Kate Furnivall - The Jewel of St Petersburg

“It will snow soon,” Jens murmured. “The cold will stir the workers into strike action again. There is no bread in the shops.”

Valentina came to stand behind him and laid her cheek against his back. “What is it?” she asked again.

“Valentina, you won’t catch him.”

“Arkin?”

“Not like this. He’s always one step ahead.”

“Let’s not talk of him right now.” She ran her hands down his naked sides and tucked her body against his, the hard muscles taut against her ribs. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his spine so hard it hurt. “Jens.” She turned him around so that she could smile up into his dark green eyes. “You are right. We must think of something new.”

ARKIN TOOK THE LETTER FROM THE PRIEST IN THE CHURCH and for a moment could think of no one who would have sent it. It was a rule: put nothing in writing. It could get you killed.

“Where’s Father Morozov?” he asked the priest, a man with a domed head and small wire spectacles.

“He’s in his village. There have been police here, asking questions about him.” He shook his head nervously.

“So he is keeping out of sight?”

“Da. Yes.”

“He is important to us.”

That was when the priest offered him the letter.

“Who brought it?” Arkin asked. On the front of the envelope was his name in large elegant lettering.

“A young woman.”

He tore it open.

You expect too much of life, Viktor Arkin. You expect too much of me if you think I will stay away. So let us be direct, let us meet face to face, just you and me, no one else. Let us say what there is to say. You can call me an oppressor, I can call you a killer. Meet me tomorrow in the courtyard at the back of St. Isabella’s Hospital. Three o’clock. What then? Then I can tell you that our small personal tragedies mean everything in the storm that is sweeping through Russia and that I am carrying your child.

Arkin’s hand shook, so that the words blurred in front of his eyes.

SHE HAD CHOSEN WELL. THE COURTYARD LAY IN FITFUL sunshine, neither private nor public. Arkin had inspected it just as dawn was breaking over the city, and he could see why she had settled on this as the meeting place. It did not make a good trap. It had too many escape routes. As well as the massive metal gates that stood open at the entrance for ambulances and delivery vans, there were also two doors into the hospital, another in the rear wall that led to a side street, and a metal hatch down into a cellar of some kind.

Both of them would breathe easier. He wanted to trust her.

He observed the courtyard for several hours. For much of the time it remained empty but at irregular intervals it filled with activity, so that at any point their meeting could be interrupted. That made it safer. A couple of brick storage huts along one wall gave him concern, but he had easily opened their locks and found nothing but stocks of kerosene and crates with equipment like bedpans and sterilizers inside. He took in which parts of the courtyard were in view of the rear of the hospital and which parts weren’t. As the sun climbed he smoked a cigarette in a shaded corner behind one of the huts and knew he was invisible.

Yes, Valentina Ivanova, you have chosen well.

VALENTINA WAS BUSY. THE WARD WAS FRANTIC. A FIRE AT the sailmakers’ workshop brought in a stream of burn victims, mainly women. Time ran too fast. Whenever she glanced at the clock, the hands had leapt forward in huge unexpected jumps. One o‘clock. She bathed a damaged limb with hypochlorite solution and helped a man with dehydration drink a glass of tea at the speed of a snail. Two o’clock.

Her mouth was dry. Would he turn up?

She thought again about the letter. She had been careful not to show it to Jens, just told him she had written it to ask Arkin for a face-to-face meeting. No mention of its last line about the child. Would Arkin believe it? She sat quietly with a woman who was confused about where she was and why her son had brought her here.

Two fifty-one.

She washed her hands, put on her nurse’s cape. Two fifty-six. She began the long walk down the corridors to the rear of the hospital. She pushed open the double doors and stepped out into the sunlight, so bright after the somber interior that she had to screw up her eyes.

There he was. Viktor Arkin stood against one of the walls, taller than she remembered, noticeably thinner. His forehead and cheekbones jutted through his skin. Her eyes fixed on the gun held loosely in his hand, and for the first time she let into her mind the thought that he might kill her. No, not if she could make him believe she was carrying his child. She walked over to a brightly lit area next to one of the huts, but Arkin didn’t move. A full minute ticked past and she could hear each second click inside her head, but just when she thought he would be tempted no closer he approached, up on his toes like a cat. He stopped five paces from her, and she saw his eyes adjust as he stepped out of the gloom.

“You’ve given me trouble,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Your engineer.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

He smiled politely, and she had no idea whether he believed her. He shrugged and lowered his gun to his side, watching her carefully. “That may be true. I can’t imagine you would want him to know what a little whore you were in the izba.”

She didn’t answer.

“So what is it you want?” he asked, suddenly brusque and businesslike.

“Where are all your men? I’m sure they’re hiding somewhere here, a whole army of them inside the huts and down in the cellar.”

He smiled, but this time it wasn’t polite. “No one is here except me. Don’t think I didn’t consider it. I could have taken you captive again and kept you locked up for nine months, then taken the child and slit your throat.”

He had seriously considered such an action; she could hear it in his voice, and the thought made her legs tremble. “I’d have stuck a fork in your throat long before the nine months were up.”

He laughed, genuinely amused. “I do believe you would. If the child is really mine, not your engineer’s, have you considered marrying me instead, or even letting me have the child after it is born?”

“No.”

“I thought not. So what is it you want? We’re here face to face. Do you intend to try to kill me?”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

How could he smile? How could he laugh? How could this man not tear his hair out and rend his clothes into shreds after what he did to Katya?

She spread her cape, so that he could see under it. “Look, I am unarmed.”

“That makes me more nervous.” His glance darted around the yard. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“I want you to know, Arkin, that every day that I wake, I feel pain. I will miss my sister for the rest of my life. My mother is suffering, and my father. You and your Bolshevik cause have crippled my family.”

She was observing him as she spoke. She saw something darken his face-it could have been sorrow or satisfaction-and tug at the skin around his mouth. She unbuttoned her cape at the neck and let it drop from her shoulders. It was the signal to Jens, and Arkin was far too accustomed to such things not to recognize it as such. Immediately he scanned the hospital windows, but he was the one in the sunlight while they were in the shade and he could see nothing. He started to run. He knew what was coming.