She cried, “Oh Alexey – you never did that – oh I love you so much!”
“And I love you so much, and always while you need me I will be there. Never forget that.” He smiled at her, and though his smile was sweet his voice was very faint and there was a swiftly gathering shadow in his eyes that filled her with stark terror. She wrapped herself closer, her body englobing him protectively. “Hold on – they’ll be here – very soon. Alexey – no – please don’t leave me – don’t go – I can’t live without you. I can’t!”
“Then live for me, Helen. Live for me.” Without any warning, the light in his eyes went out and his head fell on his chest. Panic-stricken she screamed for Volkovsky who hurried over, took one look at Alexey, took his pulse, and without a word motioned her to move.
He worked on Alexey, worked like a madman, trying to breathe air into his lungs, pressing on his chest. It seemed like an eternity. It felt like no time when he turned to her and cried, bleakly, “It’s no good. He’s gone. Our Lyosha is gone.”
He was panting from his efforts, his hands were shaking, there were tears rushing down his cheeks, but Helen took no notice of his grief, she couldn’t feel anything at all, she was completely numb, her mind had seized up.
Blankly, she said, “But Nikolai, he’ll get cold if you just leave him lying there like that,” and she dropped to the ground beside Alexey and took him in her arms and said, “I’ll keep you warm till the ambulance men come. I promise I will. Hold on, my love – hold on – they’ll be here soon.”
Chapter 41
Nothing existed for Helen except keeping Alexey warm and safe till the paramedics arrived. When they did she told them to be careful because he was in deep shock. They gently put Alexey on the stretcher and picked it up, but not as carefully as she thought they should, and she shouted that if they jolted it like that they would hurt him. Didn’t they know anything? They didn’t understand her words but they understood the meaning and looked at her with a pity she didn’t understand.
Another team was picking up Irina’s body but Helen barely noticed that, she didn’t even remember her or what she’d done. When a couple of minutes later the police turned up to ask questions, Volkovsky persuaded them to wait to ask her, but she didn’t notice that either. All she could think was that she had to go to the hospital with Alexey, she had to be by his bedside when he woke up, her face had to be the first thing he saw.
In the ambulance she sat by him and sung softly to him, or rather hummed, because whatever he said, she didn’t think her voice was much good, it would never be like his. She hummed the tune of “Moscow Nights” because she knew that would reach him, remind him of the Alexandrovsky gardens and how he said he and she were tuned to the same melody and so how could he leave her? She didn’t see the sad expression on the paramedic’s face, or the road flashing past them. But as soon as they arrived at the hospital, she was ready to jump out and follow them, she wouldn’t let them just wheel him off without telling her what was happening.
The paramedic was whispering to a doctor, who came up to her and said gently to her, in English, “Miss, we take care of your friend now.”
“You’re going to operate on him, right? You’ll have to be really careful when you do the surgery, if you pull the knife out too quickly he will bleed to death, you know.”
“Yes,” the doctor said, quietly, “you may be assured we will take very good care.” He gave a signal to the paramedics to start wheeling Alexey away, but Helen ran after them and took his hand. She held it all the way till they got to the operating theatre, and then she kissed it before she was barred from the room. She thought she’d just wait outside until they were finished – but the doctor – who’s not the surgeon, the surgeon’s inside – said, firmly, “You cannot stay here, Miss. The operation will take time. And you have a wound on your arm that must be looked after.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Helen, vaguely. “It doesn’t hurt at all, it’s just a scratch.”
“Nevertheless. It may get infected. Please come with me.”
He took her to a small room off one of the wards where there was a narrow daybed. He took Helen’s blood pressure and pulse and looked at the wound on her arm, frowned and said, “I must examine more closely but this will hurt. So I will give you anesthetic, yes?”
“Just a local one, then,” said Helen, “because I want to be fully awake when Alexey comes out of surgery.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling reassuringly. He prepared a needle and the last thing Helen remembered was the sting as it went into the vein.
