The Firebird (27 page)

‘I thank you, no. I go but to the lower town, and as you see, I have a need for exercise.’ He slapped his ample belly, tipped his hat again, and said, ‘A pleasant journey, Captain Gordon.’

Captain Gordon. Anna suddenly remembered where she’d heard that name before. The man who’d come across with Mrs Ogilvie just yesterday had been a Captain Gordon. Mrs Ogilvie had been complaining to the Englishmen about the captain’s being in a hurry, and the trouble he had been to her. ‘He is no friend of mine,’ she’d said.

Which was, in Anna’s view, a very large point in his favour.

She moved closer to him, wondering if she could trust him just enough to ask him where the monks lived in Calais, when someone called out, ‘Anna!’

Without thinking, she turned round. She’d hoped it might be Father Graeme, but she did not see him, and her gaze began to dart around in panic as she looked for the two Englishmen, who must by now, along with Mrs Ogilvie, have noticed she was missing from the inn. She did not see them, either, but she did see the old man who had just chased her from the church, and with him two priests dressed exactly like the priest who’d been the nuns’ confessor at the convent.

The old man studied Anna, gave a nod and made a comment to the priests before he shuffled off again, and wearing smiles the priests approached her.

‘Anna Moray!’ called the tallest one again, ‘we have been looking for you. God be thanked, we’ve found you safe.’

She saw his eyes, and she did not believe him. And apart from that, he’d called her ‘Anna Moray’. No one seeking her who had been sent by anyone she trusted would have ever used that name.

She backed away a step, and then another, looking round one final time in hopes she might glimpse Father Graeme or his father in the vast confusing ebb and flow of unfamiliar faces.

One more backward step and she had bumped against the side of Captain Gordon, who said, ‘Steady,’ in a voice that, while surprised, was not unkind. It was that hint of kindness, she thought afterwards, that gave her the idea, and the courage.

As the two priests drew yet nearer, Anna spoke up in a clear voice, with the ladylike and proper words that she’d been taught: ‘I do not know these men.’ And then she turned and tilted up her head to look at Captain Gordon. ‘Do you know them, Father?’

He said nothing, staring down at her, and Anna held her breath.

If he denied her, if he did not play along, then she was lost. No one would stop two priests from taking charge of any child, no matter how that child might scream and weep.

She saw the smallest flicker of what might have been astonishment disturb the blue depths of the captain’s eyes. It seemed to Anna that he stood and looked at her a long time, as though he were seeing something he had not expected and could not believe.

She raised her chin a trifle higher, and allowed her eyes to mutely ask him,
Please
.

He told her, ‘No.’ And then, his eyes still on her upturned face, he said, ‘I do not know them, either.’

Then he raised his head and told the priests, ‘Good Fathers, I’m afraid you do mistake my child for someone else, for my name is not Moray.’ With a firm hand he laid claim to her, and turned her so her back was to the strength of him, his one arm laid with fatherly possession on her shoulder.

Neither priest could stand against the calm ice of the captain’s gaze. The bolder one said, ‘Do excuse us, sir, we meant no harm.’

‘No, I am sure that you did not. Come, child,’ the captain said, ‘get you in the carriage, for we must be on our way.’

She let him lift her, numb, onto the seat, and there she sat, her little cloth-wrapped bundle clasped against her, while the priests bowed to the captain and backed off a step.

The searcher standing nearest to the captain drew a paper from his coat and read it over with a frown, and told the captain, ‘But this pass is for—’

‘My daughter and myself,’ the captain told him, in a sure tone that left no room for an argument, and drawing out his purse again he paid the searcher two more silver coins before he climbed into the carriage, too, and settled on the long seat beside Anna.

She was shaking as they rode out through the gate.

He angled in his seat to look at her. ‘Are you all right?’

She’d thought to get a lecture. She had not expected gentleness, and coming on the heels of so much turbulence it made her eyes begin to fill with tears she had no wish to shed.

He asked, ‘Where are your parents?’

‘Dead.’ A half-lie only, she consoled herself.

‘Where do you live? How came you to Calais?’

She did not answer him, because she could not think of any way to twist the truth, and when a moment had gone by in silence, Captain Gordon tried again.

‘Well, have you any family left?’

