The People's Will (25 page)

‘I hope so. It always depends on who’s running things. I never met the bastard who arrested me before. Chap by the name of Otrepyev – a colonel.’

Iuda studied Luka’s face as he spoke, scouring it for a reaction, but none was evident. He could go further and use Dmitry’s real name, but Luka wouldn’t be ready for that. That all presumed he was lying; Iuda doubted it, but prepared for it.

Luka shook his head. ‘I’ve not heard of him. Must be from Moscow. I’ll ask around.’

‘You do that, Luka.’ It couldn’t make things worse.

There was a banging on the cell door and it opened to reveal the scowling face of the sentry. Luka stepped towards Iuda and embraced him once again, whispering, ‘Don’t worry, Vasya, we’ll get you out.’ Moments later he was gone, and the door slammed shut.

Iuda slumped to the ground, leaning back against the cold stone wall. It was a shame, but there was no other way. Luka was a useful ally, and if he was to die, Iuda had always hoped it would be in circumstances that in some way punished him for being a Danilov. But he had become too dangerous. He was the only person who knew the location of Iuda’s lair in Petersburg – where he kept his real notebooks and his more important blood samples. He hadn’t gone to all the effort of luring Zmyeevich and Dmitry to that abandoned cellar under Senate Square only to have them learn of his true hideaway from Luka.

He could have killed Luka there and then. It would have been
pleasing to see the surprise on his face, and it would have satisfied Iuda’s growing hunger. But he would not have been able to hide the body from the guards, and even they would have guessed what he was. No, Luka must die remotely, by the mere tapping of a cup against pipework.

It was a short message, using codes that Iuda had learned years before when he had first infiltrated the revolutionaries. But on hearing it, no one would be in any doubt. Luka was a spy; an
oprichnik
; an agent of the Ohrana. What his punishment would be was down to the Executive Committee, but their motto had always been ‘
pour encourager les autres
’. There would be no more risk that Luka would tell what he knew of his Uncle Vasya.

But there was still the matter of Iuda’s freedom. There the People’s Will would not be called on for help – a higher power was required. Fortunately such a power was just as able to eavesdrop on the tapping of the pipes as any revolutionary. He would start with something simple, but something that would make them prick up their ears. No requests, no demands, just an announcement of who he was. He began to tap again on the pipe.

5,6 2,6 – 1,1 – 2,4 – 3,3
Я Каин
I am Cain

LUKA MARCHED DOWN
maksimilianovsky lane, his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the snowy path in front of him. It was dark now. He had taken a circuitous route back to the apartment, but he’d seen no one following him from the fortress. It hardly mattered – the Ohrana knew about this place anyway. Titov, the
dvornik
– always sitting in his little room at the door, watching who came and went – was in their pay. Luckily, he was in the pay of the People’s Will too. That didn’t mean he kept quiet to the authorities, but everyone was aware of what he’d told them. At least he was honest in his treachery. Luka preferred that to what Mihail Konstantinovich had done, the way he’d played on Luka’s friendship with Vasya.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, penetrating tapping sound, three reports, then a space, then three more, repeatedly. He looked up. The sound was coming from the tavern on the street corner. Someone was at the window, banging against it with a coin or something similar. In a moment he realized who it was: Mihail. Luka returned his gaze to the snow and carried on walking.

He was almost at the door of the house when Mihail caught up with him.

‘What do you want?’ asked Luka, making no attempt to hide the bile in his voice. He knew that he should string the man along, make him think he was trusted and then use him against his paymasters, but it was too sickening even to be in his presence.

‘I wanted to talk to you again,’ Mihail told him. ‘I’ve not been entirely straight with you.’

‘Really?’ There could be no mistaking the cynicism in Luka’s voice.

They had stopped at the door of the building. ‘Can I come in?’ Mihail asked.

Luka felt the urge to spit in his face, but what good would that do? Perhaps it would be better to take him up to the apartment and then kill him. There was a pistol up there – it would be very easy. But he shouldn’t be too hasty. He must report what he had learned to the committee. If Mihail were to die, they would decide and would deal with it safely. If not, they would turn him to good use as a conduit for false information back to the Ohrana. Even so, it would be worth taking him up to the rooms, sitting there with him for a little while to hear him spin out his lies, knowing that the revolver was just a short reach away, hoping that he would force Luka into doing something delightfully rash.

