‘Nothing. Darkness. I badly needed a drink. Water. I remember that.’
‘Other people?’
‘There must have been.’
‘When was this?’
‘I’ve no idea. I may have been in bed. I simply don’t know.’
‘Did you see these people?’
‘No, not properly.’
‘Did they talk?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Accents? Do you remember how they talked?’
‘Not really. Foreign maybe. But I’m guessing.’
‘Anything else? Traffic outside? Might you have been in a city? London, perhaps?’
‘I don’t know,’ Moncrieff was rubbing his upper arm. ‘How long was I gone?’
‘You’ve been away from us for nearly a week, Tam.’
‘A week?’
‘Yes. At the start, we went house-to-house down the mews, we talked to everyone we possibly could. We commissioned other enquiries. We even checked up in Scotland in case you’d gone home for some reason. What worried me then was the state of Archie’s place, the fact that people had been through it. And what worries me now is where these people chose to leave you.’
‘Outside SOE?’
‘Exactly.’ She bent a little closer, as if someone might be listening. ‘You’re aware of who was instructing here? Just months ago? Of who knows the place inside out?’
‘Tell me,’ Moncrieff winced at a sudden stab of pain.
‘Kim Philby.’
20
FRIDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 1941
Schultz turned the Museum of Lenin into Sicherheitsdienst – SD – headquarters. German engineers clattered down to the sub-basement, examined the antenna and agreed that the buried cache of high explosive was probably safe. Orders went out for more digging equipment, and by noon the Russian prisoners had exhumed three wooden boxes, all of them packed with blocks of TNT, and all of them rigged with detonators. This was the first of the Kyiv mines to be retrieved intact. The German engineers made the explosives safe and removed the bulky receiver for further examination.
The officer in charge reported to Schultz, who was organising the installation of field telephones. The wireless receiver attached to the explosives, he said, was powered by a sizeable battery.
‘Meaning what?’ Schultz was no engineer.
‘Meaning it would have remained active for months. All it needed was a command signal. There are obviously others. We have to find them all.’
Schultz nodded. Smaller explosions were still rocking the city, he said, like an old man snorting and farting in his sleep. The Germans, he knew, had a fight on their hands and he intended to make the most of this first, if modest, victory. The museum was now safe.
Over the hours to come, he moved his small staff into offices on the first floor. He wanted the boxes of explosives and the excavations in the basement photographed, and he told a trusted aide to find him a journalist from the city’s biggest newspaper who might have Kyiv’s best interests at heart.
The journalist, an oldish man who’d worked on Novoe Ukrainskoe Slovo for most of his life, was brought to the museum in the early afternoon. Waiting for Schultz, he spent the time browsing the exhibits on the ground floor. He was examining a photograph of Lenin in temporary exile at Vyborg when an aide appeared at his elbow and took him up to the first floor.
Schultz was sitting behind a desk that had belonged to the museum’s director. Two field telephones linked him to Wehrmacht headquarters, and to the Colonel in charge of the engineers. Beside the untidy tangle of wires stood a bottle of vodka Schultz had found in one of the desk drawers. To his surprise, the journalist refused the offer of a drink.
‘We need to be friends,’ Schultz growled. ‘You and I.’
The journalist didn’t reply. Instead, he produced a pad and enquired what Schultz wanted him to write.
‘As simple as that?’
‘Of course. You are the masters now. We do your bidding. We don’t make a newspaper, not anymore, we just pass messages. Yesterday’s was a phone number. Were you aware of that? No? A phone number for the SS. Private. Confidential. Ring this number if anything bothers you. Give us a name, and address, and the Reich will make you a little richer. Do it for your families. Do it for your children. Who could possibly say no?’
‘Rats,’ Schultz said. ‘An appeal for rats. It worked in Paris so maybe it will work here, too.’
‘Exactly. And us? How do you think we feel? Helping turn this city into a sewer? Believe me, Herr Schultz, it’s not an easy life.’ He gestured wearily towards the window and the clouds of thick, black smoke, laced with streaks of yellow and crimson, still boiling over the rooftops. ‘They blew up an oil depot this morning. You’ll know that already. Our hospitals can’t cope any more. You’re probably aware of that, too.’
