Field of Mars (35 page)

‘Pretty good, yes.'

‘You have to get close, eh?'

‘You do.'

‘I couldn't hit anything with something like that. I need a rifle to kill someone,' Hokhodiev said and turned back to his paper. ‘Besides, it's best to run away most of the time. And if you get caught, there's no gun and you can just play stupid.'

‘I bet you could do that,' Dziga laughed.

‘It works, doesn't it? And then when I get in close, I can use these.' Hokhodiev held up his left fist. It was almost the size of Dziga's head.

‘Ahh . . .'

Hokhodiev just smiled at him. Dziga wound his way once more around the apple. ‘And if there is some emergency and I really need a gun, I know where I can get one. I can get plenty, so . . .' Hokhodiev shrugged.

Down at the foot of the stairs, Sinazyorksy gave a whistle and Dziga recoiled the apple and put it in his pocket. Hokhodiev straightened at the column and tucked the newspaper beneath his jacket in the small of his back, walked over to the door and tapped on it three times to let Ryzhkov know they were coming, then went back to his post. ‘So?' Hokhodiev whispered to Dziga.

‘Don't ask me,' Dziga hissed back. ‘They've both been very quiet lately.' He shrugged, and Hokhodiev saw that his leathery face was suddenly full of worry. Not a good sign, he thought as Tomlinovich and Fauré began coming up the stairs towards the doors.

The entire wall of the Cetacean Room was taken up by the skeleton of a gigantic humpback whale. Ryzhkov had to walk backwards to the windows in order to take the whole thing in from a distance. In glass cases were artefacts of other whales, models of whaling vessels, a collection of huge ivory teeth; displays of harpoons and long hoe-shaped flensing knives were mounted on the wall below the great skeleton. It was a stupid place for a meeting, he thought.

Fauré came in, apologized for being late, and then stood for a moment impassively, hands clasped behind his back. Tomlinovich was wheezing from his climb up the stairs. He went over to the balcony and threw open the doors, trying to get a breeze. He was dressed in a great yellow summer-weight cloak, a straw hat tipped back on his head. He looked like a boulevardier or a circus impresario.

Fauré looked up at the whale and sniffed. ‘Isn't it ironic, Inspector? This complicated, exquisite creature is considered, quite properly, the Queen of the Seas. All lesser creatures willingly surrender their feeding grounds at her approach, so highly is she esteemed, so greatly is she feared.' Together they took another step or two along the glass cases as Fauré looked up into the long belly of the whale.

‘But this position of high importance in the universe of the depths is based on illusion. A misapprehension which, if it were corrected, would mean a reversal of fortune for the great Queen. What had once been the most feared creature, would now be merely a gigantic moving target; unable to defend herself against her enemies, prey for roving packs of sharks, for—do you observe the teeth, Ryzhkov?' They had finally reached the head and Ryzhkov dutifully looked up at the long curve of the jawbone.

‘You see? No lance-like fangs, no molars to crush bones. Instead our Queen is armed with nothing more than the finest of combs, constructed similarly to fans of feathers, whose function is to sieve enormous quantities of water, extracting such tiny animals as to be invisible to our land-born eyes.' Fauré turned and smirked. ‘Should this great animal be attacked by some undersea menace, she, much like Mother Russia herself, is wholly unable to defend herself, and, of course, quite ill-suited to be a predator.'

‘I suppose you could tell that to all the invisible shrimp,' Ryzhkov said and walked along the cabinets for a few paces.

‘Mmm . . .' Fauré said, unconvinced. ‘Well . . . I asked you here to discuss some international affairs which will, I can assure you, be of concern to us both.'

‘All right, then. What is it?'

‘It's the fucking end of the world is what it is,' Tomlinovich said from his doorway.

‘It is nothing of the sort,' Fauré said, a touch of anger creeping into his womanly voice. ‘We seem to be having an undue amount of trouble with our friends in Serbia.' Fauré had stopped at the end of the display cases. He was pretending to inspect a great whalebone covered with a mariner's scratched carvings, a seascape of rocks, broken ships, drowning sailors and buxom mermaids.

‘Have you ever heard of the Black Hand?' Tomlinovich asked.

‘The Serbian terrorists, the ones in Belgrade, the “Union or Death”?'

‘Yes, yes . . .' Tomlinovich called. ‘Either them or a second group called “Young Bosnia”?'

