The Rocket Man Read online

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Switch it off.’

  Nihal did so, instantly. He had finished his orange juice; he couldn’t eke it out any longer. It was clear that the interview was over; he folded up his notebook, then decided on one last try. ‘I’m very keen to interview Herr Richter, I am intrigued by his ideas. You don’t think you could suggest this to him?’

  Weiland made an impatient gesture with his fingers. ‘Herr Richter is a very busy man. I could ask him, but I doubt he could spare the time. Besides, he is not here. I believe he is in Paris.’ Weiland stood up, supporting himself with his arm on the side of the chair.

  An idea occurred to Nihal; it was rather a long shot, in fact it sounded to him quite wild, even as he said it: ‘I’ve heard rumours that the Mennonite communities at Filadelfia are very anxious about this rocket project. There has even been talk of plans to sabotage a launch.’

  ‘Sabotage?’ Weiland took a step towards him, and his voice rose in pitch, almost to a falsetto. ‘Please, tell me where you heard this.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t reveal to you my source.’

  Weiland turned and went to the door, an amused smile suddenly crossing his face; ‘No; no, of course you can’t. I quite understand. Let us hope it is no more reliable than your other sources. But thank you very much for telling me; we will look into it.’ He stepped forward and Nihal, rather reluctantly, shook his outstretched hand. As he left the room Nihal had a distinct impression of Weiland’s hand reaching out towards the phone.

  Katie thought that Bob’s absence in Paris was an ideal opportunity to talk things over with Dmitry and to end their affair. She had asked the girl downstairs to babysit for the evening and, after reading Anna a story and tucking her into bed, she hurried down the hill, wrapped in her coat, holding her arm out to balance herself because of the ice underfoot. It was bitterly cold. Fine snow was falling, swirling above the white pavements. She tried to think through what she was going to say to Dmitry, and her heart felt heavy, because she was not sure that she would actually have the strength to say what she wanted. At the same time, she was excited at the thought of seeing him tonight; she had never had a whole evening on her own with him before.

  She crossed the road and squeezed between two cars parked outside the house. As she did so she noticed there were two men sitting in one of them; she saw them, but didn’t give it any further thought. When she got to Dmitry’s door she hesitated for a long time before ringing the bell. He opened the door at once, as if he had been waiting right behind it.

  Katie walked past him into the room. The table was laid for dinner; a bottle of wine already open with two glasses waiting. Katie didn’t kiss him, and she didn’t sit down. She hovered awkwardly in the centre of the room.

  Her expression must have given her away. Dmitry asked, ‘Is something the matter?’ He made a move towards her and she retreated suddenly, moving behind the sofa, afraid that if he touched her she might break down or lose her resolve.

  The words she had tried to rehearse came out only with the greatest of difficulty, and failed entirely to convey what she was feeling.

  ‘I decided tonight that we should talk about all this. I mean, about what is happening.’

  ‘Happening?’ Dmitry looked puzzled; Katie blundered on. ‘I mean, I can’t just carry on like this… if we do, sooner or later I will have to tell Bob… I thought it might just be easier…’ she took a deep breath; ‘I thought that perhaps we should just end this.’

  She hadn’t meant to put it so bluntly. Dmitry almost jumped, startled, looking at her as if he had suddenly been woken from sleep; she saw such an unmistakable expression of dismay in his face that she suddenly knew that he must feel for her what she felt for him. She could not bear the fact that she had hurt him, he looked so confused, bewildered, so she reached out at once to comfort him; they held one another for a long time, Katie crying, Dmitry murmuring soothing words to her. As soon as she started to cry she felt better; the tears seemed to drag out with them all the other feelings she had been fighting back over the last few weeks, and she felt at once a sense of release. Unlike Bob when she cried, Dmitry did not seem embarrassed or uncomfortable; he didn’t ask her to stop or try to dry her eyes. He seemed to accept her tears as he accepted everything else about her. ‘That’s right, cry,’ he said softly, ‘Then you will feel better.’

