Bloody Sunset

by Bloody Sunset (retail) (epub)

  Presumably Lesechko had separated them with some clear purpose in mind. Possibly in the hope that when he was on his own Nick’s rather futile resistance might crumble altogether. He might make him an offer: we’ll go easy on you if you’ll rat on your friend. This wouldn’t of course get them anywhere, since the one and only secret that was of value, basic to the whole business, was simply Nick’s identity. Nick therefore couldn’t bargain: but this Robat character, this Persian, he could.

  And probably walk free.

  But he wouldn’t. So it would come down to torture.

  Here – in this cellar. A bleary-eyed guard on his feet, reaching to take a large iron key off a hook on the wall: growling at the captain over his shoulder, as the latter tossed the two sheath-knives on to a table, ‘Place getting crowded…’

  ‘And another to come. Well – maybe…’ Bob glanced round: at a heavy oak chair with straps hanging from its arms and legs, and an iron bedstead also with straps fitted and a heap of whips, clubs and ropes on it. A small, black stove, free-standing, with fire-irons near it – poker, tongs… The cellar was on two levels: this higher part against the outside wall, really a passage through from the door they’d just come in by to another facing it, and five or six steps down to the larger area where all that junk was.

  Smell of sewage. Short passages leading out of that lower part – alcoves with empty wine-racks in them. Against the outside wall, an enormous heap of coal. Far more than they’d want for that little stove, more likely a supply for all the fireplaces in the house. The stove was surely there for heating the irons in: branding irons, effectively… He wondered whether Nick Solovyev would be capable of standing up to torture.

  How much he himself would stand, for that matter.

  Those looked like dental tools, on a bench near the chair that had straps on its arms and legs. And – he caught on to this suddenly, having been mesmerized by this scene for perhaps a minute, perhaps two – that the captain had deliberately given him time to take note of it. Glancing round at him in an effort to look unimpressed, as the turnkey asked ‘What’s this one, then?’ and the captain shrugged: ‘Dunno. Soon will, though – soon as Khitrov’s back, eh?’

  Khitrov was a name one had heard before. Recently…

  Nadia. Nadia had said, ‘Khitrov’s loathsome…’

  He’d be the cellar boss, presumably. It made sense. Lesechko had talked about pulling beards out with pincers, but he’d be out of his depth in that cellar. He’d want the results that came out of it, that was all; Khitrov would bring them to him, and if what he’d left behind wasn’t nice to look at – well, Lesechko wouldn’t have to look at it.

  But perhaps he watched. Just didn’t like getting his hands dirty.

  Time, Bob thought, would tell. One had wondered, occasionally. When one had heard or read of others being tortured and either standing up to it or failing to. Not only in the present war, but in history – the rack, for instance, accounts of King Henry VIII’s torturers extracting confessions, true or false, from his wives’ alleged lovers. And of course the Inquisition, which so many English seamen had encountered, three or four hundred years ago. One had wondered: just as, before one had ever been in action at sea, one hadn’t known whether one would stand up to that as well as one should.

  But Nick Solovyev and torture or the threat of torture was a particular and immediate worry; one felt less sure of him even than of oneself. The main issue at stake, of course, being the two girls, and old Maroussia. Before, one would have sworn he’d hold out. When he’d been through so much: and displayed such cool nerve more than once. Only now… Remembering the sweat, the stammering: and the suspicion that his nerve had gone – broken by the sight of those dangling ropes. Whether Lesechko could have caught on to the fact that the breakdown was of such recent origin…

  If he did – and if he was as clever as one suspected – he could be on the right path to the truth.

  But why, Bob asked himself, would they have left the ropes hanging there all this time?

  Commemoration of their own bloodlust? Bolshevik sentiment?

  Or, more simply, pour encourager les autres?

  If intimidation was the purpose of it, it had worked with N. P. Solovyev, all right. Hadn’t exactly missed the target on R. Cowan. Except that R. Cowan was less personally involved and in that sense less vulnerable – neither an aristocrat nor the rightful owner of this house.