Unconscious, she wandered in a dreamless, pathless darkness, deep as a cave’s, as still and as total, where she was hardly even aware of her own being. Then she saw a light and she went toward it. It was still dark around her but the darkness was thinning, fading the more she went toward the light, and now she was beginning to see shapes and then the beginning of colors, and then to her surprise she realized she was standing on a grassy strip rather like the kind you might see dividing a big road. Which in fact was exactly what this one was. In front of her was a road, behind was another. Except the surface of these roads wasn’t dirt or asphalt, but a kind of glossy, shifting substance that sometimes looked like water, sometimes like silk and sometimes like the back of some huge creature wallowing in the depths. It made her feel a little dizzy to look at it.
On the other side of the road in front of her was what looked like the beginning of a wood. She was peering at it, trying to work out what sort of wood it might be, when from behind someone spoke her name, and she turned at once, for it was Alexey.
He was standing there on the grassy strip only meters away, smiling at her. He was still a little pale but his eyes were very bright and so was his shining hair. He was dressed in the white T-shirt and jeans but there was no blood or dirt on them or on him. She was filled with joy that he was alive and ran toward him. He held out his arms to her and folded her within them. His flesh was real, she could feel it under her fingers, the softness of his skin, the scent of his hair, the warmth of his arms.
“You’re warm,” she said, astonished, “you’re warm again,” and he looked at her and said, “Yes, I am, my lovely little firebird, I am,” and kissed her. When their lips touched she felt a melting sweetness that filled every part of her.
But then he untangled himself gently from her and murmured, “You can’t stay here, my love. But I must.”
“No,” she cried. “No. I’m not going. I’m staying here. With you. Don’t send me away. Don’t leave me. I don’t care where we are as long as we are together.”
“I won’t leave you,” he said, “not as long as you need me. But you cannot stay here, you must go, for if you do not, we will be separate forever. You must live, Helen, for only then can our dreams be realized and our love never die.”
“No,” she screamed, as his solid form began to blur, to dissolve, fading like a ripple in water, like an image on the air, “don’t go, stay, Alexey, stay, please, stay!”
But he was gone. And though she called his name he did not answer. She was standing alone on the grassy strip and the shadows were gathering, the clouds coming over the sun, the watery road in front of her was billowing uneasily and then the ground opened under her and she was sucked down into dreamless, dark cave-limbo again.
She woke. She didn’t know how many hours after, to find herself lying in a hospital bed. Her arm was bandaged and her head was heavy. There were curtains drawn around her bed and the sounds of a busy ward outside it. Her mother was sitting by the side of her bed. She was pale and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot from crying. She jumped up when she saw Helen had opened her eyes. She clutched her hand and said, in French, “Oh darling Helen – you’re awake.”
“Yes,” said Helen. She looked at her mother and said, very precisely and clearly, “Alexey’s dead, Mam. He’s dead.”
Tears sprang into Therese Clement’s eyes. She wept and wept, hugging her daughter. Helen felt the
touch but it meant little to her. Dry-eyed, she said, “I want to see him.”
Therese opened her mouth to protest – then changed her mind. Wiping her eyes, she said, “Let me get the doctor. He will take us.”
She was back quickly with the doctor, who looked at Helen, took her pulse and said, “Perhaps it is too soon. You could still be in shock and it might be dangerous to ...”
“No,” said Helen. “It won’t be.” She added, looking straight at the doctor, “I don’t need another sedative or another kind lie. I just need to see him. Please.”
“Very well.” The doctor sighed.
Volkovsky, Sergey and Maxim were sitting together, waiting outside the ward. Sergey stammered something that Helen didn’t quite catch, his normally cheerful face looked utterly miserable. Maxim said gravely how sorry he was. Nikolai Volkovsky’s eyes were red-rimmed, but his voice was steady as he told Helen that he had arranged with her mother that they both come and stay at the Makarov house until “things are sorted out”, and that if there was anything she wanted or needed, she could count on him. She nodded and thanked them all politely but without any warmth, there was no warmth left in her at all.
*
When they reached the room where he was, the doctor stopped and said, “You are sure? Quite sure?”
