The big man picked up the poker and crouched on the hearthrug, thrusting the tip of the poker into the hottest part of the fire.
‘You know what comes next, don’t you?’ asked Nekrasoff.
‘If you’ve come for the plans, you’re too late,’ Killigrew told him. ‘I handed them in at the Admiralty this afternoon.’
A flicker of emotion crossed Nekrasoff’s face, too swiftly for Killigrew to work out what emotion it was. ‘Yes, I thought you might have done,’ he said mildly. ‘It makes no difference. Those plans are unimportant: another of the grand duke’s little toys. But what is important is the name of the man who helped Jurgaitis in Helsingfors.’
‘I didn’t meet Jurgaitis until he reached Kristinestadt,’ said Killigrew. ‘How should I know who helped him in Helsingfors?’
‘Come now, Mr Killigrew. We both know you were in Helsingfors before the war, posing as an ichthyologist while trying to recruit pilots for your fleet. Presumably whoever helped you then helped Jurgaitis last month.’
‘No one helped me.’
Nekrasoff crossed the room to lean over the back of Araminta’s chair. ‘Are you quite sure about that? Such a pretty face… it would be a shame if we had to damage it.’
Killigrew felt nauseous. ‘Damn you, Nekrasoff! I’m the one who rescued the Bullivants last year, and I’m the one who got those plans to our Admiralty. Your quarrel’s with me, not her. If you want to torture someone, torture me!’
‘Oh, but I tried that last summer, remember? With little success, I must admit.’
‘Because I didn’t know anything, damn your eyes! You asked me where Napier planned to attack next, and I told you even he hadn’t made his mind up. Didn’t he prove that by not attacking anywhere?’
‘You told me Kronstadt.’
‘I had to tell you something: you were trying to drown me at the time! You seem to think I’m some kind of hero, impervious to pain. Well, I’m not, I can assure you. All you have to do is wave that poker in my face, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know, if I can.’
‘Yes, but you would say that, wouldn’t you? I think applying it to Miss Maltravers’ face will prove much more efficacious. By the way, I understand it you’ve already met my associate, Mr Ryzhago?’
Still crouching in front of the fire, the big man grinned over his shoulder at Killigrew. ‘I had the pleasure of Mr Killigrew’s acquaintance on the train this afternoon.’
‘Ryzhago isn’t his real name, of course,’ said Nekrasoff. ‘Were I to tell you his real name… well, suffice to say his father’s name is so well known in St Petersburg Society that I dare say even you might have heard of it. He’s been one of my top agents in England for years. If you’re wondering where he learned to speak English so fluently, I can answer your question easily enough. His father had somehow got the lamentable notion in his head that Britain’s public schools were the finest in the world, so he sent his son to Eton.’
‘I’ve always said that place was a breeding ground for the worst scum in society,’ sneered Killigrew, still struggling surreptitiously against his bonds. ‘Murderers, rapists, lawyers, politicians… you name it!’
Nekrasoff smiled. ‘A lesson his father learned too late, alas. I can assure you that Ryzhago is living proof that brains and brawn can be combined in one body; but English not being his first language, he did rather struggle during his first few terms. And they do have a tendency to flog pupils who don’t come up to scratch. Personally, if I had children, I should sooner send them to Siberia than to a British public school!’
‘A purely academic question,’ said Killigrew, ‘as I can’t imagine any woman so lacking in taste that she should want you as the father of her children!’
Nekrasoff shrugged the insult off. ‘The net result of all these beatings at such an impressionable age, I’m afraid to say, is some confusion in poor Ryzhago’s mind about the difference between pain and pleasure. I first encountered him when I was working in the Department of Public Morals. There was one very nasty incident at one of the licensed brothels in St Petersburg… one which catered for clients with very particular needs.’ Nekrasoff thought for a moment. ‘Come to think of it, it always was very popular with diplomats working at the British Embassy. Unfortunately, poor Ryzhago there got rather carried away in the throes of his passion, and started to dish out a little of what he had gone there to receive.’