  One hell of a difference, actually…

  Better not count chickens. Who could possibly know how well or how badly they’d react?

  ‘Here y’are, then.’

  The guard had picked up a lamp, come up the steps and gone to the other door. Pulling it open: no lock on that one. Stone passage – narrow, unlit except for the lamp the guard was carrying. The captain followed him, constantly looking back at Bob, and behind Bob the two guards who’d brought him through the house. The revolvers they carried were Nagants, he’d noticed. Big, heavy things, clumsier than his own .45 which he’d left with Nadia.

  He wondered what they’d do, those girls. What they’d be guessing could have happened. How long it might be before they realized…

  And then what?

  Well, for one thing, Irina would probably go mad, in time.

  Passing a second door: he supposed the Czech prisoners would be in those first two cells. In solitary confinement and total darkness – as he’d be too, in a moment. The fact that this in itself would be a form of torture only began to dawn on him at that moment. Third door: stopping here. Pushing the key into the hole, but it wasn’t locked, it opened when the man turned the latch and pushed it.

  The door was made of timber about four inches thick, he noted.

  ‘In you go, comrade.’

  The two behind him had let go of his arms, allowing him to walk in on his own. The lamp’s rays very briefly lighting the stone-floored cell – about ten feet by six, with a damp, lavatorial odour, nothing in it except a bucket in one corner, and with one very small window, high up and barred, less a window as such than what Russians called a fortochka. Then he was inside and the door had thudded shut; he heard the clash of the heavy lock as the key turned. Pitch black, not even a glimmer of starlight from that tiny window.

  13

  Faint light in that small, barred rectangle. Daybreak – by which time as he’d envisaged it they’d have been down there in the delta, locating the skiff and settling down for a day with the mosquitoes.

  He thought he’d dozed a bit. Off and on… Awake now, though, sitting with his back against the wall, as far away from the bucket as he could get, with his eyes on that minute section of dawn sky and thoughts of Khitrov in mind. Those words as soon as Khitrov’s back could imply a wait of hours, or days… But he’d thought about the girls as well: for one thing, that at some time during the day Maroussia might be bringing a ration of bread and soup, so that after that they’d know the worst.

  Nadia facing a life-sentence in the service of the Cheka, for instance, and with Irina to keep hidden. For how long – with Irina already less stable than she might be? Then – Nadia’s eyes, in close-up, as they focused on those ropes. Nadia and Khitrov…

  In half-sleep, he’d indulged in conversations with his father, who’d had no advice to offer other than to stick it out, try to stay sane, hope for a miracle and grab any chance that was offered. His own advice to himself, of course, since in these dialogues he took both parts, deriving comfort from pretending to have the old man in communication. Also trying to exercise his mind by recalling bits and pieces of poetry which in years gone by he’d had to memorize at school; not much of it had stuck, and he’d found himself coming back time and time again to Macaulay’s epic about Lars Porsena of Clusium holding some damn bridge or other, and the rhetorical How shall man die better than facing fearful odds?

  Not by facing Khitrov. That was for sure.

  * * *

  Nadia woke with a start: and Irina’s hand on her shoulder, shaking her.

&nb
sp; ‘Nadia – you were sleeping!’

  ‘Huh? Well, of course I…’

  It hit her, then. Why Irina would not have slept, and why she seemed outraged that she, Nadia, had. Rolling on to her back, seeing Irina’s rather small head black against the dawn-lit window. Irina complaining, ‘I haven’t had one moment’s sleep. Maroussia’s down there snoring her head off, too… God help us, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Getting her mind to it. ‘Nothing we can do. I’m afraid it looks as if they must have caught them. And if so…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh – nothing…’

  ‘They’d torture them, wouldn’t they? To find out who they are and what they’ve come here for?’

