Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

The forest is divided into hamlets, each an island of rank or calling. Writers live at Peredelkino, once the home of Boris Pasternak who wrote the unwelcome epic Dr Zhivago, Politburo members reign near Usova, while Zhukovka, perhaps the loveliest of the hamlets is itself divided into two rustic ghettos, one for high-flying politicians, the other for pioneers of space, nuclear physicists and luminaries of the Arts. It is possible in this part of Zhukovka to meet a man who may have given the world a weather satellite, a concerto or a refinement of the hydrogen bomb.

It was to Zhukovka that Sedov told the taxi driver to take him. To a clinic. Not the Sanatorium for the Central Committee on the Podushkino Highway but to a more humble establishment on a side road half a mile away.

The driver handled the taxi badly, nerves reacting to Sedov’s destination. His face was grey, his eyes bloodshot, vodka eyes.

Sitting in the back, clutching the strap as the taxi skidded round bends, Sedov considered the killing at the pool at Leninsk. No way was it his concern but, since the KGB had taken over the investigation, he had heard details. Taken over? Killed stone dead was a better way of putting it.

As far as Sedov could make out Brasack had been a CIA spy who had tried to make contact with the American defector Robert Massey. Probably to threaten him – maltreatment of relatives back in the US perhaps – possibly to kill him. Whatever the plans were they had been terminated by Department V.

What worried Sedov was Talin’s acquaintanceship – not friendship, that had been an exaggeration – with Massey. The more he worried the more the worries multiplied.

Ostensibly the reason for his anxiety was plain. Massey was a traitor. No one wanted to pass the time of day with a traitor – look how the Philbys and their ilk in Moscow were boycotted – unless he had come armed with some gentle persuasion.

Persuasion of which I know nothing! This led to a worry about the state of Talin’s mind. Long ago he had taught the brash and handsome young Siberian to stifle his rebellion. Stifle – not necessarily exterminate. God knows what protests pounded away inside his skull. His heartbeat, for instance, when Mission Control had announced the incursion into Poland.

This led to a worry about his own motives. Exhaustively, he cross-examined himself to see if he could identify jealousy. He found himself Not Guilty. All that he uncovered during the examination was intuition. A policeman’s intuition which was a far more positive force than the dictionary definition. If the dead CIA agent had been making contact with Massey then Massey was tainted. And he would taint Talin.

The taxi skidded on hard-packed snow and sailed along majestically broadside. The driver spun the wheel; the cab skidded right around, straightened up. Sedov swore at him.

But how can I warn Talin? He won’t believe me. He will believe that I… Sedov’s mind baulked at what Talin might believe.

Fur-hatted militia appeared in the road. One, hand on pistol, gestured to the driver to open the window. ‘Zdrastvuite,’ he said, but Sedov already had his ID in his hand and the militiaman stepped back smartly, waving the driver on.

At this display of Sedov’s authority the driver became even more nervous. Sedov tapped him on the shoulder: ‘Take the next left.’ They took it on two wheels.

The clinic was an old dacha from Tzarist times. A rambling wooden mansion with fretted eaves, ochre-washed annexes added more recently. It was besieged on all sides by regiments of pine trees; it was suspended in time; it was a home for incurables. Sedov left the cab at the entrance to the drive.

When he rang the bell a finger of snow fell from the porch. He heard the bell peal in the depths of the dacha.

The door was opened by a girl in a starched white uniform. Her youth looked out of place, an anachronism. But not to Sedov who had been there many times before.

She smiled at him and led him down a long corridor. On either side the doors were shut. Luxury condemned cells where life and death could hover entwined for decades.

She opened the door of No. 23 and left him with the woman inside. She lay on a couch staring at the snow-covered lawns outside. She wore an eggshell blue dressing gown patterned with roses; her hair was grey and wild, the skin on her face was parchment; she had once been beautiful.

He sat beside her. She smiled at him vaguely. At least she wasn’t unhappy, better off than many in the clinic. She looked seventy: it was her thirty-ninth birthday.

‘Happy birthday,’ he said. He took a small packet from the inside pocket of his jacket. She took it from him and placed it on the table beside her. ‘It’s perfume,’ he said. ‘The one you like.’ The one she had worn on their honeymoon.

Her eyes focused on him, a flicker of interest in them. ‘And how is our son today?’ she asked.

He took her hand. ‘We should be very proud of him,’ he said. ‘He has been promoted to take command of a whole fleet of space-ships.’

The Bolshoi touring company arrived complete with costumes, sets and discord.

Talin heard about the latter when he took Sonya on a tour of Leninsk stage-managed so that she could appreciate its merits which, he had to admit, were few and far between.

He started off with his own small house down the street from the cottage where Yuri Gagarin had lived. Gagarin had died in a conventional air crash, of all things, and the cottage was now a shrine.

If Gagarin’s house was a shrine then Talin’s home had become a showpiece. The kitchen was packed with gadgetry, even a dish-washer from Helsinki, and in the living-room stood a television. A colour one at that.

The deep-freeze was stuffed with good food, the furniture dusted, parquet floors polished. The place was an invitation – to Sonya to live there whenever the Bolshoi gave her leave from Moscow.

First they went to the bedroom where Talin had installed a double bed. They had been apart for several weeks and they made love eagerly, without bothering to undress completely.

Half an hour later Sonya inspected the house. She approved but, Talin noted, took it as her birthright, as an annexe of Bolshoi nachalstvo. She switched on the television; for a couple of minutes they watched Yuri Senkevich plugging his Sunday evening programme Film Travel Club; briefly the Himalayas beckoned them.

‘In colour,’ Talin pointed out.

She smiled. ‘So it is.’

Talin switched it off.

Just before they left to tour the city the phone rang. It was Massey. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask,’ he said. ‘You remember how we talked about space?’

Of course he did.

‘Well, the Bolshoi has sent a touring company to Leninsk. They’re performing a ballet about space. Giving it a trial run. I’ve been told that you are engaged to be married to one of the dancers.’

Talin glanced at Sonya who was staring through the window at the other small detached houses. ‘ One of the dancers?’

‘Sorry, the dancer.’ Sonya had turned round, interested. ‘I wondered if you could—’

‘Get you a ticket? I’ll see what I can do.’

Sonya crossed the room and kissed Talin. ‘Who was that?’

‘A man called Massey.’

‘English?’

‘American.’

‘What’s he doing in your secret city?’

‘Advising,’ Talin said and, hurrying on: ‘Can you get an extra ticket?’

She looked doubtful. ‘An American? Well, I’ll try,’ shrugging away the request. ‘Anyway, we won’t be dancing the whole ballet here, just the highlights. The director doesn’t think that Leninsk is quite ready for the extended version!’