"Guilt," Faber said.
"But you're thinking of leaving him, aren't you?"
She stared at him, slowly shaking her head with incredulity.
"How do you know so much?"
"You've lost the art of dissembling in four years on this island.
Besides, these things are so much simpler from the outside."
"Have you ever been married?"
"No. That's what I mean."
"Why not? I think you ought to be."
It was Faber's turn to look pensively into the fire. Why not, indeed?
His stock answer to himself was his profession. But he could not tell
her that, and anyway it was too glib. He said suddenly: "I don't trust
myself to love anyone that much." The words had come out without
forethought, and he wondered whether they were true. A moment later he
wondered how Lucy had got past his guard, when he had thought he was
disarming her.
Neither of them spoke for a while. The fire was dying. A few stray
raindrops found their way down the chimney and hissed in the cooling
coals. The storm showed no sign of letting up. Faber found himself
thinking of the last woman he had had. What was her name? Gertrude.
It was seven years ago, but he could picture her now, in the flickering
fire: a round German face, fair hair, green eyes, beautiful breasts,
much-too-wide hips, fat legs, bad feet; the conversational style of an
express train, a wild, inexhaustible enthusiasm for sex ... She had
flattered him, admiring his mind (she said) and adoring his body (she
had no need to tell him). She wrote lyrics for popular songs, and read
them to him in a poor basement flat in Berlin: it was not a lucrative
profession. He visualized her in that untidy bedroom, lying naked,
urging him to do more bizarre and erotic things with her: to hurt her,
to touch himself, to lie completely still while she made love to him
... He shook his head slightly to brush away the memories. He had not
thought like that in all the years he had been celibate. Such visions
were disturbing. He looked at Lucy.
"You were far away," she said with a smile.
"Memories," he said.
"This talk of love.,."
"I shouldn't burden you."
"You're not."
"Good memories ?"
"Very good. And yours? You were thinking, too."
She smiled again.
"I was in the future, not the past."
What do you see there?"
She seemed about to answer, then changed her mind. It happened twice.
There were signs of tension about her eyes.
"I see you finding another man," Faber said. As he spoke he was
thinking: Why am I doing this?
"He is a weaker man than David, and less handsome; but it is for his
weakness that you love him. He is clever, but not rich; compassionate
without being sentimental; tender, caring, loving. He ' The brandy
glass in her hand shattered under the pressure of her grip. The
fragments fell into her lap and on to the carpet, and she ignored them.
Faber crossed to her chair and knelt in front of her. Her thumb was
bleeding. He took her hand.
"You've hurt yourself."
She looked at him. She was crying.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The cut was superficial. She took a handkerchief from her trousers
pocket and staunched the blood. Faber released her hand and began to
pick up the pieces of broken glass, wishing he had kissed her when he
had the chance. He put the shards on the chimney-breast.
"I didn't mean to upset you," he said.
She took away the handkerchief and looked at her thumb. It was still
bleeding.
"A little bandage," he suggested.
"In the kitchen."
He found a roll of bandage, a pair of scissors, and a safety pin. He
In his absence she had somehow obliterated the evidence of tears on her
face. She sat passively, limp, while he bathed her thumb in the hot
water, dried it, and fixed a small strip of bandage over the cut. She
looked all the time at his face, not at his hands; but her expression
was unreadable.
He finished the job and stood back abruptly. This was silly: he had
taken the thing too far. It was time to disengage. He said: "I think
I'd better go to bed."
She nodded.
"I'm sorry ' "Stop apologizing," she told him.
"It doesn't suit you."
Her tone was harsh. He guessed that she, too, felt the thing had got
out of hand.
"Are you staying up?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Well..." He walked to the door and held it for her.
She avoided his eyes as she passed him. He followed her through the
hall and up the stairs. As he watched her climb, he could not help
imagining her in other clothes, her hips swaying gently underneath some
silky material, long legs clad in stockings instead of worsted grey
trousers, high-heeled dress shoes instead of worn felt slippers.
At the top of the stairs, on the tiny landing, she turned and
whispered: "Goodnight."
He said: "Goodnight, Lucy."
