‘Run away?’ Mamantov’s eyes were as grey as winter. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Vladimir Pavlovich,’ said Kelso, meeting his gaze and holding it, ‘I can assure you this is the truth.’
‘You’re lying. Why? Why?’ Mamantov rubbed his chin. ‘I think it must be because you have the notebook.’
‘If I had the notebook, ask yourself: Would I be here? Wouldn’t I be on the first flight back to New York? Isn’t that what thieves are supposed to do?’
Mamantov continued to stare at him for a few more seconds, then looked away. ‘Clearly we need to find this man.’
We …
‘I don’t think he wants to be found.’
‘He will contact you again.’
‘I doubt it.’ Kelso badly wanted to get out of here now. He felt compromised, somehow; complicit. ‘Besides, I’m flying back to America tomorrow. Which, now I come to think of it, really means I ought –’
He made a move towards the door but Mamantov barred it. ‘Are you excited, Dr Kelso? Do you feel the force of Comrade Stalin, even from the grave?’
Kelso laughed unhappily. ‘I don’t think I quite share your … obsession.’
‘Go fuck your mother! I’ve read your work. Does that surprise you? I’ll pass no comment on its quality. But I’ll tell you this: you’re as obsessed as I am.’
‘Perhaps. But in a different way.’
‘Power,’ said Mamantov, savouring the word in his mouth like wine, ‘the absolute mastery and understanding of power. No man ever matched him for it. Do this, do that. Think this, think that. Now I say you live, and now I say you die, and all you say is, “Thank you for your kindness, Comrade Stalin.” That’s the obsession.’
‘Yes, but then there’s the difference, if you’ll permit me, which is you want him back.’
‘And you just like to watch, is that it? I like fucking and you like pornography?’ Mamantov jerked his thumb at the room. ‘You should have seen yourself just now. “Isn’t this a note for a speech?” “Isn’t that a copy of an earlier painting?” Eyes wide, tongue out – the western liberal, getting his safe thrill. Of course, he understood that, too. And now you tell me you’re going to give up trying to find his private notebook and just run away back to America?’
‘May I get by?’
Kelso stepped to his left but Mamantov moved smartly to block him.
‘This could be one of the greatest historical discoveries of the age. And you want to run away? It must be found. We must find it together. And then you must present it to the world. I want no credit – I promise you: I prefer the shadows – the honour will be yours alone.’
‘So, what’s all this then, Comrade Mamantov?’ said Kelso, with forced cheerfulness. ‘Am I a prisoner?’
Between him and the outside world there were, he calculated, one fit and obviously crazy ex-KGB man, one armed bodyguard, and two doors, one of them armour-plated. And for a moment, he thought that Mamantov might indeed be intending to keep him: that he had everything else connected with Stalin, so why not a Stalin historian, pickled in formaldehyde and laid out in a glass case, like V. I. Lenin? But then Madame Mamantov shouted from the passage – ‘What’s going on in there?’ – and the spell was broken.
‘Nothing,’ called Mamantov. ‘Stop listening. Go back to your room. Viktor!’
‘But who is everyone?’ wailed the woman. ‘That’s what I want to know. And why is it always so dark?’ She started to cry. They heard the shuffle of her feet and the sound of a door closing.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kelso.
‘Keep your pity,’ said Mamantov. He stood aside. ‘Go on, then. Get out of here. Go.’ But when Kelso was halfway down the passage he shouted after him: ‘We’ll talk again about this matter. One way or another.’
THERE were three men now in the car downstairs, although Kelso was too preoccupied to pay them much attention. He paused in the gloomy portal of the House on the Embankment, to hoist his canvas bag more firmly on to his shoulder, then set off in the direction of the Bolshoy Kamenniy bridge.
‘That’s him, major,’ said the man with the scar, and Feliks Suvorin leaned forward in his seat to get a better look. Suvorin was young to be a full major in the SVR – he was only in his thirties – a dapper figure, with blond hair and cornflower blue eyes. And he wore a western aftershave, that was the other thing that was very noticeable at this moment: the little car was fragrant with the smell of Eau Sauvage.
