Moskva

59 Going Home

Sveta met them off their flight from Sebastopol, Dennisov walking straight into a slap so hard it echoed off the VIP section’s tiled walls.

‘How dare you not take me?’

Whatever he said in the fierce embrace that followed killed her fury, and when Sveta hugged Yelena in turn, it was more protective than anything else.

Wax Angel and the commissar simply smiled, turning their attention to Yelena when she said she wanted to go home. Sveta tried to insist that she travel with them, but Yelena was firm about taking the bus.

She intended to go food shopping before returning to the bar.

Wax Angel wished her luck with that.

Now Tom and Alex were in the back of a Zil, with Sveta up front and Dennisov stubbornly riding rearguard on a borrowed Ural behind. Their little cavalcade stopped twice. The first time at a Beryozka shop so Alex could buy matryoshka dolls for her mother, a carved wooden bear for her father, and a red scarf to hide her hair until it grew back. She was hoping to find one with a hammer and sickle in the corner.

Since Alex had no hard currency, Tom had to lend it to her. It was the kind of teenage lend where both sides knew the money was never coming back. Buying the presents had been his suggestion so that seemed entirely fair. And he was glad Alex had liked the idea, because he needed a few words with Sveta, and for that Alex needed to be out of the way.

‘Did you know what Dennisov intended?’

‘Who said he intended anything? My grandfather merely fixed the helicopter.’

‘And the strange gun?’

‘The commissar was shocked to find it missing.’

‘I bet… So, why didn’t he ever move against the general himself?’

He watched Sveta wonder if she should answer. ‘You realize,’ she said finally, ‘that General Dennisov died after a long battle against cancer fought with the bravery you’d expect from a Soviet hero? TASS is preparing a broadcast to announce his death. As soon as that’s done, Leningrad’s Channel 5 will start work on a documentary for broadcast in his adopted city… His funeral will be televised. Pravda will run an obituary.’

‘And London will block any of the Berlin reports that mention General Dennisov by name from being released under the forty-year rule.’

‘I have your word?’

‘Yes,’ Tom said, hoping that Caro’s father could deliver.

‘It’s complicated… The general had a letter Khrushchev sent to my father. The first line says, “I’m relying on you.”’ Sveta hesitated. ‘It was written in late February 1953 and hand-delivered. My father met with General Dennisov first thing next morning.’

Tom felt the last bits of the puzzle slot into place.

Sveta nodded, her eyes on the driving mirror.

‘Stalin went to a banquet the day after, watched a film, retired to his dacha at Kuntsavo and went to bed. That place is the size of a hotel. Beria was there, Khrushchev and Golubtsov too. All of them. Where you found Golubtsov père, you found Dennisov. No one dared disturb Stalin when he didn’t appear for breakfast. My grandfather arrived that night, insisted on paying his respects and discovered the Boss on his bedroom floor, in a puddle of piss. No one can even agree whether he was alive or dead. It was three days before they announced that the Great Leader was no more.’

‘How close did we just come to history repeating itself?’

‘Very,’ Sveta said. ‘Only this man is a good man.’

‘And your grandfather wouldn’t give his permission?’

Sveta shrugged. ‘Anything else?’

Tom checked that Alex wasn’t on her way back.

‘Who was really behind her abduction?’

‘I think it went like this. Gorbachev wants to know whether the old guard will stand by him. My grandfather promises they will. Alex falls in love with one of Vedenin’s staff. Vedenin doesn’t know that, but his son, Vladimir, does… When General Dennisov finds out, he sees an opportunity. He objects to Gorbachev being given the top post. He objects to the suggestion that we negotiate with the West. He objects to anything that doesn’t put one of his allies in the top job.’

Tom waited.

‘Taking Alex muddied the waters and gave the general leverage when it came to protecting his reputation. Those Berlin papers were dangerous. Your friend Beziki messed everything up by grabbing the girl after Vladimir Vedenin died. He must have known what he was bringing on himself.’

‘But he had the photographs.’

‘In the end, they weren’t enough. The general was dying. He hated how Russia was changing. And he wanted his reputation protected. Alex’s father could provide that. I’m sure you’ve worked out that Sir Edward already knew exactly what the general and Kyukov were capable of…’

‘Christ,’ Tom said.

‘Your God, not mine. Sir Edward is very English.’

Tom waited for her to say more.

‘You don’t like him,’ Sveta added. ‘We know that. But he’s a good man, for an Englishman.’ She shrugged. ‘My grandfather considers him to be one anyway. Soon London will ask if he thinks our offer is a ruse.’

‘What offer?’

‘To begin to embrace democracy.’

