Doctor Gavrilov (9 page)

Instantly the Libyan became vague. ‘Well, of course this would not be my decision… I can't say. But, I would imagine that, at this very early stage, this would not be considered necessary.'

They looked at Dmitry, waiting for his reaction. Dmitry did not react. He looked as if he was thinking, although in reality he couldn't think at all; he was mesmerised by the predictable awfulness of this conversation. He stared at the coffee table and his empty cup. The Libyan leaned forward and began again. ‘You are concerned, of course, that your expertise will be used not for peaceful but for military reasons. I can only reassure you that is not our intention, Dr Gavrilov. We wish be able to continue our legitimate and peaceful nuclear researches without the intervention of hostile powers.'

Dmitry suddenly became impatient; he made a gesture with his hand as if to brush away all such distasteful matters. ‘Yes, yes, of course; there is no need for us to waste our time discussing this sort of thing… I am sure we understand one another completely.'

He saw the men exchange glances. He knew what they were thinking, what their glances meant; we've got him, he's going to go along with us. Dmitry felt hot, confused, he had to loosen his tie which threatened to choke him. He felt that he was playing a part, but that the part came only too easily to him; he took a deep breath and plunged on.

‘Look, if you want information on gas centrifuges, I can provide it. But that will only be the beginning of your problems. First you will have to import parts and all of these, as you know, are on the IAEA trigger list. The intelligence agencies are much more shrewd about this sort of thing these days…'

‘But this is not your end of the business, Dr Gavrilov. This would be for us to solve.'

‘Most certainly. Of course, you are most likely not to succeed and then this would become my problem… because then I would not be able to continue with my researches and… well, possibly I would not get paid.'

He saw the Libyans look at one another again. He wondered if he was laying this on a bit thick. Perhaps wanting money alone was not sufficient motivation… perhaps they thought he must have other reasons.

Dmitry cleared his throat; they gave him some more coffee and he drank it down. As he did so he was aware that his hands were shaking slightly. He saw that they noticed it too and said, ‘You understand… I am a little nervous. This is a big step for me to take. Look, let me explain… when I came here I did have something in mind. Gas centrifuges are all very well… but there are other ways to enrich uranium, ways which haven't been tried out in Russia or in the West and which would require equipment which might not be recognised by the relevant agencies… I could write you a proposal if you were interested.'

The Libyan was watching him, his eyes intent, shrewd. He said, ‘Yes, indeed; I am sure we would be very interested.'

A silence fell. Dmitry stared gloomily at the carpet. So far he had failed to elicit any of the information on Rozanov's list; he must try harder. He said, ‘Of course, I will need to work with uranium hexafluoride… only small quantities to begin with, of course, but I assume you have the facilities to produce this…'

The Libyan shrugged. He became instantly vague. He said, ‘I'm afraid I don't know any of the technical details… these you will have to get from my superiors… But I am sure you will have everything you need. It will take a little bit of time, of course… Well. You must do us this proposal. How long will it take you? A week? Two weeks?'

‘I don't know… it will take time to work it out… it depends how much detail you want… I imagine you will have to give it to someone at Tajura to assess…'

‘Indeed, of course. You must put in as much detail as you are able.'

‘Well then… I don't know…' When was he to do this? He plucked a figure out of the air at random. ‘Perhaps two, three weeks.'

‘Very good. You will send us this formal proposal… You will contact me when it is ready and we will arrange for its collection. A preliminary payment and a contract will be forthcoming as soon as the proposal is received and scrutinised and if it seems to be viable… In the meantime we would like to offer you a small retainer, for your work on this… there's no commitment, you won't have to pay it back. Would £5000 seem reasonable?'

He opened a briefcase; he had the money in cash, in crisp £50 notes which he counted out. Dmitry stared at it; the sight of all this money had a strange effect on him. He felt an overwhelming relief that it would enable him to settle the credit card debt. Of course, Rozanov would be paying him soon as well, but even so… he accepted it.

