The Relic (17 page)

Other, more subtle methods had to be employed. Rakovsky suggested that one of his protégés, an able and dedicated counterespionage officer, should take over the activist case files and plan the Soviet response. At thirty-five, Leon Gusev had reached colonel's rank on account of his excellent work with agitators in the Baltic Republics. He had scored notable successes in Estonia and Latvia. It was agreed and at last the meeting ended. Viktor made the announcement.

Ivan Zakob, the father of the partisans in the great patriotic war, was dying. His name and his exploits were part of every Russian child's curriculum. He was a hero who had become a legend. Every man there expressed his sympathy. They were genuinely moved by the news.

Viktor reached his
dacha
before noon. The nurse was waiting. Victor raced up the stairs and the doctor opened the door to Ivan's bedroom.

‘He's still conscious,' he said. ‘He's been asking for you.'

Viktor sat by the bedside. He held the frail hand.

‘I waited for you, my son,' the weak voice whispered. ‘I wouldn't go till you came.'

‘I'm with you, Little Father,' Victor said. ‘I won't leave you.'

‘You've been a good son to me,' the old man said. ‘We fought together and we suffered together. I want to tell you something.'

‘Tell me,' Victor bent close to him.

‘I loved your mother. There was no harm meant, but I loved her.'

‘I know you did,' Victor answered. ‘I found one of the men who killed her, Little Father. He was punished.'

Ivan's eyes opened; he gazed up at Rakovsky.

‘Too many dead,' he said. ‘Too much pain. It's time to forgive, my son. I want to die in peace. I want you to live in peace. Remember that. I'd like a priest to bless me.'

‘I'll send for one,' Viktor promised.

‘Then I'll wait,' the old man murmured and closed his eyes.

The priest was young and flustered; a number of churches in the district were open for services. Viktor stood while he blessed the dying man and anointed him. The priest intoned the prayers in a nervous voice, pulling at his beard. It was a privilege to send such a hero on his way to heaven. He summoned his courage and said so to the grim-faced man before he left the sick room. He knew he was a very important Party official.

‘Thank you, Father,' Viktor said. ‘It's been a comfort to him.'

He came to the bedside. The priest had gone, but he had left the smell of scented oils behind him. Viktor knelt beside the bed and bowed his head.

‘Don't cry, my son. I'm happy now. I'm not afraid to go. Maybe I'll see your mother … and Stefan.'

He died so quickly that Viktor didn't know he'd gone. The silence told him. When he laid his hand against the old man's waxen cheek it was already cold. He got up and did what Ivan would have wished him to do. He opened all the windows to give the spirit easy exit.

Volkov looked round the apartment. There was no smell of Balkan tobacco. It was Irina's signature. Whenever she was at home, he smelled her cigarettes.

He went in to their bedroom. The bed hadn't been slept in. He knew because his pyjamas were exactly where he'd left them, dropped on the end of the coverlet. Untidy! She hated untidiness. Making a mess was one of his little rebellions against her. How trivial and demeaning it seemed to him now. How low he'd sunk through his own choosing. There were no messages on the machine. He'd forgotten to switch it on. She hadn't been home and she hadn't been able to call in. That would have infuriated her. When that happened it meant he was drunk, sprawled out on the sofa if he hadn't been able to reach the bed.

He went to the window, made sure her car wasn't coming, or turning into the communal garage. Then he started looking. He opened the drawers in her dressing table. They were full of makeup, boxes of this and pots of that; a case with her expensive jewellery, all the pieces meticulously fitted in to their places. He opened everything, searched, put everything back. He'd learned to be very tidy when he was in prison. If the straw mattress was an inch out of line with the plank bed base, his food was reduced by one meal. A few drops of urine on the floor by his slop pail merited a scientifically aimed punch at his kidneys from the guard. He had thrown his clothes on the floor, spilled his food, deliberately kicked over the stinking pail in the first weeks and suffered terribly for his defiance.