‘He had that bag with him when he went in?’
‘Yes, major.’
Suvorin glanced up at the Mamantovs’ ninth-floor apartment. What was needed here was better coverage. The SVR had managed to get a bug into the flat at the start of the operation, but it had lasted just three hours before Mamantov’s people had found it and ripped it out.
Kelso had begun climbing the flight of stairs that led up to the bridge.
‘Off you go, Bunin,’ said Suvorin, tapping the man in front of him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Nothing too obvious, mind you. Just try to keep him in view. We don’t want a diplomatic protest.’
Grumbling under his breath, Bunin levered himself out of the car.
Kelso was moving rapidly now, had almost reached road-level, and the Russian had to jog across to the bottom of the steps to make up part of the distance.
Well, well, thought Suvorin, he’s certainly in a hurry to get somewhere. Or is it just that he wants to get away from here?
He watched the blurred pink faces of the two men above the stone parapet as they headed north across the river into the grey afternoon and then were lost from view.
Chapter Five
KELSO PAID HIS two-rouble fare at the Borovitskaya metro station, collected his plastic token, and descended gratefully into the Moscow earth. At the entrance to the northbound platform something made him glance back up the moving staircase to see if Mamantov was following, but there was no sign of him among the tiers of exhausted faces.
It was a stupid thought – he tried to smile at himself for his paranoia – and he turned away, towards the welcoming dimness and the warm gusts of oil and electricity. Almost at once, a yellow headlight danced around a bend in the track and the rush of the train sucked him forwards. Kelso let the crowd jostle him into a carriage. There was an odd comfort in this dowdy, silent multitude. He hung on to the metal handrail and pitched and swayed with the rest as they plunged back into the tunnel.
They hadn’t gone far when the train suddenly slowed and stopped – a bomb scare, it turned out, at the next station: the militia had to check it out – and so they sat there in the semi-darkness, nobody speaking, just the occasional cough, the tension rising by imperceptible degrees.
Kelso stared at his reflection in the dark glass. He was jumpy, he had to admit it. He couldn’t help feeling he had just put himself into some kind of danger, that telling Mamantov about the notebook had been a reckless mistake. What had the Russian called it? Something to die for?
It was a relief to his nerves when the lights eventually flickered back on and the train jolted forwards. The soothing rhythm of normality resumed.
By the time Kelso emerged above ground it was after four. Low in the western sky, barely clearing the tops of the dark trees that fringed the Zoopark, was a lemony crack in the clouds. A winter sunset was little more than an hour away. He would have to hurry. He folded the map into a small square and twisted it so that the metro station was to his right. Across the road was the entrance to the zoo – red rocks, a waterfall, a fairy tower – and, a little further along, a beer garden, closed for the season, its plastic tables stacked, its striped umbrellas down and flapping. He could hear the roar of the traffic on the Garden Ring road, about two hundred yards straight ahead. Across that, sharp left, then right, and there it ought to be. He stuffed the map into his pocket, picked up his bag and climbed the cobbled slope that led to the big intersection.
Ten lanes of traffic formed an immense, slow-moving river of light and steel. He crosse
d it in a dog-leg and suddenly he was into diplomatic Moscow: wide streets, grand houses, old birch trees weeping dead leaves on to sleek black cars. There wasn’t much life. He passed a silvery-headed man walking a poodle and a woman in green rubber boots that poked incongruously from beneath her Muslim robe. Behind the thick gauze of the curtained windows, he could see the occasional yellow constellation of a chandelier. He stopped at the corner of Vspolnyi Street and peered along it. A militia car drove towards him very slowly and passed away to his right. The road was deserted.
