Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(58)

“And you have no idea who killed him.”

Michael shook his head. “We’ve been making our own inquiries, of course. Informally.”

“Our friend thinks you may believe he was involved somehow.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “Why would he think that?”

“He thinks there’s evidence connecting him to the killer.”

Michael thought about that for a while. “That’s interesting, of course,” he said finally. “He really didn’t figure in our assessments, but that is interesting. I presume you’re here to intercede on his behalf, assure me that he wasn’t involved.”

“Did you try to have him killed?”

“Has someone tried to kill him?” Michael shook his head. “No, that wasn’t us. There have been times when I would have throttled him myself, but life’s too short. It would be impractical to kill everyone who ever annoyed me; one has to stop somewhere.”

There was silence in the car for some minutes. Michael ate a couple more biscuits. Rupert looked out of the window. It began to drizzle outside. The soldiers kept patrolling.

Finally, he said, “I think we can agree that anything which destabilises the relationship between Europe and the Community would not be a good thing.”

Michael nodded. “Not a good thing. For anyone. Nobody would want that.”

Rupert looked at the Head of the Directorate. He could count the number of times he and Michael had been honest with each other on the fingers of one hand, with some fingers left over. He said, “Do the Europeans know this border crossing exists?”

“Oh my word no,” Michael said. “Just as we don’t know that they have a couple of assault helicopters hanging around off the coast in case of emergencies.”

“You could,” Rupert said, “just try trusting each other.”

“Well, that would never do.” Michael brushed crumbs from the lapel of his jacket and chuckled. “It really was very brave of you to come here,” he said again, half to himself. “Now,” he said briskly. “Is there some pressing reason why I shouldn’t have you arrested?”

Rupert looked at him. “If you wanted to arrest me you could have done it right away and gone back to the conference,” he said wearily.

Michael beamed at him. “It’s been good to see you again. It really has.”





TWO OF THE soldiers followed them at a respectful distance. Michael put up an umbrella to keep off the drizzle. Rupert thought about a couple he had once known, who had lived in one of the fishing villages on the coast, just a few miles west of here. He remembered how he had played a part in betraying them, on behalf of the man walking beside him, in order to infiltrate the Directorate on behalf of the English Security Services, which had in their turn been infiltrated by operatives of the Directorate. And so it went on, round and round and round.

“Do you think our friend could see his way clear to letting us have one of those invisibility suits he seems to have an inexhaustible supply of?” Michael asked.

“You’ll have to keep on making do with low cunning,” Rupert told him.

Michael laughed. “When you see him, tell him his sins haven’t been forgiven, but we didn’t try to kill him.”

“That’ll help him sleep at night,” Rupert said, turning the collar of his borrowed combat jacket up against the drizzle. He put his hands in the pockets, found a roll of mints in one and a chunky penknife in the other. He took them out, looked at them, put them back.

Michael glanced at him, stubbed his toe on a wet hummock of grass, and almost fell over. Rupert caught him by the elbow and stopped him crashing full-length to the ground. This brought the soldiers running towards them, weapons raised and shouting warnings. Michael regained his balance and waved them back.

“You see?” he said. “You see?” His face was flushed and angry; Rupert had never seen him lose his temper like this, not even during the brief counter-coup which had put him in the top job in the Directorate. “All it takes is one slip, one misstep, and people start shooting. Do you think I want that?”

“I don’t think anyone wants that,” Rupert said, letting go of his arm.

Michael’s composure returned. He sighed. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” Rupert said. “No, that’s it.”

“All right. You can go back across the border; nobody will stop you. But you’ll have to find your own way out of the conference security cordon. I want to finish my lunch.”

Then they just stood there awkwardly for a few moments. Handshakes did not seem remotely appropriate. Finally, fed up of standing in the rain, Rupert just stomped off across the moorland on his own. He had made his way back through the wood into Sweden before it occurred to him that he was still wearing the soldier’s combat jacket. He took it off and hung it on a tree and started to walk away. Then he stopped, turned back, took the penknife and the mints from the jacket, and set off toward the house. In a couple of hours the staff would be getting ready for dinner.





3.





THERE WAS A Starbucks on the Market Square in W?adys?aw. It faced a Caffè Nero on the other side. They were both staffed by eager young baristas and they both looked as if they had been dropped here by a fleet of invading alien spacecraft. Which, Gwen thought, wasn’t too far from the truth.