EF06 - The State Counsellor (13 page)

'Qu-Quite right. And what we should also do, Mr Lieutenant Colonel, is the following. Immediately draw up a verbal portrait of the prisoner and carry out a thorough Bertillonage, complete in every detail. And then send the description and the results of the anthropometric measurements to the Police Department by telegram. They might possibly have a file on this man there. And be so good as to make haste. The message must reach St Petersburg no later than an hour from now.'

Once again - how many times was it now in the last twenty-four hours - Fandorin walked along Tverskaya Boulevard, which was entirely deserted at this dead hour of night. The long day that seemed so reluctant to end had brought a bit of everything -raging blizzards, quiet snowfalls, and sudden, bright interludes of sunshine; but the night was filled with a calm solemnity: the soft light of the gas lamps, the white silhouettes of the trees that seemed to be draped with muslin, the gentle, gliding fall of the snowflakes.

The State Counsellor himself did not really understand why he had declined the official state sleigh until he felt the fresh, untrampled snow on the pathway crunching crisply beneath his feet. He needed to rid himself of a painful, nagging sense of defilement: if he didn't, he would not be able to sleep in any case.

Erast Petrovich strode unhurriedly between the melancholy elms, striving to comprehend why any business connected with politics always had such a rotten smell about it. This seemed like a normal enough investigation, simply one that was more important than the others. And the objective was a worthy one: to protect public peace and the interests of the state. So why this feeling of contamination?

Clean up dirt, and you're bound to get dirty - it was a sentiment Fandorin had heard often enough, especially from practitioners of law enforcement. However, he had concluded long ago that only people who lacked any talent for this subtle trade reasoned in that way. Those who were lazy, who sought simple means to resolve complex problems, never became genuine professionals. A good yard-keeper's apron was always snow-white, because he didn't scrape up the dirt with his hands, down on all fours - he had a broom, a spade and a shovel, and he knew how to use them. In all his dealings with heartless killers, ruthless swindlers and bloodthirsty monsters, Erast Petrovich had never experienced such keen revulsion as today.

Why? What was wrong?

He could not find the answer.

He turned on to Malaya Nikitskaya Street, where there were even fewer street lamps than on the boulevard. The pavement began here and the steel tip of his cane repeatedly clacked against the flagstones as it pierced the thin layer of snow.

At the wicket gate, scarcely visible among the fancy lace work of the estate gates, the State Counsellor froze as he sensed, rather than saw, a slight movement off to one side of him. He swung round sharply, his left hand grabbing the shaft of his cane (there was a sword with a thirty-inch blade inside it), but then immediately relaxed his taut muscles.

There
was
someone standing in the shadow of the railings, but this individual was clearly a member of the weaker sex.

'Who are you?' Erast Petrovich asked, peering intently into the gloom.

The slight figure moved closer. First he saw the fur collar of the winter coat and the sable semicircle of the hood, then the immense eyes set in the triangular face glittered as they suddenly caught the light of a distant street lamp.

'Miss Litvinova?' Fandorin asked in surprise. 'What are you doing here? And at such a late hour!'

The young lady from Larionov's apartment moved very close to him. She was holding her hands in a thick fur muff. Her eyes glowed with a truly unearthly radiance.

'You scoundrel!' the ecstatic maiden proclaimed in a voice that rang with hatred. Tve been standing here for two hours! I'm frozen through!'

'Why am I a scoundrel?' Erast Petrovich protested. 'I had no idea that you were waiting

'That's not why! Don't pretend to be a dunce! You understand perfectly well! You're a scoundrel! I've got your measure! You deliberately tried to hoodwink me! Making yourself out to be an angel! Oh, I can see right through you! You really are a thousand times worse than all the Khrapovs and Burlyaevs! You have to be eliminated without mercy!'

So saying, the reckless young lady drew her hand out of the muff, and there glinting in it was the familiar revolver that the State Counsellor had so imprudently returned to its owner.

Erast Petrovich waited to see if a shot would follow, but when he saw that the hand in the fluffy glove was trembling and the gun was swaying erratically, he took a quick step forward, grabbed hold of Mademoiselle Litvinova's slim wrist and turned the barrel aside.

Are you quite determined to shoot a servant of the law today?' Fandorin asked in a quiet voice, gazing into the young lady's face, which was very close now.

'I hate you! You
oprichnik!'
she whispered and struck him on the chest with her free fist.

He was obliged to drop his cane and grasp the girl's other hand too.

'Police spy!'

As Erast Petrovich examined her more closely, he noticed two things. First, framed in fur that was dusted with snowflakes, in the pale light of the gas lamps, the stars and the moon, Mademoiselle Litvinova's face was quite stunningly beautiful. And second, her eyes seemed to be blazing altogether too brighdy for mere hatred.

He leant down with a sigh, put his arms round her shoulders and kissed her firmly on the lips - in defiance of all the laws of physics, they were warm.

'Gendarme!' the nihilist protested languidly, pulling away from him. But then she instantly put both arms round his neck and pulled him towards her. The hard edge of the revolver jabbed into the back of Fandorin's head.

'How did you find me?' he asked, gasping for air.

'And you're a fool too!' Esfir declared. 'You told me yourself it was in all the address books

She pulled him to her again, with a fierce, sharp movement, and the toy revolver fired up into the sky, deafening Erast Petrovich's right ear and startling into flight the jackdaws sitting on a nearby poplar tree.

CHAPTER 4

Money is needed

All the necessary measures had been taken.

They had waited for Rahmet for precisely one hour before moving on to the reserve meeting place. And a wretched place it was: a little railway lineman's house close to the Vindava Station. It wasn't just that it was dirty, cramped and cold, but there was only one small room, with bedbugs and, of course, no telephone. The only advantage was an open view in all directions.

