The Frozen Circle

by Peter Watt

  ‘They will not tell of our presence,’ Novotny said, delivering the coup de grâce to one of the Bolsheviks who had not died in the hail of gunfire from the mounted men. ‘But their absence from their unit will be noted,’ he said, swinging back onto his horse.

  He led them out of the clearing and back into the forest. For a day they rode in a great sweeping arc until near nightfall a rider on the flank rode back to report a cabin in a small clearing ahead. What was notable about the vicinity was the presence of the bodies of enemy dead before the hut. Novotny knew that they would need to bivouac for the night and decided to reconnoitre the area first.

  George accompanied the Czech officer with two escorts to observe if any other enemy may be in the vicinity, but doubted it as they would have at the least buried their comrades. In a way it was a good sign that the Bolsheviks were absent from the area.

  From the edge of the forest they sat quietly scanning the surrounding trees for any sign of an ambush, but saw none. One of the escorting Czech cavalry men suddenly hissed a warning, drawing their attention to the cabin where they saw a figure emerge unsteadily, a rifle in his hands.

  The soldier who had hissed raised his rifle. ‘Bloody hell!’ George swore and turned in his saddle to warn off the Czech steadying his rifle for a shot. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  Novotny heard the warning and snapped an order to the Czech who lowered his rifle.

  George spurred his horse forward shouting over his shoulder, ‘It’s Major Locksley, my commanding officer.’

  He brought his horse to a halt directly in front of the British officer and swung himself down. The major was filthy and unshaven, but he was on his feet, and for a brief moment did not seem to recognise George.

  ‘Sir, it’s Corporal Littleton,’ George said. ‘Thank God we have found you alive.’

  Locksley blinked and a smile crossed his face. ‘It is you, corporal,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell you how good it is to see you. Is Sergeant Larkin with you?’

  George shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir, I thought he was with you. I was fortunate enough to be found by our Czech allies some days ago and have been with them since. This is pure luck finding you.’

  Locksley stepped out from the doorway and stared past George to the three cavalrymen emerging from the forest and picking their way past the bloated, decomposing bodies of the men Joshua had killed.

  ‘Lieutenant Novotny, this is Major Locksley of the British army,’ George introduced. The Czech officer snapped a salute which Locksley returned. ‘It seems that you have put up a good show here, Major Locksley,’ Andrej Novotny said, surveying the front yard.

  Locksley followed his line of sight but made no comment. ‘Is a Sergeant Larkin and a Russian girl with you?’ he asked again, eliciting blank looks from both the Czech and the Australian.

  ‘I presumed that he was with you, sir,’ George answered, wondering at the mention of a Russian girl.

  ‘He has a day’s march on us,’ Locksley said. ‘I must call on your services as an ally to assist me in finding them,’ he continued, addressing Novotny.

  ‘Is this important?’ Novotny asked, displaying some irritation at the request. He had his own orders and they were to fall back to Archangel. Any further mission might disrupt that plan.

  ‘I would not ask it,’ Locksley said, ‘if it were not important to the outcome of this campaign. I can assure you, Lieutenant Novotny, that my request would be immediately sanctioned by your higher authority if the mission was revealed. It is of vital importance to the war here but I am not at liberty to tell you why I make this request for assistance.’

  George was elated to hear that Joshua was still alive, but was decidedly uneasy at the tone of the major’s voice. Something had happened and George was certain that it was not in his friend’s nature to leave a wounded or ill fellow soldier behind.

  ‘Sir,’ he said with a frown, ‘is there something we should know about?’

  Locksley turned on him. ‘Nothing more than that Sergeant Larkin will be caught and arrested for disobeying orders, and deserting a superior officer on the battlefield. That is all you have to know.’

  Stunned by the accusation towards his friend, George did not answer but shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘I will comply with your request, Major Locksley,’ Novotny said after considering the possibilities. ‘Only if the search for Sergeant Larkin and the Russian girl is towards Archangel.’

  Locksley smiled grimly. ‘I can assure you that will be the situation. If my guess is right, they are fleeing in that direction as we speak.’

  Novotny nodded and wheeled his horse away to bring his men into the clearing. George stood staring at the British major, the look that passed between them sparking distrust and suspicion. Whatever had occurred at the cabin days earlier, George had a feeling that Locksley was not about to take his friend alive.

  NINETEEN

  Valley View

  Present day

  Senior Constable Morgan McLean found himself buried in paperwork. He had knocked on the dead young man’s mother’s door at 2 a.m. and gone through the procedure of informing her that her only son was dead. Morgan had prepared for the task by first waking the next door neighbours who he knew were close friends and having them on standby to console the poor woman with soothing words and cups of tea. He had worked through the rest of the night making the telephone calls required to fill in the boxes of the reports.

  The sun was rising as he pushed himself away from the computer screen. In the distance he could hear the sweet call of a butcher bird greeting the dawn. Soldiering with the SAS had trained him to snatch sleep in small packets and without bothering to return to his bed he dozed in the office with his head on the desk. He did not know how long he had been asleep when the phone rang as he expected it would before he put his head down. Groping for the phone, Morgan forced himself awake.

