‘That – and whether you have the capacity to do it.’
‘And have you learned anything of interest?’
‘I have learned more than any other man in my position would have done,’ Vladimir said. He grinned. ‘I am very good at my job, you know.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘Indeed, I have not,’ Vladimir agreed.
Blackstone lit up a cigarette from a packet that Vladimir had given him earlier. He hadn’t smoked for a whole week, and it felt almost as if he was inhaling opium.
‘Aren’t you taking a bit of a chance by telling me all this, Vladimir?’ he wondered.
The Russian laughed again. ‘I don’t think so. Who would you tell, and why would they listen to you? By your own account, you’re a wanted man – a criminal, and possibly a traitor. And even if they would listen, you’d never be able to prove that I was actually here. Last night I was at a party given by Grand Duke Dimitri in Moscow. Tonight, even as we speak, I am at the ballet, watching a rather bravely experimental revival of Don Quixote. And I can produce a score of witnesses, of the most reputable kind, to verify those claims.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ Blackstone agreed.
There was a knock on the door and two of Mrs Collins’s servants entered with a tin bath. They half bowed to both Vladimir and Blackstone, and – like Mrs Collins – seemed to find nothing extraordinary about Blackstone’s condition.
The servants placed the bath in front of the blazing fire, then left the room, only to return a couple of minutes later with four large pails of hot water.
As they headed for the door a second time, Vladimir said, ‘Wait! When my friend has stripped off his clothes, you may take them away and burn them.’
Blackstone undressed, and lowered himself gently into the bath. He found the hot water soothing, but also a reminder of how many parts of his body needed to be soothed.
‘Would you like me to scrub your back for you, Sam?’ Vladimir asked.
‘I’d appreciate it,’ Blackstone replied.
Vladimir picked up the scrubbing brush and – with surprising gentleness – began to massage Blackstone’s back with it.
‘Before I leave, I’d like to give you some money, Sam,’ the Russian said as he worked. ‘I regret I cannot spare you more than one hundred pounds – this is a very expensive war, and even our secret service is feeling the squeeze – but with that amount of money, you could at least escape from London.’
‘I won’t leave London,’ Blackstone said firmly.
‘Why not?’
‘It would be like running away.’
‘And what are you doing while you are in London – what would you be doing in London even with a hundred pounds in your pocket – but running away?’ Vladimir wondered. ‘No, I’m wrong. What you are doing here is much worse than running away – you are hiding like a frightened rabbit.’
It was true, Blackstone thought. Money wouldn’t change his circumstances. Whether it was the guinea the old gentleman had given him on Battle Bridge Lane or the hundred pounds that Vladimir was offering him now, he would still be a wanted man.
‘As long as I’m here, there’s a chance I can clear my name,’ he said stubbornly.
‘You can only do that by getting this Max to confess,’ Vladimir pointed out. ‘And how will you find him when you don’t even know what he looks like? You have to face the fact that even if you passed him in the street, you would not recognize him. And you won’t pass him in the street, because he will have left London even before you were arrested.’
There was no disputing that argument, Blackstone acknowledged silently.
So maybe he would drown himself, after all.
Blackstone was back in the armchair, facing Vladimir. He was wearing a thick dressing gown and had just consumed a mound of sandwiches that Mrs Collins had made for him. Now, finally, his body felt able to accept the Russian’s offer of a glass of excellent vodka.
‘I have an idea,’ Vladimir said, out of the blue.
‘An idea about how to find Max?’
‘No, not that, though I will certainly instruct my agents to do whatever they can in that respect,’ Vladimir said. ‘The idea that has just come to me, however, is of an entirely different nature.’ He took a sip of his vodka. ‘Isn’t there an English expression that runs along the lines of a change being as good as a holiday?’
‘Something like that,’ Blackstone agreed.
‘Well then, why don’t you have a change? Why don’t you come back to Russia with me?’
‘I couldn’t get out of the country,’ Blackstone said. ‘The police will be watching for me at the ports.’
‘My dear friend, you surely don’t imagine we’d be leaving through a port, do you?’ Vladimir asked.
‘Why would you want me to go back with you?’ Blackstone asked suspiciously.
‘I don’t, particularly,’ Vladimir answered offhandedly. ‘The suggestion was purely unselfish. Consider it, if you wish, a token of my gratitude for the help you have given me in the past.’
Blackstone didn’t believe any of it for a minute.
What he did believe was that, somewhere between Battle Bridge Lane and this apartment, Vladimir’s quick brain had come up with a way in which he could use his old English comrade in Russia.
‘Think about it, Sam,’ Vladimir urged. ‘If you are ever to triumph over your current difficulties, you will need to be strong. And you are not strong at this moment. In fact, you are a wreck. In Russia, you could rebuild both your strength and your confidence, and when you returned to England, you would again be the man you once were.’
It had to be a big job Vladimir had in mind for him, or he wouldn’t be pushing quite so hard, Blackstone thought.
‘Would I be of any help to you in Russia?’ he asked innocently.