She looked at him for a moment. He reached for her hand, but she
foresaw his intention and turned quickly away, entering her bedroom and
closing the door without a backward look, leaving him standing there
with his hand out and his mouth open, wondering what was in her mind
and more to the point what was in his.
TWENTY-TWO
Bloggs drove dangerously fast through the night in a commandeered
Sunbeam Talbot with a souped-up engine. The hilly, winding Scottish
roads were slick with rain and, in a few low places, two or three
inches deep in water. The rain drove across the windscreen in sheets.
On the more exposed hilltops the gale-force winds threatened to blow
the car off the road and into the soggy turf alongside. For mile after
mile, Bloggs sat forward in the seat, peering through the small area of
glass that was cleared by the wiper, straining his eyes to make out the
shape of the road in front as the headlights battled with the obscuring
rain. Just north of Edinburgh he ran over three rabbits, feeling the
sickening bump as the tyres squashed their small furry bodies. He did
not slow the car. but for a while afterwards he wondered whether
rabbits normally came out at night. The strain gave him a headache,
and his sitting position made his back hurt. He also felt hungry..
He opened the window for a cold breeze to keep him awake, but so much
water came in that he was forced to close it again immediately. He
thought about Die Nadel, or Faber or whatever he was calling himself
now: a smiling young man in running-shorts holding a trophy. Well,
Faber was winning this race. He was forty-eight hours ahead and he had
the advantage that only he knew the route that had to be followed.
Bloggs would have enjoyed a contest with that man, if the stakes had
not been so high, so bloody high.
He wondered what he would do if he ever came face to face with the man.
I'd shoot the bugger out of hand, he thought, before he killed me.
Faber was a pro
, and you couldn't mess with that type. Most spies were
amateurs: frustrated revolutionaries of the left or right, people who
wanted the imaginary glamour of espionage, greedy men or lovesick
women, or blackmail victims. The few professionals were very dangerous
indeed, because they knew that the professionals they were up against
were not merciful men.
Dawn was still an hour or two away when Bloggs drove into Aberdeen.
Never in his life had he been so grateful for street lights, dimmed and
masked though they were. He had no idea where the police station was,
and there was no one on the streets to give him directions, so he drove
around the town until he saw the familiar blue lamp (also dimmed).
He parked the car and dashed through the rain into the building. He
was expected. Godliman had been on the phone, and Godliman was now
very senior indeed. Bloggs was shown into the office of Alan Kincaid,
a Detective-Chief-Inspector in his middle fifties. There were three
other officers in the room: Bloggs shook their hands and instantly
forgot their names.
Kincaid said: You made bloody good time from Carlisle."
"Nearly killed myself doing it," Bloggs replied. He sat down.
"If you can rustle up a sandwich..."
"Of course." Kincaid leaned his head out of the door and shouted
something.
"It'll be here in two shakes," he told Bloggs.
The office had off-white walls, a plank floor, and plain hard
furniture: a desk, a few chairs and a filing cabinet. It was totally
unrelieved: no pictures, no ornaments, no personal touches of any kind.
There was a tray of dirty cups on the floor, and the air was thick with
smoke. It smelled like somewhere men had been working all night.
Kincaid had a small moustache, thin grey hair, and spectacles. A big,
intelligent-looking man in shirtsleeves and braces, he was the kind of
policeman that Bloggs thought -made up the backbone of the British
police force. He spoke with a local accent, a sign that, like Bloggs,
he had come up through the ranks though from his age it was clear that
his rise had been slower than Bloggs'.
Bloggs said: "How much do you know of what this is all about?"
"Not much," Kincaid said.
"But your governor, Godliman, did say that the London murders are the
least of this man's crimes. We also know which department you're with,
so we can put two and two together and conclude that Faber is a very
dangerous spy."
"That's about it," Bloggs said.
Kincaid nodded.
"What have you done so far ?" Bloggs asked.
Kincaid put his feet on his desk.
"He arrived here two days ago, yes?"
"Yes."
"That was when we started looking for him. We had the pictures1 assume
every force in the country got them."
"Yes."
"We checked the hotels and lodging houses, the station and the bus
depot. We did it quite thoroughly, although at the time we didn't know
he had come here. Needless to say, we had no results. We're checking
again, of course; but my opinion is that he probably left Aberdeen
immediately."
