House of the Hanged

Maybe it had been cowardice, the knowledge that retribution would surely come at the cost of his own life, or maybe the calculating pragmatist in him had prevailed over base emotion. Either way, he was alive, and the information he had just handed on might even save lives. It clearly had value; he could see its worth reflected back at him in Dukes’s eyes.

‘This changes everything,’ said Dukes. ‘We can’t stay here. Katya, you also have to leave.’

‘No.’

‘You must.’

‘Not if I don’t know where you’re going.’

‘Katya –’

‘Do I know?’ she insisted.

Dukes shook his head solemnly.

‘Then go,’ she said. ‘Both of you. What are they going to do with an old woman like me?’

Her life had been reduced quite enough already to this: this queer museum of displaced artefacts. The barbarians might be hammering at the gates of the city, but the curator had no intention of abandoning her post.

It took Dukes a few minutes to gather his belongings together, and all the while he was issuing instructions to Tom. Katya accompanied them downstairs as far as the first-floor landing. Pressing something into Dukes’s hand, she said, ‘It was my mother’s.’

Tom also received a parting gift – a jewelled gold locket on a chain.

‘You are a brave boy,’ said Katya, ‘and you deserve to live. But remember . . . keep back one bullet for yourself.’

She shooed them off down the stairs like a mother sending her two sons out to play.

Tom left the building first, turning up his collar and heading south on Liteiny Prospekt. Dukes went north. Ten nerve-racking minutes later they reconvened, as arranged, in front of a haberdashery on Nevsky Prospekt. There was no acknowledgement; it was an opportunity for each of them to determine if the other was being followed. Dukes had said he would stamp the snow from his boots if he felt they were safe to proceed. This he now did, before setting off once more at a brisk pace. Tom tailed him at a distance, his fingers closed around the revolver in his pocket, unsure of their destination.

He tried to remain alert, but his grief came at him in waves. He had walked this same route with Irina, idly strolling in the summer heat, stopping every so often to peer into a shop window, the scarlet trams rattling back and forth nearby.

He choked back a sob and felt the heat of anger rising in his belly. He didn’t fight to suppress it; he let it spread through him, into his chest, along his limbs, warming him.

It came to him quite suddenly what he would do and how he would do it.

It was a religious building of some kind, set well back from the street behind a high wall at the southern end of the Nevsky. Beyond the imposing entrance gate the trees rose tall and bare on either side of the pathway. Dukes cut left almost immediately into the trees, taking a well-trodden trail through the deep snow. It led to a cemetery deep in the wood, a bosky burial ground for the wealthy, sparsely populated with the dead. Large free-standing tombs were scattered around a frozen lake, like temples in some eighteenth-century garden.

The packed snow of the snaking pathways suggested that many others had visited in recent days, possibly paying a final tribute to their ancestors, it occurred to Tom, before fleeing the country for good. Right now, though, the two Englishmen found themselves alone. The purpose of their own pilgrimage was still no clearer to Tom, even when Dukes made for a tomb pushing four-square through a deep drift.

No larger than a garden shed, it was maybe twice as tall, its roof crowned with a Russian cross. The pale green stucco of its outer walls had crumbled in parts, revealing the bare stone blocks beneath. Its door was of solid wood and firmly locked.

Dukes was still struggling with an iron key when Tom joined him. The lock finally emitted a rasping groan and the door swung open on rusty hinges. The moment they were inside, Dukes shouldered it shut behind them.

The only illumination came from a small lunette above the door, and it was a few seconds before Tom’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, by which time Dukes was already on his knees before the altar. For a worrying moment it looked as though he was praying, but he was working away at one of the flagstones, prising it up with a pocket knife. Buried in the packed earth beneath was an old cigar box. It contained a wafer-thin package wrapped in waxed paper.

‘Here,’ said Dukes. ‘Take it with you.’

Tom had handled enough of Dukes’s coded intelligence reports in the past to know what it was.

‘Tell them I need more money – a lot more.’ Replacing the flagstone, Dukes got to his feet and stamped it down. ‘Deal directly with Leonard. I wouldn’t trust Bayliss with anything more than a cocktail shaker.’

‘You’re staying?’ asked Tom, incredulously.

‘It’s not over yet.’

‘But what about Zakharov?’

‘You think he’s the first to betray us?’

The weary fatalism of the statement grated. It suggested that the Zakharovs of the world were an unavoidable irritant to be endured, like mosquitoes, or people coughing in the theatre.

Tom removed his cap and pulled some banknotes from the lining. ‘It’s all I have left.’

Dukes riffled through the money, clearly delighted. ‘How much do you need?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure.’

Dukes pocketed most of the cash and handed the rest back. ‘This should see you back to Helsinki.’

These weren’t the last words the two men exchanged. As they parted company outside, Tom asked, ‘How do you live like this?’

Dukes hesitated before replying. ‘I was here when the Revolution broke, when we turned the Tauride Palace into an arsenal. You see, I once believed in the New Jerusalem. Maybe I still do. But this isn’t it. This . . . this is Abaddon.’

He touched Tom lightly on the arm. ‘Tell Leonard from me that it’s not too late.’

‘For what?’

‘He’ll understand.’

As Tom watched the slight, anonymous figure shuffle off down the pathway, something told him that this would be his last ever glimpse of the man.

Abaddon, the place of punishment.

A fitting analogy, Tom reflected, his thoughts turning once more to Zakharov, the betrayer.

Chapter Two

Toulon, France. July 1935. Sixteen years later.

The porters were already in place, ranged along the platform like a guard of honour, when the train pulled into Toulon station. The heat was oppressive, and they fidgeted in their brass-buttoned tunics. A few of them crushed their cigarettes underfoot as the train shuddered to a halt and the carriage doors swung open.

Lucy was one of the last to descend. She had cut her hair short, and Tom might not even have recognized her had she not spotted him and waved.

Seeing her at a distance lent a new perspective. He realized, with a touch of sadness, that although she had lost none of her coltish grace she was no longer a girl. She had become a woman. It wasn’t just her new coiffure, or even her elegant organdie summer frock, it was the way she carried herself, the easy manner in which she proffered her hand to the guard who helped her down to the platform, the casual comment which set the fellow smiling.

Tom fought his way through the throng, arriving as her Morocco travelling bags were being loaded from the luggage car on to a trolley.

She might have changed, but she was still happy to launch herself at him and hug him tight, limpet-like, as they had always done. She smelled of roses.