The Best of British Crime omnibus (9 page)

‘With pleasure. Are you a connoisseur?'

‘Only in a very minor way.' He filled my glass and then his own and looked at me oddly. ‘So in spite of your political prejudices, Mr Verney, I gather you like this country. Shall we drink to eternal Russia?'

I smiled. ‘I'll be happy to join you in that.'

We drank, savouring the wine, which was indeed not at all bad. Bolting, who was evidently in an expansive mood, said, ‘I was born here, you know.'

‘Is that so? Then that accounts for your fluent Russian at the meeting the other night. I wondered how you'd managed to get such a perfect accent.'

‘Yes, I was born in Baku, actually. English parents – my father was an oil engineer. I left Russia when I was ten, but I went to school in Baku for a bit.'

‘Not a very salubrious spot.'

‘No, oil towns never are. It was handy for the Crimea and the Caucasus, though, and I developed a liking for the country that I've never lost. Did you ever happen to take a long sleigh ride over those steppes you were talking about?'

‘That's something I missed, I'm afraid.'

‘It's a wonderful way of getting about. Bumpy over the ridges, but when you get a smooth stretch it's like floating on a cloud.'

He smiled – his charm was quite disconcerting. Of course, if he'd been born in Russia that might easily account for his current ‘fellow-travelling,' though he wasn't a man I'd have suspected of sentiment. There was one thing about Bolting – he didn't obtrude his political views on every possible occasion, as Mullett did.

Presently Schofield joined us. He looked, for once, less like a cold fish than a fish out of water. ‘Regrettable institutions, these parties,' he said, with a nod to me. ‘Don't you think so, Bolting? Noise is a poor substitute for conversation.'

‘Have a glass of Tsinandali, Professor, and drown the noise.'

‘No, thank you, I've already eaten and drunk to excess. Our hosts are very attentive.' With a little cough, he added, ‘A delightful young lady has just been telling me how a Russian named – er – Popov, I think – invented electricity.' He gave me a sidelong glance and Bolting grinned. Their attitude baffled me.

‘Professor,' I said, ‘I don't want to start a long discussion, but could you tell me in a few words what it is about the Soviet Union that has attracted you to its side. I'm really intrigued to know.' ‘Certainly, Mr Verney. Gravitational pull. Marxism is a huge and growing force – whether one likes it or not is quite irrelevant. Personally I take a poor view of creation, but I accept it. It is foolish to resist the irresistible.'

I laughed, and so did Bolting. ‘Talking of the irresistible, Schofield,' he said, ‘there's a very clever woman I should like you to meet… '

I moved on thoughtfully through the crowd. The party was certainly warming up now. Champagne had arrived with the ice-cream and was flowing freely. A burst of laughter came from a corner table where Tanya, Jeff, Potts, Thomas and Cressey were sitting with a group of Russians. At another table, Mrs Clarke was wedged happily between Mullett and a Russian colonel, all her resentments forgotten. She seemed to have lost whatever awe she might once have felt for the reverend gentleman, and was archly trying to make him take a large glass of champagne.

‘A pleasant party, Mr Verney,' said a voice at my ear. It was Tranter again, his usually pale face quite pink and his white hair falling in a damp lock over one ear.

‘It certainly is,' I acknowledged. ‘In fact, one way and another it's been quite a week.'

‘A memorable week. I must confess it's been a great delight to me to find how extremely friendly everyone has been. In existing circumstances, one could have forgiven them for showing a certain – well – mistrust… '

He was hopeless, of course. He hadn't even begun to understand.

‘That big meeting we had,' he went on, ‘it was so heartening. I'm a little surprised that it wasn't reported more fully in the British press. I cannot believe that we shall ever find ourselves at war with such cordial people.'

‘It would be a tragic thing,' I said, ‘for everyone.'

‘It astounds me that there are those who can contemplate it. Have you ever seen battle, Mr Verney?'

‘Only as a war correspondent.'

‘Ah, yes of course. At least you know what it means. I've had my share of it. This leg… ' he patted his stiff thigh, ‘… was the result of a wound I got on the Somme in the first war. I was just eighteen. When I came out of the army I resolved that I would devote the rest of my life to the struggle for peace. A long, hard, disappointing struggle it's been, I'm afraid.'

