by CJ Carver
Timur nodded.
‘He was a very brave man,’ Aleks said. He was looking at Timur, waiting for him to agree, perhaps to add or make an embellishment of some sort, but her brother remained quite still, his button-black eyes crawling over Irene’s face.
Irene said, ‘Yes, he was brave. Now, Aleks. I would like to talk to my brother alone for a moment. Perhaps you could tidy up?’ Which was an instruction to take his Russia paraphernalia back upstairs.
‘But, Mum,’ he protested. ‘I’ve hardly shown him anything. I’ve got loads more –’
‘Do as your mother says.’ Arthur’s voice was brusque.
Aleks blinked. It wasn’t often his stepfather spoke harshly to him. For the first time, he seemed to become aware that something wasn’t right and he looked at each of them, eyes sharp and trying to determine what was going on.
‘Now,’ Arthur added in the same tone.
For an instant Irene thought Aleks wouldn’t go, but then he relented. The second he’d gone, Arthur said, ‘So it’s all true then.’ He was looking between Timur and Irene. ‘That Dmitry was a prince.’
‘Yes,’ said Timur at the same time as Irene said, ‘Of course.’
‘How amazing.’ Arthur gave Irene a twisted smile. ‘It’s not that I didn’t believe you, love, but it just seemed so incredible. And terrible, too, what happened to the family.’
Timur stared at Irene for a second. Then he nodded and turned his gaze to Arthur. ‘It had to happen,’ he said. ‘The revolution. The people were nothing but slaves, dominated by just one hundred families who held all the wealth of the country.’
‘One hundred?’ Arthur repeated, shocked. ‘Is that all?’
Timur nodded. ‘The people hated the nobles with every inch of their fibre. They thought them selfish and greedy. The nobles on the other hand hated the people, thinking them stupid, rude and disgustingly filthy. Which a lot of them were, but with both sides thinking in terms of “us” and “them”, they were never going to understand each other. Civil war was almost guaranteed.’
‘You’re saying no one was blameless?’ Arthur looked surprised, and as the men started a discussion on the Bolshevik coup Irene moved around the kitchen slowly, feeling dizzy and off-balance with relief. Timur was going to keep her secret.
Half an hour passed congenially between Timur and Arthur, and then Timur looked at Irene and said, ‘It’s time for me to go.’
She nodded. Relief made her legs feel as though they might collapse at any second. She led the way along the corridor and outside, where she saw Aleksandr was playing with the kittens, but she was concentrating so hard on getting Timur away that she didn’t take in what her son was actually doing for a few seconds.
He was watching a kitten flailing, struggling to swim in the water trough. He studied it without expression as it choked and floundered, half-drowned and wailing in distress, and when it suddenly vanished beneath the surface of the water, peered at it with a frown.
Timur exploded across the farmyard.
‘YOU LITTLE SHIT!’ he roared.
‘But I only wanted to see if it could swim!’ Aleksandr cried.
Timur plucked the kitten from the water trough and deposited it next to the mother cat and then he spun round and grabbed the boy by the head and forced him to bend over. Ducked his head deep into the trough. Water slopped wildly all around as Aleks struggled but Timur held him fast. ‘How do you like it, you little fuck!’ he screamed. Arthur pushed past Irene, running low and fast across the yard but as he came near, Timur released the boy who fell to his knees, spluttering and coughing and dripping wet.
‘You’re just like your fucking father!’ Timur was screaming and pointing at Aleks, shaking from head to toe as though he was being buffeted by a storm. ‘And I’m not talking about Dmitry, who was a decent man, I’m talking about Lazar fucking Yesikov who is a rapist and murderer! You’ve got a mass murderer’s DNA stamped all over you, his genes crawling through every vein!’
Timur stood over Aleksandr, shouting so loudly the veins stood out on his neck. His face was puce. ‘You think you’re so fucking high and mighty, descended from royalty! Ha! What a laugh! Your real father’s nothing but a psychopathic peasant who sucked his way into our father’s favour where he’d slice open a pregnant woman’s belly for the fun of it and leave the foetus for the dogs to eat!’
