George Bartram - Under the Freeze

“Yes.”

Repin sipped the tea. “Has not been easy, however. Repin is not used to being renegade. Yes, renegades — is what we are now.” His thought had kept pace with Tarp’s. “A place like this — is our home, eh? Our China. Is for you and me like rendezvous on moon.” The angry calm came down over his face again. “Repin did not think this Maxudov would try to kill him. Repin did not think he would kill Svetlana Mikhailovna. Such legs! Even, forgive me, for a woman of her age — forty — a body of great character. And dead now. Is very clumsy kind of assassination, this. Like murder of my man at Havana, yes? Is not mokrie dela either one, not like Department Five. Is clumsy, desperate. Is…” He searched for the word. “ Wasteful . You know how I know is bad work? When I see the little KGB fellow leave the aircraft, then I begin to know. Why? Because, if Repin decides to send flunky with aircraft to be blown up, he does not tell flunky about it — flunky gets blown up, too. This is because Maxudov has not enough people. No organization. No bureaucracy, eh? Must make do with few people.” He looked away from Tarp, his face grim. “Still, is very, very bad, this. Is very deep business.”

“Is there anybody you can call on for help?”

“Nobody I trust.” He laughed. “Except you!”

Tarp did not laugh. “‘When the hunter comes, the tiger runs with the deer.’ Where are you staying?”

“Last night, Hyde Park. A little cold, but not bad.”

The noodles came, clean and shiny on thick white plates, with chunks of browned onion and garlic and pungent fish lying among them like flowers. Fragrant steam filled the space between them. Repin bent his face into the steam and inhaled luxuriously. He was very hungry, Tarp saw.

“Shall we give it up?” Tarp said.

“No.”

“The British aren’t going to help me. We’re very isolated.”

“No.”

“You were going to be my contact in Russia; now you can’t even get back there yourself. The top echelon is supposed to have guaranteed your safety; they couldn’t even keep you safe on an Aeroflot flight. If you stay outside the Soviet Union, you’re neutralized; if you go back…”

“What do you suggest?” Repin said through a mouthful of noodles.

“I have no suggestions. You know that you could go over to the West. You have money here, I’m sure. Files. Johnnie Carrington would be delighted to protect you, I’m sure.”

Repin chewed. His eyes, hooded now, seemed fixed on Tarp’s nose. Repin swallowed, drank tea, never looked away. “I am Soviet citizen. Bad or good, I am Soviet citizen. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“You read Pasternak?”

“Yes.”

“Do not ask me again if I defect. Nor do I give up this Maxudov thing. Especially after this madness with the aircraft.” He laid his left forearm on the table so that it enclosed the plate of noodles and bent over it, shoveling food in again. After he had swallowed again he said, “I have message from your woman. From Mimosa.”

“Yes?”

“She is sending a messenger to the place you told her. Noon each day.”

Tarp frowned. He had given her the address of a place called Ivan’s in Paris. “Was that the whole message?”

“Yes. No sweet nothings, I am afraid.”

“How was she?”

“Much too good. Too cheerful. She is new at all this, I think. Plus also, she thinks she is ‘in love.’ Ha-ha. When you meet messenger, you carry a Havana newspaper; the messenger carries a rose. Sweet, yes?”

“A rose?”

“A rose. Yes. Is infantile.”

Tarp thought about that. “It’s all infantile,” he said vaguely. He watched Repin eat. “You need a place to stay.”

Repin shrugged. “Another night in the park is possible.” He smiled sarcastically. “I have your gun for protection.”

“My gun!”

“Yes. I bring it from Havana.”

“I really wouldn’t like it if you shot somebody in London with my gun.”

“Well, if the choice is shooting somebody with your gun and shooting somebody with no gun at all, and I need to shoot somebody, I think your gun will be my choice.”

“I’ll find you a place to stay. What sort of passport have you got?”

“Belgian. Is very good passport. Very expensive.”

“I’ll call somebody.”

“Who is somebody?”

“One of those people who are useful for money. You know those people, right?”

“Very useful people.” Repin’s plate was empty and his eyes strayed to Tarp’s plate. Tarp pushed it across and Repin began to eat. “I’ll be back,” Tarp said. He moved toward a telephone on the wall, and on the way he stopped the waiter and ordered sniffed dumplings for Repin. He dialed a number in the East End and waited while it rang and rang. When at last the telephone was answered he heard a pounding din and loud voices, and then somebody shouted, “Other Cheek, hello!”

“Jenny Barnwell!”

“Can’t hear you, it’s a madhouse here.”

“ Jenny Barnwell !”

“Not here.”

“Of course he is.”

“Not here.”

“It’s a hundred pounds for him and ten for you.”

The racket at the other end seemed to increase, underscored by the hard pounding of a rock band’s bass. The voice he had been talking to seemed to have gone away. As suddenly, it was back. “Gimme a number,” it said. Tarp read him the telephone number from the wall telephone. “Five minutes,” the voice said and hung up.

Tarp waited by the telephone. He watched Repin welcome the arrival of the dumplings and begin on them. He cleared a quarter-sized place on the window of steam and looked out, checking for Carrington’s — or anybody else’s — tracker. When the telephone rang, he picked it up on the first jangle.

“Well?”

“This is Jenny, who’s this?”

“Jenny, it’s the Chinaman.”

“Oh, Christ, I should have known.” Jenny was male and well past thirty and even when he was happy he sounded dyspeptic. “I was led on with talk of a hundred pounds.” Behind him the Other Cheek’s music pounded unmercifully.

“The hundred pounds is real, Jenny.”

“For what?” Barnwell said suspiciously.

“I’ve got a friend needs a bed.”

“What is he, an ax murderer? I know your friends.”

“He’s a man with a hundred pounds a night.”

“In advance?”

“In advance. But he’s got to be secure, Jenny. You know what would happen if he wasn’t.”

“Christ, yes, I know you. What is he, a Chink?”

“Belgian.”

“Oh, come on ! Belgian, my ass! Well, all right. When?”

“Now.”

“Now? Christ, I was just meeting somebody nice!”

“Meet me.”

“Oh, Christ, just when I was settling in.” His voice had an adolescent tone of abused righteousness. “Where?”

“Have you got wheels?”

“A borrowed cycle is it.”

“Camberwell New Road in half an hour. Pick a place.”

“Oh, all right. Christ, I hate you. All right, there’s a BP petrol stand halfway along; go another street and you’ll see a lighted sign on the left. It says ‘Rose.’ That’s all, just Rose. I’ll be there. It’s dark and nothing ever going down.”

“Half an hour.”

“All right, all right!”

When Tarp got back to the table, Repin was sitting with his hands hanging down beside him, smiling contentedly at nothing. He belched discreetly and said, “My first food in thirty-six hours.”

“I’ve got a place for you. A hundred pounds a night.”

“Where is this, please, Buckingham Palace?”

“With an acquaintance.”

“He is what, financier?”

“Actually he’s a leather queen, but he’s safer than the Bank of England. Come on.”