Quiller Meridian Read online

  ‘He’s on his way,’ the boy called from the desk, and I went outside and told Nikki we’d decided to stay here for the night and wouldn’t need him anymore. He made a token gesture of getting me what change he had, but I sent him away.

  Tanya had got up from the settee when I went in again, and was standing with her back to the boy at the desk. ‘I want to phone my brother,’ she said in an undertone.

  I took her across to the far corner of the foyer. ‘For his sake you’ve got to remember that for the moment you’re a danger to him. How long had you planned to stay in Novosibirsk?’

  ‘Only for a few days. I have to get back to my job.’

  The lights of a vehicle swung across the windows. ‘When had you planned to see your brother next?’

  ‘He just said “when the smoke had cleared.”’

  She spoke as if she were drugged, or disinterested. Sooner or later she was going to break: there was too much going on inside her and she was keeping it under too much control. The vehicle stopped outside the hotel: I could hear the tyre — chains grinding under locked wheels as it slid to a halt.

  ‘There’s your taxi,’ the boy called from the desk. ‘You were lucky to get it.’

  I gave Tanya my arm as we went down the steps, the ice crackling under our boots. She held my arm lightly, without trust, still afraid of me, of what I could do to her, do to her brother, because I was a witness to what had happened tonight.

  ‘You are safer with me,’ I told her carefully,’ than with anyone else in the city.’ It wasn’t saying much, God alone knew, but it was still true, for what it was worth.

  She didn’t answer, glanced at me as we got into the taxi, that was all, didn’t believe me.

  It was a diesel, this one, shaking and rattling across the ruts and the patches of ice, the driver working hard to keep the thing more or less straight. I’d given him the name of a hotel I’d seen on the way here, the Great Iberian, a red — brick hulk with no lights in the windows, only the sign hanging above the doors with its capital S missing, almost certainly closed at this hour, possibly derelict, it didn’t make any difference, there was nowhere we could stay tonight until I could raise Ferris, nowhere in this whole bloody city. Taking these cabs was bad enough: they’d be canvassing every driver all through the night, giving them my name and the description they’d have got from Chief Investigator Gromov, also advising that I might be with a woman companion, one Tanya Rusakova. I didn’t think our good friend Nikki would hold his peace because I’d been generous to him; it had been worth trying, that was all.

  ‘It’s closed for the night,’ our driver said, ‘I suppose you know that?’

  The big wrought — iron S was hanging from a railing; I suppose someone had picked it up and put it there, wonder it hadn’t brained them. I looked at the meter and paid him.’ I know the concierge,’ I said. ‘He’s my brother — in — law.’

  Chips of ice flew against our legs as he gunned the engine, spinning the wheels until they found traction; the night reeked of diesel gas. I got Tanya to hold on to me for a while as we started walking, partly to persuade her that I was all right to touch, to trust; but she let go as we turned a corner and the wind came against us, and walked with her gloves against her face. The sky was black, the starfields strewn across it, the three — quarter moon casting stark shadows across the snow. The air was freezing.

  She didn’t ask me where we were going. She didn’t speak.

  There were snow — ploughs still working, their din filling the night between the buildings, the drifts breaking into waves as the huge blades bit into them. We passed three abandoned cars and a truck, one of them skewed against a wall with its windows shattered and a wing torn away. Sometimes a taxi went by, but there was no other traffic until a militia patrol swung out of an intersection in the distance and I pulled Tanya into a doorway before its lights reached us. It was there, after the patrol had gone past us without slowing, that she finally broke, and I stood holding her as the sobbing began, her body shaking with it, her tears streaming, jewelling the fur collar of her coat in the moonlight, all the fear and the misery and the loneliness coming out of her over the minutes until at last the force of her anguish broke through the protective shell of my reserves and reached the heart.

  Chapter 10

  PHANTOMS

  ‘Our father was shot.’

  A siren had started up in the distance.

  ‘Keep that door shut!’ one of the women shouted from behind the admissions desk, and a thin boy in a tattered white coat went hurrying past the line of people and there was a slam that echoed around the dog — kennel — green walls, and another flake of paint floated to the floor, spinning like a leaf in the glare of the big tungsten lamps.

  A young peasant woman came through the doors, holding a baby wrapped in a red shawl, only its face visible.

  It was hot in here, airless. We’d been freezing out there in the streets only minutes ago; now we were baking. Tanya had taken off her sheepskin coat but still couldn’t sit up straight on the bare wooden bench; she’d walked with her arms crossed in front of her on our way here, gathered into herself, and I’d thought it was against the cold, but now I realized it was to protect herself against the phantoms of the past that still came after her.

  ‘He was taken to an underground room,’ she said, ‘and executed without trial.’

  Her father.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For his ideals.’

  I listened to the siren. People were still coming in, and the thin boy — an orderly — was standing by the big entrance door, slamming it shut after them. A man went reeling to the end of the queue, blood caked at the side of his head, the neck of a bottle sticking out of his pocket. The woman with the baby kept her distance from him; the baby’s face was pinched, colourless, a wax doll’s face; its mother’s was haunted, her hollowed eyes looking from the child to the women at the admissions desk as she thought about going straight past all the other people because this was urgent, her baby was ill.

