Doctor Gavrilov (3 page)

Anna came down the slide, ran over to Dmitry and asked him to tie up her shoelace which was trailing in the mud. Her eyes gleamed, her cheeks were flushed bright red, and her whole body was suffused and overflowing with energy. Dmitry sat her on his knee and retied the lace, tying it double and pulling it tight to make sure.

Anna pushed the thick dark hair away from her face, kissed him, and giggled. She adored him. Sometimes this disconcerted him; nothing in his life had prepared him for such absolute trust and unstinted love. Deprived of her own father, she had accepted Dmitry at once and could, as Katie often observed, twist him round her little finger. He knew she made a fool of him, and he didn't mind; how could he do anything but love her when she looked so like her mother?

Dmitry pushed her off his knee. ‘Go on,' he said gruffly, ‘I'm getting cold. Five more minutes and then we'll go.'

‘You have a very beautiful daughter,' said the man, his eyes following her as she ran. ‘How old is she? Five? Maybe, six?'

At this Dmitry abruptly stood up. He walked away from the bench and turned his back on him. He idly read the sign in front of them and then, suddenly set alight with anger, he turned and pointed it out to the man.

‘Can you read this sign? Adults are only allowed in here if accompanied by young children. Do you have a child with you? No. Do you want me to call the police?'

The man looked alarmed; Dmitry's size and strength and the sudden intensity of his anger must have frightened him for an instant. He said, ‘Of course, forgive me,' and backed away, nodding his head, almost bowing in a sudden excess of politeness. When he had gone Dmitry walked up and down with quick, short steps, banging his hands together as if to warm them. After a few minutes he could stand it no longer. ‘Anna!' he called. ‘Anna, it's time. We have to go now.'

Anna turned and ran to him at once, smiling and holding out her hands.

Katie heard Dmitry bang the front door shut, and the sound of Anna running up the stairs to her room. She looked up from changing the baby's nappy when she heard him come in.

At least now she had something positive to report. ‘Oh, Mitya, I think I've got another tenant for downstairs. It's an old colleague of mine from the BBC and his girlfriend. They can pay the rent all right, and they can move in next week, if they like the flat, of course.'

‘Good.'

The income from the flat downstairs was the main thing that kept them solvent. She had been ringing around all day trying to find someone she could trust who might want to rent it. Then she'd had the phone call from an old contact, Erwin Stone, saying he knew someone who was interested. When she'd heard it was Tim Finucan she'd rung him at once. At least she had good news about this before he opened the letter.

She'd better not put it off. ‘There's a letter for you on the table.'

He tore open the envelope. There was a brief pause, then he turned away and dropped the letter and the envelope in the bin. He said nothing, and she didn't ask him. She sat down to feed the baby.

‘Could you get Anna something to eat?'

She wasn't sure he had heard her. He crossed the room and stared out of the window at the rain. Katie wanted to go to him but she was unable to move, nursing her little son. As he sucked she felt the sudden wash of the let-down of milk and felt her body relax. She watched her husband move around the kitchen, making toast, scrambling an egg. The baby fed greedily, as if he were drawing all the strength out of her, and she felt her eyes droop; all she wanted now was to sleep. She was acutely aware that she and Dmitry were avoiding saying anything to one another. She wondered if he knew that she knew what was in the letter. She wondered how much longer they could go on living like this.

She looked at her watch. They would be coming shortly. She was intrigued to see Tim after all this time; she wondered what his girlfriend would be like. She and Tim had trained in the same intake at the BBC and she remembered the fun they'd had together. Fun. What a strange word that sounded these days.

‘They're going to come this evening to see the flat and collect the keys if they want to take it.'

‘Who?'

‘The new tenants. I just told you…'

She looked up and saw that Dmitry was frowning, that he was staring ahead and that the egg in the saucepan was starting to catch. She could see that he was miles away.

Tim's first thought on seeing Katie was that she had let herself go.

When she opened the door her dark hair was long and loose and tangled; her dress was smudged with spots of grease and she wore no make-up. She was thin, too, thinner than he remembered, though this suited her, emphasised the clean lines of her face. He glanced past her into the room. Damp baby clothes hung on a rack in front of the radiator and there were piles of plates and mugs stacked up in the sink.

Katie's eyes had a pink, dark-rimmed look of exhaustion and her voice was soft, almost hoarse.

‘Tim, come in.'

‘This is Ingrid.'

‘I'm pleased to meet you.' Ingrid shook Katie's hand. Tim thought that it was strange to see them both together, the woman he had wanted so much, years ago, and his latest lover. Ingrid, as she stood there, seemed so tall, cold, awkward. Tim realised with a faint shock as he compared them that despite the years since he'd last seen her, he was still attracted to Katie.