  When at last she stopped and sat down on the sofa he lifted up her chin and wiped the tears away with a handkerchief. ‘There,’ he said finally, ‘Is that better?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Has anything happened today?’ he asked her, ‘Your husband doesn’t think…?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘It’s not that, only that I don’t know how to cope with this. I don’t want to lie to Bob, and I’m afraid of telling him. I know that this has to come to an end sooner or later, so I thought, perhaps it’s best to end it now.’

  ‘Why does it have to end?’

  Katie stared at him, confused. They sat in silence for a while, but it was a gentle, soothing silence, and Katie began to feel an intense relief, as if all of this had been unnecessary and there was no reason for her to feel such pain. Dmitry stood up. ‘Look, don’t torment yourself now, you don’t have to make any decisions tonight. Let me get you something to eat.’

  Katie realised that her feeble attempt to break things off had been a dismal failure. The only thing she wanted was to be here and with him, and she knew that he felt the same, and there was no point in creating an artificial deadline. Why end it before it had to end? Even if it just postponed the suffering, wouldn’t that be better, wouldn’t anything be better than having to face it now? Anyway, perhaps her feelings would change, perhaps they would burn themselves out, she might wake up one day and look at Dmitry and wonder what had caused this terrible madness.

  She lay down on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. Dmitry took a cassette off the shelf and slipped it into the player. He said, ‘I’m afraid this is something rather cheap and sentimental… but, well, sometimes I feel nostalgic.’

  It was a Russian man singing a series of haunting melodies; in the background someone played an instrument she assumed was a balalaika. She lay and listened, half dozing, while he busied himself in the kitchen. Finally he came and leaned over her to say that supper was ready; she was too tired and sleepy to get up. He ran his hand over her face, along her body, finally resting it over her breast, in a gesture of such affection and intimacy that she felt she did not care what happened, as long as she could remember that moment. Gently, unhurriedly, they made love; then they got up and Dmitry reheated the pancakes, which they washed down with wine and then vodka. Then Katie said, ‘I’m sorry – I’ve been a fool. Will you please forget what I said when I arrived?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t forget it, but I will ignore it, if you like.’ And he gave her one of his rare exuberant smiles.

  At one in the morning she said she must go. She put on her coat, and then went and looked out of the window to see if it was still snowing. She couldn’t help noticing again the white car parked within sight of the apartment; unlike the others, its windscreen was clear of snow. The outline cast across the ground by the street-lamp contained the shadow of the two figures within. ‘Are they going to sit in the car all night?’ she asked, half to herself, ‘They’ll freeze to death.’

  Dmitry got up suddenly and came over to the window. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There are two men in that white car over there,’ said Katie. ‘They were there when I came here.’ A realisation, prompted by his alarmed response, came to her, and she felt her hair prickle with fear. ‘They’re watching somebody, aren’t they?’

  He looked momentarily out of the window, taking care that the curtain fell behind them so that they wouldn’t be visible, and then drew her away from the window. ‘When did you notice this?’ he demanded.

  ‘I saw them when I came. I didn’t think. They’re not anything to do with you, are they?’<
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  ‘I have no idea.’

  They looked at one another in the silence, neither of them quite sure what to say.

  ‘Are they your people, or what?’ asked Katie, after a while.

  ‘My people? What do you mean, my people? Do you mean the KGB? No, of course not. Why should they be?’

  He seemed seriously worried and it alarmed her terribly. Then she said, ‘You don’t think Bob might have hired a private detective?’

  ‘Well, why not? it’s possible.’ Relief seemed to pass over his features for a moment. Then he frowned. He started to walk up and down the room. Katie felt her heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped moth. She didn’t understand what was happening.

  Dmitry had poured himself another vodka. He continued to walk up and down, the glass in his hand. ‘Katie, does Bob ever talk to you about his work?’

