Bloody Sunset

by Bloody Sunset (retail) (epub)

  He knew them a lot better now. He and the Count, too, probably understood each other better than they had before. He’d told him this morning, down in this Hole before breakfast – getting it over quickly because it did have to be stated and clear between them – that he had no doubt whatsoever that the story about the Tsar’s daughters had been a lie invented solely for Nikolai Solovyev’s own purposes.

  ‘Bob – I think you should be careful what you say. The message I received—’

  ‘No, Nick. Don’t bother – please… Look, if you want to have this argument in public, up there with the others, I don’t mind. But otherwise let’s just have it understood between us, then forget it until we get back. Then, you’ll have to answer for it – that’s what I’m telling you. I might also tell you that personally I don’t blame you all that much: I’m not sure that in your shoes I wouldn’t have been inclined to do something like it. And I am sorry about your mother, Nick. But this has cost two lives already, and a ship, and – well, that’s it, when we get back I’ll be telling the truth as I see it… All right?’

  He’d sulked for a while, pretending resentment at being called a liar, but seemed to have snapped out of it now. Might well have decided how he’d bluff his way through, when – or if – the time came.

  As for the others: Irina was – well, complicated. But in some ways understandably so. And Maroussia was fantastic – shrewd as anything, apparently fearless and utterly dependable in her loyalty to – or love for – the Solovyevs. While Nadia – Nadia, he thought, was – well, something else again.

  He was wearing a knife on his belt in a leather sheath which she’d cobbled together for him this morning. Maroussia’s knife, actually, out of a kitchen drawer. He had his Admiralty-issue seaman’s knife, but it was a heavy thing with a short folding blade – designed for cutting ropes not throats. There was a marlin-spike on it as well, but as a weapon it wouldn’t have been much good. This kitchen knife, one of several that she’d offered, had a sharp, tough blade just under five inches long and a wooden haft that fitted his hand well; but the only way to carry it would be in a sheath, which Nadia had now made for him out of an old leather slipper.

  The Count and Irina had been down in the Hole, raising a lot of dust while inspecting the family treasures which Maroussia’s late husband Ivan had stored in there for them. Irina doubtless taking the chance of an intimate family conversation, too – if Bob’s estimate of her was anything like accurate.

  Sliding the knife into the sheath… ‘It’s perfect, Nadia. Thank you very much.’

  ‘Your belt will go through those slots.’

  ‘Right.’ He’d put it down and taken his belt off. ‘No time like the present…’

  ‘Are you expecting to have to kill people – really?’ Maroussia had half-turned from the stove to hear his answer. She’d been stirring two pots of soup – one large and one smaller, contents of both mainly turnip – which they and also the Czech prisoners in the cells would be having for supper. Further rations – dried fish and cheese – were to be available either on their return from the reconnaissance, or if they were leaving tonight, to be taken along for consumption en route. The point being that if they were leaving tonight, Bob wouldn’t be returning from the reconnaissance, he’d be staying down there to get steam up in the boat. Nick would be coming back to the coachhouse, but he wouldn’t.

  He’d answered Nadia’s question. ‘We’re not setting out with that purpose. But if there’s opposition – can’t very well take prisoners, can we?’

  ‘I suppose not. But are you so confident that it’s you and Nick who’ll do the killing – if there is any?’

  He’d nodded. ‘We have the advantage of what’s called the element of surprise. We know we’re coming, and they don’t.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ That same interested but oddly impersonal look, which he’d noticed last night.

  And just as well – in all the circumstances.

  ‘Very kind of you, Nadia.’ Threading his belt through the slots she’d cut in the leather, then buckling it on again and slipping the knife back into the sheath. His Service revolver in its webbing holster lay on the table amongst pots and pans and cooking tools; he’d asked Nadia or Maroussia – either – ‘Is there somewhere safe I can hide this pistol?’

  Aren’t you taking it?’

  ‘I’d say not! Might as well send up rockets… Nick has a pistol, incidentally, he’d be wise to leave that behind too.’

  ‘All right. I’ll remind him, if you don’t.’ She picked up the revolver. ‘Heavy… Is it loaded?’

