‘You’re American,’ he said. ‘Am I right?’
‘Sure.’
‘So what are you doing in France?’
‘France? You think we’re in France? We have a problem, my friend. Three fingers is on the money. Three fingers tells me you can count, no brain damage in there, everything working the way it should. Three fingers is very good news. But France? Hey, Mr Moncrieff, where have you been in that head of yours? Welcome to England.’
England? Moncrieff lay back, totally confused. There was something very likeable about this man, and the comfort in the woman’s voice had warmed him, but everything he looked at, every last detail, still told him he was in France. Not, perhaps, Paris. Not even some other city. But definitely France. Maybe somewhere deep in the country. Birdsong. Clouds. Wind in the trees. A distant meadow. Even a cow or two.
‘France,’ he repeated.
‘England,’ Moncrieff was looking at an outstretched hand. ‘Pearse Lenahan. Glad to be of service, Mr Moncrieff. Just trust me. It was England yesterday, and God willing it will be England tomorrow.’
‘So how come…?’ Moncrieff’s weary gesture took in the entire room.
Lenahan laughed, and briefly disappeared from view. Then came the scrape of a chair and he was back beside the bed, eager, friendly, happy to help. A long summer in the open air had given him a deep tan. The explosion of blond curls made him look impossibly young.
‘Where are we? I’d love to give you a clue, buddy, but I can’t.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Top secret. If I told you, I’d have to kill you. No kidding. King and Country, right? Tonight, we’ll get you out of here, or maybe tomorrow night, or maybe even the night after. Depends how you’re feeling. We’ll keep it discreet, trust me. No questions, no answers. All we need is an address to mail you to. That’s a joke, by the way.’ He paused. ‘London, maybe? A fella deserves a clue. Just one.’
‘That could be difficult.’
‘Why?’
Moncrieff gazed up at him. His memory, at last, was beginning to clear, little splinters coming together, beginning to make sense, recomposing a recent past that had inexplicably vanished.
‘I work for the Security Service,’ he muttered.
‘You’re kidding me?’ Lenahan was staring at him. ‘MI5?’
‘You know it?’
‘Sure,’ he rocked back in the chair. ‘You’re not snowing me? You can prove that?’
‘Not unless…’ Moncrieff frowned, concentrating very hard. The pain in his head was definitely easing.
‘Unless what, buddy?’
‘Unless you found any ID.’
‘Nothing. I found nothing. A situation like that, you take a good look. Nothing. Except this.’
He got up and fetched an envelope from the top of the dresser. Moncrieff recognised it at once. The photograph, he thought. Bella. Totally shorn.
‘You mind if I open it, buddy? Take a look? It was in that car of yours. On the passenger seat.’
‘Help yourself.’
Lenahan opened the envelope and shook out the photo inside. Then he found the message that went with it.
‘Russian, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does it say? You mind me asking?’
‘Not at all. And the answer is I don’t know.’
‘Hey. Right. OK.’ Lenahan was on his feet again. ‘Our doc’s a Pole. Speaks perfect Russian. I’ll stick a cracker up his arse. Give him a hurry-up. You OK in there?’ He tapped his own head, grinned, and then left the room without a backward glance.
Moncrieff lay back and closed his eyes. A part of him was still convinced he was in France but in truth it didn’t seem to matter. He knew he should get out of bed, make it across to the window, take a look at his surroundings, but the effort was beyond him. He may have dozed, even slept properly, he didn’t know, but the next thing he heard was conversation below the window, and then the heavy boots on the stairs, and Lenahan’s face at the open door.
‘Dr Paczynski, buddy. Believe me, in these parts, there’s none better.’
Moncrieff looked up at the figure stepping towards the bed. He was tall. He was wearing a parachutist’s smock with a sprig of heather pinned on one breast, and a pair of baggy camouflage trousers tucked into leather boots. The boots, unlaced, badly needed a clean.
He bent low over the bed, peering at Moncrieff’s forehead. When he asked about the accident, how it had happened, what kind of speed he’d been doing, Moncrieff could only shake his head.
‘I can’t remember,’ he muttered.
‘The other driver said you were on the wrong side of the road. Do you remember that?’ Paczynski’s accent was thick but he took care to pronounce every word.
‘No. But I expect it was my fault.’
‘Your head hurts?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any other pain?’
‘A little,’ Moncrieff gestured at his rib cage. Paczynski drew back the sheet and unbuttoned Moncrieff’s shirt for a closer look. His fingers on a particular rib drew a wince of pain.
‘There?’
‘Yes.’
Paczynski explored further, gently probing his lower abdomen.
‘There?’
‘Nothing.’
‘And here?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good. Button your shirt, please.’ He turned to Lenahan. ‘One cracked rib, definitely, and maybe a hairline fracture of the skull. Otherwise our friend here is a lucky man. He should stay for a couple of days at least. Make him eat properly. He needs to put on weight.’ He glanced down at Moncrieff. ‘No dancing for a while, my friend, you hear me?’
He turned to go but Lenahan was blocking the path to the door. He had the note from Moncrieff’s envelope in his hand and he wanted a translation. The doctor studied the line of text for a moment, then nodded.
