Read Online A Little White Death by John Lawton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Lawton
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rheum-eyed, tear-brimmed, bloodshot misery. He gazed into Troy’s – clear, fleckless black mirrors gazing back
at him. It seemed he could not hold his gaze, his eyes flicked around the room and his hand took refuge around the glass once more.
‘You know I never noticed before – never could I suppose – they all look like you, Freddie. Little buggers. Shortarses with ebony eyes. About as warm as the outside bog in
February. I feel like Gulliver, washed up in Lilliput, out of size and out of place, in a country I’d only dreamt about.’
Troy ignored the dig. If Charlie was this drunk there were more important things to be said before he vanished into incoherence. ‘Charlie, if all the British wanted was the guarantee of
your silence, why didn’t they just have you bumped off ?’
Charlie took another huge, corrosive gulpof vodka and thought about it.
‘Y’know,’ he said at last, ‘that’s just what I’ve been asking myself for the past week. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? I could vanish without trace.
No body, no culprit. Blame the bloody Arabs if they wanted. Blame who the hell they like. Why didn’t they just get it over with? Why didn’t the bastards just get it over with? Out to
the swamplike Big Lennie. And wham! But – they didn’t . . . and here I am looking at the prospect of life in Mtensk . . . or Magneto-Gorsk . . . or Upyer-Bumsk.’
Troy watched Charlie’s head begin to loll at the end of his neck like a slackening string puppet. The jowls beneath his jawline, swelling and shrinking, bellows on a concertina, as his
head rolled around in a lazy arc, and the palpebral flutter as his eyes fought to keep their focus. It was, he thought, all so implausible. He could understand that the British might not want
another trial of a traitor quite so soon after George Blake and John Vassall. Indeed it could be argued, were there a sober opponent to argue with, that a trial would do more damage than a
defection any day, particularly to relationships with the Americans, who might well be thinking by now that we were a deeply unreliable nation. A trial was dirty linen washed in public. A defection
half tucked it away in someone else’s laundry basket, concealed as much as it revealed. But a hit? A discreet, untraceable murder? Really, there was no reason at all why Charlie should not
have joined Norman Cobb belly-up, face-down, picked white, in the remote marshes at some biblical turning of the Thames.
§ 10
Charlie lay sprawled on his back across the bed, arms and legs spread wide, still in his shirt, socks and underpants, his mouth open, snoring. Troy shook him gently. He did not
stir. He shook him harder. His gut wobbled between the gaping shirt buttons and the elastic of his Y-fronts, but he did not wake. It seemed to Troy that he might well sleepoff a bellyful of
cheapvvodka until lunchtime.
He went through Charlie’s pockets, pinched a few roubles to get him through the morning, put on the winter wardrobe – the sable hat, the fur coat – and stepped into the Moscow
streets. The first time. The first breath of Russian air, the first sight. Last night did not count. Charlie got between him and Moscow. Vodka got between him and Moscow. Again the same question in
his mind: ‘Is this it?’ Whatever he saw – splendour or squalor – ‘Is this it?’ was the only form response could take in his mind. After so long, after a
generation and more: ‘Is this really it?’
He found a bookshop on a street corner less than quarter of a mile away and bought a map of the city. The address was imprinted in his memory. Dolgo-Khamovnichesky Street, where Tolstoy used to
live, out in the Khamovniki, the old industrial quarter. He could find no such street on the map. Then the obvious dawned on him and he quickly found Lyev Tolstoy Street. For all he knew it had
been renamed some forty years or more. All the same, he’d know the house as soon as he saw it. Of that he was
at him. It seemed he could not hold his gaze, his eyes flicked around the room and his hand took refuge around the glass once more.
‘You know I never noticed before – never could I suppose – they all look like you, Freddie. Little buggers. Shortarses with ebony eyes. About as warm as the outside bog in
February. I feel like Gulliver, washed up in Lilliput, out of size and out of place, in a country I’d only dreamt about.’
Troy ignored the dig. If Charlie was this drunk there were more important things to be said before he vanished into incoherence. ‘Charlie, if all the British wanted was the guarantee of
your silence, why didn’t they just have you bumped off ?’
Charlie took another huge, corrosive gulpof vodka and thought about it.
‘Y’know,’ he said at last, ‘that’s just what I’ve been asking myself for the past week. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? I could vanish without trace.
No body, no culprit. Blame the bloody Arabs if they wanted. Blame who the hell they like. Why didn’t they just get it over with? Why didn’t the bastards just get it over with? Out to
the swamplike Big Lennie. And wham! But – they didn’t . . . and here I am looking at the prospect of life in Mtensk . . . or Magneto-Gorsk . . . or Upyer-Bumsk.’
Troy watched Charlie’s head begin to loll at the end of his neck like a slackening string puppet. The jowls beneath his jawline, swelling and shrinking, bellows on a concertina, as his
head rolled around in a lazy arc, and the palpebral flutter as his eyes fought to keep their focus. It was, he thought, all so implausible. He could understand that the British might not want
another trial of a traitor quite so soon after George Blake and John Vassall. Indeed it could be argued, were there a sober opponent to argue with, that a trial would do more damage than a
defection any day, particularly to relationships with the Americans, who might well be thinking by now that we were a deeply unreliable nation. A trial was dirty linen washed in public. A defection
half tucked it away in someone else’s laundry basket, concealed as much as it revealed. But a hit? A discreet, untraceable murder? Really, there was no reason at all why Charlie should not
have joined Norman Cobb belly-up, face-down, picked white, in the remote marshes at some biblical turning of the Thames.
§ 10
Charlie lay sprawled on his back across the bed, arms and legs spread wide, still in his shirt, socks and underpants, his mouth open, snoring. Troy shook him gently. He did not
stir. He shook him harder. His gut wobbled between the gaping shirt buttons and the elastic of his Y-fronts, but he did not wake. It seemed to Troy that he might well sleepoff a bellyful of
cheapvvodka until lunchtime.
He went through Charlie’s pockets, pinched a few roubles to get him through the morning, put on the winter wardrobe – the sable hat, the fur coat – and stepped into the Moscow
streets. The first time. The first breath of Russian air, the first sight. Last night did not count. Charlie got between him and Moscow. Vodka got between him and Moscow. Again the same question in
his mind: ‘Is this it?’ Whatever he saw – splendour or squalor – ‘Is this it?’ was the only form response could take in his mind. After so long, after a
generation and more: ‘Is this really it?’
He found a bookshop on a street corner less than quarter of a mile away and bought a map of the city. The address was imprinted in his memory. Dolgo-Khamovnichesky Street, where Tolstoy used to
live, out in the Khamovniki, the old industrial quarter. He could find no such street on the map. Then the obvious dawned on him and he quickly found Lyev Tolstoy Street. For all he knew it had
been renamed some forty years or more. All the same, he’d know the house as soon as he saw it. Of that he was
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