  ‘Valley View police,’ he answered through a fog of half-reality.

  ‘Morgan, this is Phil from the Accident Investigation Unit. Just thought I should tell you that from our preliminary check of that car brought in last night it looks like the braking system had been sabotaged. No wonder the car was totalled at Spencers Bend.’

  Morgan shook off the last of the fog and rubbed his eyes. The seeming accident now took on the nature of a murder inquiry.

  ‘Have you got onto your local D’s?’ the man from the Traffic Accident Investigation unit asked.

  ‘I’ll call Ken Barber straightaway,’ Morgan replied. ‘Thanks for the news,’ he added with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Anytime,’ Phil answered, knowing that his news meant a lot more paperwork than just a traffic accident. ‘I am not about to give anything out to the press,’ he continued. ‘You can do that at your discretion.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Morgan said, replacing the phone.

  He immediately called Hume City police station, leaving a message for Detective Senior Sergeant Barber to contact him as soon as he got into his office, then stood and stretched. It was time for a shave and shower and a change of uniform. He would commence this new investigation by interviewing Monique, as it had been, after all, her vehicle involved in the incident. Whatever had happened the night before involved her, and Morgan was sure that she had been the target of sabotage. The note in his desk drawer had taken on a very sinister significance. He would have to double his efforts and locate that man or woman with an Eastern European accent.

  London

  Present day

  Harry Stanton stared out the pub window at the people on the street scurrying under umbrellas against a sleeting rain. So many foreign faces, he reflected. It was not the London of his youth. The Scotch and soda on the table in front of him was hardly touched but at eleven o’clock in the morning he did not expect to drink it. He was an after five social drinker and he had chosen this out-of-the-way public house to meet with the man from some obscure department in the civil service.

  Around Harry, a crowd began to sp
ill into the pub from the surrounding office blocks for lunch and an ale. Young men and smartly dressed women chatted and flirted. Harry checked his watch and when he looked up he saw the man he was to meet. He was grey in every aspect – his hair, suit and skin tone – and he carried a government-issued briefcase. They exchanged looks and the contact from the civil service sat down at Harry’s small table by the window.

  ‘We will move to a corner over there,’ Harry said, rising with his drink in his hand. ‘Just an old habit when I am meeting with someone.’

  They moved to a corner of the pub where they secured another small table.

  ‘Are you having a drink?’ Harry asked. His contact shook his head. ‘Sorry, old chap, a bit early for me.’ No names had been exchanged, nor any formal greetings. ‘We would like to have a sitrep on events in Australia,’ he said without preliminaries.

  ‘Our man on the ground is active,’ Harry replied.

  The grey man leaned forward. ‘You realise that there must be no connection with events there and the government here,’ he said quietly, pursing his lips. ‘You have to appreciate that the PM has no knowledge of the operation. This is simply a continuation of something that should have been resolved by your department in 1920. The threat to European stability is greater now, than it was then. We already have a suspicion that a Russian nationalist movement knows of her existence.’

  ‘I can confirm that suspicion,’ Harry said, eyeing his drink and wondering if it was not too early to have a sip considering the clandestine nature of their business. ‘But we are on top of that. We have been for some time now.’

  ‘If those mad Ruskie nationalists are able to prove that a direct descendant of Czar Nicholas is still alive it will prompt many Russians to rally to their cause. If that happens we could very well have a civil war on our hands and that is not good for the stability of world politics – or our own interests in a united Europe. Civil wars have a bad habit of escalating and spilling over into neighbouring countries. It is bad enough that the Russians have to face trouble from their old territories but this would strike at the very heart of the present administration in the Kremlin. It is vital that we remove any reason for the nationalists to raise up the old imperial standard.’

  Harry fully understood the implications of the Russian nationalists producing a living heir to the old imperial throne. Since the fall of communism Russia had been left open to all kind of influences. All had not been better under the new, democratic regime as many had lost the modest but secure income promised by a socialist state. Crime had spiralled and the poor saw the rich as examples of the decadence the old Soviet communists had warned them of. At the heart of Russia beat a nostalgia for the even older order of Russian imperialism. Religion was still the blood that oozed in the deeply spiritual culture and that the imperial princess had been since sanctified in the Russian Orthodox church meant a lot to the poor and dispossessed of the sprawling nation at the strategic edge of Europe. It could only take an icon like a surviving descendant of a Russian saint played by the right people to cause another revolution. Harry knew this well, as did many others who had lived in the world of ensuring checks and balances remained in place for the peace and security of Europe. As much as he was suspicious of the so-called democracy emerging in Russia, he realised that he was a player in making certain it had a chance to grow and mature. Russia and Europe did not need the return of the old imperialists’ myth of a grand Russian empire.

  ‘You can make your report that we are on top of it,’ Harry reassured. ‘We have had one little hiccup but the man I have assigned will rectify the situation. All we have to do is get possession of a certain journal and some identity papers to make the situation go away.’

  ‘I hope so,’ the grey man said, standing to leave the pub. ‘Your next report should be that the situation is fully under control.’

