Ken Follett - The Man From St. Petersburg

What will he do? she thought fearfully. She watched his face, but she could not read his expression: he was like a stranger to her.

He said: “Oh, dear God in Heaven, what have we done?”

Lydia was suddenly garrulous. “He came along just when she was beginning to see her parents as frail human beings, of course; and there he was, full of life and ideas and iconoclasm… just the kind of thing to enchant an independent-minded young girl… I know, something like that happened to me… and so she got to know him, and became fond of him, and helped him… but she loves you, Stephen, she’s yours in that way. People can’t help loving you… can’t help it…”

His face was wooden. She wished he would curse, or cry, or abuse her, or even beat her, but he sat there looking at her with that judge’s face, and said: “And you? Did you help him?”

“Not intentionally, no… but I haven’t helped you, either. I am such a hateful, evil woman.”

He stood up and held her shoulders. His hands were cold as the grave. He said: “But are you mine?”

“I wanted to be, Stephen-I really did.”

He touched her cheek, but no love showed in his face. She shuddered. She said: “I told you it was too much to forgive.”

He said: “Do you know where Feliks is?”

She made no reply. If I tell, she thought, it will be like killing Feliks. If I don’t tell, it will be like killing Stephen.

“You do know,” he said.

She nodded dumbly.

“Will you tell me?”

She looked into his eyes. If I tell him, she thought, will he forgive me?

Stephen said: “Choose.”

She felt as if she were falling headlong into a pit.

Stephen raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Lydia said: “He’s in the house.”

“Good God! Where?”

Lydia’s shoulders slumped. It was done. She had betrayed Feliks for the last time. “He’s been hiding in the nursery,” she said dejectedly.

His expression was no longer wooden. His cheeks colored and his eyes blazed with fury.

Lydia said: “Say you forgive me… please?”

He turned around and ran from the room.

Feliks ran through the kitchen and through the serving room, carrying his candle, the shotgun and his matches. He could smell the sweet, slightly nauseating vapor of petrol. In the dining room a thin, steady jet was spouting through a hole in the hosepipe. Feliks shifted the hose across the room, so that the fire would not destroy it too quickly, then struck a match and threw it on to a petrol-soaked patch of rug. The rug burst into flames.

Feliks grinned and ran on.

In the drawing room he picked up a velvet cushion and held it to another hole in the hosepipe for a minute. He put the cushion down on a sofa, set fire to it and threw some more cushions onto it. They blazed merrily.

He ran across the hall and along the passage to the library. Here the petrol was gushing out of the end of the pipe and running over the floor. Feliks pulled handfuls of books off the shelves and threw them on the floor into the spreading puddle. Then he crossed the room and opened the communicating door to the gun room. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then threw his candle into the puddle.

There was a noise like a huge gust of wind and the library caught fire. Books and petrol burned fiercely. In a moment the curtains were ablaze; then the seats and the paneling caught. The petrol continued to pour out of the hosepipe, feeding the fire. Feliks laughed aloud.

He turned into the gun room. He stuffed a handful of extra cartridges into the pocket of his coat. He went from the gun room into the flower room. He unbolted the door to the garden, opened it quietly and stepped out.

He walked directly west, away from the house, for two hundred paces, containing his impatience. Then he turned south for the same distance, and finally he walked east until he was directly opposite the main entrance to the house, looking at it across the darkened lawn.

He could see the second police sentry standing in front of the portico, illuminated by the twin lamps, smoking a pipe. His colleague lay unconscious, perhaps dead, in the kitchen courtyard. Feliks could see the flames in the windows of the library, but the policeman was some distance away from there and he had not noticed them yet. He would see them at any moment.

Between Feliks and the house, about fifty yards from the portico, was a big old chestnut tree. Feliks walked toward it across the lawn. The policeman seemed to be looking more or less in Feliks’s direction, but he did not see him. Feliks did not care: if he sees me, he thought, I’ll shoot him dead. It doesn’t matter now. No one could stop the fire. Everyone will have to leave the house. Any minute now, any minute now, I’ll kill them both.

He came up behind the tree and leaned against it, with the shotgun in his hands.

Now he could see flames at the opposite end of the house, in the dining room windows.

He thought: What are they doing in there?

Walden ran along the corridor to the bachelor wing and knocked on the door of the Blue Room, where Thomson was sleeping. He went in.

“What is it?” Thomson’s voice said from the bed.

Walden turned on the light. “Feliks is in the house.”

“Good God!” Thomson got out of bed. “How?”

“Charlotte let him in,” Walden said bitterly.

Thomson was hastily putting on trousers and a jacket. “Do we know where?”

“In the nursery. Have you got your revolver?”

“No, but I’ve got three men with Orlov, remember? I’ll peel two of them off and then take Feliks.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I’d rather-”

“Don’t argue!” Walden shouted. “I want to see him die.”

Thomson gave a queer, sympathetic look, then ran out of the room. Walden followed.

They went along the corridor to Aleks’s room. The bodyguard outside the door stood up and saluted Thomson. Thomson said: “It’s Barrett, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s inside?”

“Bishop and Anderson, sir.”

“Get them to open up.”

Barrett tapped on the door.

Immediately a voice said: “Password?”

“Mississippi,” said Barrett.

The door opened. “What’s on, Charlie? Oh, it’s you, sir.”

Thomson said: “How is Orlov?”

“Sleeping like a baby, sir.”

Walden thought: Let’s get on with it!

Thomson said: “Feliks is in the house. Barrett and Anderson, come with me and his lordship. Bishop, stay inside the room. Check that your pistols are loaded, please, all of you.”

Walden led the way along the bachelor wing and up the back stairs to the nursery suite. His heart was pounding, and he felt the curious mixture of fear and eagerness which had always come over him when he got a big lion in the sights of his rifle.

He pointed at the nursery door.

Thomson whispered: “Is there electric light in that room?”

“Yes,” Walden replied.

“Where’s the switch?”

“Left-hand side of the door, at shoulder height.”

Barrett and Anderson drew their pistols.

Walden and Thomson stood on either side of the door, out of the line of fire.

Barrett threw open the door, Anderson dashed in and stepped to one side, and Barrett threw the light switch.

Nothing happened.

Walden looked into the room.

Anderson and Barrett were checking the school room and the bedrom. A moment later Barrett said: “No one here, sir.”

The nursery was bare and bright with light. There was a bowl of dirty water on the floor, and next to it a crumpled towel.

Walden pointed to the closet door. “Through there is a little attic.”

Barrett opened the closet door. They all tensed. Barrett went through with his gun in his hand.