The Third Section (67 page)

The revolver spat a bullet at him, then another. Gribov was no more slowed by age than Aleksei. The first shot caught her father in the left shoulder, the second in his stomach. Tamara saw a plume of blood issuing from his back as the bullet emerged. But neither shot did anything to hinder him. Tamara saw his left hand – its two smallest fingers missing, along with half of another – reach around and grip at Tyeplov’s nose, trying to prise his face away from her throat and brace Aleksei for his attack.

Gribov fired again, but Tamara didn’t see where the bullet hit. Aleksei’s arm came down. The cane penetrated the right side of Tyeplov’s back at a shallow angle, so that path took it across to the left. Aleksei knew precisely where he had been aiming. Tyeplov’s grip on her slackened in an instant. Just as she had witnessed with Ignatyev at the brothel, and Raisa beside the railway, Tyeplov’s mortal remains began to collapse to nothing. He fell slowly sideways, but with the weight of his body gone, the air caught his clothes and resisted their descent. It was like some ballet dancer, throwing himself across the stage, graceful and controlled, and yet, ultimately, there was no control to it. The clothes kept on falling, eventually to hit the ground and to flatten as the dust within was exhaled through every available outlet.

Aleksei took a step away, still grasping the cane, and Tamara got a clear view of Gribov. He held the pistol in both hands to
steady
it, aimed squarely at Aleksei, and fired again. The bullet hit somewhere in the chest, and Aleksei slumped backwards against the wall, dropping the cane.

Tamara did not know if the screech that spilled from her throat was supposed to be an articulate word or the primitive cry of a vengeful animal. Gribov turned towards her, his face frozen in shock, but the gun followed his eye more slowly – too slowly. She was across the room and upon him in a fraction of a second. The knife that had been of so little use on Tyeplov was still clutched in her hand, and would prove its worth. She stabbed upwards, under his ribcage, pressing herself so close to him that he had no chance to train the gun on her. She felt sure her aim had been true, but she stabbed twice more, desperate that with at least one blow the fine steel blade would penetrate his heart.

She stepped back. Gribov was already dead – only her strength held him upright. She pointed her arm and the blade downwards and he slid off it, his body collapsing in a heap on the floor with a quiet, heavy thud. It was almost a relief to witness the normality of human death, but there was no time to relish the sight of a body that did not instantly decay.

Aleksei and Yudin sat against adjacent walls of the cell. Aleksei was by far the worse for wear, but he was still alive. Yudin was just regaining consciousness. Tamara couldn’t guess how much time she had. She grabbed her father around the chest and, ignoring the pain that it caused him, hauled him across the cell floor and out into the corridor. She slammed the door closed, but there was no key in the lock and no bolt on the outside. It wouldn’t keep Yudin in for long. She looked along the corridor down which she knew she must drag her father if they were to have any chance of survival.

Dmitry blocked their way, his huge frame filling the low, arched tunnel.

There was only one other chance of escape: the seventh door, behind which Yudin had refused to show her. She looked at it. The key was still in the lock. It turned easily, and she began to draw the three heavy iron bolts that gave this door extra strength. She glanced down at Aleksei, propped up against the wall, his breathing shallow. Beyond him Dmitry still stood, as indecisive as
he
had been when they had spoken earlier. Son looked at father, but father did not see son.

Finally, she pulled the third of the bolts across, and began to heave on the handle. At the same moment, the door to her right opened, and Yudin emerged. She had the chance to run forward into that last, unexplored cell, but she had no idea whether it would lead to freedom or death. And anyway, it was not an option. She would not be separated from her father. She took a step back, towards Aleksei and towards Dmitry.

Yudin stepped out into the corridor, standing framed in the doorway that Tamara had just opened. She had never seen him look so angry – so out of control. She heard footsteps as Dmitry finally made up his mind and began to approach. From behind Yudin there were sounds too – moans that could have been animal or human, accompanied by the clanking of chains. God knew what Yudin kept in there; it was too dark for her to see.

