Stalin's Gold (8 page)

He sat up and attempted yet again to read his book. He had read Sienkiewicz’s great trilogy about seventeenth-century Poland many times.
With Fire and Sword
, the first volume, told the story of the Polish Commonwealth’s resistance to a great Cossack uprising. He removed his hand from his nose and pointed the torch. Hard as he concentrated, the words floated meaninglessly in front of his eyes. He looked over at his wife, who amazingly was fast asleep. He wished he’d brought a sleeping draught with him. In the distance he heard raised voices as someone squabbled with someone else about encroaching on his space and others told them to pipe down.

He wondered for the hundredth time whether he should have moved everything. It should have been safe in the office, but then was it really safe in his house? And then there was that young maniac pestering him about it and Voronov hovering around. The one helpful thing the Germans might do would be for them to land a bomb neatly on them both. That would make life a little easier. The uniformed man farted particularly loudly and Tarkowski turned away. He closed his eyes and forced himself to think of something pleasant. He pictured the estate near Bialystok. There was a small stream running down from the Bialowieza Forest into the fields. He remembered bathing naked in it with his brothers. One day, two pretty, young peasant girls from one of the villages had come upon them. His younger brothers had laughed unconcerned, but he had been shy and had rushed to hide behind some bushes. One of the girls had come and tried to pull him out. He had resisted and then she had smiled and lifted her dress above her head and beckoned to him. Ah yes, that had been very pleasant. His eyelids drooped and sleep came.

* * *

Merlin decided to get back to his own place that night, despite Sonia’s entreaties to stay. His shoulder was giving him gyp again and if he was going to have a sleepless night, he preferred to have it somewhere where his tossing and turning wasn’t going to ruin Sonia’s night as well. Feeling a little weary from his pleasurable exertions, he decided to walk to the Baker Street Tube and catch the Circle Line.

The raiders hadn’t gone home yet and, as he was approaching Marylebone Road, he became conscious of engine noise followed by an odd whistling sound. Moments later an apartment block on the other side of the road exploded. Merlin was blown off his feet and enveloped by a dark cloud of smoke. For a second or two he lost consciousness then, lying flat on his back and staring up at the gleaming disc of the moon and the black shadows passing across it, he confirmed to his own satisfaction that he was still alive. He was rising carefully to his feet, his body bruised but intact, when a shot rang out. The sound of running feet followed, then Merlin found himself on his back again, bowled over this time by a man hurtling into him from somewhere to his left. He stood up again with an effort and looked down the small side street from which the man must have come. He made his way stiffly along the street and came to the ruin of a building, which was still smouldering in parts and was probably a casualty of the day before. Merlin couldn’t quite decide whether it had been a residential building or an office. He walked carefully around a crater in the pavement, which the moon had helpfully illuminated and stepped gingerly through what he assumed had once been the front door. Suddenly he was aware of a murmur of voices and somewhere at the back of the building a cigarette glowed.

He took another tentative step forward and then another. The noises became clearer and he was able to make out a few words – “Bastard – get him – boxes” and some others clearly not English but too indistinct for him to identify the language. On his next step forward his foot got caught in something and there was the sound of shifting rubble.

“Who’s there? Come on, my friends, let’s get out of here.”

By the time Merlin had got his foot unstuck, there were no more voices and the men, whoever they were, had evidently disappeared. He thought for a moment about having a good look around, but decided that it was too dangerous in the dark and made his way back to Marylebone Road. Strangely, the pain in his shoulder had gone away completely.

Chapter 8

Monday, September 9

The all clear sounded again just after six. Voronov had slept soundly through the night in his own bed and was irritated to be disturbed by the siren at such an early hour. He looked over at his wife. She was wisely wearing black eyepads and earplugs. She didn’t share Voronov’s blind faith in his indestructibility, but had not wanted to upset him by not sharing his bed, so she had drunk half a bottle of vodka and several large glasses of a rather fine Bordeaux before retiring. Her mouth was half-open and she was breathing regularly. From experience, Voronov estimated that she’d be out of it till lunchtime. He tugged at a rope that hung on the wall on his side of the bed. Shortly afterwards a bleary-eyed Maksim appeared at the door.

“Ah. You’re still alive I see. Did you sleep well in the cellar?” Maksim shook his head.

“Hmm. Well, I slept particularly well until that infernal noise went off.” Voronov stroked his beard slowly.

“Very well. Tea, if you please. And quickly. I have a terrible thirst.”

Maksim disappeared and Voronov lumbered out of the bed. He walked over to the French windows in front of him, pulled back the curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. Everything seemed as it had been before. In the rapidly improving light, Voronov saw a milkman doing his rounds.

Only in England
, he thought. The Germans had showered hundreds of tons of explosives on London over two nights and half the city had been blown to smithereens, yet the milkman was still calmly out on his rounds at six in the morning. “An amazing country!” he shouted, chuckling to himself. The milkman looked up and waved.