Vladimir shrugged. ‘Who can say? I might, perhaps, be able to come up with some minor task you could help me with – purely for your own amusement, you understand.’
‘Where in Russia would we be going? To Moscow?’
‘No, we would be going to St Petersburg – or rather, Petrograd, as we’re supposed to call it these days, since Petersburg sounds too German.’
‘Is Agnes in Petrograd?’ Blackstone heard himself say.
Now, where had that question come from? he wondered. She was not a carriage in a logical train of thought which had detached itself prematurely. In fact, he was not conscious of having been thinking about Agnes at all.
The explanation, he supposed, was that it was impossible to think of Russia without thinking of the woman who – for a few short days – he had thought would be his forever.
Vladimir had still said nothing.
‘Well, is she there or not?’ Blackstone asked, giving up all pretence that it was merely a casual question.
‘Agnes is …’ Vladimir began.
‘Agnes is what?’
‘Agnes is dead. She died of the fever, twelve years ago.’
‘You were considering lying to me, weren’t you?’ Blackstone asked.
‘On the one hand, you were once in love with Agnes, and possibly a little of that love still remains,’ Vladimir said. ‘On the other hand, you probably think that since she was working for me all along – and got you to work for me, without you even realizing it – she was actually unworthy of your love.’
‘And the point of that little speech is …?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I was weighing up whether the thought of seeing Agnes again would make you more inclined – or less inclined – to come with me.’
‘You were thinking of lying,’ Blackstone repeated.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Vladimir agreed.
He didn’t want to go to Russia, Blackstone thought. In Russia, there would be bitter-sweet memories of Agnes in the air. In Russia, he would be completely in Vladimir’s power. No, he didn’t want to go to Russia – but there was something he did want, very badly.
<
br /> ‘I think I’d rather stay here and take my chances,’ he said.
For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw a hint of panic in the Russian’s eyes. Then it was gone again.
‘What we’re really doing at the moment is negotiating, isn’t it, Sam?’ Vladimir asked.
‘If you say so,’ Blackstone replied blandly.
‘So tell me what it is you want,’ Vladimir suggested.
‘I want you to save Archie Patterson.’
Vladimir frowned. ‘That might be difficult. I have considerable resources at my command here in England, but even I would think twice before organizing a prison escape.’
‘I didn’t say that I wanted you to get him out of prison. I want you to save him.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘I want you to find a way to clear his name.’
‘You want me to prove him innocent, even though you – and everyone else – seem to know he’s guilty?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that is an impossible task.’
‘Not impossible – just very difficult,’ Blackstone said. ‘And if anyone can do it, you are that man.’
Vladimir knocked back his glass of vodka and immediately poured himself another one.
He sat in complete silence for five minutes – not moving, seemingly hardly aware of where he was – and then a smile came to his face.
‘I can offer no guarantee it will work, but I think I have devised a scheme that might do the trick,’ he told the other man.
‘You’re not just saying that, are you?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Of course not,’ Vladimir replied, and if he had taken offence, he certainly didn’t show it.
‘I need your word,’ Blackstone said. ‘Your solemn promise.’
‘You have it,’ Vladimir told him. ‘I give you my solemn promise that I will do everything in my power to get you what you want. Is that good enough to fulfil my part of the bargain?’
‘It’s good enough,’ Blackstone agreed.
He wondered what upholding his part of the bargain would entail. It would probably be something difficult, he thought; it would probably be dangerous, and there was a good chance that he would lose his own life in the process. But if it got Archie Patterson out the mess he was in, then it would all be worth it.
Vladimir stood up. ‘Well, now that that is all settled, we must get ready to leave,’ he said.
‘We’re going now?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Not this very second – I need time to pack a few things – but certainly within the hour.’
‘When we first arrived here, you told me you were leaving tomorrow night,’ Blackstone said.
‘I said no such thing,’ Vladimir contradicted him. ‘My exact words were “By tomorrow night I will be gone”. And so I will.’
He was a tricky bugger, Blackstone thought – as slippery as a snake.
And then he began to wonder just how many loopholes there were in the bargain they had just struck.
PART TWO
Development
EIGHT
9th December 1916 – Julian calendar; 22nd December 1916 – Gregorian (Western) calendar
The first time he had taken a walk from Vladimir’s apartment to Nevsky Prospekt, Blackstone had been convinced he’d never make it back again, but it was getting easier every day, and that morning he’d even got as far as the Winter Palace.
He calculated that it was the twenty-second of December in England, which meant that even though there was a war going on, decorative bunting would be hanging across the streets, and shops would be staying open late so that shoppers could buy presents and Christmas cards.
There were no signs of festivities in Petrograd. It wasn’t even the twenty-second of December in Petrograd, because while most of Europe had switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar more than three hundred years earlier, Russia had clung stubbornly to the former, so it was still only the ninth of December there.
‘Which means that I arrived here several days before I left England,’ Blackstone thought whimsically.
He was pleased that he was starting to find things funny again, and delighted that the voice in his head seemed to have grown tired – for the moment – of taunting him.
