House of the Hanged (3 page)

‘Katya, I think our friend here could do with a hot drink . . . and maybe a piece of bread, if you can spare it.'

Katya eyed Tom with all the warmth of an attack dog called to heel by its master. Handing over the two guns, she disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Paul Dukes?' asked Tom.

Dukes nodded and settled into an armchair. It was a moment before he spoke. ‘What happened to your wrist?'

It was tightly bound with the leather belt he'd brought along for Irina. ‘I think it might be broken.'

Dukes released the barrel of the revolver and checked the cylinder. ‘She's right,' he said. ‘Why did Leonard send you?'

Leonard Pike was chief of SIS operations in northern Russia, calling the shots from the embassy in Stockholm. Although Tom had never met him, it was Leonard who had agreed to take him on in Helsinki.

‘He didn't send me,' Tom replied. ‘I'm sailing under my own colours.'

Dukes snapped the barrel shut and looked up, intrigued. ‘Go on.'

Tom told him everything: of his relationship with Irina, his forced flight from Russia, and his work for the Secret Intelligence Service in Helsinki, which had involved deciphering many of Dukes's own intelligence reports. Helsinki was a mess, a sinkhole of desperation and duplicity, swarming with émigrés and spies. Information and disinformation were the twin orders of the day in the Finnish capital, and Tom's other duties had entailed trawling the city's restaurants, hotel bars and drawing rooms, keeping an ear out for anything of value.

This wasn't how he had got wind of Irina's arrest, though; that news had come to him via Markku, who had heard it from one of the other couriers, along with the small but devastating detail that Irina was pregnant. Tom didn't reveal this to Dukes, if only because the notion that he'd fathered a child was still too big to grapple with on his own, let alone share with a stranger. Besides, at the time it hadn't coloured the decision he'd arrived at with Markku's encouragement and assistance.

Both men knew that Bayliss, the SIS station chief in Helsinki, would never have sanctioned a rescue attempt, so the plan had been hatched in secret, with Markku providing false documents, detailed instructions on a number of routes in and out of the country, as well as the names of a few reliable contacts in Petrograd. The sixty thousand roubles which Markku estimated would be required for bribes had proved much harder to come by. In the end Tom had been left with no other choice but to ‘borrow' it from the SIS slush fund.

Dukes had been listening attentively throughout, but now broke his silence with the bleak observation, ‘That's going to cost you your job, and probably a lot more.'

‘I don't care. It all went wrong last night.'

He described how the band of Chekists had shown up at St Isaac's Cathedral in place of Irina, and how he had only just managed to slip through their fingers.

Dukes got to his feet and wandered to the fireplace. He poked at a burning log with the toe of his boot. There was something ominous in his studied silence.

‘I'm going to tell you this now,' he said eventually, turning to face Tom. ‘Because if you don't hear it from me, you may never hear it at all.' He paused. ‘She was executed last night.'

Tom felt a cold hand settle on his heart. His words, when they came, sounded distant, hollow.

‘How do you know?'

‘Console yourself with the fact that they would have killed her anyway. You see, I never met her myself, but I know of people she helped. We were aware of her . . . predicament.'

Her predicament? He made her sound like a debutante torn between two evening gowns in Harrods.

‘How do you know?' demanded Tom, more forcefully this time.

‘I had it on good authority early this morning.'

‘Good authority?'

‘A very reliable source, I'm afraid.'

‘Who?'

‘I can't say.'

‘I have a right to know.'

‘And I have a duty to protect his identity. If you're captured by the Cheka they will make you talk. Don't look so affronted – everyone talks. Do you want him to lose his life too?'

At that moment Katya returned bearing a tray, which she placed on a low side table. She must have been eavesdropping from the kitchen. It wasn't just the misting of pity in her hard eyes; before pouring the tea she handed Tom two tablets and a glass of water.

‘Aspirin. For your wrist.'

The tea cups matched the antique porcelain pot, and Dukes savoured a first, warming sip before continuing.

‘Look, believe me, I'm sorry. We've all lost friends, good friends, and I daresay we stand to lose many more. But you shouldn't have come here. Markku should not have given you this address. There's nothing we can do for you.'

‘I didn't come here for me, I came here for you – to warn you.'

He explained that Markku had put him in contact with a man named Dimitri Zakharov. It was Zakharov who had organized the escape, Zakharov who had betrayed him to the Cheka.

Dukes and Katya exchanged a brief look. ‘I doubt that very much,' said Dukes. ‘Zakharov gave them a description of me. I overheard them say it.'

