Dominion

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘That’s why you speak it so well.’

  She lit another cigarette. ‘I remember when I came back Peter was getting ready for his visit to Moscow, he was full of it, he even said he might emigrate to Russia. But when he got there, being Peter, he wandered off on his own one afternoon, gave the tour guide the slip and went exploring Moscow. The Communists were destroying the old city then, putting up big blocks of flats, bright and white, accommodation for the workers’ future.’

  ‘They’re starting to build them here, too. The high-rises.’

  ‘There were some near where Peter was staying, they were new, they hadn’t even laid the pavements yet. Peter told me how he walked over the muddy ground, opened the door of one of the blocks and went inside. He said it was indescribable, filth everywhere, people had been going to the toilet on the floor. The flats were full of families crammed into single rooms, more than one family sometimes, just a tatty curtain to divide them and give some privacy, all swearing and fighting with each other. They screamed abuse at him when he wandered in. And somehow, seeing the inside of that block of flats, seeing how people really lived in his Communist paradise – he was never the same after that.’

  Frank thought of Peter stumbling through the mud of that Moscow building site. ‘Poor man,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Poor Peter. I don’t know what he expected to find there, a palace?’ Her voice was angry. ‘He got into trouble with the tour people for that. He was lucky he had a foreign passport. That was 1937, during the worst of Stalin’s Great Terror. When Peter came back to Bratislava he left the Party and spent more and more of his time indoors, alone in his room.’

  ‘A room, a home, it’s a place to hide, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She blew out a cloud of smoke, sighed. ‘Meanwhile, out in the world, things were getting worse. Next year Hitler took the Sudetenland, then in 1939 he made Slovakia an independent puppet state, and then the war broke out. Father was retired by then, but he had money and I was working as a translator so I was able to take care of Peter. I looked after him for two years. Father helped too, but he was old, he did not really understand.’

  ‘Peter was lucky. Having someone to look after him.’

  ‘I did what I could. Then in 1941, the Germans invaded Russia. The Slovak government sent soldiers to help them. My brother was conscripted, he was young and fit and they didn’t care about his mental state. He fought all the way to the Caucasus. He came back with a shattered leg. It healed, but the effects on his mind –’ she shook her head sorrowfully – ‘he was terrified people were going to come for him, terrified. Communists or Fascists or priests – I don’t know who, anybody. Father had died while he was at war. In the end he jumped out of the window.’ She gave Frank a long, hard look. ‘It was a terrible thing to do to me.’

  ‘He couldn’t live with his fear,’ Frank said simply.

  ‘The whole world has had to learn to live with fear now.’ She got up, her knees creaking. It reminded Frank that she was his age, she wasn’t young. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I did not mean to talk of all these sad things.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  She walked over to the window, pulled the curtain aside. The fog was as bad as ever, thick, cloying, almost liquid; there was nothing to see but darkness. ‘No sign of this ending,’ she said. Then she turned to face him, smiling. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Because you understood about Peter.’

  After she had gone Frank thought, was her brother really like me? He felt a little awed that she’d talked so openly to him. Then David had come to check on him. He’d tried to doze again but he was restless now, all the conversations he had had that day coming back into his head. After a while he decided to go downstairs. As he passed the door of the next room, he was surprised to hear low voices. He wondered whether they were talking about him. He stood next to the door. He heard Natalia’s voice, very quiet, ‘You need a woman as much as I need a man.’ He stepped away, suddenly filled with betrayal and loss and jealousy. Then he felt numb.

  Downstairs Ben was sitting with the O’Sheas, still playing cards. He looked up. ‘A’ right? Thought you were asleep.’

  ‘No. No, I – I couldn’t settle—’

  Ben looked at him keenly. ‘Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a bit early for your bedtime pill. I’ll give it you in an hour, that’ll get you to sleep.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Eileen asked with a smile. ‘A bit of cake maybe?’

  ‘No, no thanks. Where’s Geoff?’

  She nodded to the door of the front room. ‘He’s asleep in there. Why don’t you go and see how he is?’