Ryzhago scowled, clearly disliking to have his peccadilloes discussed in such an offhand manner, but from the way he withdrew the red-hot tip of the poker from the fire and turned to advance on Araminta, it was clearly not Nekrasoff he was going to take his anger out on.
‘You see, the thing about Ryzhago is, he’s a great believer in the words of Our Lord when He said it is more blessed to give than to receive,’ concluded Nekrasoff. ‘Particularly when it comes to inflicting pain. His father was more than happy for me to give his son a new identity and enlist him in the Third Section. Don’t you agree that it was better to employ Ryzhago in a capacity in which he could be of service to his country than to embarrass his family with the shame and humiliation of a public trial? Now, are you quite sure you wouldn’t like to share the name of the man who helped Jurgaitis in Helsingfors with us?’
Mesmerised by that poker, Araminta blanched. ‘Don’t tell him, Kit.’
Killigrew shook his head, sick with horror. ‘If I knew anything I would, Minty, believe me. Damn you, Nekrasoff! We both know you’re going to kill us anyhow. Why should I tell you anything?’
‘Because you want Miss Maltravers to avoid unnecessary suffering beforehand?’
Ryzhago moved the poker close to her cheek. Even though it had already cooled to a dull red glow, it was still hot enough to bring beads of perspiration from her brow at a distance of a couple of inches.
‘All right, all right!’ sobbed Killigrew. ‘Qvist! His name was Qvist. Lars Qvist. He was one of the cleaners at the University of Helsingfors.’
Nekrasoff smiled. ‘I knew it had to be someone who worked at the University.’
Ryzhago took the poker away.
The colonel frowned. ‘But then, as you said just now, you had to say something…’ He nodded at Ryzhago.
‘No!’ Killigrew screamed as Ryzhago pressed the poker to Araminta’s cheek, but his scream was drowned out by hers as her flesh sizzled.
Mercifully, she fainted.
Tears streamed down Killigrew’s face. He swore vilely at the colonel.
‘Dear me,’ said Nekrasoff. ‘Not the sort of language I’d expect from an officer and a gentleman.’
Killigrew lifted his head to glare into Nekrasoff’s eyes. ‘You’d best kill me now and be done with it, Colonel. Because if you don’t, I’m going to come after you, and when I catch you, you’re going to take a long time to die.’
Nekrasoff crouched before him, smirking. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. You see, this time you’re in over your head. Out of your depth.’ He straightened and moved behind Killigrew. ‘We won’t be meeting again.’
Killigrew felt something smash against the base of his skull. The room spun around him, and he felt a momentary nausea before the waves of blackness washed over him and carried him out to sea like so much flotsam.
* * *
Someone was hammering at the door. The noise seemed to match the pounding in Killigrew’s skull. He groaned: it was the closest he could come to expressing a coherent thought.
The hammering stopped; the hammering on the door, at any rate. ‘Mr Killigrew? We know you’re in there, sir. Open this door!’
Open it yourself, thought Killigrew. He tried to say it too, but his tongue seemed to have swollen in his mouth and turned to cotton wool.
The pounding on the door resumed. Killigrew opened his eyes. He lay face down on the floor, the threadbare rug stretching away before him. Everything was as he had left it, except for the people. There was no sign of Nekrasoff or Ryzhago; or of Araminta, for that matter. Even the ropes that had bound her to the chair ha
d gone. Only the stench of charred flesh still lingered in the air to let him know it had not been just a nightmare.
They had taken Araminta!
He knew he had to get after them. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew that lying on the floor was not going to get it done.
‘All right, lads, break it down!’ said a voice outside the door. The pounding became less frequent, but heavier.
Killigrew tried to get up. It proved to be the hardest thing he had ever done. Climbing to the truck of the Dreadful’s mainmast as a midshipman had nothing on climbing to his feet now. He realised he had to take it in easy stages. Palms against the floor and… push! He raised his chest up, and his head swam sickeningly. Fighting back the bile that rose to his gorge, he managed to bend his legs and get up on his hands and knees.