Her eyes stung as she thought of Colonel Graeme and his son, and of her uncles, and the mother she would never know, because she could do nothing but endanger them. No matter what she did, or where she went, she knew now she could never let the truth of who she was be known to anyone, or else the people she loved most would suffer for it.

Fighting back the tears, she shook her head. ‘No. I have no one.’

She could feel his gaze upon her face, as though he, too, were making a decision. He asked quietly, ‘Is your name truly Anna?’

Anna thought, and then decided that much of herself was safe to keep, and so she nodded.

‘Anna Moray?’

‘No.’ She could not ever claim that name, she knew. Nor could she any longer be the Anna Logan who had lived at Ypres, and been betrayed by Christiane, and who was being searched for now by those who meant to hurt her uncle. She must evermore be no one’s child.

And yet, if all her dreams were thus to shatter, Anna thought, she could at least pick up the brightest shard of them, and cling to it, however much it cut, and take it with her into the unknown.

She drew a breath, and said, ‘My name is Anna Jamieson.’

It had seemed a good idea at the time.

I hadn’t wanted Rob to drive the whole way back to Scotland in the dark, not after all he’d done to help me. And I knew his nature well enough to know he would have pushed on and not taken a hotel room here in London for the night. And while I didn’t have an extra bedroom in my flat, I had a sofa that converted to a bed that both my brother and his girlfriend had assured me was quite comfortable.

So it had seemed a natural extension of our travelling together that, when Rob had found a spot to park along my road, I should invite him up to have a meal and stay the night to rest before he headed home to Eyemouth.

When I’d asked him, it had all seemed very reasonable. But …

‘The trouble is,’ so my brother had once told me, ‘you never really stop to think things through.’

And he was right. I hadn’t stopped to think how small the flat would feel, when Rob walked in. Or how a simple, stupid thing like watching Rob eat steak-and-onion pie with salad at my cluttered table would so traitorously push all my domestic buttons, sending my mind wandering to thoughts of sitting down to dinner with him every night. I found the easy-going comfort of his company seductive, like a lazy current drawing me downstream, and every now and then I’d lose my grip upon the shore and float a little further down before remembering I ought to swim against it.

When Rob half-rose from his chair after dinner, intending to help with the washing-up, I made him sit again.

‘You cooked the meal,’ was his reasoning.

‘Hardly. I warmed up a frozen pie. Somehow I doubt that will get me on
MasterChef.
Give me that plate, will you? Thanks.’ There was no way, I thought, I was going to let him help out in my kitchen, a room so incredibly small that I couldn’t take two steps in any direction without bumping into the worktop. I said, ‘The TV remote’s there by the sofa, if you want to watch something.’

I took my time with the washing-up, although there weren’t many dishes to deal with. But when I came out again into the sitting room, Rob wasn’t watching TV. He had sat himself down at my desk in the corner, where earlier I had switched on my computer, and with his head propped on one hand he was reading what looked like a digital scan of an old book.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘The Old Scots Navy,
by James Grant,’ he told me. ‘I’m getting to know Captain Gordon.’

‘The man Anna left with? You found him?’

‘I did. Mrs Ogilvie said that his first name was Thomas.’

‘When did she say that?’

‘When she was talking to those English guys,’ he told me, ‘at the bar.’

I took his word for it. ‘And?’

‘Captain Thomas Gordon,’ he said, clicking back to open up the screen for Wikipedia. ‘Or Admiral Thomas Gordon, as he later was. That’s him, right?’

I leant closer in, to look over Rob’s shoulder at the image of a painted portrait on the screen. It showed an older man than we had seen, white-wigged and softer round the chin than I remembered, but the eyes were still the same, and he was standing with the same square-shouldered confidence. ‘That’s him.’

‘He used to be a captain in the Old Scots Navy,’ Rob said, ‘and it seems he was acquainted with our friend the Earl of Erroll up at Slains. But after Scotland lost its independence in the Union, there was no Scots Navy any more. They took the Saltire down and flew the Union Jack instead, and after that Queen Anne died and the military men like Captain Gordon had to swear an oath to say they’d only serve King George. I guess his conscience wouldn’t let him swear that, not when in his heart he thought James Stewart was the rightful king, and so he quit.’ Rob turned his head so I could see the crinkles of good humour at the corners of his own eyes. ‘Guess where he became an admiral?’

