Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

A man with a daughter has a hold on the future.

‘Prisoner Friis, do you agree with Prisoner Elkin? That everything is ready?’

‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’

‘You surprise me.’

‘We have worked hard, Comrade Colonel.’

They were in Colonel Tursenov’s office, strung out in a nervous line. The chief scientists and engineers on the project stood uneasily in front of his leather-topped desk, eyes fixed on the faded Turkish carpet under their feet. When spoken to directly their gaze crept up to Tursenov’s collar with its red flashes. No higher.

‘I expect to be impressed,’ the Colonel said. ‘There will be guests, high level military observers. So no mistakes. You understand me?’

‘Yes, Colonel.’

Tursenov strutted along the line, his spectacles glinting with satisfaction. ‘I have selected the location for a full test.’

‘A full test?’ Elkin exclaimed. ‘I thought…’ He looked suddenly pale.

‘What you thought, prisoner, is irrelevant.’ Tursenov turned his head and scrutinised Jens. ‘A full test,’ he snapped. ‘No mistake of any kind.’

Jens stared straight at him, right to the back of the hard grey eyes, and what he saw there wasn’t satisfaction. It was fear. Failure was not an option for a man like Tursenov because failure would mean a sentence of twenty years in a prison labour camp, and long before the first year was up he’d be torn limb from limb when the guards’ backs were turned. Jens had seen it happen. Had heard the screams.

‘No mistakes,’ Jens assured him.

‘Good.’

‘May I ask the location of the test?’

‘This will amuse you, prisoner Friis. It is to be in Surkov camp.’

‘But Colonel, there are hundreds of prisoners there.’

‘So?’

‘You can’t kill all-’

‘It’s not me doing the killing, prisoner Friis. It’s you.’

‘But there’s no need to.’

‘Of course there is, prisoner Friis. We need to ascertain how low the planes must fly and the exact concentration of the gas. The test will be conducted at Surkov camp. The decision is made.’

Surkov camp. A flash of memories arced through Jens’ head, jolting it on his shoulders. Barbed wire tied round his wrists, beatings with an iron pipe till it buckled, solitary confinement in a cell smaller than a coffin, a robin fluttering bright as a ruby on his finger until a guard broke both the bird and his finger with his rifle butt.

‘It’s the place where you started your life as a prisoner, I believe.’

‘Started my death as a prisoner,’ Jens corrected.

Tursenov laughed. ‘That’s good. I like that.’ The laughter trickled away as he studied Jens’ face. ‘Well now, it looks like you’ll be starting the death of other prisoners too. But I wouldn’t let that worry you. You’re alive, aren’t you? You’ve survived.’

‘Yes, Comrade Colonel. I have survived.’

The light in the courtyard was yellow. It slid through the darkness and spilled like oil on to the figures hunched in the cold morning air. Today it seemed to Jens that it made everyone look ill, but maybe that was because they all felt sick after yesterday’s meeting with Tursenov.

A full test. At Surkov camp. Dear God, he hadn’t expected that. There were people he knew there, men he’d eaten with, worked with, prisoners who had cared for him when he’d been injured.

He walked, limbs stiff and heavy, around the circle behind the compound’s metal fence, pleased not to talk, not to think. His gaze was fixed on the massive iron gate, his ears tuned for the screech of its hinges, and he didn’t even notice that Olga was limping. He didn’t see her distress because he was too blinded by his own.

‘Get out here, you big oaf!’

The baker was throwing open the back of the cart but the horse was jittery, tossing its head from side to side, picking up each feathery foot in turn, and all the time Jens watched out of the corner of his eye for the boy. Why wasn’t the thin figure there? He should be grabbing the reins.

‘Keep moving,’ a guard yelled.

It was Babitsky, his temper fraying at the edges this morning because he had woken with a thumping cold and the last thing he wanted was to be stuck on exercise duty. Jens moved his feet. He hadn’t even realised they’d stopped. Other prisoners muttered impatiently, their combined breath a white fog in the compound, so it took a moment before he could glance again at the cart, a quick glimpse over his shoulder as he followed the trail of footprints that stirred up the ice underfoot.

What he saw slammed into his mind. Either his eyes or his brain surely had got it wrong. It had to be a mistake. He looked away, concentrating on keeping his limbs functioning, and three seconds later when he again turned his head he was convinced the scene would be rearranged.

It wasn’t.

He had to clamp his teeth viciously on his tongue to stop himself shouting out. His mind froze. He rounded the bottom of the exercise circle, unaware that he had speeded up until he crashed into the man in front.

‘Watch yourself,’ the man snapped.

Jens didn’t even hear. He was staring at the bread cart. At the horse. At the big man who had come from the far side and was now facing in Jens’ direction, holding the reins and running a massive hand down the animal’s sweating neck. Jens recognised him at once even after all these years. It was Popkov, Liev Popkov. Older and dirtier, but Jens would know that damn Cossack anywhere. The black eyepatch, the sabre scar across the forehead that Jens remembered being inflicted as if it were yesterday.

‘What’s up with you?’ The man behind jabbed him.

‘Silence!’ Babitsky yelled.

Jens noticed Olga watching him but her face was a blur. He kept walking. How long had he been out here in the yellow-stained darkness? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Twenty-five? He might have only a few minutes left. He drew a deep breath, the air scouring his lungs, but it calmed him. His mind started to tick.

Hadn’t Lydia mentioned in her note that the Cossack was with her here in Moscow? Popkov and Alexei, she’d said. Without seeming to rush, he glanced again through the wire fence and across the thirty or so metres that separated him from the baker’s cart.

An involuntary flicker and his eyes skipped over to the stone seat against the wall. Jens had made another small flat folder of metal, so that the boy could pick up the new one at the same time that he returned with a note from Lydia. But the boy wasn’t here. Popkov was. The big man was carrying a tray of pelmeni that wafted a mouth-watering meaty smell over to the prisoners and Jens saw him glance casually at the seat, at the cobbles under it, as he lumbered past into the building. All smooth so far.

It was as Popkov emerged that everything went wrong. As if by accident their eyes met and the Cossack gave what could have been a nod or could have been just a nervous twitch of his thick neck. Jens lifted a hand and adjusted his hat. A wave of sorts. The baker was in a hurry. To Jens’ watchful eyes he seemed even more nervous today, tetchier, his feet scampering over the cobbles as though walking on coals.

‘You!’ The roar came from Babitsky. ‘I know you, you fucking bastard.’

Everyone turned and stared at the hefty guard. Babitsky’s rifle was aimed straight at Popkov’s chest.

‘Grab that big bastard,’ Babitsky shouted. Even in the pre-dawn cold, his face had turned vermilion. He was pounding across the courtyard, his rifle stuck out in front of him. ‘You,’ he bellowed, ‘I’m going to kill you.’

Jens hurled himself at the fence. ‘Run!’ he screamed.

But there was nowhere to run and the Cossack knew it. The gate was barred, the courtyard ringed with uniforms edging closer, rifle muzzles tracking every move he made. He gave Jens a flash of teeth in the black beard, flexed his massive shoulders and prepared to fight with bare hands.