The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown (35 page)

Bernardo and Nadya disentangled themselves and sat up on the car floor, braced between front seats and back. Hedges loomed up and were miraculously avoided. Pozharski was helplessly trying to read the map on his knees.

‘I don’t think they are on our tail,’ he said.

‘Of course they aren’t. They can’t leave until they are sure there is no corpse and no Bernardo.’

‘They’ll suspect it was the foreign correspondent of
Az Ujsag
.’

‘Yes. To-morrow. When they can’t find us in the district any longer. But you’ll be all right when we have gone, Sigi. They can’t prove a thing. You were after your story and you lost your nerve when you heard the police begin to shoot.’

‘The police are not armed in this country.’

‘Well, you’re what they call a bloody foreigner and you don’t know it. Not armed when chasing a desperate character like Bernardo? It’s incredible.’

Pozharski made him stop at the next signpost while he made some sense out of the map. He said that if they kept going they must hit Watling Street somewhere and then would have a civilised run to London produced by Romans, not Saxons driving pigs round angles.

‘Then that’s where we can expect a road block, if any. Cross it and work east as soon as we are well clear.’

The two Hungarians might be clear, but it did not seem to Bernardo that he was. There was no frontier he could safely cross, no identity he could safely take, and the rescue which Kalmody had mounted could only lead to another tactful imprisonment.

‘May I know where we are going?’ he asked.

‘Spain. Both of you.’

‘They’ll arrest me as soon as we arrive.’

‘They will not know you have arrived. I may need your knowledge of the coast, but leave the rest to me!’

‘You mean the plane?’

‘Sitting on the River Crouch, full up with oil and petrol. The pilot came over to look for a new engine. No connection with me at all.’

‘They’ll work it out eventually,’ Pozharski said.

‘So what? Let them fine me for taking off without clearance. All Europe knows I can’t be bothered with papers.’

The journey was cramped and painful but without incident. Two hours after dawn Kalmody, with something of a conjurer’s pride in his voice, told them to sit up and look out of the window. They were on rising ground above Burnham, and
there down river was the seaplane sitting on the water. He said that they would not take off till nightfall when he hoped they could get out to her unseen. All that must be arranged. As it would be unwise to leave car and passengers in the town while he talked to the pilot, he would leave them in the safest place that could be found and go back to Burnham alone.

Kalmody drove out to the marshes, twisting at random among tracks which only served isolated farms. It was a grey day without colour in grass or sedge. Beyond the sea wall the ebb tide was baring mile after mile of grey flats. Bernardo thought their exposure far from ideal after the closed country of the Midlands. The car could be seen from far off; on the other hand, so could a constable on a bicycle. A half empty, hidden creek with a hard bank above the mud offered perfect cover. There Kalmody left them with a bottle of champagne for breakfast and a stale sandwich apiece.

Nadya was silent and restless. Had memories of the bare spaces of Russia anything to do with it? Bernardo could only guess that she had not resigned herself as he had, and distrusted so sudden a leap into an uncontrollable, pointless future.

‘I am hot and uncomfortable and bruised, Mr. Pozharski, and I am going to walk to the sea.’

‘Come then!’ Pozharski invited. ‘Bernardo should stay in his accustomed ditch. But you and I? Father and daughter bird-watching on the Essex marshes? There’s no one to show curiosity unless it’s a Dutchman with a telescope.’

Rather to Bernardo’s surprise she answered his smile and seemed grateful. He lay on the edge of the bank and watched their two figures diminishing as they plodded towards the sea wall. The dull flats of the North Sea were depressing, infinitely far away from the sunlit reeds and lively frogs of the Danube marshes. He could tell from the poise of Nadya’s head and shoulders that she was talking eagerly. A gust of the easterly breeze carried the music of laughter. The last
time he had heard it was also in answer to Pozharski. One had to admit that the old scoundrel’s love of women was instantly perceived by them. Kalmody’s extreme and formal courtesy gave nothing like so much confidence.

The Count was still not back when they returned, flushed with sea wind and exercise and on the best of terms. Bernardo remarked that they should have shown more interest in birds.