  ‘When was this?’ I asked Tanya.

  ‘Four years ago.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘You needn’t think,’ she said with a look at me,’ that everything like that stopped when Gorbachev took over. Even now there are secret executions. The worst of the Stalinists and hardliners have been sacked from the KGB, but they’ve gone underground, and there are still scores to settle.’ she made an effort to sit up straight, pulling the hem of her white polo — neck sweater down, leaning her head against the wall. ‘It’s always like that, when a new regime takes over.’

  The siren was loud now, and lights coloured the windows.

  ‘You’re talking about the Podpolia?’

  She looked at me again. ‘Yes.’

  I’d seen intelligence reports going through the fax machines in London for a year now, since the days of the coup. The Podpolia — the new underground — was thought to have thousands of members, possibly tens of thousands, a lot of them still in office, going through the motions of embracing democracy and being reinstated. ‘Who the hell knows how many there are?’ I’d heard Croder saying as he watched the signals coming in.’ How can you count the heads in the cellars on foreign soil?’

  ‘Was General Velichko in the Podpolia?’ I asked Tanya.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that isn’t why your — why he was killed tonight.’

  ‘No. It was because he’d ordered our father shot. They were his orders.’ she straightened her right leg, spread her hands across her thighs, looking down at them, and a shudder went through her. ‘I thought it was going to — to liberate me, seeing him die, helping to make it happen. I thought the act of revenge would give me relief — I wanted to see it happen: my brother told me that all he wanted me to do was identify that man, make sure there wouldn’t be any mistake, and then run away. But I wanted to stay there, and when the shots began I felt — I felt just a flash of the most bitter satisfaction, but then when I went on watchin
g —’ she broke off and squeezed her eyes shut and her body began shaking again.

  ‘It was your father you saw.’

  Her head came lower and she clawed suddenly at her thighs. ‘Yes — yes — it was my father I saw…’

  A door banged open somewhere and the thin young orderly went scurrying past the line of people and into the corridor; the engine of the ambulance throbbed for a minute and then stopped, and I saw two men go past the doorway with a stretcher, a third holding a drip feed above it. I didn’t know whether the hospital was normally as busy as this at two o’clock in the morning or whether the storm had brought accidents into the streets; it was too far north to take in people from the wreck of the Rossiya. I’d seen the lighted windsock of the helipad on the roof of this building when we’d passed the Hotel Siberian, and noted it; a hospital was about the only place that could give us shelter.

  ‘What is your brother’s name?’ I asked Tanya. She didn’t hear, was watching the man against the wall with the bullets going into him, her father, understanding for the first time that he was not only dead but had died, and like that.

  The woman with the baby had made up her mind and gone to the admissions desk, and a couple of youths in black leather coats were chivvying her, one with an arm in a sling; then some women began going for the youths in support of the mother, and I caught a glimpse of the waxen face of the child in the midst of the scuffle, its closed eyelids calm, as if it hadn’t the strength to squeeze them tight against the light and the voices.

  “Then my mother died,’ I heard Tanya saying. I didn’t think it mattered to her if I were listening or not; she needed to say these things, hear them again for herself.’ she drank cleaning fluid, a year ago, a year ago this month, on the fourteenth. They couldn’t save her; she didn’t want them to.’

  ‘It had been a long marriage,’ I said.

  She turned her head, I think surprised to hear that I was listening.’ they’d been together thirty — nine years when my father was killed.’

  ‘And she missed him too much.’

  ‘We all missed him too much,’ Tanya said, ‘or my brother couldn’t have done what he did tonight. And nor could I. He —’

  ‘What is your brother’s name?’ I asked her again.

  She hesitated. ‘Vadim.’

  ‘You can trust me with everything,’ I said. ‘For your own sake, and for his, you have to understand that.’

  She stared at me for a moment and then looked down.’ I want you to know that he is not the kind of man who — who kills other men without thinking about it. When —’

  ‘As a soldier, he hasn’t seen action?’

  She didn’t look at me but her mouth tightened: was there nothing I didn’t know? ‘He was in Afghanistan, yes. But he has never taken a life in peacetime. It was a very — emotional thing for us, very impulsive.’ she swung her head to look at me. ‘He heard that that man was coming here to Novosibirsk, where Vadim is stationed, and he wrote to me, asking if I wanted to help him, and I said yes, of course I said yes. It was only afterwards, tonight, when I realized what we had done. I —’

  ‘You destroyed a brute,’ I said, ‘and not only for yourselves. Your father wasn’t the only one to suffer for his ideals, he couldn’t have been, you know that. You did a great job, and so did Vadim. You’re to be honoured.’

  She watched me for a moment, and for the first time, I thought, there was no dislike, no distrust in the lambent green eyes. ‘I can’t think of it like that,’ she said.

  ‘I know, but you’ve got to try.’

  I got up and went across to the payphone, telling her not to move. There’d been a man there for the past ten minutes trying to get through to someone, wanting to tell them where he was.