  Frank opened the door. He felt their eyes on his back. The light was on; Geoff was asleep in an armchair but he woke as Frank came in. He coughed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Frank said. ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘I was only half asleep.’ Geoff sat up, coughing again, a harsh rasp. He didn’t look well, there was sweat on his brow. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nine o’clock. How are you feeling?’

  ‘A bit rotten.’ He looked at Frank. ‘How are you? Holding up?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so. I’ve got a bit of a tickle in my throat, but it’s not getting any worse.’

  ‘I think I might go up to my room and lie down.’

  Frank raised a hand. ‘No, I don’t think –’ he stumbled over his words – ‘not yet.’

  Geoff gave him a puzzled frown. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I – I think David and Natalia are up there.’ Frank felt himself blush. ‘Together.’

  Geoff nodded his understanding, gave a sad little smile. ‘I wondered if something was going on there. Thanks for the warning.’ He frowned. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought –’ he looked at Frank intently – ‘listen, if we get to meet up with Sarah, David’s wife, you mustn’t say anything. He and Natalia – well, these things happen when everyone’s thrown together, under such a strain—’

  ‘I won’t say anything. I promise.’

  Geoff sat back wearily in his chair. ‘I suppose I’d better stay down here for a while then.’

  ‘David and Natalia,’ Frank said. ‘His wife. They shouldn’t—’

  ‘Who are we to say?’

  Frank looked down. ‘I don’t know.’

  Geoff shook his head. ‘Only fifteen years ago you and I and David were at university. It was a different world then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  Geoff smiled. ‘Do you remember the day when we were all in this pub, and there was that idiot loudmouth from our college, I’ve forgotten his name now, arguing that Hitler only wanted to revive Germany’s national spirit, just wanted territories that were historically German and he was entitled to them—’

  ‘Carter,’ Frank said.

  ‘That’s right. And you said, “They’re not territories, they’re places where people live and it’s the people that matter.” I remember he just sat and stared at you. I think he was a bit surprised you’d answered him back.’

  Frank said, ‘You remember that, after all this time?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I—’

  Geoff broke off suddenly, at the sound of a tremendous crash from the front door. Frank turned, so fast he almost lost his balance, as another followed. Geoff looked at him, then threw open the door from the front room to the hall. Outside, in the hallway, Sean had come out of the lounge and stood, a gun in his hand, facing the front door. As they watched it splintered and flew open. Three men burst in from the fog, pistols drawn. Two were uniformed Auxiliary Police. One was carrying a sledgehammer and the other a pistol. The third was in plain clothes and to his horror Frank recognized Syme, the tall, thin policeman from the hospital. He had a gun too. Sean fired at the Auxiliary who had the pistol, a tremendous noise in the confined space. The policeman toppled back onto the other two, unbalancing them, blocking the doorway, blood gushing f
rom his neck. The plain-clothes man, though, had time to fire at Sean, and the big Irishman went down with a crash, his body hitting the floor with an impact that shook the boards.

  Frank stood paralysed. As the two intruders struggled with the body of their dead colleague in the doorway, Geoff grabbed his arm and pushed him towards the open doorway of the lounge. Ben stood there, also holding a gun. There must have been guns in the table drawers. Behind him Eileen stared through the door at her husband’s body, eyes wide with horror. Frank glanced at Sean’s face; the blue eyes whose gaze had scared him were still and dead now.

  There was a clattering on the stairs and David and Natalia appeared, running down, David frantically buttoning up his clothes. In any other circumstances it would have looked ridiculous. Natalia, too, was holding a gun. Syme and the other Auxiliary were in the hall now and both raised their firearms but Natalia fired first, Ben following from the doorway a second after. They missed Syme but Natalia hit the other Auxiliary in the arm. He yelled and staggered. Just outside the house, they heard the sound of a police siren.

  Geoff had Frank inside the lounge now. Natalia and David followed and David banged the door shut.