Helen nodded. Her mother took her arm. “I will go in with her,” she said, to the doctor. Maxim and Volkovsky waited outside, and Helen was glad of her mother’s arm for all at once, as they entered the cold white room, a sick dizziness rushed over her, and it was all she could do not to stagger. But her mother steadied her and she managed to keep going, toward the trolley where the shrouded figure lay so still.
The doctor gently pulled back a corner of the sheet and Helen looked into Alexey’s face. His eyes were closed and he was pale but he still didn’t look dead. He looked like he was sleeping. His hair was bright and his lips were slightly parted. But when she reached out a hand to touch him, she felt the waxy cold of his skin go through her and she knew, truly knew, in every part of her, that the most essential part of him, the mysterious spring of his life, the lovely alchemy that made him who he was – was not there. His beautiful body was there, lying indifferent on that cold metal trolley; but his soul had left.
Left this place; but not left her. I won’t leave you, while you need me. She clung to that. She had to believe in that truth with every bit of her strength, or she would not be able to do what he wanted her to do. She would not be able to live. She bent down to his body one last time and passionately kissed the cold lips, the limp hands. Then she turned to the doctor and said, formally, “Thank you. I am very grateful for your ...” but as she spoke the cold dizziness surged up without warning and she fell to the floor in a faint.
Chapter 42
Maxim long ago learned that when tragedy struck it was no use trying to find the right words, they would never be right no matter what they were, and that was not what was important. Maundering over other people’s grief when you were a mere acquaintance and not family or a close friend could only be an irrelevant intrusion. But if it was of any use you also had to be ready to help, in whatever practical and appropriate way you could.
For himself, all he could do was his job. To piece together as much of the story as quickly as he could, so that when Helen was ready for the knowledge, it would be there for her. It was the only way he could think of to try and atone for failing to see the truth before it was too late. Rationally, he knew his nagging sense of guilt was pointless, even self-indulgent. Neither he nor anyone else had any possible reason for suspecting an unworldly and perfectly respectable foreign academic obsessed with bear folklore of having underworld connections, let alone being responsible for the Trinity murders. But reason is not what governs the human heart, and deep in his heart Maxim felt that somehow he should have seen, he should have been able to save Alexey. It didn’t help knowing that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. That Nikolai Volkovsky was haunted by his own failures of judgment, and poor Therese Clement was haunted by the notion that as Bayeva’s old friend she should somehow have guessed what lay behind the facade.
Only Helen herself did not appear to feel it. But Maxim knew that was because right now there was no space in the girl’s being for any thoughts about the killer. When – or even if – she would be ready for what he was putting together he did not know. She was merely going through the motions of life at present. Nothing seemed to really touch her. She ate and drank obediently, if sparsely, she went to bed early, she answered questions politely. She did not weep, even when those around her broke down. Though she insisted on sleeping in the room that had been Alexey’s, huddled in the bed that had been his, that still smelled of him, she did not speak of him. But Nikolai reported that she spent hours clicking through the photos in her digital camera, photos she’d taken in the last week of Alexey’s life. And Therese said that she heard her daughter crying out in dreams and, on one occasion, had found her sleepwalking in the early hours of the morning. Desperately worried about her daughter’s eerie calm, and the fact she refused any kind of sedative or psychological help, she longed to take her home. But she couldn’t, not till Alexey’s funeral, which would be the day after tomorrow, in St Petersburg. Only then would they fly back to London.
Maxim had no idea how long it would take Helen to get over what had happened. If she ever did, that is. He knew now that he couldn’t have been more wrong about the girl. She had been exactly what she appeared to be, a true innocent who’d fallen deeply in love with a very special young man. There had been no plan to get under Alexey’s defenses through her. Bayeva had never intended for her to meet him. It had been just an awful coincidence, an accident of fate.