Even so, he had not left all his anxieties behind in England. He was still worried about what would happen to Archie Patterson, and even thinking about the plans that Vladimir had for him was enough to bring him out in a cold sweat.
He had reached the tea shop that had become his favourite place to take a short rest. He stepped inside, walked over to his usual table – which was next to a large potted fern – and sat down.
The waitress – who had a pretty face that said nothing of her origins, though the broad hips and stout legs clearly marked her out as an ex-peasant – brought him his customary glass of tea without him even asking.
Blackstone smiled at her. ‘Thank you,’ he said automatically, then added, ‘Bol’shoe spasibo.’
She smiled back. ‘Pozhalusta.’
The waitress placed the glass on the table, then stood back to watch what her customer did next. Blackstone picked up his lump of sugar and, instead of putting it in his tea, raised it to his mouth and clamped it firmly between his teeth.
The waitress’s smiled broadened.
‘Ochyen kharasho,’ she said – which, but for the signs of congratulation and encouragement, could have meant anything at all.
‘Bol’shoe spasibo,’ he said, making full use of his entire Russian vocabulary for the second time in less than a minute.
The waitress turned and walked away. Blackstone raised the glass to his lips and swilled the hot liquid around in his mouth, allowing it to absorb some of the sugar before he swallowed it.
Teaching him to drink in this way had been an elaborate joke, he realized, because none of the other customers were doing it. But it was the peasant way of drinking, according to Vladimir, and perhaps it was her way of saying that, like her, he was a peasant himself.
And so he was.
Vladimir looked out of his office, across the dull waters of the Fontanka Canal. He loved St Petersburg (and it was always Petersburg – never Petrograd – to him). But his love of the city had nothing to do with its fine buildings or sweeping boulevards, and when people described it as a monumental city – meaning a city full of monuments – they were missing the point, as far as he was concerned.
As he saw it, the whole of the city – the very existence of the city – was a monument to an iron will. And it was that iron will that always had – and always would – inspire him.
There had only been marshland where Petersburg now stood when Peter the Great had decided that Russia needed a new capital – and one that looked towards the west, over the Gulf of Finland, rather than gazing into the navel of its own Slavic heritage.
What a man Peter had been – a giant, in every sense of the word. Once he had decided to relocate his capital to the very edge of his empire, he had allowed nothing to stand in his way.
He had virtually banned any building with stone in the rest of his vast empire, so that there would be enough masons available to work on his new project.
He had drafted in forty thousand serfs annually – one man from every ten or twelve households – to work on the city, and these men were marched hundreds of kilometres from their homes, often in chains.
The serfs drained the swamp and built the city. Labouring under harsh conditions, tens of thousands of them had died, but that had not halted the progress, because if Russia was rich in one thing, it was rich in expendable manpower.
In just ten years, the city was finished. It was a magnificent achievement and one that would only have been possible in Russia – and, even then, only under a strong tsar.
As his mind shifted from the glories of the past to the present realities, Vladimir sighed. The war was in its third year. At least three million Russian soldiers had already been killed
, and a million more had deserted and were roaming the countryside, scavenging what they could. There was a shortage of rifles and shells, which meant that men went into battle without a covering barrage or a weapon of their own. And the supply lines, which had never been very good, had almost completely broken down.
What Russia needed was a new Peter the Great, Vladimir thought. With Peter in charge, they might still have lost three million men, but their sacrifice would have brought at least a few real victories. With Peter running the war, the men working in the munitions factories would never have dared to go on strike as they did now, for fear that the tsar himself would descend on the factory and personally rip their heads from their shoulders.
Yes, they needed Peter, and all they had was Nicholas – a weak man sustained only by his belief that God had chosen him to lead Russia.
And my own personal tragedy, Vladimir thought, as he felt a tear run down his cheek, is that I can know all this and yet still be devoted to the tsar we have.
He heard the door open behind him and whirled round.
‘Don’t you ever knock?’ he demanded.
The pretty girl in the doorway froze.
‘I did knock,’ she protested.
‘Then knock harder next time,’ Vladimir said harshly.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said.
Vladimir wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry,’ he said. ‘Of course you knocked, and if I didn’t hear you, it was because I was thinking of something else.’
‘Are you all right?’ the girl asked worriedly.
‘I’m fine, Tanya,’ Vladimir replied unconvincingly.
‘Are you sure?’ the girl said.
‘I’ve never been better,’ Vladimir told her – and this time there was more fire in his words.
As the tea began to warm him, Blackstone found himself thinking back to his epic journey from London to Petrograd, a journey which – due to a fever-induced haze – he now only retained fragments of.
They are in a small motor boat in the middle of the English Channel, lashed by the wind and the rain, rocked by waves that seem as high as small mountains. Blackstone, lying on the floor, knows they will never make it to France – that they have nothing to look forward to but a watery grave. Vladimir, on the other hand, seems as calm as if he was boating across a mill pond.
Blackstone and the Endgame Page 7
