Bloody Sunset

by Bloody Sunset (retail) (epub)

  And they’d hold him responsible. Crazy though it was, he could see this coming. He’d been instrumental in getting them away from the dacha: now their attitude would be Well – where do we go from here?

  The dawn sky was on his left, and the end wall of the barn in front of him. Deep shadow there. This place might be uninhabited now, but out in the open like this one still felt exposed and vulnerable. Stooped, sort of loping up the incline, anxious to get into that shadow. Glancing back: seeing no movement around the huts: glad of that, but allowing himself the unworthy thought Probably all flat out… Into the shadow now – at last – against the barn’s wooden wall, and moving to his right then – to what would be its front right-hand corner, if you were inside and looking out through its doors.

  Before, they’d been standing open. Now they were shut and locked. Internal lock, too, not a padlock. A padlock would have been easy.

  Have to force it. And this was an old building, heavy-timbered. And one had no tools except knives.

  Check the hinges. If external, they might be unscrewable. He’d got as far as discovering that they were not external when he heard the lorry coming. Petrol engine anyway – up on the road. And quite likely just passing… He stood still, listening: willing it to drive on by but hearing it slow down, and then the shift of gear: turning in here…

  He was back around that corner: moving back farther still. Thankful for the spark of sense that had made him leave the others at a distance and out of sight. The lorry – truck, van, whatever it was – had turned off the road, and now from the back corner of the barn he saw its headlight beams jerking up and down as it bounced and rocked over the descending, winding track. Passing behind some other farm-type buildings: then in sight again, headlights swinging this way as it negotiated the last curve.

  Returning to its garage, surely. The one-handed driver – who’d be in Tsarytsin by now – had mentioned that his colleague dealt in contraband of some kind; the odds were that he would aim to have his illicitly-used transport back under cover before daylight… Headlights lit the track this side of the bend, scythed across the open hillside between here and the shacks, then swept over the front of the barn. Then there was only the overspill of light beyond and to the right as the vehicle slowed and stopped – out of one’s sight but very close.

  Dead still, listening. Hearing the driver get out – engine still ticking over – and a key being pushed into the door. Long creak of the door opening outwards. They were double doors, but only one had been standing open to receive the lorry, on that previous occasion. Now the driver was back on board: his door pulled loosely shut, and a blip on the accelerator, all the spill of light snuffed out as the truck nosed into the barn. Brake on: engine off: it coughed to itself a couple of times, then fell silent.

  Door slamming shut. No light anywhere now… Creak of the barn door again: he’d be locking it now. Missed opportunity, maybe. Except that one wasn’t looking for confrontations at this stage. For one thing it was vitally important not to leave any tracks or traces this side of the river, and for another – well, for that same reason, if there was any confrontation it would have to be another killing, another body hidden. Here – this far from Krasnaya Dacha – he hoped that might be avoidable. There, the rule had been kill or be killed: whereas here – well, life wasn’t exactly back to normal, but—

  But what?

  Killer instincts – if any – now dormant. That was what.

  Just about every instinct near-enough bloody dormant…

  He was at the front corner of the barn again, and non-dormant enough – just – to know he had to see which way the driver went… Catching sight of him now. Bulky figure, in a coat that reached to the ground. About ten yards away at this moment, near enough to see the coat’s skirts swinging as he walked. A rolling, lumbering walk: a heavily-built man, probably a big belly on him. He was heading towards the fishermen’s huts: lost to sight now, the darkness swallowing his dark-clothed bulk, but he’d been right on course for those nearer huts – where one might hope the others would not be all flat out, snoring…

  * * *

  They’d been edging back. The huts were laid out in more or less a crescent formation, five or six huts deep in the centre but thinning out – at this southern end anyway – into a thinner straggle, with the last hut out on its own. Nick and the others had been between about the third and fourth from that end, up front where they could see across to the barn; now they’d retreated, were among the second rank – hard-baked earth, patches of weeds, and a smell of which the predominant ingredients seemed to be fish-residue and urine.

  Nadia whispered, ‘He’s going to the one at the end.’

  The Czechs had been muttering in German; now the orang-utan whispered in French from Nick’s right, ‘We might move away – this way?’

  ‘Let him get inside first, Captain.’

  Nadia’s hand closed on Nick’s arm: ‘See him?’

  He was just arriving at the hut that was out on its own. Opening its door – no pause there, no lock – and leaving it open as he disappeared inside.

  Which suggested, Nick guessed, that he’d be coming out again quite soon. Holding Nadia’s hand now, squeezing it… Behind them Irina whispered too loudly, ‘We’re going to be stuck here, aren’t we—’

  ‘Quiet…’

  A match flared, in that hut, the flare of it visible through the open door. Then a softer glow, expanding, as a lamp was lit. Sounds of movement, heavy treads on the board floor. Nick whispered to Irina, ‘No, we won’t be stuck. If he’s staying there we can sneak off that way.’

  ‘But the lorry…’

  Nadia murmured, ‘Leave in it tonight, surely. What Bob was proposing anyway. Rest here today, then—’

  ‘Hush.’ Nick’s hand tightened again on hers. ‘He’s coming out.’