‘Our Nadya was anxious about both your futures, dear boy. When Istvan is operating at speed he is not easy to understand. Naturally she wanted to know what he thought of all the Scheeper escapade.’

‘How did he come to hear of it at all?’

‘I was in Romania while you were still there, instructed by Istvan to find you at all costs. Mountains and plains, the Danube and the Dniester—all blank, absolutely blank until I returned to Bucarest and visited the Alhambra for postgraduate studies. It’s extraordinary how a little relaxation is often more productive than the stern voice of duty.’

It certainly had been. He heard of one Mitrani who had escaped from the police by, it was said, driving a
trasura
down the Boulevard Carol in the middle of the night. His housekeeper reported that the house had been burgled, an old coat, toilet articles and some laundry stolen and a cabman’s fur hat left behind. Was it possible that this Mitrani was young Brown, especially since the burglar had known where the drinks were?

‘You should never again be rude to diplomats, Bernardo. Their parties are tedious, I admit, but a marvellous source of information. I heard that Mitrani was indeed you. I heard of this adorable Nadya and Scheeper’s passport. And then Istvan—with all the suppressed energy of a lifetime’s idleness—charges into action mounted upon political influence with his squadron of letters of credit galloping behind.’

It was another half an hour before they saw the car threading the marshes. It was obvious that Kalmody was not driving
it with any kindness. He got out, followed by his pilot, and walked quickly down into the cover of the creek. He was in a rage of controlled temper, his face two shades lighter than usual.

‘I told him never to go out of reach of a telephone,’ he said.

‘Wouldn’t he look a bit conspicuous, Istvan?’

‘That has nothing to do with it. My orders should be obeyed, right or wrong.’

‘I can’t see a stake anywhere.’

‘What in God’s name do you want one for?’

‘For you to burn him at.’

The pilot, a Frenchman who spoke little English, observed the conversation with a look of stolid irony. Except on Spezia airport Bernardo had seen almost nothing of him but his back. His face suggested that he might be genial company when not submitting to the incalculable whims of his employer.

‘I repeat that six hundred and fifty miles across open sea is lunacy,
monsieur le comte
.’

‘You can make Spezia from Pasajes.’

‘Unwillingly. But in case of engine failure there are ports within easy reach.’

‘So it can be done!’

‘Not against the prevailing winds.’

‘The wind is east, my friend.’

‘It will change to-night.’

‘I pay you to take risks.’

‘On the contrary! You pay me not to take risks.’

‘It is not my safety that is at stake. It is my honour.’

‘I permit myself to doubt whether that will affect the oil gauge.’

Kalmody was all ice in his manner, all fire in the way he held himself with one hand on hip and the other gripping the edge of some imaginary and barbaric robe. The pilot remained immovable in his equal professional pride.

‘If we’re in trouble there’s bound to be one of the fishing fleets in sight at dawn,’ Bernardo said.

Kalmody jumped at this highly speculative suggestion.

‘You see? I even give you a Biscay pilot.’

‘Well, I will risk the two of you if the wind holds.’

‘Two? There are four of us! Two in the seats, two on the floor.’

‘Utterly impossible! I will not even allow you to take off.’

‘Two is enough,’ Pozharski said in English. ‘It will be a pleasure for me to look after our Nadya.’

‘But suppose she is picked up?’ Bernardo protested.

‘I will make her disappear.’

‘Where?’

‘Into a very private hospital. With all my faults, Bernardo, I am a man of taste. My duty in this world—if I have any—is to assist its creator to perfect it.’

‘It can’t be done.’

‘Then they will tell me so, David,’ Nadya said.

‘Need I remind you of delicate missions, dear boy? I have my trusted specialist. And if he does not put me on to the right surgeon instanter, he’s seen the last princess with the clap I ever send him.’

‘Bernardo, I promise you that Sigi will cherish your Nadya as if she were my own daughter,’ Kalmody declared.

Bernardo and Pozharski caught each other’s eye and looked away before a smile could break.

‘I observe, Bernardo, that being only human we trust each other for the worst possible reasons.’

‘What about the car?’ Bernardo asked.

‘We must chance that. Straight from here to Harley Street. Quarter of a mile to the Legation garage. Leave it there for a month and change the tyres in case of police curiosity.’

