by Ann Swinfen
Hugh's date and place of birth, the address of St Martins, educational details, list of publications, list of television programmes, countries visited, and date and time of arrival in Moscow and St Petersburg were all set out neatly on the screen.
'Given a little time, she would, of course, ferret out a good deal more. Your sexual liaisons, for example. Your drinking habits. Your relatives and your associates over the last – say – thirty years. Your security clearance in Britain, the United States and here in Russia, both before and after the end of our late lamented Soviet Union.'
'You have made your point, Mr Brelov,' said Hugh, who had encountered secret police before, but still found it an unsettling experience. 'I am sure, given time, you could tell me what colour pyjamas I was wearing on Christmas Day in 1961. Are you interested in doing a small job for me, or not?'
'Certainly, Mr Appleton,' said Ivan, feigning contrition. 'You must forgive my little games. Tell me what you want to know.'
So Hugh outlined what little he knew about Natasha's family and the location of the house, and explained that, if it still stood, he would like to photograph it. He also wanted to discover any people who might have had a connection with the Greshlovs, however remote.
'My grandmother is very old, Mr Brelov, and she will never return to Russia. But she went through a terrible time when the whole of her family was murdered before her eyes and she escaped into the streets in nothing but her shift. I feel that she would be glad to lay, so to speak, those old ghosts to rest. There was one servant who helped her – a young man a little older than herself – but he would be dead by now. It might be possible to trace his family. And she was troubled for many years, not knowing what became of the rest of the servants. There was an old nanny she loved dearly. I realise it is a long time ago, but any scraps of information – they would mean a great deal to her.'
'I like it!' said Ivan. 'And yours is not the first such case, my friend. Almost every week I have letters from America, from France and Germany and England – descendants of Russians who fled all those years ago. And almost all of them related to the Romanovs – is not that interesting? So many people wanting to claim this palace or that – or a golden cup in the Hermitage – or a share in the Romanov fortune. Surely your grandmother was indeed a princess, but all you want is photographs and a few words with the grandson of the third stableboy.' He roared with laughter. 'I am sure we can help you, my friend.'
Hugh had learned long ago to ignore this kind of baiting, so he merely smiled politely and waited until Ivan had finished playing games. Suddenly the detective decided to become businesslike. He pressed an intercom button on his desk.
'Lyudmila, my darling, will you come and join us?'
It was Lyudmila who did most of the work. Her looks were one of her professional assets: people took her for an empty-headed beauty, whereas in fact she was a graduate of Moscow University, with a PhD in criminal psychology and eight years' experience as a detective in the St Petersburg police. She was quite frank about why she had left the force.
'The male pigs who hold all the power are never going to let women into their privileged positions.' Her English too was excellent, and her accent was not New York but Oxford. 'You have this too, I believe, in your countries? “You sleep with me, Lyudmila, and I will see you get promotion.”' She gave a growl of disgust. 'I spit at them and their methods. I know other women who have been trapped like this. The first part of the bargain is kept, and then – what? – oh, dear, no promotion is possible. And when I refused this little favour to a very senior officer, he tried to rape me – there in his office, with his secretary turning people away because he was occupied. I hit him with a glass ashtray. I wish I had hit him harder. Then I resigned, before he could invent some case against me.'
In Ivan's organisation Lyudmila used her intellectual talents with ferocious determination, but it was her natural gift for playing the naïve blonde that enabled her to get past the natural wariness of post-Soviet Russians. Two days after their visit to the office, Hugh and Charlie met Lyudmila in a café near the centre of town.
'I have found the house. It survived the siege by the Germans during the last war – it was some distance out of town, away from the battle lines. Since then the suburbs have spread, and there are many houses around it, but part of the grounds are now a municipal park. I thought this was the building, but now I have made sure.'
'And the house is still standing?' Hugh beamed. 'What is it used for?'
'Part is now an orphanage. The rest is a municipal school of music. The inside, you understand, will be much changed – the rooms will be partitioned, much else destroyed. But the outside, I think you will find, has not been altered.'
