Jack Higgins - A Darker Place

“Well, you won’t.” Hitesh said to Katya, “Find me a big bath towel to cover the table with, some hand towels. I note that the central heating is on, so that means plenty of hot water is available. When you go for those, bring pajamas and a robe and I’ll get him out of his filthy overalls.”

TH E WOUND PACK had everything, including morphine ampules, and he snapped the glass tip off one and jabbed it in. “Is that all right?”

“Sure, it’s kicking in.”

“You know what a cicatrix is?”

“Of course-a scar.”

“From an old wound. You have several.” Hitesh smiled. “Whatever else you are, you are an interesting man, Henri Duval. Anyway, the kit supplies needles and thread and surgical-tape butterflies. I shall try four spaced stitches and fill them in with the butterflies.”

“Then do it.” Kurbsky turned to Katya, who had been listening without a word. “I think another large vodka is definitely indicated here.” She gave it to him, and he tossed it down. “Okay, let’s get on with it.”

NOT MUCH MORE than half an hour later, Hitesh finished his careful and neat bandaging, tightly held together with surgical tape.

“I would suggest a sleeping pill, which I shall give you, and a good night’s sleep,” he said.

Katya had left them to go and speak to Svetlana, and she now returned. “She is quite concerned. Would you care to eat something with us?” she asked.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take the advice of my excellent doctor and go to bed.”

“I think you’re wise,” Hitesh said. “Here’s your sleeping pill, swallow it now. I’ll also leave you some pills, strong painkillers that will help you for the next three or four days. Just read the instructions. I’ll leave you to it.”

“You’re a star, Hitesh.” Katya kissed him.

He walked to the door, opened it, and smiled. “Of course, I haven’t been here. No one saw me, right? But I’ll check on him tomorrow.”

“He’s a lovely young man,” she said.

“I’m indebted to him.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “And you.” He kissed her gently on the mouth. “I am a great worry to you, I know this, and I’m sorry it has to be this way. However, I’m going to bed and to hell with everything for a while.”

She waited for him to climb the stairs safely and called, “Night bless, Alex.”

But he was already gone, the only sound his bedroom door closing softly, so she was not aware of him going to his bathroom and spitting out the sleeping pill.

She went across to the conservatory and joined Svetlana. “He’s gone to bed, Hitesh gave him something to make him sleep.” She handed Svetlana a vodka and joined her.

“You’re still worried about him?”

“He lied to me about having been at the safe house. I’m sure he’s not telling the truth about how he came to be cut with a knife.”

“Then do as I say. Go and see Roper and tell him you’re worried.”

“You know, I think I will.”

“Only send for a cab. You’ve been drinking.”

“Yes, you’re right, of course.”

She phoned for a cab, got her coat on, and called Roper, getting him at once. “Hello,” he said. “Did our wandering boy turn up?”

“I’d like to see you.”

“What now?”

“Don’t say no, Roper. I need to talk. I’m worried about him.”

“Why is that?”

“Because when he got back tonight and I asked where he’d been, he told me the safe house. And he had a knife wound in his arm.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I sent for a cab. I think it’s here now.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

She looked in on Svetlana. “My cab’s here.”

“Take your time. I’ll wait up for you.”

THE CAB DROPPED her at Holland Park twenty minutes later, the Judas gate admitted her, and Doyle met her at the entrance. “Nobody else here but me and the Major, miss. How about a cup of tea? It might persuade him to have one.”

“That would be nice, Sergeant.”

She went and kissed Roper on the forehead and said, “Good of you to see me so late.”

“We never close. How’s Kurbsky?”

“I worry about him-too much, I think.”

“No, that’s me.”

“Why would you?”

He almost came straight out with it. His discoveries about Tania Kurbsky had preyed on his mind and would not go away. Was there any point in revealing this most painful of truths to Kurbsky after so many years? But that would mean keeping the facts to himself, and in a way, that was a burden and not to be shared with anyone.

Doyle brought the tea in, a mug each. “Military style, miss.” He withdrew.

“Tell me,” Roper said.

“I think I’ve rather fallen for him, silly me. I mean, I’m hardly into the first bloom of youth.”

“A woman to die for, most men would think.”

“Anyway, because I think of him slightly like that, I feel I’ve an instinct about him, and it tells me things are not right. Something’s going on in that head, and Svetlana agrees. He lies to me about where he’s been, and when I know he’s lied, that makes me doubt everything.”

“You said he lied to you this evening?”

“He’d been out for some hours, drove away in the old Ford van wearing navy blue overalls and a tweed cap. When he got back, I asked him where he’d been and he said the safe house, which I knew wasn’t true. And-he’d been stabbed. I found him in the kitchen above the garage trying to treat himself.”

Roper was suddenly very serious. “Go on,” he said.

“YOUNG PATEL is obviously a man of parts,” he said when she was finished.

“Yes, a good chap.”

Roper said, “Katya, we’re sitting here with the midnight hour approaching, the shank of the night when all things seem possible and only because they look highly improbable, and I’m going to take a chance on you. By chance, I found out something totally devastating about Alexander Kurbsky today. It’s these damn computers, you see, and I have a gift for them, and if you have that, there are no secrets left in this life.”

“And how does this refer to Alex?”

So he told her about Tania and what he had discovered.

“A TERRIBLE BUSINESS,” she said when he was finished. “And to learn all that would truly open old wounds for him.”

“I saw it as a burden the moment I discovered the details. Now I’ve shared that burden with you, and without your permission.”

“You needn’t worry,” she told him. “It’s the knowing what to do about it that’s the problem. Whether to tell him or not-but is that so important?” She suddenly shivered. “I don’t like us having to discuss him like this. Will you tell anyone else?”

“Ferguson?” He shrugged. “I haven’t mentioned the matter to him, you’re the only one, but something else has come up which he does know about.”

“And does it concern Alex?”

“It concerns a friend of ours, an American called Blake Johnson.” He reached for the whiskey bottle and poured. “Listen and learn. You might find it interesting.”

IT TOOK SOME time, for she needed to have the whole background of past events laid out for her, and of a number of individuals on both sides of the coin. When he was finished, she sat there considering what he had told her.

“So Blake Johnson has been targeted twice in plots devised by this Colonel Boris Luzhkov. The first time he was saved by Sean Dillon and Billy Salter.”

“That’s right, a couple of years ago.”

“And this time he was kidnapped by GRU operatives on Luzhkov’s orders and saved by a Russian in a black hood.”

“A man in a black hood who spoke Russian, which Dillon does, and rather well, only Dillon wasn’t responsible for this gig. I’ve spoken to him, and so has Ferguson. He’s still in Cambridge with Lady Monica Starling.”