Our Kind Of Traitor Part 26

'Well drugs drugs actually. The young today, I mean one simply doesn't know,' said Barbara, speaking indignantly like someone twice her age. 'And frankly with foreigners, specially English, the drugs are actually. The young today, I mean one simply doesn't know,' said Barbara, speaking indignantly like someone twice her age. 'And frankly with foreigners, specially English, the drugs are everywhere everywhere, ask Dr Stettler.' The baby gave a scream and she calmed it. 'With Max also, his young ones, my G.o.d, even in the mountain huts, they are taking drugs! I mean alcohol I understand. Not cigarettes naturally. I offered her coffee, tea, mineral water. Maybe she didn't hear me, I don't know. Maybe she is having a bad trip bad trip, as the hippies say. But with the baby frankly one doesn't like to say it, but I was a little bit afraid afraid even.' even.'

'But you didn't call Max?'

'In the mountains? When he has guests guests? That would be terrible for him. He would think she was ill, he would come immediately.'

'He would think Anni Anni was ill?' was ill?'

'Well naturally!' She paused and reconsidered the question, which was not, Gail suspected, a thing she did often. 'You think Max would come for Natasha Natasha? That's completely ridiculous!'

Taking Natasha's arm, Gail lifted her gently to her feet, and when she was fully upright, she embraced her, then took her to the front door, helped her change back into her outdoor shoes, changed her own, and walked her across the perfect lawn. As soon as they were through the gate, she called Perry.

She'd called him once from the train, and once when she reached the village. She'd promised to call him practically by the minute because Luke couldn't talk to her himself, he had Dima sitting on top of him somewhere, so please use Perry as the cut-out. And she knew things were very fraught, she could hear it in Perry's voice. The more calm he was, the more fraught she knew things were, and she a.s.sumed an episode of some sort. So she spoke calmly herself, which probably conveyed the same signal to him in reverse: 'She's all right. Fine, OK? I've got her here with me, she's alive and well, we're on our way. We're walking towards the station now. We need a little time, that's all.'

'How much time?'

Now it was Gail who was having to watch her words, because Natasha was clinging to her arm.

'Enough to repair our souls and powder our noses. One other thing.'

'What?'

'n.o.body needs to be asked where they've been, all right? We had a small crisis, it's over now. Life goes on. It's not just about when we arrive. It's from then on: no questions of the affected party. The girls will be fine. The boys I'm not sure.'

'They'll be fine too. I'll see to it. d.i.c.k will be over the moon. I'll tell him at once. Hurry.'

'We'll try.'

On the crowded train back to the valley there had been no opportunity to speak, which didn't matter because Natasha showed no inclination to; she was in shock, and at times seemed unaware of Gail's existence. But on the train from Spiez, under Gail's gentle coaxing, she began to wake. They were sitting side by side in a first-cla.s.s carriage and looking straight ahead of them, just as they had been in the tent at Three Chimneys. Evening was falling fast and they were the only pa.s.sengers.

'I am so ' Natasha broke out, grabbing Gail's hand, but then couldn't finish the sentence.

'We wait,' Gail said firmly, to Natasha's downturned head. 'We have time. We put our feelings on hold, we enjoy life, and we wait. That's all we need to do, either of us. Are you hearing me?'

Nod.

'Then sit up. Don't give me my hand back, just listen. In a few days you'll be in England. I'm not sure whether your brothers know that, but they know it's a mystery tour, and it's going to begin any day now. There's a short stop-over in Wengen first. And in England we'll find you a really good woman doctor mine and you'll find out how you feel, and then you'll decide. OK?'

Nod.

'In the meantime, we don't even think about it. We just wipe it out of our minds. You get rid of this silly smock you're wearing' plucking affectionately at her sleeve 'you dress slim and gorgeous. Nothing shows, I promise you. Will you do that?'

She will.

'All the decisions wait till England. They're not bad bad decisions, they're sensible ones. And you make them calmly. When you get to England, not until. For your father's sake, as well as yours. Yes?' decisions, they're sensible ones. And you make them calmly. When you get to England, not until. For your father's sake, as well as yours. Yes?'

'Yes.'

'Again.'

'Yes.'

Would Gail have spoken in the same way if Perry hadn't said it was the way Luke wanted her to speak? that this was the absolute worst moment for Dima to be hit with shattering news?

Fortunately, yes, she would. She'd have made the same speech word for word, and she'd have meant it. She'd been there herself. She knew what she was talking about. And she was telling herself this as their train pulled into Interlaken Ost Station for their connection along the valley to Lauterbrunnen and Wengen, when she noticed that a Swiss policeman in smart summer uniform was walking down the empty platform towards them, and that a dull-faced man in a grey suit and polished brown shoes was walking beside him, and that the policeman was wearing the kind of rueful smile that, in any civilized country, tells you that you haven't got much to smile about.

