Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

Perhaps. But why would any group of Englishmen give support to men like Brady and Piatakov? Either Komarov was missing some obvious point, or someone else had.

Where was Davydov? Komarov suddenly wondered. The Chekists outside had reported his and Piatakova’s return to the hotel, and the Englishman had not gone out again.

A probable answer came close on the heels of the question. Komarov grunted. It looked as though Davydov and Piatakova had each unwittingly saved the other’s life that night, he by leading his Cheka tail to the women’s meeting, she by taking him into her room. As Komarov’s father used to say, good fortune had a habit of repeating herself.

He heard the car pull up outside and told Maslov to take Polyansky out.

Alone in the empty dining room, Komarov turned his thoughts to Davydov and Piatakova. If he wasn’t the English agent she’d met up with in 1918, then Piatakova had made a third disastrous choice when it came to romantic attachments—two foreign agents and a renegade wouldn’t do much for anyone’s political reputation.

If Davydov was the same man, and he and she had known each other for years, they’d done a wonderful job of concealing the fact. Had they been partners all this time? Had they acted out a growing friendship on the train so that finally sharing a bed would seem quite natural? Was Caitlin Piatakova an English agent, too, or simply so besotted with love or lust that she was willing to put her own life at risk?

He couldn’t believe the former. She’d been living in Russia for years, and unless he’d completely misread the woman, her work at the Zhenotdel was a labor of love. She and the revolution’s leading lady were bosom friends.

And she’d married a Russian, for God’s sake. A committed Bolshevik then, a leftist renegade now.

So perhaps she’d told the truth in 1918. Perhaps Davydov’s reappearance had come as a total surprise.

What would Komarov have done in her shoes? He would have asked what the hell her former lover was doing in Russia and, depending on the answer, decided whether or not to give him up.

If that was what had happened, she must have been satisfied with his explanation. And if Komarov was right about her, that could mean only that Davydov’s presence in Russia was all on account of the men they were chasing, and wasn’t part of any fresh attempt by the British to undermine the Bolshevik government.

Was it possible, Komarov wondered, that he and Davydov were actually on the same side?

Maslov was standing in the doorway, apparently waiting for his presence to be acknowledged. “What about the Englishman?” he asked when Komarov finally looked his way. “Should we arrest him now?”

Caitlin was woken by the sunlight streaming through the uncovered window. His hand was resting lightly on her hip. She carefully moved it aside and got to her feet, then walked across to the window, the breeze caressing her skin. The distant mountains were wreathed in shadow; on the street below, a boy was sprinkling handfuls of water across the dusty sidewalk.

She turned her gaze to the sleeping McColl. What had she been thinking, inviting him in? And not just him—their whole damn past. And yet, and yet. She couldn’t deny it—not to herself—it had been as sweet as ever. He might not have been God’s gift to every woman, but there was something about him—about them —that made her want to weep with joy.

It had been that way from the start, she thought. A love so sweet and all consuming that it left no room for the rest of who she was.

He stirred and opened an eye. She reached for the blue dress and pulled it over her head. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she mumbled, and fled.

She washed herself from head to foot and examined her face in what was left of the mirror. “What should I say?” she murmured. That she’d enjoyed it, that they should do it again sometime soon. If she was using him, that was only what men had been doing to women since time began. Which of course was no excuse.

She made a face in the mirror and walked back to the room.

He was dressed and smoking one of her cigarettes.

“Let’s not say anything,” she said.

“All right.”

“So let’s go and find some breakfast.”

Once Caitlin had left forthe local Zhenotdel office, McColl ordered more tea and lit another cigarette. Why was he smoking again? What in God’s name should he do?

Making love again had been wonderful, and he told himself to cherish what had happened, not use it to build up hopes of something more. Whatever would be would be and might well depend on how long they stayed in each other’s company. Sooner or later her husband would either be caught or cross the border, and she would go back to Moscow to resume her work and life.

He hoped it would be later. In the meantime, he still needed a clearer picture of what Brady and her husband were actually planning and what support they had from whom. In his last conversation with Cumming in London, they’d agreed that if, as seemed likely, the mission took McColl toward India, he should attempt to contact DCI HQ in Delhi. “If the people you speak to know nothing about Brady and Co.,” Cumming had said, “then you’ve alerted them. If, as seems more likely, they’re up to their necks in the plot, you won’t have told them anything that they don’t already know.”

McColl finished the apple tea and pocketed the raisins in the accompanying saucer, wondering which made the world go ’round—love or bastards in Whitehall.

Outside the sun was already busy transforming the city into an oven. It was just past nine o’clock, and the temperature had to be into the eighties. He walked down Chernyaevskaya Street, keeping to the shade of the karagach trees, and caught a tram heading east at the bridge that linked the old and Russian towns. A familiar poster caught his eye: the Moscow Circus was about to arrive in Tashkent.

He alighted from the tram outside the Kukeldash Madrasah and walked up a wide, stall-lined street that he seemed to remember led into Iski Juva market place. It did. He ordered tea at a chaikhana and cooled off in the welcome shade.

There was one other European face in sight, and it belonged to a man who had been on the same tram that he had. Was he being followed? And if so, why? Why would Peters keep a watch on one of Komarov’s assistants? The man’s presence could have been a coincidence, but he did have a sneaky look about him.

Another white face appeared right in front of McColl. Its owner, it seemed safe to assume, was not employed by the Cheka. He was about sixty, had a prematurely wizened face surrounded by white hair and beard, and carried a bright green parrot on his left shoulder. A large canvas bag hung from the other. “You want your fortune told,” he told McColl, first in German, then, with bewildering fluidity, in a succession of other languages, most of which sounded vaguely Balkan.

McColl laughed. “Why not?” he replied in Russian. “How much?”

The man looked surprised. “You are Russian?”

“Of course.”

The man just shook his head.

The Cheka could use this old man, McColl thought. “How much?” he asked again.

“A Kerensky note.”

It was only an opening bid, but it was far too hot for bargaining. McColl took a note from his pocket and placed it on the mattress on which he was sitting. The man unslung his bag and opened it up at the neck, then offered it to the parrot, who delved in and brought out a tiny envelope in its beak. After offering the prize to its master, the parrot turned its gimlet eyes on McColl, with a look that said: “Why do I do all the work?”