  ‘No, I took the shells out. Here…’

  ‘You’ll want it with you when we leave, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, definitely… Could you bring it – or make sure Nick does?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re a very practical sort of person, aren’t you?’ Studying her: half-smiling, intrigued by her. Aware meanwhile of Maroussia’s short, stocky figure just beyond her, at the stove, as motionless as if rooted there. A very intelligent and observant old woman, he reminded himself: and resourceful – as was this tall, dark girl, who was in her own way rather elegant, even in old, patched and in places threadbare clothes… The grey eyes holding his: he’d wondered whether she might have been seeing him as he saw her – observing his detachment, a similarly friendly but distant interest, from precisely that same distance… Distance, like beauty, being in the beholder’s eye? Reduced by wishful thinking, increased by oversensitivity?

  But like a sheet of thick glass between them. You could smash it – but you’d do so at your peril. The fact being that she was engaged to Nick, who seemed prone to jealousy to a fairly bizarre degree: and with that other bone of contention – in temporary abeyance but still there between them – and the fact you were going to have to work together, as likely as not fight together…

  Remembering those strained minutes last night: Nadia’s contemptuous ‘And you’re mad enough to imagine I might – what, like one of them?’

  Because she worked for the Cheka boss, and the work – as Irina had pointed out – sometimes extended into the late evenings. Crazy… And – Bob guessed – he’d have to be aware of it, simply not able to help himself. With – a guess, this, Bob’s own theory based on one or two small clues – Irina making the worst of it, preying on that weakness. The main clue being that little dig she hadn’t been able to resist: Nights too, sometimes… To which Nadia had reacted angrily but – clue number two – without surprise. Then there was the recollection of the Count having told him that he’d made his long and dangerous trip to Petrograd to see these girls and ensure that when his mother arrived to collect Irina they’d take Nadia along as well. The implication being that this wouldn’t otherwise have been guaranteed, that Irina might have left with Mama, leaving her close friend and her brother’s fiancée to the wolves.

  One had also to remember that more recently the possessive sister had been cooped up for months on end, mostly underground and with a dying mother, while Nadia had been free to come and go. Not that ‘free’ would be the most apposite word for it.

  ‘You only work for the head man, you said. In a small room all by yourself?’

  ‘At the back of the house.’ She nodded. ‘Must have been a butler’s pantry once.’

  ‘And you only see this head man.’

  ‘Normally, yes. He brings me the work, gives me any instructions there are to give, and comes to fetch it later. He’s – all right. To me, anyway. The other two – Khitrov and Orudzhev – Khitrov’s loathsome. A thug – that’s a nice word for him. One time, he nearly…’

  She’d shaken her head.

  ‘Nearly what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Lesechko happened to arrive back at just that moment.’

  ‘And – Lesechko himself…’

  ‘No.’ Her dark hair swirled again. ‘I don’t believe he has any – ambitions of that sort. He’s – I suppose the word’s pragmatic. He needs my secretarial servi
ces – so I’m safe – as long as he does need them.’

  Maroussia had clattered heavy lids on to the pots and turned away from the stove, ‘I’ll be upstairs, a minute or two.’ Pausing, looking hard at Bob: ‘Hear anyone at the door – down below quick as rabbits, eh?’

  ‘I’d better go down anyway.’

  A nod: as if she’d been thinking exactly that. Female antennae quivering, no doubt… She’d left them. He murmured, hearing her clumping up the stairs, ‘Irina is rather possessive of her brother – am I right?’

  She rolled her eyes: ‘Rather is an understatement.’

  ‘Had a rough time, though. Stuck inside here – and her mother dying?’

  ‘That’s true. She’s had a dreadful time… You know the saying, no light at the end of the tunnel – there hasn’t been even a glimmer. Except that after my brother Boris had left with the message, there was just the faint hope – hope, and faith – for as long as those sources of resilience can last in a hole like this one, and they were getting weaker all the time – you can imagine… But for that same reason we couldn’t leave – even if there’d been any way to leave or anywhere to go that could be any safer than we’ve been here. We’ve even wondered how long this could last – suppose we’re still here when Maroussia dies? Imagine! And then last night – so suddenly – after so long with no hope at all…’

  ‘Bad enough for you, but in some way worse for Irina?’