  ‘I – suppose…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know – any more than you do… But there’s nothing we can do except carry on as usual – I’ll go to work, you stay in the Hole…’

  ‘Christ.’ A small whimper. ‘You’ve no idea—’

  ‘Yes, I have. I’ve a very good idea, I’ve spent quite a bit of time down there myself… But listen – those two men could be hiding somewhere. Might have not been able to get back here, for some reason. There could be all sorts of explanations. We don’t know, so let’s hope for the best, say our prayers and not despair before there’s any need to – eh?’

  Maroussia had spent the night on a blanket close to the door, where she’d have been woken if they’d turned up during the small hours. While Nadia had gone to bed up here in the flat telling herself When I wake up, they’ll be here…

  She wondered if they could have come, knocked, and Maroussia not woken?

  * * *

  During breakfast – tea and bread in the kitchen – Maroussia’s eyes were on Irina a lot of the time, and with spasms of the rapid blinking which Nadia had come to recognize as a sign of internal stress, about the only symptom of it the old girl ever showed.

  Probably thinking Irina ought to be in the Hole. Nadia thought so too – that in the circumstances – after all, something must have happened – a surprise visit by soldiers and/or Cheka had to be on the cards. On the other hand Irina was so strung up, seemed so close to hysteria, that it seemed wise to handle her gently, for fear of nudging her into a full-scale nervous breakdown.

  ‘I was thinking—’ speaking to Maroussia, but aiming the message at Irina – ‘that if they’d got themselves stuck last night – had to hide in that boat, for instance—’

  ‘How could that happen?’

  ‘Could’ve got trapped somehow, couldn’t they? If they were on it and then its crew came along or something.’ Glancing at Maroussia again: ‘Anything like that, they’d have to sit it out – wherever they are – until it’s dark enough to come back to us tonight. Then I suppose they’d – I don’t know, start all over again, perhaps… And if they were on the boat – well, it could be they’d have done all the technical things Bob said were necessary. So then tonight—’

  ‘And pigs might fly.’

  Maroussia glared at her: ‘Irina Petrovna!’ Irina looked shocked: like a naughty child. Nadia holding her mental breath, waiting for the floods, the screams… Maroussia telling her, ‘That was a rude and stupid thing to say!’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘No, you must control yourself. Nadia’s perfectly right and sensible, we have to have faith and courage, Irina. Remember your darling mother, my precious Maria Ivanovna, the courage she showed us all…’

  * * *

  The sentry on duty at the Dacha’s former tradesmen’s entrance eyed her as she came walking quickly across the cobbles. In his mid-twenties, with a narrow, foxy face, forage cap on a shaven head, green field shirt, red brassard, khaki trousers pushed into high boots. Looking her up and down – as they always did, and she always ignored it, trying to look as if she didn’t notice.

  She did, though. And inside, in the stone hallway, where a few men were still asleep, others rolling their blankets or in the slow process of waking up, she was again the target of lewd interest and muttered comments. She was aware – heard it quite often – that they called her ‘the Cheka’s whore’. She went on quickly; through the hall and down a short passage, where the third door on the left – with Lesechko’s notice on the door reading PRIVATE, NO ENTRY – was her office. Former pantry, about eight feet by ten with an oak dresser at the far end and a small table on which stood her typewriting machine with a piece of old curtain material over it as a dust-cover. She had a kitchen chair behind the table, and her first work of the day – continuation of Saturday evening’s, when Lesechko had finally told her she could go, get down to it again first thing Monday – was stacked beside the machine just as she’d left it.

  She pulled the chair out, and the cover off the machine, and sat down. It occurred to her that when she’d last sat on this chair she hadn’t known that Nikki was alive: or that any Scotsman by the name of Bob Cowan even existed.

  Maybe he didn’t now. Maybe neither of them did. In which case…

  She sat still for a few moments with her eyes shut and her hands pressed flat together, fingertips in contact with her chin… Then started work.