Schultz nodded. The Russian mines killed indiscriminately. Hundreds of Germans had died but the city had lost many more.
‘We need this to be over,’ his bulk loomed over the desk. ‘You agree?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then tell your readers we have the measure of these animals. We know exactly what they’re up to. We understand the way these devices work. And we’re taking steps to make your city safe again.’
Another explosion, distant but not small. Neither man even bothered to glance across at the window, but the timing was perfect.
‘You may need to hurry,’ the journalist murmured, ‘or there won’t be a city left.’
*
Yuri told Bella she had to trust him. It was early evening. With Schultz’s blessing, and a commandeered car, Yuri was driving her across the city to meet Larissa. Their route took them past the high walls of the complex they called the Lavra inside the Pechersk Monastery, overlooking the river. There were Germans everywhere, guarding the monastery gates, untangling the traffic, requisitioning the odd horse from weary peasants, conducting random checks on passers-by. Bella noticed how tired they were beginning to look, and how every set of papers seemed to demand minute inspection. The days of bread and salt, she thought, are well and truly over.
‘They’re using the priests as translators,’ Yuri nodded at a tall, bearded figure in a black cassock, deep in conversation with a group of German soldiers, all of them absurdly young. ‘Religion has its uses, even for the Germans.’
At the top of the hill beyond the monastery, Yuri checked the mirror and swung the big car off the main road, and into a muddle of streets that were suddenly empty. It was nearly dark by now, no street lights, and Yuri slowed to walking pace, peering at door after door, looking for a particular address.
‘Larissa lives here?’
‘No.’
‘So where is she?’
‘Trust me,’ he said again.
She knew she had no option. She’d seen Yuri disappear into one of the upstairs rooms at the museum with Schultz and emerge barely minutes later. She’d no idea what kind of deal they’d struck, and, when she asked, Yuri wouldn’t tell her. All that mattered, he’d said, was Larissa. Bella was right. Kalb was going to slaughter the Jews. And Larissa was a trophy target.
The car had finally come to a halt. Yuri checked his watch and glanced at the house.
‘You’re OK?’ Bella was looking at the wreckage of his face.
‘Eating’s hard. I need a dentist.’
‘Is that all?’
He forced a smile. He was nervous, Bella could tell. She’d always assumed that faith was something you could rely on in situations like these but in the company of Yuri she was beginning to wonder.
They sat in silence, Yuri’s fingers drumming on the steering wheel. A black cat stalked across the street, impossibly thin, all but invisible in the gathering darkness, and Bella was still thinking about the kitten she’d left with the old lady, when a figure materialised from nowhere, and bent urgently to the driver’s window. Bella had a perfect view of his face: young, white, hints of Slavic blood, the beginnings of a beard.
&n
bsp; ‘Russian,’ she murmured. ‘Am I right?’
Yuri was already out of the car. A brief embrace, a whisper of conversation, an exchange of nods, then the other man was clambering into the back seat. He was carrying a canvas bag. It looked heavy.
Bella didn’t turn around. In any other circumstance, she’d extend a hand, offer a name, introduce herself, but she sensed that this moment belonged to her two companions. Comrades-in-arms, she thought grimly. More surprises in store.
They were under way again, plenty of acceleration in the big engine. Yuri was heading back into the city, enjoying the power at his fingertips. Then came the sound of movement from the back seat, and a cough as their passenger cleared his throat.
‘Vodzh,’ he whispered.
This time, Bella glanced back. The young man was hunched into one corner of the back seat. He was wearing a pair of headphones, and he had something black in his hand. Wires trailed into the canvas bag. Vodzh, she thought. A call sign of some kind, or maybe a code. Short. Terse. Wholly appropriate. Vodzh. This boy was one of the spotters. The radio was on his lap. He was doing his best to raise the men with their hands around the city’s scrawny neck.
‘Vodzh,’ he tried again.
‘Everything OK?’ Yuri’s eyes were on the rear-view mirror.
‘Nothing.’
‘Shit.’
