Child Thief (11 page)

‘It
is
my fault, Papa. I should have told you I saw her, but I was afraid I'd get into trouble.'

‘You're not in any trouble.' Natalia held her tighter.

‘Please, Papa. Please find Dariya.'

‘Of course he will, won't you, Papa?' Natalia glared at me.

I sighed and nodded. ‘OK, angel, if it's what you want. I'll help them look.'

To my daughter I was still a hero. I was still a figure of strength and adult wisdom. She had not yet grown to understand that even fathers are fallible. That even fathers make mistakes, just as everyone else does. And even fathers cannot beat all the odds.

‘Thank you, Papa.'

I sat on a chair and pulled on my boots before taking my coat from the hook by the door. I stood for a moment and looked at my daughter. ‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘We'll find Dariya.'

‘Promise?'

‘Yes, my angel. I promise.'

9

Adding my own footsteps to the many stale ones which now littered my land, I went round the house and climbed over the fence, starting up the gentle slope towards the line of poplars and the dark smudges that lay within. In the field beneath my feet, winter wheat seedlings lay in the stubble of the last harvest, buried beneath the snow.

To the west, the sun was low on the horizon, spreading a muddled amber glow across the steppe. A beautiful sight for eyes that had never seen it, the sign of approaching darkness to those that had witnessed it countless times. It would drop within the hour, orange turning to red, like blood spilling across the snow, then it would bow its head and be gone from our world for another night. And the most bitter cold would sweep in to replace it.

The snow was deep here but I tried to move quickly as I crossed the field I would harvest and re-sow next year. At least, that's what I had done in past years, but I knew this year might be different. By then the land might not be mine any longer. It might belong to the state and I would be forced to work on it for nothing or be sent away to Kazakhstan, Siberia, somewhere they could wring the sweat from my body and make me work until my heart refused to beat any longer.

I followed to one side of the mess of tracks, while the men before me had walked directly in Dariya's footsteps. The poplars cast shadows that fell long and dark across the snow-covered steppe, and I headed towards them, wondering what the men
had found. Maybe Dimitri was scolding his daughter right now, telling her she shouldn't have run away, bearing accusing looks from eyes that had witnessed her father's cruelty. Or, worse, they might have found only her cold body, her blood frozen in her veins, her eyes hardened. But the truth was worse than that.

As I came closer, I could hear voices and see the shapes of men among the trees.

Here there were tufts of long grass which protruded from the carpet, their stalks heavy with the weight of ice. The line of poplars with their long, naked legs, evenly spaced and regimented as if planted by men. Behind them, a wooded area of stark black trunks and branches. Trees that would only come to life when the snow was gone and the air began to warm. Dark branches harsh against the white of the snow, icicles hanging from them like wild and strange fruit. And the ground was laced with the shadows of those wretched limbs.

‘Dimitri,' I called, and the voices ahead of me stopped. Only the sound of my boots in the snow. A soft crunch and squeak. ‘Dimitri.'

‘Who's that?' came the reply, and I saw the shadows moving. Shapes coming towards me in the darkening day. The blood now seeping from the sun, the final strength of that light shining as if to burn out the very last of its energy before falling from the earth.

I didn't reply. I didn't shout my name. I continued on until I could see the men, and Dimitri came forward and, for a moment, we stood like that. Them on one side and me on the other.

‘Have you found her?' I asked.

‘She's not here,' Dimitri said.

‘Any sign?'

‘There are tracks,' he said. ‘All the way up to here. We followed them into the woods.'

‘And?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing?'

Dimitri looked at me and I held his stare. Our breath reached out, merging around us. The other men stayed behind Dimitri, not speaking, and when I looked over at them, none of them met my eye. They knew their shame.

‘You walked over the tracks,' I said.

‘What?'

‘You followed Dariya's tracks up here?'

‘Yes.'

‘But you walked over them. I could see your boot marks all the way up here. All of you.'

Dimitri stared.

‘You ruined her tracks; they're no good any more.'