A woman police constable came in with a cup of tea and a very thick
cheese sandwich. Bloggs thanked her and set about the sandwich
greedily.
Kincaid went on: We had a man at the railway station before the first
train left in the morning. Ditto for the bus depot. So, if he left
the town, either he stole a car or he hitched a ride. We've had no
stolen cars reported."
"Damn," Bloggs said through a mouthful of whole meal bread. He
swallowed.
"That makes it about as difficult as it can be to trace him."
"No doubt that's why he chose to hitch-hike."
"He might have gone by sea."
"Of the boats that left the harbour that day, none was big enough to
stow away on. Since then, of course, nothing's gone out because of the
storm."
"Stolen boats?"
"None reported."
Bloggs shrugged.
"If there's no prospect of going out, the owners might not come to the
harbour in which case the theft of a boat might go unnoticed until the
storm ends."
One of the officers in the room said: "We missed that one, Chief."
We did," Kincaid said.
Bloggs said: "Perhaps the harbour master could look around all the
regular moorings ' "I'm with you," Kincaid said. He was already
dialling. After a moment he spoke into the phone.
"Captain Douglas? Kincaid. Aye, I know civilized people sleep at this
hour. You haven't heard the worst I want you to take a walk in the
rain. Aye, you heard me right..."
The other policemen started to laugh.
Kincaid put his hand over the mouthpiece and said: "You know what they
say about seamen's language? It's true." He spoke into the phone
again.
"Go round all the regular moorings and make a note of any vessels not
in their usual spot. Ignoring those you know to be legitimately out of
port, give me the names and addresses and phone numbers if you have
them of the owners. Aye. Aye, I know ... I'll make it a double. All
right, a bottle. And a good morning to you too, old friend." He hung
up.
Bloggs smiled.
"Salty?"
"If I did what he suggested I do with my truncheon, I'd never be able
to sit down again." Kincaid became serious.
"It'll take him about half an hour, then we'll need a couple of hours
to check all the addresses. It's worth doing, although I still think
he hitched a ride."
"So do I," Bloggs said.
The door opened, and a middle-aged man in civilian clothes walked in.
Kincaid and his officers stood up, and Bloggs followed suit.
Kincaid said: "Good morning, sir. This is Mr. Bloggs. Mr. Bloggs,
Richard Porter."
They shook hands. Porter had a red face and a carefully cultivated
moustache. He wore a double-breasted, camel-coloured overcoat. He
said: "How do you do. I'm the blighter that gave your chap pie a lift
to Aberdeen. Most embarrassing." He had no local accent.
Bloggs said: "How do you do." On first acquaintance Porter seemed to
be exactly the kind of silly ass who would give a spy a lift half
across the country. However, Bloggs knew the type: the air of
empty-headed heartiness might well mask a shrewd mind. He asked: "What
made you realize that the man you'd picked up was the ... the stiletto
murderer?"
"I heard about the abandoned Morris. I picked him up at that very
spot."
"You've seen the picture?"
"Yes. Of course, I didn't get a good look at the chap pie because it
was dark for most of the journey. But I saw enough of him, in the
light of the torch when we were under the bonnet, and afterwards when
we entered Aberdeen it was dawn by then. If I'd only seen the picture,
I'd say it could have been him. Given the spot at which I picked him
up, so near to where the Morris was found, I say it was him."
"I agree," Bloggs said. He thought for a moment, wondering what useful
information he could get out of this
man.
"How did Faber impress you?5 he asked eventually.
Porter said promptly: "He struck me as exhausted, nervous and
determined, in that order. Also, he was no Scotsman/ "How would you
describe his accent?"
"Neutral. No trace of the Hun in his voice ... except perhaps in
retrospect, and that might be my imagination. The accent minor public
school, Home Counties. Jarred with his clothes, if you know what I
mean. He was wearing overalls Another thing I didn't remark until
afterwards."
Kincaid interrupted to offer tea. Everyone accepted. The policeman
went to the door.
Bloggs had decided that Porter was less foolish than he looked.
"What did you talk about?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"But you were together for hours ' "He slept most of the way. He
mended the car it was only a disconnected lead, but I'm afraid I'm
hopeless with machines then he told me his own car had broken down in