  ‘There are lines down,’ he told me as he came away from the phone, ‘lines down everywhere.’

  But I put two kopeks into the slot and dialled for the Hotel Karasevo for the third time since we’d got here, and stood waiting, looking across at the young woman in the fur hat and the white polo — sweater, one leg straight and the other bent a little, her head down as she went over it all again, giving herself no peace, and I knew I’d have to let her see her brother Vadim as soon as it was possible, as soon as it was safe, because only he could do anything for her, help her battle the phantoms.

  I checked the environment again: main doors, an archway behind the admissions desk — forget that one — the archway into the passage where I’d seen the stretcher case go by, the opening of the corridor six feet from the bench where Tanya was sitting now. They were the only exits; the huge windows were high in the wall with their catches rusted solid.

  There was nothing but a faint crackling on the line and I pushed the coin return and went back to the bench. We had, with luck, until daylight before I would need to do something dramatic to get us both off the streets without Ferris’s help if I still couldn’t raise him; the three matrons at the admissions desk had got their hands full and no one was likely to come across here and ask any questions. There were some other people along the walls, two or three of them lying on the benches trying to sleep until they could get some kind of attention, one of them a drunk spreadeagled on the worn linoleum with a bottle of blackish wine locked in the crook of his arm.

  We were safe here but I didn’t want to wait for daylight, to do anything dramatic, not with Tanya Rusakova in my care. Drama is the last resort when you’ re in the labyrinths, the desperate sauve qui peut that nine times out often will leave you dead on the field. And above all, I’ve told the bright — eyed and eager novitiates at Norfolk, above all avoid drama, it’s a one — way street and as often as not a dead end. Derring — do won’t get you anywhere, you’ve got to think your way out.

  Easily said, yes, but what else can you tell them? When they’re out there at last with the hags of hell at their heels they’ll do whatever they have to, we all know that.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked Tanya.

  ‘No.’

  Her stomach was empty — the last time she’d eaten must have been on the Rossiya — but she couldn’t even think about food, and that was understandable.

  ‘You could sleep,’ I said, ‘if you wanted to.’ she’d have our coats for a mattress on the bench. ‘I’ll be here.’

  ‘No.’

  That too was understandable; the phantoms of the delta waves would be worse than the ones who were haunting her now, and she’d have no control over them.

  ‘You told me I had to go with you,’ she said in a moment, ‘for my brother’s sake. I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘It means that if you get arrested by the militia you’ll give him away.’

  Her eyes flayed me. ‘I would never do that.’

  ‘Have you ever been questioned by the militia?’

  She hesitated. ‘No.’

  But she knew what I was talking about. ‘By the KGB, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did they do to you?’

  She took a breath, looking down.’ they beat me up.’

  ‘Because of your father?’

  ‘Yes. I protested in public, after they’d shot him.’

  ‘Then you know what I mean, Tanya. The militia are no different, even now. They’ll get everything out of you, once they start, and that is why you have to stay with me.’

  She didn’t answer, still didn’t believe she would give her brother away, even though she was sitting here with one leg straight and the other crooked and had scars on her body, must have, after what they’d done to her.

  The big entrance door came open at intervals and I watched the people coming in, some of them injured and with blood visible on them, most of them sickly, shielding their eyes against the glare of the lights in here. Two doctors, one of them a woman, had come through the archway from the emergency unit where the ambulance had driven up, and were checking the people in the long straggling queue. At three o’clock I tried the phone again and drew blank, and soon after that I saw the wo
man doctor examining the white — faced infant at last and heard her say to the nurses behind the admissions desk, ‘But how long has she been here? This baby is dead.’

  The mother screamed once, twice, and then began moaning as they hurried her through the archway and a murmur of shock broke out among the people in the queue.

  I began trying the phone at thirty — minute intervals but at half — past four there was still nothing on the line to the Hotel Karasevo but a faint crackling and I thought Jesus I’d better start trying to raise London, see if the long — distance lines were down too.

  Soon after five in the morning I pushed the two kopeks into the slot again and drew blank and went through the archway to look for a lavatory and when I came back the entrance doors were both wide open and the place was full of militiamen and Tanya was gone.

  Chapter 11

  SLEEP

  ‘We’re waiting for Dr. Kalugin,’ I said.

  I’d passed a door with his name on it.

  ‘He’ll be another hour,’ the nurse said, ‘at least another hour, with all these accidents coming in.’ Her hair had come loose from her white cap and her eyes were red — rimmed from fatigue.

  ‘Nevermind,’ I said, ‘we’ll wait.’

  ‘Olga!’ a voice called, and she left us, saying we could go into the examination room if we liked.

  There was no one in there. I left the door open, needing to hear distant voices, catch what they were saying, learn who they were and if they were coming closer, get out of here if there were time.

  ‘What were they doing in there?’ I asked Tanya. The militia.

  She leaned her haunches against the examination table, folding her arms, hugging herself, locked in with other thoughts. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I didn’t stay long enough to hear; but I think there’d been a bus accident and they’d followed the injured in there to take statements.’