  ‘Yes.’ A nod. ‘Yes… but – they’re a little crazy, you know.’ Her whisper was only just audible. ‘I’d never realized, before.’

  ‘But you’re going to marry him?’

  ‘He believes so. All I’ve ever promised is I won’t marry anyone else until all these horrors are over.’ She’d shrugged. ‘In any case, what’s going to happen to any of us – in five minutes even, let alone by tomorrow morning—’

  ‘What’s going to happen, Nadia, is we’re going to get you out of here. But even if Nick’s having his problems at the moment, you know, there’s a lot to be said for him. For instance he’s here – he’s come for you – believe me, it took some doing. And he’s had a hell of a war, one way or another. Even before the revolution, let alone this last year – well, that long march south, Alekseev’s—’

  ‘I’m sure of his – affection, and I’ve no doubt he’s a fine soldier and a brave man, but—’

  ‘Oh, here you are…’

  Irina, in the doorway. In her home-made felt slippers she’d come up from the Hole and across the coachhouse to this door as soundlessly as a ghost. Nadia rising to the occasion with considerable presence of mind, telling Bob – in the same low tone of voice and with only a glance towards Irina, as if not wanting to be interrupted in what she’d been telling him, ‘It’s not a Cheka headquarters as such, it’s a military section, you see, with the function of maintaining close surveillance of all army units, especially of commanders and staffs. They have individuals and teams in the field, and these three here – the man I work for and his two assistants – administer the system, collect the reports and collate and analyse them, send weekly summaries to Moscow, and much the same the other way about – receiving and passing out Moscow’s orders and pronouncements, and so forth. So yes, there’s a lot of clerical work, and that’s what they need me for. Whatever else they get up to – these Czechs Maroussia says they’ve got now, for instance – I don’t get told and frankly I’d sooner not know. Ask Maroussia, if you’re interested, she sees them twice a day.’

  She’d looked up at Irina, finally. ‘Hello, there. How are the Solovyev heirlooms? Gathering dust and cobwebs?’

  * * *

  Still waiting for the damn moon… Remembering that he’d asked her later, when the others had been with them and they’d been planning tonight’s excursion, what she knew about patrols or sentries around the house and grounds… ‘When you come and go between here and the house, for instance, d’you see any?’

  ‘I never go near the front of the house. I use the back door, and the room I work in is at the back. There’s always a sentry on that door, certainly… The only ones I’ve seen on the move have been – I’ve assumed – going to or coming from the south gate.’

  The Count had explained: ‘The gate Maroussia didn’t bring us in by.’ Asking Maroussia then, ‘Sentries at the front of the house – d’you know?’

  ‘Oh.’ She’d seemed to shiver… ‘Yes. Sentries there. Two, I think. But I come and go by the back door – same as this one…’

  This talk had been in the Hole – late forenoon, before a lunchtime snack of black bread and goat’s cheese. Bob had asked Maroussia, ‘Are there guards on the cells where the prisoners are?’

  ‘Inside, in the cellar. One man always, sometimes two.’

  ‘Cheka?’

  ‘No. Soldiers, under the Cheka’s orders. Oh, the Cheka swine show their faces sometimes. But not on the guard duty.’

  ‘How about in the grounds – woods, the meadows, everywhere. When you go to get your donkey in, for instance, d’you see any?’

  ‘Sometimes. I couldn’t say where, or what times. But yes, sometimes.’

  ‘They live in the house, do they?’

  ‘The Cheka?’ Her monkey eyes had shifted to Nadia for a moment… ‘Yes. Soldiers too. They lie about on the floors, like pigs.’

  ‘Perhaps because all the furniture’s in this Hole?’

  Irina had laughed; but the Count took the comment seriously. ‘Not by any means all of it. Ivan only carried down what he thought were the best pieces.’ He asked Maroussia, ‘Must be quite a lot still in the house?’