‘Why didn't she tell us?' Dimitri took a step towards me.

‘What?'

‘Lara. Why didn't she tell us where Dariya had gone?'

‘You're trying to blame Lara? Why the hell do you think she didn't tell you? She was afraid.'

‘Afraid of what?'

‘Of what? I can't believe you even need to ask after what happened today. She's afraid of
you
, Dimitri. Of
them
.' I waved a hand at the men behind him. ‘Afraid of what was happening in our village. She was afraid of the same things your own daughter was afraid of; the men and women who were shouting like animals.'

‘
He
was the animal. What he did to those children. If that man did—'

‘That man didn't do anything to those children. They were his own children, Dimitri. His
own
. That man you murdered did nothing more than serve his country. He fought for us. For you.' I could feel my anger rising again, my breath coming heavier now as Dimitri tried to shuck the weight of blame from his shoulders. ‘And you strung him up from a tree.'

Dimitri stared. ‘I … she … she should've told us.'

‘This is not Lara's fault. Don't blame
her
.'

‘She should've told us.'

I struck out with a gloved hand and hit Dimitri hard in the
face. My limbs were stiff with cold and heavy with the weight of my coat, but I hit him hard and Dimitri had to step back to stay on his feet. The cold would have numbed Dimitri's pain, but his nose was bleeding when he came back at me, trying to rush me in the deep snow. I had no time to move away and the farmer struck me, knocking me from my feet, taking us both to the ground.

Dimitri was a big man and he used his full weight, but I put my arms around him and rolled, raising my hands to punch him in the side of the head, over and over again as he struggled. I moved so I was on top of my brother-in-law and I hit him again and again before I felt hands grabbing at my coat and I was yanked back, falling in the snow.

I sat like that, the sun almost gone, the air so cold the snow didn't even melt beneath me, and I looked across at Dimitri. I watched him push himself up to look back at me, his face bloody and blotched from the weight of my punches, his eyes wild and staring like a horse's when it's exhausted from a hard run.

‘Don't try to blame Lara for this,' I said to him. ‘Dariya ran away because she saw you killing a man.'

‘She didn't see anything.' Spittle came from Dimitri's lips as he spoke. The hate was thick in his words.

‘She saw you take him and string him up and she came up here to get away from it,' I said, getting to my feet and standing over Dimitri. ‘While you were trying to save us from a killer, you were failing to protect your own child.'

Dimitri looked away.

‘And if you ever say it again,' I told him. ‘If I ever hear you blame my daughter for this, I'll kill you. I swear to God, I'll bring you out here, right
here
, to this place, and I'll kill you.'

The other men said nothing. They stood in the failing light, among the dark trunks of the naked trees, with their breath circling their heads like wraiths, and they said nothing. I looked at each of them and let them see what was in my eyes; let them see that if any of them repeated Dimitri's thoughts, I would take the words as an insult.

One of the men nodded, his face barely visible beneath his
fur hat and his thick beard, but I saw that it was Leonid. The respected war veteran who had been in the cemetery earlier that day. One of the men Dimitri had brought with him. He had seen it my way; he had tried to persuade Dimitri to keep what we'd seen to himself, but later he had been in the crowd.

I had always thought Leonid Andreyevich to be strong – a man who knew his own mind – but today he had proved himself fickle and indecisive, following the majority, afraid to step forward from the line. He'd listened to Josif, a wiser and stronger man than he would ever be, but faced with the strength of numbers he'd merged with the majority, following them like a sheep that follows its flock to the place of slaughter.

He opened his mouth as if to speak.

‘You have something to say, Leonid Andreyevich?'

He held up his hands to my challenge, a defensive, calming gesture.

‘There are tracks,' Stanislav offered, trying to ease the moment. He was a young man, just a few years older than my own sons.

‘What kind of tracks?' I asked, still staring at Leonid.

‘They could be the girl's.'

