Peter Higgins - Truth and Fear

There was a dry click. Someone had opened a knife. A couple of the others had brass knuckles out and were putting them on. They were starting to fan out. Getting their act together. Another few seconds and he could be in bad trouble.

The one with the knife was the immediate threat. Lom stepped forward and crashed the tip of the baton down on his wrist. Felt the bone snap. He flicked the stick up and smashed it hard under the attacker’s chin. There was a warm spattering of blood as his head jerked back and he went down, jaw broken.

The leader lumbered in then, head hunched between his shoulders, swinging wildly. Lom let the meaty white fist buzz past his ear, matched his charge and crashed his left elbow horizontally into the big red face.

Five seconds, four down.

Someone from Lom’s right jabbed at his cheek with a knuckle-duster, grazing his ear. It might have done some damage but the boy had stayed too far out and mistimed it. Lom spun and smashed his left fist into the man’s belly at the same time as Maroussia clubbed him viciously on the back of the head with the stick the big fellow had dropped when he fell.

The leader was getting clumsily to his knees, coughing and snorting clods of blood from his nose. Lom kicked him hard in the ribs. His elbows caved in under him and he slumped face down on the ground.

Five down, four still standing, but it was over. The rest only needed an excuse to get out of there. Lom let the baton clatter to the ground and pulled the empty Sepora .44 from his pocket.

‘Like I said. Get in the wagon and drive away.’ He gestured to the five men on the ground. ‘And take this rubbish with you.’

There was a moment when they hesitated and a moment when he knew that’s what they would do.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Maroussia when they’d got clear of the square.

‘You were fine,’ said Lom. ‘You were more than fine. You were great.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that. I told that girl who we were. I gave her our names. I shouldn’t have. It was stupid and now it’s a risk. I’m sorry.’

He was only half listening to her. His hands were sore–there was a gash on one of his knuckles, seeping a little blood–and his legs felt weightless and slightly out of control as the adrenaline worked its way out of his system. For the second time, the day was stained with violence. Violence clanged in the air, hateful and sour. Now that the fighting was over Lom felt uncomfortable and slightly sick. He’d hurt people before, when he had to, but he hadn’t enjoyed it, not like that. Today he’d done it gladly, efficiently, well, and he felt faintly ashamed.

‘You were being kind,’ said Lom. ‘I guess we can’t afford too much of that.’

‘You helped that bookseller,’ said Maroussia.

‘Did I?’ said Lom. ‘They’ll come back, them or others like them, for him or some other old guy. It won’t be better because of what I did. It might be worse. Putting boys in hospital doesn’t make the world a better place.’

Maroussia stopped and turned to face him. She stood there, pale, troubled and determined. Holding herself upright, shivering a little in the snow and bitter cold that whipped round the corner. She looked so thin. The sleeves of her coat too short, her wrists bony and raw against the dark wool. She had kissed him that morning at the sea gate lodge. On the cheek. The cool graze of her mouth against his skin.

‘You didn’t start it,’ she said. ‘You chose a side, that’s all. There are only two sides now. There’s nowhere else to stand.’

They walked a little way in silence.

‘I didn’t know you could fight like that,’ said Maroussia.

‘That wasn’t fighting,’ said Lom. ‘That was winning. Different thing altogether.’

They came out abruptly on the side of the Mir opposite Big Side. The river was a broad green surge, a wide muscular shoulder of moving water knotted with twists of surface current. Low waves and backwash slapped against the bulwarks of the stone embankment. Canopied passenger vedettes jinked between ponderous barges nosing their way seawards.

They crossed the river by the crowded Chesma Bridge. The bronze oil-lamps on the parapet, shaped like rising fish with lace-ruff gills and scales like overlapping rows of coins, were already lit. Each one draped in ribbons of funeral black, they burned pale flames in the grey afternoon. Light flecks of snow speckled the air. Not falling, just drifting. Lom felt again the familiar pressure on his back. The follower was still there. He was certain of it now. It was time to do something about it.

On the other side of the river, after the embankment gardens and cafés, was the jewellers’ quarter, and galleries selling artefacts from the exotic provinces. Carpets and cushions and overstuffed couches. Vases and urns and samovars. Plenty of traffic. Plenty of crowds.

‘Will you do something for me?’ said Lom.

‘Of course.’

‘I mean, do exactly what I say?’

‘What do you want me to do?’ said Maroussia.

‘We’re being watched,’ he said. ‘Someone’s following. I think. I want to be sure. No, don’t look back. Not yet.’

‘Is it the police?’

Lom shook his head.

‘Whoever it is has been with us on and off since Marinsky-Voksal. They’re just watching. I wasn’t sure. I thought they’d gone, but they’re back. There’s not many of them, maybe only one. I want to have a look. Make sure. Then decide what to do.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘We walk on together for a while. Then I’ll duck out of sight and you go on alone. Keep visible and don’t try to lose them. Stop and start. Cross the street at random, but stay with the crowds. Always be among people. Make it hard for them, make it so they have to come in close, to keep in touch with you.’

‘What if they don’t follow me? What if they look for you?’

‘Then we’ll know something. After ten or fifteen minutes find somewhere you can go inside and sit down. Somewhere with lots of people. I’ll find you there.’

Maroussia nodded. ‘Now?’ she said.

‘I’ll be watching you the whole time,’ said Lom. ‘I can do this kind of thing. I’m good.’

‘It’s fine. Let’s go.’

They rounded a corner and Lom ducked into an alleyway and stepped quickly back into the shelter of a service door. He waited there for a slow hundred count then stepped back out into the street.

Maroussia was still in sight a block or so ahead. Lom stayed back and matched his pace with hers. He watched the traffic in the road. Most of it was horse-drawn: a few carts and karetas, a shabby droshki waiting outside a shuttered pension. He ignored them. You didn’t run mobile surveillance with a horse. Maroussia was crossing the street between traffic, stopping to look in a window, starting to cross back, seeming to change her mind, then suddenly going anyway.

Don’t overdo it.

She swung up onto the back of a moving tram, rode it fifty yards back towards Lom, then jumped off at the intersection and walked back the way she’d come. And Lom saw him.

A man had started to jog after the tram, then he came up short and turned away, abruptly absorbed in studying a poster. He was obvious. Clumsy. Not professional. And he was on his own. Definitely. If it was a team, he’d have taken the tram and left the others on Maroussia till he could double back.

Lom hung back, just to be sure. But there was no doubt about it. He wondered how the man had managed to stay out of sight for so long if he wasn’t better than this. It was almost as if he wanted to be seen. Lom pushed the thought aside. Later. Do the job now . He started to close in. He wanted a look at the man’s face. From behind he was tall and wide-shouldered, wearing a long dark coat, a red wine-coloured scarf, a pale grey astrakhan hat. He walked with a faint hitch in his right hip. There was something familiar about him.