The Third Section (43 page)

But a further experiment was what was needed. Not on himself, not even on Raisa – not yet. He searched through his desk drawers and found an old shawl which he wrapped around the mirror, for safety’s sake. Then, still clutching his newest treasure, he descended the steps to the dungeons beneath his office. He would begin with the lowliest of God’s creatures. He went to the third door on the left and opened the little wooden hatch that covered the inspection grille; for this cell, metal bars alone were not enough to prevent the escape of those held within. He pressed
his
face against the iron, knowing the smell of him, of his breath, would attract them. Soon he heard the scratching of their tiny claws as they raced hungrily towards him. How they could find purchase to climb the smooth, vertical wood of the door, he could not imagine, but he knew that many would marvel just as much at the abilities of his own species to scale an apparently unassailable precipice.

He felt a tiny, cold, fleshy paw against his cheek and pulled away. The rat behind continued to claw at him, desperate in its hunger, but unable to reach and too big, despite its emaciation, to slip through the bars. The first to arrive were, inescapably, the best fed. More of the animal’s brethren joined it at the grille, reaching out like a starving mob, hungry for bread. Yudin could almost hear the sound of their begging.

Then one of the smaller ones found its way out, wriggling through the tiny gap between the bars. Before it was free, Yudin grabbed it, slamming the door back over the grille at the same time. The creature writhed and attempted to scratch, but Yudin gripped it tightly around its chest, squeezing enough of the breath out of it so that its resistance faded. He shook the shawl off the mirror and held it up, not to see himself in it but to see the rat.

Four black eyes gazed back at him, four ears pricked to hear what danger might approach. A dozen whiskers twitched and, separated by only the tiniest fraction, another dozen echoed the first exactly. Yudin could see the rat as well as if he had looked at it directly, except that looking at it through the Iceland Spar that formed the mirror, he saw it twice.

And if Yudin could see the rat, then the rat could see Yudin.

It stared at him blankly. Its eyes, entirely pupil, gave no clue as to where it was looking. It had been a long shot. Yudin had done a hundred times more experiments on humans and on
voordalaki
than he had ever attempted on rats, but his guess was that these creatures relied little on their eyesight, and understood less of what they saw. If the sight of Yudin’s reflection had set the rodent squealing with fear it would have told him something. That it did not told him nothing.

He held the rat against the grille again and it happily scrambled
back
inside the cell, more comfortable with its own kind than with a human – or indeed a vampire. Yudin closed the door. He should have brought his notebook with him, but the results of this first experiment would be easy to remember. Now he would move on to a second.

He began to unbolt the door at the very end of the corridor and considered which of his human menagerie would make the most suitable specimen.

A KNOCK AT
the door roused Tamara from her reverie. She had been back in Moscow for several weeks now, after spending most of March and the whole of April in Petersburg, awaiting the irregular but not infrequent summons of her lover, the grand duke. It had been a dereliction of her duties back here, but Yudin could not complain. He was desperate to learn what Konstantin might whisper in his lover’s ear – as desperate as Konstantin was that Yudin, and others like him, should hear it. Two items had been of particular interest. The first was that Tsar Aleksandr was determined that it would be he who went down in history as the liberator of the serfs. Yudin had raised the usual objections, and observed that Aleksandr I had once held an identical ambition. Tamara could only convey to him the determination of this new Aleksandr, as conveyed to her by his brother. Yudin had accepted her conviction that they were in earnest, even while doubting that they would carry their intentions through.

The second matter was more modest in its scope – and therefore more likely to come to fruition. The Decembrists would be pardoned. The announcement would be made at the coronation – just three months hence. For both Tamara and Yudin it meant the same thing: that Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov would return to the west. Each had questions to ask him.

Finally, Konstantin had sent her home. He had had to leave Petersburg on the instructions of his brother, as an envoy to Europe. They had not even had the chance of a final meeting, which was probably for the best. In his letter he had promised
they
would meet again. She did not doubt his sincerity, but she knew how fate could conspire against a man of even his status, to say nothing of a woman of hers.