It didn’t matter. She was trapped deep beneath the Kremlin in a tight, low tunnel with a vampire in front of her and another behind. This was the end. She slumped back against the wall and sat beside her father. She felt his hand grip hers.

‘A bit late for the gallant rescue, Dmitry,’ said Yudin, quickly becoming himself again.

At the sound of the name, Aleksei became suddenly alert. He raised his head, causing him to cough, but he brushed the hair away from his eyes to peer at the figure that, even after so many years, he could not mistake for anyone but his son.

Dmitry’s voice would only confirm it. ‘That’s not why I’m here.’

‘Dmitry?’ Aleksei spoke in scarcely more than a whisper. His son showed no interest in responding.

‘Why then?’ asked Yudin.

‘I came to say goodbye.’

‘To your father?’

‘To you.’

The conversation apparently over, Dmitry turned – difficult in the tight corridor – and began to depart. Yudin stared ahead blankly. Behind him, Tamara thought she glimpsed movement. Then he turned his gaze downwards.

‘Ah, Lyosha. You keep your petty victories over Aleksandr
Pavlovich
. You can die in the knowledge that he’s safe; he won’t be long behind you anyway. But there’s one thing you must hear before you die.’ As Yudin spoke, Dmitry stopped in his tracks and turned. ‘One thing you really do deserve to know about your beloved son.’

‘No, Vasya,’ said Dmitry firmly. He took three steps forward and was now at a level with Tamara.

‘Why not? You wouldn’t want me to lie to him.’

Dmitry took another step so that he was face to face with Yudin, towering over his father, who stared up at him.

‘Who’d have thought, Lyosha, that the little boy I first met when he was five years old – while you were hiding away with your whore – who’d have thought that one day he’d grow up to be someone of whom I could be so proud; would grow up to be …’

Dmitry raised his arms on either side of him, bracing himself against the close walls almost as though he were Samson about to bring down the Philistine temple. But that was not his plan. He raised up his legs, his whole weight supported on his arms, and kicked forward, his feet landing squarely on Yudin’s chest. Yudin’s words were cut short as he was forced to take a step backwards.

At the same instant, Tamara saw more movement in the cell behind him – human figures creeping forward apprehensively, awaiting their moment. As Yudin stumbled backwards, they pounced. Two of them grabbed his legs and one his arm, dragging him back into their domain, but it was the fourth who most caught Tamara’s attention. It was an old woman, her flesh sunk tight into her cheeks. Between her hands she held a chain, which somehow seemed to be attached to her as well. She flung it around Yudin’s neck and then twisted it behind him with a strength that Tamara could not have supposed she had in her. It would have killed any human in minutes. Judging by the look of triumphant hatred in the old woman’s eyes, Tamara wondered if it might not be effective even on a vampire.

Dmitry kicked again and Yudin fell backwards into the cell, dragged down by his attackers. Tamara moved fast. She threw herself towards the door and slammed it shut, holding for one final
moment
the victorious gaze of the old woman as she tightened the chain around Yudin’s throat. Once the door was closed, she slid the bottom bolt across. Dmitry rammed the other two into place and twisted the key in the lock, then pocketed it. He turned and marched back up the corridor without a word.

‘Dmitry!’ Aleksei called plaintively after his son. Dmitry turned and looked at his sister, then down at his father. For years after, Tamara would try to analyse what she remembered of his expression at that moment, to make some sense of it, but now there was no time. A moment later he was gone, his footsteps retreating up the stairs.

She looked down at her father. His shirt was stained with his own blood and his breathing was weak.

‘He had to go,’ she said.

‘Why?’

She could not think of an answer.

‘Can you move?’ she asked. She knew he wouldn’t get far, but she didn’t want to leave him here, so close to Yudin, whatever might be happening to him in there and however sturdy that door might appear.

‘I think so.’