  He said no more and made his way out of the crowded hotel to step onto the grey streets of London’s busy business heart where he merged with the grey day outside.

  Harry remained for a short time brooding on the whole operation. He knew it was messy but so far had confined it in his department to himself and Daniel Kildare. MI6 was still smarting from the ludicrous accusations in a royal commission that they had been instrumental in having Princess Diana assassinated on the command of the English royal family. That was purely James Bond stuff to feed the tabloids hungry for sensationalism guaranteed to drive up sales and hence profits for the media. No, black operations were aimed at far more important things than news for the trashy tabloids. Black ops were aimed at retaining world stability and this situation in far-off Australia was a case in point. Harry realised the magnitude of what he was overseeing and wondered about his predecessors in the old Secret Intelligence Service of the 1920s. Had they felt the same bile-inducing feelings he was now experiencing when they had attempted to hunt down and eliminate the only surviving Russian royal? But their motives had been different then and if the press had been as active pursuing that case then they would have had a royal scandal to boost sales. Now it was simply a case of attempting to covertly assist the Russians in maintaining some stability.

  Harry picked up the Scotch and soda and swigged it down in one gulp. The liquor hit his stomach, producing a warm glow. It was time to return to his office and monitor the situation at some Aussie folk festival in a place on the other side of the Indian Ocean. He dutifully filed his report and sent it into a secret place in cyberspace where only he could retrieve it – or so he thought.

  Valley View

  Present day

  Morgan’s investigation inevitably led him to the doorway of Monique’s house, where he was greeted by David, who ushered him inside.

  ‘I have come about Monique’s car,’ Morgan said.

  ‘We have already heard it was involved in a terrible accident last night,’ David said. ‘We did not realise that it was stolen until this morning when I went to pick it up from the hall. Monique left it there last night because she had a few drinks and a friend gave her a lift home.’

  Morgan accepted the explanation. The locals were very conscious of obeying the drink-driving laws and aware that the police patrolled the streets at this time of the year well into the early hours. ‘I will still need Monique to come down to the station and make a statement,’ he said. ‘The earlier the better as the matter will be under investigation by the coroner because a death was involved.’

  ‘You don’t think Monique had anything to do with it?’ David asked indignantly.

  Morgan hurried to reassure him. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It’s just so we can clear Monique at this early stage of the investigation.’

  ‘She is a sleep but I will tell her as soon as she awakes,’ David said.

  Morgan nodded and was about to leave when David spoke again.

  ‘You know,’ he said hesitantly. ‘It’s like this place was cursed or something.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Morgan said.

  David frowned. ‘Ever since those skeletons were dug up in our backyard things seem to be going wrong in our lives.’

  ‘What things?’ Morgan asked but he could see from the expression on his face that David had closed down on any further questions.

  ‘Nothing of real importance,’ he replied.

  As Morgan walked back to his car he wondered about what David had said. Life had been pretty simple in Valley View until the discovery of the two unidentified bodies. It was as if ghosts had been released from their sleep to resurrect an old curse left over from the Great War and its aftermath in Russia. The world had changed so much yet human nature remained the same. Whatever had activated the current events swirling around him had its roots in the snows of 1919 Russia. That much he did know, and he also knew that Monique was central to this drama now being played out. He just wondered how he had been caught up in it.

  When Morgan returned to the station he was met on the steps by Ken Barber.

  ‘What in bloody hell is going on around
here?’ the detective senior sergeant barked. ‘All I can guess is that it’s got something to do with you and that sheila, Monique Dawson.’

  ‘Want a cuppa, Ken?’ Morgan asked politely, brushing past the burly policeman.

  ‘That would be a good start,’ Ken Barber replied more mildly. ‘I would rather have a bloody beer.’

  ‘It’s not lunchtime yet,’ Morgan retorted.

  ‘See, you would never have made a detective,’ Ken grumbled, following Morgan inside the station. ‘It’s got to be lunchtime somewhere in the world. But for now maybe we can figure a few things out.’

  Morgan clicked on his hot water jug. He knew that to a point he would have to level with his senior officer before the situation got out of control.

  ‘I have to admit that there are a lot of weird things happening,’ Morgan said, pouring hot water into two mugs. ‘And I have to admit that there might be some link to the bodies dug up at the Larkin house.’

  Ken Barber accepted the mug offered him. ‘Let’s see how it all shapes up,’ he said, placing his coffee on the edge of Morgan’s desk to cool down. ‘A few weeks back a couple of skeletons are dug up at what you call the Larkin house. They still remain unidentified although there is Buckley’s chance of closing a probable murder case, considering the time that has elapsed. Still, it would be nice to have the bodies identified so that the coroner can make a finding and the paperwork in my pigeonhole will go away. Last night we have a car accident that appears to be the result of brake failure due to sabotage which makes it murder. The car belongs to one Ms Monique Dawson who happens to be the current title holder of the Larkin house. This might not be so suspicious if it weren’t for the fact that the media runs with a story some weeks back that some Russian princess might have lived there for a short while.’