Truth and Fear

by Peter Higgins

  Total Archangel.

  That will be the beginning.

  16

  Lom watched the horse-drawn wagon pull up outside a bookshop seventy yards away across the square. SVENNER CIRCULATING LIBRARY. TEXTS. PERIODICALS. A bed sheet hung from the side of the wagon, a slogan painted on it in blocky letters: STUDENTS OF MIRGOROD! MARCH AGAINST UN-VLAST THINKING!

  The men climbed down. Lom counted nine. They were all in some kind of uniform: black trousers, heavy black workboots, vaguely naval waist-length pea coats of dark blue wool. Short haircuts. One was older than the others, red-faced, with iron-grey hair. He looked like he was giving the orders. The rest were young. None of them looked like students. A couple were carrying batons, swinging them loosely by their sides.

  Three of them went into the bookshop. They came out dragging an old man between them and hauled him over to the wagon. Two held his arms while the third started in on his beard, hacking at it with scissors. The old man stood there, blank-eyed and confused, letting them do it. Waiting till it would be over. No one else was in sight. The stink of charred wood was sour in the air. There was a crash of broken glass and a ragged cheer went up. The others were scooping books out of the shop window. Some of them went inside and came out with their arms full. They dumped the books in a growing pile on the pavement. Somebody fetched a jerry can from the wagon and started splashing paraffin. The leader took the glasses from the shopkeeper’s nose and put them in his own pocket. Then he punched him in the face.

  The old man crumpled to his knees, cupping his mouth in his hands.

  Lom felt anger tightening in his stomach, and with it the edge of excitement came again: the hot exhilaration of violence that had come in the gendarme station, only this time it was stronger. This time it was justice, this time it was him, this time it was edged with fear.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said and set off across the square.

  ‘No,’ said Maroussia. ‘I’m coming.’

  When they were twenty yards out the Boots saw them coming. Seven peeled off to meet them. Two hung back with the old man. Snow flurries gusted across the square. Lom tested his footing. The cobbles were slick with slush. Not so good. But he would manage.

  The Boots should have spread out to meet him, come at him from the side, got in behind him: he’d have had no chance then. Seven against one. But they clumped together. They were a herd.

  Stay calm. Analyze. Plan.

  The leader was at the front, flanked by the two with straightsticks. The one on the left was a couple of inches over six feet tall, blond, with a wide neck and a thick bull-chest. The other was a couple of inches smaller. Lom’s height. Straggles of brown hair. An edge of smile on his thin ratty mouth. Of the other four, the second rank, two were big and broad and walked with a wide-legged shoulders-back swagger, and the other pair were skinny, with bad complexions and pink excited faces, hoping to see someone hurt but not likely to do much damage themselves. Lom waited for them. He felt Maroussia come up beside him. Her face was pale and tight.

  There was a snigger from the Boots. When they were close enough that he didn’t need to raise his voice, Lom said, ‘Get back in the wagon. All of you. Get back in the truck and ride away.’

  The leader stopped. The others gathered in behind him. He was smiling.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said.

  ‘Concerned bystander,’ said Lom. ‘Leave the old man alone.’

  ‘Him?’ said red-faced grey-hair. ‘Fuck him.’

  Lom met the man’s gaze with absolute confidence.

  ‘You should go now,’ he said. ‘While you still can.’

  There was one tiny flicker of uncertainty in red-faced grey-hair’s eyes. But he was the leader and his men were watching him. If he backed down he’d lose them for ever.

  ‘There are nine of us,’ he said. ‘We’re going to take you apart. We’re going to fucking kill you. Then we’ll take the woman back with us for later. The boys will like that.’

  A couple of faces behind him grinned.

  ‘Let’s do it, Figner,’ said one of the skinny ones. He had thin yellow hair. A narrow pink nose. A face like cheese. ‘Go on. Do him now. Cut off his fucking dick and stuff it in his mouth.’

  ‘Stick it in the whore’s mouth!’ said another.

  The boys were starting to enjoy themselves. Warming to their work. This was better than shoving a half-blind old bookseller around. A gust of wind threw snow in Lom’s face.