He located the house at once, but he wanted to get his bearings and to check if anyone was about, so he made himself walk past it, right to the end of the street before returning along the opposite side. ‘There was a red sickle moon, and a single red star. And the place was guarded by devils with blackened faces …’ Suddenly he saw what the old man must have meant. A red sickle moon and a single red star – that would be a flag: a Muslim flag. And black faces? The place must have been an embassy – it was too big for anything else – an embassy of a Muslim country, perhaps in North Africa. He was certain he was right. It was a big building, that was for sure, forbidding and ugly, built of sandy-coloured stone which made it look like a bunker. It ran for at least forty yards along the western side of the road. He counted thirteen sets of windows. Above the massive entrance was an iron balcony with double doors leading on to it. There was no nameplate and no flag. If it had been an embassy it was abandoned now; it was lifeless.
He crossed the street and went up close to it, patting the coarse stone with his palm. He stood on tiptoe and tried to see through the windows. But they were set too high and besides were blanked off by the ubiquitous grey netting. He gave up and followed the façade around the corner. The house went on down this street, too. Thirteen windows again, no door, thirty or forty yards of heavy masonry – immense, impregnable. Where this elevation of the house eventually ended there was a wall made of the same stone, about eight feet high, with a locked, iron-studded wooden door set into it. The wall ran on – down this street, along the side of the ring-road, and finally back up the narrow alley which formed the fourth side of the property. Walking round it, Kelso could see why Beria had chosen it, and why his rivals had decided the only place to capture him was inside the Kremlin. Holed up in this fortress he could have withstood a siege.
In the neighbouring houses, the lights were becoming sharper as the afternoon faded into dusk. But Beria’s place remained a square of darkness. It seemed to be gathering the shadows into itself. He heard a car door slam and he walked back up to the corner of Vspolnyi Street. While he had been at the back of the property, a small van had arrived at the front.
He hesitated, then began to move towards it.
The van was a Russian model – white, unmarked, unoccupied. Its engine had just been switched off and it was making a slight ticking noise as it cooled. As he came level with it, he glanced towards the door of the house and saw that it was slightly open. Again he hesitated, looking up and down the quiet street. He went over and put his head into the gap and shouted a greeting.
His words echoed in the empty hall. The light inside was weak and bluish, but even without taking another step he could see that the floor was of black and white tiles. To his left was the start of a wide staircase. The house smelled strongly of sour dust and old carpets, and there was an immense stillness to it, as though it had been shut up for months. He pushed the door wide open and took a step inside.
He called out again.
He had two options now. He could stay by the door, or he could go further inside. He went further inside and immediately, like a laboratory rat in a maze, he found his options multiplied. He could stay where he was, or he could take the door to his left, or the stairs, or the passage that led off into the darkness beyond the stairs, or one of the three doors to his right. For a moment, the weight of choice paralysed him. But the stairs were straight ahead and seemed the obvious course – and perhaps, subconsciously, he also wanted to get the advantage of height, to get above whoever might be on the ground floor, or at least to get on equal terms with them if they were already above.
The stairs were stone. He was wearing brown suede boots with leather soles he’d bought in Oxford years ago and no matter how quietly he tried to walk his steps seemed to ring like gunshots. But that was good. He wasn’t a thief, and to emphasise the point he called out again. Pree-vyet! Kto tam? Hello? Is anybody there? The stairs curled round to his right and he had a good, high view now, looking down into the dark blue well of the hall, pierced by the softer shaft of blue that shone from the open door. He reached the top of the stairs and came out into a wide corridor that stretched to right and left, vanishing at either end into Rembrandt gloom. Ahead of him was a door. He tried to take his bearings. That must lead to the room above the front entrance, the one with the iron balcony. What was it? A ballroom? The master bedroom? The corridor floor was parquet and he remembered Rapava’s description of Beria’s damp footprints on the polished wood as he hurried off to take the call from Malenkov.
