Babylon South (40 page)

“I've never seen her,” Walter repeated.

Venetia
got up, went into the drawing-room and came back with a photo of Justine. “That was taken on her twenty-first birthday.”

Walter took off his glasses and replaced them with another steel-rimmed pair. In the moment he was without the glasses Venetia saw something of the Walter of long ago, a hint of the virile handsome man he had once been. He looked at the photo of the smiling Justine and his eyes seemed to mist over.

“She's beautiful. Just like you were.” He looked across at her. “Still are.”

Venetia ignored the compliment. She was accustomed to compliments from men, but now she felt uncomfortable with one from her husband. “She looks nothing like that now—I mean, not as happy. She's in trouble, Walter.”

“She didn't murder Emma, of course?”

“Of course not,” snapped Alice. “Oh, thanks, Liz. Mrs. Leyden, this is Sir Walter—we'll explain later. Walter, this is Mrs. Dyson's niece. She took over when Mrs. Dyson retired.”

“She's still alive?
Danke”
The German word slipped out, but he didn't seem to notice it, as Alice handed him a cup of tea. He looked up at Mrs. Leyden. “You might give my regards to your aunt, please. But not yet. I'd appreciate it if you said nothing about my being here, at least for the time being.”

“Lady Springfellow will tell you I'm very discreet. It's nice to know you're still—” Then Mrs. Leyden stopped.

Walter smiled. “That I'm still alive? Yes, it is.”

Mrs. Leyden went back to the kitchen and Venetia said, “We'll have to tell someone you're back. Whom do we tell first?
¹

“I honestly don't know. ASIO? The police? John Leeds perhaps—he's Police Commissioner now, isn't he?”

Venetia said awkwardly, “I'll call him if you like.”

Walter shook his head. He looked down again at the photo of Justine. “When can I see her?”

“To speak to her? Not before the weekend. We can visit her in the women's prison. I think I'd better prepare her first. I can usually manage a word with her in court before she leaves the dock.”

“
My daughter in the dock—” Again he shook his head. He put down the photo, changed his glasses again. “But then I'll be there myself soon enough. All the English newspapers will run
that
story.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's a long story.”

“You had better begin at the beginning,” said Alice.

II

Walter Springfellow had never met Alexis Uritzsky till the morning of Monday, March 28, 1966. He had, however, had two phone calls in the previous week, both of them threatening and demanding. The threat was to give to the newspapers incriminating photos of Lady Springfellow with a man; the demand was for ten thousand pounds in cash. The man had not identified himself by name and Walter had not been able to identify the accent. Had the blackmail concerned himself, Walter would have had no hesitation in contacting the Commonwealth Police: he had the arrogant confidence of the totally blameless. If, however, Venetia's affairs were to be exposed, then the blackmail had to be paid and the police kept out of it.

He arranged for ten thousand pounds to be transferred from his Sydney bank account to the account he had opened in Melbourne when he had started work in the southern city. That was on the Wednesday. On the Friday he withdrew the ten thousand, ignoring the restrained curiosity of the bank teller as he paid over the large amount in cash. He had flown back to Sydney on the six p.m. flight, carrying the money with him in his one suitcase.

“I shan't recap that weekend,” he said to Venetia as the afternoon light died in the sun-room and Alice got up and switched on some table lamps. “That would be too painful for both of us.”

“Let's forget that,” said Alice, the moderator and umpire. “What happened next?”

On the Monday morning the decision to take the Colt .45 was a last-minute one. He passed the gun-cabinet on his way in from the sun-room where he had had breakfast alone. He paused, looking at the collection of guns, then on the spur of the moment took the Colt and half a dozen rounds from the
ammunition
drawer below the cabinet. There was no thought of using it unless he had to; it was purely for self-defence. He had loaded the pistol, put it in his briefcase beneath the bundles of bank notes, had paused outside Venetia's door, wondering if he should go in and attempt a reconciliation, decided against it and gone out and got into the Commonwealth car that had called for him as it did every Monday morning.