  ‘I don’t see nine,’ he said. He stared into grey-hair’s eyes. ‘I see seven, and only four that might be any use. That’s not enough. You need to get in the wagon and drive away. You need to do that now.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Rat-mouth stepped forward and took a swing at Lom with his stick.

  It was a standard militia-issue baton. Twenty-four inches of black polished wood, thickening slightly from the cloth-wrapped handle to the rounded tip. A six-inch length of lead in the striking end. The lead weight was a mixed blessing. It multiplied the kinetic force of the blow, but it made the stick unwieldy. Once you started a swing you were committed.

  Lom knew the drill with batons. Basic police training. If you wanted to put an opponent out of action you aimed for the large muscle areas. The biceps. The quadriceps. There was a nerve in the side of the leg above the knee. A good blow to any of those would leave the limb numbed and disabled for five, ten minutes at least. But if you wanted to really hurt someone, you went for the skull. The sternum. The spine. The groin.

  Rat-mouth came in high and hard, swinging for Lom’s head. A killing blow.

  Which suited Lom fine. It cleared the air.

  Lom had been in fights when he was a young policeman in Podchornok. Street fights. Bar-room brawls. Gangsters looking for revenge. Knives. Clubs. Broken bottles. The first fight he was ever in he’d lost, badly. He’d been lucky to get out of it alive. After that, he didn’t lose any more. He’d learned that what lost you a fight was inhibition. Decency. Restraint. Civilised values had their place, but you had to know when you’d stepped outside all that, because when your opponent went somewhere else, you had to go there too. Completely.

  Rat-mouth went for a really big swing. A barnstormer. A skull-smasher. That was his first mistake. Men like him got used to hitting people who didn’t fight back. Mostly, if you come at someone with a baton they’ll try to duck it or they’ll hold up their arm to fend it off, which is a broken femur for certain. Game over. But Lom stepped forward inside the swing. He watched the arc of it coming and reached up and caught it in both hands when it was barely a foot past rat-mouth’s shoulder. The impact stung his palms but that was all. He pivoted left and jerked the stick down and forward. In the same movement he stamped down hard on the side of rat-mouth’s knee. Felt the joint burst open. Rat-mouth screamed. Lom tore the straightstick out of his grip before he hit the ground. He should have used the wrist strap. Second mistake.

  The thug on the leader’s left was fast as well as big. By the time Lom straightened up he was already coming for him. Lom jabbed rat-mouth’s stick into the side of his head. No swing, just a quick jab. But hard. Very hard. The big man’s skull snapped sideways against his shoulder. Blood sprayed from his nose. He stayed on his feet for half a second, but his face was empty. Then he collapsed and lay still. His eyes were open, and there was blood and mess all over his face. Pink fluid coming out of his ear.

  Two seconds, two down, five to go. So far so good. Lom felt hot and calm and alive. His anger was a quiet, efficient engine.

  There was a dry click. Someone had opened a knife. A couple of the others had brass knuckles out and were putting them on. They were starting to fan out. Getting their act together. Another few seconds and he could be in bad trouble.

  The one with the knife was the immediate threat. Lom stepped forward and crashed the tip of the baton down on his wrist. Felt the bone snap. He flicked the stick up and smashed it hard under the attacker’s chin. There was a warm spattering of blood as his head
jerked back and he went down, jaw broken.

  The leader lumbered in then, head hunched between his shoulders, swinging wildly. Lom let the meaty white fist buzz past his ear, matched his charge and crashed his left elbow horizontally into the big red face.

  Five seconds, four down.

  Someone from Lom’s right jabbed at his cheek with a knuckle-duster, grazing his ear. It might have done some damage but the boy had stayed too far out and mistimed it. Lom spun and smashed his left fist into the man’s belly at the same time as Maroussia clubbed him viciously on the back of the head with the stick the big fellow had dropped when he fell.

  The leader was getting clumsily to his knees, coughing and snorting clods of blood from his nose. Lom kicked him hard in the ribs. His elbows caved in under him and he slumped face down on the ground.

