Moskva (18 page)

She slammed a mug of coffee down in front of Tom, slopping it over the edges of the mug. She banged another down in front of her grandfather, and gripped her own mug so tightly Tom thought she’d crush it. Her glare when she looked at Tom said she regretted bringing him, that she wished he wasn’t there. ‘Vedenin believed she was there, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Tom said.

‘Did he?’ The commissar asked.

‘I think so,’ Tom replied.

‘Then you should ask yourself two questions.’

Tom already knew what they were. What made Minister Vedenin think Alex was there? And why wasn’t she?

More to the point … had she ever been there?

If so, and if she had been taken from the house before the attack could begin, Tom needed to ask himself who had her now.

The rooms in the embassy became less grand the higher you climbed. That was the nature of mansions. Rooms to impress, rooms to live in, rooms for those who served those who lorded it below. If William Morris, the socialist scion of a famous banking family, could build his red-brick mansion to that pattern, why should a tsarist shipping magnate be more modest?

In Morris’s case, the windows in his servants’ quarters were above eye level to stop them looking down on what he and his pre-Raphaelite friends were doing in the gardens. Sleeping with each other’s wives, mostly. The only reason Tom knew this was a school trip to Red House at fifteen. He’d tried and failed in the gardens to do to a girl called Jane what Rossetti undoubtedly managed with William Morris’s wife, Jane’s namesake: get his hand up her skirt.

‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ Mary Batten said.

Tom’s gaze was impassive.

‘Do I want to know what you’re thinking?’

‘I doubt it,’ he said.

Mary Batten’s office was in the attic of the embassy. It was small and narrow-windowed, with little in the way of view. What interested Tom was not the things an estate agent would have to twist to make them sound palatable but the fact someone like Mary Batten, who could have an office next to the ambassador’s if she wanted, would choose to exile herself here.

‘It’s quiet,’ she said, before he could ask. Adding, ‘Sir Edward thinks you’re trouble. Is he right?’

‘Trouble and me are first cousins at best.’

‘Don’t be flippant, Fox.’

‘I’m not. You might want to read this …’ Tom handed her a sheet of paper.

It was not the report he was meant to be writing on the place of religion in Soviet culture, and whether it could be leveraged to the West’s advantage. To which the answer was yes, obviously. If Stalin could rip down a cathedral and replace it with a swimming pool, then, with the right leverage, the country could be persuaded to fill in the swimming pool and put up a cathedral. What he gave Mary now was a step-by-step walk-through of everything he remembered about the fuck-up that was the infiltration of the ruined house by the lake. With a postscript pointing out that Sir Edward had only Minister Vedenin’s say-so that Alex had been there at all.

Mary skimmed it, stopping twice.

‘You’re saying they attacked early?’

‘I’m saying they didn’t need to attack at all.’

She grunted to herself, reached for a mug of coffee that was already empty, then nodded her thanks when Tom refilled it from a Cona machine on a side table. Wincing at its bitterness, she reread the final three paragraphs. The ones about elite VV Spetsnaz troops trampling a crime scene as if they were teenage delinquents kicking over sandcastles. Looking up, she said, ‘I probably won’t make copies of this.’

When Tom snorted, she smiled.

‘Anything else?’ she asked. That was his cue to leave, but there
was
something.

‘Is there anywhere we can get decent coffee?’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘So you can report back to Sir Edward on my mental health?’

‘Report,’ she said. ‘You don’t need “back”.’

‘Have you ever met my wife?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I knew her at school,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a close friendship. You don’t strike me as Caro’s type.’

‘I’m not,’ Tom said.

‘If you’d wait outside …’

A couple of secretaries used the corridor as Mary made a call, put down the receiver, hesitated for a moment, then made another. She kept her voice too low for Tom to hear more than the occasional word.

‘Right,’ she said, appearing in her doorway.

Instead of leaving the embassy, she led the way down to a kitchen he hadn’t known existed. Inside the little room was an espresso machine of the type Tom recognized from Bar Italia in Soho. It looked like an engine from a fifties’ idea of a space rocket. ‘The diplomatic pouch has its perks,’ she said, seeing his surprise.