  Carrying the lamp. And something different about him…

  No coat – that was it, he’d left it in the hut, appeared less bulky than he had before. Pushing the door shut: and turning, setting off towards the barn again, with the oil-lamp swinging in one hand.

  * * *

  Bob watched him – watched the lamp – going up the track to the road, and when he was sure he wasn’t coming back he first checked the barn door – in case the key had been left in it – then trotted over to join the others. Hearing, just as he reached them, some other vehicle on the road. It was stopping… Then a door slammed and it drove on again.

  And good riddance…

  He said as he joined them, ‘Gone home to his breakfast. Left the barn locked, unfortunately, took the key with him. We’ll have to force that lock, Nick.’

  ‘When? Now?’

  ‘I think in daylight. After we’ve had a sleep. Then leave it until sundown, get away in the lorry then. Must have some petrol in it.’

  Irina asked him, ‘Spend the day here, you mean.’

  ‘We don’t have much option, really. Look at that.’

  The sky. Dawn’s left hand. Light flushing up from the east faintly pink, no stars left now in the spreading gloss. Nick agreed: ‘We could use one of these huts – or two – and eat some of our food now, d’you think?’

  ‘Why not. If anyone can stay awake long enough.’

  ‘Bob.’ Nadia touched him, getting his attention. ‘He went into that hut at the end, and he left his long coat in there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The key could be in its pocket?’

  ‘Oh.’ Blinking at her. ‘You’re right. It could.’

  Contrabandist’s night-driving coat…

  Nadia said, ‘You’re tired out. I’ll go and look.’

  ‘Well – come with me.’ He pushed himself off the wall where he’d been leaning. Sagging… ‘If it’s there I’ll go back to the barn. We’d all sleep better for knowing what’s what.’

  It was getting pinker overhead. And no wind at all, not a breath. The weather might hold, might not. What one needed was a miracle – like a couple of days and nights of
flat calm. Nadia said, ‘I never saw a man more tired.’

  ‘Cracking up. Poor material, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ She smiled at him. Dawn’s pink light in her face. He thought, as they set off together between the lines of huts, I could spend my life with that face.

  ‘I don’t think it can be locked. He walked straight in and out.’

  She was right. And the hut was only thirty yards away. Inside, it seemed to be just one room. Interior detail not visible in the dark, no more than a faint radiance penetrating the open doorway. But she found the man’s coat almost immediately. It was on a peg behind the door: she’d found it by common sense and then by feel… Muttering ‘Ugh. Smelly…’ Groping in its pockets: Bob standing watching, waiting for the verdict, with nothing much in mind except to go back to the others in a minute, then lie down and fall asleep. Then she was laughing, and dangling something in front of his face: putting it in his hand then – one large key, on a twist of wire. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’d call it genius.’ A small spark of genius of his own, then: ‘But hang on a minute…’

  If one made a hole in the lining of that pocket, when the driver didn’t find his key he’d think he knew what must have happened to it, might spend an hour or two on his hands and knees out there unaware that anything was missing from the barn. Like a truck, for instance… Bob used the point of his knife – Maroussia’s knife out of Nadia’s sheath – and then the barn key, to make it look less like a cut.

  ‘Nadia, you are – stupendous. Brilliant. As well as very nice to look at.’

  ‘H’m. In the dark – that’s some compliment.’

  ‘I’ve got cat’s eyes. But you’re terrific in any light.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’ll do the barn on my own now… Easier – if some other local comes along…’

  Easier, too, to do it now before full daylight. Jogging over towards the barn while she went back to the others, he began thinking about the delta again, another aspect of it that had been fermenting in the back of his mind – namely that the risk of drowning might be acceptable, if the alternative was to be rounded up and shipped back to Krasnaya Dacha – to Lesechko and Khitrov – which might well be the procedure if they were caught… But if it wasn’t just a risk of drowning, more like a certainty – if the weather looked really dangerous – what then?

  As a seaman one’s answer would have to be no – definitely no, not even if conditions looked reasonably good when you were starting out. But – having seen that cellar, and the ropes – imagining Nadia – for God’s sake – and Lesechko’s fury that she’d tricked him…

  The key turned easily. Inside, he shut the door and relocked it. Locking himself in in near-total darkness with one lorry, and one van. And at the back of the barn – groping for it and then finding it – a drum of petrol. He’d seen one here the other day. He tilted it, heard liquid sloshing, put his nose to it. Petrol, all right.

  The van might be the best, for their purposes. If it started; which one might try now. From the closed barn there’d be very little leakage of noise.

  Get some light first – using the lorry’s lights, because one knew that battery had some juice in it. And – got it… Yellowish light flooded the barn’s interior. He slid out of the lorry and into the van – it was an Austin, and looked as if it had been worked very hard for a very long time. Checking over its dashboard… Ignition switch – on. Spark – he slid the knob right over, to retard it fully. Better than getting a broken wrist… Hand-throttle: he opened it just a little. Then out, round to the front, the crank-handle, feeling it for compression first and then swinging good and hard… To his surprise, the engine fired. He tried the headlights then, found that they worked, switched them and the engine off and tried the feel of the steering and gear-change. Then he got out, went all round peering at and running his hands over the tyres. Not all of them were completely bald.

