The Jewel of St Petersburg (62 page)

So for now, he let the girl live.

A
RKIN WALKED ALONG THE HOTEL’S LONG CORRIDOR, aware of the risk he was taking. He didn’t for one moment think Elizaveta would be here in the Hotel de Russie. Instead Okhrana agents could be waiting for him in the room, but, even so, he didn’t turn back. He stood silently outside the door and listened for a long time, but there was no sound. That meant nothing. At his touch on the handle, the door opened and he entered the room.

Elizaveta Ivanova was sitting on the edge of the bed clothed in sepulchral black, with a veil under a hat of glossy black feathers. An expression of bleak misery lay on her face, and a large gun sprawled like a lapdog on her knees. One gloved hand was stroking it. At the sight of him she picked it up. For a moment they stared at each other without speaking.

“Dobriy vecher,”
he said at last. “Good evening, Elizaveta.”

She rose to her feet and steadied the gun with both hands. No words.

He moved forward till he was close enough to touch it, but he kept his hands away from her. “I didn’t mean for Katya to die,” he said quietly.

She shook her head from side to side, a slow awkward movement, as though it were too heavy for her neck. “That’s not what Valentina says.”

He took a step toward her so that the muzzle of the gun was jammed into his chest. He could feel his heart beating against it. “Pull the trigger if it makes you happier.”

She closed her eyes behind the veil. He held his breath and counted to ten, but there was no blast of pain to rob him of life. Without comment he took the gun from her hands and tossed it onto the satin quilt, then gently removed her hatpin and let the hat fall to the floor. His arms encircled her trembling figure and he rested his cheek against her hair, her breath warm and quick against his neck. For ten minutes they stood locked together, the rigid frame of her body slowly melting into his.

“How can I not hate you?” she whispered. “How can I be such a bad mother?”

“I wish,” he said, “that you and I had met at a different time and in a different place.”

“There is only this time. There is only this place.”

He kissed her hair, inhaled its familiar scent, unclipped a pearl grip, and watched a golden tress tumble to her shoulder.

“How did you know I would come today?” he asked.

“I didn’t.”

The words swirled in his mind. He pictured her, day after day, a lonely figure seated on the edge of the hotel bed with a gun on her lap. Anger in her heart. Waiting for him. It was too much. His tears fell on her hair.

V
ALENTINA HUNTED HIM, SHE AND JENS TOGETHER, WEEK after week. The way hounds hunt a fox, from den to den. She wanted him to feel her hatred pursuing him as he shifted from place to place, abandoning one safe corner after another as they ventured into bars and slums, churches and meeting halls. Always with roubles in their hands.

Twice they came so close she could smell him in the air they breathed, but each time he disappeared through a window or over a rooftop. By day she worked once more in St. Isabella’s Hospital, but by night she and Jens stalked the backstreets. When her mother asked where she was going, she was honest with her. “I’m searching for Viktor Arkin.”

“The police are handling that. There’s no need for you to do so.”

“They have failed, Mama. I don’t intend to.”

But instead of forbidding her to leave the house, her mother stared at her solemnly and warned, “Tread carefully, Valentina. An eye for an eye may seem like justice to you, but he has a ruthless mind and is quick to anger.”

“What makes you say that, Mama?”

Her mother’s cheeks flushed. “He’s a revolutionary, isn’t he? They are all in a rage that eats their hearts out.”

“I know his mind, Mama. Don’t fear for me.”

J
ENS, WHAT IS IT?”

There was something wrong. Valentina could feel it in the room, an unease that set her pulse pounding. Jens was standing at the window of his apartment, looking down at the traffic and at the people hurrying to escape the chill autumn wind. Behind him in pride of place on a long table stood an elaborate wooden mouse palace with turrets for the white rodent to scurry up and bridges for its tiny feet to balance on. At this moment the animal was running inside its wheel, making a steady whirring noise that was oddly comforting.

“It will snow soon,” Jens murmured. “The cold will stir the workers into strike action again. There is no bread in the shops.”

Valentina came to stand behind him and laid her cheek against his back. “What is it?” she asked again.

“Valentina, you won’t catch him.”

“Arkin?”

“Not like this. He’s always one step ahead.”

“Let’s not talk of him right now.” She ran her hands down his naked sides and tucked her body against his, the hard muscles taut against her ribs. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his spine so hard it hurt. “Jens.” She turned him around so that she could smile up into his dark green eyes. “You are right. We must think of something new.”

A
RKIN TOOK THE LETTER FROM THE PRIEST IN THE CHURCH and for a moment could think of no one who would have sent it. It was a rule: put nothing in writing. It could get you killed.

“Where’s Father Morozov?” he asked the priest, a man with a domed head and small wire spectacles.

“He’s in his village. There have been police here, asking questions about him.” He shook his head nervously.

“So he is keeping out of sight?”

“Da.
Yes.”

“He is important to us.”

That was when the priest offered him the letter.

“Who brought it?” Arkin asked. On the front of the envelope was his name in large elegant lettering.

“A young woman.”

He tore it open.

You expect too much of life, Viktor Arkin. You expect too much of me if you think I will stay away. So let us be direct, let us meet face to face, just you and me, no one else. Let us say what there is to say. You can call me an oppressor, I can call you a killer. Meet me tomorrow in the courtyard at the back of St. Isabella’s Hospital. Three o’clock. What then? Then I can tell you that our small personal tragedies mean everything in the storm that is sweeping through Russia and that I am carrying your child.

Arkin’s hand shook, so that the words blurred in front of his eyes.

S
HE HAD CHOSEN WELL. THE COURTYARD LAY IN FITFUL sunshine, neither private nor public. Arkin had inspected it just as dawn was breaking over the city, and he could see why she had settled on this as the meeting place. It did not make a good trap. It had too many escape routes. As well as the massive metal gates that stood open at the entrance for ambulances and delivery vans, there were also two doors into the hospital, another in the rear wall that led to a side street, and a metal hatch down into a cellar of some kind.

Both of them would breathe easier. He wanted to trust her.

He observed the courtyard for several hours. For much of the time it remained empty but at irregular intervals it filled with activity, so that at any point their meeting could be interrupted. That made it safer. A couple of brick storage huts along one wall gave him concern, but he had easily opened their locks and found nothing but stocks of kerosene and crates with equipment like bedpans and sterilizers inside. He took in which parts of the courtyard were in view of the rear of the hospital and which parts weren’t. As the sun climbed he smoked a cigarette in a shaded corner behind one of the huts and knew he was invisible.

Yes, Valentina Ivanova, you have chosen well.

V
ALENTINA WAS BUSY. THE WARD WAS FRANTIC. A FIRE AT the sailmakers’ workshop brought in a stream of burn victims, mainly women. Time ran too fast. Whenever she glanced at the clock, the hands had leapt forward in huge unexpected jumps. One o‘clock. She bathed a damaged limb with hypochlorite solution and helped a man with dehydration drink a glass of tea at the speed of a snail. Two o’clock.

Her mouth was dry. Would he turn up?

She thought again about the letter. She had been careful not to show it to Jens, just told him she had written it to ask Arkin for a face-to-face meeting. No mention of its last line about the child. Would Arkin believe it? She sat quietly with a woman who was confused about where she was and why her son had brought her here.