Gerald Seymour: The Contract

'I expect Mrs Ferguson didn't think we'd be so late,' George said.

Willi felt the tang of the lake water in his mouth, behind his teeth. He was very tired, his eyes hurt and his knees trembled, and a kaleidoscope of memories from far back and far away burned in his mind.

The house, close to the village of Holmbury St Mary, was set in a wooded valley west of the Surrey county town of Guildford. It was used by the Secret Intelligence Service, and not infrequently, for the reception of east bloc defectors. Eight bedrooms, two bathrooms, six acres of grounds, a gargantuan annual heating bill, a formidable schedule of roof repairs. A defector with knowledge of the internal machinery of Defence, Foreign Affairs, the Politburo or Security in Moscow might expect to spend months here hidden from the scattered community that lived beyond the high fence and the thick encircling hedgerow. The accommodation and the matters of catering and cleaning were in the hands of Mrs Ferguson, an unobtrusive housekeeper who kept a myopic, shuttered mind on the events and personalities around her.

It was a warm, close evening, unseasonably so, but Carter had worn his raincoat and a woollen scarf for a walk around (he lawn with Charles Mawby. The big man was down from London, and he'd been expected.

Inevitable that he'd come himself after the low-key material that had been sent to the capital in transcript each evening. Mawby down from Century House to play the dragon and breathe some fire into the question and answer sessions of the debrief of Willi Guttmann.

'Putting it indelicately, Henry, he knows bugger all.'

'Barely worth the airfare, Mr Mawby,' Carter said mildly. He was aware that some of those in the Service who carried his own grading felt able to address the Assistant Secretary on first name terms. Sometimes it rankled that he had never received an invitation to do so.

'If we're lucky we get one of them a year. Either damned good or bloody useless.'

'I suppose we always hope for the platinum seam, what we're digging into here is barely fool's gold.' Carter often carried in his coat pocket a dried out crust taken surreptitiously from the kitchen. He ground a piece of bread to crumbs in his pocket and threw them discreetly in the direction of a pair of chaffinches, and saw with pleasure how their greed surpassed their caution.

'I'm supposed to report to Joint Intelligence Committee in the morning.'

'You'll not have much to tell them, Mr Mawby. I suppose his Foreign Ministry material is marginally interesting.'

'It's boring, uninformed and not new.'

'We were very thorough, the fellow you sent down here and me, the fellow with armour and missiles and warheads sprouting from eyes, ears, God knows where else. Very thorough, but the boy just stone-walled us.

"My father doesn't talk about his work", that's the hub of it, and the boy's sticking to it.'

'I'm going to put the rod across his back, Henry.'

Carter sighed. It was against all the precepts of a debrief that you hurry. 'If that's what you think right, Mr Mawby.'

'The rod across his back.' The fleck of daisies in the lawn brought a tremor of irritation to Mawby's mouth. The weeds in the rose beds buckled his lips in annoyance. 'It's a damned shame they can't keep these places the way they used to be able to. When I first came here there were a couple of gardeners full time, absolute picture the place was, really rather a pleasure to be here for a few days. Bloody mess now… Get him up, Henry, get him out of his bed, and we'll have another go.'

Mawby swung on his heel, gouged a muddy smear in the wet grass, flailed the insects besieging his face, frightened the chaffinches into flight.

'I'll do that, Mr Mawby,' said Carter.

From the darkened outline of the house a light burned in a window set under the eaves. That's where the boy would be, Carter thought, probably dressed, probably gazing at the wall, probably close to tears because of failure to please and win approval. He'd be sitting there moping the time away till lie was ready for sleep. Even odds, if he could turn the clock back, he'd be heading for Geneva and then the Aeroflot to Moscow. But Willi Guttmann was wanted as a jewel for Charles Mawby and had been offered as a subject for consideration by the Joint Intelligence Committee in the morning.

'Bad luck, young Willi,' Carter said quietly to himself. ''I think you jumped the wrong way.'

The Ambassador who was the Permanent Representative of the Soviet Union at the Conference for the Committee on Disarmament sat in a comfortable chair close to the woodfire. He had not asked the KGB officer to be seated. As a career diplomat he had no love for the security man whose job entitled him to wander roughshod across the protocol and rank of the delegation.

'I cannot see any mystery in this matter,' the Ambassador said.

'I have not spoken of mystery,' Valeri Sharygin said. 'I have said only that it was extraordinary for Guttmann to go to the lake on such a night, in such weather. For an experienced sailor it was peculiar behaviour.'

'Perhaps he had been working hard, was taking what opportunity was presented to him.'

'His job was the least demanding of any here. You know the position of his father?'

'I have read Guttmann's file. I don't remember anything exceptional.'

'In the area of military technology, research and development, his father is a man of considerable stature, an Honoured Scientist of our country although of German origin.'

'Where are you taking me?'

'I don't know, Comrade Ambassador, but by now there should have been a body. In two days I have to return to Moscow… I will be asked many questions…'

'Are you saying that the boy wasn't drowned?'

'Perhaps there was an accident. Perhaps the boy took his own life for reasons that we do not know. Perhaps we have been deceived.'

'The suspicion you can manufacture is a credit to you.'

'Thank you, Comrade Ambassador. I apologise for having disturbed you.'

Valeri Sharygin returned to his bedroom in the newly built annexe across the compound from the main building of the Residence. Beside his bed was the locked suitcase containing the wordly possessions of Willi Guttmann.

George had come for him. Willi had been sitting on his bed, shoes and socks off, shirt unbuttoned to the waist. No knock at the door, just the flooding impact of the frame of the minder in the doorway, and the summons for him to make himself decent again because he was wanted below. They had never called for him in the evening before. Always a morning session and another after lunch, and then supper with George watching over him and then his bedroom. George was perpetually with him in the house. When they walked in the corridors George was there.

When he went to the lavatory George seemed to stop reluctantly at the door and when the business was finished and the bolt withdrawn he would be waiting. George was the one who brought him a mug of tea in the morning, and took him to his room in the evening and wished him good night and asked him whether he had everything, when he had nothing. George with his jacket buttoned and whose left breast pocket was bulged and distorted. He was a captive, and his freedom to be with Lizzie must be bartered. He knew that the currency he offered was stale and not valued.

George ushered the boy into the ground floor room that was bare of ornaments and pictures and comfort. Thin hair- cord carpet. Thin cotton curtains. One wooden table and half a dozen upright wooden chairs.

Carter was sitting at the table, hands clasped, face impassive not meeting his eyes. There was another man there, shorter, younger in his shirt sleeves and with his tie loosened. Instantly menacing, wide and aggressive eyes.