She helped Aleksei back to his feet and forced him to walk with her towards the stairs. Aleksei had no strength to climb them in the normal way, but instead sat down on them and pushed himself up, one step at a time. It took them five minutes just to get as far as the landing where the stairs split, and then Aleksei insisted he could go no further. He sat with his back to the wall, one foot resting on the step below, the other leg bent and held close to his chest. Tamara sat beside him, her hand in his. It was dark here, and neither of them could see very much, but it hid from her his wrinkled skin and white hair and, though his voice was soft and faltering, she could easily picture him as the strong man she had always imagined her father to be. Likewise, he would not notice the horrible laceration that Raisa had engraved in her cheek.

They talked for hours. Tamara told him everything that she could think of, and he did the same – though his voice was weak and he frequently coughed up blood. She knew that his body was
beyond
salvation, and she could think of no way that either of them would rather spend his final moments than together. He told her of his exploits in 1812 and 1825, and at Austerlitz and on the Danube. He showed her his hand, telling her of how he lost two fingers in Silistria, and half of the third as he hung from a ledge of the Winter Palace. Tamara had to laugh at his stories at times, but she knew that was his intention in the way he described things. He did not want her to have to know the terror of it, though she could well imagine.

He told her as much of his military exploits as he did of his dealings with
voordalaki
, and seemed to take a far greater pride in the former than the latter. Much of it tied in with what Dmitry had already told her, but there was more that Aleksei could add. She could not guess whether it was because Aleksei had kept it from his son, or that Dmitry had kept it from her.

In turn, Tamara told her father of her life, with none of the blissful deceit she had employed when speaking of it to Domnikiia. She told him of how her husband and children had died, and of how Luka still lived. Her description of her occasional sightings of her living child seemed to affect him more than the deaths of the others. She could easily understand why.

Aleksei was at his happiest when he spoke of his friends – of Vadim, Maks and Dmitry Fetyukovich and their adventures – and most of all when he spoke of Domnikiia and the thirty peaceful and strangely contented years they had spent in Siberia. In turn Tamara told him of her encounter with Domnikiia, of how mother and daughter had been reunited, and of how her mother had saved her life. When he asked, Tamara told him the little she knew about his wife, Marfa – that she had died in 1848. He seemed relieved she had not lived to see him like this.

It was over Dmitry that she deceived her father utterly. She said she had met him, said what a fine soldier he was, how brave he had been in Sevastopol, and even how he had fought against Tyeplov and the others. She relayed pretty much everything that had occurred up until Dmitry’s ill-fated journey to Klin, and then made up a story about brother and sister coming here together to save Aleksei. She could never have brought herself to tell him the truth.

‘Why did he have to go?’ Aleksei asked.

‘He went to get help,’ Tamara extemporized. ‘He’ll be back soon.’

‘What did Iuda mean, about how Dmitry had grown up?’

‘Who knows? Dmitry’s no saint, you know.’

Aleksei chuckled and that made him cough more. ‘It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t believe a word Iuda said anyway. He taught me that long ago.’

Eventually, they came to talk of the Lavrovs, and Aleksei wept again when he explained how they had decided to leave Tamara with them. ‘Did we do right, Toma? We had to protect you. Iuda would have come for you – to get at me. We had to do it.’

It was the same question her mother had asked. ‘We’re together now, Papa,’ she said.

He fell into silence. His breathing was shallow now, and it was obvious that he had only a short time left to live. The bullets had done their work, little though that had aided the man who fired them. After a few minutes, Aleksei spoke again, suddenly urgent.

‘Where’s Dmitry?’

‘He’ll be here soon,’ she replied.

‘There’s something I have to tell you. The name that they wanted to know; I must tell you it.’

‘I don’t need to know that,’ she said. Moreover, she did not want to. It seemed like dangerous knowledge. It was Yudin’s plan, but with the daughter replacing the son as heroic rescuer.

‘Please, Toma,’ said Aleksei. ‘He’s our tsar. Someone must remember.’

Tamara bent forward and Aleksei raised his lips to her ear, whispering two words that were so quiet she could scarcely make them out. It was disappointing to learn that he had sacrificed so much to protect so little.