‘Show me.' I was already thinking it would be a miracle if any tracks had survived all the activity up here. When the men had come up the slope, they had walked in Dariya's prints, and now all that was left was a deep trough from my house to this point. It looked as if a small army had marched there. And where we were standing, the ground was a mess of crushed snow from our fight. We had destroyed what might be the quickest means of finding Dariya.

Stanislav turned and led me further among the slender trunks of the trees. They were widely spaced, but they were confusing; the many bare trunks against the white snow in the failing light of the day made it hard to focus on anything in particular. The last of the sunlight was showing, a glimmer that reached from the horizon and felt its way among the trees. A mesmerising babble of colour and image that could easily confuse a man lost in this place.
Above, visible through the gnarled and empty tree branches, the spectral image of the waxing moon as it drew its strength from the sun, waiting for the short day to come to an end.

The other men began to follow, but I turned and held out a hand. ‘The rest of you stay here. You've disturbed enough.'

Leonid spoke up. ‘What makes you think—'

‘Leonid.' I stopped him. ‘I saw you there too. Did you bring the rope? Or maybe you tied it off so he swung like that from the tree.'

‘No.'

‘Or did you just kick him when he was lying in the snow?'

‘Don't judge me, Luka.'

‘Like you judged
him
.'

‘You've no right—'

‘Rights? That's a joke. What? You suddenly grew some balls after you lynched a man? It gave you the strength to step forward, did it? Or are you speaking because you think these men stand behind you?' I looked at the others, but none of them made any sign of wanting to join Leonid. They looked at one another and I could see they knew what they'd done. Finally, there was shame.

Leonid looked at the ground.

‘I thought so.' I watched them before turning back to Stanislav. ‘Show me the tracks.'

‘Maybe Dimitri should come too?' he offered.

I nodded. ‘Of course.' I had no love for Dimitri, but I hadn't lost my ability to empathise with him. His daughter was missing, and I couldn't think of anything that would burden my heart more than if Lara were taken from me.

The three of us moved away from the mess of the scuffle and the destructive tracks of the searchers until we came to the pristine snow, and Stanislav pointed.

We stood in a line at the first print. A clear footprint in the snow, followed by another and another, moving away into the trees until they were too far away to see any more.

‘Could it be Dariya?' Stanislav asked.

Dimitri moved to step forward but I put out a hand and
stopped him. ‘Keep them fresh,' I said. ‘For once the snow is our friend.'

Dimitri resisted a moment, then stopped. He shouted Dariya's name into the woods and waited for a reply.

There was no sound. Nothing. Not a bird call, not a flutter of snow from a branch, not even the whisper of the wind. He called again, and when there was no reply he stepped forward once more, pushing against my hand which was held to his thick coat.

‘Please,' I said. ‘For Dariya's sake. Stay still.'

I felt him relax.

‘You think they're her tracks?' Stanislav asked.

I already knew they weren't Dariya's tracks. Dariya was eight years old. A young girl with small feet and a short stride. These tracks were large and deep and far apart.

‘What do
you
think?' I said as I continued to study the marks, crouching in the snow for a closer look, blowing away the sprinkling of soft snow that had fallen into the prints. The tracks were recent enough to call them fresh. They had sharp edges, the bottom packed hard but not frozen to crystal. Older prints would be less defined, crumbled around the edges, glazed with ice. These were clear; the snow had captured them perfectly. I could make out the shallow tread of the boot that had made them, a place on the bottom of the right foot, close to the toe, where a piece of the sole was missing. This was what I'd use as a signature track. That defect on that particular boot made its print unique. I could follow it.

‘I think they're too big,' said Stanislav. He crouched beside me and we looked at each other.

‘We should follow them,' Dimitri said.

‘These aren't Dariya's tracks,' Stanislav said.

‘What?'

‘He's right,' I told him. ‘Anyone can see these aren't your daughter's tracks.'

‘Then whose?' He started to move again. ‘We have to go after—'

I stood and held him back once more. ‘There might be other tracks,' I said. ‘Something to show us where Dariya has gone.'