They were back in the city centre now, hugging the side streets that ran parallel to Khreshchatyk. Yuri slowed to avoid a body in the street, then another. Vodka? High explosive? Despair? Bella had no idea.
Yuri was accelerating again, heading into the suburbs beyond the old town, taking a road that ran north, out towards the marshes beside the river. Hard winters had wreaked havoc among the cobblestones and the car bounced and juddered from pothole to pothole. Houses were becoming sparser. Bella glimpsed a black space that might have been a field. Then Yuri spotted something he seemed to recognise, a landmark of some kind, and he braked sharply, pulling the car to a halt.
‘Try again,’ he said in Russian.
The boy pulled on the headphones. ‘Vodzh,’ he said. Then again, louder this time.
Bella had turned around in the seat. Like it or not, she’d become a player in this drama. For a second or two, still hunched, still tense, the boy didn’t move. Then Bella caught a crackle of static from the headphones, and a thin voice acknowledging the codeword, and the boy – elated – responding.
‘Stand by,’ he said. ‘Maybe an hour. Maybe sooner.’
The radio went dead. Yuri was peering into the darkness.
‘And the other call?’ he said.
‘They’re waiting.’
‘They’ve got the number?’
‘Everyone’s got the number. This is fucking Kyiv, or had you forgotten, tovarish?’
Other call? Bella had no idea what this meant. She was still thinking about the Vodzh message. Might Ilya have been on the other end? Was it his finger on the button? Was he playing God with building after building? Life after life? She was tempted to ask, but they were on the move again, slowly this time, Yuri searching – once again – for an address.
It was a cottage. It stood at the roadside, nothing more than a shape in the darkness. No sign of life, not a flicker of light. Bella got out of the car. She could smell the slightly rank sweetness of the river. Yuri, she sensed, had been here before. He took her by the hand and led her round the side of the property. She felt the coldness of the dew as unseen plants brushed against her bare legs. At the back of the cottage was a door. Already, it was easing open.
‘Bella,’ Yuri whispered. Then he was gone.
Bella could smell Larissa before they were within touching distance. It was the scent of the perfume she wore, of days and nights before Children’s World erupted and everything went crazy.
‘Chérie?’
Bella stepped in from the darkness, felt Larissa’s fingers on her cheek, the sudden warmth of her lips on her mouth, then a one-armed hug that was all the sweeter for its awkwardness.
‘Yuri said they raped you.’
‘He’s right. They did.’
‘But you’re here. You’re here. Stop. Don’t move. I want to look at you.’
Bella heard the scrape of a match in the darkness. Then Larissa was holding the stub of a candle, bending over it. The flame guttered in the draught.
‘Shut the door, chérie.’ Larissa was laughing now. ‘I’ve run out of hands.’
Bella closed the door. In the candlelight, Larissa looked thin, drawn. She was wearing a thick sweater against the autumn chill, and her hair tumbled over her shoulders the way she wore it at night, but her eyes were alive in the gauntness of her face.
‘Kiss me,’ she said.
Bella was happy to oblige. She knew they had business to transact and she knew how hard it was going to be. Larissa probably had no faith in anyone, least of all a German spy catcher. Would she really believe that Schultz would protect her from the coming bloodbath? Had she any notion about the blackness of Kalb’s soul?
‘I missed you, chérie. I missed us both. Living in the country may suit other people. I hate it.’ Her face was very close. ‘Did he hurt you, Kalb?’
‘It wasn’t Kalb. He left it to his bodyguard. The man was a dog.’
‘All men are dogs. I think I told you before. But Kalb. He was the one. He was responsible. No Kalb, no rape. Am I wrong?’
Bella shook her head. It was Yuri who’d pressed her for a full account. He must have passed it on, she thought, every single detail.
‘Kalb,’ she agreed.
Larissa had taken her hand now, giving her the candle. Bella began to protest that Yuri was waiting outside to take them back to the city, back to the sanctuary that was the Museum of Lenin, but Larissa wouldn’t hear of it. She’d known Bella was coming. They had a little time and before the war once again had its way with them, she wanted Bella to herself.
