Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  “You telling me you didn’t know that Mrs Cromb sent an agent of hers…” he took out a notebook to check the name, “called Andrew Morgan, to Russia a couple of months ago, specifically on a visit to Mrs Ligachevna?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Well, then, let’s talk about something else. Would you deny that Mrs Cromb has regularly, over the past couple of years, entertained Russian emigres, or so-called emigres, at this house?”

  “Of course she has. My mother-in-law has an abiding interest in Russia, and sympathy with those who, like herself, were forced into exile by the Revolution. To many of these people she is still the Princess of Bolugayen. They call here, leave their cards, so it is natural that they should receive invitations to the appropriate soirée. My mother-in-law is very fond of entertaining.”

  “Right. So you agree that Mrs Cromb kept in touch with a lot of emigres. Some of whom may not have been emigres. Like this fellow Asimov, whose body you identified.”

  “Mrs Cromb had never met Asimov. He was an old comrade of my husband’s and myself during the War. We introduced him to Mr and Mrs Cromb.”

  “An old comrade,” Eldridge said thoughtfully. “How do you know Mrs Cromb had never met Asimov?”

  “Well…she hadn’t. She would have said so, if she had. Anyway, it was not possible for them to have met.”

  “Right. Not possible for them to have met. But he was a pal of yours. Right. Okay, Mrs Bolugayevski. Thanks for your time and the water. We’ll be in touch.”

  He stood up, and Elaine stood up also. “I would like to know just what you intend to do about Mrs Cromb’s disappearance.”

  “Well, like I said, we’re putting out feelers. If we get a positive response, we’ll let you know.”

  “But you think I am lying to you.”

  “Oh, no, no, Mrs Bolugayevski. I think you’re telling the truth, as you see it. I just don’t think you know all the facts. But you see, it isn’t part of our business to get egg all over our face.”

  At last the penny dropped. Elaine was aghast. “You think Mrs Cromb engineered this whole thing, and has voluntarily returned to Russia?”

  “Isn’t that a possibility?”

  “That is the most absurd, and obscene, suggestion I have ever heard,” Elaine snapped. “You seem to be forgetting that the Russians intended to kill both Mrs Cromb’s husband and her son. It is pure fortune that they did not.”

  “Yeah. Well, wheels within wheels, eh? Russian agents do some mighty queer things, by our standards, when they’re ordered to do it.”

  “Russian agents? My God…”

  “You going to deny that Mrs Cromb has been quite pally with Premier Stalin from time to time in her life?” Elaine opened her mouth and then closed it again. She did know that Priscilla had been a prisoner of the KGB for a while during the War. Priscilla had always refused to speak of it, Elaine had supposed because the experience had simply been unspeakable. But she did not know that. She did know that there had been no signs of any physical mistreatment on Priscilla’s body. Eldridge had observed her confusion. “Like I said, we’ll be in touch, Mrs Bolugayevski.” He left the room.

  Chapter Six: The Victim

  Atya climbed the stairs to her apartment, slowly. When out of uniform she looked what she actually was, a crippled Muscovite woman, who was not in the best of condition. Going up stairs always made her puff. But she was happy, now. The days, weeks, months, after her accident were nothing but a nightmare. At the time the nightmare had been unbearable. It had all but driven her to suicide.

  From the bottom of that pit she had been rescued, to became a gaoler for the KGB. She knew that Tatiana Gosykinya, her only living Russian friend, had been largely responsible for that. Atya had no illusions about Tatiana. Beneath that glowingly lovely exterior there lurked the mind and soul, and instincts, of a totally amoral and evil woman. But there was also a strong thread of loyalty, both to her superiors, and to her friends. Atya flattered herself that Tatiana herself did not have very many friends. The boy Asimov, she knew of, and was not jealous. Tattie was omnivorous in her sexual appetites. But then, was not she also omnivorous? Once she had not been sure of that. Now she knew, and was happy. Even Tatiana was no longer important. Not since he had come back into her life.