‘Is it a ruse?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sveta looked briefly troubled. ‘My grandfather says we can’t afford to keep fighting the West. So we’re going to do a terrible thing to you. We’re going to take away your enemy, come in from the cold.’ She shrugged. ‘We tamed the tundra, defeated the Nazis almost singlehandedly and put the first satellite into space. I don’t see why democracy should be so hard…’

‘You know I’ll report that?’

‘I’m counting on it. We might have lost the Cold War. You know I’ll deny saying that. We intend to win the thaw.’

‘You never were Vnutrenniye Voiska were you?’

Turning, Sveta reached out to offer her hand. ‘Colonel Milova,’ she said, ‘KGB. At your service.’

‘Colonel?’

‘There are some benefits to a happy outcome.’

‘As well as a sense of pride in having done your duty to the state?’

‘That too,’ Sveta said.

The buildings of the Garden Ring swept by and the Zil passed through red lights with traffic police holding back the cars that would have gone on green. They were nearing the embassy when Tom remembered something. ‘If you want your cassette back, Dennisov has it. Your books too.’

‘You found the stuff in my wardrobe?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All of it?’

‘Badges, cassettes, Davie’s postcard, books, your poems…’

Alex groaned. ‘No one else read them, did they?’

‘Only your mother.’

‘Tell me you’re joking.’ Alex drew up her knees, hugging them to her chest. She was chewing her lip as she stared past Sveta to the road beyond. ‘You are joking. Aren’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t worry.’

‘Wouldn’t worry!’

‘She said no one who’d actually had sex could possibly have written them.’

Alex’s expression passed through hurt, anger and outrage to eye-rolling contempt in seconds. ‘Shows what she knows.’

Tom wasn’t sure he was meant to hear that.

‘Can I ask a question?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘What do I tell them?’

‘What do you want to tell them?’

‘Nothing,’ she said firmly. ‘They’ll only fuss.’

‘That’s their job,’ he told her and she made a face at him too.

Leaning forward, Tom asked Sveta to take a long way round.

So Sveta turned into a backstreet, weaved her way between parked cars and slowed in a little square, still white from that morning’s snow. She brought the Zil to a halt outside a glass-fronted bakery that looked shut. Vanishing inside, she reappeared with a brown paper bag. ‘Dennisov’s favourites.’

Maybe she was going to call him that for ever.

‘You can have one now.’ Pulling a sticky pastry from the bag, Sveta handed it to Alex, who examined it doubtfully. Politeness won.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘And one for him. Now I shut this.’

A glass wall rose inside the Zil and immediately descended for Sveta to add, ‘So you can talk,’ in case that wasn’t obvious. As she pulled away, the Ural fell into position behind and Alex put her pastry on the seat beside her.

‘You’ll upset her if you don’t eat it.’

With a sigh, the girl took a bite.

Drifts were piled up on both sides of the main road, and a snowplough stood abandoned in a slot reserved for traffic police. Well-wrapped women, with headscarves to protect them from the wind, and zinc scrapers with wooden handles, cleared pavements. Office workers went to their jobs. Night workers came home. A stall in a tiny park had a queue for hot tea. Children skated on a small lake watched by babushkas, Prokofiev blaring from speakers hung on the trees. The whole city moved like slightly faulty clockwork. And Tom realized that he’d grown to like the place.

‘You’re not listening,’ Alex protested.

‘I was thinking about Sveta’s grandfather.’

‘That’s probably better than thinking about Sveta. Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s obvious. Do you mind about…?’

‘Dennisov? I think they’ll be good together.’

‘I loved him, you know. Well, I thought I did.’

They weren’t talking about Dennisov now, obviously.

‘Do you think he ever thinks about me?’

Tom thought of Kotik, burned to death in the warehouse, his hands wired behind his back and Alex’s jade ring on his finger. The boy he’d seen at the New Year’s Eve party watching over Vedenin.

‘No,’ Tom said firmly, ‘I don’t imagine he does.’

Alex bit her lip and stared out of the window.

‘What should I do?’

Tom thought of all the things he could and should have said to Becca, and realized he should probably stop linking Alex and Becca in his head like this. Alex didn’t need it and Becca deserved better.

‘Be kind.’

She glanced at him.

‘You’re bright, talented, opinionated…’ He liked that she didn’t try to deny it, blush or nod in agreement. She simply waited, looking slightly watchful. Then she waited some more when he couldn’t find the words. ‘You can afford to be kind.’

‘Be kind how?’

‘Be the person they think you are. Just this once.’

She nodded to herself, then nodded to Tom and tapped on the glass screen as if Sveta were a real chauffeur rather than a Soviet officer with a grandfather in the Politburo. ‘Could I go home now?’

