The Longest Pleasure (30 page)

'Galitsin? A Russian moujik? He will find shelter, dear one. Oh, yes. He will stumble into
a
house and tell them how he was set upon and beaten up by
a
fascist organisation. An organisation he cannot name, cannot establish to exist. Oh, yes, that is very good. For isn't that just what a Russian would say if he had been set upon by a group of ordinary, hard-working, decent, red-hating Britishers?'

Barnes smiled, stooped over Galitsin, produced a pocket knife. With his blade he
cut the clothes away from Galit
sin's arms and legs and body, slitting the cloth with expert efficiency, never touching the flesh beneath. Kirsten Moeller helped him, stooping beside Galitsin to take off his shoes, drag away the socks. She remained stooping when Barnes had finished, hovering above his groin, while he gazed into her face, the face not of a woman but of a tormented child. It occurred to him that possibly Kirsten Moeller's trouble was that she had never grown up, had stopped growing during the war, perhaps on that day in Pest when Maljutin had crouched over
her.

'Don't hurt him,' Irena gasped. 'Not there, Kirstie. Please.'

Kirsten Moeller laughed, and stepped on Galitsin. He screamed, all the pain he had previously endured suddenly meaningless. His legs came up, and when the sharp heels moved he rolled on his face.

'Oh, yes, Alexander Petrovich,' Kirsten Moeller whispered.
‘I
am glad you are going to live, after all. I am glad you are going to go on remembering me. But remember, too, the next time, I am going to have you killed. I am going to have you executed, for all of your crimes, for your war crimes, Alexander Galitsin, for having been a conquering soldier, and for being
a
communist, and most of all for being
a
Russian.'

'And for being my lover,' Irena Szen muttered.

Kirsten Moeller nodded. 'Oh, yes,' she agreed. 'That
as
well, dear one. That as well.'

She snapped her fingers, and Galitsin realised that Barnes had moved, to stand behind him. He tried to turn his head, and the hovering darkness descended.

II

And then there was pain. There did not seem any portion of his body which did not hurt. His head banged, the roof of his brain seemed dislodged, every tooth had come loose and rattled. Whenever he tried to move his tongue he tasted blood; if he was not careful, and forgot to keep swallowing, it filled his mouth and tried to choke him.

His back ached where Barnes had kicked him, swelling masses of pain, which he did not doubt were enormous discoloured blotches on his pale skin. His belly hurt, stabbing pains running down through his groin to meet the throb of his genitals. These were swollen so large each testicle felt like a separate ball rattling between his thighs. No doubt there were other aches, other pains. But these were the main sources of misery, and they were increased with every jolt of the van.

His eyes hurt when he opened them, although the interior of the van was dark. But there were lights outside, rushing past the windows, and he could see that he was not alone. There was a pair of highly polished shoes only inches from his head, and above that a pair of carefully creased trousers. He recognised the trousers as. belonging to the man Charlie. Which would mean that it was the chauffeur, Barnes, who was driving. But at least Kirsten Moeller was no longer present.

He wondered if he was afraid of Kirsten Moeller. Remarkably, he did not think so. Even more remarkably, he was not sure that he hated her. He did not even hate Barnes. Barnes was nothing more than her creature. As for Kirsten herself, whatever she had become, he could only think of her lying on the floor with Kulomsin working up and down on her belly, and then of Maljutin, with such deliberateness, smashing that beautiful face into a blood-mask.

No, he thought, if he hated anyone, he hated Tigran Dus. It occurred to him, as he lay on the floor of the van and rolled back and forth, each movement an increasing agony, that he had always hated Tigran Dus, that his hatred of Dus had even been responsible for his rape of Irena, might well have contributed to what had happened to Kirsten, which had been the start of everything that had happened since. Because his hatred had begun on the day that Dus had given him back his life. It had found its source in the knowledge, even then,, that men like Tigran, Dus did not regard their fellows as human beings, to be considered, perhaps disliked, perhaps liked, perhaps even loved, perhaps hated, but rather as objects, tools which could be used as the occasion arose. And Dus had decided that Alexander Galitsin might prove to be a useful tool, one day, and so he had greas
ed him as he might grease a pan
of pliers or a screwdriver, and set him aside until he was ready.

In which case, Tigran Dus had made a mistake. Alexander Galitsin had not been made of the expected steel, but rather of a soft alloy, which might not break, but which was only too willing and able to bend. As an agent for the Fourth Bureau, Alexander Galitsin had been a disaster.

But the disaster had involved Helena. And the pain swelled out of his belly, so much so that he retched, and the shoes beside his head moved, which was the very last thing he wanted.

'Hey,' Charlie said. 'Ivan's awake.'

'Won't be long now,' Barnes said from the front seat 'If he so much as squeaks, clock him one.'

‘
You heard the man,' Charlie said. 'Hey, Ivan.' The pointed shoe nudged Galitsin in the chest, and Galitsin moaned. But movement away from the foot was impossible; his hands were still bound behind his back. His hands, in fact, were the only part o
f his body not actively aching.
Their turn would come later. Perhaps.

The van slowed, and then stopped, although the engine continued to hum. The front door slammed, and he listened to booted feet on the road. The back door of the van opened, and admitted a blast of icy air. Only then did Galitsin realise that he was still naked.

This is as good a spot as any.' Barnes grasped his ankles. Charlie held his shoulders, and his backside struck the tar. The jolt sent his spine stabbing into his brain, seemed to launch his already jellied kidneys on a new journey around his stomach. He lay on his side and vomited. Barnes knelt beside him, a penknife in his hand, cut the cord holding his wrists.

'You're not going to lea
ve him here?' Charlie asked. 'A
car might come along.'