'You speak English?'

'How did you guess?' smiling back.

'Maybe your complexion actually,' he said which she reckoned quite pert for your ordinary Swiss policeman. 'But the young lady is not not English' glancing at Natasha's black hair and slightly Asian looks. English' glancing at Natasha's black hair and slightly Asian looks.

'Well, actually she could be, you know. We're all everything these days,' Gail replied in the same sporty tone.

'Do you have British pa.s.sports?'

'I do.'

The dull-faced man was also smiling, which chilled her. And his English was a little too good too: 'Swiss Immigration Service,' he announced. 'We are conducting random checks random checks. I'm afraid that these days with open borders we find certain ones who should have visas and do not. Not many, but some.'

The uniform was back: 'Your tickets and pa.s.sports, please. You mind? If you mind, we take you to the police station and we make a check there.'

'Of course we don't mind. Do we, Natasha? We just wish all policemen were so polite, don't we?' said Gail brightly.

Delving in her handbag, she unearthed her pa.s.sport and the tickets and gave them to the uniformed policeman, who examined them with that extra slowness that policemen all over the world are taught to exhibit in order to raise the stress level of honest citizens. The grey suit looked over the uniformed shoulder, then took her pa.s.sport for himself, and did the same thing all over again before handing it to her and turning his smile on Natasha, who already had her pa.s.sport ready in her hand.

And what the grey suit did then was, in Gail's later account to Ollie and Perry and Luke, either incompetent or very clever. He behaved as if the pa.s.sport of a Russian minor were of less interest to him than a British adult's pa.s.sport. He flipped to the visa page, flipped to her photograph, compared it with her face, smiled in apparent admiration, paused a moment over her name in Roman and Cyrillic, and handed it back to her with a light-hearted 'thank you, madam'.

'You stay in Wengen long?' the uniformed policeman asked, returning the tickets to Gail.

'Just a week or so.'

'Depending on the weather maybe?'

'Oh, we English are so used to the rain we don't notice!'

And they would find their next train waiting for them on platform 2, departure in three minutes, the last connection up tonight, so better not miss it or you have to stay in Lauterbrunnen, said the polite policeman.

It wasn't till they were halfway up the mountain on the last train that Natasha spoke again. Until then she had brooded in seeming anger, staring at the blackened window, misting it over with her breath like a child, and angrily wiping it clean. But whether she was angry with Max, or the policeman and his grey-suited friend, or herself, Gail could only guess. But suddenly she raised her head and was staring Gail straight in the face: 'Is Dima criminal?'

'I think he's just a very successful businessman, isn't he?' the deft barrister replied.

'Is that why we're going to England? is that what the mystery tour mystery tour's all about? Suddenly he tells us we're all going to great English schools.' And receiving no reply: 'Ever since Moscow the whole family has been has been completely criminal criminal. Ask my brothers. It's their new obsession. They talk only of crime. Ask their big friend Piotr who says he works for KGB. It doesn't exist any more. Does it?'

'I don't know.'

'It's the FSB now. But Piotr still says KGB. So maybe he is lying. Piotr knows everything about us. He has seen all our records. My mother was criminal, her husband was criminal, Tamara was criminal, her father was shot. For my brothers, anyone coming from Perm is completely criminal. Maybe that's why the police wanted my pa.s.sport. "Are you from Perm, please, Natasha?" "Yes, Mr Policeman, I am from Perm. I am also pregnant pregnant." "Then you are very very criminal. You cannot go to English boarding school, you must come to prison immediately!" ' criminal. You cannot go to English boarding school, you must come to prison immediately!" '

By then, her head was on Gail's shoulder, and the rest of what she said was in Russian.

Dusk was falling over the cornfields and it was dusk in the BMW hire car as well, because by mutual consent they were allowing themselves no lights, inside or out. Luke had provided a bottle of vodka for the journey and Dima had drunk the half of it, but Luke wasn't giving himself as much as a sniff. He had offered Dima a pocket recorder to record his memories of the Berne signing while they were fresh, but Dima had brushed it away: 'I know all. Got no problem. Got duplicates. Got memory. In London, I remember everything. You tell that to Tom.'

Since their departure from Berne, Luke had used only side roads, driving a distance, finding a place to lie up while his pursuers if they existed went ahead of him. There was definitely something wrong with his right hand, he still seemed to have no feeling in it, but provided he used the strength of his arm and didn't think about the hand, the driving wasn't a problem. He must have done something to it when he coshed the cadaverous philosopher.

