David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

‘Between you and me,’ Valentine said, ‘any friends you might have here would be well-advised to clear out. Czechoslovakia is finished. With Masaryk dead there’s no one to stand up to the Communists.’

‘Suicide, the paper said. Jumped out of a window.’

‘Suicide?’ Valentine gave a mirthless laugh. ‘You know what they’re saying? They’re saying Masaryk was a very tidy man, so tidy he shut the window after himself.’

Paul studied him, wondering what Valentine had been doing in the years since they had last met. He had always found him something of an enigma. Once, years ago while working in the Registry, he had had the opportunity to pull Valentine’s file. It had been curiosity more than anything and he’d been surprised to find that the file contained little more than his own had. There were copies of some of his reports, details of remuneration, and of his movements in and out of Russia. There had been nothing on his origins. The file had been marked ‘deceased’. Paul read it all and afterwards found he wasn’t any wiser as to who Valentine had been.

Sitting across from him now, he still felt he was no closer to knowing anything about Valentine.

‘Is that why you’re leaving?’ Paul asked him.

Valentine’s lips twitched with a ghostly trace of the boyish smile he remembered.

‘If you stayed with the Legion I suppose you came back through America,’ he said. ‘I’ve often thought of going there myself.’

‘You didn’t come back that way?’

‘No. Through China. Shanghai and Hongkong.

‘You weren’t held up before we reached Irkutsk?’

‘Irkutsk?’

‘The Bolsheviks. They wanted Kolchak and the Russian treasury. The Irkutsk government wouldn’t let the Legion trains through.’

‘The train I was on was full of civilians… families… women and children. Those that had managed to get money out, anyway. I made sure I wasn’t in uniform and managed to slip through.’

‘And the gold?’

Valentine stared back blankly for a moment, then knocked back the last of his cognac. He pushed himself to his feet and poured himself another from the decanter, waving it questioningly in Paul’s direction. Paul shook his head.

‘It just fell in my lap,’ Valentine said, dropping back into his chair. ‘It was the fault of that damned cousin of yours.’ He glanced quickly at Paul. ‘I suppose you know he was killed in the wreck?’

‘I found his body.’

‘I always knew he was up to something. He’d been planning it for a long time. Those other Russians, the ones responsible for the gold hadn’t a clue. Nor had Kolchak. Then he never had a clue about anything much, did he?’ He smiled, the thought amusing him. ‘Your cousin recruited a couple of Cossacks to help him. Venal people, Cossacks. Do anything for money and vodka. They were killed in the crash with him as it happened. He’d already transferred some of the shipment to another train and made all the arrangements for it in Vladivostok. He wasn’t planning on hanging around in Irkutsk, you see. What his exact plans were when he reached Vladivostok, I’ve no idea. He knew enough to know Kolchak was finished, you see, and was clearing out. As far as he was concerned he’d lost everything… position, money… He thought Russia owed him something.’

‘Did he tell you this?’

Valentine let out a harsh laugh. ‘Told me? Rostov? Of course not. I’m afraid he didn’t like me at all. Not as much as he hated you of course, old man. I don’t know why, but I think he saw in you a personification of the kind of liberal tendency that had ruined Russia for his kind. No, I didn’t get it from your cousin. I learned about it from one of his Cossacks. I told you, money and vodka…’

‘So you followed through with the plan?’

Valentine shrugged. ‘By the time I came to my senses and knew what was happening, I was the only one who knew about it. Then in Irkutsk I heard that the Legion had handed over Kolchak and the gold to the Bolsheviks. What was I supposed to do? We had been sent there to see that the Russian treasury didn’t fall into the Bolsheviks’ hands, hadn’t we? And now it had. Kolchak’s regime was as dead as he was and that only left Semenov. Would you have wanted me to give what money was left over to that barbarian?’ He held Paul’s gaze and raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘Of course not.’

‘There were always the Allies,’ Paul said.

Valentine flicked his fingers dismissively. ‘It wasn’t theirs anymore than it was anyone else’s.’

‘So?’

Valentine sipped his drink. ‘So, in Vladivostok, when I heard that the Legion had made arrangements to ship some gold they hadn’t declared to Hongkong, I sort of attached myself to them and did the same.’ He paused, as if to invite comment. Condemnation, perhaps. When it didn’t come he seemed almost compelled to justify himself. He said, ‘You’ve know idea what temptation is until you realise you’re free and clear. Just as long as you keep your mouth shut, that is. Can you tell me you wouldn’t have done the same?’

‘I wouldn’t tell you anything of the sort,’ said Paul.

Valentine grunted, as if that was all the vindication he needed.

‘Why did you stay here, though?’

Valentine shrugged once more. ‘It’s where the gold was shipped and it seemed as good as anywhere. At the time.’

‘And times change?’ Paul asked.

‘They do indeed. What’ll you tell them in London?’

Did he detect a trace of alarm on Valentine’s voice? Or was that wishful thinking? Whichever, he paused, just for dramatic effect.

‘As I said, that’s not why I’m here.’ He finished his drink and stood up, reaching for his coat. ‘I’d better be going.’

Valentine got to his feet, leaning on the cane. ‘Whatever happened to Rostov’s sister? Any idea? What was her name, Sofya? Was she killed along with her brother? I never saw her after the accident.’

‘I heard she got out,’ Paul said.

Valentine’s lips twitched again. ‘I thought you were rather sweet on her at the time.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Paul said. He started along the passage to the door. Valentine followed and reached past him to open it.

They stood looking at each other for a moment.

‘Yes, a long time ago now,’ Valentine agreed. ‘All the same, good times weren’t they, old man?’

Paul peered into Valentine’s face, looking for the youthful enthusiasm he used to see there. But it had gone. Now he was just a tired middle-aged man, face dulled by time and disillusion.

‘Good times?’ Paul repeated, almost surprised by the sentiment. ‘Perhaps they were for some. Not for everybody. Certainly not for everybody.’

He slipped into the corridor and was halfway down the passage before he heard the door close softly behind him.

© David J Oldman 2018

David J Oldman has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published by David J Oldman in 2014.

This edition published by Endeavour Media in 2018