Moskva

41 Another Knock at the Door

‘All right, all right… I’m coming.’

Flipping Beziki’s file shut, Tom headed for the hallway.

The Tsaritsyn Boys. Beziki had talked of the orphanage there. Built, it seemed, on the ruins of a monastery where a massacre had happened.

Tom expected it to be one of the other Sad Sam residents at the door; they were all expats with not enough scope to do their jobs and too much time on their hands. Unless, of course, it was whoever lived directly below wanting to complain about whatever noise Sveta and Dennisov had made. Tom imagined they’d probably made some. Instead, he opened the door to Mary Batten from the embassy, looking furious.

‘Fox…’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Is your telephone broken?’

‘No, definitely not. It’s been ringing.’

‘Then why the bloody hell didn’t you answer it?’ Pushing her way in without being invited, she glanced through to his bedroom before tossing her satchel on to the only decent chair in the living room.

‘Alex’s?’ she asked, looking at the Amstrad.

Tom nodded.

‘We’ll be wanting it back.’ She wrinkled her nose at the papirosa filters overflowing from a saucer on the table and opened the window without asking. Ice-cold air cut into the smoky room.

She tossed a package on to the table. ‘This came for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Look at the docket.’

Only Caro’s father would use the diplomatic mail to transport ‘Divorce Papers’ and mark them ‘Deliver Immediately’. Ripping the package open, Tom extracted a folded compliment slip with the House of Lords oval at the top. Apparently this is your price for divorcing my daughter in a civilized fashion.

‘Deal with that later,’ Mary said. ‘I’m here about something else.’

Extracting from her satchel something that looked like an oscilloscope, she unfolded a four-way antenna, connected a battery, flicked a switch and glared at Tom.

‘Just what the fuck did you think you were doing?’ She jabbed her finger at him. ‘You were seen leaving Gabashville’s offices. Understand? I mean, Christ, have you completely lost your senses?’

‘What do you mean I was –’

‘You were followed.’

‘By an old woman?’

‘I doubt it. You were seen leaving Gabashville’s offices. He’s dead, you know. Of course you fucking know. Christ, Fox… I gather you came straight to the embassy, had two telephone conversations and left again. Which is about as stupid as you can get.’

‘I left you a note,’ he said.

‘What note?’

‘Alex’s boyfriend worked for Vedenin.’

‘Oh shit…’ She stared at Tom. ‘Worked?’

‘He’s dead. I think Vladimir killed him, then took Alex.’

Mary looked so appalled Tom imagined she must be working out how to tell the ambassador. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘When Vladimir’s father realized, he panicked. The cult house was set dressing. The soldiers were meant to go in, find Alex and return her. Only someone took Alex and left Beziki’s son in her place. That’s why Vedenin was so shocked. He wasn’t expecting bodies.’

‘You think that someone was Vladimir?’

You don’t know him! Tom remembered Vladimir’s anguished shout at the lake. ‘Yes. But he was working for someone else. Not Beziki. My guess is Beziki took her after Vladimir died. Now, of course, he’s dead too.’

‘How much of this can you prove?’

‘None of it.’

‘Why would Vladimir kill Alex’s boyfriend?’

‘They’d been lovers.’

Mary put her head in her hands. When she looked up, took a deep breath and fixed her gaze on Tom, he knew it wasn’t good. In fact, he knew what Mary intended to say before she said it.

‘You’re out of this. Now more than ever. Moscow can keep this out of their papers until hell freezes over. We don’t have that luxury.’

Reaching into her pocket, she put a buff envelope on his table.

‘Official,’ she said. ‘Immediate effect. You’re on sick leave. Sir Edward doesn’t expect to see you at the embassy. You have no authority to talk to anyone about Alex on his behalf. I need to think about what you’ve just said. In the meantime, the Soviets will deal direct with me.

‘One final point. This isn’t Northern Ireland. You can’t just go around killing people. You’re damned lucky Gabashville was a recidivist. They’re going to chalk his death up to suicide. In return? God knows what they’ll want…’

‘Mary. It was suicide.’

‘So you say.’

‘Tell them to check the revolver. My fingerprints aren’t on it.’

She stared at him.

‘Could you do something for me?’ Tom asked.

‘Why the hell would I do that?’

‘There’s an old guide to Imperial Russia in the embassy library. I’m hoping there’s a reference to a monastery in Tsaritsyn. Since I’m banned from Maurice Thorez Embankment, could someone deliver it?’

‘This is to do with your report?’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t remember that earlier.’

Tom thought of pointing out that it had been Sir Edward who had dragged him into the hunt for Alex. He thought of saying it and decided not to bother. Four boys, Alex’s age, hanging from an oak tree. He knew that photograph was going to haunt him. When Mary glanced at Beziki’s file under its saucer of papirosa butts and said, ‘What’s in there?’ Tom shrugged and stood, edging her towards the door.

‘Nothing to concern you,’ he said.

Neither of them bothered with goodbyes.

Without bothering to read them, Tom put the forms face down in a drawer in the bedroom, under an airline blanket left by the previous occupant. Then he boiled some pasta, drained it over the sink, tipped a small jar of Heinz Italian Sauce on top and shovelled the food into his mouth without tasting it, or even noticing that he hadn’t, and went back to what else was in the envelope.

Accompanying the forms for his divorce was a large white envelope that had the seal of the House of Lords embossed on the flap. Its glue strips were shiny and unused. A second envelope, inside the first, was the familiar buff of official envelopes everywhere. A torn stamp glued across its flap as a security seal showed George VI looking like a slightly nervous accounts clerk.