‘God tells me not to go, David. But I shall.’

‘And God says every bloody minute counts. Kiss him, child! And look forward to the next one!’

Old Bernardo was very reticent about that parting. He
had felt damnably ashamed of himself. Bond after bond had grown up between them since that first meeting of eyes at the Moş, but any physical bond had been, with trivial exceptions, out of the question. Until that kiss he had refused to suspect that Nadya’s own emotions might be more desperately involved; or, if he had suspected it—well, a passing girlish enthusiasm was no tragedy.

Kalmody gave the pilot his last instructions. He and his anonymous passenger did not wish to be seen and would swim or wade out to the plane after dark. He must get as close to the shore as was safe wherever the chart showed a hard and use the regular light signals as at Lake Balaton.

When Nadya and Pozharski had gone, taking the pilot with them as far as the main road, the Count and Bernardo settled down to wait out the day in their slit-trench of a creek. He was a little nervous of the great man, for they had not been alone together since the Arabian Nights entertainment. However, Kalmody’s ease of manner, presiding over the breakfast for four which he had brought back with him in the car, was perfect as ever.

‘I was so wrong about you, Bernardo,’ he said. ‘I realised your intelligence but thought it not very practical.’

‘It was not. I remember telling my story to a very kindly Jew and saying I was too innocent for the mess I was in. He told me that I would very quickly learn. I did.’

‘If only you had not run away!’

‘I am sorry about Nepamuk.’

‘Oh, no need to be! He was getting above his station in life. Of course I could not keep him on after he had been made ridiculous, but he is very well provided for.’

‘And Her Majesty?’

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, Bernardo, for it is the duty of the rest of us not to bother them. I believe I told you during your short stay in the villa that for once she had something worth stealing?’

‘So after all the fellow got away with it?’

‘Not exactly. Exchange is no robbery. A few days before my arrival at Lequeitio Her Majesty had been given a million francs in cash by a Viennese gentleman who claimed to be a loyal Hapsburg sympathiser. He was impressive, and she is easily impressed. He warned her not to change his gift immediately as questions might be asked by the French Exchange Control. She hadn’t got a safe, so she locked up the suit-case containing the francs and put it away in the downstairs office.

‘Now, when that chap whom we both thought was French had got away over the wall and you were swimming to the island I allowed myself to interrupt Her Majesty’s reading and asked her to see if anything was missing. Of course she rushed at once to her francs and found the case still full up and where it ought to be. So we thought no more of it. As I told you, I believed I had merely interrupted a burglar before he could get to work. I only realised when you turned up that the affair was likely to be far more complicated.

‘Soon after that dear Zita was inspired. She decided that what had been given by God should be returned to God, and she sent half to the Pope and half to the Little Sisters of St. Margit. She gets back a silky letter from His Holiness giving her a rather cagey blessing and his thanks for the pious thought. Same sort of thing from the Little Sisters! The letters were so alike that I could guess the Mother Superior had asked the Vatican what she should say. I assumed that His Holiness, knowing Zita’s poverty, had considered that charity ought to begin at home.

‘Meanwhile the Spaniards were very courteously occupying far too much of my time with pointed enquiries about you, Bobo and the late burglar. They would tell me nothing, so I appealed directly to King Alfonso. When he was a boy my father taught him to shoot. He said that the police had found no useful evidence except a few thousand-franc notes washed up at the foot of your cliff.’

‘Were they forged? Was that the reason why I was mixed up in the Windischgraetz case?’

‘No, they were good. I went home, suspecting you of robbery as well as murder, only to find that the Romanians were accusing me of financing international spies. The Romanians! A primitive tribe of revolting catamites who powder their faces and wear corsets!’

Bernardo refrained from comment. One could not defend Romanians to Hungarians or Hungarians to Romanians without risking an explosion. Powder, yes, because of their very blue chins. Corsets—possibly among well-covered staff officers. But catamites was a ridiculous slander upon a country where every man’s chief interest was fornication to the limit of his income.

‘Then more scandal in January! Windischgraetz and his forged francs! I saw him in gaol and told him he ought to have known his young idiots would be caught as soon as they started to distribute the forgeries. He replied indignantly that they had started in July and got away with it.