The Longest Pleasure (31 page)

He closed the door, sat in the armchair, took off his cap and ran his fingers into the thinning red-grey hair. 'Galitsin seems to have been homing on his girl friend, yesterday. He took a taxi from the station to Park Lane, got out by the Dorchester, walked
along a bit and turned down Cur
zon Street. And disappeared. But Irena Szen had her shack down one of those cute little alleys behind Shepherd's Market. Virtually opposite M.I
.5.
Isn't that a joke?'

'But if you know where he went . . .' Nancy's face fell. 'He didn't stay, eh ? But she'll know where he is.'

'I believe she might. But she isn't there herself. The flat is locked up tight. The neighbours, up and down, don't know a thing, or they aren't saying. Renee Smith was there yesterday morning, and that's all they'll say.'

'Who's Renee Smith?'

"You need your sleep, darling. Irena Szen. Well, she would change her name, wouldn't she? The first names gell, and Smith is just unimaginative enough to be chosen by that particular female. She's a tart, you know. As a matter of fact, the whole house is what used to be known as a house of ill-repute. A very dignified house of ill-repute, charging ten or fifteen guineas an hour, but a brothel none the less.'

Nancy stood in the centre of the room, legs spread wide, glass held in both hands against her breast. 'The landlord! In those kinds of houses the landlord always knows about his tenants. He has to.'

'Only in movies, darling. This house is owned by someone called Jonathan Hamble. He's a big man in the city, director of several companies, and what have you, but he also owns quite a lot of property, including a small mansion out at Maidenhead, where he lives.'

'Then get on to him.'

'Believe it or not, we've done that. Got him out of bed, and I can tell you he wasn't too terribly pleased. And it appears he knows nothing about his various properties at all. He says they're his wife's hobby, and she, unfortunately, has gone out of town for the weekend with friends, and didn't leave a forwarding address. It's
that
kind of a marriage, you know. She's a lot younger than he is. Sort of arrangement we'd probably have if you'd married me.'

'Sounds entrancing. So we're stuck.'

'Until Christine Hamble gets back, at least. But even then I don't think there'll be much profit in it. I very much doubt if she knows her tenants are ninety per cent prostitutes. Certainly she won't know anything about their personal habits, about where Irena Szen and Galitsin might up and off to.'

'Um. Another?'

'I'd rather try a cup of coffee.'

Nancy Connaught filled the percolator, brooded at the stove, refilled her own glass. 'So you really think he's gone off with her?'

'The pattern of behaviour fits. You know, defector who's blotted his copy-book as regards the British police, who has but one friend in the country...'

‘D
on't rub it in.' Nancy dusted a cup, poured.

‘
You may as well face it, darling. This Hungarian bit is his true love.'

Nancy sat on the floor, knees up, cup held between her hands.
‘I
never denied that. Alan! What will happen to him? If you catch him?'

'Weren't you going to pour me one, too?'

'Eh? Oh, sorry. I'm dreamy, I guess.' She got up, filled another cup.

'Of course we'll catch him. People like Galitsin always get caught. You know, some people always win, and others always lose. I think Alexander Petrovich falls into the second category. Well, then, I'm afraid he's for the high jump. You know, as a straightforward defector who had nothing to offer us and might cause the Russians a great deal of embarrassment, we weren't too terribly keen on him. I pushed the possibility of his being an agent of some sort, and that got the F.O. boys interested, so they agreed to go along with me. Or, rather, with you. But now that he's on an assault and battery and larceny charge anything he has to offer will have to be pretty big to save a deportation order.'

'And if he did defect his late pals will crucify him.'

'I'm afraid that's extremely likely.' Alan Shirley _ put down his coffee cup, sat beside her on the floor. 'I wish I could understand why you care quite so much. You of all people. Because, you can t
ake it from me, Alexander Galit
sin has some pretty murky episodes in his past He has to. He took part in the first sack of Budapest, and that was one of the murkiest episodes of the last war. I -know. I saw some of it And he's been a soldier ever since. A Russian soldier. They're a pretty tough lot So he sexed you up. That's fair enough, but you were shacked up with him for over a week You've had your fun. Now he's in trouble, and anyone who tries to help him is just going to get himself, or herself, more and more involved. Especially foreigners. Because your great-great-grandfather came from Liverpool doesn't make you British, you know, Nan. You're here on a work permit, and if the powers that be get fed up with you you'll fin
d yourself on a plane back to th
e States. My advice to you would be to forget the whole episode while the going is good. I'll take whatever's coming. After all, I got you mixed up with that moujik in the first place.'

Nancy Connaught lay down, her hands beneath her head, gazed at the ceiling. 'I would
n't expect you to understand, Al,
Maybe I don't quite understand myself. Maybe it was something to do with me always having been a loner, caring only about myself, about having fun my way, about going wherever I chose, whenever I chose. About sleeping where and when I chose, and with whom I chose. I could do all of those things, so long as I was responsible only to myself. And then Alex happened along, and, I don't know, I wanted to change. Maybe that was my latent mother instinct. Anyway, I wanted to help him, to start with, and then I wanted to love him, and then I
did
love him. But most important of all I wanted to accept responsibility for him. And that meant I wanted him to trust me. Maybe you don't see what a big step that was for me. Hell, it was like the time I handed over my virginity. I can't even remember the guy's name, but I do remember I wept about it for days afterwards. The thing was, here was something tangible. I wanted Alex to trust me, and he
did
trust me. I know he did. And I let him down.'

‘
You didn't write that newspaper article.'

