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  “Just background, man, just background,” he said with a sweet smile. I went on reading cursorily. I knew one thing for sure by now: having been genned up, I wouldn’t be allowed to back down. If I did, I reckoned they’d shoot me, or shove me away in some nice quiet nick, incommunicado, on a trumped-up charge. I knew quite enough about Security to know this was not in the least fanciful. When the chips were down, there wasn’t a hell of a lot to choose between East and West, except that we did it all under a cloak of charm and respectability. I think the word hypocrisy did occur to me as well, that morning.

  4

  Late that day, when I was through with H7, I went along to Focal House and ran through the file on Vaclav Vorsak; I found little enough; and nothing, as Max had forecast, that seemed likely to help me at the moment. Vorsak, who was aged thirty-four, had once served in the Czechoslovak Army — just doing his two years’ military service, which meant he was in fact still on the reserve. He was a good party member and there was no mention of his having any liberal tendencies, which didn’t quite accord with his insistence, down in Cornwall, that he was Racilek’s man; though it could easily accord with what Nada Strecka had said about his Vicar of Bray-ish character. The only thing one could say currently about Vorsak was that he remained an unknown quantity, which wasn’t much progress.

  I went up to see Max after that.

  By this time he had had his interview with Miss Strecka and he was looking troubled. From what he said I got the idea he’d been impressed with her sincerity and was troubled because of what she was doing to herself with the drugs. Max was a damn sight more human than Lattenbury. Anyway, he told me the girl hadn’t anything to offer beyond what she had told me on the way in from Cornwall and he was satisfied she didn’t know from whom the threat to Drakotny might come. He asked me, “How much detail did Lattenbury go into, Shaw?”

  “About Drakotny?”

  He nodded. “Tell me all he told you.”

  I did so; when I had finished Max sighed heavily and got to his feet and walked over to one of the big windows, where he stood for a while staring down on London. Then he swung round and padded back to his desk — for a big man he was surprisingly light on his feet. Sitting down again he said, “It seems to me we have two main groups of people to consider — as possible assassins, I mean. Firstly, there’s those who detest Russian influence so much that they’re willing even to sacrifice Racilek so long as Drakotny can be destroyed. Secondly, there’s those who want Racilek to be discredited and imprisoned and who see Drakotny’s death as one way of achieving this. Agree?”

  “I agree,” I said, “and I make additions. Sub-divisions, really, to your second group. I reckon that second faction can be split into either political enemies in Racilek’s own party, or Russophiles in general, or simply men — or women — with a grudge against Racilek. Or against Drakotny direct, of course … if we revert to Group One for a moment! Sorry to be confusing, but to my mind the whole situation is a trifle that way.”

  Max nodded. “I suppose you know how many people are covered by our joint hypotheses, Shaw?”

  “Yes,” I said, “everybody in Czechoslovakia. Either you’re for liberalization or you’re against it, I suppose, and it could fit either way. Unless he’s exceptionally well guarded, Drakotny can’t win, can he?”

  Max said tersely, “No. But he’s got to! And you’re the life preserver.”

  “All on my own?”

  “No. But it’ll be up to you to co-ordinate Drakotny’s defence. You’ll have to make contact with those liberal elements inside Czechoslovakia, and get their confidence, then their support and active co-operation. I can give you one name: Pavol Krajcin. He’s Professor of Moral Philosophy in Prague University. I’ll not be expecting you physically to protect Drakotny, nor, of course, will Lattenbury. What you have to do is isolate the people responsible for the threat, and inhibit their plans. That’s all.”

  *

  All, I thought sardonically as I left Max’s room. A little word with a big meaning! Well, I’d had impossible jobs to do before now. My next visit that day was to Nada Strecka in the guest section; Max had told me she was leaving early next morning and would be flying out direct for her own country, still using the name of Rosalie Moore, at any rate until she reached her destination. When I knocked at the door of her room she was already packing. She looked reasonably composed and I guessed she had just had her fix and would be okay for a while.

  She looked round as I entered and said, “Oh, it’s you.”

  “It’s me.” I hung around like a spare part while she turned her back and got on with the packing, not that there was much of it. Bras, and thin panties, and other small items … she looked terribly alluring, standing there with her back to me so I couldn’t see the haggard face. She was wearing a pair of crushed-velvet ‘hot pants’ with a sort of bib top. “I expect you’ve been told that my prophecy was spot on, Miss Strecka,” I lied. “We’re not interested and we’re pulling out. As of now.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ve been told that.”

  She didn’t turn round and I got the idea she was only making a pretence now of being busy, just so she didn’t have to face me. There had been an odd note in her voice too. I wondered why. It was somehow as though she was disappointed with the official British reaction, as though, after all, she had wanted and expected some assistance in her self-imposed mission to save Josef Drakotny. Impulsively I said, “I’m sorry, Nada.”

  I hadn’t used her Christian name before now, and she was surprised enough to turn quickly and look at me. I went across the room before she turned away and put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I said once again, looking into her eyes. “But, you see, it’s not our concern. I wish Drakotny all the luck in the world, Nada, but it’s not up to us to look after him, is it?”

