was the plan,' she said immediately. 'It was the only plan. You and Major Mann chasing here and there across the world were just diversionary. Holding Mrs Bekuv here, and turning her so that she'll break Hart's network, that was the real plan.'

I didn't argue with her; all agents are told that their contribution is the most important part of the plan. I said, 'But why not tell me?'

'We fell in love,' she said. 'You and me — there was no disguising it. At first I wanted to call off everything else but I pulled myself together, and got on with my job. It was then that I discovered the effect that our love affair was having on Mrs Bekuv.'

'You mean Mrs Bekuv was jealous of me?'

'Don't sound so incredulous. Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. She won me away from you, and she was proud of herself for doing it.'

'Well, thanks for the memory,' I said.

Red came closer to me and touched my arm. 'I loved you,' she said. 'I loved you. Remember that, won't you.'

Overhead we heard Mrs Bekuv walk across the floor. 'Just for a time I wanted out of this whole business.'

'Out of this business? Or out of that business?' I moved my head to indicate the upstairs room where Mrs Bekuv was still moving around.

'I'm still not sure,' said Red. She looked me full in the eyes and her voice was calm and level. 'Don't blame the Manns,' she said. 'They wanted the best for both of us.'

'And what was the best for both of us?'

She didn't answer. From upstairs I heard Mrs Bekuv sob bing. It was very quiet, the sort of sobbing that goes on for a long time.

'You got paint on that nice leather coat,' said Red. 'When did you do that?'

'Christmas,' I said. 'It's not paint, it's Mrs Bekuv's blood.'

I picked up the glass of brandy I'd poured, and I drank it in one gulp. Then I picked up my ten-dollar box of fudge and left.