Authors: Jasper Kent
‘I must say, you’re looking very healthy,’ said Dmitry, interrupting his thoughts. It was an accurate observation. Yudin had not starved himself in preparation for this meeting as much as he should. He looked younger than when the two of them had last met. But it was the least of his concerns.
‘As do you,’ he replied. ‘Your ankle must be almost healed now.’
‘I still feel the occasional twinge. Hence the stick.’
‘I’m sure you’ll soon be your old self.’
‘Old indeed,’ laughed Dmitry. ‘I’ll be fifty next year.’
‘Fifty? Really? Lyosha’s little boy that I dandled on my knee.’ Dmitry grinned, but Yudin instantly regretted saying it. It was not wise to remind Dmitry of just how old he really was. But it did allow him to turn the conversation down his chosen path. ‘By the way, Mitka, there’s something I meant to ask you. Nothing important, just a little strange.’
‘Fire away.’
Yudin did his best to sound hesitant. ‘I came across a letter – in the course of my work – from years ago. Ancient history now, but it referred to someone by a sort of nickname, and I’m trying to find out who the man was, and I’m wondering if it might possibly have been your father.’
‘What was the nickname?’
‘It’s silly … and a little offensive, to be honest.’ Dmitry looked at him with his head on one side, telling him not to be so delicate. ‘Did you ever hear of anyone,’ continued Yudin, ‘calling him the three-fingered man?’
Dmitry hesitated for just a moment before replying, but it was enough for Yudin to know that the phrase meant something. ‘Odd you should say that,’ was his reply.
‘Odd?’ asked Yudin. ‘Why?’
‘Someone used that exact phrase in Sevastopol. An old friend of Papa’s.’
‘An old friend?’
‘Well, the son of an old friend. What was this letter about?’
The phrase had come from Mihailov’s lips, not from a letter,
but
it was easy for Yudin to extemporize. He lowered his voice. ‘The Decembrists.’
Dmitry nodded sombrely. ‘We were both lucky – luckier than Papa.’
‘Lucky thanks to him. Anyway, what was your friend’s name – in Sevastopol?’
‘Tyeplov,’ said Dmitry without hesitation.
So it was true that Tyeplov had spoken to Dmitry – though that much had never been in doubt. The real question was what, if anything, he had told Dmitry about Yudin – whether he had even identified him as the object of their vengeance. He tried a different tack.
‘How is Svetlana Nikitichna?’ he asked.
‘She’s fine. She’s fine. She asked after you.’
Now to dangle the bait. ‘You know who she reminds me of?’
‘Who?’
‘Raisa Styepanovna.’ There was some superficial resemblance – it was enough to bring her into the conversation; to bring her into Dmitry’s life.
‘Really?’
Yudin nodded. ‘
She
asked after
you
, by the way.’ It was almost true. She had told Yudin how she had flirted with Dmitry – how he had, however subtly, responded.
‘I only met her once.’
‘You made quite an impression.’
‘Really?’ asked Dmitry.
Raisa had evidently judged his reaction well; she knew her business. But Dmitry still had to be played. Yudin laughed a little. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘My dear Mitka – you’re a happily married man.’
‘And why shouldn’t I be even happier?’ It was meant as a joke, or at least disguised as one.
‘Mitka!’ Yudin’s tone was meant to scold – he’d spent years building up his image with Dmitry as a surrogate father; he could not drop that too willingly.
‘I’m sorry, Vasya. I shouldn’t tease you,’ said Dmitry before changing the subject. ‘I still can’t fathom why you never married.’
‘I think we both know the answer to that,’ said Yudin softly.
‘Because of Mama?’ Dmitry’s response was in the same tone.
Yudin sighed. ‘It could never be.’ It was astonishing that Dmitry had not the slightest inkling that Yudin had been screwing his mother since her son had been – what? – eleven years old. He thought too much of her to think her capable of it. And that high opinion rubbed off on Yudin.
