The Ocean of Time (34 page)

‘You a man’s man, eh?’ she says, as she begins to dress. ‘You like boys, yes?’

‘I have a wife.’

She laughs. ‘You think I’d make a living if only single men came to see me? Why, I’d starve. Married men, they are the worst sinners. Everything they can’t do at home, they want to do here, in my bed.’

‘And your friend, from the inn? Your lover? What does
he
like?’

Mention of him sobers her. She looks away, her face colouring, as if I’ve just slapped her.

‘Is none of your business.’

‘Is very much my business. He’s one of
my
men.’

She looks up at me, surprised, but then recovers. ‘You’re lying. He is his own man. He tell me that.’

‘I could have him killed. Like that.’ And I snap my fingers.

She stares at me a moment, seeing the hardness in my face, then gives a nod.

‘So who are you?’ she asks quietly, coming across to me, her breasts still uncovered.

‘Get dressed and then we’ll talk.’

‘So how did you meet him?’

‘Aaron? I met him back in Bobovichy, six months back.’

She sits cross-legged on the bed, looking up at me as I pace slowly back and forth. Now that I’ve had time to study her, I’d say she was Greek, or Turkish, maybe. Her dark brown eyes and full lips have something of the Romani about them. It’s not a face to launch a thousand ships. And yet I remember the tenderness with which our agent touched her. The love.

‘He was a client, then?’

‘At first. But he was kind to me. Bought me meals. Treated me special.’

I nod, as if I understand. And maybe I do. It can get lonely in the ages, and Aaron – Lothar Rieber, in reality – is but a man.

‘And his partner? Was he a client, too?’

‘His partner?’ She feigns ignorance.

‘Come on, you know who I mean.’

‘Another of your men, eh?’

But I don’t answer that, merely stare back at her, awaiting her response, and finally it comes – a shrug of the shoulders.

‘He’s bad news, that one. The things he likes to do …’ She raises her eyebrows, then, with a sigh. ‘That was what it was about … earlier.’

‘He sleeps with you?’

‘If you can call it that.’

‘And Aaron doesn’t like that?’

She hesitates, then nods.

‘He asked you not to, right?’

At that she grows indignant and her hands fly up expressively. ‘He has no right, telling me who I should go with! How am I to live?’

‘Have you no other skills?’

She laughs. ‘None to earn me what I can earn doing this. Besides, I like what I do.’

‘And Aaron? He likes it?’

Her face changes. ‘He hates it.’

‘Then marry him.’

She stares at me, astonished, and then she dissolves in laughter. ‘
Marry
him! What, and starve like some peasant’s ill-fed dog? Don’t be a fool! Besides, he’s said himself more than once that he can’t promise me a thing.’

‘He said that?’

‘Clear as day. Says he’s waiting for instructions. From
you
, no doubt!’

‘It’s true.’

Her face clouds again. When she speaks next, the fire has gone out of her. ‘Then I was right to say no.’

I walk over to the window and pull back the rough hemp curtain an inch or two, looking down at the street outside. It’s filled with Cossacks and their women, making the most of these last few nights of peace. Behind me, I hear her sigh. I turn back, to find her watching me.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me?’ she asks, arching her body slightly, seductively.

I walk across. ‘My wife, Katerina, she is young and beautiful. She makes love like an angel.’

‘An angel, eh?’ And it’s said wistfully. ‘Such a shame. You’re a handsome man.’

‘Otto,’ I say. ‘My name is Otto.’

She reaches out and lays her hand flat against my groin. I do nothing, and after a moment she removes it – the same hand that held her lover’s hand so gently but an hour past.

A whore, yet not a bad woman.

‘The other, the bad one, what is it he asks you to do?’

‘Don’t ask,’ she says, as if I should imagine the very worst. ‘Just don’t ask.’

A simple triangle, then, after all. The woman a whore, one of the men a sadist, the other a tender lover. All in all, a tragedy waiting to happen.

Simple, yes, only it doesn’t feel right.

I track down Rieber’s partner, a man named Edmund Koeler. I have met Koeler several times before now, but never really made a connection. Now I pull rank, ordering him to tell me everything.