Dukes hesitated. ‘If he did, then it was tortured out of him.'

‘He didn't look too distressed when I saw him leave his apartment an hour ago.'

Dukes was clearly taken aback by this news. ‘Maybe we're talking about another Zakharov.'

‘How many Zakharovs does Markku know who live on Kazanskaya?'

‘Katya . . .?'

For once she looked shaken. ‘Anything is possible. We both know that.'

Dukes turned his attention back to Tom. ‘I was wrong. You were right to come here.' He handed the revolver back. ‘I'm surprised there are still six bullets left in the cylinder.'

Tom had indeed trailed Zakharov for a good few streets, imagining the moment – the muzzle of the gun planted at the base of the traitor's neck, or maybe a swift tap on the shoulder first with the barrel so that Tom could carry with him the flash of recognition, of terror, in the other man's eyes as a future balm for his soul. In the end, though, he had allowed Zakharov to slip away from him.

Maybe it had been cowardice, the knowledge that retribution would surely come at the cost of his own life, or maybe the calculating pragmatist in him had prevailed over base emotion. Either way, he was alive, and the information he had just handed on might even save lives. It clearly had value; he could see its worth reflected back at him in Dukes's eyes.

‘This changes everything,' said Dukes. ‘We can't stay here. Katya, you also have to leave.'

‘No.'

‘You must.'

‘Not if I don't know where you're going.'

‘Katya –'

‘Do I know?' she insisted.

Dukes shook his head solemnly.

‘Then go,' she said. ‘Both of you. What are they going to do with an old woman like me?'

Her life had been reduced quite enough already to this: this queer museum of displaced artefacts. The barbarians might be hammering at the gates of the city, but the curator had no intention of abandoning her post.

It took Dukes a few minutes to gather his belongings together, and all the while he was issuing instructions to Tom. Katya accompanied them downstairs as far as the first-floor landing. Pressing something into Dukes's hand, she said, ‘It was my mother's.'

Tom also received a parting gift – a jewelled gold locket on a chain.

‘You are a brave boy,' said Katya, ‘and you deserve to live. But remember . . . keep back one bullet for yourself.'

She shooed them off down the stairs like a mother sending her two sons out to play.

Tom left the building first, turning up his collar and heading south on Liteiny Prospekt. Dukes went north. Ten nerve-racking minutes later they reconvened, as arranged, in front of a haberdashery on Nevsky Prospekt. There was no acknowledgement; it was an opportunity for each of them to determine if the other was being followed. Dukes had said he would stamp the snow from his boots if he felt they were safe to proceed. This he now did, before setting off once more at a brisk pace. Tom tailed him at a distance, his fingers closed around the revolver in his pocket, unsure of their destination.

He tried to remain alert, but his grief came at him in waves. He had walked this same route with Irina, idly strolling in the summer heat, stopping every so often to peer into a shop window, the scarlet trams rattling back and forth nearby.

He choked back a sob and felt the heat of anger rising in his belly. He didn't fight to suppress it; he let it spread through him, into his chest, along his limbs, warming him.

It came to him quite suddenly what he would do and how he would do it.

It was a religious building of some kind, set well back from the street behind a high wall at the southern end of the Nevsky. Beyond the imposing entrance gate the trees rose tall and bare on either side of the pathway. Dukes cut left almost immediately into the trees, taking a well-trodden trail through the deep snow. It led to a cemetery deep in the wood, a bosky burial ground for the wealthy, sparsely populated with the dead. Large free-standing tombs were scattered around a frozen lake, like temples in some eighteenth-century garden.

The packed snow of the snaking pathways suggested that many others had visited in recent days, possibly paying a final tribute to their ancestors, it occurred to Tom, before fleeing the country for good. Right now, though, the two Englishmen found themselves alone. The purpose of their own pilgrimage was still no clearer to Tom, even when Dukes made for a tomb pushing four-square through a deep drift.

No larger than a garden shed, it was maybe twice as tall, its roof crowned with a Russian cross. The pale green stucco of its outer walls had crumbled in parts, revealing the bare stone blocks beneath. Its door was of solid wood and firmly locked.

Dukes was still struggling with an iron key when Tom joined him. The lock finally emitted a rasping groan and the door swung open on rusty hinges. The moment they were inside, Dukes shouldered it shut behind them.

The only illumination came from a small lunette above the door, and it was a few seconds before Tom's eyes adjusted to the gloom, by which time Dukes was already on his knees before the altar. For a worrying moment it looked as though he was praying, but he was working away at one of the flagstones, prising it up with a pocket knife. Buried in the packed earth beneath was an old cigar box. It contained a wafer-thin package wrapped in waxed paper.