  ‘Out the back!’ Eileen pointed at Frank, her voice a loud scream. Geoff grabbed Frank’s hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. The others heaved the heavy table in front of the door to the hall, blocking it, just before the plain-clothes man threw himself against it. Other police were coming and it would not hold for long. Eileen shouted, ‘Go!’

  Ben opened the back door, slowly and carefully. Outside, nothing but a bank of fog. There could have been a dozen more armed policemen out there, but there was nowhere else to go. Other policemen had arrived through the front now, and were throwing themselves against the lounge door. Frank looked back at Eileen. She smiled weakly, then reached into her dress, between her breasts. She pulled something out and put it in her mouth. Frank had a momentary glimpse of her body convulsing.

  The back door was half open, Ben peering round it, gun in hand. He waved to the others to stand back. Frank braced himself for another rush of blue uniforms from the backyard. But there was nothing, just the fog. Ben took a deep breath and stepped outside, gun raised in both hands. David and Natalia followed, then Geoff hauled Frank out, too, slamming the back door shut to cut off the light. He had taken the key from the side of the door and turned it, locking it.

  They were out in the yard, in the dark and fog. There was a flash of light from somewhere and a bang. Beside Frank, Geoff gave a cry and toppled over, letting go of Frank’s hand. He lay still on the ground, blood spreading across his chest. He twitched violently once and then was still. Ben and Natalia both fired blindly back into the murk, and Frank heard the sound of someone falling, cursing and swearing. There must have been only one policeman round the back. Then Ben had Frank’s hand, pulling him through the fog, across the yard. Frank cried out, ‘Geoff!’

  ‘He’s dead!’ Ben said. He hauled Frank across the little yard; a brick wall loomed up. There was a big metal dustbin beside it. David helped Natalia onto it. She climbed over the wall. David followed. Behind them, they heard crashes at the back door.

  ‘Come on!’ Ben shouted at Frank. He climbed onto the wall, then reached down, took Frank under the arms and lifted him up. Frank grasped the wall, bracing himself to feel a bullet in his back, half hoping for it, but it didn’t come. From the top of the wall Ben fired back towards the house.

  ‘Fucking come on!’ Ben screamed in Frank’s ear. Then Frank was hauled bodily over the wall. He fell on wet cobbles with a crash that winded him. Ben and David pulled him up and half carried him down an alley, into a street that was just a choking yellow-grey mass of fog. More shots sounded, flashes in the gloom ahead. More police had been waiting in the street. Frank collided with the wall of the alley, grazing his arm. Ben had taken a grip on Frank’s other arm but it loosened as he fired again into the street. Everyone was just firing blindly, nobody could see. Frank heard a sound from behind him; more policemen and Syme, no doubt, climbing over the O’Sheas’ wall in hot pursuit.

  Frank pulled away from Ben’s grasp. He was gripped by utter panic – the gunshots, the images of Sean and Geoff falling, Eileen’s body convulsing. They couldn’t save him, they were going to be captured as he had known they would be. He turned and ran away, blindly, into the fog.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ALL FRANK COULD HOLD IN his mind was to get away, disappear in the fog. He ran blindly, arms out in front of him. He felt a jolt up his spine; he had stepped from the kerb into the roadway without seeing it. Behind him he heard more shots, a police whistle. He half turned but already it was impossible to make out who was firing at whom; he saw vague moving shapes but a second later they disappeared. He reached the pavement on the other side, nearly tripping on the kerb, and stepped up, groping in front of him. He touched a wall, stumbled along, keeping his hand on walls and damp hedges so he didn’t wander back into the road. A police whistle sounded again a little further off. He reached a corner and turned, walking on until a bout of coughing brought him to a halt. The air stank. He leaned against a privet hedge, trying to get his breathing under control. More shots sounded, but further away now.

  The house had been raided; the little boy from the neighbouring house must have betrayed them. The others were gone, probably dead – if they hadn’t been shot they would have taken their cyanide pills. At the thought a choking sob rose up in Frank’s throat.