  “No,” she said, “of course it’s not. I see that and I never expected anything else, truly.”

  “Truly?” I didn’t quite believe her now.

  “Yes, truly. As a matter of fact, I’m only too grateful to your people for letting me go. Your chief explained that your authorities could have held me on charges of illegal entry — as if I didn’t know — but they didn’t want to start a series of international alarms and reprisals, all that sort of thing, over an agent who’d been so noticeably unsuccessful as to join the hippies and go on drugs.” She gave a small, hard, bitter laugh. “It wasn’t flattering, but it was what I wanted.”

  I said quietly, still clasping her shoulders, “Nada, I’ve a feeling you think I’ve let you down. Oh, I know you’ve said the same thing before — that you wanted us to keep out of it, or if you didn’t exactly say it you clearly did want that. But since then, I believe you’ve been seeing just how difficult it’s going to be for you, and I think you’ve been hoping for some kind of backing. I’m sorry we can’t give it. As for me … well, I just follow orders. That’s all.”

  “Of course,” she said, and smiled. It was a brittle smile, over-full of false gaiety. Suddenly, surprisingly, she leant forward in my arms and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were warm, and soft. She said, “That’s for being you. You’re pretty okay, Commander.” It was a brief kiss, but it left a deep impression on me. She took my arms then, and lifted them from her shoulders. She said, “I think you’d better go now, don’t you? I’ll be all right. And thank you for treating me properly.”

  That was all. She turned back to her cases and I went to the door, opened it, and looked back. There was no response and I went out and shut the door gently behind me. I couldn’t quite make her out. I’d done my duty as imposed by Lattenbury and had, or so I hoped, convinced the girl that we had pulled right out of her affairs and Drakotny’s. And I still felt she thought I’d let her down by doing that. But alongside that feeling ran another, and really a much more thought-provoking one: maybe I hadn’t convinced her at all. There had been something in her face just after that kiss that suggested she didn’t believe it to be our last
meeting. As for me, I did indeed doubt very strongly that it would be; for I was determined to watch out for Nada, discreetly, and do what I could, short of compromising my own mission, to see that she didn’t come to any harm; and in any case it was only too likely that Josef Drakotny would act as the focal point that would bring us together again. When that happened, it was going to be a tricky moment.

  That night I was at a loose end. Focal House had all my travel arrangements in hand and I wasn’t called upon to do anything further until a messenger delivered a fresh passport at the flat next morning early, after which I would be flown out for Vienna’s Schwechat airport whence I would cross the border into Czechoslovakia on an indigenous flight carrying a mixed bunch of Western tourists. That was all fixed. So I had myself a night on the town; all on my own, starting with an early Chinese meal at Ley On’s in Soho. After that I did some drinking. I did too much; Max would have done his nut, so would Lattenbury. But I happened to feel that way, because I had Nada Strecka on my mind rather badly, and I wanted to drown her. Or drown my own conscience would be nearer the mark. Because it was only too clear the girl was going to be used, sacrificed on the greedy altar of the national interest, the British national interest in the main, and that Lattenbury at any rate didn’t give a damn what the end might be for her. And I was feeling, strongly, that I could and should have raised my voice much more loudly to have her held here in Britain, where she would be physically safe from violence and where, with luck, she could have been treated and got off the drugs, and then given asylum to start a fresh life. She was young enough. But then maybe I was just being selfish. Nada Strecka herself wouldn’t have wanted that, certainly. This Drakotny, I thought savagely as I downed another large Scotch in a pub in Rupert Street, must really have something.

  It was just as I finished that whisky and was about to demand another that I saw the face at the window. It was raining outside, and it was a dark night, and the window was spotted with the rain-drops and I didn’t get a very good view, especially as the face didn’t linger. But our eyes met for a fraction of a second before the face disappeared and I could have sworn it was the fat man. Maybe Vorsak was dead and was haunting me, or maybe I was just drunk, or again maybe I had failed to spot another tail. Anyway, I didn’t have that next whisky. Instead I slid off the bar stool and, feeling quite suddenly sober, went out of the pub like lightning. That pub was on a corner, and the face had appeared in a window fronting onto Rupert Street itself, right alongside where they have the market stalls in the daytime. I couldn’t see anyone who looked like Vorsak, or anyone moving fast away from me. I went up Rupert Street towards Brewer Street, looking into dark, recessed doorways, then back down the other way to Shaftesbury Avenue, then up the other side. No Vorsak. I gave it up; he would be well away by now, if it had been him. I couldn’t be certain. I didn’t do any more drinking that night. I went back to my flat openly, watching all the way, very carefully, and saw nothing suspicious. Back home I had a shower and turned in. In the morning I felt wicked, with a banging head and a filthy, furred tongue. I’d mixed it a bit, the night before. To make matters worse it was a foul day, cold and bleak with the rain teeming down to drown half London. I looked out of my windows and hated all I saw, even the birds in their maxis with the mini-skirts peeping through as a cold wind blew the maxis open to waist level. To say I hated them is really saying something.