Arthur tried to get between Timur and Aleks but Timur kept sidestepping him, stabbing his finger violently at Alesksandr.
‘And do you know who your grandfather is?’ he yelled. ‘Your mother’s father? I bet she lied about that too!’
‘No!’ Irene found her feet. Began to stumble for her son. ‘Please, Timur. Don’t . . .’
‘General Kazimir!’ Timur roared. He was looking at Aleks, triumph lacing his voice. ‘Ever heard of him? The Butcher of Ukraine? He’s one of the most notorious mass murderers the world has ever seen. He helped imprison and execute tens of millions of ordinary people. That’s your heritage. You’re not a fucking prince. You’re a nasty, cruel little freak.’
The last scatter of hope gusted out of Irene.
‘And your children will be nothing but vicious little freaks too,’ Timur said. He glanced round at his sister. He was trembling all over but his voice suddenly dropped, became calm.
He said, quite clearly, his voice carrying to each corner of the farmyard, ‘If I were you, I’d get him sterilised.’
Without another word, Timur walked to his car, climbed in and drove away. He didn’t back.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Dan sat quietly, listening to Irene’s story with a rising sense of frustration. Why had Lucy insisted he come? The policewoman was sitting next to him, while Irene’s nephew and niece sat opposite. Apparently they’d heard the story before, but from their father’s point of view.
‘It sounds a bit different this way round,’ Finch admitted. ‘I feel really sorry for Irene. Dad behaved pretty appallingly from the sound of it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Dan said, trying to keep his impatience from view. He wanted to be organising a rescue mission for his wife, not sitting in a hospital listening to stories. ‘What has all this got to do with Jenny?’
‘My son, Aleksandr,’ she said gently. ‘He is your wife’s father.’
Dan stared for a second.
‘Your wife,’ Irene said, ‘is the granddaughter of Lazar Yesikov. Her great-grandfather is General Kazimir.’
Dan ignored the race of goosebumps that scurried across his skin. ‘But her parents are Adam and Mary Shelby. They live in Bath.’
Irene’s head moved heavily on the pillow, up and down. ‘Yes. But they are not her birth parents. They are Aleksandr and Elizabeth.’
Dan’s brain felt as though it was being squeezed in a vice. ‘If you and Aleksandr were estranged – you said you hadn’t seen or spoken to him for over fifty years – how do you know about this?’
Irene looked pleased at the question. ‘The only time I saw my son after I left the farm, was at his wedding. Aleks hated me for lying to him all those years. He said that to him I was dead. However, despite his loathing of me, Arthur managed to persuade him that I should attend his wedding. This is when I met Elizabeth.’ A smile unfurled as gentle as petals in the woman’s eyes. ‘We immediately felt a bond. We both loved Aleks. We both saw his stubbornness, and also his kindness. He could be a very generous and kind man.’
Dan’s mind flashed to the drowning kitten and something must have shown on his face because Irene’s expression hardened. ‘So, he was cruel to a cat. This doesn’t make him a monster.’
A twisting silence ensued.
‘I suppose not,’ Dan said. He didn’t want to alienate her.
Irene nodded cursorily in acknowledgement of his concession. She said, ‘Elizabeth and I, we secretly kept in touch. We became great friends. We’d meet in London from time to time. I’d show her Russian art, she took me to smart places for lunch. She was very upset that Aleks refused t
o have children, and when she fell pregnant, we truly believed he would be won round because of his love for her. But no. He went crazy. He demanded she kill the child. My son! Killing his baby!’ Fire rose in her eyes. ‘I hated him for this, what he did to his beautiful wife.’
Dan remained perfectly still. Every person who’d been shuffling in their seat or walking along the ward seemed to be holding their breath. You could have heard a pin drop.
‘Elizabeth calls me, crying. She is hysterical. She doesn’t want to lose her husband but she doesn’t want to lose her child, either. Together, we make a plan. Aleks drives her to the clinic, where I lie in wait, hiding. Together, we see the doctor and explain Elizabeth no longer wants the abortion. She wants to have the child adopted. The clinic, they give us details of adoption agencies.’