‘If you must,’ he said.

They went up the stairs and sat down in the living room. This time Luka made no offer of tea.

‘So you lied to me,’ he said.

Mihail nodded. ‘I did, though not entirely.’

‘Not entirely?’ It was typical of the equivocation of an
ohranik
.

‘My connection to you is not through Vasiliy Grigoryevich.’

‘You astonish me. Not in that you don’t know him, but in that you have the honesty to admit it. But then I suppose you already know that I’ve been to see Vasiliy. Your spies at the fortress would have told you that. I’m only surprised you heard so quickly.’

‘You’ve found him?’

‘Don’t play games,’ sneered Luka.

‘He’s at the fortress? The Peter and Paul? A prisoner?’

‘A prisoner that you put there – or at least your boss Otrepyev did.’

Mihail’s reaction to his colonel’s name was evident. He rose to his feet and turned away from Luka, preventing his face from revealing the truth. ‘What did Vasiliy say to you?’

‘I’m sure there’s nothing he could tell me that you don’t know already – being such a close friend of his.’

‘I’ve already told you I lied about that.’

‘Well then, none of what we said is any of your business.’

Mihail nodded in acceptance. He turned back to face Luka. ‘I’m not what you think I am,’ he said.

For a moment Luka almost fell for his sincerity. He examined the man. There was not a huge difference in their age – ten years perhaps. They would certainly be considered to be from the same generation. From the way Mihail spoke, he guessed they’d had a similar level of education. Luka was a little taller, though Mihail looked the stronger. What was it that made them different? What event in their early lives had made Luka choose to be a champion of the Russian people and Mihail the acolyte of their oppressor?

‘What did you mean earlier?’ Luka asked. ‘When you implied an association with me other than through Vasiliy?’

Mihail didn’t reply. He stood in silence for a full half-minute, looking directly at Luka but deep in thought. When he spoke, the question was obscenely personal.

‘Did you ever go to look for your mother – your real mother?’

Luka felt his face redden – in anger more than embarrassment. ‘My real mother is the woman who raised me,’ he explained coldly.

Mihail gave half a nod. ‘Thankfully I’ve never had to make the distinction.’

‘No distinction needs to be made.’

‘You think so?’

Luka had thought about it often. ‘I am my mind – nothing more. My mind was made by my experience, my parents contributed much to that.’

‘As did Vasiliy?’ Luka could not account for the cynicism that Mihail managed to inject into his question.

‘More so than my birth mother, certainly.’

‘But don’t you ever wonder about other things, where they might come from? You wouldn’t question that your hair or your eyes come from your parents. What about other things, not your whole mind but parts of it perhaps; small parts? Your sense of right and wrong?’

Mihail spoke with a passion that Luka could only admire, enough for him to wonder if, in other circumstances, they might have been friends. And his argument might also serve to answer Luka’s original silent question: were the contrasts between them
down not to the unique events of their lives, but to difference in their parentage? It was not the way Luka wanted to see the world. He believed that all men were created equal, and moulded as they grew. He had to believe it.

‘I told you, my mother went mad. Would you want to inherit that?’

Mihail’s lips lost their colour as he pressed them tightly together. His eyes became misty and he turned away from Luka, suppressing an anger whose cause could not be fathomed. He stared down from the window on to the gas-lit street below, his hands clasped behind his back, the thumb of one squeezing so hard on the fingers of the other that they had become white and bloodless. He remained silent for several seconds. When he spoke, it was not to answer Luka’s question.

‘Shit!’

The emission of the word from Mihail’s throat was accompanied by a sudden galvanization of his body – his whole mood. He spun round on his heel.

‘What?’ asked Luka.

‘An
ohranik
,’ spat Mihail. ‘Out there, on the street.’

Luka glanced involuntarily across the room at one of the faded paintings that hung on the walls. He was not interested in the picture, but hidden there were documents that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the police. That was where the gun lay too, if needed. In an instant he was looking back at Mihail.

‘You’re sure?’

