Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

“This is where the Indian died,” the official said, stopping in front of him.

The body had long since been taken away, but the blood it had shed remained visible. A few coins glinted in the running gap beside the rails, presumably dropped when the man went down.

There was nothing else to see. A strange place for an Indian to die, Komarov thought, as a tram clanked out through the distant gates. He was annoyed by how long it had taken the militia to report the robbery, but supposed he should be grateful they had done so at all—at least someone at the local HQ had realized that an Indian dying violently in the middle of an International congress was likely to have political ramifications. “The foreign comrades are here to be impressed, not perish in anarchist robberies,” was the way Dzerzhinsky had put it.

Had there been only one Indian? All the robbers had been masked, but some depot staffers had noticed that two at least had unusually dark-skinned hands. Against this, two other men had been heard speaking Russian, including the one who seemed to be in charge. The latter’s accent had sounded strange to all the people questioned, but not in “an Asian sort of way.”

India, of course, was a British possession. Could the agent they were hunting have anything to do with this? Komarov wondered. It seemed unlikely—the man had only just arrived in Moscow.

If the witnesses were to be believed—and there seemed no reason they shouldn’t be—the man with the funny accent had boasted that “any true Bolshevik” would approve their plans for the stolen money. Which hardly suggested British involvement. It was much more likely that the men concerned were renegades of one sort or another—perhaps a bunch of anarchists as Dzerzhinsky had suggested, perhaps a splinter group of Socialist Revolutionaries. There was no shortage of men with a grievance.

There was no foreign power behind this. And no organization with any prospect of widespread support. This was just another bunch of dissidents who’d grown bored with the problems of putting ideals into practice, men who thought compromise equaled betrayal. They’d be planning some sort of desperate action, something to show the world just how right they were.

Komarov’s new assistant emerged from the building where the witnesses were still being questioned. His name was Pavel Maslov, and he’d been seconded from the Vecheka on account of the possible foreign ramifications of the investigation. A young fair-haired Ukrainian with a childlike face, he seemed efficient enough, but hadn’t yet shown signs of anything more.

“We’re finished,” he reported.

“Nothing to help with identifications?”

“No.”

And he wasn’t verbose, Komarov thought, adding to the mental appraisal. “Then we’ll visit the morgue,” he said.

The expression on Maslov’s face asked why, but he didn’t voice the question.

It was a short ride in the Russo-Balt. The pavements were thronged with people heading for work, and Komarov watched the eyes turn away from the Cheka car, pretending they hadn’t seen it. He wondered if Maslov noticed and what he felt if he did. Angry? Pleased? The sadness that Komarov himself felt?

The morgue was attached to the Pavlovski Hospital, a place he knew only too well—it was there that his wife had spent her final weeks. The main chamber was artificially cooled, and the stench of putrefaction seemed fainter than usual. The four corpses, still fully clothed, were laid out on marble slabs.

Komarov looked at the Indian first, a slim young man not much older than twenty, with sleek black hair and a rather handsome face. Two bullets had entered his chest, leaving egg-shaped brown stains on the thin white shirt. The eyes were still open and looked strangely excited.

The Russian on the next slab was familiar. His name was Ivan Grazhin, and if Komarov remembered correctly, he had been a well-known voice in the soldiers’ soviets, both before and after the first revolution. The man didn’t look like he’d prospered since, but the eyes were serene for those of someone who’d fired a gun through the roof of his mouth.

And then there were the real victims: one with his throat slit from ear to ear, looking as if he were wearing a blood-colored bib; another with a look of surprise on his face and a coin-sized hole above the heart. Several witnesses had said that the handgun was the largest they’d ever seen.

“Have the relatives been informed?” Komarov asked Maslov.

“I don’t know.”

“Call the militia and ask. If they haven’t done it, then ask them to do so.”

Maslov hurried off in search of a telephone. After one last look at the grisly tableau, Komarov walked back outside, where the air was noticeably warmer than it had been only ten minutes earlier.

Entering the hospital, he inquired after the wounded militiaman and was directed upstairs to one of the wards. The man had died in the last few minutes. “They couldn’t stop the bleeding,” a nurse told Komarov.

Five men dead, he thought, standing by the bed. And for what?

Through the window he saw a woman walking toward an automobile, and realized it was her. She must have been visiting someone, he decided. Or maybe the Zhenotdel had business at the hospital. As she went to wind the starting handle, a soldier hurried to offer his help and seemed somewhat put out when she firmly refused.

Komarov’s smile was his first of the day.

After watching her car drive away, he went down to his own, where Maslov was patiently waiting.

“There’s been another killing,” the young man said. “At the Hotel Lux.”

“An Indian?” Komarov asked.

“A Russian. But he was found under a bed in one of the Indians’ rooms.”

Which had to be more than a coincidence, Komarov thought. He looked at his watch. Dzerzhinsky had asked him not to pull the Indian delegates out of the conference before the day’s business was concluded unless he considered it absolutely necessary. He decided he did. He would wait for the morning session to finish, but no longer.

McColl spent the morning athis new job, translating speeches for the Indian delegation among the splendors of the Kremlin’s old imperial throne room. The first speaker was Lenin, who devoted two hours to a reasoned defense of the NEP, standing between the large gilded columns and beneath a huge sheet of scarlet velvet emblazoned with a golden hammer and sickle. His speech was matter-of-fact, like a kindly uncle’s address to a gathering of favorite nephews, and compelling in its simplicity. The Bolshevik leader’s preeminence was easy to understand.

Translating from Russian to Urdu was a touch on the tricky side, particularly where Marxist terminology was concerned, but McColl just about kept pace, and shamelessly précised the more difficult passages. The Indians hung on his every word, and several took copious notes.

After his presentation, Lenin sat himself down on the steps leading up to the platform, notepad in hand, and offered occasional asides that made everyone laugh. McColl’s translations were eagerly anticipated and usually greeted by a joyful clapping of hands.

As they all filed out at the session’s end, McColl saw the posse of leather-clad Chekists waiting at the exit and, for several dreadful seconds, thought they were waiting for him.

They were, but only for his services as an interpreter. The whole Indian delegation was needed back at the Hotel Lux.

There were no protests, only a slight air of bewilderment, as McColl and the twelve Indians were walked to their destination. At the hotel they were shown into a large, luxuriously furnished room on the ground floor; the smoking room in czarist days, McColl guessed. A tall, greying man in a suit was standing with his back to them, gazing out of the window. He turned to reveal a long face, steel-grey eyes above an aquiline nose.