While it was still dark, Green had sent Bullfinch to leave a note in the 'post box' for Needle: 'Rahmet has disappeared. We need another address. Ten o'clock, same place.'

It would have been more convenient to telephone the courier while they were still at Aronson's place, but the cautious Needle had not left them any number or address. A house with a mezzanine, from which she could see the private lecturer's apartment through binoculars - that was all Green knew about where she lived. Not enough. No way to find it.

The role of the 'post box' for emergency communications was played by an old coach house in a side street close to Prechistenky Boulevard - there was a convenient crevice between its beams, wide enough to thrust your hand into as you walked by.

Before they left, Green had told the private lecturer to remember the system of signals. If their comrade came back, to speak to him as if he were a stranger:
I've never seen you before, and I don't know what you're talking about.
Rahmet was no fool; he would understand. He knew about the post box. If he wanted to explain himself, he would find a way.

From nine o'clock Green took up his observation post beside the Sukharev Tower, where he had met Needle the day before. The place and the time were convenient, there were crowds of people pouring into the market.

He had made his way across a courtyard and in through a back entrance to the position he had spied out the day before -a small, inconspicuous attic with a little window, half boarded up, that looked straight out on to the square. Intently, without allowing himself to be distracted, he studied everyone hanging around anywhere nearby. The hawkers were genuine. So was the organ-grinder. The customers kept changing; not one of them lingered for very long without a good reason.

That meant it was all clear.

Needle appeared at a quarter to ten. First she walked past in one direction, then she came back again. She was checking too. That was right. He could go down.

'Bad news,' the courier said instead of greeting him. Her thin, severe face looked pale and she seemed upset. 'I'll start at the beginning.'

They walked along Sretenka Street side by side. Green listened without saying anything.

'First. Yesterday evening the police raided Larionov's apartment. They didn't arrest anyone. But afterwards there was a shooting. Larionov was killed.'

That was Rahmet, he did that,
Green thought, and he felt relief and rage at the same time. Just let him come back and Green would have to give him a lesson in discipline.

'Second?' he asked.

Needle just shook her head. 'You're too quick with your reprisals. We needed to investigate first.' 'What's second?' Green asked again.

'We haven't been able to find out where your Rahmet has got to. As soon as I find out something, I'll let you know. Third. There's no way we can send you out of the city soon. We were going to use a wagon on a goods train, but the railway gendarmes are checking all the seals at twelve versts and sixty versts outside Moscow'

'Never mind that. There's even worse news, I can see. Tell me.'

She took hold of his elbow and led him off the crowded street into a quiet lane. 'An urgent message from the Centre. A courier brought it on the morning train. Yesterday at dawn, at the same time as you executed Khrapov, the Police Department Flying Squad smashed up the secret apartment on Liteiny Prospect.'

Green frowned. The security arrangements for the clandestine apartment on Liteiny Prospect were excellent, and the party funds were kept in a secret hiding place there - all the funds remaining from the January expropriation, when they had hit the office of the Petropolis Credit and Loan Society.

'Did they find it?' he asked curdy.

'Yes. They took all the money. Three hundred and fifty thousand. It's a terrible blow for the party. I've been instructed to tell you that you're our only hope. In eleven days' time we have to make the final payment for the printing works in Zurich. A hundred and seventy-five thousand French francs. Otherwise the equipment will be repossessed. We need thirteen thousand pounds sterling to buy arms and freight a schooner in Bristol. Forty thousand roubles have been promised to a warder at the Odessa Central Prison to arrange for the escape of our comrades. And more money's needed for the usual outgoings ... Without the funds, the party's activities will be completely paralysed. You must give your reply immediately - under the present circumstances, is your Combat Group capable of obtaining the sum required?'

Green did not answer immediately: he was weighing things up.

'Do they know who betrayed us?'

'No. All they know is that the operation was led in person by Colonel Pozharsky, the deputy director of the Police Department.'

In that case, Green had no right to refuse. He had let Pozharsky get away on Aptekarsky Island; now he would have to make amends for his blunder.

However, under present conditions carrying out an expropriation was extremely risky.

First, there was the uncertainty about Rahmet. What if he had been arrested? It was hard to know how he would react under interrogation. He was unpredictable.

Second, he didn't have enough men. In effect, he only had Emelya.

Third, all the police forces of the city must have been thrown into the search for the CG. The city was swarming with gendarmes, agents and plain-clothes men.

No, the risk was unacceptable. It was no good.

As if she had been listening to his thoughts, Needle said: 'If you need people, I have them. Our Moscow combat squad. They don't have much experience - so far all they've done is guard meetings; but they're brave lads and they have guns. And if we tell them this is for the Combat Group, they'll go through hell and high water. And take me with you. I'm a good shot. I can make bombs.'

For the first time Green took a proper look into those serious eyes that seemed to be dusted with ash, and he saw that Needle's colour was like his own - grey and cold.
What was it that dried you up?
he thought. Or
were you born that way?

Out loud he said: 'No need for hell and high water. At least, not yet. I'll tell you later. Now, a new apartment. If we can't have a telephone, all right. Only there must be a second exit. Seven this evening, same place. And be very careful with Rahmet if he turns up. I'm going to check him.'

He'd had an idea about where to get the money. Without any shooting.

It was worth a try.

Green let his cabby go outside the gates of the Lobastov plant then, as usual, waited for a minute in case another sleigh came round the corner with a police agent in it, and only when he was sure he wasn't being followed did he turn and walk into the factory grounds.