I had to agree. ‘Is the society you represent completely pacifist?' I asked him.

‘Oh, by no means. I happen to be a pacifist myself, but my committee is not. Nor, of course, are the Russians – one has to admit that. At the same time, I feel there is a will to peace in this country – they have suffered so much, it's inconceivable that they'd want to fight again. Ah, well, we must go on trying… '

He moved on. I helped myself to a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and glanced around to see if I could spot a friendly blonde. There seemed to be a spare one near the elite's table, and I moved over. Perdita, incredibly, was still holding forth. They hadn't even got off the original subject, and she was making some preposterous statements. ‘In England,' I heard her drawl, ‘there's practically no interest in culture, of course – just a huge unsatisfied demand for entertainment.'

Mirnova was watching her with that misleadingly innocent expression of hers. ‘I was thinking, Miss Manning, that you should make a broadcast about Soviet culture.'

‘I should love to,' said Perdita, ‘but I thought you'd arranged that Mr Mullett should broadcast for the delegation.'

‘That is true. Mr Mullett will be broadcasting tomorrow, but in Russian, for
our
people. It would be nice if you could talk next week in our programme for England. You can say exactly what you like, of course.'

‘I feel honoured,' said Perdita.

‘Then I shall ask the Radio Centre to arrange it with you.'

There was a sudden hush in the room as the president of VOKS clapped his hands for attention. ‘And now,' said Mirnova, ‘I think that Madame Lamarkina is going to sing for us.'

Jeff gave a small party of his own on the Sunday evening – life was like that in Moscow – and as I had nothing whatever to do I dropped in early. It had been a day of rest for the delegation and by all appearances most of them were still resting, for there was an air of somnolence about the warm, dimly-lit corridor. How long it would last was another matter, for Nikolai seemed to be very busy attending to orders for bottles of this and that. I think he was finding the delegation a full-time job.

Zina, Jeff's secretary, let me in. I'd got used to her by now, but I confess I'd had a bit of a shock on first seeing her. She was very plump and very blonde and positively bursting with Russian vitality. Beside Zina, everyone else seemed just a little less than life-size, and just a bit pallid. Although she wasn't by any means young she loved wearing bright colours and extremely short silk frocks – she had very pretty ankles – and she simply adored parties.

Jeff called a greeting from the bathroom and suggested I should mix the cocktails. There were the ingredients for a good one, for he'd been accumulating pink champagne and cognac over the past week and Tanya had wheedled a lump of ice out of Nikolai. I sliced some lemon peel and stirred the concoction gently in a big glass bowl. Zina, who – as Jeff had said – was as much a housekeeper as a secretary, was preparing a buffet supper of immense complexity, and I had to break off for a moment to open one of those tins which are so easy to deal with if the key isn't lost, and such a devil if it is. There was also a good deal of clearing up to be done; for a man who hadn't filed anything longer than a service message in a month Jeff managed to give his room an astonishingly busy appearance, and his office junk was lying everywhere. By the time he emerged we'd made the place presentable and were ready to get down to the serious business of the evening.

He looked, I thought, slightly peeved, and I asked him what the trouble was.

‘Oh, Tanya's got stuck with some work for the delegation,' he said. ‘Typing some bloody nonsense for Mullett. How I hate that guy!'

‘You mean she won't be coming?' I said. It was unthinkable that in Moscow anyone should put work before a party.

‘Maybe later on, she says. I guess I'll be able to prise her away. Anyway, let's sample this poison of yours.' He poured three glasses and we drank.

‘Wow!' he said. ‘Not bad – not bad at all! Ah, here's someone else we can try it on.'

It was Waterhouse, and he also had his secretary with him. Her name was Vera, and she was the complete opposite of Zina. She was slender and dark-featured, and she had the most gloomy countenance I've ever seen – so excessively gloomy that Jeff said she always made him feel cheerful by contrast. She seemed to personify all the cold and hardship and suffering of Mother Russia, but her moroseness was partly redeemed by a subtle sense of humour and a rare, slow smile.