We are in his room, talking as he gets ready for the evening ahead. A single candle burns in a stand on the corner table. In its flickering light I watch him button up his shirt.

‘I should have reported him,’ Koeler says angrily. ‘He knows the rules.’

‘Maybe. But couldn’t you just use another woman?’

He turns on me. ‘Why should I? She’s the best in Baturin. The best in the whole of southern Russia, if you must know. The things she does.’

I sigh. ‘Okay. Listen to me. I’m ordering you to back off.’

‘
Ordering
me?’

‘I have Hecht’s warrant to do whatever’s needed. He sent me in to sort this mess out.’ I pause, then say, ‘You want to know how it ends?’

‘Tell me.’

‘You kill each other.’

‘We …’ He falls silent, shocked by that. ‘Shit! How do we …?’

‘A duel. You both are hit, and die.’

‘Urd protect us!’ He looks down a moment, then. ‘You’ve seen this?’

‘Freisler did.’

He lets out a long breath. ‘And Lothar, does he know?’

‘No. And I’d rather he didn’t.’

Koeler fastens the last button then turns to me. ‘Okay. I’ll back off. But have a word. He’s getting too involved with the woman. And what is she? A common tart, who’ll do a trick with anyone for the right fee. What kind of woman is that to fall in love with?’

I can see, both from his words and from his face, that he has lost all respect for his partner, and that too is dangerous.

‘What exactly are you doing here?’ I ask.

‘We’re pursuing someone. Lothar thinks he’s one of their agents, but it’s odd.’

‘Odd?’

‘I can’t make out what he’s up to, or why. The Russians … usually you can tell what they’re up to. But this one …’

‘You’re sure he’s one of theirs?’

‘We’ve seen him vanish, then reappear. And he’s not one of ours, so …’

‘Where is he now?’

Koeler smiles. ‘I’ll take you there. It’s where I’m heading myself. But be careful. These Cossacks can be touchy people. One wrong word …’

I’m not sure what he means, but I throw on my coat and go along with him, heading out into the night once more.

There’s a big open space – used as a marketplace during the day – between the river and Baturin’s main gate, and it’s there that they’ve gathered in their thousands, this fierce, bold tribe – if you can call this hotch-potch of unconnected peoples that – the men ruggedly handsome in their shaggy fur hats, their long, heavy-lined cloaks, their soft leather boots and cross-belt bandoliers, the women dark and defiant, in colourful long dresses and fur-lined cloaks. Huge braziers are burning brightly, throwing up sparks into the night. To one side are the tents of blacksmiths and armourers, and next to them a dozen and more merchants, selling their wares from carts. Vodka, of course, is in plentiful supply. Above all, there is the sound of balalaikas and from time to time a glimpse of shirt-sleeved men dancing the
gopak
, kicking out their legs to the whirling rhythm of the music. Everyone, it seems, is happy. You would not think this was a town under threat.

Koeler seems to know where he’s going and I follow him through the press of bodies until we come to the river. The boats of the Zaporozhian Cossacks are tied up here, and they’ve formed a small town of their own on the bank, their tents crowded together along the shore. But they’re not what we’ve come to see.

‘Look!’ Koeler says, gesturing towards the far corner of the square, where, visible now through the crowd, is a raised platform, upon which stands a massive fellow, a good seven feet tall if he’s an inch, his bared chest and arms rippling with muscles. On a pole at each corner of the platform is a blazing torch, the warm light glistening off the big man’s shaven skull. He’s barefoot, wearing only baggy Cossack trousers, but his face has the fierceness of a wild bird.

‘Is that him?’ I ask Koeler quietly.

‘Urd no. But our friend likes to come and watch him. Wait a while. He’ll be here. You never know, you might recognise him.’

And so I wait, watching as the big man takes on all-comers, one after another, some of them fighting to amuse their friends, others to try to win the purse, others simply from pride or an excess of vodka. But all of them suffer the same fate: lifted by the seat of their pants and thrown down into the dust beside the platform to the roared approval of the crowd.

I’ve almost forgotten why we’re there, when Koeler nudges me. ‘There,’ he whispers. ‘To your left, just behind the fat one in the red cloak.’

I look.

‘Well?’ Koeler asks. ‘Anyone you know?’

‘No.’