'He doesn't know that. Anyway, that article isn't relevant. Not really, you know. I told him I was going to write one, sooner or lat
er, and he didn't object. I let
him down by going off and leaving him on his own. There was the old Nancy again. I got restless. I wanted to get out and be doing something. Oh, the something was for him, but the important thing to me was that I'd be the one doing it. I could see that he was still pretty tense, pretty mixed up, pretty unsure whether he had done the right thing, but I said to myself, Oh, what the hell, he'll be all right. It'll do him good to be on his own for a couple of days, to think about things, get himself straight about what he's going to do next. I thought that because it suited me to think that, not because I really believed it. See what I'm driving at? I was being a loner again. Selfish, if you like. Because he wasn't all right. He should never have been left on his own, not for five minutes. Whatever the risk in bringing him up to London, it was less of a risk than leaving him on his own down in Dorset. I knew all of that. And I still left.'

Alan Shirley got up, placed both coffee cups on the table.
‘I
think you want to go to bed and have a good sleep, sweetheart. Take a pill.' He went to the door, paused there. 'I didn't take all that much to Alex Galitsin when I met him twelve years ago. Since he's come back into my life I've developed a positive dislike for the fellow. But right now I could shake him by the hand. And if I can help him I will.'

Nancy Connaught raised her head Tor Pete's sake. Why?'

Shirley opened the door. 'For making you into a human being, sweetheart. Even if he didn't intend to.'

III

Legs clad in trousers. No, not trousers. Jeans, and they were female legs. He knew that instinctively, even before he saw above them a pair of wide female thighs, and then a female torso, bending, bigger because of the heavy sweater, but still big. There was a round face, with full cheeks, and a pointed chin. There was a wide mouth, a small nose, and huge dark eyes. The hair was jet, and straight and fine; it fell like lace on either side of the heart-shaped face.

'It's a man,' said the wide mouth. 'He's naked. And all covered with blood.'

'Shut the door,' said another female voice. 'It's freezing in here.'

The fingers were slender. They trembled as they came towards him. 'I'm not kidding, Jan. Help me. Up you get, Jerry.'

Now there were other faces, one long and thin, the mouth a small slit between pointed nose and jutting chin, the eyes petulant, the whole surrounded by a wild curly brown mane, suggesting that Janet would look like a horse as she grew older; the other face was brown and serious, the forehead drawn in a tight frown.

'For crying out loud,' said the Negro, the words rolling off his tongue. 'You weren't kidding, at that'

The long fingers stroked Galitsin's cheek, touched the mangled mess which had once been lips. 'He's badly hurt Help me get him inside.'

'He needs a doctor,' said the girl called Janet But the hands were reaching down to him, grasping his arms and legs. Galitsin moaned.

'He needs heat more than anything, Wendy,' Jerry said. 'He must be just about froze solid.'

‘
Be careful,' Wendy replied. 'If he's this knocked about outside, think what he must be like inside.'

Galitsin felt himself lifted from the ground, carried into a gloom so intense it was almost dark. But the door was shut behind him, and immediately the temperature rose, just a little. He was back in a human lair. Strange how he felt at home, with the close smell of intimate humanity. He blinked his eyes, half shut by the swelling of his cheeks, saw a large empty space, a few kitbags and sleeping bags on the floor, various articl
es of underclothing, men's and
women's.

‘I
think he's dying,' Janet said. 'I think the best thing we can do is dump him in the wood and pretend we never saw him. We don't want any trouble with the police.'

'He's not going to die,' Wendy said.

Then he's sure as hell going to get pneumonia,' Jerry pointed out. 'Man, he's blue. How do you figure on coping with a hospital case, Wendy?'

'He's not going to die,' Wendy insisted. 'And he's not going to get pneumonia. Not if we can get him warm in a hurry. Put him in my sleeping bag. It's still warm in there.'

'Not warm enough,' Jerry objected. 'And he's going to make a terrible mess.'

'And what Bill is going to say ...' Janet began.

'I know, we should dump him back in the snow,' Wendy snapped. 'Come on, Jerry. Easy now.'

The sleeping bag was opened, Galitsin's legs were inserted. His body moved downwards, encountered warmth welling out of darkness. He gazed at legs, suddenly bare. Sturdy legs, well covered with flesh, ending in tightly stretched blue nylon.

'What're you doing?' Janet demanded.

'I'm going to warm him up.' The pantees settled on the floor. That's how the Germans did it in the war. I read about it.' Wendy slid into the bag, sat there while she took off her sweater. Galitsin held his breath. Her touch was sheer agony. But she was so warm. So warm she hurt him. Her toes scraped down his legs, her crotch fitted over his like a fur cap, her breasts dissipated across his chest. She held hi
m close, her hair cl
ouding over his face; he began to shudder, uncontrollably.

'How you can
do
it?' Janet stood above them; incongruously, in such derelict surroundings, her jeans ended in furry pink slippers. 'He's filthy, and all covered in blood. Think where he must have been.'

'He could have V.D.,' Jerry said.

'And he's not British,' Janet said. *You can see he's a foreigner.'

'Wendy likes foreigners,' Jerry said. That's why she likes me.'

The warmth spread through Galitsin's body, increasing the pain. His face was pressed into a shoulder, and he could smell a trace of perfume, mixed with body odour, fresh sweat and stale sweat. Wendy had not had a bath for over a week, he thought. Her body moved against his. 'He's warming up,' she said, from the top of his head.

'He should, you're that hot,' Jerry said.

'Oh, can it. Light the fire.'

‘
No fire until Bill gets back,' Janet said.

‘
Light it!' Wendy's fingers pressed into Galitsin's back. 'Heat up what's left of that beer. He's got to warm up inside. And we'll need hot water to wash these bruises.'