Less than a minute after they’d arrived, the tiny room cleared without Mary saying a word. It couldn’t be easy being black, a woman and, if rumour could be believed, single.

‘So,’ she said, ‘how are you?’

Tom looked puzzled.

‘So I can report back to Sir Edward.’

‘I found a cellar full of dead children. How do you think?’

‘Fair enough. What do you really want to talk about?’

‘Minister Vedenin. He was shocked. Properly shocked. The more I think about it the more certain I am that he expected to find Alex there. Instead he found no Alex and a dozen dead children. So perhaps someone took Alex before we arrived?’

‘Assuming she was there at all.’

‘Vedenin thought she was.’

‘You think Vedenin thought she was.’

‘I’m certain of it,’ Tom said. He was too. Writing out his account of the attack on the house had helped him put his thoughts in order. Vedenin had been confident, almost smug in his belief that Alex was about to be saved. Tom was pretty sure that was the word he’d used. Vedenin’s shock at finding a cellar full of dead children had deflated not only his confidence but his entire being.

The man had looked as if he’d been sucker-punched.

Perhaps he had been, politically at least. The question was by whom?

And Tom couldn’t shake his feeling that Vedenin’s son was involved somehow in Alex’s original disappearance. He’d been so certain of it that he’d wondered for a moment, back in the burned-out warehouse, whether the boy he’d found with his wrists wired behind his back could be Vladimir Vedenin.

Instead of whoever ‘Kotik’ had really been.

Mary snorted when Tom said this.

‘They’re untouchable. The Vladimirs of this world. As long as their fathers are alive. Even after, if they’re already on the ladder, they’re probably well placed enough to protect themselves. How much do you know about the Mafia?’

‘Beziki …?’

Mary Batten picked up the tiny cup of coffee she’d made and sniffed the espresso inside. ‘The real Mafia,’ she said.

‘I’ve watched
The Godfather
.’

‘That’s probably good enough. Now imagine a whole state given over to Vito Corleone’s children and grandchildren. Vedenin’s no worse than the rest. Special schools, special shops, a different class of travel. He’s young, spoilt, indulged. But so are rich kids everywhere. The difference is that here
the law really can’t touch them. He ran down his father’s chauffeur; it was recorded as an accidental death. One girlfriend had a breakdown. Another needed an abortion …’ Mary hesitated, sniffed at her espresso again. ‘That last rumour might have been spread intentionally.’

‘In God’s name why?’

‘To make his interest in girls seem stronger. Vladimir did a year in London at the LSE, during which he kept his nose clean. No drugs. No gambling. He was at a party in Chelsea where a rent boy drowned, but there was no suggestion he knew the boy. Being photographed with Marlene Dietrich is about the most exotic thing he’s done. Oh, and hunting wild boar with a crossbow.’

‘No unhealthy interest in young girls? No interest in cults?’

‘That’s all we have on file. You really think Vladimir’s involved in Alex’s disappearance?’

Tom nodded.

‘But you have no proof?’

Beyond the way he’d touched Alex’s wrist at the party? The arch, almost contemptuous way he spoke to his father? The way his gaze slid across people without really seeing them? Something about the young man made Tom’s skin crawl.

And there was his mocking comment about the soldier who ran his father’s security.
Dmitry left us.
The sharpness of Minister Vedenin’s look.

Tom thought of the body found after the fire.

‘How do I get to question Vladimir?’

‘You don’t, unless Sir Edward agrees. Even then it would need to be arranged through his father. I doubt Vedenin would allow it and if he did, I imagine he’d want to sit in on the meeting himself. More likely, he’d question the boy himself without us being present. That’s if he allowed questions at all.’

‘The minister’s protective?’

‘He’s his father.’ Finally sipping her espresso, Mary closed her eyes. When she opened them again it was to fix Tom with a steely gaze.

‘The boy’s handsome, charming and able to work a room. He probably touched the wrists of a dozen women, mine included. Find me another one who’s disappeared and I’ll put in a formal request to talk to Vedenin about his son. But if you go after the boy, you need to understand you’re on your own.’