Waterhouse proved to be in great form. He was a man whose whole being could be warmed for hours by the recollection of a single felicitous remark, and he was still savouring one of Perdita's. Apparently he'd been telling Joe Cressey that morning about a particularly unpleasant bit of graft that some House Manager in the Arbat had been involved in, and Perdita, who was listening, had rebuked him. ‘You only see the dead fish floating on the pond,' she had said. ‘You never look below into the crystal beauty of the Soviet pool.'

We agreed that it was choice, and the secretaries appreciated it as much as we did. They were odd creatures. You'd have thought that they would have resented the criticisms they so often heard of their Soviet way of life, but they never seemed to mind. After their long association with correspondents, I think they'd become as politically neutral as microphones.

A couple of American agency chaps came next, trailing a small cloud of pneumatic blondes. One of the men, named Wheeler, said as he shut the door behind him, ‘Looks like Mrs Clarke's been hitting the bottle again.'

‘She can't blame the Russians today,' I said.

‘I guess she's taken to secret drinking. We just passed her in the corridor – she's practically ricocheting from wall to wall.'

At that moment Potts arrived and completed the party. He'd been doing some of his mass observation – ‘Potts' Poll,' Jeff called it – on the second floor, and as usual he was full of information on all sorts of recondite topics.

‘By the way, there's something special happening down there tonight,' he said. ‘I think it must be a meeting of some sort – I just saw Goldstein arrive.' Goldstein was a big-shot in the Party's Propaganda Section.

Waterhouse gave him a twinkling glance. ‘A smart newspaperman would have interviewed him, Mr Potts.'

‘I hardly think that would have been possible,' said Potts seriously. ‘My corridor seems to be full of those M. V. D men. I wonder why they all wear black cloth caps?'

Jeff thrust a glass into his hand. ‘Here, get a hold of this, will you, and for Pete's sake let's not talk about the Party or the M. V. D or the delegation. This may be my last Sunday evening here and I want to have happy memories. Cheers, all of you!'

That was the beginning of a pretty good evening. Zina's buffet supper went down very well and after supper, inevitably, we sang. Zina had the most vibrant soprano voice I've ever heard and she gave us several unaccompanied solos without a trace of inhibition. Then we had a female chorus, which was really something, and afterwards Vera, who could only dirge, dirged a convict song about shackled figures trudging through the snow that made Jeff weep with laughter. When we'd all just about sung ourselves hoarse the ever-competent Zina produced an old portable gramophone and we danced. By this time we'd all had a fair amount to drink and the blondes were giggly and everyone was having a very carefree time. Jeff took a few turns with one of the girls and then he broke off and said, ‘Say, do you folks mind if I take a little drink in to Tanya? Poor kid, it's a darned shame, missing all this.'

We told him to go ahead, and he filled a glass rather too full and walked rather too carefully to the door with it, losing not more than half on the way.

‘I suspect,' said Waterhouse, ‘that that is the last we shall see of Mr Clayton for some time.'

Vera had gone to sleep, and Potts said his feet ached and he'd like to wind the gramophone, so there were just four couples and we went on dancing. It was shortly after nine o'clock, while a record was being changed, that Waterhouse suddenly cocked an ear and said, ‘Listen – isn't that Mullett broadcasting?'

There did seem to be a familiar sound coming from the direction of the street. I opened the
fortachka
a little – we needed air, anyway – and sure enough it was Mullet, being relayed from the public loudspeakers on the corner of the square. He wasn't doing too well, either – his Russian, as usual, was wretched and he kept stumbling over his script. His subject matter was nauseating.

‘Do we
have
to listen to that guy?' asked Wheeler. ‘I thought this was a day of rest.'

I shut the
fortachka,
trapping a block of air that must have been at least twenty below. I could still hear Mullett droning away and now that my attention was caught I found it difficult to disregard him. Zina took over the gramophone and put on a famous guerrilla song about the beauties of fog which wasn't much better than Mullett. There was a bit of an argument and the record got broken. Soon we were dancing again.