  * * *

  Maroussia leant sideways like a sailing ship in a hard blow, to counter the weight of the full bucket she was carrying. Scrubbing-brush and a wad of cloth in the other hand, that arm stuck out almost horizontally. She was on her way to the office of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee – it had been the Solovyevs’ library in former days – as she was supposed to get that one done first. She’d come in by the back door, collecting this gear from the scullery which led off from the kitchen; now she’d turned into the passage that led through to the west wing of the house. Through the swing door – opening it with her left shoulder – and she was passing the guardroom when a voice called sharply. ‘Oy! Kamentseva!’

  They all used her family name. Or on occasion just Babushka, grandmother. The family name was all right, in fact she preferred it, wouldn’t have wanted to be on closer terms with any of this riff-raff – and certainly not with this one, a scowling Kirghiz sergeant by name of Lyashko.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘Message for you. You’ve got two more mouths to feed today. See to it, eh?’

  Blinking at him. Rapid blinking…

  ‘In the cells now, d’you mean? That I’ve got to feed today?’

  ‘What did I just tell you, woman?’

  ‘But—’ she made an effort to control the blinking – ‘I won’t have enough bread. The Czechs would’ve finished up Saturday’s. But if it’s four now—’

  ‘Better go bake some fresh, hadn’t you?’

  * * *

  Irina lounged on hay-bales near the trapdoor. They’d begged her to stay inside the Hole, but she’d argued that if Nikki came and she was down there she wouldn’t hear him.

  ‘But he won’t, Irina dear.’ Nadia with an arm round her shoulders, talking in what Irina called her ‘nanny’ voice. ‘Not in daylight. You know he wouldn’t!’

  She wondered if he was dead.

  If he was – well – thirteen years ago, their father. Then just the other day, Mama. Now Nikki. Leaving, in logical progression – and inevitably, because if he were gone – how in the name of Christ—

  The door rattled. She jerked upright: glancing to the open trapdoor and half rising – ready to climb quickly down inside there and pull the trap shut over her head. Remembering Nadia’s nagging: ‘But if you’re inside before we leave we can cover the trapdoor with hay. When you’re on your own you can’t…’

  ‘Irina?’

  Maroussia’s voice, as the door creaked shut. Irina let out the breath she’d been holding… ‘What brings you back – is there news, have you heard…?’

  ‘You should be in the Hole.’ A shake of the grey head. ‘No. I’ve heard nothing. I dare say Nadia’s right and they’re in hiding, we’ll see them later… I have to make more bread, that’s all, I’d forgotten…’

 
; She’d fastened the outside door. Murmuring as she went into the kitchen that she’d just get this lot into the oven, then go and get on with her cleaning, come back later… Scooping the coarse brown flour from the barrel into her big mixing-bowl: aware of Irina’s presence somewhere behind her. No point burdening the child with secrets she didn’t need to have: if it turned out well, it would turn out well, and if it didn’t – she crossed herself, murmured in her mind Into Thy hands, oh Lord… She heard the scrape of a chair then, as Irina sat down at the table: like a dog or a cat, always following one around. Turning the leaves of some old book Nadia had been reading. Occupied, anyway… Maroussia knelt down, began to grope at the back of the stove, at floor level. Careful of the hot metal: but still having to feel for it, you couldn’t see into that narrow gap and she didn’t remember exactly where she’d hidden the thing. On a ledge of sorts, a flange of the cast-iron base…

  Her fingertips touched it, felt it move. Eyes watering – blinking like mad – scared that if she pushed it too far in she’d never—

  Got it. Rolling it with a conjuror’s deftness into her apron. Ready to tell Irina that it was a spoon she’d dropped.

  The bread now. Mixing, then pounding the heavy dough with her small, work-hardened fists; deciding while she thumped and muttered at it that the stranger who’d brought Nikolai Petrovich here was the stronger of the two, that he’d be the one to entrust with this.

  * * *

  Bob heard the clash of the lock in his cell door. He began to get up, thinking Here it is now – Khitrov…

  Two guards: one in the doorway and the other behind him. There wasn’t a lot of light out there, but compared to the gloom in the cell it was dazzling.