  ‘Not much that isn’t smashed up. And what they’ve left intact is filthy from their boots and cigarettes and God knows what else.’ The little eyes rolled upwards: ‘My little flat’s luxurious compared to the state of your house now, Nikolai Petrovich.’

  * * *

  Then over lunch – at the kitchen table – they’d had the story of the Dowager Countess Solovyeva and her one and only visit from a doctor. It had started from his asking Maroussia, ‘Have the Bolsheviks ever been in here?’

  ‘Only when these two and Maria Ivanovna were first here. Then, they came.’

  ‘Cheka?’

  ‘Lesechko – the head man, the one Nadia works for – and a Red Army person with him. They went away after only a few minutes, and the next day Lesechko came back with the doctor.’

  Irina murmured, ‘The only time she saw any doctor.’

  ‘They didn’t see you, though, Irina?’

  ‘No. I stayed in the Hole.’ Solovyevski-green eyes flickered towards Nadia. ‘I lived in it. Well – still do… But they’d already seen Nadia, you see, she’d taken Mama outside for a breath of air, and – it was just bad luck. They’d gone out there at Mama’s pleading, that’s the truth… Anyway, there’d have been no point in Nadia hiding, after that, and we wanted a doctor for Mama, so – Maroussia had this idea of saying Nadia was her daughter.’

  ‘What about identification?’

  Nadia had explained: ‘I showed my papers. In the name of Nadia Schegorova – papers Boris had got for me in Petrograd. Maria Ivanovna was never asked for hers, it was enough that Maroussia told them she was her sister – nobody disbelieves Maroussia, you see, that honest face?’

  Maroussia had shrugged. ‘I’m the loony, see.’

  ‘But also the doctor informed them that she hadn’t long to live, so—’

  ‘The doctor—’ Irina had cut in, telling Bob – as she’d already described it to her brother, evidently, in one of the long private talks they’d had – ‘this doctor knew us. Knew Mama, would have known me if he’d seen me, and knew full well that Nadia was not Mama’s daughter. And of course that Mama wasn’t Maroussia’s sister either. Quite a young man, apparently; his name’s Martynov. Face like a full moon, they said – round and white. May not have been quite so white before he saw Mama, of course.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything – obviously… But was this Cheka person present?’


  ‘Well, not when he was examining her!’

  Nadia put in: ‘He and I and Maroussia were here, in this kitchen. Maria Ivanovna was in Maroussia’s bed upstairs. And this was when he suggested I should work for them – he’d checked my papers, and I’d told him I’d been doing secretarial work—’

  ‘The doctor—’ Irina again – ‘Mama told us when they’d gone that he’d burst into floods of tears. He hadn’t been our regular doctor or known us very long – he’d been called in once or twice for minor family emergencies – children’s ailments, she said… But he wept, all the time he was examining her the tears were running down his moon face and dripping on to her, she was getting so wet that it made her laugh – she made a funny story out of it, this little doctor crying and his patient giggling…’

  ‘So…’

  ‘He told her, ‘Madame, I have to tell you the truth, which is that you’re going to die. There’s nothing I can do to save you, all I can offer is to leave you to die in peace. If it could be called peace… That’s to say, I must warn you that you’ll be in pain. As you are already, I know, but – worse, worse than you’ve ever known. I’ll give the young lady who calls herself your daughter some pills which you shouldn’t take until it’s too bad to stand without – well, some degree of alleviation… But you know, Madame, I couldn’t have you admitted to hospital here. Even if they could do anything to save you at this late stage: and believe me, they could not. While you’d be in a – well, a different kind of danger…’

  The Count had murmured, ‘I can’t say I remember him.’

  ‘Nor did I.’ Irina, shrugging. ‘Neither the name nor the description. I suppose we were too little – he must have been only just qualified, if he’s so young still… But Mama told him she’d tell them she didn’t want to see him or any other doctor again, that she only wanted to be left to die – as he’d said – in peace. This was as much as anything to save him from any further involvement, you see – in a way, returning the favour… But – imagine it, that moment of mutual recognition, and with this Lesechko creature only yards away…’