The knock came again. It was easy to recognize Isaak’s heavy fist, but the increased urgency of this new assault was inescapable.

‘Yes?’ she bellowed.

The door opened and, as she had predicted, Isaak’s broad, stupid, sincere face peeped around it. He said nothing, as was his wont, but his pinched eyebrows were enough to tell Tamara that she was needed. She pushed herself out of her favourite chair, downed the vodka which she had been attempting to savour, and followed him into the salon.

She immediately recognized the tall, uneasy, somehow slightly childlike figure that stood glancing around the salon, impatiently tapping his walking stick against his boot. It was Dmitry Alekseevich. They had met on several occasions since their first encounter at Yegorov’s the previous autumn, generally at the beginning or end of one of his frequent visits to Raisa. At those times, he had always appeared a little embarrassed to see her. It wasn’t unusual among the clientele, but it was odd that Dmitry’s diffidence showed itself only in his dealings with her. She had heard enough about him from Raisa to get a clearer idea as to his character. That the major was genuinely taken with Tamara’s colleague seemed beyond doubt. Raisa’s attitude – as ever – was harder to deduce.

Dmitry bowed briefly and attempted to smile at Tamara. ‘Good evening, Tamara Valentinovna.’

‘Good evening, Major Danilov,’ she replied, glancing over to Isaak to see if he could offer further explanation to why he had called her out. Dmitry took half a step towards her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m being impatient. But Raisa
was
expecting me.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’ Of all the girls, Raisa was the least likely to be governed by the regulation of a clock.

‘She is here’ – Dmitry’s voice was the model of self-control – ‘but I’m told she’s busy.’ Tamara tried to picture his father in him. Was it that same self-control that had kept Aleksei going through the months of interrogation and torture after his arrest? Tamara
had
read only a fraction of the full story, but she knew it would take a little more than that. Aleksei’s motivation was one with which she could easily empathize: to save his son. Tamara was still convinced that Aleksei had lied in insisting Dmitry was not a Decembrist. Would he be proud of the man Dmitry had become, standing here, waiting his turn with a cheap whore? Perhaps not about that, but Tamara knew that all in all he would be proud of his child – she could conceive of no other possibility.

As to the more immediate question, regardless of who Dmitry was, it was bad business for Raisa to ignore a prior booking. ‘I’ll go and see,’ Tamara said. ‘I can’t promise anything.’

As she began to ascend the stairs she saw Nadia Vitalyevna coming down them. They met halfway. Tamara glanced back at Dmitry and spoke in a low voice, ensuring he did not hear them.

‘Who’s in with Raisa?’ she asked.

‘There’s two of them,’ Nadia whispered back.

‘Two?’ It wasn’t the strangest or the least common request to come from the clientele. ‘Do we know them?’

Nadia shook her head. ‘They’re navy officers.’

‘Couldn’t they have gone with someone else?’

‘They asked for her specifically. She didn’t seem keen when I told her, but as soon as she set eyes on them she said it would be fine.’

Tamara continued up to the landing and walked along to Raisa’s room. She raised her hand, but before knocking paused to listen. There was no sound. She rapped gently and then waited a moment before knocking louder. Still there was no response. She shouted Raisa’s name and at the same time placed her hand on the doorknob.

The door was locked.

Memories of the discovery of Irina Karlovna’s body – over a year ago and in the room adjacent to this one – flooded into Tamara’s mind. She could not face it happening again. She fished out her keys, flicking through them to find the right one. She shoved it into the lock, but it would not go. Another key on the inside prevented it. It was not the only way in. Tamara carried on down the corridor to what had been Irina’s room – now it belonged to Sofia Semyonovna, her young replacement. She was
downstairs
, waiting for custom. Tamara unlocked the door and went in.

They’d never bothered to take down the mirrors – Sofia seemed as enamoured of them as Irina had been. Whenever Tamara went in there, regardless of how she looked away to avoid it, the multiple reflections still directed her gaze to the bed, teasing her with the memory of the horror that had once lain there. But today she had no time to linger. She went straight to the far corner of the room, to the door that connected it to Raisa’s. Another key, another lock, but soon she was through and faced, as she had known she would, a third door.

