Quiller Meridian Page 8

  ‘There are two witnesses,’ he said slowly, ‘who have given evidence concerning you, Viktor Shokin, that I find significant. They —’ then he broke off as his assistant came back, bringing two people with him: the generals’ bodyguard who’d come out of the lavatory when I’d been talking to Zymyanin, and Galina Ludmila Makovetskaya, the red — headed provodnik. ‘This man,’ the chief investigator said, ‘claims that when he came out of the lavatory in Car No. 7 yesterday he saw you talking to the deceased, as you have admitted. But he says that your voices were raised, and that you seemed to be threatening him. What have you to say to that?’

  I looked up into the face of the witness, saw no expression, a nondescript face, the eyes giving nothing away, as I would have expected of a former Red Army general’s bodyguard, possibly a former member of the GRU, trained to keep his thoughts out of his eyes.

  ‘He’s lying,’ I told Gromov.

  The large head tilted a degree. ‘He also claims that shortly before midnight last night he heard what he thought was a shot coming from somewhere in Car No. 9, and that he saw you in the corridor there, hurrying away from the lavatory. What have you to say?’

  I looked down at Gromov. ‘He’s lying. You should check his story, Chief Investigator. You should check it very carefully.’

  Gromov dropped the red ballpoint onto his notepad and swung his heavy head up to look at Galina.’ this provodnik has also stated that she saw you in Car No. 9 — which is not where your compartment is — immediately after she heard what sounded like a shot.’ He looked down at me. ‘What have you to say?’

  I felt a vibration on the air, created by the nerves I suppose, as I heard in my mind the bang of the trap shutting.

  ‘She’s lying,’ I told Gromov. ‘they’re both lying.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps. But until I have satisfied myself of that, I am placing you under arrest, Viktor Sergei Shokin, on a charge of suspected homicide.’

  The officer beside me nudged my arm and I made a token of protest as would be expected of me and then let him put the handcuffs on and snap them shut.

  Chapter 7

  PRIDE

  ‘What was the town back there? Where the train stopped?’

  ‘If you talk,’ the officer said, ‘you may incriminate yourself.’ His name was Konarev: that was what Chief Investigator Gromov had called him. He was my guard, and he had the key to my handcuffs; it was on the bunch dangling from his polished black belt. His gun was in its holster; I couldn’t see whether it had a safety — catch. He was in his thirties, his leathery face still pocked with the ancient scars of adolescent acne; he’d sliced his chin this morning, or perhaps yesterday morning, with his razor. His eyes were hard, so hard that they had surely never softened even when he’d met his first love, or his last love, or his wife, whatever. If the question ever arose of his having to shoot, he would shoot to kill.

  There were two other officers in here; they were sitting on one of the benches going through sheafs of paper, the first statements made by the passengers, conceivably. Two security guards were in the corridor, both wearing bolstered guns. The train was moving at optimum cruising speed, or close, by the feel of things.

  It was 4:17 by my wristwatch, the Kanovia watch that Jane had bought for me, a Russian model. Everywhere else on the Rossiya the clocks would be showing seventeen minutes past noon, Moscow time. They would be showing Moscow time when the train rolled into Beijing.

  The time wasn’t critical but I noted it, because it could become critical later in the day, in the night. Everything, in this situation, could be considered critical in the extreme. If there were going to be a chance of regaining my liberty, it would probably be the result of my having noticed something, perhaps something very small. Officer Konarev had a slight cold, for instance, and his reaction time would be a few degrees slower if he had to move quickly.

  ‘Do you live in the town where we stopped,’ I asked him, ‘or in Novosibirsk?’

  ‘If you talk, you may incriminate yourself.’. He blew his nose again. I appreciated his official consideration, couldn’t fault it.

  We were in a compartment not far from the locomotive. The bunks had been ripped out and the bulkheads were partially repainted. I think there’d been a fire in here: there were areas of discoloured and bubbling paintwork, and the lingering smell of burning. There was no heating; either it was broken down or the cleaning staff had turned it off, wanting to cool down after their labours in the rest of the train, where the heating was tropical. This was a staff carriage, and the banging of buckets and the light cries of the women’s voices above the rumbling of the train were a constant background.

  I’d put on my padded jacket over the tracksuit. The gloves were in the pockets. There’d been a penknife in one of the tracksuit pockets but they’d taken it away, also the cheap plastic — handled knife that Jane had packed for me in the food bag. The rest of my baggage was in here with me: two officers — one of them Gromov’s thin and pale — eyed assistant — had searched it in front of me. A man in a blue coat and trilby hat had come in with a small attaché — case and opened it up and taken my fingerprints, giving me a small sealed alcohol swab to clean my fingers with afterwards.

  I had no alibi.

  The sky out there must have some light left in it to the west, in the track of the train; perhaps the sun had found a hole in the overcast on its way to the horizon; it was leaving a pale unnatural light across the snows that I could see to the north through the window, making them seem like frosted glass faintly lit from beneath. Above it the sky was just as unreal, not quite dark but with no light in it, an awesome shroud across the evening, thrown by the coming of night. It looked inhospitable out there, not a place where one would think of going, of setting out alone, not in the ordinary way; but then of course one must on occasion leave room for the extraordinary, mustn’t one, when the devil drives.