‘Not even after Papa went into exile?’
‘They were still married.’
‘He took his lover with him.’
‘That would not have made it right. We saw things differently, your father and I. As do you and I.’
‘Would you despise me, if I were unfaithful to Svetlana?’ asked Dmitry earnestly.
Yudin gave the appearance of thinking for a moment, but in truth every move was planned in advance. ‘I would forgive you,’ he said. Dmitry smiled. Yudin sat back upright in his chair, his mood now lighter. ‘But anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t quite think that it would be Raisa Styepanovna who would steal a man like you away from his wife.’
Dmitry was disappointed. ‘Really? Not that kind of girl, I suppose.’
Yudin laughed loudly. ‘Oh, quite that kind of girl, I assure you, Mitka. But I don’t think
that
kind of girl is
your
kind of girl.’
‘I don’t get you.’
Yudin lowered his voice. ‘Mitka – to call her a courtesan would be to pay her a lavish compliment. For a small fee she will go with any man and let him do whatever he wishes to her.’
‘You’re joking!’ Dmitry flushed as he spoke.
It was hard to discern whether it was out of embarrassment or excitement. Yudin guessed a mixture of the two.
‘She works in a house up on Degtyarny Lane.’
Dmitry looked at him slyly. ‘How do you know all this, Vasya?’
Yudin made an effort to seem flustered. ‘Let me assure you, Mitka – I have never,
would
never …’ He petered out, pleased with his understated performance.
‘God, no. I know. I’m sorry. I was just teasing.’
‘As you know, I work for the government. Since we have these
establishments
, they must be regulated; yellow tickets to be issued and so forth. But whenever I can, I try to persuade these girls to leave such places – and I pray for their souls every night.’
‘I wouldn’t expect any less, Vasya. And thank you – for the warning.’
Yudin smiled warmly. Dmitry was much like his father, and it was in that very establishment that Aleksei had first met his paramour, Domnikiia. Dmitry would be no different. He would be ashamed for fear that Yudin found out, but he would go there all the same. And Raisa would be ready for him. Dmitry would lay his tortured soul at her feet and, when morning came, Raisa would gather it up and bring it to Yudin to examine.
They were entering the endgame, the culmination of a plan – not even that, merely a conceit – that had formed in Yudin’s mind long ago as he had gazed for the first time upon the innocent face of a five-year-old boy. Now all that mattered was to ensure that Aleksei found out.
TAMARA HAD ONCE
again been summoned to Petersburg, once again at the behest of Grand Duke Konstantin, but she had a few days to prepare for her trip and there was one particular visit she wanted to make before leaving. The address Gribov had given her for Natalia Borisovna was in Zamoskvorechye, at the southern end of Little Ordynka Street. There were half a dozen cobblers’ shops, all huddled together on the eastern side of the road. The address that Gribov had given her was one of them, but the shopkeeper had not heard of Natalia Borisovna, not by her maiden name or her married name; neither had he heard of her husband.
Tamara tried the other shops without success, but just as she left the final one and was about to give up, a woman came out of the first and ran up to her.
‘Is it you that’s looking for Ilya Vladimirovich Bazhenov?’
‘That’s right,’ said Tamara.
‘My husband’s an idiot.’
‘You do know him, then?’
‘No, but we know Oleg Ilyich Bazhenov.’
‘His son?’ asked Tamara. The woman shrugged. ‘Where is he?’
‘He has a shop in Ordynsky Lane, just there.’ She pointed up the street to where another road cut across it. ‘Number four.’
Tamara thanked her and walked up in the direction she had been shown. She found number four easily. It was a locksmith’s.
‘Oleg Ilyich?’ she enquired of the man who stood behind the counter with a welcoming smile and a dirty leather apron.
‘Indeed I am. How may I be of service?’
‘I’m looking for your mother. At least, I think I am.’ He was in his late thirties, which would fit with his mother having married in 1816.