  He said it almost casually; he was not looking at her. Katie was suddenly on her guard. Since Bob had put that tiny seed of doubt about him into her mind, she had wondered what she would do if he asked her that question, and how, if he did, she would reply. She looked at him; she could see that he was as tense as she was; it was as if something physical had entered the room and come between them.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, trying to sound natural, ‘Of course, sometimes, why not?’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Just office gossip, nothing important.’ She felt as if she was feeling her way along a narrow ledge in the dark, wanting to put a hand out for support, afraid of touching nothing but emptiness. She said, ‘Mitya, I really am frightened. They won’t do anything, will they? Should we go to the police?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it would do the slightest good to go to the police. All the same, I’d better do so. It’s what the UN security people advise. Look.’ Dmitry went to his jacket and took two folded sheets of A4 paper from the inside pocket. It was headed ‘Points relative to personal security’ and consisted of fourteen paragraphs in poor English. It gave instructions for people to change their routine, check the car for signs of tampering, watch for people approaching the car when halted at traffic lights, never opening the door to strangers and reporting any suspicion of being followed to the police. Katie read it with mounting alarm. It meant that people took this kind of thing seriously. It implied that somebody might want to kill you.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ she asked.

  ‘From the UN security people.’ Dmitry took the sheets of paper out of her hand. ‘Actually, I like this document. Did you notice point three: “Be as unpredictable as possible in all your actions?” I’m not sure the IAEA would approve.’

  Katie laughed, and for a moment the tension eased.

  Dmitry drained another glass of vodka and said, ‘Tell me about Bob.’

  ‘Why are you so concerned with Bob suddenly? asked Katie, feeling more than a little suspicious. He had never asked about him before, in fact had scrupulously avoided it. ‘You’ve never asked me anything before, you haven’t asked me if I still love him, you haven’t even asked me if I still go to bed with him…’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She said it to hurt him, and she succeeded. He turned away from her suddenly, as if she had slapped him. She said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to leave him?’

  He spoke coldly, off-handedly. ‘You must decide yourself, if you want to leave him. I’ve told you, what happens with your marriage is up to you. I can’t decide for you. All that is nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I think it’s very much concerned with you.’ She had begun to shake with anger. ‘I think I was right when I came, I think I should just walk out of here right now and not come back.’

  He winced and closed his eyes. ‘You must do what you want.’

  She crossed the room and snatched her shawl up from the back of the chair. ‘Oh, what I want, what I want,’ she said, ‘That’s so easy for you, isn’t it, to put everything onto me. What about you? What do you want?’

  He looked suddenly very tired. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and examined his fingernails. ‘Please go now, Katie. This isn’t going to get anywhere.’

  ‘No, of course not, if you won’t answer me. Yes, I’d better go. I’ll call you. Or not.’ She slammed the door on her way out.

  As she left the building and walked up towards her own flat she saw a car parking. A few minutes later, the white car started up, pulled out into the road and drove away past her up the hill.

  Nihal took a bus to the railway station. He thought he might as well go back to Vienna and asked at the ticket office for information about trains. Then he thought he might go to Paris; after all, Richter was in Paris. Dmitry had even given him his address in the Place des Vosges. He wondered, not for the first time, where Dmitry had got the information. He rang the airport; a flight left in just under an hour. If he took a taxi he would make it.

  From the airport he booked a room at a cheap hotel near the Place de la République and arrived there just before ten, exhausted. He sat down on the bed and took off his shoes. He stared at the pink flowery wallpaper and wondered whether this had been the right decision. After all, he could hardly just turn up on Richter’s doorstep and demand an interview… or perhaps that was exactly what he should do.

  He lay back on the bed and noticed that the wallpaper also covered the ceiling, giving him the sensation of being gift-wrapped in a box.

  Almost immediately the phone rang.