At Kingsford Smith Airport he had thanked the driver, said he would see him Friday night on his return, gone into the terminal and walked straight through and out another door. He had walked across to the parking lot and found the man standing, as he had promised, beside the Ford Escort with the Australian Capital Territory plates.

“Sir Walter?” The young man was handsome in a broad-faced sort of way, with a pleasant smile. Walter recognized him at once, though he had never met him. ASIO had photos of all the KGB agents in Canberra and the various consulates throughout the capital cities. Walter had a photographic memory and he recognized this smiling young man, though at first he couldn't put a name to him. “You've brought the money?”

“Yes, Mr.—” The name came to him all at once. “Mr. Uritzsky, isn't it?”

The smile was suddenly gone. “That was a mistake, Sir Walter, letting me know you recognized me,” He put a hand in his pocket and it came out with a pistol. “Get in the car behind the wheel. You drive.”

Walter carried his suitcase and briefcase round to the driver's side of the car, watching Uritzsky all the time. Other cars were coming into the car-park, but they were at the far end. Uritzsky had chosen a spot where empty cars, their owners already in the terminal or already flying, were banked up on either side of the Ford.

Walter put his suitcase in the back of the car and took his briefcase into the front seat with him. Uritzsky slid in from the other side. He handed Walter the parking ticket and the money.

“Pay the man at the gate. And please—no funny business.”

They drove out of the car-park and Walter instinctively took the road leading out of the airport
towards
the city. “No,” said Uritzsky. “Go west, old man. I'll tell you when to pull up.”

So Walter drove the Ford west, out through the suburbs, out through Parramatta and past the Housing Commission houses beyond. As they climbed into the Blue Mountains, with no word passing between them, Walter realized that Uritzsky intended to kill him.

“This blackmail is your own idea?” he said at last. “Your masters know nothing about it?”

“Nothing.” Uritzsky studied him for a while. Then: “When you see who is in the photo with your wife, you are going to be a very sad and angry man.”

“Of course. A husband is always sad and angry if he finds out his wife is unfaithful.” He wondered who the man could be. “What are you going to do with the money?”

“Disappear. Defect. Call it what you like. Your wife has already paid me five thousand pounds.”

“I know. We discussed you on Friday night.”

“Does she know you were meeting me this morning?” Uritzsky sat up in the seat, his voice grew edgy.

“You'd like to know that, wouldn't you?” Walter was not a recklessly brave man, but he had courage.

Uritzsky raised the gun. Walter recognized it as a Smith & Wesson, standard issue to the NSW police; he wondered where Uritzsky had acquired it. “I could make you tell me.”

“I don't think so,” said Walter, looking straight ahead up the winding road. His hands were tight on the wheel, but his driving was steady. “You're going to kill me, anyway, aren't you?”

Uritzsky seemed put off by the accusation. The gun wavered; then he sat back in the corner of the seat. They passed through several towns before he said, “Turn left here.”

Walter did as he was told, driving through the neat, quiet streets of Blackheath and down into the scrub. At last he could drive no farther and he pulled up, switching off the engine. They were at the end of a long narrow track, at least three-quarters of a mile from the nearest house. Below them lay the deep forest-covered valley, looking as primitive and virgin as if still undiscovered. He'll shoot me, then push me over the cliff, Walter thought, and I'll never be found.

“
Get out,” said Uritzsky.

Walter took the briefcase with him as he got out of the Ford. Uritzsky slid across the front seat and followed him out. They stood looking at each other and Walter realized that Uritzsky was having to pluck up the courage to kill him. He belonged to the KGB, but he was not one of their killers, not professionally trained and certainly not licensed to kill.

Walter flipped back the locks on his briefcase. “You'll want to be sure I've brought the money. There. Ten thousand pounds.”