  No alibi at all.

  Slavsky had gazed wide — eyed at Chief Investigator Gromov, a dry nervous hand adjusting his glasses, and said no, he didn’t hear me leave our compartment after 10:30 last night when he’d gone to sleep, leave it or come back to it or leave it again, nothing, he’d heard nothing, he slept soundly, always, and was used to the noise of the train. It wouldn’t have mattered much what he’d said, because the general’s bodyguard and Galina Ludmila Makovetskaya had both sworn to having seen me near the scene of the homicide and having heard a shot.

  I had been outbid. She hadn’t had much time for the generals, Galina. They had power, once. Now they have no power. But they think they have. Their ways are devious. But they still possessed the power of money, and it had talked, it had said that she’d seen me there last night where the dead passenger was found.

  With the generals’ bodyguard there’d been no money involved. The underground faction, the Podpolia, had put Hornby out of the way in Bucharest and they had put Zymyanin out of the way on this train and they had driven me into a trap that I wouldn’t get out of. and whatever I said against them, whatever I knew about them couldn’t do them injury: it would be taken as an attempt to clear myself. They’d needed a scapegoat, someone for hanging, to draw attention away from themselves over the shooting of Zymyanin. and one of them had seen me talking to him in the corridor within hours of their killing him, and I had become a suitable candidate And Galina was dead wrong. The generals, the clandestine and omnipresent Podpolia, had power besides money, immense power in the land. This had been the thrust of Zymyanin’s mission, itself clandestine: to attack that power. I’m also here because there’s a cell in Moscow, a completely unacknowledged, unofficial cell whose purpose is to seek, find and expose the active members of the Podpolia wherever they may be.

  ‘Are you married?’ I asked Konarev, my guard. ‘Have you got children?’

  He told me I could incriminate myself.

  But they’ll usually start talking about their children, give them long enough. Of course he might not have any, or even a wife
, could well be devoted exclusively to his police work. I watched the other two for a moment, at work on their papers, and then the noise started, a distant but enormous whoomph like a heavy — calibre shell bursting, and then just the rumbling of the train for a second, two seconds, before the big steel couplings began banging and the carriages started shunting and the iron buckets in the cleaners’ quarters went wild and I saw Konarev do a half — turn, caught off his balance, and hit the wall with his hands going up to save himself as I pitched sideways and crashed into him and he got his gun out very fast and pushed me away while the other two policemen hit the long plate — glass window and bounced off it with their papers whirling upwards and then drifting like leaves as the red came, the huge red glare spreading across the snows through the windows of the corridor outside.

  The women were screaming, and one of their buckets came rolling past our compartment door as the whole train went on shunting and Konarev and the other two found their feet and I got off the floor with a certain amount of caution because of the gun — he was still holding it on me but with both hands now: I think he’d knocked his head when he’d crashed against the wall and was feeling a bit dizzy, didn’t want me to take advantage and try something fancy, but that was out of the question because the Rossiya was rolling like a ship in heavy seas and nothing looked certain: it had been doing a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour before the explosion had happened and there was a fire raging back there, half a dozen carriages away or perhaps closer than that: all I could see was the bright orange glare across the snowfields and its light flickering on the faces of the two security guards in the corridor as they picked themselves up and stared into the compartment with their mouths open.

  The floor shifted again under our feet and we landed against the forward bulkhead as the train went on decelerating in massive jerks — obviously the carriage back there had blown up and jumped the rails and pulled the adjacent ones with it, and the locomotive was under the brakes as it dragged the train behind it like an injured snake through the snows. One of the women went staggering past in the corridor with blood running from her face, perhaps in shock and moving instinctively away from the fire.

  “Don’t move!’ Konarev shouted above the noise and I noted this too: as well as having the beginnings of a cold he was more nervous man I’d thought him to be, didn’t want me to get too close while hell was breaking loose like this. I’d lurched into him, that was all, couldn’t help it, and there was nothing I could do in any case — bring the link between the handcuffs down across the gun, yes, but I’d only get shot in the leg when his trigger finger reacted. And he wasn’t the only armed man here, there were four others, and he didn’t seem to realize I hadn’t the slightest chance of getting away.

  The train was still shuddering, the carriages shunting as the speed came down more progressively now as small buildings began swinging past the windows, dachas, I think, and a pall of smoke started rolling across the snow with its shadow meeting it. The last time I’d looked at my watch it had shown 4:48 and the city of Novosibirsk would have been a hundred kilometres to the east; I would now put it at something like thirty, perhaps less, and that was why we were running through scattered buildings on the outskirts, though none of them had lights in the windows.

  A lot of noise as something smashed behind us, closer than the explosion; it sounded like the whole side of a carriage being ripped away, could have turned over, snapped the couplings. The speed was right down now: we were crawling, and smoke began blowing through the corridors. The two police officers went out there and one of them shouted Oh my God and they started running aft to help people and the security guards followed them as the shunting got a lot worse for half a minute and then we stopped and Konarev and I hit the bulkhead again and I kept my distance as best I could because he might pull off a shot by mistake: his finger was inside that bloody trigger guard.