  In the late morning I left London Airport in the name of Peter Frazer, bank clerk on winter holiday, with slightly disguising spectacles to lend support to my clerkly status, and duly arrived at Schwechat, whence I joined up with the tourists in a pension in Vienna. My journey to London Airport had been discreetly and circuitously made, and I was certain there had been no tail; and I could see no sign of one in Vienna, though in fact, having reached the pension, I didn’t go out again. I spent a hideous evening with the tourists, who were mostly middle-aged but included two young couples, unmarried but very close, and an intense girl with huge spectacles and a boil on her left cheek who practically held me down in the lounge. I simply could not get away from her. She was English, from London, Clerkenwell to be exact, her name was Marilyn Vokes, and her breath smelt. I knew that, because she never stopped talking, and leaned towards me to do it. She talked about herself and her work chiefly: she was a filing clerk with a big oil company. Everything about her was intense, even the way she firmly pulled her skirt down each time it rode up her shanks, in case I should see something I shouldn’t. Even though it was a horrid midi. And her voice was low, sibilant, boring in content. “I mean,” she would say, “take Clarry. She’s nice enough, I wouldn’t say a word against her, but I mean, there’s no interest. You’ve got to show interest to get on, haven’t you. And filing’s awf’lly important, Mr Riversley said so himself, and I mean …”

  I thought of Nada Strecka. After a while I barely heard Marilyn Vokes, but it didn’t seem to matter, she just droned on. And on. She put me right off supper, which wasn’t up to much anyway. Later, she followed me up to bed, quite without intent, but simply because she hadn’t finished what she was saying. I said I had a headache, which was absolutely true. She said, “Oh, you poor thing. You’ll never sleep in that room.”

  “Oh?” I said. “Why not?”

  “Well,” she said, her face glistening with sweat, for the pension was excellently heated, “I mean, surely you’ve heard the noise!”

  “You mean the water pipes?” I’d heard them on my arrival, but had assumed they would stop. When we reached my room, I realized they hadn’t; the din was terrible, bang-bang-bang, worse than ever, right through the closed door. I said, “Yes, I see what you mean, Miss Vokes.” My head rattled.

  She said, “Well, I mean, I haven’t got a headache, Mr Frazer.”

  “Really?” I didn’t know quite what to make of that.

  “Why not use my room?”

  I gaped; this, I had not expected. She didn’t seem quite the type, somehow. “It’s very good of you, “I said, “but —”

  “Not with me in it, I mean — oh, I didn’t mean that!” She had flushed a deep, deep red. Some of the others of the party were coming up the stairs now, laughing and talking. She hissed away rapidly. “I mean, why don’t we swap rooms, Mr Frazer? I really don’t mind.”

  I started, “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly —”

  “But I’d like to do something.” She leant towards me earnestly, talking hard. “It’s not often I get the chance, I mean, I do like to help, and really it’s nothing. It’d be no trouble, I can soon pack up …” She went on and on; to my shame I say it, but I think I agreed, or in a sense gave in, in order to get clear of the bad breath. It was making my headache worse, poor girl. She was delighted, really pleased; I dare say it gave her a bit of a lift, to do a favour. Anyhow, I like to think so. So we changed rooms, which didn’t take more than a few minutes, and though her room was smaller and tattier than mine, it was quiet. I took a couple of codeine tablets and I slept well; never heard a sound till morning, when a maid brought me a cup of tea. I didn’t hurry to get up, not till the racket started up outside in the corridor. Voices, and women crying, and then middle-aged men being gruff and strong. I pulled on my dressing-gown and went out of the room and caught one of the men as he surged past.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Somebody ill?”

  “Not ill,” he said, looking shaken and incredulous.

  “Dead!”

  “Who?”

  “The Vokes girl. The one with the glasses and the —”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know her. Damn it all, I changed rooms with her!”

  I ran along to what had been my room. The pension manager and his wife were in charge, pale but determined to guard the place till the police arrived. They refused to let me pass, but I looked over the manager’s shoulder and saw the still figure in the bed, face down, just the very tip of the head showing above the well-snuggled-into blankets, and the long knife-blade that ran through the blankets, through the back and hea
rt and lungs, and probably down into the mattress. It looked like a butcher’s knife and there was a good deal of blood, some of it running from under the bed to form a puddle on the carpet. She must have been drained like a piece of veal.

  Valete, Miss Vokes. Were you another of Vorsak’s victims?

  *

  6D2 was represented in Vienna and before the police came in I managed to slip away and phone our man. I didn’t say a word about my mission, I just gave him my official number, which he would be able to check, and a hasty outline of the current facts; and I asked him not to let the grass grow but to contact the cops pronto. I couldn’t risk being held here in Vienna while the anti-Drakotny forces were marshalled into place for another killing across the frontier. Poor Marilyn Vokes had given her all, certainly, but she was small stuff compared with Drakotny; which all went to prove that we’re each of us as bad as Lattenbury when the crunch comes. I wasn’t going to get side-tracked into helping to find her killer, who, for obvious reasons, wouldn’t be found hanging around the pension; for my money, there was no neo-Vorsak among us disguised as a middle-aged chain-store manager from Peckham, or whatever my fellow tourists might be. This had to be an outside job.