‘Every life has a price,’ he said.
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it. Every life has a price. Very philosophical. Very wise. And probably true, too. Good luck, Mr Moncrieff.’
He left the room. Lenahan turned back to the bed and sank into the chair.
‘Make any sense?’ He still had the message.
‘Alas, yes,’ Moncrieff nodded. ‘It does.’
Moncrieff lay back again. The clouds, thank Christ, had finally parted. He was thinking of Bella, that last morning he’d been with her at the Glebe House, the phone message to meet a friend in Aberdeen, the rendezvous that had left her alone in the house. Philby, he thought. He’d stolen her away, taken her down to London, despatched her back to Moscow.
Everything, very suddenly, was clear. He was able to focus at last, to draw a bead on what must have happened. Bella, he thought. The NKVD, Philby’s masters, were holding her hostage, probably deep in Siberia in some godforsaken camp or other. Hence the haircut and the rough serge collar. They were sending a message, spelling it out. Your precious girlfriend is half a world away. Whether she lives or dies is our decision, or perhaps yours. Leave Mr Philby well alone. Or live with the consequences. Every life, in other words, has a price.
Moncrieff pondered the implications for a moment or two longer, aware that Lenahan was studying the photo again.
‘You know this woman?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Lovely mouth. Great eyes. You know her well?’
‘I thought so, once. And then I didn’t. And now…’ He shrugged, ‘… we live in hope.’
Lenahan stared down at him for a moment, then his gaze returned to the face in the photo.
‘Sure…’ he said, suddenly uncertain. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
Moncrieff thought hard about the question. Then he nodded.
‘I’ve got a name for you,’ he murmured. ‘Ursula Barton. You’ll find her through the main switchboard at MI5. You can do that for me? Make the call? Tell her I’m in rude health?’ He did his best to force a smile. ‘Can you lie a little? Are you good at that?’
*
Yuri was waiting in a room upstairs. There was a guard on the door, and as he and Schultz exchanged salutes, Bella wondered how much difference an extra storey of protection would make if the place blew up. Then she dismissed the possibility. Would the Russians really lay waste to the Museum of Lenin, of the building dedicated to the hero/prophet who’d ridden the sealed railway coach from Zurich, of the liberator of all those bourgeois Leningrad pianos? Impossible.
Yuri had his nose in a book. As the door opened, he didn’t seem to hear it. Then his head came up and he caught sight of Bella.
‘What happened?’ She was staring at him. His face was swollen and bruised. There was a deep cut over one eye and the other one had closed. When he put the book to one side, Bella saw more lacerations on his hands.
‘They caught me,’ he said simply.
‘And?’
‘Two of them had been fighting the fires. They took me to the site of the nearest explosion, beat me up, then made me work.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Wrapping up the dead. I blessed one of them, went down on my knees. That’s when they beat me again.’ He was speaking with difficulty, every word accompanied by a thin trickle of pinked saliva.
Schultz told Bella to sit down. Yuri watched her shuffle slowly across the room, and then took a good look at her face.
‘You’re walking like an old woman,’ he said. ‘And you’ve been crying. What happened?’
‘I was raped.’
Yuri stared at her. He was shocked and it showed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last.
Bella had noticed a woman sitting in the shadows in one corner of the room. She was thin and her hair was grey. She was wearing glasses and there was a large pad on her lap.
Bella wanted to know who she was.
‘She works here,’ Schultz grunted. ‘We wanted to record everything but the machine’s broken, so she’ll do it for us. Her Russian is perfect. Use any other language and there will be consequences. Speak your minds. Be frank. Half an hour. No longer.’
Schultz left the room. Bella was still looking at the woman in the corner.
‘I know her,’ Yuri said. ‘There won’t be a problem. Her name’s Kataryna. She’s an archivist. I’ve met her here many times. We talk and talk. She’s Ukrainian. She understands.’
‘Does Schultz know that?’ Bella nodded towards the door.
‘I think he does, yes. He plays games, that man. Kataryna will keep the bosses off his back. Everyone needs insurance these days, even spy catchers.’
Spy catchers. The description put a brief smile on Bella’s face. Would Schultz be pleased with a cartoon phrase like that? Would Tam Moncrieff?
‘Schultz wants a list of targets,’ Bella said.
‘I know. He’s tried to find a pattern so far, and he can’t. We blew up that house on Pushkin where the Central Committee meet last night. It’s full of party records. You know the Communists. They’re born with pens in their hands. They live for paperwork. That place was like a shrine, and now it’s gone, and the Germans can’t understand it.’
‘You said “we”. You said “we blew up”.’
‘Yes. I meant they. I meant the Russians.’
‘But you do have the list?’
‘No. Not all of it.’
‘But part of it?’
‘Yes. A tiny part.’
‘How? How did you get it?’
‘Ilya told me. In return for information.’
‘So how many targets are there?’
‘Hundreds.’
‘Hundreds? Does Schultz know that?’
‘No. Though it wouldn’t do any harm to tell him. They want to make life tough for the Germans. They don’t want them to sleep at night. Ever.’
‘They think they might abandon the place if life becomes impossible? Is that the plan?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘They know that will never happen until the Red Army come back.’