'When can we go and see it?'
'Now, if you have finished your coffee. My car is in the next street.'
They drove for half an hour in Lyudmila's Lada, then turned in through eighteenth-century wrought iron gates. The park looked much like any other city park. Mothers and grandmothers walked with children. Down on the lake a large group of men and boys were racing model yachts in what seemed to be a club regatta.
'Natasha said there was a lake.' Hugh had a strange sense of déjà vu. He had formed a mental picture of the place which proved to be partly accurate. But to be entering in reality what had always seemed to be a part of history, long dead, had a dreamlike quality about it.
Lyudmila parked in front of the house. It was vast, about four times the size of St Martins, and the fabric of the building was shabby. Gutters were split and rain had run for years down the face of the building, leaving waterfalls of green slime. The front steps were chipped, and the pillars supporting the great portico had lost the mortar that should have secured the separate drums of stone. Hugh ducked with instinctive nervousness under the heavy lintel with its elaborate cartouche. They were allowed to peep briefly into the entrance hall. Worn brown linoleum covered the marble floor, and a flimsy partition wall divided it down the middle. There was a great stone fireplace, still, which looked as though no fire had burned in it for half a century.
'This is where they were killed,' said Hugh quietly to Charlie. 'In front of that fireplace. There were swords and axes and all sorts of weapons hanging on the wall, but the servants had run off, and Natasha's father was the only man left in the house. He was killed on the threshold, and then his wife and children here by the fire – all except Natasha. They killed her little brother Petya last, then they all raped her in turn, before the man who helped her managed to get her away.'
Lyudmila was listening to him intently. 'She was a brave woman, your grandmother, yes?'
'She still is. But I think that even now she feels guilty. Because she survived and the others did not.'
Hugh took one photograph of the hallway, but thought he would probably not show it to Natasha. Then he used the rest of the roll of film photographing the outside of the house from every angle, and taking pictures of the model boat races on the lake, and of a group of children playing on swings near the remains of the old orchard. They drove back to the centre of town in silence.
Lyudmila had no more news for them for a week. Then the day before they were due to travel back to Moscow she telephoned Hugh at the hotel.
'I have had luck, Hugh. I have found a man who was a boy servant of the Greshlovs. He is now a watchmaker here in Petersburg. I will take you to meet him this evening.'
Hugh waited impatiently for the day to pass. He had wanted to go at once to meet the old man, but Lyudmila had said that it was not possible until the evening.
'He is old, you understand, and his eyes are no longer good. So he must work when there is daylight to see the watches and clocks that he repairs. The hours of daylight are gold to him. It is not convenient to visit him until after dark.'
Feeling ashamed, Hugh said that he understood, and went off to pass the day as best he could. Charlie was having a second interview with Ivan Brelov, and then planned to do some sight-seeing. Hugh felt too re
stless to join him. More than a few days spent amongst the crowds of a large city always made him uneasy, and he would be glad to be leaving. His own family connection with the place seemed too slight to awaken any sense of belonging here. For a time he wandered along the river, then he sought out the shop belonging to the watchmaker, which Lyudmila had told him was not far from his hotel. For a time he lingered on the opposite side of the street, watching. It was a small shop, neither grand nor poor, with a freshly painted front and one large window. Behind the window he could see the shadowy shape of a man sitting at a table, with a jeweller's glass screwed into his eye. This, he supposed, must be the old man who once polished Natasha's boots in those long-gone days.
Lyudmila collected him at the hotel at eight o'clock. Charlie was busy writing up his story, and said he would not come with them.
'No need to overwhelm the old boy with three of us. We'll have a drink in the bar when you get back, and you can tell me all about it.'
'He lives in two rooms over the shop, with his widowed daughter,' said Lyudmila, as she knocked on the door of the darkened shop. 'Her husband was killed in the siege. There are grown-up grandchildren, married and living here in St Petersburg and in Moscow. He seems quite clear in his mind, you understand. I have spoken to him on the telephone at his shop. And he is still working. I was told that he is about eighty-five or eighty-six, and a little crippled in one hip, but otherwise very strong.'