Attached was a compliment slip from Century House, 100 Westminster Bridge Road. A note, typed on a manual typewriter and unsigned, reminded Caro’s father that the enclosed were originals and should be returned to Kew rather than Chancery Lane, and were not to leave his possession under any circumstances. Also, the director would be interested to know what had brought papers as obscure as these to his lordship’s attention…

Inside were several sheets of paper, the first typed on flimsy, using a manual typewriter that needed its ribbon changing. The paper was headed Office of the Administrator, British Sector, Berlin. It suggested the Soviets be reassured that the accompanying files would not be acted upon.

There were, inevitably, no accompanying files.

It was the Parteiadler, the Nazi eagle above the swastika, perching over the words Polizeistation on the sheet below that made Tom blink. The page was filled with tiny, impossibly neat script. Someone had crossed the eagle through. Not scrubbed it out, simply crossed it through. The sheet below that looked to be a translation of the German.

Frau von Wiesen’s actual statement was missing, destroyed perhaps, or simply not included. Its translation was typed on flimsy using the same machine as before; its ink ribbon still needed changing.

She opened by saying she’d hidden the biggest of her son-in-law’s notebooks because she didn’t want the Bolsheviks to get it. He hadn’t dared confront her, as he didn’t want the Bolsheviks to know it was missing. She would give it to the English if they promised to investigate her granddaughter’s murder.

I knew something was wrong. I knew they were lying. They’d hung her from her heels like a slab of meat and… Having read the first line of the next paragraph, Tom made do with skimming the rest and felt his guts tighten.

Hadn’t even cut her down…

Yes, I’m certain…

One stab…

According to Frau von Wiesen, her granddaughter had not been raped and strangled by Nazis or newly freed foreign workers as Colonel Milov insisted. She’d been skinned alive and hung by her heels by one of his staff. Either he or one of the others had then stabbed her, a single thrust to the heart. Her neck was unbroken. Far from being raped, she had died a virgin.

Tom hardly dared think about how the old woman might have discovered that.

Her daughter and grandson had gone to live in Moscow with her traitorous son-in-law, who was meant to be a brilliant scientist. But if he was so brilliant, why hadn’t he saved the Fatherland? She’d refused to go with them, even though her daughter had begged. She’d noticed that her son-in-law didn’t beg. He didn’t even try to change her mind. She’d always suspected he was a Bolshevik really. She wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he was a Jew.

Lots of people were, you know.

The lieutenant had asked what made her think it was Soviet soldiers and not any one of the thousands of newly released foreign workers, most of them intent on revenge, who had done this? The simplicity of her answer made Tom lurch in his chair. She had watched her granddaughter being taken to the stables by one of the Russians. It was too dark to say which. He’d been thin, looked young. They all looked young to her. Why hadn’t she gone to help?

Dear God, what was he? An idiot?

Had he no idea what had been happening?

Did he think for a minute Colonel Milov’s man wouldn’t simply shoot her and then outrage the little fool anyway? Better to go with one Russian and pretend it was willingly and hope he’d protect her from the others. How was she to know he’d torture her granddaughter like that? There’d been no noise, no sound.

She was certain. She’d left her window open.

No one screamed. No one came running. When the Russian came out later, he’d joked with one of the others who was sitting on a deckchair in the garden, getting drunk. That one had set off towards the stables, changed his mind and returned to his chair and his bottle.

No, she couldn’t describe him either.

Small, thin, young. They all looked like starved rats. Except their colonel – he was built like a manual labourer, squat and ugly. Spoke like one too. No, of course she didn’t speak Russian.

His voice. His accent. His manner.

A letter on crisp white paper from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge thanked the British Administrator for the diary and asked if there was any chance of talking to Dr Schultz direct. An apologetic note in reply regretted that would be impossible. The last note was on half-size official flimsy.

Whoever had typed it hadn’t bothered with an HQ address or a date more specific than Sept 1945. There it was. Tom felt a thrill of excitement as he skimmed the page. The officer had examined the evidence and talked extensively to his Soviet counterpart, in the eyes of his CO perhaps too extensively. There was no merit in Frau von Wiesen’s story. It was a crude attempt to smear Britain’s allies and the Soviets’ original conclusion that Dr Schultz’s daughter had been raped and murdered by newly released forced workers was a sound one and should stand.

He would inform Frau von Wiesen of this decision.

Tom understood why the decision to take the notebook and sweep everything else under the carpet had been made. He might not agree with it but he understood.

The Soviets were our allies, the Germans our enemies.

The war with Japan was not yet over. Half of Europe was a morally bankrupt wilderness hovering on the edge of anarchy; the UK and America’s alliance with Soviet Russia was already fraying and what action could the Administrator have taken anyway? Moscow was unlikely to offer up a handful of its victorious troops on the say-so of an elderly card-carrying Nazi who happened to be the mother-in-law of a nuclear scientist they’d kidnapped, offered refuge to, protected…

But was that the sole reason for the decision?

The only person who could answer that was the man who’d written and initialled the note, EJSM. Edward James Stought Masterton… How many other British officers had there been in Berlin in 1945 with those initials?

Maybe Sir Edward wasn’t stunned into inactivity by the disappearance of his stepdaughter. Maybe fear was behind his icy control. Maybe Tom had things entirely back to front.

Sir Edward knew exactly what he was facing.