Kelso opened the heavy door and the stale air hit him like a wall. He had to clamp a hand to his mouth and nose to keep from gagging. The smell that pervaded the whole house seemed to have its source in here. It was a big room, bare, lit from the opposite wall by three tall, net-curtained windows, high oblongs of translucent grey. He moved towards them. The floor seemed to be strewn with pools of tiny black husks. His idea was that if he pulled back the curtain, he could throw light on the room, and see what he was treading on. But as his hand touched the rough nylon net, the material seemed to split and ripple downwards and a shower of black granules went pattering across his hand and brushed the back of his neck. He twitched the curtain again and the shower became a cascade, a waterfall of dead, winged insects. Millions of them must have hatched and died in here over the summer, trapped in the airless room. They had a papery, acid smell. They were in his hair. He could feel them rustling under his feet. He stepped backwards, furiously brushing at himself and shaking his head.
Down in the lobby, a man shouted. Kto idyot? Is somebody up there?
Kelso knew he should have shouted back. What greater proof could he have offered of his blameless intentions – of his innocence – than to have stepped at once out on to the landing, identified himself and apologised? He was very sorry. The door was open. This was an interesting old house. He was a historian. Curiosity had got the better of him. And obviously, there was nothing here to steal. Really, he was truly sorry –
That was Kelso’s alternative history. He didn’t take it. He didn’t choose not to take it. He merely did nothing, which was a form of choice. He stood there, in Lavrenty Beria’s old bedroom, frozen, half bent, as if the creaking of his bones might give him away, and listened. With each second that passed, his chances of talking his way out of the building dwindled. The man began to climb the staircase. He came up seven steps – Kelso counted them – then stopped and stayed very still for perhaps a minute.
Then he walked down again and crossed the lobby and the front door closed.
Kelso moved now. He went to the window. Without touching the curtain he found it was possible, by pressing his cheek to the wall, to peer around the edge of the dusty nylon mesh, down into the street. From this oblique angle, he could see a man in a black uniform, standing on the pavement next to the van, holding a flashlight. The man stepped off the kerb and into the gutter and squinted up at the house. He was squat and simian. His arms seemed too long for his thick trunk. Suddenly, he was looking directly at Kelso – a brutal, stupid face – and Kelso drew back. When he next dared to risk a look, the man was bending to open the door on the driver’s side. He threw in the flashlight and climbed in after it. The engine started. The van drove off.
Kelso gave him thirty seconds then hurried downstairs. He was locked in. He couldn’t believe it. The absurdity of his predicament almost made him smile. He was locked inside Beria’s house! The front door was huge, with a big
iron ball for a handle and a lock the size of a telephone directory. He tried it hopelessly, then looked around. What if there was an intruder alarm? In the gloom, he couldn’t see anything attached to the walls, but maybe it was an old-fashioned system – that would be more likely, wouldn’t it? – something triggered by pressure-pads rather than beams? The idea froze him.
What set him moving again was the gathering darkness and the realisation that if he didn’t find an escape route now he might be trapped by his blindness all night. There was a light switch by the door but he didn’t dare try it – the guard was obviously suspicious: he might drive by for a second look. In any case, something about the silence of the place, its utter deadness, made him sure all forms of life-support had been disconnected, that the house had been left to rot. He tried to recall Rapava’s description of the lay-out when he came in to answer Malenkov’s call. Something about coming in off a verandah, through a duty room, past a kitchen and into the hall.
He headed into the blackness of the passage beyond the stairs, feeling his way along the left-hand wall. The plaster was cool and smooth. The first door he encountered was locked. The second wasn’t – he felt a draught of cold air, but sensed a drop, into a cellar, presumably – and closed it quickly. The third opened on to the dull blue gleam of metal surfaces and a faint smell of old food. The fourth was at the end, facing him, and revealed the room where he guessed that Beria’s guards must once have sat.
Unlike the rest of the house, which seemed to have been stripped bare, there was furniture here – a plain wooden table and a chair, and an old sideboard – and some signs of life. A copy of Pravda – he could just make out the familiar masthead – a kitchen knife, an ashtray. He touched the table and felt crumbs. Pale light leaked through a pair of small windows. Between them was a door. It was locked. There was no key. He looked again at the windows. Too narrow for him to squeeze through. He took a breath. Some habits, surely, are international? He ran his hand along the sill to the right of the door and it was there and it turned easily in the lock.
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