The door was answered by a sombrely dressed woman with white hair drawn back into a bun. Lyudmila explained in Russian who they were, and the woman led them silently up a flight of narrow steps into the room above the shop. It was very crowded with furniture – a heavy table and dining chairs, bookcases, and two armchairs. In one corner, partially curtained off, was a high, old-fashioned bed covered with a feather-bed and a coverlet which had once been patterned in bright reds and greens, but was now faded to muted shades. At the back of the room was a door, ajar, leading to another, smaller room, which seemed to be almost entirely filled with a bed and a large chest. To the right of the door a small cooking area had been made, with a bottled-gas stove, a sink with a single cold tap, and a hanging food cupboard on the wall.
The woman who had answered the door sat down at the table and took up her mending. Hugh turned and looked at the old man, who was sitting in a worn armchair beside a tiled stove which, in winter, would have provided the only heat in the place but which was now unlit during the summer months.
'Fyodor Petrovich,' Lyudmila began in Russian, 'this is the gentleman from England who is the grandson of the Princess Natasha Greshlov. You remember that you told me you worked in the home of the Greshlovs when you were a young boy.'
The old man fixed Hugh with a pair of exceedingly sharp blue eyes that seemed to weigh him up and find him, for the moment at least, satisfactory. 'Please sit down,' he said, indicating the chair opposite him.
'He says. . .' Lyudmila began in English.
'Thank you,' said Hugh to the old man, switching to Russian. 'Thank you, Fyodor Petrovich, for agreeing to see me.'
Lyudmila gaped. Hugh had not revealed his knowledge of the language before. Then she took a seat at the table, and watched them with curiosity.
'Lyudmila Sergeyevna has told me that you are the grandson of Natasha Greshlov,' said the watchmaker. 'But how do I know that this is true?'
'I have here my passport,' said Hugh, passing it over. 'My father is William Appleton, an Englishman. My mother was born Irina Devereux. Lyudmila Sergeyevna can confirm this – she has checked with the embassy. Irina is the only child of Natasha Greshlov who married an Englishman, Edmund Devereux, in Paris in 1919. This too can easily be confirmed.'
The old man handed back the passport and studied him thoughtfully. 'You have something of the look of Natasha about you. Perhaps your story is true. I can, of course, have it checked.'
'Certainly,' said Hugh. He felt dizzy. There was something wrong here. The books, the cultured voice. Would the former boot-boy speak of his mistress as 'Natasha'? Was this some trick of Ivan Brelov's? Perhaps he should have insisted on Charlie coming with him. The air in the room felt close, but he kept his voice calm.
'I have no proof, of course, that you ever worked for the Greshlovs or knew my grandmother.'
'The Princess Natasha Greshlov,' said the old man, speaking carefully, as though he realised his earlier slip, 'had a small scar on her left temple, very tiny, like a crescent moon. It happened when she climbed a tree to rescue her little brother, who could not climb down by himself. He was frightened, and by accident he kicked her face as she climbed. The heel of his boot cut her temple. At the time he was five and she was thirteen years old. She did not even scold him, or tell their parents, and he was both ashamed and grateful.'
Hugh drew a long breath. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out a folded letter. It was the letter from Natasha reminding him about her anniversary party, which had caught up with him in Delhi. He handed it to the old watchmaker.
'This is the most recent letter from my grandmother. I am afraid it is in English, but her signature is at the end.'
The old man's head snapped up, then he reached out with a trembling hand. He seemed almost unable to speak. In agitation, he stood up.
'She is still alive?' His voice shook.
Hugh stood up, reaching out to grasp the man's arms with his hands. 'She is still alive.'
'My God, my God,' said the old man.
'Who are you?' cried Hugh.
The man looked at him wildly, then he said, 'I am Pyotr Ivanovich Greshlov.'
They stared at each other in silence.
'You are Petya,' said Hugh.