‘They are the terror vanguard, they go out and recruit adolescents ready to lay down their lives for the dream of
Yugo-Slavia
. A pack of assassins. The most militant fringe of our dear brothers, the Southern Slavs,' Fauré said quietly.

‘They're behind all this?'

‘The arms that Smyrba has been smuggling, Lavrik, all of it. They have links to our own Slavophilic zealots: Ambassador Hartwig, Colonel Artamonov. Both have received payments.' Fauré gave a long angry sigh, his eyes never leaving the gigantic skeleton. ‘Also, clear connections to our Ministry of War. Backed up by photographic evidence and banking records. Much of this we only know because of what our very courageous friend, Mademoiselle Aliyeva, overheard. I wish I could give her a medal,' Fauré said and for a moment his eyes flicked over to Ryzhkov. ‘Well, perhaps one day . . .'

‘The essence of the whole bloody mess,' Tomlinovich said, straightening in the doorway and heading across the crackling parquetry towards them. ‘. . . is that we've uncovered much more than just a financial scandal, now it's an international conspiracy, colluding with a foreign power to corrupt officials in our government,' he said gravely.

‘But this is all for money, yes?'

Fauré shrugged. ‘Money, patriotism, religion, power . . . money . . .'

‘Well, can't you seize the money?'

‘Not without a protocol, and it must be signed. Besides, now a foreign power is involved—unfortunately it is a foreign power with which we sympathize— poor little Serbia. We use the same alphabet, sing the same songs, hate the Austrians just the same. Put all that up against the bribes paid to divert Russian arms to Serbia, enough to outfit an entire corps of infantry, plus artillery to defend Belgrade from armies advancing from the north.' Fauré looked up at Ryzhkov, shrugged. ‘It's espionage. Spies. If it were public, it would make a huge scandal.' Behind his smooth baby-face he looked immensely sad.

‘And now, because of all that, because it's international, we have to go higher, we have to please the gods,' Tomlinovich muttered. Fauré sighed.

‘I thought
secrecy
was the whole point of this,' Ryzhkov said.

‘Indeed, yes . . .'

‘You didn't want anyone to know, you were afraid they'd catch on to us, and now you have to
ask
?'

‘Look, the whole point is to file charges, to bring a case, to prosecute,' Fauré started to explain.

‘Ministry of
Justice
, remember?' Tomlinovich smiled tightly.

‘But now?'

‘Ryzhkov, I can't just go and arrest the Minister of War, I can't haul Hartwig in for questioning—he's the Tsar's personal friend!'

‘There are rules, regulations, immunities. If we
don't
report it we are guilty of espionage ourselves, don't you see?' Tomlinovich recited.

‘Yes, we have to give notice, we have to file our notice of intent.'

‘It's the law. We have to ask permission of the gods,' Tomlinovich said. ‘Don't look so sad, Ryzhkov, it lets you off the hook.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You've done a good job for us,' Fauré said quietly, reached up for a moment and gave his shoulder a pat. ‘You've performed well, you've done things that have demonstrated your—'

‘Not that you had a hell of a lot of choice,' Tomlinovich said.

‘We're going forward. Do what we must, do what we can. We'll take testimony formally, compile our evidence. Simultaneously we'll draft our charges.'

‘He's going ahead with a Red Book.' Tomlinovich successfully resisted rolling his eyes.

‘Yes,' Fauré snapped. ‘I'm going to do it all legally. We will file a Red Book of Charges. I'll have to inform my minister, of course. We have to move quickly because these Black Handers and their cohorts are planning something, an operation, an action. And it will be coming soon. We shine light—'

‘Oh, yes, Evil fears the Light of Justice,' Tomlinovich sang quietly. ‘The White Branch isn't like you people, Foreign Okhrana only reports to one person,' he said, not bothering to name Gulka, the head of the Okhrana, as that person. ‘You might be interested to know that
Apis
has turned out to be the code name of a Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic. He's the head of Serbian military intelligence, a real hard-liner. It's not even a code name. He's been using it so long that it's his nickname. Everybody knows it, it was in his folder, I knew I remembered it.'

‘Serbia is a nation divided,' Fauré said.

‘Some want to go slow, others want to go not so slow.' Tomlinovich walked backwards across the room so that he could get a better view.