‘Here,' said Dukes. ‘Take it with you.'

Tom had handled enough of Dukes's coded intelligence reports in the past to know what it was.

‘Tell them I need more money – a lot more.' Replacing the flagstone, Dukes got to his feet and stamped it down. ‘Deal directly with Leonard. I wouldn't trust Bayliss with anything more than a cocktail shaker.'

‘You're staying?' asked Tom, incredulously.

‘It's not over yet.'

‘But what about Zakharov?'

‘You think he's the first to betray us?'

The weary fatalism of the statement grated. It suggested that the Zakharovs of the world were an unavoidable irritant to be endured, like mosquitoes, or people coughing in the theatre.

Tom removed his cap and pulled some banknotes from the lining. ‘It's all I have left.'

Dukes riffled through the money, clearly delighted. ‘How much do you need?' he asked.

‘I'm not sure.'

Dukes pocketed most of the cash and handed the rest back. ‘This should see you back to Helsinki.'

These weren't the last words the two men exchanged. As they parted company outside, Tom asked, ‘How do you live like this?'

Dukes hesitated before replying. ‘I was here when the Revolution broke, when we turned the Tauride Palace into an arsenal. You see, I once believed in the New Jerusalem. Maybe I still do. But this isn't it. This . . . this is Abaddon.'

He touched Tom lightly on the arm. ‘Tell Leonard from me that it's not too late.'

‘For what?'

‘He'll understand.'

As Tom watched the slight, anonymous figure shuffle off down the pathway, something told him that this would be his last ever glimpse of the man.

Abaddon, the place of punishment.

A fitting analogy, Tom reflected, his thoughts turning once more to Zakharov, the betrayer.

The porters were already in place, ranged along the platform like a guard of honour, when the train pulled into Toulon station. The heat was oppressive, and they fidgeted in their brass-buttoned tunics. A few of them crushed their cigarettes underfoot as the train shuddered to a halt and the carriage doors swung open.

Lucy was one of the last to descend. She had cut her hair short, and Tom might not even have recognized her had she not spotted him and waved.

Seeing her at a distance lent a new perspective. He realized, with a touch of sadness, that although she had lost none of her coltish grace she was no longer a girl. She had become a woman. It wasn't just her new coiffure, or even her elegant organdie summer frock, it was the way she carried herself, the easy manner in which she proffered her hand to the guard who helped her down to the platform, the casual comment which set the fellow smiling.

Tom fought his way through the throng, arriving as her Morocco travelling bags were being loaded from the luggage car on to a trolley.

She might have changed, but she was still happy to launch herself at him and hug him tight, limpet-like, as they had always done. She smelled of roses.

‘Thank you,' she said.

‘For what?'

She tilted her head up at him. ‘For the nice man at Victoria station who showed me to the first-class carriage, and the other nice man in Paris who showed me to my own sleeping compartment.'

‘An early birthday present. Don't assume I'm setting a precedent.'

Releasing him, she looked around her. ‘Where's Mr H?'

It was her name for Hector, his flat-coated retriever, his shadow for the past four years.

‘Missing.'

‘Missing?'

‘Since yesterday.'

‘Oh, Tom . . .'

‘I'm sure it's nothing,' he replied with as much non chalance as he could muster. ‘Maybe he needs a holiday too.'

But it wasn't like Hector to go off for more than an hour or so, and only then to scrounge scraps from the customers at the bar in Le Rayol. Hector was a big coward at heart, although like all the best cowards he cloaked his fears in bold and boisterous behaviour.

‘It's not the first time he's done a disappearing act. I'm sure he'll turn up as soon as he knows you're here.'

Lucy looked unconvinced but was happy to play along if it spared them both the discomfort of any further discussion.

‘So, what do you think?' she said brightly, flicking her fingers through her cropped hair and throwing in a theatrical little pout for effect.

‘I think your mother's going to need a very stiff drink.'

‘That wasn't the question.'

‘I think,' Tom intoned with deliberation, ‘that you are more beautiful than ever.'

Lucy smiled. ‘Spoken like a true godfather.'

Tom's car was parked out front in the shade of a tall palm. The porter set about loading the bags into the boot.

‘A new car,' Lucy observed.

‘Not new, just different.'

‘It's a lot smaller than the last.'

‘Ah, but this one doesn't break down.'

‘Where's the fun in that?'