They were talking Russian in low voices like a pair of fugitives. Why are we keeping our voices down? Luke wondered. But they were. At the edge of a pine forest he again parked, and this time handed Dima a labourer's blue tunic, and a thick black woollen ski cap to cover his bald head. For himself he had bought jeans, anorak, a bobble hat. He folded Dima's suit for him and put it in a suitcase in the boot of the BMW. It was by now eight in the evening and turning cold. Approaching the village of Wilderswil at the mouth of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, he yet again stopped the car while they listened to the Swiss news and he tried to read Dima's face in the half-darkness because to his frustration Luke had no German.

'They found the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,' Dima growled in a Russian undertone. 'Two drunk Russian a.s.sholes had a fight at the Bellevue Palace Hotel. n.o.body know why. Fell down some steps and hurt themselves. One guy in hospital, the other one OK. The hospital guy pretty bad. That's Niki. Maybe the f.u.c.ker choke. Told a bunch of stupid lies the Swiss police don't believe, each guy different lies. Russian Emba.s.sy want to fly them home. Swiss police are saying, "Not so G.o.ddam fast, we want to know a couple more things about these a.s.sholes." Russian Amba.s.sador's p.i.s.sed off.'

'At the men?'

'The Swiss.' He grinned, took another pull from the vodka bottle and waved it at Luke, who shook his head. 'Wanna know how it works? Russian Amba.s.sador calls the Kremlin: "Who are these crazy f.u.c.ks?" Kremlin call the b.i.t.c.h Prince: "What the f.u.c.k are your a.s.sholes doing beating the s.h.i.t out of each other in fancy hotel in Berne, Switzerland?"'

'And the Prince says?' Luke demanded, not sharing Dima's levity.

'The b.i.t.c.h Prince call Emilio. "Emilio. My friend. My wise advisor. What the f.u.c.k my two nice guys doing, beating the s.h.i.t out of each other in fancy hotel in Berne?"'

'And Emilio says?' Luke persisted.

Dima's mood darkened: 'Emilio says: "That s.h.i.thead Dima, world number-one money-launderer, he disappeared off the f.u.c.king planet." '

No great intriguer himself, Luke was doing his sums. First the two so-called Arab policemen in Paris. Who sent them? Why? Then the two bodyguards at the Bellevue Palace: why had they come to the hotel after the signing? Who sent them? Why? Who knew how much when?

He called Ollie.

'All quiet, Harry?' meaning, who's arrived up there at the safe house and who hasn't? Meaning, am I going to have to deal with a missing Natasha too?

'd.i.c.k, our two stragglers clocked in just a couple minutes back, you'll be pleased to hear,' Ollie said rea.s.suringly. 'Found their own way here without any bother much, and everything hunky-dory. Tenish over the other side of the hill about right for you? Nice and dark by then.'

'Ten o'clock is fine.'

'Grund Station car park. A nice little red Suzuki. I'll be first right as you drive in and as far from the trains as we can get, then.'

'Agreed.' And when Ollie didn't ring off: 'What's the problem, Harry?'

'Well there's been quite a police presence at Interlaken Ost railway station, I'm hearing.'

'Let's have it.'

Luke listened, said nothing, returned the mobile to his pocket.

By the other side of the hill the other side of the hill, Ollie was referring to the village of Grindelwald, which lay at the opposing foot of the Eiger ma.s.sif. To reach Wengen from the Lauterbrunnen side by any means except mountain railway was impossible, Ollie had reported: the summer track might be good enough for chamois and the odd foolhardy motorcyclist, but not for a four-wheeled vehicle with three men aboard.

But Luke was determined as Ollie was that Dima, in whatever garb, should not be subjected to the glances of railway officials, ticket inspectors and fellow pa.s.sengers as he approached the place of his concealment: least of all at this late hour of evening, when railway pa.s.sengers were fewer and more conspicuous.

Reaching the village of Zweilutschinen, Luke took the left fork that led by a winding river road to the edge of Grindelwald. The Grund Station car park was packed with the abandoned cars of German tourists. Entering it, Luke saw to his relief the figure of Ollie in a quilted anorak and peaked cap with earflaps, seated at the wheel of a stationary red Suzuki jeep with its sidelights on.

'And here's your rugs for when it gets nippy,' Ollie announced in Russian as he bundled Dima in beside him, and Luke, having handed Ollie the luggage and parked the BMW under a beech tree, settled himself in the back. 'The forest track is forbidden, but not for locals with business to do, like plumbers and railway workers and such. So if it's all the same to you, I'll do the talking if we're checked. Not that I'm a local, but the jeep is. And its owner told me what to say.'

Which owner owner and and what to say what to say was Ollie's alone to know. A good back-door man is not forthcoming about his sources. was Ollie's alone to know. A good back-door man is not forthcoming about his sources.

