The Avenue of the Dead Read Free

stared at him, holding the crumpled handkerchief in one hand and laughed out loud.
    â€˜Work for you? So that’s why you’re here! You’ve got some dirty job in mind and you think you’ll come down here and soft-soap me into doing it! Well, I’ll tell you, Brigadier, I’ll see you and your Office in hell first!’ She dropped the handkerchief on the table in front of him.
    â€˜I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and call my mother and father. They can finish entertaining you.’
    James White didn’t move. He said quietly, ‘We got the man who killed Sasanov.’
    She froze, half out of her chair. ‘You’ve caught him?’
    â€˜About three months ago. He was a Centre-trained professional and normally they’re hard cases. They don’t break easily. But this chap decided to save his skin. The Australians were going to charge him with murder; he thought it better to co-operate with us and come to England. He gave us his controller in Sydney and from him the trail led back to Moscow. Right back to the man who directed the search for Sasanov and organized his assassination. A man of great patience and determination. Would you like to know who he is?’
    There was not a sound around them; the breeze had dropped and the ranks of flowers were still as guardsmen. ‘Who?’
    â€˜Igor Tatischev,’ the brigadier said. ‘Now renamed Borisov. The new Director of State Security and head of the KGB. He was concerned with your arrest in Russia; I’m sure you remember the name.’
    â€˜I remember,’ she said.
    â€˜The old Director Kaledin promoted him after that. He was in line for the top job when Kaledin retired. The assassination of your husband was his chosen target. The damage Sasanov had done to Soviet plans rankled bitterly with the Politburo. They wanted him punished, and Borisov gave them his head – metaphorically speaking.’ He ignored the blazing look she gave him. He went on in the same casual tone.
    â€˜His reward was Kaledin’s job and a seat on the Politburo. I put it to you, Davina, if you work for me, you are working against him. Whatever you feel about my responsibility for what happened, and it’s not quite fair – the man sitting in the KGB director’s chair is the man who killed Sasanov as surely as if he’d set the bomb himself – I thought you might like to revenge your husband’s death. And the loss of your child. Think it over. I’ll go and find your parents, I want a chat with Fergus before I go.’
    â€˜Wait a minute.’ Davina stood up. ‘I’ll call them for you.’ She paused, one hand on the back of the garden chair, her face as white as the white narcissi which were her mother’s pride in the garden.
    â€˜There aren’t any holds barred with you, are there? You’d say or do anything to get your way. My husband and my child. You don’t see how I could refuse, do you?’
    â€˜Oh, no doubt you can. Perhaps you will. Perhaps your spleen against me is greater than your other feelings. I don’t mind that, but I do believe that Tatischev is going to prove a very dangerous opponent. I think there’s a real chance that he’s set up a key man in America as part of a Soviet operation. It so happens that you’re in a unique position to find out, and stop him. As I said, my dear, think it over. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow I’ll know you’ve decided to sit here and feel sorry for yourself. Ah – there’s your father! Fergus, come and have a chat for a minute. I’ve got to go back to London soon. The traffic gets impossible after four o’clock.’
    Captain Graham walked to the car with his old friend James White. It had taken him a long time to forgive White for involving Davina in the dangerous enterprise in Russia four years ago.
    He had never