  Atya had once been a beautiful woman. The world of men, and women, had been her oyster in the morally easy attitudes of the Communist Youth. But she had still dreamed of things outside her immediate knowledge, of places and people who would be sophisticated, knowledgeable, attractive. His appearance, early in the Great Patriotic War, had been as unexpected as it had been unforeseeable. He had been a member of the British Mission which had come, along with the Americans, to see how Russia could be helped to resist the Germans. They, especially the Communist girls, hard at work filling sandbags and anticipating rape by the Germans when Moscow fell, had been warned not to fraternise with the foreigners. But how could one fail to fraternise with a man who looked like a film star of that period — complete with little moustache — and acted like one too…and who had fallen head over heels in love with her. Or so he said. Atya had believed him, even if she had very rapidly deduced that he was not a member of the British Mission at all, but an agent for British Intelligence. She had considered informing on him to her superiors, and decided against it. His love had become important to her, and their relationship could not harm the State. Even the questions he asked, for she was already employed by what had then been the MGB, in a menial capacity, could not really harm the State, and it had given her a sense of importance to be able to tell him about the inner workings of that already mighty organisation.

  Then he had gone, back to England, in 1943. They had shared an emotional farewell. She had not expected ever to see him again, but a year ago he had returned, reappearing in her life like some long-forgotten dream. She had been embarrassed, terrified — surely his erstwhile love would turn to disgust, as she had seen in so many eyes since her accident. Instead he had appeared to love her more than ever. He had not even been shocked when she had told him she was now a fully-fledged member of the KGB, which was stretching the bow a bit, as she was after all only a gaoler. She had been overwhelmed, fallen into his arms with all the desperation of a woman whose life had passed her by, save for this one man. So, now he was totally clandestine, entering and leaving Russia by a secret route, taking on the identity of a Siberian official, thus he was now quite as much in her power as she was in his; betrayal — which included desertion — would be a mutual catastrophe. She knew he had come back seeking information rather than her, but she was content with that. She could keep him happy while betraying none of her country’s secrets — only those of the darkest cells in the Lyubyanka.

  *

  He was waiting for her in the privacy of her tiny apartment; she had given him a key. As even a subsidiary member of the KGB she was allowed space to herself. Equally, as a member of the KGB her comings and goings, and those of any friends she might entertain, were not subject to scrutiny. Not many people knew exactly what Atya Schulenskaya did, but all knew where she worked, and for that reason feared her. He greeted her with a kiss. “I am just making tea.”

  “You are a darling.” She took off her coat, hung it on a hook. He handed her a cup. “I hope you have had an enjoyable couple of days?”

  Atya sat down, and smiled. “They would interest you, I am sure.”

  He sat beside her. “Tell me.”

  “Is that all you wish of me, that I should tell you things?” However true it was, she appreciated some romance.

  “Of course it is not. But I think someone I know might be involved.”

  “A man called Morgan?”

  Halstead frowned. “Morgan?”

  “You do not know this man?”

  “I have never heard of him.”

  “He has been arrested for spying, for Great Britain.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “So were his two accom
plices. A man called Smith, another Englishman, and a woman called Constantina Kuslova. She is Russian.” She studied his expression. “You know of these people?”

  “They have been interrogated?”

  “Of course.” She smiled. “I was present.”

  “What did they confess?”

  “Nothing. The man Smith was accidentally electrocuted before he could say anything. The woman had a mental breakdown.”

  “And Morgan?”

  “He refused to give any information. You should have heard him shriek with pain. But he said nothing.” Halstead slowly allowed his breath to escape. “These were your people, eh?” Atya asked.

  “I knew of them,” Halstead said, cautiously.

  “Then you also know of the Princess,” Atya suggested. Halstead put down his teacup. “The Princess Bolugayevska,” Atya explained. “She is a famous enemy agent. She has been arrested too. She was arrested in America and is being brought to Russia.”