She was referring to the previous summer and the day-trip with her family which had turned into a two-day-trip when the big Citroën had resolutely refused to start, stranding them as the sun was going down at a remote beach on the headland beyond Gigaro. There had been just enough food left in the picnic hamper to cobble together a simple supper and they had hunkered down for the night. Lucy's half-brothers, George and Harry, had slept in the car, the rest of them under the stars around a driftwood fire, cocooned in Persian rugs. Leonard had embraced the setback with his usual sunny good humour, and even Venetia, who relished her creature comforts, had entered into the spirit of the occasion, leading them in a repertoire of Gilbert and Sullivan numbers, which had set Hector howling in protest. Remarkably, Leonard and Venetia had gone a whole evening without arguing, although they had bickered like a couple of old fishwives during the long and dusty march back to Gigaro the following morning.

‘Don't worry,' said Tom, ‘I've already planned another night at the same beach. It's on the itinerary.'

‘Ahhh, the famous Thomas Nash itinerary.'

‘Would you have it any other way?'

‘Of course not,' said Lucy, hugging him again. ‘I need someone to take command of my miserable existence.'

‘Oh dear, are the hardships of student life taking their toll on poor little Lucy?'

She pinched his arm and recoiled. ‘Well
obviously
you're too old to remember, but Oxford's not all honey and roses.'

‘Okay, what's his name?' asked Tom wearily.

Lucy looked convincingly aghast for all of a second before her face fell. ‘Hugo Atkinson . . . although I now have a whole bunch of other names for him.'

‘Didn't he like your hair?'

‘This wasn't done for him!' she protested, a touch too vehemently.

Tom was suddenly aware of the porter regarding their little theatre with curiosity. He paid the man off handsomely and opened the passenger door for Lucy.

‘You can tell me all about the bounder over lunch, but I think I might have found just the thing to help you get over him.'

‘Oh God, please, not another Italian lawyer.'

‘Francesco, I admit, proved to be something of a disappointment.'

They both laughed at the memory of the disastrous dinner last summer. Two cocktails on the terrace at Les Roches had revealed Francesco to be a pompous and pugnacious bigot, and even before their
entrées
had arrived he'd been making eyes at one of the waiters.

In the ordinary course of events Tom would have driven directly from the station to the old port, where a stroll along the bustling waterfront would have been followed by lunch at the Brasserie Cronstadt. That was his customary routine when guests arrived on the late-morning sleeper from Paris. But he had others plans for Lucy, and they involved driving straight to Le Lavandou, skirting the hilltop town of Hyères before dropping down through the pine forests towards the coast.

They chatted lightly about the string of parties which had kept Lucy back in London, sparing her the long drive south through France with Leonard and her mother.

‘I can't say I missed it. All those detours to cathedrals that Leonard insists on making, the lectures on the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture . . .'

‘Is that the real reason George and Harry can't make it this year?'

‘No, Grandfather really is taking them to Portsmouth for Navy Week.'

‘And you weren't tempted?'

‘I'd rather gnaw through my arm.'

Tom laughed. ‘Well, I'm sorry they won't be here.'

‘I'm not. They've become insufferable lately.'

‘You mean big sister can't boss them around any more?'

‘Exactly! The wilful little brutes.'

Le Lavandou, with its palm-fringed promenade and its port backed by a huddle of old buildings, still felt like a frontier town to Tom. Although he visited it often, it lay at the western limits of his ordinary beat and he rarely ventured beyond it. Whenever he did so, returning there was like returning home, even if home still lay a good few miles to the east along the twisting shoreline of the Côte des Maures.

The table was waiting for them under the awning at the Café du Centre, and Pascal appeared within moments of their arrival bearing a bottle of white Burgundy on ice. Nothing had been left to chance. The table, the wine, even the fish they would eat, all had been chosen in advance by Tom when he'd passed through earlier that morning. He wanted the build-up to the big surprise to be perfect.

Pascal was one of the few people in on the secret and he was obviously determined to play his part to perfection. Like a child sworn to silence, though, the burden proved almost too much to bear.

As soon as he had disappeared back inside, Lucy lit a cigarette and enquired, ‘What's wrong with Pascal? He keeps looking at you in a funny way.'

‘Really?'

‘All weird and wide-eyed.'

‘Maybe it's lack of sleep. Their new baby's only a few weeks old.'