  ‘Don’t move!’ he said again and I shook my head and stayed exactly where I was, my back to the bulkhead and pain moving in on the nerves now there was time for the organism to pay attention: the left shoulder had taken the worst of the impact when I’d hit the bulkhead the first time. There was an iron bracket sticking out of the wall where the bunk had been ripped away for replacement and I must have torn my thigh on it, because there was blood creeping down my leg, I could feel it, but it didn’t worry me because it wouldn’t stop me running if I had to, if I could, it’s the only thing we think about when we’re in a trap — if we can get out of it can we run?

  People were coming past the doorway now, more security guards and provodniks, some of them with blood on their hands or their faces, one with her uniform ripped off at the shoulder. The smoke was thicker along the corridor and a man went past with a handkerchief pressed to his mouth and Konarev looked at me and jerked his gun and said —’ Out!’

  It was very cold.

  We were standing, Konarev and I, a hundred yards from the train. He was behind me and had prodded me with his gun as a reminder that in spite of everything that was going on I was still a prisoner under guard.

  The security people and the provodniks and some of the cleaners were bringing the dead and the injured out of the train onto the snow, making a temporary first — aid station while people still inside were pulling sheets and blankets and pillows off the bunks and passing them down to the others. The carriage that had blown up — the twelfth back from the locomotive — was still on fire, and small figures in the distance, black against the snow, were forming a chain brigade with water buckets and waiting until they could get close enough to use them. Smoke still lay in a dark swirling shroud to the north of the train, and above the distant snows the sky hung black and enveloping, part of it rust — red from the glow of the burning carriage.

  A kind of silence had moved in now that the train was standing still, and voices carried through the freezing air, mostly those of the rescue crews. The train staff was shouting instructions and information as they herded the passengers across to the comfort station they were setting up — no one was allowed to go back into the train even to fetch their belongings, since it was possible there might be further explosions. A radio message had gone to the army barracks, hospital staffs and emergency services in Novosibirsk, and medical rescue helicopters were already known to be airborne. There would shortly be enough blankets available from the train to provide warmth for every passenger, and a soup kitchen was being set up.

  Something was on my mind.

  ‘Are you injured?’ Konarev asked me.

  ‘What?’ He was looking down at my fur — lined boot: the blood had reached there now. ‘No.’

  When I looked up again and across at the train I realized it was Galina, the large woman I’d been watching as she helped with the rescue work, her back braced to lift the smashed bulkhead that had come down across a passenger’s legs while someone pulled him clear; she would be good at that, Galina, the morals of a toad but with a streak of crude humanity in her that was brought out by crisis, but it didn’t excuse her, the bitch. I was standing here with these handcuffs on because of her odious greed — and I could have raised the bidding if only she’d asked me, given her double what she’d been paid by the generals, wouldn’t she like to know that?

  Something was on my mind and I knew what it was now. The burning carriage was the twelfth back from the locomotive, and that was the one where the generals and their bodyguards had been before Galina had moved them, at their request. I’m relocating them from Car No. 12 to Car No. 4. They say they ‘re too near one of the lavatories.

  Two provodniks were swinging one of the huge copper samovars down from the train, smoke curling from the furnace underneath.

  Others were bringing wooden trays of cups, following the path of the samovar across to the comfort centre, the sweat bright on their faces in the light of the fire.

  Children were crying, their voices thin and piping, shreds of sound in the night, their cries torn from them, from their pain.


  Would Zymyanin do this to children?

  Oh, yes. He’d been a man with a cause. When you set explosives you know you won’t be there when they go off; it gives you the same feeling of remoteness a bomber pilot has when he watches the patchwork streets of the enemy city come into the sights: he too is a man with a cause and the cause is his country and that is enough.

  But I didn’t think it had been Zymyanin. His business had been intelligence, not terrorism or political assassination. It had been someone else, and they wouldn’t have wanted to take the risk of getting killed if the whole train ran amok, and if they’d been on the train they would have known that the generals had moved out of Car No. 12.

  Someone screamed and went on screaming as part of the wreckage collapsed, and two or three people went over there from the rescue squads but there was too much to do and not enough hands.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said to Konarev, ‘can’t we make ourselves useful instead of just standing here? You can leave these things on me.’

  ‘No.’ It was the first time he’d said anything except to warn me that I could incriminate myself if I talked. ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you can keep your rucking gun on me while I’m working, what more do you want?’

  ‘No.’

  Bastard.

  He was nervous because I was on a capital charge and he’d be entirely responsible if I got away from him; Chief Investigator Gromov and his team were helping with the rescue work: I’d seen two of them carrying a body in a sheet over to the place where they’d set up a morgue — Zymyanin’s, possibly.

  The screaming went on and I turned my back, it was all I could do, and Konarev told me to stay where I was and I told him to fuck himself and I added that in front of the whole court I was going to let it be known that while people were trapped in that wreckage and dying for the want of help he’d been content just to stand here and do nothing, nothing, but he just went back to his broken record, I could incriminate myself, bastard.