The Libyan shut the briefcase with a snap and gave a smile of satisfaction. ‘It may be necessary to have another meeting, perhaps in Geneva. Once you have signed a contract, funds will be paid into a bank in Switzerland every four weeks… Of course, I don't need to remind you that this meeting must remain entirely confidential…'

Dmitry got to his feet, stuffing the money awkwardly into his inside pocket, surprised at how slim the bundle was. It was obvious there was no more to be said. He asked, ‘But how may I contact you… I don't know your name.'

The man smiled. He said, ‘My name is not important… Sometimes, you will understand, a certain delicacy has to be observed in such matters… You may contact me as before, through my friend and colleague here.' He held out his hand; Dmitry had to shake it. They opened the door and let him out.

He left the hotel, reaching inside his coat pocket to switch off the transmitter in his pen. Damn the thing; what was he to do with it now? It was now quite dark with a clear, starless sky and suddenly very cold; he shivered even in his coat. The traffic roared past over the viaduct and the fumes assaulted him, making him feel sick and dizzy for a moment. What to do now? He felt he had made a complete mess of the interview. This man he had spoken to was only an intermediary, he knew nothing. He had failed to find out anything of any use to Rozanov and had only succeeded in entangling himself, in making it seem as if he intended to do things he had no intention at all of doing. He should never have taken the money. He had a crazy impulse simply to take it and throw it in the bin.

He stopped with a jerk on the pavement for an instant, forced himself instantly to walk on again. It was no use thinking about it now; he should go home and try to forget. But how could he forget? He knew even as he tried to trivialise it to himself that he had done something terrible, that he was already committed and that the Libyans would not easily let go of him; that he had sold his soul and that only with the greatest difficulty could he buy it back again.

S
OMETHING very odd had happened.

The previous morning, while Tim was lying in, Ingrid had come into the bedroom and said something to him. Tim, whose mind had been on his up-coming trip to Moscow, hadn't listened to what it was, and merely said, ‘Right, fine,' and waved as she picked up her bag and went out. When she didn't come home in the evening, he had simply assumed she'd been telling him she'd gone somewhere for the evening. But she didn't come back that night.

The following evening there was no sign of her either. Tim was irritated with himself. He wished he'd paid attention to where she had said she was going.

On the third day he began to have an uneasy feeling while he was at the office; it occurred to him for the first time that she might not have told him she was going away at all, and that she might have been taken ill or had an accident. He wondered with a horrible, sickening feeling, whether he had not been completely irresponsible. He rang her college and left a message for her to ring him. She didn't call, and he rang and left a second message.

There was nothing much happening in the newsroom. After lunch he told Rowley that he had a lead he wanted to follow up and took a taxi home.

When he entered the flat he saw at once that it was different. A poster had gone from the wall and the candlesticks from the table. He strode into the bedroom and flung open the cupboards. All her clothes were gone. He went into the bathroom. The jars of cream, the shampoos and conditioners, the skin-care products and make-up, had all vanished.

She hadn't even left a note.

Tim sat down heavily on the sofa. Then suddenly he started to laugh. He realised that he was relieved. He realised how long it was since they had really communicated with one another. He was lucky, too. Thank God she'd had the grace to go without making a dreadful scene.

As he sat there, laughing, the doorbell rang.

Tim ran up the stairs and opened the door and there was Katie. She looked harassed, flushed. She said, ‘I saw you were at home… I have to go and get Anna from school and Sasha's just fallen asleep. Would you mind… if I leave him here and keep both the doors open, you would hear if he cried… You could go and sit upstairs if you wanted. I'll only be half an hour…'

Tim said, ‘Of course, that's fine.'

She handed him the key to their door just in case it slammed shut. ‘He's in our room…'

‘It's all right. Don't worry.'