‘All of me?’ Bella shuddered at the thought.
‘Everything. I know about rape, believe me. You have to be strong. You have to take a spade and bury those memories. Your body will be kind to you, and you know why? Because I’ll be kind to your body.’
They were in a bedroom. The blankets were already turned down, and Larissa had managed to find a pillow slip from somewhere. Larissa settled on the edge of the bed.
‘There’s a saucer for the candle, chérie.’ She nodded at a wooden stool beside the bed. ‘Just hold me. And tell me you love me. That’s all I want. Just that.’
Bella set the candle down and put her arms round Larissa. She sensed the older woman knew already that this was where the evening would stop.
‘Thank you,’ Bella murmured. ‘Thank you for understanding. You’ve been here a long time?’
‘Days. Far too long.’
‘Alone?’
‘Of course. Yuri brought me here. I have lots of food. There’s more in the garden. Maybe I was always a country girl. Maybe that’s when I learned to hate it.’
‘Is it the silence?’
‘Partly.’
‘What else?’
‘I miss people. Conversation. Work.’ She cupped Bella’s face with her good hand. ‘And you, chérie.’
‘That can’t be true. You barely know me.’
‘Really?’ Her face was very close. ‘You don’t think our lives turn on a glance? A smile? That single moment that tells you who you really are?’
‘That’s a lovely phrase. I wish it was true.’
‘It’s belief, chérie. You have to believe. Ask Yuri. With him, it happens to be God. That’s fine but God can be unforgiving.’
‘And you?’
‘God never forgave me. I found my own path, and so did you.’
‘When I went to the restaurant, that night? With Ilya?’
‘When you went to Moscow. With your little bag packed. Das Kapital? Lenin’s scribblings from Zurich? Am I wrong?’
‘No.’ Bella felt a sudden warmth flooding her whole body. This woman, she thought
, had listened, watched. Now she was moistening a finger and tracing the outline of Bella’s lips.
‘You make me happy, very happy,’ she whispered. ‘Do you mind me saying that?’
‘Not at all. I’m glad. Does that mean you trust me?’
‘It does.’
‘With anything? Any decision I make?’
‘Of course, chérie. You have something in mind?’
‘I do.’
‘In both our interests?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then do it, chérie. Take charge.’ Larissa smiled and closed her eyes.
They lay together, under the blankets, a rare moment of peace. After a while, it began to rain, and Bella could hear the steady drip-drip of water through holes in the roof. Larissa seemed oblivious, her breath warm on Bella’s face. Then the candlelight shivered and died, and the darkness returned. Yuri will be waiting, Bella thought. Time to go.
A moment or so later, Bella caught the distant growl of an engine. It grew louder and louder, then came the squeal of brakes, and the crunch-crunch of heavy boots on gravel, and the splintering of wood as the door was kicked in. Larissa, still half asleep, was struggling to sit up while Bella lay still, her eyes on where she guessed the door might be. Another kick, the door bursting open, then the beam of a torch sweeping the room. It paused briefly on a typewriter, and then settled on the two figures in bed.
‘Raus. Komm.’
The voice and the smell were the only clues Bella needed. She closed her eyes, turned her face to the wall, her arms reaching for Larissa again.
Valentin, she thought.
*
There were two of them. With Valentin was another man Bella had never seen before. Unlike Kalb’s bodyguard, he was wearing an SS uniform. At gunpoint, Valentin pushed the two women out of the cottage and into the road. The gravel and the cobblestones were wet underfoot, and Bella did her best to avoid the puddles as they headed for the car parked on the road. In the sweep of the torch, Bella recognised Kalb’s Mercedes. Of Yuri and the Russian she could see no trace.
The SS man took the wheel. Valentin folded Larissa into the passenger seat beside him, and then locked the door. Bella had already climbed into the back. At all costs, she didn’t want this man to touch her. She looked up through the window, aware of his huge face and the hint of a smile as he stared at her through the dirty glass. Then he was settling beside her, and the car was rocking under his sudden weight, and he was shouting something at the driver.
Kyiv (Spoils of War) Page 21
