Jack Grimwood - Moskva

‘It’s complicated… The general had a letter Khrushchev sent to my father. The first line says, “I’m relying on you . ”’ Sveta hesitated. ‘It was written in late February 1953 and hand-delivered. My father met with General Dennisov first thing next morning.’

Tom felt the last bits of the puzzle slot into place.

Sveta nodded, her eyes on the driving mirror.

‘Stalin went to a banquet the day after, watched a film, retired to his dacha at Kuntsavo and went to bed. That place is the size of a hotel. Beria was there, Khrushchev and Golubtsov too. All of them. Where you found Golubtsov père , you found Dennisov. No one dared disturb Stalin when he didn’t appear for breakfast. My grandfather arrived that night, insisted on paying his respects and discovered the Boss on his bedroom floor, in a puddle of piss. No one can even agree whether he was alive or dead. It was three days before they announced that the Great Leader was no more.’

‘How close did we just come to history repeating itself?’

‘Very,’ Sveta said. ‘Only this man is a good man.’

‘And your grandfather wouldn’t give his permission?’

Sveta shrugged. ‘Anything else?’

Tom checked that Alex wasn’t on her way back.

‘Who was really behind her abduction?’

‘I think it went like this. Gorbachev wants to know whether the old guard will stand by him. My grandfather promises they will. Alex falls in love with one of Vedenin’s staff. Vedenin doesn’t know that, but his son, Vladimir, does… When General Dennisov finds out, he sees an opportunity. He objects to Gorbachev being given the top post. He objects to the suggestion that we negotiate with the West. He objects to anything that doesn’t put one of his allies in the top job.’

Tom waited.

‘Taking Alex muddied the waters and gave the general leverage when it came to protecting his reputation. Those Berlin papers were dangerous. Your friend Beziki messed everything up by grabbing the girl after Vladimir Vedenin died. He must have known what he was bringing on himself.’

‘But he had the photographs.’

‘In the end, they weren’t enough. The general was dying. He hated how Russia was changing. And he wanted his reputation protected. Alex’s father could provide that. I’m sure you’ve worked out that Sir Edward already knew exactly what the general and Kyukov were capable of…’

‘Christ,’ Tom said.

‘Your God, not mine. Sir Edward is very English.’

Tom waited for her to say more.

‘You don’t like him,’ Sveta added. ‘We know that. But he’s a good man, for an Englishman.’ She shrugged. ‘My grandfather considers him to be one anyway. Soon London will ask if he thinks our offer is a ruse.’

‘What offer?’

‘To begin to embrace democracy.’

‘Is it a ruse?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sveta looked briefly troubled. ‘My grandfather says we can’t afford to keep fighting the West. So we’re going to do a terrible thing to you. We’re going to take away your enemy, come in from the cold.’ She shrugged. ‘We tamed the tundra, defeated the Nazis almost singlehandedly and put the first satellite into space. I don’t see why democracy should be so hard…’

‘You know I’ll report that?’

‘I’m counting on it. We might have lost the Cold War. You know I’ll deny saying that. We intend to win the thaw.’

‘You never were Vnutrenniye Voiska were you?’

Turning, Sveta reached out to offer her hand. ‘Colonel Milova,’ she said, ‘KGB. At your service.’

‘Colonel?’

‘There are some benefits to a happy outcome.’

‘As well as a sense of pride in having done your duty to the state?’

‘That too,’ Sveta said.

The buildings of the Garden Ring swept by and the Zil passed through red lights with traffic police holding back the cars that would have gone on green. They were nearing the embassy when Tom remembered something. ‘If you want your cassette back, Dennisov has it. Your books too.’

‘You found the stuff in my wardrobe?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All of it?’

‘Badges, cassettes, Davie’s postcard, books, your poems…’

Alex groaned. ‘No one else read them, did they?’

‘Only your mother.’

‘Tell me you’re joking.’ Alex drew up her knees, hugging them to her chest. She was chewing her lip as she stared past Sveta to the road beyond. ‘You are joking. Aren’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t worry.’

‘Wouldn’t worry !’

‘She said no one who’d actually had sex could possibly have written them.’

Alex’s expression passed through hurt, anger and outrage to eye-rolling contempt in seconds. ‘Shows what she knows.’

Tom wasn’t sure he was meant to hear that.

‘Can I ask a question?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘What do I tell them?’

‘What do you want to tell them?’

‘Nothing,’ she said firmly. ‘They’ll only fuss.’

‘That’s their job,’ he told her and she made a face at him too.

Leaning forward, Tom asked Sveta to take a long way round.

So Sveta turned into a backstreet, weaved her way between parked cars and slowed in a little square, still white from that morning’s snow. She brought the Zil to a halt outside a glass-fronted bakery that looked shut. Vanishing inside, she reappeared with a brown paper bag. ‘Dennisov’s favourites.’

Maybe she was going to call him that for ever.

‘You can have one now.’ Pulling a sticky pastry from the bag, Sveta handed it to Alex, who examined it doubtfully. Politeness won.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘And one for him. Now I shut this.’

A glass wall rose inside the Zil and immediately descended for Sveta to add, ‘So you can talk,’ in case that wasn’t obvious. As she pulled away, the Ural fell into position behind and Alex put her pastry on the seat beside her.

‘You’ll upset her if you don’t eat it.’

With a sigh, the girl took a bite.

Drifts were piled up on both sides of the main road, and a snowplough stood abandoned in a slot reserved for traffic police. Well-wrapped women, with headscarves to protect them from the wind, and zinc scrapers with wooden handles, cleared pavements. Office workers went to their jobs. Night workers came home. A stall in a tiny park had a queue for hot tea. Children skated on a small lake watched by babushkas, Prokofiev blaring from speakers hung on the trees. The whole city moved like slightly faulty clockwork. And Tom realized that he’d grown to like the place.

‘You’re not listening,’ Alex protested.

‘I was thinking about Sveta’s grandfather.’

‘That’s probably better than thinking about Sveta. Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s obvious. Do you mind about…?’

‘Dennisov? I think they’ll be good together.’

‘I loved him, you know. Well, I thought I did.’

They weren’t talking about Dennisov now, obviously.

‘Do you think he ever thinks about me?’

Tom thought of Kotik, burned to death in the warehouse, his hands wired behind his back and Alex’s jade ring on his finger. The boy he’d seen at the New Year’s Eve party watching over Vedenin.

‘No,’ Tom said firmly, ‘I don’t imagine he does.’

Alex bit her lip and stared out of the window.

‘What should I do?’

Tom thought of all the things he could and should have said to Becca, and realized he should probably stop linking Alex and Becca in his head like this. Alex didn’t need it and Becca deserved better.

‘Be kind.’

She glanced at him.

‘You’re bright, talented, opinionated…’ He liked that she didn’t try to deny it, blush or nod in agreement. She simply waited, looking slightly watchful. Then she waited some more when he couldn’t find the words. ‘You can afford to be kind.’