‘My … mother?’
‘Natalia Borisovna Bazhenova – Papanova before she was married.’
‘That’s certainly my mother,’ he replied. ‘What about her?’
‘I wanted to talk to her; about 1812.’
‘1812?’
‘Yes – do you think she’d talk to me about it?’
‘You mean about the occupation?’
‘Around then.’
He smiled wistfully, pausing in happy recollection before speaking. ‘We could never get her to stop. I remember all her stories. She used to go on and on when we were children. About the French. About the fires. She and her father lost their home. They had to live in a churchyard.’
‘It must have been dreadful.’
‘They managed. Anything to beat the French – not like these days. She had a brother who died at Borodino – Fyodor.’ He smiled again. ‘And then there were her two captains.’
‘Captains?’
‘She rescued them from a fire. One of them was quite badly injured, but she nursed him back to health. I think she was quite taken by him, but she never admitted it – not to him or to us. Petrenko – that was his name.’
‘Petrenko.’ It was a name she had heard, not so long ago, on Dmitry’s lips. It was too ridiculous for there to be a connection – and yet she felt certain there was.
‘That’s right. Can’t remember the other fellow’s name. She didn’t mention him half as much. Began with a D.’
Tamara almost hoped she would be wrong, but had to offer the suggestion. ‘Danilov?’
‘Danilov!’ He pointed to her as he acknowledged the suggestion, and didn’t notice the shiver that ran down her spine. ‘Captain Petrenko and Captain Danilov. She helped them to get out of town – give the French the slip so they could come back fighting all the stronger. And they did.’
‘Did she ever mention a murder around then?’
‘Murder? There was a bloody war on.’
‘This was after the French left. In Degtyarny Lane.’
‘Where’s that then?’ he asked.
‘Up north. Off Tverskaya Street.’
He shook his head. ‘She never mentioned anything like that.’
Tamara had come to speak to Natalia Borisovna in person, and was still tempted to ask if she was there, but it was easy to guess the truth from the way her son spoke of her. ‘When did she die?’ Tamara asked instead.
Oleg gave her half a glance and half a smile, acknowledging that she had deduced what he had never stated. ‘You ever meet her?’
Tamara nodded and smiled broadly, she hoped convincingly, though she’d felt no affection for the woman during their brief encounter. ‘She was quite a character.’
He nodded. ‘It’s been a long time. 1846 she died. Can’t complain. She’s up at St Clement’s if you want to pay your respects.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tamara. ‘I will.’
She didn’t. What would be the point? There was no reason to doubt Oleg’s word that his mother lay there, nor to doubt his assertion that she had died ten years before. And so unless she had somehow risen from the grave, the woman that Tamara had met just one year ago was not Natalia Borisovna Bazhenova.
‘In a way, I’m sorry you’ve come.’
Raisa sat on her bed, wearing now only her undergarments – linen pantalettes that went down to her ankles, and a tight corset that was the secret behind both her waistline and her bust. She gazed at the floor as she spoke, her voice meek and contemplative.
Dmitry sat on the bed beside her and placed his hand on her thigh, but immediately withdrew, feeling he was being too forward.
‘I’ll go, if you like,’ he said.
She turned to him and clasped his hand, staring into his eyes. ‘No. I didn’t mean that. Please. It’s just that …’
‘What?’ He almost laughed at her discomfort, but restrained himself.
‘I’d been looking forward to it.’
Dmitry had been looking forward to it too, and still was, but he suspected that so flippant an answer would not be welcomed. She was not referring to quite the same thing. ‘To what?’ he asked.
‘To being wooed by you.’
He smiled – partly in amusement at her romantic simplicity, partly flattered by the fact she had hoped for more from him than from her other clients. He wished now that he had been more patient, more trusting of what he had seen in her when they first met than what he had heard of her since.
‘I think it’s too late for that now,’ she added.
‘Why?’