A narrow concrete road led upward into the blackness of the mountain. A pair of headlights descended towards them, stopped, and pulled back into the trees: a builder's lorry, unladen.

'Whoever's coming from the top reverses,' Ollie p.r.o.nounced approvingly under his breath. 'Local rule.'

A uniformed policeman stood alone in the centre of the road. Ollie slowed down for him to peer at the triangular yellow sticker on the Suzuki's windscreen. The policeman stepped back. Ollie raised his hand in leisurely acknowledgement. They pa.s.sed a settlement of low chalets and bright lights. Woodsmoke mingled with the smell of pine. A fluorescent sign read BRANDEGG BRANDEGG. The road became an unmade forest track. Rivulets of water ran towards them. Ollie turned on the headlights and shifted gear levers. The engine took on a higher, plaintive drone. The track was pitted by heavy lorries and the Suzuki was hard-sprung. Perched on its back seat with the luggage, Luke clutched the sides as it bounced and swung. In front of him rode the swathed figure of Dima in his woollen hat, the blanket flapping like a coachman's cape round his shoulders in the wind. Beside him, and scarcely any smaller, Ollie leaned tensely forward as he navigated the Suzuki across open meadow and set a pair of chamois scampering for the shelter of the trees.

The air turned thinner and colder. Luke's breath came faster. An icy film of dew was forming on his cheeks and brow. He felt his eyes glistening, and his heart quickening to the scent of pine and the thrill of the climb. The forest closed round them again. From its density, the red eyes of animals flashed at them, but whether they were large or small Luke had no time to find out.

They had pa.s.sed the tree-line and again broken free. Light cloud covered a starry sky, and at the very centre towered a black starless void, pressing them into the mountainside, then squeezing them out on to the world's edge. They were pa.s.sing beneath the overhang of the Eiger North Face.

'You been to Ural Mountains, d.i.c.k?' Dima yelled at Luke in English, swinging round.

Luke nodded vigorously and smiled yes.

'Like Perm! Perm we got mountains like this! You been Caucasus?'

'Just the Georgian part!' Luke yelled back.

'I love this, hear me, d.i.c.k! I love love! You too, huh?'

Briefly although he was still worrying about that policeman Luke was able to love it: and continued to love it as they climbed towards the saddle of the Kleine Scheidegg and slipped through the arc of orange lights shed by the great hotel that mastered it.

They began their descent. To their left, bathed in moonlight, rose the sinewy blue-black shadows of a glacier. Far away across the valley, they glimpsed the lights of Murren, and now and then, through the density of the forest as it took them back, the fickle lights of Wengen.

16.

For Luke, the days and nights in the little Alpine resort of Wengen were mysteriously preordained, now beyond bearing, now filled with the lyrical calm of an extended gathering of family and friends on holiday.

The ugly, built-to-let chalet that Ollie had selected lay at the quiet end of the village on a triangle of land between two footpaths. In the winter months it was rented out to a lowland German ski club, but in the summer it was available to anyone who could pay, from South African Theosophists to Norwegian Rastafarians to poor children from the Ruhr. A disparate family of incompatible ages and origins was therefore exactly what the village expected. Not a head turned among the flocks of summer tourists that trudged past it: or so said Ollie, who spent many spare minutes keeping watch from behind the curtained upper windows.

From inside, the world was almost unimaginably beautiful. Look downward from the top floor and you had a view of the fabled Lauterbrunnen Valley; look upward, and the Jungfrau ma.s.sif rose glistening before you. Behind you lay unspoiled pastures and forested foothills. Yet from outside the chalet was an architectural void: cavernous, characterless, anonymous, and sympathetic to nothing around it, with white stucco walls and rustic grace notes that only emphasized its suburban aspirations.

Luke too had watched. When Ollie was out foraging for provisions and snippets of local gossip, it was Luke the habitual worrier who kept lookout for the suspicious pa.s.ser-by. But watch as he might, no inquisitive eye lingered on the two small girls in the garden practising with their new skipping ropes to Gail's direction, or picking cowslips on the meadow bank behind the house, to be preserved for all time in jam jars of dry sago bought by Ollie from the supermarket.

Not even the rouged and powdered little old lady in weeds and dark gla.s.ses sitting motionless as a doll on the balcony with her hands in her lap attracted comment. Swiss resorts have been receiving such people ever since the tourist trade began. And should any pa.s.ser-by chance, of an evening, to glimpse between the curtains a big man in a woollen ski cap bowed over a chessboard opposite two adolescent opponents with Perry as referee and Gail and the girls in another corner watching DVDs bought from Photo Fritz well, if that house hadn't had a family of chess-fiends before, it had had everything else. Why should they know or care that, pitched against the combined intellect of his precocious sons, the world's number-one money-launderer could still outsmart them?