  Five down, four still standing, but it was over. The rest only needed an excuse to get out of there. Lom let the baton clatter to the ground and pulled the empty Sepora .44 from his pocket.

  ‘Like I said. Get in the wagon and drive away.’ He gestured to the five men on the ground. ‘And take this rubbish with you.’

  There was a moment when they hesitated and a moment when he knew that’s what they would do.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Maroussia when they’d got clear of the square.

  ‘You were fine,’ said Lom. ‘You were more than fine. You were great.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that. I told that girl who we were. I gave her our names. I shouldn’t have. It was stupid and now it’s a risk. I’m sorry.’

  He was only half listening to her. His hands were sore–there was a gash on one of his knuckles, seeping a little blood–and his legs felt weightless and slightly out of control as the adrenaline worked its way out of his system. For the second time, the day was stained with violence. Violence clanged in the air, hateful and sour. Now that the fighting was over Lom felt uncomfortable and slightly sick. He’d hurt people before, when he had to, but he hadn’t enjoyed it, not like that. Today he’d done it gladly, efficiently, well, and he felt faintly ashamed.

  ‘You were being kind,’ said Lom. ‘I guess we can’t afford too much of that.’

  ‘You helped that bookseller,’ said Maroussia.

  ‘Did I?’ said Lom. ‘They’ll come back, them or others like them, for him or some other old guy. It won’t be better because of what I did. It might be worse. Putting boys in hospital doesn’t make the world a better place.’

  Maroussia stopped and turned to face him. She stood there, pale, troubled and determined. Holding herself upright, shivering a little in the snow and bitter cold that whipped round the corner. She looked so thin. The sleeves of her coat too short, her wrists bony and raw against the dark wool. She had kissed him that morning at the sea gate lodge. On the cheek. The cool graze of her mouth against his skin.

  ‘You didn’t start it,’ she said. ‘You chose a side, that’s all. There are only two sides now. There’s nowhere else to stand.’

  They walked a little way in silence.

  ‘I didn’t know you could fight like that,’ said Maroussia.

  ‘That wasn’t fighting,’ said Lom. ‘That was winning. Different thing altogether.’

  17

  They came out abruptly on the side of the Mir opposite Big Side. The river was a broad green surge, a wide muscular shoulder of moving water knotted with twists of surface current. Low waves and backwash slapped against the bulwarks of the stone embankment. Canopied passenger vedettes jinked between ponderous barges nosing their way seawards.

  They crossed the river by the crowded Chesma Bridge. The bronze oil-lamps on the parapet, shaped like rising fish with lace-ruff gills and scales like overlapping rows of coins, were already lit. Each one draped in ribbons of funeral black, they burned pale flames in the grey afternoon. Light flecks of snow speckled the air. Not falling, just drifting. Lom felt again the familiar pressure on his back. The follower was still there. He was certain of it now. It was time to do something about it.

  On the other side of the river, after the embankment gardens and cafés, was the jewellers’ quarter, and galleries selling artefacts from the exotic provinces. Carpets and cushions and overstuffed couches. Vases and urns and samovars. Plenty of traffic. Plenty of crowds.

  ‘Will you do something for me?’ said Lom.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I mean, do exactly what I say?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ said Maroussia.

  ‘We’re being watched,’ he said. ‘Someone’s following. I think. I want to be sure. No, don’t look back. Not yet.’

  ‘Is it the police?’

  Lom shook his head.

  ‘Whoever it is has been with us on and off since Marinsky-Voksal. They’re just watching. I wasn’t sure. I thought they’d gone, but they’re back. There’s not many of them, maybe only one. I want to have a look. Make sure. Then decide what to do.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘We walk on together for a while. Then I’ll duck out of sight and you go on alone. Keep visible and don’t try to lose them. Stop and start. Cross the street at random, but stay with the crowds. Always be among people. Make it hard for them, make it so they have to come in close, to keep in touch with you.’

  ‘What if they don’t follow me? What if they look for you?’

  ‘Then we’ll know something. After ten or fifteen minutes find somewhere you can go inside and sit down. Somewhere with lots of people. I’ll find you there.’