Voronov turned back in and went to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. His eyes were bloodshot, but then they were always bloodshot. His nose was thick, round and heavily veined. A typical Russian drinker’s nose, as his wife pointed out whenever he dared to criticise her own alcoholic consumption. His thick, woolly hair was greyer than a year ago, which, aesthetically speaking, was for the best, as it now made a better match with his thick, grey beard. Sifting through the latter, Voronov picked out small remnants of last night’s meal – a breadcrumb or two, the odd caviar egg, a scrap of beef. He ran the cold tap, bent down and splashed his face several times. He removed a small, black-lacquered box from the cabinet to his right, took out two pills and drank several glasses of cold water, with the last of which he took the pills. He had a bit of a headache, but no worse than usual. He shook his head. He needed to be in good form as it was going to be a busy day, as well, he hoped, as an enjoyable one.

* * *

Jack Stewart led his weary team through the door of the Chelsea Fire Station. He walked down the corridor, turned into the canteen and sat heavily on one of the chairs at the main table. His team did likewise, with the exception of Francis Evans, who wandered off towards the bunk room.

“Gawd! You lot look like death warmed up. Better get the tea on.” Elsie and the other helper, Jean, were short, plump, middle-aged cockney ladies who might have been sisters but weren’t. Elsie busily set to with a vast kettle and a teapot almost as big, while Jean began making sandwiches. Every man’s face was streaked with soot and as they sat in the unventilated warm room, trails of blackened perspiration dropped down onto the table, their clothes and the floor.

Evans reappeared carrying a book, which he dropped in front of Stewart. “There you are.
The Art of J M W Turner
. I brought it from home yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to give it to you.”

Stewart reached over for a towel hanging over a nearby chair and wiped his face and hands.

“Oh, don’t worry about getting it dirty. I’ve got another copy as it happens.”

It was a big glossy book with more pictures than words. Stewart’s eyes felt as if someone had poured vinegar into them and rubbing them with his blackened hands only made them worse. He eventually managed to focus on the pages in front of him. He flicked idly through until he came to Turner’s picture of the Houses of Parliament going up in flames. That was a gap in his history then – he had never realised that Parliament had burned down in the first half of the nineteenth century. He stared intently at the brilliant glowing image Turner had painted. The viewpoint of the painting was the south side of Westminster Bridge and buildings, river, bridge and people all merged into a roaring outburst of colour and violence.

“Glorious, isn’t it? I think that’s one of his best. You know, it’s taken as read by the artistic establishment that France has been the fount of artistic innovation over the past fifty years. They say that the French invented impressionism, for example – but what can be more impressionistic than this painting, created long before all those French chaps – Monet, Seurat, Renoir and so on. Wonderful!”

Stewart felt himself being drawn into Turner’s brilliant creation. He could feel the flames swirling in his face just as, a few hours before, he had gazed helplessly as he watched the catastrophic effect that a string of incendiary bombs falling in quick succession had had on a rubber tyre factory. He closed the book and nodded at Evans. “Thanks. I’ll look at it more closely when I’ve had a bit of a rest. Let’s just hope what’s happening in the painting doesn’t repeat itself!”

* * *

Merlin stepped carefully around the large pool of smouldering sludge. Madame Tussauds had taken a direct hit the previous night and he presumed that he was looking at the last remains of some of the famous waxworks’ stock-in-trade. Eerily, some parts of the sludge retained human form. Here and there it disgorged an arm, a leg or a tortured face.

Merlin stepped over something that looked like Jean Harlow’s head and then over the head of either George Formby or Stanley Baldwin, he wasn’t sure. Like Merlin, Madame Tussauds had had an eventful Sunday night.

His shoulder pain having cleared up and despite his bruises and the aircraft noise, he had a surprisingly good and deep sleep when he’d got home. In bright early morning light, Merlin was walking along Marylebone Road, trying to find the ruined building of the night before. A little beyond Madame Tussauds on the other side of the road, he found it. To his left was the still burning shell of the bombed flats whose explosion had blown him off his feet and opposite was the side street from which the running man had emerged. As he turned into it, he saw a cat racing along the cobbles in pursuit of something. No doubt the rats were everywhere. He stepped across the road and around the bomb crater and stood at the door through which he had passed only a few hours before. The building was no longer smouldering. The frame of the front door remained intact, as did a small portion of the front wall to the right of the door. A brass nameplate remained undamaged. On it were the words “Grand Duchy and Oriental Trading Company Limited”. Merlin took a small notebook out of his jacket top pocket and jotted down the name. He walked through the doorway and picked his way over the splintered floorboards towards the back of the house where he thought he’d seen the men.

“Oi, mate. Better get out of there. This thing could come down at any minute.”

Merlin looked back to see the outline of an ARP warden framed by the front door against the bright sunlight. The image reminded him of a scene in a Western he’d been to see with Alice. “It’s alright. I’m a policeman.”

“Well, being a policeman is not going to stop the roof of this place coming down on you. I suggest you make your way back over here and carefully.”