‘The hard-liners want to create an
iskra
—a spark that will ignite a revolution that will lead to a resurgence of Serbian power in the Balkans.'

‘But standing in their way is the current Serbian Prime Minister, Nikola PaȈsic,' Tomlinovich called to them from across the wide floor.

‘You see, for these nationalists, PaȈsic is worse than a moderate—he's a weakling. He appeases the Austrians, they say. So, what might be a spark for them? Well, it might be PaȈsic's assassination they are planning, it's plausible.'

‘Yes, it is,' Ryzhkov said.

‘So, do you understand now, why we have to properly inform the minister? And remember these are people who would stop at nothing if it means keeping their dreams alive.'

‘Oh, yes. That I understand, excellency.'

‘I don't like this any more than you do, Ryzhkov. But Serbia is a nest of vipers. It's a kingdom founded on conspiracies and regicides. Right now PaȈsic is an obvious target for a coup by supporters of the war party.'

Ryzhkov's eyes had turned back towards the bones, but he was seeing the Prime Minister of Serbia mounted up there instead.

‘So . . .' Fauré looked at him for a long moment, then reached up and gave him another pat on the shoulder. Maybe it was a magic touch that he thought would protect Ryzhkov and Vera from harm, or maybe it was just a way of ending the conversation. ‘So, we move forward, file our charges and then we'll try to stop this spark before it sets off the powder keg, eh?'

‘The sharks have discovered that the whale has no teeth,' Tomlinovich said. It sounded like a chant, something said as a response during a sacred liturgy. He was standing out in the centre of the room, slowly turning his head, trying to take in the entirety of the monster.

Ryzhkov shook his head, thinking that if he ever really did get out from under Fauré's thumb he would help Vera move abroad, then perhaps he would volunteer for an assignment on the fringes of the empire, look forward to a slow death from alcoholism. He stared down at the stories the sailors had carved below him, the gigantic octopi, the broken schooners. How could they say he was off the hook?

‘We'll still be using you, Ryzhkov. We'll tidy up this testimony and get everything properly collated, then I'll tear up your protocol for the murder of Oleg Lavrik. After that you can chase child-killers to hell and back if that's what you want, but for the next week or two I need you at your cold-blooded best. You and your friends,' Fauré said.

It would never end. ‘All right,' he said. There was no other possible answer. ‘All right. Fine. Yes . . . whatever. Thank you,' he added for reducing the murder charge to life imprisonment.

They had run out of time; there was a sudden creaking across the great room and one of the end doorways opened as a chaperone from the Smolny led a group of uniformed girl students past a shrugging Hokhodiev. Ryzhkov and Fauré stood there watching the girls, looking at their upturned faces, eyes wide as they approached the great fanned tail of the leviathan.

‘They're all so beautiful, aren't they?' Fauré breathed. ‘So very beautiful when they're young and innocent like that . . .'

THIRTY-TWO

The Crown was the best Belgrade could offer, the hotel where you saw everyone, anyone that mattered, and many who didn't. Men and women propelled by necessity and illusions. And by delusions, too.

Belgrade, the seat of what passed for fashion and international appeal within Serbia, all of it done over in traditional Hapsburg style, as lavish as money and convenience would allow in this, was something of a pretender among cities. Beyond the fashionable district, arrayed along a boulevard that would be an ordinary street in Petersburg or Paris, Belgrade was a hive-like mixture of cultures imprinted by each empire that had ebbed and flowed through the Balkans. It was a city that was forever reaching; architecture as practised by people who needed to display their knowledge of fashion, tea and classical music. The best of the buildings built with as much marble as affordable and ornamented in ways that sought to celebrate Serbia's sad but colourful history of victimization, a style that combined Byzantine lasciviousness with Germanic hegemony, furnished inside with dark, weighty pieces that an ordinary citizen could trust to never
fail
.

Belgrade had once been the centre of the northern-most district of Turkish control, a bloody stake driven into the ground to administer their frontier, the mark of their greatest advance, and the Slavic peoples' final defeat; hard up against the Danube, its people forever used as a buffer between the godless Muslims and their Teutonic ‘protectors' across the river. It was a pitiful city, a survivor of the rape and pillage by every army that had the opportunity, but now at one of its historical peaks. Threadbare, subservient, resentful and poverty-stricken, its people were divided into classes of collaborators and frustrated revolutionaries, its streets filled with peasants and the indigent.