She shifted restlessly. ‘When Aleks collects Elizabeth, she doesn’t tell him she has not had the abortion. He informs her he has had a vasectomy. They will never have another child. He is kind to her, but she is cold to him. She says she cannot stay with him at the moment. She needs time alone to recover from this dreadful thing. Elizabeth comes to me. I help her through her pregnancy, and I am with her when my granddaughter is born . . .’
Her voice became unsteady. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Ah. She is the most beautiful thing. So precious. So sweet. It is almost unbearable that we have to let her go . . .’
Her eyes were on Dan’s, huge and pleading. ‘But we had to. You understand?’
Unable to imagine what the women had gone through, he gave a nod. Irene exhaled.
‘The adoption agency, they find the perfect parents for my granddaughter. Elizabeth registers what is called an “absolute veto” with the agency. This means that she cannot be contacted under any circumstances by her child in the future. Elizabeth is reunited with Aleks. The years pass. Our secret is safe.’
Irene’s gaze turned distant. She plucked at her blanket. She had started shaking, a tiny unceasing tremor that jittered through her fingers and hands. She said, ‘But then, I think I have made a mistake. When Polina has little Tasha, she looks so like my first granddaughter when she is born, I tell her all about her cousin. I feel someone should know about her.’
Her fingers pleated the blanket into narrow folds. ‘I am always worried about my secret granddaughter, that she knows nothing of her heritage, her true parents, her medical history. What if she falls ill? What if she needs a kidney?’
Irene made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. ‘I am always worrying! But Polina, she tells Adrian my worries. He is a kind man. He pays for the private investigator to check on my granddaughter from time to time. Nicholas Blain, he is very good. He gives us pictures, tells us about her life. I begin to sleep well.’ She turned her head away. ‘But then the killings start. When Aleksandr is murdered, Elizabeth and I, we are very frightened. Elizabeth is desperate to see her daughter . . . We want to try and protect her in case the killers come after her also. We agree we should contact her and tell her the story. We do not know if Zama knows or not that she is adopted . . .’
Dan felt as though he’d touched an electric pylon. His whole body stiffened, his skin flickering. ‘Zama?’ he repeated.
‘This is what we call your wife. Zama. It is from the Russian word “zamaskirovanni”, meaning hidden or disguised. Camouflaged.’
All at once, things began to tumble into place.
Zama Kasofsky.
Jenny was known in Russia by Dmitry’s surname, Kasofsky.
Irene had told her daughter Polina about Zama. Polina had then shared the news of this new-found cousin with her journalist friend, Jane Sykes. Jane Sykes was then overheard talking about Zama in Moscow, saying that if it was true, it was one of the best stories she’d ever get. Pulitzer Prize-winning.
Somewhere along the way, Zama had become a boy. Had Polina or Jane Sykes tried to protect Jenny? Maybe it had been Adrian Calder, who would also know how important the story was.
Dan thought of the killings. The FSB exterminating anyone who knew about Zama. Exterminating anyone with the same genes. Why? Were they seen as potential rivals?
‘Your Jenny is special to Russia,’ Irene told him. ‘Unique. With both Kazimir’s and Yesikov’s blood in her, she is like royalty except she is of the people.’
Dan mind snapped to Lazar Yesikov, the old man in Russia, the way he’d treated him. Yesikov hadn’t wanted Dan to know he was married to his granddaughter in case Dan spirited her away. Yesikov had been checking him out. Checking Jenny out. Yesikov had released Dan from jail because he’d wanted Dan to lead him to his granddaughter, who had vanished.
Dan ran through his conversation with Lazar Yesikov. The talk about the Russian people responding to a strong leader. What would happen when Vladimir Putin was no longer around. Dan replayed Yesikov’s words in his mind.
We will need another strong man to take his place. A man who loves Russia in his heart, and who they can trust and depend upon to look after them.
His heart stopped at his next thought: did Yesikov know Jenny was pregnant?
Irene was saying something but he couldn’t hear her. The air had turned violent, pounding his skull, reverberating with what sounded like a million swarms of hornets.