Sveta grinned.

The huge wrought-iron gates on Maurice Thorez Embankment were already open. The Soviet guard outside came to attention and the British guard stepped back to let the black Zil enter, but Sveta drew up outside.

‘Please,’ Alex said. ‘They’ll want to meet you.’

‘No,’ said Sveta. ‘It’s not appropriate and this is better. This gives you time to check through your lies. It also gives them time to see you coming.’ She inclined her head towards Sir Edward and Lady Anna, who stood awkwardly on the steps. ‘What advice did he give you?’

‘Be kind to them.’

Sveta shrugged. ‘I’ve heard more stupid suggestions.’

Opening her own door, she climbed out and opened Alex’s for her. Then she surprised Tom by hugging the girl and whispering something.

Alex stepped back.

‘All right?’ Sveta said.

‘You think so?’ Alex asked.

‘I know so… Now, go.’

Sveta watched her head for the gate, then nodded for Tom to get back in the car and reversed slowly until they were in a position to watch the reunion. Tom didn’t know what to expect. He wasn’t even sure what he hoped for, other than that neither side said something stupid. He needn’t have worried.

Alex looked at her mother and closed the gap between them at a run, wrapping her arms tightly around her. Anna Masterton’s arms came up from instinct and tightened in turn as Alex leaned into her and the sobs took hold.

They stood locked together, Sir Edward looking on so awkwardly that he seemed almost grateful when Tom swung open his door and went over to him.

‘I was asked to give you this, sir.’

Sir Edward took the very small, very ordinary envelope, which the commissar had handed Tom before saying his goodbyes, and extracted a sheet of yellowing paper, skimming it once, then reading it more slowly. His face was haunted and when he looked up Tom realized there were tears in his eyes.

‘You’ve read it?’

‘Of course not, sir.’

‘It’s a love letter.’ He looked at Anna Masterton, then at Alex. ‘Written a very long time ago, a very long time ago indeed.’

‘In Berlin?’

‘Yes, in Berlin.’

‘You were in love with a German girl?’

The ambassador shook his head.

‘A Russian girl?’ Perhaps Tom sounded too surprised because Sir Edward glanced across at him and his mouth twisted. For a second, the sadness threatened to spill over and then he was in control again.

‘Not a girl,’ he said.

He said it so quietly he might have been saying it to himself.

Just inside the gate, Alex and Lady Masterton were locked in an embrace so tight it looked as if it could never be broken. Whatever they were saying to each other was private. They both seemed to be in tears.

‘How’s my daughter?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ said Tom, wondering if Sir Edward realized what he’d just said. ‘That is, I think she’ll be fine. I’m sorry, sir, I hope I’m allowed to say… you might want to go easy on her for a while.’

‘Did they…?’

Tom shook his head. ‘She’s been treated carefully.’

The ‘treated carefully’ bit was a lie and he imagined the man knew it. But it was up to Alex how much she wanted to tell them, how much she wanted to keep to herself.

‘I’m told…’ Sir Edward looked at Tom. ‘London say you offered yourself as a swap.’ When Tom didn’t deny it, he nodded to himself. ‘Who enticed her away?’

‘The boy in question is dead.’

‘Vedenin’s son?’

‘No, sir. A friend of his. It might be best not to…’

‘Mention his death to my daughter?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He was good at clipped, Sir Edward. At home with words stripped so bare all the meaning resided in the spaces. Tom was coming to realize there was more to the man than he first thought.

‘Do I want to know who was behind it?’

‘Probably not. Most of those implicated are dead.’

‘Ever meet someone called Kyukov?’

‘I killed him.’

Tom felt rather than saw Sir Edward glance at his daughter.

‘I owe you,’ the ambassador said.

Alex finally stepped back from her mother, and as Tom and Sir Edward watched, Lady Anna reached up to caress Alex’s face. Sir Edward sighed. ‘I’m going to have to let her go to that bloody school, aren’t I?’

He grimaced.

‘Well, aren’t I?’

Sveta smiled as Tom climbed back into the Zil.

He had said his goodbyes to Alex’s parents and received a firm shake from her father, a silently mouthed Thank you from her mother. Now it was done, he’d cross the city for his flight to London. There were things he needed to say to Caro.

The kind of things a man needs to say to a woman face to face. He wanted Caro to be able to see his eyes when he asked her for another go. His Aeroflot flight left from Sheremetyevo in an hour but he imagined they’d hold it for him if he hit traffic. Except that he wouldn’t hit traffic. This was Moscow, and the Zil had its own bit of road.

Right down the middle.