Searching for his passport, he paused, remembering it all. The battles he won at such a cost to his health that he couldn't help but lose the war in the end. The pain of coughing and the blood that frothed up in his sputum. The cold, that cruelest of all tortures. And the smell of those cigarettes in his tormentor's office, where he stood barefoot and shivering for hours on end.

He paused and suddenly tears welled up. He felt weak and overwhelmed. No passport in her private drawers. He forced himself to search the wardrobe, the chests full of her clothes. He went to the kitchen and found nothing but food and neatly arranged cooking knives and spoons, hanging like guardsmen from their hooks in perfect rows.

There was a desk in the sitting room. She never locked it. He'd gone through the drawers once, looking for something—he couldn't remember what, but there was nothing personal in that desk. Writing paper, envelopes, address book, a list of numbers where Irina could be contacted, paper clips, stamps, an India rubber, a packet of rubber bands, a stick of unused red sealing wax. He opened and shut the drawers and the flap and found what he expected. Nothing! She must keep her documentation at the clinic.

He sat down and wiped his brow. It was wet with sweat. The sweat of old memories, buried horrors, miserable lonely fears. No alcohol to dull the nerves; no soothing glow to warm the chill of despair into a muddled kind of peace.

Anger instead. Anger was making him sweat. Not anger for what he had suffered, but a deep and terrible rage for what had been inflicted upon others. Friends, colleagues in the movement who'd never left their bitter cells, or spent their lives in-labour camps till they died of exhaustion.

He had no passort, but that wasn't going to stop him. He'd been offered a second chance of salvation. The girl who found him that day by the lake was sent by destiny, by fate, the atheists' substitute for God. The Holy Relic passed down by who-knows-what route out of Russia, given to an orphan in an Austrian prison camp. Into Lucy's keeping, so she could give it to him and with it, he could challenge the system that had tormented him and millions of the innocent. And win.

The front door opened. He saw his wife come in to the room. It was strange, but his hatred was purged. He looked at her and saw a stranger, who had never been anything else.

‘You're up early? I tried to ring last night to say I wouldn't be home, but the machine wasn't on.'

She looked very tired, he noticed; pinched and pale. He felt nothing. He wasn't glad.

‘I do wish you'd remember,' she said irritably. ‘It's not such a lot to ask! God, I'm exhausted. I think I'll go to bed and get some sleep.'

‘Did you have a crisis?' he asked her.

The passport must be in the clinic. But it wasn't going to stop him
.

‘Yes. Attempted suicide. God save me from Italians! They had the place in an uproar.'

‘It wasn't your special patient then?'

She stiffened, anticipating an attack. ‘No.'

‘Is he still there?' Volkov said it casually.

She was caught off guard. ‘No, he isn't. He had a heart attack. He died.' She was on her way to the bedroom, slipping out of her jacket.

Volkov said quietly. ‘He was lucky. Are you off duty for the day now?'

She stopped at the door. ‘Why? What do you care? You're never at home these days anyway.'

‘I don't care,' he answered. ‘I don't stay around here because I get bored. That might make me drink. I go out and about and keep busy. You ought to be pleased.'

She sighed. She was tired and her spirits were low.

‘I'm not pleased,' she said. ‘I don't care either! I'm going to bed.'

She went in and closed the door. He waited. She had left her handbag on the chair. He waited for a full half an hour by his watch before he opened it.

‘What are we going to do? You can't go near that place!' Lucy leaned towards him. ‘Dimitri, you mustn't!'

He said, ‘It's the only way. My darling, you're not to worry, I'll be careful, I promise you. Now, drink your wine. This is our celebration, remember?' He smiled and reached out for her hand. ‘It's no good complaining now. You were the one who made me brave.' He turned her hand upward and kissed the inside of the soft palm. ‘When we're ready to leave I'll go to the clinic, get my passport out of the desk and meet you at the airport. Simple!'

Irinia's passion for neatness had labelled the key in her handbag. ‘Office, drawer. Doc.'

‘If she misses the key out of her bag,' Lucy protested.

Nothing could shake his calm or give him pause. He only laughed at her fears.

‘She won't,' he countered. ‘Because I've got this.'

