Boris Akunin - The Coronation

‘But what if—’

Erast Petrovich put his hand over my mouth again, in the same way as he had done before so recently. The man in the long cloak had looked round, although we were talking in whispers and he could not possibly have heard us.

I pushed Fandorin’s hand away angrily and asked my question anyway: ‘But what if they are not going to the hostages?’

‘The time is five minutes past three,’ he replied, apropos of nothing at all.

‘I didn’t ask you the time,’ I said, angered by his evasiveness. ‘You are always making me out—’

‘Have you really forgotten,’ Fandorin interrupted, ‘that we made an appointment with the doctor at four in the morning? If Lind wishes to be punctual, he needs to collect the prisoners as quickly as possible in order to get to the waste g-ground by the Petrovsky Palace on time.’

The fact that Erast Petrovich had started stammering again suggested that he was feeling a little less tense. And for some reason I also stopped trembling and feeling angry.

The moment Lind (if it was indeed he) and the Postman turned the corner, we skipped back over the fence. I thought in passing that since I had met Mr Fandorin I had climbed more walls and fences than at any other time in my life, even when was I was a child.

‘Get into the carriage and follow me with caution,’ Erast Petrovich instructed me as he walked along. ‘Get out at every corner and look round it. I shall signal to you to drive on or to wait.’

And in precisely that unhurried manner we reached the boulevard, where Fandorin suddenly beckoned for us to drive up to him.

‘They have taken a cab and are going to Sretenka Street,’ he said as he sat down beside me. ‘Come on now, Vologda. Follow them, only don’t get too close.’

For quite a long time we drove along a succession of boulevards, sometimes moving downhill at a spanking pace and then slowing to drive up an incline. Although it was the middle of the night, the streets were not empty. There were small groups of people walking along, making lively conversation, and several times we were overtaken by other carriages. In St Petersburg they like to poke fun at the old capital city for supposedly taking to its bed with the dusk, but apparently this was far from true. You would never see so many people out walking on Nevsky Prospect at three o’clock in the morning.

We kept driving straight ahead, and turned only once, at the statue of Pushkin, onto a large street that I immediately recognised as Tverskaya. From here to the Petrovsky Palace it was three or four versts straight along the same route that the imperial procession had followed during the ceremonial entry into the old capital, only in the opposite direction.

On Tverskaya Street there were even more people and carriages, and they were all moving in the same direction as we were. This seemed very strange to me, but I was thinking about something else.

‘They are not stopping anywhere!’ I eventually exclaimed, unable to contain myself. ‘I think they are going straight to the meeting place!’

Fandorin did not answer. In the dim light of the gas lamps his face looked pale and lifeless.

‘Perhaps Lind still has some accomplices after all, and the hostages will be delivered directly to the rendezvous?’ he speculated after a long pause, but his voice somehow lacked its habitual self-confidence.

‘What if they have already been . . .’ I could not bring myself to finish the dreadful thought.

Erast Petrovich spoke slowly, in a quiet voice, but his reply sent shivers running down my spine: ‘Then at least we still have Lind.’

After the Triumphal Gates and the Alexander Railway Station, the separate groups of people fused into a single continuous stream that spread across the roadway as well as the pavements and our horse was forced to slow to a walk. But Lind’s carriage was not moving any faster – I could still see the two hats beyond the lowered leather hood ahead of us: the doctor’s floppy headgear and the Postman’s peaked cap.

‘Good Lord, it’s the eighteenth today!’ I exclaimed, almost jumping off the seat when I remembered the significance of the date. ‘Mr Fandorin, there cannot be any meeting on the waste ground! With so many problems on my mind, I completely forgot about the programme of events for the coronation! On Saturday the eighteenth of May there are to be public revels on the open ground opposite the Petrovsky Palace, with free food and drink and the distribution of souvenirs. There must be a hundred thousand people on that waste ground now!’

‘Damn!’ Fandorin swore nervously. ‘I didn’t take that into account either. But then I didn’t think that there would be any meeting. I just wrote down the first thing that came into my head. What an unforgivable blunder!’

On every side we could hear excited voices – some not entirely sober – and jolly laughter. For the most part the crowd consisted of simple people, which was only natural – free honey cakes and sweet spiced drinks were hardly likely to attract a more respectable public, who if they did come to take a look out of curiosity would go into the grandstands, where entrance was by ticket only. They said that at the last coronation as many as three hundred thousand people had gathered for the public festivities, and this time probably even more would come. Well, here they were. People must have been making their way there all night long.

‘Tell me, Mister Policeman, is it true what they say, that they’re going to give everyone a pewter mug and fill it right up to the brim with vodka?’ our driver asked, turning his round animated face towards us. He had obviously been infected by the mood of the festive crowd.

‘Halt,’ Erast Petrovich ordered.

I saw that Lind’s cab had stopped, although there was still a long way to go before the turn to the Petrovsky Palace.

‘They’re getting out!’ I exclaimed.

Fandorin handed the cabby a banknote and we set off at a sprint, pushing through the slow-moving crowd.

Although there was a half-moon peering through the clouds, it was quite dark, and so we decided to move a little closer, to a distance of about ten paces. There were bonfires blazing in the open field on the left of the road and on the right, behind the bushes, and so the two silhouettes, one taller and the other slightly shorter, were clearly visible.

‘We must not lose sight of them,’ I kept repeating to myself over and over, like an incantation.

During those minutes of pursuit I seemed to forget all about His Highness and Mademoiselle Declique. Some ancient and powerful instinct that had nothing to do with pity and was stronger than fear set my heart pounding rapidly but steadily. I had never understood the attraction of the hunt, but now it suddenly occurred to me that the hounds must feel something like this when the pack is unleashed to run down the wolf.

We were forcing our way through a genuine crush now, almost like Nevsky Prospect at the height of the day. From time to time we had to put our elbows to work. A hulking factory hand pushed in front of us and blocked our view. I managed somehow to squeeze through under his elbow and gasped in horror. Lind and the Postman had disappeared!

I looked round despairingly at Fandorin. He drew himself up to his full height and, I think, even stood on tiptoe as he gazed around.

‘What can we do?’ I shouted. ‘My God, what can we do?’

‘You go right; I’ll go left,’ he said.

I dashed to the edge of the road. There were people sitting on the grass in large and small groups. Others were wandering aimlessly among the trees, and in the distance a choir was singing out of tune. Lind was not on my side. I rushed back to the road and collided with Erast Petrovich, who was forcing his way through towards me.