Solo - Jack Higgins [32]
'Your performance the other night - were you satisfied?'
'Tolerably. I'm never happy with the Albert Hall acoustics, but the ambience is great.'
'And now a holiday. What do you intend to do? Go to Hydra?'
'A few days in Cambridge first.'
'Dr Katherine Riley?' Deville said. 'That's fast becoming a habit. Are you serious?'
'She's company,' Mikali said. 'No more than that, but then good company's damned hard to find in this lousy world, don't you agree?'
He unzipped the right-hand pocket of his track suit and took out a small, rather ugly automatic, perhaps six inches long with a curious-looking barrel, which he placed on the table.
Deville picked it up. 'What is it?'
'A Czech Ceska. This particular model was manufactured by the Germans when they took over the factory during the war. It incorporates a very effective silencer.'
'Any good?'
'SS Intelligence used them.'
Deville put it down carefully. 'You always go armed, even when running in the park?'
Mikali poured himself a cup of tea, added sugar and milk, English-style. 'Tell me,' he said. 'Do you still carry a cyanide capsule?'
'Of course.'
'GRU regulations, am I right?'
'Yes.'
'Why have you never offered me one?'
Deville shrugged. 'Because I could never conceive of a situation in which you would use it.'
'Exactly.' Mikali smiled and picked up the Ceska. 'When that totally unexpected moment arrives, when they come to take me, I'll have this in my hand. Even in the Green Room at the Albert Hall.'
'I see,' Deville said. 'You go down firing. The soldier's end, face towards the enemy.' He sighed and there was genuine affection in his voice now. 'My dear John, you really are the most romantic fool at heart. Is that how you see yourself? The last Samurai?'
Mikali opened the window and stepped on to the balcony. The sun was shining as he looked out across the park. It was going to be a warm day.
He turned. 'Oscar Wilde once said that life is a bad quarter of an hour made up of exquisite moments.'
'Which brings us back to Cambridge and Dr Riley,' Deville said.
Mikali smiled. 'Exactly. Very definitely one of the more exquisite moments he was referring to.'
4
By evening Morgan had reached Leeds. He left the city by the A65 making for the Yorkshire Dales through Otley, Ilkley and Skipton, moving up into a high dark landscape of desolate moors surmounted by an occasional low mountain peak.
The village of Malham is set in the midst of the most rugged limestone scenery in Yorkshire. He reached it as darkness was falling, drove on for another mile before finally turning through a five-barred gate to a small, greystone cottage set amongst trees in half an acre of garden.
Strictly speaking, it was now Helen's part of the settlement, but when he checked, the key was under the stone where it had always been kept. He opened the door, then went and got his things from the car.
There was that faintly damp smell that came from lack of use, but there was a fire laid ready on the hearth. He put a match to it and went exploring upstairs where there were two bedrooms and a bath.
He found what he wanted in one of the wardrobes. His old climbing gear. Boots, corduroy pants and heavy woollen sweaters. He took them downstairs along with a sleeping bag and spread them round the fire. Then he got a bottle of Scotch from his holdall, climbed into the sleeping bag and lay in front of the fire.
He piled on the logs and drank whisky - a great deal of whisky - because he didn't want to think of her. Not then. That would come later. After a while, he slept.
A couple of miles beyond Malham, a footpath leads to the cliffs of Gordale Scar. Asa Morgan had last visited this place with his daughter on her twelfth birthday. Walking steadily across the boggy ground that morning through heavy rain, he could hear again her excited voice as they rounded the rocky corner and the Scar came into view, the waterfall pouring down the centre, heavier than usual because of the rain.
The only way forward had been by a rock climb up the steep buttress on the left