‘It’s Otrepyev, for God’s sake!’

So Mihail did know Colonel Otrepyev, just as Vasiliy had predicted. Even so, his reaction was not what might be expected.

‘Is he coming up?’ Luka asked.

Mihail looked again. ‘No. No – he’s moving on. He was just talking to the
dvornik
.’ Even as he spoke, Mihail was crossing the room, heading for the door. ‘Stay here, I’m going after him.’

Luka had no intention of going anywhere. At the door, Mihail paused.

‘We still have to talk,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’ll come and find you. I know you don’t trust me, but you will, I promise.’

With those words, steeped in faux sincerity, Mihail was gone.

‘Where’s Luka?’

The question came from Dusya, and was to be expected.

‘Don’t worry about Luka,’ said the chairman sternly. ‘He’s doing other work essential to our cause.’

Dusya said no more. She was like that. They were all like that – obedient to authority even within an organization dedicated to overthrowing authority. Their only freedom was to choose whom they would obey. But the need to obey someone was what made them, underneath it all, serfs. Most of the aristocrats of Europe were serfs in that sense. Only a select few ruled themselves.

This meeting of the Executive Committee was held in a different apartment, this one on Voznesensky Prospekt, the long, straight thoroughfare that split Petersburg into east and west, meeting with Nevsky Prospekt as they converged on the Admiralty. There was only one item of business. The chairman was not happy with it, but there was nothing he could do. There were some matters over which even he would not be obeyed. He glanced at Sofia and she stood up. She dared look at no one as she spoke.

‘As some of you may already have heard, Comrade Kletochnikov has been arrested.’

Gasps filled the room, though not from everyone. For some the name Kletochnikov meant nothing – such was the need for secrecy. Sofia explained.

‘For the past two years Nikolai Vasilyevich Kletochnikov has worked as a filing clerk at Fontanka 16, first for the Third Section and now for the Ohrana. In all that time, he has in truth been a loyal member of the People’s Will. Some of you may have heard of him as the Protecting Angel. He reported whatever came across his desk that might be of use to us. He’s saved many from arrest with his information.’

‘But not himself,’ said Kibalchich grimly.

‘There’s been too many arrests recently,’ said Bogdanovich. ‘Somebody’s been talking.’

The chairman raised a finger to silence him. ‘Let Sofia proceed.’

‘We think you’re right,’ said Sofia. ‘And we think we know who it is.’ She looked at each face in the room in turn, as if testing each
one to reveal its guilt, though she knew that the traitor was not present.

‘Kletochnikov was arrested on Wednesday,’ she continued. ‘In the early hours of Friday morning another arrest was made, that of a comrade who has been away from Petersburg for many years, but who has always remained loyal. He was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress. His name is Vasiliy Grigoryevich Chernetskiy.’

A few faces around the room nodded in recognition of the name, as well they might.

‘What was he doing back in Petersburg?’ asked the chairman, though he would be surprised to receive an answer.

‘We don’t know,’ admitted Sofia, ‘but we believe that the reason for his arrest is that he was about to unmask the collaborator who betrayed Kletochnikov.’

‘We all know who Vasiliy Grigoryevich would visit first on his return to the city, don’t we?’ said Zhelyabov.

Sofia glanced at Dusya, but her eyes were glued to the floor.

‘We can’t make guesses like that,’ said Kibalchich. ‘Now they’re both locked up, we’ll never know.’

‘We can and we do know,’ countered Sofia. ‘Kletochnikov is incarcerated where he worked, at Fontanka 16. We won’t hear a word from him. But the Pyetropavlovskaya Fortress is a different matter. We received a message from Chernetskiy today.’

‘Saying?’ asked Kibalchich.

‘Saying that Luka Miroslavich Novikov betrayed both him and Kletochnikov.’

‘No!’ The word came as a whisper from Dusya’s throat – more of a prayer than a denial.

‘Can we trust Chernetskiy?’ asked Kibalchich. ‘Especially after so long?’ He was addressing the chairman.

‘I’ve never met Vasiliy Grigoryevich,’ the chairman admitted, glad not to be forced to make the decision. ‘He was before my time.’

‘I’d trust him with my life,’ said Sofia firmly.