If Kazimir was still alive, they’d probably walk through fire to follow him.
Dan felt shivery. He felt sick.
Lazar Yesikov wanted to take their son and, alongside Edik Yesikov, groom him to become Russia’s next revered leader and secure his and President Putin’s future in the Kremlin until they died.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Ekaterina finally stopped speaking. Her expression filled with pity.
Jenny longed for the woman’s contempt to return. She’d much rather face her scorn than her sympathy.
She turned away. She was shaking so hard she struggled to catch her breath. Her world had turned inside out and upside down. The solid ground of everything she knew had vanished, become stretched and distorted. Her legs felt as though they didn’t belong to her. She felt disconnected, unreal, and she was here in Russia, and nothing was the way it should be. She covered her face with her trembling hands and closed her eyes, wishing she was a child again and that she could make it all go away. That she’d had a bad dream and when she opened her eyes again, she’d be at home with the sounds of the sheep on the moors and Dan mowing the lawn, Aimee playing with Poppy in the kitchen.
Vaguely she became aware of a whap-whapping sound increasing outside, but she didn’t wonder what it might be. She was too traumatised, too scared to make any sense of anything.
‘Jenny!’ The urgency in Ekaterina’s voice cut through her upheaval like a blade. ‘We have a visitor. He will want to see you, straight away.’
She was pointing urgently at the window. Finally Jenny realised the whap-whap sound came from rotor blades. Swallowing hard, she walked unsteadily across the room to watch a military helicopter land on the other side of the Land Cruisers. Great clouds of snow rose, obscuring the machine.
‘Who is it?’ she said. She couldn’t get any energy into her voice. It felt as though she was struggling at the bottom of a river. Slow and weary, drained with shock.
Ekaterina shook her head but her almond eye, the one not covered by the bandage, had darkened in fear. She said, ‘Milena. Take her to wait for him.’
Milena put out her hand and like a child, Jenny let her lead her out of Ekaterina’s bedroom and along the corridor, into the sitting room with its sofas and armchairs, and walls lined with dead, snarling bears, foxes and wolves.
‘Come.’ Milena pulled her to stand in front of the fireplace but although the fire raged, Jenny couldn’t feel its heat through the chill in her soul, her heart.
The woman left her briefly and returned with a shot glass of vodka filled to the brim. ‘Drink this. It will help. The baby won’t mind. Not just for this time.’
Obediently, Jenny drank. She didn’t like vodka but now she could appreciate the burning
sensation trailing down her throat and into her lungs. She felt her nerves steady.
‘You will wait for him here,’ said Milena.
Jenny begged the question with her eyes.
Milena touched her shoulder. ‘Your grandfather,’ she said softly.
Lazar Yesikov.
Who had apparently made love repeatedly with General Kazimir’s daughter, Irina, before she’d run away with another lover. Irina had married this lover in Europe where her bastard son, Aleksandr, was born. When Aleksandr grew up he married Elizabeth. They had a daughter who they put up for adoption, but Ekaterina didn’t tell her why.
Was it really true? That she was half-Russian? She’d only been told this crazy story by two damaged, fearful women, who in turn admitted it was hearsay, gleaned from a journalist called Jane Sykes who the authorities had been spying upon.
Footsteps came down the corridor, along with a tapping sound. Ekaterina had told her Lazar Yesikov walked with a cane.
Jenny’s heart was beating like a rabbit’s. She felt a wave of nausea. Swallowed it. Fixed her gaze on the doorway. Lifted her chin.
The instant she saw him, she knew it was true.
It wasn’t just his appearance. Yes, they looked alike with their height and pale skin, their blue eyes and sharply cut features, but it was as though the second their eyes met her genes woke up and said, hi! A vital sense of recognition.
‘Hello, Jenny,’ he said. His voice was dry and rasped with age.
She didn’t respond.
‘I hope Ekaterina and Milena have been looking after you.’
Recalling both women’s fear of the man, she gave a nod. Ekaterina might not like her, but she wouldn’t want either woman to get into trouble. ‘They have been very hospitable,’ she said stiffly.