This seemed to satisfy her; besides, they had better things to discuss. It was almost six months since they'd last seen each other – during one of Tom's rare visits to England – and on that occasion there'd been little opportunity to talk openly. In fact, there'd been little opportunity to talk at all, because Lucy's great friend, Stella, had muscled in on their lunch at the Randolph Hotel. Like Lucy, Stella was a second-year Modern History undergraduate at St Hugh's College. Unlike Lucy, she seemed to think this entitled her to hold forth at length on any subject that happened to pop into her head. And there was certainly no shortage of those: everything from the worrying rise of Fascism to the latest fashions in women's shoes. In her defence, Stella was well informed and extremely amusing with it, but Tom could still recall the delightful silence of the long drive back to London from Oxford.

‘How's the irrepressible Stella bearing up?'

‘Oh, dear,' sighed Lucy. ‘Poor Stella . . .'

‘What? She's developed lockjaw?'

‘Worse. She's gone totally potty on an Irish labourer.'

‘You're joking!'

Apparently not. St Hugh's was in the process of putting up a new library, and the college had been crawling with brawny workmen for much of the year, one of whom had caught Stella's eye.

‘Nothing's happened,' Lucy explained. ‘I mean, I'm not sure he even knows she exists, but she spent most of last term moping around her rooms like a sick cat. It's all very Lady Chatterley and Mellors.'

‘What would you know about Lady Chatterley and Mellors? That's a banned book.'

‘Which is precisely the reason there are so many copies doing the rounds at university.'

‘As the man who took an oath before God to lead you towards a life of exemplary purpose, I'm disappointed.'

‘As the man who had Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
lying around his house last summer, don't be.'

‘Ah, it's not banned in France.'

‘Well, it should be.'

‘Oh God, you didn't read it, did you?'

‘Of course I did, the day you all went off to St Tropez.'

‘Ah yes . . .' said Tom, remembering now, ‘the day you were struck down with a bad headache.'

‘A little trick I learnt from Mother.' Lucy tapped the ash from her cigarette on to the cobbles at their feet. ‘How is she, by the way?'

‘Eager to see you.'

‘You really must learn to lie more convincingly.'

‘Well, I now know who to turn to for lessons, don't I?'

They had been sparring partners for as long as he could remember, ever since Lucy was a small child. With the passage of time, the tickling and romping and mock fights of those early years had been replaced by a battle of wits and a war of words. Tom had always encouraged the playful cut-and-thrust of their relationship, if only because there had never been much of that sort of thing at home for Lucy. Venetia, for all her ‘modern ways', was a mother cast in a traditional mould, somewhat cold and remote. As for Leonard, when not submerged in his work at the Foreign Office he leaned far more naturally towards his two sons than to the dead man's daughter whom Venetia had brought with her into the marriage.

Tom no longer feared for Lucy's emotional well-being. She had blossomed into something quite extraordinary: a beautiful, intelligent and amusing young woman who seemed genuinely oblivious of her manifest charms. And if he still sought out her company whenever he could, it was as much for his own benefit as hers, for what she somehow managed to bring out in him. As the conversation continued to coil effortlessly around them over lunch, she was, it occurred to him, one of the few true friends he had in the world.

When the coffee arrived they carried their cups with them to a wooden bench just across the cobbles from their table. Here, in the drowsy shade of the plane trees, they sat and watched in reverential silence as four old men, tanned to the colour of teak, played boules.

‘Let's go for a wander,' suggested Tom, the moment the match was over.

He led her across the road to the port. On one side of the central quay were moored colourful wooden fishing yawls, one of which had landed their lunch much earlier that day, while the rest of the world was still sleeping. Being a fanatical sailor, Lucy was far more interested in the array of yachts and dinghies bobbing on the gentle swell across the way. They came in all shapes and sizes – there was even an ostentatious gentle-man's cabin launch amongst them – but her eye was drawn to one sailboat in particular.

‘Oh my goodness, look at that!'

‘What?'

‘That racing sloop.'

‘Yes, pleasing on the eye.'

‘I bet she flies.'

‘I'm not so sure,' said Tom. ‘She looks like she's sitting a little too low in the water.'

‘That's to fool idiots like you. I'm telling you, she flies.'

‘Well, let's find out, shall we?'

He leapt from the quayside on to the varnished fore-deck, turning in time to see Lucy's look of incredulity give way to realization.

‘Don't tell me, the royalties on your last book came through.'

Tom was on the point of revealing all – this was exactly as he had imagined it happening – but he held himself in check. ‘Something like that.'

Lucy kicked off her shoes and joined him on the foredeck, barely able to contain her excitement. ‘She's not French. Where's she from? Where did you find her? What's she called?'

‘No . . . Sweden . . . Marseilles . . .
Albatross
.'

‘
Albatross
– I told you she flies! What is she, thirty feet?'