  * * *

  He told them, ‘All is well. Thanks to Nadia, we have access. Choice of vehicles – the lorry or a van. I think the van, but either’d do. And there’s petrol.’

  He’d found them in one of the huts – or rather, Nick had met him and shown him where they were. It would be daylight very soon, you needed to be under cover. Nadia asked him – glancing at Nick as well, tactfully including him in the question – ‘What if that man comes back before we leave?’

  ‘What we have to do – I have to, anyway – is sleep. Then—’ he was letting himself down to sit with his back against the wall – ‘well, wouldn’t matter. We’ll start off when it’s dark. Talk again before that.’

  ‘But if he comes during the day?’

  ‘If he stayed around, when we’re ready to move we’d have to deal with him. Kill him, I suppose. But if he comes and goes – well, he’ll have problems with keys, but whichever truck he does not take—’ he’d swung round parallel to the wall, to lie flat with his hands behind his head – ‘that’ll be ours.’

  ‘Bob, dear.’ Nadia crouched beside him. ‘Irina’s dividing up some of the food. Don’t you think you should eat something before you—’

  ‘No.’ Smiling at her, although she probably couldn’t see it. ‘Thank you, but—’

  ‘We brought cold tea, too.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ A long sigh. ‘Absolutely wonderful…’

  * * *

  Waking, and clear-headed, his first thought was that he had to tell them, explain about the boat, get it across to them so they’d know what they were facing and he wouldn’t have to go on struggling with it as if the situation was of his making.

  Nadia’s voice – quiet, indicative of others being still asleep nearby – ‘The man’s awake… Ready for your breakfast, Bob?’

  He sat up. ‘Yes. Please… You been awake long?’

  ‘About an hour. Some of the others woke too, but they’ve dropped off again.’

  ‘And the time now?’

  ‘About noon.’ She checked her watch. ‘Twenty past. You’ve been unconscious for eight hours.’

  ‘Feel a lot better for it, too.’ He got up, went to the. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Before I went to sleep. We all did, except you. We thought we might eat again before we start tonight.’

  And that, presumably, would use up all the food they’d brought. So there’d be no rations to take with them in the boat. So – if sea conditions allowed one to put out – and then to stay afloat – amongst other evils one would be facing two or three foodless days and nights… Then, pushing the door shut behind him, he saw that they were not likely to have anything like tolerable sea conditions. The sky was about four-fifths cloud, and there was a wind of force 3 or 4 pushing it over from the north.

  So there you were. Outlook a stage or two bleaker than it had been when you’d got your head down. A phrase came into his mind while he was walking away between the huts: between the devil and the deep blue sea. Or even shallow blue sea – which the Caspian was, in its northern reaches, one of its characteristics being that on that shallow water even a very moderate blow threw up a choppy sea very quickly. Bugbear of the CMB fraternity.

  Which took one’s thoughts back to poor old Johnny Pope, and Zero McNaught…

  When he got back, he found that Nadia had put his rations out for him: bread, dried fish, and an enamel mug of cold tea.

  ‘It’s what we all had. Fish now, cheese tonight.’

  ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  ‘Couldn’t it?’

  ‘Well…’

  It would have been a relief to have been able to talk to her about the skiff and the delta; but it wouldn’t have been fair – they had all to hear it, not just poor Nadia to be burdened with it so as to lighten his own load. He drank some tea, spread fish on the bread and began to eat. Looking around now – seeing Irina’s high-hipped figure on one of two wooden bunks, and Nick Solovyev sprawled on the floor at the back of the room. A small stove was fixed to the wall there; that and the bunks were the only furnishings
. One small, square window near the door: and that was it. Eyes back to Nadia, who was sitting near him.

  ‘Czechs in another hut, I suppose?’

  ‘Next door… Bob, did Nick say you were brought up in Petrograd?’

  He nodded. ‘Except it was then St Petersburg.’

  ‘Of course. And your mother was Russian.’

  ‘Looked a bit like you. Anyway – similarities… But like you, very pretty.’

  ‘I’m not pretty!’

  ‘Well, I’d say you were.’

  ‘Better not say it too loudly, anyway.’

  ‘Ah – right… But another thing too – I wanted to say this earlier on – how dreadfully sorry I am that we had to bring you such news about your brother. On top of losing your parents not long before. I do think you’re extremely brave – the way you’ve simply carried on, and—’

  ‘There hasn’t been all that much alternative, really. And I’d already convinced myself that Boris must have been killed. So I was already over the shock, I’d – reconciled myself to it. But—’ she shook her head – ‘don’t imagine I don’t cry inside. We all do – don’t we? Probably ever after? And I feel surprise too – that I’m alive, that it should be me who’s survived this far… That’s something else about it – it often feels as if it might be just – you know, a postponement.’

  ‘Postponed a hell of a long time, I hope.’

  ‘Well – thanks to you.’

  ‘I’d say thanks to all of us. First and foremost to old Maroussia. And to Nick. And what about your own effort, bluffing it out with Lesechko all this time?’