Boris Akunin: The Diamond Chariot

‘Yes, we have another apartment in Moscow, on Ostozhenka Street. Georges sometimes takes an engagement for the winter at the Bolshoi.’

At this, Rybnikov finally concealed himself behind Evening Russia and the lady was obliged to fall silent. She nervously picked up the Russian Assembly , ran her eyes over the article on the front page and tossed it aside, muttering:

‘My God, how vulgar! Completely undressed, in the road! Could she really have been stripped totally and completely naked? Who is this Countess N.? Vika Olsufieva? Nelly Vorontsova? Ah, it doesn’t matter anyway.’

Outside the windowpane, dachas, copses of trees and dreary vegetable patches drifted by. The staff captain rustled his newspaper, enthralled.

Lidina sighed, then sighed again. She found the silence oppressive.

‘What’s that you find so fascinating to read?’ she eventually asked, unable to restrain herself.

‘Well, you see, it’s the list of officers who gave their lives for the tsar and the fatherland in the sea battle beside the island of Tsushima. It came through the European telegraph agencies, from Japanese sources. The scrolls of mourning, so to speak. They say they’re going to continue it in forthcoming issues. I’m looking to see if any of my comrades-in-arms are there.’ And Vasilii Alexandrovich started reading out loud, with expression, savouring the words. ‘On the battleship Prince Kutuzov-Smolensky : junior flagman, Rear Admiral Leontiev; commander of the vessel, Commodore Endlung; paymaster of the squadron, State Counsellor Ziukin; chief officer, Captain Second Rank von Schwalbe …’

‘Oh, stop!’ said Glyceria Romanovna, fluttering her little hand. ‘I don’t want to hear it! When is this terrible war ever going to end!’

‘Soon. The insidious enemy will be crushed by the Christian host,’ Rybnikov promised, setting the newspaper aside to take out a little book, in which he immersed himself with even greater concentration.

The lady screwed her eyes up short-sightedly, trying to make out the title, but the book was bound in brown paper.

The train’s brakes screeched and it came to a halt.

‘Kolpino?’ Lidina asked in surprise. ‘Strange, the express never stops here.’

Rybnikov stuck his head out of the window and called to the duty supervisor.

‘Why are we waiting?’

‘We have to let a special get past, Officer, it’s got urgent military freight.’

While her companion was distracted, Glyceria Romanovna seized the chance to satisfy her curiosity. She quickly opened the book’s cover, held her pretty lorgnette on a gold chain up to her eyes and puckered up her face. The book that the staff captain had been reading so intently was called TUNNELS AND BRIDGES: A concise guide for railway employees .

A telegraph clerk clutching a paper ribbon in his hand ran up to the station supervisor, who read the message, shrugged and waved his little flag.

‘What is it?’ asked Rybnikov.

‘Don’t know if they’re coming or going. Orders to dispatch you and not wait for the special.’

The train set off.

‘I suppose you must be a military engineer?’ Glyceria Romanovna enquired.

‘What makes you think that?’

Lidina felt embarrassed to admit that she had peeped at the title of the book, but she found a way out – she pointed to the leather tube.

‘That thing. It’s for drawings, isn’t it?’

‘Ah, yes.’ Vasilii Alexandrovich lowered his voice. ‘Secret documents. I’m delivering them to Moscow.’

‘And I thought you were on leave. Visiting your family, or your parents, perhaps.’

‘I’m not married. Where would I get the earnings to set up a family? I’m dog poor. And I haven’t got any parents, I’m an orphan. And in the regiment they used to taunt me for a Tatar because of my squinty eyes.’

After the stop at Kolpino the staff captain brightened up somewhat and became more talkative, and his broad cheekbones even turned slightly pink.

Suddenly he glanced at his watch and stood up.

‘ Pardon , I’ll just go out for a smoke.’

‘Smoke here, I’m used to it,’ Glyceria Romanovna told him graciously. ‘Georges smokes cigars. That is, he used to.’

Vasilii Alexandrovich smiled in embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry. When I said a smoke, I was being tactful. I don’t smoke, an unnecessary expense. I’m actually going to the WC, on a call of nature.’

The lady turned away with a dignified air.

The staff captain took the tube with him. Catching his female companion’s indignant glance, he explained in an apologetic voice:

‘I’m not allowed to let it out of my hands.’

Glyceria Romanovna watched him go and murmured:

‘He really is quite unpleasant.’ And she started looking out of the window.

But the staff captain walked quickly through second class and third class to the carriage at the tail of the train and glanced out on to the brake platform.

There was an insistent, lingering blast on a whistle from behind.

The conductor-in-chief and a gendarme sentry were standing on the platform.

‘What the hell!’ said the conductor. ‘That can’t be the special. They telegraphed to say it was cancelled!’

The long train was following them no more than half a verst away, drawn by two locomotives, puffing out black smoke. A long tail of flat wagons cased in tarpaulin stretched out behind it.

The hour was already late, after ten, but the twilight had barely begun to thicken – the season of white nights was approaching.

The gendarme looked round at the staff captain and saluted.

‘Begging your pardon, Your Honour, but please be so good as to close the door. Instructions strictly forbid it.’

‘Quite right, old fellow,’ Rybnikov said approvingly. ‘Vigilance, and all the rest of it. I just wanted to have a smoke, actually. Well, I’ll just do it in the corridor here. Or in the WC.’

And he went into the toilet, which in third class was cramped and not very clean.

After locking himself in, Vasilii Alexandrovich stuck his head out of the window.

The train was just moving on to an antediluvian bridge, built in the old Count Kleinmichel style, which spanned a narrow little river.

Rybnikov stood on the flush lever and a hole opened up in the bottom of the toilet. Through it he could clearly see the sleepers flickering past.

The staff captain pressed some invisible little button on the tube and stuffed the narrow leather case into the hole – the diameter matched precisely, so he had to employ a certain amount of force.

When the tube had disappeared through the hole, Vasilii Alexandrovich quickly moistened his hands under the tap and walked out into the vestibule of the carriage, shaking the water from his fingers.

A minute later, he was already walking back into his own compartment.

Lidina looked at him severely – she still had not forgiven him for that ‘call of nature’ – and was about to turn away, when she suddenly exclaimed:

‘Your secret case! You must have forgotten it in the toilet!’

An expression of annoyance appeared on Rybnikov’s face, but before he could answer Glyceria Romanovna there was a terrifying crash and the carriage lurched and swayed.

The staff captain dashed to the window. There were heads protruding from the other windows too, all of them looking back along the line.

At that point the line curved round in a small arc and they had a clear view of the tracks, the river they had just crossed and the bridge.

Or rather, what was left of it.

The bridge had collapsed at its precise centre, and at the precise moment when the line of heavy military flat wagons was crossing it.