That night I took a long time getting off to sleep. Drinking strong black coffee keeps me awake at night nowadays. It's a sign of getting old, at least that's what Dicky says. He's two years younger than I am. He drinks a great deal of coffee and sleeps even during the daytime. As I was nursing my headache, and thinking about the family conversation, I heard soft deliberate footsteps along the corridor outside my room. It was someone in padded shoes, walking in a fashion that would minimize the sound. The steps halted outside my bedroom door. I reached for the flashlight, switched it on and looked at my wristwatch. It was ten past two in the morning. Instinctively I looked for something to use as a weapon but I had nothing except the metal flashlight. The footsteps went away, but in no more than three minutes they were back again. I visualized someone standing in the corridor and not moving, and tried to guess what they might be doing. Next there came a rumbling noise very close to my head. I sat up in bed and put my feet on the floor. There was a muted clang of metal and I jumped up in alarm only to hear the padded footsteps slowly moving off along the corridor again. I realized it was one of the servants putting a log into my stove. All the stoves were built so as to be fueled from outside the rooms.

I remained awake for a long time after that. From the forest there were the cries of animals: foxes or wild dogs perhaps. Once I fancied I heard the barking of wolves. Dogs locked in their kennels in the courtyard joined in the howling. Perhaps tomorrow George would come. Unless it was George they were digging up in the forest in the dark.

4

The Kosinski Mansion, Masuria, Poland.

The following day brought no further news of either George or Stefan Kosinski. I got up early and, having abandoned the effort of making a palatable pot of tea with the warm water delivered to my room, I went to the kitchen and ate porridge and drank coffee with the servants. Dicky didn't like porridge. He slept late and then went out to examine the vehicles in the coach house. There were six of them. They included a sleigh — with hand-painted edelweiss and functioning jingle bells — a coach, a carriage and a pony trap, the last two in good condition and evidently in regular use. Apart from the car in which we had arrived, there were no motor vehicles to be seen except for the remains of a tractor which had been stripped bare for tires and spare parts.

Dicky had heard a story about a young Dutch banker finding two vintage Bugattis in a barn not far from where we were. This Dutchman was said to have persuaded the fanner to exchange the priceless old cars for two modern Opels. I didn't believe the story but Dicky insisted that it was true, and the thought of it was never far from his mind. Several times on our journey from Warsaw I'd had to dissuade him from going to search likely-looking farm buildings for such treasures.

'Do you think the Russians will come?' Dicky asked me as I found him opening the door of a carriage and looking inside to see the amazing muddle of cobwebs.

'Invade'? I don't know.'

Dicky closed the door, but the lock didn't engage until he tried three times, finally slamming the door of the carriage with enough force to shake the dust out of the springs. 'I don't want to find myself explaining my presence to some damned Russian army intelligence officer,' he said. 'And I don't want you here explaining yourself either.'

There was little I could say to that. It established Dicky's superiority in a way that required no elaboration. I reasoned that the danger was not imminent. My own guess was that the Soviets would order the Polish security forces to stage a mass round-up of every possible Polish odd-ball, opponent and dissident, before risking their infantry in the Warsaw streets, or even the open countryside. But it was better to let Dicky worry; he was a worrier by nature, and it kept him occupied and off my back.

I followed him as he walked to the far end of the coach house where a trestle bench had been cleared. It was covered with clean newspaper, and there were three shiny black rubbish bags, empty, folded and ready, at one end.

'A body,' mused Dicky, picking up one of the plastic bags and putting it down again. 'That's all we needed.' He sneezed. 'I've picked up some sort of virus,' he said after wiping his nose on a large handkerchief.

'It's the dust,' I said.

'How I wish it was dust,' said Dicky with a brave smile. 'You're lucky; you don't get these damned allergies and stiffer the way I do.'

'Yes,' I said. I could recognize the symptoms; Dicky had had enough of Polish austerity — hard beds, potato soup and chilly bedrooms — and now he was preparing to make his excuses and depart.

Dicky looked at his watch. 'Shall we go down to look at the digging? Everyone seems to have disappeared. Except that secretary fellow, he left the house at six-thirty this morning. It was scarcely light.' Dicky went out into the courtyard and stamped around on the cobbles. The sky had cleared in the night, and the temperature had dropped enough for the cold to sting my face and give Dicky a glittering pink complexion.

'You saw the secretary leaving?'

'On a horse. A beautiful hunter. Dressed up to the nines in riding breeches, polished boots and a hacking jacket, like some English country squire. He's a shifty sod, we must watch him.'

'And he hasn't returned yet?'

'I was checking the stables. The horse is not here. I wonder where the bastard's gone. He was very quiet last night, wasn't he? He was watching you like a hawk, did you notice that?'

'No, I didn't.'

'All the time. You should be more observant, Bernard. These people are not to be trusted. They tell us only what they want us to hear.'

'You're right, Dicky.'

'You probably didn't notice that there is no telephone in that house.'

'That's probably why the secretary went off somewhere on his horse.'

'Damned odd, isn't it? No phone?'

'Maybe. Stefan's a writer; perhaps he doesn't want a telephone in his house.'

'Writer, huh. I'm going to see what those people are digging up in the forest, just in case it is a body. I'll jog there, it's not far. Better we both go.'

Today Dicky had delved into his wardrobe for a three-quarter-length military jacket. It was an olive-green waterproof garment with huge pockets, a long-sleeve version of the sort of garment General Westmoreland modeled in Nam. The name patch had been carefully unpicked from it, leaving the impression that it was an item of kit retained after Dicky's military service. This was an interpretation that he liked to encourage, but Daphne once confided that all Dicky's military wardrobe came from a charity shop in Hampstead.

It did not matter that Dicky had brought his oddments of (démodé military uniform; half the population of Poland seemed to be outfitted by the US army. But other men wore stained and patched ones, and wore them in a sloppy and informal way. Dicky's well-fitting jacket was clean and pressed. With the jacket fully buttoned, and a red paratroop beret worn pulled down tight on his skull, Dicky was conspicuous in this country governed by soldiers. Only his trendy blue-and-white running shoes saved him from looking like a general about to inspect an honor guard of the riot police.

'It's a long hike,' I warned.

'Come along, Bernard. A brisk canter would do you good. Ye gods, I jog across Hampstead Heath every morning before breakfast.'

'Daphne said you'd given up the daily jogging,' I said.

My remark had the calculated effect. 'Daphne!' Dicky exploded. 'What the hell does Daphne know about what I do? She's in bed when I get home, and in bed when I get up in the morning.'