Angels in the Snow - Derek Lambert

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at you. I suppose I was a bit harsh, too. I just get so browned off with the bloody Press learning all our business.’

      He swerved to avoid a cat walking delicately across the road, and swerved back again to avoid an oncoming taxi. Mauve sparks still spilled from the embryonic blocks along Kalinina lighting the falling snow. The streets were deserted and the city was tranquil in sleep. Ansell accelerated along Kutuzovsky and changed down savagely for the U turn. Again they skidded. ‘Bloody road surfaces,’ he said. ‘You’d think they would have done something about it by now. After all it’s not as if it only snows every five years.’

      The militiaman watched them from his grey box, an incurious, disembodied head, theatrically illumined by the light from a naked bulb. A few of the flats were still lit, blurred figures moving behind the curtains.

      ‘See you in the morning, then,’ Ansell said. The snow whitened his hair but he didn’t look distinguished. ‘Don’t worry too much about what’s happened tonight.’

      ‘I don’t feel much like sleep,’ Mortimer said.

      ‘I’d ask you up for a night-cap but I expect Anne will be looking for blood. She’s probably got the rolling-pin out now. In any case I think we’re out of gin.’

      ‘Do you think there’ll be much trouble about Green’s story?’

      ‘Bound to be, I’m afraid. It’ll come zooming back from the FO first thing in the morning. Then there’ll be a bloody great inquest with old Farnworth doing his big security act. You can be sure the buck will be passed firmly down the line.’

      ‘Until it reaches me?’

      ‘I shouldn’t worry about that. Don’t say anything unless you’re asked. I’ll try and cover up for you.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Mortimer said. ‘But I think I’d better see the Ambassador or Farnworth in the morning.’

      ‘There’s no need to be a martyr,’ Ansell said. ‘Anyway we’ll have a chat about it in the morning.’ He paused. ‘Funny you getting to know Randall so quickly.’

      ‘What’s so funny about that?’

      ‘Nothing really. He’s a funny bugger though.’

      He walked away looking apprehensively up at the lighted window of his flat.

      The shadows caressed each other on the ceiling, fusing and parting with tremulous movements. They seemed to Mortimer to make a faint noise, the slithering of a snake or the rustle of a petticoat, but it was only the hush of night. In one corner a shadow beat a noiseless tattoo. Mortimer went to the window to find the source of the movement, but all was still outside.

      He couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes he recited his confession to the Ambassador, argued defensively with Randall, listened to Green reading his report of the attempted defection, heard the crackle of flames burning furniture.

      Was the flat bugged? Was a patient KGB man sitting in a flat somewhere listening to his coughs, the movement of the bedclothes? He curled up in the bed and tried—with a desperation that defeated its object—to sleep. The phone rang with the impact of a gun-shot. He picked up the receiver with a shaking hand.

      A nasal voice said: ‘Hallo, Richard, I hope I didn’t wake you up?’

      ‘Who’s that?’ He tried to speak calmly.

      ‘Harry Green here. I thought I’d give you a ring to apologise for the unpleasantness in the club.’

      ‘You needn’t have bothered. It’s your job. I was a bit gullible, that’s all.’

      ‘I didn’t want you to get too upset by Ansell’s nonsense. I haven’t quoted anyone and in any case the story doesn’t matter a damn.’

      ‘Why did you write it then?’

      ‘It was a good story,’ Green said. ‘That doesn’t mean to say it matters all that much. It won’t get anyone into trouble. Mrs. Masterson tells me she isn’t the slightest bit embarrassed and in any case it will all be forgotten in a couple of days.’

      ‘I see.’ Mortimer searched for words. ‘It’s nice of you to phone. It’s just a pity from my point of view that I had to meet you tonight.’

      ‘Listen,’ Green said, ‘if the embassy had any idea of public relations situations like this would never arise. They condescend to hold a briefing once a fortnight. And the sole purpose of that, as far as I can see, is to find out what we know. Whenever there’s a real story they don’t get in touch with us. Frankly they are as deceitful in their way as the Russians. The only difference is that they’re polite about it. I suppose you’ve been warned about talking to the Press?’

      Mortimer said: ‘I don’t really think I ought to discuss it with you.’

      ‘You’re learning,’ Green said. ‘I suppose Ansell’s been giving you the big lecture.’

      ‘You’re not going to write another story about security at the embassy, are you?’

      ‘What security?’ Green asked.

      ‘I don’t want to make any more blunders. As it is I think I’ll have to apologise to the Ambassador in the morning.’

      Green sighed. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘Do you know why Ansell was so hysterical about the story?’

      Mortimer said: ‘Because he was concerned that it might harm Anglo-Soviet relations, I suppose.’

      ‘Not on your life,’ Green said. ‘He’s already had one bollocking for shooting his mouth off. He’s frightened this one Will be traced back to him. Especially as he was seen talking to me in the club. He’s got a reputation for being a blabber-mouth. You’ll soon find out about Mr. Ansell. Do you know who in fact leaked the story in the first place?’

      Mortimer shook his head at the telephone. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And I don’t really think you should tell me.’

      ‘For the first time in my life,’ Green said, ‘I will divulge my source of information. It was Mrs. Ansell.’

      Mortimer fell asleep quickly after Green had rung off. His brain was exhausted by the permutations of minor intrigue.

      Then one day the snow didn’t melt during the day and winter was finally buttoned down over the city. Sometimes the snow fell in soft Christmas flakes which the wind blew into blizzards, but mostly it fell without hurry, thinly and relentlessly, smoothing the countryside and calming the city.

      Machines cleared the Moscow streets piling the snow in the gutters or spewing it into the river, but the roads were soon covered again with more snow mashed and stained by the traffic. And all the time the women scraped away with their broad shovels, as inexorably as the falling snow. Muscovites untied the ear-flaps on their shapkas, shrank deeper into their overcoats and steamed in the hot shops like racehorses after a gallop.

      In Gorky Park the tenacious old chess players finally resigned and left the open-air boards near the big wheel. Motorists covered their cars with tarpaulins and left them to be awoken in the spring. On the outskirts of the city wooden cottages became igloos and life was arranged around the stove: in the new flats it continued as before around the television.

      Weather prophets studied birds and berries and clouds and prophesied a long hard winter; they prophesied one every year and were never wrong. The cold beckoned death and many people died by its blade; it equated birth with death by dispatching couples early to bed in over-crowded flats and cottages. From the white streets the living rooms of old wooden tenements, jungled with potted plants and creepers, looked as if they were filled with green water.

      Many people welcomed winter. Skiers flying from the artificial jump on the Lenin Hills; skaters in the parks, old men frozen beside holes in the ice hooking fish from the quiet

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