But that isn’t entirely true. I
have
seen our friend before, only I don’t know where or when. All I know is that – in profile, anyway – he looks familiar. Very familiar.

‘Shame,’ Koeler says quietly. ‘Still, there are other ways to find out who he is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean to follow him this time. Find out where he goes, who he sees. I thought you might help me, seeing as you want to sort this out.’

But our friend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. For the next hour and more he watches the platform, amused, even shouting out at times, as the big man continues to defeat every challenger.

I’m growing a little tired of the sport, when suddenly our friend makes off, as if at some signal, and, nudging me again, Koeler takes off after him, keeping back a little way. I follow, moving out left, but keeping the fellow in sight.

We move away, out of the crowd, into a long, dark alley that runs parallel to the river. I’ve almost caught Koeler up when, looking past him, I realise that our quarry has vanished.

Koeler has stopped, waiting for me. ‘There,’ he says in a whisper. ‘That building to the right. That’s where he went. You climb up, I’ll go round the back.’

It’s a small, two-storey building with a surrounding wall. The shutters are closed, but there’s a chink of light from one of the rooms at the top

‘Well?’ Koeler asks.

I could argue, but I don’t. The adrenalin is pumping and I want to find out what our friend is up to as much as Koeler does. If he
is
a Russian and he
is
meddling …

And then I see him vividly in my mind, running towards me, dagger drawn, meaning to stab me.

Only that was a dream, because there never
was
a Lishka, and even if there was, Katerina and Lishka and I were never attacked.

So why do you remember it so clearly if it never happened? And why is he – the assailant from the dream – here now?

As Koeler slips away round the back of the building, I climb up on to the top of the surrounding wall, then haul myself up on to the flat roof, dropping down on to the terrace. Voices drift up from the room below. And I almost let it wash over me, only I realise suddenly that they’re speaking German –
Mechanist
German.

I kneel, then put my ear to the ground, listening.

Two voices, one of them – again – familiar, only I can’t place it. And then a third, much deeper, with no trace of Mechanist jargon in it, speaking a stilted, awkward form of German, as if it isn’t their natural tongue. What they’re saying makes little sense: something about a meeting, but so unspecific as to be useless as information.

I straighten up and look about me. There’s a raised hatch on the far side of the roof, leading down, I hope, into the room behind where our friends are. Quickly, quietly I make my way across, then lean out over the back of the roof. Koeler’s down there, by the back door. He looks up at me and gives the coded signal to go in, which I return, only I’m hoping he’s got something better than the knife I’m carrying. But I’m going in anyway, even if I have to jump straight out, because I want to know now who’s down there and what they’re up to, because none of this feels right.

This isn’t the way the Russians usually operate. And besides …
why are they speaking German?

Is this something Hecht’s not told me about …

As I pull the hatch open and slip into the darkness, I feel the faintest glimmer of anger at Hecht for not confiding in me more. For not
trusting
me. I thought I was his
Eizelkind
. That it was I who was being groomed to replace him. Only now I’m being shut out. Denied information. Made to go in blind, as now.

I cross the room in darkness, the door. just ahead of me, faintly rimmed with light. I stand before it, listening, but there’s only silence, and when I throw the door wide open, I find an empty room.

I step inside. There’s the stub of a cigar still smouldering in a shell-like metallic ashtray on the low table to my left. There are three chairs, and on the other side of the room, a sturdy wooden bureau on which a book lies open.

I am about to step across and see what it is, when the air between me and the bureau shimmers faintly and a figure materialises.

The figure has its back to me so that I cannot see its face, but I know who it is without needing him to turn. It’s Reichenau. That awful, double-skull of his gives it away. Shocked by his sudden appearance, I hesitate a moment too long, and he is gone again, the faintest scent of ozone in the air.

I walk across and look down at the bureau. The book is gone. I’ll never know now what it was or what significance it had. That is, unless I jump back into the room when all of them are there.

The idea tempts me, but just then Koeler comes into the room, his gun drawn.

‘Gone?’ he asks.

‘Gone. Three of them. German-speakers.’ But I don’t say anything about Reichenau. That nugget I’m keeping for Hecht. Because this is my proof, if I needed it, that Reichenau’s involved somehow.