  Imagining that the woman at the desk must have some query, he picked up the receiver. At the other end of it was a woman’s husky voice. She asked, ‘Is that Nihal Senanayake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have to talk to you about RASAG.’

  It took a few seconds for the full implications of this hit Nihal. A cold sensation swept through him. He thought, I didn’t even know I was coming here myself, how on earth could they know? Who was this woman?

  ‘About what, exactly?’

  ‘I gather you have some information that could be very important to us.’ She spoke almost breathlessly; he found it hard to place her accent. French, perhaps, but also something else.

  ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. But I would like to see you. Can you meet me tonight? I will be at the bar in the Hôtel Crillon. Do you know where that is? It’s in the Rue de Rivoli. Can you be there in an hour?’

  Nihal looked at his watch. ‘How will I recognise you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that - I will recognise you. You must come alone; I’ll see you there.’ Then the phone abruptly went dead.

  Nihal remained sitting on the edge of the bed. He thought, someone has followed me all the way here. I didn’t mention this to anyone. What was going on? He would go; he had to.

  On the way to the hotel, on the metro, Nihal kept looking around him to see if anyone was still following him. He tried to do this without it seeming obvious; but it was impossible to tell. He tried to memorise the people in his carriage and watch who got off with him at Concorde. It was much more difficult to spot someone than he would have imagined. He began to wonder if it had been a good idea to come alone. Perhaps this was a set-up, and they intended to get rid of him - but this was absurd; nonetheless, he began to regret his remark to Weiland about the Mennonites.

  As soon as Nihal spotted the woman in the Crillon Bar he knew it had to be her. She was sitting at the bar facing the door and had long, black hair, long legs, the most exquisite fine features, and wore dark glasses. As he walked in she gave him a little wave. She looked like something out of a 1960s spy movie. Everything about her was expensive; she wore model clothes and clutched a crocodile-skin bag. Nihal went over and sat on one of the barstools next to her. She swivelled round to face him, sweeping the hair back behind her ear with a haughty movement of her hand. Then she said, dropping her voice to a soft, seductive tone, ‘You must help us. You must give us this information.’

  ‘What information?’
Nihal supposed he would have to buy her a drink; he dreaded to think what it would cost. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I have a drink here.’ It was bright pink with a twist of lemon in it and the glass was frosted; she held it by the narrow stem. She merely touched the glass to her lips as if to cool them, then put it down gently on the bar. ‘Come, you must tell us, about this sabotage plan.’ She moved closer to him; the crocodile-skin bag pressed against his leg. He tried not to reveal his distaste for it. The scent of expensive perfume, not too strong, but subtle, emanated from her as if it was in her very breath. ‘Lives could depend on it,’ she said.

  A bowl of peanuts stood on the bar; Nihal dipped into them; he never missed the opportunity of some free food. ‘But I don’t know your name,’ he said. ‘Or where you’re from.’

  She hesitated and looked away, took another sip of her drink. She said, ‘Sylvia Mellors.’

  Nihal thought at once something was phony about her name; whatever else she was, she was not English. Her voice, at the very least, was foreign, perhaps French, a hint of Spanish. She laid her hand delicately on his arm. ‘Please, tell me what you know. It could be dangerous for you. There are certain people who want to know very badly. If they want to get this information from you I don’t suppose you would be able to keep it to yourself – do you understand me?’

  Nihal did understand her. He felt completely out of his depth; in fact, he felt frightened. He had no idea who this woman was; whether she was working for some intelligence service or for RASAG. Nihal thought he’d have to play this very carefully. He was alone, and no-one even knew he was here; he should not have allowed himself to be so vulnerable. ‘It’s only a matter of rumour. I could tell you who my source was; but anyway, why should I reveal anything if there’s nothing in it for me?’

  ‘Perhaps there could be something in it for you,’ she said, turning away slightly, tossing back her hair, and picking up her drink. ‘You want to meet Wolf Richter, don’t you?’ She spoke the name almost with awe.