He held open the case, put his hand under the notes and drew out the Colt .45. He was not a trained killer, but he was far from a novice in the use of guns. He flicked off the safety catch, brought the gun up and fired it at Uritzsky from close range. The Russian, greed making him momentarily unwary, had leaned forward to check the small fortune in the briefcase. Had he been better paid by the KGB, had he been as accustomed to money as Walter was, he would not have been so excited by a mere ten thousand pounds: he died, in a curious way, because he was still a poor farmer's son from outside Smolensk. The bullet hit him in the lower part of his face: his smile died in the blast.

He fell down in an undramatic way. Walter stood over him, for a moment feeling absolutely nothing at all. Then he saw what he had done to Uritzsky's face and was hit suddenly by the larger enormity of what he had done. He turned away and was violently sick.

The sound of the shot had gone cracking across the valley; a faint echo came back from somewhere, or it might have been another gun going off. He leaned against the car, his legs barely holding him up. Then he sat down on the seat behind the wheel, half-in, half-out of the car, the open door shielding the view of the dead Uritzsky, and waited for someone to respond to the sound of the shot and come down from the houses up beyond the scrub. He did not know that all the nearest houses were holiday homes, vacant during the week, and he sat there for twenty minutes, waiting to be found beside the man he had murdered, but nobody came.

At last he stirred, knowing in a dim way that something had been decided but to which he had not yet agreed. He reached into the back of the car and took out the briefcase there; he saw the initials,
VS,
and recognized it as an old one of Venetia's. He opened it and saw the bundles of fifty-pound notes. Then he took out the brown manila envelope, shook the three ten by eight inch photos from it. He looked at them, saw the man with his hands up under Venetia's raised dress, saw the manic look on her face that he had seen so often right beneath his own: she was in orgasm. Then he saw the man's face: it was almost as if he had tried to avoid looking at him. It was John Leeds.

He dropped the photos and was sick again; but this time nothing came up. He felt sweat break out on him; a sudden wind swept up from the valley, chilling him to the bone. Or perhaps it was not the wind.

He went for a walk back up the track, unconsciously waiting for someone to come down, see what he had done and call the police. Then he thought of the photos lying beside the car: he would never be able to stand anyone's seeing those. He hurried back down the track, stumbling on the uneven ground. He gathered up the three photos, turning them over so that he did not have to look at them again, put them in a hole on the lee side of a large rock and lit them with his cigarette lighter. He watched the photos curl up, turning to brown ash. In a moment the photos were no more than a small pile of ashes. He knew that his life, too, was no more than that.

He looked back up the track once more; but no one was coming. He took out Uritzsky's suitcases from the boot of the car and opened them; he found what he was looking for, a set of negatives different from those from which the burnt photos had been developed. He held them up to the sky: as far as he could tell it was Venetia and John Leeds in another wild embrace. He put a light to the negatives, watched them burn.

He quickly went through Uritzsky's suitcases; there was nothing else incriminating in them. He carried them down the track to the edge of the cliff and flung them far out, one by one, watching them fall, seemingly in slow motion, down to the thick forest of gums far below. He went back to the car and opened Venetia's briefcase again. Tucked into an inner pocket was an airline ticket in the name of Mr. A. Skelly, from Broken Hill to Perth; that was why Uritzsky had ordered him to drive west. In a second pocket there were three passports: one British, one Australian, one United States. They were all in the
name
of Alexander Skelly, who had been born in, respectively, Hove, UK, Melbourne, Australia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 15, 1934.

There was only one thing missing from each of the passports: there was no photo. Uritzsky had not yet made up his mind how Alexander Skelly should look.

The passports were forgeries, Walter was sure of that; but they were excellent ones. Uritzsky, somehow, had taken advantage of the KGB's expertise; he may even have forged the passports himself. Walter sat down, again half-in and half-out of the car, and looked at his life, backwards and forwards. Few of us take the time to look both ways at our lives: we have to be strung up high enough on a crisis to get the long view.

There was nothing to go back to but scandal and a murder charge. There was nothing to go forward to but the unknowable. There was really no choice. There was, of course, the child in Venetia's womb; but how could he be sure now that it was his? The question made him sick again, but again there was nothing to come up out of the hollow pit of himself.