He put an envelope on the table and slid a rough white square out of it. ‘I'll have another key made with this,' he said. ‘Candle wax, Lucy. You melt it and take an impression.'

‘Oh, darling, why don't we just try Mischa? Please? I can't bear it if you take any risks now!'

‘Life is a risk,' he said. ‘Every time you cross the road, get in a car, climb a ladder! The risks are all ahead and I don't give a damn! We're going to succeed, you and I. How strange it all is! If I believed in anything, I'd say it was part of a divine plan.'

‘My father was convinced of it,' she said. They had chosen a table out of view in the café he called ‘their café'. The waiter who'd tried to pick her up that first morning wasn't on duty. It was warm and there were flowers in a little silver vase with candles lit for them. He'd ordered champagne for her. He was flushed and happy and he hadn't let go of her hand since they'd sat down.

‘You look so beautiful,' he whispered. ‘When we're back home I want to marry you.'

‘Home?' she questioned.

‘In Russia,' he said. ‘I can't wait to show it to you. I want to drink tea with you at the Samoyovska Hotel in Kiev, and vodka with you in the evening in a place where they used to play gypsy music when I was a student. If it's still there.'

‘It'll be there,' Lucy said.

He leaned close to her. ‘Nobody's looking. Kiss me. Ah, that's better. Again, sweetheart. I love the taste of you. Why don't we get under the table and make love?'

‘You're crazy.' Lucy protested.

‘In that café where the gypsies were, we used to do that. When we were very drunk. I was wild in those days.'

‘You're wild now,' she said.

By the end of their dinner she was imbued with his optimism. He talked of the future; he made light of the present and its difficulties until Lucy lost sight of them too. They went home, walking the streets with their arms around each other. They walked slowly and clumsily, her head resting on his shoulder. The private detective following them cursed when they stopped and kissed in the middle of the street. By the next morning he had a full report on Dimitri Volkov and his lover, ready for despatch to Peter Müller in Munich.

Chapter 3

Leon Gusev was a Muscovite by birth. He had been born in one of the hideous concrete blocks of flats erected after the Great Patriotic War. His father was an engineer and his mother worked for a minor official in the Ministry of Post and Communications. He was an only son; his mother's old father and his aunt lived with them. The flat had three rooms. He shared his parents' bedroom and the old man and his widowed daughter slept in the other room with a blanket on a line dividing them.

Leon was clever as a boy; he was a dull-looking child, hampered by short sight. He had a squat body of surprising strength and quick fists which deterred bullies. Once the glasses came off, they ran away. He had a mind that delighted in problems. Mathematics fascinated him. He seemed destined for a career as an engineer like his father, but with much brighter prospects. But human puzzles intrigued him more. He graduated from Moscow University with degrees in psychology and political science and joined the internal security.

As compensation for his lack of height and pebble glasses, he was gifted with a charming smile and a friendly manner. He wooed and married one of the prettiest secretaries in the office on Dzerjhinsky Square.

Promotion came rapidly once he caught Viktor Rakovsky's attention. He joined Rakovsky's select team of young Intelligence operatives. He saw service in the Baltic Republics and earned a special commendation for his analysis of the situation among the ethnic groups.

He had a pleasant apartment on the outskirts of Moscow with his young wife and baby daughter, and hoped to achieve a small
dacha
. He was a dedicated follower of the new political initiative begun by Gorbachev. He believed in reform and modernization. He also shared Rakovsky's dread of the Soviet Union becoming fragmented by the Republics' achieving independence. A loose federation meant weakness. They couldn't contemplate such a situation with a united Germany and their allies in the Eastern bloc in chaotic pursuit of democracy. His colonel's insignia was still bright and new; he was very proud of it. Now he had been given an assignment that demanded intuitive analysis to a sensitive degree. The anti-Soviet activists abroad were planning to strike a blow. Discovery and prevention were the methods available. The old strong-arm KGB response was not an option.

Gusev sensed that his
dacha
and further promotion was in the balance. He immersed himself in his work. Every file, every data sheet on the exiles and
emigrés
who'd caused trouble over the past thirty years was computerized and collated for him.