“I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Suit yourself. It’s your funeral.” The warden disappeared. Merlin moved forward carefully. Some sunlight was filtering through holes in the walls and the roof, but this had the effect of making the areas of the house not lit by sun even gloomier and harder for his eyes to penetrate. He thought he could see something shining in the corner, but was it just a trick of the light? He took another couple of wary steps.

* * *

The restaurant was tucked away in a narrow street off Trafalgar Square. It had been here for years. Its Georgian owner had arrived on a boat from Batumi the week before Queen Victoria died. He had rapidly married an English girl and fathered three sons, all of whom, with much noisy argument, maintained their father’s establishment today, while he, supposedly retired, brooded over their efforts in a back room. Voronov was a regular. There was not really enough call in London for an exclusively Russian restaurant, let alone a Georgian one, so the chef, the youngest son, Josef, offered a wide range of British and European cuisine on the menu. If you wanted steak and chips or steak and kidney pie, you could get it, provided they had the meat. If you wanted something more continental, you could get that too. For a hard core of regulars, there was, however, a comprehensive Russian menu, with Georgian dishes a speciality.

Voronov was early and was drinking his second lemon vodka of the day while happily browsing the Russian menu. It was a little unadventurous, but he really felt like some traditional soup to start. The Muzhuzhi cold soup made from pork legs, ears and tails was always excellent. He had it on Misha’s rather dubious authority that pork tails were good for the sex drive. Not that he had noticed any particular failings in that area recently. His wife had no grounds for complaint and he still had plenty spare for Alexandra, that perfect specimen of young Russian womanhood he had discovered in Harrods at the beginning of the summer, and indeed for other challenges. That’s what today’s lunch was all about.

* * *

Merlin sat at his desk, removed what he had found in Marylebone from his pocket and placed it in front of him. The object sparkled in the bright sunlight coming through the window. It was a small ingot measuring four inches by two and appeared to be pure gold. Turning it over in his hand he saw that there were different designs engraved on the two larger sides. He reached into a desk drawer and took out his new reading glasses. They didn’t seem to work as well as they did on print and he found the designs a little fuzzy. One engraving appeared to be of a horse and the other, which was a little larger and clearer to him, depicted an eagle wearing a crown.

Sergeant Bridges came into the room.

“Here, Sam, have a look at this.”

Bridges whistled when he picked up the bar. “Gold, isn’t it? Very nice. Worth a bit, I should think.” He took it to the window. “Eagle on one side and unicorn on the other. Wonder what that means?”

“I thought it was just a horse.”

“No, there’s a small horn at the front. Where did you get it?”

Merlin recounted to Bridges his experience of the previous night and his visit of the morning.

“Obviously something fishy going on. What did you say the name on the building was?”

“Grand Duchy and Oriental Trading Company.”

“Want me to check it out?”

“Please, Sergeant. Can you also get in touch with Inspector Goodman downstairs. There’s very little he doesn’t know about coins and bullion. See whether he or his contacts can identify this little item.”

Bridges turned to leave.

“Oh, and Sam, we have a missing person to investigate. I’ll tell you about it when you get back.”

* * *

Mikhail hurried out of the kitchen with the two plates for table three. It was surprisingly busy for a Monday. He hadn’t managed to get a bite to eat for himself yet today and the spicy fumes rising from the two plates of piping hot lamb stew he was carrying were getting to him. He deposited the plates carefully in front of the regular customers, Russian embassy officials, one civilian and one military, and smiled obsequiously. The man in the uniform, Grishin he thought his name was, nodded stiffly while the civilian ignored him. Mikhail looked up to see Voronov waving at him. Another vodka he supposed as Voronov was still waiting for his guest. As he made his way to the gloomy corner table at the back, which Voronov always favoured, he saw the restaurant door opening and a woman enter. No ordinary woman either. He paused to whistle under his breath. She had very short, very black hair, large pools of eyes and the most kissable lips. She was simply but elegantly dressed. She looked over at him. “Mr Voronov. I’m looking for Mr Voronov’s table.”

The lucky bastard. What did a beauty like this see in that ugly, old bear?
Well
, he thought to himself as he extended his arm to indicate where Voronov was sitting,
that’s obvious isn’t it
;
it’s what makes the world go round – money, property, gold, jewels
– Voronov had plenty of all of those. Mikhail sighed. He and the woman arrived at Voronov’s table simultaneously. Voronov rose stiffly to his feet and kissed his guest’s hand.

“Ah, Mikhail, another menu please and another vodka. Would you care for something to drink, my dear? No. Well, perhaps some wine with the meal. Bring me the wine list, will you? And some water. Please sit down, Countess, I am delighted that you have found the time to join me. Delighted. And we have so much to talk about, you and I.”

As Mikhail handed a second menu to the Countess, he noticed that she was very pale and that her smile seemed forced. Ah well, perhaps Voronov would have to put in some extra work for this one.