  Maroussia nodded. ‘Now?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be watching you the whole time,’ said Lom. ‘I can do this kind of thing. I’m good.’

  ‘It’s fine. Let’s go.’

  They rounded a corner and Lom ducked into an alleyway and stepped quickly back into the shelter of a service door. He waited there for a slow hundred count then stepped back out into the street.

  Maroussia was still in sight a block or so ahead. Lom stayed back and matched his pace with hers. He watched the traffic in the road. Most of it was horse-drawn: a few carts and karetas, a shabby droshki waiting outside a shuttered pension. He ignored them. You didn’t run mobile surveillance with a horse. Maroussia was crossing the street between traffic, stopping to look in a window, starting to cross back, seeming to change her mind, then suddenly going anyway.

  Don’t overdo it.

  She swung up onto the back of a moving tram, rode it fifty yards back towards Lom, then jumped off at the intersection and walked back the way she’d come. And Lom saw him.

  A man had started to jog after the tram, then he came up short and turned away, abruptly absorbed in studying a poster. He was obvious. Clumsy. Not professional. And he was on his own. Definitely. If it was a team, he’d have taken the tram and left the others on Maroussia till he could double back.

  Lom hung back, just to be sure. But there was no doubt about it. He wondered how the man had managed to stay out of sight for so long if he wasn’t better than this. It was almost as if he wanted to be seen. Lom pushed the thought aside. Later. Do the job now. He started to close in. He wanted a look at the man’s face. From behind he was tall and wide-shouldered, wearing a long dark coat, a red wine-coloured scarf, a pale grey astrakhan hat. He walked with a faint hitch in his right hip. There was something familiar about him.

  The follower was starting to slow, looking left and right, letting Maroussia get ahead of him. He knows I’m here.

  Lom increased his pace, reeling him in. He’d got within thirty yards when the man spun on his heels and looked behind him. Straight at Lom. It was like he’d been punched in the chest. All the breath gone out of him. A constriction in the throat.

  The face looking at Lom was his own face.

  They locked gazes. The follower made a curt nod, spun on his heel and walked rapidly away.

  The shock cost Lom a second. Then he reacted. He started forward but got tangled up with an old woman with a dog on a leash and a bag of groceries. By the time he got free the as
trakhan hat was disappearing into a side street. When Lom reached the turning there was no sign of him.

  Halfway down the street was a café with tables outside. Lom pushed the door open and went in. It was a long dark place, full of shadowed nooks and crannies and booths, thick with the smell of coffee and peppery, meaty stew. Lamps and candles spilled pools of yellow light and deep brown shadow. Most of the tables were empty. A radio was playing a big band march, ‘Ours Are the Guns’.

  Almost at the back of the room a man was sitting alone with his back to the door. A pale grey astrakhan hat. A wine-coloured woollen scarf. He was writing by the light of a flickering oil lamp. There was nothing else on the table. No cup. No plate. Lom threaded his way between the tables.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  The man stood up and turned round. It was a different person, taller and older, with narrower shoulders. A long oval face under the grey astrakhan. A face full of serious openness. Deep dark eyes looked into Lom’s from behind black wire-rimmed spectacles, wise and a little sad. He had a vaguely military bearing, but it wasn’t a soldier’s face. A doctor’s perhaps. Or a poet’s.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lom. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘Ah. Then excuse me, please.’

  Lom stepped aside to let him pass and scanned the rest of the café but there was no one else. As he was turning to go, he saw the man had left something on the table. A single sheet of paper, folded once. A name was printed on it in a large clear hand. In capitals. Meant to be noticed. ‘VISSARION LOM’.

  He picked up the note and read it.

  ‘Keep her safe. I will watch when I can.’

  It was signed ‘Antoninu Florian’.

  Lom snapped his head round but the man had gone. Shit. He hustled back out into the street and looked both ways, but there was nothing to see. He refolded the note and tucked it into his pocket.

  On Captain Iliodor’s desk the telephone coughed into life. He picked it up first ring.