David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

‘Makes no difference,’ she said. ‘They know he comes.’

‘Do they? Or are they counting on you to stop him?’

She didn’t reply.

‘I wonder how much you really know,’ Valentine said.

Valentine lifted her off her feet and carried her to the steamer’s rail. He pushed her against it.

‘Do you know why Rostov is going to Russia? Why did you have to kill him?’

Her eyes widened as she stared over the rail into the water. She started to struggle. Valentine turned her around deftly so she faced him. Their lips were an inch apart.

‘Rostov killed your man in London. Yurkas.’ He was smiling in her face and for a second Paul thought Valentine was going to kiss her. Instead, he bent her back over the rail.

‘Valentine…?’

‘Don’t worry, old man. All part of the game.’

Ragna Andresen’s toes were scraping the deck as she tried to keep her footing. She kicked at Valentine’s shins.

‘Our London office,’ Valentine said. ‘Rostov says you’ve got someone on the inside.’

The girl lifted her chin defiantly.

‘Won’t speak?’ He pressed her harder against the rail.

‘ Minya zavoot Oblenskaya ,’ she said quickly. ‘ Tamara .’

‘Wrong answer, old girl,’ he laughed. ‘Your name doesn’t matter. I was only being polite. One does like to know one’s adversary, even if the acquaintance is short-lived.’

‘Valentine…’ Paul started again.

‘One more chance, then,’ Valentine said. ‘How did you know Rostov was coming?’

‘I am told what to do only,’ she said. ‘Olga Volokoskaya tells me no more. This is truth.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Valentine said. ‘The old girl’s the one I should be talking to.’

Tamara Oblenskaya’s shoulders relaxed, relief half-closing her eyes.

Valentine sighed. ‘Such a shame. Nothing personal.’

And without another word he lifted her over the rail and dropped her into the dark sea.

An embryonic scream died, swallowed by the steamer’s engine. Paul heard a faint splash as she hit the water then nothing except the wind and the waves. He rushed to the rail, staring down at the water churning white in the wake of the ship’s screw. Then that too was lost in the darkness. He swung back to Valentine.

‘You threw her overboard!’ he said, voice squeaking. He couldn’t quite believe it had happened.

Valentine glanced over the side. ‘Nothing for it, old man,’ he said equably. ‘She didn’t know anything and we couldn’t leave her running around to boat, could we? You shouldn’t feel too bad about it. After all, it’s only what she was going to do to you.’

‘But she was a woman ,’ Paul protested.

‘Guns don’t come in sexes, old man. Just as lethal no matter who pulls the trigger.’ He held out his hand for the girl’s pistol. Paul handed it to him and Valentine examined it. ‘It’s the one I found in their cabin. German. Oh, by the way.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘Here’s your revolver. I’d try and keep hold of it in future if I were you.’

Paul took his gun.

Valentine regarded him sympathetically. ‘I know it’s distasteful,’ he said, ‘but these things sometimes have to be done. The greater good and all that sort of thing. You’re not to worry. She’ll be a gonner by now, I should think. You remember what the captain said the other evening. Wouldn’t have suffered. No worries on that score.’

Paul imagined himself over the side, hitting the water, going under… coming up and seeing the lights of the ship fading as it steamed on. Wouldn’t have suffered …?

‘Were you following me?’

‘Just keeping an eye on you, old man. I saw her standing at your cabin door before dinner. After she’d gone up I had a look and saw the lock was broken. That’s when I took a look around their cabin and found the gun. After dinner I hid in an empty cabin and watched your door. She was about to go inside when she heard a noise. Took off like a startled rabbit. I’m amazed she could move that fast in all those skirts.’

‘When was this?’

‘Just before you came out.’

‘I fell asleep and dropped the gun,’ Paul said.

‘It’s as well you did. She must have heard you coming up and put on the fainting act. I followed you and hid between the boats.’

‘You might have warned me,’ Paul said.

‘It was time to play the game out, old man. Copenhagen tomorrow, no telling what they might have done.’

‘That’s all very well,’ Paul complained, ‘but how are we going to explain her absence?’

‘ Absence ?’ Valentine looked at him with amusement. ‘That’s the ticket. Always find a euphemism if possible. No use dwelling on the more unpleasant aspects of the business. We all do it. You are getting the hang of this, aren’t you.’

‘But—’

‘Point is, old man,’ Valentine said cutting him short, ‘ we don’t have to explain anything. That’s up to the old girl and I doubt that she’ll want to make a fuss. Not this close to Copenhagen. If the authorities start making enquiries they might find out who she really is. In fact, I’ll make sure of it.’

‘But she’ll have to say something, surely?’

Valentine shrugged. ‘She can always say the girl went ashore before she did, if anyone asks. Who’s to know?’ He yawned. ‘It’s been quite a night, hasn’t it? Get along to bed, why don’t you? Let me worry about the old girl. Get some sleep.’

But Paul couldn’t sleep. He lay in his bunk eyes open to the blackness all about him. He couldn’t get the picture of Tamara Oblenskaya going over the side out of his head. It played and replayed in front of his sightless eyes long after she herself must have perished. Then, as the hours crawled by and he finally drifted into a fitful half-sleep, the vision transmuted as they will in dreams. He pictured her sitting on the ocean waves, skirts billowing around her as they slowly filled with water pulling her down, that vapid expression she had worn across the dinner table still on her face as she sank.

The cabin steward woke him again, clattering about with his bucket and his mop, only for Paul to find he had missed breakfast once more.

‘The lock on the door’s broken,’ the steward said.

‘Yes,’ Paul said.

He climbed down from the upper bunk. Even with Pinker gone he still couldn’t bring himself to sleep in the lower.

He felt morose and had a bath. There was no rush now. They were to dock at Copenhagen at lunchtime, the steward said. He had finished by the time Paul returned to the cabin and he dressed and went up top. Valentine and the two Russians were in the saloon.

‘Good morning, Filbert,’ Valentine said brightly.

He looked quite fresh, Paul noted sourly, almost as if he hadn’t been up half the night throwing women over the side.

‘Overslept? Missed you at breakfast. Didn’t see the ladies, either. Must be the sea air.’

Paul asked Turner to bring him some coffee. He dropped into a chair, eyeing Valentine surreptitiously and wondering how he could have done such a thing and be so cold-bloodedly cheerful the next morning. If that was the sort of person Cumming wanted, Paul wasn’t interested. Surely C hadn’t seen those sort of qualities in him ? Even through two years of war, through the blood and the horror, Paul didn’t think he had ever lost his humanity. It didn’t matter what the other chap did — the Hun, that is, or in this case the Russian girl — one had to treat them with some sort of decency. Otherwise one was no better than they were. But then Pinker hadn’t got much in the way of decent treatment, either from the Andresen/Oblenskaya girl or from Valentine and Paul himself, tipping the little man over the side the way they had. In that regard Paul supposed there was some sort of poetic justice in the girl’s fate.