  “The Princess Bolugayevska,” Halstead said, thoughtfully. “You think she is connected to Smith and the woman Kuslova and Morgan?”

  Atya shrugged. “When she gets here, we will surely find out, Comrade Johnny.”

  *

  Priscilla stood at the porthole to watch the islands go by as the ship made its way up the strait to the harbour. She found it incredible that she should have lived for several years in this country, and revisited it twice, and yet never before had she been to Leningrad, not even when it had been known as St Petersburg, and then Petrograd. Despite herself, she was excited, for the first time in ten days. Throughout all of that period she had only been able to think, Joseph is dead! Alex is dead! My family is destroyed, save for the babe in Elaine’s womb, who I shall never see, and who will undoubtedly be brought up as an American boy, not a Russian prince. Then, had she had the means, she would have cut her own throat.

  But one can feel total despair for only so long, and she was a woman who had always responded to challenges. Now, at the prospect of this final challenge, the adrenalin was again flowing. She was fully dressed, and had been since dawn, for the first time since leaving Boston. Shatrav had not liked her to be fully dressed. He preferred her naked, or at best in her underclothes. Yet he had never actually touched her, not even when, that first day, she had spat in his face; he had merely looked. And looked and looked and looked.

  Of course he had been obeying orders. Wherever she was going to be delivered, and to whatever fate, she was not to be harmed, in any way, before then. Not even to be touched. And as they had shared the cabin with one of her women gaolers, always, he had not even been able to risk doing something which might not be readily apparent to his masters. However much he so clearly wanted to. Yet it is of course possible to be raped by eyes, when they are ever present, ever watching, seeking every movement, every breath. But Priscilla took a simple pride in the fact that where a great number of women might have gone out of their minds with such on-going humiliation, she was able to take it in her stride, as it were. She had survived too much not to believe in survival, once one had the patience and the fortitude. As a girl she had shivered in a lifeboat from the Titanic, knowing that her mother was dead, awaiting death for herself, or rescue, with patient determination. As hardly more than a girl she had refused to beg or scream when those vicious animals who had called themselves Bolsheviks had been tearing the clothes from her body, while all around her had again lain death and destruction. As a woman she had accepted Stalin’s version of the gulag without a single whimper. So this promised to be her last adventure. Well, then, let it be. She could still enjoy new sights, new smells, new sensations, while she could still see, and feel.

  Shatrav stood at her shoulder. “On that island,” he said, “is the fortress of St Peter and St Paul. Where the tsars are buried.” He chuckled. “Some of them. Nowadays it is used as a prison.”

  “Is that where I am going?” she asked.

  “No, no, Princess.” For just a moment his hands closed on her buttocks. “You are going to Moscow. To Lyubyanka. The ultimate prison.”

  “And then?” Priscilla found that she was holding her breath.

  “I have no idea, Princess. But I imagine…” he drew his forefinger across her throat.

  “You are such scintillating company,” Priscilla remarked.

  “You are not afraid of this?”

  “Why should I be? Better men than you have tried to kill me. And…” she nearly said, “I will be going to join my husband and my son,” but thought better of it. A lout like Shatrav would hardly understand such sentiments. “Will I have time to look at Leningrad?”

  “You will have no time at all to look at Leningrad,” he told her. “It is time to get back into your box.”

  *

  Guards and officials stood to attention. Most of them were very nervous. It was only on rare occasions that Premier Stalin visited the Lyubyanka. Commissar Beria was like a dog with two tails, as he fussed around his master, and showed him into his private office.

  Stalin looked around himself with an almost ingenuous air. “What is the news from America?” he asked.

  “What you read in the newspaper, Josef Vissarionovich. The media consensus is that the Princess was kidnapped for ransom, but as nothing more has been heard of her, the assumption is that the kidnap went wrong and she died.”

  “That is the media consensus,” Stalin remarked. “What do your people in Washington say?”