Once upon a time there was a girl. Very young, very beautiful, very clever. She was not that girl. She’d never been any of those things. Not really. But she’d given birth to the girl who was …

Wax Angel had problems getting beyond that.

She didn’t like the bit that came next, not when it had happened and not now. The girl, the beautiful girl, was on the list of things she tried not to remember.

Perhaps top of it.

Crossing the stream of traffic on Petrovka Street without looking – one of life’s little thrills, and God knows there were few enough these days – she kept the Englishman and the rusty Moskvitch shadowing him in sight. The Englishman was walking slowly and in something of a daze, which was just as well given the state of her knees. She hoped his thoughts were happier than hers but, judging by the bleakness in his face, she doubted it.

Once upon a time there was a girl. Very young, very beautiful, very clever. She was not that girl. She’d never been any of those things. Not really. But she’d given birth to the girl who was and an ambitious little fool had turned her daughter’s head with flattery and presents and later denied the child she carried was his.

They were bad days in the shadow of worse ones. The state was poor and food scarce but the USSR had Sputnik
and the Americans didn’t, and there was supposed to be consolation in that …

From the back of a maroon-and-cream Volga, the model with the ivory steering wheel and chrome grill with a five-pointed star, she’d watched people queue for hours for food and wondered if the old men behind the Kremlin Wall really thought being able to watch a satellite launch on the newsreel made up for that.

No one asked her to queue, obviously.

They simply asked her to dance and dance she did.

All of the great roles in all of the great theatres. Until London. Nureyev wasn’t even meant to be on that tour. He was too temperamental, too unreliable. The little brat was only there because the Kirov’s lead had injured himself. Anyone but a fool could see that Nureyev was self-obsessed enough to do something stupid, like defect.

Wax Angel’s beautiful girl was gone by then.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that the rest of her life followed.

The Englishman was speeding up now, head down and shoulders hunched in that heavy wax jacket of his. She let him go like a fish that snaps its line and surges on.

She knew where he was headed like a lamb to the slaughter.

Where he always went: to get drunk with the cripple and get fed by General Dennisov’s pyromaniac daughter. Following him had been fun. Especially as he obviously considered himself too skilled to be followed. But she was Wax Angel … There’d been times she’d lain for hours in rubble to get the right shot, and left without declaring herself, if the target never materialized.

Besides, she was a beggar. Beggars didn’t exist in the Soviet Union, so being invisible was easy.

She wondered if the Englishman knew their father was
dying, if he realized the general was holed up in Leningrad in a dark and gloomy flat, brooding on his legacy and the ingratitude of children. These days you could add cancer of the body to cancer of the soul.

In her experience, injured wolves were worst.

They were cursed, that family. The Englishman should ask not about the general but about the general’s own father. Now there was a story to make nightmares look like nursery rhymes.

Dennisov was at his own bar, perching awkwardly on a chrome stool that hadn’t been there the last time Tom visited. The flask of vodka in front of him was empty. The bowl of soup beside it was full. Yelena glared from behind the bar, swept through the curtain in the wall of records and let it flap heavily behind her. As if everything wrong in her life was Tom’s fault.

Her brother had fewer customers than usual.

Those who were there clustered round the cracked screen, watching one of their own play Tetris with Zen-like intensity. The room was in near silence except for the slow thudding of a water pipe, the hammering of fingers on the keyboard and the growl of traffic from the street below. Just as suddenly as she had left, Dennisov’s sister reappeared. It was obvious she was spoiling for a fight. So obvious that the Tetris-watchers switched their attention to Tom.

‘What do you want now?’ she demanded.

‘Who said I wanted anything?’

‘You always want something,’ Yelena said. ‘It always causes trouble. Why don’t you just leave us alone?’

She was right and it was true, he did want something. He wanted the use of Dennisov’s motorbike, the one the Russian was too crippled to ride any more.

‘What’s happened to everyone?’ Tom asked.

‘We’re out of vodka.’

‘This is a bar. How can you be out of vodka?’

‘He drank it …’ She put her hands on her hips and glared at Tom. She looked tired and pale, and readier than ever to speak her mind. ‘It’s your fault,’ she said. ‘It’s always your fault.’