That's right. We don't want him found
too
soon.' Barnes jerked his head, and Charlie grasped Galitsin in the armpits, dragging him to his feet at the edge of the road. Barnes smiled. 'Good luck to you, Ivan,' he said, and swung his right arm. The fist struck Galitsin on the point of the jaw, and with perfect timing Charlie released him and stepped aside. There seemed nothing beyond the road, for a long moment, then bushes were tearing at Galitsin's arms and legs, and when he tried to throw his hands behind himself to bre
ak his fall it was too late. He
crashed through the branches, struck the earth with a thud which knocked the remaining breath from his body. He watched the night sky revolving above him, while his lungs reached painfully for air, and a million miles away a car engine growled as it drove away.

But it had gone. Charlie and Barnes and Kirsten Moeller had departed from his life. And Irena Szen? He did not wish to think about Irena Szen, right at this moment. He did not know if he would ever wish to think about her again. He wanted only to go to sleep. In Russia, in January, if you went to sleep in the open, naked, you never awoke. This was the end he sought. To sleep, to rest, to feel the cold eating into his bones, taking away the pain, muscle by muscle. But he couldn't do it here. He was beside a road, separated from the world by a single screen of bushes, and even as he gazed upwards lights swept by, to or from London, and he realised that the sky above him was not so very dark, although he could see no stars. It was close to dawn, and in January that must mean it was perhaps seven in the morning. A time people went to work, milkmen and postmen and newspaper roundsmen. A busy time.

He rolled on his stomach, then rose to his knees, a long and painful business. He squatted, shivering, peering at the trees in front of him. Trees promised privacy, a place to sleep. A place to die. He crawled, through wet grass which reached up to stroke and tickle his bruises. He crawled, it seemed for an hour but was only a few minutes, reached the trees, and held on to a trunk to drag himself to his feet. He looked over his shoulder, saw two more cars and a lorry rush by. But there were no houses, no twinkling street lamps. Nothing but cars. So this was a main road, and some distance from the nearest town. He could see the ou
tline of the cars in the early
light.

He stumbled into the trees, kicking branches, feeling thorns tearing at his flesh. A few more pains. The fresh ones were almost welcome, indications that he was still capable of feeling, despite the cold, which was the most agonising pain of all. And now that the tree screen had closed about him, and he had attained the desired privacy, he could no longer bring himself to his knees and then to his face, lie still and suffer, for only a few minutes, before the drowsiness which was hammering at his consciousness claimed him. He could only keep on stumbling, onwards and onwards. But this was better. He would, eventually, fall asleep while still moving, would never know the exact moment when Alexander Galitsin ceased to be a human being.

There were no more trees. It had not, after all, been a forest, but only a copse, disguising the ugly scar of the main road pounding its way through this pleasant countryside. He stood on the lip of a shallow valley, on which great patches of not quite melted snow lay like sheets of water. At the bottom of the valley there waited a vast area of what had once been concrete, but now protruded through the snow as decrepit patches of disconnected stone, amidst which stunted grass poked. On the near side of the runways was a collection of buildings, mostly prefabricated huts, but one made of concrete, with the remains of a control tower rising beside it, its h
uge glassless windows glaring sightl
essly over the scene of its past glories.

Galitsin left the trees and ran down the slope, thrust his feet into a hole and fell, rolled some distance, regained his knees, and then his feet once more, limping now, staggering down the hillside, reaching for the promise of the warmth, or at least a lessening of the cold. His breath came in huge pants, hung in front of his face, surrounded his head with a mist cloud. The buildings danced, sometimes rising into the air above his head, sometimes disappearing from view into the earth. The roug
h ground came to an end, and he
was on the pitted concrete of the first taxiway, colder now than the air, more painful to his feet. He was exhausted, and, far from dwindling, the agony had increased. But living had now once again become more important than dying. He staggered up to the terminal building, to realise at a glance that there was no shelter to be had here, for the roof had fallen in, and the tower was nothing more than a shell. But the door of the first hut was closed, and here there was a roof. Galitsin reached for the door, clawing the air, missed, and fell to his hands and knees. He crawled closer, stroked the door, found to his horror that it was locked. But it couldn't be locked. Not a derelict building on a deserted airfield. He twisted the handle, wept in despair, pounded the wood, and felt it move. Galitsin dragged himself forward, watched the door fade away before him, and gazed at a pair of legs.

Nancy Connaught banged the door of her flat behind her, threw herself across the bed, pulled the pillow from the top of the bed across her head. In the darkness she could give way to the despair which had been lapping at her nerves for twenty-four hours. It was compounded of exhaustion, of cold, of sheer frustration, but it was there, nevertheless, near enough to the surface to bring tears from her eyes, and she had not wept for a very long time.

She sat up, wiped her glasses. There was no point in giving up, yet. Surely. But really there was a great deal of point. Galitsin had cracked, right in two. And in a civilised world there was no room for people who cracked. Oh, no doubt everyone was going to be very sympathetic, very helpful. But laws were there to be enforced, and obeyed. And Galitsin, whatever his problems, however great his fears, had broken the law. How to say that he did not understand? That understanding some things was not possible to a man like Galitsin?

She felt her way across the blurred room, located the sideboard, poured herself a glass of neat bourbon, sipped, sat down on the bed, shoulders hunched. Bourbon for breakfast, bourbon for dinner. A well-balanced diet. One she really needed.

Feet on the stairs. Heavy feet. Feet she recognised. She ran across the room, pulled the door open. Alan Shirley wore a tweed coat and a flat cap, looked like a country squire. Except that he had not shaved, and the fatigue lines were etched in his face. 'There's an interesting smell.' He kissed her on the nose. 'I'll have one too.'

'You'll drink bourbon? You've had a long night' She poured. 'Well?'