  “Nothing but rumours. Oh, there is a school of thought that we had something to do with her disappearance, and as you know, they have made official inquiries into Asimov’s background. But as they can prove nothing, they are saying nothing.”

  “And her family?”

  “Her husband and son went into hospital for emergency surgery and have not been heard of since. I think they are both dead. Her brother is distraught, but he is a businessman, not a man of action. Her daughter-in-law is also distraught, and may well remain so. It seems that she is pregnant. I consider the whole situation as closed. In our favour.”

  “And the Princess?”

  “Awaits your pleasure, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  Stalin glanced at him. His Commissar for Internal Affairs was the only person in Russia who understood the true relationship between the Princess and himself. To everyone else, that he had arrested the Princess, kept her in custody for more than a year, and then released her, was merely evidence of the Premier’s omnipotent power, fairness of mind, and generosity: the Princess had been suspected of spying, had been taken into custody and interrogated over a lengthy period by the Premier himself, and then, as he had been unable to prove her guilt, he had let her go again. Even those who understood that in Soviet Russia, once arrested, a man or a woman was very unlikely ever to be seen again unless it was considered appropriate to produce them for a show trial, took comfort in the fact that even Stalin could from time to time be generous. Only Beria knew better. “She has not been harmed?”

  “I’m afraid she received a bang on the head from that young madman Asimov, when she was being arrested,” Beria said. “But the bruise has faded now, and since then, not a hair on her head has been touched.” He grinned. “Or even on her body.”

  “Show me.”

  Beria took his master down by his private elevator and ushered him into a small room, an observation chamber which looked down into a specific cell. The window was fairly large, but it was one-way glass and set high in the wall of the cell beneath; even if the inmate was prepared to stare at it all the time, there would be no way of telling when he, or she, was being overlooked. Priscilla sat on a straight chair in the centre of the room. It was the only piece of furniture, and she sat absolutely straight. She was facing the window, but she was not looking up. She was naked, her pale skin unblemished, her golden hair brushed in a straight mat past her shoulders. Stalin caught his breath. He had not remembered how beautiful she was, how perfect her figure remained; there was only the slightest sag to her heavy breasts,
and her hips were as slender as a girl’s. Her legs were flawless; even her toes were uncrushed, from her refusal to wear ill-fitting shoes, however fashionable. There was a small scar on the right side of her abdomen, where she had had her appendix removed some years before. But this only enhanced the beauty of the rest of her.

  Beria had been watching his master’s expression. “Do you wish her brought to you?” he asked, softly.

  Although he knew they were alone in the room, Stalin looked over his shoulder, almost guiltily. “Why is she naked?” he asked.

  Beria shrugged. “Routine. She is a prisoner, awaiting interrogation.” He grinned. “She thinks she is waiting to be shot.”

  “Who undressed her?”

  “My women.”

  “But you were there?”

  Beria shook his head. “I have not yet let her see me.”

  “You merely watched.” Stalin’s tone was contemptuous, but he was also angry, Beria could tell. Silly old man, he thought. He is jealous of me for looking at the woman who defied him and reduced him to half a man.

  “She is a prisoner, awaiting interrogation,” he said again. “It is my duty to study such people.”

  Stalin turned back to the window, staring at Priscilla for several seconds. Beria waited. He dared not remind his master of what had happened the last time he had summoned that woman to his bed, nor did he dare suggest that this time things might be different. Stalin drew a long breath. All men have weaknesses, but men who rise to the very top of the tree, certainly in gangster-politics, are those who have learned, if not to eradicate their weaknesses, certainly to control them. He wanted Priscilla Bolugayevska-Cromb more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life. But that desire, and her presence, was a weakness. To which he had once succumbed. It could not be allowed to happen again. “Photograph her,” he said. “I wish a complete set of prints. Every angle, every movement, every expression. You will enjoy that, Lavrenty Pavlovich.”

  Beria’s collection of erotica was well known.