‘Yelena,’ Dennisov said.

She glared him into silence. ‘If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have come back. If they hadn’t come back, you wouldn’t be scared. If you weren’t scared, you’d drink less. If you drank less, we might have some vodka left to sell.’

He nodded at each of her points.

‘So,’ she said, ‘how is it not his fault?’

‘I like him.’

‘Because he drinks as much as you.’

Dennisov squinted at Tom and shook his head. ‘He drinks like an Englishman. For a Russian, he’s practically a monk. Look at him; he’s been in here two minutes, possibly three and he hasn’t even asked for alcohol.’

Yelena put her hands to her head.

No fight. Not even a real argument.

The Tetris-watchers went back to their game, just as the man playing stopped being able to key the blocks fast enough and swore as lines built up and filled the screen. He gave up his place reluctantly.

Dennisov said, ‘My sister’s not happy.’

‘He should leave,’ Yelena said.

‘She thinks we shouldn’t be friends. She doesn’t trust you.’

‘Why?’ Tom asked.

‘Why is none of your business,’ Yelena said.

Dennisov ran his hand through his cropped hair, wiping his fingers on his trousers. ‘They came back, okay? They came back …’

‘Last night,’ said Yelena. ‘When the bar was shut. They
wanted to know if you’d been in. They wanted to know if we knew where you were. They said they had a photograph of my brother changing dollars. That’s treason. They could send him to the gulag. My brother told them he wouldn’t wipe his arse on dollars.’

Dennisov grinned. ‘Things were a bit better after that.’

‘Who are
they
?’ Tom asked.

‘You know who
they
are,’ he said crossly. ‘There’s only one
they
. All those old men standing shoulder to shoulder on the podium, barely able to stand each other.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Yelena’s right. You don’t belong here. Go home, see your kid, make peace with your wife, put flowers on the grave of your daughter. This isn’t your fight.’

‘I can’t leave.’

‘Try?’ Dennisov suggested.

Have you?
Tom wondered.

He knew the answer. For all Dennisov bristled at every mention of his wife, he’d probably never stopped trying. Dennisov drunk in his bar was the tip of the emotional iceberg. The bulk of the man’s misery lay below water.

As for Tom, how could he explain that he’d pinned his entire hope of redemption on finding Alex? He needed redemption as much as she needed saving. If she was still alive to be saved. If there was enough of him left to be redeemed. He wouldn’t allow himself to leave the Soviet Union until that was done. He couldn’t …

Tom knew how absurd that was, how arrogant, how messianic.

He didn’t care.

‘They’ll kill you,’ Dennisov warned.

He didn’t care about that either. When Tom shrugged, Yelena looked as if she wanted to slap him, so he turned to go. Dennisov grabbed him.

‘We still have beer,’ Dennisov said.

‘Out of date? From your glorious neighbours?’

‘Of course.’

Yelena sighed. ‘Tell my brother what you want this time.’

The Ural was a rip-off of a 1940s BMW flat-twin, still turned out in the thousands by at least three factories in the Soviet Union. The plans were found when the Red Army took Berlin. The electrics were poor, the headlight weak and the drum brakes virtually useless over fifty. Not that that was a problem, since the bike hated going over fifty anyway. Dennisov kept it in a little courtyard at the back of the bar.

On first kick, the starter was soft.

The second built pressure and the flat-twin fired on Tom’s third kick, ticking over with a satisfying if smoky thud. Before Dennisov had let him kick the bike into life he’d insisted that Tom build a small fire under the crankcase. When Yelena protested that it wasn’t necessary, he told her that knowing how to warm oil was an essential skill for an honorary Russian to have.

‘Bring the bloody thing back in one piece,’ Yelena said. ‘He likes it, all right? It doesn’t matter that it cripples his stump to ride. It’s his. From the old days.’

‘When he still had a leg?’

‘No,’ said Dennisov. ‘When I was with Sophia.’

‘His wife.’ Yelena spat.

‘My sister doesn’t like her,’ Dennisov said, as if that wasn’t obvious.

‘No one likes her,’ Yelena said.