‘Where?’

To answer me, he scrolled down to show me a subheading:
Later Career – Russian Navy.

‘You’re joking.’

‘The Tsar himself, Peter the Great, hired him as a captain, and brought him to Russia.’

I read through the article. ‘Yes, but it doesn’t say where … ?’

Rob switched screens again to the page of another scanned history book, this one about Scottish soldiers in Russia. He pointed the paragraph out. ‘To St Petersburg.’

‘Wow.’ It was more than I’d let myself hope for – the link that not only tied Anna to Russia, but to St Petersburg. And if the Tsar himself had hired Captain Thomas Gordon, and had known him, it was possible that Anna could have met the Tsar’s wife, Catherine.

I looked at the long row of reference tabs open across the top of the computer screen, showing the trail of his search. ‘You’ve been busy,’ I said. ‘Thanks for doing all this.’

‘Aye, well, I’m only an ordinary constable, not a detective, but I can still find the occasional suspect. If you tell me where the paper is for that,’ he nodded briefly at my printer, ‘I can print you off the whole of it, so you can take it with you.’

I’d have much rather taken him with me instead. How on earth was I going to manage to find Anna all on my own, without Rob?

While he printed the pages, he opened a new search window, saying, ‘It might help to find a few maps, as well, showing the place as it would have looked then …’

I was glad I was standing behind him, so he couldn’t see me, or know from my face how uncertain I suddenly felt. ‘Rob, I wish—’

The imperative ring of my mobile cut in as Rob angled his head to look over his shoulder, his eyes waiting patiently for me to finish my sentence. Except that those eyes were a part of my problem, I thought. When they watched me like that it was hard to remember what I’d meant to say.

The mobile rang a second time. I dragged my gaze from Rob’s and told him, ‘That’ll be Sebastian.’

And it was. ‘You’re back.’ Sebastian sounded pleased. ‘And how was Belgium?’

‘Lovely, thanks.’

‘And how’s your … friend?’

‘Stop fishing.’

When I glanced at Rob I caught the glint of something in his eyes I took to be amusement, though in hindsight I decided it was mischief. Rising from the chair, he stretched to his full height and crossed the floor behind me, with a light touch on my back as he went past. He said, ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

There was silence on my phone line for a moment, then Sebastian’s voice said, ‘Well, well,
well
.’

I sighed. ‘You wanted something?’

‘Only to go over your instructions for St Petersburg.’

‘That sounds very formal.’ I smiled. ‘Is this Mission Impossible, then? Will my phone self-destruct when you finish?’

‘Let’s hope not. How else will I talk to you while you’re in Russia? Now listen,’ he said. ‘Here’s your schedule.’

I jotted it down while he spoke. It was simple enough. My plane landed in mid afternoon in St Petersburg. After that I had only to go to the hotel and rest. Then on Friday I’d meet with Sebastian’s friend Yuri, who worked at the Hermitage. He would be able to update me on the exhibit, and Wendy Van Hoek. Wendy herself was due to arrive in St Petersburg Friday evening.

‘There’s supposedly an opening reception on the Sunday,’ said Sebastian, ‘but I’m hoping Yuri can find some more private place to introduce you. Either way, you have till Monday morning to convince her she should sell the Surikov to us, for Vasily. Monday afternoon, you fly back here to share a victory drink.’

‘You have a lot of faith.’

‘In you? Of course. I trained you, after all.’

That made me smile against the phone. ‘How are you getting on with Gemma?’

‘She’s very good.’

‘You’re being nice?’

‘You have to ask?’

‘With you? Of course.’

He laughed and let me score the point, then smoothly hit the ball back to me. ‘Shouldn’t you be showering?’

‘Goodnight, Sebastian.’

‘Seriously, Nicola,’ he asked me. ‘Is this somebody whose name I should remember?’

‘He’s a friend,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’ And ringing off, I went to pack my suitcase for St Petersburg. It didn’t take me long. I had my suitcase zipped and standing ready in the entry hall before Rob reappeared. He smelt of soap, his hair still damply curled against his forehead from the shower, and he’d changed into a plain, clean T-shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that were evidently what he meant to sleep in.