Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘Natalia, you need to go inside.’ I stepped back and took her arm, drawing her with me through the gate, pushing open the front door with my foot. ‘Into the back.’

Viktor followed us inside and shut the door. Together we pushed the bolts across and closed the wooden shutters over the windows.

‘Papa? What’s going on?’

I went straight to the shelf and took up the revolver Natalia had found among the stranger’s belongings. ‘Here.’ I pressed it into Viktor’s hands before grabbing the pistol that had been on the sled, dropping the wooden holster onto the table.

‘Papa?’

‘Viktor, I’ve seen crowds before. I’ve seen what they can do.’

He held up the revolver. ‘I don’t even know what to do with this.’

‘You won’t need to. As long as they see it, it should be enough.’

Viktor nodded, a grim expression on his face. He was scared but he knew how to push it down inside him and hide it. His mother though, Natalia, I could hear her breathing. Heavy. Panic was tight in her throat. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, the words constricted.

I pulled her close and told her it would be all right. ‘Go into the back room. Stay there.’

Outside there was shouting. It might have been Dimitri but it was hard to tell. There were other voices too. A sea of voices that grew with tension. More and more of them, building, the crowd becoming a mob of fearful peasants who needed something to strike at.

‘Listen to them,’ Natalia said. ‘What are they going to do?’ She looked down at the bundle lying by the hearth, where the flames had weakened. The man was still asleep, oblivious to the trouble he had caused.

‘Nothing,’ I told her. ‘They’re not going to do anything. Please – go into the back room.’

She looked up at me, a kind of understanding dawning on her, and I knew what she was thinking.

‘Lara,’ she said. ‘Lara and Petro.’

‘They’ll be fine,’ I reassured her. ‘I haven’t forgotten them. Petro will see what’s happening; he’ll keep her away.’

‘No, we have to find them. Make them safe.’

I saw the fear in her eyes. We lived in fear. Always there was fear, but never had it been so close to the surface. Never had it been so threatening. I looked at the man on the floor, then at my son, the revolver in his hand.

‘I’ll find them,’ said Viktor, but even as he spoke, the sound of the mob outside increased. There was shouting, the heavy fall of many footsteps, then the front door rattled in its frame and the crowd bayed before their noise abated and fell into a lull.

‘Bring him out, Luka.’ It was as if Dimitri was alone outside our door.

Natalia gripped me closer.

Again, banging.

‘Luka! Bring him out.’

I could feel Natalia tremble. She looked up at me and whispered. ‘Let them have him, Luka. For God’s sake—’

‘We don’t know he’s done anything wrong.’

‘We don’t know he hasn’t . I’m scared, Luka. Let them have him.’

‘He can’t even protect himself.’

‘Luka!’ Dimitri again. ‘Open the door or we’ll come in and take him.’

‘You’ll break down my door, Dimitri?’

‘If we have to.’

‘ Natalia’s front door?’

‘We’ll do what we have to. She’s not safe with him in there.’ His reply was spoken with determination and followed by a murmur of consensus as the crowd grew restless.

‘Please,’ Natalia begged me. ‘Just—’

‘I’ll speak to them,’ I said, breaking away from her. ‘I’ll make this right. Don’t worry.’

‘Luka…’

I ignored her and glanced at my son, nodding at the revolver in his hand, then I took a step towards the door and drew back the heavy bolts.

Dimitri was standing with his chest out and his fists on his hips. Behind him there were at least thirty men and women with red faces and fearful eyes.

‘Go back to your homes,’ I said, scanning the crowd, trying to look each of them in the eye. ‘Go home and think about what you’re doing. I understand your concerns. I know your concerns, but I don’t share your wishes. Please. Don’t bring shame on us. Don’t bring shame on your children.’

‘Children.’ Dimitri seized the word from the air as if it were a solid entity. He snatched it with his fist and he threw it back at my face. ‘Children. That’s who we’re trying to protect.’

‘Bring him out,’ someone said.

‘So you can kill him?’

‘So we can judge him.’

‘And who will be the judge? You?’ I looked at the crowd, singling someone out with a pointed finger. ‘You?’ I pointed at another. ‘All of you?’

No one spoke.

‘You think you can know what this man is? What he’s done? You think you can know him without even speaking to him?’

‘Then let him speak,’ someone called out.

‘He can’t,’ I said. ‘He can hardly even breathe.’

‘Bring him out!’ Another shout, this time louder, joined by others as the people began to work themselves up again.

Dimitri had told them what he’d seen. He’d told them about the bodies and the butchery. They were old enough to remember the pain of ten years ago, the terrible hunger. They knew how it could turn men into monsters, and they knew what Dimitri had seen on that child’s leg. By telling them, and stirring them to his own cause, he had infected them with his own brand of anxiety and bigotry. It settled deep in them, pricked at the fear they all kept buried just beneath the surface. And now they had found something to strike at, someone to punish for their situation. A way to release their demons into the open.

‘You tried to keep it from us,’ someone called out. ‘Keep a child-murderer hidden. A monster.’

‘No.’

‘And then the police will come,’ a voice called. ‘So they can take all our children.’

‘And our wives.’

Another uproar from the people. Another mess of voices and shouting, and then a tentative surge, not actually moving forward but a testing of the water, as if the crowd had, as one, decided to try my resolve.

Dimitri was pushed forward by the swell so that he fell against me. I stopped him with one hand, pushing him back and raising the pistol into the air. I fired a single shot – a sharp, clean crack in the morning air – and the people fell silent once more.

When the sound of the gunshot had settled I spoke again.

‘Go home. All of you.’

And now there was a different kind of movement among the people standing at my front door. A softer movement as someone pushed through them to come and stand beside me.

Josif nodded once at me and turned to look at the others. ‘Luka’s right. We have to stop this before it goes too far. We don’t know anything about this man—’

‘Then why do we keep him among us?’ Dimitri said.

‘We need to calm down.’ Josif held up his hands.

‘You wanted to keep this from us too, Josif. You, Leonid, Ivan. All of you respected here, trusted, and yet you wanted to keep it a secret. Those children out there in the cemetery were murdered by that man. Is that what you want for our children? To be butchered and eaten?’

‘We don’t know that for—’

‘I saw what I saw, Josif. That man is a murderer.’ Dimitri turned to the crowd again and they responded by raising their hands into the air. ‘Bring him out!’ he shouted, and the villagers began to chant those words: ‘Bring him out! Bring him out!’

Then a snowball came from somewhere within the crowd. A hard ball of ice and snow crushed into a vicious projectile. It struck Josif and he bent at the waist, putting his hands to his face. When he stood straight again, there was blood running from his nose.