The door burst open and a man staggered in, almost tripping over him. The man wore the swallowtail coat and stovepipe hat of a peeler. There were two more bobbies in the hallway outside, and two men in chesterfield overcoats, the elder wearing a chimney-pot hat that had seen better days, the younger wearing a Bollinger hat on his head.
All four of them followed their colleague into the room. Two of the peelers caught Killigrew under the armpits and hauled him to his feet.
‘Search the place!’ ordered the man in the chimney-pot hat.
It did not take them long. The man wearing the Bollinger crossed to the bedroom door and froze on the threshold, crumpling against the jamb. ‘In here, Mr Jordan.’
The detective crossed to the door, then pushed past him into the bedroom. Killigrew tried to follow him, but the two peelers held him fast.
After what seemed like an eternity, Jordan re-emerged, taking off his chimney-pot hat to dab at his brow with a wadded handkerchief. He looked sick and tired.
‘What?’ demanded Killigrew. ‘What’s in there?’
Jordan looked up at him, and his eyes were full of cold loathing. ‘I think you know, Mr Killigrew.’
Killigrew had a nasty feeling he did. ‘I have to see.’
Jordan shrugged. ‘Show him, boys.’
The two peelers escorted him to the bedroom door.
Araminta lay on the bed, her face contorted into a rictus of agony. There was the stink of death in the room, the stink of faeces and urine. Her face was already turning grey; Ryzhago’s watch-chain had left its cruel mark upon her throat.
* * *
‘Commander Killigrew?’
Araminta was dead.
It was not the first time a woman he had loved had died because he thought he could save the world from itself, but, if anything, that only made it hurt all the more. The self-pity – the feeling that he was cursed – would come later, a part of his mind told him. The part that was still rational, that had somehow defied the odds to cling on to sanity while his whole world – everything he had pinned his hopes and dreams for the future on – came crumbling down around him. A woman he loved, and who loved him, for a wife… surely it had not been too much to ask?
Araminta was dead.
‘Commander Killigrew?’
But before the self-pity, the self-recrimination. She was dead because once again he had allowed a woman to become caught up in his stupid cloak-and-dagger games. Death held no terrors for him, but there were worse things to befall a man than death, and this was the worst of them. Was God testing him, like Job? Or punishing him, like Solomon? But if only he could have had the wisdom of Solomon!
Or was he trying to make sense of something that made no sense? Was he merely trying to mitigate his feelings of guilt by sharing them with God? Perhaps his friend Strachan, a devout atheist, was right… at times like this, it was hard to believe in God. Things just happened. Atoms collided in space. Famines and diseases racked the planet. And in a seamy bedroom in Paddington, the daughter of a viscount was garrotted with a fob chain because her lover thought he could play games with Russian agents.
‘Commander?’
No amount of rationalisation could assuage his guilt. Would she still be alive if Killigrew had not given Nekrasoff a made-up name? It seemed unlikely that the colonel kept a complete list of the university’s staff in his head. More likely he had planned to kill Araminta all along. The only mystery was why he had not killed Killigrew while he was about it.
What mattered was that Araminta should never have got mixed up with him in the first place. Worst of all, it was as if a part of him had known that all along. Perhaps that was why he had broken off their engagement three years ago, before sailing off into the Arctic. They belonged to two very different worlds: hers a world of balls and titles and monogrammed carriages, his a world of danger and intrigue and sudden, brutal death. He had flattered himself he could move seamlessly between those two worlds, that he was as much at home in a ballroom as he was on the quarterdeck of a man o’ war in battle; but now the latter world had somehow spilled over into the former, with the most dreadful consequences.
Araminta was dead.
‘Sir?’
He finally became aware of a portly, middle-aged man standing over him. Killigrew looked up at him blankly.
‘Inspector Jordan of the Detective Branch at Scotland Yard,’ the man introduced himself in a husky voice. He indicated the fair-haired plainclothes officer standing beside him. ‘This is Sergeant Dunwoody. Sorry to keep you waiting. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?’
Killigrew shook his head numbly and rose from the bench in the waiting room at the police office on Marylebone High Street. He followed the two officers into an office where Jordan gestured to a chair at the table and Dunwoody pulled it out for him, like a waiter seating a patron at a restaurant.