She turned and went out through the front door, banging it behind her. Tim stood in the hallway for a few minutes, then went through into their part of the house. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. There was nothing much of interest in the living room, so he went upstairs, stepping quietly so as not to wake the baby. He checked Sasha really was asleep in the Moses basket at the end of their unmade bed, then looked round the room. He noticed the faded, ill-matched bedclothes, the bare, unpolished floorboards, and the dust which lay thinly everywhere. In the corner there was a desk and bookshelves which Dmitry obviously used as his study. Tim went over and had a look. He glanced down the shelves of scientific books, which were mostly in Russian, at the conference reports and boxes of papers. He tried to decipher the script without much too much success, though he knew enough to see that many of the books were on nuclear physics. He saw a box of IAEA documents in English, which he flipped through quickly. He tried the top drawer of the desk; it was locked.

Glancing instinctively at the door in case anyone should be there, he picked up a notebook from the desktop, began to thumb through it. He could make no sense of the Russian, but there were pages of what looked like complex mathematics. He felt hot; his heart was beating; he was listening hard for any tiny sound at the door which might mean that Katie, or worse, her husband, were coming home. Then he heard a faint sound beside him which made him jump; the baby was stirring.

He ignored the sound, picked up another notebook. He tried the drawer again, hunted around the desktop for the key. He tried a little wooden box on the desktop, he searched the desk and then the drawers in the bedside table, he checked the windowsill and the shelf above the old fireplace. There was a vase on top of the chest of drawers; on impulse he picked it up, turned it upside down and a key fell out. He tried the key in the desk and it fitted. He slid the drawer open. In it he found their passports, birth and marriage certificates, national health cards, some foreign money; Austrian banknotes, some US dollars, and a wad of £50 notes. There were some letters, handwritten, personal correspondence, from Moscow. He flipped through this quickly, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. There was nothing here of any interest to him; he felt an instant's shame, knowing he had no right at all to be doing this.

He shut the drawer, wiped the key on his sleeve and dropped it back into the vase, and then wiped the surface of the glaze too. As an afterthought he did the same to the notebook. If there was a burglary and the police tested for fingerprints, he didn't want his turning up. This seemed as he did it an utterly fantastic possibility, but perhaps the thought was some measure of how outraged he knew Katie would be if she knew about his actions. The baby was crying loudly now, in frantic, anguished bursts. He glanced at his watch; Katie wouldn't be much longer. He made sure he'd rearranged everything exactly as it had been, leaned over the cradle and picked up the hot, red-faced, angry baby. He held the baby awkwardly, at arm's length. He looked like his father, Tim thought; certainly he was not pretty. He stared at the baby, and the baby stared back. He had stopped crying for a few moments, startled; then his face crumpled and he started bawling frantically again.

‘All right, whatever your name is, Sasha, shut up, I'm not stealing you,' said Tim, carrying him downstairs. He went over to the computer, looked out of the window down the street, then put the baby down on a rug on the floor and ignored the piercing cries while he switched on the computer. It ran Windows but it was password protected.

The baby's face was purple with screaming. Tim exited hurriedly and turned off the computer. He picked up the baby and was juggling him rather ineffectually when Katie and Anna came in.

Katie took the baby from Tim gratefully and immediately the baby's crying changed to a whimper. She jiggled and soothed him, asked, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?'

‘Yes… thank you.'

Tim sat down. Katie balanced Sasha on her hip as she made the tea expertly with one hand. Anna went to the fridge and took out a yoghurt, unpeeled the top, and dipped a spoon into it, all the time staring at Tim. She looked a lot like Katie, with her thick, long hair and pale, sensitive face; he thought that she would grow up to be quite a beauty.

Katie said, pouring boiling water into the pot, ‘Tim, I'm sorry about the other night… Mitya was in a terrible mood, one of the publishers he's working for has gone bust…'

‘That's all right. Don't apologise…' He paused. ‘You're not responsible for his behaviour.'

She didn't say anything. She put the tea on the table and sat down wearily. Tim asked, ‘Where did you meet him?'

‘Mitya? In Vienna.'