Arriving too late in Uglich to do anything other than take in the news of Alexey’s death, Maxim had called Korolev at police headquarters and baldly laid the facts before him, so that he would understand the case must immediately be transferred back to homicide from organized crime. For the first time ever, Korolev had been speechless as Maxim described happenings which clearly demonstrated his own flagrant disobedience. Maxim knew that Korolev could have him sacked or at the very least suspended for his actions. But he needed to be part of the official investigation again and he gambled that Korolev’s wrath over his disobedience would soon give way to relief that the mysterious killer of the three businessmen had turned out to be an insane foreigner, and what was more, an unimportant and unknown one, without any difficult political, social or business connections. The fact Bayeva was now dead could only be cream on the cake. It meant no long trial. No hassle with foreign authorities wanting consular access to the prisoner. A quick investigation, a nice tying-up report, and then case closed. Perfect.
He was quite right. After bawling him out, Korolev quickly agreed that, as he was on the spot, it made sense for him to work with the local police. He could start interviewing the witnesses immediately. Korolev said he would square that at once with the local authorities. He also assured Maxim that Nikolai Volkovsky would not land in any kind of trouble over using that pistol. After all, it had been Major Makarov’s old service weapon, not Volkovsky’s, and so technically he hadn’t fallen foul of gun-license laws.
*
Three days after Alexey’s death, and already the picture had become much clearer. Bayeva’s underworld links hadn’t clearly been established yet, but on early analysis it looked like these had been routed through Slava, while inside information on Trinity had been provided by Pasha and, to a lesser extent, Foma. There was no evidence so far that the three men had been involved in the actual murders of the three businessmen and Lev Kirov. Their involvement had been in the final stages of Bayeva’s plot, in the attacks on the offices of Trinity and the destabilization of Alexey’s plans. It was as though she’d run that part of it as an almost separate strand, and untangling all the elements of it would take some considerable time.
Oleg and Katya had been innocent parties in it all, and tests on the pow
der found in the bottle in Slava’s bathroom showed traces of a nerve agent which had been used to make the dogs more aggressive. A bribe had been paid for the “mistake” of incinerating the dogs’ corpses; but the whole thing had been intended not so much to isolate Alexey, but to throw suspicion on Slava once the photo was discovered. For Slava’s connection with Repin had been a false trail. The picture had been photoshopped by either Pasha or Foma, from an image available on the Internet, cut and pasted to include Slava and deliberately dropped for either Helen or Alexey to find. The guard’s reaction had been calculated to reinforce the impression. It had been a risk, because if Repin had had a scent of what was going on, he would have been very angry indeed. But he was safely away, in Egypt, and unlikely to find out. As far as Maxim could see, neither Slava, Foma or Pasha had had any personal animus against Alexey, and their aim was not specifically to destroy Trinity but rather to enrich themselves. For it turned out to be money, plain and simple, that provided the best motive for their taking part in the plot.
Their bank accounts were immediately frozen, but too late – they had already been cleared. Bank records revealed that for some time Pasha had been running two accounts, one perfectly innocent, with his normal incomings and outgoings, the other a trust account in his young nephew’s name, into which he paid large cash sums. Foma, meanwhile, had only recently started depositing unexplained cash into his account, showing that he hadn’t been in on the plot for long. But Slava’s kickbacks would not be quite as easily documented; as Volkovsky drily observed, “the security man wasn’t a great believer in the security of banks.”
It was a sentiment with which Maxim could only sympathize. For the memory card so carefully placed in the bank vault had vanished, signed out apparently quite legally the day after Alexey’s death, by someone cheekily calling himself Nikolai Volkovsky, who was by default the acting administrator of Trinity till the legal situation was clarified – which could take some considerable time. The real Nikolai Volkovsky was in Uglich and the idiot who had let the impostor sign out the package was an assistant manager in the bank who unforgivably had not been briefed by his superior about the card. Maxim had suspected corruption at first, and both manager and assistant had been hauled in for questioning; but soon it was clear it was blatant incompetence rather than anything more sinister. A full description of the man calling himself “Volkovsky” had yielded a fair match for Pasha Dutov. The assistant manager would have suspected nothing; he’d never clapped eyes on Volkovsky before.
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 34