sent you? To find me?’
‘I told them I was going to find you. Come hell or high water.’
‘But how can you tell the British anything?’
He said: ‘They needed me. They had to agree. Told me to be careful. No heroics. This is America’s war.’
She didn’t believe him. ‘I hope they’re paying you well. They didn’t tell you to question me?’
And oh God he wanted to tell her the truth and be done with this! ‘About what, for God’s sake?’
Her nerves were strung tight. ‘Are the British paying you to find me?’
‘Oh Jesus …’ But his anger was with himself and the Royal goddam Navy.
She closed her exhausted eyes. She put her hand to her brow and massaged. ‘I’m sorry …’
He wanted to take her in his arms and claim her, tell her he was sorry. She opened her eyes and said:
‘The Russians are after me, you see.’
Brink-Ford had told him, but it was shocking all over again. ‘The Russians? How do you know?’
She took a trembly breath, and massaged her forehead.
‘I know something.’ She shook her head. ‘They think I know something. That Max told me.’
This was what he was supposed to be here for. ‘What did Max tell you?’
She sat quite still, controlling her tension.
‘He didn’t tell me anything conclusive – he only hinted at it. In a rage.’ He waited. It seemed she was not going to continue. Then: she took another deep breath. ‘Oh God, it became a miserable, cat-and-dog relationship … After your last visit.’ She shook her head again. ‘Oh, he was a good man in so many ways. But … Maybe I’m in shock, maybe I can’t believe that he’s dead … And God knows I don’t wish him dead …’ She breathed, then it came out as a sob: ‘But God knows I also don’t feel any grief either … ’
He wanted to take her in his arms.
‘That’s probably normal, in the circumstances.’
She sat there, steeped in guilt. And he wanted to squeeze her tight, and squeeze the story out of her, and get it over with. ‘But what is it that Max told you?’
She shook her head in refusal. ‘He was drunk. He screamed it at me …’
He waited.
She lifted her head. And suddenly she looked more under control again. She said:
‘I won’t tell you. I won’t tell anybody. Because I don’t believe it, and it can only do tremendous damage.’ She gave a trembly sigh; then said bleakly: ‘But the Russians are after me.’ She jerked her head at the gun on the mattress. ‘That’s why I was hiding up here. When I heard you breaking into the house, I thought you were Russians.’ She paused. Then she said: ‘They tried to kidnap me. And I killed a man.’
He stared at her. Killed a man?
He said: ‘Tell me, from the beginning, Anna. Everything.’
She slumped back against the wall, her elbows on her knees. Her forehead in her hands.
‘Then don’t interrupt me. Let me tell it straight.’
He waited, his nerves stretched.
She looked at the wall, then said flatly: ‘I was all in favour of Maurice Bishop at first – he looked like he was going to be a new broom that swept the corrupt old government clean. But he turned so hostile to the West. And Moscow got him in their pocket, they were turning Grenada into another Cuba. Max did his best to talk Maurice Bishop out of all this – and persuaded him to patch it up with America. So the hard-line communists turned on Bishop. They placed him under house arrest and they put the whole island under twenty-four-hour curfew. Anybody breaking it was shot on sight.’ She massaged her forehead. Morgan waited. She continued: ‘But a mob of Bishop’s supporters got him out of his house. Somebody telephoned Max and he left home to go there. So I was alone. All our servants had disappeared, because of the curfew. An hour later I got a frantic phone call from the Russian embassy. Telling me that Max and Bishop and some others had been shot by the Revolutionary Army – executed …’
She closed her eyes. She took a trembly breath. ‘I was absolutely shocked. I … There was no love lost any more between Max and me, but this was terrible …’
Morgan waited. She massaged her temples.
‘Ten minutes later, a car arrives. I had locked myself in the house. It was a white man. He beat on the door, saying he had come to take me to the Russian embassy for my own protection. That’s why I let him in. But I told him I wasn’t going to go.’ She breathed. ‘I don’t trust the Russians. He began to shout.’ She glanced at him. ‘He told me to get all the documents out of Max’s safe and come with him. Now I was really frightened. I told him Max had no safe – I told him to get out. He shouted that I’d better show him where it was or he’d drag me back to the embassy and they’d get it out of me. He shouted, “Tell me the names of the foreign banks where he has safety-deposit boxes!” He tried to grab me and I ran up the stairs. He chased me. I ran into the bedroom …’ She closed her eyes and breathed: ‘I grabbed the gun Max kept in his bedside drawer … I ran into the bathroom. But he was right behind me. He shoved the door open and I staggered backwards. He lunged at me …’
Morgan waited, in suspense. She took a quivering breath.
‘It was … instinctive. I was frantic. I fired blindly.’ She closed her eyes again. ‘I hit him in the forehead. He crashed into the bath.’
‘Jesus …’ He leant out and squeezed her hand once.
She sat up and wiped her eyelids.
‘I was in shock. All I knew was I had to get out of the house … Get away from the island. And take whatever was in Max’s safe. I knew the combination, though I hadn’t used it for years. I opened it. There was a pile of documents, and keys and things. And some money. I just stuffed it into a handgrip.’
‘Everything?’
She nodded. ‘And the gun. I started to run out of the house. To drive to the airport. I was going to get Max’s aeroplane and fly away. Then I remembered the body.’ She put her fingertips to her eyes. ‘Oh God, I was frightened. I was going to be shot by the Revolutionary Army for murder … I had to get rid of the body. But where? I dragged him out of the bath. There was blood in the bath, so I turned on the shower, to wash it away. I tied a towel tight around his head to stop getting blood on the floor.’ She pressed her eyes. ‘And I dragged him. Through the bedroom. Down the stairs. Oh God, it was horrible …’
He squeezed her knee.
She continued bleakly: ‘I got him downstairs. I somehow got him into the car. The front passenger seat. Then … Then I didn’t know where to take him.’ She shook her head. ‘Where? And where was I going to run to afterwards? The mobs. The curfew. The army would be at the airport. Then I knew