‘So what’s the point?’
‘They want to provoke them,’ he said slowly. ‘They want to get under their skins. They want them to start behaving like proper Germans.’ He gestured at his face. ‘You were here when they arrived. You saw the bread, the salt, all the women making fools of themselves. This is war. The Germans are thieves. They’ve stolen our country from under our noses.’
‘But so did the Russians. They did exactly the same thing. So what’s the difference?’
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘And you’ll see.’
Bella nodded. Then came a dry cough from the woman in the corner. She had a question for Yuri. She hoped he didn’t mind. Yuri nodded. Go ahead.
‘What about here?’ she said. ‘Have they mined this place as well?’
‘Yes,’ Yuri nodded. ‘I’m afraid they have.’
‘For when?’
‘I don’t know. It could be now, in the next minute or so. It could be this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow. But the answer is yes.’
‘And us? Here? Now?’
‘We’ll be gone. If it happens.’
‘Gone?’
‘Dead. Killed. Over. Finished. Done with.’
Bella shook her head, studied the hands knotted in her lap, faintly aware of movement in the corner of the room. The woman is crossing herself, she thought. She’s making preparations for the moment when the floor erupts, and our ears explode, and everything goes black inside what’s left of our heads. Is she worried about the journey to come? Does she think it will be long? Fraught with numberless difficulties? Or does she think her faith, her God, will be on hand to offer a little comfort, a little protection? These questions are pointless, she told herself, especially now. Bella had a good friend in Moscow, an oldish man who’d fought in the civil war and survived the madness that followed. Life is dangerous, he’d once told her. No one survives it.
‘A bomb here answers nothing,’ she said softly. ‘There are Russian prisoners in the basement. They may find the bomb. They may set it off. Or someone might turn up and make it safe. Whatever happens, we need to talk about Larissa. Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she safe?’
‘Yes. As safe as anyone can be.’
‘There’s a man called Kalb,’ Bella said. ‘He’s SS. I’ve met him. He has plans for the Jews.’
‘Kalb is part of the Einsatzgruppen,’ Yuri was staring at his ruined hands. ‘They tidy up behind the Army. I’ve talked to people in Poland. It doesn’t pay to be a Jew once the Einsatzgruppen arrives.’
‘Kalb will do the same here. Especially now, after the bombings. And Larissa is Jewish, as you know.’
‘They’ll never find her.’
‘They might. Do you want to take that risk?’
For the first time, Yuri didn’t have an answer. Bella glanced at the woman in the corner. Her pad appeared to be blank.
‘Schultz says there are Russian spotters in the city,’ Bella had turned back to Yuri. ‘Red Army people talking to the sappers. Is that true?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know any of these people?’
‘A couple, yes.’
‘And you know where to find them?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re Russians, Yuri. Kalb will kill as many Jews as he can. Stalin let millions of peasants die in the Famine. It was you who told me that. The Holodomor? Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what’s the difference? Just tell me. Just keep it simple. Hitler. Kalb. Stalin. And now Larissa. Schultz will guarantee her life in return for one of those Russians. That’s what he says. That’s what he’s offering.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘Yes. I knew the man in Berlin. There’s history between us. I’d trust him with my life.’
Yuri nodded. The silence stretched and stretched. Then came the sound of footsteps, louder and louder, until they paused outside. It was Schultz. He stepped into the library, holding the door open.
‘Komm.’
Bella got to her feet, Yuri, too. They followed Schultz down to the ground floor. Another flight of steps disappeared into the basement. Bella could hear a faint murmur of conversation.
Schultz led the way to a door and a final flight of narrow wooden stairs that led to the sub-basement. At the bottom, Bella could feel bare earth beneath her shoes. Light from a single stand threw long shadows over the vaulted brick ceiling but Bella’s attention was rivetted on a group of men bent over a long, shallow trench, maybe a metre wide. Two of them were on their knees, still scraping soil away with hand trowels. Running the length of the trench was a long, flat metal structure, still flecked with soil, gleaming in the light.
‘You know what this is?’ Schultz was looking at Yuri.
‘An antenna. It picks up a radio signal.’
‘And then what?’
Yuri gazed at him for a long moment, and then beckoned him to the far end of the trench. Attached to the antenna was a small metal box. Two wires disappeared into the soil.
‘At the end of those wires is a detonator,’ he said, ‘and three boxes of explosive. When the signal arrives,’ he shrugged, ‘we all die.’
‘You know how these things work?’
‘Not really.’
‘But you think you could stop it?’
‘I could try.’
‘What would you need?’
‘A pair of cutters. Maybe even a knife.’
Schultz was looking at the wires again, digging in his trouser pocket. Bella could hear the Russians muttering to each other. Moscow accents, she thought. She might have been back on the Metro, eavesdropping on some chance conversation. How strange.
Schultz had found his knife. It was standard Wehrmacht issue, single blade. He gave it to Yuri.
Yuri studied it for a moment, then ran his finger along the blade. This man’s a writer, Bella told herself. He works with his brain, not his hands. He hasn’t a clue what to do next.
Kyiv (Spoils of War) Page 19