  He must keep walking, all night if he had to. If only he could see. When it got light visibility would be a bit better, though that meant it would be easier for them to find him. Thank God he hadn’t had his bedtime pills; at least his mind wasn’t dulled by them, he wasn’t sleepy. They would be hunting him all over London. He thought, there are road bridges across railway lines. All he needed to do was find one, jump off, and end it. The thought calmed him; he had his goal again. He had known they wouldn’t escape, he had been stupid even to imagine they might. He remembered Geoff falling, the blood, and almost sobbed again.

  There was nobody else in the street. He could make out, very dimly, the little circles of light from the nearest streetlamps – how the fog seemed to swirl and eddy about them. People weren’t coming out in this weather and the shots would have been heard, which would keep people indoors. He shivered; he was clad only in one of Colonel Brock’s cardigans and a thin shirt and trousers, and was very cold. He thought of David and Natalia, running down the stairs half-dressed. He was glad now they had had their chance together before the end.

  He heard a sound in the distance, growing closer: the shrill electric bell of a Black Maria. Quickly, he felt his way along the privet hedge beside him. He came to a garden gate; dripping wet from the fog, it felt like it was covered with thick, cold sweat. He pulled the gate open, slipped into the tiny front garden and crouched down on the inner side of the hedge, long grass soaking his trousers. He must be quiet, there was a thin pencil of hazy light a few feet away where the curtains of the front window didn’t quite meet. He heard the sound of an approaching car, moving very slowly. Frank thought, they won’t find me, not in this. It passed on down the street. He huddled down, shivering. After a few minutes he crept out of the gate again, carefully, crouching. His shoes and the bottom of his trousers were soaking wet. He shivered and coughed, then stood up and walked slowly on.

  He reached a corner. A little way ahead he saw Belisha beacons, two orange globes flashing on and off, for some reason their light penetrating the fog better than the faint glow from the streetlamps. It was extraordinarily quiet, as though Frank was somewhere in the countryside rather than London. Carefully, he crossed the road. It was wider; this must be a main road. On the other side his outstretched hands made contact with a high brick wall. He felt over it. There was a window sill, high up. It seemed like a big building, maybe a warehouse or office block; perhaps he could break in and hide. He groped his way along the wall. Then, from further up the street, he heard a hol
low echoing shout through the fog. ‘Go on to the end of the road, to the roadblock!’

  ‘There’s no fucking point in this, Sarge! They could be anywhere!’

  ‘They.’ He was sure he’d heard them say ‘they’. His heart pounded, he tried to steady his breathing. Some of the others at least must be alive. Dimly, ahead, he saw moving points of light approaching. Torches, powerful ones, fog whirling in their beams. He felt his way along the wall, away from them. He came to a corner, rounded it, and saw a tall iron gate. Peering through the gloom he made out a flight of stone steps. He heard another shout, closer now: ‘Fuck this! Dunno how I’m even going to find my way home, never mind find these bastards!’

  Frank thought, there’s a roadblock, I have to find somewhere to hide. He opened the gate – mercifully it didn’t creak – and climbed the steps. At the top was a heavy wooden door. He dreaded he’d find it locked, but it opened under the pressure of his hand. He slipped inside, pushing it to behind him.

  He saw he was inside an enormous Victorian Gothic church with high, stained-glass windows and an arched roof. It was empty. There was dim electric lighting along the walls. Long rows of pews stretched away to a railed-off altar where a red candle burned inside an ornate golden container. Paintings of Christ on the way to the cross lined the walls. It was as cold in here as outside, chill and dank, but though the smell of the fog was in the air the filthy muck itself seemed not to have penetrated the cavernous building.

  Frank looked back at the main door. There was a big iron latch; very slowly and quietly he slid it across. Then he looked round the church again. There were several more doors along the walls. He thought, if one led to a flight of stairs, perhaps to a belfry, he could get up there and jump off. His promise to David to stay alive hardly counted now. His heart was beating wildly. His only experience of church had been the chapel at school; cold, with whitewashed walls, a lectern with a ferocious eagle carved on the front. Mrs Baker had forbidden her acolytes from going to what she called the false temples of the old religions.