The Rocket Man (51 page)

Katie asked, ‘Nihal, how can you go on with this? Aren't you afraid?'

‘Well, a bit, but Richter himself has much more reason to be. I phoned his new wife, Sylvia – you know, the girl I met in Paris. I couldn't get him through his office so I rang his home number. She told me there had been two attempts on his life; in one his bodyguard was shot, and in the other there was a bomb in his car which killed the driver. She said he was very careful about who he met these days…'

‘And Liliana?'

‘She's in hiding, in Brazil, as far as I know.'

‘And how's the IAEA?'

‘Oh, all right. There's been all this Iraqi business – that's had them running in circles. Probably the whole safeguards system will be reviewed. What about you? I was thinking of you a lot over those dramatic days in August…'

Katie looked up from the baby, who appeared to have fallen asleep. ‘We never stopped listening to the radio. Mitya wants to go back, to see for himself, but I couldn't face taking the children.' She lifted the baby from her breast and laid him gently in the Moses basket on the floor. For a few moments there was peace; then he began to cry again. Dmitry gently lifted Anna off his knee, stood up and started to rock the basket but the baby carried on inconsolably. He picked it up and peered at the little crumpled face. ‘Sasha,' he said, ‘What is the matter with you?' Nihal found it strangely touching to see the little baby held so gently in his enormous hands. ‘You can't be hungry; you can't have your mother's breasts all the time, you know, I shall get jealous.' He walked up and down, but the baby would not be pacified. After a few minutes Nihal had had enough of the noise.

‘I'm afraid I must go, or I'll miss my plane.' He got to his feet. ‘I'm sorry it's been so short. Perhaps next time…'

‘No, it's lovely to see you. I'm sorry we're in such chaos.'

The baby was now working himself up into a fury and Dmitry handed him back to Katie.

‘I'll walk you to the station,' she said to Nihal.

‘I'd come too,' said Dmitry, ‘But I've got a deadline for the morning.'

Katie put on Anna's coat and hat and gloves, wrapped the baby in a shawl and tucked him in the pram in the hallway. Nihal helped her carry it down the steps. Dmitry shook Nihal's hand and closed the door behind him. Walking down the road, the baby finally stopped crying; instead, Anna started to complain that she was cold.

‘Come on,' said Katie, ‘We're not going far.' She turned to Nihal. ‘I'm sorry. It hasn't been a good day. This is the first big job Mitya's had for this company and he's anxious to get it done on time.'

‘What's he working on?'

‘Oh, it's just a technical translation for some company hoping to set up a joint venture in Russia. We didn't have enough money so he took on too much work. It was all such a mess, Nihal; after Bob died I discovered he only had a small life insurance, he was in the process of taking out another but he never signed the forms. And of course Richter wouldn't pay anything.' She sighed, turning to Anna to pull up her hood and wind the scarf more tightly round her neck. ‘Then Mitya lost his job, and he was ill over Christmas; he was in hospital with a nasty chest infection, so he got behind with everything… And he keeps saying he wants to go back to Russia. I sat with him you know, those three days in August, seeing him weep first tears of shame and then of joy. He couldn't bear the fact that he wasn't there to be part of it. Now he gets these fits of Russian melancholy and then he drinks too much.'

‘Well,' said Nihal, with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘You made your choice, Katie; nobody's perfect.'

‘You shouldn't have started going on about Richter,' said Katie. ‘He'll be upset now; he hates to talk about it.'

‘Does he? Why? I thought he'd be interested.'

‘Well, he lost rather a lot, didn't he? It's affected him rather badly, he feels it's the end of his career. He can make some kind of living out of translating but it bores him.'

They came to the underground station. Katie put her arms round Nihal and held him tightly. ‘For God's sake, Nihal, be careful. Haven't you learned how serious this can be?'

Nihal released her reluctantly. ‘I don't think Richter is such a serious threat. He has much more reason to be afraid than I have. Don't worry about me; I'm fine.'

Katie watched his small, familiar figure walk up the steps to the platform and waved him goodbye. She felt like crying, as if part of her life was going with him. Abruptly she turned round and pushed the pram back down the road in the pouring rain, the baby howling, and Anna running ahead of them, skipping and chanting a song, the Russian one about the crocodile.