Killigrew sat down. Jordan dropped some files on the table between them and sat opposite him. ‘I’ve been through the statement you gave Sergeant Hawkins, and I wondered if you’d mind if we went through it again?’
Killigrew heard the words, but they made no sense to him. Nothing made any sense to him any more. He shrugged non-committally.
‘Now, these two men who invaded your rooms… you say they were Russian spies?’
Killigrew made an effort to reply sensibly, knowing that the best way he could avenge Araminta’s death was to do everything in his power to assist the police. ‘That’s right.’
Jordan grimaced. ‘You see, the problem is, we can’t find a single witness who can corroborate any part of your story.’
‘What about Mrs Antrobus? The landlady?’
Jordan and Dunwoody exchanged glances. ‘Not a very good witness, sir, seeing that she’s dead too.’
Jesus Christ! Not Mrs Antrobus as well!
‘What happened?’ asked Jordan. ‘Did she come to investigate the disturbance?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘She came out of her rooms as Nekrasoff and Ryzhago were coming up the stairs. The fifth step creaks: she always comes out to investigate, in case it’s a tenant who owes her… owed her… arrears.’
‘The fifth step,’ Jordan echoed dubiously.
‘Speak to Sir Charles Napier,’ Killigrew told them wearily. ‘Speak to Sir James Graham or Rear Admiral Seymour. They’ll tell you. I was on a secret mission to Finland. I crossed the path of the Third Section – that’s the Russian secret police – and they must have followed me back here.’
‘Ye-e-es. You say you left Finland on the eighteenth?’
‘Yes!’
‘And you arrived back in London earlier today? Or yesterday, I should say now. Still… Finland to England in eleven days. That’s quite impressive.’
‘Yes, well, with stolen plans in my pocket and Russian spies on my tail, I didn’t feel like tarrying to take in the sights.’
They looked at him, stony-faced.
‘I left Finland by fishing boat and arrived in Danzig on the twenty-third. The next day I travelled by train and arrived in Berlin via Stettin. From Berlin it took me three days to reach Paris. The next day was a Sunday, so I had to wait until this morning – yesterday morning – t
o catch the Double Express.’ He reached into his coat pocket. ‘See? Here’s the ticket stub.’
‘Oh, we’re not disputing your itinerary,’ said Jordan. ‘It’s these Russian spies that trouble me. I can’t work out how they got to London so quickly. Perhaps you could explain that one to us?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘If I made it, why couldn’t they?’
‘Because they couldn’t come by the same route as you, could they? With all of Russia’s Baltic ports iced-in, they’d have to travel overland, and there are no railways between Finland and Warsaw.’
Killigrew stared at them. It was true. Then how in the hell had Nekrasoff…? ‘Look, I don’t know. Maybe he was already in London, and someone sent a telegram to tell him I was on my way back from Finland. All I know is that while we’re sitting here asking and answering foolish questions, he’s getting further away.’ He buried his face in his hands. He was so tired… why did he have to waste his time with these idiots? ‘Speak to Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier,’ he repeated. ‘He’ll confirm my story.’
‘Oh, he already has—’
‘Then why are we sitting here when we should be getting after Nekrasoff? There’s still time, damn it!’
‘At least, he’s confirmed those parts of it he could confirm. We don’t doubt what you tell us about your mission to Finland. Where we do struggle is with the presence of Russian spies here in London.’
Killigrew was ready to start tearing up the table that was between them. Ever since the war had loomed the previous spring, people had been seeing Russian spies under their beds. Now there really were Russian spies operating in Britain, why did he have to get the only two policemen who put spies in the same category as Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy?
‘Look, for heaven’s sake! All right, perhaps to you… living here safe and comfortable in England while brave men die in the trenches of the Crimea… the war is something terribly distant that hardly touches your lives. But the fact is there are Russian spies operating in this country, and perhaps if you people spent less time wasting my time, and more time trying to track them down, you might stand a chance of catching Miss Maltravers’ murderer before he leaves the country.’
Killigrew and the Sea Devil Page 6