Katie gestured to an old leather sofa which had two craters at either end. She took two wine glasses, faintly smeared, and put them on the table, took a bottle of white wine from the fridge and poured it carefully into the glasses, making sure there was the same quantity in each.

‘Dmitry will be down in a minute; he's upstairs, working.'

‘Oh, right. What does he do?'

‘He's a translator. Technical and scientific stuff.'

‘What language?'

‘English to Russian. He's Russian; didn't I tell you?'

‘Oh, I see.' Tim was surprised, slightly intrigued; he thought, trust Katie to do something out of the ordinary.

Tim sipped the wine; it wasn't very good. ‘I was in Vienna last week, was interviewing this UN guy as background to these nuclear smuggling stories, when I got this tip-off, a Russian, dumped in the Danube, pockets stuffed with plutonium –' He stopped abruptly, as Ingrid prodded his arm, and he realised that Katie wasn't listening. She had turned away from him, folding some nappies, tidying some letters on the table. She rummaged in the desk and brought out a letter which she handed to him. She said, ‘Michael has said he's not coming back so you can have the place for as long as you need. This says all about the flat, the conditions and everything. You'd better read it. I'm sure everything will be fine but I think it's best…'

‘Oh, much better to be on a business-like footing.'

‘Come on downstairs and take a look.'

Their house was at the end of a flat-fronted Victorian terrace, on three floors. The entrance hall had been divided, with a door in to the main part of the house, and another door leading down to a semi-basement flat. It seemed light enough; there was one double bedroom at the front, a large living room, and a small kitchen and bathroom at the back. The furniture was basic but the place had been recently decorated and all the walls were white and bright. Tim looked at Ingrid and she nodded. He said he'd take it.

Katie opened the door into the garden. In the centre was a small patch of ragged grass. A few pale yellow daffodils poked up round the edges, but otherwise it had been abandoned completely to the weeds. A child's tricycle lay on its side on the concrete path and Katie picked it up and stood it upright. ‘We share use of the garden. The patio bit here is yours… The rent is paid in advance and there's a month's rent as a deposit.'

A cold wind blew through Ingrid's shirt and Tim could see her shiver. They went in and Katie closed and locked the door and handed him the key. As he did so she touched his hand and he felt or imagined that she started faintly, and then she looked up at him with her grey-green eyes which he thought had a touch of pain in them. She turned and they followed her upstairs.

Tim signed the contract and handed it back to her, and then wrote out a cheque. Then they sat and sipped their wine awkwardly. There was no sound at all from upstairs.

Katie suddenly said, ‘Excuse me,' stood up, and ran lightly up the stairs. In a few moments she came down. She said, ‘I'm sorry, he's fallen asleep. He had a migraine…' Her whole face looked strained; she seemed awkward and uneasy. Tim had the feeling that there was something wrong. He stood up, turning to Ingrid. ‘Oh, don't worry, we weren't going to stay. We'll move all our stuff in at the weekend, won't we, Ingrid?'

Ingrid turned her smooth, pale face to Katie and smiled, a knowing smile that seemed to indicate that she recognised her as a rival and was not afraid of her. Tim found to his astonishment that a violent emotion took hold of him, so powerful that he could not even remember feeling this before. It took him a moment to realise what it was; that suddenly he hated Ingrid.

Dmitry woke up suddenly in the night with the terrible sensation of something sitting, crushing his chest, making him unable to breathe. For an instant he lay pinioned, then he sat up, drawing in breath. He was bathed in sweat and his heart was beating so vigorously he could almost hear it in the silent room. Katie lay beside him on her side, her hair a dark mat on the pillow, her hand outstretched. Dmitry staggered to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face.

The cold water made his head throb even more painfully. He reached up into the cupboard for his painkillers. He tipped up the bottle and they rolled into his palm. The thought went through his head that he could take them all at once and be out of his misery, but instantly he scooped them back into the bottle with the rim and swallowed two for the correct dose.

He stared at the bottle. For some reason that he couldn't understand, he thought of the black dog. It had been in his nightmare, he knew, although he couldn't now remember anything else about it.

They knew his weak point. They had so little money.

Of course he could make money so easily. The knowledge that he had was dangerous. He knew that people would kidnap, blackmail or even torture him to possess it. He had hoped to live here, hidden, away from risk, to start his life again, but he had no chance. They knew now who and where he was, and they wanted him, and knew that he was vulnerable.

He went back into the bedroom. Katie stirred, and as he slipped into bed he reached over and took her hand. He squeezed it and she smiled. He whispered her name but she didn't answer, and he realised that she was not awake. Happiness darted through him for an instant like a shaft of warm sunlight, and it gave him hope, that she still so loved him that when he touched and spoke to her she would smile in her sleep.