The wall was thick here, and the space between the two rooms might almost have been thought of as a corridor, except that it was not even as long as it was wide. There was just space for one person to stand, with the doors at either side closed. It took Tamara only a moment to unlock this final door. She reached down to her boot and drew her knife, holding her breath in trepidation at what she was about to discover. Then she was in Raisa’s room.

Three pairs of eyes fell on her. Raisa was seated on the bed, with her back to the wall, hugging her knees close to her chest. Only the look of fear in her eyes gave a hint that something was amiss. Her two clients appeared nonchalant. As Nadia had said, they were both in naval uniform. The taller of them, a lieutenant, was seated in a chair, his long legs stretched out and resting on the bed. The other was closer to Tamara, leaning on the mirrorless dressing table. He was a
michman
.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Tamara, hoping they would not notice how the knife she was holding out in front of her shook.

‘Two men in the bedchamber of a woman of Raisa Styepanovna’s reputation?’ asked the seated man. ‘I think even the most genteel of imaginations can draw the correct conclusion.’ He turned his head to glance for a moment at Raisa, allowing Tamara a glimpse of the taut muscles of his neck. Raisa’s expression of terror and loathing did not change. The man turned back to Tamara. ‘Unless you’d like to join us and even up the numbers,’ he added.

Tamara didn’t move, knowing that staying close to the open door behind her might be her only chance of flight. ‘Why don’t
you
both just leave now?’ she said. Still there was nothing concrete to suggest that they were anything other than what they claimed to be, but Tamara knew in her gut that something was wrong. The lieutenant looked at his comrade and gave half a shrug, then both began to move, as if to leave.

The next seconds were difficult for Tamara to perceive. The speed at which the
michman
travelled from his place beside the dressing table and got behind her was phenomenal. She heard the door slam almost before she realized he had moved at all. Then his hand was at her neck. For a moment she couldn’t breathe as he carried her across the room, her legs kicking, throttled by the force of her own weight pressing down on to his hand. Then he threw her on to the bed beside Raisa and began to crawl towards her, his lips forming a twisted leer. It seemed he was a man who preferred to take what he could so easily purchase. In moments he was above her and she felt his warm breath on her cheek and smelled its foulness. She clutched tighter on the knife in her hand, which neither man seemed to have noticed.

‘Wait!’ The order came from the lieutenant, who now stood at the foot of the bed. It had an immediate effect on his comrade, who paused, his face just inches from Tamara’s.

‘Who is she?’ asked the lieutenant, addressing Raisa.

‘No one,’ she said.

He looked at her, trying to judge her words. For Tamara it was an odd question and an odd answer, making her doubt whether she had really understood what was happening here. The lieutenant soon made up his mind.

‘She’s yours then,’ he said to the other man.

The
michman
turned his head back towards Tamara, his lips parting as he prepared to press them against her skin. Their eyes met. She knew that hers were filled with hatred, but suspected it would be interpreted as fear. The man’s expressed a lust that she had seen many times before, but also a sense of victory. It was not the desire for her flesh that drove him so much as the fact that she could do nothing about it. It reminded her of the look in Prince Larionov’s eyes that first time, so many years before.

Larionov had eventually learned he was mistaken. Today, the lesson would be dealt out sooner.

The blade hit him in the left cheek as Tamara stabbed downwards with all her strength. It carried on through the base of his tongue and deep into his throat, behind his Adam’s apple. He jerked upright, but she knew enough to hold on tight to the knife and as he pulled away, it continued to cut through his cheek, eventually emerging via the corner of his lips, just below his moustache. He knelt astride her, his hand held to the wound, failing to hinder the flow of blood that oozed between his fingers and trickled down his forearm. Tamara pushed herself up the bed, wriggling her legs to get them out from under him, and in a moment she was standing on the floor. The lieutenant had not moved, and seemed unimpressed by the horrible wound she had inflicted on his friend. She held the knife in front of her.