Chapter 15
'He wasn't dead,' said Hugh. 'Unconscious, but not dead.'
They were both silent.
'If only I had known,' said Natasha. Her hands twisted together briefly in her lap, then lay still.
'As I piece it together, from what both you and Petya remember of that night, the men who broke into your house were more interested in amusing themselves than in killing. They weren't revolutionaries – just a crowd of louts excited by what was happening in Russia at that time – excited and out of control.'
Hugh paused. 'In my experience, whenever trouble boils up in a country there is always frustration and a sense of injury seething below the surface. Men who – in normal circumstances – would go quietly about their daily business suddenly turn violent. On that night it was amusing for a while to kill the aristocrats from the big house, but by the time they got to Petya they'd grown a little tired of killing and they botched it. He must already have been so traumatised that he passed out when they started stabbing him – he expected to die. Then they got the idea that they would have a different kind of fun with you. And then they thought of the wine in the cellar.'
He was watching Natasha closely, but she was regarding him calmly, her hands resting quietly in her lap. If she was reliving the horror of that night she gave no sign of it.
'When Petya regained consciousness it was pitch black. He could feel the bodies of the rest of your family around him in the darkness, and he could hear the men singing and crashing about in the distance. He thought, of course, that you were lying there dead in the dark with the others. He realised after a time that he was still alive, and could move, and was just wondering if he could manage to crawl away when he got a terrible fright. The door of a cupboard beside the fireplace began to open.'
'The wood store,' said Natasha.
'Yes.' Hugh pulled the packet of photographs out of his pocket and laid one in the pool of lamplight which fell across the table where they were sitting. 'It's still there.' He looked at it wonderingly. He had noticed the small door in the entrance hall of the music school, and thought nothing of it. He passed the photograph to Natasha.
'Fyodor Petrovich, the boot-boy, had hidden there in terror when the men first attacked the house, before your father went to the front door. He watched everything tha
t happened through a gap at the side of the cupboard door, and he was as terrified when he heard Petya moving as Petya was by him. As soon as they recognised each other, they slipped out of the house as quickly and as quietly as they could. I suppose you can't have been much ahead of them.'
He laid his hand on hers, but although she bit her lip, she remained calm.
'Petya was badly hurt, but not fatally. He had been stabbed several times in the chest, but clumsily, and once in the throat – and that blow had glanced off his collarbone. Either the men had bungled the business or they had grown ashamed when it came to killing a child. Once the two boys were outside the gates and in the streets, they hid in a doorway and bound up Petya's injuries with strips torn from their shirts. Then they started the long cold walk to Fyodor's parents' home on the other side of St Petersburg. Fyodor helped Petya along, half carrying him some of the time. He was about a year older, but still only a child. No one paid any attention to them. It took them two days. The streets were full of fighting and dead bodies, and they kept hiding, but I don't think anyone was interested in a couple of young lads. Petya was so dirty and tattered by now that he looked like a beggar child.'
Hugh smiled. 'Fyodor's parents nearly went mad with joy when they turned up. They had heard that everyone in your house had been killed. They took Petya in and nursed him, keeping him hidden in case anyone in their street might betray him. Then – you remember the terrible influenza epidemic that spread everywhere at that time? Poor Fyodor died of it. Despite the wounding Petya was a strong and healthy boy, and although he caught the flu, he survived. They grieved for their son, Fyodor's parents, but they took Petya to their hearts, and reared him like a child of their own, poor as they were. They pretended to the outside world that he was Fyodor, and he took on the dead boy's identity – his papers all state that he is Fyodor Petrovich Chapaev. There was an uncle who was a watchmaker with a small business. He saw that Petya was a bright boy, willing to learn, and he took him on as an apprentice. Only those three people knew that Fyodor Petrovich was really Pyotr Ivanovich Greshlov – and they have all been dead for many years now. Even Petya's own wife and family didn't know who he was. His daughter was there when he told me all this, and I'm not sure she believes him even now. But he told me things only Petya could have known.'